I get to my feet. Peering into the water, now calm and clear enough that I can see bottom in all directions, I study the entire cove. “I already looked. There are no dolphins here,” Lorrel mindspeaks. “But I am afraid of what we might face on the outside.”
Staring out at the open water, I mindspeak, “Just how many dolphins are in Notch Fin’s pod?”
“Not very many. But there are times when he leads a joining of the pods—a gathering—sometimes a hundred dolphins swimming together, sometimes more—males, females and children.”
I turn back to her. “So many? The pods around us rarely have much more than a dozen.”
Lorrel nods. “Ocean-going pods are bigger. I have seen a few of Notch Fin’s gatherings number over two or three hundred.”
“And you took one of their young?”
“I was hungry. You ate it too!”
Shaking my head, I notice the rows of angry red wounds, closed but still not completely healed, on Lorrel’s neck. Reaching out, I touch my claw to the side of one wound and mindspeak, “Are you healed enough to travel?”
She pulls back. “I told you we heal differently than you Undrae. My injuries will not interfere with what I need to do. All I need is to rejoin my srrynn. Then all will be made well. We have not even a half day’s swim to go. . . .”
I groan. “We could take the boat.”
The Pelk girl shakes her head. “It might bring attention too close to my srrynn. If you are willing, I can teach you a way we can most probably pass Notch Fin’s pod safely. But you will have to trust me.”
After one last check of the anchor, Lorrel and I swallow down the last of the dolphin meat and slip into the water. “Now what?” I mindspeak.
The Pelk girl’s form begins to shrink and smooth out, turning gray, growing fins and then flukes. “We swim,” she mindspeaks.
I look at the gray bottle-nosed dolphin now in front of me. Only its emerald-green eyes and the puncture wounds give any sign as to her true identity. “You swim,” I mindspeak. “I have no idea how to change into a dolphin.”
“But I do,” the Pelk girl mindspeaks. “I can show you, if you let me.”
She swims close to me, both of our heads out of water. Pressing her head against mine, she begins to hum a strange, low tune. Its notes vibrate into my skull and tingle my teeth. I jerk my head back.
“Peter! You must allow this!” Lorrel presses her head against mine again. “Listen,” she mindspeaks, resuming her tune. “Do not fight it. Empty your mind of thought. Allow the music to overtake you.”
The notes bore into me. I stare across the cove at a large boulder and focus my eyes on it. An image of Chloe comes to mind and fades away as the tune intensifies, vibrating through me. I concentrate on each note, on the rise and fall of the strange melody, the irregular rhythm of the song—all of it rushing into me, receding and rushing in again.
“Are you floating with it now? Does the tune have you?” The words seem to ebb and flow somewhere inside me. I think about nodding, and sometime later I do.
“Good.” Lorrel’s humming grows louder. “I am going to join you now. Do not be alarmed. I will leave as soon as I show you the way. Do not fight me. If you do, we both could be lost.”
The tune washes through me, and a slight pressure begins to build within my mind. I twist my head, stretch my neck, wishing it gone. “No, Peter!” the words say. “Let me be with you.”
I relax and the tune quiets. Warmth flows into me, the words saying, “Does it not feel good now?”
Yes, I think, and the words say, “You will be ready soon.”
Warmth courses through me, traveling down my veins and arteries, expanding into each cell of my body. “I like it here,” the words say. “I will miss it after I leave.”
I float along with Lorrel’s notes, cocooned in the warmth her tune brings. Time means nothing. I think of nothing but the susurration of Lorrel’s notes and her warmth pulsing through me.
“It is time for you to change,” the words say.
To what? I think.
“Whatever you choose. I will be with you and guide you to your new form.”
Can’t we stay as we are?
“I would like to, but we would die. I can only linger so long before your subconscious revolts and forces me to lose my way. Without me, you would never find your way back. Neither of us wants that. Please change now.”
I don’t know if I can, I think.
The tune changes, turning faster, the melody brighter. “Try,” the words say.
I start to shift myself to human form, but something blocks my thought and nudges it in a new, strange direction. I stop and try to pull back.
“Peter,” the words say, “Do not fight me.”
It feels bad, I think.
The nudge turns into a push. I shove against it. “Give in to it. The bad feelings will pass,” the words say, the humming turning louder. “Please let me help you.”
I sigh and surrender, my body shrinking, turning unfamiliar as my wings pull in and join together to form a dorsal fin. My claws and arms follow, compressing, smoothing into flippers. My tail shortens and thickens, my rear legs folding in and broadening into a powerful pair of flukes.
Lorrel’s tune suddenly seems too loud to bear, and I pull my head back, aware of the sound of every breeze no matter how slight, every ripple on the surface of the water no matter how small. Her humming ceases, a cool rush running through my body as she withdraws from me. “Now,” she mindspeaks, “We can be on our way.”
21
What joy it is to be a dolphin. It takes me only three timid circuits of the cove before I submerge and start to pick up speed. “Stay in the cove,” Lorrel mindspeaks. “We don’t know what waits for us beyond the channel.”
I circle the cove as fast as I can, each switch of my tail shooting me forward, the water parting as if glad to welcome me. Circling again, fast enough to churn the water, I turn upward just before I reach Lorrel, breaking out of the water, shooting skyward with a mighty kick of my tail that sends my entire body airborne. Stalling at the apex of my jump, I fall back, splashing down, a white plume of water rising as I hit and sink from sight.
“Feels good, does it not?” Lorrel mindspeaks.
I surface, clear my blowhole with one strong blast and suck in air. “Feels great! It’s almost as good as flying.”
The Pelk girl sinks into the water, moves away with a flick of her tail. “I prefer it,” she mindspeaks. “Wait here. I need to see whether any dolphins wait ahead.”
“But we look like them now. Why do we have to be concerned?”
“Look at me!” she mindspeaks, staring at me with her emerald-green eyes. “Your humans may have forgotten what these green eyes mean, but the dolphins understand full well. We have hunted them and fought them too many times for them to think of us as anything but their enemy. No Pelk has ever been able to learn their language or conceal his eyes. Traveling in their form only protects us from them at a distance.” She swims to the narrow channel that leads to the open water and disappears from sight.
Submerging again, I take a few lazy loops of the cove. Lorrel returns just as I surface and clear my blowhole again.
“There were no dolphins in sight. We can go,” she mindspeaks, passing my flukes as she swims up to me, her body brushing against my right flipper.
I take in a breath. “I can’t believe how sensitive they are. I sensed your body’s warmth as soon as you were near my tail,” I mindspeak. “When I move, I feel the water streaming across my skin everywhere. Just your brushing against my flipper was almost too intense.”
Lorrel nods. “Some of the others have had sex in their dolphin forms. They say it is quite incredible. You will find you have other senses too. Try closing your eyes and swimming around the cove.”
Taking a breath, closing my eyes, I submerge. “Okay. I don’t see anything.”
“Click,” Lorrel mindspeaks. “Like this.” She emits a series of clicks, the sou
nds traveling away from us, rebounding, almost tickling my lower jaw as they return and their sounds register in my middle ears.
It takes me six attempts before I manage to imitate her clicks, the sounds somehow magnified through my bulbous forehead. The speed and the intensity of the clicks’ return form a sort of image inside my head, and I swim forward clicking, certain of my location and of everything around me.
“They can see in the most murky water that way,” Lorrel mindspeaks, swimming past me.
I follow her out the channel, into the open sea.
We swim near the surface, breaking the water every few minutes to clear our blowholes and take fresh breaths. Lorrel leads. I follow her course and match my pace to her comfortable cruising speed. “Why aren’t we going any faster?” I mindspeak.
“Dolphins usually do not race from here to there. We travel at their normal speed. To do otherwise would invite attention. We only have forty miles to travel. We will be there in less than four hours. That is soon enough.”
It could take longer for all I care. We pass over reefs and miles of sandy bottom, the bottom slowly dropping away, the water turning deep and dark blue. When the dark blue lightens, signifying slightly shallower water, Lorrel stops. “I am hungry,” she mindspeaks.
I let out a burst of clicks and wait for their return to reveal what might be nearby. They show only my traveling companion. “We’re in the middle of nowhere,” I mindspeak.
“We are not nowhere. We are over a shipwreck. It is a deep dive, but there are always fish there.”
“Why don’t we wait until we reach the next reef? There are always fish on those too.”
“There are bigger fish below,” Lorrel mindspeaks, clearing her blowhole, inhaling and diving.
I follow her, the light dimming as we descend, the water growing colder, its pressure bearing down on us, squeezing us.
On the bottom an ancient cargo ship lies on its side, its rusted hull split open in three places, cases of cargo scattered on the sand, fish flitting in and out of the ragged openings.
A large grouper pokes its head out of one of them, spies us and tucks back in. Lorrel shoots toward it and I follow. By the time I make it into the deep recesses of the ship, the Pelk girl has already found and killed the fish. Blood fills the water around us, attracting smaller fish who feed off the grouper’s remnants as Lorrel and I take turns ripping pieces from it and gulping them down.
A dolphin’s shrill whistle sounds from outside the ship and Lorrel and I freeze, let the last remnants of the grouper float away from us. “Do you know what that’s about?” I mindspeak.
Lorrel shakes her head.
We stay still, listen to the dolphin’s clicks and its occasional whistles. After a minute all goes silent. “Do you think it’s left?” I mindspeak.
“I have no idea,” Lorrel mindspeaks. “But we will need to breathe soon.”
I nod. We swim side by side to the gash in the metal that had allowed us entry to the ship. When neither of us notices anything threatening in the water nearby, we venture out and swim toward the surface.
Five large dolphins swim up from the other side of the ship. Four of them angle away, but one swims in our direction.
“Just keep swimming toward the surface,” Lorrel mindspeaks, shifting position so that my body blocks the other dolphin’s view of her. He shifts position too, rising on her side of me, accelerating toward us.
The Pelk girl shifts again to my other side. “Do not look at him! If he notices our eyes he will call the others.”
“What do you think he wants?” I mindspeak.
“We are strangers to him. He may be curious. He may be on guard or . . . he may be interested in me.”
We reach the surface, blasting our blowholes clear, taking in fresh breaths. “Keep your head up!” Lorrel mindspeaks. “It will make it harder for him to see your eyes.”
The dolphin breaks the surface a few yards from us, blasts air from its blowhole and coasts toward Lorrel. As he passes her he rubs one of his fins over hers.
Lorrel looks away from him and shifts to my other side again. The dolphin shifts too. “Doesn’t he see you’re with me?” I mindspeak.
“Unfortunately, dolphins are not monogamous. I don’t think he cares who I am with.”
This time the dolphin approaches on his side, one fin pointing skyward, his pale underbelly showing flushed pink. Lorrel shifts sides once again and the dolphin whistles and clicks at her. When she doesn’t reply he turns back onto his belly, circling both of us, whistling and clicking.
“In a minute he’ll dive and call for his friends,” Lorrel mindspeaks. “Move away. When he comes close to me—rush back.”
I drift away from Lorrel until over six yards separate us. She turns on her side and somehow manages to flush her belly a dull pink. As soon as the dolphin sees it he races toward her.
Lorrel waits until the beast comes close enough to brush his body against hers. Shifting one of her flippers into a clawed arm, she rakes him as he rubs by her, slitting him open from chest to tail.
His shrill whistles fill the air and water. He thrashes, the water churning, turning red with his blood. I speed toward them, shifting my mouth and jaws, my fangs growing, my flippers changing into deadly clawed arms.
By the time I reach the flailing creature, Lorrel has ripped him open a second time. I clamp my fangs on his throat just under his jaw, crunching down, breaking bone and cartilage, digging into him, robbing him of whatever remains of his life.
The dolphin’s body goes limp and Lorrel tears a chunk from him and gulps it down. “Feed quickly!” she mindspeaks. “We have little time until his companions realize what has happened and come after us. We must shift back to our dolphin forms and get to Dryndl’s Tomb before they catch up to us.”
I swallow down dolphin meat, gorge on as much of it as I can. “Why don’t we change the rest of the way to our natural forms and fight them here? There are just four of them.”
“It is a fight we might win. But we could lose it too. We saw only four others, but have no way of knowing how many others swim within calling distance. If need be, I can outswim them in my natural form. You have not learned how to do that yet. It is better for you if we stay in our dolphin forms,” she mindspeaks. “We must leave now!”
Lorrel shoots away and I race after her. I’ve watched dolphins many times as they kept pace with all but my Grady White’s highest speeds, so it comes as no surprise to me that we can slice through the water so quickly. Still, I worry how long we can keep up the pace. “How much further do we have to go?” I mindspeak.
“No more than ten miles. Can you not swim faster?” The Pelk girl speeds up, pulling away from me. “They will be coming soon.”
I would rather turn and face them, but somehow I manage to find the strength to kick harder and speed up to her. The ten miles pass in a blur of water and white foam.
Dryndl’s Tomb turns out to be a tiny, sand-covered island rising barely three feet out of the water, sporting only a half dozen crooked and dwarfed pine trees. It lies just past the south tip of Andros Island—so close that I can make out the green outline of its mangrove and pine swamps.
We circle the small island once, the waters clear and shallow on three sides, dark blue and deep on the eastern side. After repeating our circuit a second time, we stop, floating just off shore, both of us sucking air into our blowholes, our sides heaving from our long sprint.
I search the waters around us, looking for the first sign of a dorsal fin approaching, listening for the first telltale whistle or click. “Where to now?” I mindspeak.
“Mowdar said to look for two large rocks sticking up from the sand by the edge of the island. We have to go through them to find the entrance to Dryndl’s Tomb. Look around. Do you see any large rocks sticking up?”
Raising partway out of the water, balancing on my tail, I study the island and find nothing. “Are you sure you have the right island?” I mindspeak.
�
��Undrae! I am a Pelk. We do not lose our way!”
Water breaks fifteen yards ahead of me. A blast of air follows as a dolphin clears its blowhole. Three more blasts follow—all four beasts positioned between us and the island. Lorrel and I both dive, racing toward the bottom, trying to pass under them.
“We don’t have to stay in the water,” I mindspeak. “We can change shape and go up on the island. After dark, I could fly us to your srrynn.”
“Only if everything else fails,” Lorrel mindspeaks. “Mowdar wants me to bring something from the tomb. It would be best to find the rocks.”
We manage to pass under the four beasts before they react and dive. I follow Lorrel as she speeds ahead, the Pelk girl rising to the surface to circle the island and search. But instead of swimming on the surface I stay below, watching in case one of the dolphins threatens to catch up to her.
By the time we reach the dark blue waters of the deep side, two dolphins race into sight from the other direction, and two appear behind us. Rather than speeding after Lorrel all four dive toward me.
Flipping over, diving, I mindspeak, “Lorrel! They’re after me! Go ashore before they can turn on you next.”
I plummet downward, the water turning cold, rushing past me, pressure building around me. The four dolphins click and whistle behind me, their sounds still far away but drawing a little bit closer every few seconds.
“I’m coming,” Lorrel mindspeaks. “Swim toward the island! We may find a hiding place there.”
“So we can run out of air and suffocate while we hide?” I mindspeak. But I angle toward the island, staring at the sheer drop its stone side makes, from the surface to the sandy bottom somewhere below.
The light dims the further I dive, until all goes dark around me. Without using my clicks and hearing to see, I would be blind. I swim on, the clicks and whistles of the beasts behind me continuing to draw near.
Finally, my clicks rebound almost instantly, showing me I’ve neared bottom. I level off, scraping my underbelly on the sand as I shoot toward the island’s stone wall. I hear/see two large rocks jutting from the sand toward my right and gasp. Altering course toward them, I mindspeak, “I found your rocks!”
The Seadragon's Daughter Page 14
