by Rebecca Rupp
“You look like a couple of big bugs,” he said. “Put the mouthpieces on.”
Tad and Ditani did as they were told.
Birdie suddenly flung her arms around them both in a crushing hug. “You’re braver than Bog the Weaselkiller,” she said huskily. “Both of you.”
She stepped back quickly and made Great Rune’s sign — a circle in the air in front of her face. “Great Rune keep you safe,” she said.
“He won’t have a chance to if they don’t get going,” Will said.
He tried to lift his head, but fell back, grimacing with pain. Tad winced in sympathy.
Hall-ooo!
A shrill metallic call rang out above the commotion of the battle. A black-clad trumpeter stood on the battlements above the palisade, sounding an alarm. As if in answer to a command, a group of Greller soldiers broke loose from the throng and began to trot purposefully toward the children, spears threateningly lowered.
“Go!” Birdie shouted.
Tad and Ditani turned toward the black water. The troop of Grellers picked up its pace. A spear whistled over Tad’s head. The trumpet sounded once more, and the gates of the fortress crashed open, revealing a mass of Grellers hauling on thick ropes. A massive catapult lumbered ponderously into view. Its great wooden throwing arm was bent back, loaded, and ready to fire.
Tad and Ditani seized hands and began to run. The trotting Grellers, moving as one, veered to pursue them. They were coming even faster now. Tad’s heart thudded wildly in his chest. He and Ditani sped toward the water, the Grellers pounding at their heels. He stubbed his toe on something unspeakable. Ditani stumbled and almost fell, pulling him awkwardly with her. The Grellers came on.
Then from behind them and over their heads came a terrifying earsplitting screech. In spite of himself, Tad stopped and looked up. A rock the size of a rock bass was plummeting toward him, straight out of the sky. It was moving as fast as a Hunter’s arrow, faster than a Fisher’s spear. Ditani, muffled behind Will’s mouthpiece, gave a strangled scream. Tad stood frozen, staring in horror. He resigned himself to being squashed. At least it would be quick, he reflected, so it could hardly hurt much. One thwack and then dead.
The rock struck.
It landed with a tremendous thump on the lakeshore, just short of the water. The ground shook with the impact, and black mud splattered up in fountains. The rock had dropped with awful precision directly onto the troop of pursuing Grellers. Two or three of them were quite thoroughly gone — Flat as lily pads, Tad thought queasily — beneath the fallen rock, and the rest, babbling in terror and casting horrified looks at the empty sky, were in retreat, thundering back the way that they had come. Tad stared after them. Back at the entrance to the fortress, the Grellers of the catapult crew were shouting furiously and waving their fists in the air. One Greller, protesting, was pulled off the back of the machine and flung to the ground. The rest, still shouting, seemed to be stomping on him.
The battle was just beginning. Hunters scattered across the lakeshore, sheltering behind rocks and rubble, springing out suddenly to hurl short spears or — with deadly accuracy — to shoot red-feathered arrows from their bows. Fishers formed themselves in ranks, shoulder to shoulder, spears bristling outward, and advanced — Moving like a pike, Tad thought, into a school of sticklebacks.
From behind the Greller fortress came a measured beating of skin drums. Tad felt Ditani, beside him, tense and raise her spear. It was the weasels. They paced forward, black heads darting to and fro like snakes, long sinuous bodies hugging the ground. Their riders sat motionless, frowning in concentration, controlling their steeds with prods of their metal-tipped whips. A ripple of fear ran through the gathered ranks before them. Suddenly one weasel broke loose from the pack and leaped forward, snarling. It arched its back, reared, and then fell upon a crouching Hunter. There was a flash of fangs and a shriek. The Hunter, flung to one side, lay crumpled and still. Two more weasels sprang forward and began prowling toward a little cluster of frightened Fishers. As the weasels, in unison, moved forward, the Fishers — in unison — moved back.
From behind them, a black streak rocketed from the forest — fangs bared, paws hardly seeming to touch the ground.
“They’re trapped!” Tad cried in horror. “Weasels on both sides of them . . . they’re trapped!”
Then, above the noise of the throng, he heard Birdie’s voice, shouting in excitement.
“It’s Blackberry!” Birdie cried. “It’s Blackberry!”
The new weasel sped toward the embattled Fishers. Now Tad could see that it had a rider clinging to its back. It was Voice, with a look of grim determination on his face. His flaming hair blew out behind him, and in one hand he brandished a spiked thornbush club. Blackberry soared over the backs of the startled Fishers and struck at the throat of the lead Greller’s mount. The two animals fell together, rolling, clawing, tearing. Voice vanished from sight. Another catapulted rock screamed overhead.
I have to help, Tad thought, and he heard a chime of silver music echo: Help. He took a step back toward the battle, and then another.
Something else was happening too. Tad felt it before he saw it. It was moving toward them, threading like a dark shadow through thickets and between tree trunks. A wave of hatred swept before it, and an overpowering lust for blood. A gray wolf stepped out of the wood. It towered above the battle, lips peeled back to show pointed teeth, red tongue hanging down.
The wolf growled low in its throat, a long threatening reverberation like a hundred skin drums beating all at once. Tad’s blood ran cold.
A silver whisper slipped into his head.
Your friends need you, Sagamore. Would you abandon them? Go to them. Fight with them. Fight the Wulv.
Tad took another half step, tugging to undo the straps of his goggles. The wolf paced forward. Shrieking Grellers raced away before it. It clawed them aside, barely looking at them. Its hot red eyes were fixed on a little group of frightened Fishers. Its dark mind gave a heave of pleasure. Gloatingly, it licked its lips.
HOLD! Tad’s mind bellowed a command.
The wolf’s head snapped up. Its eyes narrowed to red-pointed slits. Its head turned, searching, and then, above the roiling tangle of fleeing fighters, its gaze locked with Tad’s. Tad caught the echo of an icy whisper.
Yes, Wulv! There, Wulv! Good blood! Sweet blood!
The wolf crouched. Its haunches tensed and quivered. Then it launched itself over the heads of the rival armies in a single soaring lunge. Its clawed feet dug trenches in the lakeshore. Its mind was a black bottomless well. A snarl bubbled from its throat.
Yes, Wulv! Sweet blood! the Nixie urged.
The wolf moved toward Tad. Then its ears twitched. Distracted for a moment, it looked uneasily toward the sky. Tad had heard it too. The high shriek of a stooping hawk.
Leave this to me, Sagamore. He heard the voice as clearly as if he were riding on the bird’s broad shoulders. Your battle is not here.
The wolf reared up on its hind paws, screaming in fury, as the hawk plummeted toward it out of the sun.
Tad seized Ditani’s arm and ran toward the black water.
The water felt awful. Oily, filthy, and warm. It was exactly the temperature of blood. He hated wading in it. Nothing could be seen below the black surface.
The water closed around their ankles, then their knees. Soon it was up to their waists. Tad had never been so scared in his life. His heart was thumping so hard it hurt, and his stomach felt as if it were full of firepeppers.
Malawissa. The word crept softly into his mind. Malawiss-aaah. It sounded like one of Treeglyn’s words, a word in the leafy wind-language that he had first heard in the little tree cottage in the forest. He groped for his leatherleaf pouch and fumbled for the stick of oak that was Treeglyn’s gift. The very touch of the wood was reassuring. Strength flooded into his fingers. Suddenly — incredibly — the fear was gone. He felt solid, indomitable, unbending. Like an oak tree. Then the meaning came to him. M
alawissa — when a tree stands straight in a storm, defying thunder and lightning.
This is it, Tad thought. He reached out and took Ditani’s hand. Together they dived. The black water closed over their heads.
They found themselves in a vast underwater world. Beneath the black surface, they found that they could see great distances into the farthest reaches of the lake. There were towering black boulders and forests of undulating weeds with stems as thick as a man’s arm, and — between the forests — long empty stretches of trackless sand. The lake was utterly dead. Nothing moved in it, not a fish or a frog or a waterworm. All was perfectly still except for the whooshing of the breathing tubes.
Tad touched Ditani’s arm and pointed, forward and downward. They began to swim. Tad’s webbed feet flared wide and swept smoothly through the water. He found that he had to pause at intervals, paddling, waiting for Ditani to catch up. She is still the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen, he thought, but she’d, never make a Fisher. She swims like a sick duck.
Down they went, and deeper down. The light grew grayer. They circled an immense mound of rock, a craggy underwater mountain. On the far side of the mountain was an entrance to a grotto. There was a sense of watching now, the cold feel of an alien presence. She lived here. This was the place. Tad signaled to Ditani, who nodded and gestured with her spear. Slowly they swam forward and entered.
Glowworms in fish-bone cages lined the stone walls, giving off an eerie bluish light. It made the whites of Ditani’s eyes look phosphorescent through her goggles and turned Tad’s skin the color of a clam. They swam slowly inward, barely kicking their feet. The grotto narrowed to a hallway, its floor paved with tiles cut from shimmery rainbow-colored shells. They passed through an open doorway at the end of the hall and found themselves in a great arching chamber. It was like a palace in one of Pondleweed’s fairy tales. The walls were studded with richly colored jewels: blue, green, crimson, and deep brown-gold. There were hanging tapestries, beaded with seed pearls and embroidered with colored silks, and stone urns filled with sprays of coral.
Tad and Ditani slid downward through the water, landing feet first on the shell-tiled floor. Before them was a high-backed stone chair, inlaid with silver and aquamarine. On the seat of the chair lay a white crystal. It glowed in the dimness with an inner light all its own, and it seemed to pulse rhythmically as if it had a heartbeat, as if it were alive. The Waterstone.
Ditani tugged impatiently at Tad’s elbow, jerking her head at the Stone. Then, before he could stop her, she lunged forward, reaching out a hand to seize it. There was a brilliant flash of light and a loud crackle. Ditani, clutching her hand to her chest, was hurled backward through the water. Tad sprang to help her, but before he reached her, she had already struggled back to her feet. She shook her head at him, silently telling him that she was all right. Her hand was red and angry-looking, as if it had been burned.
One of the tapestries began to heave and sway as if caught in an invisible current of water. A hidden hand swept it aside. Beside him, Tad felt Ditani — still nursing her hand — give a start of surprise. The Nixie was beautiful.
The creature before them had the body of a beautiful young woman above the waist, and below, an iridescent green fish’s tail. Her long silver-green hair floated out behind her in the water. She had a pale lovely face and strange slanting silver eyes with long straight pupils like those of a huntercat. Her skin glistened faintly in rainbow colors like mother-of-pearl. She wore a jerkin of pearl-embroidered fish skin, and a necklace of coral beads. Circling her head was a fine silver chain from which hung — precisely in the middle of her gleaming forehead — a single teardrop-shaped pearl.
She moved gracefully toward the children, swaying lightly back and forth in the water. Suddenly she smiled, and Tad saw that her mouth was full of needle-pointed teeth.
Azabel, he whispered in mind speech.
So we meet, Sagamore, the Nixie said. Her Ss sounded like hissing snakes. She looked Tad and Ditani up and down, and her lips bubbled with laughter.
And this time you come in the form of a half-drowned rat. It was not so in the old days, Sagamore. Then you walked in honor, a giant among men. You are not what you were, Sagamore. You have fallen.
A faint music began, a sweet silvery hum.
Doubt swept over Tad. He felt ignorant, awkward, and small. No, smaller than small — puny. Of course he wasn’t fit to be the Sagamore. How could he ever have thought so?
And what is this that you have brought with you?
The Nixie undulated closer until she hovered face-to-face with Ditani. She thrust her head closer and peered into the goggles. Ditani stood her ground.
A mouse-eater?
Ditani’s fingers tightened on her spear — and then, with a muffled gurgle of horror, flung it away from her. The spear had turned into a squirming snake. It slithered across the floor and vanished through a pearl-hung doorway.
And what is this?
The straps that held Ditani’s goggles came undone. The breathing tubes were jerked away. Ditani flailed wildly and gulped water.
The Nixie laughed mockingly.
Is she precious to you, Sagamore? What will you do to save her?
Furiously Tad tore at the straps of his own breathing tubes. He ripped his mouthpiece off, clapped it over Ditani’s mouth, and slid his air canister over her shoulders. He was so angry that he had hardly realized what he was doing. But he was all right. He was breathing normally, as if the water were air, or as if he were a fish. He could feel his nose flaps flutter.
You can’t stop me, Azabel, he said. You know you can’t touch me. I’ve come for the Waterstone.
The Nixie reared up in the water, growing taller and more menacing. Everything about her seemed to swell up and grow larger. Her hair stood out like silver-green spikes. She stretched her hands toward Tad, and he saw that her fingers were tipped with pale green claws.
We will make a bargain, Sagamore!
Slowly, hypnotically, the Nixie began to sway back and forth, supple as an eel. The silver humming grew louder.
Leave the Stone! Go and never return, and you shall have the girl! And I will give you . . . this! The Nixie pulled a tapestry aside.
Tad gasped. There, behind a door of fish bones bound together with silver wire, floated Pondleweed. He was enclosed in a crystal bubble that floated midway between the chamber floor and ceiling, just barely bobbing up and down as if little waves were bumping against it. His eyes lit up at the sight of Tad and his lips shaped soundless words.
Leave the Stone, and you and he will go home again, the Nixie’s syrupy voice whispered. You and your father will go back to your pond. Is it a bargain, Sagamore?
Tad struggled with shock. He had never expected anything like this. He had thought he would never see his father again. Now he felt joy, amazement, horror, and despair, all muddled up at the same time. His mind felt like boiling soup.
And if I don’t agree?
The Nixie bared her pointed teeth.
Then he will drown! she hissed.
She pointed a finger at the bubble. Water began to seep slowly into it, forming a puddle around Pondleweed’s feet.
No! Tad cried. Stop! Let me speak to him!
The door is not locked, the Nixie said sweetly. The water is jail enough. Go to him, Sagamore. See what he says.
Tad tore the cage door open. The skin of the bubble stretched and wrapped around him, sealing him inside. He flung himself into his father’s arms. For one glorious moment, all trouble seemed to disappear.
But there could be no real joy in this reunion. Tad felt as if he were being torn in two. He couldn’t let Pondleweed drown. But he couldn’t let the Nixie keep the Waterstone. Everything would die then — everything. He had promised to seize the Stone and restore the water. That was his trust. But this was Pondleweed. As he struggled to explain all that had happened, his father held him at arm’s length, just looking at him, as if he were drinking the sight of him in. When Tad
finished, he slowly shook his head.
“If it weren’t such a short time since I saw you, lad, I’d swear you’d grown taller,” he said. “Your mother would be so proud.”
Tad felt as if he were choking. Hadn’t his father listened? Didn’t he understand?
Then Pondleweed pulled him close again, turned him away from the watching Nixie, and spoke softly in his ear.
“Son, once you know what’s right, there’s nothing for it but to do as you must, no matter how bitter a brew it is to swallow. And that’s what we will do together, you and I, you as the Sagamore, and me — well, me as a common man of the Fisher Tribe.”
Tad’s eyes burned with tears.
“It’s hard for you, young as you are,” Pondleweed said, softer yet. “But you’ll find your way, son, never fear. Care for Birdie now. You two will have to help each other.”
The water in the bubble was rising higher.
Choossse! the Nixie cried.
Pondleweed met her eyes over the top of Tad’s head.
“We have chosen!” he said loudly.
Then he stepped back and smiled at Tad, a smile so filled with love and pride that Tad felt as if his heart might break in two.
“We will meet around a campfire in Great Rune’s garden,” Pondleweed whispered. Then he grasped the walls of the bubble in both hands and tore it wide open. A blinding rush of silver water swept past them, bursting the bone door and tumbling Tad head over heels out onto the floor of the Nixie’s chamber.
When Tad’s vision cleared, Pondleweed was gone.
“Free me!”
The voice seemed to come from the level of Tad’s waist. From his pouch. Frantically he tore open the leatherleaf flap and groped inside. His seeking fingers encountered the misshapen lump of rock that was the Kobold’s hand. As he touched it, it squirmed. Tad snatched it out of his pouch and stared down at it in alarm. The rock writhed and wriggled, then abruptly pulled itself free of Tad’s grasp. It hung impossibly in the water for a moment, as if it were as light as a bubble or a bladderpod. Then it opened. Fingers unfolded one by one, shaking themselves free of the confining stone, spreading wide. The hand had short stubby fingers, and the first finger seemed to have a frayed bandage wrapped around the knuckle. The bandaged finger pointed directly at the Nixie, and a shadowy shape began to take shape around it — the half-transparent image of a little bearded man. His expression, what could be seen of it, was outraged.
