The Seadragon's Daughter (Dragon de la Sangre)

by Alan F. Troop

  Notch Fin, on the other hand, always has a portion of his dolphins, circling around the fight. They seem to shoot in and fall back on the orders he clicks and whistles. “This is ridiculous,” I tell Derek. “Put your back to mine.”

  Jessai swims by in pursuit of another dolphin, and I mindspeak to him, “Jessai, join us! Together we can kill more.” He pauses and stares at me, just as I see a large, almost pure white dolphin racing toward my side. I twist my body and drop, glad at least that Derek has prevented it from ramming me from the rear.

  The dolphin only manages to strike my head a glancing blow as it passes. Still, as large as the beast is, the blow stuns me. I float, not reacting, as another, larger dolphin shoots toward me and takes my throat in its jaws. The pain of its teeth digging through my scales brings me back to awareness. I jab at it with my trident, slicing its side, drawing blood, and the beast releases me and darts off.

  “That was Notch Fin,” Jessai mindspeaks. “The other one—the albino one that first attacked you—we call Ghost. We think he’s one of Notch Fin’s lieutenants.” The Pelk joins me at my side, calling others over to fill in defensive positions on the sides and to our top and bottom. We take turns, swimming up in pairs to take breaths.

  Dolphins swarm around us, ramming and biting. We slash and stab back at them. “Got the bugger!” Derek mindspeaks, driving his trident deep into the midsection of one of his attackers, making the first kill. Jessai kills the next. When he blurts out, “Got the bugger!” too, Derek and I both lose air laughing into the water.

  Mowdar finally recognizes our success and forms a defensive ring of his own. The water turns a pale red all around us as one dolphin after another dies.

  Notch Fin races by me, Ghost just behind him, both clicking and whistling, the rest of the dolphins breaking away and following them. “No!” I mindspeak, shooting after them, Jessai, Derek and the rest following me.

  I swim faster than I ever have. I want Notch Fin. I’ve yet to have my first kill today. My neck stings from the beast’s bites. I grin as we close on him and his pod.

  Notch Fin realizes they can’t outrun us and wheels his pod around, the dolphins racing toward us, Notch Fin in the lead, as we speed toward them. This time there is no time for strategy, no way to plan defense—just the pending impact of large creatures racing toward an underwater collision.

  I drive my trident into Notch Fin’s underbelly with my right arm just before he rams me in my right shoulder. My arm going numb, I keep forcing all three prongs into him even as he tries to turn away. The beast batters me with his flippers, twists us around with strokes of his powerful flukes, but still I dig my trident into him.

  Notch Fin cracks his head against mine. I almost fall away, but somehow I manage to continue my attack. He cracks his head into mine again and I look around for help. I see Jessai approaching out of the corner of my eye and I hope he’ll arrive before Notch Fin batters me to death.

  “Peter! Peter, are you all right?” someone mindspeaks. I assume it has to be Jessai and I glance toward him, wondering why he would ask such a thing. But the Pelk has stopped his approach and stares at me with wide eyes.

  “Peter! Answer me. Are you all right?”

  Notch Fin twists again and I feel the trident begin to pull loose. I realize who’s called out to me. {Later!} I mindspeak, masked, {Later! But masked!} I drive the trident into the large dolphin with all my force.

  {Yes, Peter, later.}

  Jessai finally joins my attack, plunging his trident into Notch Fin’s throat. Together we hold the shafts of our tridents, pushing, shoving them in further as Notch Fin tries every move he can to escape us and together we feel him grow weaker until he finally falls still. “We got the bugger!” Jessai mindspeaks. “We killed Notch Fin!”

  But I say nothing. My mind is too full of the sound of Chloe’s words.

  27

  Long after Lorrel stills beside me and her breaths turn slow and regular, I lie staring into the dark, listening to her and to the faint rustle of our drapes. As gorged with dolphin meat and as flooded with Dragon’s Tear wine as I am, I yearn to sleep too.

  Instead, I shake my head and sit up. Somewhere, Chloe sits awake too, waiting to hear from me. I have put her off too many times already today. She’d tried to contact me three more times during the day. But I’d been too surrounded by celebrating Pelk—all demanding I retell the story how Jessai and I had finally killed Notch Fin. I couldn’t risk their suspicion over any silence or detachment on my part.

  Finally, when she contacted me in the evening during Mowdar’s toast to me and I curtly put her off again, she mindspoke, {You contact me when you can. I’ll wait up.}

  I sigh. We’ve been married long enough for me to picture the annoyed look she surely had on her face when she mindspoke those words—not that I blame her.

  Listening for any signs of activity outside our alcove, I nod when I hear none. After hours and hours of feasting and celebration, I’d begun to worry that the last of the Pelk revelers would never retreat to their nests. Careful not to disturb Lorrel, I sidle away from her and slip out of our nest. I have no desire to communicate with my wife while lying with the warmth of another female pressed against me.

  It takes only a few moments for me to feel my way in the dark to the alcove’s drapes. I part them and sit on a nearby seaweed seat. Here and there a few glowpools still give off some dim glimmers of light, barely enough to let me see through the dark that now blankets the cavern. A dozen yards away from me a Pelk couple, either too tired or too drunk on Dragon’s Tear wine to put up their tent, lie in their nest, entwined in the throes of sex, oblivious to my stare.

  I smile and watch them couple, my mind more on Chloe than on their rutting. As glad as I am to hear from her, I worry about her reaction to my infidelity. I know I had no choice. Still, I wonder if I can make her understand.

  The Pelks have a final spasm of movement and then grow still, lying with limbs and tails interwoven as they fall off to sleep. I shake my head and sigh, wishing Chloe and I were that couple. Taking a deep breath I mindspeak, masked, {Chloe. It’s Peter. Can you hear me?}

  No answer comes and I try again. {Chloe, please answer me.}

  {Are you sure you have time? Or would it be more convenient for you if we spoke tomorrow or the day after?} Chloe mindspeaks.

  I frown into the dark. {Please, Chloe, this is difficult enough.}

  {Difficult? Claudia tells me I have to rush home because you’re gone and it has something to do with the Pelk and the Bahamas. So I arrange for my parents to take care of the kids—believe me there was nothing easy about that—and I come home to find your boat gone and someone else’s scent in our house and on my sweatshirt and my sweatpants. And then when I finally can contact you, you’re too busy to bother with me—five times! You think that’s not difficult?}

  {You have to understand. . . .}

  { Understand what? You missed your deposition. Ian’s in the stratosphere, he’s so pissed at you. That rag, The Weekly Dish, has been screaming for your arrest. Pepe Santos’s attorney finally got the district attorney to get a court order for it. So many patrol boats have our island under around-the-clock surveillance that I couldn’t even fly here from home.}

  {Where are you now?}

  {Bimini. Claudia brought me over in her boat. I tried to contact you as soon as we checked into the Blue Water Marina but you were too busy for me. . . .}

  Gnashing my fangs, I resist the urge to slap my tail on the cavern’s stone floor. {Damn it, Chloe, I was fighting for my life! Will you calm down a minute and listen to me?}

  She says nothing and I pour out the story of Lorrel’s attack, the poison she injected into me, our trip to Andros, Derek’s presence there, my father’s involvement and Mowdar’s desire to keep me with his srrynn—leaving out only Lorrel’s attempts to bed me and our eventual coupling.

  {When you tried to contact me I was in the middle of a fight with the largest dolphin I’ve ever seen. It was
part of a battle the Pelk were having with the dolphins. After one of the Pelk and I killed the dolphin and we won the fight, everyone was so busy celebrating that they wouldn’t leave me alone for a minute. You know how strange people seem when they’re mindspeaking masked—like their minds are off somewhere else entirely. I didn’t want any of the Pelk to think I was communicating with anyone.}

  {And all this started because of something Derek said and something Don Henri did?} Chloe mindspeaks.

  {Yes.}

  {I don’t understand. If they’re angry with you, why didn’t they just kill you? Why do they want you or Derek there so much? Why did they want to keep Don Henri prisoner in the first place?}

  I take in a deep breath and explain about the Pelk’s problem with inbreeding and their need for outside blood. {Don Henri’s wife had died. He bedded a Pelk woman willingly, but they wouldn’t let him leave after that. Same thing with Derek . . .}

  Chloe mindspeaks, {But you’re mated. What use would they have with you?}

  Stretching my body, I search for the words, for any way to make this less painful. Chloe speaks before I get out the first word. {Peter, you didn’t, did you?}

  I sigh. {I didn’t want to. But I couldn’t help it.}

  {Oh, Peter, we were supposed to be better than those stupid humans on Jerry Springer. We mated for life. How could you?}

  {I tried not to. I refused her every time, but they have this strange way of singing that penetrates your mind. After we came to Andros they had this gathering called a li-srrynn, and fifteen of their females all sang to me. They took over my mind. . . .}

  {It’s what your body did that bothers me!}

  If we were together and speaking, I’m sure those words would have been snarled. {That’s unfair, Chloe. It would be like my being mad at you for being raped. There’s a poison in my body that will kill me if I don’t drink a temporary antidote every three days. I’m held prisoner here. Had I had any control over it, I never would have bedded that female.}

  {So take control. Kill her! That way you won’t have to fuck her again.}

  I let out a breath. {Chloe, you don’t mean that.}

  {Don’t I?}

  {She’s carrying a child of mine—a son.}

  {And I carried your daughter, and my sister carried your son. How many other Pelk do you plan to screw? How many other babies do you want to be responsible for?}

  Lorrel mindspeaks, “Peter, where are you? It’s cold beside me.” I wince at the strength of her mindthought. Hoping she’ll go back to sleep, I say nothing. Even as loud as Lorrel is, with any luck Chloe is too far away to pick up on her mindthoughts.

  {Is that her?} Chloe mindspeaks. {Did I hear that right? You sleep with her each night?}

  “Peter?”

  Looking back to the drapes, I groan. {Only sleep, nothing more,} I mindspeak.

  {If that’s all you’ve done, how did you make a son?} Chloe mindspeaks.

  The drapes rustle and Lorrel mindspeaks, “Peter?” and steps through them.

  I groan again and then mindspeak, masked, to Chloe, {I am mated to you for life. I want no one else.}

  Lorrel walks up to me. “Peter, why are you ignoring me? Why will you not answer?”

  Glaring at her, I mindspeak, “In a minute Lorrel!” and turn my face from her.

  {Chloe, please!} I mindspeak. {I love you.}

  {I love you too, Peter. But I’m glad I don’t have to see you just now.}

  {Chloe!}

  Lorrel sits besides me. “Something is wrong, Peter. What is it?”

  I shake my head and mindspeak, “Just go away please.”

  The Pelk girl moves closer and strokes my tail with hers.

  Ignoring her, I mindspeak to Chloe. {You’re being unfair. I was forced. I don’t deserve this.}

  {I don’t deserve it either. I don’t want to talk to you anymore now, Peter. Contact me tomorrow—sometime when your girlfriend isn’t around.}

  {Lorrel isn’t my girlfriend!}

  {Lorrel . . . what a pretty name,} Chloe mindspeaks. {Now leave me be, Peter, please.}

  Yanking my tail away from Lorrel’s, I slam it down hard on the stone floor. Lorrel winces. I stare at her and think of Chloe’s words. I could kill this Pelk female in seconds. Just a few slashes or a well placed bite and no healing circle on earth could put her back together again.

  “I do not like the way you are looking at me,” Lorrel says, getting up. “You have been mindspeaking masked with someone, have you not? Has it been with your wife?”

  I shake my head. “Not with her, not with anyone, not with anything,” I mindspeak. “You know I’m unhappy here. You know I’m lonely.”

  Lorrel studies my face, staring as if she can distill the truth from my expression. Finally, she mindspeaks, “I can soothe you, you know. Come lie with me again and let me help you.”

  “No!” I mindspeak, slamming my tail down again. “You are not who I want!”

  The Pelk girl hisses and steps back. “Undrae! Watch your words with me,” she mindspeaks. “I am the daughter of Mowdar and the mother of your son. Take care you do not reject me one time too many. I can also use my words to hurt.”

  I stay seated as she walks away. My body aches for sleep, but I have no intention of returning to the nest until the creature has gone back to sleep. I long to call out to Chloe again. But I can no more do that this evening than I can leave this vile place.

  28

  A muted boom of thunder wakes me. I sit up to find Lorrel still asleep. She has her back turned to me and lies as far from me as she can without leaving the nest. I smile and shake my head. Those few times in our relationship when Chloe and I have had problems, I’d agonized over any distance we had between us. But Lorrel’s rejection causes no pain. I miss the warmth of a body pressed against me, nothing more.

  Getting up, taking care not to wake the Pelk girl, I make my way out of the alcove. Outside the drapes I stop and stare at the dull gray light coming from the hole in the cavern wall at the top of the stone stairs. It barely illuminates the cavern much better than the glowpools do at night. I shake my head. I’ve become used to the bright glow that usually streams through the hole each day, and I regret its absence. Thunder rumbles again and I wonder what type of storm now darkens the sky and lashes at the ground above me.

  Either the rain or the celebration the evening before has kept most of the Pelk sleeping in their nests. Here and there only a few of them have woken and stirred phosphorescence into their glowpools, the pools’ green glow positively bright compared to the dim light coming this morning from above.

  My stomach growls when I notice three males sitting outside Mowdar’s drapes and feeding on the remnants of a dolphin carcass left over from the evening’s feast. I can’t put names to two of them, but the third I recognize as Jessai. I walk over to them and sit on a seaweed seat next to him.

  “Undrae, you are up early today,” Jessai mindspeaks.

  Another clap of thunder vibrates through the cavern and I tilt my head upward. “The storm woke me,” I mindspeak.

  Jessai shakes his head. “If I had Lorrel lying beside me, I do not think I would leave my warm nest on a day like this to feed alongside the three of us.”

  I smile. “She’s still asleep and I’m hungry. Nothing says I can’t return to her after I fill my stomach.”

  He laughs, leans over, slices a chunk of meat from the carcass’ tail—where it’s sweetest—with one of his talons and offers it to me. The other two Pelk stop eating and stare at him. I do too. Among the Pelk, males hardly ever serve other males.

  Jessai mindspeaks, “If anyone in the srrynn has a right to this meat it is him.”

  The other two Pelk nod and I accept the meat from Jessai. I eat it slowly to show my appreciation,

  While we eat we talk mostly of the last day’s battle with the dolphins and of the weather. After we’ve all eaten our fill, the other two leave to return to their nests. Jessai stays, waits till they’re gone and turns to me
. “I was not pleased to have you join our srrynn. Lorrel should have been mine. . . .”

  I shake my head. “I didn’t ask for her. . . .”

  “Undrae, we both know she must do as Mowdar directs. I want you to know I no longer have any quarrel with you. You shared a great victory with me yesterday. I thank you for it. I want you to know I think you welcome here. From now on I will be proud to hunt and fight at your side.”

  “Thank you,” I mindspeak.

  He dismisses my gratitude with a wave of his claw. “You need not thank me. But I do have a matter I think we should discuss. It is something I have not spoken about with Mowdar yet.”

  I nod.

  “During the fight with Notch Fin someone called out to you, did they not?”

  “I think so . . .” I mindspeak, cocking my head as if I’m trying to remember. “I’m not exactly sure when or what it was about. I was in the middle of the fight. Remember—the damned beast was battering my head—but I think Derek said something.”

  Jessai cocks his head. “Derek?” he mindspeaks. “It did not sound like Derek to me. And you never answered him.”

  “Come on. You were there. You know I was too busy for any conversation.”

  “True,” Jessai says, nodding his head. “But I also know you and Derek are not the only Undrae on this earth. We are all aware of the damage your father did to our people. Mowdar has cautioned us to report any strangeness to him. He has pledged to kill you if you threaten to draw us into danger. I would not want to see that.”

  “Ask Derek if you care to,” I mindspeak, hoping that either Jessai will not take me up on my invitation or that Derek won’t botch backing up my story.

  “I may,” Jessai mindspeaks. “Later, after he wakes.”

  A particularly loud thunderclap booms out above us and the Pelk looks up and smiles. “I doubt he or any us will leave the srrynn today.”

  “How do you know the storm is so bad?” I mindspeak.

  Jessai points to a place on the cavern wall between Mowdar’s alcove and mine where a three-foot swath of stone running from the cavern’s roof to the floor has turned dark and slick with moisture. He points to similar flows of water on the walls around the cavern and to a few thin streams of water that fall from cracks in the roof’s stone, one drizzle striking the floor and forming a puddle a dozen or so yards from us, the rest fortunately cascading into the cavern’s lagoon.