Nightlord: Sunset (42 page)

I waited.  Water started coming in under the door after a bit, and the ship continued to tilt forward.  I wondered if I could have dumped more of whatever-the-hell the cargo was and bought more time.  Probably too late, now.

The water kept rising, alarmingly fast.  When would the sun start to sink?  How long had it really been?

I found myself thinking about drowning.  Does it hurt?  Aside from panic?  The pool hadn’t been too bad, other than the aching in my lungs and the desperation.  But there I knew Travis would be after me, there was help near at hand and I might survive even if I, personally, couldn’t save myself. 

What about breathing water, though?  If I did make it through this, would I have to drain my lungs before dawn?  Probably so, I reflected.

The water reached edge of the bunk and soaked my boots.  I stood up on the bunk and braced against the bulkhead, keeping my head in the highest corner of the cabin.

The ship shuddered and groaned.  She shifted around like a drunken fat lady.  I kept braced as the water in the room sloshed violently.  Then there was, quite literally, a sinking sensation.

The water started to rise again and my ears popped.  We were going down.

I breathed a quiet curse; I hadn’t even felt a tingle yet.

The woodwork wasn’t airtight, that was obvious; I would have enspelled it to keep the air in, but I couldn’t
think
.  The water kept rising.  Still, it was more air than I would have had on deck.  Inwardly, though, I considered resigning myself to drowning and never seeing the sun again.

It went all black as the water rose over the lantern and extinguished it.  Blackness isn’t something I’ve really seen a lot since I started drinking blood.  It was unnerving and disturbing, being in a black room of a sinking ship slowly filling with cold water.  We must have been pretty deep; the water was
very
cold to me; my hands and feet were going numb and my teeth were trying to chatter.  By the time the water reached my chin, I had my head pressed hard against a corner, so this reduced my breathing space to something slightly larger than a basketball.

I inhaled most of it and tried to be as quiet and still as possible.

Now that I was underwater, I could hear things differently.  It seemed the ship was groaning, low and unhappy, as she continued down.  And down.  Seconds?  Minutes?  How long it was I do not know.  Time seemed to pass in an instant and drag on forever.  I wondered, absently, how far down we were.  Would I crush first, or drown?  Probably drown…

And then there was a crash.  I was thrown forward in that peculiar slow-motion of underwater movement.  We must have been headed down at a considerable speed; I nearly crossed the length of the cabin.

By now, my lungs were complaining.  A lot.  I needed to breathe, badly.  The reddish flashes were starting behind my eyelids and it was getting harder and harder not to breathe.  But there was also the beginning of a familiar tingling feeling.

Could I crack water into oxygen and hydrogen?  Maybe.  If I had thought of it sooner, I could have worked out the spell for it.  Oxygen gathering in one hand, hydrogen in the other, like two electrical poles in water?  A second spell to remove the impurities, like the salt?  And the ozone?

I realized, from somewhere, that I was very detached.  And the tingling was fading as I grew even more numb.  Maybe the cold?  Or the oxygen deprivation?  Could be.  My hands weren’t there anymore, and my arms and legs were lumps attached to my body.  I could almost feel my body tingling, but nothing really seemed important.  Just distant.  Like it wasn’t really happening, or I was simply watching.  Didn’t concern me.  Oh, but there was some trifling difficulty with my breathing.  Not important.  Then I let out a breath and even that didn’t matter.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4
TH

I
wasn’t cold anymore.  That is, I knew it was cold, but it didn’t bother me.  Ergo, I was dead.

But was I
dead
dead or just the usual nightfall dead?  No way to tell until dawn.

I opened my eyes. The salt water stung like hell; I doubt I could have kept my eyes open during the day.  I gradually got used to it.  Looking cautiously about I saw I was no longer in the ship.  I was lying on the sandy bottom next to it, along with various boxes and a lot of junk.  How had—

Something like a walrus with arms flew by.  Excuse me, swam by.  The water was fairly clear, no worse than a hazy day topside, and illumination is no problem for
my
eyes, so I first thought of it as flying.  It might have been eight feet long, nose to tail, with three-fingered hands.

Interesting.  Was I lunch, later?  I craned my neck and looked around.  I wasn’t stacked with the edible goods.  At least, I hoped they didn’t eat things like brass lanterns or iron kettles.

I checked myself over; I still had my stuff on.  I doubted the pistols would be useful underwater, but I might be able to clean and oil them if I got topside soon.  Salt water and handguns; not a good combination.  But Firebrand didn’t seem to mind, so that was okay.  I wondered where my staff was.  Floating somewhere, I supposed.

I sat up and took a better look at my surroundings.

Not far from where I lay was the wreck of the
Prosperina
.  Her fire-weakened bow had crumpled badly on impact; the whole forward quarter of the ship was a crushed ruin.  The rest of the ship had settled, listing to starboard on and in the sandy ground.  There were several of the walrus-creatures swimming around and through it, unloading things, prying things loose, and generally taking anything that was merely nailed down.  I was in a large, fairly flat spot with most of the ship’s non-buoyant supplies and equipment.

There was an ongoing low sound, reminding me of an old car horn:
aaoOOgaaah.
  But it was low-pitched and repetitive, varying only in volume.  It seemed to be coming from within the wreck.

Something swam toward the ship.  It was smaller than a walrus and put me in mind of a mermaid.  It made higher-pitched noises, almost like whalesong, and the walrus-things took up what I thought was debris.  They swam in the front, through the broken section, and the sounds of dull ringing emerged, along with a gradual reddish stain, like a cloud in the water.  I had a feeling I knew what the ringing sound was.

I stood up and found I could stand normally.  Experimentally, I tried to exhale.  Water flowed out with the exhale, in when I inhaled.  I could taste blood in the water.  It was an odd sensation, breathing water.  I can’t recommend it.

Walking was a slow process, nowhere near my customary zippy stride, but I made good headway with night-muscles and my tendency to sink.  I was almost to the wreck when the smaller creature—I could see him clearly, now; a man of bluish skin, webbed fingers and finlike feet, lightly scaled, wearing a harness-like garment of woven, bright-colored seaweed; he had a bone dagger in one loop of the harness and bits of gold ornamentation, including rings, bracelets, anklets, and armlets—sang again, apparently to call his soldiers back from the fray.  Then they noticed me.

I didn’t have Firebrand out.  First, it would have been impolite.  Second, a big blade is a hindrance underwater.  I still had my dagger, and if it came down to cases, they didn’t know what they were fooling with.  Then again, I had no idea what
I
was fooling with.  So I tried being nice.

They surrounded me and I got a much closer look at what they were using.  The weapons looked like long pieces of bone or stone ground down along one edge and sharpened.  Nice for thrusting, mainly, and good for sawing into things.  Also somewhat intimidating, since they were pointed at me from every direction that wasn’t ground; they didn’t seem to care about ground level at all.  I counted about thirty of them.

He trilled, and I looked at him.  His expression might have been inquisitive, but I’m not good at reading fish.  His lips were very thin, mouth very wide, and his eyes were exceptionally, almost cartoonishly, large.  Not my personal ideal of a handsome man.  He trilled again, and I am forced to assume it was with impatience.

“I’m sorry,” I said, muffled, distorted, and faint in the water, “but I do not understand you.”

He looked thoughtful, hovering unmoving for several moments.  Then he said something else and two of the walrus-things moved in to take me by the arms.  I let them; they didn’t seem to be attacking.  Then, as a group, we swam away.  Well, they swam; I was carried along like an unwelcome hitchhiker.  When my two got tired of carrying me, they dropped me and two more would take their place, catching me as I sank.

We kept going down.  Apparently the Eastrange keeps descending when it hits the water.  It was an interesting trip.  The terrain was extremely rough; I was glad I was being carried.  It looked like a lot of coral, with plants of some sort clustered thickly over it all.  It could have been an alien landscape viewed in slow motion; everywhere there was movement.  Waving fronds, schools of fish, the occasional prowling predator… it was pretty and dangerous and I liked it.

Now if I only knew where we were going.

My wondering was satisfied shortly; there were ruins ahead.  It reminded me of some photos of the Parthenon, just underwater.  Or Atlantis.  Broken and fallen columns, partial structures, cracked pavements everywhere.  Most encrusted with a light layer of undersea growths of some sort.  Surprisingly little, really, considering I guessed them to be quite old.  Maybe the locals cleaned them.

Near these ruins were structures that looked more grown than built.  Coral?  Could be.  Maybe a framework for coral to grow on, left for a while?  Or even with chunks of live coral transplanted onto it?  Might be worthwhile; sort of a living concrete.  They looked like large half-bubbles, high domes for the most part, ranging from a few tens of feet to hundreds of feet in diameter.  It was to one of these larger that I was conducted.

Inside there were dozens of these fishy men.  Every one of them seemed surprised to see me; the trilling sounds they made died out quickly.  They were arrayed all around the interior of the dome, sitting or reclining in some sort of plants affixed to the interior.  The floor area was concave, a shallow bowl, and unoccupied.  I was unceremoniously placed in the center.  Much trilling started as I stood there and looked at them.

Something brushed over me, like a tentacle.  I turned quickly and beheld a spell touching me, lightly probing at my scrying shield.  I reached out, took it in hand, and shook it like cracking a whip.  Not hard, but enough to make it shimmer and ripple back to its originator.  He was about halfway up the dome and looked very surprised.  He began trilling more earnestly.

The rest quieted somewhat to listen to him.  In short order, I had dozens of the spells reaching for me.

Okay, polite is one thing…

I drew Firebrand and pushed a bit of power into it.  It blazed up like a magnesium flare, bubbles of steam hissing and boiling angrily from the naked bar of flame.  It swung freely, surrounded by nothing but steam and vapor.

Their reaction was completely unexpected.  They trilled at even higher pitches, almost keening, and withdrew all the spells instantly, writhing and clutching at their eyes.  I had not considered the effects of bringing a bright light into this place; to me, all darkness is lit.  But down here, where almost no light reached, they
would
have large eyes… and they would be
very
sensitive to light.  Doubtless they possessed some sort of sonar, too, for navigating in enclosed areas like this.

I let Firebrand dim and go out.  Then I waited while they recovered.

The question: would they now try to talk to me?  Or would they be hostile?

Apparently, they were somewhat divided on that question; there was much trilling back and forth, up and down, and there were many, many gestures in my direction.  Some of which did not look entirely wholesome; drawing a finger—or finger
nail
—from abdomen to throat seemed to indicate to me a lack of friendliness.  Then again, maybe I’m just not too trusting.  Besides, I wanted to get busy finding Shada.

So I decided not to wait for the debate.  I recalled the Hunt and that strange mental communication we had shared, trying for something like it.

You,
I decided, pretty much at random, and reached for him with tendrils.

“Hello.”

I felt shock, fear, startlement, puzzlement, wonder. 
Who are you?
he thought back at me. 
What are you?

“I am Halar.  And I have been shipwrecked.”

He digested the thought of “shipwreck.”  The word meant nothing to him, but we were communicating in concepts.  This one was obviously as alien to him as the word.

The things that live beyond the world?  It is your mount and it has died?

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

Why are you not dead with it?  We have thought it some sort of mother that bears you as her young; I see we were wrong.  Or are you an older one that is almost ready to be birthed?

Interesting.

“No, people are not young.  And we usually breathe air; the thin stuff beyond the water.  By virtue of magic, I do not need to breathe right now; without air, we cease to live.  We cannot breathe water.”

The hubbub of the dome was dying down as my friend started trilling urgently; I got the sense he was relaying my words, translating them.  It was enough to tell me this was a language I wasn’t going to learn without special vocal cords.  I might learn to understand it, but there was no way I would ever speak to these people other than magically.  Operatic divas don’t have that kind of range.  Dolphins get that high.  I don’t know any other intelligent creature that does.

So you did not wish to be here?

“My coming was an accident.  I apologize for intruding in your realm.”

We have no objection.  But we are curious.  What is that thing you carry that hurts the eyes?

“It is called Firebrand.  It is a sword, but it is magical.”

May we examine it without harm?

“
You
may.  Come close and I will show it to you and explain.”

There was considerable trilling at this.  I learned the expressive nature of trepidation and half-heard the misgivings within him, but at the urgings of his fellows, he did approach.  I showed Firebrand to him and explained what steel was and the use of swords.  And then I explained fire; I had to go into considerable detail on that one, as they had no concept for it.  Oxidation chemistry takes a lot of effort to put across.

Several more of these fishy guys came in while I was talking; my friend was keeping up a running translation, explaining as I explained to him.  I felt like I was back in Holcombe Hall, lecturing to a freshman class.  It was weird, to be explaining fire to undersea people, and it made me homesick.

How can we have this “fire”?  May we keep it?

“I don’t know how.  There isn’t much that will burn underwater.  You would have to use magic to sustain it.”

We have magic.  It is also this hard, strong thing of sharpness we wish to have.

I paused.  “All right… I am prepared to make you a deal.”

Deal?

“A bargain.”

This caused a stir as he translated.  There were many gestures, most prevalent being a sort of gentle sculling motion with the webbed hands, as though pulling the water toward the torso.

Ah.  A bargain.  Yes.

“I have to go back to the surface, and soon.  If you will take me there, I will work with you to help you make fire, or at least find a way to give you better tools.  That is what you want metal for, isn’t it?”

They discussed it at length.  I wondered how long it would take.  I had already been down here for what felt like a couple of hours and the night wasn’t getting any younger.  I needed to get back topside, find a place to sleep for the day—assuming I had drowned at sea—and get ready for a somewhat different life.

Yes, you are correct.  Very well.  We will take you back to the place-beyond-the-world,
he replied. 
When will you return to teach us fire and ‘metal’?

“You know that the… place beyond the world grows light and dark?”

Yes.

“I will return to the water when it grows dark again.  But it is a long way to here.  Will you meet me at my ship and learn with me there?”

Trilling discussion.  Assent. 
Yes, we will meet you at the… ship.
  The way he said it communicated what was obviously a concept alien to his psyche:  An object for conveying someone on the outer skin of the world.  But he was getting used to the idea.

“Then let us go now; I have many things to do before I may return.”

As you will.

Six of the walrus things were summoned and I was carried as before.  My translator took it upon himself to guide and direct his work crew in carrying me.  As we ascended, I noticed my ears did not pop.  Maybe the hydraulic pressure equalized more readily than air pressure?  Possibly.  I hadn’t noticed it on the way down, being occupied with other ideas.