Out of the Waters (53 page)

Procron broke free, rising unsteadily. The glow that had surrounded Uktena faded.

Wobbling, shrinking like a pricked bladder, the shaman spiraled toward the land. The Atlantean hovered for a moment, then vanished within his fortress again.

Uktena dropped into the surf, twenty feet from the normal shoreline. Alphena waded out, sliding the helve of the axe under her sash to free both hands. Waves from the battle slapped and gripped her, but the water was no more than knee-high in its resting state. The air was thick with the stench of death and burned ooze, but the deluge which broke from the clouds began to clear it.

The shaman was flaccid, a dead weight. Alphena lifted his arm over her shoulders and started back. Crackles of white fire licked the sea around them.

They reached the shore. Alphena thought of laying the shaman down now that he was out of the water, but she was afraid that she might not be able to get up again for hours if she paused even briefly.

They staggered through a line of sea oats at the top of a ridge of sand. Where the heads brushed Uktena's body, they sparkled and were transformed to crystal, which as quickly crumbled to sand.

Alphena walked forward. Uktena's feet had been dragging. Now he lifted the right one for a hesitant step.

White light infused the ground. Three earthworms squirmed up, twisting into the air as though they had bones. Alphena grimaced but walked on. The worms sprouted wings and flew ahead of her and the shaman, making high, keening cries.

He is my friend. No matter what happens, he is my friend
.

Uktena took his weight on his own legs, but his head sagged and his eyes were blank. Alphena guided him, though she was dizzy and her eyes blurred so badly that she could barely see.

“Food!” she croaked as they passed through the village, as clumsy as a dog with a broken back. “Bring us food or by Hecate, I'll kill you all!”

They reached the entrance of the kiva. As they sank to the ground, the boy who had brought Alphena's clothing the previous day now appeared again. This time he carried a pot of porridge.

“Eat, my friend,” Alphena whispered. She dipped out porridge with her right hand and held it to the corner of the shaman's mouth. “Eat, warrior. We will need your strength tomorrow.”

*   *   *

H
EDIA WORMED DEEPER
into the tunnel so that Lann could jump in behind her. She expected him to close the entrance to conceal them until the Minoi and their servants gave up the search. The ape-man jumped in all right, but instead of trying to pull the slab back over the opening, he gestured Hedia forward with hooting violence and a scooping motion of both hands.

She turned again and stumbled on. The six-foot spear was impossibly awkward in the twisting passage; she abandoned it regretfully.

The tunnel had been cut through the coarse limestone underlying the jungle. To Hedia's surprise, it wasn't completely dark beyond the dim light from the entrance. The water oozing through the porous rock had a faint green glow. Her eyes adapted to it the more easily because the forest itself had been so dim.

She reached a raggedly wider spot. Her feet crunched uncomfortably on what she thought was sharp gravel; then she saw the hand of a Servitor against one wall, and a little farther on was part of a glass skull. From the amount of glittering debris, at least a dozen of the not-men must have been destroyed here—by one another or by survivors.

There was a piece of apparatus also, but it had been melted into a mass that Hedia couldn't identify. It probably wouldn't have meant anything to her even if it were whole. The battle that shattered Lann's fortress had been conducted by Servitors advancing underground as well as by the ships which she had seen in the vision which the ape-man's lens had summoned for her.

Lann pushed past her, not harshly but with no more delicacy than to be expected from a beast. Hedia was happy to let him lead, though she was uneasily aware that the entrance in the ruin was open for those hunting her to find.

She smiled wryly. On balance, she supposed she preferred to have the ape-man between her and whatever might be waiting ahead of them. Regardless, she had no choice in the matter unless she decided to overpower her companion and force him to follow. She suspected that she would have more chance of breaking through the Minoi with her bare hands.

Not only Servitors had fought in these tunnels. Something rocked beneath Hedia's foot; when she looked down, she found she had stepped on most of a human pelvis. The right socket had been burned off.

Because Hedia was looking down, she almost ran into Lann when he stopped abruptly. She gave an unintended squeak and hopped back, placing a hand on his hip to steady herself and remind him where she was.

The passage ahead had been blocked when a section of the roof caved in; apparently during the fighting, because a single glass arm stretched out from beneath a tilted block the size of a litter. Strong as the ape-man was, Hedia didn't think he could budge
that
, especially because it seemed to be wedged against the unbroken portion of the ceiling.

Lann gave a low hoot of dismay. He had the lens in his left hand, but he tugged at the block tentatively with the other. It didn't move any more than Hedia had expected it to. He hooted again.

She touched the ape-man's left wrist. When he turned to look at her with a frown of surprise, she touched the lens and gestured him to give it to her. His frown deepened for a moment—either he didn't understand or he didn't want to give it up—but he finally gave her the device.

Hedia drew the dagger with her free hand and stabbed at the block. Even with no more than her strength, the sharp orichalc point chipped a noticeable divot from the stone. She turned the weapon in her hand and offered the hilt to Lann.

The ape-man snatched it. Using both hands, he attacked the block.

Hedia had stepped away, but she had to back still farther. Dust and chunks, some of them fist-sized, sprayed from the soft limestone. She had seen when Lann freed the lens that orichalc wasn't unbreakable, but gouging through what seemed to be hardened clay wasn't an excessive strain.

The block split crossways. Lann dropped the dagger and gripped the lower portion. Hedia ducked low, knowing the risk she was taking, and retrieved the dagger just in time.

The ape-man waddled backward, dragging the half-block with him. It scraped along the floor of the tunnel, then crashed flat in a cloud of choking dust. The top portion hesitated for a moment, then slid after the part which had been supporting it. Rubble was piled beyond, but at least for a distance there was room between it and the tunnel roof.

Lann clambered up the pile on all fours and started through the choked passage. Hedia hesitated a moment, but there wasn't any choice. She sheathed the dagger—which would have been buried under the slab of rock if she hadn't grabbed it in time—and followed.

The gap wasn't as tight for her as for the ape-man, but he was more agile and she was carrying the lens. The ape-man seemed to have forgotten for the moment that he'd given the device to her, but Hedia had seen how important he considered it.

She decided she would give up the dagger before she would drop the lens. It might not be directly useful, but any woman knew the importance of symbols. If you lack physical strength, you quickly find other tools to give yourself an advantage over those around you.

The floor beyond the blockage again glittered with shattered Servitors. Hedia pressed her lips together as she followed. She had hoped that by shuffling her feet, she could avoid the worst of the pain, but the tunnel floor was too irregular for that to help. The next time, she'd wear hobnailed army sandals of the sort Alphena affected.

She laughed.
The next time!

The tunnel straightened and the walls became smoother. It was marginally wider as well, though Hedia still could not have walked alongside the ape-man. The problem wasn't only his broad shoulders but also the fact that he tended to weave side to side as he shambled.

She smiled affectionately. She stretched her right hand out toward Lann's hip, but she didn't let the fingertips touch his coarse hair. He needed to pay attention to what was in front of them, not to his companion's whim.

They came out into an underground chamber. It seemed to be roughly circular, though roots had penetrated from above and brought down part of the ceiling. Many—certainly more than a dozen—tunnels led off from the chamber.

Most were like the one Hedia had followed, but almost opposite her was a wider, taller opening with an arch rather than being crudely cut square. That one was noticeably brighter. Lann dropped to all fours in his haste to reach it.

Hedia followed, suddenly excited that there might be a way out of this place, this
world
. The only reason for her hope was that this was a change from what she had been through since the Servitors took her from Carce; and the change that she most desired was to be back in her home.

This short tunnel was lined with crystal, though Hedia could see the texture of the limestone beneath. They entered an enclosure the size of an amphitheater, also of crystal. Originally it had been open, but the forest had grown up on all sides to overhang it, turning sunlight into a green haze. It had seemed bright only by contrast with the dim glow of the tunnel.

They had reached the foundations of Procron's spire, left behind when the assembled Minoi drove their fellow and his fortress out of Atlantis. Hedia realized that the battle between Lann and his neighbor had involved a warren of tunnels, not just the one she had followed. Procron had created the underground gallery so as not to have to pierce his own quartz walls for each attack.

Though the floor was thick crystal, impermeable to roots, the enclosure's interior was covered with forest debris. Leaf mold was ankle deep everywhere, and even Lann chose to skirt a tangle of fallen branches which reached over the wall to the right.

Lann stopped. Hedia, fully alert now, stopped and moved to the side to see past the ape-man's broad body. She thought for a moment that she was looking at a pool ten feet in diameter in the middle of the enclosure, but what she had taken for water was instead a colorless blur. It hung in the air six inches above the level of the floor around it. She saw no sign of the rotting leaves, bark and branches which otherwise carpeted the enclosure.

The ape-man turned. He gestured urgently toward the crystal he had given her. Hedia held it out with both hands; he took it with the delicacy which had already surprised her.

Lann squatted with the device. Hedia turned, largely because the shimmering disk made her uncomfortable. It didn't have real color, but she got a feeling of blue when she looked at it.

Someone shouted. The sound was faint and distorted, but Hedia was sure it was human. She had learned it was impossible to tell where noises came from in this jungle, but she thought it was out of the tunnel.

They
did
come after us!
Of course they had, but with the difficulty of her journey through the tunnel, she had forgotten to worry about pursuit.

Hedia looked at the ape-man, apparently peering through his crystal toward the disk before them. She licked her lips, wondering if she should warn him about—

She straightened in disgust at her presumption. She had seen how keen Lann's senses were. If there was something he needed to know about his surroundings, he knew it.

The
whop … whop … whop
 … of beating sails sounded; distant but seemingly approaching. Certainly approaching.

Lann lurched upright with a warbling cry. The hazy disk was spinning into a maelstrom, spiraling down into infinite distance.

An Atlantean ship drove into the canopy of trees, cracking through branches and sending down a shower of leaves and fragments. Two humans carrying nets pushed through the arch from the tunnel complex. Behind them was a Servitor with an uncertain device

Lann took Hedia's wrist in his huge right hand. Gripping her firmly, he jumped into the whirl of light he had just opened.

 

CHAPTER
XVII

Corylus frowned. Though the moon had set, the sky ahead had become noticeably brighter than it was behind them, where the sun was fully above the eastern horizon. Rather than a blue that would grow paler as the day wore on, it looked as though the ship was flying into the white heart of a furnace.

The sprite curled at his feet in the far bow. His toes projected between the straps of his army sandals; she was playing with them. It was disconcerting, but it didn't actually hurt anything—Corylus had initially kept a careful eye to see if the Ancient reacted; he hadn't—so he didn't object.

“Cousin?” he said. “There seems to be something odd about the sky.”

The sprite continued her game, touching his nails in a pattern that he felt sure must be meaningful. He didn't have a clue
what
it meant, though.

“Is there?” she asked in a disinterested voice. She didn't look up. “It isn't going rain. I'd know if it were going to rain.”

Corylus caught his response unmade. The sprite was being forthcoming within her limitations; which, regrettably, were of considerable extent.

He turned to look back at the Ancient. The sprite chirped an objection when he moved his feet out of her reach. That hadn't been Corylus' whole purpose in turning, but it had been part of his purpose. He suppressed his slight grin quickly.

The Ancient stood at his post, unmoving and unconcerned. He met Corylus' eyes and let his tongue loll.

Corylus grinned in response. He absently touched his breastplate above where the glass amulet rested against his chest.

The Ancient's nonchalance would have been more comforting if he hadn't been willing to let a giant eel swallow them. It was time for a real answer.

“Cousin.” Corylus said sharply. “Stand up, if you will. Tell me what you see ahead of us.”