“Why should I?”
“Mowdar knows about our son. He is most pleased with the success of his plan. I have told him it is too soon for you to be used elsewhere, that he owes us the pleasure of our company for the next few months. He has given us that gift. If you choose to be away from me, I will be shamed and he will own my shame too.”
I snort.
“I don’t see what difference that would make to me.”
“He will place you with another female and you will be forced again,”
Lorrel mindspeaks. She looks at the ground.
“Have you not enjoyed any of the time we spent together? I have. I do not want to make a slave of you. I will not use our songs on you ever again. I want you to come to me of your own will.”
Shaking my head, I mindspeak,
“But I can’t, I’m . . .”
“Mated for life, I know. But even now your child grows inside me. For now I promise to be satisfied with only your company. Spend time with me, sleep beside me, warm my nest, and I will not complain to Mowdar. Perhaps one day you will change your mind.”
26
In the evening, the Pelk bring back the prey they’ve caught during the day and we all feast on it together. Afterwards small groups gather for conversations and share jars of Dragon’s Tear wine. Derek and his wives and Lorrel and I sit and talk and drink with Mowdar, his lieutenants and their females and Malka. Few other Pelk show any inclination to seek out either Derek’s or my company.
Mowdar’s youngest lieutenant, a Pelk named Jessai, who seems not to have any female, explains it after a little too much Dragon’s Tear wine,
“Why would any of us want to share time with any Undrae? You have nothing we want. You have brought our people only death. Now that our women have taken your seed, I asked Mowdar for permission to use my trident against you both. But he sees fit to protect you. It is my hope that one day he won’t.”
Later, in our nest, after Lorrel gives me my antidote, I ask about him. She sighs and mindspeaks,
“Jessai only has two more years than me. We grew up together. Before we learned we could return to Atalan, Mowdar smiled on the thought that Jessai would share my nest and father my children. When he changed his mind and decided to send me for you instead, Jessai became so enraged that he left the srrynn for weeks.”
“Are you sad he doesn’t share your nest?”
She nestles against me.
“I like Jessai, but I have no regrets. I am only sad that you have been inside me just once.”
After her breathing slows and her body grows warm against mine, I stay awake and count the days since my first encounter with Lorrel. I shake my head when I realize a week has already passed. Chloe will be home the next day. As soon as she hears my message she’ll be on the phone with Claudia. Within a few days at most she should be back on Caya DelaSangre.
I sigh into the dark. Surely she’ll come looking for me soon after that. Finding me will be easy as soon as she comes within mindspeaking range. I should hear from her within a week. But what then? As long as the Pelk poison courses through my veins, the Pelk rule my body.
The week passes, and then the next day and the next, without any word from Chloe. I begin to worry about her and to have difficulty remembering how long my stay with the srrynn has been. Except for every third night, when Lorrel gives me my antidote, each evening passes much the same way as the last. Each new day seems no different from the old one.
The men refuse to let either Derek or me accompany them on their forays into the ocean. We have little to do but spend most of our time wandering above. While I would love to hunt again, even if the prey is dolphin, Derek seems not to mind being left behind.
I think if I didn’t prod him, he’d sleep through most of his days. In the mornings, after the males have gone to sea and the females climbed the steps to the above, I take the opportunity to explore the cavern, looking for anything I can put to use before I wake my brother-in-law. While I find the creature a better companion than I would have expected, I still have no more trust in him than I ever did.
Malka’s nest, in another alcove on the opposite side of Mowbar’s from mine, interests me most. I go through it each morning using a glass jar full of glow-water for illumination as I sort through the containers on her shelves and floor. She maintains a dizzying array of herbs, powders, roots, branches, seeds, leaves, berries, dried creatures and flowers, but without the knowledge of how to use them, they are worthless to me.
On my second visit to her alcove I discover a small wood chest hidden behind two larger ones. When I open it I find dozens of antidote bottles. My heart races as I sort through them. But I find only four full ones. Pulling their stoppers, I sniff their contents and taste a drop from each and groan. All smell and taste no different from the temporary antidote I’m given every other night.
I bring my father’s journal above with me each day and spend hours going through its brittle pages looking for any words I might recognize that might point to a permanent antidote for the poison. But no amount of staring can make up for my sparse knowledge of the Spanish language.
Derek scowls and walks away from me any time I open the book. Likewise, he refuses to follow me into the mangroves when I wander off—always with extra food in hand—in search for any sign of the Thryll. “You’re getting almost as bloody boring as the Pelk,” he growls. But still, he wakes when I shake his body each morning, and he stays by my side when I’m not reading or exploring.
Things change late in the afternoon, the day after Lorrel gives me my fourth dose of antidote. Derek and I are lazing near the lagoon, sitting on the rock where his Tantra killed the iguana and watching the Pelk females work.
Derek sees it first. “Bloody hell! Look at that old man!” he says, pointing to the center of the lagoon where a light pink cloud has just started to blossom in the water. The women swimming in the lagoon back away from it as it darkens to crimson and spreads.
Two Pelk males in their natural forms erupt from the water far enough to show their upper bodies and the third Pelk they hold, bleeding from his mouth, his side and neck.
“We were attacked by Notch Fin’s pod! Three are dead. We have six wounded. Mowdar wants a healing circle now!”
one of the males mindspeaks, and they sink out of sight.
All the women in the water dive after them. The others on the beach gather up their things and rush toward the mangrove tree path. Derek and I wait for them to pass and then follow. At the hole to the cave under the rock, the women working in the gardens stream in too.
By the time Derek and I squeeze through the hole and start down the stairs the entire srrynn has assembled, some women mixing phosphorescence into all the dark glowpools, others bringing fish and lobsters to the wounded Pelk lying on the sand near the water, and others wrapping the three dead Pelk in blankets of seaweed.
Malka and fourteen other females, including Lorrel and Sybyli have already formed a li-srrynn and gathered in a circle around the wounded. The cavern vibrates with their slow, deep tune. The song grows louder after all the glowpools have been made as bright as possible and every available woman joins the li-srrynn.
Mowdar, his lieutenants and all the other males stand back a few paces from the circle. When Derek and I, the only ones still in their natural forms, join them, Jessai turns to the Pelk leader and mindspeaks,
“We do not need them.”
“Look around you. Three of your comrades are dead. Six will be of no use for days. We need whatever help we can get!”
Mowdar mindspeaks, slamming the bottom of his trident onto the floor for emphasis.
Jessai hisses and turns his back on the Pelk leader.
“I will not allow us to go into battle to lose again,”
Mowdar mindspeaks.
He turns to Derek and me.
“I know you may think this not your fight, but what the dolphins did today cannot go unanswered. If we allow you tridents of your own, do you think you can be of help?”
Derek scowls. “Why should I risk getting bleeding hurt?” he says out loud.
I ignore him and mindspeak.
“One of your men said it was Notch Fin’s pod. How many were they?”
“More than twice as many as us. They were waiting for us near the blue hole when we returned from hunting. . . .”
“Why would we have expected to find them there? They’ve never dared to come so far into our hunting grounds before,”
one of the other lieutenants mindspeaks. Mowdar’s glare silences him.
“We never took one of his young from his own pod before,”
Mowdar turns his gaze on me.
“Thanks to my daughter, your nest mate, it seems that things have changed. Can I count on you?”
“You can count on both of us,”
I mindspeak. The Pelk nods and turns his attention to his recalcitrant lieutenant.
“What?” Derek says, tugging me a few yards away from the gathering, whispering in my ear. “You’re not really thinking of us helping that bugger, are you?”
“Look,” I say, “if I had to pick sides, I would probably tend toward the dolphins right now. But that would do nothing to help me. The more Mowdar and the rest trust us, the easier our lives will be. Don’t you want to get out of here, go do something else once in a while?”
“Sure,” Derek says. “But not by risking injury or death.”
“Well, I want to get out of here. Even if we’re in the water, even if we have to fight dolphins, it’s better than sitting in this dark hole doing nothing.”
Derek shakes his head. “I was pretty content doing nothing until you came along. I’ll come, but it’s on your head. Something regrettable happens to me, it will be on your head.”
Jessai wakes me with a curt,
“Undrae! Get up!”
I sit up, look past him and see no light streaming into the cave.
“It’s still night. Are we going to leave in the dark?”
I mindspeak.
He turns his back on me.
“You will not leave at all if you do not follow now.”
“Jessai, stop being such a dolt,”
Lorrel says, stretching and yawning. She runs her tail over mine as I slip out of the nest and follow Jessai down to the water.
All the other grown and healthy males gather there, Derek coming last, pushing in next to me. In our natural forms we tower over the rest.
“I’m impressed. How’d they wake you?”
I mindspeak.
The creature rubs his rump with one of his front claws.
“Carrying bloody spears like bloody savages,”
he mindspeaks.
“How would you like it—being impaled during your bleeding dreams?”
Mowdar arrives shortly after that.
“No need for many words,”
he mindspeaks.
“I want Notch Fin dead and his pod dead. If you fight well we will have a great feast on our return. If not . . .”
He shrugs.
He turns his attention to Derek and me.
“Where are your tridents?”
“We don’t need any bloody toys to fight with,”
Derek mindspeaks.
I slap his tail, hard, with mine, mindspeaking,
“Yes, we do. We just haven’t been given any.”
The Pelk leader points to Jessai, mindspeaks,
“Take care of it.”
He nods and motions for us to follow, and we wend our way through the cave, to a crevice in the wall on the side away from the stairs. The Pelk squeezes through the crevice, and Derek and I squeeze after him, coming out into a small, dark cave.
Jessai mixes phosphorescence into a glowpool, and our eyes go wide at the profusion of tridents stacked against every wall.
“Choose whichever you want,”
he mindspeaks.
We leave the srrynn through the underwater passageway that leads to the ocean blue hole, the rest of the males in front of us, Derek and I struggling to keep up. Night still rules when we surface in the open ocean, the water rough and churning, wind gusting overhead. Even underwater, the currents tug and bully us.
I’ve shown Derek how to broaden his tail, and we scull through the water together, keeping our heads near the surface, taking breaths as we wish.
“If they are still near, they will be sleeping in more protected waters,”
Mowdar says. He leads us toward the lee side of a nearby island.
By the time we near it, the sun has broken free of the horizon, throwing a murky light through a sky crowded with gray clouds. Rain begins lashing the ocean’s surface and I smile momentarily, glad that we’re protected by the water’s warm embrace.
A Pelk surfacing to take a breath bellows out in pain and another mindspeaks,
“They are here!”
and the water churns all around us as Notch Fin and his pod’s males attack. Mowdar speeds toward the nearest dolphin, ignoring a glancing blow from another and slashing out with his trident. He offers no plan of battle, does nothing to organize the Pelk.
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.”