David Drake - Out of the waters

Shooting at the ape-man, more likely. Though the Minoi might have been willing to cripple Hedia in the hope that they wouldn't nick an artery in the process.

The arrow was a quivering reminder of how nearly she had been recaptured. It was possible, of course, that before long she might think being in the hands of the Minoi would be preferable to having escaped to this place.

Hedia grinned again. That seemed unlikely. And so long as she was with Lann, there were compensations.

She had believed that they were walking along a level plane. That might be true, but the strain on her thighs suggested that she was climbing. There was nothing to judge their progress against; she had only her faith in the ape-man that they were actually going somewhere instead of just going on.

Movement jerked her attention to the right. What had been foggy distortion when she first reached this side of the disk now resolved to people, or- Hedia started back. "Lann!" she said.

She tugged the ape-man's wrist till he turned to face her, then pointed with her whole arm. "What is that? I thought I saw-"

She would either have finished the sentence with "-my daughter Alphena," or with, "-the terrible monster I saw in the theater." In the event she said neither, because Lann snatched her arm down with a haste that was just short of violence. Hooting, he swung her around him so that his body was between her and the shifting images. It was the closest thing to anger that he had yet displayed toward her.

He's afraid of that, whatever it is, Hedia realized. Or anyway, the ape-man was afraid of what might happen if she called attention to them by pointing. That might be a real concern or just the sort of superstition that made a peasant unwilling to claim that his crop was shaping toward a good harvest.

She wouldn't make that mistake again.

Lann released her and started forward again. Hedia followed submissively, keeping her arms by her side. When she had reached out to point, her hand had met a resistance which it couldn't feel. There had been nothing visible between her and the beings that she glimpsed, but she was sure that the place her arm went was not really toward what she saw.

After a dozen paces, Hedia became sure that the ape-man wouldn't turn around to check on her. She glanced to her right.

Alphena was no longer present. Where there had been a monster indescribable in its vastness and complexity, now stood a man in a loincloth who wore his hair in two braids. He wasn't young, but he was very well set up. Large fish of varied colors circled him at a distance.

A reflexive smile started to lift the corners of Hedia's mouth. The man's eyes flicked toward her. She could see him as clearly as if they were facing one another at dinner.

She stiffened; her face, unbidden, set itself into regal lines. I am Hedia, wife of Gaius Saxa and a noble of Carce…

For this man was a noble also. She didn't know where he came from, but she accepted at a glance that he was her equal in every fashion; and, being male, was possibly a little more equal in some fashions.

That was all right with her. Hedia's smile was slight but real. In its place.

When she focused on the man, Hedia had the impression of courtiers standing nearby in obsequious silence. Her eyes followed the motion.

She saw fish, the same colorful fish as before. When she didn't focus on the nobleman, she saw around them, filling existence, Typhon: a writhing, swollen horror which hungered to grow for all eternity.

Hedia faced away, grimacing. All this business had started with the vision of Typhon destroying what she now knew was the city of Poseidonis. If that had really happened instead of it being a mirage in the bowl of the theater, she would have been spared these recent days of unpleasantness.

Though she would have missed Lann also, which would have been a shame. Not tragic, but a shame nonetheless.

Lann turned. Hedia gave him an impish smile, her reflex when she feared she had been caught in some wrongdoing, but the ape-man wasn't concerned with whether she had continued to look at the figures to their right. Instead he stared past her, back-she could only assume this, as she saw empty gray on all sides-the way they had come.

The ape-man hooted in concern. He started to go on, then stopped without warning and squatted over his disk.

One of her first husband's friends had an ape trained to play the dice game Bandits. Lann looked so much like that animal peering over the game board that Hedia half-expected to see him react as the ape had-by suddenly flying into a rage and hurling the board, the counters and all in every direction.

That had been unexpected and exciting; and dangerous, but danger added spice to life. She giggled, as she had giggled when she watched the screaming ape knot a bronze lamp stand as easily as a man might have done a blade of grass.

New images appeared around Hedia and the ape-man, replacing their gray surroundings with a blankness indistinguishable to her-save for the pair of Atlantean ships which flew out of a spiraling blur. Their sails beat, driving them forward here just as they had on the other side of the portal.

The Minoi pursuing Hedia in the jungle had not given up when Lann took her through the portal. They would never give up.

Armored figures stood in the sterns of the vessels. The human servants holding wooden bows and spears were huddled against the railings. Their eyes were closed and many seemed to be mumbling prayers. Several even curled their knees against their chests and wrapped their arms around them.

The Servitors-four on one vessel, two on the other-were upright and alert; their weapons were orichalc. Hedia couldn't imagine that even Lann's strength would prevail against those odds.

The ape-man dropped his lens; its images dissolved like sand ramparts in the tide. Facing the Minoi in the unseen distance, he rose into a bandy-legged posture of threat, his head cocked forward and his great fangs bared. He roared loudly, even with no walls to echo from. He roared again, then drummed his broad chest with fists like mauls.

There was no response. That would come soon enough, Hedia knew, in the form of fiery swords or arrows.

The ape-man dropped to all fours. Hedia thought he planned to run in his chosen direction until the ships caught them; and perhaps that was all that had been in his bestial mind until his knuckle touched the crystal disk.

Lann paused, as motionless as a statue covered with shaggy fur. Then, with the deliberation of a torturer raising the poker he had heated, he turned with the disk toward the unseen barrier between them and Typhon.

Hedia wrung her hands. She shifted her eyes from the crouching ape-man, back to the way they had come. She couldn't see the Minoi, but expectation of their arrival frightened her less than what the ape-man was doing.

She couldn't bring herself to look at what was happening beyond the barrier. Even so she was aware at the corners of her eyes that something twisted and flowed. It moved like a serpent or a thousand serpents, and she knew what it was even without looking; what it was, and how huge it was.

The ape-man grunted with angry satisfaction. He was using both hands to force the edge of the disk against nothing. The crystal suddenly lurched forward against his pressure.

He drew back quickly and got to his feet. The lens swung in his left hand; it appeared unharmed.

"Lann, what have you done?" Hedia said. Tiny cracks were running across the surface of the unseen, like tendrils of mold through bread.

The ape-man grunted and gestured her on. When she hesitated, he caught her shoulder with his free hand and dragged her. She stumbled for a dozen steps before she properly got her feet under her so that she could keep up. Lann released her only when he was sure that she would follow at his own best speed.