David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

Sharina squatted at the side, her hip braced against the stone that she'd use for her descent. Franca and Scoggin moved them out in a wobbly, half-circular course; their paddles were almost as crude as the beams from which the raft was woven.

Alfdan's men watched at the shoreline with expressions of morose anticipation. Some of them were rubbing their legs dry. The walls of the fjord were as sheer as the sides of an axe cut…

"So much blood!" Beard chortled.

Sharina laughed. Scoggin looked at her in amazement. "It's nice that somebody's looking forward to this," she explained.

Alfdan remained standing, staring into the pebble. His lips moved, but Sharina couldn't hear words if he was even speaking. Neal sat on the stone with his spear between his legs; he held the wizard steady.

"Downstream!" Alfdan said. "Another twenty feet or so. We're far enough out already."

The raft began to rotate; even the most experienced boatmen would've had trouble controlling so clumsy a craft, and neither Scoggin nor Franca were that. There was very little current in the fjord, but that little complicated the business.

"Here!" Alfdan called. He continued looking at his pebble, facing off at an angle to the far shore. "This is far enough. Stop here!"

As if it were that simple, Sharina thought as she stood; but to some people, the wizard apparently among them, itwas that simple: they gave orders and other people carried them out at whatever cost to themselves. She dropped the fur and stripped off her tunic before squatting again to grip the stone against her belly.

"How far down is the key?" she asked.

"It doesn't matter!" cried Alfdan. "We're drifting past! Get down there!"

Sharina lifted the stone slightly, using her left hand and three fingers of her right. The raft billowed; water sloshed over her feet. She turned and straddle-walked two steps to the edge, then rolled over the side. The water was a quick, unpleasant shock; then she was aware only of the weight crushing in on her as she plunged downward.

She let go of the stone with her right hand as soon as she was over the side. The fingers of her left held the netting firmly, while her right hand now gripped only Beard's helve.

The water was blue and clear and at first empty; bubbles dribbled from the net fibers as the depth squeezed them. Sharina began to see crystalline planes jutting up past her, as steep as the cliffs of the fjord. It was as though the water had compressed itself solid. Perhaps the pressure was affecting her sight…

The rock she clung to was covered with bubbles that'd been trapped in cracks when she went over the side. Water swirled about it as they dropped, distorting her sight, but beyond that the planes of a separate world were growing more real. She couldn't see the bottom, but things of pulp and blubber crawled up slabs of crystal from an unguessibly deep abyss.

The rock crunched onto the bottom of the fjord, kicking out a spray of stream-washed quartz nuggets the size of walnuts or smaller. Sharina couldn't see the key; she couldn't see anything but a blurred, dim waste of stone. She let go of the weight and breast stroked over the plain. Beard's narrow blade winked; she thought she heard him singing.

No more! Sharina drove upward for the surface. Her lungs were burning and her sight had blurred from lack of air. The crystal walls had vanished but she felt the creatures continuing to crawl toward her like huge gelatinous ticks; out of sight but still present. She couldn't see the raft and the light was dimming Sharina broke surface, gasping and blind. She blew a roar of froth with her lips. She couldn't see anything until she realized that her eyes were tight shut.

She was arm's length upstream from the raft; it thrashed and rocked. Neal was hauling the rock up hand over hand as Franca coiled the line behind him. Scoggin slashed the water furiously with his paddle to keep the clumsy craft from drifting farther.

Sharina kicked herself to the raft and caught the end of a branch in her left hand. She didn't feel cold, but her lungs were a mass of fire that subsided only slowly as she dragged in great breaths.

Alfdan looked up from his pebble. He glanced around till his eyes lit on Sharina. "It's still there!" he cried angrily. "You haven't brought it up!"

"Shut up, you fool!" Scoggin snarled. Neal looked over his shoulder; he nodded. He'd raised the netted stone to the surface and belayed the line around the end of a log near where Sharina clung. The raft tilted toward it; neither Franca nor the wizard had sense enough to move to the opposite side for balance.

"I'm getting my breath," Sharina said. The words didn't want to come; her throat was stiff. "I'll go back in a moment."

"Mistress, do you want to try another day?" said Neal.

"No, I'll-" Sharina said.

"She must get it immediately!" said Alfdan. "If I wait-"

Beard actually twisted in Sharina's hand, lifting his razor-keen edge above the water like a shark breaking surface. "I'll kill him!" the axe squealed, raging instead of speaking with his usual sanguine anticipation.

Sharina gripped the netting with her left hand. "I'm ready," she said. Neal loosed the rope; she plunged again into the depths of the fjord.

Sharina had thought the crystal planes were a hallucination and perhaps they were, but they were back again as she drove deeper. When she'd looked down from the surface Sharina had been able to see the quartz bottom, wavering and faint beneath the filter of blue water. Now she no longer could: as when she dived the first time, the depths slid all the way to the center of the world. The things that lived there were climbing toward her again, and this time they were closer.

The stone hit and scattered pebbles. The other world shifted out of sight the way a reflection disappears when a mirror tilts; but it was still there and its creatures were still there, sliding closer, ready to grip and suck and drain her not only of blood but of her very soul.

Sharina couldn't see the key, but Beard was pulling to her right. She frog kicked in that direction. The plain of shimmering pebbles jerked by beneath her, fading as her breath failed. There was no key She saw it, golden and the only warmth in a waste of white and blue. She didn't know how far away it was-a foot, a yard, a furlong; it didn't matter.

Too far. Sharina broke for the surface, thinking she'd left it too long till the instant her control failed and she sucked in not seawater but air after all. She collapsed and lay still, scarcely aware that somebody was cradling her head to allow her to breathe.

"Mistress?" a voice begged. "Mistress, are you all right?"

Sharina opened her eyes. Franca was beside her, kicking to stay in place as he supported her head. Neal had taken the other paddle and with Scoggin was thrashing the raft toward her against the slight current. The men's expressions were grim.

Alfdan squatted to keep from falling over. He seemed angry, but he was pointedly not looking at Sharina or his other companions. The tableau made Sharina smile-and that brought her back to sudden full awareness. Alfdan had his own view of the world, but he'd learned this wasn't the time to try to impose it on angry, armed men who hadn't liked him very much to begin with.

"Get her aboard!" Scoggin said. "She's done for the day!"

Alfdan started to rise, then settled back on his haunches looking even angrier than he had shortly before. The raft was close, now; Sharina could no longer see Neal on the opposite side. Franca grabbed a projection with one hand and drew her in.

Funny that she'd never realized that Franca could swim. A good thing that he could, although she was all right now; or would be shortly…

"Neal, help me lift her," Scoggin said as he leaned over the side to grasp Sharina's right arm. The raft shuddered and tilted again, though not so much. Neal had raised the stone and snubbed it off at the back of the craft where it counterweighted the crew.