Ширли Мерфи - Nightpool

“You were alone with the hydrus in my vision, and I felt a cold fear for you. And I felt a sense of power grown great, Tebriel, under some terrible stress. Only, I could not tell whose power—yours, or the hydrus’s.”

Teb sat very still.

Thakkur began to pace again, his paws held still before him, his broad tail describing a white moon each time he turned, his dark eyes troubled.

“This time, Tebriel, the vision brings no certainty. This time I think you must follow your own instinct. You must leave Nightpool or you must stay, according to what your deepest inner self tells you.” Thakkur looked at him, frowning. “There is more here, of power and of meaning, than my poor visions can sort out.”

‘There is something you are not telling me.”

Thakkur did not answer.

“Why not? It isn’t fair. If you know . . .”

Silence. They looked at each other for a long time, Thakkur’s gaze veiled and secretive, yet very direct, as if he held back only because he must. As if perhaps this was something Teb must unravel for himself, without being told—without help from anyone.

“Because I must discover for myself?”

The white otter nodded.

Teb turned to stare out at the sea. He wanted to say what he guessed. And yet he was afraid to say it. One thing was certain, though. He would stay at Nightpool until the hydrus returned. No inner fear, no deliberation, could make him turn away now from facing it. For in some way, the hydrus was a part of the power he felt.

Was it a power that could turn to evil as well as good? Was the hydrus a part of that evil? He knew he was drawn to it, to a confrontation impossible to avoid. The hydrus could make him lose a part of himself, and so he must destroy it.

But it would be another year, nearly to the day he spoke with Thakkur of the visions, before they met, and the hydrus had swum a long way and wreaked great damage along the coasts of countless continents. Nightpool knew of the wars from the owl, and that Sivich had settled in well, in the three nations of Branthen just north of Windthorst. They knew that in the more northerly countries, other of Quazelzeg’s captains held strong power. If there was a resistance, it did little more than frustrate Quazelzeg, and there was no change of rule. Perhaps the heterhuman folk of the far lands on the other side of Tirror, and pocketed in colonies on the near continents, were moving in some kind of secret resistance. There was no way to know, for they were secretive and mingled little, in these modern times, with human or animal folk.

The little owls came first and cried to beware, that the hydrus was near. Then they went away, content with their warning, lifting and tilting on the wind in close flight, screaming their hunting cry. Then the hydrus was sensed by vibration far out in the sea as a band of otters chased silver sea trout along the edge of the sunken continent.

Thakkur appointed a double watch, two armed bands always on duty, and the weapons were kept oiled and sharp. The first time the hydrus came, it raged in from the outer deeps, driving hard at a band of fishing otters, diving when they dove, terrifying them until an armed band joined them, sweeping out to surround the great beast.

They bloodied it and slashed its sides and tore a wound down one head. They could see the pale, healed scars where its throat had been cut before, and its eye injured. They had grown skilled indeed with the heavy weapons, thrusting and slashing in the water until it backed and fled.

The second attack, four weeks later, brought it rising suddenly from the shallow landward bay, where it had come in deep and quietly in the night. It thrust up at the black sheltering rim of the island so the rock shuddered and the caves echoed. The defending otters leaped down onto it from the cliff and bloodied its gaping, reaching faces before it was driven back. One strong young male, Perkketh, clung to its neck and thrust at its head with his sword while others cut deep gashes in its leathery hide. But it killed Perkketh with one thrusting flip of its head as it heaved him against the cliff.

The Ottra nation mourned Perkketh and made ceremony for him in the meeting cave and buried him in the cave of burial close beside the green marsh. They planted his grave with starflowers. And in his farewell prayer for Perkketh, Thakkur said words that set Teb to thinking in a new way.

“Not of the sea and not of the land, the Ottra are wanderers all in that thin world that lies between. Each to its own place must cling, even in death must cling. And what comes after death when we rise anew, only a wisdom far greater than our wisdom can ordain. The Graven Light take Perkketh now and keep him in joy and in dignity.”

The third attack by the hydrus was close to the north shore of Nightpool just at Shark Rock, as Teb and Charkky were coming up at dusk from gathering oysters. It was low tide, and the oyster beds were exposed far out into the sea. Teb could see Ekkthurian and his two companions moving along at the far outer edge of the oyster beds just beside the sea trench, dragging a string bag of oysters between them. When the hydrus came up suddenly from the trench, Urikk dropped the bag and ran, but it snapped up Ekkthurian and Gorkk, then charged Teb and Charkky and Mikk as the guarding band on the cliff swarmed down. Teb crouched, his knife ready. The hydrus shook the two otters it held, bellowing, and reached with its third head for Teb. Teb dodged and leaped away, slashing at the reaching face, and blood spurted. The hydrus dropped Ekkthurian, screaming, then dropped Gorkk. The otter lay writhing and snarling. The hydrus advanced on Teb, all its attention on him, holding him frozen with the stare of those six immense eyes; yet it did not reach for him, and knowledge filled him, in that moment, that it did not want him dead.

When it did reach, it was gently, the middle head thrusting out, and its great thick lips mumbled over his face so he wanted to retch. He could not move. He knew it would carry him away, and his fear was so terrible it would be almost a relief to have it over with; then suddenly it lurched away as the otters attacked, thrusting and slashing: the otter guards from the cliff battled it back toward the sea. Teb was fighting beside them now. Otters leaped to its neck, and Teb leaped; they attacked the three heads until it bellowed with rage and twisted, flinging them off, and thrashed back into the deep sea. They stood looking after it, panting.

“Did we kill it?” Charkky said at last.

“I don’t know,” Teb said. “We hurt it, though. I think we hurt it badly.”

Several otters were being helped up the cliff trailing blood, Ekkthurian and Gorkk among them. Teb could see Mitta hurrying along the high ledge, with half a dozen others, to tend the wounded. He stared out at the sea where the waters still showed pink, then turned away from the group of otter warriors.

He walked for a long time along the edge of the water, rounding the island but seeing, in his mind, the wounded otters. Seeing Perkketh dead.

These things should never have happened. They must not happen again. He knew, now, that he must go away. That this one time, Thakkur was wrong. He must lead the hydrus, not here to the island again, but away from it. When he had circled the island, and come to where otters were gathered outside Thakkur’s cave, he learned there had been two deaths more. Gorkk, and a strapping otter named Tekket, who left behind him a wife and four cubs. Teb went to Thakkur, then, and found him alone. He sat in the cave in silence as the white otter puttered about, his paws busy for the first time Teb could remember. When at last he turned, Teb could see his grief.

“I am going away,” Teb said. “I will lead the hydrus away.”

“No. We will kill the hydrus, Tebriel. Given time, we can. If you go now, every otter will feel that he has failed, will know that you led it away because we have failed to kill it.”