Ширли Мерфи - Nightpool

“I will say that I go to search for my sister. That is true. And I feel—I would search for the dragon, Thakkur. The singing dragon.”

Thakkur nodded, and again there was a long silence between them, as understanding grew. Then he said softly, “Yes. But first you mean to seek the hydrus.”

“I must.”

Thakkur turned away, to stare out at the sea. When he faced Teb again, the sadness robed him heavily. He studied Teb; and saw in Teb’s face the resolve that would not be swayed. He said at last, “Give us, then, this night for ceremony, Tebriel. A feast of good-bye. Such a gathering would ease the pain of leave-taking for all of us. Will you allow us that?”

And so there was a feast, and gift giving, and Thakkur’s quiet predictions beforehand, which now came so clearly in the clamshell, as if Teb’s own increased power helped to bring them. For Teb did feel a power that excited him with its promise. And when, late in the evening, he sang the Song of the Creatures, he held the gathered otters silent and transfixed as he spun out living scenes of the speaking animals, amazing himself as well as them with the power of his conjuring. He felt his strength surging, felt forces within himself that he could not put shape to, felt skills begin to rise, filled with wonder and power. For long moments after the song was finished, the otters sat in awe; it was Ekkthurian who broke the stillness by rising to stomp away. Teb hardly noticed, for the sense of promise that filled him. Promise of a wonder he could not even name. A wonder that, now, gave added meaning to Thakkur’s predictions, which the old otter had spoken quietly while they sat alone.

“You will ride the winds of Tirror, Tebriel. And you will touch humankind and change it. You will see more than any creature or human sees, save those of your own special kind.

“I see mountains far to the north, and you will go there among wonderful creatures and speak to them, and know them.”

Thakkur predicted threat as well as wonder. “I see a street in Sharden’s city narrow and mean. There is danger there and it reeks of pain. Take care, Tebriel, when you journey into Sharden.”

The ceremony had made bright new songs tumble into Teb’s head, verses that captured, for all time, those moments of pleasure as the otters presented him with gold and pearls and polished shells and corals, verses that would bring their voices back years hence, and their gentle, bright expressions and funny grins.

There was feasting, the special lighted torches Charkky and Mikk had made, the great fire to roast the fish and shellfish in his honor. They laughed, and played the otter games of three-shell and clap, and it was late indeed when all found their ways to cave and bed. Teb lay on his stone shelf staring out at the stars and hearing the sea. He did not sleep.

He rose at first light and dove far out and swam for a long time in the cold sea, trying to lose the terrible homesickness that gripped him. Trying to lose the fear with which he began this journey to confront the hydrus; trying to understand better the sense of power that was now a part of himself, to understand how to deal with it. When he returned to his cave, there was Thakkur, coming to say a private good-bye.

“You will return, I have no doubt of it.” The white otter’s eyes were as deep and fathomless as the sea itself. “Go in joy, Tebriel. Go with the blessing of The Maker. Go in the care of the Graven Light.”

Teb took up his pack at last and lashed it to his waist. He gave Thakkur a long, steady look, then stepped to the edge of the cliff and dove far out and deep, cutting the water cleanly and striking out at once against the incoming swells. As quickly as that he left Nightpool, and his tears mixed with the salty sea. As quickly as that he settled all his own past behind him, all his years on Nightpool, as one would settle a cape around his shoulders like a strong protection. He faced ahead into the unknown and the fearsome, letting the challenge touch him and draw him on.

Chapter 17

Teb remained on the meadows above the sea cliff only long enough to feel out of place and exposed. The band of horses he had startled as he climbed the cliff had disappeared beyond the hills. No one was in sight, but soldiers could appear from the hills; it was foolish to be traveling so openly across this land in the daytime. Even when he kept to the small stands of woods and the low valleys, he felt exposed. When he had passed the point of Jade Beach, he made his way down the cliff and walked along the rocks beside the sea, where he was safer from humans.

In midafternoon he gathered clams and mussels, built a small fire, and made a meal. He passed the cave of the ghost, and stopped to stare in as the hundreds of birds swept screaming on their own wind low above his head. The rocks were slippery as he crossed past the cave. He kept watching the sea, foolishly, for the sight of familiar otter faces and knew he would see none. He camped well before dark, away from the edge of the cliff, in a small stand of almond trees that grew nestled between two hills. He could hear the sea’s pounding close by, and the smell of the salt wind was comfortable, but he was too far from the edge of the cliff to be reached by those three giant heads, if the hydrus should come in the night. He felt it would come; he felt a sense of it almost as if he could smell it.

Maybe he only imagined that it wanted him. Maybe he only imagined the power he thought he could touch and that it seemed to want. Why would he have some mysterious power? Maybe he was just a homeless boy trying to become a man by imagining powers that did not exist.

But the songs had power. He had felt that power touch him, from his mother’s songs. And he had seen his own songs touch the otters. The power of the songs, he thought . . .

And he slept.

*

The hydrus was there when he woke. He didn’t know it was. He yawned and stretched and went down to the sea to wash, as he had done every day for four years, hardly looking, wanting that salty bath.

He swam, staying in close in a shallow bay, watching the sea now, wishing he could feel vibrations as the otters did; but feeling certain, too, that this new power he felt within himself would tell him if the hydrus was close. He came out and, as he dried in the early-rising sun, gathered his breakfast from the rocks.

Behind him the sea lapped gently. The early sun was warm on his back, its light reflected in flashes of his blade as he pried the mussels loose. The young ones were the most tender. He heard the cry of a passing gull; then suddenly the hydrus was over him, snatching him up, its teeth across his middle, his feet inside its mouth, his arms pinioned. All he could see was lips and face, those huge muddy eyes, and the land receding fast. And each time he moved, it bit tighter. His fist was clamped on his knife, but its teeth pressed on his arm. And though the hydrus said no word, he felt that it would speak. He hung rigid in its mouth watching the waves crest before its swimming feet. Then the other two heads came around to look at him, and the four muddy eyes saw everything about him. He didn’t want to look anymore, yet couldn’t help but look, and he felt his mind go empty. He was so afraid that at last terror left him, and he fell into a cold, emotionless state, where every detail was magnified. He watched its black, finned feet breaking the water. He watched the sea flash below. He studied the black pitted skin of its body, torn with bleeding wounds, and he smelled the creature’s blood. He saw every detail of the two faces, the elongated muzzles and wide mouths, the pale skin of the faces contrasted with the black wrinkled hide of the body, the coarse, bristling hair and muddy eyes: human faces warped into terrible parodies.