They were slicing through the calm waters at an angle that took them eastward and slightly away from the oncoming mountains of cloud. The
Silver Seeker
was already little bigger than a dot behind them. What the creature said was true. All of his possessions that Gord considered truly valuable were with him. He wore his short sword and his dagger, his cat's-eye ring and his amulet of protection, plus a few other cherished things safely contained in a dweomered coffer no bigger than a thimble.
"Go to it, Leoceanlus! Let's see a real turn of speed!" Gord cried with a laugh to match that of the sea lion. Let his companions aboard the ship keep the gold and gems he had left there. So too the good shirt of elfin chain mail that was in his sea chest, and the extra blade he had hidden beneath a false floorboard in his quarters — a longsword of dark metal that he had brought back from the city deep beneath the Ashen Desert. Those things he truly regretted leaving, but perhaps they would save another one's life one day. The mail shirt would fit Dohojar, although the Changa would have to forsake his spellworking while he had it on. And both Dohojar and Barrel knew of the sword and where it was concealed, so Gord was sure it would eventually be brought out and put to good use by someone. At any rate, there was no point in worrying about those things any more. "And where do we go?" Gord asked the lion.
"Well away from that," the great water-creature roared, giving its mighty head a shake to indicate the advancing tempest. "Only I do not think I can go fast enough."
That gave Gord pause. He turned slightly to eye the wall of ebon clouds and saw that indeed the storm was coming down upon them at tremendous speed. The dark, lightning-shot center of the tempest had altered its course too. The whole front was now bearing toward them, going eastward just as they did. The fading sunlight was now so dim that he could see nothing more, but Gord imagined that
Silver Seeker
was now well away from the worst of the storm, for the leading gusts of wind would be more than enough for the ship to begin beating westward.
"What makes the roiling?" the young adventurer managed to shout above the rising wind. He had seen the splashing of something off to their right and slightly ahead.
"My fellows," Leoceanius roared so as to be heard. "They converge to escort us to safety. A bad sign, for it means some worse foe than the storm draws near!"
In minutes the now-dark waters were made lighter by the foam and froth of a score of great sea lions cleaving the rising waves. They offered greetings to Leoceanius as their liege, the master of all their kind. It surprised Gord, however, to be saluted as well by these creatures — and especially because they hailed him as prince. Leoceanius surged to his right, bearing the young adventurer directly away from the evil cloud-wall that was rolling down upon them at terrible speed. "What news?" the sea lion roared to his followers.
"It is the sea hag, Udyll, who has raised the tempest," came the faint reply. Although the wind tore away at even the great bass voice of the sea cat, Gord could discern the speech well enough to hear the fear in the creature's voice. The hag hunts for the man you bear even now — she and her pack of sharks!"
Leoceanius shook his great mane. "Even as fast as I can go, the hag's tempest closes upon us. It will strike soon, and at its edge will be her death-fish. Burdened as I am, Gord, we are no match for sharks and hag."
"I have my sword!" Gord grabbed the hilt of the short blade buckled around his waist as he shrieked into the howling gale that now battered them and broke the tops of the ever-heightening waves of the Azure Sea into horizontal sheets of spray that stung like blizzard-whipped sleet.
"Save your breath!" came the sea cat's roar. "I go deep for safety!"
"What?" Gord couldn't believe his ears. The monstrous sea cat roared something about an undine's grotto, and then dived. There was no choice now. Gord held onto the deep green mane and concentrated on breath control. How deep they plunged into the salty waters of the Azure Sea, how fast they were descending, he had no idea. But the time seemed an eternity, since he did not have a chance to take a deep breath before they went under.
As part of his normal regimen of exercise, Gord practiced various breathing techniques, including the talent of holding his breath. In dangerous circumstances, even so slight a thing as a whispered exhalation could give a thief away. If he had a chance to prepare for it, Gord could maintain activity and not intake a breath of air for more than two minutes. But now his lungs felt as if they were bursting. Gord expelled some of the air from them in tiny spurts. That helped the burning in his chest only a little, and it made him conscious of the pain of pressure in his ears.
A blackness more impenetrable than the dark of the storm-ridden sea was closing over the young adventurer when he felt a change of motion. Leoceanius was no longer sounding but swimming laterally. Gord could feel the touch of thick strands of kelp striking him as the sea lion whipped through what must have been a veritable forest of the growth. Then he had to let out the last of his air, and seconds later the overwhelming dark conquered Gord and he remembered no more.
* * *
Those drowned ones who I have seen before were not so handsome as he."
Hearing that startled Gord into full wakefulness. His eyes saw a watery cave softly illuminated by a radiance that seemed to play between rose pink and the rich vert of a prize tourmaline. The walls were of stone, but coral branches of a reddish hue shot from them, and the sea plants that grew in profusion seemed to have been artfully arranged within the grotto so as to divide its space into private little nooks. Then he saw the undine.
Her skin was quicksilver and her waist-length tresses the color of rich emeralds. The coral that graced the undersea cave was shamed by the brightness of the undine's full lips. As green as her hair were her long nails, but the sea nymph's perfect breasts were tipped with the hot color of coral to match her mouth. Gord stared in wonderment at the creature, and finally his gray eyes met the green and gold orbs of the undine. At that she smiled, and Gord saw her mouth was filled with pearly little teeth as sharp as those of a barracuda. This anomaly shocked him, and he tore his eyes from her.
The undine laughed, a sound most strange in this watery place; yet Gord heard it plainly, as well as her voice saying, "Welcome to my home, hero. Will you linger here with me a spell?"
"No!" The reply came not from Gord, for the young adventurer was ready to agree. Leoceanius suddenly appeared beside him, and Gord became aware that the whole pride of sea cats was there in the grotto. The place was deceptively large, or else enchanted in some fashion. "We all, this man included, request sanctuary, Kharistylla. We will have no need to linger beyond the prescribed period for such."
"Request? Prescribed? My, my, Leoceanius, how formal your demand," the undine replied with a hint of mockery in her sweet contralto. "Yet I have no quarrel with Udyll. Why should I heed you?"
"Your power weaves a net of concealment about us now, undine," the huge sea cat rumbled. "You have already helped us, as I suspected you would graciously do, and thus cast your lot. But if she discovers what you have done, you know the hag would deal with the likes of you no more gently than with me... or this human who is her current prey."
The undine smiled, again showing her sharp teeth. Gord didn't find them quite so disturbing this time. "Agreed, great sea cat. I grant you sanctuary. Still," she said with a lingering appraisal of Gord, "I see no reason not to... detain... this man you carried here beyond the time the rest of you decide to leave."
"He is a champion of Balance," the monstrous sea lion rumbled. "Not even you would dare to disturb that!"
Kharistylla undulated closer, rested her hands on Gord's hips, and lightly caressed the thimble-sized container she found fastened to the right side of his belt. She smiled to herself, took Gord's hand, and spread it so as to reveal his palm. He noticed that her fingers were webbed, connected by a nearly transparent membrane. After the undine had studied it for a bit, she released his hand and stared into the young adventurer's eyes. That made his head reel, and Gord uttered an involuntary gasp, slamming the door on his thoughts at the invasion he sensed.
"Quick — quick and strongly barred, Gord. But not so fast that I didn't see," the undine said with a small smile. "You are Indeed what the sea cat claims, yet you are not entirely informed or willing. Come, then. Balance has others to spend their lives on behalf of its cause. You and I are much alike, and we both give due homage to the middle way. Be my champion and dwell here in Kharistylla's domain for a time."
Her voice was sweet and laden with promise. Gord's own voice was filled with regret as he replied. "If that were my rede, gracious lady, I would gladly tarry here with you for as long as it pleased you. It has ever been my fate, though, to be driven by storm and tempest to some strand that is not of my own choosing. Soon I must leave this element, somehow, to return to the world of air and earth. The ones who call me cannot be denied, but when I am done perhaps we can..."
The undine flashed him her strange smile and pressed a pearl of pale green into his hand, the same hand whose palm she had studied so carefully. "I think not, Gord-Dark-Destiny. Although I cannot discern your past nor see your future, my feelings tell me that this will be our only meeting. But who can say? I am not the arbiter of things. I am one who, as you, meets what comes."
The danger passes," growled Leoceanius. "Sooner than I would have thought, but good for us. While the hag is distracted, we must make haste."
"All well and good," said Kharistylla. "Swim away if you feel you must, but leave the human safe with me and protect yourselves by doing so. The hag will certainly ignore you if you go alone."
"Yes." countered the sea lion. "But we cannot preserve the Balance by abandoning our charge."
"Trust me." the undine said sweetly but firmly. "When the peril is entirely past, the one we both cherish will be free to go. And he does have a means of leaving without your aid — this I know."
That statement puzzled Gord, but he was in no position to argue. Better, he thought, to take his chances with the undine's claim than to endure another underwater ride on the back of Leoceanius.
The sea lion seemed to take Kharistylla's words for granted. Instead of contending with her further, the creature swam to his fellows and softly growled some instructions. Then he came back to Gord. "Fare thee well, prince," the sea lion grumbled warmly.
"Nay, my friend," Gord responded. "I am no prince. It was you who made the royal gesture, else I and my comrades should have been in the deep darkness by now. Fortune be with you and yours. Leoceanius."
The sea lion let out a rumble in reply, dipped his head in salute to Kharistylla, and then was gone.
"Do not concern yourself, Gord-My-Guest." the undine said reassuringly. "They will miss the hag. And now we have a brief time of safekeeping, so let us make what we can of it!"
Gord could not pass beyond the confines of the undine's grotto. Her enchantments kept them secure within it and enabled him to breathe its salty waters as easily as the sea lions had done. Now, thanks to the pearl given to him by Kharistylla, he was able to move, see, and feel just as the undine did within the grotto. It was a far more magnificent place than Gord had perceived. Its enchanted spaces went on for great distances in all directions, with chambers and secret gardens that even natives of the sea could not discern. Water sprites and saltwyrds were there in numbers to serve their mistress, and all forms of poisonous sea creatures — snakes, fish, and worse — were always hovering at the fringes of the place to guard against intrusion; possibly to prevent unwanted egress as well. Gord didn't care; he wouldn't go where he was not allowed and had no intention of forcing his way out of the place, either.
"It is your inner force which draws me," the beautiful sea spirit said. "You have such strength within you, such a raw energy and purpose. I do not have that, you know. Otherwise, I too would be opposing the hag and all of her ilk."
"I will share my energy with you, Kharistylla," the young adventurer volunteered with sincerity. His ingenuousness made the undine laugh in her rich, sensuous voice.
"Don't look hurt, dear lad. I meant no injury but am touched by so fine an offer. If only it were that easy. You are one of many forces, I a being of but one elemental power. My own energy is very great — far greater than yours, Gord, in certain, limited ways. Yet beyond this small place which is mine I weaken and become far less. No infusion can change that, else no undine would I be. Enough of this! Come, now, and let us enjoy all of the wonder of this grotto."
A while later Gord asked Kharistylla of events above the waters of the sea that covered them. "The storm has passed," she told him, "and ancient and ugly old Udyll gnashes her broken fangs and drives her packs of sharks hither and thither seeking aught. The little ship which bears your friends lies leagues and leagues away, never fear. A southerly breeze has come to counter the foul blast from the north, and that good zephyr drives the vessel beyond the hag's reach and into the waters of that place near to where you call home."
"Woolly Bay?"
"Ah, yes. I see from the pictures in your mind that is what you call the waters I spoke of. Without your force aboard the ship, Udyll cannot see it. She is in a terrible fury because you are nowhere. Soon I think she will give up her hunt and go to her masters to tell them you have passed beyond the ken of material and elemental spheres."
"How do you know all this?"
"Hags are the greatest of the evil elemental powers, Gord-My-Sweet, but undines are the greatest of the rest — those of Balance, as it were. My powers and dweomers are much stronger than any sea hag's, in most ways, and always so within my own domain. I can sense all that happens here in this sea and a good bit of the events in adjoining waters as well. Poor, stupid Udyll could not even pierce the net of my concealment of you when she was within a league of that which she sought!"