Twenty-Four

There was precious little room in the space behind Pserry’s head, which Stenwold considered was no real surprise. The space there smelt strongly of Gribbern, who must presumably spend much of his life living there. For now, Sten-wold’s reluctant rescuer was mumbling away to himself, hunched over inside his coat, while Stenwold was sitting almost back to back with him, staring at the wall and feeling the gentle rocking motion as Pserry the woodlouse, or whatever it was, clattered over the seabed.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked. Being deprived of any visual clue was maddening.

‘Don’t reckon that fellow rightly told me where I should be headed,’ Gribbern broke off his mutterings to answer. ‘Still, don’t see as how I much want to get collared by the Edmir’s people, for all we Pelagists are s’posed to be above all that. Or Profundists, as—’

‘Technically you’re a Profundist, yes,’ Stenwold finished for him. ‘Please, Master Gribbern, just tell me something of what’s going on.’

‘Master Gribbern,’ the sea-kinden echoed, as if tasting the title. ‘Sounds impressive. If I ever meet a Master Gribbern, I’ll give him your regards. This just-plain-Gribbern says that we’re into the weed now, where their darts won’t easily follow, and won’t follow fast even if they do. We can make good time down here on the bottom, and I always say that steady’s the best way.’

‘And after that?’ Stenwold prompted. ‘You have a plan?’

‘Don’t reckon it’s up to me to be coming up with plans. Reckon that Heiracles fellow, he’ll go speak to Nemoctes or someone else, depending on who’s closest, and the word will get passed on.’

‘You could always take me to the land’s edge,’ Stenwold suggested. ‘Since I’m obviously an inconvenience to you, what’s there to lose?’

Gribbern harrumphed. ‘Besides from the fact that I don’t reckon it’s a good idea, on account of how a lot of people might get annoyed at me, Nemoctes included, Pserry couldn’t manage it. There’s the land-wall in the way: too steep to climb, and there’s no way we’re swimming it. Besides, I rightly hear that going close to the land is just inviting death. No sense in taking chances, say I.’

‘Landwall?’ Stenwold asked, baffled.

‘Surely.’ Gribbern twisted round against his back, so as to peer at him. ‘You know all this, rightly? I’m sure it pleases land-kinden to play all kinds of games with us regular folk.’

‘I know nothing,’ Stenwold said, with patience. ‘Please educate me.’

‘Well landwards of here there’s a great wall where the seabed just rises on up and up. Now Pserry can’t make it, can’t swim so well, but I hear some can swim so close to the surface that they get over it, while some of the Onychoi can go climbing it. Takes many days, they tell me. But up there the water’s shallow, shallower and shallower and not healthy to be in, and then comes the land. Dreadful place, so I’m told, nothing but the emptiness above, and it’s cold and dry and hot and dry all the time, they say.’

Laszlo told me . . . he said, ‘the Shelf,’ Stenwold recalled abruptly. We were anchored at the edge of the shelf, where the water got deeper. A picture arose in his mind of the Barrier Ridge, the great cliffs that served as the border between the Lowlands and the Commonweal. Perhaps this land-wall, this Shelf, was another such, but wholly under the sea, forming an instinctive border to the sea-kinden world.

Only they can swim over it . . . but then we can fly over the Barrier Ridge, but few enough do it, because the Commonweal’s strange and unwelcoming and there’s nothing we want there.

‘Then . . . how tall’s this weed?’ he asked, trying to assess it.

‘All the way to the top, or so they say,’ came the vague reply, and then Gribbern was mumbling again, holding some curious little conversation with himself. Stenwold began to wonder whether it was Pserry that he was confiding in.

Let’s hope Laszlo got clear as well – and Paladrya. He wondered what would happen to Paladrya now. He had wanted to reassure himself that her life could only get better now that she was out of from Claeon’s clutches, but he did not trust Heiracles one inch. The man was too much like the Spider Aristos he resembled, and Stenwold had no doubt that if it became convenient to denounce Paladrya as regicide and traitress then Heiracles would do so without compunction. The thought upset him, for the Krakind woman had a rare strength in her, to have endured so much in Claeon’s dungeons.

‘Master land-kinden,’ Gribbern said abruptly. ‘You know anything about Littoralists?’

‘Only what you people have told me,’ Stenwold said, reflecting, And that’s little enough. ‘They’ve got a grudge against the land, it seems, want to go back there and wipe my people out, that kind of thing. Don’t tell me you believe that business, how we forced your ancestors into the sea?’

‘Don’t rightly know and don’t see that it matters these days, anyway,’ Gribbern replied. ‘Way I see it, we got ourselves the best of the bargain. Still, I hear them Littoralists got loud voices in Hermatyre these days.’

Stenwold grunted. Why am I answering these questions about their own world?

There was a little more murmuring and then, ‘They got people in your places, the Littoralists?’ Gribbern pressed.

‘How would . . .’ Stenwold frowned. ‘Yes, I’d say they must have. It wasn’t chance that saw me snatched down here. Someone tricked us into going by boat, and someone was ready for us when we did.’

Gribbern made a mournful sound, whispering to himself again, and Stenwold was unable to stave off the impression that the other man was relaying everything he said. To his animal? Surely not. He tilted his head back, trying to pick out individual words.

‘It sounds as though Claeon is well established there,’ he heard, but the voice was faint and hollow, a deep-voiced man speaking from a great distance. It was not Gribbern.

Stenwold felt his stomach twist, abruptly feeling the cramped space behind him contained more than merely Gribbern’s hunched form. ‘Who said that?’ he demanded. ‘Who’s there with you?’

‘Don’t see anyone here with me but you,’ Gribbern answered, maddeningly slowly. ‘But I was talking to Nemoctes.’

‘Who . . . how?’

‘Just Art, land-kinden,’ Gribbern told him, as though enlightening Stenwold was a personal tragedy. ‘Only Art. We spend so much of our lives alone, we Pelagists – or we Profundists, as I say. We spend our time so many leagues from one another, and you can go years in the deep places, in the far reaches of the sea, and never see a beast or barque that another human being lives in. We sit well with solitude, we do, but still we cannot pretend that we do not miss the voices of our fellows. We have an Art, is all, all of us drifting kinden. We speak to one another from time to time.’

‘How far?’ Stenwold asked him. Is there anything like this amongst the kinden I know? But he knew there was not. This was not the Mindlink of the Ants: the distances were too great, and Stenwold had actually heard Nemoctes’s voice. The sea-kinden had another impossible trick up their sleeves.

‘Oh, it varies,’ Gribbern said placidly. ‘Perhaps you should talk to Nemoctes yourself. It might be of some use. I’ll pass on what you say to him. Nemoctes, I’m letting you talk to him now.’

The faraway voice came, from some indefinable point before Gribbern. ‘Land-kinden, do you hear me?’

‘My name is Stenwold Maker.’

‘He says his name’s Stenwold Maker,’ Gribbern murmured. ‘Sounds a strange kind of name to me. Over-fancy, I’d say. Still, what do I know?’

‘I am Nemoctes, Stenwold Maker,’ spoke the voice. Even tiny and echoing, it gave Stenwold the impression of a confident and powerful man.

‘You’re the leader of these Pelagists?’ Stenwold asked, Gribbern’s low voice shadowing his words.

‘There is no such thing,’ said the absent Nemoctes, sounding amused, ‘but enough of them will listen to me. I represent some of us who have come to dislike Hermatyre under its current rulership.’

‘Nemoctes,’ Stenwold said, with as much patience as he could muster, ‘I appreciate there’s all kinds of politics going on down here, but it’s nothing to do with me, and it’s nothing to do with my people. All I want to do is go home.’

There was a pause as Gribbern relayed that message faithfully, and then a longer one, while Stenwold had nothing to do but stare at the confining walls of Gribbern’s cramped home. At last Nemoctes replied. ‘I understand that,’ he said. ‘If it were as simple as you say, then I would take you to the shore myself, but what you say is not true. You yourself have confirmed it. Claeon has an interest in your world. The Littoralists are already spying there, and no doubt they have gathered allies. Whether it is war against you, or a plot to bring your people here to serve him, Claeon intends no good, and you are part of his plans. I regret, I deeply regret, but I cannot just let you return.’

‘If something is going on up above,’ Stenwold insisted, ‘then the best way to deal with it is to let me go up there and sort it out. I don’t want sea-kinden agents amongst my people, any more than you do, and nothing that Claeon might be planning is going to mean any good for us. Let me help you by acting where you cannot.’

‘That seems logical,’ Nemoctes said, but his tone gave Stenwold no hope. ‘It may well be what is eventually agreed. However, we must have a genuine conclave first, we Pelagists and Heiracles’s people, I hear rumours that the heir may yet be alive. We must let the water clear before we can see what is the best course.’

‘Right,’ Stenwold said. Abruptly the sense of confinement, the feel of Gribbern’s back pressing against his, the dim light, the stale air, it was all too much for him. He felt like weeping in frustration.

‘I give you my word that you will be allowed your say, and I will not have you used merely for Heiracles’s political ends. We will do with you what is best for our people, but also what is best for yours if this is possible.’

Stenwold found that he believed the distant voice, but it gave him no joy. One man’s oath was such a little thing in the wide sea.

‘Nemoctes,’ Gribbern said, then.

‘Speak.’

‘Reckon I have to break in here. We’re not alone.’

There was a moment as Stenwold and the far-off Nemoctes considered these same words.

‘We are followed,’ Gribbern explained, and there was the faintest tremor in his voice.

‘Who’s there?’ Nemoctes demanded, with Stenwold joining in, ‘Followed how? By who?’

‘Pserry says it’s Onychoi,’ Gribbern reported. ‘Not so far behind and tracking us through the weed.’

‘Speed?’ Nemoctes pressed.

‘Oh, reckon it’s close to ours,’ Gribbern said miserably. ‘Three, maybe four of them.’

‘Head deep and keep moving,’ ordered the tiny, Art-born voice. ‘I am coming for you now. I am not so far away.’

‘Don’t think I’m so worried about them,’ Gribbern muttered. ‘Pserry reckons they’ve been behind us since we set off, and getting no closer nor further, and we can run for longer than they can, but Pserry says there’s something else now, something moving in the weed above us, keeping pace.’ His voice jumped in pitch, just for a moment.

‘Stay calm, Gribbern,’ Nemoctes told him. ‘I am closing. I will be with you.’ There was a quality to those remote tones, though, that cut through the confidence he was trying to instil. Neither Stenwold nor Gribbern remarked on it, but they were both thinking the same thing: He is not so close. He is too far. Stenwold had no idea, in truth, what distance separated them from the invisible Nemoctes, but Nemoctes obviously knew, and his own voice betrayed him.

‘Don’t reckon anyone else is out there, then?’ Gribbern said. There was a faint tremble against Stenwold’s back, something being held in. ‘Who hears me?’

A new voice picked up immediately, sounding like an old woman’s: ‘I hear you, old Gribbern. I’m on my way.’

‘I’m close by Hermatyre,’ said another voice, overlapping, young and harsh this time. ‘Can you turn for me?’

‘Don’t think I can, at that,’ said Gribbern gloomily. ‘Onychoi’ll have me if I do anything but head straight.’

‘I am near,’ said a new voice, and the sound of it raised the hairs on Stenwold’s neck: a woman’s voice but strange and ethereal, as though it had been made solely to be heard disembodied and ghostly. ‘I am coming.’

‘Only . . .’ Gribbern choked on the word, and then continued gamely, ‘Only Pserry’s telling me there’s something real big over us, and I’ve got a nasty feeling . . .’

‘I’m on my way, so just keep moving,’ Nemoctes insisted. Other voices added their encouragement, but Stenwold could feel Gribbern shaking.

‘Nemoctes,’ the sea-kinden whispered. ‘Pserry’s scared.’

‘I’m close now,’ Nemoctes said, but there was a haggard edge to his words.

‘Gribbern, be strong,’ said the strange woman’s voice.

Stenwold could clearly hear Gribbern’s breathing growing quicker and more ragged as though the exertions of his beast were transmitting themselves to him. Pserry was definitely moving faster now, the gentle rocking motion becoming a bouncing jolt as the creature scuttled between the weed stalks.

‘Land-kinden,’ Gribbern said, sounding immensely calm, ‘reckon you’d better take that caul up.’

‘What good will that do?’ Stenwold asked. Caught up in the other man’s fear, he had not been thinking of himself. Now the appalling weight of water returned to mind, the drowning crush of it. How long would the caul give him? Five minutes? Less? ‘Gribbern, I cannot survive out there.’

‘Take it up, is my advice. Maybe Nemoctes . . . in time, maybe . . .’ Abruptly he lurched forwards, as though stabbed. ‘Nemoctes!’ he hissed. ‘They sent Arkeuthys!’

Stenwold felt the same blade of horror in his own gut. It was the sea monster, the great sea monster whose horrifying eye had observed him on the deck of the barge, whose many arms had plucked him down into this cursed world. Arkeuthys, the name that inspired terror even in its own allies.

‘Gribbern, listen to me,’ Nemoctes was saying, though in truth neither of them was listening to him. ‘Keep straight, let the weed protect you. Even Arkeuthys . . . Gribbern, hold out! Just hold out!’

A moment later Stenwold was slung sideways as Pserry turned without warning, the entire bulk of the creature slewing sideways and then taking off again, even faster than before. ‘What is it? What happened?’ Stenwold shouted, but Gribbern had no words for him. With equal suddenness Pserry turned again, practically bounding over the uneven seabed, jostling and bouncing its two passengers.

Gribbern cried out.

Stenwold slammed backwards into him, their little boxlike world abruptly jolted forwards so that for a moment the wall Stenwold was facing had become the ceiling, and Pserry’s tail must have been pointing straight up. Then they landed in a great clatter, and began scrabbling desperately away again. For a moment Stenwold thought they had pitched down a crevasse, but then his heart went cold.

It almost had us then, he realized. The monster was right above them.

‘Not going to let you down,’ Gribbern said, though whether it was spoken to Stenwold or Pserry or the absent Nemoctes was unclear. The woman’s voice was still saying something, but Stenwold could not catch it. Gribbern turned to him, twisting round awkwardly, his shoulder clipping Stenwold’s chin. ‘Put the caul on!’ he insisted. ‘Put it on!’

He had meanwhile taken up something, some kind of weapon, from the clutter lying around them, some kind of beaked mace.

Stenwold dragged the caul over his face as Pserry lurched over some obstable. Stenwold could almost hear the frantic skitter of legs.

A moment later the chamber was full of water, of the sea rushing in. It hammered Stenwold onto the floor, but Gribbern was manhandling him, shoving him towards the abruptly opened hatch. Stenwold went through in a tangle of limbs, flailing wildly into the open water, almost dragging the caul from his head in an instinctive terror of drowning. He had expected pitch-dark, but there were lights here, gleaming globes the size of a man which were tethered throughout the weed, illuminating its tangled, claustrophobic snarl of waving green.

Stenwold touched the seafloor, kicked off without meaning to, his arms waving helplessly. He saw Gribbern, the mace like an anchor drawing him down to the mud, his coat spilling out around him.

He saw Pserry: the valiant beast was still scurrying, its bluntly curved head shoving onwards through the weeds, but there was a greater shadow around it, a multitude of arms folding the weed out of the way. Vast and formless, it hung impossibly over the fleeing creature, and Stenwold had to remind himself that Pserry was the size of a big hauling automotive, and so Arkeuthys was . . .

The seething coils of the enormous sea monster struck, all together, ripping Pserry from the seabed, turning the wretched beast half upside-down. Stenwold caught a blurred glimpse of that great slit-pupilled yellow eye, and a scything beak like a giant’s shears. He felt the crack as those jaws hit home, crushing down on Pserry’s side, grinding through the thrashing creature’s shell. Again and again Arkeuthys’s severing beak descended, with Pserry’s limbs flailing futilely, until the water all about the monster was strewn with pieces of cracked armour and broken legs.

Gribbern gave Stenwold a shove, bowling him along through the weed. There was no word for the expression on the sea-kinden’s face, but his free hand was making some signal, some piece of sign language whose meaning was clear. Go!

Go where? The interior of the caul was already feeling dangerously close. Then Gribbern’s next shove turned Stenwold around, and he saw the problem. Arkeuthys had not come alone, of course.

The Onychoi were picking their way between the weed stalks: massively armoured men, as broad as they were tall, perched on high-stepping, sidestepping crabs that would have measured a quarter of Pserry’s size. Gribbern pushed Stenwold again, and then turned, the beak-headed mace raised in his fists. Stenwold was fumbling for a weapon, a knife, anything, but unlike Laszlo he had not re-armed himself since their capture. He had nothing but his bare hands.

One of the Onychoi jumped down from his high seat and fell slowly to stand before Gribbern. He had a sword of sorts, a heavy, streamlined thing with a forward-curving, pick-like point. Despite his almost graceful descent, he stumbled slightly as his feet touched the bottom, and Gribbern did not let him recover, swinging the mace in a ponderous arc so that the beaked point, with all that weight behind it, chipped into the Onychoi’s shoulderguard. The impact barely rocked the inhumanly broad figure, and then his sword was sweeping down in a cleaving stroke, all appearing so gradual that it was as though they had choreographed it beforehand. Gribbern, using some Art to gain solid purchase on the seafloor, managed to twist out of the weapon’s path, and then his lazy backswing caught the Onychoi’s helm, lashing it sideways.

The pincer caught Gribbern’s free arm without warning, moving more swiftly and deftly than either of the men. The Onychoi’s mount had taken a delicate step in and plucked its master’s opponent neatly out of the duel. A moment later the second claw caught Gribbern about the waist and closed hard enough that the water instantly filled with a ballooning cloud of blood.

Stenwold screamed in grief and horror and tried to flee, struggling and kicking at the water and the mud. He saw the Onychoi begin to move towards him, each stride resembling a leisurely leap. The sickly light of the lamps was becoming much brighter, showing him far more than he wanted to see. The crab was busy feeding, a dozen mouthparts working industriously, shredding the remains of a tattered grey coat. The Onychoi took another step and paused, sword cocked back. Everything was light. Even the weed was glowing.

But it was not the weed. A draping curtain swept over Stenwold, a veil of tendrils that gleamed with their own pale luminescence. Some were so slender he could barely see them, others were coiled into drifting helixes or ornamented with lacy frills. His breath was growing laboured now. The caul had done almost all it could for him.

The Onychoi was retreating now, fumbling backwards towards his mount. Stenwold took no joy in it for, above the crab-riders, the louring cloud that was Arkeuthys boiled forward in a flurry of tentacles.

It touched the first outpost of that shimmering wall and instantly recoiled as though slapped, the great, fluid bulk of the monster flailing and contracting into itself. The one great eye that was turned towards them flared in almost-human rage and pain.

Stenwold, growing faint, fell back, let himself drift, and looked upwards.

The moon, he thought, as the world fell away from him. The moon has come to save me . . .