At last, filthy and exhausted, the girl came to a long, dark mere, where the water was deep and obscure and barred her way on either hand. She stared at the water for a while and wondered if Athlone would laugh if he saw her like this: more mud than sense. It would hardly matter if he did, Gabria decided. She was too tired to care or to swim the mere. Weary and numb, she crawled onto a dry-looking tussock and curled up in the middle of the grass. Her food was ruined, so she drank a few swallows of water, laid her head on the bag, and tried to rest.
Darkness came and with it the noises of the marsh increased to an uproar. Frogs croaked everywhere. Mosquitoes hummed. Thousands of creatures that sounded like rusted crickets squeaked incessantly until Gabria was in a frenzy. The biting Insects were out in force, too, and they covered every pan of her exposed skin. She swatted and squirmed, but nothing would keep them away. She was cold, wet, miserable, and very lonely.
At last she decided she would have to move or go mad. But Just as she was about to sit up. Gabria heard a distant noise in the mere. She froze and held her breath.
The noise came again—a soft splash like a creature paddling in the water—or a snake hunting. She had heard of the huge carnivorous snakes that inhabited the marshes, and although they rarely reached sizes capable of devouring a human, she had no desire to meet one. Silently, Gabria’s hand crept to her dagger. The moon, an old shaving, had not yet risen and the night seemed utterly lightless. Her eyes strained through the black to see, her ears listened fearfully.
Suddenly a small, lithe animal popped out of the water by her feet. Gabria leaped back like a stung cat and whipped out her dagger. The animal churned and bobbed its head. She stared at it in amazement. It was shaped rather like a short, fat snake with a blunt nose and tapering tail. However, it also had four webbed feet and a whiskered nose. Its round eyes glittered in the starlight. It chirped again in obvious inquiry, and Gabria eased her dagger back into her belt. It was only an otter.
“Hello,” she said tentatively.
The otter chittered.
Gabria suddenly felt foolish. It was bad enough to be startled out of her wits by a small, harmless animal, but to talk to it in the middle of the night? She squatted down and shook her head. The marsh was wearing her to rags.
All at once, the otter snapped alert and, before Gabria could blink, it dove into the water and vanished.
Gabria sighed. She leaned back and stared at the Stars beyond the walls of grass. The Khulinin would be watching those same stars, and she wondered if they saw them from the walls of Ab-Chakan. She had only been gone three nights and it seemed like years stretched between her and the clan. They were far beyond her reach and time was slipping fast.
A splash interrupted Gabria’s thoughts and, to her surprise, the otter bounded back onto her island. It was holding something in its mouth, and it contentedly crunched through its meal before it washed its face and paws and chirped again at Gabria.
“I’m hungry, too,” she muttered.
The otter glided to her side, tugged at her pants, and bounced to the edge of the grass. Gabria watched with growing curiosity. It called demandingly and came back to pull at her. Hesitant, she stood up.
The otter ran to the edge of the grass tussock.
A suspicion grew in Gabria’s mind; she stepped forward. The otter squeaked happily and moved on. Gabria’s suspicion changed to a certainty, and she bent over and followed the animal into the thick growth. It was difficult to see the dark furred animal, for it seemed to blend into every shadow and shade. The going was exceedingly slow for Gabria, but the otter moved unhurriedly, keeping dose in front of her as it chose its way unerringly through the treacherous paths of the marsh.
For hours, Gabria stumbled after the creature, through reeds and fens, around meres and beds of marsh grass, until she was bone weary and sick to death of the smell of stagnant water.
Still, the otter led her on, even when she was floundering in waist-deep water or struggling through grasping mud that sucked at her legs. Occasionally the animal turned around and chirped at her encouragingly before it plunged deeper into the marshes, along paths only it could see.
After a while, the water imperceptibly changed from black to dark pewter to pale gray, and the shapeless masses of night silently regained their form and hue. Gabria blearily glanced toward the east and saw the red rim of the sun ignite as it touched the edge of the sky. The otter saw it, too, and chittered at Gabria.
The girl staggered to a stop. Panting and exhausted, she held up her hand. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to rest. I . . .”
Before she could say more, the otter bobbed its head, whisked into the reeds, and disappeared.
“No, wait!” Gabria yelled frantically. But the otter was gone and she was too tired to follow. She sank down on the driest patch of reed and mud she could find and put her head in her hands. She could only hope that the otter would come back. Gabria was not certain the animal was leading her to the marsh woman, but it had a definite purpose, and it was the only guide she had in this dangerous place. .
Fortunately, she did not have long to wait. The sun was barely up above the horizon when the otter returned. The animal was swimming down a narrow channel, tugging at a rope floating in the water. Gabria staggered over to help. She pulled the rope and a small, slim boat floated out of the tall grass. The craft was light, flat-bottomed, and the color of a faded reed. The otter climbed into the boat and chattered at Gabria.
“Are you serious?” she asked, horrified. Plowing through, the mud was bad enough, but she had never been in a boat and didn’t want to try one now.
The otter squealed and patted a long pole lying on the bottom of the craft. Gabria looked aghast, but she climbed gingerly into the boat and sat down. A slow current pulled the craft into deeper water. After a short time, when the boat didn’t show signs of immediately tipping her into the water, Gabria relaxed a little. She stood up very carefully, grasped the pole, and pushed it into the water. The pole hit the muddy bottom of the channel and the boat moved forward. Gabria grinned at the otter and pushed the pole in again. Very slowly, they moved down the channel.
“Where to now, little one?” Gabria asked the otter.
As if in response, the animal dove off the gunnel into the water. Its small brown head bobbed up in front of the boat. Gabria followed in the otter’s wake.
The sun was well up by that time, and the marshes glowed green and gold in the morning light. The day grew hot. Gabria was tired and her head was heavy with sleep, but she could not relax. Her stomach was twisted into knots of tension and her thoughts kept returning to the look on Athlone’s face when she had asked about the Woman of the Marsh. His reaction was born of an ingrained fear of magic-wielders, but Gabria wondered what he would think of her when he knew the full truth of her powers. She stared at the water. She wondered too, what her family would have thought if they had known of her heretical talent. Would they have understood that her obsession for vengeance was leading’ her to a sorceress to learn the ways of magic?
Gabria felt the tears in her eyes and forced them back.
Gabran would have understood. Her brother had loved her unconditionally, and she knew that he would have supported her decision to seek the Woman of the Marsh. Piers and Cantrell supported her, too. She realized now that the bard had sent her to this woman to learn to use her natural talent, not to subdue it. And Gabria finally decided that it was the right choice. Whatever the consequences, she wanted to learn every strength and weakness of sorcery, to find a way to destroy Medb.
The otter chittered.