“You can’t go,” Charkky said. “Thakkur . . .”
“I am going. It’s time I went,” Teb said coldly. And then the two otters were hugging him, fishy breath, stiff whiskers tickling him, and they weakened his resolve so, he had to push them away. “I have to,” he said roughly. “I won’t forget you. Not ever.”
“But you can’t go,” Mikk said. “Thakkur told us . . .”
“I must. I am. I’ve had enough of Ekkthurian. I’m only causing trouble here. And . . .”
“And what?” said Mikk.
“And maybe Ekkthurian’s right. Maybe I do draw the hydrus.”
“That’s what we’re trying to tell you,” Charkky interrupted. “Thakkur says if you do draw it, then you must stay.”
Teb stared at him. “You’re not making sense.”
“Thakkur thinks that you—”
“That you would protect us best by staying,” said the white otter, coming unseen from behind them. He gave Teb a level, loving look. But the kind of look that made Teb be still.
“If you do indeed draw the hydrus, Tebriel, then you must stay here with us. If you would help Nightpool at all, you will stay and draw the hydrus here.”
Teb stared at Thakkur.
“The hydrus is of the dark, Tebriel. It will help to lay waste to all the coastal waters. Nightpool cannot stop Quazelzeg, but we might stop the hydrus. If it is drawn here, if it comes to seek us out . . .”
“To seek me out.”
“Yes, to seek you out. You would be putting yourself in danger. But if you could lure it here, and we could kill it, you would not only help Nightpool, but you would also weaken the dark.”
Teb looked for a long time at Thakkur. He thought about it; and he knew the white otter was right.
He shouldered his pack at last and picked up his fins and started back up the cliff toward the caves. Thakkur climbed beside him, and Charkky and Mikk, and all the otters followed.
Then at the crest he turned away from them, with a quiet word to Thakkur, and went to his cave alone.
He put away his possessions and stood looking out at the waves. Their white foam shone bright in the moonlight. He was very tired suddenly. He pulled off his tunic and lay down beneath Mitta’s soft, warm blanket, clutching Camery’s diary to him. Was he doing the right thing? Or should he be searching for Camery and leading the hydrus away from Nightpool?
He woke in the morning still clutching the little book and, hardly thinking, he opened it and began to flip through the pages. He found his name over and over, even in the last hasty messages. It did not appear, though, on the pages where the lines were shorter so they didn’t fill the page. There was a rhythm to the length of these lines, and he began to study them.
He had printed out the words he had memorized in the great cave, “fox,” “otter,” “cape wolf,” “owl,” and “great cat,” onto the back of Garit’s message, with a sharp bit of charcoal. He looked at the words now. Yes, they were repeated several times in one of the short, rhythmic entries. It looked like—like his mother’s Song of the Creatures. . . . He began to say the words, counting them off with his finger.
Yes, the names of the animals fell in the right places, all of them. He knew the song! He knew the words to this writing! Here was the key, to unlock the sounds and meanings of the strings of letters.
He sat down on his sleeping ledge, pulled the blanket around his legs, and began to study the song. Word for word he spoke it, studying the letters, seeing the sounds they made. Word for word he repeated the sounds, memorizing the shapes of the letters that made them. His stomach rumbled with hunger. Morning turned to noon, and the afternoon light settled to a golden depth before he stirred himself. He read the Song of the Creatures, and then, filled with excitement, and with fear that it might not work after all, he turned to another of the short, rhythmic entries. And he found he could read that, too, the Song of the Sacking of Perlayne. And he read another, and another. He was reading! The forms of all the letters made sounds for him now. He reread every song. He knew them all, of course, and the sense of power it gave him to be recognizing their words, written down, was wonderful. And then at last, afraid to try but knowing he must, knowing he could, he began to read the words he did not know by heart. He started to read the other entries in Camery’s diary, beginning with the last, urgent passages. His efforts were slow and halting, as he sounded out the words, but the messages were clear.
*
Sivich came to the tower this morning to look me over, the way a horse trader looks at a colt. I don’t like it. If he takes me from this place, I will leave the diary for you, Teb. It’s all we have left of being together, and maybe you will find it.
*
The palace has been silent all day. They rode out for the coast at dawn, heavily armed. I am feeling very lonely. If I had a weapon I would go down among the jackals and try to get out. And die there if I failed, and maybe be happier. What is the good of staying in this tower and growing old and dying here and never living at all?
*
I feel better today. If he takes me out of here, no matter what he does to me, it will be better than the tower.
*
Something is happening in the courtyard. It is night, the servants are asleep. I can hardly see to write. There is some kind of movement down there, but the jackals are not growling.
*
And then the last lines, hastily written:
*
Someone has opened the door at the base of the tower, someone is coming up. I love you, Teb.
It’s all right, Teb. I’m going away, but I won’t write any name. I love you.
*
He sat for a long time, staring out at the brightening sea. Otters appeared, cascading off the cliff down by Thakkur’s, but he did not join them.
Surely it was Garit who had taken her away. If it had been Sivich, she wouldn’t have had time to write those last words after he appeared at the top of the stair. Besides, that entry had been written in the tower, and the owl had found the diary in the brewer’s house at Bleven.
She had carried it with her. But she hadn’t written in it anymore.
He put the little book on the shelf, and took down Garit’s crumpled note. And now he read it easily:
Do you give Tebriel into the care of the Graven Light and make him safe and teach him until the lion gathers its brood and the dove comes from the cage like an eagle. And until the dragon screams.
He sat thinking about the message. Surely Garit was the lion; it was an old family joke that he could be as fierce and as kind as the great speaking cats of the north, and his beard was as red as theirs. And the lion’s brood would be the army Garit had promised Teb, to win back Auric. And surely the dove was Camery. Had she come from her cage like an eagle? To fight beside Garit, perhaps?
“And until the dragon screams,” Teb thought. Those words gave him goose bumps, and he sat frowning and puzzled, almost grasping something, feeling a rising elation and a power within himself that was heady and frightening. And impossible. Until the dragon screams . . . Until the dragon sings, he thought. Until I sing. . . . He felt the strength within himself and did not know what to make of it.
Across the sea the bright gold sky was drowning in a heavy layer of mountainous cloud, and the sea had turned leaden and looked cold. The crowd of otters swimming out there didn’t seem to mind; they floated on their backs laughing and eating sea urchins.
Would the hydrus return to Nightpool? Was it looking for him?
Why?
What might it want with him? Did it have to do with this power he felt? With the impossible wonder he felt? The dark wanted him. . . . Because he touched a power he could not understand?