Lonal, eyes riveted to Tebec, waited until the latter had restored the chain inside his garments. He hurried to check the status of his tribe.
All told, three of his Po-no-pha were dead, several more wounded, one mortally. The Buyul had left five on the field, and as many more had hung limply from their beasts as they fled. More dead than there should have been, had he not been taken unaware by Buyul guile. His mood was black as he rode over to the twins. Tebec was bandaging the wound near his sister's collarbone.
"Do you want to start a vendetta?" he asked sternly.
"Is this a war or not?" she demanded, equally sharp. "We could have quadrupled our effectiveness with arrows!"
"So could the Buyul. This istorovet. We must conduct ourselves with honor."
"They attacked us! How honorable is that?"
"If the Buyul had let us by unmolested, they would have had to concede that the pass belonged to the T'lil."
"I don't believe it. This whole fight happened just so you could all prove your manhood."
Lonal was so angry he could barely continue to use the High Speech. "I should have realized one such as you would not understand."
She started to retort.
"No," he said. "If you are without honor, you aren't free to judge us. Until you learn the laws of battle, keep out of it. Stay with the women."
He didn't permit her to respond. Tebec prevented her from following, pressing her down firmly in order to finish tending her wound. Lonal wanted the tribe mobile. They would make a forced march into the valley, deeper into T'lil territory, where they could lick their wounds and he endure his shame in peace.
XIII
THE BOTTOM OF THE FISHING BOATpassed over, three fathoms up, barnacles plainly visible on her hull through the crystal water. Lerina giggled, creating bubbles. She and Ethmurl were safely camouflaged among the coral and kelp of the ocean floor. If Lerina guessed correctly, the men in the boat were searching for her and/or the murderer of Luo of Eruth, never dreaming they were so close to their goal.
She was breathing normally, though she occasionally succumbed to the urge to reach up to her face and feel the membrane of the airmaker. It was strange to think that she could actually breathe more easily underwater than could a fish. Fish, after all, had to keep swimming at least slightly in order to keep water – and oxygen – flowing through their gills. She watched the bubbles of her exhalation race one another upward.
Ethmurl nudged her. The boat was out of sight. They set out, keeping just above the profuse life of the bottom, she a few strokes behind to his right. So much to see. Anemones, crustaceans, coral, fish, silt rich with flickers of color. She had caught glimpses of all of these on her many dives over the years but had never been able to float next to the thing she was looking at and examine it at her leisure. Air had always been the limitation, driving her inevitably back to the surface. Now, with the magic of the artificial lung, she was free.
But old habits died hard. She realized that she was holding her breath. She quickly exhaled. It caused her to sink a few inches, until her vest absorbed more air from the surrounding water and returned her to weightlessness. The vest, too, was a joy: no more energy wasted simply trying to maintain a specific depth. Moreover, at the surface she could keep her head above water without being forced to tread.
She tickled an anemone with a pebble and watched it close. A tiny squid rewarded her with a squirt of ink and an arrow-quick dash into a crevice. She delighted to watch crabs dragging their stolen shells across the sediment. She was getting used to everything seeming larger than it actually was.
And the noise! She had never realized how pervasive it was. In the kelp, the shrimp rattled their single claws endlessly, calling to her with their aquatic voices. Though it was difficult to determine which direction sounds came from, the variety never diminished.
All too soon it was time to stop.
She didn't want to, but neither did she want to tax Ethmurl. He was much better, but he still had a great deal of recuperating to do. No sense in endangering his progress by tiring him out swimming. Whatever advantages the healing spell had provided now seemed entirely gone; he mended like a normal man. In a way, that was reassuring.
As he had instructed her, they rose slowly, never exceeding the pace of the smallest of the bubbles they exhaled. She had never heard of the strange pain and death experienced when divers who used the airmaker surfaced too quickly, but she doubted Ethmurl would invent such a story. He had admitted they were not going to be deep enough to worry about it today; it was simply a good habit to maintain. Before very long they were topside.
"That was wonderful!" she exclaimed as soon as she had removed her mask.
Ethmurl was pensive. He scanned in the direction that the boat had gone. It was not in sight. He rechecked their beach. They had been careful to cover their signs, and the cave entrance was small, seeming to be only a shadow in the rock. Apparently the men in the boat had ignored the islet.
"Oh, you fret too much," she said.
He shrugged and helped her unbuckle the straps of her vest. "I don't think I can change at this age."
As she held her equipment, Lerina marvelled again at the workmanship. The headgear seemed so delicate, only a framework of goldlike metal across which stretched the transparent membranes, one for breathing, one for vision. The vests were more substantial, heavy out of the water, shaped so as to collect air in front of the chest and upper abdomen, with a hole for the head and a buckle behind the small of the back. Hers was blue; Ethmurl's was black.
"Should we give these back to thefaernak now?" Lerina asked.
"Yes," he replied. "No one knows how to make these anymore, except the straps, so it's best not to take chances." At the back of the headgear, two shark-hide straps could be adjusted to customize the fit.
While she held everything, he waded deeper and removed an engraved ring from his finger, lifted it to his mouth, and whistled through it. He had not waited long before a man-size tentacled shape brushed against his leg. Lerina handed him the airmakers and vests, which he gave to the creature. They watched it put everything into a pouch at the base of one of its many-suckered arms, after which it returned quickly to deeper waters.
"I still can't believe it found you," Lerina said, not nearly as startled as she had been when she had first glimpsed thefaernak earlier that day.
"It knows where the ring is, and never wanders far."
"Aren't you afraid it will damage the airmakers?"
He smiled. "They're far safer there than any place I can think of. The thing is well-trained, and long-lived, and I wouldn't care to try and forcibly take anything from afaernak under any circumstances. In fact, they were specifically bred for this function."
"Who bred them?"
"Alemar."
"Alemar Dragonslayer, the great wizard?"
He nodded. "The founder of Elandris. In order to build and maintain the cities beneath the sea, he made hundreds of thousands of airmakers. Or, to be truthful, his sister Miranda did. However, neither of them cared to share the secret of their manufacture, so it became vital to protect each one. They bred thefaernaks to caretake the devices whenever the owners had to make journeys away from Elandris. In our own dwellings, of course, we have special troughs to keep them secure. It's surprising how few have been lost over the centuries since the great wizard vanished."
"You mean no one has learned how to make them since?"
"Alemar and Miranda were the greatest sorcerers in history. There's a great deal they could do that no one else has been able to. Killing dragons, for example."
The sun had nearly dried them already. They sought refuge from its heat in the cave. Ethmurl lay down immediately. This had been the first day he had tried anything strenuous; it had clearly taken a great deal out of him. Lerina leaned back against the cave wall.