“That scarf—the one you use to sling the sword—hold one end; give me the other. Now get down into the water.” I did as she bade, feeling the sharp twitch as she gripped Kaththea’s scarf, lowering myself gingerly into the water which I hoped was not deep enough to close over my head. But it was only waist-high. Once more immersed, Orsya’s shell lamp came to life.
She headed for the archway. I discovered that this water had a current, and we were walking against that force. After a few moments I was aware of something else; the shell lamp was radiating a dimmer illumination and I feared that it was actually dying away. At my questioning Orsya confirmed that alarming fact. The quasfi shells did not hold their natural illumination for long after they were emptied of their indwellers. Soon the light would be completely exhausted.
“Do you know this way?” I asked, for reassurance.
She held the cone-rod tight against her breast with the scarf end, while with her free hand she scooped up a little of the water and touched her tongue tip to it. “No; but this is water which has run in the open air, under sun, and not too long ago. It will lead us out.”
With that I had to be content.
The increasing dark was hard for me to take. Never have I favored underground ways, having to fight a feeling that around me walls were moving in to crush. Perhaps because we walked in water Orsya did not appear to be affected in the same way and I hid my feelings from her.
There was an urgent jerk on the scarf. I stopped, listened. She did not try to reach me by mind touch, rather did her hand slide down the scarf to close upon mine, and I did not need the cramping of her fingers to know this was a warning.
My senses in this deep hole might not be as acute as hers, but now I could hear it too; a splashing ahead. The last glimmer of our shell lamp was quenched and we were in the dark. I swung out my sword in a short arc ahead and to the right. Its point scraped wall and with that as my guide, I drew to it, bringing my companion with me, feeling somehow the safer with a solid surface to my side. In spite of my wishes to deny it, that splashing sounded nearer. What kind of monsters patrolled these darksome ways?
For the first time Orsya spoke. She was very close to me, so that her breath was against my cheek as she whispered:
“This is none of my knowing. I cannot reach it with a hail call. I do not know if it is of the water world at all.”
“Thas?”
“No! Thas I know,” There was loathing in that. We listened. To retreat before it was still possible, but we might reach the cavern of the tomb, only to find Thas waiting for us. In that moment I longed for Kyllan’s gift, for it was in him to touch and act upon the minds of beasts, bringing them under his will. He could have turned that splasher, sent it off from us—always supposing it was an animal and not some unknown abomination loosed by the Shadow in this place.
Suddenly Orsya’s grip tightened. Though we now stood in utter dark, yet ahead were lights—two grayish disks just above water level. From them came a little diffused glimmering. Those disks were set in a line—Eyes! But eyes which glowed, which were equal in size to the palm of my hand: eyes far enough apart to suggest a head of proportions beyond any beast I had ever seen!
I pushed Orsya against the wall behind me. The sword was in my maimed hand; now I tried to transfer it to my left. But found, to my dismay, that I could not clasp it as well, that even with my stiff fingers it was better in my right hand.
The eyes, which had been close to the surface of the water, now suddenly jerked aloft to a level above my own head. We heard a sibilant hissing as the thing came to a full stop. I had no doubt that it had sighted us, though the beams of light those eyes cast ahead did not reach to where we now stood.
Since the only target I had were those gray disks, those must be my point of attack. The hissing grew stronger. A fetid puff of air struck me full face, as if the creature had exhaled. I brought up the sword and, though I have used a blade since childhood, it seemed to me that never had I held one before which felt like an extension of my own body.
The eyes swung downward, and now, though still at water level, they were much closer. Again a puff of stinking breath.
“Kemoc!” Orsya’s mind thrust was harsh. “The eyes—do not look into them—Ahh! Keep me . . . keep me with you . . .”
I felt her move stiffly, trying to break the pressure of my body, to slip from between me and the wall.
“It wills me to it! Keep me—” Now she cried aloud as if terror had filled her.
I dared not wait any longer. With a push from my shoulder I sent her stumbling back and heard a splash as she must have fallen into the water. But whatever compulsion those eyes exerted on her, they did not hold for me.
One could not rush nor leap through the current of this stream. It was rather like wading through slipping sand and I dared not lose my footing. Those eyes, at the level of my own waist . . . if the thing had a skull shaped in proportion to their size, its jaws must now be submerged. “Sytry!”
That was no word of mine, but it had come out of me in a cry like unto a war shout. Then it was as if I were no longer Kemoc Tregarth, but another, one who knew such fighting and was not dismayed by either the dark or the nature of the unseen enemy. In my mind I seemed to stand aside and watch with a kind of awe the action of my body. Just as my maimed hand was put to use it had not known since that wound years ago, so did I thrust and spring in waves in which I had never been trained.
The golden sword went home in one of those gray disks. A bulk arose high, with a terrible scream to tear through one’s head. But my hand held to hilt, and, though I was hurled away with a punishing stroke from what must be a great paw, yet I kept my weapon and struggled up to my feet again, back to the wall, facing straightly that bobbing single disk.
It struck at me and I flung out my arm, the sword straight-pointed, in what I deemed a very short chance at any victory. My blade struck something hard, skidded down, to slash open that other disk. Then I was crushed back against the rock wall as a vast, scaled weight fell upon me. Had I been pinned below the surface of the stream I would have died, for that blow had enough force to drive both wits and breath out of me. When I struggled back to full consciousness I felt a weight across me waist-high, but it did not move.
Cautiously I used my left hand to explore: Scaled skin, and under that the general shape of a limb, now inert. Revulsion set me to working for freedom. I wavered finally to my feet, the sword still in my hand as if nothing but my conscious will could ever dislodge it.
“Orsya! Orsya!”
I called first with voice and then mind. Had she been caught in the struggle, lay now perhaps crushed under the body of the thing I had apparently killed?
“Orsya!”
“Coming—” Mind touch and from some distance. I leaned against the wall and tried to explore by touch any damage I had taken in the encounter. My ribs and side were sore to any pressure, but I thought they were not broken. My jerkin was rent from one shoulder.
But I had been very lucky, too lucky to believe that it had been good fortune alone which had brought me through. Were the Sulcarmen right? When I had taken that sword into my hand, had I also taken into my body some essence of the one to whom it had once belonged? What meant the strange word I had hurled into that face (if the monster had a face) when I attacked? I would not lose it now . . . I never could . . .
“Kemoc?”
“Here!”
She was coming. I put out my hands, touched skin and instantly her fingers were about my wrist in a fierce, hurting hold.