“Merfay,” she answered before her lips shaped soft twitterings, not akin to any speech I have ever heard. Nor did “Merfay” mean anything to me.
The invisible one swam forward again, splashing us with waves made in his passing. Orsya caught my hand once more.
“Come! Oh, this day we are favored! Kofi will lead us to a safe place.”
“Can you see him—her—it?” I asked.
Her eyes went wide in surprise. “You do not?”
“Nothing but water rippling as if something swims there.”
“But he is there—plain—”
“Not to me. Nor have I ever heard of a Merfay.”
Orsya shook her head. “They are like unto us in some instances, save smaller, and closer akin to the furred and finned ones than we. Mostly they dwell apart, not needing others. But Kofi—he is of like mind with me, one who explores beyond the haunts of his people. We have shared ventures in the past. He is not subject to the illusions, since his mind is so unique he cannot be so entrapped. He has roamed the water lands here for a space, watching to see what the enemies do. They are preparing for a great march of men, to the west—”
“The Valley!”
“Perhaps so. Yet, the hour has not yet come when they muster. They await some order or sending.”
I thought of Dinzil and what Loskeetha said he might do, now that Kaththea was within his hands. The need to seek the Dark Tower, even though that seeking might lead to disaster, boiled within me. So that I quickened pace, pulling Orsya after me by our hand clasp. While ahead of us that guide I could only trace by ripples swam steadily onward.
More and more vegetation grew about. Orsya plundered here and there, finding more of those edible roots, cleaning them and storing them in her net bag. We munched some and they were better to me than the fish. Always the Merfay served as our scout. Once he (though it seemed odd to grant any identity to a wedge of ripples) made a wide detour about a block of stone which had fallen into the river. Orsya followed his lead, beckoning me well away from any contact with it.
As we passed, I saw that the stone had been dressed, and that once it might have been a pillar. There were others like it lying in confusion on the shore, as if they had been tumbled this way or that by some titanic blow of nature or man. They were not blue, as those in the havens experience had taught me to watch for, but rather a yellowish-gray, unpleasant to the eye.
“An ancient place of power,” Orsya explained. “But no power we would wish to raise.”
As we passed that place, I felt a clammy chill, or perhaps my imagination furnished that.
The brush became trees, weirdly leafed, resembling the blasted forests we had found on the Escore side of the churned mountains, where the witch power had set the ancient barrier between Estcarp, the refuge, and this country, the threat. Those leaves might have been living, still they had a skeleton look which made one think of ashes, of something long since dead and dry. The grass was a tall, sword-edged, spiky growth which could cut skin if one were unwary, and there were other nasty-looking things which one certainly did not want to touch at all.
But among all this rank and poisoned vegetation, there were islets and ways which had normal looking foliage growing. The unseen Kofi turned into a side stream, banked by such growth, leading to our left.
I was still hazy about directions. This territory beyond the Heights made one unsure of any north or south. But I thought now we might be heading once more east, so further and further into the unknown.
Splashing began ahead as the stream grew more shallow. It would seem Kofi now walked as we did. My boots were almost rotted on my feet, and I wondered at how I would replace them to go overland. Perhaps bindings cut from my jerkin would serve.
The trees here were of a species which grew thickly along waterways. They arched over our heads, meeting in a canopy which, while it did not shut out all light, kept away the sun. Within that tenting floated wisps of the haze I had seen from the survey point back in the hills.
“Good!” Orsya broke the quiet for the first time since we had left the main river. “Our thanks must be to Kofi.”
Her ejaculation appeared to be caused by the rise of a humpbacked hillock in the midst of the stream. It was, in spite of the brush growth rooted on it, too symmetrical to be a product of nature. My companion identified it.
“Aspt house, and very large. We shall find an entrance along the bank. The stream must have shrunk much since this was built and abandoned.”
A branch waved vigorously at the bank, not pulled by any wind. Orsya laughed.
“We see, Kofi. Thanks to you again,” and then she twittered.
There was a hole there. I pulled out a tangle of roots and some stones before we could crawl within, to find ourselves in a very darkish chamber like the one where Orsya had tended my wound. Luckily there were holes in the roof, where portions of the covering had fallen away, so that I was not moving blind. Our guide had led us well; we could not have found a more snug or safe place in which to spend the fast approaching night.
A small pattering noise drew my attention to the opposite side of the chamber. Nothing—or did Kofi now share our quarters?
“Right!” Orsya answered my thought. “I wonder . . . yes, let us try.”
She edged around behind me and leaned forward to place her two hands on my forehead just above my eyes. “Watch,” she ordered, “and tell me if you now see aught.”
I blinked and then blinked again. A wisp of mist against the dusk? No, it was not the floating mist which had found its way inside, rather it was a shape taking form. So, I saw Kofi.
He was small, about as tall as my mid-thigh. Unlike the aspts, he was humanoid in form. That is, he had four limbs, of which the upper two appeared to function as arms. He was like, yet unlike, the lizard folk of the Valley. Though his skin was scaled, his feet and hands were webbed as Orsya’s, the webs extending close to the tips of the digits. His head was round, and seemed to have very little neck. Front and back his body was covered by a shell which was shaped in a wedge, wide at the top, narrowing to a point between his legs. When I turned my attention on him, his head snapped down into the shoulder part of that shield, so that only the snout and two eyes could be seen.
“Kofi.” Orsya took away her hand and there was nothing to be seen.
I put out my right hand in the universal peace sign, holding it palm up and empty. For want of better reassurance to this strange water person I gave the formal greeting of the over-mountain men.
“To Kofi of the river, greeting and peace from Kemoc Tregarth.”
There was another faint sound. Then, for an instant, on the thick scar of my wound ridge I felt a delicate touch, as if one of those webbed hands had rested there in acknowledgment of understanding that I meant well and was no unfriend.
Orsya opened her net and divided the roots she had harvested along the river, setting aside a half dozen of them. We ate, but Kofi did not share; I asked why.
“He has gone hunting. He will hunt for more than that to fill his middle, for he will bring us news of aught which comes near this clean place.”
She gathered up the roots she had put aside and said:
“Put these in your belt pouch, Kemoc. They will furnish food when you may need it. This is truly a land where you must heed Dahaun’s warning, and eat not, even when it might seem that you look upon food you know well. Now, let us rest. With the morning may come great demands upon us.”
Whether Kofi came back to share our shelter, I do not know. But this night I did not sleep sound. There was an abiding sense of something lurking just beyond the borders of what I could see. Whether it was aware of me and waiting to attack, of that I was not sure. In fact, perhaps I would have been less uneasy had I been certain that was so.