Mindbond (14 page)

Our sense of time, then, was only “before Dan was stung” or “after the graymaw struck.” And presently I noticed that the sea fogs were gone, the days fine and sunny.

A shallow
, Kor mindspoke me one such fine day as we dove, the sunlight filtering down to us.

We could see the bottom again, ocean's landscape billowing up in hills to meet us, seaweed waving on those prominences like—I blinked. It was more like tall meadow grass, green and yellow, than any seaweed had right to be, and through it ran—a deer?

A blue deer with antlers clear as ice.

But that cannot be! Kor, do you see it too, or am I mad?

Look
, he answered me, a hush in him.
There are more ahead.

The deer ran before us, sharp hooves flashing, grass swishing around its flanks, high-held antlers glinting in the light, all beneath the green seawater. And there were more proud heads raised, dark eyes regarding us. Spotted deer, and dappled deer of soft hues, and a stately yellow deer with antlers that spread as wide as its body was long, and the great-maned elk towering over the others, and a tined deer, no larger than a middling-small dog, that jumped clear of the grass and swam a small distance, gazing at us. And everywhere the does, the hinds, the long-legged fawns as creamy as rich milk, and the blue stag prancing—I trembled, feeling something catch in my throat worse than any fishbone.

Ai, the eagles!

I heard it in Kor, too—the anguish, the wonder. Then I saw. Birds were flying in the water. The ernes, the white sea eagles such as I had never seen, but I knew them from the lore, the campfire tales told since I was a boy. And the black eagles of the mountaintops—them I knew, for it had been but a few years since they had disappeared from over the eversnow. And great swans—the sight of them filled me with such joy and longing that I hurt. And many smaller birds of varied bright colors, the pink doves, yellow wren, bunting, redbird, jay of Sakeema with feathers each of a color more true than the last. And the white owl, long gone from the world of men … And, by my grandfather's braids, the peregrine! Soaring with an easy majesty that made me gasp and sputter on salt water. And many, many others, as many as the deer below.

Follow
, Kor ordered.

Though they dipped and flocked and eddied and swirled like the sea currents, nevertheless the birds seemed all bound toward one place. We drifted after them, gawking. I saw an undersea hilltop all in a pattern of round trees bearing bright, downhanging fruit. I saw a gliding squirrel slip through the water while small fishes crossed its path. I saw a pair of ringtails questing with their soft paws and curious pointed snouts. Kor and I surfaced for air. The world above the waves, empty sunlit sky, seemed strange and distant now that we had seen what wonders lay below.

The green-lit land beneath us seemed to be rising from hilltop meadowland to steeps and dark crags. I glimpsed a bear rounding a brown spine of rock. Ahead of us, then around us, spires soared in crazy shapes, steeper than any alps on dry land, pitted with caves. On the lip of one of them lay a great tawny cat, stretching.

Ai, Kor, the wolves
—

Don't, Dan. I cannot bear it.

The wolves, standing regally to watch us pass, their eyes green and yellow and dusky violet, their pelages red and raven black and buff, milk-white and gray and as orange as the trunk of a drymountain pine. They opened their mouths as if they were panting. Their tongues lolled, their white teeth glinted like stars. One seemed to bark, but we did not hear him. Except for the burble of water swirled by our passing, we heard nothing. All seemed as silent as death.

Black peaks loomed ahead.

Mountains of Doom.

Legendary heroes, Chal and Vallart, had sailed here once. This was Mahela's realm.

She has
—
she has taken the creatures, Dan, all the creatures of Sakeema, taken them away from the land.

Grim peril in that. We would meet with enmity here.

But why?

Already I knew the answer. Were they not beautiful? I could not hate Mahela too harshly for coveting such beauty. But she had bereft us.

The great glutton, my folk call her
, Kor mindspoke me.
She feeds and feeds. Her maw is as wide as the sea.

We rose for air, cast a glance at the sky, wider yet, wing of the nameless god who cherishes all but sometimes sleeps.… In the sunshine we could see on the water the wavering forms of dark peaks, like shadows. The Mountains of Doom reached to within an arrowshot of the surface.

We breathed well, looked at each other, able to tell nothing from the look—two seals, forsooth!—unwilling to mindspeak our fears. Flippers touched, perhaps by chance. Then we dove.

Have you any plan, Kor?
It was my quest, but he had been here once before, however briefly.

Only to scout, for now.

Are there guards?

I do not remember any. And why would they stop us? This is ocean, after all, and it is not so strange a thing, two seals swimming in the ocean.

He was querulous, not as sure as he tried to sound. And I should not have asked, for I knew as well as he that there was nothing for it, when we did not know the ground, but to go on as best we could.

People!

Why should it have surprised me to see humanfolk walking on that undersea land, when I had already seen deer and wolves and creatures of many sorts? But it did, perhaps because some of them were in bright garb such as I had never seen, raiment out of one of Tassida's tales of the old times long past, tunics and baldrics stitched in close broidery, and deep-hued cloaks that floated and flowed, and boots that reached to the thigh. And on some heads circlets of sunstuff, and on some shoulders clasps of sunstuff and jewels. These were goodly men, bearded, dark of wavy hair, of no tribe that I knew, and none of them old. And the women were goodly also, in long, full gowns of cloth that shone. And children! Many beautiful children, almost more than there were men, small children and taller ones, each supremely beautiful, their delicate, clear-skinned faces somber—for they did not act as children ought, but walked quietly in handsome clothing. The birds that flew above them were livelier.

And horses as shapely as Calimir, in all of the splendid colors, blue roan, blood bay, white sometimes spotted like a lily petal, many more colors than I can name. They were not ridden or even led, perhaps because of the steepness of the land, but roamed loose and unconstrained along with the people and creatures of varied sorts. I saw a singing heron walking on stiltlike legs, and gair fowl, and a white weasel running between the rocks, and a family of foxes, white, russet, blue. All were bound, like the birds, toward some single place, all toiling up the black crags.

'Ware
, Kor warned, the thought as low as a whisper, as if he feared someone could hear us.

I looked ahead. The highest peak, stark and looming, nearly at a level with us as we swam. On it, aglow with a pearly gleam, a structure I could not understand. If it were a ruler's seat of honor, the largest I had ever seen. A sort of platform, crowded now with people and beasts of every sort, and more stood on the crags round about, the throng of them flowing down the steeps like a mantle. An eminence centered on the platform, something carved into shapes stranger than those of the Greenstones, more fanciful than driftwood, and shimmering even at the distance like a full moon, ten times full. There sat—someone, I could not look. Kor and I drifted off to one side. It was she, Mahela, I felt sure of it. The place was her hold. But what might be the purpose of the bare pines, oddly branched, that towered above her nearly to the ocean's surface? Hangings swayed down from them, banners decorated with many devices. On one I thought I saw the emblem of the Red Hart.

Dolphins
, Kor mindspoke gladly.
We are not the only swimmers here.

Indeed, we had seen no fish since we had come near the peaks. The dolphins came toward us from behind Mahela's platform, a brace of them, somewhat above us and one to either side. We watched the graceful rainbow shapes of them as they swam, not at all afraid of any creatures so surely blessed by Sakeema. Moreover, they came nowhere near us, or even seemed to notice us. But the sunlight slipping down through the green water seemed to lessen slightly, as if a shadow had floated over us, a cloud had happened into the way of the sun.

Of one accord Kor and I started toward the surface. It was time and past time for us to breathe.

And the shadow caught us with fine mesh. We were netted as neatly as Kor in his youth had netted doves, caught like great, flopping fish. The dolphins circled below us and back toward Mahela, closing the trap.

No!
Peril made me feel human again. My panic fear of drowning took hold of me, and I could not think.

Tear it with your teeth!
Kor thought to me.

I tried, and so did he. But the stuff was as fine as spiderweb, and far tougher, and the pounding of my heart seemed to take up all my strength. We were being towed along farther from the surface, toward the undersea goddess who ruled death. I did not care to think of death.… I needed air, my vision was blackening. Everything was going—black as the Mountains of Doom.…

Chapter Ten

I remember the spotted wildcat first. It was lying at Mahela's feet. I saw only her feet, dainty feet, shod in slippers that lustered like pearl, draped by the slittered hem of a gown all the colors of abalone—I looked no farther, for I felt weak, and I was lying on the platform.

Kor?

Here.

Somewhere close by me. A low, wary tone in his reply. I centered myself and looked up. Just waking as I was, it did not much surprise me to see him in human form, and I half hoped we were back where we belonged, wandering some woodland.… But he was naked, and he stood before Mahela.

A hand stirred before my eyes—it was my own. As human and as naked as he, I stumbled to my feet and stood by my comrade's side, swaying like seaweed for a moment until my head cleared. As if bound in one place my eyes looked only at Mahela's bosom, the white rise of her breasts covered by a ruffle of gown that floated in pink and lavender frills like those of a sea slug. Floated.… Green water all around me, and I knew it was chill, but I did not feel it. I was breathing it.

Kor … are we dead?

If we are, then it is the third time for me, and that is three too many.

“Cover yourself, fool,” a cold voice said.

Like a snake through the water the words came, smoothly, eerily, nothing of earth about them, no waft of breath, no mortal warmth. Deity had spoken: I felt the sense of it crawl through my shoulder blades to my spine. With small dignity I layered my hands over my cock. It seemed all too meager a modesty. Kor, I saw, had done the same.

“Not you, Korridun.” Something different in the watery voice. “You, I want to regard. All of you.”

Startled, I raised my caught eyes and saw—how could it be Mahela who spoke? She was—feathered neck and head of her, a huge cormorant, a glutton-bird, glossy black crest and white throat, hard eye that did not blink, great, hard hooked beak with a dangling pouch like that of a pelican. Her snake-long bird's neck rose erect from just above her half-naked human breasts.

“Come, Korridun, my prize.” Yes, it was she who spoke, for I saw the horrible clacking of her beak. “Be more easy.”

She sat on a massive sort of cushioned bench with mighty arms and a tall back, the cushions edged with fringe and tassels, the whole of it carved in shapes of all the creatures of Sakeema. Stones glittered where their eyes should be, and their lifeless bodies gleamed with sunstuff and pearl. One of her pale hands draped over a carved eagle's beak. A real eagle—if it could be called real, breathing green salt water as it was—a snow-white eagle perched on the back of her seat above her shoulder. A great moon-gray horse stood beside her, and a mighty maned elk, and bearded men with no expression in their eyes, and by her right shoulder in a pot of carved wood stood—a tree, a small tree, no taller than I, its slender branches bent with the weight of round, blue fruits. That tree was a prisoner like the others, Mahela's most prized captive and shaper of our fate, all of us, though at the time I did not know it. My glance ran past it to the other trees, the strange bare trees, birds clinging to them, long banners hanging down. Devices on them of every tribe I knew, the Herders' six-horned sheep, the fanged stallion of the Fanged Horse Folk, the hook-jawed salmon of the Otter River Clan, snowpeak of the Cragsmen, and Kor's people's emblem and mine, and many more symbols I did not know. The ends of the banners were feathered into seaweed shapes, and they twisted and floated in the currents—everything was aflutter in the shifting seawater. This place dizzied me, and the sight of Mahela made me feel faint. Her great seat lifted her well above the level of us who stood before her.

“Raise your hands,” she ordered Kor.

He had not moved except to stiffen where he stood, but now he complied, saluting her, turning humiliation into an envoy's gesture of greeting. Mahela was not deceived. She lifted her long, bone-colored beak in a gesture of victory. “My people, is he not beautiful?” she cried.

There was a murmur of assent, a muted cheer. The wildcat raised its head and snarled. I had scarcely been conscious of the throng of folk and creatures at my back, but now I felt my nates tighten at the thought of them, and I wished I had hands to place there as well.

“How come you by all these people?” Kor spoke to Mahela with all comity, the courtesy so inborn in him, so that even though he stood naked, heart knew he was one monarch addressing another. But she laughed at him, beak gaping wide.

“How? Why, by taking of them! I am Mahela, I take what I will, tame what is wild, conquer what is strong. That which is beautiful pleases me. I have gathered much of it around me.”