The Red Wolf Conspiracy Part 43

He put his hand through the gunport, feeling.

Something moved. Pazel let out a mouthful of bubbles. It was a leathery creature, and it shot away from him into the depths of the ruined gun deck.

Light.

Fish or shark or otherwise, it was gone--and so was Pazel's breath. He flailed for his rope. He had waited too long, couldn't possibly make it back. He gave three tugs.

All he recalled of his rescue by the Volpeks was the slap of weeds against every part of his body. When he entered the sphere, hands reached down and tore kelp in bunches away from his face.

"SPIT OUT THE WEEDS!".

He spat out the weeds. The men propped him on a bench just out of the water, where he gagged and wretched. They looked in his empty bag and frowned.

"NEXT TIME, START SWIMMING THE MINUTE YOU JUMP.".

Next time? Pazel thought he'd be ready in about a week. Lying stunned on his bench, he saw Marila sitting across the sphere, watching him with those unreadable eyes. Mintu lay beside her, looking ill. The weed-darkness fell on them again, and when it pa.s.sed the men had a writhing ball of kelp between them. Neeps. He blew a mouthful of water in a Volpek's face.

"Creatures!" he gagged. "Strange creatures ... murths!"

"THERE ARE NO MURTHS IN THE QUIET SEA!".

More divers were hauled in. One had tied a whole sea chest up in his rope. Another held up a cast-iron skillet, which a Volpek tossed angrily back into the water.

Two boys did not return at all. The men hauled in their ropes and found only weeds attached to the hook and ring. Nothing had broken. It was as if they had simply let go.

On their second dive, Pazel and Neeps kept each other in sight. They got much farther, too, for they swam for the wreck the instant they jumped. Pazel saw now that there were paths through the kelp forest: neat paths, almost like roads. In a flash of light he peered down one long avenue and thought he saw colonnades, and statues of men or animals, and moving shadows that were not cast by the kelp. But there was no time to linger. Greatly afraid, he made himself enter the wreck.

Inside was a terrifying chaos. The forces that had cracked the Lythra Lythra in two had also swept through her, blowing cannon through bulkheads, wrapping chains around masts, impaling skeletons on broken beams. There were skulls rolled into cabinets and wedged behind doors. There were skeletal hands in barrels, and clouds of silt, and an obscene fanged fish that lunged each time the darkness fell. Pazel struck at it desperately with his hook. How could anyone find a thing down there? in two had also swept through her, blowing cannon through bulkheads, wrapping chains around masts, impaling skeletons on broken beams. There were skulls rolled into cabinets and wedged behind doors. There were skeletal hands in barrels, and clouds of silt, and an obscene fanged fish that lunged each time the darkness fell. Pazel struck at it desperately with his hook. How could anyone find a thing down there?

When the two boys again returned empty-handed, the Volpeks exploded. "IF YOU DON'T FIND SOMETHING NEXT TIME, DON'T COME BACK AT ALL!" "IF YOU DON'T FIND SOMETHING NEXT TIME, DON'T COME BACK AT ALL!"

Neeps kicked the water into a froth. "You try it, you daft, ugly, bellyachin' baboons! Want to fight? Do you?"

Just then Marila surfaced beside them with a hideous gasp. "Mintu ... gone ... he's gone!"

She was in agony; she had been under twice as long as the boys. They had to hold her head above water.

"Where did he go, Marila?" Pazel squeezed her arms. "Tell us where!"

"The arch!"

"I saw it!" Neeps cried. "That coral arch? Why the blazes did he go through there there?"

Marila gasped and sobbed. "Followed ... couldn't find him ... awful place--"

Her whole body began to convulse. More irritated than concerned, the Volpeks tossed her onto a bench. Pazel and Neeps looked at each other. There was nothing to say. They were not ready to dive, but they had to. No one else would even try to save Marila's brother.

Down they went for the third time. Pazel too had glimpsed an arch: an opening in a long, towering reef-wall, some distance from the Lythra Lythra. He couldn't imagine why Mintu would have pa.s.sed through it. Had he glimpsed something beyond, a treasure he couldn't resist? Had he seen the Red Wolf?

Pazel arrived a few strokes ahead of Neeps. He saw now that the arch was actually quite deep--a tunnel, in fact, about twenty feet long. Barely a yard between the roof and the seabed. Not tempting in the least, but Neeps was poking him as if to say, Swim, or get out of the way! Swim, or get out of the way! He swam. He swam.

It was worse than he feared. The tunnel floor bristled with sea urchins, black living pincus.h.i.+ons whose spines burned like acid at the merest touch. There were also clots of translucent orange worms dangling from the roof, flexing sucker-like mouths. The only possible way through was the exact center, kicking fast lest one rise or sink, but at the same time keeping one's hands and feet very close. The orange worms writhed obscenely. The tunnel seemed to go on forever.

Yet somehow Pazel emerged unscathed. Beyond was a sandy clearing, a meadow in the kelp forest, broken here and there by red coral and towering rocks. There was no sign of Mintu.

Neeps emerged with pain in his eyes. Attached to his leg was a fat worm, already darkening with his blood. It took them several precious seconds to rip the creature loose, and a mouthful of Neeps' flesh went with it. Pazel looked at the wound, the suppressed horror in Neeps' face, the long cliff of coral stretching away left and right. This was madness. They had to go back right now, before their lungs burst and Neeps lost too much blood. Then Neeps went rigid. He grabbed Pazel's arm and spun him around.

Half a dozen sea-murths were swimming their way, faster than sharks. They were the strangest beings Pazel had ever seen. They looked like humans, girls in fact, but their limbs curved and coiled like no human limbs, and the sun struck rainbow colors where it touched their skin. Long, white hair streamed behind them, and their eyes were luminous silver. Their clothes seemed wraps of milky light.

In no time the boys were surrounded. The murth-girls had beautiful faces but very sharp teeth. Were they smiling? It appeared so, but did smiles mean friends.h.i.+p or menace to a sea-murth? In one sense it hardly mattered: they were out of air. They had failed Mintu, and would be lucky to escape with their lives. Pazel gestured at the tunnel: Now Now. Then a murth-girl touched his ankle, and the world changed.

A feeling of golden bliss ran up Pazel's leg. He could breathe! He knew it instantly, and without the least fear opened his mouth and filled his lungs with water. It was as effortless as breathing air. One of the creatures must have touched Neeps as well, for there he was, mouth open, grinning like a perfect fool. Their hearing had changed, too: they could hear water rus.h.i.+ng through creva.s.ses, the squeak of eels, the growl of a pa.s.sing drumfish. Above all, like a silver music, they heard the laughter of the murth-girls.

"Look at them smile! They had even less air than the first ones!"

"I like these better. Almost grown, they are."

"Which one for a husband, Vvsttrk? He he he!"

"That one is short enough for you. But the dark one likes you better, I think."

The boys trod water, back to back, as the murth-girls flitted about them in circles. Neeps put out his hands, laughing as the last bubbles of air escaped his mouth. Then a girl stopped face to face with Pazel. She had a teasing smile, and hundreds of tiny kulri sh.e.l.ls braided into her hair. One delicate hand touched his face, and he knew somehow (the gold was rus.h.i.+ng through him again) that it was the same girl who had touched him before.

"Mine," she said, and her sisters laughed. she said, and her sisters laughed.

Then Pazel said, "Have you seen a small boy?"

She was gone. They were all gone. Pazel had barely caught the murth-girls' looks of terror before they vanished into the kelp.

Neeps turned to him angrily. "What did you do that for?"

"Me?"

"They just laid the sweetest magic I ever heard of on us, and you scare 'em off? What rude thing did you say?"

"Nothing! Didn't you hear me?"

"Sure," said Neeps. "I heard, Skrreee Skrreee--glik--glik--scrreeeeeeee!"

"What?"

"Come off it, Pazel. You were speaking Murthish."

Pazel covered his ears. Oh no Oh no.

There it was: the purring. His Gift had started up again, and taught him their murth-tongue. But how long ago had it begun? All these days of noisy imprisonment, buzzing insects, storms. What if these were his last few hours--or even minutes?

"Neeps," he said, "you've got to listen carefully. I told you how my Gift works? How it always ends in a fit, where I can't talk or understand anyone, and those horrible noises blast me? Well, it's going to happen again."

"No worries," said Neeps, who had calmed down already. "I'll take care of you."

"Don't let the Volpeks scream in my face! Tell 'em it's something natural, like the hiccups."

"The hiccups. Have you seen yourself, mate? Not even those boneheads will--Pazel, look!"

Neeps pointed into the gloom. About sixty yards away, against a great black rock, stood the other half of the Lythra Lythra. Her shattered beam-ends anch.o.r.ed her in the sand. Her figurehead, an angel, spread her barnacled wings and gazed forlornly at the sky. A row of gaping cannon-shot wounds ran down her hull, straight as punches in a leather belt, as though she had been fired on at point-blank range.

And gazing from one of these holes was a young boy.

"Mintu!"

He waved, and his voice carried faintly to them. "Pazel! Neeps! They changed you, too?"

A murth-girl's shy, mischievous face appeared behind him.

Mintu laughed. "She's my friend!"

The boys were so delighted to find him alive that they forgot all about Pazel's impending mind-fit. Swimming toward the wreck, they heard the musical laughter again from inside the kelp forest. When the next spell of darkness came they saw the murth-girls glowing faintly in the weeds.

More laughter above. There were the other missing boys: dangling from the Lythra's Lythra's main topgallant, holding a slender murth by hands and feet so that she swayed between them like a hammock. main topgallant, holding a slender murth by hands and feet so that she swayed between them like a hammock.

"Why are there only girls?" Neeps asked. "Not that I'm complaining, mind."

"Maybe because we're only boys," said Pazel uneasily. "We'd better be careful."

"Just you you be careful not to insult them again." be careful not to insult them again."

It was no use protesting: Neeps was positively convinced Pazel had said something nasty in Murthish. They swam up to Mintu and clasped his arms. He had a girl's silver hair-clip in his own brown locks.

"She fed me clams," he said. "And she healed a cut on my foot. I don't think murths are half as bad as people say."

"Your sister nearly drowned looking for you," said Pazel. "You'd better get back to the sphere and let her know you're alive."

"Oh! Yes, I ... I will." Mintu looked reluctantly back toward the coral arch.

"Go on," urged Pazel, "or she'll try it again. She's in no shape for that."

Mintu looked at his murth-girl playmate. She drew back into the ruined s.h.i.+p, eyes pouting, as if she knew their game was over.

"I'll come right back," he said.

Pazel watched Mintu swim all the way to the arch. Then he turned to see Neeps sitting cross-legged on the seabed, inches from a murth-girl in the same position.

"h.e.l.lo, dream," said Neeps.

They were making faces at each other. The murth-girl laid a finger on his worm-wound--and it vanished, melting into his skin like a snowflake.

"Thank you!" laughed Neeps. "Pazel, how do you say 'thank you'?"

Pazel didn't answer. He looked up at the two boys and their friend. They had released the topgallant and were holding hands in a circle, serenely sinking. Another murth-girl, almost completely hidden in the weeds, looked out as they pa.s.sed.

"They're ready, Thysstet," she told the girl as she pa.s.sed. she told the girl as she pa.s.sed.

"Almost!" laughed the other. laughed the other.

Ready for what? Pazel knew how to ask the question. But what if they vanished again at the sound of his voice? Pazel knew how to ask the question. But what if they vanished again at the sound of his voice?

The girl in the weeds leaned out farther. Pazel's heart leaped: it was her, the one who had touched him. Suddenly nothing else mattered. He swam toward her as fast as he could. Their eyes met. She was beautiful!

She was gone.

He felt stabbed in the chest. One glance and she had fled into the weeds.

And when he looked down, Neeps had vanished, too. There on the sand lay his collecting bag, hook and ring--the latter with the rope still attached.

"Neeps! Neeps!"

Pazel flew toward the sole remaining murth-girl. She saw him and cowered behind the two boys.

"Stop!" they growled at him. "What's the matter with you! She's ours!"

"It's a trap!" he cried. "They're separating us! And you've lost your ropes!"

"Who needs ropes?" laughed one boy. "Who needs them blary Volpeks and their bath-a-spear?"

"But how will you get back to land?"

"Swim! Walk! Who cares? Maybe I'll wait a week. All I know is that I'll go ash.o.r.e far from Arunis! Ha! We can even say his name down here. What's he going to do about it?"

"Arunis! Arunis!" shouted the other boy.

The murth tickled him from behind. But she still watched Pazel with fear.

He begged the boys to help him find Neeps, but they called him killjoy and swam away. Pazel shouted for Neeps again. How far did his voice carry underwater? And where should he search?

Quite at random he circled the bow of the Lythra Lythra and the ma.s.sive rock. No Neeps, no murth-girls. Only fish, a few spiny lobsters, and in the distance a red, swift shape like a flying carpet: a scarlet ray. Pazel had never seen such a huge one--it was easily twelve feet from wing tip to wing tip--and he kept his distance. Scarlet rays were not aggressive, and they had no teeth, but the stingers in their whip-like tails were notorious. In Besq, Pazel had seen a fisherman stung on the hand by a scarlet ray tangled in his net. He had pa.s.sed out from sheer agony. and the ma.s.sive rock. No Neeps, no murth-girls. Only fish, a few spiny lobsters, and in the distance a red, swift shape like a flying carpet: a scarlet ray. Pazel had never seen such a huge one--it was easily twelve feet from wing tip to wing tip--and he kept his distance. Scarlet rays were not aggressive, and they had no teeth, but the stingers in their whip-like tails were notorious. In Besq, Pazel had seen a fisherman stung on the hand by a scarlet ray tangled in his net. He had pa.s.sed out from sheer agony.

He set off among the rocks and weeds. Shouting for Neeps, but thinking despite himself of the girl, the girl, the girl. Of course she would be frightened to hear a human speaking Murthish. But so frightened? And what had she meant by Mine Mine?

His rope went slack. He reeled it in, more alarmed by the second. Something very sharp had cut the rope, and he hadn't felt a thing. Not one of them was tethered to the bathysphere. And only he was aware of the danger.

What could he do? He rose. At thirty feet below the surface most of the reef was below him. A little farther and the kelp closed around him too. He could see nothing at all until his head broke the surface.

Where was he? The wind had risen and the waves had grown. The sun was bright as ever, but the sh.o.r.e seemed to have changed shape. Then he caught sight of the barge and realized he was much farther north than he had guessed. He could see the Volpeks on her deck, and in the smaller craft around her, looking anxiously at both sh.o.r.e and sea. Far out in the Gulf of Thol the heavily armed brig still waited, brooding. He turned to face the sh.o.r.e-- --and dived, just in time. A longboat was driving straight at him, making for the barge. Pazel watched as it pa.s.sed a yard above his head, four pairs of oars pulling swiftly. Then he rose until his eyes just cleared the water.

Arunis was standing upright at the prow, in a dark cloak, his tattered scarf flapping in the wind. The white dog stood beside him, motionless. The sorcerer waived irritably at his men.