The Waterstone (25 page)

The wolf’s head snapped up. Its eyes narrowed to red-pointed slits. Its head turned, searching, and then, above the roiling tangle of fleeing fighters, its gaze locked with Tad’s. Tad caught the echo of an icy whisper.

Yes, Wulv! There, Wulv! Good blood! Sweet blood!

The wolf crouched. Its haunches tensed and quivered. Then it launched itself over the heads of the rival armies in a single soaring lunge. Its clawed feet dug trenches in the lakeshore. Its mind was a black bottomless well. A snarl bubbled from its throat.

Yes, Wulv! Sweet blood!
the Nixie urged.

The wolf moved toward Tad. Then its ears twitched. Distracted for a moment, it looked uneasily toward the sky. Tad had heard it too. The high shriek of a stooping hawk.

Leave this to me, Sagamore.
He heard the voice as clearly as if he were riding on the bird’s broad shoulders.
Your battle is not here.

The wolf reared up on its hind paws, screaming in fury, as the hawk plummeted toward it out of the sun.

Tad seized Ditani’s arm and ran toward the black water.

The water felt awful. Oily, filthy, and
warm.
It was exactly the temperature of blood. He hated wading in it. Nothing could be seen below the black surface.

The water closed around their ankles, then their knees. Soon it was up to their waists. Tad had never been so scared in his life. His heart was thumping so hard it hurt, and his stomach felt as if it were full of firepeppers.

Malawissa.
The word crept softly into his mind.
Malawiss-aaah.
It sounded like one of Treeglyn’s words, a word in the leafy wind-language that he had first heard in the little tree cottage in the forest. He groped for his leatherleaf pouch and fumbled for the stick of oak that was Treeglyn’s gift. The very touch of the wood was reassuring. Strength flooded into his fingers. Suddenly — incredibly — the fear was gone. He felt solid, indomitable, unbending. Like an oak tree. Then the meaning came to him.
Malawissa
— when a tree stands straight in a storm, defying thunder and lightning.

This is it
, Tad thought. He reached out and took Ditani’s hand. Together they dived. The black water closed over their heads.

They found themselves in a vast underwater world. Beneath the black surface, they found that they could see great distances into the farthest reaches of the lake. There were towering black boulders and forests of undulating weeds with stems as thick as a man’s arm, and — between the forests — long empty stretches of trackless sand. The lake was utterly dead. Nothing moved in it, not a fish or a frog or a waterworm. All was perfectly still except for the
whooshing
of the breathing tubes.

Tad touched Ditani’s arm and pointed, forward and downward. They began to swim. Tad’s webbed feet flared wide and swept smoothly through the water. He found that he had to pause at intervals, paddling, waiting for Ditani to catch up.
She is still the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen
, he thought,
but she’d, never make a Fisher. She swims like a sick duck.

Down they went, and deeper down. The light grew grayer. They circled an immense mound of rock, a craggy underwater mountain. On the far side of the mountain was an entrance to a grotto. There was a sense of watching now, the cold feel of an alien presence. She lived here. This was the place. Tad signaled to Ditani, who nodded and gestured with her spear. Slowly they swam forward and entered.

Glowworms in fish-bone cages lined the stone walls, giving off an eerie bluish light. It made the whites of Ditani’s eyes look phosphorescent through her goggles and turned Tad’s skin the color of a clam. They swam slowly inward, barely kicking their feet. The grotto narrowed to a hallway, its floor paved with tiles cut from shimmery rainbow-colored shells. They passed through an open doorway at the end of the hall and found themselves in a great arching chamber. It was like a palace in one of Pondleweed’s fairy tales. The walls were studded with richly colored jewels: blue, green, crimson, and deep brown-gold. There were hanging tapestries, beaded with seed pearls and embroidered with colored silks, and stone urns filled with sprays of coral.

Tad and Ditani slid downward through the water, landing feet first on the shell-tiled floor. Before them was a high-backed stone chair, inlaid with silver and aquamarine. On the seat of the chair lay a white crystal. It glowed in the dimness with an inner light all its own, and it seemed to pulse rhythmically as if it had a heartbeat, as if it were alive. The Waterstone.

Ditani tugged impatiently at Tad’s elbow, jerking her head at the Stone. Then, before he could stop her, she lunged forward, reaching out a hand to seize it. There was a brilliant flash of light and a loud crackle. Ditani, clutching her hand to her chest, was hurled backward through the water. Tad sprang to help her, but before he reached her, she had already struggled back to her feet. She shook her head at him, silently telling him that she was all right. Her hand was red and angry-looking, as if it had been burned.

One of the tapestries began to heave and sway as if caught in an invisible current of water. A hidden hand swept it aside. Beside him, Tad felt Ditani — still nursing her hand — give a start of surprise. The Nixie was beautiful.

The creature before them had the body of a beautiful young woman above the waist, and below, an iridescent green fish’s tail. Her long silver-green hair floated out behind her in the water. She had a pale lovely face and strange slanting silver eyes with long straight pupils like those of a huntercat. Her skin glistened faintly in rainbow colors like mother-of-pearl. She wore a jerkin of pearl-embroidered fish skin, and a necklace of coral beads. Circling her head was a fine silver chain from which hung — precisely in the middle of her gleaming forehead — a single teardrop-shaped pearl.

She moved gracefully toward the children, swaying lightly back and forth in the water. Suddenly she smiled, and Tad saw that her mouth was full of needle-pointed teeth.

Azabel
, he whispered in mind speech.

So we meet, Sagamore
, the Nixie said. Her
S
s sounded like hissing snakes. She looked Tad and Ditani up and down, and her lips bubbled with laughter.

And this time you come in the form of a half-drowned rat. It was not so in the old days, Sagamore. Then you walked in honor, a giant among men. You are not what you were, Sagamore. You have fallen.

A faint music began, a sweet silvery hum.

Doubt swept over Tad. He felt ignorant, awkward, and small. No, smaller than small —
puny.
Of course he wasn’t fit to be the Sagamore. How could he ever have thought so?

And what is this that you have brought with you?

The Nixie undulated closer until she hovered face-to-face with Ditani. She thrust her head closer and peered into the goggles. Ditani stood her ground.

A mouse-eater?

Ditani’s fingers tightened on her spear — and then, with a muffled gurgle of horror, flung it away from her. The spear had turned into a squirming snake. It slithered across the floor and vanished through a pearl-hung doorway.

And what is this?

The straps that held Ditani’s goggles came undone. The breathing tubes were jerked away. Ditani flailed wildly and gulped water.

The Nixie laughed mockingly.

Is she precious to you, Sagamore? What will you do to save her?

Furiously Tad tore at the straps of his own breathing tubes. He ripped his mouthpiece off, clapped it over Ditani’s mouth, and slid his air canister over her shoulders. He was so angry that he had hardly realized what he was doing. But he was all right. He was breathing normally, as if the water were air, or as if he were a fish. He could feel his nose flaps flutter.

You can’t stop me, Azabel
, he said.
You know you can’t touch me. I’ve come for the Waterstone.

The Nixie reared up in the water, growing taller and more menacing. Everything about her seemed to swell up and grow larger. Her hair stood out like silver-green spikes. She stretched her hands toward Tad, and he saw that her fingers were tipped with pale green claws.

We will make a bargain, Sagamore!

Slowly, hypnotically, the Nixie began to sway back and forth, supple as an eel. The silver humming grew louder.

Leave the Stone! Go and never return, and you shall have the girl! And I will give you
. . .
this!
The Nixie pulled a tapestry aside.

Tad gasped. There, behind a door of fish bones bound together with silver wire, floated Pondleweed. He was enclosed in a crystal bubble that floated midway between the chamber floor and ceiling, just barely bobbing up and down as if little waves were bumping against it. His eyes lit up at the sight of Tad and his lips shaped soundless words.

Leave the Stone, and you and he will go home again
, the Nixie’s syrupy voice whispered.
You and your father will go back to your pond. Is it a bargain, Sagamore?

Tad struggled with shock. He had never expected anything like this. He had thought he would never see his father again. Now he felt joy, amazement, horror, and despair, all muddled up at the same time. His mind felt like boiling soup.

And if I don’t agree?

The Nixie bared her pointed teeth.

Then he will drown!
she hissed.

She pointed a finger at the bubble. Water began to seep slowly into it, forming a puddle around Pondleweed’s feet.

No!
Tad cried.
Stop! Let me speak to him!

The door is not locked
, the Nixie said sweetly.
The water is jail enough. Go to him, Sagamore. See what he says.

Tad tore the cage door open. The skin of the bubble stretched and wrapped around him, sealing him inside. He flung himself into his father’s arms. For one glorious moment, all trouble seemed to disappear.

But there could be no real joy in this reunion. Tad felt as if he were being torn in two. He couldn’t let Pondleweed drown. But he couldn’t let the Nixie keep the Waterstone. Everything would die then —
everything.
He had promised to seize the Stone and restore the water. That was his trust. But this was
Pondleweed.
As he struggled to explain all that had happened, his father held him at arm’s length, just looking at him, as if he were drinking the sight of him in. When Tad finished, he slowly shook his head.

“If it weren’t such a short time since I saw you, lad, I’d swear you’d grown taller,” he said. “Your mother would be so proud.”

Tad felt as if he were choking. Hadn’t his father listened? Didn’t he understand?

Then Pondleweed pulled him close again, turned him away from the watching Nixie, and spoke softly in his ear.

“Son, once you know what’s right, there’s nothing for it but to do as you must, no matter how bitter a brew it is to swallow. And that’s what we will do together, you and I, you as the Sagamore, and me — well, me as a common man of the Fisher Tribe.”

Tad’s eyes burned with tears.

“It’s hard for you, young as you are,” Pondleweed said, softer yet. “But you’ll find your way, son, never fear. Care for Birdie now. You two will have to help each other.”

The water in the bubble was rising higher.

Choossse!
the Nixie cried.

Pondleweed met her eyes over the top of Tad’s head.

“We have chosen!” he said loudly.

Then he stepped back and smiled at Tad, a smile so filled with love and pride that Tad felt as if his heart might break in two.

“We will meet around a campfire in Great Rune’s garden,” Pondleweed whispered. Then he grasped the walls of the bubble in both hands and tore it wide open. A blinding rush of silver water swept past them, bursting the bone door and tumbling Tad head over heels out onto the floor of the Nixie’s chamber.

When Tad’s vision cleared, Pondleweed was gone.

“Free me!”

The voice seemed to come from the level of Tad’s waist. From his pouch. Frantically he tore open the leatherleaf flap and groped inside. His seeking fingers encountered the misshapen lump of rock that was the Kobold’s hand. As he touched it, it squirmed. Tad snatched it out of his pouch and stared down at it in alarm. The rock writhed and wriggled, then abruptly pulled itself free of Tad’s grasp. It hung impossibly in the water for a moment, as if it were as light as a bubble or a bladderpod. Then it opened. Fingers unfolded one by one, shaking themselves free of the confining stone, spreading wide. The hand had short stubby fingers, and the first finger seemed to have a frayed bandage wrapped around the knuckle. The bandaged finger pointed directly at the Nixie, and a shadowy shape began to take shape around it — the half-transparent image of a little bearded man. His expression, what could be seen of it, was outraged.