other than its brethren of the land, breathes air. Like the sea sleen, on the other hand, it can remain submerged for several Ehn, whilst fishing. I stood by the bulwarks and looked down. I could see no shimmer of parsit near the surface. They had departed the area. The sunlight glistened on the water, amongst the streamers of cut vines, the floating blossoms. Four or five Ehn passed. By now I supposed the tharlarion, and its relentless pursuer, or pursuers, might be a pasang or more distant. Still I had seen no parsit beneath the water. “Out oars!” cried Seremides. “Wait!” called Pertinax. “Wait!” “Out oars!” cried Seremides, angrily, and, his rope falling amongst his oarsmen, the oars of his galley slid outward. We grasped our oars. “Hold!” said Pertinax. “Pull!” called Seremides, to starboard. “Wait!” Pertinax warned us. “Pull, pull!” said Seremides, and the ropes attached to his galley, leading back to the great ship, lifted, dripping, from the water. “Stop!” called Pertinax. “Move, fool!” called Seremides. “Move, slackard!” “Keep your distance!” cried Pertinax. Seremides’ galley began to move toward ours. “To port!” he called to us. “Out oars! Row! Move!” The galley of Seremides kept its original heading, dictated by its towing ropes, while we were still, towing ropes slack, now almost across his bow, rocking in the water. “Poles!” cried Pertinax, and men seized up the launching poles, used in thrusting a galley from a wharf, cushioning her approach to a wharf, holding her away from rocks, or such. It is customary that there be three such poles, as you of the port know, one for the bow, one amidships, one aft. “Back oars!” cried Seremides, alarmed. The two galleys grated against one another. I heard oars splinter. Our oaring was inboard. “Fool, fool!” screamed Seremides to Pertinax. Pertinax’s face went white and I saw his hand move to the hilt of his sword. But already the blade of Seremides was free of its sheath, and, his eyes alight with eagerness, he leaped aboard our galley. I rose at the bench and cried, though it might be insubordination, to Pertinax, “Do not unsheathe your blade!” He slammed the blade, half free, back in its sheath, looked at Seremides before him, unflinching, and said, “Welcome aboard, noble Rutilius.”
Seremides cried out with rage, looked about himself, saw that he might have to deal with twenty angry, violent men who would stand with their captain, and returned his weapon to its housing. “I see,” said he, “barbarian, that you are not only a fool and a slackard, but a coward, as well.”
“Barbarian I may be,” said Pertinax, “but I am neither fool nor slackard, and I trust, not a coward.”
“Tell your men to hold, to remain in place,” said Seremides, “and we will make test of the matter.”
Several others, as well as I, had risen from the benches.
“Hold!” said Pertinax.
“No!” cried more than one.
The hand of Pertinax went to his weapon.
Seremides grinned, stepped back, drew his blade, and set himself, easily, his body swaying a little, with the movement of the vessel. His galley scraped a little against ours. I saw no love for him across the rail.
I sensed a rising under my feet, something stirring, something approaching, from far below, water moving away from it. I do not think that either Seremides or Pertinax noted this.
“Defend yourself,” said Seremides. I had heard those words, sensed the eagerness in the voice before, more than a dozen times, in the early morning, in the dampness and cold, in a park, or in the Plaza of Tarns, long ago, in Ar. I sensed that the whole rationality of Seremides was now focused narrowly, exultantly, on the victim before him, that the ship, its discipline, Tarl Cabot, Lords Nishida and Okimoto, the apprehension of the former Lady Flavia of Ar, or even of the former Ubara, Talena, was as though they were not. I thought of the sleen whose hunt is done, who has the tabuk or verr cornered before him. What command could stay him, what consideration could distract him, what give pause to so single-minded and formidable a force of nature?
The blade of Pertinax was but half drawn when both galleys burst apart, leaping from one another, the gigantic body of the tharlarion rising between them, springing forty feet or more from the water, expelling a snorting burst of air, several of the eel-like sharks fastened in its flanks; it seemed oddly still for a moment, upright, at the height of its leap, and then fell back in the water, drenching us, half filling the galleys with water; I pulled rent vines from about me; blossoms were at my knees in the water. I felt a descent as of heated fog, and realized it was the air the creature had expelled, settling cloudlike about us. The thing had returned. How could that be? Surely it was a coincidence, that the great beast, lacerated, in its agony, running blood, had come back to this place. The long neck, yards in length, snakelike, lifted, and the small head swayed about, as though searching, with the single eye left. It had returned to the place where it had been first hurt. I could see the tails of sharks whipping against the water, trying to drive their jaws deeper into the beast’s flesh. Other fins were approaching, knifing through the blossoms. I heard a man scream on the galley of Seremides, and he poked upward with his spear. The small head on the great body, with its triangular jaws, with its rows of tiny, fine teeth, reached down, almost gracefully, and lifted the screaming fellow yards into the air. It then threw its gigantic, massive, glistening body, sharks clinging to it, over the gunwales of the galley of Seremides, pressing it under the waves, men leaping into the sea on either side. It then, dragging its burden of sharks, its victim still struggling in its jaws, dove, and the snap of that great tail, striking upward, tipped us, and then, striking downward, propelling that enormous bulk, clove our galley, and we were plunged into the water. The sea about us was red, and I spit out water. Within it was the taste of blood. I saw a fellow two yards away drawn beneath the water. “Ho!” I heard. “Ho!” The small ship’s boats had put about and were returning. The other galleys, too, loosing their towing ropes, would be soon at our side. I pulled myself half onto a nest of vines, half in the water, half not. A splintered oar floated past. “Here!” I heard. Men were being drawn into small boats. But they would be soon swamped. They clung to the gunwales of the ship’s boats, and armsmen and oarsmen struck down with tools and oars, to protect those in the water. I heard an oar count being called, over the water, and one of the towing galleys was near. I could see it in a bit then, with ship’s boats clustered about it, men being drawn aboard, from the boats, from the water. A dorsal fin moved smoothly by. I remained as still as possible. I was not bloodied. If one moves, one should move as smoothly as possible, not awkwardly, not hastily, not erratically, not as though one might be injured, or helpless.
Men swam toward the small boats, the nearest galley.
I saw more than one drawn beneath the surface. Fins were everywhere. I felt the mat of vines to which I clung turn, and begin to drift. The wreckage of the galley of Seremides seemed farther away now. I saw no sign of the galley of Pertinax. Soon, as I lay, I could no longer see the small boats, or any galleys. There is restlessness in the Vine Sea, as in any sea, and swells, and local currents, and the sea itself, tangled and beautiful, oppressive, and terrible, despite its vastness, moves from time to time, seasonably, predictably, even hundreds of pasangs, as might any object, large or small, afloat on Thassa, with her hundred moods and thousand currents.
I think most of my fellows had sought the small boats.
As noted, I could not now see them, as I was positioned, but I knew they were there. I could hear men in the distance. Were I able to stand I had little doubt I could see them, and certainly one or more galleys. Even as I lay still in my bed of vines and blossoms I could, turning my head, see the great ship, in the distance.
It was now quiet about me, save for the lapping of the water.
There seemed none about.
I was much alone.
I was not afraid of being left, or abandoned. I was afraid, rather, of what I knew was in the water.
“Ho, Callias!” I heard.
“Tal, Durbar!” I called.
I remembered him from the pumps, when, during the time of the great storms they had been manned twenty Ahn a day.
He was better situated than I, for he crouched on two nailed beams, which must have been from the hull of one of the two destroyed galleys.
He was some forty feet away.
There was other wreckage about.
Needless to say, I was much pleased to see him.
“You are in danger!” he called.
I considered swimming to join him.
A blossom floated by.
A fin glided past.
“Perhaps less here than there!” I said.
I was not eager to negotiate the water between us.
“As you will!” he said.
But I saw a swimmer clamber to his makeshift vessel. One end of the beams descended beneath the waves, under the weight of the newcomer. I did not think they would well bear the weight of two. Durbar turned about,
