darkness fell and he swam on by memory, and when he could see again there was no one beneath him but the murth-girl.
She flitted to his side and pulled him quickly down into a little rocky crevasse.
'I thought you said it was under the arch,' said Pazel.
'It is. Give me the ropes.'
Quickly she wound the ends of all five ropes around a coral knob. Then she backed deeper into the crevasse and beckoned him to do the same.
'Crouch down. Hold on.'
There was barely room for the two of them. She smiled to be so close to him, her serpentine legs against his own. She took on a soft yellow glow.
'Klyst,' he said stiffly, 'we must go and get that Wolf.'
'We are.'
She grew very still. The sea too seemed to hold its breath. And then out of nowhere the scarlet ray shot by like a great leathery dragon, raked them with an indecipherable look, and vanished over the top of the coral wall. And in its wake came a storm of silver.
They were needlefish, thinner than broom handles and faster than arrows, and they blasted by a yard from Pazel's face in a school so tight it was like a solid body. The sound was like nothing he had ever known: a soft enormity, the pulse of a giant's vein. The school plunged right through the coral arch, blotting out all view of worms and urchins as they passed.
'What was all that for?'
'Ripestry,' she said. 'Don't move.'
The needlefish were gone. But then Pazel felt the sea begin to change. A gentle tug at first, then a stiff current like the recoil of a wave, flowing unmistakably toward the arch. Klyst put her arms around him. The current doubled, then doubled again. It was a riptide now, gushing quietly but with immense power through the arch. Sand rose from the tunnel floor. The vile worms began peeling away.
Embracing him, Klyst began to sing. In song, her voice and language were suddenly beautiful, and free of all fear. It was strange to hear joy in her voice, for the words were somber.
Mothers from out of the ancient cold,
Fathers from fire descended,
Bound to a destiny none foretold,
Birthed us, the never-intended.
Oh never, never again to be
Of this mortal world, this migrant sea.
Children of lsparil's morning call,
Sired on Night's feral steed,
Heirs to a promise that none recall,
Prisoners of dawn-thwarted need.
Oh never, never again to be
Of this wounded world, this wastrel sea.
The current was lifting more and more sand from the seafloor, whirling it away through the tunnel. And slowly a figure appeared.
It was encrusted with old limpets and barnacles, clams, algae, knobs of withered coral. But it was unmistakably a wolf, and its color was a dark blood-red. It stood upright, iron muzzle raised in a silent howl. Pazel felt a great menace in it, although he could not have said why.
'It's no bigger than a real wolf,' he said.
'Heavy, though,' said Klyst.
Even as she spoke the blasting current died away. Klyst freed the ropes from the coral and at once began trussing up the wolf. She was good with knots-Pazel tried not to imagine what she practiced on. Two ropes she looped around the Wolf's head, another two about the midsection. The last she braided through its legs.
When she had finished, Pazel gave the ropes two stiff tugs. The Volpeks responded at once. The lines tightened, shifted, tightened again. But the Wolf did not budge. This was, Pazel knew, extremely weird: five ropes and pulleys should have allowed the men to lift an iron hippopotamus. He looked up: more Volpeks were leaping through the dive portal and entering the sphere. A moment later the ropes snapped tight again.
The Wolf slid forward an inch, then another. The ropes strained tight as bowstrings. At last, like a tree wrenched from the earth, it left the seabed. First it swung out of the arch; then, revolving slowly, it rose.
Pazel heaved a great sigh. 'Your people can stay,' he said. 'These men will be gone before you know it. They're all afraid of the Haunted Coast. They can't wait to get out of here.'
With many a jerk and stutter, the Wolf climbed inexorably toward the bathysphere.
'I know you do not lie,' said Klyst, taking his hand. 'This is why you've come, why the Lord of the Sea gave you to us. This is why it is my fate to love you, a curse that is no curse.'
Pazel was glad it was taking so long to raise the Wolf, for he had no idea how he would convince Klyst to let him break the enchantment. Simple reasoning (that he didn't eat other humans, that his ripestry was just a spell gone wrong) would clearly get him nowhere. He would have to tell her the worst: that he did not feel what she felt, and didn't want to.
Then he would have to command her not to do herself harm.
Silent, they watched the Red Wolf enter the sphere. Then Klyst turned and led him beneath the arch, which now bore an unfortunate resemblance to a chapel doorway. They knelt. Pazel's stomach twisted in knots. He had to tell her the truth. But there she was, beaming at him, pulling his hands into her hair-strange, thick hair, with those braids of tiny kulri shells. He felt as if he was holding the sea itself
'Nine hundred shells in my hair,' she said. 'All perfect, white, clean. That is the rule for murth-girls: a very strict rule of purity. But one shell I keep secret. It has a rose heart. Look.'
He took his hands away. And although he had not pulled or grasped at anything, there it lay on his palm. A shell like all the rest, but blood-red on the inside. She took it from him and held it for a long time, and he wondered if she was having second thoughts. Then she reached out and pressed it against his chest, just below his collarbone.
The shell vanished.
'Where did it go? Did you drop it?'
'Pinch your skin,' she said.
Pazel pinched a fold of his skin, just where she had placed the shell. 'It's inside me,' he whispered.
She nodded. 'A shell is a home that drifts. I have named you my secret home, given you my secret heart. If you want me to stop loving you, cut it from your flesh. Otherwise I am yours. Will you marry me, land-boy, and live on starfish and coral wine, and learn the songs of my grandfathers, and know the million wonders of the murth- world?'
She touched his cheek. His heart was beating so hard he thought he might faint. He no longer knew what he wanted. Images of Thasha and Neeps, of his family, of sorcerers and kings, passed before his eyes like drawings in a storybook, or a dream he was quickly forgetting. Nothing was real but her eyes.
On Klyst's face he saw the gentlest of smiles appear. He felt the beginnings of an answering smile on his own face, and a warmth where she touched him.
And at that precise moment, his mind-fit struck.
It came like a stampede of horses, thundering, trampling. Panic took him entirely. Klyst was shouting, but he heard only that dreaded noise. He knew he could not speak a word-but what was worse, silence or gibberish? Either way she would think he hated her.
'Squalaflagrapaga! Paj! Nag! Zelurak!'
She was weeping and screaming. He fell back on the seafloor, covering his ears. But there was no shutting it out. And the next instant her voice was joined by others, much lower and angrier. A dozen sea-murth men were laying hands on him, biting, strangling, piercing him with their sharp nails and teeth. They must have been watching all along. Behind them Klyst wailed and pleaded.
Their argument was deafening. But Klyst won, and the murth-men let him go. Howling with sobs, she pulled
