“Hello,” she called. “Where are you? Who are you?”
“I saw somebody’s feet!” cried the voice. “I’m Snark. Did you come to rescue me?”
What a question! Turning toward the sound, Lutha saw light-colored movement, something waving, a scarf or shirt, then a face peering down. The person was above them, almost at the top of the cliff, her head and shoulders protruding from a hole. Some other cavern, Lutha thought as she glanced out at the transformed Kachis, still busily eating.
“What place is this?” she called.
“Perdur Alas,” the other cried.
At the moment the name meant nothing to Lutha, though she was sure she had heard it recently. She rubbed her head fretfully, calling, “Don’t go away.”
She squirmed back inside to tell the others there was a human being nearby and the name of the place. Leelson’s and the ex-king’s exclamations reminded her where she’d heard the name recently. Poracious Luv had said the sensory recording was from Perdur Alas.
Leelson felt his arms, groaning. “No doubt the woman who’s calling to us is the observer whose senses we experienced.”
“Don’t you find that unbelievable?” Lutha asked.
The ex-king said, “Those who encounter chains of events at two disparate points, without observing the connections, think they have observed coincidence when they have, in fact, seen only consequence.”
Lutha’s mouth dropped open, and he grinned.
“I was a figurehead, yes, but I was allowed tutors.” Leelson started to laugh, cut himself off in midamusement, and rolled over so he could feel tenderly along his ribs.
Mitigan stepped over Leelson’s body and looked out the entrance, then he helped Leelson up so he could do the same. The ex-king didn’t bother.
“I’m no good at practical things,” he said. “I’ve had no experience.”
“You can keep watch, then,” Leelson directed him. “Sit in the opening there and tell us if any of those things come back this way.”
The ex-king obediently sat, throwing Lutha a good-natured glance as he pushed by her to get at the opening.
“How’s the boy?” he asked.
“He’s fine.” Leely was fine. She had no worries whatsoever about Leely. He had just wakened and now sat happily arranging bits of gravel while Leelson and Mitigan talked about getting out, and Lutha turned her attention to Saluez.
At some point in the wild journey, perhaps when they were dumped from the vortex, Saluez’s head had been injured. She had a large bruise above her left ear, and as Lutha felt gingerly around the edges of it, she opened her eyes.
“Have we come to heaven?” Saluez murmured.
For a moment Lutha couldn’t answer. Had they come to heaven! Hell, more likely, but she hesitated to say that, not knowing how badly Saluez was hurt.
“Dananana,” whispered Leely, laying his face against Saluez. “Dananana.” He pulled her veil aside and kissed her face moistly, repeatedly.
Lutha looked away. Just another of Leely’s little habits. She took a deep, painful breath and turned to meet Saluez’s terrified eyes. She’d had time to realize it wasn’t heaven, which saved Lutha from having to break the news.
“We’re not dead?” Saluez asked, sounding strangely disappointed.
“Not so far,” Lutha told her glumly. It would do no good to delay telling her the truth. “If the Kachis don’t come back, we may even survive for a while.”
“They went to heaven,” Saluez cried, her eyes wild with pain and confusion.
“They went out there to eat fish,” Lutha said as matter-of-factly as she could manage. “If the big creatures we saw are Ularians, then your beautiful people are baby Ulari-ans. Or maybe Ularian larvae. Or nymphs.”
“Imagos,” corrected the ex-king from the opening.
“Whatever.” Lutha shrugged, gasping at the pain. Shrugging was not a good idea.
“Mother,” Saluez cried, her eyes wide. “Mother.”
Lutha leaned forward to take Saluez into her arms, and for a moment Saluez clung to her before slumping into unconsciousness once more. The men stopped their talk long enough to cast a sympathetic glance toward the women. Leely scrambled up to the cavern entrance, crawled into Jiacare Lostre’s lap, and stared out across the waves, waving his hands and saying over and over, “Dananana, Dananana,” at which the king looked rather more intrigued than Lutha thought appropriate.
After a time Mitigan took the king’s place in the cavern opening and carried on a shouted conversation with the person in the other cavern, who identified herself as Snark. By this time it was becoming obvious to all those in the cavern that they could not simply climb up or down from where they were. The cliff was sheer below and overhanging above. Snark tried to get a rope to Mitigan, who leaned widely from the entrance, gripping the stone with one hard fist while he flailed unsuccessfully at the windblown line. After a time Snark shouted that she would go up on top and try it from the other side, but by this time Leelson had made a rope of Leely’s harness, all the belts and sashes, plus some strips torn from the bottom of the robes, and had weighted the end with a stone.
Mitigan succeeded in tossing the stone over the tree that protruded from the cliff just above Snark’s hole and turned to the others with an expression of triumph. Then, inexplicably and simultaneously, they all gagged.
“Get in!” demanded Leelson.
Mitigan dodged back into the hole and lay flat.
“Ularians,” breathed Leelson, unnecessarily. Those who were conscious had already figured that out. They lay on their bellies, drooling onto the cave bottom, waiting for the taste to pass. Lutha was nearest the opening, and she actually saw one of them go by, like a hairy whale sailing out over the sea, long, tangled tentacles hanging like a tattered drapery beneath it. It should have seemed balloonlike, she thought. It should have seemed airy, but did not. Instead it breathed ominous cold, horrid intention, ghastly power. She felt the tears start and barely kept herself from moaning.
After a lengthy hiatus, the taste dissipated and they got shakily to their feet once more. When they
