“It was more than a polite discussion, Xulai. There was something the Sea King didn’t include in his little speech, though he let us see enough that we should probably have figured it out on our own. You saw the seadogs?”
“Yes, I did. And they’re going to transform horses, too.”
“Right. They’re transforming dogs to be sea creatures and they’re letting them retain their doggishness. Wagging, sitting, fur, floppy ears: very dog.”
“I know, yes.”
“They’re trying to do the same thing for horses.”
“I know that, Abasio.”
“Don’t you think it’s strange, then, that they are not transforming humans into mermen and mermaids, letting us retain our humanity? We will have dog-shaped swimmers with gills and finned feet. Maybe horse-shaped swimmers. Why must humans transform into octopi? Why not human swimmers with gills and finned hands and feet?”
She stared, stunned. “Why?”
“I think your sea father made it clear: because the sea dwellers wouldn’t stand for it. They were willing to save us, but not as humans. Humans did too much damage. The only way they’ll let us live is if we don’t look like humans. We have to be willing to take a shape that’s totally unlike our own! A shape that may even be repulsive to many of us. We have to be willing to do that before they’ll accept us. Horses and dogs never hurt them. We did!”
The ship bearing the emissary and the remaining members of the Tingawan embassy staff arrived late one afternoon. Lok-i-xan arranged a meeting for the following morning, which would give the emissary time to fulfill his duty as Xakixa for the Great Bear of Zol. Precious Wind and Xulai went with him to Zol—or to the place where Zol had been.
During the long years Bear had been in Norland, Zol had vanished with the waters rising. Bear’s name tablet lay in the clan shrine beneath the waves. It was retrieved by a diver, brought up for the laying on of hands, then replaced by the diver, who reported the lantern had shown light. Precious Wind and Xulai took him at his word; they would have lied about it themselves if necessary to save Bear’s family from shame. Neither really blamed Bear for his betrayal, though both had felt it deeply. His end had redeemed him in their eyes, as it had in the eyes of the emissary.
This return of the Xakixa was reported also to Bear’s betrothed, who paid a courteous visit to Bear’s clan. The following day Precious Wind learned Legami-am was soon to be married. Out of curiosity, Precious Wind went to visit her and asked the woman—for she was no longer a girl—if she had ever noticed something missing, something personal, even if it had happened years ago.
Oh, yes, she said after considering the question. Yes. A tortoiseshell brush had been stolen from her bedroom when she was only eleven. She remembered it because the brush had been a gift from her grandmother, and she had grieved over its loss. Why?
Precious Wind told her why, and on hearing, Legami-am shed her first tears for Bear.
“I did not know,” she cried. “I thought he had forgotten me.”
“He would want you to be happy,” said Precious Wind, though, given Bear’s temperament, she was not at all sure of this. “Those of us who knew him want you to remember him kindly.”
“The monster has to be killed,” said the emissary. “It is of such power and malevolence that it will, if able, kill every human being on the planet. I doubt such a creature can be satisfied, and it does not satisfy the creature to know all mankind has limited time.”
“Now that his home and devices have been destroyed, he cannot go on for centuries, as he has in the past,” said Justinian.
“Our problem, sir, is that we have no idea how long he can go on! A decade might allow him to destroy the world. A year perhaps. How do we know? He has to be destroyed, trapped. Since his particular animosity is toward Tingawa, if we bait a trap, it must be with Tingawans.”
Precious Wind and Lok-i-xan exchanged glances. Precious Wind said, “Emissary, were you able to do as I asked in my message?”
“You asked me to find Abasio’s wagon and get it to Wellsport. I sent a pigeon to the abbey, to the man Wordswell. I told him where the wagon was hidden. I asked him to send good men to find it, to bring it to the abbey, and then drive it to Wellsport. I received a message in return that the wagon was on its way to Wellsport from the abbey. I do not know if it has arrived there.”
“My wagon?” asked Abasio.
Precious Wind nodded. “Your wagon, yes. It is easily recognizable, and some of us have been working on a plan. Remember when we met the Nightwind, the Axan-xin?” She turned to the emissary. “The captain of that ship told me of the message they had received from you, sir. You said the monster likely could have been splattered with the duchess’s blood?”
“From what the witness said, I would judge it likely, yes.”
“We have a locator here in Tingawa, one of the old machines much like the one the duchess had. In itself, it is harmless. It can find someone by a genetic code. It uses the same technology that probably killed the duchess herself, in the end.”
“How?” asked Abasio.
Precious Wind shrugged. “The duchess’s hair was snagged on a tree—remember? When you first saw her in the woods behind Woldsgard?”
“Yes. I do remember.”
“Xulai gave me those hairs. When I went to the Vulture Tower, I substituted some of Alicia’s hairs for those Jenger had left in his hairbrush. Alicia used them to make a cloud to destroy Jenger, and in doing so, she destroyed herself. The clouds had to be released close to the victim. She couldn’t find him to use it, but she kept it and somehow in the conflict
