approach. It had been a woman with dark skin and hair; now bones were showing in places and worms clustered on exposed organs. Shuddering, he turned away, but then he saw another, similar swarm of fish. And another to his right. He started at something in the edge of his vision, but it was only Wert.
“They drop the bodies from above or send them down the slides. This is where they start.” His voice was weird, thick with the water in his lungs.
“Why were they killed?”
“What do you mean? Most just died of something or other. I suppose a few mighta been executed. But this is where we all end, ain’t it—in the sump.” He waved his hand vaguely. “We collect a lot of stuff for the kitchens here. Orchid shrimp, Rejjem sap, Inf fronds. Other things we fish for deeper, especially shear-teeth. You’ll learn about that, but mostly you’ll work in the deep sump. That’s perfect for you. So come on, let’s go to the Drop.”
They swam on, with the water getting gradually deeper at first. He didn’t have to be told what the Drop was— he knew it when he saw it. The sump became a steeply curving cone that drove deep into the stone of Umbriel. And at the very bottom, in the narrowest place, an actinic light flashed, like a ball of lightning.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“That’s the conduit to the ingenium,” Wert said. “The sump takes care of our bodies—the ingenium takes care of our souls and keeps the world running. I’d stay well clear of the conduit, if I was you. Or me, now that I think of it.”
Well, Glim thought. There’s something Annaig would want to report to her prince. If only I had some way of talking to her. He glanced at Wert; he seemed not to be a bad fellow, but in the bigger picture—Annaig’s picture— that wouldn’t matter. Though Wert could temporarily breathe underwater, his body was clumsy, not built for swimming. Glim knew he could easily escape him. If he killed him first, that would probably give him more time.
But if he survived long enough to find Annaig and give her this bit of news, then what? How could he hide when he was the only one of his kind on Umbriel? He couldn’t. Not for long.
No, before he did something like that he’d need to have a lot more information to pass on. Could the ingenium be damaged from the sump? From anywhere? If so, how?
They descended about two-thirds of the way down the sump, and Wert began moving toward what appeared to be translucent sacs stuck to the wall. There were hundreds of them, maybe thousands, in all shapes and sizes. As he drew nearer, he could make out vague forms within the sacs.
“These are being born,” Wert said.
Curious, Glim moved closer, and to his astonishment found himself looking into a face. The eyes were closed, the features not fully formed, but it wasn’t a child’s face; it was that of an adult—just softer, flabbier than most. It was also hairless.
“I don’t understand.”
Wert grinned, plucked something from the water, and handed it to Glim. It was a sort of worm, very soft. It pulsed in and out, and with every contraction, a little jet of water squirted from one end of it. Other than that, it was featureless.
“That’s a proform,” Wert said. “When someone dies, the ingenium calls one of these down to the conduit and gives it a soul. It comes back up here and attaches to the wall, and someone grows.”
“That’s interesting,” Glim said. He looked at the proform. “You all start as this? No matter what you end up looking like? This is what you really are?”
“You’ve got funny questions in your head,” Wert said. “We are what we are.”
“And everyone is born like this?”
“Everyone, from lord and lady to me and—well, not you. At least not yet.”
“How are they born?”
“Well, that’s one of your jobs—to recognize when one of these is about to start breathing. You can tell by the color of the sac—it gets a sheen, like this one. Then you swim that up to the birth pool—that’s another cave up in the shallows.”
“What if you don’t do it in time?”
“They die, of course. That’s why this job is the most important, really. And it’s why you’re so suited for it, see? Nah, they won’t waste you much on gathering. This is where you’ll be.” He doubled over suddenly, and Glim realized he was coughing. A dark stain spread from his mouth and nostrils.
“Are you okay?”
Wert gradually unfolded, then nodded.
“Why do the vapors hurt you like that?”
“Why is water wet? I don’t know. But I have to go up soon. Not lasting so long, this time. So let’s go see the birthing pool.”
As they started back up, Glim glanced back down toward the light, but he didn’t see it. Instead he saw a maw full of teeth gaping at him.
“Xhuth!” he gargled, jerking himself to the side and stroking hard to turn.
The fish turned, too, but not before he saw the thing was fifteen feet long, at least. Its tail was long, whiplike, and it had two great swimming fins set under it, like a whale.
But those teeth would shame a shark to blush.
“Sheartooth!” Wert shouted. “You’ve made it mad somehow.”
Glim swam desperately, but the head kept right toward him, so he slashed at it with his claws. They caught but didn’t tear the creature’s tough hide. He let go, then struck again, this time at the back, behind the head, and there he dug in. It couldn’t bite him there.
It could try, though. It thrashed like a snake in a hot skillet; he saw Wert stab at it with his spear, only to be struck by the tail. The skraw went limp in the water.
He was starting to get dizzy and his arms and shoulders were aching. He’d have to do something soon.
Here’s hoping your belly is softer, he thought. He let go with one set of claws and swung underneath. He was almost thrown clear, but one of the fins actually buffeted him back to the belly, and he slashed with all his might. Again his claws caught. He sank in the other hand.
The sheartooth gyred into a loop, and the force was such that he knew he could only hold on for another few seconds.
But the same force dragged Glim down the belly, opening it up like a gutting knife, and he was engulfed in a cloud of blood.
He kicked hard and swam free of the still-twisting monster, but it had lost interest in him, focusing instead on its own demise.
He realized suddenly that he’d forgotten Wert.
He had drifted down fifty or sixty feet. His eyes were closed and his chest was moving oddly.
Glim slung Wert over his back and kicked straight for the surface. He could feel the man quivering on his back. The light of the sun seemed a long way off.
He burst into air and reversed his hold, keeping Wert’s head out of the sump as he vomited water from his lungs and began to struggle. His eyes opened, looking wild. He began to make a horrible sucking sound that wasn’t breathing.
“Should I take you back under?” Glim asked.
Wert shook his head violently, but Glim wasn’t sure if that meant yes or no.
But then he seemed to draw a real breath, and then another. They reached the shallows, where Glim could stand and Wert could lean against him.
“Shearteeth—usually not so vicious,” he said. “Usually don’t attack us. Something about you set it off. Maybe because the sump was still learning you. Thought you were—intruder.”
He glanced at Glim. “Thanks, by the way. I wouldn’t have made it back up.”
“I thought you were going to die anyway.”
“It’s always bad between,” Wert explained. “You don’t want to be underwater when you start breathing air again, but then again, you still can’t breathe air.”
“That’s horrible,” Glim said. “There must be some better way to do this.”
“Sometimes a lord or lady will come down for a swim, and they have other ways, not like the vapors. But the
