by Karen Chance
And all of it was happening at the same time.
I tried to rein it in, but instead, my vision shattered into a kaleidoscope with far, far too many facets to even try to process. There were whiskers in my face, a furry snuffling; there were claws, as one of the creatures wrestled another for a female’s affection; there was a furious chase around and around a huge, old trunk by a trio of youngsters, their claws gripping the wood as easily as human feet would run across sand. There was a sudden plunge under water, with furry bodies twisting and turning and racing after gleaming fish—
I exerted all my strength and finally managed to pull back, my heart pounding, my mind stuttering, my breath catching in confusion in my throat. For a moment, I was unsure whether I was in the river below or in the canopy above or far beneath the ground. I stared about, trying to will my eyes to focus on the here and now.
And snapped back to churning water and the back of Ray’s dark head.
I let my breath out in a trickle as reality returned.
I did not think I would try that again.
No, I did not think that at all.
Not that it would probably have worked if I had. Farseeing required concentration, and we had just hit the rapids—hard. I came fully back to myself to find waves crashing over the raft in a stinging spray, our little vessel shaking hard enough to send pieces of it boiling away over the water, and Ray digging his makeshift paddle deep, trying to keep us upright.
And then we plummeted over a six-foot waterfall.
It was tiny compared to the others we had encountered in this world, but it immediately led to four more in quick succession. It felt like we were bouncing down a giant staircase, except that we went under every time we splashed down, leaving water cascading off the canopy when we emerged, making it hard to see. And most of what I could make out was blurred by the prismatic effect of the sun through all those droplets.
Ray started trying to steer us toward shore, as the battering we were taking was not sustainable. I worked to tighten the ropes, and to keep the rest of his creation from falling to pieces around us. But that was made challenging by the rocks, which scraped across the bottom and slammed into the sides, flinging us this way and that. And by the current, which felt considerably faster, bringing more obstacles along every moment. And by the spray, which was constant now, and hitting us from seemingly all sides at once.
And by Ray suddenly flipping us over in the water.
I did not understand why, but it had been deliberate. He’d headed straight for some rocks beside a mighty swirl of white water, then pushed off of them, throwing his strength and body weight into the roll. As a result, instead of landing in the calmer waters near the shore, where we had been heading a moment ago, we went straight into the heart—
Of a raging vortex.
Water closed over my head, bubbling madly in every direction, and cutting off what little vision I’d had. Even worse, the high sides of the raft, which had once helped to support me, now served as a cage. My legs were useless and my arms couldn’t seem to push past the thicket-like canopy, which was making our vessel seem less like a raft suddenly and more like a wooden coffin.
I thrashed uselessly, before finally managing to throw off the camouflaged top, but it didn’t help much. I continued to be sucked down a twisting, churning, water-filled passage, while the raging currents tried to decide whether they wanted to beat me to death or drown me. And I still couldn’t see!
The water was murkier than I’d expected and swirling madly all around me, leaving me so disorientated that I had no idea which way was up. I forced myself to release some air, intending to follow the bubbles to the surface, but they didn’t go anywhere. They stayed clustered around my face, as if they were confused, too.
But a moment later I abruptly hit air again, although it was less like surfacing and more like being vomited up by some great sea creature. It felt like my body partly left the water, then smacked back down again, but I couldn’t tell for sure. I was too busy gasping and coughing and retching, my starved lungs struggling to drag in breath after breath. I did not think I was doing too well.
“Dorina!”
I heard Ray’s voice, but couldn’t answer.
“Dorina!”
“I’m okay,” I finally managed to croak, although in truth, I wasn’t sure about that. Spots danced in front of my eyes and the world had gone dark. Or perhaps it had already been that way, I thought, finally blinking enough water out of my eyes that I could see.
Only what I saw didn’t make sense.
And then I realized what I was looking at, and it still didn’t.
“A cave?” I gasped, staring dizzily down at a seemingly never-ending drop. One that I was suspended over by nothing more than the water churning around me. The raft, which had floated a little way off, looked like a twiggy chandelier hung over the vast, echoing space. Even stranger, a waterfall flowed up some nearby rocks, spraying like a fountain into the air.
Even having been in a similar situation recently, I found it . . . mind altering.
“The underside of the river!” Ray corrected, his voice loud to compensate for the sound of the falls. He must have been thrown clear of the raft at some point, and had ended up a few dozen yards away. He spotted me and started to swim over.
“Why . . . did you bring us . . . here?” I gasped. “And how? Wood is . . . buoyant.”
“Yeah, well, I had some help!”
His voice echoed strangely, as did my own. It did not improve my dizziness any. “What kind of . . . help?”
“The legends about Nimue’s powers, the ones that talk about the river. She’s said to have made escape hatches for her people, in case they got surrounded—”
“That was an escape hatch?” I did not bother to keep the incredulity out of my voice.
He grinned from a little way off, having snagged what was left of the raft, which he started towing over. “It’s all relative! Her people travel across water the way we do land. Some say they can even walk on it—”
That claim would have sounded absurd to me a mere day ago, but that was before I had been to Faerie.
“—for them, what we just slid down would probably be a piece of cake.”
“A what?”
He shook his head. “I forgot; you don’t do slang. I just meant—” he broke off, and his eyes blew wide. “Get back on the raft!”
I looked for the threat that his reaction had told me was close, but did not see anything. Until he pointed at something in the water. I saw glimmering emerald depths with a crashing sea of sunlit white above—or below, depending on how you wanted to look at it. And dark figures moving against all that light, coming this way.
Fey, I thought sickly. They must have arrived in time to see where we went. Which meant—
“That we’re fucked, if you don’t get on!” Ray yelled.
I did not understand what he was talking about, since the river was upside down. It was in the cave ceiling, not running through the darkness below. There was nothing to get “on” to.
Yet he was clinging to the raft, nonetheless, gripping it with his legs and holding out an urgent hand to me. I took it because I did not know what else to do, and he gave a heave, dragging me up behind him. And as soon as he did—
The strangest thing happened.
I had been bobbing upside down, my head and arms sticking out of the water like a human stalactite. But when Ray hauled me onto the raft, it was as if the world suddenly flipped. I found myself right side up, clinging to his waist in an underground river that ran along the bottom of a large cavern.
Suddenly, everything made sense. The waterfall crashed over rocks that looked darker where it flowed, and sprayed out at the bottom as gravity demanded. The huge echoing space was now above us where it belonged, with the witchy fingers of limestone hanging downwards instead of spearing up. A few bats also hung properly down from their perches, instead of looking as if they’d gone to sleep standing upright.
/> I nonetheless stayed where I was for a moment, my head against Ray’s back, my mind spinning as it slowly adjusted to this new reality. He started to paddle, hard, and we began to move down what appeared to be a perfectly normal river. Well, perfectly normal if you ignored the sunlight sparkling below us, and the dark silhouettes swimming upward toward us.
And gaining.
These might not be water fey, but they almost moved like it, bulleting towards us at speeds that almost looked enhanced, as if a human-like body could not attain them unaided. But we were moving, too, with a motivated master vampire leaning into every stroke. The raft was in no way aerodynamic, but it almost seemed like it for the moment, shooting ahead as if we, too, had a motor.
In front of us, maybe a few hundred yards away, I saw another vortex. It was churning in the middle of the stream, but with nothing around it to explain why. The rest of the water on this side of the river could best be described as gentle fluctuations, or at most small wavelets. They did not even crest, yet the furious, white-edged mouth of the vortex started dragging us forward.
I looked behind us again, and the number of fey had grown. Where there had been only a few before, now there were dozens, a continuous line of divers heading toward the surface. I saw the first break through the water and sweep long, wet, silver hair out of his eyes, and thought that he would take a moment to reorient himself as I had done.
But I’d hardly had the thought when he began swimming after us. The strokes were worthy of an Olympic athlete, digging hard into the water, the light from below gleaming off his hair and water-slick muscles. And that was despite the fact that, to him, it must feel like he was swimming upside down.
But the vortex’s current had a firm hold on us now, and we were speeding ahead, so quickly that Ray no longer bothered to paddle. He glanced back at me, his face flushed and wet and strangely savage. “You don’t talk much!”
“What would you like me to say?”
“Most people would be yelling at me for an explanation!”
I thought about it. “I assume we are going back up top, because the fey are down here now?”
He laughed, and oddly considering the circumstances, it sounded genuine. “Right in one!”
And then we were falling.
The trip through the second watery escape hatch was no easier than the first, and I came no less close to drowning. But when we popped up in a deserted stream, I felt the same slightly mad smile stretch my face that had been on Ray’s. We had made it!
The world was upside down again, and despite the fact that I had expected it this time, it was still bizarre to see blue sky below us and trees above. The whitewater rush tossed us about and sounded loud in my ears. The warmth of the sun played on my face. And then the world flipped and I laughed, because Ray’s ruse had worked!
The fey had been left behind!
Well, most of them.
I spied several dark figures slinging around the vortex below us. But vampire stamina rivalled that of any fey, not to mention vampire strength. Ray started paddling and our little craft took off, almost flying down the rapids.
And this time, I knew what to look for.
“There!” I yelled, clinging to his waist with one arm, while pointing with the other. “Right there!”
“I see it!” he yelled back, looking at the tell-tale whirlpool almost hidden among the crashing waves. He made for it, just as I felt something whiz past my ear. A fey arrow quivered out of a piece of driftwood where none had been a second ago, and then a barrage followed.
I looked about, confused as to how they had gotten here so fast, and how they had shot waterlogged weapons when they did so. But then I glimpsed a fey with dry clothes on the bank, with a foot looped under a root to allow him to lean out and fire arrow after arrow at our wildly bobbing vessel. Most of the arrows missed, but several ended up tangled in the thicket around us, and one slammed into Ray’s thigh.
“Fuckers!” he yelled.
And then we were plunging down another watery conduit.
I did not know how we were supposed to get ahead of our pursuers if they were on both sides of the river now. I assumed that Ray had been right: these tunnels had to be easier for Nimue’s people to navigate. Perhaps they used them like slides, giving them a speed boost and leaving their enemies floundering in their wake. But we were not Green Fey.
We were, however, on the ride of a lifetime, because this vortex seemed stronger than the last two, or perhaps we had just entered it going at a greater speed. All I knew was that we shot out of the water on the other side of the river, sticks flying, Ray cursing, and me clinging to him with an iron grip. And trying to tell myself that we were not about to plunge to our deaths as we sailed straight into the huge open space below us.
It was still a shock when we slammed into the water again, upside down. And even more of one when the mind wrenching feeling of having the world reorient itself hit again, so abruptly that I wondered if this sort of thing led to brain damage if done often enough. I did not have time to wonder long, however.
The current was stronger here, grabbing us like a closing fist, ripping us out of the area around the vortex and all but throwing us down the river. But I did not feel like complaining. Because the fey were back, or, more likely, had never left at all.
I did not know if some had stayed behind deliberately, or if they had simply not made the transition fast enough, but dark shadows were already leaping along the “banks” behind us, finding toe holds in the almost perpendicular rock, and making themselves a pathway where none existed.
So that they could send another barrage our way.
“Damn it, get in front of me!” Ray yelled, as arrows hit the water on both sides of us.
“No! Ray—”
“I can take a few arrows; you can’t!”
“That’s more than a few!”
He turned around and grabbed me by the front of my tunic. “Look at me. I am the captain now, all right? Now get the hell in front!”
But as it happened, I didn’t have to.
The current whirled us around a second later, leaving us facing the wrong way, and Ray gasping as three arrows slammed into his back, almost at the same time.
“Fuckers,” he yelled again, although it sounded more like a wheeze, his lungs having just been shredded.
“I need a weapon,” I gritted out, furious.
But I didn’t have one. Our pack was long since gone, lost along with everything we owned in the raging rapids. But then a fey dropped down on top of us from the slick side of a stalactite, and it turned out that I had everything I needed, after all.
I snatched him out of the air before he could grab Ray, who had slumped over. I wasn’t sure how much leverage I had with my useless legs, but for once, luck was on my side. They had become entangled with the wreckage of our raft, giving me enough control to punch the fey repeatedly in the face, throwing all my weight and rage behind it.
I felt teeth shatter and tear the skin of my knuckles. I felt bones break—his, I was pretty sure, although at that moment I didn’t care. I felt his nose cave in and something that might have been an eyeball squash against my hand, before popping like a grape. My arm shuddered and my shoulder muscles cried out at the sheer amount of force I was demanding of them; my face was splattered with blood and my throat was sore from screams I hadn’t even realized I had been making. Yet I continued—
Until a hand grabbed my wrist.
“I think . . . he’s dead,” Ray gasped.
I looked down at what I was holding.
Yes, I thought; yes, he was.
I looked up, and saw half a dozen fey, the only ones close enough to have witnessed the fight, clinging to rocks and limestone formations, staring. I bared my blood covered teeth at them. Yes, I thought. You understood that, didn’t you? Then understand this, and I tore the fey’s head off, ripping the sinew and muscle from the bones, and tossing it to one side of the craft while the body slipped away on the other.
Then we fell down another vortex.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Dorina, Faerie
I hadn’t realized that the vortex was so close and I wasn’t prepared. And perhaps it was because I was exhausted, but the currents seemed harsher this time. They felt like they were going to tear us apart before the fey had a chance.
I barely noticed when we surfaced again, didn’t even feel the rotation when the world flipped and righted itself. I vaguely understood that someone was hitting my back, but didn’t know who. But the blows were hard, shuddering my ribcage, and forcing water up and out of my throat.
“Damn it, breathe!”
It was Ray. He sounded upset. I frowned, because I couldn’t remember . . .
Oh, yes. He had four fey arrows sticking out of him. Three in his chest and one in his thigh. And something about that thought did what nothing else could, and roused me.
I came back to myself, only to find that I was sprawled over the raft, face down and puking my guts out into the river. I still couldn’t half breathe, but Ray was rhythmically beating on my back, which seemed to help. Every time he did it, more water and phlegm came up, or perhaps that was the remains of breakfast. Didn’t know; didn’t care.
And then my eyes were crossing at a neatly fletched arrow that was sticking out of my shoulder, a bright shock of pain.
“You bastards!” Ray sounded like he was sobbing.
I looked back at him and my thoughts, my heart, and quite possibly the blood in my veins halted, all at once. I stared at him for what felt like an hour, because I had been wrong. There were not four arrows.
The fey had riddled his body with them while I had been out, to the point that his skin ran with rivulets of blood, blood we could no longer replace. There were twenty or thirty shafts; I didn’t know. Couldn’t count. They had literally ripped him apart and he had allowed them to do so, in order to shield me.