"James!" he said. "We aren't more than six hundred feet under the surface now. Easily, I could swim up from here."
"It's good to know that, Giles," answered Jim. "Let's just hope you don't have to."
Laughter suddenly rumbled through the wall of the bubble. Rrrnlf was amused with them.
"You mean to say you didn't know how deep you were until now?" he said. "Little Mage, I'd thought better of you than that!"
"As it happened," said Jim icily, "I had ways of finding out. I have ways of doing many things. No offense meant; but it'd do you no harm to remember that!"
Rrrnlf sobered immediately.
"Now, now," he said, "no Sea Devil doubts the mighty powers that we know wee Mages can wield on occasion. It just struck me funny for a moment."
"All right," said Jim.
He spoke as placatingly as possible. He had plans that might involve Rrrnlf in the future. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was make an enemy of the Sea Devil. "Also we use those powers to help others. To our friends we are always helpful."
"That's true," boomed Rrrnlf thoughtfully. "Over the last thousand years I can think of a number of times when such as you helped one of us. I am indeed your friend, wee Mage, as witness I have brought you here. You may count on me."
"Thank you Rrrnlf," said Jim. "I do."
Suddenly, they were enveloped by a school of fish running from half a foot to a couple of feet in length.
Jim thought they might be cod, but could not be sure. He had always thought cod were a bottom-dwelling fish.
When they came out of the school it became apparent that their forward motion had stopped and they were sinking toward the silt plain below them. Jim strained his eyes to see what was underneath the bubble but had trouble making out exactly what was there. For a moment he was baffled; then he wrote himself a quick incantation:
GIVE ME VISION LIKE THE → FISH
Immediately, staring through the bottom of the bubble, he saw that they were headed toward what looked like about a quarter acre of huge tumbled boulders, a sort of small Badlands in the midst of the silt—but also somewhat covered by silt itself. There seemed no particular reason for going down there; but then, as they got closer, he began to make out a shape which became clear as that of a large squid. It was a very large squid; and it lay with the tips of its ten tentacles buried in the silt among the rocks.
As they got closer, the squid seemed to grow in size, until Jim began to realize how truly enormous he was. His longest tentacles alone must be something like two to three hundred feet in length, and his body was as big as that of a submarine from Jim's world.
"Is that Granfer?" Jim asked Rrrnlf—and he had to struggle to keep a tone of awe out of his voice.
"That's the old fellow," said Rrrnlf. "Sitting there as usual, waiting for his food to come to him. Oh, he can move around if he wants. You'd be surprised at how he can move. But after some hundreds or thousands of years, he seems to feel—why bother?"
Suddenly, while they still seemed to be a fully safe distance from Granfer, the tip of a huge tentacle seemed to appear out of nowhere and wrapped itself around the bubble.
There was a squeaking noise as the massive suckers took hold and the tentacle tightened, trying to crush or break through the bubble. But since Jim had enchanted it to resist any pressure whatsoever, it resisted this now. After a moment the tentacle slipped off, fell downward and apparently disappeared somewhere among the rocks and silt.
"You've a Mage with you, I see, Rrrnlf," said a clear, surprisingly high-pitched voice from below them.
Rrrnlf roared with gargantuan laughter, again.
"Now, how did you guess that, Granfer?" he boomed.
"Don't make fun of a feeble old creature like me," squeaked the voice. "I have to feed to stay alive, you know."
They had continued dropping steadily toward the enormous squid body. As they got close, Jim stared; for the tips of two tentacles were holding something up in front of the one massive eye that was visible.
Whatever they held was dark and small. It was a second before Jim realized that this was only an apparent smallness. It came from the object being next to Granfer's enormous bulk. The object was a book, held open. It looked like a postage stamp beside the rest of that huge creature; but the evidence of Jim's eyes were undeniable.
Granfer was reading.
Chapter Fourteen
Even as Jim tried to estimate the probable size of the book—which must be very big indeed, now that he realized its actual proportions—it disappeared.
Jim blinked. He had not even seen the flick of a moving tentacle to tuck it out of sight. He was left almost doubting that he had seen a book at all. But his memory of the sight was sharp and clear. The only solution he could imagine was that during his blink Granfer had snatched the book out of view beneath his enormous body.
But what, he wondered, would this sea creature be doing with such an enormous heavy and thick volume, that had to have been of obvious human origin? It could only have come from some sunken ship…
Some books, handwritten and hand-bound in the Middle Ages, were that size. Although books of any dimensions were very scarce, indeed. The labor involved in writing one by hand was mind-boggling.
They continued down until they hovered directly above the great eye of Granfer himself. It looked larger than Jim had ever imagined an eye could be. It would have made a small swimming pool, he thought. How was it looking at them now? Jim wondered. Evilly, or simply hungrily?
Their bubble halted just above it, at Jim's voiceless magical command, on his seeing Rrrnlf stop.
"You shouldn't try to eat the wee Mage and his friends," boomed Rrrnlf to Granfer.
"You're right. They should pardon me," said the high-pitched voice of Granfer.
Jim could not quite make out from where Granfer's speech was coming. Possibly from out of sight, down where the tentacles joined the body, and the mouth must be. But there was no guarantee of that. "I'm just so hungry all the time. It was sheer habit."
In fact, at this time Granfer was dragging in what looked like a manta ray about a dozen feet across, though it was hard to tell what it would be, stretched out, since it was compressed by the tentacle that held it. It disappeared underneath the tower of Granfer's body where Jim had suspected the mouth of the cephalopod to be.
It was an almost absent-minded capture and swallow. Jim wrote a quick new magical command on the inside of his forehead to the effect that Granfer should feel himself becoming nauseated at even the thought of eating humans. If Granfer could swallow something the size of a killer whale, as Carolinus had mentioned, he could probably swallow their whole bubble with a little more effort.
"Indeed, indeed," Granfer was going on, "it's a great thing for me to meet living land dwellers, except on the surface of the sea; and I seldom go there. I suppose you came because you wanted to see me for some reason, wee Mage?"
Jim had been about to point out to Granfer that he was not really entitled to the title of Mage. But on second thought, it would do no harm if Granfer gave him credit for as much control of magic as possible.
"Oh, mainly just simple curiosity," he said. "I'd heard you were the oldest and wisest creature in all the seas. I wanted to talk to someone like that."
"Ah well, you know," said Granfer, absent-mindedly hauling in and swallowing a fish that looked as if it weighed about two hundred pounds and was almost the shape of a basketball. "It's just a matter of having so many memories, you know, and remembering so many things. But what could I remember that would be of any great interest to you, wee Mage?"
"Well," said Jim. He had intended to feel his way gradually, but it was difficult to simply make conversation, some hundreds of feet under the sea surface, with the largest squid the world had probably ever seen. He and Granfer had too little in common for chit-chat. "It happens we've been seeing evidence of sea serpents on the island where I and these two Companions of mine live."
"One of thos
e two Companions is a selkie, isn't he?" asked Granfer.
"I am!" said Giles belligerently. He was not the least ashamed of his selkie blood. He simply did not go around advertising the fact that it was there.
"Thought so. Yes, I thought so," said Granfer, hauling in and swallowing another large fish. In order to get them, Jim noticed his tentacles reached out beyond where Jim could see even with the fish-vision he now had. "I know the sign of the blood. Yes, I'd recognize it in any land dweller."
"I was talking about sea serpents," said Jim.
"Oh yes, serpents," said Granfer. "One of those is always dropping by to talk to me, too, you know. Not so fearful of me as most because of their size. And to tell the truth, I don't think I'd like the taste of one too well, in any case. Give me cod, any day. There's nothing like cod. Delicious!"
"So," said Jim, "perhaps you know why we're seeing more of them around this island of ours."
"It's that odd-shaped island, rather good-sized," put in Rrrnlf to the squid. "The one right next to the big land mass that stretches forever and ever—almost."
"Yes, yes, I rather guessed that was the island the wee Mage was talking about," said Granfer. He sighed. It was a strange, groaning sound that Jim had to puzzle over for a second before recognizing it. "Solitary individuals, the serpents. Almost as solitary as the Sea Devils—eh, Rrrnlf?"
"Much worse than us. When they gather together, it's against their nature; or there's some strong reason."
"Which reason is it this time?" Jim asked Granfer bluntly.
"Oh, just a reason, I understand," said Granfer. "Dear, dear! I tried to calm them down, you know. But it was no use. Only the other day a dragon from that same land that you come from, wee Mage—a dragon named Gleingul—managed to kill a serpent all by himself on some tide banks of a place called the Gray Sands—"
"It was about a century or so, ago, Granfer," put in Rrrnlf.
"Eh? That long? Anyway, it's worked on them. One of the troubles with serpents—and I always tell them this, too, when I talk to them—is that they take things too much to heart. But no, they're determined to clean the dragons off that piece of high land. Of course, there's the dragons' hoards they have in mind, too—"
"Odd," rumbled Rrrnlf, "both dragons and serpents having hoards, like that."
"—Anyway," went on Granfer, "there's no stopping the serpents, this time. So for once they're all going to work together, and be helped by some kind of land dweller like yourself, wee Mage; only he lives on the large piece of land that Rrrnlf was just mentioning that went on forever and ever."
"I believe I know who," said Jim.
"Happens, he's near the western shore of it, close to your island," went on Granfer, "and he, with some of his people want your island for themselves. I understand he's the lander who's spoken to the sea serpents about assaulting your island at the same time his friends do—he and his friends to destroy your friends, and the serpents to destroy the dragons."
"I see," said Jim. Granfer was a smooth liar. Carolinus had said Ecotti could not be the Mastermind. "That raises a number of questions."
"Perhaps I can answer one without your asking," said Granfer. "This lander is also a magician."
"I know who you mean," said Jim sharply. "But he's not a magician. He's a sorcerer. That's different."
"Different, is it?" echoed Granfer. "Well, well. It's seldom nowadays that I learn anything new; but now I've just learned something. I didn't know there were different kinds of magicians."
"There aren't," said Jim. "There's magicians and sorcerers."
"Yet they both use magic; or so I thought," said Granfer. "What makes them different?"
"I'm afraid it'd take a magician with more learning than I have to explain that properly," said Jim. "But I know who you're referring to. His name's Ecotti."
"Ah," said Granfer on another sigh, "how you magicians astound me. Wee Mage, it's amazing the way you can reach out and pluck a name out of nowhere like that and be right."
"Now, for another question," said Jim. "Just how does Ecotti contact the sea serpents?"
"You know," said Granfer, "I told them not to do this. I said it wouldn't work. You'll run into another magician, I said. That island's bound to have at least one magician. And then what'll happen to you? But would he listen? No."
"Who do you mean by he?" asked Jim.
"Ah, well now," said Granfer, "I don't know whether he'd like me to tell you who he is or not. What use would it be to you to know, any way?"
"If I knew who he was, Rrrnlf could probably help me find him—"
"I can find anyone or anything in any of the oceans," said Rrrnlf grimly. "On any place on high land too, given time enough. Nothing stops a Sea Devil."
"Would you do that, Rrrnlf?" said Granfer in a tone as close to wistfulness as a creature weighing a matter of tons could come.
"I'm indebted to the Mage. And besides, he may be able to help me find who stole my Lady. I know it was a serpent. And I'll find whoever it was. When I do… !"
"No doubt you will, lad," said Granfer soothingly. "I've no doubt of it at all—"
"Just a minute, Granfer," said Jim. "You still haven't told me how Ecotti made his contact and agreement with the sea serpents to help the French forces—for those are the ones on the larger land that you're talking about—attack England, which is our island."
"Dear, dear, dear," said Granfer, "so many questions. And I've answered so many over the centuries that it's hard to remember where or when I am. Sometimes I think—"
Once again, Granfer's tentacles had moved like lightning. This time they came out of nowhere linked and woven together like a net, that caught the bubble, pushed it down and under Granfer. The darkness of the silt closed around Jim and the others utterly, so that suddenly they were in inky darkness.
"I'll think about that question for a while." Granfer's voice filtered down to them, muffled by the silt above them and by the mass of his own body. Jim ordered the bubble to move. It stirred slightly, but between the silt and Granfer's weight holding it down it seemed trapped.
Which was all wrong. Because it was supposed to ignore any pressure upon it; and yet the pressure of Granfer's admittedly massive body and the silt were holding it trapped.
Jim was stunned. Granfer was not a Natural, and therefore did not have instinctive, unconscious built-in superhuman abilities, like that which had allowed the Sea Devil to move at great speed with them through the water.
Neither, of course, could he have the kind of powers that the sorcerer Ecotti had obtained from the Dark Powers, unless—and this was too far-fetched to really consider—Granfer could have sold himself to the Dark Powers.
It was unthinkable, because while some humans had been known to do this, no animal that Jim knew of ever had, except the dragon Bryagh who had stolen Angie away to the Loathly Tower; and the great squid above them was an animal.
At any rate, they were stuck. Through the silt they could not quite make out the voices of Granfer and Rrrnlf, who could be either congratulating each other at having trapped the three Companions; or arguing with each other because Rrrnlf had brought Jim and the others there with every honest intention and belief in their safety.
But at any rate, the bubble would not move. Well, thought Jim, first things first.
"Light!" he said, meanwhile writing inwardly on his forehead the brief enchantment necessary to make the bubble be illuminated.
Suddenly there was light all around them. However, it was a very considerate light; for it started out low and brightened as their eyes adjusted to it. The first thing Jim did was look at Brian and Giles to see how they might be taking it.
To his happy surprise, they looked very well indeed. Excited, and almost eager. It was puzzling, seeing how downcast and fearful they had seemed to be while the bubble was going through the zone of blue illumination.
Then Jim understood. Then, there had been nothing they could do about anything, on the trip here. Worse, they did not have
any idea how long that situation was going to continue. All their skills were useless.
On the other hand, here, even if their skills still seemed—at least for the moment—useless, things were happening. The fact that Granfer had decided to sit upon them and had done so was entirely understandable. It might be hopeless for them to try to do something about it—or it might not. But at least they had the alternative to die bravely, which to them was reassuring.
"For some reason," Jim told them, "I can't seem to use my magic directly, here. But there's no reason I can't use it indirectly."
For a moment he yearned to simply turn the bubble red hot, to make Granfer so uncomfortable he would move off them. But he was not sufficiently trained, evidently; for he could not summon up the necessary incantation.
Then suddenly, he had another idea.
"Hang on," he said to Brian and Giles. "I'm going to put a couple of digging hands on the bottom of this bubble."
What he had in mind actually called for two equations. He wrote them, accordingly.
1) TWO DIGGING HANDS ON BOTTOM OF → BUBBLE
AND
2) DIGGING HANDS BIG ENOUGH TO MAKE TUNNEL FOR → BUBBLE
A glow came from beneath their feet. Looking down, Jim saw what looked like two pieces of metal extending from the bottom of the bubble into the silt; and in the direction they extended, the silt glowed for a distance that the eye could not measure against the obscurity.
"Now," said Jim, writing the command into a further incantation:
DIG STRAIGHT DOWN → TWENTY FEET
The hands dug. Behind the hands, the bubble drifted gently downward like a feather in still air, but without the sideways slipping motion of a falling feather. Then they halted. The sound of the two voices above them had become almost inaudible.
"Right!" Jim thought, writing equations madly on the inside of his forehead:
ROTATE HANDS TO → HORIZONTAL
DIG BUBBLE-SIZED TUNNEL → FIFTY FEET
MOVE BUBBLE TO → END OF TUNNEL
The Dragon At War Page 12