Talfi gaped, then swept Aisa into a fast hug. It was a strange thing to do this underwater. “Aisa! You’re …”
“Not feeding fish, yes,” she said, gently freeing herself. “Not yet, anyway. Look!” She inhaled and exhaled pointedly. “Ynara was wrong. I did not need to cross Death’s threshold to walk between worlds. Though I believe there must be less exciting ways to learn this.”
“The Obsidia tried to kill you.” Danr cracked his knuckles, a strangely crunchy sound underwater. “I won’t forget that.”
“Hector must have decided we were making a choice,” Aisa said. “He had the golem throw me into the Key, knowing you would follow.”
“I’ll give him a choice,” Talfi muttered. “Vik or Halza.”
“Hmm. I am planning to make him choose between his left and right testicle.” Aisa produced a knife and tapped it against her palm.
“We can do both,” Talfi said.
“I look forward to it.”
“Not so loud,” Danr warned.
“Why?” Talfi asked. “What’s wrong with—?”
In answer, Danr clamped a hand over his mouth and pointed at the door. A long, scaly form glided silently up the broken street. A toothy head big enough to bite a horse in half swayed above powerful-looking flippers. Talfi’s eyes went wide and he tried to gasp around Danr’s hand. The creature lashed past them with its powerful tail and was gone.
“Quiet, yes,” Talfi gulped. “That’s the way to go.”
“When I first landed, I saw bigger ones,” Danr said, eyeing the door. “And stranger. A four-headed turtle the size of a house. A thing that looked like an octopus fighting with a tree.”
“I haven’t seen any fish down here,” Talfi said. “What do they eat?”
“Each other,” Aisa said. “Did the bottle break, Talfi?”
Fear twinged through Talfi and he yanked his backpack off to check. To his relief, the bottle of ink was still in it, corked and undamaged. “That would’ve been difficult.”
“You do enjoy your drama,” Aisa said. “We should go. Carefully.”
They crept out of the building like shy minnows and slipped down the street. Talfi twisted his head in every direction, watching for monsters. They could come from above, too, and that made it worse. He couldn’t die, but he didn’t relish the thought of being eaten alive and returned to life afterward.
“Stick to the walls.” Danr picked his way over some rubble.
“Does any of this look familiar to you?” Aisa asked.
Talfi shook his head. “I’m not sure I want it to. All these people.” He gestured at the ruined city. “Ripped to pieces. I still can’t believe I was there. That I … caused it.”
“You did not cause this,” Aisa said stoutly. “The Stane did.”
“The Stane thanks you,” Danr put in.
“He makes a joke!” Aisa poked him. “He thinks he is funny.”
“Her sarcasm returns,” Danr shot back. “I don’t—”
From around the corner rushed a terrible shape. All Talfi saw was a wide mouth and serrated teeth and dead black eyes. Then Danr was there. He caught the creature—it was a lean shark with a mane of suckered tentacles, and it was at least ten feet long. Danr had grabbed its snout in one hand and its lower jaw in the other. The shark thing twisted its head, wrestling with Danr. The tentacles lashed at him, and a cloud of slimy silt rose from the ocean floor.
Aisa didn’t hesitate. She leaped in with her knife, slashing at the tentacles. Three of them wrapped around Danr’s arms and body. Talfi had no knife, and he cast about for something to do. Danr gritted his teeth and strained. The shark thing shook its head again and tried to bite at him, but Danr’s arms bulged and the shark couldn’t close its mouth. Blood tanged the water. Talfi snatched up a sharp bit of rock from the ground and tried to move for the shark thing. His motions were slowed by water. It was like moving in a dream.
“The eye!” he shouted. “Aisa! Hit its eye!”
Aisa changed tactic and stabbed at the eye closest to her and missed. Talfi hit the thing with his rock and scored a hit on the dead black eye. The creature didn’t seem to notice. Another tentacle wrapped around Danr, this time around a leg. He grunted, and the veins stood out on his tree trunk arms.
“Together!” Talfi yelled. “Now!”
At the same time, he and Aisa hit the creature in both eyes with their makeshift weapons. The creature shuddered once and let up on its attack for just a moment. That seemed to be all that Danr needed. He strained hard and with a primordial roar, gave a great heave. The creature’s jaw and part of its head tore off. Blood gushed into the water in a black cloud. Convulsions racked the creature. Its tentacles released Danr, who stumbled backward, still holding the thing’s lower jaw in his hand. The creature rolled over, thrashing and sweeping with its tail. It smashed into a wall, bringing down rubble. Danr dropped the bloody jaw.
“Run!” Talfi barked.
They ran—or tried to. The water made it slow going. They bounded and swam away from the dying creature until exhaustion forced them to halt. All three of them huddled in a ruined doorway, trying to catch their watery breaths. Talfi found it was hard to rest when even breathing was an effort.
“Are you injured?” Aisa asked Danr.
“Yes,” Danr replied, always the truth-teller. He held out his hand. Blood rose from a series of slashes. His arms and legs were also covered with sucker marks.
“The golem did not allow me to bring my kit, so I have nothing to sew this with,” Aisa said. “But a bandage will benefit you, even underwater. At least the wound is clean.” She cut pieces from her skirt with her knife and set to work while Danr tried not to wince.
“Vik!” Talfi said in admiration. “Sometimes I forget how strong you really are.”
“We should move as soon as we can,” Danr said shortly. “The blood and that thing’s corpse will attract other monsters.”
As if in answer, a bellow boomed down the street from the creature’s death throes. It was answered by a second bellow. The trio exchanged nervous glances and edged out into the street again, sticking close to walls and rubble.
“Where are we supposed to find Grandfather Wyrm?” Talfi asked. “We don’t even know what he looks like.”
“For all we know, he’s back there having lunch,” Danr muttered. “I have no idea how to find him. To tell the truth, I thought he’d find us, or that the merfolk would show us.”
“We cannot stay down here forever,” Aisa agreed. “The boat will leave.”
A dreadful thought stole over Talfi. “How are we going to get back up?”
“Up?” Danr echoed.
Talfi wet his lips, even though they were soaked. Force of habit. “You were supposed to bring the end of the rope down with you and tie it to something. How are we going to get back up without it?”
A horrified look crossed both their faces. In answer, Aisa tried to swim upward, but after clearing a couple of feet, she drifted back down again.
“This water is too … light,” she concluded. “That is why we walk and do not swim.”
“So we’re trapped at the bottom of the Key with a bunch of monsters and no way to find Grandfather Wyrm,” Talfi said. “Well, we’ve been in worse situations.”
“When?” Danr demanded.
“Give me a minute and I’ll remember one.”
“While you are remembering, we should continue on,” Aisa said, moving into the street again. “This city is built like a wheel. If Grandfather Wyrm is the most powerful being here, it seems likely he would be at—”
“The center!” Talfi said. “You’re right! Let’s try there. It’s a place to start, anyway.”
“I don’t know.” Danr paused doubtfully, the bandage on his hand waving faintly in the current. “I think he might—”
The ground beneath them moved. Startled, Talfi lost his footing and stumbled, thrashing in the water to regain his balance. Danr snatched both him and Aisa away, flinging them farthe
r up the street. Talfi managed to regain his feet and land with at least some grace.
The stony street cracked and crumbled. From it rumbled an enormous thing, taller than four elephants, wider than the street itself, and long, long, long. Its back was so broad, the top was flat and had merged with the street itself. Danr tumbled away from the rising form. It shed sediment and slime in a glowing cloud as it rose.
“Hamzu!” Aisa screamed. She tried to run for him, but Talfi held her back. Danr managed to scramble free and half run, half swim toward them.
It was the biggest wyrm Talfi had ever seen. Its golden eyes were easily a yard across, and a platoon of men could have marched down its gullet. Boulders clung to its back like pebbles. But it was clearly ancient. Crevasses snaked through its scales. Its teeth and horns were yellow and blunted. Long hairs grew from its snout. Talfi backpedaled in chilly terror, but the ground was shaking and he kept losing his balance. So did Aisa and Danr. The wyrm opened its dreadful mouth wide and Talfi saw the end.
“You spoke my name three times, yes,” the wyrm said in a voice like measured thunder. “You woke me, yes. Your lives will pay the forfeit, for when I wake, I am hungry.”
Grandfather Wyrm. Talfi’s first fear-addled thought was that he was bigger than the legends said. His second fear-addled thought was an attempt to remember how many times they had said that name aloud. Was it three? His third thought was how stupid it was to think these things when Grandfather Wyrm was ready to devour him.
Before Talfi or Danr could react further, Aisa prostrated herself on the ground in front of the wyrm. “Oh, great one!” she cried. “I beg mercy of you. We were foolish and did not know we disturbed your well-earned rest. You are truly a being of great power and wisdom, and even the Nine must live in fear of you. The stories do not do you justice.”
Grandfather Wyrm hesitated. “Stories? What stories, yes?”
“The terrifying, world-trembling stories of Grandfather Wyrm.” Aisa coughed pointedly in Talfi and Danr’s direction. Right! Talfi thought, and dropped to the stones like Aisa. Danr hastened to imitate. “Every child has heard the stories of how Grandfather Wyrm called up storms to fight Fell and Belinna themselves, and how Grandfather Wyrm creates whirlpools that sink entire fleets, and how Grandfather Wyrm makes the earth tremble when he is angry. I never thought I would actually see such power in person, and I tremble before such awesome might.”
Aisa was really laying it on. On the other hand, Grandfather Wyrm hadn’t eaten them yet, so she must know what she was doing. Talfi lay still and tried to look unappetizing.
“They tell stories, yes,” Grandfather Wyrm said. His slow voice thrummed against Talfi’s bones. “How long have I been asleep?”
“It has been a thousand years since the Sundering, great one,” Aisa said.
“A thousand, yes?” Even when Grandfather Wyrm sounded surprised, his presence filled the water until he became the entire world. Talfi felt as insignificant as a grain of sand. “Then it has been fifty years since I last woke, yes. There were storms and … merfolk. I did not know they told stories. It would be a fine thing to hear them, yes. It becomes tedious in the deep.”
“Would you like me to tell you one?” Aisa offered quickly.
“I would, yes.”
Aisa raised herself up a little and spoke. It was a story Talfi had heard more than once, about how Fell and Belinna, the twin gods, went fishing together in a boat with Tikk, their trickster brother. Tikk, however, put a secret spell on the ox’s head they used for bait, and when Fell and Belinna pulled up the line, Grandfather Wyrm was on the hook. A great battle ensued, but instead of the usual ending, in which Grandfather Wyrm sank defeated back into the sea, Aisa spun a new ending, in which the gods fled back to Lumenhame with their tails between their legs.
“And so Grandfather Wyrm roared his triumph to the skies,” Aisa finished. “Such is the story.”
A moment of silence followed. Stones ground against Talfi’s knees, but he didn’t move. Water pushed unceasingly against him.
“A fine tale,” Grandfather Wyrm boomed at last. “And well told, yes. But still you have wakened me, and I have not eaten for fifty years.”
Aisa gulped. Talfi scrambled to his feet and came forward. It took all his nerve to walk toward a wyrm whose head was as big as a ship. “We brought a gift, Your Divine Wisdomness,” he said. “We have it on good authority you’ll enjoy it.”
“A gift?” Grandfather Wyrm repeated. “It has been long since I have had a gift.”
Talfi opened his pack. For a terrible moment, he was afraid the bottle was broken, but it was whole, with the cork in. “This, Your Muchness.”
“What is it?”
“Ink. From a giant squid. Very fresh.”
“Squid ink?” Grandfather Wyrm cocked his head, sending around new currents that nearly knocked Talfi off his feet. The bottle flew from his hand and tumbled toward rocky rubble. Gasping, he scrambled after it and caught the neck with his fingertips. “Squid ink is … a fine treat, yes. Bring it to me.”
“I live to obey, Your Wondrousness.”
“Don’t overdo it,” Danr hissed from his position on the ground.
Trembling more than a little, Talfi edged closer to Grandfather Wyrm’s head, which now rested on the ocean floor. Massive gills opened and closed behind his eyes, and his teeth were taller than tombstones. Talfi was all too aware that if Grandfather Wyrm opened his mouth quickly, the motion would suck him in like a minnow. When he was a yard away, he held up the bottle.
“Would you like me to open it, Your Wyrminess?”
Desire and even avarice glowed in Grandfather Wyrm’s eyes. His voice became husky. “Do. Now, yes.”
Talfi pulled the cork. Black ink puffed out in a dark cloud. Grandfather Wyrm inhaled gently, and the ink sucked into his nostrils like smoke. He slitted his eyes in pleasure, and Talfi quickly replaced the cork.
“Yes,” the great wyrm murmured. “Yes. A delightful gift. Perhaps you are worth keeping, yes. And oh! I can see now. The Tree, yes.”
“The Tree?” Talfi echoed.
“The Tree tips, yes.” Grandfather Wyrm’s golden eyes were heavy-lidded. “It tips indeed. What a shame. A thousand years ago, the Fae trounced the Stane. Now the Stane attempt to trounce the Fae, yes.”
“They do?” Talfi asked, startled. “Excuse me, Your Wonderfulness, but the Fae tried to wipe out the Stane. We were there.”
“You do not see everything, yes.” Grandfather Wyrm blew contented bubbles. “The Kin always pay when the Fae and the Stane fight. I am living proof of that, yes.”
“Both of us are,” Talfi couldn’t help muttering.
Danr cautiously got to his feet now and bowed before Grandfather Wyrm, who was currently looking much more mellow. “Er … we’ve come a long way for your wisdom, great one.”
“A truth-teller,” Grandfather Wyrm observed. “It is always a fascination to converse with your kind.”
Danr looked taken aback. “How did you know?”
“I am old, yes, and I know much more than you.” Grandfather Wyrm shifted, sending rumbles up and down the street. “What do you want?”
“The Kin have lost the power of the shape,” Danr said.
“No,” said Grandfather Wyrm. “They have not.”
“I don’t understand, great one,” Danr replied. “The Kin can’t change their shapes anymore. Not since the Sundering.”
“When the Tree last tipped a thousand years ago, the trollwives took that power from the Kin, but they didn’t take the talent,” Grandfather Wyrm said. “I saw it happen.”
“You were there, too?” Talfi couldn’t help blurting out.
“Too?” Grandfather Wyrm echoed. He leaned in to stare more closely at Talfi, who forced himself to stand his ground, no small thing against the rush of water and cloud of sediment. “Ah! You were the young squire whose blood spilled on the altar, yes. Such a bright young lad you were. How are you alive to see the Tree tip twice?”
“Very good,” Grandfather Wyrm murmured. “Delightful, yes. We are the same, you and I, yes, kept alive by a power that changed us.” He chuckled.
Talfi swallowed. The idea that he had anything in common with this thunderous wyrm was more than a little overwhelming.
“How were you there, great one?” Aisa asked. “The legends of the Sundering don’t mention Grandfather Wyrm.”
“They would not, yes.” Grandfather Wyrm’s golden eyes took on a faraway look. “I was Kin back then, a human, a magician, yes. But very powerful. Perhaps the most powerful magician of the shape the world ever knew, yes. My wife was powerful in her own right, a general in the army. I was so proud of her. She wore a golden star on her shield, and her hair was the same color, but I have forgotten her name, yes. How could I have forgotten her name?”
“It was long ago,” Danr said. “And you’ve been sleeping a long time.”
“Yes,” said Grandfather Wyrm sadly. “The king who commanded her allied with the Stane. I begged him not to, yes, asked him to throw in with the good Fae, but he refused to listen. The Stane had forged the Iron Axe, and the king was sure it would end the war with the Stane victorious. But the Fae stole the Axe away, yes, and the Stane decided the only recourse was to destroy it. My wife’s army guarded the trollwives and their ritual. I wanted nothing to do with it, and I stood on a mountain far away, and when the trollwives stole the Kin’s power to destroy the Axe, yes, I felt it coming and I was able to keep my power even as everyone else lost theirs. Then the earth cracked and the sea rushed in. My wife cried out and I changed into a wyrm to dive after her, but I could not find her, and when the earth settled down, I saw no reason to rejoin the Nine People, not with my wife dead and gone, yes. I wish I had her name to keep me warm in this place.”
Talfi noticed Danr’s hands curl, as if around the handle of a weapon.
“So you have your power of the shape,” Aisa said. “You are the only one.”
Blood Storm: The Books of Blood and Iron Page 21