Transformation

by Kara Dalkey

  “Nia!”

  This time the voice sounded a lot like Callimar. Again the water flowed around her and suddenly Nia jolted fully awake. She opened her eyes wide and saw that it was indeed Callimar, fanning the water in Nia’s cell with her tail.

  “Calli—”

  Her friend’s hand clamped over her mouth. “Shhh! We’ve got to get you out of here.” Arms reached in to drag Nia out.

  To Nia’s relief, she saw now that the other face did indeed belong to Corwin. Nia collapsed against him, holding onto him tightly. He held her back, his arms strong and reassuring.

  “Are you all right, Nia?”

  “Better now,” Nia said, nuzzling against him.

  “This isn’t the place for that,” Callimar hissed. “We’ve got to keep moving.” Callimar put a white hood over Nia’s head.

  Nia recovered her wits at last. “The sword. We’ve got to get the sword, Callimar. In the storage room south of Ma’el’s control room.”

  “Whatever you say,” Callimar said, her face grim. “This way.”

  Nia followed her former friend out to the end of the corridor of cells. “Why are you helping us?” she asked, confused. Then a new, frightening thought struck her. “Or are you just leading us to something worse?”

  “No, I wouldn’t—I’m so sorry,” Callimar said, her voice full of pain. “Nia, I couldn’t sleep after you went away. I kept worrying about you. I hated keeping my mouth shut whenever my family said they hoped you’d been caught. And then I heard that you were caught, and I just felt sick. You were right, Nia. This deal with Ma’el is making us just as evil as he is. I couldn’t stand it any longer. It was easy for me to get work here so I could help you. If you can defeat Ma’el, I’ll help in any way I can.”

  “Thank you, Callimar. That means a lot,” Nia said, feeling warm inside for the first time since she’d been here.

  Callimar led them back to the storage room. They saw no other servants along the way.

  “Where is everyone?” Nia asked.

  “There are uprisings all over Atlantis. Word that the last Avatar has returned is spreading and it’s rallying everyone’s hopes. Ma’el has his hands full right now. At least, I hope he does.” Callimar turned the scallop-shaped handle and opened the storage room door.

  Nia swam in, closely followed by Corwin. This time she didn’t hesitate but swam straight to the pile of swords. Eikis Calli Werr lay there, its gleaming blade unmistakable among the other ordinary swords. Nia reached for Eikis Calli Werr and began to draw it out of the pile. The silvery blade glimmered, answering the energy in Nia’s hand.

  “It is beautiful,” Callimar said. “I’d seen it carried in parades, but never up close.”

  “If we’re lucky,” Nia said, “it’ll save us all.” She closed her hands over the hilt, over the oculus. Awaken, she thought with every ounce of her concentration.

  The writing etched into the blade began to glow with blue light. She felt the sword pull her arms up, to hold it upraised. Then, to her astonishment, it pulled itself out of her hands. The sword drifted over to Corwin, and offered itself, hilt first, to him.

  “What’s going on?” Corwin asked.

  “I don’t know,” Nia said, feeling oddly jealous. “It was originally made to be carried by a land-dweller. Maybe it’s chosen you.”

  Corwin cautiously grasped the hilt. His eyes shut and he tilted his head back. Lightning bolts of green energy traveled from the hilt up his arm.

  “What’s happening, Corwin?”

  “It . . . it hasn’t chosen me, but I can carry it for a while. The oculus . . . isn’t just one mind. It has absorbed, through the unis, a bit of every Farworlder king that ever lived. That’s why it’s so powerful. That’s what Ma’el doesn’t know. Ma’el only knows he’s missing power and he doesn’t know why. He thought that power would come from us, and that’s why he captured us.”

  “So that’s what they were trying to pull out of my mind,” Nia murmured. “And since I couldn’t tell them . . .” She turned to Callimar. “We’ve got to find our Farworlder, Gobaith, now!”

  “Joab has him,” Corwin grunted, still under the influence of the sword. “Joab is . . . torturing him. Trying to learn what he knows.”

  “But where?” Nia demanded.

  “Joab’s tank is this way,” Callimar said. She led them back along the corridor toward Ma’el’s control chamber but took a left turn. Farther down this new corridor was another round hatch door, but with a difference. Instead of a wheel in the center, this door had a latch in the shape of a Farworlder, surrounded by a circle of symbols. Nia didn’t know the meaning of the symbols, but she knew what they were. This was the language of the Farworlders themselves, used before they ever founded Atlantis, before they’d come to Earth.

  “Which one do I point the latch at?” Nia asked Callimar.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never opened this door. It’s forbidden.”

  “I think I can find out,” Corwin said. He pointed the sword at the lock and stared at it for a long time.

  “Well?” Nia was growing impatient. She could feel a connection to Gobaith again. He was on the other side of the door. And he was in great, great pain.

  “I think . . . this one, this one, then this one.” Corwin pointed the tip of the sword to the left side of the circle, the right and then straight down.

  Nia tried it . . . left, right and down. She pulled on the door. It didn’t budge.

  “No,” Corwin corrected her. “Sorry, it should have been this one second.” He pointed to a different symbol on the right side.

  Nia sighed and tried again. She pointed the head of the Farworlder-shaped latch to the left, then to the new symbol on the right, then down. The door clicked.

  Nia and Callimar hauled on the door to open it, and Nia swam right in. But when she saw what was before her, she nearly blacked out. It was a sight more horrifying that anything she’d ever seen.

  The floor was made of polished metal, and Gobaith was stretched out upon it, each of his tentacles tied to a metal spike. On the head of each spike was carved a symbol much like the ones on the door. Joab floated over Gobaith, sending bolts of energy to different combinations of the spikes. Every time a green bolt of light went from Joab’s tentacles to the spikes, Gobaith shuddered in pain. Nia could feel an echoing ache, even though her body was very different from the Farworlder’s.

  “Joab! Stop this at once!” Nia commanded. She didn’t have much power in her, but she summoned what energy she had into her right hand and sent a cracking bolt of white light into Joab’s hide. At least it may get his attention.

  Joab turned to glare at her, and Nia could feel the hate and anger flowing off him. His head-mantle flared and he billowed out the skirt of skin between his tentacles, making him seem twice as large in size.

  Nia refused to be intimidated. “Set Gobaith free. Now.”

  With a roar that Nia hadn’t known Farworlders could make, Joab turned his mouth-beak toward her and splayed all his tentacles wide. Jetting water out of his siphons, he rushed at her, wrapping his tentacles around her. Nia could feel his sharp beak stabbing into her gut—

  But Corwin was right on top of Joab, stabbing down through the Farworlder’s head-mantle with the sword. Purple blood gushed out through the wound. The tentacles surrounding Nia shuddered and then went slack. Joab’s body fell away from her and down to the floor.

  Corwin jerked the blade out of Joab’s head. “All I had to do was point . . . the sword knew where to go.”

  Corwin was right—the sword had precisely aimed itself to cut into and destroy Joab’s oculus. Nia realized that she was waiting for something, but she didn’t know what it was. And then it came to her. “When a king dies, his Avatar dies also.”

  From somewhere in the stronghold came a horrible scream.

  Chapter Ten

  “Is it possible?” Corwin asked as the sound of the scream trailed off through the water. “Did we kill them both at once?”

/>   “We’d better make sure,” Nia said. “But first, let’s untie Gobaith.”

  “Gladly.” Corwin went to the poor Farworlder splayed out on the floor and slashed at the bonds that held him. Corwin was amazed at the precise aim of Eikis Calli Werr, how the sword made the blood sing in his arms. He could even feel the wisdom of the Farworlder ancestors emanating from the hilt. It wasn’t like his connection to Gobaith, direct and personal. It was distant magnificence, like sunlight streaming through towering clouds, a glimpse of the Divine Infinite. Corwin also knew that these ancestors had measured and weighed him and found him unworthy. The sword wasn’t for him, although they’d let him bear it for a time.

  The last bond was cut and Corwin gathered up the limp Gobaith in his arms. “How are you, little fellow? Should we heal you now?”

  Weakly, Gobaith sent, I will recover. But we may be too late.

  “Too late? But Joab is dead, and Ma’el can’t be far behind him.”

  Hmmm. I wonder. Their bond was no longer a natural one.

  “Why don’t you go look for Ma’el’s body,” Nia suggested. “I’ll stay here and heal Gobaith.”

  Corwin handed Gobaith to Nia and swam out the door. Heading down the corridor, he imagined what he might find. He pictured Ma’el lying in a moaning heap on the floor of his control room, begging for mercy, offering to teach him the wisdom of the ages if his life were spared. Corwin would raise the sword and say . . . and say . . .

  Corwin paused in front of the hatch to Ma’el’s control room.

  I should think of something perfect to say, he thought. After all, this was certainly a rare moment. Maybe there’s some important question I should demand an answer to, something only Ma’el would know that would help us restore Atlantis. Maybe—

  The hatch burst open and Ma’el rushed out of the room with a horrific, hate-filled roar. “You stupid, insignificant fool! What have you done?” Small rivulets of blood flowed out from beneath Ma’el’s armor. He shouted angry, incomprehensible words, and the water around them turned red. Ma’el was assembling the kraken right before Corwin’s eyes.

  Corwin slashed with the sword—so slow in the water—at the serpent’s neck. But Eikis Calli Werr cut true and the kraken’s head fell away . . . only to be replaced by a new one growing out of the stump. Corwin swam around the kraken to get at Ma’el. But just as Corwin got near the evil mermyd, the kraken would swim between them, maw wide open, ready to swallow him.

  Ma’el’s right, I am an idiot! Again Corwin slashed with the sword and sliced off the scarlet snake’s head, and again the head grew anew. Again Corwin swam past it. But each time, Ma’el was getting a little farther ahead. Corwin swam around a bend in the corridor to find it blocked by a seething, roiling mass of red serpent. But there was no head. Corwin didn’t know where to cut. At last, he began slashing at every coil and bend of serpent that he saw. He cut himself a bloody doorway through the mass of kraken coils and, keeping his gills shut, swam through.

  Suddenly he was hit by a wall of intensely cold, superdense water, rushing at him. Corwin was pushed back and back, unable to swim against it. A strange, repetitive wail sounded through the corridor.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Corwin saw Nia pull herself along the brass piping and push down on a lever. There was a loud rumble and a hiss, and the wall of cold water slowly dissipated before him.

  Corwin could swim now, but it was clear that Ma’el was gone. “What happened?”

  “Ma’el went out through the filtration tube,” Nia said. “But he didn’t bother to close the door behind him, so the water under greater pressure flowed in from the outside. It could have crushed the city if it had filled the dome.”

  “So he’s out in the wide sea,” Corwin said. “How are we going to find him?”

  You don’t need to chase him, Gobaith sent. We already know where he’s going.

  Corwin turned. Callimar was floating in the passageway, holding Gobaith in her arms. She looked a bit frightened and in awe of the Farworlder.

  “We do?” Corwin asked.

  Ma’el knows now about the centers of power. He found the map you left in the Archives. Joab learned from me what they are. They learned from Nia about the buried shrine that you and she found. Joab isn’t really necessary to Ma’el anymore, with all the oculae Ma’el’s absorbed. That’s why he’s still alive, with Joab dead. If Ma’el can find a center of power and use it, he’ll be just as powerful without Joab, if not more so. Ma’el is headed for the center of power in your land, Corwin. It’s the only one left that works, although with its power Ma’el might be able to restore the rest of them throughout the world. If he succeeds, there will be no stopping him, even with the sword.

  “Then we have to go back to Wales, right now!” Corwin was startled by the silence that greeted his words. “Well? Don’t we?”

  Nia frowned. “Yes, I guess so. It’s just . . . things are so unsettled here. I hate to leave my home like this when so much rebuilding needs to be done.”

  “Didn’t you hear Gobaith? If Ma’el uses the center of power, there won’t be any point in rebuilding. He’ll just conquer it all again!”

  “Of course. You’re right.” Nia crossed her arms over her chest and gazed down at the floor. “It’s just—well, healing Gobaith took a lot out of me.”

  “Do you feel well enough to swim out to the transfer point?”

  There’s no need for that, Gobaith sent.

  “What?”

  Joab’s quarters have the necessary equipment and engines to be a transfer point. He and Ma’el had been constructing it for weeks. Joab threatened to send me to all sorts of horrible places.

  “Then why didn’t Ma’el make his escape that way?”

  Because only a Farworlder can operate it, and Joab is dead.

  With one tentacle, Gobaith tapped Callimar’s shoulder and pointed back the way they had come. Callimar turned and swam back down the corridor.

  Corwin followed her, one hand holding Eikis Calli Werr, the other on Nia’s shoulder. “Are you all right?” he asked her softly.

  “Yes—no.” Nia put her arm through Corwin’s. “I’m just afraid of leaving and not coming back again. Atlantis seems so precious now that I’m here.”

  “But that’s always been a risk, hasn’t it?”

  “Yes, of course, but . . . it’s hard to explain.”

  “All right.” Corwin decided he was just going to have to live with that. But there was one thing he needed to say. “When I was taken away by Joab, I thought I heard you think something at me.”

  “Oh?”

  “Something . . . nice.”

  “Really?”

  “Something I wouldn’t mind hearing again.”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re going to make me ask, aren’t you?” Corwin paused and waited until Callimar and Gobaith were well ahead. “Did you mean it when you said . . . you said . . .”

  “That I love you?” Nia turned, smiled and kissed him full on the lips. This wasn’t a kiss for breathing, but it certainly left Corwin breathless. For a few precious moments, she opened her mind and heart to him, and he knew that it was true.

  Haste would be a good idea, Gobaith sent.

  Nia pulled back and for once Corwin had less than friendly thoughts toward the young Farworlder.

  Yes, yes, I know, Gobaith sent. I don’t mean to ruin your happiness, but Ma’el will ruin it for good if he isn’t stopped.

  “It’s so much more annoying when he’s right,” Corwin muttered.

  “Isn’t it though?” Nia agreed.

  Reluctantly, they turned and followed Callimar and Gobaith back to Joab’s lair.

  Nia and Corwin swam in, watching as Gobaith flitted around the room, turning dials to point at different symbols and sliding back panels to reveal rows of glowing crystals in tidy array. They did an amazing job, Gobaith sent. This will be much easier to work than the old transfer point we used to get here.

  “But when did you learn
how to work it?” Nia asked.

  It’s difficult to keep one mind closed if two minds are joined. While Joab was absorbing my knowledge, I was also absorbing his. It didn’t concern him, since he didn’t expect me to get free.

  Gobaith pulled another lever, and a circular panel in the floor slid back.

  Nia went to Callimar and took her hands. “We have to go after Ma’el. But I’m worried about our people.”

  “Don’t worry, Nia,” Callimar reassured her. “I will make sure my family does everything we can to set things back in order.”

  “What I’m afraid of,” Nia began, “is trading one tyrant for another. Your family knows what it’s like to rule now.”

  Callimar’s eyes flashed. “And we know what tyrants are like. We are Atlanteans, not land-dwellers. We will see that Atlantis stays well cared for until the Avatar . . . Avatars return.”

  Nia hoped Callimar meant it. Her words seemed sincere, at least. “Thank you, Callimar. We’re counting on you.”

  “I know. Good luck, Nia.” Callimar hugged her. She turned to Corwin and said, “For the glowing sea-snails!”

  “What?” Corwin shook his head in bafflement.

  Callimar grinned. “That’s the new rallying cry among the Atlantean rebels, didn’t you know? I heard it came from you. What does it mean, anyway?”

  “Oh. Right. Well, um, it’s . . . metaphorical. Deep meaning, shaded in layers of—”

  “Come on, Corwin.”

  Nia sighed and went to the glowing spot on the floor. Corwin waved to Callimar and went to stand beside Nia. Gobaith was by the controls, cradling the sword in his tentacles. Nia reached out mentally and discovered that Gobaith was communing with the oculus in the hilt. Gobaith seemed to be in a state of momentary bliss.

  “Speaking to his ancestors,” Corwin said, nodding at the Farworlder. “I’ll be lucky to get the sword back from him.”

  “I wonder what he’s learning.”