Iced on Aran

by Brian Lumley

  “Too true!” said the s.w.i.e.

  “But tell me,” Eldin was still curious: “I mean, we were sure you were dead. See, we saw you lying there, saw pictures form in your ex-invisible eyes, saw ’em bleed and flood over.”

  “Bleeding the poison out of my system!” the s.w.i.e. answered. “And those pictures were an eleventh hour warning to you two. These eyes of mine were looking after us, see?”

  “Do you mean,” said Hero, frowning, “that your eyes are only invisible when you’re conscious?”

  “Dunno,” said the seer. “I’ve never looked when I’m asleep! Anyway, what are we drinking … ?”

  All of which set the tone of the conversation for the rest of a very liquid night, which soon degenerated into a blur that none of the three would ever seek to bring into proper focus. Best that they didn’t know. In the morning they woke up in a tangle of nets on the quayside, and then it was time for Hero and Eldin to be on their way again …

  They redeemed their flotation bag, had it pumped full of essence, went the way they’d come. The wind was off the land but somewhat aslant, so they used arms and jackets as sails, guiding themselves toward Quester where she lay moored to the old hulk’s mast.

  It was as they vented essence to begin their descent that Eldin spotted a small rowing-boat close to Quester tethered to the buoy with the scabfish warning.

  “Urchins out fishing,” opined Hero, narrow-eyed nevertheless.

  “Fishing for what? Scabfish?” Eldin was instantly suspicious—but too late. Essence had been vented; they were sinking lower; the rowboat lay directly between them and their small vessel.

  “Boat seems to be empty,” said Hero, but still his voice was tight.

  “Not so,” Eldin denied. “See, a spyglass glints. Something stirs!”

  A figure sat up in the rowing-boat. Huge, solid, shiny as a ripe olive: Lipperod Unth, teeth bared in a savage grin. In his hands, a wicked-looking crossbow.

  “All hands to the boats!” Eldin whispered hoarsely.

  “Women, children and cowards first!” Hero groaned.

  “Ahoy, there, questers!” Lippy yelled, gleefully aiming his weapon. “Nice day for a dip in the briny, eh?”

  “Lippy,” Hero called back. “The very man we were looking for.”

  “Oh?” Lippy feigned an idiot’s gawp. “And you guessed I’d be out here in the bay, eh? Well, well! And now that you’ve found me?”

  “Lippy,”—it was Eldin’s turn—“we know you’re mad at us, and that’s p’raps understandable, but—”

  “What, mad at you, me?” the massive black cut him off, foam showing now in one corner of his mouth, his great expressive lips beginning to protrude. “What, just ’cos you sank my place in three fathoms of slop, near-drowned my customers, probably ruined me forever? Now I ask you, is that any reason to be mad? Mad? I’m totally insane!”

  “Lippy!” Hero desperately called out. “We can pay for the damage.”

  “Hah!”

  Hero fumbled in a pocket, came up with a tiny leather pouch. They’d drifted so close now to the rowboat that Lippy couldn’t possibly miss; they could see, almost feel his finger tightening on the trigger. But he’d seen the tiny pouch in Hero’s hand.

  “Eh? Eh?” he shouted. “You couldn’t cram enough gold in that to buy a plate of soup! Not that you two would buy soup—you’d steal it!”

  Hero tossed the pouch and Lippy caught it. Curious, he put down his crossbow, opened the tiny bag into his hand. The third emerald—Yath-Lhi’s belly-bauble—made green sparkles in the morning sunlight. Lippy’s mouth fell open and his great lips retracted a little. “Well, now!” he weighed the emerald in his palm.

  “You can buy another Craven Lobster, in a better part of town,” Eldin called down. They were directly over the rowboat now, drifting toward Quester.

  “True, true,” Lippy grunted. He put the jewel carefully into his pocket, picked up his weapon and realigned it. “The injury’s paid for,” he stated then. “But not the insult!”

  “I apologize for Eldin!” Hero cried. “It was the full moon, I tell you!”

  And: “Forgive my young friend!” the Wanderer pleaded. “Booze is a cross he’s carried all his life. Just a sip of your excellent beverages, and he was bound to—”

  “Enough!” cried Lipperod Unth—and his crossbow went twannnnggg!

  There came a loud “pop” and a ripping sound, followed immediately by the ominous hiss of escaping essence. Lippy roared and laughed and danced till he almost upset his boat. And down came the questers, gaunt and whey-faced out of the sky—and Quester the craft still a soggy twenty-yard sprint away.

  Hero glanced down and gulped, saw the sea rushing up at him, saw once again the buoy’s warning notice: “’WARE SCABFISH!” and croaked: “Eldin, just one thing.”

  “Eh?” the Wanderer blinked rapidly, an astonished I-don’t-believe-it expression on his face.

  “How’s your breast-stroke?” Hero asked, conversationally. And then …

  Splash!

  TALE’S TAIL

  Some little time earlier, Eldin had said:

  “It’s a strange sea, the Southern Sea, especially here in the middle of this expanse lying between Dylath-Leen, the Isle of Oriab, and Celephais. Ships have disappeared here, lots of them. They get hailed, go for a look-see, are never seen again. Survivors, none!”

  “A sort of Baharna Triangle, eh?” Hero had responded.

  “A what?”

  Hero had frowned, looked blank. “Nothing—a fleeting memory from the waking world … I think.”

  “Oh!” And, suspiciously: “Are you making mock?”

  “Not a bit of it”—with a shrug and a raised eyebrow—“Say on, do!”

  “On clear days—sometimes on still, clear nights, when the moon’s full and the sea is crystal—things have. been seen, way down deep.” Eldin was being mysterious, or he was telling tall ones again.

  “Oh?” Hero having finished stripping himself naked, disgustedly inspected a scattering of flaky scabs on his calves, chest and forearms. “Things? Fishes, d‘you mean? Nasty fishes—like scabfish! Or just common-or-garden sea-serpents? League-long octopussies, p’raps?”

  Eldin scowled through his own scabs, said: “Don’t jest about things told to you by your elders and betters.”

  “Elders, I’ll grant you,” Hero glanced at the Wanderer sideways. And: “Oh, very well—what sort of things, exactly, have been seen on clear nights when the moon is full?”

  “Horrible things!” Eldin insisted. “A sunken town or city, with a long-drowned temple or monastery on a hill. And in the courtyard a tall, terrible monolith, and tied to that ancient altar slab—head down and lacking eyes—a sailor or merchant out of Oriab, still clad in his silken robes. That’s what’s been seen!”

  Hero sighed, dangled his feet in the water from the deck of Quester. “Eldin, it’s noon of a summer’s day. There’s no wind to speak of. I’m hot and sticky and the sea’s flat as a mirror. Now, you may sit there on your backside mumbling ghost stories, sorry-looking and scabby as a dead cat, all you want. Me, I’m for a swim. I’m overboard, to and fro for a half-hour, and lo and behold new skin will be forming before your very eyes! Clean water is the best treatment for scabfish scabs, and I happen to be the living proof of it. It was a scummy harbor and scabby fish did this to us, and it’s a clear, sweet sea that’s going to clean it up. I mean, look at me: except for the merest blemish here and there, I’ve successfully shed the horrid things; while you, who haven’t been near the water since Lippy Unth sank us—”

  “I may never bathe again,” Eldin morosely broke in. “Ugh! Those scabfish! And that Lippy—he’ll have cause for pouting next time I see him!”

  “What? You’re planning to look Lippy up? On Oriab? And Ula and Una ready to ring our noses the moment we step ashore? You’re not thinking straight, old lad.” And he’d gone feet-first overboard, sinking deep in cool, clear water. As he surfaced:

  “All r
ight! You win!” Eldin tossed him his belt. “Only wear this, and let me tie a line to you.”

  “Eh? Are you serious?” Hero trod water, fastened the leather belt around his waist. It was a good belt and he didn’t want to lose it.

  “Please,” Eldin pleaded. “For me? Then, while you splash about, I’ll be able to take a nap in peace. At least with a little peace of mind.” He dropped Hero the end of a long fishing line, belayed the other end to a cleat. Hero gave a snort—but he tied the line to his belt. Anything to keep his quirky partner happy. Another snort and, feeling foolish, he’d swum off with long, clean strokes.

  Eldin had watched him for a minute or two, listened to the lazy sizzling of the sun on the water (it was that sort of day), finally taken off his shirt and stretched flat on his back in Sol’s cleansing rays. And in a little while he’d fallen asleep and dreamed with crystal clarity and detailed repetition all of the foregoing—and then some. The substance of his dream within dreams was this:

  Hero swam. He chugged to and fro happy as a child, dived deep, let the salty sea soak into his skin and lave those few crusty blemishes which yet persisted. No scabfish here, where the waters glittered silver and gold, and beneath him nothing but deeps going down (for all he knew) interminably. Hah! A man would need damn good eyesight to see right down there on a moonlit night. Indeed, he’d need eyes far-sighted as those of the s.w.i.e. himself! Eldin could be a silly old duffer sometimes, giving credence to tales such as those.

  So thought Hero in Eldin’s dream, as he swam and cavorted, and the fishing line uncoiling on the deck, and Quester a motionless flyspeck on the great glittering mirror ocean …

  It was the deep flash of silver that first attracted Hero’s eye: some fish cruising a fathom or two deep, reflecting the sun’s lances as it turned on its side, the better to look at the swimmer on the surface. Shark? No, not with silvery scales, surely. Leathery things, sharks. But immediately cautious, Hero stopped swimming and lay flat, peering into watery deeps. For a moment he saw nothing, then …

  He sucked air in a huge gasp. Fish nothing! That shimmer was from the costume she wore—on her bottom half, anyway. As for her top half—she wore nothing there!

  She, yes! A girl, a gorgeous girl (they all are, let’s face it), was out here in the Southern Sea! Eh? But where was her boat? Fifty yards away, there lay Quester quite becalmed, with Eldin snoozing on the deck. Hero trod water, scanned all about. And there to the south, halfway to the horizon … a mast and the low outline of a deck, surely?

  The girl surfaced, grinned cheekily, tossed back her yellow hair in a spray of water. She glanced toward Quester, put a warning finger to her lips, grinned again and turned on end, disappearing in a flash of silver. Hero dipped his disbelieving face into the water, ogled after her, saw her milky breasts and buttocks all shiny as she slipped easily into the deep. Then she was coming up again, agile as a porpoise as she turned on her own axis, seemingly displaying herself for Hero’s approval. And he approved! What’s more, if he could see her, she must certainly see him—all of him. And apparently she approved, too.

  Again she broke the surface, green eyes full of mischief, breasts bobbing, and again that cautionary finger to her lips as she glanced toward Quester and the slumbering Eldin. And:

  No fear of that, my girl! thought Hero. What? She should think for a minute he might want to let the Wanderer in on this? Not a chance! Let that scabby old rat catch a single glimpse of her, and the game were over before it could get started.

  “Huh!” Eldin puffed up his cheeks, blew out a great snoring snort. He was beginning to perspire where the sun hammered down on him.

  Hero swam, drew closer to the girl, was dazzled by her beauty; certainly by the sun, flashing from her where she stood in the water with droplets streaming from her nipples, a rainbow forming in the cascade from her hair, knowing smile permitting the merest flash of teeth like pearls. But even as he closed with her, off she went again in the direction of the near-distant mast where it stood upright from its plank of a deck. That’s what it looked like, sitting there on the horizon like that: a plank with a spar lashed upright, almost in imitation of a real boat. Funny how your eyes play tricks with you when the sun’s hot and the sea’s cool and a gorgeous girl’s teasing the life out of you.

  And flat on his back on board Quester, Eldin dreamed all of this and began to groan, sweating profusely now. On the one hand he groaned for his young friend, and yet on the other he gloated. He sensed the other’s danger, yes, but at the same time he knew it was only a dream. And it would be fun if Hero got his comeuppance, even in a dream …

  Meanwhile, Hero was after the girl again; he’d put on a spurt and got so close he could actually stretch out a hand and touch her flashing flank. He did so—snatched back his hand as if it were scalded! All the dazzle went out of his eyes in a moment, all the lust out of his loins, all his adrenalin into his system!

  No costume, that silvery sheath of a nether-garment, and no warm human flesh beneath it. Oh, firm enough flesh, aye, but cold as a fish. And just as slimy! Lord, she was a fish after all—some sort of fish, anyway.

  As he recoiled from touch and sudden, shocking knowledge both, so he felt the line grow taut where it stretched between him and Quester. He had reached the end of his tether. Heart hammering, he glanced back; Quester stood off from him by a hundred yards; the fish-girl (mermaid?) was now apparently tired of being chased and had decided to chase him. And at the same time he felt strange, strong hands grasp his ankles to pull him down, and finally he knew for sure that Eldin’s sea-ghosts were only too real.

  All oblivious of which (except that it was a dream), Eldin experienced a sort of uneasy pleasure. This would teach the daft young bugger to doubt him! Oh, it wasn’t real, of course not—but still it was very satisfying. And yet it was strangely disturbing, too …

  The male or males of the species had Hero now, webbed hands clutching, bodies slippery so that kicks skidded off. Round-eyed they were, with red gill-slits throbbing in their necks; all silver-scaled from waists to flipped feet, but softly pink toward the tops, like salmon—and in their wide-slit mouths, needle teeth! And while Hero was a good swimmer, indeed a grand swimmer—oh, but he was no match for such as these! The sea was their element, natural to them as green fields and mountains were to Hero. He could no more fight them here than they could have fought him there. But he could try.

  And the man-bait female circled all three figures as Hero was dragged deeper and deeper, grinning at this man they’d fished (or possibly manned?) from the surface. She was no longer beautiful but quite definitely evil; he saw her for what she was: a scaly, slimy creature whose pearly teeth were daggers, whose blood was thin and cold as the deep, deep sea.

  But because he continued to fight and because the life line still tethered him to Quester, they couldn’t drag him straight to the bottom. Instead, the gradual, airless descent was like the swing of a very slow pendulum. Until finally Hero—lungs bursting and eyes straining from their sockets—finally he spied below his ultimate destination: brief glimpse of an aeon-sunken city, with a hill rising from the murk, a temple and courtyard, and an awful altar stone draped in weed! A single glimpse, but sufficient to stir him to greater effort, to concentrate his waning energies on one last attempt for freedom …

  Up on the surface Quester rocked a very little, just enough that Eldin’s head turned out of the vertical (nose-up) position and lolled to one side. This half awakened him. A pigeon—yellow—one of Bahama’s temple birds, completed the job. Fluttering and p-cooing, it landed on his matted chest, lifted a pink-clawed foot to display its message-cylinder. Blinking in the glare of abrupt awakening and gathering his senses, Eldin sat up, shaded his eyes, opened the cylinder and read the scrap of paper within:

  ATTENTION, ELDIN!

  Seer here:

  Bad vibrations, unpleasant premonitions. About Hero. I’ve been sending (mentalistically speaking) but don’t know if you’ve received. So I’m reduced to a pig
eon. No, great clown, not physically—just . the use of one! Don’t know what it’s all about, except you should keep him away from water. In fact if I were you, I wouldn’t even let him wash his face!

  Be scrying you—

  s.w.i.e.

  Eh? Water? Boat rocking? Eldin sat bolt upright, likewise the hairs on his neck. The boat rocked again. The line was taut where it disappeared over the side at a steep angle.

  Eldin became a blur of motion. He snatched up Hero’s knife from the heap of clothes piled haphazardly on the deck, gripped its blade in his great teeth. A moment later, his own knife strapped as ever to his calf, he was overboard in a dive which would do credit to a dolphin. And down into the not-so-benign deeps he plunged, down … down to where a small knot of figures looked locked in a balletic battle.

  While below:

  It was the end, and Hero knew it. Even in dreams a man can only dive so deep, and lungs need air asleep or waking. Exhaustion and oxygen-starvation were killing him. He strained, writhed, hauled himself a few desperate feet up the line—and was dragged back again. He threshed his body in what seemed a final frenzy. Bubbles, pitifully few and small now, streamed from his agonized lips. A moment longer it lasted, and then he gave a convulsive shudder and went limp. He hung still in the water, mouth agape and eyes blindly staring.

  The fish-men and -maid were jubilant; they relaxed their holds upon him, began a closer inspection of their prize. And as they let go his ankles and came up alongside him—

  Stiff-fingered, Hero drove a hand into the bulging eyes of one, smashed an elbow into the stomach of the second; and then he kicked wildly for the surface. Going up, he saw something coming down. A wonderful, even beautiful something. Eldin grabbed him, kissed him, blew air into starving lungs. Impossible! thought Hero, except in dreams. Then Eldin pressed something into his hand, and as quickly as that the balance was adjusted, scales (the other sort) were tilting in Hero’s favor.