Oshenerth (5 page)

As she nibbled her way through the salty center of a decapitated butterfish (everything here was salty, she mused), she finally thought to ask Glint directly about what had been troubling her ever since their first meeting.

“What’s wrong with your friend? With Chachel? Why is he so rude to everyone? And why is he, as you said, an ‘insufferable outcast’?”

“He’s not rude.” Fragments of chitinous shell spiraled lazily downward from beneath the cuttlefish’s mouth as he methodically demolished a crab. “He’s brusque. He is an outcast because that’s the life he’s chosen for himself. The reason’s the same, I think, for the ‘insufferable’ part.”

“But why?” Sitting on a shelf of plate coral that grew outward from the inner wall of the greeting chamber, she found herself using her teeth to scrape the last bits of flesh from bone as naturally as a chef preparing the ingredients for a chowder. “He’s more than unfriendly: he’s openly hostile. Why? I never did him any harm.”

Finishing the last of his crab, Glint turned toward her. As he spoke, he used his sensitive tentacles to clean the area around his beak. Indicative of his sudden seriousness, his body turned a dark yellow.

“It’s not you,” the cuttlefish explained in a tone turned suddenly somber. “It was a mob that made him what he is. It all happened many years ago.”

So solemn was the cephalopod’s manner that Irina felt compelled to set the remainder of her own meal aside. “A ‘mob’?”

“That’s what is called a school of sharks.” Pivoting, Glint used both hunting tentacles to gesture back the way they had come. “In Chachel’s case, they were mostly oceanic whitetips and makos, working together as a gang.” Reflecting his feelings, his body turned white with unsightly black splotches. “It was ugly, it was bloody. I know: I was there.”

Sitting cross-legged on the pale blue shelf, illuminated by the light that was still pouring in through the open top of the chamber, Irina stared at the cuttlefish. “You were there? But that’s impossible. Your—you people—only live a couple of years or so, and Chachel is at least my age.”

One eye regarded her intently. “What are you saying? My people live as long as yours.”

“Maybe here they do.” She considered thoughtfully. “That might explain why despite showing so much intelligence, cuttlefish like you, and octopods like Oxothyr, and squid where I come from, don’t have any higher skills like communication. They don’t live long enough to learn. I wonder—if you took an octopus from where I come from, from my ocean, and extended its lifespan by a factor of ten or twenty, how much knowledge would it be able to acquire? How smart could it become? As smart as its older counterparts here?”

“Ask Oxothyr. He is ‘of an age.’” Pivoting, Glint gestured upward toward the open water and the mirrorsky above. “I will tell you how Chachel became the way he is.…”

— IV —

The crimson feather star was graceful, beautiful, and lost. Multiple downy bright-red arms propelled it slowly through the water. Though some of its kin favored the depths, that was not the case with the red wanderer. It had been carried away from the reef by a sudden surge of strong current. Now it found itself out in open water without a potential hiding place in sight. It could not avoid the hand that reached for it.

Tempting toxins, a youthful Chachel flicked his fingertips playfully at the ends of the feathery arms but did not quite make contact. The weak-swimming echinoderm bobbed in the water, unable to escape. It tried curling its fragile arms in upon its body, which was miniscule in comparison to the spray of furry limbs. Grinning, the young merson continued to toy inoffensively with the creature. In the open ocean, anything was a diversion.

Having commenced the long swim the previous morning, the clan group’s destination was now in sight. Rising to within a couple of body lengths of the mirrorsky, the twin peaks of the seamount called Splitrock materialized out of the watery haze like some ghostly great gray spear. As the clutch of swimmers drew nearer, both its outlines and its rocky slopes acquired more and more detail.

The swift currents that flowed around and through the split-topped seamount made it difficult for corals, cnidarians, mollusks, or echinoderms to secure a grip on its precipitous flanks. A few who were hardy and determined managed a foothold. The rewards for those who succeeded were great, as the currents brought acre-feet of food swirling helplessly past waiting mouths and trolling tentacles.

Even fewer lifeforms succeeded in colonizing the crevice that split the seamount’s double crown. Powerful currents kept it scoured almost bare. These drew rather than discouraged the vast schools of fish that congregated in its vicinity. Slamming up against the base of the mount, deep-sea currents were forced upward, carrying with them a torrent of nutrients that sustained whole communities of visiting and resident pelagics. As clan patriarch Jeralach had pledged, hunting promised to be spectacular. Reflecting their leader’s optimism, the clan’s hunters had brought along especially large carrynets with which to tow the hoped-for haul back to Sandrift.

The seamount was not generally hunted because to reach it required a two-day swim across open ocean from Sandrift’s home reef system. Swimming for two days was easy enough. But spending nights out in the pitch darkness of open water, with no visible bottom, was sufficiently intimidating to dissuade all but the boldest hunters. Jeralach proudly counted himself among the latter. There was some debate as to whether it was safe enough to bring along eager young apprentices.

“Each of us will travel with tethered glowfish,” Jeralach had explained. “They will provide enough light so that even if someone wanders away from the others, they will not pass from sight.” He held up a tunicate that had been effusively enchanted. Showing a delicate mauve tint, the circular opening at the top of the otherwise transparent creature was pointed toward the northwest. “This was collected by me the last time I visited Splitrock. It has been imbued with meticulous charm by the subshaman Aseleaph so that no matter how it is held, its mouth faces always toward its home. It will be our good and reliable guide to the seamount.”

The magicked ascidian Jeralach flaunted would eliminate the problem of finding Splitrock in the open ocean. That was the difficult part of the expedition. Young Chachel and the other apprentices knew that returning home following hunting would present no comparable difficulty. Marking the position of the light that moved across the mirrorsky, they need merely swim westward until they struck coral. From any location on the reef walls even a child could find its way back to Sandrift.

As finally constituted, the foraging expedition included fifteen experienced adult male and female hunters as well as an additional six apprentices and a trio of curious cuttlefish. Together with several of his best friends, Chachel was honored to be included among the select group of chosen youths. The fact that his parents comprised part of the hunting team only magnified the pride he felt in participating.

Leaving the aggravated feather star in peace to find its own way back to the reef, he kicked hard to catch up to the rest. The pair of fishing spears strapped to his back had come loose and the shafts were rubbing against his skin. He had not bothered to tighten the lashings because he expected that the weapons would soon be put to good use. Behind him, the feather star filled his wake with a litany of tiny curses that made Chachel smile. At fifteen, there was very little that failed to make him smile. Life beneath the mirrorsky was good, and he had no reason to think it would ever be anything but so.

Though Jeralach was the nominal leader of the expedition, having visited the seamount before, he was not in charge. The hunting expedition had no formal leader. As soon as they arrived, decisions were reached through consensus, with every veteran hunter having a vote. That left the apprentices free to explore the mount. While the adults conferenced, they chased one another around the stone tower that rose from the dark depths, taking care to pay attention to the time of day and any potentially dangerous shifts in the powerful currents. Sensing an as yet undefined threat but unwilling to abandon so fruitful a feeding ground, resident schools of fish kept wary eyes on the caucusing mersons while continuing to stuff themselves with the bounty provided by the cold upwellings that swirled around the seamount.

That was one thing about most fish, Chachel had already learned. It was always the
other
school that was going to bear the burden of any hunting.

His mother was as adept with a fishing spear as his father, and her reactions even faster. Rather than opt for the kind of one-on-one hunting that was common among the reefs around Sandrift, however, Jeralach had proposed a strategy that promised greater success with less effort.

Chachel could hardly wait.

O O O

The following morning dawned the same as it always had for the abundant schools of trevally and snapper, jacks and mackerel who chose to feed in and around Splitrock. While busy snacking on smaller life, they remained constantly aware of the hunters’ presence. So they were not taken by surprise when a number of the spear-armed clan rushed them. With the glare of the morning mirrorsky behind them and riding the strong north-flowing current, the hunters’ intent was plain: trap the feeding schools against the rocky mass of the seamount and spear those too slow to swim around it. Except that the top of the seamount was divided in half, a distinctive geologic feature that gave it its name, and it was perfectly possible for even the dumbest school to shoot straight through the gap instead of trying to go all the way around the undersea mountain.

Driven forward by the shouting, gesticulating mersons, one shoal after another took the shortest, easiest path to escape. A school of a hundred big-eye trevally led the way—only to find the exit to the other side of the seamount blocked by the wide open, carefully positioned haulsacks of four mersons. As following schools began to rapidly bunch up behind them, the trevally fled upwards—straight into the waiting open haulsacks of another quartet of hunters. Assisted by the apprentices and harried by the excited, ink-squirting cuttlefish, filled sacks were drawn shut around wailing captives and tightly secured. It was only then that waiting spears and knives were brought into play.

As slaughters went, the one that took place at Splitrock that fine, clear morning was relatively serene. The fish nearest the outside of the haulsacks died first. Not all would be killed. A dead fish was only fit to eat for a few days before spoilage began to set in. While on site, the hunting party would kill only what could be eaten immediately or easily conserved.

The bloody work took most of the morning. When Jeralach finally called a halt to the methodical butchery, the haulsacks were gathered together and their contents prepared for transport. Diminished but not demolished, new schools promptly reformed around the seamount. These survivors returned to their own pursuit of feeding upon lives still smaller than themselves. That was the law of the realworld. That was the way of Oshenerth.

Every member of the hunting expedition, including Chachel’s parents, was overjoyed with their success. They had harvested enough food to feed the entire village for many days. Jeralach had no doubt that upon their return, a general time of celebration would be declared. There would be feasting and games and music. Proud to have participated in the hunt and to have contributed in some small way to its success, Chachel felt more like an adult than he had at any time in his life. All that remained now was to tow the catch back to Sandrift and trumpet their accomplishment. Their achievement would not go unnoticed, their hard work would not pass unrecognized.

Unfortunately, such was already the case.

There was a reason why those who set out to search for food beyond the safety of their villages kept close to the reefs of Yellecheg and Hingarol, Sandrift and Colaroosek. There was a reason why the open ocean was for the most part avoided by hungry mersons and their manyarm friends. In addition to supplying food, the reefs of home also provided positions of strength from which to fight and defend. With rock and coral at their backs, both mersons and manyarms could defend themselves efficiently. Out in the liquid space of empty sea, others had the advantage. Others who were more maneuverable, swifter, and in many ways more deadly.

There must have been a hundred sharks, an alarmed Chachel saw. Mostly lightning-swift blues and makos, a couple of errant hammerheads along for the ride, and at the head of the mob—two great whites, possibly three. Not good odds, not good at all. As the clan bunched together, forming a school of mersons, the smaller of the great whites advanced toward them. The lazy side-to-side flicks of the immensely powerful tail hardly seemed to require an effort. At full thrust, Chachel knew, that tail could hurl its owner forward with enough force for the head to shatter rock.

For the moment the smaller of the two male whites seemed content just to swim a tight circle, flashing its frozen, bone-chilling grin. Spear at the ready, Jeralach swam out from the rest of the clan to confront it. Along with the rest of his friends and family and clan members, Chachel strained to hear what merson and shark would say to one another. Had he taken a moment to look behind him, he would have noted that every one of the thousands of fish that had previously been calmly circling the seamount had fled; vanished into the distance, into the depths, or into any and every available crevice in the rock. In the space of a moment, the seamount known as Splitrock had been transformed into an eerie, abandoned, underwater desert.

“Greetments, merson.” The voice of the great white rumbled up from deep within as it cruised methodically back and forth, back and forth, in front of Jeralach.

“Good day to you and your fellow scavengers.” Keeping a wary eye on the great white, Jeralach held his spear loosely in both hands—but not so loose that the point wavered in the current. “Out hunting for a change?”

“Indeed.” If the massive shark noticed the merson’s sarcasm, it took no offense. “A tiring and often futile proposition. This morning we are feeling lazy.” The tip of his snout rose slightly. “We could not miss the smell of so much blood.”

“True, some blood has been spilled.” The leader of the hunters could hardly deny it. Not with his companions clustered around a dozen haulsacks full of fish both alive and dead.

“Indeed,” observed the great white. “I see you have had good hunting. Myself, I am always admiring how you mersons, having such ridiculous poor teeth of your own, fashion killing substitutes from shell and stone, coral and bone.”

“We make do with what we have.” Jeralach gestured meaningfully with his spear. “It’s true that our teeth are few. But they are sharp, and their reach is long.”

“Long and efficient,” the great white admitted. “As are the nets you make. I see that yours are full. Being so successful in your hunting, it would be polite of you to share with those who have had less luck and are also hungry.”

A tense Jeralach studied the slowly swimming line of sharks. Led by a pair of makos, twenty or so blues were drifting off to the right, another dozen to the left, while the central body of the unusual school was working its way up or down. Not all nets were made of woven material, he mused worriedly. And the numbers were undeniably bad.

“We would be happy to share with our friends the sharptooths. There is enough for all. Freely will we split our catch with you.”

The great white considered, flashing an occasional glance back toward the mob where his brother and the single female, larger as usual than either of the males, waited. Beneath him, his claspers twitched.

“We are very hungry.”

“Sharks are always hungry,” Jeralach countered with a combination of truth and a desperate attempt at humor. “Don’t worry. There is plenty here to eat.”

“That is truth,” the great white agreed. “And we are ready to share in feeding. I think we should begin now—with you!”

Chachel thought he was prepared for what happened next. But he had never seen a great white attack—only inshelf gray reefs, blacktips, whitetips, and other much smaller sharks. The huge, perfectly hydrodynamic shape exploded through the water, heading straight for Jeralach. How the organizer of the hunting expedition managed to sideswim the attack while simultaneously stabbing with his spear Chachel did not know. The sharpened bone pierced the left flank of the great white. The merson had spilled first blood—but critically, had missed the gills.

Within seconds the area to the immediate west of Splitrock was boiling with activity. Closing ranks to form a schooling sphere, all weapons pointed outward, the hunting party faced their attackers. Haulsacks full of fish that had been the object of so much effort and coordination were abandoned. They were promptly shredded by the eager squadrons of blue sharks who tore through tough netting and dead fish with equal alacrity. The remaining members of the mob turned their attention to prey that was both larger and still alive.