The Seadragon's Daughter (28 page)

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Authors: Alan F. Troop

BOOK: The Seadragon's Daughter
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Yanking my tail away from Lorrel’s, I slam it down hard on the stone floor. Lorrel winces. I stare at her and think of Chloe’s words. I could kill this Pelk female in seconds. Just a few slashes or a well placed bite and no healing circle on earth could put her back together again.
“I do not like the way you are looking at me,”
Lorrel says, getting up.
“You have been mindspeaking masked with someone, have you not? Has it been with your wife?”
I shake my head.
“Not with her, not with anyone, not with anything,”
I mindspeak.
“You know I’m unhappy here. You know I’m lonely.”
Lorrel studies my face, staring as if she can distill the truth from my expression. Finally, she mindspeaks,
“I can soothe you, you know. Come lie with me again and let me help you.”
“No!”
I mindspeak, slamming my tail down again.
“You are not who I want!”
The Pelk girl hisses and steps back.
“Undrae! Watch your words with me,”
she mindspeaks.
“I am the daughter of Mowdar and the mother of your son. Take care you do not reject me one time too many. I can also use my words to hurt.”
I stay seated as she walks away. My body aches for sleep, but I have no intention of returning to the nest until the creature has gone back to sleep. I long to call out to Chloe again. But I can no more do that this evening than I can leave this vile place.
28
 
A muted boom of thunder wakes me. I sit up to find Lorrel still asleep. She has her back turned to me and lies as far from me as she can without leaving the nest. I smile and shake my head. Those few times in our relationship when Chloe and I have had problems, I’d agonized over any distance we had between us. But Lorrel’s rejection causes no pain. I miss the warmth of a body pressed against me, nothing more.
Getting up, taking care not to wake the Pelk girl, I make my way out of the alcove. Outside the drapes I stop and stare at the dull gray light coming from the hole in the cavern wall at the top of the stone stairs. It barely illuminates the cavern much better than the glowpools do at night. I shake my head. I’ve become used to the bright glow that usually streams through the hole each day, and I regret its absence. Thunder rumbles again and I wonder what type of storm now darkens the sky and lashes at the ground above me.
Either the rain or the celebration the evening before has kept most of the Pelk sleeping in their nests. Here and there only a few of them have woken and stirred phosphorescence into their glowpools, the pools’ green glow positively bright compared to the dim light coming this morning from above.
My stomach growls when I notice three males sitting outside Mowdar’s drapes and feeding on the remnants of a dolphin carcass left over from the evening’s feast. I can’t put names to two of them, but the third I recognize as Jessai. I walk over to them and sit on a seaweed seat next to him.
“Undrae, you are up early today,”
Jessai mindspeaks.
Another clap of thunder vibrates through the cavern and I tilt my head upward.
“The storm woke me,”
I mindspeak.
Jessai shakes his head.
“If I had Lorrel lying beside me, I do not think I would leave my warm nest on a day like this to feed alongside the three of us.”
I smile.
“She’s still asleep and I’m hungry. Nothing says I can’t return to her after I fill my stomach.”
He laughs, leans over, slices a chunk of meat from the carcass’ tail—where it’s sweetest—with one of his talons and offers it to me. The other two Pelk stop eating and stare at him. I do too. Among the Pelk, males hardly ever serve other males.
Jessai mindspeaks,
“If anyone in the srrynn has a right to this meat it is him.”
The other two Pelk nod and I accept the meat from Jessai. I eat it slowly to show my appreciation,
While we eat we talk mostly of the last day’s battle with the dolphins and of the weather. After we’ve all eaten our fill, the other two leave to return to their nests. Jessai stays, waits till they’re gone and turns to me.
“I was not pleased to have you join our srrynn. Lorrel should have been mine. . . .”
I shake my head.
“I didn’t ask for her. . . .”
“Undrae, we both know she must do as Mowdar directs. I want you to know I no longer have any quarrel with you. You shared a great victory with me yesterday. I thank you for it. I want you to know I think you welcome here. From now on I will be proud to hunt and fight at your side.”
“Thank you,”
I mindspeak.
He dismisses my gratitude with a wave of his claw.
“You need not thank me. But I do have a matter I think we should discuss. It is something I have not spoken about with Mowdar yet.”
I nod.
“During the fight with Notch Fin someone called out to you, did they not?”
“I think so . . .”
I mindspeak, cocking my head as if I’m trying to remember.
“I’m not exactly sure when or what it was about. I was in the middle of the fight. Remember—the damned beast was battering my head—but I think Derek said something.”
Jessai cocks his head.
“Derek?”
he mindspeaks.
“It did not sound like Derek to me. And you never answered him.”
“Come on. You were there. You know I was too busy for any conversation.”
“True,”
Jessai says, nodding his head.
“But I also know you and Derek are not the only Undrae on this earth. We are all aware of the damage your father did to our people. Mowdar has cautioned us to report any strangeness to him. He has pledged to kill you if you threaten to draw us into danger. I would not want to see that.”
“Ask Derek if you care to,”
I mindspeak, hoping that either Jessai will not take me up on my invitation or that Derek won’t botch backing up my story.
“I may,”
Jessai mindspeaks.
“Later, after he wakes.”
A particularly loud thunderclap booms out above us and the Pelk looks up and smiles.
“I doubt he or any us will leave the srrynn today.”
“How do you know the storm is so bad?”
I mindspeak.
Jessai points to a place on the cavern wall between Mowdar’s alcove and mine where a three-foot swath of stone running from the cavern’s roof to the floor has turned dark and slick with moisture. He points to similar flows of water on the walls around the cavern and to a few thin streams of water that fall from cracks in the roof’s stone, one drizzle striking the floor and forming a puddle a dozen or so yards from us, the rest fortunately cascading into the cavern’s lagoon.
“This only happens during the worst of storms,”
he mindspeaks.
“On days like this, the wind beats at you above and the ocean tumbles you along below. Especially after yesterday, it will be a pleasure to rest inside.”
No matter the weather, I’ve little desire to spend the day lazing with Lorrel. I want to be alone, to have time enough to talk again with Chloe. I shake my head and mindspeak,
“You Pelk like living in your caves. I need to go above, at least for a little while, just so I can breathe the air in the open and look at more than stone walls and a stone ceiling.”
“What is the difference between this and the stone house that Lorrel has told me you lived in?”
Jessai mindspeaks.
I think about my coral stone house, how warm and comfortable it is when it storms outside like this, how much I miss it and I mindspeak only,
“Windows.”
As I expected, Derek refuses to venture from his warm, dry nest when I wake him. He nods when I tell him about my conversation with Jessai, nods again when I ask him to back up my story and immediately falls back to sleep. I consider waking him again, just to see if he truly understood what I said, but shake my head. Better to hope he understood. My brother-in-law never takes kindly to having his sleep disturbed.
The grumble of thunder resonates through the cavern and I wonder whether to venture above. It will be too wet to bring Don Henri’s journal to ponder over and too blustery to sit anywhere in comfort. But I need to go somewhere where I can communicate with Chloe without any interruption, and—with the exception of the day before—I haven’t missed a day searching for the Thryll and leaving him food.
I vaguely remember seeing a flash of yellow at the bottom of the clothing pile the Pelk keep. Going to the pile, putting down the two chunks of dolphin meat I’ve brought from the carcass, I change to my human shape and dig through the clothes. I smile when I finally see the yellow material and touch the rubberized surface of a foul-weather jacket and grin even more when I find its matching pants.
Both give off the rank smell of mildew. Still, I put them on over my bare flesh and pull up the hood. If the weather above is as bad as it sounds, I’ll be glad to be protected from it no matter what the odor. My body immediately turns too hot, overprotected as it is from the calm air of the cavern. I pick up the dolphin meat and walk toward the stairs.
 
Rain lashes the ground. Lightning crackles through the sky, followed by loud claps of thunder. Gusts of wind bend the mangroves, their branches jerking and bowing with each sudden change. I stand in the middle of the clearing next to the entrance to the Pelks’ cavern—my body warm and dry inside the foul-weather gear, only my bare face, hands and feet wet and cold from the storm—and try to decide whether to talk to Chloe or search for Clieee first.
In the end, my reluctance to talk just yet with my angry wife makes it easy for me to choose looking for the Thryll. I take a bite from one of the cold, wet chunks of meat I’m carrying and climb up, into the mangroves.
By now I usually make my way to the end of this path within minutes, but in the storm’s gloom and rain it takes much longer. I have to study each branch and root to determine whether it’s part of the path. I have to place my hands and feet so I don’t slip—tasks made even more difficult by the wind, which makes walking through the trees like stepping from one writhing beast to the next.
I finally reach what I think is the end of the path. Balancing the dolphin meat on the Y of the bough of a tree near me, I use one hand to hold onto tree branches for balance and the other to push branches out of the way—to see if the Thryll hides anywhere nearby.
But I spot no sign of his reddish scales. I shake my head.
“Clieee?”
I mindspeak.
“Where the hell are you?”
He doesn’t answer and I sigh, though after all the days he hasn’t shown, I’m not really surprised by his absence. Chances are, I think, he may have promised what he did only to leave my presence unharmed. I sigh again and pick up a chunk of dolphin meat and take a bite.
“No! Eat mine not!”
Clieee mindspeaks from somewhere in the wet greenery.
I stare at the leaves in front of me, not sure just where to look for him, and mindspeak,
“This meat is mine. I can eat what I want of it, you worthless creature. I have left food for you every day. . . .”
“Yesterday not. For Clieee no food. For Clieee empty stomach.”
“Why should I give you anything more? You promised me help,”
I mindspeak.
“And you’ve brought me nothing.”
I take another, larger bite from the meat and make a show of chewing it.
The leaves rustle behind me and I turn just as Clieee comes close enough to be seen.
“Promise not help. Only Zalman’s words promise I.”
I scowl at the creature.
“Why haven’t you told me his words before?”
“Bring you meat for I day by day.”
Clieee stares at the meat in my hand.
“Not like answer my—no more meat bring you.”
“Tell me Zalman’s words now or I’ll eat every bit of this meat right now.”
I mindspeak.
“Let me be the judge of whether I like them or not.”
The Thryll comes closer, though he still makes sure to stay out of my reach.
“Says Zalman, Pelk poison knows he. Says Zalman, poison antidote knows he. Says Zalman, around you look in the trees. In the trees, says Zalman, find answer you.”
I stare at the trees around us.
“Look in the trees for what?”
“Know not I. Zalman knows and says Zalman, know will you.”
“Take me to him! Let him explain his answer to me,”
I mindspeak, stepping toward the Thryll.
Clieee shakes his head and backs up.
“Explain not Zalman. Never. Are true his words. Always. Meet you not he. Ever. Food want I. Now.”
In the trees. I shake my head. Tree snails, birds, lizards, crabs, spiders and myriad other insects, plus God knows what types of fungus and algae, all live on the mangroves above the water. I assume an equally diverse group of creatures live on or among its roots underwater.
“I need more than word games,”
I mindspeak.

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