Out of the waters

CHAPTER 18

Alphena hadn't thought she could sleep, but of course she had. This time she must have slept through the herbal smoke when Uktena lit his pipe, but she awakened at last because her skin prickled and the hair stood up on her arms and legs.

She opened her eyes to a haze of crackling light. It shrouded a form that was not the shaman's. Then Uktena expelled a final puff of smoke and thrust the pipe-stem under his sash.

Without seeming to notice her, he started up the ladder. Ghosts of his body hung in his wake when he moved. They grew paler and finally dissipated.

Alphena hadn't taken her sandals off when she lay down, but she had loosened the laces so that her feet wouldn't swell uncomfortably during the night. She tightened them now without waste motion and got up to follow. The copper axe was in her hand.

She couldn't have described how she felt. She climbed, ignoring the jabs and flashes of numbness where her skin touched the wood which Uktena had touched.

I don't feel any way. A thing happened and I am doing a thing in response. The rain falls and the seed sprouts; but the seed feels nothing.

Clouds piled high in the western sky, red with the light of dawn. Lightning flashed within them, bringing out momentary shades white to dark gray; Alphena heard no thunder.

She caught up with Uktena. The ground around him popped and sizzled, and he dragged a train of glittering insubstantiality.

The three Sages and some of the villagers watched from the edge of the forest beyond the planted fields. Wontosa's hair had been repaired with a weave shorn from someone else; the stuffed bird was different, also. He flinched when Alphena looked at him.

Does he think that I have powers? she wondered. Although- She wriggled the axe in her right hand. It wasn't a magical talisman for her, but it did give her power over such as Wontosa.

The crystal fortress had already split open. Procron lifted from it, bathed in purple light that hurt Alphena's eyes. She shaded them with her hand, wishing she had her broad-brimmed hat. She had lost it from the gryphon's back while battling the Minoi. If she'd been thinking, she could have replaced it as she had the sword which she lost at the same time.

The sword was important. The hat was not.

She tried to walk close beside Uktena, but the power spreading from him drove her back like a fierce wind armed with sand grains. Grimacing, squinting, Alphena lowered her eyes and turned her shoulder to the discomfort. Even so, she had to stay twenty feet away from him.

Uktena probably didn't notice. He hadn't paid any attention to her since she awakened.

They reached the shoreline; Uktena dropped the pipe as before. A gentle wave rolled up the sand. When it touched the shaman's bare feet, the water disintegrated in hissing sparkles-not steam, though the gleaming motes stung when they touched Alphena's calf.

Spreading, swelling, the shaman moved outward. He was no longer Uktena, and she wasn't sure that he was her friend or even Mankind's friend.

He's our defender, though. He's putting himself between us and our enemy.

Purple light ripped from the Minos, lashing the shaman and the sea. Water boiled away in a thunderclap, but the huge bulk continued to advance. The protecting white fire partially concealed the creature within, but Alphena could see enough of its writhing immensity to feel sick.

Clouds filled the eastern sky, coalescing out of clear air as suddenly as vinegar curdles milk. Black and lowering, they rushed toward the shore to meet the cloudbank that hung above the land. The storm broke in full earnest: rain and howling winds bent the tops of pine trees and sent a hut flying out to sea like a huge bird.

The thing that had been the shaman engulfed Procron despite the unrelenting sheets of purple flame spitting from the diamond skull. The monster had grown to the size of the island from which it came.

The white glow had dimmed so that Alphena could see clearly what Uktena had become. Some of the heads were of beasts she had never seen before, and some could only be demons.

Tentacles spread toward the Atlantean. Hissing purple light burned them away, but they regrew and redoubled like the Hydra's heads.

Alphena fell to her knees. Windblown rain slashed her, washing away her tears. Like the thousand arms of what had been her friend, more tears sprang from her eyes.

Inexorably, the monster's bulk forced Procron back. The painful purple light didn't slack, but its punishment no longer slowed the advance of what had been the shaman. Where the flame now touched the creature, flesh bubbled and swelled and changed still more horribly, but it continued to crawl on.

Alphena unlaced her heavy sandals. They would help to wading depth, but she couldn't swim in them. She would be ready…

Procron burst upward from the encirclement. He began to accelerate like a dropping stone. A hundred tentacles rose and snatched him down. They stripped him of his armor the way a cook shells a crayfish, flinging the gleaming bits away. Even under a storm-covered sky, the fragments shone like the tears of the sun.

The fight is over.

Procron suddenly blazed with shimmering violet energy. The gripping tentacles shrivelled and dropped away.

The Atlantean hung shimmering in the air for a moment. As fresh arms reached for him, he flung himself back into his spire.

The monster surged forward like the tide driven in by a storm. The doors at the top of the fortress slapped closed like the shell of a clam reacting to danger. What had been the shaman covered the spire and mounded above it.

How much larger can it grow? How much larger can my friend Uktena grow?

All the world grew transparent to her eyes. Alphena saw Procron in his crystal spire and saw the fortress in the monster's swollen body like a pearl in the oyster's mantle.

The crystal shifted. It could not break free in space, but it stretched into another dimension; fading, losing color and form, becoming a sparkling ghost of itself.

The creature made a convulsive movement like a whale swallowing. Even the ghost vanished. Procron and his fortress were cut off forever from Alphena's world.

The monster, swelling still greater, trembled. The storm paused, the clouds frozen in place and the winds still.

Alphena rose to her feet. She shouted, "Uktena! Come back to me, my friend! Come back!"

The monster slumped toward her like a wall of sand collapsing. She stood with her arms crossed. Heads and tentacles drew into the vast body and the body shrank.

"My friend!" Alphena shouted.

Uktena took a step toward her collapsed into the surf. She thrust the axe helve through her sash and waded out to get him.

The sea spit light and occasionally stung her flesh like sparks from a bonfire. Uktena's compact body wobbled on the swell. He was face down.

Alphena hurled herself against the water, but her tunic dragged her back. She should have taken it off with the boots before she left the shore.

The tide was going out. It was taking Uktena with it.

Alphena untied her sash and snatched the tunic over her head to drop on the waves. The axe was gone also. That didn't matter. Nothing mattered except that she reach Uktena before he drowned. She swam toward him, wishing she had spent more time in the swimming bath even if that meant less at sword practice.

She didn't know how long it was before she reached the shaman. He turned his face to breathe, but she wasn't sure that he noticed her presence. She rolled him onto his back. Kicking and stroking with one arm, she began to return to the shore. The storm was passing, though the wind still whipped froth from the wave tops.

Alphena felt momentarily weightless; the water about her glowed white. Everything returned to normal, except that six flounders rose to the surface and began a round dance on the tips of their tails.

The fish dived back toward the bottom, their white bellies gleaming. Alphena continued to stroke shoreward. Maybe she had imagined the fish, and anyway it didn't matter.

She didn't realize how close they had come till her knees scraped sand and bits of shell from the bottom. She gasped in shock and managed to swallow water.

She squatted because she wasn't able to stand. She laid Uktena's head in her lap to keep it above water. He was breathing, but he didn't seem to be aware.

Awareness would come. He was breathing. That was all that mattered.

Alphena didn't know how long she squatted there with her eyes closed, getting her breath under control and easing the white ache of her right arm and shoulder. The surf only came to her ankles at its flux and retreated well out into the sound.

She heard voices. After a further moment, she raised her eyes. The three Sages were coming toward her, chanting in unison. Forty-odd people, probably the whole village of Cascotan, waited at the high water mark.

"Help us," Alphena said. "He's all right, he's just tired. Help us back to the kiva."

Still chanting what must be a prayer, the Sages lifted Uktena from her. Hanno and Dasemunco took the shaman's arms. Wontosa, carrying the pipe, walked ahead of them. They paid no attention to Alphena.

She got up and wavered. She should have put her hands down to help herself, but she hadn't wanted to appear weak. I could scarcely appear weaker than I really am. She followed the four men higher up the shore.

Wontosa said, "Here. The sand is dry, so he won't be able to take power from the water."

He began to fill the murrhine pipe with herbs from the embroidered deerskin pouch. Uktena had left it behind in the kiva.

"What are you doing?" Alphena shouted. She stumbled forward. Arms caught her from behind-the women Sanga and Lascosa; the latter the mother of the thing Procron had created in the marshes.

"He's too dangerous," Sanga said. "Don't you see? He has to be sent away or we'll never be safe!"

Uktena sprawled on his back on the sand. The Sages squatted around him and continued to chant. Wontosa puffed on the pipe he had taken from the greater magician.

"He saved you!" Alphena said. Her vision blurred with anger and tears. "He saved you all!"

"He's a monster!" Lascosa said in a venomous tone. "He didn't save my Mota. He would destroy us all!"

The chant reached a crescendo. Wontosa blew a great jet of smoke over the torso and head of his exhausted rival. Uktena's form blurred.

"No!" Alphena shouted as she tore loose. She flung herself over her friend's body.

The world shifted like a mirror tilting. She was alone, falling again through the emptiness from which Uktena had rescued her.

But now he cannot rescue even himself.

Lann ran heavily. He was faster when he dropped down and used his knuckles as forehooves, but even then Hedia had no difficulty keeping up. He didn't seem comfortable on all fours, however. He regularly lurched upright and tried to run on two legs like a man.

He wasn't a man, poor dear, except in his mind. And not really all of his mind, though enough to satisfy Hedia. She focused on the virtues of the men whom she liked, and Lann had most of the virtues which Saxa lacked. Between them, they made a truly wonderful man.

Hedia smiled. She'd found over the years that if she tried, she could like most men.

The ape-man paused, rose on his hind legs, and sniffed the air. He frowned in doubt. Turning, he looked back the way they had come. He didn't seem to see any more there than Hedia did-blank grayness-but he noticed the lens she carried.

"Hoo!" he cried, as delighted as if he were meeting an old friend. He snatched the device from her without ceremony.

Hedia felt her lips purse, though she didn't object. It was his, after all, though he might have been more polite.

Except that Lann couldn't be more polite. He was a beast, an animal, with major virtues. And, like Saxa, he was devoted to her.

The ape-man held the frame in one hand and touched the lens with his index finger. When he did so, he and Hedia stood on a pavement of dull metal in place of something firm but unseen in the universal grayness. She tested it with her toes.

This is what we've been walking on all the time. This isn't a mirage of the past, this is real.

Other paths branched from this one. Each was of a different material: brick laid in various patterns; concrete; a hard material as black as muck from a swamp; and uncountably many others. Some tracks were dirt, sun-baked or rutted or even grassy.

One of the paths was leaf-mold on which Hedia could see her own footprints pressed delicately onto the broad, splayed marks of the ape-man who had led her. An Atlantean airship flew above that side-branch and vanished through the portal at the end; the second ship followed only moments later.

The hunters who had chased Hedia and the ape-man on foot were also running back the way they had come, but it was too late for them. Typhon crawled on its many legs from the prison which Lann had breached.

The monster seemed deceptively slow because it was so large, but its tentacles swept fleeing humans into its slavering maws. Typhon had as many heads as it had legs. They were equipped with beaks and fangs and muscular gullets to squeeze and crush and swallow. Some of the victims turned to fight, but that was like watching mice bare their teeth at a forest fire.

None of the hunters reached the jungle path. Instead of stopping when it engulfed the last of them, Typhon swelled through the portal with scarcely a pause.

For an instant Hedia thought she saw not a monster but a man in a loincloth who wore his iron-gray hair in braids. Then Typhon again filled the path from its ruptured prison to the portal, flowing onward without seeming to diminish.

The ape-man hooted joyfully and resumed his journey. He held the lens in his left hand, walking on either his legs or his legs and the knuckles of his right hand. He continued to chortle.

Hedia swallowed. The Atlanteans weren't her friends, Venus knew, but… all of them, the Minoi and their servants and their little dogs and the very worms in the dirt of their gardens? Because she didn't imagine Typhon would halt while there was still something to destroy.

She mentally shrugged as she accompanied the ape-man. The pavement was wide enough that she could stay within half a step of him while keeping far enough to the side that they wouldn't collide if he stopped abruptly.

She wouldn't have chosen that end for the Atlanteans… but she hadn't chosen it. Besides, it was done now. In this world-in all worlds-women get used to making the best of situations which they can't change.

Hedia grinned. Men really weren't much better off, but they were less likely to accept reality. That was another case of the woman having the advantage, if she had wit enough to use it.

They had passed numerous branchings, but Lann continued to follow the central metal path. Now at last he bore to the right, onto flagstones of volcanic tuff which appeared to have been set in concrete. Though a byway, it was wide enough that Hedia didn't feel uncomfortable as long as she kept to the middle of it. She wasn't sure it was possible to fall off the path, but the thought of drifting forever in this limbo frightened her more than the risk of death.

The ape-man paused again and concentrated on his lens. Hedia bumped him because her thoughts were elsewhere. That was no harm done: it was rather like walking into a tree with furry bark.

For a moment Lann and Hedia were in a vision of a bleak waste on which Procron's fortress stood under an orange sun. The ape-man made an adjustment by changing the angle of his right index finger. Their viewpoint shifted to the air above Poseidonis as Typhon advanced on the city like a tidal wave.

In the distance was the ring island outside the one on which Poseidonis stood. The monster had torn a gap the size of itself in the land as it emerged on the site of Procron's keep.

Typhon was larger than that now. It would continue to grow for as long as there was space for it, spreading like the sea.

Nothing can stop it. Hedia swallowed again.

Ships were rising from the harbor as they had done in the vision of the theater, but in this reality they were not attacking the monster. Instead, heavily laden with liveried retainers, they wobbled toward a shimmering disk hanging above the pinnacle of the great tower. The portal rested on the orichalc finial, which blazed now brighter than the sun.

The Minoi and their households were abandoning Atlantis rather than struggle against an inexorable doom. Typhon would triumph, but not over them.

Perhaps some of the women have carried along their little dogs, Hedia thought. The worms and the common people could take care of themselves. Though as an aristocrat herself, who was she to object?

Lann grunted in disgust and resumed his swaying course up the stone pavement. Hedia looked down at the blocks with a sudden question-and a recognition.

Where are the Minoi going in their flying ships? And- The ball on top of the Atlantean temple is the same as the one we saw on the sundial in the Field of Mars.

"I'm very glad to see you, Master Corylus," Pandareus said as Corylus finished undoing his bonds. He pursed his lips and added, "How did you know the Westerners were carrying me to their ship, if I may ask?"

Corylus had untied the knots instead of cutting them because he was trembling in reaction to the fight. It had involved every fiber of his being-but only for a few heartbeats. It was over now, but his blood was still flooded with the emotions which had carried him through.

"I didn't know," he said. His mouth was dry as sun-baked sand and he felt a wash of dizziness as he finished freeing his teacher's wrists. He stepped back. "I don't think it was luck, though. My companion-"

He nodded to the Ancient, who was grooming his fur with his tongue.

"-is a great magician, and I've found him a better friend than I had any reason to expect would be the case."

"I see," said Pandareus in a neutral voice. He turned his head; Corylus followed his eyes toward the sprite.

"Ah!" Corylus said. He'd gotten so used to Coryla that he'd completely forgotten about certain matters that should have been obvious. "Cousin, while we're here in, ah, the waking world, would you put some clothes on, please. Ah, I think this fellow's tunic-"

He toed the corpse with the stuffed bird in its hair. The two he'd killed were covered with blood… as was his own right forearm, now that he noticed it.

"-will do."

"He can see us too?" Coryla said, giving Pandareus a thoughtful look as she walked over to the dead man. "Is it because we've been in the dreamworld, do you think? Or are you that great a magician?"

"I'm not a magician," Corylus said. He said to his teacher, "She's a cousin of mine, master. A very distant cousin."

There were quite a number of people watching them now-a score or more openly, and doubtless many times that number peering from cover or through slatted shutters from the buildings facing the harbor. The mule cart had drawn attention, which the sudden bloody violence would have multiplied.

Nobody had tried to interfere: a gang which killed three men in broad daylight wasn't anything for civilians to trifle with. A section of the Watch was bound to be arriving shortly, though.

"Master, where were they taking you?" Corylus said. "That is, if you know."

He had already decided that they had to use the ship to escape Ostia, though there weren't any good places to fly to. They would have to land in daylight unless he wanted to wait six hours for nightfall. Even then someone would probably notice them in the air unless they landed in a barren location or came down at sea and rowed in, as presumably the glass men had done when the Sages arrived.

Corylus couldn't handle both sweeps by himself. Pandareus wasn't strong enough to help, and asking the Ancient to do that sort of physical labor would be… a matter for cautious negotiation.

"I think they were taking me home," Pandareus said. "To their home in the Western Isles, that is. They were joining my mind to theirs to force me to use my powers of magic-"

His smile was wry.

"-to control the monster Uktena, so my consciousness listened to their discussions. They had decided to leave because the fleet of their enemies, the Minoi, was going to attack Carce at any moment."

The Watch had arrived at the end of the quay. Though-if he was reading the standards correctly, they were accompanied by a number of Marines as well. Part of the detachment at Misenum must be stationed in Ostia.

"The Atlanteans here?" Corylus said. "I thought Atlantis was destroyed thousands of years ago. That is, if it were even real to begin with."

"So did I," Pandareus said with a rueful smile. "If I understood the Westerners' discussion correctly, Atlantis was destroyed but its rulers are coming here to escape. The Sages couldn't stand against them, so they were taking me home to continue trying to find a way to control Uktena."

He looked down the quay toward the armed men advancing, then looked back at Corylus. He said. "I suspect that the Minoi will only put off their danger by fleeing to Carce. If their weapons are as terrible as the Westerners seem to believe, however, Carce's present population won't survive to be threatened by the monster."

Pandareus coughed into his hand and added, "Uktena appears to be the Westerners' name for Typhon."

Corylus sighed. Taking longer to think wouldn't give him a better result. There were no good results.

"Come, Master," he said, offering Pandareus a hand more to get him moving than because he needed help getting up. "We'd best get aboard the ship."

The Watch and Marines were advancing at a deliberate pace, but they would arrive soon even if they didn't decide to make a final rush. Corylus had a frontier soldier's contempt for the Watch-and even more for the Marines, who filled their ranks with freed slaves. Even so there were forty of them, and some of the Marines were carrying long pikes.

Pandareus moved with commendable speed, hesitating only when he reached the edge of the quay. Before Corylus could speak, the Ancient took the teacher in his long arms and hopped with him across the three feet of open water to the ship's deck before setting him down.

Pandareus remained tense for an instant, then broke into a broad smile. "Publius Corylus," he said. "You have in one fashion and another added more to my education than I can possibly have done to yours. Where are we going now?"

"To Carce," Corylus said, tossing the anchor aboard and trotting to the stern to loose the hawser there. "A moment ago I wondered what people would say if we flew over the city, but it sounds as though there'll be a good deal more to worry about than our presence."

The oncoming troops raised a shout, but it didn't look like any of them wanted to double-time into the kind of trouble which had brought them out in such numbers. They would be here in a moment regardless.

Corylus tossed the hawser aboard and leaped to the deck himself. He could have cut the rope easily, but he didn't want to give the Watch a chance to gloat.

The ship wobbled, then started to rise without Corylus needing to give an order. Well, it would have been a request. The Ancient was at his post in the stern, laughing in his fashion.

Corylus saluted him, then strode to the bow where the sprite waited. The sails beat strongly above them. The company on the quay had scattered, all but three Marines who butted their pikes on the stone and tried to follow the rising ship with the points of their weapons.

"Cousin," Corylus said, patting the tangle of dull black tubes which must be the flame-spitting weapon which he had seen in visions. "Can you teach me how to use this? Because if you can't, I'm going to have to fight shiploads of Atlanteans with just a sword."

He patted the hilt and grinned. "And I don't fancy my chances," he said.

Varus stood in the back garden of his father's house. He was alone.

A few days ago he had believed that none of the servants would have been willing to join him here even if he ordered them to do so under threat of torture. Today, Lenatus and three of the just-freed slaves in the new squad of servants had offered to stay with him. Lenatus said that the whole squad would attend if Lord Varus ordered them to.

Varus had found his voice growing thick as he assured the men that it would be better for him to be alone. He knew they were all afraid of magic, and he was sure that they had a good idea of how dangerous this was going to be… though probably not a real understanding of the ways it was going to be dangerous. It didn't make any sense that they should volunteer.

Nobody had ordered Gaius Varus to take on this duty either, but he was a philosopher: he knew that the flesh was of no importance. He didn't imagine that the squad of bruisers was nearly so blase about questions of being and non-being… but they were willing to stand with him

Varus swallowed. He was beginning to understand what it meant to be a man. And perhaps that was because he was becoming a man himself.

He took a deep breath. He didn't have a weapon, just a splinter of bone. He had his mind and the knowledge in it. Those, not steel points or edges that would be more danger to him than to an enemy, were the tools with which he would fight Procron.

Varus wore a toga and leather-soled walking shoes. Remembering the terrain in which Procron's fortress stood, he had been tempted to get a pair of cleated army sandals. He wouldn't find them comfortable, though. He instead put on a pair of the shoes he would wear if he were going out on the streets of Carce.

"May the doors of heaven…," Varus said, reading aloud from the book which unrolled in his mind. "Be opened to me!"

It was the same phrase he had used to escape when Procron attempted to hold him. He was coming to realize that the words he used were not important. Hundreds or even thousands of Egyptians must have read the same phrase in past years. The words had power when he read them, because he read them with a particular intent.

The garden darkened. Varus stepped forward into a dark valley. The Sibyl waited for him at the base of a track up the hillside..

"Greetings, Lord Varus," she said. Crinkling her face still further in a smile, she added, "Intent is important, of course; but it would mean nothing if you were not a wizard."

She's replying to what I thought.

"Why would I not know what goes on in your mind, Varus?" she said. "Since I am a part of your mind."

Varus nodded politely. "Good morning, Sibyl," he said, ignoring her question. "I am glad you have joined me. I've come here again, because if I'm to stop Procron, I know of no better way to do it than by facing him."

Pandareus would appreciate the delicacy of his phrasing. Varus didn't believe that facing the Atlantean would enable him to defeat him-but he knew of no better way. Sitting in the library and pondering endlessly would lead nowhere. Choosing to face his enemy at least meant that Varus would by dying avoid having to watch the results of his failure.

"Come then," the Sibyl said. She started up the track, as she had done before.

She said, "Procron loosed Typhon on Atlantis in revenge for his exile, but he opened all paths when he did so. Typhon has chosen to attack Procon's enclave on this aged world, putting Procron on his mettle to prevent the monster from entering."

She cackled with amusement. "It is a struggle like no other in the history of the Earth," she said. "But there is no one to watch it except you and me, Lord Varus; and I do not exist outside your mind."

They reached the top of the low ridge. The sky was black with clouds congealing from the thin air. Procron's keep rose from the chill moorland in the near distance. The air was clear directly above the tower's peak, but a writhing mass of flesh tried to force entry against a net of violet lightning.

There was a continual thunderous hiss; the plain shuddered. Typhon's heads and limbs lashed at the lightning. They blackened, vanished, and were replaced as quickly by others swelling from the gross body.

"What-" Varus said. He stopped, smiled grimly, and began hiking toward the beleaguered fortress.

I already know what to do: enter Procron's fortress and stop him. Or die.

"Sibyl?" he said. "How long will this-" he waved. "-last if we don't take a hand?"

"For eternity, Lord Wizard," said the old woman, walking at his side. The air grew warmer as they approached the center of the struggle. The hoarfrost had melted, and the low vegetation was wilting. "Procron has pulled this world out of time, save for the one portal which his mind holds open to gain vengeance on the world that expelled him. Not even Typhon has the power to force that gate. Typhon will never cease trying, but-"

She shrugged.

"-if Typhon is blocked for very long here, it will enter Carce through another portal."

"But I will be able to leave?" Varus said. He licked his lips. "As I did before when Procron tried to hold us?"

"If you slay Procron, whose power holds the portal open, his power vanishes," the Sibyl said. "Then only Typhon and Typhon's power remain, and Typhon destroys all things."

Varus was breathing fast as they approached the high arched doorway of the crystal fortress. The air is thin. I breathe quickly only because my lungs don't fill as they ought to.

"I see," Varus said. I am a citizen of Carce. I will carry out my duty.

He faced the spire and read out in a strong, steady voice, "May the doors of heaven be opened to me!"

If I had my axe, Alphena thought, I'd take care of all three of those Sages! Even without the axe, I'd- Through the red haze of her anger, she glimpsed herself as she was: not only unarmed but stark naked. The hobnailed boots she had imagined grinding into Wontosa's face lay on the shore. Her waterlogged tunic had probably sunk to the bottom of the sound, where the copper axe certainly was. And ever since the vulture-riding Minoi had attacked her, her hat and her sword drifted in the eternal gray between worlds.

Where she was now.

"How could they?" she shouted. No one but herself would hear, but the words were empty anyway. "He saved them all, he saved us!"

Alphena felt mild pleasure as she realized that she was angry but not afraid. Fear might come later; she supposed she would be here until she starved. For now, though, she was furious with the Sages and the whole village of Cascotan for what they had done to Uktena.

To cast her into this drifting prison-well, she was a stranger and she had never pretended to like any of them. What they did to her was fair, though of course she would know how to repay them if she ever got the chance.

But Uktena was their champion. He had saved Cascotan and probably the whole Western Isles from what had been done to Mota… and instead, Mota's mother blamed Uktena for not saving her daughter.

It's not fair!

The Earth, or Alphena supposed it was the Earth, was the pale ball which she had seen reflected in the basin when Anna chanted her spell. That seemed infinitely long ago; everything that had happened since she mounted the gryphon's back was another lifetime.

Alphena smiled again: a lifetime which had lasted longer than the life which had followed was going to. She had heard Lenatus talking about the army with Corylus and Pulto; so long as she kept quiet, the old soldiers had treated her as though she wasn't there. At the time she hadn't fully understood the stories of sudden death which they told, generally with laughter.

Now she understood. Alphena, daughter of Senator Gaius Alphenus Saxa, would never listen to stories in the exercise yard again.

She looked at the Earth, wishing that she could see it in detail as she had when the gryphon carried her toward Atlantis. Perhaps the omnipresent gray wouldn't disturb her brother or Pandareus; they seemed to live in their minds more than she did.

More than I ever wanted to, Alphena thought; and smiled, but she wasn't very cheerful at the moment.

Because she had nothing else to do save drift in emptiness, she considered again what had happened Uktena. Resignation had replaced the anger, allowing her to look dispassionately at the situation.

No, what the villagers had done wasn't fair, and the Sages who led them had certainly acted out of envy as well as fear; but Alphena no longer pretended that they had no reason to be afraid. Uktena was her friend and he had saved them all from a cruel monster; but the thing Uktena had become to win the battle was a monster as well. Nothing and no one would have been safe if that monster had remained in the world he had saved.

She now understood where it was that she had visited her friend-and why he was there. The Sages had robbed Uktena of his memories and placed him in a vast prison beneath the sea, cut off from the cosmos in which humans lived. By doing so they had preserved not only themselves but all men.

"I would kill you all…," Alphena whispered to her memory of the villagers. She could understand how they thought, even Mota's mother, blaming the hero because he hadn't saved her daughter and thus excusing her own willingness to betray him.

But Uktena was her friend. The fact that she understood the villagers' reasons didn't mean that she was willing to accept what they had done.

Alphena laughed. Not that they knew or would care if they did know. But it made her feel better to have determined the truth to her own satisfaction.

She was rotating slowly as she drifted. She could see the lesser blur, now; the Moon, if the larger blur was the Earth as she assumed.

I'd take my chances with a magician riding a vulture, now, she thought, quirking a smile. She considered waving, but she didn't really believe that would rouse the attention of the Atlantean outpost. Besides, she would feel silly doing it.

Alphena thought she saw something. She squeezed her eyelids closed. She was afraid to hope, but she really thought she had seen something. When she opened her eyes again- "It is!" she shouted. "It's wings! I see wings beating!"

She didn't see the glint of orichalc armor. If this was one of the vultures, would it attack without its rider?

She was seeing the gryphon. The gryphon was coming back for her!

Alphena waved and shouted, "Gryphon, it's me!"

The gryphon had obviously already seen her, so flailing about didn't help; she just spun a little faster. She didn't care. She had to do something!

The great beast banked around her in a lazy circle. His brindled fur had a sleek sheen, but there was a long scratch on his right flank that could have been caused by either a sword or a vulture's claw. The tuft of feathers over his right eye had been clipped off also.

"If you will stop pretending to be a rope dancer, girl," the gryphon said, "I will approach you from the front and you can catch me at the root of my right wing. If you're strong enough-"

He had swung out far enough that his deep voice was fading. He paused and with a quick, strong wing-beat angled back toward her again.

"If you are strong enough, as I say," he resumed, "you can pull yourself onto my back as before. Saving me the necessity of catching you myself."

Chuckling, he flared his foreclaws again. Like his beak, they were those of a giant eagle.

"I'm strong enough," Alphena said. "I'm ready."

The gryphon swept toward her. He looked huge, and however well-intentioned he was, the hooked beak really was capable of biting her head off.

He flared his wings like a hawk landing, bringing his great body to a near halt in space. Alphena, tense in expectation of the lion smashing into her, caught the gryphon's neck and the base of his right wing. He flapped, and she used the renewed momentum to swing herself back into a safe seat on his back again.

Alphena felt relief so profound that it made her dizzy. Laughing hysterically, she threw her torso down on the gryphon's neck and wrapped both arms around him.

"I am glad you find humor in your situation," the gryphon said with a touch of pique.

"I don't, please, I don't," Alphena said through her giggles. "I was afraid I was going to faint and make you do this all over again. You would have, wouldn't you? You wouldn't leave me here?"

The gryphon snorted. "I hope I know my duty better than that," he said. Then, in a tone that seemed to be apologetic, he added, "I'm sorry about the earlier trouble. I saw that pair off, right enough, but by the time I did, the wizard from the Western Isles had gathered you in. I didn't try to take you away, because, ah… I wasn't sure that I could. In fact-"

He paused long enough that Alphena thought he had decided not to finish the thought. Then he said, "In fact I was sure that I couldn't remove you. But it seemed to be working out all right."

"Yes," said Alphena. "It was all right."

My friend. She felt dizzy again. She hugged the gryphon's warm neck and felt the play of muscles under the stiff fur.

"Lady Hedia, isn't in Poseidonis any more," the gryphon said. "I could take you there, but Typhon has destroyed the city and-"

"Wait!" said Alphena. "My mother isn't in Poseidonis? Where is she, then?"

"I believe she has returned to Carce by now…," he said in a clearly guarded tone. "Though it isn't so simple as that, I'm afraid. I'm not avoiding your question, Alphena; I just don't know."

"Well, if you think mother is in Carce, then take me there!" Alphena said. She heard her tone and added, "I'm sorry, gryphon. I'm tired and, and upset. And I spoke without thinking. I would appreciate it if you would take me back to Carce or wherever Lady Hedia is. Ah, if you can?"

"Lady Alphena," the gryphon said. "It is not my place to advise you. I have agreed to serve you where I can, and I can certainly return you to the woman you refer to as your mother, if you wish. She is or shortly will be in the Field of Mars in Carce. But-"

"Go ahead, if you please," Alphena said more sharply than she had intended. She noticed that though the gryphon's wings were beating in a steady rhythm, neither Earth nor any other world was coming into focus they way it had when they flew up from her father's garden.

"There is a place where, if I understand your thinking, you would wish to be if you were aware of facts which it is not my prerogative to tell you," he said. "But if you direct me, I will take you to the Lady Hedia."

"You're as bad as my brother and his teacher, playing at words instead of saying what you mean!" Alphena said; but as she spoke, she knew she was wrong. The gryphon had said what he meant very clearly.

"I apologize again, master," she said, hoping he understood the sincerity with which she was speaking. "I'm tired, as I said, which isn't really an excuse. And I'm afraid my brother was the bright child of the family. I'm bright enough to take your advice, though. If you're still willing, please take me to the place you think I should be."

The gryphon gave his throaty chuckle. "With pleasure, little warrior," he said.

He banked toward one of the lesser blurs to which Alphena hadn't paid attention previously. She saw purple lightning crash.

I wish I had my sword, she thought. Or the copper axe.

But she felt excitement, not fear.

David Drake

Out of the Waters-ARC