Chapter seven: Penguin
Serena expected to feel the Helping Hands grab her at any moment, but they seemed to be taking their time about things. Then she realized that she was not, in fact, falling; she was—sliding?
She had very little time after that to wonder where she was going; she shot from the end of the slide into the air and, with a splash, found herself immersed in a freezing lake far under the ground.
She had no sense of up or down, but she couldn't keep from struggling; she was brought to the surface after several interminable seconds by mere chance. She gasped and choked, the cool air flooding into her lungs, and tried to make out her surroundings.
All was pitch blackness; she could see nothing. She couldn't say how deep the water was, except that it was too deep for her to stand up, or how far it extended, whether for a few feet or a thousand.
She struggled to keep her head above water; she had never been the best swimmer, and she had not practiced in quite a while. The chill was seeping into her bones, making her teeth chatter and slowing her movements. She had to get out of this cold…
Serena clawed at her sodden skirt with hands that were quickly becoming immobile, searching for her pockets; then she found them, and carefully took hold of a smooth pebble. It was hard to tell; she was becoming numb; but she thought that this was the right one, the chunk of pinkish quartz…
She held it as tightly as she could, afraid that her shivering might make her drop it, and drew on her power. The stone in her hands grew blessedly warm and began to give a soft, rosy light. She waited until her hands were steady enough that she need not fear dropping it, and lifted the stone high.
Inky water stretched as far as the light could reach in all directions. Above her, the light faded before she could even guess at a ceiling. Serena began swimming slowly—choosing a random course, since she had lost all sense of direction—in the hope of finding some place to rest and hopefully get out of the water. The only sound was her frigid breath and clumsy splashing.
After a few minutes, she paused and held up her light once more. She was getting nowhere; she might even have been swimming in circles, for all she knew. There must be stone somewhere: the tunnel through which she had come, for instance. But she had nothing to direct her to it.
She looked around a little, and urged more light from the stone, but it availed her nothing.
She was growing tired, now, and the cold addled her wits. "Brilliant. Just peachy! So this is what becomes of me, is it? This is what you get for meddling in the business of the goblins!" she yelled into the darkness. Her voice seemed to be swallowed up as soon as it left her throat; there wasn't a hint of an echo.
There was, however, a small sound from behind her. Serena turned, as quickly as she could in the water, holding out her light to catch a glimpse of whatever it was…
Not a ripple disturbed the surface of the water for as far as she could see. But she had heard something, she was sure! And quite close, too…
"Who's there?" she demanded. Another sound came—behind her once again—and this time she identified it as a giggle.
She spun around in time to see something pale slip beneath the water.
Serena had been only annoyed before; now she began to grow truly afraid. There was something in the water, laughing at her, circling her as she floated helplessly…
She reached into her pocket again and pulled out her flint knife. It was small, the blade perhaps four inches long, but she felt safer holding it. Still clutching the glowing stone firmly in her left hand, she brandished the weapon with her right. "Show yourself!"
A few moments passed, then something stirred the surface a few feet in front of Serena—carefully out of her reach. Slowly, as if trying not to frighten her, the being raised itself from the water.
It was vaguely human in appearance—a head, a face, two arms, a torso. But this person's skin was smooth and rubbery-looking, the palest imaginable blue, with a smattering of darker spots across its cheeks and on one shoulder. The eyes were without either pupil or white; they were one solid color, a liquid black. The hair streaming loose and wet over the being's shoulders was silvery blonde. His face was narrow-boned and graceful and, Serena thought, rather male.
He raised a hand in a greeting, and Serena noted transparent fins running along his forearms and light webbing between his fingers—along with five very long, very sharp-looking fingernails. However, he didn't seem to be threatening her in any way, and after a moment she lowered her knife hand. "Hello."
"Heh-loh," he imitated her, and laughed; apparently he thought the word strange. He swam an easy circle around her, apparently to examine her from every angle. Then he rattled off a series of syllables in some language that seemed to consist largely of clicks and pops.
Serena shook her head. "I don't understand."
He seemed to take her meaning; he changed tactics. He gestured to her, then pointed down. "Merre-chk."
She glanced downward as she pocketed her blade. The water was just as inky and impenetrable as before. She couldn't see a thing. "I don't understand," she said again.
"Merre-chk," he repeated; he swam closer to her, slowly so that she would not be alarmed, and pointed downward again. "Se frenna merre-chk."
Serena shook her head hopelessly.
The being reached out, carefully, and gently caught her wrist. He then slowly immersed himself in the water, tugging her downward.
Oh. Merre-chk. 'Swim'. Or maybe 'down', she wasn't absolutely sure. Serena took a gulp of air and ducked under the water.
She slowly opened her eyes. Now that her light no longer reflected from the surface, she could see a long way below her, much farther than she had above the water, and what she saw nearly made her gasp in astonishment.
The floor of the lake stretched out, smooth and white, with dark patches that Serena thought must be fields of seaweed. Away to her right was a building of some sort—a twisting, spiraling construction of pale green stone. Figures slipped in and out of doors and windows, darted across open stretches of sand, or tended gardens of underwater plants—figures that seemed to be half human and half fish. Or not so much fish, she thought, as graceful serpents with long, airy fins. They were every imaginable shade of pale pink, lavender, green, grey, or blue, many with spots or stripes, and they dressed in long, flowing robes and sashes only a few shades darker.
Her companion tugged at her wrist again, and she glanced over at him. Now she could see clearly his lower half, a slender tail that wove and coiled back on itself, like a snake without scales, edged and tipped with elegant fins that drifted to and fro with the motion of the water. More fins, she now saw, extended from either of his shoulders, like a pair of ragged butterfly wings. He gestured downward and began towing her that direction.
Serena shook her head violently and tugged her wrist free. When the creature—a merman?—glanced back at her in confusion, she pointed upward and began swimming that direction.
She broke the surface, gasping for air. The merman came up just after her, still looking confused. She sighed. How to explain to someone who had probably never seen a human before, that she couldn't breath underwater?
Or, she thought, how to communicate that she was freezing cold and growing very tired. She needed land, someplace to rest. Maybe if she weren't so cold, she could come up with something…
"Um," she began. "Can you take me… someplace above the water? Somewhere out there?" She gestured out across the surface of the lake. "Land?"
"Lahn-duh," he repeated, copying her gesture, then again, thoughtfully, "Lahn-duh…" He looked as though he were thinking hard; but finally he shook his head.
Serena sighed again. Well, it had been worth a try. She glanced around her again, then, with an apologetic look, started swimming once more in a random direction. Maybe she could find somewhere to rest before she became completely exhausted.
The merman kept pace with her for a while; he seemed to find it amusing to watch the way she kicked her legs and towed with her arms. She, in turn, was awed by his effortless glide—and grateful when he apparently realized she was not made for the water, and began towing her by the wrist again. She tucked the glowing stone into her pocket after a few minutes; it still gave a feeble light through the fabric of her dress, and beyond the merman, there was nothing to see. The blackness seemed to stretch forever.
A sound had been gradually building, too low at first for her to notice it consciously, but now she gasped and motioned for the merman to stop. There: she was not imagining it. It was a hiss of water on rock.
She gestured excitedly, cupping a hand around her ear. The merman listened a moment, then grinned. "Lahn-duh?"
"Yes! Land!" She pointed in the direction of the noise, ahead and a little to the left. "Can you take me there?"
He wrapped an arm around her waist, and darted off in that direction with such speed that Serena squealed and threw both arms around his neck. He was careful to keep her head above the water; he at least seemed to understand that, for whatever reason, she didn't want to go under the surface.
After a while, he slowed, then came to a stop. Serena reluctantly released her hold on him and turned to look.
The inky water lapped against a long beach of stone. Her light had gone out by now, but she found she could see; at the edge where the water touched the shore there was some sort of glow, perhaps from some tiny water plant. It stretched away as far as she could see in either direction, hardly even seeming to curve—the lake must be large indeed. Ahead, the land sloped up into darkness.
"Thank you," Serena told the merman, disentangling herself from him. She was clumsy about it; the cold had her almost completely numb. But she swam a few strokes and pulled herself out onto the stone. Blessed land; she wanted to kiss it. She crawled forward, then tried to stand. But she was shaking badly, and she couldn't feel her legs; she fell to the ground with a cry.
Behind her, there was a splash; she looked back to see the merman heaving himself onto the bank. She winced; he seemed so weak and clumsy on land, and she was certain that the stone must hurt his soft skin.
Nevertheless, he pulled himself forward on his belly, dragging his long tail behind him. "Se taurma?" he asked. The words were indecipherable, but his concern was clear.
"I'm… s-so cold…" she told him, sitting down carefully and wrapping her arms around her knees. She had lost track of how long she was in the water, but it was obviously much too long. If she were aboveground, she might have built a fire, but there was nothing to burn down here, and anyway, she doubted she could handle her flint and steel in her condition.
He looked confused. Serena reached into her pocket, groping around for her little pebble, and held it up for him; it dropped from her shaking fingers, and she clumsily picked it up. "Light," she said, and the pebble began to flicker as she fed her power into it. "Warm," she said, and, taking his hand, wrapped his fingers around the stone so that he could feel. "I need to be warm. And I need to find a way out into the light."
He held the stone for a moment, staring at her in awe. She vaguely wondered why.
"Se urashee yolandur! Mnemoseen-chk se clehred!" He waved the stone around a bit, then slapped the rocky surface beneath them. "Yoland. Yoland gre!"
Serena shook her head. "I don't understand…"
He caught hold of her hand and placed the stone in it; then he took the other and laid it firmly against the the ground. "Se yoland." He pointed to her, then the ground. "Kora warr-muh. Warr-muh."
Warm? She continued to blink at him in confusion. The ground wasn't warm. It was cold, a lot of cold stone…
"Oh." She dropped her pebble and laid both hands against the ground. It was hard to concentrate on her power; the flickering of her little light-stone was proof enough of that. But she tried. She sent her magic into the ground beneath her.
At first it seemed nothing would happen; then, slowly, the stone seemed to soak up her power and sent it back as heat. It spread out more than she would like; she couldn't seem to keep a hold on it, to limit the area. But soon the stone was wonderfully, beautifully, deliciously warm.
Her strength exhausted, Serena lowered herself to the ground, curling up on her side. "Thank you," she said thickly to the merman, as her eyes drifted closed.
He reached out, tentatively, and brushed her wet hair from her forehead. "Se frommen."
Then Serena slept.
