The whale halted an arrow’s flight from the shore, where the water was deep enough to float his massive bulk. Aurian turned to Anvar. “This is where you get off,” she said tersely. “He says that his sister left Sara here, so she should be about somewhere.”
Anvar hx>ked astonished. “You really can talk to that thing, can’t you?” he said.
“Thing? He’s as intelligent a creature as you, Anvar, and I find his conversation infinitely preferable to yours, so go away.” Aurian set her jaw, averting her eyes from Anvar’s injured expression. It’s a bit late now, to be looking hurt, she thought grimly.
Anvar looked down into the water, which was crystal clear in this sheltered bay. Following his ga^e, Aurian saw myriads of bright fish darting through the lapis-blue depths. “Aurian, it’s too deep here! I can’t—”
The Mage could see the panic in Anvar’s eyes, and belatedly remembered his inability to swim. She remembered her terror the previous night, when the choking water had surged into her tortured lungs, and shuddered. Anvar was shaking, and she fought in vain against a surge of pity for him. “All right,” she sighed. “I’ll help you.”
Keeping her voice calm and reassuring, she said, “This is what we’ll do. I’ll go first—” Suiting word to deed, she slid off the whale’s sloping back and into the water. After the bitingly cold seas of the northern climes, its warmth came as a pleasant shock. After a brief consjaltation with the whale, she turned to Anvar. “Now, I want you to slide down here. His fluke’s just—”
“His what?”
“His fin, then, if you like. It’s just under the water, so you can stand on it, and you won’t go under.”
Anvar hesitated, biting his lip.
“Go on—he says it doesn’t bother him,” Aurian urged.
“Maybe—but it bothers me!” Anvar muttered through clenched teeth.
“Look, it’s perfectly safe. I won’t let your head go under, I promise. Trust me, Anvar—for once.” She couldn’t keep the edge out of her voice.
Finally Aurian managed to coax Anvar onto the fluke that the patient whale was holding steady. The water came up to his chin. Thank goodness he’s tall, Aurian thought as she swam to his side. “Don’t grab me!” she warned, realizing what he was about to do. She righted herself and stood beside him on the fluke—and discovered his problem. It was difficult to stand upright in the buoyant, salty water. The body wanted to tilt itself and float.
Aurian placed her hand on the back of Anvar’s head.
“What are you doing?” he gasped.
“Don’t panic. I’m holding your head out of the water. All you have to do is take a deep breath and lean back—just relax and your feet will come up naturally. You’ll float, I promise, and you won’t go under. I’ll have you safe.”
After a time, An vaf plucked up enough courage to do as she said. Aurian was swamped by a flurry of foam as he panicked, floundering and thrashing and clutching at her. At the expense of a ducking, she managed to keep him from swallowing too much water and got him right side up, back on the fluke. Pushing the heavy, clinging curtain of hair out of her face, she found an indignant Anvar glaring at her with red, salt-stung eyes.
“You said I’d float\”
“I said relax, you double-dyed dimwit, then you’d float!” “I can’t relax! I’m bloody terrified!
It took a while, but finally they managed to get the float ing part of the operation sorted out. Anvar lay back, his fat breaking into an astonished smile.
“Anvar, don’t forget to breathe!”
More floundering. But eventually they managed it, and after that, towing him to shore was a comparatively simple matter. Within minutes they found themselves standing knee-deep in a gay lacework of surf that tumbled and danced up the beach.
“Well,” Aurian said. “If you ever get into deep water again, at least you’ll be able to float.” On an impulse, she reached down and pulled a long, lethal dagger from her boot top, handing it to him without looking him in the eye. “Take this,” she told him. “At least you won’t be unarmed.”
It struck them both at the same time that this was the moment of their parting. There was a sudden, tense silence as they stood, up to their knees in water, and looked at one another. Suddenly, Aurian was tempted to reconsider. This was insane! How could she leave Anvar? She found herself unable to turn away from him, and he too seemed unhappy and undecided, biting his lip while he fidgeted with her dagger. Oh, drat this, Aurian thought. We’re behaving like children! An apology was out of the question—after all, he was in the wrong —but she was about to open her mouth to tell him that they ought to stay together when—
The spell was shattered as Sara erupted from the forest and dashed down the beach toward them, calling Anvar’s name. “Oh, Anvar—I was so afraid! Those beastly sea monsters—I thought I’d be eaten for sure!” She .gave a sudden shriek. “Oh! Look out—there’s one right behind you! Quick, get out of the water!”
“Sara—thank the Gods you’re safe!” Forgetting the Mage, Anvar left the water in a flurry of foam, and ran to her. Aurian cursed, and turned away in disgust. Breasting the warm waves, she swam out to the Leviathan and climbed onto his back, her heart weighing her down more than her wet clothes. When she looked back, Sara was in Anvar’s arms.
Sara’s shrill voice carried clearly across the water. “Well, who cares if she goes! We don’t want her with us anyway!”
The Mage gritted her teeth and braced herself against the warm body of the whale. “Let’s go,” she said. She never heard Anvar’s frantic voice, calling her back.
Anvar was furious. “Be quiet! She’ll hear you!” He still could not believe that Aurian was actually leaving. He felt somehow lost, anchorless. He called to her, begging her to wait, but the whale was sounding, exhaling deeply in a roaring geyser of water and air. She could never have heard him. Sara’s arms twined persuasively round his neck as she kissed him, turning his face from the ocean, effectively stopping him from calling again. “Never mind her,” she murmured. “Think of your freedom, Anvar. Think of us.”
The Leviathan could move very fast when he wanted to. Anvar broke away from the kiss, but the Mage was already out of earshot. “What in the name of the Gods do you think you’re doing?” he snapped at Sara. “It’s not a question of freedom, you idiot! Not just now. We should be sticking together!” In his heart he knew, with a sickening sense of shame, that it was he himself who had driven the Mage away.
“How dare you speak to me like that!” Sara flared. “How is it supposed to be my fault? It wasn’t I who called her a murderer! I thought you wanted us to be together, just the two of us.” Her face crumpled, and tears spilled from her guileless violet eyes. “I thought you loved me, but it was her you wanted all along . . .” Picking up her tattered skirts, she ran away from him, along the beach.
Gods, what else could go wrong? With a groan, Anvar hastened to follow her.-The early sun blazed down from a vibrant, cloudless sky. Its silky heat was already enough to dry the clothes on Anvar’s body, but the chill of last night’s stormy waters seemed to have settled immovably into his bones. The drying salt and sand made his skin feel stiff and gritty, his eyes smarted, and he ached all over. Panting in the heat, he caught up with Sara, and put an arm around her. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “Truly I am—and I do want to be with you.”
After a while, Sara allowed herself to be mollified, but there was a certain hard look in her eye that made Anvar feel as though he would be treading on thin ice for a while. Bloody women! he thought sourly. He looked out to sea, but Aurian had vanished. They were alone. “Come on,” he said resignedly. “Let’s go and find some water.”
Luckily, fresh water was plentiful in the forest. It drained down from the cliffs behind, forming many streams that passed through the lush fringe of forest on their way down to the sea. Anvar and Sara only had to walk a little way along the beach before they stumbled on the first of these streamlets where it entered the ocean. They followed it up into the shadowed forest, where the air was cool and moist, the broad-leaved trees and tangle of thick vegetation overhead cutting off most of the sunlight.