“We have another problem, lady.”
“What?”
“I know you shapeshifted dolphins can hold your breath from here to midnight. Me, I’m running out of wind on these stairways.”
She clapped a hand to her head. “We need an airshell!”
“Yup.”
Dejected, the pair crouched in an alley between two fine houses. Through open windows occupants of the buildings could be seen moving about. Faint music came from inside.
“Let’s consider this logically,” Vixa whispered. “All an airshell is, is a container for air. We never knew how much air any one of them would have. Right?”
“Right. So?”
“A container for air,” she repeated, her eyes distant with thought. “Gundabyr,” she said abruptly, “how many breaths do you take in a minute?”
“Hammer me if I know.”
She urged him to find out. Breathing normally, the dwarf counted his exhalations while Vixa counted off the seconds in a minute.
“Stop,” Vixa ordered.
Gundabyr reported he’d taken thirty-one breaths. “How does that help?” he asked.
“It will take me fourteen-no, better say fifteen-fifteen minutes to get from the city to Naxos’s cave, swimming flat out. All we need is enough air to last you-” With one finger, she scribbled on the dusty floor. “Four hundred sixty-five breaths!”
Vixa stood and tiptoed to the back of the dead-end alley. She explained that what she was looking for was a barrel or sack that could hold enough air to last him until they reached the cave where Naxos was hidden. Gundabyr could take sips of air from the barrel or sack, just as they had taken air from the airshells. The dwarf rolled his eyes.
The rear of the alley was piled with Dargonesti household rubbish. Some sacks were woven seaweed, useless as it was not airtight. Others turned out to be made of catfish skin. Not bad. Vixa pawed through several such sacks until she found one of the size she wanted. She emptied it of rubbish.
“It’ll do,” she pronounced. Gundabyr looked more than a little doubtful.
They stole back into the street. A few residents were out at the other end of the lane but didn’t notice the two drylanders skulking about. At the end of the street, they came to the pink granite wall that was the city’s outer shell, unbroken by the arched openings found on the upper floors.
Vixa snarled at the bad luck. Time was running out. She’d been worrying constantly about Naxos ever since Coryphene’s soldiers had captured her. What if he was already dead in that cold, wet cave?
“Over here, Princess!”
Just a few yards away, Gundabyr had found a staircase leading down to the next level. He descended; Vixa hurried after him. She could see the flicker of light reflecting off water at the bottom of the stairway.
When she reached bottom, a glad sight greeted her eyes. There were pools in the floor of this level every dozen feet or so. Vixa sat on the edge of one. Before she entered, she said, “You won’t understand me when I’m a dolphin, but I will understand you. Once I change, fill up the bag with air and get on my back.”
She slipped into the water, picturing her dolphin form. The black-and-white shape was becoming as familiar as her elven one. She no longer felt afraid as her body stiffened. The immobility would pass quickly. She sank beneath the surface. In seconds, she was two-legged no more, but when her dolphin head broke the surface she saw that the situation had changed dramatically. A squad of Dargonesti warriors was coming on the run toward the pool. They had their spears leveled.
Since escaping the grotto, Gundabyr had been quite happy to stay dry, having no fondness for the water. Now, however, he didn’t hesitate, but leapt into the pool. In a heartbeat, he was seated on Vixa’s muscular back, clinging tightly with his knees. He whirled the sack about his head, filling it with air.
“Go, go!” he shouted, thumping his heels against her flanks. She shook her head side to side, gesturing with her beak toward the amphora still sitting by the pool.
“Reorx save me,” groaned the dwarf. He snagged the braided handle of the jug, slipping it over his neck. The Dargonesti were only twenty paces away. Clutching his inflated sack in one hand, Gundabyr grabbed her dorsal fin with the other.
“Now, go!” he cried. Vixa submerged, taking him with her.
Behind her, the princess could hear loud splashes as the Dargonesti dove into the pool. Her course was erratic, as the unfamiliar weight of the dwarf on her back made it difficult for her to swim straight.
They swam through an archway into the open sea. Vixa heard numerous cries as the Dargonesti shouted for her to stop and called for sea brothers to intercept her. She headed toward the ruined wall across the Mortas Trench and thanked all the gods that the spears would not travel far underwater.
Gray dolphins flashed by her. Sea brothers! Vixa stubbornly stuck to her course. The big shapeshifted dolphins zoomed before and behind her. What were they playing at? she wondered. With their speed and power, they could ram her into submission easily. But they didn’t.
“What are you doing?” she demanded in the high-pitched water-tongue.
“No need to shout,” said a friendly voice close by. Vixa cocked an eye astern and saw Kios keeping pace with her.
“Are you chasing me or not?”
Kios surged ahead of her. “If we wanted to catch you, Sister, we would.”
“Then what’s your game?”
“This is a show, for Coryphene’s troopers. We’ll tell them you evaded us. For now, take me to Naxos.”
Her only response was to swim harder. Vixa didn’t trust Kios, but what could she do? With Gundabyr on her back, she knew she had no chance to outrun or outmaneuver the sea brothers.
Six dolphins blasted through the breach in the wall made by the chilkit-Vixa, Kios, and four more sea brothers. Vixa headed directly for the tunnel leading to Naxos’s hiding place, all the while praying she wasn’t bringing him his death.
As soon as Gundabyr’s head burst into the air, he gave a glad cry. Vixa carried him to the pool’s edge, by Naxos’s hiding place. The dwarf clambered out of the water. Vixa reverted to elven form and joined him. Kios also resumed his two-legged shape, though the other shapeshifters remained as they were.
Naxos appeared to be unconscious. Most of the color had drained from his skin, and he wasn’t moving. Vixa knelt by him.
“What’s in that jug?” asked Kios as Vixa unplugged the amphora.
“The water of Zura,” she said bluntly. “He said it would cure him.”
“Oh, it will cure his wound. But he will become undead, like the Shades of Zura.”
Appalled, Vixa shoved the plug back in the amphora. She remembered the bloodless, empty faces of the priests she’d seen in Zura’s temple. Naxos would become like them!
“What can we do?” she moaned.
Naxos stirred. “Vixa,” he murmured, “and the Firebringer. Who’s that with you?”
“It is I, Kios.”
“Come to finish me off, Brother?”
“I could. Coryphene would shower me with riches if I brought him your head.”
“Traitor.” The voice was weak, but the anger very apparent.
“Ah, the things you say. Where is your famous wit, Naxos? I thought you would trade quips with Death himself when the time came.”
“I’m too tired to trade anything. Kill me, or give me the water of Zura. I am weary of pain and cold.”
Kios took the amphora from Vixa. Without hesitation, he dashed the jug against the stone wall. Into the stunned silence, he said, “It wouldn’t do for the chief of the sea brothers to become undead.”
“Chief?” Naxos whispered. “Am I still?”
“You’ve never been anything else.” Kios went to the edge of the pool and gave orders to the remaining shapeshifters. The four dolphins submerged. When he returned, Kios brought back seawater in his cupped hands. He trickled this over Naxos’s drying gills. Vixa and Gundabyr rushed to follow his example.