“They live in the muddy places.” Sang gestured off beyond the immediate swampy water. “But sometimes they attack us. They are dangerous. They are big with tough hides our claws can’t cut through and have sharp tusks, bigger than our claws. We must always watch for wild boars when we are not in the water. They like the mud, but they don’t go near the water.”
He then busied himself at the edge of the water, dredging up water plants with round nodules dotting their entire length. They were a sickly green color, with a slight iridescence to them. When he had an armful, he flopped them over on the rocks.
“Float weed,” he told them.
As soon as he was free of his load of float weed, he started using his claws to pry at a large, flat snail stuck tight to a rock at the waterline.
“This is a muscle snail,” he announced as he worked at prying it away from the rock. “I want you to be able to try our delicious food.”
Richard thought the place smelled rather rank, like most any swamp he had been in; not as bad as some, worse than others. Vika looked around at the strange and forbidding reddish desolation, then looked over at him and spoke in a low voice that Sang wouldn’t hear.
“He’s right. This place is an absolute paradise.”
Richard half huffed a laugh in answer.
“Sang,” he said, “we’re not hungry right now. More importantly, we don’t have time for this. We need to stop the goddess before she sends her hordes to my world to kill people. You said that there were those of your kind who wanted to see me if I returned with you.”
Sang blinked up at him, then walked up onto the rocks. The water sluiced off him as he emerged from the swampy water, some of the string algae draped over a shoulder.
“Yes, you are right. My apologies. I was just so happy to be home that I wasn’t thinking. I was eager to show you some of the wonderful things about my world, so that you would not be so afraid that you must remain here.”
“Where are the others?” Richard asked, getting right down to business as he scanned the other swampy areas. They were dark, and it would be hard to see any Glee if they were in the water. “We need to talk to those who believe as you.”
Sang stretched up on his webbed toes and peered into the distance. He pointed with a claw.
“There are some of them over there, on those rocks, harvesting muscle snails. I will go talk to them and ask them to gather the others right away.”
“Good,” Richard said, as he took Vika’s arm and guided her up onto some of the rocks that were a bit flatter and easier to stand on without their ankles twisting.
In the distance, he could just make out the dark shapes of other Glee near the edge of some of the swampy areas. They were hauling up float weed. In other places he saw a few Glee swimming through larger bodies of water. They were so graceful in the water that they hardly disturbed the surface.
Richard was beginning to feel frustrated and annoyed. He had come to stop the Golden Goddess from sending the Glee to slaughter the people in his world. He and Vika had given up their futures—their lives—in order to accomplish that vital mission.
He hadn’t known that he was going to end up playing mother hen trying to gather up groups of distracted Glee.
54
Sang met with Glee that were close by. They kept staring over at Richard and Vika. He then went off to talk to others. A crowd of Glee began to come over, gathering around Richard and Vika. The way they blinked as they leaned toward him and stared, they were making him feel like some kind of curious specimen.
By the time Sang returned with yet more of the Glee, a crowd of large black heads had spread out before him. They watched him, looking like maybe they expected he might fly, or breathe out flames or something. As they all crowded in around him, they made a kind of low hiss as they looked around at each other, as if mumbling, but he didn’t hear any words in his head. Richard thought they must be talking to each other and they chose not to let the words come into his mind.
Richard and Vika shared a look, not knowing what to expect.
Sang finally stepped through the gathering of tall, black creatures. He held his claws in tight to his stomach so as not to accidentally catch on them, and they did the same as they allowed him to pass. Sang turned to the Glee assembled before them and held out a claw toward Richard and Vika as he waited for all those gathered to fall silent and pay attention.
Richard watched all the Glee, still wary. He was trusting Sang’s word that they wanted his help, and that this wasn’t some trick to get him away from his own people so they could eliminate him. He didn’t really think that was the case, but he studied all the Glee before him, one at a time, looking at each face for any hint of trouble.
“These are the ones I spoke of,” Sang finally announced. “This is Lord Rahl with the weapon he carries on his hip, and the female is Vika, one of his warriors. Unlike us, their females fight alongside the males, and I can tell you, from having watched them fight, that this female is deadly.
“They both have given up their lives and those they care for, given up any hope of ever returning to their world, in order to come here to finally stop the Golden Goddess and her followers. Lord Rahl has even given up caring for his new offspring not yet come into the world in order to come here to protect his world and ours.”
This news seemed to create a lot of conversation that he and Vika couldn’t hear, but he could imagine it well enough as Glee faced one another, nodding among themselves and occasionally glancing up at him and Vika.
Their animated gestures finally subsided until no one seemed to be saying anything, unless they were talking to Sang and only he could hear them in his mind. Richard didn’t especially like the way the Glee could choose for others to hear them or not. He worried that if they were saying anything threatening, he wouldn’t have any idea that he was suddenly on the verge of being attacked. If that were the case, there was nothing he could do about it before it happened.
“If we are to stop the goddess,” Richard said aloud to get their attention, “we are going to need your help.”
That seemed to send a fright through the group. A number of them started slowly moving back. A few at the edges of the crowd slipped into the water and glided away.
“They are afraid,” Sang explained. “These are not fighters, like the others. They are against what the others do, but they are not fighters. They don’t like cruelty.”
Richard looked out at the sea of inky faces watching him. At least they weren’t showing their teeth. As he scanned the group, he paid particular attention to one individual near the front. He was standing just behind a few others.
Richard pointed to that one. “You. Come here.”
All the Glee looked confused. The Glee Richard had pointed to glanced around self-consciously but didn’t move.
Richard stepped down off the rock he was standing on and gently urged several Glee in the front out of his way. Before anyone knew what was happening, he snatched the Glee he had been watching by the wrist, above the claw, before he could slip away.
The Glee twisted and turned first one way and then another as he tried to back away from Richard’s grip. Richard turned the wrist over and increased the pressure on it. He was glad to find that it had the same effect on the Glee as it did on people: it forced the Glee to his knees.
“What are you doing?” Sang’s voice in his head sounded frantic and frightened.