We found Alake standing near the bottom of the waterlock, her face pressed against one of the portholes, staring out into the water. Hearing us approach, she turned. Her eyes were wide.
“It’s not the dolphins. It’s a human. At least, I think it’s a human,” she added dubiously.
“It is or it isn’t,” I said. “Can’t you tell?”
“Look for yourself.” Alake sounded shaken.
Devon and I crowded to the porthole, the elf being forced to nearly bend double to get down to my level.
Sure enough, the thing looked to be a human male. Or perhaps it would be better to say, he didn’t look elven or dwarven. He was taller than a dwarf, his ears weren’t pointed, and his eyes were round, not almond-shaped. But he was the wrong color for a human, his skin being a kind of bread-dough white. His lips were blue, his eyes circled with purple splotches, sunken in his head. He was half-naked, clad only in a pair of brown tight-fitting pants and the remnants of a white tattered shirt. He clung to a fragment of board and was, it seemed to me, about done for.
The bump we had heard was, presumably, this man running into the hull of the ship. He could see us through the porthole and made, as we watched, a feeble attempt to beat against the ships’s side. He was weak, apparently, for his arm sank down as if he lacked energy to lift it. He slumped over the board, legs dangling limply beneath him in the water.
“Whatever he is, he’s not going to be one for long,” I said.
“Poor man,” murmured Alake, her dark eyes soft with pity. “We must help him,” she said briskly, and headed for the ladder that led to deck two. “We’ll bring him on board. Warm him, give him food.” She glanced back, saw neither of us moving. “Come on! He’ll be heavy. I can’t manage by myself.” Humans. Always racing to act, to do something. Never stopping to think. Fortunately, she had a dwarf along.
“Wait, Alake. Stop a moment. Consider where we’re bound. Think what’s going to happen to us.”
Alake frowned at me, angered at having her way thwarted. “Well, what of it? The man is dying! We can’t leave him.”
“It might be the kindest thing we could do for him,” Devon told her gently.
“If we rescue him now, we could be saving him only to doom him to a horrible fate later.”
I was sorry to have to be so blunt, but sometimes it’s the only way to get through to humans. Alake, realizing finally what we were saying, seemed to shrivel up. I’ll swear she grew smaller as we watched. Her body sagged against the ladder.
Lowering her eyes, she ran her hand aimlessly up and down the smooth wooden rungs.
The ship was speeding on. Soon we’d leave the man far behind. He’d seen this, apparently, and was making a feeble attempt with the remainder of his flagging strength to paddle after us. The sight was heartrending. I turned away. But I might have known Alake couldn’t stand it.
“The One sent him,” she said, starting to climb the ladder. “The One sent him to us, in answer to my prayer. We have to save him!”
“You prayed for a dolphin,” I pointed out irritably. Alake said nothing, but gave me a reprimanding glance. “Don’t be blasphemous, Grundle. Can you work this thing?”
“Yes, but I’ll need Devon’s help,” I grumbled, following. Actually, I could have done it by myself, being stronger than the elf prince, but I wanted to talk to Devon. I told Alake to keep an eye on the floating human, took Devon to deck two, the topmost part of the waterlock. I peered through a window into its sunlit interior, turned the crank on the hatch to make certain it was tightly closed and sealed. Devon started to assist me.
“What if the One didn’t send this man?” I whispered urgently in the elf’s ear.
“What if he was sent by the dragon-snakes to spy on us?” Devon looked considerably shocked. “Do you suppose that’s a possibility?” he asked, doing his best to help and only getting in my way.
I shoved him to one side. “Don’t you?”
“I guess. But why would they? They have us. We can’t escape, even if we wanted to.”
“Why are they doing any of this? All I know is that I wouldn’t be too quick to trust this human, if that’s what he is. And I think you better go back to being Sabia.”
I turned to head down the ladder. Devon came after me, tripping over his skirts.
“Yes, perhaps you’re right. But what about Alake? She’ll have to go along with us. You have to tell her.”
“Not me. She’ll think I’m just making another excuse to get rid of him. You tell her. She’ll listen to you. Go on. I’ll manage this by myself.” We were on deck one again. Devon went over to Alake and I was able, finally, to get on with the work undisturbed. I couldn’t hear any of their conversation, but I could tell that at first Alake didn’t agree with us, because I saw her shake her head, causing her ear-jangles to ring wildly. But Devon was patient with her, far more than I could have been, and gradually argued her around. I saw her glance at me, then out at the man, her face troubled and thoughtful. Finally, she nodded unhappily.
Standing in front of the lower window that looks into the waterlock, I took hold of the levers and yanked down on them, hard. A panel located in the hull yawned open. Seawater, foaming and gurgling, poured into the waterlock, carrying with it numerous indignant fish (no dolphins) and the human. I waited for the water to reach the proper level and slammed the panel shut.
“I’ve got him!” I cried.
We raced back up to deck two, the top of the waterlock. I opened it, peered down. If he’d been a dwarf, he would have been lying on the bottom and we would have had to use the claws to drag him out. But, being human, he’d managed to swim to the top of the water and floated there, only about an arm’s length away.
“Alake and I can handle him, Devon,” I said to him softly. “You go and put your scarf back on.”
Devon left us. Alake came to help me, and between us we managed to drag the human over to the side and hoist him out onto the deck. I shut and sealed the waterlock, opened the bottom panel, let the irate fish swim out, and started the pumps to work. Then I came back to look at our catch.
I must admit that I nearly revised my opinion when we got the man on board and had a close look at him. If the dragon-snakes were going to send a spy, it seemed to me they would have chosen something better than this. He was truly a pitiable sight, lying on the deck, shivering from head to toe, coughing, convulsing, spitting up fluid, and gasping like a fish out of water. Alake’d obviously never seen anything like it. Fortunately, I had.
“What’s wrong with him?” she asked anxiously.
“His body temperature’s dropped too low and he’s having trouble making the adjustment from breathing water back to breathing air.”
“How can you tell? What do we do for him?” Alake asked.
“Dwarves fall in the water sometimes, so I know what I’d do if he were a dwarf. Warm him up, inside and out. Put lots of blankets on him and give him all the brandywine he can drink.”
“Are you certain?” Alake looked dubious. “I mean about the brandy?” Drunk as a dwarf, so the saying is among the Phondrans. But who do you suppose buys most of our brandywine?
“You’ve got to fuddle his brain. That’s what’s causing him to gasp like that. His brain is telling his body it’s supposed to be breathing water. Give his brain something else to think about and his body will go back to breathing air—as it was meant to,” I added sternly.
“I see. Grundle, fetch me a bottle of the brandywine and my herb pouches. And, if you run into Dev—Sabia, tell him, I mean her, to bring me all the blankets he—she can find.”
Well, we were certainly off to a great start. Fortunately, the human was so busy trying to stay alive that he didn’t appear to have noticed Alake’s confusion. I headed to the storeroom for the wine, blundered into Dev-Sabia on the way back. He was wound up in his scarf and veil, with a shawl over his shoulders to hide the ripped seams. I gave him Alake’s instructions. He returned to his berth for the blankets.