“Understood,” said Eliason, with a faint smile.
“Good. I’ll leave you all to work out the final details. Which reminds me, I’m in need of a translator. I want to ask the dolphins some questions concerning Surunan. I was wondering if I could borrow Grundle?”
“Take her,” my father said, with what sounded suspiciously like relief. I was on my feet, glad to escape, and heading for the door when I heard a smothered sound, caught sight of Alake’s pleading eyes. She’d give every ear-jangle she owned and probably her ears along with them to go with Haplo. I tugged at the sleeve of his shirt. “Alake speaks dolphin a lot better than I do. In fact, I don’t speak it at all. I think she should come with us.” He gave me an exasperated look, but I ignored him. After all, Alake and I were friends. He couldn’t go on avoiding her forever.
“Besides,” I said, out of the corner of my mouth, “she’ll only follow us.” Which was true enough and got me off the hook.
So he said, not very graciously, that he’d be pleased if Alake would come, too.
“And Devon?” I asked, seeing the elf hanging about, lost and forlorn.
“Why not?” I thought I heard him mutter. “Invite the whole damn village. Have a parade.”
I waved to Devon, whose face brightened. He joined us eagerly. “Where are we going?”
“Haplo wants to talk to the dolphins. We’re going along to translate. By the way,” I added, something just occurring to me, “the dolphins speak our languages, you know. And so do you. Why don’t you talk to them yourself?”
“I tried. They won’t talk to me.”
“Really?” Devon stared at him, amazed. “I never heard of such a thing.” I had to admit I was pretty surprised, myself. Those gossipy fish will talk to anyone. Usually you can’t get them to shut up.
“I’ll speak with them,” offered Alake. “Perhaps it’s just because they’ve never seen anyone quite like you.”
Haplo grunted, said nothing more. He was, as I have stated, in a dark and morose mood. Alake looked at me, worried, raised her eyebrows. I shrugged my shoulders, glanced at Devon, who shook his head. None of us had a clue what was bothering the man.
We reached the seashore. The dolphins were hanging about, as usual, hoping for someone to come along and toss them a juicy tidbit of news or cod or listen to whatever it was they had to say. But, when they saw Haplo coming, they all flipped their tails, turned, and swam out to sea.
“Wait!” Alake cried, standing on the shore and stomping her foot. “Come back here.”
“There, you see.” Haplo waved his hand impatiently.
“What do you expect? They’re only fish,” I said.
He stood glaring at them in frustration and at us in resentment. It occurred to me that he didn’t really want us there, probably didn’t want us to hear whatever it was he thought he might hear, but he didn’t have much choice. I went down to the water’s edge, where Alake was talking with one of the dolphins who had slowly and reluctantly swum back. Haplo stayed behind, keeping well away from the water.
“What’s the problem?” I asked.
Alake squeaked and whistled. I wondered if she knew how truly ridiculous she sounded. You’d never catch me lowering myself to fish-talk. She turned around, “Haplo’s right. They’re refusing to talk to him. They say he’s in league with the dragon-snakes, and they hate and fear the dragon-snakes.”
“Listen, fish,” I said to the dolphin, “we’re not crazy about the dragon-snakes ourselves, but Haplo has some sort of hold on them. He got them to let us go and made them repair the sun-chasers.”
The dolphin shook its head violently, splattering water all over both of us. It began to squeak shrilly, alarmingly, flapping its flippers in the water.
“What’s the matter with it?” Devon came over to join us.
“That’s nonsense!” Alake cried angrily. “I don’t believe you. I won’t stay here and listen to such talk.” She turned her back on the frantic dolphin and walked up the beach to where Haplo was standing.
“It’s useless,” she said. “They’re behaving like spoiled children. Let’s go.”
“I need to talk to them,” Haplo said.
“What did the thing say to her?” I asked Devon softly. He glanced over at the two of them, motioned me closer.
“It said that the dragon-snakes are evil, more evil than we can imagine. And that Haplo’s just as evil as they are. He has a private hatred for these Sartan. Once, long ago, his people fought the Sartan and lost. Now, he wants revenge. He’s using us to get it. When we’ve destroyed the Sartan for him, he’ll turn us over to the dragon-snakes.”
I stared at him. I couldn’t believe it, and yet, in a way, I could. I felt sick inside and afraid. Judging by his looks, Devon wasn’t faring much better. Dolphins often exaggerate the truth, or sometimes come up with only part of the truth, but it is, generally, the truth. I’ve never known one to lie. We both eyed Haplo, who was trying to persuade Alake to return and talk to the dolphins again.
“What do you think?” I asked Devon.
The elf took his time answering. “I think the dolphins are wrong. I trust him. He saved my life, Grundle. Saved my life by giving me some of his own.”
“Huh?”
That made no sense at all. I was about to say as much to Devon, when he shushed me. Alake was returning to the water’s edge, followed by Haplo. Seeing him this near the sea, in danger of being splashed, I concluded the matter must be serious.
Alake summoned the dolphin before her with her best imperious air, bracelets clashing, arm stabbing downward. Her eyes flashed, her voice was stern. Even I was impressed. The dolphin swam to her meekly.
“Listen to me,” Alake said, “you will answer the questions this man puts to you to the best of your ability or from this moment on, you dolphins will be shunned by every human, elf, and dwarf.”
“Exceeding our authority a bit, aren’t we?” I poked her in the ribs.
“Shut up.” Alake pinched me. “And agree to go along.” We did. Both Devon and I stoutly insisted that no elf or dwarf would ever talk to a dolphin again. At this dire threat, the dolphins gasped and floundered and flopped around in the water, sounding agonized and swearing that they were only interested in our welfare. (Overdoing it, if you ask me.) Finally—after pathetic bleatings, which we ignored—one of the fish agreed to talk to Haplo. And then, after all this, what do you suppose was Haplo’s question? Did he ask about Sartan defenses? About how many men manned the battlements? About how good they were at ax-heaving? No.
Alake, having cowed the dolphins, looked at him expectantly. Haplo spoke the fish’s language fluently.
“What he’s saying?” I asked Devon.
Devon looked dazed. “He’s asking them how the Sartan are dressed!” Well, of course, Haplo could have asked nothing that would have caught the dolphins’ fancy more (which, it occurs to me, may have been the reason he asked it). Dolphins have never understood our strange propensity for draping the body in cloth, just as they’ve never understood our other odd habits, such as living on dry land and expending all that energy walking when we might be swimming.
But, for some reason, they find the wearing of clothing particularly hilarious and, as such, are continually fascinated by it. Let an elf matron attend a ball in a puffed-sleeve gown when long tight sleeves are in fashion and every dolphin in the Goodsea will have heard about it by morning. As it was, we were treated to a graphic account (Alake translating, for my benefit) of what the Sartan were wearing, which—all in all—I thought sounded pretty boring.
“The dolphins say that the Sartan all dress alike. The males wear robes that fall in long, loose folds from the shoulders and the females wear a similar design, except that theirs are cinched around the waist. The robes are plain-colored, either white or gray. Most have simple designs along the bottom, and some are trimmed in gold. The dolphins suspect that the gold denotes some type of official ranking. They don’t know what.” Devon and I sat down in the sand, both of us glum and uncommunicative. I wondered if he was thinking about what I was thinking about. I had my answer when I saw him frown and heard him repeat, “He saved my life.”