water here for you to manipulated old witch, even assuming you had the strength,” Efridis snarled.
“No water,” Nimue laughed again. “No water—did you hear what she said?”
I just stared at her. Efridis did, too, for a moment. And then she slammed the blade home again.
“So hard to hold form these days,” Nimue whispered. “So very hard. So much easier to just . . . let go.” She looked at me, and for a moment, her eyes were clear and brilliant once more, like a storm-tossed sea. “Remember what I told you.”
And then, just that fast, she was gone. Only, no, that wasn’t the right word. Because her body faded away but something remained. Something powerful.
So, this is what happens when a god dies, I thought, as the cave began to shake, as the rocks fell, and as the waters rushed in. Not some of them, all of them, what felt like all the water in the world. It came crashing through every doorway, spirting from every fissure, torrenting down from the ceiling—
Daughter of the oceans, and the oceans had come to mourn.
And more than that.
The ceiling abruptly fell in, causing waves to sweep up the walls, like the surf crashing onto a beach in a hurricane. It crushed Efridis under rocks and tides that went on and on, and certainly would have crushed me and Ray, too. But the little capsule suddenly appeared in my face; I supposed that it had had no more trouble getting through a door that had exploded around it.
I hauled Ray’s body on board, how I didn’t know. But the waves were rising all around us, and there was no more time. I threw myself in after him, grabbing one of the seats and pulling with everything that I had. And as soon as I was onboard, I thought: Out!
We went out.
I did not know how the craft knew the way, as I could not help it. Perhaps it had some sort of memory, or perhaps some lingering piece of Nimue was guiding us. But we nonetheless went on the most frightening ride of my life, through a succession of interlocking caves, all of which were coming down on top of us.
Huge stalactites plummeted to the floor, which now looked more like an ocean. The waves they threw up crashed over top of our roof, threatening to swamp us. The little craft dodged this way and that, partly to avoid the rain of limestone, and partly from the battering it was taking. Ray and I were slung around the cabin, were almost tossed out of the missing shutter, and were sitting in at least a foot of water that sloshed around us.
But suddenly, we were out.
The tiny craft burst out of the side of a hill, one of the mountains that bordered the river. We skimmed across the waves, which were almost as wild as the ones inside. It looked like the formerly peaceful river had been taken over by a flood. It washed over the banks, slammed against the trees, sprayed us in the face. And it was all done in dead silence, except for the rushing of the water.
The chittering things in the trees did not chitter; the birds did not call. It felt like the whole world was suddenly stunned and in mourning: the caves its eyes, the river its tears. Its creatures held their breath at the passing of a goddess and nothing seemed to be functioning right.
That included our little capsule.
It had been sagging lower and lower amidst the waves, until the cabin was flooded. I pulled Ray clear and swam to the shallows, not even realizing until I was halfway there that my legs were kicking. I could have cried at the realization, and then I did, because the whole world was weeping. Why shouldn’t I?
I watched the last of her, the childhood toy she’d used to outwit them all for so long, slowly sink beneath the waves. It seemed fitting, that it go back to the waters. I watched until it was totally out of sight, bidding her farewell in the only way I knew how.
Then I turned my attention to the shore.
* * *
It was a long, hard swim against a raging current, as there were no areas of safe, dry land nearby. The tall trees hedged the river, and I would not go in there without a guide. Not even now.
It was fortunate that Ray did not need to breathe, or I would have drowned him