some measure of my calm, what do your people call yourselves?
We are: sweeping tails, flashing scales, churning fins, songs and sins . . . The images and sounds went on for some time in a sort of kaleidoscopic poetry of the senses that I found as deeply beautiful as it was incomprehensible.
But that is not, I think, what you really want to know, Mudlight sent when he had finished. The Lady of Leivas named us Storm Eels, and that suits us well enough for dealing with your kind.
Speaking of which, I sent, all these years and you never contacted us before this—at least not that I ever heard about. Why now?
When your goddess lay dying, we comforted her as best we could, buoying her soul up with our songs. She made of us certain requests then. Till now, the conditions to fulfill any of them had never been met. . . . He sent the mental equivalent of a shrug, or, at least, that’s what I took away from the image of gills flicking, and the emotional undertone that went with it.
I— Mudlight’s mental voice went suddenly silent. He stopped swimming a moment later. Bide. One calls.
I caught only the faintest hint of whatever was occupying him . . . the spillover from an absolute torrent of images and sensations shooting back and forth from one alien mind to another. It felt a bit like overhearing a fast discussion conducted in a foreign language by people who are experts in a very complex field of endeavor—tons of information being conveyed quickly with little in the way of the sort of side talk that happens in normal conversation at the market or tavern. Finally, it stopped.
I’m sorry, sent Mudlight. There has been an unpleasantness at your temple. The: images of rotting corpses that moved where no life should exist, anger at a violation of nature, decaying smells as conveyed through water, have come. They tried to get in through the water ways, but we stopped them there.
The risen?!? I sent, urgently. Were any of the students harmed?
Your younglings are fine, but we will have to get them out. There is a chance that the . . . risen, you call them?
Yes, sent Triss. They wear the bodies of fallen humans, but really they are a sort of elemental power of death, just as I am a spirit of shadow.
Thank you for the word and the explanation, sent Mudlight. The risen, then. There is a chance that they will be able to get at your young from above somehow. They are much stronger on land than they are when they enter our element, so we will bring your young out here to the dirtplace of Namara, where we can better protect them. Your Dukesbane has gone with Finflyer to explain it to them so that our presence will not bring them fear.
That’s a great relief, I sent. Thank you. I thought for a moment. I don’t know how far beyond the edges of your realm you can see. Do you know if there are other forces besides the risen around the temple?
No, nor how many of the risen there are above the waves. We cannot see more than a few body lengths beyond the edges of our realm, though we can tell you that the undersanctuary where your young lie hidden remains yet inviolate. We see and hear much through the wellhead there.
I’m not sure what brought you to our aid at this time, Mudlight, I sent, but it is very good to find that we have allies still in this world, however unexpected.
I wish we knew more about what might be happening with the temple, Triss sent to me.
Mudlight answered him with the shrug image. The risen entered our domain, and so we found them. Some few very strong ones came on toward the dirtplace, burrowing through the muck on the bottom, but most moved into the temple tunnels once they entered the water. If they are truly death elementals as you say, they probably sensed the life there, and hoped to pry it out like a clam from its shell. I imagine that once we move your young they will turn their attention this way again.
Are there very many of them, do you think? I asked.
We have already devoured more than your numbers, and at least that many remain in sight of our shores. We will feed well tonight. They are very easy prey once you break their connection with