Part 17 (1/2)
”Wait-” she shouted. ”Don't come any closer-”
He didn't hear her clearly. Heedless of the swirling lights, he waded knee-deep through to help her. And sank up to his waist in the brash. ”What the h.e.l.l-”
Tsia cursed under her breath. His pack seemed to drag him down in a cloud of phosph.o.r.escence. Before she could climb over to help him, he was up to his chest in night-gray weeds that sparkled with greenish lights. He threw out his arms to catch his armpits against the sagging clumps, but she could see the floating mats tear with every thrust of the wind.
His eyes rose slowly to hers. ”I think,” he said, ”I'm going down.”
”Your antigrav-”
”Just cut out. This is dead weight, all the way.” He sank another handspan, and his blunt fingers tightened on the gra.s.s. ”I thought you just checked the settings.”
”I did.”
”There's something moving around my legs.”
”Eels. Sucker fish. I don't know.”
”Can't you feel them?”
”A shadow. Nothing more. Don't straggle. Do you have an enbee?”
” 'Picker's still got it. You?”
”Lost it on the bridge.” Her stomach tightened. She judged the distance between them and eased forward
another half meter. Bowdie appeared through the gra.s.s, and the brash mat s.h.i.+vered; Wren sank another handspan. ”Bowdie!” she shouted. ”Stay back!”
The other mere froze. ”What--”
”Stand still,” she shouted. ”Your enbee-quickly. Throw it here.”
”What?”
”Your enbee!”
Wren jerked and sank abruptly up to his neck in a new swirl of greenish light. ”Don't move,” she snapped at him harshly. ”You'll tear the brash and tangle like a stick in a pile of yarn.”
He didn't nod, but his eyes, black and unreadable, stared back into her own. Behind him, Bowdie mpved quickly back to a more solid clump, and his long fingers searched his harness as his own heart began to pound. Tsia could feel the strength of it like the points of light in his field.
”Get the line,” she directed.
Bowdie nodded and shouted behind him to Striker. ”Get the line up here!”
”G.o.ddam worm-sp.a.w.ned reavers,” Tsia cursed under her breath. Kurvan eased up beside Bowdie to a
precarious perch on a thick mat of mallow. He dumped his own pack in an awkward tangle, then tore
open the flap and yanked out a metaplas form.
”Stay back,” Tsia snapped as he tried to approach. The gra.s.s mat s.h.i.+mmied. Her knees sank in. The wind roared through, and, with a silent ripple and a cold, steady gaze, Wren disappeared in the lake.
Tsia lunged forward, heedless of the thin, tearing brash. Her arms plunged into the blackness; her face hit the water. She groped wildly. There were swirls of green sparks of light, but they did not lighten the blackness. She grabbed hair, pulled and tore at nothing and realized it was only roots in her hands.
Kurvan scrambled across with a rod pieced together from the config gear and spread himself out on the other side of the sinkhole.
”Hurry,” she snapped, her arms deep in the water.
Kurvan gave her a cold look. ”For Daya's sake, he's got an enbee. He can breathe as well as you.”
”He gave his to me on the platform, and I lost it in the sea-”
”s.h.i.+t.”
”Give me yours here; I'll give it to him when I reach him.”
”Haven't got it,” he returned, stabbing down with the rod. ”Lost it in the lake.”
”Where's Bowdie's?”
”Said he lost it back at the bridge.” He stared down as if he could see through the water. ”Can you feel him?”
”No, but he's right below us.”
”Daya,” she cursed under her breath. How long had Wren been down? The water swirled and sparked and fought beneath her hands.
”Get an e-wrap,” she shouted at Bowdie. ”Spread it out- and get an enbee from Nitpicker or Striker.”
Striker started searching her harness, while Doetzier and Bowdie yanked the config gear from the packs.
The first e-wrap they unfolded ripped itself from their hands and blew away across the meadow like tissue paper. The second one they configured as they sat on it, letting it mold itself to the contours of the gra.s.s. In the dark, as it s.h.i.+fted its colors to the meadow, it was invisible to Tsia. Quickly, Doetzier caught the connected lengths of metaplas that Striker slapped into his hands.
Tsia hooked her feet in a tangle and deliberately thrust her head and shoulders beneath the black surface again. The slimy gra.s.s clung to her face like seaweed. Her hands stretched down. She could almost feel Wren beneath her. His heartbeat, his cold, steady thoughts. He was there. She knew it. She caught cloth in her hand. A sleeve-the fingers that followed to clamp down on her arm could not be mistaken for roots.
Tsia lifted her head from the water. The gra.s.s wallowed beneath her weight. Her lungs ached with tension. How long had Wren been down? Two minutes? Three? She could feel the time in his lungs.
She writhed and twisted, and her body rolled back a bit on the mat. Her face came free. Wren, feeling her pull, began to kick against the water. Instantly, curls of phosphor sparks whipped around his body. The root mats swirled around his feet. They tangled and tightened until they trapped his free arm in thick and rotting debris. Desperately she finned a message against the back of his hand: Pa.s.sa nyey. Don't fight. Don't struggle. She could barely hold his weight against the pull of his pack.