Waterborn

She waited a long while, and it began to occur to her that she had been forgotten. L'ekezh seemed to have trouble remembering things. But just as she was despairing, as the fear of the sleeping thing upon which she sat began to overwhelm her, the water stirred again.

It was not L'ekezh. It was, to her eyes, a Human man, with long stringy black hair. His eyes, however, protruded on stalks and the hands that came up to grip the steel bars were clawlike, chitinous. One still possessed five fingers but the other had become like a pincer, the thumb grossly exaggerated and the other fingers melted together.

"D'en," she whispered. "Oh, D'en."

The thing looked at her with its crablike eyes. It croaked, like a frog. It croaked again, more insistently, and Hezhi thought she recognized her name.

"D'en? Can you talk?" She suddenly knew that she was going to be sick. Her stomach expelled the bread she had eaten before waking Tsem and continued heaving long after nothing remained in it. D'en watched her impassively.

"D'en doesn't talk much," L'ekezh told her, surfacing a few spans away. "He did at first, talked all the time. Usually our bodies change the fastest, then our heads. D'en—he changed inside first."

"Why… why do you change?" she managed, faintly. As if knowing would help.

L'ekezh smiled, a rubbery arc that might have been amusing to a madman. "He fills us up," he said, voice confidential. "A mere Human body ca

She tried to understand, while D'en—or what D'en had become—cocked his head, as if regarding her from another angle would offer him something new. It may have, for slowly, tenta-tively, he reached the hand that was most Human through the bars.

She reached over and, after hesitating briefly, touched the hand. The fingers flexed but made no other movement. It felt cold, hard, not at all like the hand she remembered, the one she had held as they ran, laughing, across the rooftops. Now that hand clutched vaguely, not remembering how to hold another. It was a mercy when D'en suddenly snatched his hand away, croaked once again. His horrible eyes swayed on their stalks, and then he sank, quickly, beneath the water.

"He recognized you," L'ekezh told her. "I can tell. That was more than I expected."

"D'en," Hezhi mouthed softly. Beneath her, the rubbery flesh trembled again.

"Quickly," L'ekezh cried. "If you care for your life. Nu is awaking. If you really came through the ducts, go now. The River might yet let you."

Hezhi rose shakily to her feet.

"Good-bye," she said.

"I'll see you again soon enough," L'ekezh said. "See if they will let you bring me some wine. Though, of course, they won't."

He sank away, vanished. She took up her lamp and stumbled across Nu's back. As she reached the dais, the monster was begi

She was sobbing uncontrollably when the half Giant lifted her gently from the tube. He cradled her tenderly in his massive arms, stroking her wet, slimy hair, and made soft, comforting noises. Then, carrying her in the crook of one arm and the lantern in his other hand, he waded across the room and began ascending the stairs, back toward light and home.

INTERLUDE

On Red Gar Street

Ghe fingered the scar on his chin and breathed deeply, filling his lungs and nostrils with the smells of his childhood. Savory meat grilling at streetside stands, carts of fish just begi

Ghe idly flipped a coin toward a boy watching the crowd with hawklike eyes. The boy snatched the glittering treasure from the very air, gri

Ghe found Li just at the edge of Two Cottonwood Square. The old woman sat, as always, with her back as rigid as a board, her bone dice carefully arranged in front of her on a worn velvet cloth. The same cloth, indeed, as the one she had spread those years ago, when Ghe first met her.

"What do the dice say of me, ancient Li?" he asked. Her head turned up sharply at the sound of his voice.

"Ghe!" she crowed delightedly. "The bones told me that you would come see an old woman again!"

"You didn't need the bones for that," he whispered, bending down to place a kiss on her withered cheek.

Li's eyes sparkled. "Sit down, dub, my little one, and tell me of the priesthood!"

"There isn't a lot I can tell," Ghe said apologetically. "But it is a good life. Everything that can be available to someone not of noble birth is there for me. Good food, wine, books…"

"Women," Li interjected.

"Them, too," Ghe agreed, unembarrassed.

Li nodded. "I haven't seen you in two years, little dub. What have they been doing with you?"

Could he tell her? If there was anyone in the world he could trust, it was Li. And yet, though she had once won his trust—and even his love—there was still in him the boy who trusted no one. So he chuckled and clapped Li on the shoulder and told her a truth that was a lie.

"I pray a lot," he told her, and she nodded.

"And look, I brought you something," he went on hurriedly. He pulled a bundle from inside his shirt, carefully laid it near Li's feet so that she might open it. She did so and clucked with amazement at the contents.

"I thought your old cloth might be a bit worn," he explained. "And you've always needed a hat, to mark you out from these other so-called soothsayers. Now, here is a hat that will tell everyone that you see true futures."