Into the thinking kingdoms - Alan Dean Foster [71]
Following close behind the swordsman, the black litah paddled strongly through the salt-flecked rollers. Turning onto his back while still making for the almost entirely submerged main door, Simna yelled to his limp friend.
“Enough, bruther! You’ve made your point, whatever it was. Turn it off, make it stop!”
Words drifted back to him, across the water and through the black mane. It was definitely Ehomba’s voice, but muted, not as if from sleep but from concentration. Concentration that had led not only to a realization more profound than the herdsman could have envisioned, but to one from which he seemed unable to liberate himself.
“Cannot . . . must think only . . . of the sea. Keep thinking . . . straight. Keep thinking . . . myself.”
“No, not anymore!” The swordsman spat out a mouthful of salt water. It tasted exactly like the sea, even down to the tiny fragments of sandy grit that peppered his tongue. “You’ve done enough!” Around them the residents of the rectory screamed and cried out, kicked and flailed as they fought to keep their heads above water. Not all were good swimmers. At that moment the hall and the rest of the structure were filled not with right thinking or wrong thinking, but only with thoughts of survival.
“Ow! By Gelujan, what . . . ?” Turning in the water, Simna saw that he had bumped his head against the heavy wooden double door that sealed the main entrance to the rectory. Only a small portion of it remained above the rising waters. Opening it was out of the question. Not only would it have to be opened inward, against the tremendous pressure of the water, but the twin iron handles now lay many feet below his rapidly bicycling legs.
Something gripped his shoulder and he let out a small yelp of his own as he whirled around to confront it. When he saw that it was only Ehomba, awakened at last from his daze, he did not know whether to cry out with relief or deal his revived friend a sharp blow to the face. In any event, the uneasy waters in which they found themselves floating would have made it impossible to take accurate aim.
“What now, humble herdsman? Can you make the water go away?”
“Hardly,” Ehomba replied in a voice only slightly louder than his usual soft monotone. “Because I do not know how I made it come here.” Treading water, he scanned their surroundings. “We might find a second-story window to swim through, but that would mean spilling out onto the streets below and risking a dangerous drop.” He glanced down at his submerged feet. “How long can you hold your breath?”
“Hold my . . . ?” Simna pondered the question and its implications. “You’re thinking of diving to the bottom and swimming out one of the first-floor windows?”
The herdsman shook his head. For someone who spent so much of his life tending to land animals, the swordsman mused, Ehomba bobbed in the water as comfortably and effortlessly as a cork.
“No. We might not locate one in time, or we might find ourselves caught up and trapped among the heavy furniture or side passageways below. We must go out the front way.” He indicated the upper reaches of the two-story-high main door. “Through this.”
“Hoy? How much of your mind did you leave in that little room, bruther? Or are your thoughts still tainted by that virulent pinkness?”
Ehomba did not reply. Instead, he turned in the water to face the methodically paddling feline. “Can you do it?”
The big cat considered