The Coral Kingdom - Douglas Niles [94]
Gradually he had noticed a pattern of darkness alternated by dim illumination through the panels in the ceiling, a cycle that seemed to approximate day and night. Once each cycle, shortly after the panels grew light-morning?-a monstrous creature brought him bare sustenance. The creature had the scaly skin of a fish, with thick strands of hair hanging across its scalp, and sharp teeth and claws.
The monster always emerged from the water quickly, surprising the man. The beast rose onto two legs, looming high over his head, glaring down at him with pale, emotionless eyes as it filled a shell cup with fresh water and placed a bowl of fishy gruel beside the pool. Then, with a shake of its bristling head, it dove back into the pool. And every time this jailer departed, the human king found himself staring at the rippled surface of the water. Where did it go?
Of course, his memory couldn't help him there, and to this end, he decided to explore. Water held no inherent fear for him. He knew that he was a proficient, if not a great, swimmer. He broke the surface in a dive, swimming through darkness for several seconds. Immediately, however, he realized that the loss of his hand created a severe handicap, rendering his swimming awkward and clumsy. Desperately he turned around, kicking hard to return to his cell, gasping in near panic.
For a full day, he avoided returning to the water, but after his jailer again brought him his miserable food, the man knew he had no choice but to try again. On this attempt, however, he relied mostly on his feet to propel him, while he felt along the dark passage before him with his hand and wrist.
Several times he repeated the dive, swimming carefully along the tunnel away from the pool. Each time his confidence grew, and he compensated more and more efficiently for his wound, mostly by kicking. He soon found that the tunnel branched, no more than forty feet from his cell, into three other passages. All of the corridors were water-filled from floor to ceiling-at least, at the place where they met the other submerged corridors.
At first, the man swam no farther than this intersection, returning to his cell and gasping for air as he emerged. But he found, as he practiced, that he swam a greater distance each time. His lungs expanded with the rigorous discipline of increasingly prolonged dives, until he explored some length of all three tunnels.
Finally, sensing that his guard would soon return with his food and drink, he paused to rest and consider what he had learned.
One tunnel, the straight route, continued to descend as far as he could follow, and he had nearly drowned the time he followed that passage a hundred feet past the intersection. The tunnels to the right and left, however, began a gentle upward slope after the junction, similar to the approach to the prisoner's cell.
It seemed a reasonable assumption, then, that similar cells might lie to the right and left. Would they be filled with air, like his? He had no way of knowing.
He fully understood the risks. He had already gone as far as he could down each tunnel while still making it back to his cell. If he went farther, he would have no choice but to go forward and either find air at the end of the tunnel or perish.
The decision was easy.
The prisoner spent some time in quiet contemplation. Somewhere he had learned to do this, to empty bis mind and allow his body to fuel itself for maximum efficiency. In a flash, he remembered: The black-haired woman had taught him. His skill had never approached hers, for she was… she had been… a druid.
Robyn!
In the instant of recognition, his mind filled with joy, followed by nearly intolerable pain. He groaned aloud as memories came flooding back-delightful memories, each one of which only increased his anguish. He was here, she was…
Callidyrr! The Moonshaes!
"I am Tristan Kendrick!" he shouted