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18

Vasco was eager to get out of this tight entryway to the Portland area dorach community. He was shifting back and forth with impatience.

Magellan, beside him, had started pawing eagerly at the slick, slimy floor of what I thought of as a cramped little airlock under the Willamette River.

Couldn’t blame either of them. The smell of lichen was thick in the air. The walls were close enough that Vasco and I were both inside each other’s personal space. I kept bumping his duffel bag.

Not to mention that the ceiling was low enough that he had to duck a bit, and I had to crouch.

What was worse, thought, was now that we’d been inside for a few minutes, I could feel the dampness of the air. Sticking my nice, dark blue silk shirt to my back. Making my jeans cling. And making every breath feel sticky.

But Brikatika remained just inside the tunnel that would lead to the dorach caverns proper. Standing on his hand legs, with his body curving forward like a question mark. Whiskers twitching with eagerness to help.

Or maybe eagerness to get back to whatever business I was keeping him from?

That didn’t seem too likely. After all, he’d formally offered me a debt, to thank me for saving his life yesterday. He couldn’t want to get rid of me. I had to be misinterpreting…

“We should get out of your whiskers,” Vasco said, in the chittering dorach language. “Thank you for—”

“Wait,” I said, in the same tongue. My instincts were itching at me. “Brikatika, have you left the community since yesterday?”

“No,” Brikatika said. “After the attack, I rushed right here. I have remained within our warded area since.”

“What are you getting at?” Vasco asked, in English. He sounded curious, though, not accusatory.

“I’m not sure,” I said. I stopped and shook my head.

I looked over at Brikatika, whose nose twitched as though puzzled at what we were saying. But his whiskers still looked anxious to me.

“Wait,” I said, watching Brikatika, but addressing Vasco. “Do dorachs speak English?”

“No,” Vasco said. “They don’t have the vocal…” He turned to look at Brikatika. “They don’t have the vocal cords to pronounce English. And since all Locksmiths speak Dorach most don’t bother learning to understand it.”

“I really must get back,” Brikatika said. “My mate will be worrying by now and—”

“Not so fast,” I said.

I met Vasco’s eyes.

“You said you heard a cry for help,” Vasco said to me. “It didn’t occur to me that you heard English.”

“But why didn’t you—”

“I’ve been speaking so many languages for so long, I don’t always track which one I’m using. Or hearing. Not unless I think about it.”

We both turned back to face Brikatika, whose whiskers now twitched with nothing that could be mistaken for impatience.

He was afraid of something.

“Where—” Vasco started, but I cut him off.

Where might have been important. As might how, given the vocal cord issue. But I had a feeling another question was even more critical.

“Why did you learn English?”

Brikatika looked left and right.

“You owe me,” I reminded Brikatika, sticking to his own language, even though I knew now that he both spoke and understood English.

Brikatika gave a chittering cry, and the ward behind us collapsed.

The icy waters of the Willamette blasted into us.

I crashed into Vasco, and together we slammed first into the slimy wall of the cavern, and then got carried down into the tunnel. The sides of the tunnel scraped my skin and tore my clothes.

Vasco lost his duffel bag in there somewhere. And I think he lost Magellan too.

I couldn’t pay attention to that though. I was too busy trying not to drown. And to protect my head.

Some instinct must have made me squeeze my lips shut as the river waters hit me. And I managed to keep my lips closed through the pressure and all that tossing about.

But I was still getting punched by that sudden water pressure, as well as getting propelled down a tight, tight tunnel.

When the tunnel curved, I hit the wall hard enough to see stars. I tried to grab hold of something. Anything. But it was no good. The walls were rocky enough to hurt, but too slimy for my hands to find any purchase.

All I managed to do was hurt my fingers.

I hit my head on the next pass. Pain jolted my mouth open in an outpuff of breath.

Good news was that my hand was in position to cover my mouth. Gave me the awful, sour taste of lichen, but kept me from immediately sucking in water and drowning.

Bad news was that I was running out of air fast. And I was dazed. Not sure which direction was good. Not sure I could tell one direction from another in the growing darkness.

Not sure I could remember the combination of gesture and incantation that would provide me underwater freedom to breathe and move about as I chose.

I tried. But I kept bouncing off of the sides of the tunnel. Bruising and scraping myself. Tearing my clothes more and more.

My lungs screamed for air. My diaphragm quivered with the need to suck in life-giving oxygen.

It was fully dark now. Everywhere about me. But whether that darkness was from the blow to my head or just how far underground we were now, I had to way to tell.

It was so dark my eyes imagined little flares of light that weren’t there.

At least, I don’t think they were there.

Couldn’t focus on that.

Icy waters sapped the energy from my body, as well as the heat.

My body started panicking. All I could do to huddle together in what little warmth I had, and fight to keep from trying to breath.

Suddenly someone grabbed my hand. Had to be Vasco, unless there was another human down here.

Warmth flooded back into me.

Air!

Sweet air. I hadn’t opened my mouth, but…

Yes! I had gills again. And the pressure no longer felt as though it were trying to squeeze me flat.

I could kick and swim against that water pressure. And I could see too. The world was a dark blue-green, but I could see as well as I could during a shadowless twilight on the surface world above us.

All around us were more dorachs, thoroughly confused about why their home was flooded. Or maybe about why we were there in their homes instead of in the airlock.

But they didn’t matter. Brikatika mattered. We needed to find him. Fast.

I looked around at Vasco, who nodded.

And now that I could see better, I realized I could see Magellan paddling through the water next to Vasco.

Knowing he was all right made me feel better. But anger still burned inside me. And not just me. Vasco had that look to his eyes too.

Even Magellan looked pissed. His jaws were set to bare his teeth, and his eyes were narrowed.

And so the three of us swam out of the dorach cavern. Though Vasco paused to reset their airlock ward for them.

Just as well. I didn’t know how to do it, and it only required a moment.

And then we were swimming. Vasco in the lead, and me right behind.

But we were swimming up.

I lamented my lack of vocal cord access now. I desperately wanted to ask what the hell he was doing. Remind him that we needed to hunt down Brikatika before he got away entirely.

But all I could do was follow Vasco to the surface.

He led me right back to Toe Island, where the dry, rocky surface was suddenly a welcome sight.

The morning sun was blissfully warm.

The three of us flopped down on the rocks. All three, panting for breath. I ached all over. My clothes ruined, and more bruises and scrapes than I could count.

Vasco looked better off, but not by a whole lot. His clothes had handled the rock walls better than mine. He’d definitely gotten his share of bumps and scrapes though.

Magellan seemed to have come through it the best of the three of us. He was first to his feet and growling. Pointing north, as though…

“Can he smell through water?” I asked.

“Yes!” Magellan barked. “Yes I can. I’m the best dog ever. And I’m going to track Brikatika down. And we’re going to solve this mystery. And I’m going to get so many treats.”

“Yes, you will,” Vasco said, “But first, I need a moment to catch my breath. Not as young as I used to be.”

“How old … are you?”

What can I say? The question had been bugging me for some time now. Especially since Janna implied that she’d served as Lady of Portals for more than fifty years.

I mean, she looked like a teenager to me. She didn’t sound like one, true, but she…

“I’m about a hundred and seventy,” Vasco said. “Birth records weren’t so certain, where I was born. Besides. Truth is, once I became a Locksmith, I stopped keeping track.”

“Why?”

“How long will you live?” Vasco asked, and the question triggered the answer inside me.

“Locksmiths stop aging when they gain their mastery. Aging is a function of personal energies, and thus under our control.”

“Exactly,” Vasco said. “I wasn’t young when I gained my power, like Janna.”

“But,” I said, “if age is a function of personal energy, couldn’t you reduce your age?”

“Not sure. Never tried, and I can’t think of anyone who has. Might be possible, I suppose.” Vasco shrugged. “Nothing wrong with getting old, Scott. Even if you don’t do it anymore.”

He lay back on the rock, basking in the sun. We were both dry again, at least, but we’d both had quite a shock of cold before he’d managed to get the spell back up for us.

“I enjoyed every stage of my life as I got to it,” Vasco said. “Didn’t see any reason to go backward now.”

“Well,” I said, standing up and stretching my aches, “You must admit that your current age does seem to have increased your rest requirements over youth. I’m ready to go.”

“So am I, youngster,” Vasco said, eyes closed. “But it’s not time yet.”

“What do you mean? We have to—”

“We have to let Brikatika think he got away. If he thinks he got away, he’ll go warn whoever he rushed off to warn. Or he’ll get to his hidey-hole, and we’ll find him there, instead of forcing him to abandon a place he feels safe and go someplace risky. Like the Columbia.”

“Won’t he know we can follow him?”

“Doubtful,” Vasco said. “Most hounds couldn’t track underwater. And most Locksmiths couldn’t do it either. Not something as fast as a dorach on a mission.”

“So how long do we wait?”

“Not long,” Vasco said, sitting up and stretching. “Just long enough for me to summon back my duffel bag, and dig us out a little field medicine.”

“Ooh,” Magellan barked, wagging his tail despite his own impatience to get to the hunt. “I love watching this.”

Vasco knelt down, both his bruised and scraped knees on the dry, dirty rocky surface of Toe Island.

He reached his hands down toward the water, but not into it.

I expanded my own awareness. Stretched a part of my mind forward, so that I could track exactly what it was he was…

There.

I hadn’t had a chance to really investigate the web of energy structures woven into and around Vasco’s duffel bag. But I could tell Vasco had hooked into one of them.

The color of the strands of energy were on the deepest edge of violet. Almost colorless. And working with them emitted a high-pitched whine.

But it wasn’t quite a whine. A high-pitched whine like that, I would normally expect it to be a cutting, uncomfortable sound. Something that would make Magellan cringe, and maybe set my teeth on edge.

Like a dentist’s drill.

But this whine, it was … soft. That was the only way I could think of it. Instead of cutting through my head, it just sort of settled around me, while the energies Vasco worked with drew his duffel bag out from somewhere down below, and all the way up to where we waited on the surface.

Then, the duffel burst out of the water, into the air, and landed in Vasco’s arms. It looked every bit as dry as we were. Drier, even, because no river spray had hit it yet.

“Again! Again! Again!” Magellan kept barking as he rushed back and forth in front of Vasco.

“Hush,” Vasco said. Then turned to me with a smile. He pulled out a small jar, different from the one before.

“This won’t feel good,” he said, “but it will work quickly.”

I gritted my teeth against what was coming.

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