I saw new shapes among those surrounding us. Wolf and serpent, yes, but other creatures as well.
“Animals,” I said to Lutha, under my breath. “What is it you’ve been muttering about animals?”
She hoisted Leely into her arms and stared at me over his head. “For days, over and over, I’ve found myself thinking of animals. They pad through my brain at night; they howl in my ears and climb my flesh with sharp claws. Is it really animals, Saluez? Or is it the ultimate Ularian, pretending?”
I didn’t know. It might be the big Ularian, the tempter of Breadh, but I’d have sworn the animals were real.
That interchange was all we had time for. One wolf howled, then another. Something shadowy and immense growled deep in its swollen throat; something shambling giggled; we were stalked by ramified darkness, full of eyes. They pushed us toward the sea. Crawlers and trotters came after, chunky creatures, close to the ground, others sleek and thin, each bone showing through their dappled hides, strung with muscles like taut cable. Sinuous tails whipped; eyes lit like lanterns; tongues licked at jaws with a rasping sound, as at our bones, scraping them clean!
We were not driven into the waves, but onto the path at the foot of the cliffs. The creatures behind us kept their distance, not pursuing us closely enough to make us run, only closely enough to make us move. There was no space to walk abreast as we went southward along the sea. Mitigan was first, carrying the lamp, then the ex-king, with Lutha carrying Leely after him. I came next, then Snark, then Leelson. Only the waves spoke as we went, but when we came around the first curve, we heard howls and growls and hisses from the beach behind us, a cacophonous laughter, as though someone had told a funny story. No doubt who the joke was on.
From behind me, Snark announced, “There’s caves along here. Sea caverns. We’re headed where you folks come out, where the shaggies come out.”
“Toward the vortex entries?” Lutha asked in a far-off, toneless voice. “Does it mean to herd us into the vortex again?”
Leelson ignored her question. “Tide’s going out just now,” he muttered. “It won’t go out forever. Do they—does it mean for us to drown?”
“Probably one or the other,” said the ex-king, turning to glance at us over his shoulder. “If I were they, it, I’d want to kill us without touching us. Touching us—at least touching Leely—seems to be fatal.”
Though I hadn’t seen any of the creatures come onto the path behind us, I felt there was something there, following us. I had no sense that we were escaping. We were only moving in nightmare, not waking from it. Perhaps fortunately, we weren’t able to get into a panic over it, for our footing required complete concentration. The sea shelf was narrow, uneven, littered with slippery clumps of sea grass and shells and stones that rolled beneath our feet. And, of course, Leelson was right about the tide. When it came in, the water would come up to the path.
Snark was thinking along the same lines. “Hey, Saluez? Maybe there’ll be something in it, somethin’ swimming there under the rub and ruckle of the sea. Something else we’d know from olden times. Sharks maybe?”
I was spared the possibility of reply.
“Someone ahead,” cried Mitigan. He stopped, holding his lamp high to throw light on the way ahead. “I hear someone.”
We all heard it then, a woeful sound. It sounded almost familiar to me, and I remembered when we fell into the vortex. Jiacare had been right behind me, but after him had come at least three others. As we stumbled around the next curve the sound came louder, a solitary weeping over the plaint of the sea, where it fingered in, pestering the cliffs.
“It’s Poracious Luv,” said Lutha.
It was she, huddled upon the path, her clothing in tatters, a muddy heap lying beside her.
“Dirty as a street rat,” Snark murmured from behind me. “Not a high-muck-a-muck now. Just a fat old woman crying.”
As she was, next to the limp sprawl of the old man. So were the mightiest brought to nothing.