Captain Richard's Arc

Chapter 8 of 13

The ring on the water widened and did not fade. Richard kept his back to the carved stone rim and his knife low. Kovu's hackles stayed up. The pale wall around the pool felt less like a floor now and more like the edge of a ship — a crow's nest set above a sea that went down forever. Whatever had slid beneath the moon was still down there, and it was rising. The water bulged. A shape pushed up through the reflected moon, slow, almost gentle. First a long blue muzzle. Then a mane like wet weed, heavy with droplets that caught the light. A horse — but not a horse. Its hide shone scaled and dark as deep water. Its eyes were calm and old and wrong. It set one hoof on the carved stone rim without a sound, and water ran from it in sheets. Richard knew the word for it before he wanted to. Kelpie. Sailors had whispered it across three coasts. A thing that wore beauty like bait. A thing that pulled men down by the wrist and did not let go. At his hip lay the gear he had laid out for an intruder — the bolt, the wedge, a coil of line, and the leather collar with its small black box that his mentor had used to speak across distance. He had readied himself for a man climbing the shaft. Not this. The collar would not bargain with a spirit. The knife would not cut what was mostly water. So he did the one thing left. He did not run, and he did not strike. He stepped between the Kelpie and the trap door above — the door that led up, toward Alexis. Kovu moved with him, low and snarling, scarred eye bright. Richard met the creature's calm gaze and spoke quiet and even. "You don't pass me." He set the red-thread key on the stone between them, a small offering, and kept his free hand open at his side. The Kelpie lowered its head. It breathed once across the key, and the metal frosted. Then it slid backward into the pool without a ripple, taking the moon down with it. The water went black. Richard stood shaking in the sudden dark, alive, unclaimed — and certain now of the worse thing. The sanctuary was not a hiding place. It was a doorway the sea already used. He could not bring Alexis here until he closed it for good.