Power Lines

The cold of the icy waters was more of a shock than usual because Sean had just been so warmly wrapped about Yana. But it was always the first part of him to enter the water that experienced the trauma. Despite the almost stupefying cold, he forced himself to drop into the freezing dark waters. The change occurred more abruptly than ever: self-preservation at its highest level.

Once the waters closed over his altering head, the sounds he hoped to hear pinged back and forth. He sent out his call and felt the stir of water as a tube whale responded. The brush of the huge mammal against him in human form would have been crushing, but the selkie was less vulnerable. Stroking one flipper on the firm flesh of the whale, Sean-Selkie floated forward until he came to the proportionally small whale eye. One flipper-hand reaching as high up on the skull above the eye as possible, Sean communicated his need.

Do you remember the place before it fell?

Yes.

Take me to the other side.

As you wish.

Sean-Selkie had time to secure a hold on the side fin before he was propelled forward at amazing speed. For what seemed a very long dark time in this lightless medium, Sean-Selkie clung there. Finally the tube whale halted, so abruptly that he was sent flipping end over end, past the whale's bright unblinking eye and skidding up the icy slope of a tunnel that gaped open onto the sub-arctic seas.

You have been of great assistance and have my gratitude.

You are known and your needs considered.

Then the whale departed, once more singing its weird song, one that Sean-Selkie heard faintly, distantly answered. In that direction the tube whale now swam. Sean-Selkie watched until the churning of its flukes was no longer visible in the dark sea. He climbed up into the maw of this section of the underground link between the continents, with its luminous walls and slightly misted footing.

He had gone no more than a few hundred meters before he knew that both Aoifa and her track-cat had managed to get this far. A neat pile of animal dung, frosted over but identifiable, lay in a little hole, claw marks around it to show that the track-cat had not lost its sense of propriety despite its inability to cover its feces. And four paces beyond the cat's were human excretions. Sean-Selkie sighed with relief and lumbered on up the long slope, through immense caverns and more upward corridors. He saw other signs-fish skeletons-by lakesides and, diving into the same places, found food for himself to keep strong for this long and lonely journey. He saw the crumpled envelopes of travel rations, too.

How far and how long the journey took, Sean-Selkie could not gauge. He traveled more safely and economically as a selkie; having no clothes for his human manifestation was the best reason to continue as he was.

When he eventually emerged into daylight, the sun dazzling him, he had no warning of the danger into which he had blundered. He was always particularly vulnerable as he changed, the transition altering his senses-especially his eye sight and heating. The first arrow took him in the thigh while it was still elongating from a flipper, still covered with spotted fur; the second would have been fatal but for the fact that a feline knocked him to one side. Snarling, the feline guarded him, facing the ragged humans who surrounded the mouth of the cave, one paw, its claws unsheathed, raised against their advance.

Thanks, clouded one. I owe you a life.

Can you run with me?

Must finish transition first. Can't run or swim, not as is, not wounded in the leg. You go. There is a rifle aimed now at you. Go quickly. They think me helpless.

Giving one last forward leap, which sent the ragged creatures screaming backward though the armed man did not move, the feline whirled and sped back into the cave and disappeared from sight.

"Don't bother with the cat. They're a half credit the dozen. Secure that monster! He mustn't escape!"

So Sean-Selkie, neither man nor seal at this point, endured the indignity of being bound limb to limb and the agony of having the arrow yanked out of his flesh. Even a selkie can faint.

When Sean recovered consciousness, he wished he had not, for he seemed to be lying in a pile of slushy cold water in a dank-smelling and dark place. His enhanced selkie vision told him that he was alone with some bundles and crates, in a tent made of badly cured skins; the air stank of that, as well as of the mold of continued damp. He had been pegged down, and the wound in his haunch ached.

Continuing the transformation to human would not be useful, Sean realized, for his limbs as a seal were thinner and more graceful. The bindings would be tighter on human wrists and ankles. He wallowed in the water beneath him, trying to wet himself enough to encourage the full transformation to seal, despite his wound, but it was useless. The melted slush was too shallow and he remained half-transformed, with his lower legs and his arms those of a man, while most of him remained seal.

Exterior sounds began to filter through to his awakened senses. He could smell fire, a big one, and had a horrible premonition of what a big fire might mean for a captured "monster." He could hear sounds of quite a few people moving about without much energy, and two male voices, which seemed to punctuate the muted noises of the others with orders, too muffled for him to understand.