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down here, and that, despite the dolorous singing, would be much, much worse. It had taken eight armed guards and a net to get her in here. She must have been really tired, she told herself. Such weakness was inexcusable. Og would not want her now… A large tear formed in her right eye and dropped into the rising sea.

"Oh, please, don't make it worse. The water will drown you soon enough without help." The old selkie chuckled as he swam over. He floated on his back and looked up at her, compassion and pity radiating from his huge brown, shining eyes. The bright sunlight on the water outside the dungeon sparkled through the arched gate and played against the ceiling, its soft overhead rays making his gray whiskers gleam silver.

"For whom do you cry, orcess?" he squeaked, his voice small and strange in Womba's ears.

"What?" she sputtered,

"Is it a young warrior? Your mother? A long lost friend?" The old selkie paddled around her slowly, keeping just out of swatting range, his words echoing off the wet, salt-encrusted walls of the dungeon.

"I have shamed him with my weakness; I let myself be taken prisoner. He was destined to be my husband, and now he's with her." She began to sob.

"Who? Who?"

"The finest songmaker in all of Almaaz: Ogwater Rifkin. Oh, did you mean the ugly woman? I don't know her name. I could care less. And she smells." She gurgled, the rising waves making her speak in gasps. She roared again with frustration.

An answering rumble overhead made them both look up just in time to see a large crack form in the vaulted ceiling and widen before their astonished eyes. The old selkie clapped his paws together and danced and twirled and dived in his excitement.

When he surfaced again, the crack had spread to the gate, and Womba was cowering against it, all but

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drowning. "What's happening? The temple is going to fall on me! My hair… my wedding dress! This is my wedding dress!" she cried between gulps.

"No, no, no, we'll be fine. It finally worked! My song has weakened the structure over the years and your lovely roar has triggered the collapse. See? You are not so weak after all… Ha! I've beaten your prison, Rotapan, you old poisoner! And I have beaten you!" he shouted to the ceiling. Then he whirled to Womba, who was plastered to the iron gate like a big green barnacle. "Look, you push on the bars. That's a big, fine girl; you can do it. Think of your loved one."

In the first stages of panic, Womba could have moved mountains. Her little yellow eyes glazed over and her lips curled into a snarl as she nudged the gate with her shoulder. The bars sprang loose instantly.

And sank instantly.

"No, no, let go, orcess! Let go of the gate!" shouted the selkie, diving after her. But Womba had a death-grip on the gate, her shriek rising from her mouth in huge, pearly bubbles. The selkie rolled his eyes and dove after her, trying to distinguish her face from the morass of seaweed and barnacles growing on the lower part of the gate. In clear water, it would have been a difficult job; in the silty tidewash, it was impossible.

Wiggulf went up for air, wondering why he even cared that Womba was drowning. After all, her kind had put him in this wet pit where he had languished for years, living off the fish the tide brought in, and the crabs and mollusks that favored that dark, protected walls of the dungeon. He'd never been dry enough to change back into a man. But they had put her in there, too. Somehow that was enough.

He dove again, finding Womba's huge hand, claws still locked around the bars of the gate, and opened his mouth to bare two savagely sharp incisors. He clamped down on her scaly fingers with all his might. It worked. She let go of the bars and grabbed viciously for him, chasing him up from the sea floor to the sur1 9 6

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face, rage and pain in her salt-blinded eyes. Wiggulf barely escaped her proven grasp,

"Enough, orcess! Leave off! I mean you no harm. You are safe-look, see?" He pointed toward the open sea. "We must swim now, out of the gate. Just hold your breath." He panted as Womba clacked her teeth at him and fought to stay above the waves.

"But I cannot swim, you rodent!" she whuffed, spewing him with water.

Wiggulf had not thought of that. But there was no time to work it out; the temple had begun to collapse, a few small bleached, hollow bones plinking here and there into the sea like the beginnings of a hard cloudburst. Soon, he knew, they would be unable to get far enough away before the top-heavy structure crumbled, sending huge chunks of marble, heavy monaurochs skulls, and enormous whale bones crashing over their heads into the bay.

He swam out past Womba, nipping her as he went, and waited as she followed, her anger providing enough propulsion to get her out of the dungeon. Wiggulf circled her again and again, teasing and poking at her, until he had maneuvered her several yards out from the dungeon, toward something he had spotted floating in the water: one of Rotapan's favorite decorations, a massive gargoyle made from a bunch of large, round skulls lashed together, which bobbed in the waves like a coconut raft. Wiggulf swam under it and towed it to Womba, who grabbed onto it with all the strength she had. When he was sure it would remain afloat, Wiggulf tugged at the lashings, slowly bringing the strange raft along.

The sea was high-the whirlpool controlled the current-so he steered Womba far to the right, close to the ruin of the causeway, just as most of the temple broke apart and fell. It was a sight Wiggulf had awaited for years. He turned on his back to watch and grinned so widely that his whiskers tickled his ears. "Ha! You old poisoner… builder of bone lodges! You have done this to yourself. Good-bye, Rotapan."

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Womba looked back also. The bones crashed into the sea behind them, what remained of the temple disappearing amid a puff of white dust. A lone boot, its workmanship exquisite, its decoration exquisitely tasteless, floated up beside Womba.

"Og…" she cried, reaching for the boot, hugging it to her chest. "Og… oh, and Papa, too…" she moaned, about to lose her grip on the raft.

Wiggulf sighed, it was hard work, saving an enemy.

"Hold on, orcess, over there is part of the old bridge. We can rest there until the tide goes out again. I will swim to my people and bring you help. You will be safe here: the water never rises above these rocks, and the piling is hollow-our fishers once used this place as shelter in storms."

Wiggulf pulled himself up a cairn of crab-infested rocks, once part of the destroyed bridge's pilings. Womba clawed up the rocks after him, hugging the boot, and fell into an exhausted sleep as soon as her feet were out of the water. The blue fiddlers and the spiky red crabs, their black-tipped claws clacking at their new find, swarmed over Womba momentarily, but Wiggulf batted them off, taking one or two to taste. For years, he had eaten crabs. And since the crabs ate the remains of everything else in the sea, they had held the most poison in their flesh. Wiggulf spat the bitter meat out in disgust. He could wait until he got home; it wasn't that much farther to decent food.

He dipped back into the water to clear his paws of the foul smell, hopped back upon the dry piling, and began to preen his fur, awaiting the transformation. It had been years since he had taken the shape of a man. He wondered what it would feel like to be dry. Seconds later, he knew.