Oshenerth Read Online Free PDF

the same distant menace of which I have sometimes spoken lately. It suggests to me that whatever we have here is not a harbinger of that distantly perceived peril.” Endowed as were all his kind with the ability to taste through his arms, Oxothyr reached out to drag a sensitive tip down the back of the creature’s pale right hand. This time the she-demon did not jerk away. “Truly, the poor creature reeks of fear.” He continued his inspection while Chachel used one hand to brush away the shaman’s annoying servants, who were persistent in their efforts to snip off tasty pieces of the dead blacktip.
    “A real demon,” Oxothyr marveled. “I have heard and read tales of such, but never having seen one for myself I had come to believe that they were little more than legends. Now here is one alive and in the flesh, as it were.” He moved forward again. “This is interesting.…”
    Using a pair of arms, he reached toward the neck of the demon. She tensed but did not try to swim away. As the tips of the arms grabbed hold and pulled downward, the black skin peeled away. Revealed beneath was another, partial layer of bright green skin and a good deal of pale flesh that was far more normal in appearance than what the mage was removing. From underneath the black “skin” that had covered its head, long hair spilled out. The strands were tinted a startling yellow-gold.
    “How many skins does the creature have?” a bemused Glint wondered as he watched the operation.
    Dragging the last of the limp black husk off over the artificial fins, Oxothyr cast it to one side. It drifted to the floor like a dead thing.
    “Why are you surprised? Most spralakers shed their skin many times. True, this visitor far more nearly resembles a merson, but we must not suppose that superficial similarities necessarily hold true throughout the entirety of its demonic form.” Extending an arm, he prepared to remove the second, shimmering green inner skin.
    This time the demon resisted, strongly. Not wishing to force the issue, Oxothyr promptly withdrew the probing arm-tip. Setting aside for the moment the matter of skins within skins, he reached up and let the tentacle tip crawl across the transparency that covered the upper portion of the demon’s face. It was hard and unyielding, like the clear crystals the mersons sometimes mined on another part of the sea shelf. Then there was the matter of the peculiar bubble-emitting construct that the demon continued to hold tightly in its mouth. Reaching up fast, he gently but firmly plucked it out.
    It immediately began to discharge a free flow of bubbles, not unlike certain special places on the ocean floor. Clutching at it desperately, the demon took it and shoved it into her mouth. The continuous flow of bubbles ceased, to be replaced by periodic bursts from one side of the apparatus.
    Waving an arm through the flow in order to sample its composition and consistency, an astonished Oxothyr pulled back. “Remarkable! Simply remarkable.”
    “Remarkable enough to eat?” wondered Sathi aloud.
    “Remarkable enough to kill?” added a hopeful Tythe.
    Ignoring them, the shaman turned toward the attentive hunters. He made no effort to hide his shock. “It seems impossible, yet there can be no doubt of it. The demon breathes void!”
    Though he had more respect for the shaman Oxothyr than he did for any of his fellow mersons, Chachel was not quite ready to freely countenance such an outrageous claim.
    “Wizened One, how can something breathe nothing?”
    “I do not know.” Oxothyr continued to hover directly in front of the motionless visitor. “Tales tell only of dead demons found. It is certain that the dead do not breathe at all. But I am convinced this wonderment before us is real.”
    Using his two padded hunting tentacles to keep the pair of hungry servants at arm’s length and away from the tasty corpse of the blacktip, Glint exhibited as much curiosity as his merson companion. “How can you