Oshenerth Read Online Free PDF Page B

be sure, Master Oxothyr, that the demon is not a scout for the still unidentified danger of which you have previously spoken?”
    “Admittedly, I cannot be certain of that because the nature of the peril is still unknown to me.” Extending and spreading two arms wide, Oxothyr drew them slowly up and down the merson-like flanks of the creature. The gentleness of his touch seemed to calm her. “I can only say that for a demon, this she-thing behaves in a decidedly undemonic manner.”
    As if to deliberately give the lie to the shaman’s charitable assessment, the creature raised her left arm, jabbed a finger at the crystalline face of its strange bracelet, and started to swim upward, using the light shaft that split the chamber for a guide as she kicked hard toward the surface. It took Chachel, Glint, Sathi, and Tythe’s combined strength to hold her down. She struggled violently for a moment, trying to free herself. Then, as if resigned, she simply went limp in the water.
    Leaning in close, Chachel peered at the transparency that covered the demon’s face. “Its eyes are closed.” He shook the figure. The feel of the bare arms was strange under his fingers, almost as if he was gripping a manyarm instead of a merson. In response to his shaking, the eyes behind the plate fluttered slightly but did not open more than halfway.
    Coming nearer, Oxothyr brought one eye close to the peculiar bracelet. “This is a device of some strange manufacture.”
    Freed for the moment from the need to defend the shark from the darting depredations of the shaman’s servants, Glint offered his own opinion. “Whatever its function, the demon is obsessed with it. During our journey home, she looked at it every other moment. Do you have any idea what it does, Wisearms?”
    Oxothyr turned dark brown spotted with white, a sign of negativity. “The unobvious requires study.” Reaching out with a tentacle tip, he felt of the apparatus that protruded from the creature’s mouth. The irregular flow of bubbles it had been emitting had undergone a sudden and dramatic decline. With another arm he pushed at the body. It drifted backward in response as the creature made no effort to ward off the shove. Its eyes remained closed and its head lolled to one side.
    “I think it is dying,” he murmured. “The void it inhales to live is gone, or going. Something must be done, and quickly!”
    “Why?” An indifferent Chachel had drifted backward. “It’s a demon. Perhaps it is time to let it die.”
    Oxothyr favored the hunter with a reproving gaze. “I do not know why the other villagers take the time and trouble to insult you when you do such a commendable job of doing so yourself.” Arms curling, he pushed away from the hovering body. “Consider that while this creature may not be a component of those disturbing rumors I have been perceiving, it may know something about them. In contrast, dead persons are notoriously uninformative.” Extending his eight arms in all directions, the shaman made simultaneous contact with both sides of the chamber.
    The chromatophores in their skin flashing excitement in rippling waves of silver and gold, the two famuli obediently released their respective grips on the hovering demon’s legs and shot into the tunnel that led into the depths of the shaman’s home.
    “Magic be coming!” Sathi squealed excitedly.
    “Coming is magic!” Tythe added redundantly.
    Clutching the dead blacktip tightly, Glint started to back toward the entrance to the mage’s lair. One eye fastened on the drifting Chachel. “You heard the squirts! Aren’t you coming?”
    “No.” Chachel remained hovering where he was. “I want to watch.”
    “Those who linger too close to a shaman’s magic sometimes find themselves caught up in it,” the cuttlefish warned him.
    “Go if you want. I’m staying. I might learn something.”
    “Like how to be turned into a limpet,” Glint muttered nervously. But despite his apprehension, he