Perchance To Dream Read Online Free PDF Page B

sensation recalling his dreams. It was an unsettling feeling casting more doubts on dreams versus reality. He turned to come up for air. Loreanne caught his hand and pulled him deeper into the water. He tried to pull away, but her strength surprised him. He looked toward her trying to communicate his problem. She shook her head and smiled. He looked down at where she held his hand and realized he now saw only a shimmering blue-green tail where before had been milk white legs.
    Merfolk! Death in the water!
The natives' warnings clanged in his head. He kicked hard and pulled against her. She whacked at his legs with her tail and pulled him deeper. She was fast and strong and it was a moment before he could pull against her. He needed air. His chest ached. He struggled harder. His chest was about to explode! He kicked again, using her tail as solid leverage.
    She let go, and he felt himself shoot upward, but it was too late. He was going to drown before he reached the surface he could see twenty feet about him. With frustration, fear, and a sense of fatalism he felt his lungs fail and his mouth opened to inhale water.
    And inhaled cool moist air!
    Stunned, he slowed his ascent. He closed his mouth and inhaled thought his nose. Again he was aware of only air. He turned to look back at Loreanne. She hovered deep in the water, her hair swirling about her, a reproachful expression in her silver eyes. He swam toward her, searching her face.
    "Did I hurt you?" he asked, surprised to hear his voice sounded almost natural in his own ears.
    She turned her head away.
    He cupped her chin in his hand and turned her around to face him. "I'm sorry. I did not understand. I did not trust enough. I. . ." he swallowed, then let the truth come. "I was afraid." He stroked a floating tendril away from her face. "Can you forgive me?"
    "Margareen," she said, and turned to swim deeper.
    Andrew followed.
    They swam deeper still, then under a rock formation that formed one of the walls of the cavern. Wryly Andrew realized how formidable a prison the cavern was to a human. Without the magical red cap, no human had the breath to escape.
    Loreanne led him past the coral reef gateway where dolphins harried sharks who would swim into the cove, and on to a sheltered underwater grotto guarded by more dolphins. They reminded Andrew of royal palace guards. In the grotto he knew the likeness was not casual, for the grotto was a palace to rival any. It was not encrusted with gold, jewels, costly fabrics, or wood. Its architecture was of limestone and coral, planted with sea flowers and stars.
    On a dais of giant shells and living sponge lay an obese mermaid. Barnacles clung to her dull green tail, and dark seaweed tangled with silver-gray hair twice as long as her body. Her skin looked gray, her face etched with time, her pendant breasts sagging to her waist. She was old, as Loreanne said. Old as time, save for eyes burning with life of self righteous hate.
    "You!" she bellowed, sending small fish tumbling backwards. She half rose, then winced and clutched her seaweed bandaged shoulder. She sagged back against the sponge, pain furrowing her eyebrow.
    "Margareen! He has come to help!" Loreanne swam swiftly to the old mermaid's side, her hands fluttering over Margareen as she sought something to do to relieve the suffering.
    "Come to finish my death, more likely. Humans are not to be trusted!"
    "I would not have shot at you if you hadn't rammed my boat."
    "Nor I rammed your boat if you hadn't threatened my ordered kingdom with your fascination for Loreanne."
    He considered her words a moment. "Then we were both acting fairly based on facts as we knew them."
    Her eyes narrowed. "Explain."
    He smirked. "Later. You're going to die of blood loss if you remain here."
    She cackled like an old witch. "That is a plain speech, for a lying human. But you are right. And if I die, so do you!"
    "That seems a bit extreme for revenge," Andrew said with wry cynicism.
    "Revenge?"
    "If