The Glass Word

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Book: The Glass Word Read Online Free PDF
Author: Kai Meyer
no hold on the slippery bottom of the bubble. He could only sit there and wait as they steadily approached the witch’s mouth.
    â€œShe’s going to suck us in.”
    â€œNo, I don’t think so.” Spellbound, Eft’s eyes were fixed on the mighty face, terrible and beautiful at the same time.
    â€œSea witches are man-eaters,” he said doggedly. “Every child knows that.”
    â€œCarrion-eaters, that’s the difference. They eat dead men, not living ones.”
    â€œAnd who’s to keep her from fixing that little flaw with a snap of her fingers?”
    â€œIf she wanted to kill us, she could have done it on the surface. But she’s just vanquished another sea witch and taken over her kingdom. Maybe she’s in a good mood—as far as you can say such a thing about a sea witch.”
    The face was now about ten yards away. A dozen firebubbles slid forward and flickered around the witch’s head like a crown. Serafin stared only at her lips, full and dark, no broad slit like the mouth of the mermaids. Behind the lips, teeth gleamed brightly, long and sharp as fence posts.
    The wall of the bubble bent in under the witch’s features—nose, mouth, and eyes broke in and suddenly were directly in front of Serafin and Eft. The witch had pulled the bubble over her face like a mask. Water ran over her white-gray skin, broad rivulets flowing from the bridge of her nose down to the corners of her mouth and to her chin.
    She had the face of a young woman, enlarged to absurdity as if under a magnifying glass. To look her in the eyes was to look so quickly from right to left that Serafin became dizzy, they were so far apart.
    Eft had given up any attempt to stand. She remained sitting and did her best to indicate a bow. Serafin gathered that the same was expected of him, and so he did it.
    The sea witch looked down at them, a wall of mouth and eyes and grisly teeth. “I welcome you to the under-sea.” Her voice was not as loud as Serafin had feared, but the smell that came across her lips pressed him back against the bubble wall like a hot squall. Within seconds the inside of the bubble smelled like a slaughterhouse in the Calle Pinelli. The odor even came through the diving helmet. “What has brought you into my realm?”
    â€œA flight,” said Eft straight out.
    â€œFrom whom?”
    â€œYou know what times we live in, Mistress. And from whom men flee.”
    The witch nodded only slightly, but the movement made the entire bubble tilt and threw Serafin and Eft together. One of the gigantic mouth corners rose in amusement. “The Egyptians, then. But you are no human.”
    â€œNo. However, I live among them.”
    â€œYou have the mouth of a mermaid. How can the humans ever accept you as one of their own?”
    â€œI was young when I left the water. I did not know what I did.”
    â€œWho took your tail from you?”
    â€œYou must smell her scent on me.”
    Again the witch nodded, and again Serafin and Eft slithered around like insects that a child has trapped in a jar. “I killed her. She was old and stupid and full of evil thoughts.”
    Serafin thought of the corpse of the witch on the surface. He was amazed at the words of the creature before him. He couldn’t have imagined that a sea witch could label something like that evil at all. Or would want to.
They are carrion-eaters,
Eft had said. But did that make them bad by nature? Men also ate dead meat.
    â€œI was never a servant to your rival,” Eft said to the witch. “It was a business deal. She was paid for exchanging my scaled tail for legs.”
    â€œI will believe that. When she died, she had no servants left. Even some of the other witches feared her.”
    â€œThen it was good that you conquered her.”
    The witch made an encircling movement deep under Serafin and Eft with her tree-size hands. “You know who once lived in this
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