Transformation by Kara Dalkey

Author:Kara Dalkey
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780061757501
Publisher: HarperCollins

Chapter Seven

Chapter seven

Corwin coughed at the foulness of the air in the dry room. He would have liked to have been more formal in greeting the woman who’d raised Nia, but it didn’t seem possible, given the situation. Tyra was still staring at him with round, shocked eyes in a thin face.

“A drylander has become an Avatar? This can’t be another one of Ma’el’s atrocities, can it?” Tyra demanded.

“No, Mother. This is Corwin. He’s my . . . friend.”

“You always did have strange taste in friends, Nia.”

“Shouldn’t we be getting your mother back into the water?” Corwin asked.

Nia cast a worried frown at the water. “What if the guards come back?”

“Then it will be better for her to have her strength, won’t it?”

Nia nodded and began to ease her mother toward the hole.

“Why does your friend talk so strangely, dear?”

“Because he’s new to our language, Mother. He understands us, but he doesn’t speak our tongue yet. Though he could if he tried,” Nia added, with a significant glare at Corwin.

“Sorry. I thought I was doing well just by understanding,” Corwin grumped. He took hold of Tyra’s arm and then her scaly tail and helped the woman slide into the water.

Tyra gasped as she sank through the hole. “Madam, are you all right?” Corwin asked, then tried again in Atlantean, searching for the words from Nia’s mind. He wasn’t sure he got it right.

“It’s wonderful,” Tyra said as she drifted down into the water. The first mermyd was waiting below and helped guide her from there.

“Why don’t you go down and heal her, Nia? I’ll help the others.”

Nia nodded, clearly shaken by her mother’s condition. She slid into the hole like a seal and gave Corwin a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

But Nia had already dived down out of earshot.

Corwin shrugged and hauled himself out of the water, amazed at how heavy he suddenly felt. He took a quick glance around. There were several cabinets—one tall, one short, one high on the wall. There was something that resembled a chair, bolted to the floor, next to a desk. In between these furnishings, there were three other mermyds lying on the floor against the walls of the room, one an older male and two female mermyds. They were all in as bad condition as Nia’s foster mother. They stared back at him with empty, hopeless eyes.

Corwin spoke to them gently, showing them the mark on his palm. He didn’t know if he was saying the right words yet, but the action seemed to give the mermyds heart. They were able to summon enough energy to be helped into the water as well.

Corwin slipped down into the water as he eased the last one in. The water felt pleasantly cool on his skin. No wonder they act like they’ve reached paradise once they’re back in the sea. For them, it’s torment to be without the water. For the first time he realized how hard it must have been for Nia to be on land, even as half land-dweller.

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