Read Oshenerth for Free Online

stayed his flight to remain with his friend. It would not do to admit, even to himself, that a merson could be braver than a manyarm.
    Before their eyes, Oxothyr began to spin. His extended arms churned the water until Chachel and Glint had to grab onto the surrounding rock to keep from being swept up in the strengthening maelstrom. As its velocity increased, the whirlpool the shaman was generating began to acquire color. The deepening of hue, the change from transparency to a fiery blue, suggested that everything in its vicinity had begun to descend. It had not. The shaman’s home remained where it was, solid rock and coral affixed to the seabed. Only the light deepened.
    Oxothyr’s voice rose as he recited ancient axioms. Intoning the phraseology of the primordial depths, he summoned forth the deep water magic that was known to only the wisest of the wise. Within the roaring water outlines began to appear; streaks of light that seemed alive, flashes of mindful brightness, flares of shape-shifting scintillation that were the essence of ocean. Within the tunnel that led to the rest of the shaman’s house, the two squid alternately gushed expressions of exhilaration and fear. Reflecting their heightened emotions, their slender bodies rippled with color.
    Glint managed to maintain firmer control of his chromatophores, though he was still frightened. Never before had placid Oxothyr demonstrated this degree of power. This was intoxicating conjuring indeed. The water spun as the wizard spun; faster and faster, threatening to sweep up the sand below and drag down the plankton above, not to mention pull in his visitors and his servants alike.
    But not the demon. It remained as it had been, hovering vertically in the water, eyes closed, head lolling to one side. Now not even small bubbles issued from the device held loosely in its mouth. Oxothyr reached toward it with an arm. How the shaman managed to do this while the rest of his body continued to spin like a vortex was a puzzlement sufficient to cause Glint to doubt the evidence of his own eyes.
    The powerful suckers on the mage’s extended arm pulled first one flexible fin and then the other off the demon’s feet. They were instantly swallowed up by the howling maelstrom. Reaching forward again, the tip of the probing tentacle gently grasped the transparency covering the demon’s face. Pulling it up and off, the mage cast it aside. Coiling its way around the creature’s back, the powerful limb that somehow stuck straight out of the roaring whirlpool gripped the metal contraption lying against the demon’s spine, pulled it free, and allowed it to be swept up in the screaming eddy that filled the chamber. As the cylinder was flung toward the mirrorsky, it trailed several lengths of black tubing. One such tube terminated in the no longer bubbling device that had been clamped between the demon’s lips. Eyes closed, the demon continued to drift motionlessly.
    Then, as Oxothyr’s manipulating arms started to spin the demon in a dark blue vortex of her own, she began to change.
    Between fingers and toes, proper webbing appeared, thickening and securing each digit to its neighbor. On the back of each calf, the first hint of fin burst through the skin to thrust upward and out. The flesh on either side of her throat began to ripple. Not from the movement of water against it, but from within. Distinct as grooves cut in rock, four lines appeared on each side of the demon’s neck. Mere streaks at first, they quickly darkened in response to the mage’s resonant drone. Soon eight flaps of skin, four to a side, were open and undulating. Open and breathing. Squinting hard while clinging to a rocky outcrop, Chachel was just able to make out a hint of redness behind each open flap.
    Sucking in a sudden, sharp breath, the demon gasped, choking visibly. Its lungs cleared and its eyes opened. Eyes whose lenses had become thicker. The creature looked around wildly. Oxothyr slowed his