Mindbond by Nancy Springer Page B

she raised a hand—I could not tell. But her voice rang out clear and strong through the nightfall. “Come back!” she called. “Be sure you come back to us mortals!” Then she was gone.
    I shivered. What had she meant? I felt all too mortal myself.
    We put off our boots, our clothing. Naked, we stepped to the edge of the surf, Kor and I. He carried his sealskin cloak in one hand. I had nothing to aid me in making the change, and no thought, either, as to how I was to do it.… Cold clutch of seawater at my feet. If the seals were still on the rocks I could not hear them—I could hear nothing but the commotion of surf, or my own heart’s pounding, my own fear. I felt adrift, awash, as if already I were drowned and bloating. The nearness of the sea filled me with dread. It was not to me a familiar beauty and sustainer and danger, as it was to Kor. As if entangled in wrack of nightmare, I could think only of black water, chill, deep, and how it had gathered me in to kill me.
    And Vallart’s words to Chal throbbed like a heartbeat in my head: I will follow you if you walk into the sea.…
    â€œKor,” I whispered, echoing the song, “I am not of the stuff of legend.”
    I do not think he heard me, not above the surf’s roar. I would have needed to shout to be heard. But I am sure he felt my fear. He reached over and handbonded me.
    Come , he mindspoke, it is only to go out to the Greenstones, the farthest stack, for now.
    What then, neither of us could say. But how could I hold back, whatever might befall? It was my quest, my father, Tyonoc, whom we sought—was it not? Who was the leader and who was the led?
    â€œCome on,” I said fiercely, for the handbond had given me courage. Letting go, but staying close by him, I strode forward to do battle with the surf.
    Battering water—it blinded me, burned my lungs, knocked me backward, filled me with terror and rage. I had been reared where the upland streams run knee-deep, and I was not accustomed to the ways of mighty water. It angered me that water should mob, overrun, best me. I strove against it, and it beat on me worse than giant fists, worse than a Cragsman’s cudgel. Where was Kor? I could not see—
    His grasp closed on my wrist, and he was pulling me downward. Panicked, I fought him too. Was he my betrayer now, like the father and brother who had kicked at my head to drown me in the black tarn?
    Dan, stop thrashing. The easing contact of his mind, once so frightening to me, now felt as steadying as handbond. I let him draw me down under the breakers.
    No one can fight Mother Sea. She is mighty and larger than the mountains, she always wins. One must slip through her lines.
    He brought me up in the quieter water beyond the surf, where I took in air with ragged gasps. Even here waves tossed me and slapped at my face, stinging my nostrils with salt. Disgusted, wanting only to gain the solid footing of the rocks and be out of this foul-tasting smother, I tried to churn my way forward. My hands threw up splashes of green light from the black water. The rocks were black hulks against a sky milky with stars, their verges awash with faint light. At my side, Kor floated at his ease, stretched out on the surface of the ocean, his path limned with dim green, the sealskin swimming like a living thing beside him.
    Slip, Dan, slip! Edgewise.
    I tried. Sometimes I got on better, but I could not entirely manage it. Kor reached out from time to time and gave me a tug, helping me flounder forward. More often, Mother Sea gave me a hefty blow and threw me back, or I sank, choking, to blunder against the rocky bottom or feel Kor’s grasp again on my wrist. Coming up, I gasped or gulped or spat like a cat. It was time past forever before I finally reached the rocky sea stack where we were to keep our vigil, and I had so exhausted myself that I lay flat on the wet rock, scarcely out of the spray.
    Kor helped me up to the