Oshenerth

Oshenerth by Alan Dean Foster

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Authors: Alan Dean Foster
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additional questions, the last of them being, “How—where did Oxothyr come to seek-find such a charming creature?”
    Though a fine fellow and boon companion, Glint was not without his faults, one of which was a sometimes disconcerting tendency to speak before thinking. “Oxothyr didn’t find her. Chachel and I were out hunting when we saved her.”
    The change in their hostess’s posture and expression was simultaneous and inescapable. Her voice fell and the smile that since their arrival had been as constant as the water temperature faded.
    “‘Saved her’? You and Chachel?”
    Glint repeated the bobbing affirmation. “She was lost, drifting, confused. We didn’t know what she was, except that she was plainly in trouble. We took her to Oxothyr, who performed on her a revision most profound. One that was necessary to ensure her survival. Now she is our guest until the shaman decides how further we can assist her. It’s very good of you to help out, Poylee.”
    “Yes-sure.” The small fins on the back of the merson’s calves fluttered in a perpendicular parody of those that extended sideways from the cuttlefish’s lateral line. “It is, isn’t it?”
    “Well then, I’ll leave you two egg-makers to get better acquainted.”
    Glint did not turn to leave. He did not have to. All he had to do was stiffen his ventral siphon and shoot backwards out the open doorway, leaving in his wake rapidly dissipating eddies, a tiny arc of ink like an orphaned comma, and a gathering silence.
    Her hostess’s sudden hard stare making her increasingly uncomfortable, Irina turned away and pretended to admire the decorated dwelling. Shells intact and halved were everywhere, some crushed together with rock and water-smoothed crystal to form images of undersea vistas and lifeforms. There were shelves but no chairs. A single piece of scavenged, powder blue shelf coral still attached to its base served as a foot-high table. Storage cabinets had been fashioned of slabs of coral and rock held together by glue of an unknown nature. Restrained by netting, two groups of bioluminescent fish were affixed to the ceiling, their internal lights inactive while the dormant swimmers awaited the onset of night.
    Irina did her best to ignore the distance that inexplicably seemed to have sprung up between them as Poylee took her on a cursory, almost brusque tour of the rest of the dwelling. There was a small food preparation area that in the absence of any appliances or cooking facilities could hardly be called a kitchen, a sleeping chamber, another boasting an ingenious integrated system for performing ablutions and related activities, and a smaller room that she was informed would be hers for the duration of her stay. Throughout it all Irina had marveled at the number and variety of adaptations to a permanent life underwater, all of which Poylee considered ordinary or boring.
    Truly , the newly preoccupied merson thought, the changeling knows nothing about the most basic aspects of daily life . Perhaps she was after all no threat. While Poylee did not let her guard down and her initial effusiveness did not return, her attitude slowly shifted from one of active dismissal bordering on open hostility to a cool, collected courtesy. The hunter Chachel had been known to accomplish many things by simply adopting a position of studied indifference. Surely she could do the same.
    They were in the food preparation area later when Irina, desirous of proving herself a worthy guest (and also because it was the right thing to do), offered to help in making dinner.
    “Just watch-attend,” Poylee told her. “Maybe you’ll learn something.”
    Irina bristled. Back home she considered herself something of an amateur chef. But she was a guest here, in a place and time where her very survival depended on the good will of those around her. So she stayed quiet and watched.
    In truth, she would have been hard-pressed to concoct anything edible given the tools and

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