Pirate Wars by Kai Meyer Page B

Not ten yards away. In spite of the currents, her hair did not move; instead it fellsmoothly over her shoulders and clung to her back down to her hips.
    “I am Aina,” she said. “Welcome to the threshold of the Crustal Breach.”
     
    “Who are you?” Jolly asked, after they’d advanced to about ten feet away.
    Aina looked like an islander. In the sunshine her body would have had a wonderful, light brown tint; but down here it was dark gray, like burned wood. Yet not even that could detract from how beautiful she was.
    Doubtless Munk had noticed that as well, for he was staring at Aina as if he’d never seen someone like her in his life. Jolly was pretty too, but she acknowledged to herself that no one she knew could match Aina in beauty. Her build was delicate, almost vulnerable. Her eyes were large and dark, almost black, as if the pupils filled the entire iris. She had a small, pointed nose, which differentiated her from other islanders. Like Jolly and Munk, she also remained unaffected by the icy cold of the deep sea, for she wore no clothing. But she didn’t appear to be ashamed on that account.
    “Munk!” said Jolly.
    A little dazed, he tore his eyes away from the strange girl. “Uhh…yes?”
    “Don’t stare at her like that.”
    “I wasn’t staring.”
    Jolly still hadn’t received an answer to her question,so she tried again. “Who are you? What are you doing down here?”
    “I was hiding from you.”
    “Why?” asked Munk, a little more collected now.
    “I wasn’t sure what you were. Who you were. There are others down here, not human.”
    “Kobalins?”
    For a moment the girl looked at them blankly. Then a smile flitted across her face. “You call them that, do you? We used to call them claw men.”
    “Are they here?” Jolly asked cautiously, though she wasn’t overly alarmed. She had been taking in the surrounding crevices and cavities the entire time and discovered no evidence at all of an ambush.
    “Many have gone away,” said Aina with a gentle shake of her head. “The Maelstrom has sent them away.”
    To Aelenium , thought Jolly, without any real relief. Had the battle already begun? Or might it even be decided?
    “How long have you been down here?” Munk asked. “And who sent you?”
    Jolly thought she heard a slight undertone of jealousy in his voice. Was he worried that Forefather might have secretly sent other polliwogs as well? And did that make him feel…yes, what, actually? Slighted? No longer so important as before?
    “We came down here a long time ago,” said Aina. “An inconceivably long time.”
    “We?” Jolly probed.
    “I and the others, who are just like you.”
    “Still more polliwogs?”
    “If that is your word for us, yes.”
    The whole thing was getting more and more baffling. And then suddenly it dawned on Jolly. “You’re one of the polliwogs from the old time?”
    Munk gave her an amazed, then increasingly somber side glance. “That’s impossible,” he whispered to her grimly.
    “Oh, yes?” she retorted, just as tense.
    “From the old time,” Aina repeated sadly, and her eyes fixed on distances that Jolly dared not imagine. “It was so long ago.”
    How long ago might it have been that the Maelstrom was overcome the first time and imprisoned in the Crustal Breach? There had only ever been talk of thousands of years. Not once had Forefather or Count Aristotle said anything specific about the time of the first war with the powers of the Mare Tenebrosum, so inconceivably long ago had it been.
    But Aina looked as if she was no older than fifteen.
    Jolly’s knees grew weak, and for a moment it was all she could do to stay on her feet. If Aina could live so long, what did that mean for the other polliwogs? For Jolly herself?
    She cleared her throat with an effort. “Aina,” she said, “are you one of those who fought against the Maelstrom in the old time? Did you imprison him in the mussel?”
    The shadow of a smile crossed the girl’s