Will Power by A. J. Hartley

the lance it brandished in its sinewy right hand, and another goblin answered from close by. I put my head back down and hoped that the rancid stench of the pit itself would confuse the bear or whatever the hell it was.
    Back in Cresdon or Stavis, people would pay good money to see a bear that would let you ride on it without demanding bits of your thorax in return. If I ever got out of here, maybe I could take one back with me and corner the market. Such thoughts were, however, premature. As the most experienced merchants will tell you, long-term economic plans must bow to surviving the next thirty seconds. Moving less than an inch at a time I began to slide backward into the cold, thick water of the pit. The movement was painfully slow. The thick, freezing water welled round my thighs, then around my waist, and then my chest, and still the bear and its rider did not stir. I slid back still further, my legs sliding in the slime under the water until they encountered something long and heavy lying on the floor of the pond: a log. I pushed until it shifted and my feet squeezed under it. I felt the water’s icy hand close about my throat.
    The bear snorted, shifted, and uttered a sound that might have been a word in the goblin’s own filthy tongue, at which the rider turned to peer into the pool. I breathed in deeply and, eyes tight shut, pushed my head completely under the water. I clutched at a clump of weeds with one fist and pushed the other into the muddy ooze up to the wrist, tokeep myself from floating to the surface. My feet squirmed under the fallen log, helping to anchor me in place. Though this all took less than five seconds, I felt that I was running out of air. Wildly I remembered how heroes in stories hid from pursuers by using reeds to breathe through as they floated downstream. Well, it was too damn late for that. Another five seconds passed and my wind pipe contracted and buckled as if I was going to vomit, but I swallowed it down and held on for another few seconds.
    Then the log resting on my ankles shifted and—to my horror—swam slowly away. The gorge rose in my throat again and I could hold it no longer. I broke the surface as gently as possible and gasped at the air. The bear had not moved. Terror of the goblin and its mount warred in my breast with the gut-wrenching nausea inspired by whatever the creature in the pond was. Before any decision had been made, I was scrambling out in blind terror of brushing against the chill skin of whatever was under the water. I snaked almost completely out and into the reeds, moving too quickly and thrashing slightly with involuntary revulsion. The goblin heard me.
    It turned like a sprung trap and its muscles tautened, eyes and ears concentrated on the pool. It was motionless. I froze and held my breath as if I was still under the reeking water, but I could not look away. Its thin lips were parted slightly and I saw teeth in its immobile jaws. Its small, deep-set eyes flicked around the surface of the pond, and suddenly, as if caused by the hard stare of those eyes, the water broke with a small splash. Ripples coursed away and the body of some great eel or serpent, an oily olive green streaked with gray slime, arced back down to the bed from whence I had roused it. It sent a stream of heavy bubbles to the surface and, as it did so, the goblin’s face and body sagged. He grunted some word to his mount and turned away disinterested. The bear made another semi-articulate sound. There was a momentary pause, and then they moved off with remarkable stealth. I, pulling my feet from the water completely and huddling into a childlike crouch, breathed again.
    I waited in the same position till the sun had begun its descent, sure that any movement would bring the monstrous riders back. All that time my eyes moved from the grass around the rim where the goblins might reappear and back to the dark water with its nameless inhabitant. But the shadows were lengthening fast, and