Read Online The Drowned Tomb (The Changeling Series Book 2) by James Fahy - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: James Fahy
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kraken-bile brew. In the shadows of the trees, he unstopped the tube and sniffed the contents dubiously. It smelled like low tide. Bracing himself, he gulped down the black muck.
For a moment, he felt nothing but instant revulsion and the urgent and pressing need to gag, but then, whatever strange potency the brew contained seemed to activate. There was a fizzing sensation in his limbs and a flickering in his brain. Robin shook his head, blinking rapidly as the strange sensation flowed over him, and then, as quick as it had come, it was gone.
In the dappled sunlight of the trees, Robin smiled to himself in surprise, flexing his hands. He knew how to swim. It was that simple. As though the knowledge has just been downloaded into his brain, or coded into his limbs as surely as if he were a fish.
If we could find a similar brew for algebra, he thought, we’d make millions.
Robin worried briefly if he was going to start sprouting gills or tentacles, but decided not to think about that for now. He could always worry about magical mutation later. Right now, for the first time in his life, the water was calling to him.
When he returned to the shore, bare feet skipping across the gravelly stones which were warm to the touch, he saw that Calypso has walked out some way into the lake. Unlike when he had first met her, when she had seemed to float atop the water’s surface, now she was knee deep, her long dress swirling about her pale legs in the water like the billowing of a jellyfish.
“Come into the water, Scion. To master an element, you must immerse yourself in it,” she instructed quietly.
The water was freezing. Much colder than Robin had anticipated, but he didn’t want to look like a mewling baby, so he made his best show of not gritting his teeth as he walked out into the lake, sloshing through to where she stood. After the initial shock, it was actually a blessed relief from the sultry summer heat baking the shore. The slope of the lake beneath the surface was shallow, and he found they could walk out quite far across the slippery stone bed, although Calypso was taller than he, and when he reached her, it was up to his hips, raising shivery goose bumps everywhere. Deciding it was best to get it over with, he ducked down and plunged himself fully under the water, trying to acclimatise to the temperature. It was cold enough to make his temples ache, but he felt exhilarated as he broke the surface again, blowing out air and pushing his wet hair back across his head.
His tutor looked at him oddly. “For one who cannot swim, you appear to hold little fear of the water, Scion,” she mused.
Robin grinned, wiping water from his face. “Oh, I can swim,” he mumbled. “I learned.” It was wonderful not to be nervous about the vast body of water surrounding him for the first time.
She nodded, completely unconcerned with his sudden mastery. “Very well. But it is right to be afraid of water.”
“It is?” he frowned.
“The Tower of Water is the most mutable of all the Towers of the Arcania, student,” the nymph said. “It is fluid in more than simply form. In intention also, and in mood. It is not always easy to control, or to predict. There are dark and dangerous currents everywhere, and no man is master of the sea. She swallows sailors whole.”
Robin was finding his new tutor equally hard to read, mood and intention. Everything she said was delivered in the same light and breezy tone, regardless of how macabre it may be.
“We will swim together to the island there,” she instructed him. “Where your skinny, noisy friend awaits us. And then I shall show you what you are going to learn first.”
His tutor didn’t wait, but turned and dived with lissome elegance beneath the water’s surface. It was so expertly done, like a sleek dolphin, that it barely made ripples.
Robin, eager to try swimming for the first time, followed suit.
The island with the folly was further out than it looked, and the
For a moment, he felt nothing but instant revulsion and the urgent and pressing need to gag, but then, whatever strange potency the brew contained seemed to activate. There was a fizzing sensation in his limbs and a flickering in his brain. Robin shook his head, blinking rapidly as the strange sensation flowed over him, and then, as quick as it had come, it was gone.
In the dappled sunlight of the trees, Robin smiled to himself in surprise, flexing his hands. He knew how to swim. It was that simple. As though the knowledge has just been downloaded into his brain, or coded into his limbs as surely as if he were a fish.
If we could find a similar brew for algebra, he thought, we’d make millions.
Robin worried briefly if he was going to start sprouting gills or tentacles, but decided not to think about that for now. He could always worry about magical mutation later. Right now, for the first time in his life, the water was calling to him.
When he returned to the shore, bare feet skipping across the gravelly stones which were warm to the touch, he saw that Calypso has walked out some way into the lake. Unlike when he had first met her, when she had seemed to float atop the water’s surface, now she was knee deep, her long dress swirling about her pale legs in the water like the billowing of a jellyfish.
“Come into the water, Scion. To master an element, you must immerse yourself in it,” she instructed quietly.
The water was freezing. Much colder than Robin had anticipated, but he didn’t want to look like a mewling baby, so he made his best show of not gritting his teeth as he walked out into the lake, sloshing through to where she stood. After the initial shock, it was actually a blessed relief from the sultry summer heat baking the shore. The slope of the lake beneath the surface was shallow, and he found they could walk out quite far across the slippery stone bed, although Calypso was taller than he, and when he reached her, it was up to his hips, raising shivery goose bumps everywhere. Deciding it was best to get it over with, he ducked down and plunged himself fully under the water, trying to acclimatise to the temperature. It was cold enough to make his temples ache, but he felt exhilarated as he broke the surface again, blowing out air and pushing his wet hair back across his head.
His tutor looked at him oddly. “For one who cannot swim, you appear to hold little fear of the water, Scion,” she mused.
Robin grinned, wiping water from his face. “Oh, I can swim,” he mumbled. “I learned.” It was wonderful not to be nervous about the vast body of water surrounding him for the first time.
She nodded, completely unconcerned with his sudden mastery. “Very well. But it is right to be afraid of water.”
“It is?” he frowned.
“The Tower of Water is the most mutable of all the Towers of the Arcania, student,” the nymph said. “It is fluid in more than simply form. In intention also, and in mood. It is not always easy to control, or to predict. There are dark and dangerous currents everywhere, and no man is master of the sea. She swallows sailors whole.”
Robin was finding his new tutor equally hard to read, mood and intention. Everything she said was delivered in the same light and breezy tone, regardless of how macabre it may be.
“We will swim together to the island there,” she instructed him. “Where your skinny, noisy friend awaits us. And then I shall show you what you are going to learn first.”
His tutor didn’t wait, but turned and dived with lissome elegance beneath the water’s surface. It was so expertly done, like a sleek dolphin, that it barely made ripples.
Robin, eager to try swimming for the first time, followed suit.
The island with the folly was further out than it looked, and the
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