The ke was deeper than a sea. I continued to sink. No light reached my eyes from above or anywhere.

  My mighty body had been reduced into a nerveless corpse. I couldn't escape the endless liquid darkness. I might have ughed. Now that I had finally done, what I had been willing to give my life for, I wasn't ready to die.

  "Are you here, Umu?" I asked without words.

  "In a way," the familiar deep voice said.

  "I did your bidding, you foul spawn of Numma. I became a liar, a murderer, an oathbreaker, a traitor, for you. The least you can do is to grant me life again."

  A ugh rumbled in the distance. "Are you this poorly tutored? I had no wishes of my own. You did not serve me."

  "Speak with crity."

  She guffawed. "I am the spirit of unbridled fire, nothing more. I never had any will, self, consciousness, outside those of yours. When you spoke to me, you spoke to your own nature. Even this revetion is only in your own mind. You are Umu."

  "You lie."

  The voice chuckled. "That is true. You do lie."

  My anger fred, but it was as if bellows had blown into a dead firepce. Only fkes of ash floated around in my soul.

  "Oh well," I said. "I hope the Ekrans win, so this was not all pointless. Though, if they have any sense, they would have escaped with their lives, when they saw me killed by Thunder and Lightning."

  "Their eyes are blind to the gods. From their point of view, you called heavenly fire to destroy the Vonir fgship."

  I chuckled. "Even in death I cannot help but be false."

  "Who says you are dead?"

  I started to question the imaginary speaker, but my lungs burned. I struggled, with human limbs again. They were stiff, leaden. The silt around me whirled, though I could barely see it in the impenetrable darkness.

  Even if I wasn't dead, I would soon be. The ke surface was far above.

  I needed to get to the air. Not just for my selfish reasons of getting back to Sulme. It wouldn't do if my child died, because its mother was weak.

  My legs managed to push against the bottom. I didn't float, and I had neither the physical strength to crawl myself upwards or the mental force to summon help.

  It would be beyond bitter to die, after that flicker of hope. Senseless wishes had encouraged all my decisions. They had resulted in nothing but disappointment and misery.

  But in that bck cold abyss, I had nothing else than a fool's optimism. Even though my feet touched the bottom again, I wouldn't let the water defeat me.

  "Let me help," a motherly voice, without malice or danger, said. "Breathe in."

  I had nothing else. I breathed my lungs full, not kewater, but wet air. And I screamed.

  The blue spots surrounded me. Their lurid light illuminated a sprawling creature without determinable form or extent.

  "Don't be afraid," she said. "I will not hurt the mother of my child's child."

  I recognised the voice.

  "You are Sulme's mother!" Somehow, my own voice worked with barely any muting from the water.

  "Oh, you know me," Elti said. "Have we met?"

  Despite the situation, I found myself awkward. "We have met."

  She ughed like a cascade. "I take your word for it."

  "Wait... If you are here, why did you not assist your son? He fought and was wounded!"

  "I can't participate in this war between you surface-folk. Not even for my dear little frog. And besides, I don't sense that he is in any serious danger. He has been hurt before."

  This time he had been wounded because of me.

  Elti's appendages twined around me. "Let's get you to your element."

  My feet lost their contact with the bottom, but it was difficult to determine the direction of our movement.

  After a while, I asked: "Why are we going so slow?"

  "You surface folk tend to get ill, if taken too quickly out of our realm. The Abyss is the Mother to us all. You need to be weaned off from Her influence."

  A rippling light above gave our rise a vector. The gleam widened into a blue sky and the green pinnacles of a forest.

  The grip around me rexed and disappeared. A wall of water remained between me and the air. The burn returned to my lungs. I had to stifle my desperate gasp, as I struggled through the thick water.

  My legs kicked muddy soil, and my head burst through the surface.

  Gasping and retching, I crawled through shallow water and its reeds to the shore. The Sun hovered above the treeline, but in the wrong direction. I had spent the whole night underwater.

  Exhausted, I turned around and colpsed on my back in the wet sand. My skin was pallid and entirely scaleless. None of Umu's strength remained in my soul.

  "I'm sorry," the voice of Elti said. "I had to mantle a different shape for myself before surfacing."

  She stood beside me, eminently tall and limber. A gown of foam wrapped her, and her flesh was milky gss holding emerald liquid. Thick and lustrous keweed grew from her scalp. In her bluest of eyes was a hint of the shine she had emitted deep below.

  "Thank you for saving me," I said.

  "You're welcome. Though I had... my own cow in the ditch."

  "So..." I lifted a heavy hand to rest on my navel. "I am pregnant."

  "Yes, it does seem so." Her huge eyes stared into mine. "Try as I might, you don't seem familiar. I should think I'd recognise any girl my son had tried to woo. What's your name?"

  Even though I didn't ck anything a daughter-in-w could be expected to have, my words were stuck. As if merely acknowledging my past would turn me from a woman to something lesser.

  "My name is Teissa." I took a deep breath and continued: "I was Ryymi, but that changed."

  "Oh. Was this alteration forced on you?"

  "I chose this." At least I hoped I did.

  The kewoman smiled wide. "That's good. Curses don't make for sound formation for families."

  "Were you here during the battle?"

  "Not for most of it."

  "Did you saw, what I was?"

  "If you think it matters to me, then you have already forgotten, what you saw at the bottom of the ke."

  "No, it is not that." Well, partly it was. "I wonder, why am I still alive? Kindly gods themselves struck me, and here I still breathe."

  "Who knows?" Elti shrugged. "They tend to keep to their pce above humanity."

  "I feel they let me live, to have monsters to scare their herds, so they can justify their pce as humanity's masters."

  Elti let out a tiny ugh. "Perhaps. But the motives of the kindly gods are often much more inhuman, simpler and primal than we'd like to think. Perhaps the bolt of lightning was attracted to your lofty head, instead of taking offence to the ideas inside it."

  Among the half-sunken and scorched wrecks, a sizeable fleet still floated on the ke. The vessels flew our colours, so I presumed we had won.

  A rowing boat came at us, with Sulme at the prow. I tried to sit up, but my body was too stiff. Elti leaned down and offered her hand. With her help, I managed to stand up.

  The boat hit nd, and Sulme jumped into the ankle-deep water. Immediately he staggered. I reached forward and nearly tripped over, but Elti kept me up.

  Holding the side of his hip, Sulme limped to us. He nodded at Elti. "Hi, Mum."

  "Hello, Sulme."

  The Nilkoan held up a cloak. He wrapped it around me and embraced me tightly, but said not a word. I didn't either, as I had to concentrate on not sobbing in front of the audience.

  Sulme drew back. Though he smiled that faint smile, his well-like eyes poured with tears.

  "Are you alright?" he asked.

  "Yes." I gulped down the lump in my throat. "You shouldn't be up with that wound."

  "No, I shouldn't. Let's get back to the ship." Sulme turned his mother. "Are you staying upside, Mum?"

  "Yes, this seems like the occasion for a visit to my little boy." Elti gave me an amused gnce.

  The two rowers, who had come with Sulme, helped me and him back to the boat, and we headed over the ke to Hierodule. Her loose sails hung ragged like the wings of an old butterfly, and the hull was scarred and bckened. Already men hung over the side, mending the damage.

  My body too could have used little nimble sprites to repair it. I cked the strength to climb up even the retively low ship, so getting me onboard was an embarrassing operation.

  There was no cheering. The crew's stares were silent. I couldn't exactly bme them for not treating me like a hero. Even if Umu's monstrous form had been seared away, her fell nature was still mine.

  "Let's get you to the cabin to rest," Sulme said.

  "No. I will speak to my soldiers. Help me to the stern deck."

  Up on the deck, I leaned on the rail and did my best to stand straight. The men waited quiet, which was fortunate, as I wasn't up to much shouting.

  "Ekran men!" I said. "I see that we have won. Though I had to spent my fire to deliver a decisive blow on the enemy, make no mistake. It was your courage and firm arms, which secured our victory."

  Unsure murmurs moved through my audience. But the eyes on me hardened, and weary but approving smiles appeared on the tired faces.

  I gestured at the ke around us. "Without you, there would be a lightly cooked fleet right here, ready to pilge your homend. But because every one of you is worth two of the Tamsi, I only see our fleet. Pity the songwrights, who will have to keep the tales in the realm of remotely pusible."

  Laughter. They weren't too shocked for that. I rexed a little and smiled myself.

  "Yet this is not the moment to grow compcent!" I strained my voice. "Your ancestors have seen your mettle. From now on they expect nothing less of you. The way to the gates of the capital ys open, but the walls remain guarded. Rest now, so you are ready to face the Tamsi again. Divide the loot, repair our ships. Remember the fallen, sacrifice to the gods and thank our ancestors. We will head towards the coast tomorrow."

  Next to me, a young voice shouted the name of Umu. My page had appeared out of the thin air, it seemed. The boy sure had zest. He needed a suitably honorary title.

  My page's cry was joined by the rest of the soldiers. They hadn't sensed my weakness, even though it was apparent in my body.