Jake broke through to the surface. It was littered with scraps of kelp and splinters of wood. He looked for Cal. A hand grabbed his foot and she bobbed up beside him, her face scratched and hair specked with green. "Where is it?" she said desperately. "The message - can you see it?"
They scanned the water together, silently. "We've got to find it!" Cal turn tail and Jake, still catching his breath, took one more gulp and dived after her. Jake swept left and right. His keen eye caught by every flashing fin. Cal streaked past him, her hair flaming like a comet's tail. "It must have got caught up in the pladdywreck she told herself. "If the seabed is sandy we might find it." However, to Cal's dismay, the seabed beneath them was covered with thick tufts of purple coral weed that stretched as far as the eye could see.
Still, they began to hunt, prodding and peering, agitating pipefish and stirring up clouds of feathery fronds. The weed itself was slippery and the rock beneath crisscrossed with deep hidden fissures. Jake soon found it was too dangerous to stand on so he had to keep swimming. After what seems like hours his arms and legs begin to ache.
"It's no good," he said dejectedly, "this is hopeless. The message is probably torn to spreads. It would have slipped into this weed or dropped between the rocks. We'll never find it."
After all the years she'd longed to know about her mother Cal couldn't accept that the precious cloth with its untold secrets was gone. "It has to be here," she muttered as she continued to skim the coral, "We've just got to keep looking. I don't care how long it takes - it's close, I know it..."
Jake abandoned his search and felt around cautiously for a safe place to rest. He watched Cal desperately rake through the weed for a hint of silver thread. Suddenly, she stopped, "Someones coming," she said. "Listen..." Jake was becoming accustomed to the cries and whistles of sea creatures, the plaintive moans that echoed through the water, but now he heard something different. From the distant haze, tinged with purple light reflected off the rocks, came all dull hammering and a clatter. It was growing louder. Moving nearer. "Bloodfin?" said Jake.
"I don't know," said Cal, puzzled. The sound was oddly familiar but she couldn't think why. There's nowhere to hide here. Let's go."
She flung out her arms and soared up towards the surface. Jake followed but he couldn't match her speed. When Cal paused to wait for him, a look of astonishment flashed across her face. He turned too and saw the source of the strange sound. Traveling towards them was the most extraordinary caravan - first came two striped sailfish, swimming side by side, with long, lean bodies, blue backs, white bellies and slender sickle-shaped tails. Their spears reminded Jake of the deadly marlin. As if of one mind, the sailfish raised their broad fins which fluttered like ragging flags. Each wore a harness around its body from which trailed a dozen or more length of rope and chain. On to these were tied an assortment of objects; scraps of metal, a small broken propeller, a crook of bone that might have been the jaw of a young whale, empty lobster pots and net begs filled with urchins and mollusks. They banged and clattered together. Both harnesses were attached to a pair of reins and holding these, following the sailfish, was a Delphine man swimming powerfully through the water. The man was quite unlike the Bloodfin Jake had seen. He had loose, white hair and stubbed on his jaw. His body was thin but immensely strong and wiry. Jake noticed how every muscle and sinew strained as he controlled the will of the big fish. He wore a curious wristband of twisted wire with green glass beads and there were scars on his forearms and chest. From his shoulders flowed a layered cloak made with scraps of fishing net laced together.
He reminded Jake of a picture in Charley's big Bible, of a bare-chested old man on a mountaintop, looking up at jagged lightning in a thundery sky. Jake couldn't decide if he was young and strong with the appearance of age or an old man who had somehow retained his vigor. "Look," said Cal, "on his belt - the chain of keys." It was Tarian, the trader. Tarian slowed as he came near. He pulled hard on the reins to halt the big fish, but they tugged resentfully, smashing their cargoes against each other, so that he had to wreck their leashes to bring them to rest. Then he turned and look directly at Jake and Cal circling in the water above. He waited, watching them. "Come on," said Cal. "He may have seen the message." Jake swam cautiously alongside Cal and felt the water constrict around them. The sailfish nosed the weed impatiently, still straining at their reins. They approach Tarian. He stared with silent fascination at Jake, his emerald eyes glinting from their deep sockets like fugitive creatures in dark caves. "I come from the Silvertail village," Cal began, "my name is-"
"I know who you are," interrupted Tarian in a low, quiet voice. "You are Pelin's daughter. Pelin the Sorrowful." Cal was take back to hear her father called by this name. "There was a raid," she said. "Bloodfin attacked our village. There's no one left... Just us." If Tarian was listening he showed no sign of it. He studied Jake's legs and feet, his unwebbed hands. Jake tried to tread water but he felt embarrassed by his awkward movements. "Don't flinch, you idiot," he told himself. "Let him look at you." As he met Tarian's gaze Jake had the odd sensation that Tarian was looking right through him. He lifted his chin defiantly.
"I'm searching for news of my father," Cal persisted. "I know he escaped... I'm sure he did." "I have many eyes and ears," said Tarian, turning to her at last. "I know much. But knowledge is powerful currency. You wish to learn about the fait of your father. Show me first what you know. Have you learn how to breath life into the drowned?"
"I'm not drowned," Jake blurted. The sailfish bridled at the sound of his voice. Tarian tugged their reins. "And her name is Cal.
"He's a Creeper, but he can breath like us," said Cal. Tarian pondered on this, leaving a long silence that Cal felt compelled to break. "My mother-" "Ah, yes... Tarian sighed.
Suddenly, a sheet of darkness gathered above their heads. All three felt a chill flood through their veins.Jake and Cal were seized with alarm. How could they have forgotten to watch for the Bloodfin! They look up, but the dark shape immediately fled. "Treacherous shadows," muttered Tarian. "Come. A malevolent current is swelling..." The agitated sailfish pulled hard, eager to move off. "We cannot talk here."