The Wyrd of Willowmere

Chapter 12

The world changed again as her mind was pulled free of its animal host and into a new one. Claire found herself adrift in a dull grey haze, thick as a mist: the brackish water of the Sundarbans. Light came down from above, soft and muted, and she could just make out several shapes around her. One moved past her right field of vision—elongated, streamlined, gliding weightlessly through the murk. It was little more than a silhouette, but it was recognizable. A dolphin, one of a type unfamiliar to Claire, with a very long and narrow beak. She watched as it vanished into the grey dusk with a stroke of its fluked tail. The others all had the same outline, and her own host was no doubt one of them: a member of their family group, or pod. She reached out with her thoughts to touch her host's mind, and sensed the creature's love for its pod mates, its extended clan. The bonds between them were so strong that they never ventured very far from one another and were always in close contact, through sonar or through touch. What comfort, what security there was in this close-knit group!

Leo's mental voice spoke. "I'm being hosted by the matriarch, and will get her to follow our guide's crocodile host. The rest of the pod will follow her automatically—as with most dolphin species, the mother is head of the family. So you two can just relax and let your hosts do the swimming. Dolphins are hard creatures to influence anyway, because they're so intelligent."

"Ah—I recognize this species!" said Myra's voice. "They're Indo-Pacific humpbacked dolphins. A most interesting animal. They swim along coastlines and estuaries for the most part, and they come in quite an assortment of colours: brown-grey, and pure white, and even bright bubblegum pink."

Claire couldn't see any colours at all in the gloom. Everything was in shades of grey. "Are they colour blind?" she asked.

"Yes—all cetaceans are," said Myra. "The water here's so murky I doubt you 'd see much in the way of colour anyway. Their long-distance vision isn't very good either, though that doesn't matter since there's such poor visibility here. They mainly use sonar to find their way around."

Claire could hear the strange sounds, like radio static, that filled the water all around her. The dolphins would listen for echoes of these sounds bouncing off hidden objects, she knew, and so find their way without needing to rely much on their limited vision. Occasionally a fragment of weed or a dead twig would float past, a shadow against the wan light, but for the most part there was nothing to be seen except the swimming forms of the dolphins below, above, and to either side. She wondered which of these sleek, dark forms were hosting Myra and Leo.

A loud burst of creaking, popping sonar erupted as the dolphins simultaneously detected an object ahead. In a few moments it was visible even to the weak eyes of Claire's host: a black shape with a long tapering tail that undulated to either side as it swam at the surface above. They had found the crocodile.

The matriarch slowed her pace to accommodate the reptile's more leisurely progress, the others in the pod all following suit. From the squeals and chattering sounds exchanged among them Claire guessed they were either excited or alarmed at the proximity of this dangerous predator. Her own host was certainly agitated, though Claire also sensed its curiosity and its loyalty to its mother-leader. The other animals in the pod no doubt felt the same.

From time to time, as her host rose to breathe at the surface, Claire had a glimpse of their surroundings. The channel in which they swam was steadily widening, the shores to either side receding into grey blurred obscurity. Everything looked like an old black-and-white movie that was slightly out of focus. The crocodile swam on at the bidding of its Legion daimon, its scaly back surrounded by the dorsal fins and spouting blowholes of its dolphin escort. It would make a very odd spectacle, Claire thought, if there were any humans about to see. But there were no boats on this stretch of water, and the only other creature visible was the faint shadow of the hawk flying just above.