Tavi clung to Pahtl’s back in the mist-filled shallows, doing his best to stay very, very still despite the tremors of cold shaking his bones. He’d seen spiny fins break the surface of the water in the distance no fewer than five times since they swam into the mists. Pahtl had slipped effortlessly through the water, barely even disturbing the waves, not even grumbling for once. Even so, Tavi knew it was only by sheer luck that whatever prowled the waters hadn’t spotted them.

Now, though, they waited in the shallows, eyeing the bipedal frog creatures as they dug in the wet sand of the shore with sticks, apparently digging up mussels, clams, or maybe even whatever demon lurker had made a melted, scarred mess of Tavi’s leg the last time they were here. At least a dozen of the mucus-skinned frog men crouched near the lapping shore, occasionally croaking at each other as they collected little piles of shelled creatures from the sand. They showed no signs of moving on, and Pahtl had been holding them steady less than a stone’s throw out into the water for what felt like half a hand or more.

Tavi shivered again, sending ripples out to bisect the gentle waves. He tried not to, but his body wasn’t listening to him very well. He could barely feel his hands in the otter’s fur.

Pahtl looked back at him, teeth bared in concern. “We must do something,” he murmured, tucking his head back toward Tavi so only he could hear without alerting the beasts.

“Can’t,” Tavi whispered.

“Must,” Pahtl countered.

Tavi envisioned the foolhardy otter charging out of the shallows at the frog men. There was no way he’d survive. Pahtl was fast and wily, and his teeth were sharp, but these frog men were unnaturally strong for their size, and they’d pin him down and infect him with their prehensile tongues in moments. “Stop,” he muttered, pulling on Pahtl’s fur. “What are you going to do?”

“I will tell you afterward.”

Tavi reached for his blunt little ear and pinched it with numb fingers, hoping it would shock the stubborn beast into listening. “That doesn’t help!”

“If we are to die, let us do it quickly,” Pahtl whispered. “Can your feet touch?”

Grinding his teeth, Tarek let his feet drift down. His feet were too cold to feel the sand, but his knees let him know they were encountering resistance. “Yes. What are you doing?”

They were only a few body-lengths from the frog creatures now, only the necessary bits of their heads above the water. “Be ready to move sideways.”

Why? Tavi wanted to scream, but then the otter’s enormous tail slapped the water like a giant hand clapping, and he stiffened in shock. The frog men’s heads snapped up, bulging black eyes staring soullessly right at them. “Are you insane?”

“I am smart,” Pahtl said, sounding offended. He clapped the water again with his tail. The frog men were wading out toward them, shin-deep in the water with their shuffling gait.

“We were hiding!” Tavi said, gathering his feet under himself. “That was the whole point.”

“They will be too busy to care about us,” Pahtl said, sounding totally unconcerned. “Go now!” With that, he surged through the water to Tavi’s left, swimming parallel to the shore. All of the frog things were out in the water now, charging hard to reach them, pulling themselves along with webbed hands.

Tavi had no choice but to follow Pahtl, cursing and spitting out sea water as he went. The frog things would be quicker in the water than he would. They’d catch him effortlessly. Why did I think an otter would have a good plan?

Then the deep water exploded with motion as the monster from the deep came to feed. Tavi’s legs churned faster than he’d thought they could even as he craned his neck back to see the thing. It was massive – its smooth, snakelike body looped and coiling through the water as its frilled, toothy maw darted forward. There was no knowing how long it was; he caught only glimpses of its length, but its barrel of a body was wide enough that two grown men would have had trouble locking hands around its middle.

The racket of splashing in the shallows drew its attention, and the snake monster lunged forward, its huge mouth closing over the head and torso of one of the frog men and snapping shut, leaving a pair of legs to totter and fall in the churning water. The frog men hissed and hooted in dismay, turning back to shore. They were too slow. The monster was in their midst, wreaking black-blood havoc on their retreat.

“Now to shore!” Pahtl crowed. “I told you I am smart!”

Tavi’s mouth was too full of sea water and fear saliva to respond, but he promised himself to catch the biggest fish in the world for Pahtl and let him have it all. They reached the sand and Tavi lumbered clumsily toward the distant treeline, hoping none of the frog things would get far enough out of the water to escape the sea monster and follow after them.

Luck was not with them on that count nor on any other. Looking back, Tavi saw fully half of the creatures scrambling up the shoreline toward safety. Even worse, when he turned forward again, another dozen had broken out of the trees and were galumphing toward him. His run faltered, and he veered off to the side, hoping they’d miss him in the fray.

Burbling animal screams from behind pulled his eye again, and he saw salvation as the sea monster charged out onto the shore on short, bowed legs and resumed its feasting.

"It has legs!” he laughed.

“So do you,” Pahtl panted, churning through the sand to keep up. “Use them.”

The frog men coming down to the ruckus focused on the sea snake, or whatever it was, hurling rocks and whacking it with sticks as they tried to pull their fellows free of the snapping jaws. They might as well have thrown themselves in its mouth, because that’s where they ended up shortly anyway. Risking one more glance backward, Tavi could see that the great beast had short, caiman-like legs every man-length or two down its massive tube of a body, with ridged, spiny fins sticking up from its back. It had wound circles around five or more frog-man corpses, and it looked as if half its body was still in the water. I’m the Land’s luckiest fool. When I cross the narrow sea again, I’m doing it in a boat. A big one. I never would have come back if I’d known that was waiting out there.

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The last of the frog creatures disappeared down its gullet, and it turned in Tavi’s direction, giving a clacking cry of challenge.

“Wormshit,” Tavi said, redoubling his speed. He kept a close eye on the sands, not wanting to put a foot in one of the sinkholes that housed whatever had tried to digest his leg. Each time he looked back, though, the snake creature had closed the gap just a little. By the time they reached the trees, it was only ten body-lengths back.

“It’s going to catch us,” he gasped to Pahtl, who was still laboring at his side.

“Climb the trees,” the otter grunted.

“But you can’t! And it’d just knock them over anyway.”

“I was less smart than I thought,” Pahtl admitted.

A thumping crash echoed through the misty stretch of trees, and then another. Tavi would have thought it was the snake thing coming for them, but the sound reverberated from the depths of the jungle, not behind them. Something else was coming, and there was no way he could outrun it. I hope whatever ends up eating me gets indigestion, he thought grimly. Sorry, Tarek. I thought I could help.

A huge, feathered head appeared above the canopy some fifteen man-lengths above them, its eyes birdlike and its jaw toothy. Another crash came through the jungle, and Tavi glimpsed its body. It looked like a feathered lizard standing on its hind legs, its front arms foreshortened and ending in claws. It bellowed into the mists, and the clacking cry of the walking sea monster replied. Tavi dove aside as a leg the size of a tree swung past him, and rolled further to escape the mighty swinging tail that followed.

The new monster ran right past them and jumped through the air on its powerful hind legs to land on the snake-thing’s back, its razor teeth cutting through fins and flesh. The sea creature twined itself around the upright beast’s legs and returned the favor, taking a bloody hunk out of a feathered thigh.

"Quick now!” Pahtl urged him, and Tavi, fascinated though he was at the sight of the two titans mauling each other, wasted no time in following him into the underbrush.

The next handspans were long, tense, cold ones. Tavi and Pahtl kept to the cover of ferns and bushes, only moving when they heard nothing in the vicinity. Several times they heard the hoots of the frog folk, and once another great world-shaking beast tramped by in the near distance, but all Tavi saw was leaves and mist.

He wished they could move faster – they’d passed through the mists in only a few handspans the first time – but now that they knew what waited for them in the shadows, he dared not move until he was sure they weren’t exposing themselves to danger. Pahtl was invaluable, his sensitive ears and nose alerting him to perils that Tavi would have missed entirely. For the most part, Tavi huddled in the dirt in his sopping, filthy furs, waiting to be told it was time to move. It felt like he spent an eternity that way. At some point he started to fall asleep as he waited, and that made the night feel even longer. He was never sure, when Pahtl nudged him, if he’d been dozing for only a few heartbeats or for a fingerspan or more. The world was nothing but fern fronds, cold mists, and even colder leather against his skin.

At some point the mists began to grow brighter. By the time he noticed, Tavi was sure it had been happening for a while. He was crouched in the lee of a fallen tree, waiting to scramble to a fern he could see a stone’s throw away, when he realized, That fern is a stone’s throw away, and I can see it. That doesn’t seem right.

Looking around, he saw that the mists were thinner. A faint bright spot marred the gray-whiteness overhead, and he realized it was the sun. They’d crept through the jungle all night, and they’d reached the fringes of the mists. Feeling almost detached from his body, Tavi stood and walked toward the distant fern plant.

“Wait, cub!” Pahtl hissed. “What are you doing?”

“We’re through,” Tavi said, reveling in the sound of his own voice. “The mists are thinning. I don’t think the frog things will come this far.”

Pahtl butted him in the good leg with his head. “You should sit back down and wait for a bit. We should be sure.”

Tavi regarded him giddily, feeling the detached unreality of exhaustion. “Have you heard them lately?”

Pahtl rubbed the sides of his face with his short paws, looking as usual is if he were stroking the long white mustache markings of his face. “No. But I wanted you to sleep a little in a safe spot before we went any further.”

Tavi reached down and patted his head, nearly overbalancing as he did so. “Thanks, but I’ll be safest in the sun.”

“Will you?” Pahtl nuzzled against him. “There are slick-skins in the sun.”

He didn’t have the strength to argue. “Come on. I’ll sleep once I’m in a spot where I can make a proper fire.”

Another half a hand, and they could see the blue sky overhead. Looking back, Tavi saw the great wall of mists that sealed the Land away from the rest of the world. I’m probably the only person to leave and come back. I’m not sure if that makes me brave or just stupid.

He found himself a flat rock in the shade of a frond tree and sat down, setting down the journey bag he’d had slung across his back. He peeled off his half-dry fur parka and laid it out flat on the rock to let it dry, then did the same for pants and shoes. He stretched out naked in the dirt and let the sun warm him. Pahtl sat by his side, giving extra warmth and comfort. Bit by bit the fear and cold leached out of him, and Tavi slept.

When he woke, the sun was halfway across the sky, and apart from a few bothersome flies, nothing had attacked him the whole time. He marveled, wondering that his life had become so fraught and unsettled that a few peaceful hands of the sun felt unusual. Once I have Xochil’s magic for my own, then I’ll be safe, and so will Tarek. Then I’m going to sleep for a year.

He rose, stretched, and massaged the stiffness out of his furs so he could put them back on. It was warm and humid here in the lowlands by the sea, but he’d be climbing back into the mountains shortly, and he’d need them. He turned to Pahtl, who was crouched a short ways off, staring off into the mists.

“Thanks for letting me sleep,” Tavi said.

“All things must rest,” the otter said sagely. “Even me.”

“Let me get a little journey meal in my belly, and we can go.”

Pahtl gave a great sigh and put his head between his paws. “I cannot go with you, cub.”

The journey meal turned to ash in Tavi's mouth. “What?”

“I have gone too far. I cannot feel Tarek anymore.” The otter kept staring at the mists.

“But… he’s in that other land. To the north. That’s the whole reason we came back, so I can get the magic to save him. Don’t leave now!”

Pahtl gnawed on a paw, seeming upset. “It should not matter that I cannot feel his presence, but it does. It is a great wrongness in my head. I have to go find him.”

Tavi felt an irrational anger. “Then why’d you say you’d come with me?”

Pahtl rose and came to him, putting his head in his lap. “I meant to. I wanted to keep you safe.”

“You have! I’d have died in the mists without you. I’d have never been able to cross the narrow sea before that. It’s not suddenly going to be safe just because we’re back in the Land. I’m going to need your help.” Tavi stroked Pahtl’s back, trying to keep himself from clutching the animal to himself. The thought of being alone was terrifying.

Pahtl caught his hand between his paws and nosed at it. “I wish to help you, but I must go back. I cannot explain it. His absence is like the buzzing of a hive in me.”

“You’re going back through the mists?” Tavi gaped at him. “That’s a terrible idea!”

“The creatures of the mists do not watch for me as they watch for slick-skins. So long as they are not hungry, I will be safe.”

“They’re all hungry, Pahtl.”

“I will be careful.”

Tavi reached for words and couldn’t find any. “What am I going to do on my own?” he finally said, hating how childish he sounded.

Pahtl rose up on his hindquarters and put his paws on Tavi’s shoulders where he sat. The otter was bigger than he had been when they met. “You will be well. You are smarter than your brother. You are almost as smart as a water person.”

Tavi’s eyes prickled, and he hugged the otter around the middle. “You are the best of the water people, Pahtl.”

“I know, cub. But you will find the old one’s magic, and then you will be even greater than me.”

Tavi laughed, and then tried to envision reading Xochil’s books and speaking his words of power to command the light of the moon. “Yes, I will. Thanks, Pahtl.”

“Be safe, Tavi, my brother. Come find us when it is time.”

And then, with one last nuzzle and a friendly nip at the ear, Pahtl trundled away toward the mists.

Tavi watched until he was gone, and then he was alone.