Free Gods of the Greataway by Michael G. Coney Page B

gave orders to destroy their invention?”
    Now Or Kala looked puzzled, remembering. “Oddly enough, they didn’t mind. In fact they were as happy as the king, particularly the young one shaped like a sunfish.”
    “You don’t suspect a trick?”
    “I don’t see what tricks they could pull.”
    “Strangers often have unusual powers.”
    “Not these strangers. They are just ordinary people from a culture that differs from ours. I think they come from Dry Land.”
    “Oh, that explains it.” Satisfied, the King went to check on Kelina. He could hardly believe his good fortune. Indeed, it was something of an anticlimax.
    *
    Seven days later the towers of Uami could be seen on the horizon, and within another day the shoreline could be discerned. Slowly the islands moved closer, and soon the seabirds began to fly between them. Two days later again, figures could be made out on the Uami shore.
    “Last night I had a foolish dream,” said King Usalo. “I dreamed that Awamia had tricked us after all, and when our two lands touched, a huge army sprang onto Malaloa and captured us.” He chuckled ruefully. “Just make sure we have adequate forces at the point of contact, Or Kala.”
    Ten meters separated the two islands now, and the Uami people could be clearly seen — probably not more than a hundred strong and most of them idle bystanders. On Malaloa, well back from the shoreline, there must have been a crowd of a thousand or more.
    “You can bring Kelina out now,” said King Usalo.
    Minstrels tell of Kelina’s last smile. They say it lighted up the land, it shone in the sea. They say that men who saw it dreamed of nothing else for the rest of their lives. They say that a sigh of wonderment came from the people on the Uami shore, and that there was nobody there who could but smile with her.
    Andshe spoke. More, she cried out in happiness, the first sounds she had made for many days. And she held out her arms, stepping to the edge of the grass, and now the gap was almost closed, and in a few moments she would be able to jump across and be reunited with her people and her father …
    But it was not King Awamia that she smiled at.
    She did not hold out her arms to her father.
    Neither was her cry of happiness directed at him.
    There was a hush, as people realized. And then came an ugly, disbelieving murmur. King Awamia stepped back as though he had been hit.
    Kelina was greeting the monstrous stranger — he of the orca chest and coarse black hair. It was the monster she smiled at, the monster she held her arms out to, the monster she called to so gladly.
    And he shuffled forward like some grotesque crab, extending a limb across the gap to her.
    A moan of outrage came from the people of Uami. Kelina the beautiful, the King’s daughter, was spoiled.
    And in the deeps, the Great Blue knew, and his rage knew no bounds. His mighty flukes thrust downward and his body leaped forward and upward, and he rose from the depths like a rocket.
    Now Kelina’s hand grasped for the monster.
    The Great Blue hurtled from the water in a fountain of spray, rising through the narrow passage between the islands, hurling the shore back so that the people were flung from their feet. A flashing azure shape unbelievably huge, he filled the sky as he arched up, across, and down into the ocean again, a moment’s vision of glistening majesty becoming a shallowing ripple on the surface.
    Kelina was gone.
    A jagged rent in the shore showed where she had stood.
    The ugly stranger had been thrown onto his back, and the other strangers crawled to him across the tossing land. They helped him to his feet and they stood awhile, as the Riders and their orcas sought the sea in vain for some trace of Kelina. Then, at nightfall, the strangers walked away and were seen no more.
    KingAwamia and King Usalo, shocked by the Great Blue’s rage, agreed on a compromise, and Uami became a part of Malaloa but retained its own shoreline, connected by a narrow bridge of