Excerpt 3.
Azarr’s head crested the waves, and he gasped for oxygen. The river roared around him, now whitewater, with caps of pale foam cresting the brown waves. He could make out the edge of the shoreline, and little else but the dark sky stretching above him.
He gasped, thinking that he should swim to shore and find his compatriots…
Something grabbed him. Still in the shape of a snake, he wriggled and lashed out to bite, but something—someone—grabbed him just behind his neck, and he was helpless. He was torn away from the sack containing the book, and he found himself staring into the grey eyes of one of the Ker. The Ker smiled with a mouth of serrated teeth.
He thought that the Ker meant to eat him, but he was jammed unceremoniously into a large bottle. He writhed within it as the Ker capped it. He hissed and made to change back into a man and break the glass.
But he couldn’t change back to the shape of a man.
He flopped in the bottle, panicked, as the Ker drew him below the surface of the water. The Ker pulled him down to the quiet floor of the river, where the current did not buffet them. Two more Ker had gathered among the rusty cans, wheels, and bicycles. Maeje sat on one of the bicycles sidesaddle, as if it were a throne. Her hair floated around her head like a cloud, and her eyes glimmered.
The Ker handed her the sack and the bottle. Maeje tucked the sack under her arm and gazed at the bottle. She tapped on it with her webbed fingers.
“That was a very noble try, little snake. But you must understand, I have my own magic over shape and form.” Her voice was clearer underwater than it had been in air; her gills fluttered, and her mouth sounded as if it was full of bells.
“Where are the rest of the people I came with? The librarians?” he demanded, though he knew he was in no position to demand anything of her.
“Ah, little pet.” She shook her head, and her hair drifted lazily in the water. “The river has taken them. You shall not see any of them again.”
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