Tavi moved with sudden and shocking speed, for the Cane's head. Before
Isana could react, her son seized one of the Cane's upright ears hard with one hand, squeezing and twisting, and clamped Varg's muzzle shut with the fingers of his other hand, shoving the Cane's head back at an almost brutal angle.
Then, to Isana's utter shock, her son went for the Cane's throat with his teeth.
Varg's entire, enormous body stiffened, and his clawed paw-hands half rose from the water-but before they could reach for Tavi, they froze in place, and a low growl bubbled in Varg's throat.
She heard her son, then. Tavi, his teeth still closed over the Cane's throat, snarled like a beast. The sound rose, deepened again, then repeated. Isana realized with a shock that he was speaking to the Cane.
Varg's bloody eyes seemed to focus for a second or two, and then the Cane let out a low growl and lowered his claws back into the water again.
Tavi opened his mouth slowly, and straightened. He released the hard grip on the Cane's ear, his hand dropping to grip the fur at the nape of Varg's neck. With the other hand, he kept on holding the Cane's muzzle closed.
He turned his head to one side and spat and snorted, apparently to get fur out of his mouth. "Go ahead," he said quietly, then. "He'll be still now."
Isana stared at him for a moment. "How in the world...?"
He gave her a weary smile. "Just have to know how to talk to them."
Isana shook her head, and glanced at Araris. She hadn't noticed when the singulare had stepped up close to Tavi, naked sword in hand.
"Ten minutes," Araris said quietly.
Isana nodded once, called upon Rill, and then laid her bare hand on Varg's chest.
His chest shook with one more growl, but the barely conscious Cane did not move.
Isana closed her eyes and sent her focus down into Rill, and into the water surrounding the Cane. She was immediately startled by how much water surrounded Varg. She had seen the Cane's size, of course, but if she hadn't occasionally been called upon to heal wounded livestock, she would never have even contemplated healing a creature so large.
Granted, she had never healed a Cane before. At first, she feared that the wolflike creature would be too different to benefit from the kind of healing she knew, but she rapidly saw that the fear had been groundless. Pain was universal.
She sensed the injuries in Varg as she might have in anyone else. She sent Rill coursing into the Cane's body, closing his wounds, aligning broken bones, easing inflammation and pain. None of the injuries were especially complex or difficult to repair: It was a question of volume. The Cane simply bore so many various hurts that she was shocked he had survived so long without any help.
Then there was a hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently, and Isana drew her awareness back into her own body. She looked up, blinking, to find Demos standing over her. "Lady," he said quietly. "We're out of time."
"Oh," she mumbled. "Yes, of course."
Demos regarded Tavi and his grip on Varg for a moment. Then the captain said, "We would have restrained him. If we'd had any chains."
Tavi gave Demos a sour look.
Demos nodded to Araris, then at the pool. "In, all of you." He went to the side of the pool and drew a rope from his belt. He secured one end to a ring on the near side of the pool, the other to a similar ring on the far side. "Everyone get hold of that."
Isana told Tavi, "Varg is unconscious now. I had to do a lot. He'll need help."
Tavi nodded once and glanced at Araris. The singulare put his sword away. Each of them went to one side of Varg, dragging one of the Cane's huge arms over their shoulders.
"The rope," Demos said quietly, and Isana shook herself into motion, grabbing on to the rope with both hands. Demos nodded his approval, and said, quietly, "Shouldn't be long."
He closed his eyes and made a gesture with one hand. The hull of the ship, beneath her, suddenly shifted, weirdly fluid, and then simply dropped away, lowering them up to their chins into the waters of the river. As Isana watched, the hull of the ship shifted and then closed over them, leaving a bubble of air trapped against the dome-shaped indentation in the ship's hull.
Then, there was little to do but hold on to the rope in near-total darkness. And wait.
"Tavi," Isana said quietly. "How long have you known?"
There was a moment of silence. To Tavi's credit, he didn't attempt any evasions, even one so minor as asking her what she was talking about. "Almost two years now."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"At first," he said quietly, "because I thought there were things you weren't telling me. It seemed... an appealing bit of symmetry."
Isana felt a stab of anger that came along with the hurt, but she could hardly throw stones at him for keeping secrets. Besides, to a certain degree, he was right. In some ways, she'd had such treatment coming.
"What about later?" she asked quietly.
"I suppose I'd gotten used to it," he said. "I didn't even tell Araris."
"Didn't have to," Araris said quietly.
"What?" Tavi asked. "But until last night I never..."
"Asked me to turn out the furylamp in your room," Araris said. "Never missed a day out alone, practicing with Kitai." He chuckled. "You didn't think you could actually work out against me, using some of your metalcraft, and I wouldn't notice?"
"Oh," Tavi said quietly.
Isana frowned. "Araris? You knew? And you didn't tell me?"
"It wasn't mine to tell," he said quietly.
"I see," Isana said.
"Quiet," Tavi hissed.
They fell silent. Heavy boots, too heavy to be any sailor's wear, thumped on the hull above them. Hollow voices, strangely muffled, vibrated through the floorboards. There were shouts, calls, the sounds of things being moved. After several minutes of this, the sounds retreated.
Not long after, the wooden hull of the ship twitched, then parted again, and Isana idly noted the subtle, steady watercrafting worked into the hull that prevented water from rushing in, the work of Demos's witchmen, presumably.
The boards of the hull reached down around them and closed beneath them, lifting them up, until they stood in the witchmen's shallow pool again. Demos stood nearby.
"That went fairly well," he said quietly. "You'll all need to stay here in theshold until we get moving again. They might come back, and if they do, you'll have to get wet again."
"Are you sure they didn't find anything?" Tavi asked quietly.