“I—Og the Executioner—will rule you. The waters we will conquer are fair and beautiful. Cool and open—room for us all—and free of monsters. Riches for every one of you!”
The cheering halted him again. The crowd was waving its thin arms.
“Look!” whispered Atar to me.
From across the cave, a niche halfway up the opposite side, a Maagog woman launched herself into the water, swimming downward toward the platform and Og. She seemed not much older than Nona—a girl not unlike a Marinoid girl, but dead white of flesh. And puffy, with huge staring eyes and a mouth that was a gash.
She swam downward slowly and landed upon the platform close beside Og. He confronted her. She spoke to him, pleadingly—but so softly that we on the ledge could not catch her words. Then she gestured toward Nona; and then she threw her arms about Og’s neck. He struggled to release himself, while the crowd, silent now, looked on.
A moment, and Og was free, standing erect. The Maagog girl was lying on the platform where he had thrown her. She rose to her feet painfully, flinging at Nona a glance of unutterable hatred. Then again she appealed to Og—a gesture of love, despairing, desperate. It seemed to madden him. He stepped forward and struck her across the face with the flat of his arm. She fell backward, righted herself in the water, and swam slowly, limpingly away. A moment more, and she was back in the wall niche from whence she had come.
Og, with a scowl, went on talking to the crowd—telling them of the coming Marinoid war. Never once did he look up to where the girl was crouched above, watching him silently.
But I—my gaze was no longer for Og. Across the cave from me—almost at the same level and almost as far from Og and Nona as I was—that Maagog girl crouched tense. There seemed something ominous in every line of her—something that filled me with a dread—a horror.
Og’s speech rolled on. The crowd applauded. Atar whispered something to me—something about us three going back to Rax at once, to get help to rescue Nona and to prepare for the coming war.
But I did not heed him. That girl on the rock across the cave was still crouching there. The baleful gaze of her huge eyes was downward to the platform—and my heart leaped into my throat when suddenly I realized that she was staring, not at Og, but at Nona.