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Chapter One

“Is this going to hurt?” Corwin asked with more than a little trepidation. The warmth of the late summer sun beat down on his bare shoulders, but he was still shivering — and not just from the chilly seawater of Carmarthen Bay swirling below his waist.

“I don't know,” Nia replied, a hint of concern in her aquamarine eyes. She brushed back a long strand of pale, silvery hair from her face. “I've never tried this kind of transformation.”

That's not very encouraging,Corwin thought. “Because I remember watching your evil mermyd king Ma'el transform his fish tail into two legs,” he said, “and he screamed a lot.”

Nia glanced away a moment. “Yes, well, that was a bigger change than what Gobaith and I have planned for you.”

“Ma'el is a lot more powerful than you and Gobaith. And he still screamed,” Corwin pointed out.

Nia sighed. “We're only going to help your gills to show themselves. And change your lungs a little. And give you webbing on your hands and feet, if you want.”

“So basically, you're going to turn me into a frog,” Corwin said, only half joking.

“I've heard witches do that, you know.”

Nia curved her arm under the water and sent a huge splash over him. “I'm not a witch! And you'll be a mermyd, not a frog. Whatever a frog is.”

“Remind me to show you one someday.” The cool sea spray felt good on Corwin's shoulders, and he couldn't help noticing that Nia looked very pretty when she was annoyed. But he wasn't really getting any more relaxed about all of this. He was terrified that the body he'd lived in — quite well, thank you — for the first sixteen years of hisexistence was about to be changed. Yes, he trusted Nia with his life. He was telepathically joined to her and had been for the three weeks since she had arrived on the shores of Wales. How could he not have grown to trust her? And he also trusted Gobaith, of course, the strange squidlike creature whose forebears had come from another world among the stars and who was also mentally joined to him and had magical power Corwin would have once thought was unimaginable. But Corwin was still scared out of his mind. He wasn't about to show them just how scared, though.

He heard a bubbling in the water beside him. Gobaith had surfaced, his round, blobby head bobbing on the water, his saucer-sized golden eyes staring at Corwin.

Don't be afraid, Gobaith “said” in Corwin's mind. This will be easy.

So much for hiding my feelings, Corwin thought. It was possible, with a certain kind of concentration, to keep Nia or Gobaith from knowing his emotions. But it didn't always work. “I didn't ask if it would be hard, Gobaith. I asked if it would hurt.”

Nia frowned at him. “What's a little pain to you? You said your late guardian Fenwyck used to hit you all the time. You survived that, didn't you?”

“That was different,” Corwin grumbled. The bruises, cuts and welts Fenwyck had delivered had healed quickly enough and Corwin was himself again afterward. These changes might stay with him forever. Would he even know who he was anymore? Well, really, did he know now?

Most of his life, Corwin had been just a thief and county fair charlatan, helping Fenwyck do cheap “magic” tricks for the crowd. Then Fenwyck had gotten himself killed after trying to steal a silver chalice from King Vortigern, and Corwin had had to hide out from the Royal Guard. Corwin had almost gotten used to being a poor beachcomber when he had happened upon the shell that had contained Gobaith, and then Nia had entered his life. Nothing had been the same after that. Even what he knew of his identity had been shattered when Gobaith had informed him that the father he'd never known had been a mermyd and that Corwin was part mermyd himself.

Nia, as she so often did, seemed to catch his thoughts. “Once you were a small boy. And now you're an older, taller boy. You'll never be that little boy again. Your body has already changed forever. And you won't stay as you are now forever, no matter what. Some day you'll get old and — ”

“All right! All right!” Corwin surrendered. “I didn't say I was being reasonable.”

That's good, Gobaith thought. Because you aren't.

Nia put her hand on Corwin's arm. “If we don't change you, you can't come with me to Atlantis to search for the sword we need to defeat Ma'el. Gobaith and I would have to leave you behind.”

Corwin swallowed hard. She had touched on the one thing that bothered him more than pain and change. After the closeness he'd grown used to with Nia and Gobaith, being so distant from them would be almost unbearable. Especially since they had a dangerous and important duty ahead of them.

Ma'el had killed the reigning Farworlder kings of Atlantis to get their oculae, the walnut-sized organs in their foreheads that gave them magical abilities. By implanting these oculae into his body, Ma'el had gained their power. Ma'el, along with Joab, the Farworlder he was mentally joined to, had taken over Atlantis and had plans to conquer the “dry-lander” kingdoms as well. Corwin, Nia and Gobaith had been able to stop him once. But they couldn't completely defeat him. Not yet...

Water #3: Transformation. Copyright © by Kara Dalkey. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.