Flux

refused to budge; and rather than slow himself down, the man let go of the leash and abandoned his new purchase.
    Miner immediately took off, racing toward the palace.
    There were plenty of other people about as well, of course, but they were too busy fleeing in panic to take much notice of a naked slave trailing a leash behind him as he sprinted up the pavement. But he had to take some care because there was rubble everywhere, and he darted this way and that to avoid it, heedless of his bare feet.
    He had managed to get only about two blocks closer to the palace when the wave hit. Miner came to a skidding halt and watched as the water crested over the hill. When the water receded a moment later, everything was gone: the palace, the gardens and fancy houses, the hill itself. The land that remained was as flat as the rest of the harbor shore.
    The water drew out of the harbor again and Miner waited. He expected it to come rushing back, this time washing away the rest of the city. But when the water did come back into the harbor, it came so slowly and gently that only a little splashed over the sea wall, just barely dampening his feet. Many the ships in the harbor must have been destroyed, but the remainder of the city was unharmed.
    For long minutes Miner simply stood there, unmindful of the chaos around him. Then he walked slowly to the sea wall and looked down into the water. And he did the last imaginable thing: he climbed the stone wall and leapt into the sea.

Chapter Thirteen
    h

    M iner couldn’t swim.
    Despite living on a peninsula where the sea was never far away, few people in Praesidium could swim. The water was too cold, too treacherous. Before he’d been brought Under, he’d seen the ocean every day but almost never touched it. He’d certainly never been submerged in it. And then he’d been thrown into that stone basin full of cold brine and he’d spent the next 300 years drowning.
    So after Miner jumped into the harbor, his arms and legs flailed instinctively but uselessly and, although he’d initially bobbed up to the water’s surface like a cork, he soon sank under again. His lungs burned as he fought the urge to inhale, but then, helplessly, senselessly, his body tried to find oxygen and he was rewarded with a chest full of water. He coughed and thrashed and got his limbs tangled in the leash. The iron about his neck felt heavier and tighter than ever before. He saw the light at the surface of the water drawing away from him, almost as if he were floating into the air rather than dropping down.
    His arms and legs felt leaden and he was so tired, so bloody tired, that all he could do was give in and allow himself to drown for the final time.
    And then an odd thing happened.
    The water around him—in him—stopped feeling dangerous and hostile. Instead, it was welcoming, as if he were a guest fondly anticipated. It felt warm and it soothed the burn on his back, the bruises and abrasions on his chafed skin, the cuts he’d sustained on his feet as he ran down rubble-filled pavement. It cradled him, supported him.
    He coughed several times and the fluid was expelled from his lungs. When he inhaled again, somehow he found air—beautiful, delicious air—and he took several deep breaths until the grayness around the edges of his vision went away and he could think clearly again.
    Well, as clearly as could be expected, considering he was somehow alive and breathing despite being underwater.
    It was difficult to judge, but he reckoned that the surface was perhaps fifteen feet above him. When he looked down he could see sand and rocks another twenty feet or so beneath him, and fronds of sea grasses gently waving in the current, and little fish darting to and fro. A red crab scurried by waving its claws.
    Miner himself seemed to have reached a sort of equilibrium, his body neither rising nor falling. He simply floated there comfortably. The last of his panic disappeared to be replaced by wonder.
    He discovered that if he moved his arms just right he could swing his body around, and he did, slowly spinning so he could take in his surroundings. It was as if he’d been transported to another world. Of to one side he could make out the barnacle-covered rocks that made up the bottom of the sea wall. The sand and debris that had been disturbed by the great waves were still resettling, little bits sometimes catching the light from above and sparkling like falling stars. There was rubbish on the sea floor,