Holding tightly to the metal rung with one hand, Perenelle tugged the spear free and stabbed it hard into one of the octopus legs holding her. The metal barely touched the slimy skin, but the leg was abruptly snatched back, leaving the woman with a series of puckered sucker marks on her flesh. Before she could stab the creature again, the other two legs disappeared back into the dark tunnel.

“Sorceress, that was positively rude. You could have injured me. A little deeper and you would have cut my leg off.”

“That was the idea,” Perenelle muttered, shoving the spear back into the makeshift belt and pulling herself up.

“I have not lost a leg in centuries. And it takes such a long time to grow a new one,” the creature added petulantly in Greek, its accent appalling.

Ignoring him, Perenelle climbed up another rung, moving closer to the light. She wondered if Nereus would even be able to fit into the narrow shaft. The creature’s sickening stench rolled over her, making her eyes water. She swallowed hard as she felt her stomach protest. Shifting sideways in the narrow passageway, she looked down. Nereus was standing at the bottom of the shaft. She could just about make out his head and shoulders in the dim light from above; thankfully, everything below that was hidden in shadow. He raised his trident and waved. “It seems you are trapped, Sorceress. You cannot climb and stab me with your toothpick. But you are not beyond my reach…”

Perenelle caught a glimpse of wriggling octopus legs at the bottom of the shaft. First one, then two, then four, began to snake their way toward her, curling and coiling, feeling along the dripping stones like creeping fingers. “Have you any idea just who I am?” she demanded in English. She repeated the question in ancient Greek.

Nereus shrugged, a movement that sent all his legs rippling. “I confess I do not.”

“Then why are you here?” Perenelle asked, pulling herself up another rung of the rusting ladder. She thought he sounded like a bored academic.

“I am paying off an age-old debt,” Nereus bubbled. “One of the Great Elders told me that my debt to them would be wiped clean if I returned to this world and came to this island with my daughters. I was told I could have you for myself and that while you would make only an average servant, you might, perhaps after a century or two, make a good wife. All I know is that you are called a sorceress.”

“But do you know which sorceress?” Perenelle demanded.