What magical beings inhabit Earth’s waters? Some are as almost-familiar as the mer-people; some as strange as the thing glimpsed only as a golden eye in a pool at the edge of the Great Desert Kalarsham, where the mad god Geljdreth rules; or

the unknowable, immense Kraken, dark beyond the darkness of the deepest ocean, who will one day rise and rule the world.

Here are seven tales from the remarkable storytellers Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson. Vividly imagined and written, they transform the simple element of water into something very powerful indeed.