* * *
Whether the sea would swallow Ho and his mage escapee companions had become immaterial. As Yath's control over the disparate chords of his ritual participants gradually asserted itself he took steps to protect the vessel. A cocoon of power edged round its sides. Through the barrier's pulsing multicoloured walls the sea appeared to have been left behind – the Forlorn seemed to float on nothing.
Sighing her profound relief, Devaleth sat with a heavy thump next to Ho. She massaged her hands. Sweat coursed down her ashen face. Unnerving groans now sounded from the vessel as timbers creaked, popping and flexing. The masts shivered, their tops shorn off where they met the aurora of power above. The deck juddered beneath them and she and Ho shared uneasy glances.
‘Where are we?’ Treat asked of Fingers, hushed.
‘Sere,’ the mage whispered.
A scream made everyone jump. One of the ritual mages had leapt to his feet. He pointed at Yath, mouthed something unintelligible. Two of the Avowed, Dim and Reed, stepped in to calm him. He wrenched his arms from their grasp, clasped his hands to his head, all the while howling his own personal horror. The Avowed fought to subdue him but incredibly the skinny fellow pushed them aside. He gouged at his face as if he would tear it open then in two long steps reached the side and threw himself over. His shriek was cut short as he passed beyond the barrier.
‘Otataral madness,’ Devaleth said to no one in particular.
‘Perhaps …’ Su answered, her black, wrinkled eyes almost narrowed shut. Ho turned to snarl another warning about her damned airs but stopped, realizing that her gaze was fixed upon Yath, and that the man's sharp glittering eyes returned her steady stare.
‘I have identified the disturbance,’ Su announced, her gaze unwavering upon Yath.
‘Yes?’ Ho asked.
‘It is a general contagion that infects almost all of us to greater and lesser degrees. But which is concentrated mainly in two carriers …’
Yath slowly straightened from his cross-legged position. He levelled his staff across his front. A wide, hungry smile crept up his lips.
‘Yes?’ Ho asked again, vexed. ‘Who?’
‘Its two main foci are our Seven Cities friend and …’ she turned her head aside, pointed, ‘… him.’
Across the stern Blues’ brows rose. He pointed to himself. ‘What? Me?’
‘Oh yes …’
Yath pointed his staff at Reed; the Avowed looked to Blues, unsure. An aura identical to that of the shifting walls surrounding them lashed out from the staff to strike Reed who shrieked, writhing. Before their eyes the mage-fire consumed him, leaving a blackened smoking corpse.
‘… And we have made a terrible error,’ Su finished quickly.
‘Queen take him!’ Blues was up, his speed incredible to Ho. He was halfway across the deck before Yath could bring his staff to bear. Pink and violet fire arched. Blues raised his Warren in answer and the energy deflected, splashing like water. It recoiled outwards to spread in a fan that sliced into the barrier around them – which burst.
The deck fell out from beneath everyone. Ho clasped his arms around Su and Devaleth, pinning them to the side, grasping handholds. Figures flew off screaming into the infinite nothingness of all directions, though none of the ritual-bound mages shifted at all. Yath had fallen and struggled to reorient himself. An Avowed, Dim, was close. The man was belaying himself by rope toward the Seven City mage.
‘Steady us!’ Ho shouted aloud to everyone.
‘I'm on it!’ Fingers answered.
Dim closed on the Seven Cities mage, reaching out. Then Sessin was there, leaping from behind Yath to grapple the Avowed. The men swung wildly together, only Dim's grip holding them to the vessel. They fought, grappling and gouging as they flew – then gone, both spinning away in silence. The deck rose up to brutally knock the breath from Ho.
Yath lashed power again, catching Blues unready, but the stream of raw inchoate energy passed through him leaving him unharmed. Both Blues and Yath straightened, astonished. Blues stared at himself, uncomprehending.
‘Get ‘im!’ Treat urged from the tiller.
Blues lunged. Yath stood now amid the sitting ritual-bound mages, all as still as statues. He swung his staff and a wall of the rippling power cut across the deck. Blues, Treat and Sept all struck it, rebounding. The Seven Cities mage laughed behind his barrier.
At Ho's side Fingers lay prostrate, his face contorted in a grimace of effort. ‘Can't keep this up for ever, people,’ he ground through bared and clenched teeth.
‘Get us out of here!’ Ho bellowed to everyone.
‘Where?’ Devaleth snarled.
‘Anywhere!’
‘You wish to go?’ Yath called, his voice hollow-sounding through the coruscating banner of power. ‘I will take us somewhere – though I do not think you will much care for it, my friends!’ and he laughed anew, gesturing. The distances became opaque, darkening, taking on a grey-green tinge like an eerie nightfall. The vessel eased gently down on to something, canting to one side. Fingers let out a grateful gasp, his arms and clawed hands unclenching, and he sagged. A roaring, grinding noise like a waterfall swelled to smother all other sounds. A stink assaulted Ho, making his gorge rise. Treat, near the side, flinched away, pointing: ‘What in Hood's own dread is that?’
Ho stood. They were sliding down a tilted flow of some fluid. It reminded him of a lava flow only clotted, streaked in pus-like yellow and sickly green. Figures writhed within, melting and re-forming, gesturing and beckoning only to fall back into the churning stuff from which they arose. ‘The edge of Chaos,’ Ho said.
‘Yes!’ Yath answered. ‘You invade my lands spreading death and destruction! It is only fitting that I bring a taste of such chaos in return!‘ He opened his arms. ‘My lands have been cursed with it … Now it is your turn! From here I shall bring such a plague upon your continent that you will never rise again!’ He turned his back, raised his arms high, staff clenched over his head.
Forming another portal – this time leading directly to Quon. Ho found himself staring at the Wickan witch. ‘What can we do?’
‘Nothing. We haven't the power. He commands the might of some twenty mages. We are only a few.’
‘Nothing? Nothing!’
Su eyed him sidelong. Her wrinkled mouth pulled up in a mocking smile. ‘Who am I to say, Ho? Are you not the expert here? Did you not walk these very shores?’
Damn her! How can she know these things? ‘Very well.’ He raised his voice. ‘Blues, Fingers, Devaleth! Join us.’
It was not a ritual; Ho would hardly propose such an effort given its latest employment. Rather, it was a parallel focusing. Each readied themselves to contribute their strength to forestalling the creation of a solid enduring bridge from this place to Yarn's intended destination – wherever exactly that may be.
As they worked, the vessel tilted ever more severely to the bow until they resorted to gripping the stern. Treat and Sept roped them to the sides, the tiller and the gunwale. The Forlorn picked up speed, sliding, grating, down the flow of unformed chaotic matter. Ho wondered whether the shapes they'd witnessed were its inhabitants, or prisoners. Mage, perhaps, caught attempting to manipulate the potential of the inchoate materia – as he himself had dared so long ago.
Ahead an opening on to darkness tore through the flow, bisecting it. Ho glimpsed stars – a night sky? The vessel canted even more precipitously, almost vertical, then pitched within. Ho had the brief impression of falling into nothingness. He reached out then for what Su, Blues and Devaleth were prepared to offer and almost recoiled. Such capacity! It approached even his own. Beru, do not let him be seduced! No wonder none were willing to offer themselves to Yath!
‘Hang on!’
Plummeting through a whistling, howling wind. An instant explosion of crashing, splintering timbers. An agonizing blow. Tumbling. Nothing.