“Don’t be silly, lad,” Sebo told him. “Enzi’s grandsons will tow us.”
Arram hadn’t noticed the ropes tied to a ring that dangled off the bow. Each mortal crocodile gripped a rope in his mouth and began to swim downstream, towing the boat in their wake.
“What’s going on?” Arram asked Sebo as Preet hopped onto his knee. “Enzi didn’t tell me.”
Sebo shook her head. “He said I’d understand when I got there. Apparently it offends him greatly.”
It should offend you, old woman. Enzi rose from the water. It is a work of human magic, and it is poisoning the river. You must stop it.
“You should have gotten someone else,” Sebo retorted. “I’m too old to be galloping hither and yon this way.”
Who was I supposed to get? Him? He swung his snout toward Arram. He is a good lad, but he is not ready for this. I do not know the others, save for Lindhall, enough to trust them. You know how Lindhall is underwater.
“I know,” Sebo replied sourly. She glanced at Arram. “He doesn’t like it,” she explained.
Enzi continued, I will be doubly grateful if you tell those mages in the city and the palace that the next one to make a poisonous disposal such as this will be eaten.
The god said nothing more. Arram shifted his weight until he could trail the fingers of one hand in the river. He was reasonably certain that Enzi would discourage any predators from trying a taste. Preet fluttered to Sebo’s lap as the older mage said, “If there’s poison, we wouldn’t pick it up here, lad. The river flows downstream, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Arram smiled at her. “I haven’t forgotten. I’m just sensing things.”
“Suit yourself,” the master replied. She removed Preet from her knee and took a scrying mirror from the bag of tools she had brought with her. The fire of her Gift shimmered around it as the boat surged downriver.
Arram looked at the bird, who now perched on the rail. “Enzi, are you taking Preet back to her family soon?” The thought was a hurtful one, but he had to ask.
Again, you ask! I will say when I find the proper gift, Enzi snapped. Preet chuckled. You mortals always rush, wanting things done immediately. Can you think of a suitable gift for the chief of the gods, the god of law and the bane of thieves?
Arram, speechless, shook his head.
Then do not pressure me, boy. That god is inventive when he feels a fellow god requires correction. A proper gift must be selected with great care.
After a moment Sebo remarked, “I hear lightning snakes are fond of Arram. I wonder how they might act if they thought he was being…bullied.”
Enzi rose half out of the water to eye first Arram, then Sebo. Lightning snakes?
“Lightning snakes,” the mage replied serenely.
Enzi sank down into the water before he replied, Interesting.
“They’re very friendly,” Arram called. “I’m sure they’d like you if they got to know you.”
They drew past Point Kovanik, the northern end of one of the army’s sprawling camps. Arram looked up. Atop the camp’s high stone wall, guards walked back and forth. A few hundred yards around the point, the many-greats-grandsons halted and drew back toward the boat, bringing it to a stop.
Arram frowned. He knew this part of the river after his time with Sebo, but never before had it been like this. There was something bad in the water, something rank. When he stretched out his Gift, he felt plants and tiny fishes dying a foot or two beneath the surface. Larger fish moved sluggishly, trying to escape the source of the…
“It isn’t rot,” he said, pulling his hand from the water. “Or any poison I know.”
“Let us accept that you do not know every poison in existence.” Sebo was always quick to remind Arram that, while he was advanced compared to his friends, he still had much to learn. More kindly she added, “Nor is it something I know, but it is rife with magic.” She had not needed to actually put her hand in the water.
This is why you are here, old woman, Enzi said, impatience in his voice. Do you mean to study everything from the boat? Have you forgotten my teaching of you? The only way to learn the river—
“Is to be in the river, yes! I am no longer a young thing who forgets her own name for new magic!” snapped Arram’s master. “Boy, if you are coming, you will need better protection than your robe!”
Arram had been openmouthed at the idea that Sebo might have once been young and, even more shocking, absentminded. She never forgets anything, he thought, struggling out of his outer robe. Wearing only a shirt and breeches, carrying his workbag on his shoulder, he cleared his mind and carefully wrapped himself in the spell that let him walk and see underwater. He strengthened it against magic and poison, then double-checked every element, wary of his own tendency toward absentmindedness.
“Preet, stay here and be good,” he ordered. Then he followed Sebo and her workbag over the side of the boat.
The spell pulled him down to the bottom, just as he had crafted it to do. Here the river was murky with the leavings of the military camp and what the tides brought upstream from the port of Thak’s Gate. He hated the mess, but he had walked in it before. That was why he had added vision spells, allowing him to see in the murk.
His protections did not help with the feel of the river bottom as he walked along it. He envied Sebo the spell-work that allowed her to glide above it like a fish herself. She never touched the mud, garbage, and sewage that boiled up every time Arram put down a foot. He had tried to learn the working, but without luck.
Now he saw extra darkness against the murk. Something bulky lay on the river’s bottom. A heavy stone block secured it in the mud. Chains led from the block into an area of shadows half a head taller and a little wider than Arram. The shadows were unmoving, a dead spot in the current that flowed around them. Arram joined Sebo. “Is this the source of the poisons?” he asked her, his voice traveling through their protections.
Her eyes were bleak. “What does your Gift tell you?” she asked. She had removed a knot of fiber from her workbag and was undoing the strands.
Always teaching, Arram thought with an inner sigh. He let his Gift flow carefully toward the shadows. His magic told him nothing was there but polluted water, though it passed over and around the darkness just as the river’s currents did. “What?” he muttered. He straightened and tried again, harder. His Gift flowed up and around the floating thing, not through—but if the shadows were simply river water, why did everything pass around them? His Gift passed through everything except his masters’ strongest wards. Again his power told him that nothing was there, though something kept his power from going through it.
Arram ground his teeth. Perhaps he was spoiled, as some of his fellow students claimed, but these days he was used to his power telling him what he wanted to know.