Western Shore

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The Zaise juddered as the keel sliced into the river bed. A ramp of mud reared up to bridge the gap between the ship's rail and the bank.

Kheda saw some of the spearmen on the bank react with violent surprise while the rest merely took a step back, more concerned with beckoning the three mariners ashore. 'Some of these warriors must be cave or tree dwellers. They haven't seen Naldeth's bridging trick.'

'Then Velindre has found some way to convince them to cooperate rather than fight.' Nonetheless, Risala looked uncertain.

'We can ask her once we find her.' Growing concern was rapidly quelling Naldeth's good humour. He swung himself over the rail and hurried to the bank.

Kheda noted which spearmen looked agog at the wizard's metal leg. He gestured to Risala to go on ahead, keeping one hand on his sword hilt as he brought up the rear.

The spearmen had trampled a broad path down to the river. They retraced their steps along it, noisily beating the stubborn tussocks with their spears and stamping down already crushed blades of the razor-sharp grass.

Kheda looked around in hopes of finding the scarred spearman or the stooped hunter. Neither wild man was anywhere to be seen. He recognised some faces, and registered all too clearly the beseeching glances that slid his way.

Whatever this trouble is, they're hoping I'll take their side.

Kheda hurried after Risala, who was walking as fast as she could to keep up with Naldeth. The joints and rivets of the wizard's metal leg glowed with scarlet fire. As the grasses thinned, they reached a line of straggling nut trees cut off from the main sprawl of the forest by a stony slope. Wild men were busy dragging fallen wood to add to a long fire that was the source of the smoke they had seen.

Just as Kheda realised this was familiar ground approached from an unfamiliar direction, Risala pointed to a shallow cluster of rocks. 'That's the cave we hid in, the one with the paintings.'

'There's Velindre.' Naldeth nodded at the magewoman, profoundly relieved. 'She's not hurt.'

Velindre was sitting on the bare earth hugging her knees some distance below the entrance to the cave. He recognised the scarred spearman standing some distance away, ringed by a band of warriors whom he identified as having come from the village across the river.

'What do you suppose they've done?' Risala wondered.

Kheda saw the wild men who'd met them at the river spread out to join the warriors on the far side of the cave or those gathering firewood, demonstrably disassociating themselves from the scarred spearman and his band. The shunned men hadn't a spear or a club between them. He caught an ominous breath of sickly putrefaction.

'Velindre!' Naldeth called out as the magewoman got slowly to her feet. 'Are you all right?'

'Yes,' she answered wearily, 'but there's something you have to see.' Her face was tearstained, her eyes red-rimmed. 'You remember I said there was something strange in these woods, something elemental gone all awry?'

The scent of decay grew stronger and Kheda's stomach roiled. 'What is it?'

'You can see all you need to from here.' Velindre approached the cave's entrance with visible reluctance.

Naldeth pushed past her. 'There's magical—' He recoiled, retching.

Kheda looked into the cave to see a tangle of bloodied corpses. The only movement was the crawling of black flies. Dark clots of insects shifted like shadows across the bodies. More clung to the cave's walls where gouts of blood utterly obscured the delicate paintings. It was difficult to estimate the numbers of dead, but it was all too easy to see the slender legs of women among the confusion of limbs. Children's hands stuck out from the crush as if they were scrabbling at the cave walls.

Risala gasped with horror, pressing her hands to her face.

'This is what they were doing in the night.' Kheda didn't even realise he was speaking aloud.

'You knew about this?' Furious, Velindre berated the warlord. 'You did nothing?'

'I knew something was happening.' Kheda glared accusingly at the scarred spearman and the other weaponless warriors. 'I didn't know what—' His rage strangled any further words.

Tears stood in Risala's eyes. 'Why were these people killed?'

'Because they were mageborn.' Naldeth spat vomit into the dust. 'Every last one of them.'

'You wanted these people to free themselves from magical tyranny.' Kheda regretted the words as soon as he spoke. He made no move to defend himself as Naldeth's fist smashed into his cheek. He staggered backwards, struggling not to fall over. The mage came after him, ready to hit him again.

'I didn't know what they were doing!' Kheda shouted. 'How could I? I couldn't ask any of them!' He waved a hand at the scarred spearman and his band. 'Don't you think I would have stopped them if I'd known?'

'You Archipelagans think all wizards are better off dead,' snarled Naldeth. He turned on the motionless warriors, brandishing a handful of scarlet fire. The pyre roared with shocking intensity.

'I know better than that now.' Kheda took a step forward to place himself between the irate wizard and the wild warriors. 'And you know better than this.'

'But why did they do this?' Risala gazed into the charnel cave, a tear trickling down her face.

'They did it to please us.' Velindre's voice was thick with loathing. 'You should have seen their smiles when I came here. I think Kheda's right — they're looking to rid themselves of all their wizards. And all because we killed their mages and drove the dragons away instead of pandering to the beasts and using their power to assert our own domination over these wretches.'

'You think that's what we should have done?' Aghast, Naldeth let his hand fall and the scarlet fire flickered out, the flames of the pyre dying back.

'No.' Velindre turned her back on the stinking cavern, scrubbing fresh tears from her eyes. 'I don't know what else we could have done. But we don't know what we've started here, and we sure as curses don't know how to stop it. We can't even talk to these people!'

'At least we have shown them that not all wizards are necessarily tyrants.' Kheda tried to keep the despair he felt out of his voice.

'What good will that do? Who have we shown this marvellous revelation? A couple of hundred of however many thousands live on this accursed rock?' Velindre retorted with angry dejection. 'And they think the best

way to please us is to slaughter these innocents. What good are we doing here? I should have listened to you, Naldeth. We should go back to Hadrumal and lay this all before the Council.'

'If we leave, all this will have been for nothing,' Kheda objected. 'All these people will be crushed under the heel of the first wild wizard to learn there's land and dragon fodder here for the taking.'

'Who made you their warlord?' Velindre snapped.

'You were the one lecturing me about responsibility,' countered Kheda.

He fell silent as a spearman he recognised from the village slowly approached. He was holding the hacking blade that Kheda had given the scarred spearman. He offered it to Kheda. As the warlord took the weapon, still bemused, the scarred spearman took a few paces away from his companions. He dropped to his knees and raised his chin, leaning back to offer his naked throat to Kheda. A nerve twitched in his cheek as he screwed his eyes tight shut in anticipation of the killing blow.

'I can't do this,' Kheda said helplessly. 'I can't condemn a man when I don't know what he's done.'

'You know what he's done.' But Velindre wasn't condemning the man either. 'He just didn't think it was a crime until he saw my reaction.'

Kheda swallowed. 'They can be the ones to drag out the bodies and give them to the fire—'

'Be quiet.' Naldeth's soft words nevertheless commanded everyone's attention.

'Where is it?' Risala's voice was harsh with dread.

Behind the scatter of rocks where the cave entrance lay, the forest sloped upwards. Grouped in sparse clusters, the nut trees cast meagre shadows on the dry earth. Kheda saw a golden glint in a patch of darkness blink out and

reappear. Now that he saw it was an eye, he could see the rest of the earth dragon's head. The random shadows beneath the trees ran together or melted away as the ground shifted and blurred. The beast appeared fully, crouched between two thickets, its belly pressed to the dusty soil. It moved one forefoot, extending steely claws to crush a sapling with purposeful menace.

'I can't drive it away without the ruby closer to hand,' Naldeth said evenly.

'Where is it?' Unblinking, Velindre was watching the dragon.

'On the Zaise.' Out of the corner of his eye, Kheda could see the wild men frozen with fear.

'We'll never get to the ship before the beast attacks,' Risala whispered.

'That depends on what it's here for.' Kheda swallowed sour revulsion. 'Do you suppose it's come to eat those dead in the cave?'

'No.' Naldeth's voice echoed as if he were hidden deep in a cavern. 'It's come for me.'

Kheda forced his eyes away from the dragon to look at the wizard. Naldeth's leg was melting again, the liquid metal rippling. The mage staggered and the stony soil around him glowed with ochre magic. The limb re-formed, misshapen and discoloured.

'It knows I killed that wild wizard in the beaded cloak. It didn't come to help him because it wanted to see what I would do to him.' The magelight still suffused the patch of ground where Naldeth stood. 'And I didn't yield to it before, so that makes me a rival. It's come to kill me.'

'It's come to kill us both,' Velindre said thoughtfully. 'I really don't think it liked my snowstorm.'

Kheda saw the magewoman was standing precariously astride a cleft that had opened noiselessly between her feet.

The gap opened wider. A few moments more and she would lose her balance. Suddenly clenching her fists on her breastbone, Velindre drew up slatey-blue magelight from the depths to crisscross the void. She sprang backwards, traversing an impossible distance, further than a wild man could launch a spear. Landing painfully on her rump, she stretched both hands out before her to ward off the black dragon's magic. The rift in the ground snaked towards her, fast as a whip. Sapphire fire burned around her fingers as she shuffled backwards, shooting through the air to strengthen the magelight webbed across the cleft. The thrusting point of the rift slowed and stopped just short of her scrambling feet.

'Is there anything we can do?' Kheda gripped sword hilt and hacking blade.

The dragon fixed him with its burning amber gaze and opened its black maw to hiss at him. Its black tongue tasted the air before licking around its shiny metallic teeth. Kheda's sword and the hacking blade melted like wax, the steel dripping to the ground in useless gobbets.

The wild men broke and ran, village spearmen and cave dwellers alike, whimpers of terror escaping them as they fled in all directions. The scarred spearman and his band made a dash into the nut trees, skidding and slipping on the dusty slope.

A low detonation sent shivers through the woods. The dry air was rent in the next heartbeat by agonised screams. Kheda felt a furnace breath on the back of his neck. The menace of the earth dragon notwithstanding, he turned to look. The fire lit to burn the dead had run in all directions and the grassy plain was ablaze. The wild warriors who had fled that way were not merely caught in the conflagration. The burning tussocks were coiling around their arms and legs, pinioning them with crimson fire. Kheda choked as the sickly scent of roasting flesh joined

the vile smell of smouldering hair and leather to overwhelm the innocent odour of burning grass.

A second dragon came stalking through the inferno. Its head was broad and blunt, armoured with dull maroon scales, ruby eyes lit with pinpoints of white-hot flame, red tongue flickering over teeth as long as swords and shining like polished copper. It stooped to snatch a burning corpse from the blazing ground and reared up, its forefeet lifting from the ground. The paler golden scales of its throat and chest bulged as it devoured the blackened carcass in a few swift bites. As the dragon dropped back to stand on all four feet, the ground trembled. The beast roared, showing dark rags of flesh clinging to its burnished teeth. Smoke and flames behind it swept to and fro as it lashed its spiked tail.

We're dead. We're all dead. That's bigger than the red dragon that came to plague Chazen and that beast was as long as a trireme. That black dragon knew enough to go and look for an ally, when it realised it had two wizards to fight. What was it Naldeth said? Fire and earth are sympathetic? And what a prize that ruby egg will make for this new beast.

White light closed in all around him and sucked the air from his lungs. Swept off his feet, Kheda was chilled to the marrow of his bones. He opened his mouth and his teeth ached with the cold. His lips and tongue were numbed and useless before he could attempt to speak. Then the white fire vanished and he fell hard onto the deck of the Zaise. He barely felt the impact on his frozen hands and knees.

'Risala?' he grated.

'Here,' she gasped.

Kheda sat back on his heels, rubbing frantically at his eyes. He found frost crystals riming his brows. Risala's dark hair was misted with icy vapour as she lay sprawled on the planks.

'The egg?' Velindre's frozen tunic crackled as she whirled around.

'In the stern cabin.' Naldeth was already tugging at the door. The warped joints in his metal leg split, the brittle steel fracturing. He cursed and clutched at his thigh. Ruddy magic flowed from his fingers, mending the metal with ugly bulbous seams.

'You two watch for the dragons.' Kheda ran, Risala close behind him. Throwing open the door, they seized the sacking and dragged the ruby out onto the deck. Sunlight sparkled in the cracks patterning the dulled surface.

The fire dragon came gliding across the burning grassland on massive wings, maroon bones dark against the red-gold membranes. It had barely taken flight, simply springing into the air to cross the scorched expanse. It roared, first with rage and then with challenge as it landed, throwing up a cloud of ash and cinders. The embers brightened with new fire and spun upwards. As the dragon swept its head around, the incandescent storm shot through the air towards the Zaise.

Naldeth threw up a commanding hand and the fiery cloud stopped dead. Velindre added sapphire skeins of magelight winding all around it. Her magic flared white before turning scarlet and evaporating into nothing. The crimson dragon roared with triumph. The burning hail edged over the river between the Zaise and the bank. The water all around the ship steamed and fled, leaving moist brown mud that instantly parched to cracked earth.

'I can't hold it much longer,' Naldeth warned, uncannily calm.

'Let's see if this works.' The magewoman narrowed her eyes and azure magelight dripped from her hands to flow across the ship's deck and drip through the scuppers.

With a bubbling rush, the muddy waters returned from upstream and down. Meeting in a surge of dirty foam, the river leapt up to slap at the burning cloud. The fire glowed with jade light and exploded. Blazing embers flew in all directions to hiss and die in the river or clatter dull and devoid of magic against the Zaise's deck and sides.

Kheda dodged the searing fragments as the crimson dragon spread its awesome wings and sprang. A wall of emerald magelight shot upwards from the river to surround the boat, reaching as high as the top of the masts. The dragon bellowed and soared more steeply upwards, clawed feet abruptly drawn tight to its underside where before it had been reaching out with its lethal talons. The ridged spike that tipped its broad tail brushed against the curtain of green wizardry. The dragon roared with pain and anger as it rolled backwards through the air, a dark stain marring its tail.

Kheda felt the planking rise and fall beneath his feet as the whole river shivered. A bulge of water swept down from upstream and his heart missed a beat. 'Naldeth!'

'Wait.' The wizard was standing over the ruby egg, bent with both hands pressed to its sides. Scarlet fire suffused it. The sacking and ropes were crumbling to ash and a scorch mark was spreading across the deck. Naldeth gazed into the gemstone, utterly absorbed in the spark building at its heart.

Are we going to lose him the same way we lost Dev? Where do I hide now? Where do any of us run to? We should never have come here. We should never have stayed.

'Naldeth, look in the water!' Kheda yelled desperately.

The black dragon's head broached the silty surface. Muddy ooze outlined the scales of its back as the rest of the beast emerged. It crouched in the middle of the river channel, the opaque water lapping around its belly, hiding

its legs and feet. It thrashed its long tail and dark magic boiled up from the depths, threading steely radiance through the water. Tendrils reached for the Zaise, knotting and swelling, brightening to a putrid grey-green. The first touched the hull and the planking cracked. The dragon hissed with malicious satisfaction.

Velindre grabbed the ship's rail with both hands. The curtain of emerald magic slid down through the air to soak into the wood, making the ship shine as brightly as new leaves. The river gurgled protestingly. The Zaise lurched and tilted.

'Are we sinking?' demanded Kheda.

'Not if I can help it,' Velindre grunted through gritted teeth.

The red dragon landed back on the bank with a resounding thud. It roared with fiery rage and flames sprang up from the dead ashes all along the grasslands. Like a shower of spears, flames appeared in the air, flung straight at the Zaise's masts. Ropes flared into lines of scarlet fire. The spars smouldered and molten pitch dripped onto the decking. The fire dragon took a pace forwards, the undercut edge of the bank crumbling beneath its weight. It stretched out its massive head and breathed a snapping coil of fire towards the ship.

'Oh no you don't.' Naldeth's head jerked up from his rapt contemplation of the ruby egg. Unseen wind tousled his brown hair before sweeping across the river to blow the red dragon's fire back into its face. The creature recoiled, spitting furiously. Naldeth raised a hand and a golden haze floated up from his fingers towards the Zaise's masts where scarlet flames crackled gleefully as they gnawed on blackened wood. The foggy yellow magelight glowed and smothered the dragon's fires.

'Kheda! Remember the cargo!' Risala had found a bucket somewhere and hurried to toss it over the rail.

Kheda saw that the sailcloth covers held down by the battens nailed over the deck hatches were burning.

Before he could move, Risala screamed and tried to let go of her rope. It struck back like a snake, tying itself around her wrists and wrenching her forward.

Kheda ran to her, drawing his dagger to cut the rope. The blade struck the cable with a dull thud and the steel dented. Catching Risala around the waist, he braced his feet against the side of the ship and hacked at the rope. Every stroke notched the edge of his knife but the transmuted hemp began splintering. Risala's face twisted with pain, her hands bloodless, the vicious binding biting deep into her forearms. Just when Kheda thought the ruined dagger was going to break clean in two, the rope snapped and they both fell backwards. The bucket plummeted downwards to strike the water with an odd clunk instead of a splash.

'Are you all right?' Kheda cut the snare from Risala's wrists, thankfully now no more than braided hemp once again.

She nodded, muddy-faced and biting her lip against the pain. 'Kheda, the fire!'

All the young wizard's attention was on the ship's masts where the charred spars now writhed like living things. Swinging this way and that, they were fighting to escape the stifling haze so that the greedy flames could blossom anew. Ominous splintering sounds filled the air above Kheda's head.

'Naldeth!' he shouted urgently.

Naldeth glanced down for a moment and the ruby egg at his feet glowed brilliantly. A billow of golden vapour rolled along the deck. The flames burning insidious holes in the canvas-covered deck hatches died as the magic swept over them, but they sprang to life once again as soon as it had passed. Naldeth spat some unintelligible

Tormalin oath and the cloud of magelight bounced back from the upswept timbers of the blunt prow to snuff the fires a second time. This time they stayed dead.

'Velindre, we need water.' Kheda moved to look down over the ship's side.

There was no water to be seen. The bucket Risala had cast overboard lay on top of a thick layer of dead fish. A gasping eel writhed among their pale bellies. A tide of oily blackness oozed over the stricken creatures, like nothing Kheda had ever seen before. Wisps of grey followed the darkness, gathering into a dense layer of vapour. As Kheda watched, the bucket grew indistinct and vanished. He looked upstream to see the black dragon crouching in the midst of this unnatural mire, mouth agape. Amber eyes glowing, it breathed out dense clouds of the heavy mist that rolled across the glistening mud. The greyness was gathering around the Zaise. As it grew thicker, it began mounting higher up the sides of the ship. The green magelight that Velindre was still forcing into the timbers flickered and dulled.

She gasped with pain. 'Naldeth, we're going to tire before they do!'

The fire dragon angrily pacing up and down the river bank interrupted her with an ear-splitting roar. The black dragon in the water answered with a bellow that made the air throb.

'If we could just wound one, we might drive the other off—' Naldeth stooped awkwardly to press one hand onto the ruby egg. It was now entirely filled with scarlet magelight. He flicked his other hand towards the red dragon and fire sprang up around its forefeet. The beast growled and stamped on the crimson flames, ripping up clods of earth with its coppery claws.

'How do we do wound either of them without the other one killing us outright?' Velindre yelled hoarsely.

'We can give that red one something else to fight.' Naldeth stood upright and a distant stand of trees burst into flames.

Roaring, the crimson dragon whirled around, its trailing tail throwing up a cloud of ash. Barely a heartbeat later, it spun back towards the river, breathing a fresh curl of fire straight at Naldeth.

Green wizardry sprang up from the ship's rail to deflect it. 'It knows that was you.' For the first time, despair dulled Velindre's defiance.

Kheda saw a grey finger slide over the side of the ship. He looked down over the rail where the green magelight had dimmed almost to nothing and saw that the rising tide of vapour was level with the deck. The black dragon was an ominous shadow edging slowly closer.

'Can you do anything with the cargo?' he shouted desperately. 'Can you use that to set one of the beasts alight?'

'Let's try.' Velindre might have said more but the ship rocked violently. She spun around to draw a spear of lightning down from the sky to shatter the glaucous tendril snaking across the deck. 'Get the hatches open, Kheda. Naldeth, if I can keep that beast busy, you—'

'I know,' the mage yelled.

The battens and canvas holding down the hatches were already more than half-burned through. Kheda tore at them, heedless of fire or splinters. Risala helped as best she could with one hand, the other pressed tight beneath her breasts, weeping with silent anguish.

That cursed rope broke her wrist.

Kheda had barely cleared one hatch when a barrel shot upwards through the broken laths. Velindre swept one hand through the air and the barrel rode a swirl of sapphire light towards the crimson dragon. Naldeth threw an arrow of scarlet fire after it and the barrel exploded into a ball

of flame right in the creature's face. It recoiled, roaring furiously. Kheda scrambled away from the gaping hole in the deck as more barrels and casks forced their way up. He grabbed Risala and sought what little shelter the foremast offered.

Velindre whirled a sling of sapphire light around to fling a barrel upstream. The black dragon reared up on its hind legs and swiped at it with steely claws. The wood splintered and dark sticky oil splashed a rainbow sheen over the creature's forelegs and chest. Naldeth threw another dart of fire and the oil ignited. The dragon hissed malevolently, breathing dark smoke that instantly quenched the flames. The crimson dragon's roar took on a note of triumph, unbothered by the flames dancing along its own spine and flanks.

'Naldeth?' Velindre's blue magic drove a flurry of caskets and chests up from the Zaise's hold. Pale dust hovered in the air together with an eye-watering smell of naphtha.

'Do it.' The youthful wizard was looking at the black dragon, his hands outstretched as if to ward off the tide of grey vapour it was now breathing out, the miasma building faster than before.

Velindre sent a cask flying at the maroon dragon so hard and so fast that it shattered on the beast's massive flank. Sticky pine resin oozed down its hind quarter. The creature had barely turned its head when a cask of white powder and one of brilliant yellow broke across its spine. The dragon tasted the air with its tongue and growled. As it glowered at the Zaise, a second barrel ripped itself apart above its tail, showering the creature with liquid. The first drops had barely landed when the sticky mess coating the dragon ignited.

Bellowing with fury, the beast turned away to scour this importunate blaze from its scales with its own white-hot

fiery breath. Velindre sent more barrels and chests to smash on the ground around its feet, each one adding fuel to the infernal alchemy. She drew winds threaded with blue magelight from all directions to fan the flames still higher. Kheda could feel the heat where he stood on the deck. The wood was steaming.

Naldeth was standing stock still, all his attention focused on the black dragon. It crouched low in the lifeless mire it had made of the river, breathing out billows of the grey mist that rapidly threatened the Zaise\ rails. The mage knelt and laid gentle hands palm down on the massive ruby. A golden haze began gathering around the gem once again and flowed across the deck to slip through the scuppers as Velindre's magic had done earlier. The radiance spread over the ominous grey vapour, moving faster than the dead greyness, questing, challenging. Where the dragon's breath left coils slow to subside, the golden magic insinuated itself into the voids. The greyness roiled around the brightness, agitated. The brilliance forced fingers into the dullness, tearing off rags of grey that floated up to vanish in the empty air.

Naldeth slid his hands together atop the ruby egg. The shimmering gold forced the deadly grey vapour inexorably back towards the black dragon. It growled and crouched low, breathing a paler whiteness that dissolved the grey. The white mist evaporated almost instantly, revealing the glutinous mess of sludge and dead fish. The dragon sank lower and inky darkness flowed into the mud all around it. Its outline became indistinct.

'Oh no you don't,' Naldeth breathed.

Kheda heard a cavernous echo in the mage's voice again and tore his gaze away from the dragon. Naldeth's skin was shining, not with sweat but with a crystalline lustre. The metal of his leg was moulding itself into the contours of living flesh once again. The warlord

looked past the mage to Velindre. She was still tangling the fire dragon in snares of air to keep the flames surging ever higher around it. Kheda realised he could see the timbers of the Zaise through her. Flesh, bone and clothing fading, the magewoman was becoming translucent. She didn't seem to notice. Insane serenity shone in her eyes and she laughed as if she didn't have a care in the world.

'Stay here.' Kheda hugged Risala hard and left her clinging to the foremast, forcing himself across the deck towards Velindre. He dared not look back to Risala lest his courage fail him, but he had to spare a glance for Naldeth and the black dragon lurking in the river. The amber magelight had set the noxious ooze boiling around the beast. Naldeth was now bathed in a ruby glow coming from the great gem. The dragon reared up out of the searing mud, its every scale as hard and sharp-edged as if it had been carved out of jet.

'Velindre.' Kheda reached out towards the mage-woman's arm. Close to, she looked as insubstantial as fog. A shock of lightning sprang from her to numb his whole hand. 'Velindre!' he yelled frantically.

'What?' She half-turned, still keeping her gaze fixed on the crimson dragon raging in the blaze ashore. Her eyes were no longer the soft hazel that had looked so striking against her blonde hair. They were blue like Risala's, but wholly blue, without white or iris. A pinpoint of lightning fire lit the deep sapphire.

Like dragon's eyes. Like Dev 's eyes, just before his magic was the death of him.

Kheda tried to reach her again and once more stinging lightning sparked between them. 'This will kill you!' he bellowed.

Velindre didn't seem to hear him. She turned back to beatific contemplation of the lattice of sapphire light she

was weaving through the flames mocking the crimson dragon.

Wringing his seared and throbbing hands, Kheda

stumbled towards Naldeth. The red glow from the gem bathed him with heat. He reached recklessly for the mage regardless. Naldeth's shoulder was as cold as marble and

as unyielding as any statue.

'What is it?' Naldeth looked briefly at Kheda. His gaze was all ruddy brown but at least that was just the blood still staining the whites of his eyes. Before Kheda could answer, the wizard gasped and his head snapped round towards the black dragon.

The golden magelight was fading from the clinging morass of boiling mud. The black dragon was extricating itself from friable rock that splintered and cracked all around it. With a triumphant growl, it pulled its hind legs

and tail free, leaving dark holes. Hissing venomously, it took a menacing step across the solid surface. Naldeth narrowed his eyes and the rock began to glow red while the fire within the great ruby burned with a new intensity. The dragon took another pace and its dull grey claws sank into newly molten lava viscous beneath its feet. Pulling its forefoot free, the creature roared, its steely

talons glowing white hot at their tips. The dragon coughed pale mist at its claws and the whiteness dulled.

Kheda reached out again and tried to shake the mage's arm. 'You can't win this!' he cried.

'I know,' Naldeth said desperately. 'What do we do?'

'Nexus magic' Velindre's words were a whisper of winter wind. 'To poison the well.'

She was barely more than an eerie white shadow outlined with sapphire magelight. Kheda took a step backwards as the magewoman sank to her knees beside the glowing ruby. She laid her pale hands on it and the fiery light dimmed abruptly.

Naldeth gasped and stumbled sideways. Kheda caught him; the wizard's flesh was warm and his clothes soft cotton.

Naldeth shook him off. 'You don't want to be caught up in this.' His voice sounded as if it was coming from some great distance.

Kheda backed away towards Risala as fast as he dared, trying to keep both of the dragons in view and still watch what the two wizards were doing.

They knelt on either side of the ruby egg, their hands resting upon it. The fire at its heart was now wholly quenched. The crimson dragon on the river bank screeched triumphantly as it wrested command of the fires from the dissipating sapphire magic. The black dragon replied with a snarl of elation and the river's waters returned to drown the slough of lava in a cloud of reeking steam.

The Zaise rocked violently. Kheda stumbled backwards to wrap one arm around the foremast and the other around Risala. Naldeth and Velindre took no notice. All their attention was focused on the great ruby. New lights kindled deep inside it, scarlet and blue, gold and green, rising and falling and rising once more to glow ever stronger.

The fire dragon roared and sprang into the air, the downdraught of its wings buffeting Kheda and Risala mercilessly. It flew inland, straight as an arrow, and Kheda saw that the distant mountain tops were belching white smoke high into the air.

The ship rocked again. This time the entire river was shaken by a shudder deep beneath its bed. Birds rose shrieking from the distant forests as tremor after tremor racked the plain. The banks on either side collapsed, sending great lumps of earth splashing into the water. A gaping crack opened in the barren slope leading up to the plateau. The most violent tremor so far nearly broke

Kheda's grip on the mast and he saw a broad swathe of the grassland drop bodily down, leaving a scar of raw earth as tall as a man.

The black dragon took to the air, clumsy and reluctant. It flew over the Zaise, barely clearing the tops of the masts. It growled relentless hatred at the two wizards still kneeling motionless on the scorched planks, though there was a new note in the creature's snarls.

Fear.

Kheda wrapped his arms around Risala and around the foremast as the waters convulsed beneath the ship. The river surged for the sea, sweeping the Zaise along. As they swept past the riverbanks at dizzying speed, Kheda saw that the plumes of white from the mountains far inland were darkening to mottled grey. Clouds were spreading in all directions over the island, as fast as the terrifying rush of the water beneath them. The Zaise reached the maze of channels and mud banks that made up the mouth of the river and grounded with a bone-shaking thud. They were stranded between sandflats stripped glistening and naked as the river disappeared. The ocean itself was fleeing the shore as the cliffs were forced upwards higher and higher, ragged cracks splitting the rocks with penetrating shocks. The clouds rising from the mountains far inland were now black and riven with brilliant white lightning.

More snow?

The sunlight dimmed as white flakes drifted down to the deck. Kheda tasted sulphur that had nothing to do with the Zaise's lost cargo and realised this was a fall of ashes from a burning fire mountain. Ash fell thicker and faster and drifted around their feet, stirred by a hot breeze. Stones began falling, as riddled with holes as a sea sponge. Cinders dropped from the grey clouds, glowing red. Kheda saw one strike Velindre's shoulder.

She didn't even flinch as the ember burned a dark score in her tunic.

The noise far inland sounded like the worst thunders of every rainy season that Kheda had ever known all recalled together. The lightning that ripped through the massive black clouds grew ever more violent. Close at hand, silent spheres of phosphorescence blinked around the Zaise's mastheads before vanishing as suddenly as they had appeared.

The ship twisted this way and that as the sands and silts of the river mouth convulsed. Kheda looked up to see that the sky was black as ink, as if night had driven out the day. The air was stifling, poisonous. His chest burned with it. Red light rippled along the sooty pall of the clouds.

On the deck between the two wizards, answering scarlet fire blazed in the gem. The rumbling in the far distance rose to a deafening pitch as the shoreline's paroxysms lifted the Zaise upwards. The ship shivered from stem to stern, assailed by brutal pulses of air. Spars split and crashed to the deck while such ropes as remained were ripped from the masts.

Far inland, one of the mountains threw up a flaming column of white-hot rock to rip into the swollen black belly of the cloud. A second eruption followed, and a third. The clouds blazed.

The ruby egg exploded in a coruscating flash. Kheda screwed his eyes shut, blinded with tears. He didn't dare let go of the mast to try clearing his vision. Blinking and gasping for breath, he tried desperately to see what had befallen the wizards.

Velindre lay sprawled in the thick layer of ash coating the deck, her legs twisted awkwardly beneath her. She was bleeding from countless gashes, lacerated by razor-sharp shards of the shattered gem. Her eyes were open,

staring unmoving. Naldeth was slumped on his side, his head hidden in his outstretched arms. His hands had taken the brunt of the explosion, the bones of broken fingers white in the uncanny half-light. Blood glistened where his torn tunic revealed his pale flank.

'Are they dead?' Risala cried.

'I don't know.' Kheda didn't think he could prise his own hands from the mast and he certainly wasn't going to risk losing Risala as she clung to him with her one sound hand knotted in the cloth of his tunic.

He watched gold and scarlet torrents pouring from ragged craters in the distant mountains. The forests were burning, flames spreading even faster than the molten rock. The ash was still falling. Now, wholly unexpectedly, rain began falling with it. Soon the deck was coated with a thick layer of gritty mud. Kheda shifted his feet and found that the stuff was hardening with horrifying speed.

'If they're not already dead, Velindre and Naldeth will suffocate under this.' He had to shout to make himself heard, even with Risala inside the circle of his arms.

'Will we be any safer in the stern cabin?' she screamed back.

Kheda's throat ached with the effort of replying. 'There's nowhere else to go.'

Summoning up all his courage, he wrenched his fingers apart and let go of the mast, immediately clamping one hand around Risala's sound wrist. Slipping and stumbling, sick with terror, he forced his way across the deck. Risala struggled along with him. As he bent to grab the front of Velindre's mud-caked tunic, Risala twisted her one good hand free of his grip and reached down for Naldeth's outstretched arm. Somehow between them, they dragged the comatose wizards into the stern cabin.

Leaning against the cabin door to force it shut, they clung together. As the storm of fire and air and the earth's

convulsions assailed the ship, they were shaken from side to side, buffeted by bundles of clothing and bedding tossed all around them. Hard-edged objects anonymous in the darkness struck more painful blows. Rocks or other things entirely thumped against the deck and sides of the ship, making the whole hull resound like a drum. The noise was deafening, the fear incapacitating. The ground shook and shook again, unceasing.

It was some moments after the tremors stopped before Kheda actually realised that the Zaise had come to rest. The planks sloped beneath him at an ominous angle and the loose items that had been thrown around the cabin slid down to the floor. He found he was shaking from head to toe, aching with bruises, the pain of his wrenched shoulders indescribable. All was silent.

'Kheda?' Risala's whisper was shockingly loud in the darkness.

'Here.' He held her tight.

'Where are we?' A spasm of coughing racked her.

Kheda's own throat was burning in the acrid air. Finally convincing himself that any sensation of movement was no more than an echo in his shocked mind, he forced the stern cabin's door open. He had to push hard against the setting slurry of ash-laden rain still clogging the deck.

The Zaise was wedged between two sandbanks, the channels all around choked with ash and debris. There was no sign whatsoever of the muddy river's flow.

Kheda looked over his shoulder at Risala. 'Are they still alive?'

'I think so,' she said shakily. She was kneeling between the two wizards, bent with her ear over Velindre's mouth and her fingers pressed to the pulse in Naldeth's neck.

'We won't get out of here without them.' Kheda surveyed the flood plain as best he could in the dim light. While the air was hot and foul and the grasslands were

ablaze, there was no immediate sign of a torrent of molten rock pouring down the valley to consume them. There was no sign of any other living creature.

Risala sat back on her heels. 'Then all we can do is wait.'

Kheda leaned his forehead against the frame of the door. 'Will you ever forgive me for agreeing to come here?'

'I hardly think you're responsible for this catastrophe.' Risala looked at the comatose mages with fearful awe. 'Do you think they will wake up?'

'I have no idea,' Kheda said helplessly.