turning its blind head from side to side as it tried to pinpoint where she was standing. Luckily, its fellows kept bumping into it, and it would break off from its hunting to swipe a talon or tail at the other two.
Obviously, Ivy thought, there was some disagreement going on about who would get to eat her first.
Above her, Gunderal's chanting was adding to the confusion. Her light, high song of the river overlaid Ivy's deeper rough voice booming out her ribald love song. With all that sound swirling through the room and the destrachans' own cries adding to the confusion, the monsters tucked down their flapped ears, flat against their heads, rather like a man might squeeze his eyelids closed against a too-bright light. The beasts fanned out, wildly swinging their talons in the space around Ivy and screeching in a way that made her eardrums ache. Bits of stone shattered as the destrachans' oscillating cries nearly deafened Ivy and the watchers on the stairs above.
At least Archlis had been truthful about the creatures' senses. It seemed that they were primarily limited to using their hearing to locate her. If the breathing slits gave them an ability to smell, Gunderal's spell should hide her from that betrayal of her location. Now, if only the river would rise faster. The water was barely up to the small of the creatures' backs.
'Come on,' Ivy sang, weaving her worries into the lyrics of her song, 'if you find me too quickly, that won't be any fun for you. And ladies of Procampur know blue-roof sailor boys want to roll, roll, roll with the tide!'
The tower was small with three destrachans crashing around its base. Ivy hopped up a few stairs to avoid the heavy bodies blundering in the center. When the destrachans collided with each other, little shrieks would come out of their mouths. The biggest one shrieked loudest, and the other two would back off for a bit, and then start hunting for her again. One of the beasts stumbled into the fountain and got its big foot stuck in the basin. It pointed its mouth toward the marble and let out a moaning cry. As the stone turned to dust, a wider hole formed where the fountain had been, and the river rushed faster into the room.
'Ready?' Zuzzara called down to her.
'Let the water rise a bit,' Ivy called, staggering as a wave caused by a destrachan's thrashing tail rushed past her. Gasping, Ivy spit water out of her mouth, blinked, and tried to push her wet hair out of her eyes. It stuck to the dust and mud that already caked her face. 'I don't want them to turn back and escape.'
One of the ears twitched on the nearest destrachans, and it swung its head up, pointing toward Zuzzara. Ivy immediately broke into a new song, an old favorite of her mother. 'In this world is naught but trouble and sorrow, but why walk in shadow, why run in the night, when you can fly, fly, fly away!'
'Ivy, what do you want me to do?' Zuzzara called.
'Time to fly, time to fly away, time to soar,' she bellowed in reply, keeping to the rhythm of the song. Gods knew her singing was awful, but it did seem to keep the destrachans from hunting the others. Ivy grasped the winged serpent belt buckle beneath her fingers. 'Pull the wings open three times and then shut,' Kid had said, and she did. Nothing happened. 'There's nothing but trouble, trouble and sorrow,' she sang as she grappled with the belt, 'when magic belts won't save you.'
'Hey,' yelled Zuzzara from above. 'That doesn't sound right. I think you have the words wrong.'
The beasts circled Ivy, bouncing their cries off the crumbling walls of the chamber, tilting their ears to catch the echoes. Now they were circling together around the base of the tower, each step bringing them closer to where Ivy stood on the first step of the stone staircase. A taloned foot shot out, flashing in front of Ivy's eyes. Its claw was so close to her that she felt the movement of air against her face. She clamped her mouth shut, hoping the sudden silence would confuse the creatures.
The three mud-colored destrachans prowled, then stopped and raised their wide mouths toward the ceiling of the chamber. Even their ears became motionless. Were they sensing her movements? Could they feel her breathe?
Suddenly all the ears twitched at the same time, and the creatures tilted their heads toward Gunderal, high above them-a frail figure, but calm and concentrated. The creatures let out a hideous howl. Gunderal gracefully placed her fingers in her ears and continued to chant.
'Run with me, sad screamers, walk in shadow, run in sorrow,' Ivy sang, and her voice echoed from all the walls. Ivy opened her mouth to sing another verse, and her mind went blank. The words of all the hundreds of songs that she knew tangled in her head and bottled up in her throat. But it was enough. The destrachans had turned toward her again and away from her friends. And the river was over the first step of the stair and rising rapidly. She backed up the spiral a little higher.
'Pull the wings open three times and then shut,' she howled at the beasts sloshing toward her, their talons extended like cats looking to play with mice. Her fingers plucked again at the silver buckle. 'One, two, three, shut! Surprise! The magic is busted!'
Even where she stood on the staircase, the water was up to her waist and sloshing now around the shoulders of the destrachans. She thought about yelling at Zuzzara to haul her up, but being dragged on a rope against the rough stones would hurt. Instead she began to move more quickly up the stairs, her boots echoing on the stone steps.
One of the destrachans stretched out its neck and directed a wave of sound from its tubular mouth. Behind her, the lower stairs began to crumble. Ivy looked back and saw the smooth slabs of stone treads crash into the water, leaving jagged mounds. Waves shot up beside her, sloshing on the outer side of the stairs and breaking over her legs.
'Run!' Mumchance shouted from above.
'Blast,' Ivy cried, leaping up the stairs, just ahead of the cracking rock. It was a long staircase, circling the full chamber. Behind her, the biggest beast howled and wallowed in the water, tumbled over, and righted itself. Its neck stretched out. Again it let out a burst of sound.
'Keep running! Don't look!' Zuzzara screamed.
She didn't have to look. She felt the stair tread fall away under her back foot. She dragged on her gauntlets as she ran, throwing her weight forward. She sprawled on the upper steps, both feet on a solid stair. Her gloved hands scraped over the stone stair treads, caught, and held. She had collected a whole new set of bruises across her ribs and stomach, but she was safe.
'Shall I pull now?' Zuzzara shouted.
Ivy knew how that would go, her body bump-bump-bumping up stone stairs. Which would be worse: face down with her nose scraped raw against the stone, or on her back with every bang on her armor adding more bruises to her much abused body? 'No! Not yet!'
Scrambling to her feet, Ivy continued up the stairs, her feet pounding. The sound and vibrations attracted the beasts, but she knew of no way to run up stone stairs silently. Ivy glanced down at the red belt encircling her waist. Magic! It was never trustworthy-not for her. Balancing herself with one hand against the wall, she caught the wings of the little silver serpent buckle in her left hand.
'Pull the wings open three times and then shut,' she sputtered, her gloved fingers clumsy against the buckle's delicate mechanism. 'One, two, three, shut! Oh!'
She blinked in surprise as her body drifted upward.
'How about that?' she yelled as she floated off the stairs. The section of staircase just below her rising feet now broke apart in another blast of powdered stone, leaving wide gaps. She looked up and saw the chamber's ceiling. There were interesting reflections from the water on it. It was much too close and approaching fast.
'Now, Zuzzara, now! Pull!'
A tug on her other belt kept her from zooming up to the ceiling. Twisting around and peering through her dangling feet, Ivy could see Zuzzara braced in the upper doorway, hauling her down like a kite being retrieved on a windy day. Ivy continued to sing loudly, choosing a song about lovers and yellow-roof maids, because no one had yelled at her to shut up yet. Besides, it did seem to distract the destrachans enough to keep them away from Gunderal.
Far below, the beasts were still circling in the center of the room, trying to find her and ignoring the water that was now halfway up their long necks.
'I love a good audience,' said Ivy as her boots scraped against the stone stairway. She twisted the winged serpent so the spell shut off and nearly dropped straight back into the chamber as gravity gripped her. Zuzzara's strong hand on her belt hauled her back to safety on the ledge. Ivy grinned at the half-orc.
With the water now lapping around their ears, the destrachans fell silent. The work of their terrible cries, however, continued. The stairs crumbled away, treads disappearing in showers of powdered stone, and cracks appeared in the walls around them, sending showers of little pebbles splashing in the water below. The destrachans
