being impaled by some of those bones, or drowned. I should like to see that as a matter of professional interest, though, admittedly, I will be very disappointed if I cannot be the one to use the girl's own weapons on her, then take the digger's head.'
Riolla stopped laughing as Saelin's words conjured the vision of Cheyne dead of the bonefall, or of her chance of finding the Clock and its hoard drowning in that whirlpool.
'Onward, and double-quick! Follow the little wart with the staff,' she cried in alarm.
Saelin looked at her in horror. 'Honored Schreefa, I meant I should like to see it from up here!'
Riolla waved his words away and plunked herself into the seat next to him, sending Gahzi and the other weary runners hurrying down the far side of the cliff, toward the shoreline as the sedan followed behind.
Seconds behind her, Javin and Doulos crept over the bluff Riolla had just deserted.
11
'Run for the sea! No not here, toward the other side of the old bridge, you two! We have to try farther down-the cauldron!' wheezed Og.
Cheyne reached back, took Og by the cloak, and slung the smaller man over his shoulder. 'Og, they are right behind us. Better an uncertain swim than a certain death. You can swim, can't you?' huffed Cheyne.
'No. Absolutely not. You should know that from the well in Sumifa.'
'I still think you were faking that you slipped in.'
'Truly, I was not,' said Og. 'Yob won't want to follow us into the water. He can't swim, either. But there's the whirlpool-and the monster.'
'You said Chelydrus was imaginary!' barked Cheyne.
'I said no one had ever seen him,' countered Og,
'Will you two set your minds and mouths to figuring out a way to survive Yob's spears first?' called Claria from in front. Somehow, even on the run, she had removed her boots, shoved them into her pack, and tied up her skirts.
'What were you doing in the well, Og?' Two nearly accurate spears chunked down to Cheyne's right and left.
'I was practicing, actually. Trying to get my voice back. Riolla had actually cast her glance my way the day I met you. I had hopes of, well… I fell in, but found that singing over the water seemed to help bring the magic. After all, I was still afloat when it summoned you, wasn't I?' He laughed.
Three more lances sprang up in front of them, causing Cheyne to veer, nearly dropping Og.
'Hey, will you be a bit more careful, there?' complained the little man.
Cheyne smiled despite himself. But then he got an idea, and none too soon: his boots hit the surf as a rain of spears fell at the shoreline.
'Can you find the same magic to float us over this water?' Cheyne asked while he swam out, still supporting Og. Claria raced ahead, doing a remarkably quick breaststroke.
'I really need more than this one stone to lift all of us…'
'There's a bit of a sandbar here,' shouted Claria, her mouth just above the waves. 'I can feel bottom, but the tide is rising, and there's an undertow. Hurry, Og. Sooner or later, it looks like everything goes down that vortex.'
Cheyne caught up, dumped Og in a shallower place, where the water came up to just under his nose, and removed his own footwear.
'Og, can you do anything with what you have now? Ow!' Cheyne winced as he stepped onto something hard and sharp. He reached down and brought up a large, broken conch shell, poured out the sand and water it held, then began to examine its markings, his injury forgotten in the new curiosity. Claria ducked her head under a wave to hide her smile.
Og held his hand over his eyes, bobbed up and down on the sandbar, and peered around them. On all sides, the sea rose and fell in a liquid rhythm, deepening from pale green to dark blue only yards out from the sandbar. The cauldron's spray filled the air, making rain1 7 8
Tcri McLaren
bows in the sunlight. The only thing Og saw was a bit of flotsam tumbling strangely in the tide out a few yards to the left. But it seemed to be moving on its own power.
Og clapped his hands in glee. 'Yes! I've got it,' he bubbled, losing his footing to the rising tide. 'Though the results may be variable…,'
Cheyne moved over and held him up in the water.
'Give me that shell and lift me as high as you can,' Og sputtered. Cheyne lifted him to his shoulders.
'Hurry, Og. The tide is moving quickly, and the ores on the shore show no sign of giving up. Unless you can work your magic, we're done for,' said Claria. She took the oncoming waves with ease, but clearly did not enjoy the ride. The water looked clear enough, but tasted foul and metallic and smelled of decay.
Og turned his head and pounded on it just above his ear, removing the water inside. The shell at his lips, the staff in the other hand, he began to hum a middle-range note, not far from the sound of the waves crashing on the shoreline, punctuated by a series of honking whistles. A red light appeared around his head, its surges seeming to make the music visible. While there was a strange, compelling rhythm to the performance, Cheyne felt relieved that Og hadn't attempted another song. The notes were astoundingly powerful and astoundingly loud.
Og kept it up for a couple of minutes, and then pointed all around. 'See? There-there, and over there. They're coming.'
Cheyne looked toward shore and thought Og meant the ores, who had tired of waiting and were now, at Yob's sharp prodding, stepping delicately into the water, holding their spears above their heads. Then Claria called his attention back to the open sea.
'Look! What's that?' she marveled as a string of stepping stones seemed to gather and stretch toward the far shore, its line oddly the same height and unnaturally straight, the red light hovering above it.
Og just grinned under his nose and made a flourish above his head with the staff.
'After you, my lady,' he offered.
'They're alive!' said Cheyne in amazement, as a sea turtle the size of a sedan chair swam up and presented its mottled green, weed-fringed back to them.
Claria climbed up onto it, carefully avoiding the sharp edges of the colonies of coral and gooseneck barnacles that clung along the edges of the slick plates of the turtle's flat shell. Og quickly followed, and the two of them pulled Cheyne up just as the first wave washed over his head. They stepped shakily from shell to shell, the turtles placidly treading water nose to tail, and made good progress toward the far shore.
Then Cheyne looked back. Og's amplified spell had called enough turtles to stretch from shore to shore, but something was wrong: they were not swimming off before the ores could also use them.
The results, had indeed, been variable. Not only were Yob and his warriors bounding along after them, Rotapan himself, furiously unbalanced, charged over the turtles' backs, shoving any of Yob's javlineers in his way to their watery deaths.
'You'll not escape me this time, Ogwater! Your friends will be my lord's dinner, and you will finally come home to my cabinet where you belong. And give me back my staff!' he wheezed. His thin hair lay plastered to his skull and his glorious mustache drooped heavily.
When he reached the part of the tortoise bridge closest to the whirlpool, he stopped abruptly and bowed to the roiling cauldron, making a long series of elaborate gestures in the air. Yob's troops far in front of him, the shore far to the rear, Rotapan suddenly realized where he was-out in the middle of the sea- and froze to the shell he stood on. But there was another reason besides the very good one of not being able to swim. Coming along behind him, four tired, frightened-looking Neffians bore a sedan chair, its pale silks fluttering in the sea breeze.
Rotapan wasted no time. 'Great spirit of the mighty circular tides, mover of the waters, serpent of the Silver Sea, rise up and save your humble servant! I beseech you to engulf this threat to your worshiper!'
