But the only thing that rose from the cauldron's steamy mouth was a hiss and a geyser of water, which rained down upon Rotapan, knocking him from the shell into the swirling waters.
Riotla opened the canopy on her chair as the Neffians picked their careful way over the turtles' backs, waving and grinning wickedly at Rotapan as he bobbed and struggled to stay afloat.
The half-ore was not the only one to look back. 'Og, Claria-move along. We have company,' said Cheyne. He could see Rotapan's mouth moving, shouting over the waves, shaking his empty hands first at Riolla and then at them. 'Faster, Og!' he shouted.
Over the turtles' shells they ran, until the water changed from dark blue back to green, and then to paler green. When Cheyne could see the beach clearly, he caught Og by the hood and jumped from the last shell, Claria already swimming hard before them, obscured by the foaming breakers.
Rotapan had disappeared. Riolla sighed and tossed a feather at the last spot she had seen him floating, then moved past without another thought. But the chair was leaning heavily; she looked to the left and saw a Neffian struggling to keep his footing, the weight of the sedan finally becoming impossible for the exhausted slaves.
'Saelin-it appears the chair is too heavy. Catch up on the other side,' she said as she pushed the assassin from his seat into the dark water. Riolla immediately slid to the center of the chair to maintain the Neffians' balance. 'Carry on.' She motioned, wrinkling her nose at the heavy, cloying odor of the sea.
Saelin gurgled under the frothy waves, the weight of his heavy robes and weapons taking him down immediately. He grasped at Gahzi's ankle in desperation, but only managed to pull the screaming Neffian into the sea with him. While Gahzi sank like a coin in a fountain, the other Neffians struggled to right the chair.
Og, still riding Cheyne's shoulders, Cheyne, and Claria fought a strong shoreline current as they tried time and again to reach the beach. Yob and three of his javlineers were catching up fast.
But Cheyne discovered there was a new problem, the results being variable, of course. Wave after wave of the Silver Sea now bristled with the vipers that Rotapan had ensorcelled with his staff.
The ajada had drawn them into the brine, some immediately drowning, most managing to swim along nicely, their heads straining at the waves, following the staff with rapt devotion. Several raced far ahead of Riolla's chair, toward the ores, swifter in the water than on land. Within seconds the snakes would be upon them.
'Og!' Cheyne shouted. 'Do something!'
The songmage had lifted his hands, preparing to disenchant the turtles, when he saw Rotapan surface and climb back onto the shells closest to the whirlpool. Rotapan swore and sputtered, the waves crashing over him as he clung to the turtle's slippery back with his hooked claws.
Riolla yawned and frowned as she noticed the half-ore's reappearance. How unfortunate, she thought.
Og stopped the spell and began to laugh uncontrollably at the site of the flapping half-ore, his silver mustache drooping like a walrus's, his bony, green arms flailing as he went down again and resurfaced.
'Og, hurry!' shouted Cheyne, not finding the delay at all funny.
A brown viper cruised within inches of Claria's heels, straining to wrap itself around her ankle.
'You old buzzard! Who will take whose head now?' Og taunted the drowning overking. Og shook the staff at him every time he surfaced for further torment.
The brown viper lunged and twisted its rough, saw-toothed underbelly around Claria's ankle once, opened its mouth, and struck blindly at her foot, missing only because she jerked her foot underwater at the snake's cold, sharp touch.
'Og!' The songmage jumped at the power in Cheyne's voice, ceasing his laughter.
And dropping the staff. He had finally noticed Riolla.
Cheyne had no time to deal with it. He dove for the brown viper, snatching its wide, flat head from Claria's kicking limb, and pushing its bared fangs under the waves, squeezed with all his strength. The snake coiled and twisted around his arms, then caught hold of his neck, the choking pressure and pain from its grip causing Cheyne to surface again and again as he wrestled with the viper.
Og watched in despair as the current quickly carried the scepter over the churning waves and into the mouth of the cauldron. The other snakes, still in its magical thrall, confused and churning the water, began biting one another and racing over the waves toward Rotapan, who had again caught a slippery turtle and was clinging to it for all he was worth.
The cauldron toyed with the staff, the light of its red ajada stone unquenched by the whitecapped waves. It danced merrily on the edges of the vortex, and then bobbed underwater for a time, only to reappear moments later in the same place.
Rotapan grabbing wildly for it from his handhold. Chastened, distraught, Og remembered his purpose, waiting until he was sure Riolla would not be drowned, hoping that Rotapan would be, and hummed into the conch shell. Without the staff…
But the red light fragmented and dissolved, and the confused turtles instantly broke formation and swam off.
Last in the chase, Riolla found her chair sinking and taking on water quickly, the three Neffians having abandoned their posts in the onslaught of angry, waterborne vipers. At last she disappeared into the dark waves. Caught totally by surprise, Yob dove with his turtle, who stayed under almost longer than the ore could bear, but then surfaced again close to the far shore. Yob broke the water with a huge gasp, never so glad to see land in his life, and promptly passed out, tiny waves lapping at his chin as he washed in to shore.
Farther back, Rotapan found himself trying to swim amid a roil of serpents, many of which had tired and began wrapping themselves onto whatever solid thing they could find in the sea. Struggling to break from the whirlpool's currents, the overking slung two kraits and a copperhead from his arms, screaming in circles of terror. He would have surely been swallowed by the cauldron had not Riolla floated past, her sedan chair bedecked with hissing reptiles and moving under the power of a turtle who was trapped underneath. As he lunged for a handhold, she batted at the half-ore's clutching fingers with her fan, a sneer of mild distaste on her overpainted lips. Og watched her blissfully, his heart now pounding from more than the hard run across the turtles.
Finally on shore, the brown viper dead, Cheyne motioned to the forest. 'Og, come and now,' he panted. 'Claria says we have two choices: the old caravan road that leads toward Drufalden's mountain, or straight through that thick wood.'
Claria stood silently watching him gingerly dab at his neck as she wrung out her robes. The dead snake lay in loose coils a few feet away, but her ankle was raw and still twitched from its touch. Claria shivered, thinking how close it had come to biting her.
'Here, let me do that. Please,' she said, reaching up and taking his hand away from his neck.
While Og hurried up the beach, Claria quickly cleaned Cheyne's abrasions as he scanned the thick, swaying pine trees that marched westward just a hundred yards from the shore. Enough cover, he thought, if they could get in quickly. He checked his pack for his boots and then for the totem, finding it sticky with salt, but secure. But the little bronze-bound book was gone. There was no time to look for it now.
'Og!' he rasped impatiently.
'I know. I'm coming. But isn't she lovely? Just like a queen.' Og sighed. Claria shot him a killing glance at the mention of the word 'queen,' but said nothing.
'Hey, what is that?' Cheyne pointed to something caught in the shallows, rocking back and forth in the waves like a piece of driftwood.
'It's the staff! I thought it gone forever,' cried Og, throwing his boots off as he charged into the water to retrieve the ajada.
'Not so fast-that's mine!' shouted a voice from the breakers.
Rotapan, covered in a cloak of seaweed, a water-shy coral snake wrapped around his head like a crown, bobbed under the shallow water. When he broke the waves again, Og, Claria, and Cheyne had disappeared once more, right before his very eyes, leaving only one of Og's castoff boots, and the sound of Claria's laughter rising on the wind through the tall pines.
'Well, what a lovely job you have done with the power I gave you, Rotapan. 'Rex Serpens,' was it? I have seen that stone do a lot more than draw reptiles.' Riolla chortled as she shed her bobbing chair, sopping pink silks and all, and stepped out onto dry land.
Before the water became too shallow, instinct had called the trapped turtle back out to sea, but Rio 1 la's lambskin boots had never so much as touched water during the entire ordeal. One or two little diehard asps leapt from the wreckage of the sinking chair and wriggled toward the drier sand, their horned heads disappearing
