crawling across his palm. He didn't look-he knew the sensation was in his mind.
Nogah interjected, 'We should go now. Prepare a small craft for those of you who can't swim.'
'Which would be all of us,' Seren replied.
Nogah glanced at Thoster but only nodded.
'If you can protect us from being detected, shouldn't we take the whole ship closer?' the wizard pressed.
'I can obscure a small craft but not something as large as the Green Siren.'
Thoster bawled out orders for the small launch to be readied. When it was lowered over the side, the captain, Seren, Japheth, six crew members assigned to row, and even the first mate, Nyrotha, climbed down into the rocking craft. Though he couldn't see her, Japheth supposed Anusha accompanied the landing party. Again, more powerfully this time, the urge to withdraw a speck of dust from his hidden tin made his throat feel swollen. The ants now felt like they were crawling up his forearms too. He gripped the gunwale to keep his hands occupied.
Nogah simply dived off the side of the Green Siren. She arrowed into the chop with barely a splash. A moment later, the kuo-toa's scaled head reappeared near the launch, her wide eyes blinking through the bluish gray waves.
Thoster loosed the knots, and the rowers began their back-breaking sculls. Slowly, the launch began to close the distance to the isle. Nogah swam alongside, gurgling a half-audible chant. Japheth at first thought she was praying, then remembered she was outcast from her goddess. She must be drawing power from the Dreamheart in some ritualized fashion. Presumably the chant provided protection against the observers on the island, though he couldn't perceive any obvious effect. The warlock was impressed she could call upon the stone's power from so far. He hoped Gethshemeth didn't notice.
Tiny spots became visible in the gloom above the island. - He pointed them out to Captain Thoster. The captain trained his glass on them. He swore.
'What is it?' demanded Seren. I Thoster wordlessly passed the glass to the wizard. She looked, and her pale skin turned even whiter. 'How can that be?'
Japheth took the spyglass from the woman's nearly limp hands.
The glass revealed five flitting sentinels circling the island's periphery in lazy loops. The sentinels were kuo- toa, their forms predatory like the ones earlier encountered. The strange kuo-toa rode steeds that appeared to be great masses of seaweed. Each mass trailed a writhing nest of suckered arms that undulated in wavelike synchrony as they glided across the sky. Streamers of inky blackness marked each rider's wake, slowly dispersing in the wind, but accounting for the general gloom that cloaked the island. Each kuo-toa clutched a lance-like spear under one arm.
'It is the power of the Dreamheart!' called Nogah's voice from the water.
'How? Why?' demanded Thoster.
'The stone taps some greater font of energy that liberates creatures formerly consigned to life below the waves. To the few selected, the boundary between sky and sea is erased, and movement and breath in both are as if one vast realm! See? Those creatures flitting about are enslaved morkoth! Gethshemeth has repurposed them as flying mounts!'
The ex-whip's words came fast and furious, becoming almost indecipherable as the kuo-toa began to thrash in the water.
'Easy, Nogah,' cautioned Thoster. 'Are you all right?'
'Let us hope,' interrupted Seren, 'Gethshemeth does not give itself this ability to glide through the air like a bird.'
'Actually,' Japheth found himself saying, even as his eyes stayed locked on the spiraling sentinels inking the air, 'that would make it far more convenient for us. I don't look forward to swimming down to meet the great beast.'
Nogah huffed and wheezed, but began to calm. Finally, she continued, 'I foresee Gethshemeth will meet us halfway.'
Japheth wondered what that meant, but Nogah silenced his query unasked with a quick shake of her head. She said, 'Now, quiet your tongues. I must redouble my efforts. I didn't expect such sentinels.'
The launch resumed its journey. The isle drew ever closer. Japheth kept his eyes on the unfettered squid things and their riders, waiting for the least hint of alarm. When the bottom of the boat suddenly scraped up on the rocky coast of the isle, he started.
The dripping form of Nogah rose from the rolling breakers. She still hummed some atonal tune under her breath, and merely pointed.
All but the rowers disembarked. A high wave poured shockingly cold water down Japheth's boot, and he hissed.
To the right and left, a thick tangle of mangrove roots and branches prevented easy access to the shore. Nogah had cleverly selected a site of their landfall not visible to the rest of the island. Small fish, shrimp, crabs, and mollusks played in the clear seawater washing between the reaching mangrove roots.
The ex-whip took the lead, pressing into the dense tangle on something that wasn't so much a path as a small, salty estuary. The kuo-toa had yet to cease her rhythmic humming. Japheth looked up. He couldn't immediately spy sentinels, but he didn't doubt they still flew.
He wondered if he should chance a little magic of his own, but decided against it.
What he really needed was the extra perception granted by a grain of dust.
It was foolish, he told himself, not to call on all his resources now that things were becoming so desperate. He'd take only a half grain. That would be enough to enhance his perception without dulling his reactions too much. Or worse, pull his mind out onto the road.
The tin was already in his hand. He popped it open and plucked out a crumb. It was one of the smaller ones. Proud of his restraint, he dropped the ruby red particle into his left eye.
'Oh! Japheth, why now?' came Anusha's voice from nowhere.
Captain Thoster glanced back. 'Eh, what's that?' His eyes squinted with vague puzzlement.
Japheth asked, 'What was what?'
'Thought I heard someone say your name. Not happy with you, neither.'
Japheth shrugged. 'You're hearing things, Captain.'
Thoster frowned, but turned back to sloshing along the trail after Seren.
Japheth cocked his head slightly to regard Anusha's armored form, which was blurring into his perception. He gave the phantom a half smile and winked. 'I'll be all right,' he whispered. The armored head gave a small shake, and then faded. Either he hadn't taken enough dust to perfectly resolve her presence, or she'd decided to leave. Because she was disappointed in him? The thought concerned him. But it was a pale sort of concern, attenuated by the euphoria that accompanied the first moments after partaking of traveler's dust.
Japheth melted into the moment.
The mangroves thinned ahead, revealing the first of several greenish gray structures. Like coral in texture and in their seamless solidity, the structures were not rough jumbles of growth, but rather stood in coarse parody of more mundane buildings. Walls, doors, windows, towers, and spires were visible, separated by plazas and courtyards, and many clear pools. Structural lines sometimes seemed to converge too sharply, or diverge where they should have stayed parallel.
Or perhaps the lines were perfectly straight, mused Japheth. Maybe it was just the dust.
The kuo-toa settlement lay in murky dimness under the debris of sentinel wakes. The smoky veil overhead gave the illusion the village lay within a subterranean cavern. Bestial kuo-toa moved purposefully between the structures, but a few played in the pools, cavorting and splashing as if human children. These kuo-toa were not goggle-eyed and sticky-skinned, like Nogah and her kin, though they were just as awkward when moving on land. But the creatures gained something like grace when they darted through the surface pools. Watching them move, an undercurrent of something Japheth couldn't quite name brushed him. Some churning dread, squirming just below the surface, like worms hidden in an apple.
That last feeling was certainly the dust, he thought. Or, then again, perhaps it was a true perception-perhaps his enhanced senses were picking up the traces of Gethshemeth's control over these hapless and partly metamorphosed creatures.
