and amoral as this creature seems, I detect no aberrant hint. My own Sign remains quiescent.'
'You must take the sword soon, or I'll not be able to extract you. The edifice in which you fight is receding, whether in space or time I can't discern. My connection with you is stretching. In another few heartbeats, it will snap. You'll be sealed in with the Chalk Destrier, perhaps forever, as one of its trophies.'
The centaur reared, and then fell forward, its front legs kicking. The monk sidestepped, but the handblade sliced across Raidon's forearm. The creature was impossibly fast, hard as stone, and as hot as a forge fire. The monk flipped backward as if to flee, but it was a feint; while still standing on his hands, he heel-kicked, catching the creature in one flaring red eye as it leaned forward and down. A crunch like breaking crystal was music to Raidon's ears.
But the creature didn't react like a living thing would. It bore down with one hand and one blade, and very nearly skewered the monk. He reversed the back flip he'd initiated to draw the creature in, and flashed past the creature, trying to get behind it. Back on his feet and another five feet behind Destrier-
The centaur mule-kicked him. Years of rote training alone saved him then, so instead of staving in his head, the blow merely knocked stars into his vision and banging cymbals into his ears.
He dropped to the ground, just avoiding a second rear-leg kick from the centaur. The floor was cold and gritty beneath his fingers.
'The sword!' Cynosure urged again, his voice noticeably weaker, as if he were shouting from a great distance.
Raidon didn't waste breath explaining he'd been trying to follow the constructs advice all along.
'Now or never,' came the construct's warning, half as loud.
Raidon threw himself sideways, rolling toward the boulder, knowing he was opening himself up to an attack. The Chalk Destrier did not disappoint. It stomped him once before he stood, pulling himself up the side of the rock.
As the cold pommel of Angul fell into Raidon's grip, the centaur reared up again, kicking him in the shoulder and stomach with its front hooves. He curled and rolled backward. The weight of his falling body wrenched Angul from the stone.
'Got you!' he heard Cynosure exclaim. A parabola of blue light spun out of nothing, engulfing him.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Year of the Secret (1396 DR) Taunissik, Sea of Fallen Stars
Anusha wondered what was happening back on the island. Anxiety prickled through her dream form.
She pulled her travel chest out of the hallway onto the main deck. The Green Siren's launch was gone, but two much smaller lifeboats remained. Lucky followed her, the dog's chain severed by a single stroke of her dream sword. To the eyes of any watching pirate, it would seem as if the chest slid along the oiled planks of the deck of its own accord.
'The ghost!'
A dark-haired, scarred woman stood between her and the closest lifeboat, her eyes wide. It was the same pirate responsible for nearly revealing Anusha's presence several days ago. The woman wasn't looking at her, but at Anusha's reflection in the dirty glass of a signal mirror mounted not three feet from the travel chest.
Annoyance briefly eclipsed her worry about Japheth. How many reflective surfaces were there on this blasted ship?
Anusha released the chest and summoned her dream sword. She smashed the signal mirror with the blade's tip. From now on, she decided, she would smash every mirror she came upon.
The pirate screamed, 'Ghost attack!' and ran, diving into the open hold. Questioning cries and answering yells sprung up around the ship.
'Brilliant,' commented Anusha as she relinquished her sword. It faded like a dream. She grabbed her travel chest and pulled in earnest, quickly towing it to the railing. The seamount of Taunissik, ringed in streamers of darkness, remained just visible as the day's light began to fall to twilight.
Anusha studied the mechanism securing the lifeboat. Some sort of pulley connected to a lot of thick ropes and knots. She briefly considered having at it with her sword. No, she should lower the boat first…
Pirate calls of alarm went up across the craft, in response to the incessant screams of 'Ghost!' down in the hold. Anusha found the latch securing the pulley. She got a good hold on the chest, and then heaved her travel chest into the lifeboat. She couldn't have accomplished that feat in the flesh, but even so, she nearly lost her concentration and dropped herself into the chop.
Anusha jumped into the swaying launch and called Lucky to join her. The dog barked excitedly and bounded aboard. She released the latch controlling the pulley. The handle spun out, and the lifeboat dropped into the waves alongside the slimy bulk of the Green Siren. Safely down in the water, she severed the overhanging ropes with a couple of swipes of her shimmering dream blade, then grabbed the oars.
Her plan nearly failed then. It was far easier to push, pull, slash, and heave things in her dream form than to hold and manipulate a discrete object over long periods, let alone two simultaneously. The oars kept slipping from her hands even as she tried to fit them to the oarlocks on each gunwale.
Several heads poked over the railing above her, some pointing, all yelling. One man was yelling, 'The ghost is stealing the captain's dog!'
Someone else yelled, 'By Umberlee's rusted trident, what're you fools jabbering about! That's not a ghost-we got us a thief with an invisibility spell!'
Cries of disagreement, revelation, and surprise came back. A discussion broke out over whether wizards had relearned the art of magically tricking the eye.
Anusha continued to struggle with the oars. Desperation was not helping her concentration. She recalled suddenly the effort it had taken her to learn cursive writing under the stern eye of her tutor. With a similar effort, she blocked out the pirate talk above and slowly, methodically, placed one oar in its lock, then the other. Once so placed, she discovered it was far easier to row.
With swift strokes, the lifeboat nosed toward Taunissik. She left the pirate babble behind. Lucky positioned himself on the lifeboat's prow, and for a short time, served as its figurehead.
Halfway to the isle, the small dots trailing misty streamers of darkness resolved as squid-riding kuo-toa. Anusha suddenly recalled Nogah's role the first time a landing party from the Green Siren came ashore. The ex-whip had chanted the entire time, to keep the attention of the sentinels and Gethshemeth elsewhere. Anusha ceased rowing and looked hard at the distant flyers. Their patterns didn't seem any different. They hadn't noticed her yet, down here on the darkening sea. Had Nogah been wrong? Considering the ambush the others had walked into, it seemed possible the ex-whip had accomplished exactly the opposite of her stated aim. Anusha resumed rowing.
Her pace quickened, until she sawed at the oars like a madwoman. Why not? She didn't need to pause for rest or breath. It wasn't heavy work, just tedious. She sped across the water. In short order, she beached the lifeboat next to the first launch, in a thick tangle of mangrove roots. Nothing had found or disturbed the site, as far as she could determine.
She wondered what had become of the rowers left by the first sortie. Nothing pleasant, she guessed.
Anusha debated whether she should pull the travel chest completely ashore or leave it in the boat for a quick getaway later. She decided to leave it in the boat.
She addressed the guard dog. 'Lucky! Good boy! Good boy! Stay here, Lucky. Guard! Stay until I return, all right?' Lucky tried to lick her proffered hand and settled himself directly on top of the travel chest. What had she done to deserve the trust of such a loyal, innocent little creature? She patted him on the head, then turned toward the isle's interior.
Raidon hurtled through a gap between nothing and everything, through a space where people were not meant to go. Light speared his eyes and burned his face. His teeth rattled in his jaw. All the bones in his body tried to burrow out of their fleshy cocoon. His chest ached as he gasped over and over, trying to draw in another breath of air. But there was no air. A gray haze narrowed his vision smaller and smaller…
