Raidon leaped from the circle to the railing in one movement He kicked one foot between the spars ta anchor himself.
He dragged Angul from his sheath. The sword exulted, catching fire immediately. A pulse of certitude surged into Raidon's blood.
He leaned over and saw a monstrous thing approaching from below. It was a creature meant for watery abysses, but Gethshemeth hurtled up through moist air as if born to it. Tentacles slapped and grasped upward, pulling the scarred bulk behind. Eyes like twin fire pits burned with mad hatred. Raidon saw the stump of the tentacle he had severed when-he'd fought the creature tendays before, the one that had held the Dreamheart.
Something had grown back in its place. It was an irregular, splotchy globe sprinkled with a dozen tiny eyes, all blinking stupidly. Even through the unyielding conviction Angul woke in Raidon, the tumorlike growth brought a taste of bile to his lips. Angul, seeing what Raidon saw, screamed his outrage against the insult to the world's natural order. The blade's fire leaped higher, and the symbol on Raidon's chest burst into flame. Its hue alternated between the lighter cerulean hue of the Sign and the darker blue fire of a spellscar.
The display didn't slow the approaching creature. In moments, the rising kraken's tentacles would wrap around Green Siren.
Raidon knew, from the time he'd spent in the ritual circle's center, that the gleamtails could not hope to hold aloft both the ship and a kraken of Gethshemeth's size.
'Knowing is dust unless action follows after,' Raidon muttered, one of the proverbs of Xiang Temple.
He grabbed one end of the hawser Seren had earlier used as a stool. The other end of the coiled rope was tied to a stanchion. Good. He dived off the side of the ship. A line of blue fire traced his path downward.
Half-elf and kraken met below Green Siren. Angul struck some kind of invisible ward surrounding Gethshemeth, producing a clap of thunder. The creature's ward shattered, deflecting Raidon's trajectory. Instead of plunging the Blade Cerulean directly into the base of the writhing tentacles, the monk tumbled off course.
A spiral of tentacle wide as house caught him across the back. Pain clutched him only for a heartbeat before Angul sucked it away. But in the moment of disorientation, he lost his hold on his lifeline to Green Siren.
He and the end of the rope continued to fall past the kraken's bulk. Raidon kicked backward desperately, trying to flail his open hand toward the rope's end before its length played out. The braided hemp of the rope slapped across his palm. Not an instant too soon-
The slack in the rope gave out. Raidon's plunge jerked to an arm-wrenching stop. White fire blossomed in his shoulder, forearm, and fingers, pulling a scream from him. But he didn't let go. Angul wouldn't allow him that luxury.
The monk dangled at the cord's end like a cat toy displayed for the kraken's play. Angul whispered in his mind,
Gethshemeth hovered in the dank air, midway between Raidon, who now hung below it, and the barnacled keel of Green Siren above. The tiny heads of several crew appeared over the railing, their eyes wide with fear.
Lure it down to us, Angul urged.
Raidon complied. He concentrated on his spellscar. The Sign of his adopted order pulsed. Shafts of cerulean light lanced the kraken's bulk. Where the light touched Gethshemeth, its skin seared and smoked.
The creature pirouetted in the air, a motion made obscene by the creature's unnatural bulk moving so delicately.
It turned its full attention.to Raidon.
Angul fed more energy to the monk. New strength rippled through the half-elf s muscles, starting in his hand and spreading quickly through the rest of his body.
When it reached his chest, his Sign responded with another pulse of radiance that needled the tentacled hulk anew.
Gethshemeth roared. Like branches in a tornado, its arms lashed wildly as it dropped on Raidon.
The monk's eyes were riveted on the tentacle bearing the grotesque blinking tumor. Even as he was caught up and squeezed, he focused past the sound of bones breaking in his chest and legs.
He called on his Sign and the sword and surged forward, struggling through the battering, squeezing arms. A swing of the Blade Cerulean, and the misshapen nodule spurted free. Greenish purple ichor geysered, and all the eyes pocking the growth rotated in their sockets as one, attempting to fix Raidon with their mismatched gaze.
Some kind of fell influence lived in those eyes… but gravity pulled the severed pod down and away too quickly.
Gethshemeth's tentacles spasmed and released Raidon. The monk clung to the supporting rope.
The creature's mouth opened wide. It was horribly akin to a human's but much larger. A noise like a baby's wail issued from it, sending prickles up Raidon's scalp.
Even as Angul's influence began to reknit Raidon's damaged bones and sinews, Gethshemeth shrugged its colossal tentacles. It coughed out three arcane syllables. The great kraken's outline turned fuzzy and uncertain, and then it was gone. Air fell into the space the kraken's bulk had occupied, creating a final thunderclap.
Raidon hung alone beneath the floating hull of Green Siren.
Monk and sword voiced a simultaneous shout of fury. Gethshemeth had fled. You were not fast enough again, Angul chided. Had I made contact, I would have prevented it from displacing. Instead of arguing, the monk meditated on his Sign. Both the sword and the Sign were tools created by the ancient order of Keepers. But the Sign was pure, Angul was tainted. With the Sign's strength, he carefully disentangled the sword's wants and desires from his own.
He finally gathered the will to sheathe Angul. It burned and shook, but was rendered powerless.
Raidon wound an arm and his upper body into the hawser so that he no longer had to support all his weight with just one or even two hands.
He rested, swaying gently in empty space. He was content for the moment to be alone in the dark air and to study the vast facade of Xxiphu. The runes and relief sculpture slowly crept across the primeval structure's face.
The many openings remained empty of activity, though some glowed with the faintest hint of purplish light.
Other than the slithering inscriptions, he detected no movement or sound. The half-elf was grateful the city appeared to be, at least on its exterior, asleep.
Appearances could be deceiving, he knew. His Sign, born of an ancient Seal, tingled with constant feedback.
Aberrations were moving inside Xxiphu.
The rope jerked. He glanced up. Even more heads craned over the railing where his lifeline connected. He heard Thoster shout something, then many hands began to haul on the rope.
When Raidon was back on deck, the captain clapped him on the shoulder. 'You're crazy. But you saved my ship.'
'Yes. But Gethshemeth escaped again.'
'Ho! But you put the fear in it! It won't cow us again with its size and power. That's the last we'll see of that beast, I warrant.' An unnatural glee possessed Thoster. His smile seemed too bright to Raidon. A sheen of sweat glistened on the captain's forehead.
'Are you fevered?' Raidon asked.
The captain said, 'Aren't we all?' The man turned to see to his crew.
Worry wrinkled the monk's brow, but other concerns pressed far harder.
'Seren, how goes the navigation?' he called.
The wizard had stopped Green Siren's rotation sometime during his brief exchange with Gethshemeth. Raidon saw the blank look of concentration on the woman's face- probably a mirror of his expression as he'd guided the ship's descent through the earth.
After a few moments, Seren replied, 'We're moving. It took me awhile to figure out how to get the gleamtails to rise, they'd rather sink. But I've got it now.'
Raidon realized the ship was indeed increasing its altitude, albeit slowly. Moreover, the gallery he'd earlier pointed out to Seren was noticeably closer.
'YouVe done well,' he said.
He moved to the ship's bow. The city's horrid face loomed larger. The writhing inscriptions didn't bear looking
