The Wheel of Darkness

She ran down a set of stairs, descending another eight levels, then stepped through an archway and began picking her way sternward, through the sodden debris littering the floor of the Grand Atrium. The elegant wallpaper of the King’s Arms restaurant was stained and darkened, with an encircling line of kelp showing the high-water level. She passed the ruined piano, looking away when she noticed one crushed leg protruding heavily from the sound box.

With everyone in their cabins, the ship seemed strangely still, unpopulated and ghostlike. But then she heard a sound nearby—a sobbing—and, turning, noticed a bedraggled boy of perhaps eleven years old, shirtless, soaking wet, crouching amid a scatter of debris. Her heart swelled with pity.

She made her way over to him. “Hello, young man,” she said, trying to keep her tone as light and as even as possible.

He stared at her and she extended a hand. “Come with me. I’ll take you out of here. My name is Emily.” The boy took her hand and she helped him to his feet, then took off her jacket and placed it around his shoulders. He was shaking with terror. She put an arm around him. “Where’s your family?”

“My mum and dad,” he began in an English accent. “I can’t find them.”

“Lean on me. I’ll help you. We don’t have much time.”

He gave one more gulping sob and she hustled him out of the Grand Atrium, past the Regent Street shops— shuttered and deserted—and then along the side corridor leading to the weather deck. She stopped at an emergency station for two sets of life vests, which they put on. Then she led the way over to the hatch.

“Where are we going?” the boy asked.

“Outside, onto the deck. It’ll be safer there.”

Within moments of opening the hatchway and helping the boy step out, she found herself drenched by wind- driven spray. Above, she could see airplanes, circling uselessly. Keeping a tight hold on the boy’s hand, she made her way to the rail, preparing to head aft along the deck. The engines screamed and throbbed, shaking the ship like a terrier shaking a rat.

She turned back, looking at the boy. “Let’s go—” she began. Then the words died in her throat. Over the boy’s shoulder, ahead of theBritannia ’s bow, she could see a line of leaping white surf thrown up against a dead-black row of huge, tooth-like rocks. An involuntary cry escaped her lips. The boy turned and stared. The wall of death was approaching at high speed. There would be no time to reach the stern, no time to do anything but brace for the impact.

The boom of the surf against the rocks reached her, a deep vibration that seemed to thrum through her body. She put her arms around the boy. “Let’s just stay here,” she said breathlessly. “We’ll crouch down against the wall.”

They took shelter against the superstructure, the boy, now crying again, bundled in her arms. A scream sounded from somewhere above her, a forlorn sound like a lost seagull.

If she had to die, at least she would die with dignity, with another human being in her arms. She held the boy’s head against her chest, closed her eyes, and began to pray.

And then the sound of the engine changed. The ship heeled over with a new motion. Her eyes flew open, almost afraid to hope. But it was true—the ship was beginning to turn. Rising, she brought the boy back to the rail, hardly believing her eyes as the booming line of surf edged closer, yet not quite as fast now. As the ship continued to yaw, the steepening groundswell pounded the hull, throwing up sheet after sheet of water, but in between them she could see the black rocks swinging past the bow—turning, turning—and then they were running parallel and the monstrous line of surf passed on the starboard side, the nearest rocks almost close enough to touch as they ran past, the ship’s hull slamming through the steep-walled waves.

And then, suddenly, the last moiling tooth fell aft, the boom of the surf faded, and the ship headed on, noticeably slower now. And over the whine of the engines and the wrack of the surf, she could hear another sound now: the sound of cheers.

“Well,” she said, turning to the boy. “Shall we go find your mum and dad?” And as she walked back to the hatch on shaking legs, Emily Dahlberg allowed herself a small smile of relief.

78

SCOTT BLACKBURN SAT, CROSS-LEGGED, IN THE RUINS OF THE PENShurst Triplex. The stateroom salon was a perfect whirlwind of destruction—rare china, precious crystal, exquisite oil paintings, jade and marble sculptures —now so much bric-a-brac, lying strewn about and piled up against one wall in a tangled, broken heap.

Blackburn was oblivious to it all. Throughout the crisis, he had taken shelter in a closet with his precious, his most prized, hisonly possession, cradling it and protecting it from any harm. And now that the worst had passed and they were headed into port—as he’d always known they would—he had lovingly replaced it on its golden hook in his salon.

His possession—that was wrong. Because, if anything, it possessed

him

.

Pulling the monastic robes more tightly around his athletic frame, he sat on the floor in front of the Agozyen, assuming the lotus position, never once allowing his eyes to drift toward the mandala. He was alone, wonderfully alone—his private maid was gone, perhaps dead, for all he knew—and there would be nobody to disturb his communion with the unending and the infinite. His frame shivered in involuntary pleasure at the mere expectation of what was to come. It was like a drug—the most perfect, ecstatic, liberating drug—and he could never get enough of it.

Soon, the rest of the world would share his need.

He sat quietly, his heartbeat and mental restlessness slowing in turn. Finally, with a deliberation that was both delicious and maddening, he permitted his head to rise and his eyes to gaze upon the infinite wonder and mystery of the Agozyen.

But even as he did so, something intruded on his private world. An inexplicable chill caused his limbs to tremble beneath the silken wraps. He realized that a stench was settling over the room—a smell of fungus and the deep woods, completely overpowering the mellow fragrance of the butter candles. Disquiet chased away his feelings of expectation and desire. It was almost as if . . . but no, that wasn’t possible . . .

In sudden apprehension, he turned to look over his shoulder. And to his transcendental horror and dismay,it was there—not bent on hunting down his enemy, but rather closing in on him