Beyond the nearer beast, its mate reared higher yet, looming into the starlight, a clifflike bulk, curved fangs snatching at the protruding spar, the spar shattering, then falling in a slither of broken wood and torn sail. They heard the scream of the lookout as he plunged to the end of his safety line, panicky shouts from the men, all subsumed into the thrashing sounds of water frenziedly beaten by monstrous tails. Something else fell from above, accompanied by an outraged howl from the dangling man.
Suddenly the beasts were gone downstream in a flurry of spray, droplets falling everywhere, like a squall of rain.
“Hard t’starboard,” shouted the captain. Three men were scurrying aloft, clinging to the ratlines as they hauled in the watchman, now dangling silently. Below on deck other men tugged at the wreckage of timber and ropes where the half spar had fallen, missing the main sail by a finger’s width.
“We didn’t lose way,” said Asner. “We didn’t go aground. There for a minute I thought sure we’d …”
“Where’s Fringe?” asked Danivon, his voice shrill. “Where’re the twins?”
“They were right here,” said Curvis. “Beside us.”
Jory turned slowly, taking an inventory. Danivon, Curvis, Cafferty, Latibor. Herself and Asner. Over on the piled sail, Alouez, the girl child. Forward, sailors rushing to and fro like ants, swearing and chopping. No Fringe. No twins. Where were they?
“Look!” breathed Cafferty. “Ashore!”
There the pale blobs of fire twirled in an oozing spiral of light, pallid gray, twisting like an auger. The dully gleaming pillar sunk into the ground, bearing with it two struggling shapes, two blotches of darkness.
“Fringe!” screamed Danivon, hearing the word come out of him with a sense of surprise, not only at the sound but at the feeling of loss and grief that pushed it up and out of him. “Fringe!”
“Nela and Bertran,” murmured Jory. “Oh, Asner, we came too close to the shore, too close….”
“Fools,” Asner cried in a cracked voice. “We’ve been fools, Jory. Looking in the wrong place. There’s your devils, the ones at the root of all this wickedness, whatever the damned things are!”
“Boarmus warned Danivon of ghosts,” she wept, “and ghosts they may be, but of what? Of whom?”
The last of the corpselight plunged downward and disappeared. The boat drew away, upstream.
“They’re gone! They’ve quit following us,” cried Latibor.
“Oh, yes,” said Jory in a flat, uninflected voice. “Quite right, Latibor. It will give us no satisfaction, but yes. For the moment they have quit following us.”
Fringe saw the gavers. She opened her mouth, maybe to warn someone, maybe to scream. She clutched at the nearest person: Bertran. Then cold, an icy grip of air, herself looking down at the river from high above it, the muddy bank twisting like a snake. Then herself, themselves spinning in a maelstrom of gray fire. She tried to scream for help, but there was no air.
From a distance she heard Danivon shouting her name. Beside her, Nela shrieked with pain. Then everything went away.
She woke sprawled on a ledge in a stone chamber dimly lit by a few glow points scattered far above. The ledge beneath her was thickly though not softly furred, as by the hairy rootlets of trees. She could hear water running. She played dead, exploring what she could see through slitted eyes. Nothing. No one. Whoever or whatever had taken them was not present.
She got up and examined the chamber: stone floor, walls, ceiling. The streamlet ran along one wall, coming and going through shallow slits not more than a handbreadth wide. She could see no opening that might have admitted them; no way of escape. And her belt weapon was gone.
She stripped off the oracle’s robe she’d been wearing, doing a quick inventory while hidden beneath its folds. The slug weapon was still in her boot. She left it there, drawing no attention to it. Whatever had removed her belt weapon had not searched her carefully. She tucked the item of information away with no idea of its meaning. Was the person or thing merely curious or had it intended to deprive her of any weapon? In either case, it had not been quite curious or careful enough. A certain tendency toward sloppiness on the part of their captors was the only inference she could draw at the moment. It was too early to make guesses.
“What happened?” asked Nela in a feeble voice, hearing their heart thubbing desperately away between herself and Bertran, their lungs laboring.
Fringe put one hand to the girl’s head, knelt to give Bertran a look. Pallid, both of them, gray, with flaccid limbs. If they had been handled as she had been, they had been badly wrenched about during their abduction. Nela looked very ill, and Bertran had not moved at all.
“Lie still,” Fringe advised. “Don’t try to get up. Don’t try to move.” She fetched the oracle’s robe and tucked the abundant fabric around them.
“What happened,” begged Nela once more.
“The ghosts got us,” said Fringe matter-of-factly, swallowing the hysteria that threatened to come pouring from her throat. “Whatever they are.”
“We were too close to the bank,” whispered Nela. “I thought so at the time.”
“The gavers couldn’t have surfaced at a worse time,” admitted Fringe. “Almost as though something drove them toward us just to press us close to shore.” She knelt and put her hand to Nela’s forehead once more, then bent to her ear, whispering, “Anything we say can probably be overheard. I wouldn’t say much.”
Nela swallowed and closed her eyes.
Fringe made the rounds of the chamber once more. It was warm—warm enough, at least, though the water in the shallow stream was cold. They could drink from the upstream end and eliminate into the water where it ran out of the cavern if they were confined long enough to make that necessary. There was nothing to eat, but presumably food would be supplied. Like all Enforcers, on duty or not, she had certain equipment built into her clothing, some even built into her body, none
