links clacking together, and felt something being fastened to his ankle. Then a manacle clicked shut on his left wrist. Someone lifted him up, and a voice said, “Throw ’em over, Tark. Throw ’em over.” And then he was hurled outward.
Binkton came fully awake as he struck the water and, even as he realized his wrist was shackled to Pipper’s, the remaining length of a long, heavy chain splashed into the water beside them, and it jerked Binkton under by his left ankle as it plunged toward the bottom, Binkton dragging Pipper along as down through the water they plummeted. Swiftly Binkton withdrew the wire from his belt and poked the sharply angled tip into the wide key slot on the ankle lock. Come on, bucco, come on!
He felt the tine catch on the single tumbler, and with a sharp twist the shackle sprang open. The chain fell away and continued to plunge onward, as Bink clamped the pickwire between his teeth and began kicking and stroking upward with one hand, dragging Pipper along by the manacle that held them together.
Binkton desperately needed to breathe, but there was no air.
Above he could see a glimmer of light, as if day had come.
Swim, bucco, swim, else you and Pip will drown.
Upward he stroked, and upward, Pipper a deadweight, but Binkton stroked and stroked one armed, his lungs heaving but not breathing in, for his mouth was tightly clamped shut.
And then he broke through the surface and took in a great gulp of air past the wire held between his clenched teeth, even as he pulled Pip up into the sweet morning breeze.
Pip, though unconscious, had not taken in any water, and he started breathing on his own.
Binkton took the pickwire from his mouth and stabbed the angled end into the fetter on his wrist. And even as the manacle opened, from a distance Binkton heard laughter-Queeker’s nasally whine riding above Tark’s deep roar. And Binkton could see a white sail on a small skiff, faring away, heading toward the land the buccan could just see.
I need to get Pip to shore, but I can’t let Queeker and Tark see me. Oh, Adon, Adon, let them not look back.
In between buoying Pipper up, Binkton kicked off his boots and shed his shirt, but kept on his trousers. Struggling, he stripped Pipper likewise. Then, towing Pip, Binkton rolled onto his back and began swimming after the craft. He swam for long moments before he rolled back over to sight on the land. By this time the skiff itself had drawn far away, and he no longer feared that Tark or Queeker would catch sight of him and Pipper.
Again he rolled onto his back, and stroked for long moments more, but when he rolled over to take another sighting, he could no longer see the land or the skiff itself, though he did spot the top of its mast.
What’s this, bucco, where did the land go?
Once more he rolled onto his back and swam for what he thought might have been a quarter candlemark altogether. But when he again took a sighting, not only was the land gone, but even the top of the mast had disappeared.
“What’s happening here, Pip?” he asked aloud, but, of course, Pip didn’t answer.
Think, bucco, think. Surely you know the reason.
A moment later it came to him: The Argon. The mighty Argon. It flows into the Avagon Sea, and we are caught in that current. Adon, but I cannot swim against the force of that flood. What will I do? What will I do? Oh, come on, Pip, wake up. I need you to have one of your harebrained schemes to get us out of this mess.
Slowly a full candlemark passed, and Binkton, weary beyond his means, struggled to stay afloat.
“Oh, Pip, oh, Pip,” he called aloud, “please wake up. I don’t think I can hold out much longer.”
And as Binkton strove to keep his head above water and keep Pipper’s up too, the relentless spillage of the Argon River pushed them farther out into the deep blue indigo sea.
38
DARK DESIGNS
EARLY SPRING, 6E9
Safely locked away in his sanctum, such that none could do him harm, Nunde’s body lay slack, unresponsive, but for shallow breathing. For anyone who had the ‹sight› to see, out from his abdomen trailed a thin, dark, aethyrial cord, no thicker than a fine hair, for Nunde’s spirit soared far away.
And the Necromancer watched as Malik and his cohort of Drik and Chun, with one of the four Oghi in the lead, hacked their way through the last mile of the tangle lying between them and their goal. That Malik ineffectually swatted at the swarms of bloodsucking flies and mosquitoes and swiped at whining gnats and scraped leeches from his legs was of no concern to Nunde. After all, Malik was but an apprentice-valuable, perhaps, but expendable at need. One day Malik might achieve enough knowledge to strike out on his own, but that day lay far in the future; it certainly was not here yet. And by that time, Nunde himself would be so powerful that neither Malik nor anyone else would pose a significant threat. Why, Nunde would slap him down just as Malik had slapped that bloated thing feeding upon his cheek, leaving behind nought but a crimson smear and scarlet droplets oozing from the hole lingering in his skin.
After seeing that Malik neared the destination, Nunde sped on ahead. And before him, rearing up from the jungle, lay the pristine tower, made of stone so smooth and so seamlessly joined that no plant, no vine, not even lichen could gain a foothold upon its flawless surface.
To the top of the tower soared Nunde, and through one of the four cardinal arches carved in the dome and into the open chamber beyond. Ah, yes, his chosen one yet remained in place upon the pedestal.
I will call upon you if needed , crooned Nunde as his aethyrial self circled ’round, knowing that if he did so, it would take much ‹life force› to cast the spell that would loose and then cage the creature again, and would drain Nunde’s astral being dreadfully. Yet he would not make the same mistake as that fool of a Sorcerer had made, for at that time the city had been laid to waste by an imperfectly cast conjuration. It was only by the efforts of many of Magekind in the years after that the warder had been confined again. As to the original imperfectly cast summoning that had set the warder free, the imbecile who had done so had paid with his life. Nunde knew that he would have to expend the ‹essence› to prevent the same fate from happening to him.
Then away he fled, back toward his sanctum. Nunde would have liked to find Aravan and see what that fool of a Dohl was up to. Surely by now he had taken the bait. Yet Nunde would not risk the gamble, for not only did Aravan have that cursed blue amulet that might warn him that Nunde was nearby, but he also was accompanied by the whore Aylis, a Seer with the ‹sight›. And Nunde would not reveal his aethyrial self to her. Oh, no. She was, after all, the one who had helped Aravan ruin all of Nunde’s carefully laid plans in Neddra that hideous night when Aravan and his host attacked the Black Fortress.
Nunde smiled. In fact, he was depending upon that stupid trollop to help spring the trap he himself had devised. She was a Seer, after all.
What was it now? Seven, eight years since he had conceived his brilliant scheme?
To some that might seem a long time.
But Nunde was patient.
It didn’t matter how long Malik and his cohort had to wait there in the steaming environs. After all, they were nought but lackeys, and obeying Nunde’s slightest whim was the why of their very existence.
All this and more did Nunde contemplate as he sped back to his sanctum.
His trap was nearly laid.
Aravan would meet his doom.
39
