Serrah stuffed a strand of wet hair back under her hood. ‘I should hope so, after all day and most of the night.’
‘Get some rest, both of you,’ Caldason suggested. ‘You don’t have to stay here.’
‘I thought we weren’t that far from the core,’ Kutch said.
‘We’re not. But the weather’s slowed us to a crawl.’
‘I think I’ll stick with it for a while,’ Serrah decided.
‘Me too,’ Kutch agreed.
‘Suit yourselves.’
A moment passed in damp silence.
‘Reeth…,’ Kutch began.
‘Yes?’
‘I think…I think I can sense something.’
Serrah and Caldason straightened, weariness cast off.
‘What is it?’ Serrah asked.
‘It’s nothing specific, and I wasn’t sure at first. But…I can feel an increase of magical discharges. Like mild pins and needles.’ He grinned at them, half afraid.
Serrah laid her hand on his arm. ‘You mean greater than you normally pick up as background noise?’
‘Oh, yes. Lots.’
‘Shouldn’t you cast one of Phoenix’s detection spells?’ Caldason suggested.
‘I don’t think I need to. Then again, it could help with location.’
‘Best to try,’ Serrah said. ‘Is there anything we can do?’
‘No. I just need a little quiet time.’ He started to get up.
She hung on to his arm. ‘Kutch, are you certain about this?’
‘Pretty much. At any rate, something’s going on. Let me check.’ He ducked into the rain, hurrying across deck with his head down.
Dawn was beginning to break. The sun’s rim pierced the horizon, turning it cherry red.
‘Perhaps this won’t take as long as we thought,’ Caldason remarked.
‘You be careful with that boy, Reeth,’ Serrah came back sternly. ‘Keep him from harm.’
He was stung. ‘Do you think I’d let anything happen to him if I could help it?’
‘If you could help it, no. But we haven’t a clue what we’re dealing with. Who knows what’s guarding the Source?’
‘It wasn’t my idea to have Kutch on this voyage. Or you, come to that. But now you both are, I’ll do everything in my power to look after you.’
‘I can look after myself, thanks very much.’
‘Will you look after me too, then?’
She smiled. ‘Buffoon.’ Her tone softened. ‘Of course I know you wouldn’t willingly put Kutch in danger. Sorry.’
He slipped his arm around her. ‘Forget it. We’re all on edge.’
‘It’s because he’s so young and vulnerable. When I look at him I can’t help thinking of…’
He had to say it for her. ‘Eithne.’
She nodded. ‘I failed her. I won’t do the same to Kutch.’
‘You didn’t fail her. Let go of the guilt; you can’t bear it forever.’
‘That’s strange advice from somebody carrying so much himself,’ she replied gently.
‘We both wear our pasts like millstones. But what we’re heading for could help us cast them off.’
‘Don’t put too much hope in the Source, Reeth. Chances are you’ll be disappointed.’
‘Then I’ll be no worse off than I am now. Better. I’ve got you.’ He made to kiss her cheek. She turned and waylaid his lips.
After a moment, she said, ‘Do you really think we’ve a chance of finding the Clepsydra, and whatever the Source may be?’
‘I wouldn’t have set out if we didn’t. Though granted it’s a slim chance.’
‘Do you reckon it’s going to be guarded?’
‘We have to assume it will be. But you know all this, Serrah. Why the inquisition?’
‘I like to understand what I’m getting myself into, believe it or not.’ She paused for a second. ‘And I suppose I want convincing. No. Reassuring. I need to be reassured that what we’re doing makes some sense.’
‘I’m not certain I’m the one to do that. But I think this makes as much sense as anything we’ve done.’
‘That isn’t saying a lot, Reeth.’
‘No,’ he agreed, ‘it isn’t, is it?’
They laughed.
The packet kept moving, slowly, through lessening rain. Dawn was in full flush now, though its light was dismal. The islands they passed, dark bulks rising out of untrustworthy waters, grew larger.
Kutch hurried back, his breath white steam.
‘Learn anything?’ Caldason said.
‘I didn’t bother casting more than a couple of the spells, but they confirmed the high level of magic around here.’
‘What about the direction it’s coming from?’
‘There are no specifics on that. The atmosphere’s so saturated, it’s hard even for a clever spell to locate,’ Kutch said, frowning.
‘Isn’t it logical that the origin of all this magic is going to be at the centre of the island group?’
‘Logic doesn’t necessarily come into it. The magic could as easily be coming from the outskirts as the heart. It could be a speck of land or one of the biggest islands. It could be coming from a number of islands. The size or location doesn’t really matter; it’s the nature of the magic that’s important. Mind you, having said that…’
‘You do think it’s coming from the core?’
‘Yes.’
‘So do I.’
‘I sense it,’ Kutch said. ‘What are you basing your feeling on?’
Caldason shrugged. ‘Just a hunch.’
Serrah stared at them, pensively.
‘So we start at the centre and work our way out?’ Kutch asked.
‘Sounds like a plan,’ Caldason told him.
Cheross was passing, looking as wet and tired as the rest of them. ‘It’ll be a couple of hours before we reach the inner group,’ he said. ‘You should try to get some sleep.’
Less than two hours later, and scarcely refreshed, they gathered again at the prow. The morning light was insipid this far north, and the air was desperately cold, but at least it had stopped raining.
The packet was anchored near an island. It had sheer cliffs and granite peaks, and they could see a stretch of pebbly beach.
‘Do they have names?’ Serrah asked.
‘The islands?’ Cheross said. ‘Not that I know of.’
‘I wonder if the Founders gave them names,’ Kutch reflected.
‘Why wouldn’t they?’ Caldason asked.
‘Some scholars think they developed a culture that went beyond words and images as we understand them. Perhaps the Founders felt no need to label the world the way we do.’
Cheross shook his head. ‘A world without names? That’d be chaos.’
‘They had a different way of looking at things.’
Serrah chimed in with, ‘Clepsydra’s a name, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but we don’t know if the Founders coined it,’ Kutch explained. ‘There are very few words in our language inherited from them, and they’re all contentious.’
‘What are you saying? That they didn’t have words for anything at all? Cheross is right; that would be chaos.’
‘Not to the Founders. Anyway, I’m not saying they didn’t have words for some things. Perhaps they named
