Seven Swords

Chapter 43

Sometimes in bright light, his darkness-honed eyes became pure silver-blue. But now, in this daylight, on the brink of achieving their quest, Eeryon looked harder and more closed, as if he had let blinders shut his eyes. Or perhaps the remembered dark had done the shutting for him.

'How will we cross?' Eeryon was eyeing the river wide band of water between island and mainland. 'Swim,' Thane suggested exuberantly.

Eeryon's silence grew into unspoken diagronment "Are you afraid to rain your black velvet finery? Thana prodded. Or the silver on your sleeves?

Beryon grew stiffer and seemed less likely to an Javelle jumped into the chasm of stience. I don Felabbe could swim, or Briarwhip. And I certainly d want to start the day wet, as well as chill and hungry Then you think of a way for us to cross, Javelle, Thane

promptly challenged. I will,' she said, walking to the water's edge to consider

It had better be fast, Felabba piped up in her sour tone.

"Why?' they asked in unison, Thane and Javelle. Earyon paid little attention to the morning's debates; he seemed marooned upon some inner island of his own. The cat was delighted to explain at its considerable leisure.

While you three were congratulating yourselves on the likeliness of the land before you, and while you argued methods of our party's conveyance over this last neck of sea, while you

"Tell us quickly, or it will be too dark to do anything but sleep again,.' Thane advised.

The cat blinked at such unseemly haste, then began stroking its whiskers with an efficient paw. While you were doing all that I was merely attempting to remind you that, you neglected to regard the land at your back - always a bad idea on a journey, and a fatal oversight on a journey by island."

"Oh.' Javelle had been the first to turn and see herself.

for

Water was rising behind them - or Clymerind was sinking again! A thin rivulet of sea had seeped between them and the rest of the island, isolating them on the small headland.

"Why?' Thane wondered with more amazement than energy to confront the new threat. Our harnessed sea-steeds.' Eeryon said abruptly. 'All

the pull came from before us. The strain quite effectively broke the island's neck. We stand on the head while the body sinks behind us.' 'And Valna,' Javelle realized, 'gone again. No one will

ever see it again as we have - Wrathmen and all

Thank Those Without,' the cat put in dryly while wetting its whiskers further. Those Without.' Thane spoke as if reminded of some thing. 'You've never told us about Those Without, Eeryon. Surely, you must know something of them."

'Never mind Without or anything in it.' Javelle pointed to the widening neck of water behind them. "We shall soon join the main part of the island in sinking- or at the least drift free into the wild Outer Abyssal Sea. We must find the longest pieces of driftwood possible and pole ourselves to shore.'

'Pole ourselves?' Thane was torn between indignation and laughter. "The water must still be too deep for such a puny effort. Better that Eeryon cast his sleeve threads into cable, ensnare the shoreline trees, and we pull our selves landward along the lines."

Then let's do both,' Javelle suggested, running past Thane to the prow of the headland. Eeryon remained watching the main body of Clymerind

soften into the waves foot by foot. No shocks greeted the island as it slowly returned to the depths. It simply ebbed, like a particularly tangible wave lost in a sea of more liquid composition.

At the opposite edge of their own tiny island, Javelle. her boot toes churning into the sand, was prying loose a half-buried log. Long as a bearing-beast- and almost as resistant - the log was not especially thick, but gnarled and stubborn as an old man's cane.

It would have been comical to watch Javelle battle this behemoth, save that the headland suddenly trembled under their feet. Both young men ran to help her, but Javelle's last mighty push heaved the log free as they arrived.

'Now that's magic,' Thane approved.

'No, that's muscle,' Javelle answered shortly. 'You? Muscle?" 'Will can make a mountain out of a mole,' she answered

stoutly. Still, when she stood back and saw that it took both young men to twist the log around and drag it to the waterline, she began to realize the size of the task she had achieved without questioning.

'Is that all it is?' she mused, content to trot their wakes now that they were taking a hand in her plan. 'Will? Father always said it could be so.'

Felabba paced her with an urgent, paw-crossing lope. 'All? You are touching the unmagical secret within magic, my girl. I can't quite swallow that your father has led you in this sublime direction of self-sufficiency. Stubbornness, yes, now there was an art Kendric was master of.'

'He mastered more than anyone knew,' Javelle answered hotly, her voice breaking as she remembered the reason for their quest. 'Watch whom your acid tongue scours, catling, or I shall teach you a lesson in respect for your elders.'

'Ah, now they sing the same old doughty tune, father and daughter. You will need to age far more, Wrathman's child, before you can scold a cat in good conscience.

By the time Javelle and the cat arrived, Eeryon stood on the last dune that curled like a wave over the water. He faced the mainland, his arms stretched before him, the palms touching prayerfully. Once again the silvery threads embroidering his sleeves untangled, twisting into a thick rope. Like a flying snake the rope arched the water and disappeared among the trees.

'Come on, push, Thane urged Javelle. She ran to help him raise the log upright and then, together, they speared it down into the waves. 'Don't drop it,' her brother warned.

Javelle's arms ached as they probed for bottom. She feared it would be so far below that their pole would slip between their arms and back into the sea that had beached it.

But only half-immersed, the driftwood balked into sand. 'It is shallow!' Javelle confirmed.

and hit The sandy land beneath their feet slipped sideways, as if pushed. Thane and Javelle stabbed the log into the water again and again - always finding purchase, always pushing the submerged land behind them.

Before them, waves ate away the shoreline sand. The party found themselves moving backward; even anchoring Eeryon, who seemed as planted as some dark-barked tree on his spot of beach, was forced to backstep as their small island shrunk.

A seabird flashed white in the sun, then landed on one silver rope, balancing on the handy perch and c*****g its big-beaked head. Away!' Eeryon commanded fruitlessly.

Briarwhip bounded into the surf and ran back and forth,

chewing spray and howling at the bird's tempting yet

secure proximity. Spray stung the threesome's eyes shut. They fought their own tired muscles even Eeryon feeling the strain of keeping his arms uplifted. They fought the unblinking gaze of the sun and the uneven footing of the beach. Felabba joined Briarwhip in hopefully eyeing the bird, then retired to groom herself away from the waterline.

Still, the opposite shore drew nearer, the forest's dark s***h separating into ranks of trees and bushes. A few reeds bowed to the wind on the pale strip of beach, but nothing scuttered across the dazzling sand - no birds, no crabs. It looked utterly deserted.

Almost there,' Thane gritted between his teeth, shutting his eyes to drive the pole deep into the sandbar beneath them. Javelle pushed all her weight onto the lever, too, ignoring the water that soaked her garments hip-high and embroidered an uneven saltline on her tunic.

Eeryon shut his eyes to the sun, his arms trembling from the last effort of his sleeve-borne magic, almost transported by the task. None of them even paused when a massive splash

sounded behind them. They know Clymerind had van munwitnessed as when it had een again

A dietro urged through the water toward the mainland surf growing louder faster. That turned thes heads over their shoulders the sound of a million wings beeting or five thousand horses hooves pounding or bundreds of huge thunderheads colliding at the apex of

the sky It charged up behind them, a boiling tidal wave that was the lost island's last gesture - the water it had dis placed thrown up into a wall of unwanted force with nowhere to go.

The massive wave bore down on the tiny blot of land that remained the travelers' sandy raft- land had shrunk to nearly nothing beneath them and they had not noticed.

Jump!' someone called, and they all did, forward with out looking toward deserted Rule.

Their feet sank knee-deep in shifting sand. Water

churned around their knees, hips, shoulders. They paddled

or swam or simply milled their arms. A rough dark head bobbled in the shoreline waves beside them, Felabba clinging atop it, her eyes showing panic-stricken whites The dislodged bird screamed its disapproval as it flew off. A thick silver rope coiled down into the water among the flailing swimmers.

Eeryon, his arms weighed down by his magic become reality, sputtered and sank. Thane and Javelle buoyed him on either side, Thane shutting his eyes and concentrating fiercely.

A weight gave, or a tautness, like a thread, snapped

The three were stumbling onto the wet sand, through shallow water, feeling the waves sucking at their feel. Behind them, the roar had become a wind propelled by a thousand throats. They turned to face their doom. An

immense frozen wave was poised above them, looming over the last of the island, ready to roll forward to bury everything before it. In that crystal clear moment, they saw every glassy high

light in the watery wall, every silver thread of reflection

that wove through it. For an instant it resolved into an image, as if capturing them all in a liquid mirror. A figure floated there, limpid and distant, then the water collapsed. It fell upon the floating land that had been

their barge and swallowed it in a solid blue-green maw Yet instead of crashing forward to consume its next morsels frozen upon the beach, the water withdrew - massed into a wave again and flowed backward toward open sea, where Clymerind had sunk again, dragging the headland's last, disintegrating sands with it.

Dazed, the three stared at the lapping water that had denied its own nature to spare them. Eeryon thought he had recognized the silver figure that had peeked through the window of that poised, watery wall. Javelle and Thane harbored sudden, unexplained thoughts of their mother that each kept to themselves.

None of them thought to turn and look behind them again to the mainland from which the wave had fled as if impelled. 'As usual,' the cat Felabba commented in a salt-rinsed

tone, 'you fail to find the obvious at your rear."

They turned as one wet, weary, and still amazed.

Both animals sat on the drier sand beyond them. Briar whip had flattened onto its rude belly, a ghastly blend of growls and whimpers coming from its soggy throat. Its three eyes stared toward the dark woodline. Felabba was grooming again, bored again, contemptuous

again. No help again. She did not seem likely to be a help, not even when the man clothed in darkness walked out of the woods, a gloved hand raised to reveal one embroidered palm glowing fiery red in the sunshine.