Karfhud pulled off his back satchel and busied himself cinching it tightly dosed. The others simply waited, listening to the slurp of the whirlpool grow increasingly louder. Their wait was not a long one. The current caught the cumbersome raft and whisked it toward the center of the pond. When it became apparent that he would not need to do much pushing, Theseus laid the plank down on the back edge of the raft – where he could kick it away if need be – and drew his sword. Though he had no idea where the whirlpool would come out, he felt certain Sheba would be Waiting for them on the other side. She wanted them to follow, or she would not have waited before going down the whirlpool.
The raft slid past the spandrel where the monster had been lurking, then picked up speed. It began to curve toward the whirlpool, and that was when, barely audible above the slurping din ahead, Theseus heard a faint, familiar cry from behind.
"Theseus, my love!" As muted as it was, he recognized the voice as that of his beloved wine woman. "Have you forgotten me?"
The Thrasson spun and looked toward the great entry arch. There, standing upon the submerged stairs, hip-deep in water, was the white-cloaked figure of his wine woman. Her dark hair hung loose about her shoulders, and, beneath her emerald eyes, he could just make out the tear-trails glistening down her cheeks.
Theseus sheathed his sword. "We must go back!"
"Good thought," gasped Tessali. "Blessed be the Great Meaninglessness!"
Theseus stooped down to reach for the plank, then felt the raft pitching as Karfhud started toward him.
"No – you made your decision," the fiend rumbled. "You cannot take it back now."
On the steps, the wine woman stretched out her arms. "My love, what have I done to offend you? Why do you abandon me?"
Theseus snatched the plank up and shoved the end into the water, leaning into it with all Iris weight "We're going back."
The raft pivoted around the plank, then curved along the whirlpool's edge facing backward. Without the fiend's weight to hold down the front, the surface was pitching toward the Thrasson at a dangerously steep angle.
"The current has us." Karfhud eased back toward his end of the gate. "There is nothing you can do."
Theseus looked back to the stairs. The wine woman was growing smaller by the instant, but he could see her well enough to tell she was tearing her clothes and hair in grief.
"I must try."
Theseus plunged the plank into the water, pushing against the current with all his strength. This time, the raft pivoted away from him, swinging toward the heart of the whirlpool. The swirling Waters fell away, curling downward in a wild, rushing spiral. The nose of the raft hung above the slope for a moment, then suddenly dipped and caught.
The deck bucked under Theseus's feet. He dropped the plank and threw himself down, trying to grab hold of the high side of the raft. The surface rose up to meet him, slamming into his face and flipping him onto his back. He started to slide into the whirlpool, then the fingers of his makeshift foot caught the edge of the gate. He clamped them down and held on for his life.
Theseus looked toward the front of the raft and saw Silverwind lying next to him, eyes closed and clinging to the edge of the gate with both hands. On the other side of the bariaur was Karfhud, the talons of one claw driven deep into the oaken deck, the other hand clamped tight around one of Tessali's wrist stumps.
The tanar'ri raised his chin and locked gazes with the Thrasson, then his maroon eyes flashed scarlet. He sneered and let go of the elf's wrist.
If Tessali screamed, Theseus never knew it. The elf simply vanished into the whirlpool, then the raft tipped onto its side and followed the Bleaker into the swirling waters. The Heart Of The Matter
Round and round and down they twirl, pressed flat as crabs to the raft, arching spandrels and half-sunken pillars and screeching wine woman flashing past: arch-pillar-woman arch-pillar-woman, hearts in their throats like throbbing stones, rushing gray funnel rising up past their heads, ears ringing with the whirlpool's roaring, gloomy maw below, yawning wide, wide, wider until in they go-where only the Lady knows.
She will be waiting, there in the darkness below. There was never any sense of plunging. Theseus's stomach went qualmish with dizziness and rage, and his pulse drummed in his temples, but he never had that light, upside-down feeling in his belly. The raft only continued to whirl around and around until the vertigo became too much and he shut his eyes. An instant later, the waters bubbled up to swallow the raft and still they swirled, not through the currents, but with them. The Thrasson felt his body starting to float; he clamped the fingers on his foot more tightly onto the edge of the raft and dug the fingers of his own hands into the tiny fissures between the gate's oaken planks. His lungs began to bum for air. He opened his eyes and saw nothing but darkness.
The twirling seemed to slow, then they burst through the surface. Theseus felt the damp air spiralling past his face and his body longing to fly off the raft, but he could make no sense of what his senses told him. Now it felt like they were spinning on the outside of a swirling column of water, as though they had passed through the whirlpool and emerged in a waterspout. Thinking some light would help matters, he reached for his sword – and was nearly hurled from the raft the instant his fingers left their crevices. He dug in again and waited.
The air spiralled past his face more slowly, and the force threatening to hurt his body from the raft grew steadily less powerful. At length, the strange current slowed to the point where Theseus heard the purl of water echoing off stony walls he could not see. The sound seemed to be coming from all around, as though they were spinning through a long, dark tunnel. Finally, the Thrasson could draw his sword without being thrown from the raft. He raised the blade over his head and called upon its star-forged steel to light the darkness.
As the sapphire radiance burst from the tip, Theseus saw that they were indeed floating upon the surface of a swirling column of water, which was spinning like a carpenter's auger down the center of a dark round tunnel. There were no shores or banks; the stream was swirling through midair. At first, the Thrasson thought they must be spiralling straight down a pit, then he saw a side passage drift languidly past. They were moving far too slowly to be plunging straight down.
"Now what have I done?" Silverwind gasped. "I have envisioned certain principles, certain laws to govern the multiverse. This makes no sense!"
"It makes as much sense as anything. We have entered the heart of the mazes – the very birthplace of the Plurality!" Karfhud was staring around in wide-eyed amazement, peering longingly into each side tunnel they passed. "How I need a mapping skin!"
Theseus swung around just in time to see the fiend reaching toward Silverwind. "Leave him alone," the Thrasson warned. "If you harm another of my friends, I swear on my life I'll find a way to kill you."
"Another?" Karfhud snorted. He expelled a cloud of red steam from one of his grotesque nostrils, but withdrew his hand. "I have done no harm to any of them."
"You let the whirlpool take Tessali!"
Karfhud shrugged and looked away. "I thought he no longer mattered to you."
Theseus scowled, too angered by the tanar'ri's obvious lie to reply.
"Tmly!" Karfhud protested. "If you had been thinking of him-or any of us-you would not have tried to go back for the wine woman."
"You expected me to abandon her?"