Max bled power into the confinement framework, trying to force more matrix elements toward the Death along the guide of the black carrier beams. The now-stalled current heaved sluggishly. The Death inhaled again, more forcefully, like a man trying to draw in oxygen through a clogged air-line, the current lunged ahead -
Through his control-link with the matrix framework Max felt a click, a SNAP, a swirl of agglomeration! The Death had sucked up the pieces of the matrix! Embedded in the substance of the mad god, spread around him and through him, binding him in coils of constricting power, the confinement spheres were locking together! A trailing barrage of solidification fronts ran up the black feeder tendrils, leaving crystallization in their wake. A boil appeared on the side of the outer sphere and popped, ejecting the matrix’s keel-string. The keel-string shot out and embedded itself deep in the castle stone; the confinement field, still gaining strength, began to constrict; then, all at once, a gout of heat and flame and raw heaving power came bursting through the not-yet-closed interstices in the overlapping matrix spheres, as the Death recognized suddenly that it was being trapped, and was not pleased, no, not pleased at all.
Max threw power, power into the matrix grid, power into the feeder cut-offs, power into the keel-string. The mad god was definitely weaker than an instant before, wilder, disoriented by the gyrations of the castle’s internal mechanisms as they tried to compensate for the destabilizing forces beating at it. From his infusion of energy and his level of preparation, Max was stronger than he’d been earlier, back at Oskin Yahlei’s, but that didn’t mean the Death was weak yet enough to surrender or that Max was strong enough to force him. A section of tower wall half-a-turn below Max crumbled and fell away. The stairs writhed beneath his feet. Max refused to be distracted by more antics of stairs; he was concentrating instead on using his last power to hold on. It wasn’t until the section of circular stair above him whipped flexibly back over his head and wound itself twice around his body that Max caught on, too late, to the fact that the entire tower was folding and writhing, shattering rocks were flying off to the sides, and the tower was sliding off the face of the castle toward the river.
Not again, Max thought, his stomach knotting with the abrupt downward acceleration. He pulled his left arm loose; then, with a THUD that threw his head straight back into one of the dancing stones above him, the remains of the tower hung up against a lower battlement and began to rotate outward, the tower toppling over onto its side; and then, with a THOOMP!! like the tail of a mile-long beaver slapping a pond the tower sank flat and full-length into the river.
Max’s thoughts were gooey and his lungs (the air blown out of them by the impact) were filling with water, his head throbbed with waves of agony, but the one principle he had programmed down to the depths of his personality was Do Not Die Until You’re Ready! He made the pain goad him, he slid, he clawed, he wrenched, he shoved, he pulverized a stone slab with the last gasp of his transfused power, he fended off another section of wall tumbling more slowly toward the riverbed, and at last there was nothing above him but water, but there seemed to be an awful lot of water and no surface he could find …
Then something had him by the shirt, a hand, pulling him upward - air! - and over a low gunwale of raw wood onto a pile of rope in some kind of small boat. Max retched up water and desperately sucked in air, his eyes still closed and his mind sloshing in the bottom of his skull like melted gelatin. “Roni?” he croaked.
“What are you talking about?” It wasn’t Roni’s voice, it wasn’t even the voice of a woman, but it was familiar. Max’s mind staggered up and began to put itself in gear. “I’m -”
“The Creeping Sword,” Max gasped, coughing over the side.
“Yeah, right, I found your friend Shaa, he’s safe back in the city, and -”
Max spit once more, then turned to gaze upwards, still drawing in loud gulps of air through his open mouth but now making himself take notice of the scene above, forcing himself not to close his eyes under the pain. The tower had taken a wide section of lower wall with it as it fell; smoke and vapor hung behind in the sky. A spray of multicolored curlicues and shooting fireworks was erupting out from the high gash where the tower had been attached, casting bursts of sharp light through the billowing clouds of dust; hopefully that meant Karlini was alive and still working in the rubble. Above the castle and winding through the spires, a compact red sun swooped and darted in swift arcs like a tailless kite bound down by the keel-line. Pieces of stone flowed like putty toward it as it passed; in fact, the castle’s entire upper works had started to sag and melt. The castle’s heartbeat rhythm of pulsing change was visibly accelerating. One of the rotating towers detached itself and slid toward the water, then abruptly changed its mind and tumbled upward into the sky. The red fireball swept down again toward the river, close enough for Max to make a quick check on the confinement field - it was holding, most of the way around, but the last critical tie-points were starting to decay. “What a mess,” Max muttered across a thick tongue. “If I only had that damned ring I could -”
“What ring?” said the Creeping Sword, suddenly hearing Max through his own running commentary and interrupting himself in mid-remark. “You mean Oskin Yahlei’s ring? I’ve got it.”
Max whirled his head. It was a mistake, it had almost made him pass out, but - “You WHAT?”
“Yeah, I’ve got it here, I spotted it -”
“Where is it? Quick! Give it to - no, wait a minute, yeah - you hold it.”
“What are -”
“Shut up and hold still, you’ve just gone from contingency plan to center stage.”
“Now wait a second -”
“Look up there and then give me another cute remark,” Max snapped. He was gesturing furiously with both hands, digging down past the bottom of his energy store, the corner of his lower lip clenched intently between his teeth. A blue coupling-disc formed itself reluctantly in front of the Creeping Sword’s chest. The disc wobbled, and the concave surface facing the Sword turned yellow and purple in a checkerboard pattern. In the maze of fine structures on the back of the disc, new connections were growing.
Something large landed near them in the water, splattering molten gravel around the boat. The Creeping Sword opened his mouth.
“You wanted to be clear of Gashanatantra, didn’t you?” Max snarled. “Well, this may do it.” The disc sank onto the Sword’s chest, delicate tendrils reaching out from it into his body. “I’m going to try to couple Gash’s power through his link to you into the containment field in the ring. Get out the ring and hold it up, and keep that sword of yours under control.”
The walking stick that was the Sword’s sword in disguise had started to whine. “Shut up,” the Sword muttered at it, fumbling at his belt.
A pillar of harsh red shot out of the fireball and across the sky in a focused beam; one apex of the confinement matrix had finally decayed and was leaking out. The disc on the Creeping Sword’s chest burst into sudden blue life with a vibrant hum. The Sword choked back a “Yeaow!” and held up the ring. An array of lenses and hovering silver meshwork herders had emerged from the disc and were passing through each other, jockeying for position. Max growled at them.