An instant later, the amber glow vanished. The mul pushed himself up. He thrust his head out of the dust, gasping for breath and expecting to hear an alarm cry rising from the schooner.
Through a thick cloud of dust, Rikus saw the dark wall of an immense hull looming high above them. The mul looked toward the schooner’s bow and saw the beam of the lantern sweeping away from their dhow. From his angle below the gunnel, he could not see the lookouts. Nevertheless, he did not think they had seen the dhow. There was no sign that anyone was attempting to shine a light in their direction, nor did he hear anyone shouting an alarm. It seemed that their camouflage had kept the dhow concealed, at least for the brief instant that the lantern had flashed over it.
Rikus saw the heads and shoulders of his companions showing above the dust around him. Neeva was biting her finger to keep from coughing. Sadira and Caelum were both prepared to cast spells, the sorceress holding the dark lump of a spell component in her hand, and the dwarf touching his fingers to the sun-mark on his forehead. Only Tithian seemed calm, leaning against the floater’s dome and smirking at them with an air of condescension.
It took only a moment longer for the schooner’s stern to hiss past and disappear behind the next dust swell, leaving the dhow alone in the vast, inky darkness of the Sea of Silt. They all breathed a sigh of relief and began to scoop the silt out of the bilge.
TWELVE
THE SHOALS
The chain of shoals stretched across the entire horizon. In the dusk light, they appeared to be true islands, covered with tangles of water-loving ferns and vine-draped trees. From every copse trilled the warbles of strange birds, underscored at regular intervals by the chilling roar of some colossal reptile. Most of the flats even had a beach of sorts: a broad expanse of crusty, sunbaked mud that ringed the fertile groves in the center.
In the past two weeks, however, the dhow had passed enough shoals for Neeva to know the truth. The inviting isles ahead were little more than a chain of muddy swales, created by water seeping up from springs buried deep beneath the dust. The ground beneath the trees was a thin, sticky sludge only slightly less treacherous than the powdery loess filling the Sea of Silt.
“There’s no way the Balicans took their schooners through that,” growled Neeva. She leaned over the gunnel and peered into the shadowy labyrinth of channels between the shoals. “We’ve lost their course.”
“We haven’t,” Caelum called back. The dwarf kneeled in the bow, his eye fixed on an arrow of crimson flame gliding through the silt just ahead of the prow. “Our sun-guide still points straight ahead. Judging by how brightly it glows, I’d even say we’re catching up to the fleet.”
The dwarf cast the spell several times a day, alternately using it to track the Balicans and Rkard. So far, the arrow always pointed in the same direction, though it always glowed much more brightly when Caelum directed it at the fleet.
Neeva looked across the boat to Rikus. “What do you think? Could the Balican schooners squeeze through those channels?”
The mul shrugged. “There’s enough space between the trees,” he said. “But the shipfloaters would have to lift their hulls high enough to clear the mud crusts at the shoal edges. It wouldn’t be easy.”
“Or the sorcerer-kings might know of a hidden passage,” said Sadira. The sorceress sat in the stern, using her magic to fly the dhow. “If not, their magic is certainly powerful enough to see them through.”
When Neeva did not respond, Sadira added, “We’ll catch up to Borys and your son.”
“How?” Neeva snapped. “We don’t know the way through there. It could take days to find a passage.”
“We don’t have to go through the shoals,” suggested Rikus. “We could fly over them.”
“No!” Caelum objected. “The Balican fleet is too near. Their lookouts might see us.”
Sadira glanced over her shoulder at the setting sun. “Besides, it’ll be dark soon,” she said. “My powers will fade before we travel far.”
Neeva cursed. “We’ve got to do something,” she said. “The last time Caelum’s sun-guide pointed at Rkard, it was so faint we could hardly see it.”
Rikus stepped over Tithian, who was sleeping in the bilge, and took Neeva by the shoulders. “You’re right, Neeva,” the mul said. “We don’t know how far away the Dragon and your son are, but we’re doing everything we can to catch them.”
“What if that’s not enough, Rikus?” she demanded. “We’ve already seen that the Dragon’s magic is just as powerful as Sadira’s. And if he knows we have the Dark Lens, he’s probably trying to hide Rkard from us.”
“Maybe,” the mul allowed, his black eyes holding hers steady. “But you know we won’t stop searching.”
“Like Borys hasn’t stopped searching for the Dark Lens?” she asked. “My son won’t live a thousand years. He might even be dead now.”
“Yes, he could be dead,” Rikus allowed. “But should we do anything different because of it?”
Neeva shook her head, folding herself into the mul’s arms. “Damn you,” she whispered. “You always were too honest with me.”
She had only been there an instant when she felt her husband’s hands prying her away. “Are you cruel or just stupid, Rikus?” the dwarf demanded, interposing himself between her and the mul. “The last thing she needs to hear right now is that Rkard might be dead.”
Rikus scowled, more confused than angry. “How do you know he’s not?”
“That’s not the point,” Caelum fumed.
“Then what is?” demanded Neeva. “Do you think I’m stupid enough to believe anything else?”
“Of course not,” the dwarf said. “But don’t you see what he’s doing?”
“What?” demanded Neeva.
“Now that Sadira’s spurned him, he wants you back,” said Caelum, his red eyes burning with anger. “And he’s preying on your emotions.”
“I was only trying to calm her down!” Rikus shook his head in disbelief.
Caelum stepped toward him. “I know what you were doing!” The dwarf turned his palm toward the sun. “And if you try it again-”
Neeva slapped her husband’s arm down. “That blow to your head must have shaken your brains loose.” She jerked him away from the mul. “Apologize to Rikus.”
“He’s the one who should apologize,” Caelum said. “He’s already come between us, whether you admit it or not. You think I haven’t noticed how distant you’ve been?”
Neeva released her husband’s arm. “This has nothing to do with Rikus, except that I keep thinking Rkard should have been with him instead of you,” she said. Her throat suddenly felt as dry as silt. “I can’t help blaming you for what’s happened to our son. It’s unfair, but I just can’t get over the fact that Borys took Rkard from you. I’m sorry.”
Caelum’s face paled from bronze to ivory. Even his eyes seemed to fade from red to pink. “Don’t apologize. I feel the same way,” he said. “I’ve gone over the fight a hundred times, and I still don’t know how I could have stopped Borys. I just wish he had finished the job and killed me.”
“The fault is more mine than yours,” said Sadira. “When I used my magic to move you and Rkard to the well, I played right into Borys’s plans.”
The dwarf shook his head. “You moved both of us so I’d be there to protect him if anything went wrong,” Caelum replied. “But I couldn’t. What good is a man who can’t defend his own son?”
Neeva felt sorry for her husband but could not bring herself to offer him consolation. The simple fact was that she could not answer his question. What good was a man who couldn’t protect his own son?
Caelum turned toward the bow then paused and faced Rikus. “Please accept my apologies, my friend,” he said. “What I said to you was terrible.”
The color rose to the mul’s cheeks. “Think nothing of it.” He tried to shrug in a good-natured manner but succeeded only in looking uncomfortable. “We’ve all been touchy for the past few days. Tithian must be using some mind trick to make us argue.”