The pain was beyond belief, and it was impossible to draw breath, but Malik had long ago learned to ignore minor inconveniences such as those. He hooked his heels over the lip of the opening and pulled. The Karsestone slipped a little-and more weight settled on his chest.
Maybe that meant there would be more room at the top. Malik pulled harder with his legs. Something snapped in his chest He pulled harder and shoved with his arms. Nothing moved, but he did grow dizzy from lack of air. Thus reminded that the stone was laying on him, he saw that if he could only get out from beneath it, there would be room for it to fall completely on its side and slide out into the empty air.
Lacking any other means of extracting himself, Malik straightened his legs and began to swing them back and forth in a widening arc, trying to work first his hips free, then the rest of his body as well. Behind him, the roar and crash of screaming Shadovar and tumbling stone rose and faded in time to the wild oscillations of the enclave. The Karsestone pressed more heavily as the slit swung downward. Malik’s vision closed in, and stars began to appear around the edges of the darkening tunnel. The rush of oblivion filled his ears, then the slit reached the apogee of its swing and started back down.
The weight all but vanished. Malik flung his legs down in the direction they were traveling and felt his hips slip out from beneath the boulder. He rolled to his side and pushed, hard, and was free.
The Karsestone rocked toward him.
"Devil rock!"
Malik pushed off and pivoted on his hip, whirling out of its path and back into the loom chamber. The Karsestone settled on its side, rocked to the right, rocked to the left, and slipped over the edge.
The manacle stretched Malik's arm out full, and he thought his hand would pop free of his wrist Instead, he flew out the sun slit after it and found himself following the Karsestone down through a swirling cloud of veserab riders. The boulder struck glancing blows to two beasts and sent them tumbling and hissing away, then finally caught one square between the wings. The impact slowed their fall just long enough for a little slack to develop in the chain that connected Malik to the stone. The rider slipped past, bloody and twisted on one side and the mount broken and screeching on the other, then the purple waters of Shadow Lake grew visible no more than a thousand feet below.
Malik smiled.
"Cyric!" he screamed. "Hear me now, Cyric, the One-"
When he cried the last word, no sound came from his mouth. The lake continued to come up beneath him, though with the ferocious wind filling his eyes with tears, it was all but impossible to see. He tried again and remained as mute as a tortoise. He cursed Shar, thinking she was only trying to protect her prize, then glimpsed a dark shape angling down to intercept him. Thinking it was only an alert Shadovar lord, Malik reached for his stolen dagger-and instantly found himself engulfed in a web of sticky magic strands.
In a web of sticky strands of Weave magic.
Malik stopped falling, and wailed more in frustration than pain as the Karsestone stretched his manacle chain taut- again-and jerked his shoulder out of its socket He thought the terrible strain would tear off his arm. Instead, the boulder stopped falling, and he found himself staring out a small gap down his manacle chain to the open link. The gap was as wide as a dagger blade and growing before the one eye that could see it.
Malik tried to see who had captured him, but the magic web held his head too tightly for it to turn. It hardly mattered. He knew without looking who it was. She had a gift for arriving when he most needed her to be somewhere else. They turned and started across the lake toward the Scimitar Mountains.
"Where are your manners, Malik?" Ruha called. "Will you not thank me for saving your life?"
The opening in the link continued to grow, and in his fury it barely registered that Ruha had annulled the magic that had silenced him earlier. “Meddling Harper witch!" Malik cried. "Can you not see that I am robbing the Shadovar of their greatest power?"
"And giving it to Cyric, I am certain," Ruha surmised, relieving him of the compulsion to add this himself. "I think the rest of us will be better served with the Karsestone in the hands of the Chosen-and you standing before a Harper court"
"You may as well murder me here!" Realizing that he could speak again, Malik tried again to say, "Cyric, the-"
Again, his words began to spill silently from his mouth. They passed out from beneath the city's shadow, but Malik could see that the chain would never hold until they reached shore. The open link was straightening before his eyes. He tried to call out, hoping that if he could warn Ruha she would at least save the stone until he could steal it later, but the only thing to leave his mouth was his silent, anguished breath.
The link lost its last bit of curve, and the Karsestone plummeted free. Malik and Ruha shot skyward, but only long enough for Ruha to regain control and start down after the falling stone.
"You heel-biting cur!" Ruha stormed. "What have you done?"
Even had he been able to speak, Malik would not have bothered to defend himself. He was too busy trying to mark the place the stone would enter the water. Flapping along behind the diving witch as he was, that was an impossible thing in its own right He saw little more than flashes of dark water and streams of fleeing veserabs.
"Kozah's breath!" Ruha cursed.
She pulled up sharply, and suddenly. As Malik swung beneath her he had a view of nothing but water. A giant waterspout was rising up to meet the Karsestone, seven watery fingers stretching out to entwine it. Perhaps the One had heard after all. Or so Malik prayed.
The silvery fingers closed around the boulder and pulled it down into Shadow Lake, leaving behind a huge black whirlpool. Malik prayed that it had been Cyric's hand that had taken the crown of the Shadow Weave and that consequently he would not be left to languish forever in the hell of his god's displeasure.
But it was not to be. As the stone vanished into the lake's murky depths, a glistening purple eye appeared in the heart of the whirlpool and winked at him.
Malik knew better than to hope the eye belonged to Cyric. The One never sent signs, except when he was angry.
•©• o- •©• • •©•
Head spinning with afterdaze, Galaeron arrived clasping Vala's hand, his other arm looped around Aris's knee, his eyes aching in the brilliant sun. Crackles, bangs, and half-muffled roars rumbled out of the sky while off in the distance an erratic din of booming splashes rolled across a broad expanse of water. There was trouble over there, and it slowly came back to Galaeron that he and his companions were the cause. Aris groaned, stumbling forward, and crashed to a knee, spilling an armload of bloodied humans as he put a hand out to catch himself.
A glimpse of black beard was all it took for Galaeron to recall where he was and how he had come to be there. Instead of turning to check on the injured Chosen, he looked back and was disappointed to see the murk-swaddled city still hovering a thousand feet in the air, engulfed in swirling clouds of veserabs and releasing a steady rain of debris down into the lake. There were no obvious signs of pursuit, though anyone powerful enough to recapture Galaeron and three Chosen would come by shadow, not air.
As Galaeron studied the enclave, he noticed a thin line of darkness running between the lake and the city. It was near the shore and so faint as to be almost invisible but also straight and unwavering. As he watched, the lower end moved out toward deeper water, slicing through the purple waves without leaving a wake. Shade itself remained where it was. Galaeron spent a few moments observing, trying to puzzle out what he was seeing. Veserabs circled around it, and debris bounced off it as though it were a solid rope, yet it was as transparent as a pale shadow. Through it he could see passing Shadovar, falling boulders, and even the mountains on the lake's far shore.