Cold air hit them. They were plunged into total darkness. The raft moved forward swiftly, rocking occasionally, and Saark found himself sitting very, very still. Fear of water was not something that had ever really occurred to him; he had only ever really been on the Royal Barge on Lake Katashinka, and even then he'd always been drunk. Now, however, a cold sobriety had him in its fist and every little rock, or shift, every turn and dip and rise made his stomach flip over, and injected him with a sudden nausea and need to be sick. A white pallor invaded his face, but because of the gloom nobody realised his fear.
They seemed to slow for a while, travelling down narrow tunnels, and then emerged into a huge cavern. Fluorescent lodes glinted in the walls, lighting their way, and ice gleamed on rocks and stalagmites.
They plunged into darkness again.
"Does anybody feel sick?" said Saark in a small voice.
"You big girl," snapped Kell. He was concentrating hard, attempting to feel the flow of the river, to anticipate – in the Stygian black – whether they were being pulled toward the rows of harsh, jagged rocks, like gnashing teeth, which lined the way.
"No, no, really, I feel incredibly queasy."
"It'll be your wound," said Myriam, not unkindly. She crossed to Saark, and took his hands. "Here. Let me soothe you."
"Yeah, I bet you will," said Nienna, voice small.
"No, honestly, I feel really…" Saark scrambled to the edge of the raft, and threw up noisily over the side. He vomited for a while, and there was an embarrassed silence, and finally Saark sat up.
"How you feeling?" growled Kell.
"That was your fault."
" My fault? How, in the name of Bhu Vanesh's bollocks, did you come to that conclusion?"
"It's your boat control, isn't it? You're all over the place, man!" He turned to Nienna and Myriam, little more than ethereal white blobs in the dark. "I'm sorry, ladies, to lose my equilibrium in such a way. I'm sure you must feel queasy as well."
"Not I," said Myriam.
"Nor I," said Nienna, eyes flashing daggers. "Maybe you've been sucking on something you shouldn't?" She flashed a glance to Myriam, but it was lost in the gloom, in the surge and sway of the raft.
"Something's coming," said Kell.
"What do you mean, 'something's coming'? What can possibly 'be coming' out here?" But even as Saark was spouting his vomit-stinking words, they hit a sudden dip and the raft fell several feet, splashing with a slap onto a swirl of churning water; Kell fought with the makeshift tiller, which gave a crack and came off in his hands. He stared at Myriam.
"That's not good," she said.
"You idiot!" screamed Saark. "You're supposed to be steering the damn thing! Now you've broken it! You bloody idiot! What the hell are you doing?"
"I'm not doing anything," snapped Kell. "This whole game is out of my damn control. But I'll tell you what I will do if you keep blaming me for freaks of nature, you freak of nature, I'll be steering your big fat stupid face into the current of my fucking fist."
"No need to be like that," said Saark primly – as they hit another sudden dip, and the raft tipped madly and Saark rolled towards the edge, squawking like an infant. "Wah!" he screamed, and Myriam launched after him, grabbing hold and dragging him back without ceremony.
"Get hold of something!" she hissed, and retracted her claws. Then the pain hit Saark, as he realised her vachine claws had saved him by hooking into his thigh muscle.
He screamed again. "You punctured me! You grabbed my bloody muscle! Are you addled on Fisher's Weed? Devoid of your better judgement? Are you insane? Look, I'm bleeding, I've got blood all over my pants, there's blood everywhere, on my pants, and everything!"
"There'll be more soon," muttered Kell. But they hit another drop, and as water washed over them and they clung to the raft for dear life, so it began to turn and rock, and drop into choppy troughs flecked white with foam. A roaring came to their senses. It was loud, and vicious sounding.
"That sounds like a waterfall," said Saark, carefully.
"So it does, lad," snapped Kell.
"You know that shack back there? You remember how it was never used?"
"I suppose I understand, now," said Kell.
Saark turned his moaning on Myriam. "I thought you said you knew this path?"
"No. I said I could guide us out."
"What, and dropping us off an underground waterfall is getting us out, is it? Am I truly surrounded by idiots?"
Myriam gripped him. Her vachine fangs flashed. "Listen, Saark, I never said I'd been this way before. Only that I knew of tunnels which led out from the Black Pike Mountains. If you're so damn perfect, you paddle us back up the fucking river!"
"Wait," said Nienna, and her voice was soft. She held up a hand. "Listen."
They listened, and heard the roar of fast-approaching falls.
"I hear my imminent death approaching," whimpered Saark, eventually.
"Can't you hear the cracking?"
"Great! A rock-fall as well! Wonders will never cease!"
"No. It's ice," said Nienna.
"Well," beamed Saark, "that's just fine and dandy. Helps us out of our predicament nicely, and with all manner of- HOLY JANGIR FIELDS LOOK AT THAT BASTARD!" It was a black band of nothing and it was scrolling swiftly towards the adventurers on the raft, rimed with an edge of sparkling white ice and dropping dropping into a cold vast nothingness filled with blackness and steam…
CHAPTER 4
Kell fell, air rushed past him, and he prayed the hefty raft didn't hit him in the back of the skull. Rocks smashed to his left and right, and clutching Ilanna to his chest he managed to angle his body into a dive. He dreaded the impact with ice-chill water, dreaded that harsh impact slam to face and body and soul. He knew it was enough to kill a man, and he knew armour and weapons could drag a man to his death – he'd seen it before, several times, watched warships settle into the ocean like dying dragons, watched men flail and scream, panic invading them as quickly as any ice waters, only to be sucked under heaving green waves and never return. But Kell would never give up Ilanna. He would never give up the Sister of his Soul. Not even if his life depended on it…
Saark screamed like a woman, flapped like a chicken, and did not care that the world could and would mock him. He hit the water with a gasp, went under deep and surfaced flailing like a man on the end of a swinging noose – only to see something huge and black and terribly ominous tumbling toward him – and he realised in the blink of an eye it was the raft the fucking raft and he leapt back and twisted, swimming down, down, and something made a deep sonic thump above and Saark knew the bastard would hit him, push him down, drown him without any emotion and he swam, bitterly, secure in the knowledge that he was cursed and he was a pawn and the whole bloody world was an evil gameboard designed just for him. Bubbles scattered around like black petals, and eventually, as pain lacerated his lungs and bright lights danced like flitting fish, he struck for the surface, gasping as he emerged in a burst. He bobbed there for a while, in the gloom, listening to the roar of the waterfall, and then his eyes adjusted and he saw Kell, Myriam and Nienna on the raft, dripping, frowning, and staring at him. He scowled.
"Come on, lad," urged Kell. "What you waiting for?"
"What happened, did you all nail yourselves to the bastard thing?" spat Saark, and struck out through the undulating water.
"No," said Kell, taking Saark's wrist and hauling the man onto the raft, which bobbed violently. " You simply spent too much time paddling down there with the fairies. What were you doing, man? We thought you'd drowned!"
"Hah. I was simply counting my money." Saark looked up. They'd fallen a considerable way, and behind them the base of the waterfall churned. Steam rose, and ice crackled on rocks. Saark shivered, and then realised he wasn't dying from the cold. "Wait. Something's wrong," he said.