'Velindre says she sensed no storm.' Kheda drew Risala
back with him. 'Let's see what we can see from the stern platform.'
The land ahead was breaking into a chain of dark islets riven by narrow channels.
If there are wizards or even dragons, I want to be beside a mage I've seen calling lightning out of a clear sky and bringing down a dragon with a rival beast of her own creation.
Risala hesitated. 'You'll keep watch, Naldeth, so we don't run aground on anything?'
'Yes, of course.' The young wizard's eyes were unfocused. 'There's a peculiar tangle of elements here,' he breathed.
Disquiet prickled down Kheda's backbone as he hurried the length of the ship, Risala's hand in his. 'Velindre—' he began as he climbed the steps after Risala.
'Naldeth's enjoying a rush of blood to his affinity, I take it?' Velindre sounded amused. More to the point, as far as Kheda was concerned, she was clear-eyed and wholly composed. 'There's been wild fire magic at work here.'
'How recently?' demanded Kheda.
'It's difficult to tell,' Velindre said thoughtfully. 'Long enough ago for storms to have doused it pretty thoroughly.'
'There's nothing that could set your cargo alight?' he persisted. 'If Naldeth hasn't got his wits about him, we could burn to the waterline.'
'I'd say not,' Velindre replied, offhand.
Kheda wasn't overly reassured.
Could whatever accursed enchantment is rousing Naldeth's wizardry stir that dragon's egg down in the hold? Why did Velindre bring it here?
Kheda chewed his lip as they sailed on and dark rocks rose up on either side of the Zaise in the fading light towards the day's end. A few of the blue-headed
gulls hopped insouciantly along invisibly narrow ledges, chattering among themselves.
'Can you see anything?' Kheda scanned the broken facets of dull brown stone that seemed to absorb the sinking sun's glow rather than reflect it.
'Nothing bigger than a bird.' Risala was keeping alert watch on the far side of the stern platform.
Velindre gestured at the masts and the sails drew themselves back to the spars to be lashed tight by snaking ropes. 'Let's have as clear a view as possible.'
Kheda's disquiet grew as the channel narrowed and they sailed into shadows the setting sun did not penetrate. The waters grew dark and forbidding, a rank odour floating over the surface.
'What's the draught of this hull?' he asked dubiously.
'I'll know to within a finger's width of water if we can sail on or not,' Velindre assured him.
Kheda looked down over the stern platform's side, the magewoman's confidence notwithstanding. The water was stained dark with rotting vegetation hanging in clumps stirred by their passage. Stirred but not washed away. He realised what he was seeing. 'There are trees under this water.'
Risala looked around, puzzled. 'Is this a river in flood?'
'No.' The magewoman looked thoughtful. 'This is salt water, not fresh.'
Naldeth came hurrying back from the prow, his false foot loud on the planks. 'This isn't a channel between two islands.' He climbed deftly up the ladder, scarlet magelight bright in the joints of his steel leg. 'This used to be a valley. This whole expanse of land just sank.'
'How?' Kheda looked from the young wizard to Velindre.
She chewed her chapped lower lip. 'I've really no idea.'
'Let's find out,' Naldeth urged impatiently.
The Zaise slid silently over the drowned trees. The
channel or valley, whichever it was, turned an abrupt corner around a shattered cliff where a steep scree tumbled into dark shadows. The sky opened up above them as the heights retreated on either side. A long expanse of sluggish water stretched ahead to a sloping shore rising out of the lapping sea. Dead trees bristled with split and broken branches. Those closest to the water were stripped of all branches and bark to leave bare spikes jutting up from muddy ground that reeked of decay. The Zaise slowly advanced, faint blue magic shimmering like marsh light around her. Something grated along the underside of the hull.
'Velindre?' Alarmed, Kheda couldn't help himself.
'I told you, I can gauge the depth of the water beneath us,' she reminded him. 'And whatever happened here happened long since.'
Kheda surveyed the desolation. 'Did magic do this?'
Naldeth shook his head. 'I've no idea.'
Something dropped into the water with a plop that echoed around the valley.
'There.' Risala pointed at ripples in the murky water.
A blunt scaly snout caught the light. A lizard as long as Kheda's arm was swimming across the drowned valley. It reached a dead tree and climbed rapidly up it. Pot-bellied and short-tailed with sprawling legs, its stubby toes were tipped with needle claws that dug deep into the lifeless wood. A ridged red crest ran down its back.
'That's no beast I know,' said Kheda.
'There's no magic to it.' Naldeth sounded disappointed.
Odd angularities among the stubs of a handful of storm blasted trees caught Kheda's eye. 'What's over there?'
The air shone oddly around Velindre's eyes. 'Something was built in the trees,' she said slowly.
'So there were people here.' Kheda searched the shore with new intensity, his hand going to his belt knife. He remembered his weapons stowed unheeded down below. 'Risala, fetch my swords for me, please.'
'Are these people still here?' She didn't wait for an answer, dropping down the ladder and disappearing into the stern cabin.
'You won't need those.' Naldeth turned in a slow circle, one hand raised with a scarlet flame dancing on his palm.
'These wild mages can sense some new wizard working his magic in their territory,' Kheda rebuked him.
'Then they can learn who they're dealing with,' retorted Naldeth, his flame flaring.
'If there was anyone here to be drawn by magic, we'd have seen them by now.' Velindre waved at the sapphire magelight glistening on the Zaise's rails. 'All I'm sensing is the echo of old enchantments among the elemental chaos.'
'Do you remember how fast a dragon can appear?' Kheda challenged.
The boat's blunt prow nosed through the clouded water. As they drew nearer to the muddy shore, they saw that a platform of lashed logs had been fixed into notches gouged deep into the trunks of the stricken trees. Walls of woven twigs were broken and splintered, any roofing long since torn away.
Kheda looked beyond the makeshift building to piles of debris cast up by successive storms. 'Those are the hollowed logs the savages use for boats.'
'The wild men who came to plague the Archipelago lived here?' Risala climbed up the stern ladder and handed Kheda his swords. 'They fled this disaster and came to steal our lands and we killed them.'
'Did we kill them all?' Irresistible hope rose in Kheda's chest. All the same, he doubled his sword belt around his
hips and thrust the scabbarded blades securely between the overlapping loops.
The Zaise slid sideways through the water to brush up against a mottled grey trunk with a few remaining scabs of black bark. They could all see the ragged marks where the heartwood had been gouged out of the log with crude tools and rough points had been shaped at each end.
'What were they fleeing?' Naldeth sounded disappointed. 'The dragon? Do you think it pursued them?'
'As best we can tell, they were expecting it to follow them,' Velindre reminded him.
'It was only the wizards and their warriors who came to attack us.' Risala gazed around the eerie valley. 'We never saw any women or children or elders. Perhaps they stayed behind.'
Kheda joined her in scanning the barren slopes. 'To die here, without their men or magic to sustain them.'
Have we come all this way for nothing?
Somewhere a bird screeched and drilled into a tree with a resonant burr that shattered the silence.