However, he had underestimated the local enthusiasm for striking financial arrangements. With the promise of partial payment in Wending, and a later larger one from Narashtovik, Halbank secured passage on the Skate, a quick-running sloop. It was captained by a grizzled old man named Wanders who looked like he'd been plying the lakelands since sometime around the Second Scour. His lone crewman looked young enough to be his grandson.
Like that, they were slashing their way across the cold waters. Mountains ringed them on all sides. Smoke rose from the hamlets and villages tucked along the edges of the massive lake. As at Calden, almost none of the locals were out on the water except for a few fishing dinghies anchored just off the shore.
"It occurs to me," Halbank said. "How are you sure that it's the gods that are afflicting us like this? Did you have a vision?"
Blays nodded. "We got a pretty good look at things when the Angel of Taim flew up and told us to our faces."
"But if this truly is the work of the gods, how are you going to stop it?"
"Yeah, that's going to be a tough one, isn't it?"
This disconcerted Halbank to the point where he was glancing behind himself as if thinking of turning around and abandoning the entire endeavor. Then he blinked and stood up a little taller and faced south toward their destination.
Instead of cutting straight across the lake, the Skate's captain kept them close to shore. Dante might have complained, but something was keeping everyone else off the water. He reached down into it with his mind, groping about for anything unnatural in feel. He felt nothing but the slow current of the lake.
The curtains of the western mountains drew themselves across the sun. A thin haze lifted from the now-black waters. The wind calmed to a languid breeze. In the still emptiness of it all, Dante felt a sense of peace he'd last known in the days right after they'd slain the lich.
A thud against the hull woke him later that night.
"Tell me that was just a rock." Judging by the roughness of Blays' voice, he'd been asleep too, but he'd long ago trained himself to snap to full alert as abruptly as the Spear of Stars snapped from a dull rod into a glowing weapon of terror. He was already on his feet, glancing across the moonlit waters.
"Oh, you bastards." Wanders pulled the sloop hard to port and the dry land that waited a hundred yards away. "Never should have let you talk me into this. Not for all the fortune in the world."
A second thud jolted the boat, harder than the first. Directly underneath them. Gladdic flung out his hand, casting pale light across the lake. The Skate's lone mate backed away from the gunwale toward the center of the deck. Dante kneeled to steady himself against the roll of the ship, drew his knife, and nicked the back of his arm. The nether threw itself at him like it was spooked.
Something slammed into the boat hard enough to clack Dante's teeth together.
"Oh, you bastards," Wanders grated. "You fools and swine. You great awful b—"
The hull cracked and jumped into the air. A limb as thick as the trunk of a tree punched through it, flinging planks to all sides, knocking Wanders away from the tiller and Dante to his stomach. The tentacle thrust higher and wagged from side to side, wrenching loose more of the deck.
Gladdic had been thrown into a heap against the gunwale like a cornsilk doll, but though he was still flopped out on his hip, he drove a lance of ether at the grotesque limb.
Yet instead of the softness of a squid's arm, this one was coated in rippling scales. The ether cracked into them, skidding along them and sending a few of them plinking to the splintering deck, but it barely penetrated into the flesh. Dante drove at the same spot with the nether. Just before the bolt made impact, the beast lashed its limb down and to the side. With a deafening groan, the sloop tore in half.
Cold water surged over Dante; the impact had knocked him back down. The wreckage pitched up as it took on water. The beast lifted its tentacle, splattering droplets everywhere. Dante rammed it with a shimmering blade of shadows. This left a shallow gouge in it, tearing loose more scales, but the thing swung itself downward, almost lazily, right at Dante.
He threw himself overboard. Wanders jumped the other way, Winden right beside him. The limb smashed through the half of the sloop like it was woven from old straw. Dante hit the water and went under.
It was cold enough to make his body want to go rigid. He flushed the nether through himself, warming him, and kicked for the surface. As he broke free, a bit of flotsam clonked down on his head.
"Right," Blays yelled. He stood on the raised prow of the remaining half of the wreckage. "Time to get harpooned!"
He leaped as far as he could toward the tentacle, arms cocked behind his head. He swung forward. Light erupted around him, obscuring him. Dante could just make out the length of the spear. Its tip pierced the scales of the limb. And drove deep.
Something roared from the depths, gurgling and bubbling, the sound even more chilling than the winter water. It yanked its limb away from the spear. The weapon would have torn loose from Blays' hand and been lost to the lake bed if not for its cord, which had wrapped itself around its wielder's wrists as the spear had been unleashed. As it was, it popped free of the tentacle. Dante could only pray that Blays' arms hadn't popped with it.
The tentacle slipped into the water like a snake into a hole. Dante glanced to all sides, then slung an arm over a floating plank and kicked for shore. Winden and the Skate's captain were already doing the same. Debris bobbed on the churned-up waters. The half of the sloop Blays had launched his attack from still hadn't gone under. Dante had some experience with shipwrecks, and he still didn't understand why some sank like stones while others floundered around for hours before finally delivering themselves to their final rests.
Gladdic scattered ether behind him, lighting up the water with otherworldly and unsteady beams. Dante kept his head cranked around to watch behind himself. When his paddling hand brushed against a length of underwater weed, he screamed.
They'd reached the shallows. He reached down with his foot and touched the ground. As soon as he could plant both feet, he made a frantic slog for shore, the others splashing along right behind him. They hit dry ground, retreating some ways before stopping and turning around, breathing hard.
Wanders craned his head forward, peering across the lake. "Lost Bodwell, did we?"
"Your crewman?" Dante said. He threw light across the ripples, but saw nothing but a few pieces of debris. "Did anyone see where he went?"
"If he aren't here, he either went down with the ship or run off. Oh well, he was a rogue anyway." The captain's glare sank into something softer. "That boat was given to me by my granddad. Was going to give it to one of my sons when I got too old to man the ropes."
"If that is all you have lost by the time this is through," Gladdic said, "you will find yourself more than grateful."
They were all quiet for a moment.
"This is something of a setback," Dante said. "But overall, I'd call it very good news."
Blays wrung what sounded like nine gallons of water from his cloak. "It's funny, that's exactly what I thought when the tree-sized tentacle was coming down on our heads: truly a blessing. What in the world are you talking about?!"
"Right, it was absolutely huge, wasn't it? And how long do you think it's been here? A week, tops? Where does a thing like that come from?"
"The rectum of hell's eldest demon?"
"It couldn't have had time to grow to that size here. That means there's a doorway right here in the Rift. We just have to find it."
"You want to go toward the lair of the town-sized beast?"
"Yes. But we're still going to Wending first. We need to secure arrangements for our people. They locals might have an idea where the doorway is, too. Wanders, is it safe to travel through the shallows?"
Wanders squinted. "After what you just seen, you're askin' me if'n it's safe?"
"Slightly less suicidal?"
"Ayuh, by a measure. Ought to be on our way, the
n. I'm about to shiver myself out of my skin."
"You're coming with us? You're not…mad at us?"
The captain snorted. "I'm a boatsman without a boat. I'm madder than a shaved cat. But you drove that thing off. I'd far rather travel in your company than by myself."
They walked south along the shore of the great lake. Dante cast some nether over them to warm them against the cold of their soaked cloaks, but his abilities could only do so much. They needed to get dry. Fast.
Fortunately, they stumbled onto a village at the very next bend in the shoreline. All of its houses were dark and silent, but as they approached, they were met by a mob of armed but badly frightened men. As soon as they told what had happened, and Captain Wanders vouched for them, the villagers cheered them, fed them a meal of baked fish and greens, and gave them dry clothes.
They repaid the villagers shortly after by sneaking down to the docks and stealing a canoe large enough to fit all six of them. They set off once more across the dark waters, hugging as closely to the banks as they dared.
Sometimes, Dante heard splashes and the rustle of water further out toward the depths. Some sounded no more than a rock's toss away. Still, they encountered no more trouble that night, nor during the few hours they allowed themselves to camp and sleep, and they resumed paddling early in the morning. The water was as flat and pure as Parthian glass. A fog thickened about them until they would have had no idea which direction they were going if they hadn't already been close enough to shore to whack it with their paddles.
The fog had only partway lifted by noon when they heard screams inland just ahead of them.
Dante and Blays looked at each other.
"All right," Dante said. "But let's make it quick."
They angled the canoe into the mud and vaulted onto the land like Carlonian raiders. The shrieks drew them to a small town. One that was currently being raided by lobster-shelled abominations with two humanoid legs and long skinny claws at the ends of their arms.
As hideous as the things looked, they had no special defenses against the nether of Dante and Gladdic, or the devastation of Blays' spear, and the three of them soon carved up the invaders so badly that the few survivors scuttled back into the foggy depths.
Blays put away the spear. "I'd say that makes up for stealing a canoe."
As the locals feted them, Dante used his Odo Sein blade to carve off a few pieces of the monstrosities for study. The people prepared another feast. Dante wanted to leave at once, but Blays made an unusually compelling theological argument that to refuse the gratitude of the people they'd saved would be to betray the order of the heavens, and Dante agreed to stay for just long enough to eat more fish and quaff a couple of the fruited beers the Rift was known for.
Near day's end, their craft approached the channel that connected the northeastern lake they'd been traveling across to the southerly one, at the end of which lay Wending. It wasn't unlike a mountain pass, deep and narrow, flanked by shoulders of rock hundreds of feet high, which were encrusted with fortifications. Normally the guards waved merchants and travelers through with few if any questions, but this time, the garrison demanded they stop and identify themselves. Halbank did so, then asked if the channel and the waters ahead were clear.
The guard guffawed. "Of ships, yes. You're just the second one we've seen today. Of leviathans? Well, there's a reason I'm way up here."
Dante muttered his thanks as they propelled themselves onward.
The climate of the southern lake was more temperate yet, though still a long way from warm. The fog cleared and they were treated to an hour of brilliant sunshine until the mountains took it away.
Clouds hung above them come morning, black and still. At the level of the lake, however, the wind howled and churned, changing directions with as little warning as a drunk reeling down the street, tossing the water into slopping chaos. If they hadn't been so close to the bank where it was somewhat calmer, they would have capsized repeatedly.
The lake was too choppy to spot any ripples. That day, however, the surface was broken a few times an hour by tentacles, spines, and fins, some merely troubling in size, others horrifying. Late in the morning, one of the fins—shaped more like a spiny sail than the thick blunt triangle of a shark—swung about, trailing them from two hundred feet away. After keeping this distance for a half an hour, it abruptly closed to one hundred feet, then fifty. As Dante filled his hands with shadows, the fin dropped beneath the chop and vanished.
Trouble seemed to lurk all around them. Yet they came, at last, to Wending.
The city was shaped like an amphitheater, with a great deal of housing and commerce packed into the bowl; wealthy villas spread out on the slopes and terraces above it; dozens of docks poking out into the water, ensnarled with countless masts; and a great deal of little islands before it. All of these large enough to support a manor had been claimed by a lord of commerce.
"Huh," Blays said. "Do you remember the nobles' houses looking so…smashed?"
"Only the one we had to break into," Dante said.
As they got closer to the docks, he saw that the shoreline was in as much disarray as the islands, heaped high with rubble and junk. He assumed it was washed-up flotsam, and maybe it was, but if so, it had since been rearranged into makeshift barricades and ramparts aimed toward the water.
They made landfall on a beach of course sand. The waterfront was empty except for a few sentries carrying horns of warning. Dante approached one and quickly explained that they were there to see Lord Lolligan. As he did so, it occurred to him that Lolligan might have fled—for he lived on Bolling Island, which was likely as torn to shreds as the others—or even been killed. To his relief, the gentleman had relocated to one of the villas uphill, which the sentry offered to deliver them to.
After a bit of a hike, they were brought before a princely estate with swooping eaves three stories in height. A swappole stood prominent in its grounds, a fifty-foot rod of gleaming brass within a circle of raked gravel laid out in thick spokes of black and white stones.
Rather than servants, they were met by a pair of guards. Recognizing Dante and Blays, they brightened and marched them through high-ceilinged hallways to a comfy dealing-hall of the type favored by the merchants of the land.
"Lord Dante?" Lolligan stood from his chair, a little unsteadily.
It had been a year and a half since Dante had last seen the man, and nearing fifteen years since he'd first met him. In that time, he'd gone from an older fellow to genuinely elderly. He was as fine-boned as a bird, with a pointy white beard and a tan like a Collener.
"Lolligan!" Dante clasped the man's hand. "We saw what happened to the islands. I was afraid something might have happened to you."
"I've always been good at getting by. By the look of it, you haven't lost your knack for it either. Particularly given the stories I've heard of your recent deeds. I'd like to hear how many of them are true, but I assume you're here on other business." He gestured toward the lakes. "All that's happening—is it the curse of the lich?"
"In a sense. Let's have a seat."
"And something to drink," Blays said. "And is there dinner?"
It was Gallador, so despite the recent troubles, there was much to eat and drink. As the servants went to work, Dante explained what they'd seen—and that it hadn't been inflicted by the lich's dying curse, but by Taim, of whom the lich had been an unwitting tool.
"I wouldn't believe such a tale if it had been told by anyone but you." Lolligan was good-spirited by nature, but the news had caused him to fold his hands in his lap and gaze down at the table. "I knew we were troubled. But I would never have guessed to what depths. To be betrayed by our own creators?"
"Taim believes the order he created for the Mists—the journey of life and death—has been hopelessly corrupted," Dante said. "Fallen. Beyond saving. His only course is to erase it and start over. He hoped the White Lich would do that for him, but since we thwarted that plan—and actively aggressed aga
inst him—it seems as though he's decided to take matters into his own hands."
"But why not do that from the beginning? Why bother to use the lich as his cat's-paw?"
"I don't know. Maybe he wanted to keep his hands clean. It would have been perfect, as far as I know he had no overt links to the lich. Or maybe he was afraid that if he moved directly, the others would oppose him. Whatever the case, it's clear he's changed his mind."
"The monstrosities in the lakes make a pretty clear case for that, wouldn't you say? The earth itself is just as angry. It's arising in these…pustules, belching out red-hot fluid like molten iron. Like the bubble-pots in the highlands, but much bigger."
"Volcanoes," Blays said. "We saw a few of those on our jaunt to the Plagued Islands. Trust me, you should try not to fall into any of them."
"It's disquieting. It feels as though the very ground is to be ripped out from underneath us."
Dante took a drink. "That seems to be exactly what they mean to do. And from what we've seen so far, they have the power to do so."
After this, they all took a drink, even Winden, who thought all of the continent's alcohols tasted foul.
"Two questions spring to mind." Lolligan gestured, swirling his glass. "What do you mean to do about this? And why are you here in Wending, in particular?"
"We didn't have enough food in Narashtovik to get through the winter," Dante said. "The earth didn't want to let us use our magics to grow enough crops, either. The soil here's the best in the north. I marched my people here in hopes the Rift would be a little more yielding."
Lolligan narrowed his eyes. "And the initial question?"
"We're going to go back to the Realm of Nine Kings. Maybe we can strike a bargain of some kind. Or turn the others against Taim again. Failing that…well, I suppose we do something desperate. And insane. And insanely desperate."
"I've got quite a lot of experience handling inventory. Delivery schedules and the like. I expect you know a thing or two about logistics yourself, considering how much you like waging war."
"I don't like waging war."
The Twelve Plagues (The Cycle of Galand Book 7) Page 6