The forest at night was far more eerie than the glowii emerald jungle of the daytime. Roots writhed up to trip him, vines (snakes?) brushed his face, almost startling him into dr ping the torch. Branches grasped at his clothing. Faces le out from trees, seeming to grimace in the flickering torchligl The mold underfoot was slick with the evening’s dew, a1 sickly glowing growths sprung from rotting logs, reminding him horribly of the chalice from which Miathan had released his Wraiths. Anvar’s heart hammered; his breath came si and gasping. What was that light ahead? A strange, flickering ghost-light. Anvar slowed his pace, creeping carefully up to the clearing that cradled the little pool—and stopped, enchanted. A nymph was bathing in the still, dark water. She was pale-skinned and golden-haired: surrounded and waited upon by a court of fallen stars that danced above the water, crowning her with silver. Anvar held his breath. An errant star danced close to him, and he saw that it was a flying insect whose body glowed with cool, white fire. Then the nymph turned to face him, standing naked in the enchanted pool, her golden hair streaming across her shoulders. Sara.
Anvar was enraptured, helpless in the face of such otherworldly beauty. He had meant to chide her for venturing alone into the forest at night, to rebuke her for her lack of common jnse. Instead he found himself moving inexorably toward her, a sleepwalker drawn by the lure of an elusive dream. Throwing his guttering torch and casting aside his clothes, he joined Sara in the pool.
She stiffened, a protest half articulated on her lips. Then with a shrug, she lifted her face to his kisses, her arms to return embrace. They made love on the brink of the pool. Anvar afire, carried away on the wings of love, of passion, by the auty of Sara and the lambent night that combined to form a igle transcendent whole. So carried away was he that it was in the instant of climax that he felt an uneasy hint of ibt that Sara was not with him. Oh, her body, yes. Su-emely responsive, making all the right moves, the appropri-sounds. But in that explosive instant her eyes flew open, and >king into them, he realized that Sara herself was elsewhere, away.
Anvar let his body relax, his heart thudding rapidly against breast. Sara smiled, and ran her fingers idly through his jr. You imagined it, he thought. Trick of the light with those ined fireflies. But his joy had fled, and his heart’s ease was slaced by a desperate awareness of how much he needed her. am his childhood she had been his—and now, at last, he had to himself. The idea of losing her was unthinkable. But for first time, he felt an insidious touch of doubt, like an icy ;er. Had Aurian been right? Had Sara been callously using inor for her own ends? And now, was she using A/w? “I’m cold,” Sara aersplained. “Cold and muddy.” She grimaced, and tried to wriggle out from beneath him. “Now I’ll have to bathe again!”
With a sigh, Anvar let her go, joining her in the pool to bathe. The unexpected coldness of the water, now that he was in a state to notice such things, sent the last remnants of the night’s magic fleeing as quickly as it had come.
Without speaking, they walked back to the beach, where Anvar rekindled a huge blaze.
“I’m hungry again,” Sara whined. But the last of the fish had been carried away by the crabs, and Anvar knew they had no chance of finding food in the dark. “Try to sleep,” he said. “We’ll find something in the morning.”
“And then what?” she demanded. “We can’t mess around in this dreadful wilderness forever, you know.”
To Anvar this place was a paradise, if he didn’t count the sunburn, but he supposed she was right. “I don’t know,” he said. “If we climb the cliffs tomorrow—”
“What? Climb up there? You must be joking!” Anvar sighed. “Well, we can make our way along the shore, then, camping as we go. The cliffs can’t go on forever.” “And which direction do we take?” Sara countered. “Why, you don’t even know what lands we’re in!”
“Neither do you,” Anvar retorted, nettled, “and you’ve traveled farther than I have, or so you say. Why don’t you make a suggestion?”
“You’re absolutely useless, Anvar! You don’t know anything! I wish I’d never-^1” Sara bit the words off abruptly.
“You wish you’d never what?” Anvar felt an ominous chill at her words. But Sara turned away from him, refusing to say more, and he was reluctant to press her. Within a matter of minutes she was asleep, or at least pretending to be.
Anvar stared miserably at the night sky. The stars seemed closer here, mellow lamps set in a velvet canopy. It was a far cry from the glittering star-crazed sky of his northern home, and suddenly he felt lost, and, despite Sara’s sleeping form huddled next to him, very much alone. He wondered where Aurian was, and was bitterly sorry for his hurtful words. She’d have known what to do. Forral had taught her well. Even when she found herself at a loss, her courage made up for the lack. In truth, he admitted ruefully, it was the near arrogance of her certainty that sometimes annoyed him so. That and the fact that she was a Mage, one of the race that had robbed him of his place in the world. He toyed with the dagger she had given him, its clean, sharp, businesslike lines reminding him of its owner. Where was she now? he wondered. How would she manage—pregnant, alone, and grieving, with Miathan in close pursuit. He began to worry about her, feeling that he had failed in his responsibility. But despite his troubles, the days of terror and flight had taken a greater toll than Anvar realized. Long before he could awaken Sara to take a watch, he fell asleep in the midst of his reverie.
Had they known to what lands they had come, and what race inhabited them, Anvar and Sara would never have built a great fire, like a beacon on the beach. Had they been aware of the danger, they would have hidden in the forest and been more careful about setting watches. As it was, they slept innocently on, their fire visible for miles from the open sea. When the long black galley glided up to the beach they were unaware of it, and even the light crunch of boots on the sand and the hiss of drawn steel failed to wake them.
Anvar was awakened by the clutch of hands on his body, and the sound of Sara’s scream ripping through the night. He struggled violently, gaining his feet for a moment and groping for Aurian’s dagger. But the blade had fallen from his hand while he slept, and was lost in the sand. He had time for a glimpse of flickering torches, swartbjr faces, and white, grinning teeth before a heavy blow on the back of his head knocked him unconscious.
19
The Cataclysm
The Leviathan’s name was Ithalasa. Sensing Aurian’s need for rest, he told her that he would take her to a sheltered sea lagoon farther south, where his people often found sanctuary. As they went on their way, the Mage saw the cliffs behind the shoreline to her right gradually coming closer to the sea until they formed the coastline itself, and Aurian’s view of the Southern Lands consisted of a high wall of sharp-edged gray crags with the odd touch of dark green where tough, scrubby bushes had found a foothold within the many crevices. Sometimes the cliffs would curve inward, forming deep, sheltered bays, but Ithalasa kept going, passing them one after another. An indecipherable murmuring on the very edge of the Mage’s thoughts told her that he was communicating with other whales as he traveled.
Aurian’s head ached from the dazzle of the sun on the sparkling blue waters. She was ravenously hungry, and very miserable. Try as she would, she could not get Anvar out of her mind. Whenever she closed her eyes to try to sleep, she saw his unhappy face, as they stood together on the beach. Then, just as she was on the point of asking Ithalasa to turn back, she’d remember what had happened between the two of them and Sara, the previous night, and her anger would come boiling up all over again. And if she was not thinking of Anvar, she was thinking of Forral, which was even worse. At last, because she had no idea what to do next, and she was desperate to distract herself from her loneliness and the guilt of having abandoned the others, she decided to confide in Ithalasa, and ask his advice. Ithalasa’s response to Aurian’s talc was startling. She was drenched all over again as his massive tail lashed the water in agitation. “The Caldron is found? It has passed into evil hands? Oh, rue this bitter day!” His distress washed over the Mage, almost swamping her consciousness with its intensity.