Mark found himself poling more quickly. The bowman’s anxiety was somehow contagious, and he too began scanning the river for some sign that Steven might be in trouble.
Then he spied it: a small circular area of water, bubbling up as if disturbed from below. Mark recognised in a heartbeat that his friend was in danger. ‘There,’ he pointed, and pushed the Capina Fair hard towards the centre of the current, ‘out in that deeper water. Do you see it?’
Garec was already pulling off his boots. He stripped to the waist and dived into the ripples, quickly disappearing beneath the surface.
Mark reached for the hickory staff. ‘Try to keep us from moving too far downstream,’ he said to Brynne as he leaped in after Garec.
Steven thrashed violently against the invisible force holding him to the riverbed. It had his leg, the same leg the grettan had nearly bitten off, the one that had been healed during his encounter with Malagon’s spirit army. The formless creature’s grip was like iron and Steven’s attempts to free himself were in vain. He grasped his ankle with both hands and tugged wildly; his lungs burned with the need for air. He exhaled hard, puffing his breath towards the surface in the hope of attracting Mark’s attention. He didn’t have much time.
A third hand gripped his leg. It was Garec. Steven’s heart slammed away in his chest as Garec tried to extricate his foot from the river’s vice-like grip. Steven thought his eyes were fooling him when he watched in horror as Garec’s own hand was drawn wrist deep into the silt as well.
They were both trapped.
Garec struggled to free himself. Kicking hard and jerking his arm wildly, he inadvertently brought one leg around and struck Steven violently across the bridge of his nose. A bright light flashed before Steven’s eyes, and it took the last of his strength to keep from drawing his lungs full of water. His thoughts scattered, myriad fragments: he might be fighting for his life, or he may have given up already – his sense of himself drifted away in the current. He realised, without caring, that he was about to die – had died – when he felt something forced into his hand.
The staff’s magic flared, a wellspring of anger, determination and compassion. Steven was suddenly lucid, acutely aware, and strangely free from his mortal need for oxygen. He reached for Garec and, as he had done back at the cabin, used the staff’s power for another, channelling his own magic-imbued strength to the Ronan. Moments later, Garec quieted beside him, protected from drowning by the staff’s strange ability.
Steven squeezed his friend’s hand and Garec returned his grip, as if to communicate that he, too, was somehow free from the need to breathe. Then Garec deliberately dropped Steven’s hand and reached up to pat him forcefully on the back. Good, Steven thought, he is protected. Now, to get us out of here; it’s way too cold to hang about.
Hovering above them in the current, Mark made several trips to the surface to breathe and to assure Brynne that both men were still alive. ‘Something has them,’ he called to her when he appeared the second time.
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know – I can’t see anything, but they’re clamped solidly to the riverbed. Steven is trying to free them now.’ And Mark disappeared once again.
Brynne held the Capina Fair steady against the current. Having lost Sallax and Gilmour, she could not bear to lose Steven or Garec now. Hurling a string of foul curses at the river, she fought a growing desire to dive into the water with them.
Steven had no idea whether the staff’s magic could continue to provide oxygen while he was focusing its power on the creature that lay hidden beneath the riverbed, but he had no choice but to try. Summoning his courage, he gripped the staff with both hands, channelled his will and drove one end deep into the silt between his feet.
At first nothing particular happened, although Steven could feel the staff’s power coursing into the earth with tremendous force. He and Garec remained firmly tethered by whatever evil lurked beneath them. Thankfully, the magic that was keeping them both alive was unaffected by Steven’s attack on their captor. He glanced over at Garec: he looked calm, despite the absurdity of being trapped by the wrist twenty feet beneath the surface of the water. He was confident Steven’s magic would save them.
It didn’t work.
Refocusing his thoughts, Steven tried again. He envisioned the earth freeing them from its grasp and the two men floating gently along in the current like bits of flotsam. He tried to repress any anger or frustration: perhaps the force holding them prisoner might release its grip if it believed they were already dead.
Again, nothing.
Steven began to worry; sensing his concern, Garec gave him an encouraging clap on the back, intimating that he should try again.
Steven, about to try clearing his mind once more, took a moment to peer off into the gloom. An ungainly fish darted by, something caught between evolutionary endpoints, no longer what it had been but not yet what it was about to become. He watched it skim along in search of something slower and less agile to eat. Running his hands along the smooth hickory, Steven prepared for another assault on their captor when he felt they were beginning to move.
Slowly at first, and then more quickly, they were being dragged through the silt towards the gigantic moraine. His eyes widened in terror: now he could see the remains of crooked, broken trees jammed haphazardly into stone crevices: a nightmare of twisted roots and branches reaching out for them. It wasn’t the current that had assembled this rock formation beneath the river’s calm exterior, but rather, this beast, this invisible force that was threatening to make them both a permanent addition to its underwater construction. Steven twisted and tugged at his leg and struck repeatedly against the riverbed with the staff, but despite his efforts, he and Garec moved inexorably towards the submerged stone outcropping.
Ahead of them Steven saw a cave he had not noticed before: a dark, narrow opening between two massive boulders resting against one another. Whatever held them was dragging them slowly towards that gaping, inky hole. Above and behind, Mark appeared and grasped Steven by the hand and Garec by the ankle and pulled with all the force he could muster, but it didn’t do a thing to slow them down. Garec dug the fingers of his free hand into the silt, trying to find whatever had them captive – and that was seized as well. Looking up at Steven, the fear of imminent death in his eyes, he pleaded silently with the foreigner to try anything, to do something, before it was too late.
Steven looked around, hoping for inspiration – then it occurred to him that the force holding them down might be linked with their current quest, maybe another of Prince Malagon’s dark servants. He really needed to concentrate. He directed his thoughts to Nerak, Gilmour, Lessek, and the Larion Senate. He thought of Lessek’s Key, that innocuous chunk of rock that sat waiting on his desk back home. And he envisioned himself handing over the stone to Kantu, the last of the Larion Senators, in preparation for a final war between the ancient magic of the spell table and the evil that sought to conquer it and bring about the end of all things. He focused his thoughts, his energy, his entire being on these images, forgetting himself and Garec, forgetting Brynne and Mark, even forgetting Hannah.
The staff responded to his single-minded dedication. The magic, which had thus far been a strong, warm glow as it provided oxygen for him and Garec, swelled up inside him. It sharpened Steven’s consciousness and honed his perception of things around him.
This time when he raised the hickory staff to strike out at the riverbed, he knew that, if nothing else, he would be using all his heart and will. There was a shudder, a pulse that rippled out from the riverbed to resonate through the rocky hills of Meyers’ Vale. Before Steven could strike out, the river released them. Jerking back reflexively, he and Garec were thrown towards the surface.