'Talmia megrala eldrin fres.' I spat the words at him and the gloom flared scarlet, the image fading for a second.
'Impudent bitch!'
I winced as a lash of pain scored through my head but I repeated the words, screaming at the top of my mind. The darkness lifted for a moment this time and I racked my brains for anything else I could use as I threw the incantation at him again and again.
'You pitiful thing. I have been inside you once, I can do it again.'
I pushed at the coils of malice that threatened to entangle me and walled my reason against him. He knew my mind but that rune reversed meant I knew his; I fought instinctively, not knowing how or why but with all the strength I could summon. What did I have to lose?
I cursed myself for just skipping over the spells in Geris' list, ignoring the unpronounceable words. What I could remember I gasped out and, gibberish though it might be, as I stumbled through the fragments, I felt the whip of his intellect deaden a little, the questing grip on the edges of my mind slipping. The rhythms spoke to memories buried deep inside me and I felt a new surge of hope.
'Marmol, edril, senil, dexil, wrem, tedren, fathen, ardren, parlen, vrek.'
I chanted out the number song of the Forest, nigh on nonsense to the Folk themselves in latter generations but still taught as my father had passed it to me. I shouted out the ancient words and then found a song naming the birds of the Forest; Raven was a game of the Folk long before the rest of the world knew it. I repeated myself over and over as I searched my childhood for meaningless words and cadences that somehow kept the nightmare that was the Ice-man from invading me again.
I could feel his wrath and, more faintly, his confusion; to him I was no more than a child sticking its fingers in its ears and singing a defiant song to drown out a parent's rebukes. It was all I could do but, as any three-year-old can tell you, it's a difficult tactic to beat.
The darkness around me retreated and the terrifying image of the Ice-man drifted for a moment like smoke in a wind. I could feel burning in my wrists and cold in my feet and redoubled my efforts as my senses told me I was still in command of my own body.
'Livak! Livak!' Ryshad's hoarse voice rang in my ears and the Ice-man's curses echoed through my mind in a last burst of fury.
My vision cleared to show me Ryshad's pain-racked face, nose to nose with me. I gasped at the pain of the vice-like grip he had on my wrists.
'Is it you?'
'My eyes are my own, aren't they?'
He stared deep into me, suspicion fading after a long, tense moment.
'It was him?'
'If he tries for you, say the fire chant, old ballads, ancient prayers, old liturgy if you know any. There's power in the words, I don't know why.'
The wind's chill was biting through me and I realised I was wringing wet with sweat, trembling and exhausted like a beast that's been running for its life. My knees buckled and I sank on to the seat, the sickly-sweet smell of blood revolting all around me as the little boat was swung hither and yon by the uncaring seas.
'Rysh? I had to, you do realise that? It wasn't him, it was that bastard who did it but it was the only way.'
I looked up as I stumbled through the broken words but Ryshad was not looking at me. Complete despair such as I have never seen, other than on the face of a man on a scaffold, filled his eyes. I turned to see what he was gaping at and, as we were carried up on a high hill of green water, I saw a thicket of masts coming out of the pale eastern skies. Sails bellied with a full wind as they sped towards us and long pennants bearing the Ice-man's insignia licked towards us like greedy tongues.
'Trimon save us.' Shiv breathed a heartfelt oath to the god of travellers and I saw him grip the side of the little boat, white-knuckled with effort. My spirits wavered upwards as he turned the nose of the vessel and we skimmed the foaming crest of one swell, then another, then another.
'Oh, Pered,' Shiv said softly as his head sank forwards in total collapse. I lunged forward to keep him from falling clean out of the boat but though I had hold of him I dared not move again in case I upset us all completely. The boat was now broadside on to the rolling waves, rocking sideways and threatening to spill us out. Aiten's body sloshed around in the water steadily gathering around our feet; I saw we were starting to sink as Shiv's spell began to lose its radiance.
'They won't get all of us.' Ryshad moved with sudden fury and heaved the pitiful corpse over his shoulder, his friend's last blood staining his back as he dropped him into the vastness of the ocean.
'Dastennin take you, Ait. Travel well and follow his hounds to the Otherworld, where your deeds will go before you. We'll keep your memory bright here until we join you.'
He choked on the words of farewell and I reached out with my free hand. He grasped it, I held him and we clung together, wordless, helpless, hopeless.
We both jumped as our prisoner suddenly vanished, carried off by some aetheric spell I suppose but to be honest, I really didn't care. I moved to support Shiv as the boat bucked and spun with the gathering winds whipping up the seas around us and finally I wondered if we should just give ourselves up to the greedy waves to spite the Ice-man at the very last. I shivered; it was going to be a dreadful way to die.
The masts came closer and now we could see the long dark hulls of three Elietimm ships. Our boat bucked again, but the jolt did not come from the waves. Another came and I saw a lithe shape slide through the water alongside.
'Dolphins!' Ryshad looked at me with wonder as the pointed fins cut through the spume and began to push our little craft towards the west. A sleek head poked out of the water near Shiv and nodded fruitlessly at him, lunging as if wanting to touch him. I was afraid the beast was going to get us all drowned so I held out Shiv's limp hand to the questing nose.
'Who in Saedrin's name are you?' A ringing voice filled the air around me as the dolphin touched Shiv's hand.
I stared round wildly and saw from Ryshad's startled expression that he had heard it too.
The air above Shiv's senseless head shimmered blue and grew opaque; I saw an old man's face, a sharp-featured man with wind-tossed hair and an unkempt beard, blurred and distorted as if seen through thick glass.
'Who are you?' I could not think what to say.
'I am Otrick,' the face said crisply, as if that said it all. 'Who are you and what are you doing with a mage's ring of power on your hand?'
I looked stupidly at the collection of rings I had gathered and noticed for the first time that I had the silver band purloined from Azazir.
'I didn't realise—'
'Put it on Shivvalan's finger and then put his hand in the water.'
I struggled with the ring, my cold, wet fingers and Shiv's nerveless hands. When I finished my task, green light rose up from the depths all around us and drove the boat forward at a startling pace. A surge of foam gathered at the nose and the dolphins gave up pushing to race alongside, leaping across the bow wave in a manner that I found quite frankly terrifying.
I did not have enough hands for this; I was still keeping Shiv balanced and Ryshad had my dagger hand. I was glad of the reassurance but really wanted to hang on to the side of the boat myself. Ryshad must have seen the insecurity in my face; he moved to sit beside me, putting his arm around me as he gripped the seat for the two of us. The rolling seas drew aside as the boat carried us on the wildest ride of my life. Shaking with whatever fear I had left, I promised myself I'd never set foot on so much as a river ferry after this, not even if finding a bridge took me half a season out of my way.