An unexpected swell rose up beneath the floating raft
and threatened to dash it violently against the rocks. The old woman gasped as green light flared deep in the dark waters. The beast that swam here had come to destroy this intruder. It rolled over and the old woman saw its pale belly, as blue-green as the shallows. Where the shadow of the hides hung on the raft dulled the water's sparkling surface, she glimpsed the beast's head clearly for a moment. The beast's massive mouth gaped, its burning eye bright beneath the crystal waters. Green fire glowed in the depths and a great burst of foam boiled upwards. The beast was trying to drive the strange raft onto the rocks. In a rush of understanding, she realised that was how it had killed the giant serpent.
The raft danced lightly away from the lethal embrace of the rocks. The beast rose up from the depths once more, a green shadow with its mighty wings folded tight against its long body. The waters surged again and the raft rocked violently. It managed to ride the swell, though now it was coming perilously close to the rocks. The beast reared up out of the water before diving back down and its spiked tail struck the raft with a hollow boom that echoed back from the cliffs.
A mighty wind arose from nowhere, whipping up sand and grit all around the old woman. Clouds suddenly coalesced far away out over the water and spun around up in the sky, darkening from white to ominous grey. A murky talon reached down towards the waters and a spine of white foam rose up to meet it. They joined to form a twisting column dancing this way and that.
The beast erupted from the waters, green as weed. Spreading pale-bluish wings, it launched itself upwards with a noise like thunder. As it hovered above the boiling foam, the raft was no longer of any interest. All its attention was fixed on the distant waterspout, clawed feet reaching forward as if it would rend the thing to pieces.
It flapped its wings a second time, striking spray from the waves as it flew towards this intolerable impudence, faster than the swiftest hawk. Then it folded its wings close to its shining green sides and dived, long spiked tail ripping a white gash into the water as it disappeared. The beast's dive roused a great surge that drove the scorned raft hard onto the rocks. The old woman gaped as the waters swelled with green fire to lift the strange blue creation impossibly high and wash it clean over the murderous barrier.
The raft bobbed contentedly in the narrow strip of water between the rocks and the sandy beach. The stranger in the golden headdress was standing stock still on the roof of the hut, like a scurrier frozen by a shadow in the sky passing over it. The rest of the outlandish men ran up and down, dragging at ropes tied to the white hangings draped on the two barren trees.
The old woman watched the beast now pursuing the waterspout mercilessly. The spiral danced tantalisingly out of reach every time the great green creature burst up from the depths, jaws snapping and claws lashing. With each twist and turn, it was luring the beast further and further away.
She looked at the whirling grey clouds drawing a perfect circle in an otherwise empty blue sky. She might not know much about this vast water or what weather might be expected on this shore from season to season, but she was certain that was no natural cloud come up so handily to tempt the beast away. No ordinary wave had carried the blue raft unharmed across the rocks, not even one thrown up by the green beast's dive. These strangers were indeed painted men who could turn the world to their wishes.
She looked down at the pale figure with the gaudy golden head still standing motionless, turned to watch the fast-disappearing green beast. Was the one with the brown
headdress his servant? Powerful painted men allowed lesser ones to attend them, all the while on the alert for their treachery, or so it was whispered around the hearths of the villages.
Did this mean that the painted men were going to land on her deserted shore? Would their followers soon be arriving, driving on captives laden with laths and grass to build their huts? Would the painted men be summoning uprooted trees to be split with wedges of stone and hammers of bone? Would the timbers be thrust into the sands to make the merciless wall of a stockade for whatever hapless captives would be offered up to sate the beast's hunger? Did that mean the green beast would be coming ashore? Presumably a painted man would know such things. And the lack of food or water wouldn't worry these painted men. They could always summon such things out of the empty air. How soon would their followers be coming? Had the painted men on the blue raft lured the beast away so they could set up their encampment without it biting their heads off before they had got started?
The old woman sighed with deep, aching regret. She had been content here. Now she would have to pick up her gourd and her bundle and start walking again. Which way should she go? Backwards, retracing her painful steps? She quailed at the thought and turned to look along the sunset side of the point of land. Surely whatever lay in that direction couldn't be any worse than the hostile barrens she had crossed?
But that was where the painted men were going. She watched the blue raft slowly picking its way along the narrow channel between the line of foaming rocks and the sandy coast. But did that mean their spearmen would soon be coming to this point of land? If they did, they would surely find her and capture her, tying her up to be fed to the green
beast. Or were they heading up the sunset side of the land to meet their followers? Would they be walking along the sands or along the shallow, crumbling cliffs? If she went that way, would she blunder into their lethal embrace?
Not if she was careful, she concluded. Whereas if she stayed here, there was every chance she would be discovered. She had left footprints in the sand and tossed broken shells plucked from the rocks carelessly from the ledge of her little cave. Not for the first time, her only hope of Safety lay in keeping moving.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Are you sure it's not following us?' Kheda stared out over the Zaise's stern, trying to see into the sand-clouded water. His gut was still tight with tension.
'Quite sure.' Velindre adjusted their course with a delicate push on one steering oar. 'It'll chase that waterspout till the magic unravels and then—'
'It'll come back to find us,' Kheda concluded heatedly.
'It will go back to enjoying the elemental forces stirred up by the collision of these incredible currents.' Velindre was unconcerned. 'I'm sure of it. It's an animal, Kheda, albeit a magical one. It's not evil or even malicious, certainly not in the way a man would be. It was more curious than intent on killing us and there must be plenty of other prey for it in such rich waters. Think how many sea serpents we've seen.'
'And it'll be finding gems on the sea bed,' Naldeth added thoughtfully. 'There must be rich seams of gemstones given how closely earth and fire are allied under these waters. The nature of rubies—' He broke off, suddenly self-conscious, and stared up at the banded rocks of the cliff.
You thought of rubies because of that dragon's egg stowed in the hold. How can magic fuse such a mass of jewels together and twist itself into whatever unnatural life gives birth to a dragon?
'But why did it chase that sea spout rather than attacking you?' Risala asked Velindre as she ran lithely up
the ladder from the Zaise's deck. 'The dragon that came to the Archipelago was set on killing Dev. You said they see any other magic user as a rival. That's why we had to dull your magic, and Dev's, with that potion Shek Kul found for Kheda.'
'That's a very good question.' Naldeth climbed rather less nimbly after her, with a grating squeak from the joints in his metal leg.