She wondered if Chris's blow had actually surprised Cirocco or if it had been allowed to land. It was obvious that he felt bad about being the worst fighter in a group of three women and one man.
Being able to hit her at a moment of such indignity had allowed him to salvage some self-respect.
That was something she would never know. What she did know was that she would not underestimate Cirocco again.
Ophion emerged from Twilight in much the same way it had from Nox: the sea narrowed gradually and at some point became a river. But instead of a series of river pumps, the group confronted five kilometers of the swiftest water they had yet seen. They paused in the last quiet pool, and the four boats drew together to discuss the approach. Only Cirocco and Gaby knew this part of the river. The Titanides listened, paddling slowly backward to stay out of the current.
They moved into the current one at a time, Cirocco and Hornpipe in the lead, Gaby and Psaltery bringing up the rear. When her turn came, Robin exulted in the speed and noise. She knelt in the bow and paddled vigorously until Hautbois advised her to save her strength and let the river do most of the work. She could feel the results of the Titanide's strong, calculated strokes and did her best to help rather than hinder. There was a rhythm to find, a way of becoming attuned to the river. Twice she fended off submerged rocks with the end of her paddle and once was rewarded with a shout of encouragement from Hautbois. She was still grinning when they swung around a bend and confronted a hundred meters of chaos that seemed to go straight down.
There was no time for second thoughts. Robin recited a prayer almost before she realized what she was doing and held on tight.
The canoe shuddered. Water spilled over the side and sprayed in her face; then she was battling to keep the nose pointed downstream. She thought she heard Hautbois shout, but the roaring of the river was too loud for words. The wood splintered beneath her, and suddenly she was in the river, clinging to the side of the canoe.
When she got her head above the water and opened her eyes, she saw that Hautbois was also in the river, but standing on the bottom submerged to the waist. She had wrestled them to an area of relative quiet at the side of the river and now clambered onto a rocky shelf and lifted the stern of the canoe.
"You all right?" she called, and Robin managed to nod. When she looked up, she saw Gaby and Psaltery.
After an inspection and a shouted conference they decided the canoe would have to complete the trip down the rapids; that was fortunate since the other would have been dangerously overloaded with the two Titanides and two humans. Robin would have to ride with Gaby, while Hautbois managed the task of nursing the disabled craft down the river. Robin did not argue but climbed into Gaby's boat with a sense of failure.
"I can't fix that," Hautbois told them after inspecting the broken ribs of the canoe. "We'll have to salvage the skin and wait until we get into another stand of canoe trees."
"Robin can ride with me and Valiha," Chris offered.
Robin hesitated only a moment, then nodded to him.
They were beached on a wide mud flat at the confluence of Ophion and the river Arges, near the center of Phoebe. The land was dark, with only an occasional spindly tree silver and translucent in the moonlight. Phoebe was actually a tiny bit brighter than Rhea had been. The reason was the Twilight Sea, part of which was in sunlight, was a better reflector than the lands which curved up on each side of Nox. But the slight gain was lost in the dreariness of the land itself. Rhea at least had been rugged; central Phoebe was swamp.
Robin hated it. She stood in mud that covered her ankles and looked out over land that must have been heaven for eels and frogs but for nothing else. It was already hard to remember the exhilaration of the white water. She was drenched and saw no chance of drying out soon. It didn't help to think that had she not been in the front of the canoe, the accident might not have happened. She wondered once again what she was doing here.
She was not the only one who didn't like it. Nasu squirmed restlessly in the bag slung under her arm. The trip had not been easy on the snake. She knew she should have left the demon at the Coven-had planned to do so but at the last moment had not been able to. When she loosened the string, Nasu poked her head out and sampled the air with her tongue. Finding it at least as cool and damp as the inside of the sack and seeing no dry place to curl up, she soon retreated.
Hautbois and Psaltery were busy breaking down the damaged canoe, transferring its contents to the other three. Robin saw the others some distance away, standing on what passed for high ground in Phoebe, which meant their feet were a few centimeters above the water. Cirocco sat on a rock facing the central Phoebe cable, which loomed above them, but the others looked north. Robin could not find anything worth seeing, but she slogged through the mud to join them.
"What's so interesting?" she asked.
"I don't know yet," Chris said. "I'm waiting for Hornpipe to get to it."
Hornpipe stamped the ground restlessly.
"Maybe I shouldn't have brought it up," he said.
"You certainly shouldn't have," Valiha agreed, glowering at him. But Hornpipe went ahead doggedly.
"Well, you are here to find a way to prove your heroism to Gaea. I just thought I should point out opportunities. Take it or leave it."
"I leave it," Robin said. She looked at Chris. "You aren't serious, are you?"
"I don't really know," Chris admitted. "I came because Gaby said it was better than sitting around and waiting for opportunity to come to me, and that made sense. I never did really decide if I was rejecting Gaea's rules. I'm here, so I must not have rejected them completely. But I'll admit I hadn't given much thought to taking off on my own."
"And you shouldn't," Valiha said.
"Still, I ought to hear what's out there."
Robin snorted but had to admit she was interested to know.
"That mountain," Hornpipe said. Robin saw a conical black smudge. "It's nearly at the northern rampart," he went on. "It's a bad area, from all accounts, where little lives. I have never been there myself. But all know it is the home of Kong."
"What's Kong?" Chris asked.
"A giant ape," said Gaby, who now joined them. "What else? Let's get going, folks. The canoes are ready."
"Just a minute," Chris said. "I'd like to hear more."
"What's to hear? He sits up there... ." She looked suspicious. "Say, you weren't thinking of ... right. Come over here, Chris, and I'll tell you about Kong." She took him a few meters away, glancing at Cirocco. Robin followed, but the Titanides did not. When Gaby spoke, she kept her voice low.
"Rocky doesn't like to hear about Kong," she said, and grimaced. "I can hardly blame her. Kong is a one-shot, about a hundred years old and the only one of his species. He's in the same class with the dragons Gaea told you about; each one different, no provision to breed. They pop out of the ground after Gaea creates them, live as long as they're programmed to live, which is usually quite a long time, and die. Kong was based on a movie Gaea saw, like the giant sandworm in Mnemosyne. There're several things like that in here. Of course, they become objects for quests by pilgrims. I hate to think how many people have been slaughtered by Kong. Short of a gun the size of a tree or one hell of a lot of dynamite, he's unkillable. Believe me, a lot of people have tried it."