It shall close ... it shall heal! The scene before him wavered, the tear sealing, stitching together the edges. The water slowed. He pushed harder, willing the illusion to become real. His limbs shook. Sweat sprang out on his skin, soaked his clothing.
Reality pushed back. The illusion blurred. Kulp's knees buckled. He gripped the railing to keep himself upright. He was failing. No strength left. Failing. Dying...
The force that struck him from behind was like a physical blow to the back of his head. Stars spasmed across his vision. An alien power swept through him, flinging his body back upright. Spread-eagled, he felt his feet leave the tilted deck. The power held him, hovering in place, a will as cold as ice flooding his flesh.
The power was undead. The will that gripped him was a dragon's. Tinged with irritation, reluctant to act, it nevertheless grasped the illogic of Kulp's sorcerous effort ... and gave it all the force it needed. Then more.
He screamed, pain lancing through him with glacial fire.
Undead cared nothing for the limits of mortal flesh, a lesson now burning in his bones.
The distant rent closed. All at once other powers were channelling through the mage. Ascendants, grasping Kulp's outrageous intent, swept in to join the game with dark glee. Always a game. Damn you bastards one and all! I take back my prayers! Hear me? Hood take you all!
He realized the pain was gone, the Soletaken dragon withdrawing its attention as soon as other forces arrived to take its place. He remained hovering a few feet above the deck, however, his limbs twitching as the powers using him playfully plucked at his mortality. Not the indifference of an undead, but malice. Kulp began to yearn for the former.
He fell suddenly, cracking both knees on the dirt-smeared deck. Too! done with, now discarded . . .
Stormy was at his side, waving a wineskin before the mage's face. Kulp grasped it and poured until his mouth was full of the tart liquid.
'We ride the dragon's wake,' the soldier said. 'Though not on water any more. That gush has closed up tight as a sapper's arse. Whatever you did, Mage, it worked.'
'Not over yet,' Kulp muttered, trying to still his trembling limbs. He swallowed more wine.
'Watch yourself with that, then,' Stormy said with a grin. 'It packs a punch, right to the back of the head—'
'I won't notice the difference – my skull's already full of pulp.'
'You lit up with blue fire, Mage. Never seen anything like it. Make a damned good tavern tale.'
'Ah, I've achieved immortality at last. Take that, Hood!'
'Well enough to stand?'
Kulp was not too proud to accept the soldier's arm as he tottered to his feet. 'Give me a few moments,' he said, 'then I'll try to slip us from the warren ... back to our realm.'
'Will the ride be as rough, Mage?'
'I hope not.'
Felisin stood on the forecastle deck, watching the mage and Stormy passing the wineskin between them. She had felt the presence of the Ascendants, the cold, bloodless attention plucking and prodding at the ship and all who were upon it. The dragon was the worst of them all, gelid and remote. Like fleas on its hide, that's all we were to it.
She swung about. Baudin was studying the massive winged apparition cleaving the path ahead, his bandaged hand resting lightly on the carved rail. Whatever they rode rolled beneath them in a whispering surge. The oars still plied with remorseless patience, though it was clear that Silanda was moving more swiftly than anything muscle and bone could achieve – even when those muscles and bones were undead.
Look at us. A handful of destinies. We command nothing, not even our next step in this mad, fraught journey. The mage has his sorcery, the old soldier his stone sword and the other two their faith in the Tusked God. Heboric . . . Heboric has nothing. And as for me, I have pocks and scars. So much for our possessions.
'The beast prepares...'
She glanced over at Baudin. Oh yes, I forgot the thug. He has
his secrets, for what that's worth, like as not scant little. 'Prepares what? Are you an expert in dragons as well?'
'Something's opening ahead – there's a change in the sky. See it?'
She did. The unrelieved grey pall had acquired a stain ahead, a smudge of brass that deepened, grew larger. A word to the mage, I think—
But even as she turned, the stain blossomed, filling half the sky. From somewhere far behind them came a howl of curdled outrage. Shadows sped across their path, tumbled to the sides as Silanda's prow clove through them. The dragon crooked its wings, vanishing into a blazing inferno of bronze fire.