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Lightning fast, that mass split into a star, shooting its many arms toward all of the openings between its captors. Each arm of the changing thing sprouted a wide mouth with outsized, jagged teeth. The Great Gods shifted, and the fiery barrier shone more brightly than ever. The mouths shrieked and retreated into the central mass, smoking where they had made contact with the white fire. In the meantime, unseen by the ring of Great Gods, small puddles of multicolored liquid appeared behind them. The puddles grew, spreading to the left and right, until they formed a ring at the backs of the Great Gods.
The scene dissolved. Daine was back on the plain, seeing the Master of Dream as he stood poised, one foot on both sides of a great chasm. He still held a scale in one hand. The foot that rested on the flat side of the crack skidded. He fought to regain his balance on that polished surface without taking his other foot out of the wriggling muck. At last he was steady again. A bubble grew in the strange liquid. When it burst, thousands of exotically colored butterflies swirled around Gainel in a spiral dance.
Daine thought that she’d opened her eyes, but although she could see clouds drifting over a pink-and-gray sky, it felt as if her dreaming was not over. The sound of oddly muffled voices, coming from somewhere close by, met her ears. In case the voices weren’t part of a dream, she wrapped her fingers around her dagger and grew bat ears to hear every word.
“—you ordered what is left of the Razor Scream nation to attack those mortals in the harbor. Eleven Stormwings were killed out there—eleven!”
“That is the cost of battle, Qirev. Everyone takes casualties.”
Daine stiffened. It had been six months since their last meeting, but there was no mistaking that cold, distant voice. It was Ozorne’s.
“The cost of mortal battle! When the kings chose to ally themselves with you, it was your promise that while we might harry two-leggers, we would kill only to sow fear!”
“I lied.” There was bleak disinterest in the former Emperor Mage’s tone.
“We are no army for mustering. We feed on armies,” said a cracked and aged voice. “You promised feasting to glut us—not to throw our kindred against archers and mages. Mortal wars are not Stormwing wars.”
“Jachull?” inquired Ozorne. “Do you feel Stormwings have no part in mortal wars?”
A third, female, voice replied, “What does it matter if we kill a few or many to sow the fear we dine on? Whether they shoot us for eating the dead, or for attacking the living, what difference does it make?”
“There, sires. Jachull of the Mortal Fear nation does not disagree,” announced Ozorne, “and her subjects number more than your—sadly reduced—nations combined.”
“Humans attack on the north road!” someone cried. “Warriors come!”
“Fellow Stormwings, I would love to chat all day, but as you can hear, business intrudes.” Ozorne sounded friendly and false. “If you don’t mind?” He paused briefly. Then, in a cold, direct voice, he continued, “Number fourteen, report your position. Where are you? I can see nothing!”
Daine’s bat ears filled with a voice both closer and louder than her enemy’s. It sang a bizarre tune that sounded like nothing on earth. She sat up.
Numair’s things were packed. The rock circle around their camp had gone cold; two stones had been moved to open the last of the protective spells on the camp. There was no sign of Broad Foot, either. The sun was clear of the horizon, but not by much. It was time to get moving. If she could just find Numair . . .
She spotted him nearly a hundred yards away. He was striding into the lake, without even bothering to roll up the legs of his breeches.
“Numair!” she called. He gave no sign that he’d heard. “Numair!”
He never even looked her way. The water reached his belly; still he walked on.
Bespelled! she thought. Jumping up, she raced across the grass and waded in after him. Closing the distance fast, she lunged and grabbed air. He’d gone under.
She dove. He was speeding away. Worse, she could see he was not swimming: His arms were flat against his sides; his legs fluttered. Something was towing him.
Daine surfaced and gasped, filling her lungs with air as she filled her mind with sea lions. Her body shifted. She dove and arrowed after her friend. She was gaining on him when she realized that she was now a saltwater animal in a freshwater lake.
Too late to fret, she told herself. I just won’t eat or drink here.
The thing that towed Numair picked up speed. Daine poured her strength into her rush through the water and drew even with the man. Now she saw his captor. A naked blue female with hair like silver tentacles, she dragged her prize on a gold rope as she sang the weird tune that had captivated Numair.
The song pressed on Daine’s ears; she flattened them and did her best to ignore it. Lunging, she clamped a sea lion’s sharp teeth on the gold rope. Acid pain seared her mouth, making her cry out. The leash dropped from her jaws.
Muddled and dizzy, she almost slammed into Broad Foot, missing the duckmole by inches. She’s got Numair! Daine cried, speaking mind to mind.
The duckmole took up the chase, easily keeping pace with her. —That’s no she.—
Of course it’s a she, the scheming wench! A—a river god, or lake god!
Broad Foot fell back slightly, letting her slide by. Rising above Daine, he swept his bill over her eyes.
The thing that had stolen Numair bore right in a broad arc, trying to get by its pursuers. It clearly was a thing now, a blobby mass of burned orange and pale lilac that towed the mage not with a gold leash, but with a tentacle of its own flesh.
Daine shot across the arc, slamming into Numair. She knocked him aside, but not free—the tentacle was wrapped around his throat.
—Again,—urged Broad Foot.
Speeding at her friend, Daine prayed she wouldn’t break his ribs, and crashed into him. Broad Foot opened his bill and shouted in a voice that filled each drop of water around them. The blob shrieked and dissolved. The peculiar song was cut off.
Numair came out of his trance, to find himself in deep water. He tried to yell, and inhaled liquid. Daine shook her head to clear it of Broad Foot’s cry and dove under the man, pushing him up to open air. Taking on her own form, she looped an arm around the choking mage and struck out for the shore. As soon as the water was shallow enough that he could manage, she left him. Racing onto dry land and into a clump of tall reeds, she threw up, rejecting every trace of whatever she had bitten.
Wiping her face in wet grass, she saw Broad Foot go by, sweeping his bill over the ground as if he looked for breakfast. Nearby, she could hear Numair doing what she had just done, and decided to give him privacy. Hardly aware that she wore not a stitch, except for the badger’s claw on its chain around her neck, she caught up with the duckmole. “Where are you going?”
“I want to look at something.” Now that they were on land, he spoke as the other animal gods did. “Why didn’t you call me?”
She stopped, horrifi
ed. Why hadn’t she summoned him? Red-faced, she said, “I forgot. I’m used to it being just him and me, and I had to move so fast. . . . I’m sorry!”
The tall reeds opened onto a broad, flat stretch of clay. In it, spilling into the lake, was a pool of shifting tan, pale-gray, and blood-red light. Nothing stayed the same for more than a breath; she thought that she saw images, but they changed the moment she focused on them. She leaned closer, drawn by the play of colors.
“Wake up!” cried Broad Foot.
The girl straightened. She’d come to within a few steps of the pool—and pieces of it had risen in the air to meet her. When she moved back, the raised goo collapsed with plopping sounds, like boiling mud. Weakly she asked, “Is—is that a Chaos vent?”
“It is, and an active one, too. Activity I don’t mind. That’s Chaos for you. But this . . .” He waddled to the water’s edge, where the fluid ran to mingle with the lake. “This worries me. It means the whole lake is tainted—and Chaos bile is dangerous to us.”
“Numair’s been poisoned?” she gasped, suddenly dizzy with panic.
“No, no. It affects only immortals and gods,” said Broad Foot. “Mortals are half Chaos naturally. He is completely safe, and it sounds like you rid yourself of it before any entered your blood. But . . .”
He paused so long that Daine thought he might have forgotten her. “Broad Foot?”
“It doesn’t poison gods or immortals as you would think of poisoning. It brings them closer to Uusoae. They go from enemies to—to potential allies. I wish we knew all those who’ve drunk here. This lake is very popular.”
Even though he’d said Numair would take no harm from the water he’d inhaled, she wanted to check on him and make sure. Leaving the duckmole beside the Chaos vent, she picked her way through the reeds and returned to their camp.
There she found the mage, looking the worse for his experience. He sat with his back to her, talking to the badger, who must have arrived while she was off with the duckmole. “I think I hear—” Turning, he blushed scarlet and looked away.
