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‘We cannot be sure,’ K’rul admitted. ‘Hence, our journey. Now, if you’ll kindly get this damned sea out of our way …’
Mael frowned. ‘I didn’t make this. Or, rather, I didn’t deliberately put it in your way. Indeed, I assumed that you came here to speak to me. Are you saying that you didn’t?’
‘No,’ K’rul answered. ‘We didn’t.’
They were all silent for a moment, and then Mael grunted. ‘Oh. Well, right then. I suppose we’re done here.’
Skillen Droe said, ‘I apologize, Mael. It did not occur to me that you laid claim to everything beneath the waves, even submerged mountains.’
‘It wasn’t the mountain as such, Droe, it was you breaking it, and then lifting it into the damned sky. You left a damned hole, you fool, a raw wound in the seabed, and now fires burn down in the depths, and strange creatures gather round the edges, living and dying with every flare. If that’s not enough, I almost scalded myself when I went to look.’
‘It did not occur to me to think—’
‘Yes,’ cut in Mael, ‘and you need not add anything to that confession.’
K’rul glanced at Skillen Droe. ‘What mountain? Lifted, where, precisely?’
‘Into the sky, as Mael explained, K’rul. Hollowed out, a city resides within. I made use of K’Chain Che’Malle technology, testing its limits, as it were. As it is, it has proved a noble residence.’
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‘Residence?’ K’rul asked. ‘Who dwells within it?’
‘Well, no one yet. The matter is rather confused at the moment, since I have lost track of it.’
Mael snorted. ‘You lost your floating mountain?’
‘Momentarily. I am sure it will turn up somewhere. Now, Mael, if you permit, I will carry K’rul across your sea, and we shall endeavour to make no disturbance.’
Turning back to the sea, Mael dismissively waved a hand.
They watched him walk back beneath the surface. Then Skillen pointed, and they saw a small sailing ship plying the shallows of the bay, a tiny craft no longer than K’rul’s foot.
‘Oh, really, now.’
* * *
The repast of lunch was now done. Tathenal set hands on hips and considered for a time, even as his fellow husbands stamped out the embers of the cookfire, and then he shrugged. ‘Sordid demands upon our lives. We must abandon our well-earned rest, bowing once more to our hasty pursuit of grief, joy and subtle vengeance. In my mind I do indeed see her, and at her shoulder, face stricken, young Hanako, Lord of Betrayals. He but deserves the meanest glance, for now she strides forth in red outrage. “You made me think you were all dead!” she cries and all at once we are the accused, cringing to her timorous tirade, and before a single breath’s passed, hear us blubber our wet-lipped apologies, words tumbling in haste.’ He shook his head. ‘No, my dreams were in error. No vessel of wood and dreams shall save us from this maelstrom of malaise.’
‘Your wallowing ways are a chore to us all, Tathenal,’ said Garelko.
‘And yet each dusk, old man, I shall still gather driftwood, lest the nightmares of my unsettled sleep awaken truthfully to a night of terrible flood.’
‘In the meantime,’ ventured Ravast as he shouldered his pack, ‘she draws another step distant, our beloved, grieving widow. Do neither of you find it odd that she marches to the death we presumably have already found? Perhaps indeed a certain new purpose has enlivened her stride—’
‘Aye, anticipation of the forthcoming night in which her cave stretches to swollen meat,’ muttered Garelko, though he smiled. ‘The Lord of Cuckolding has taken her hand, so sweetly to match the pup’s incorrigible youth, too smug for any other man to stomach—’
‘No, you doddering fool,’ Ravast retorted. ‘Think on it! She journeys in search of us! Into that hoary realm of spiders and webs, the cold sand upon which serpents lie curled in slumber as they await the night. The cramped confines, Garelko, of the rock-pile!’
As Garelko paused to scratch his jaw, Tathenal joined him and peered curiously at Ravast. ‘Garelko, you old goat, listen to the boy. He may have a point. In all misapprehension, our widow now rushes to her fierce battle with death itself! Not, alas, with amused mien, but with terrible purpose! She wishes us back!’
‘Then it behoves us,’ Garelko said in a musing tone, ‘to reach her before she takes that fatal step.’
‘The chasm crossed,’ Tathenal added with a nod. ‘The river forded, the pit leapt into, the veil parted, the chalice sipped, the—’
‘Oh, enough, Tathenal!’ Ravast snapped, turning from them both, and then wheeling back round. ‘Your slow wit will ever stumble in the dust of my wake, and that goes for you too, Garelko. No, the time has come for me to take to the fore, to ascend to predominance. It was,’ he added, ‘long in coming.’
He watched as the two older men exchanged a glance, and then Garelko smiled at Ravast. ‘Why, of course, by all means to the fore, young wolf. Do lead us doddering discards. We shall grip hard the gilded hem of your trailing genius, and consider ourselves blessed.’
