"Hurry, Og. The tide is moving quickly, and the ores on the shore show no sign of giving up. Unless you can work your magic, we're done for," said Claria. She took the oncoming waves with ease, but clearly did not enjoy the ride. The water looked clear enough, but tasted foul and metallic and smelled of decay.

Og turned his head and pounded on it just above his ear, removing the water inside. The shell at his lips, the staff in the other hand, he began to hum a middle-range note, not far from the sound of the waves crashing on the shoreline, punctuated by a series of honking whistles. A red light appeared around his head, its surges seeming to make the music visible. While there was a strange, compelling rhythm to the performance, Cheyne felt relieved that Og hadn't attempted another song. The notes were astoundingly powerful and astoundingly loud.

Og kept it up for a couple of minutes, and then pointed all around. "See? There-there, and over there. They're coming."

Cheyne looked toward shore and thought Og meant the ores, who had tired of waiting and were now, at Yob's sharp prodding, stepping delicately into the water, holding their spears above their heads. Then Claria called his attention back to the open sea.

"Look! What's that?" she marveled as a string of stepping stones seemed to gather and stretch toward the far shore, its line oddly the same height and unnaturally straight, the red light hovering above it.

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Og just grinned under his nose and made a flourish above his head with the staff.

"After you, my lady," he offered.

"They're alive!" said Cheyne in amazement, as a sea turtle the size of a sedan chair swam up and presented its mottled green, weed-fringed back to them.

Claria climbed up onto it, carefully avoiding the sharp edges of the colonies of coral and gooseneck barnacles that clung along the edges of the slick plates of the turtle's flat shell. Og quickly followed, and the two of them pulled Cheyne up just as the first wave washed over his head. They stepped shakily from shell to shell, the turtles placidly treading water nose to tail, and made good progress toward the far shore.

Then Cheyne looked back. Og's amplified spell had called enough turtles to stretch from shore to shore, but something was wrong: they were not swimming off before the ores could also use them.

The results, had indeed, been variable. Not only were Yob and his warriors bounding along after them, Rotapan himself, furiously unbalanced, charged over the turtles' backs, shoving any of Yob's javlineers in his way to their watery deaths.

"You'll not escape me this time, Ogwater! Your friends will be my lord's dinner, and you will finally come home to my cabinet where you belong. And give me back my staff!" he wheezed. His thin hair lay plastered to his skull and his glorious mustache drooped heavily.

When he reached the part of the tortoise bridge closest to the whirlpool, he stopped abruptly and bowed to the roiling cauldron, making a long series of elaborate gestures in the air. Yob's troops far in front of him, the shore far to the rear, Rotapan suddenly realized where he was-out in the middle of the sea- and froze to the shell he stood on. But there was another reason besides the very good one of not being able to swim. Coming along behind him, four tired, frightened-looking Neffians bore a sedan chair, its pale silks fluttering in the sea breeze.

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Teri McLaren

Rotapan wasted no time. "Great spirit of the mighty circular tides, mover of the waters, serpent of the Silver Sea, rise up and save your humble servant! I beseech you to engulf this threat to your worshiper!"

But the only thing that rose from the cauldron's steamy mouth was a hiss and a geyser of water, which rained down upon Rotapan, knocking him from the shell into the swirling waters.

Riotla opened the canopy on her chair as the Neffians picked their careful way over the turtles' backs, waving and grinning wickedly at Rotapan as he bobbed and struggled to stay afloat.

The half-ore was not the only one to look back. "Og, Claria-move along. We have company," said Cheyne. He could see Rotapan's mouth moving, shouting over the waves, shaking his empty hands first at Riolla and then at them. "Faster, Og!" he shouted.

Over the turtles' shells they ran, until the water changed from dark blue back to green, and then to paler green. When Cheyne could see the beach clearly, he caught Og by the hood and jumped from the last shell, Claria already swimming hard before them, obscured by the foaming breakers.

Rotapan had disappeared. Riolla sighed and tossed a feather at the last spot she had seen him floating, then moved past without another thought. But the chair was leaning heavily; she looked to the left and saw a Neffian struggling to keep his footing, the weight of the sedan finally becoming impossible for the exhausted slaves.

"Saelin-it appears the chair is too heavy. Catch up on the other side," she said as she pushed the assassin from his seat into the dark water. Riolla immediately slid to the center of the chair to maintain the Neffians' balance. "Carry on." She motioned, wrinkling her nose at the heavy, cloying odor of the sea.

Saelin gurgled under the frothy waves, the weight of his heavy robes and weapons taking him down immediately. He grasped at Gahzi's ankle in desperation,

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but only managed to pull the screaming Neffian into the sea with him. While Gahzi sank like a coin in a fountain, the other Neffians struggled to right the chair.

Og, still riding Cheyne's shoulders, Cheyne, and Claria fought a strong shoreline current as they tried time and again to reach the beach. Yob and three of his javlineers were catching up fast.

But Cheyne discovered there was a new problem, the results being variable, of course. Wave after wave of the Silver Sea now bristled with the vipers that Rotapan had ensorcelled with his staff.

The ajada had drawn them into the brine, some immediately drowning, most managing to swim along nicely, their heads straining at the waves, following the staff with rapt devotion. Several raced far ahead of Riolla's chair, toward the ores, swifter in the water than on land. Within seconds the snakes would be upon them.

"Og!" Cheyne shouted. "Do something!"

The songmage had lifted his hands, preparing to disenchant the turtles, when he saw Rotapan surface and climb back onto the shells closest to the whirlpool. Rotapan swore and sputtered, the waves crashing over him as he clung to the turtle's slippery back with his hooked claws.

Riolla yawned and frowned as she noticed the half-ore's reappearance. How unfortunate, she thought.

Og stopped the spell and began to laugh uncontrollably at the site of the flapping half-ore, his silver mustache drooping like a walrus's, his bony, green arms flailing as he went down again and resurfaced.

"Og, hurry!" shouted Cheyne, not finding the delay at all funny.

A brown viper cruised within inches of Claria's heels, straining to wrap itself around her ankle.

"You old buzzard! Who will take whose head now?" Og taunted the drowning overking. Og shook the staff at him every time he surfaced for further torment.