The Snowmelt River (The Three Powers) (22 page)

“This you might achieve by demonstrating to her that you no longer love the auburn-haired girl.”

“But I don’t.”

“I watched you today, when you made the children dance. You could not hide your longing for her.”

“But I wasn’t trying to—”

“As ever, you allowed this mere girl to humiliate you. Oh, my lovely—all your friends saw the unrequited love in your eyes.”

“I don’t love her. I love you.”

“Well, then.” She nuzzled her lips over the naked skin of his neck before lifting her mouth to nibble his ear with the tantalizing pinpricks of her needle-sharp teeth. “Prove that you no longer harbor desire for the girl in the deepest reaches of your heart. Show my mistress how you spurn her.”

He sat up on the bunk, trapped in a twilight world of being half-asleep and half-awake, his hands gripping his head, trying to discover some level of understanding. The freezing air through the open porthole dusted his gooseflesh with ice-crystals as her turquoise eyes gazed longingly, cravingly, into his. “If you would only make it so we could truly be together, you must push this girl away from your thoughts.”

“Push her from me?”

“You must do it soon. When the opportunity arises. I will come to you and whisper the moment in your ear.”

“But where—how?”

“On the deck of the ship, by the rail over the torrent—where and when hidden eyes can confirm your love for me.”

“Push Kate? You mean, just push her away from me?”

“Oh, my lovely, is it not such a small thing to ask for our love?”

Yes—yes,
he thought, again and again, over the extending hours of darkness. He pondered and mulled it over, again and again, his thoughts confused, as his arms and legs jerked with the cold invading his
muscles. He pondered it over and over, his hands rubbing at his face, making the frozen skin crackle, like leather encased in a morning’s hoarfrost. He would shake his head before nodding, or nod, then shake his head.
No—not actually
push
Kate!
But then,
Yes
, he thought.
Just one small push. It is such a simple thing
. It surely couldn’t hurt Kate, other than in her feelings—Kate, who had never held back from hurting him from the day that they had first met.

At daybreak Alan heard the murmur of the rapids. An hour later the murmur had risen to a thundering. Siam roared instructions that had the Olhyiu running here and there, yet it seemed to Alan that the rigging was adjusting itself, the great sails furling in until only one tiny sail at the front, the spinnaker, billowed for the assistance of navigation. Mark’s fair-haired figure clung to the wheel on the afterdeck as Siam continued to bellow orders to all the following boats that children should be stowed safely beneath the decks. Alan suggested to Kate and Mo that they should go below to their sleeping cabin but they took no notice. They went forward to the prow to watch what was happening up ahead.

The valley sides became jagged cliffs, like sinews of iron tethering the mountains around the swollen river. Between them the torrent was squeezed between a narrow pass, whipped into a frenzy by the speed of its passage. The current broke into heaving waves, seething
where it struck the sharp edges of submerged boulders. The sails were all down but still the boats raced among the breakers, and pole-wielding men and women were hard-pressed to keep their keels clear of the rocks. Alan saw how the poles bent with the pressure. From time to time one splintered, the cracks inaudible against the background thunder.

Beside him, he heard Kemtuk groan aloud, “These are not the normal rapids. A madness has invaded the pass!”

Jagged teeth of rock gnashed at the keels. Siam was hoarse from shouting to the sailors on board the Temple Ship, every hand pressing their long poles against the rocks. Just moments later the ship shuddered as it crashed against a reef. The decks shelved at a crazy angle, and an immense wave swept over them before the craft righted itself again. From the boat closest to them, a woman was flung, with a single heart-rending scream, into the maelstrom. Her husband fought to save his family but in moments all were lost, the boat disintegrating as if caught in an explosion.

Kate and Mo hugged each other, their fingers white around the front rail. They were down on their knees to get as close as possible to the deck. Suddenly Mo clutched Kate’s arm and stared back. Kate saw that Mark had appeared at the top of the staircase to the foredeck and was making his way toward them against the gale, his eyes blank and his face as white as moonlight. Mo was looking back at her brother, her head shaking from side to side, her voice stammering.

“Guh-guh-guh-go back!”

“Mark—stay where you are!” Kate shouted her agreement with Mo. “You can’t help us. We don’t dare move.” She had to cling to the rail to avoid being thrown off her feet.

But Mark appeared to take no notice. He lurched away from the head of the stairs, clinging to rigging and bulkheads to try to stay on his feet. His lips were moving and he was shaking his head, as if arguing with the elements raging around him. With a massive lurch of the ship, he fell onto his side and skidded across the foredeck until he collided with the rail about fifteen feet from where Kate hung on next to Mo. He struggled back to his feet, braced his legs wide, then began to inch his body in their direction.

Kate called out to him, “What are you doing?”

Mark’s eyes were bloodshot and staring.

“What’s the matter with him?” she murmured into Mo’s ear.

Mo stared at her approaching brother, her eyes wide with fright.

From just five feet away, Mark appeared to turn his face to the sky, and she could see his mouth opening as if he was shouting aloud. She caught snatches of words, but she couldn’t make sense of them.

Then he lowered his gaze to Mo, his face distorted by the howling wind, his eyes tormented.

“Run!” he shouted.

Mo clutched at Kate’s hand, hanging on to her friend with a desperate grip. Kate whispered, “What, for the love of God . . . ?”

Mark lurched a foot nearer. Kate could see the tendons of his wrists standing out as his hands clutched the rail against another huge lurch of the ship. Suddenly he was within arm’s reach. He reached out and tried to grab hold of Kate’s arm. Instinctively, she jerked herself away.

“Mark—you’re frightening me!”

Amidships, with the Spear of Lug stowed safely below deck and a pole clenched in his spray-soaked hands, Alan added his efforts to those of the Olhyiu to keep the ship off the rocks. A movement on the foredeck caught his eye. Two figures were struggling to keep themselves from being washed overboard. He could barely make them out in the spray-fogged air, but he could see that they were too small to be Olhyiu. They had to be Kate and Mo. They were holding onto each other with one arm, their other arms gripping the rail for dear life. He shouted encouragement, but his words were lost in the thunder of the water. Suddenly he glimpsed a third figure, pushing itself between the two girls. He glimpsed fair hair. It had to be Mark.

What on earth was Mark doing away from the wheel? Alan almost lost his own footing, he was so distracted by concern for them.

Mark looked like he was trying to put his arm around Kate, but she appeared to be resisting him. Suddenly Mark turned and Alan could make out his expression: he looked half-crazy, his eyes wide and staring.

Alan tried to run, but he lost his footing and crashed against the wooden staircase to the foredeck, his head barely level with the upper deck. In a lull, he could hear Mark’s voice raised in an appeal, “Run—Kate!”

How could she run?

Alan started crawling up the staircase on his hands and knees, clinging to the rail as he rose. What in God’s name was Mo doing? She was trying to tear Mark’s arm from around Kate’s shoulders. Suddenly, with a bewildered shake of his head, Mark pushed Mo away from him, causing her to sprawl over the boards, sliding over the deck until she came to rest against the base of the forward mast. She pulled on some rigging to help her back to her feet. Alan inched out onto the forward deck. He crab-walked over slippery black boards. He tried to climb to his feet, but an almighty heave of the deck threw him sideways against the rail.

“Mo—go below!”

Alan heard Mark’s shout to his sister.

But Mo took no notice. Her small figure was stumbling and sliding over the slippery boards toward Kate and her brother. With horrified eyes, Alan watched as Mo clattered into them both, reaching out toward Kate, who still held onto the rail with one desperate arm. Spray drenched Mo’s hair so it was flat with the oval of
her head. Her eyes were protruding. Mark held out his hand to her but she refused his help, her feet slipping and sliding over the icy deck. Suddenly the prow caught on another reef. There was a great shudder as the stern jerked high out of the water and another foaming torrent rushed over the deck. Through the mist, Alan caught a glimpse of something monstrous, a creature larger than a man, with a long lizard-like tail and huge fangs bared in its bat-like mouth. Its leathery wings were battering through the gusts of wind, its clawed feet were extended out toward the three struggling friends.

“No!” Mark cried, and let go of Kate, throwing his body forward in order to slide toward the staggering figure of his sister.

As he reached Mo, she evaded him again, her arm stretched out as if struggling to clutch Kate’s outstretched hand. Against the roar of the surf Alan faintly heard both girls scream. The clawed foot of the monster caught Mo by her hair and she was raised aloft. Then, as she writhed and reeled in its grasp, the creature opened its claws and dropped her into the moiling water. Mark clutched the terrified figure of Kate in his arms, while his teeth clenched together in despair.

Terror! Alan’s mind was suddenly flooded with the sensations in Mo’s bewildered brain.

In that instant, he knew that Mo was drowning somewhere in the wake of the ship. He dived in and was swallowed by the tumult, crashing against ship and boulders, yet struggling to search with open eyes
in the swirling currents beneath the surface. Shaking the confusion from his mind, he struck upward, his legs and arms flailing until his face broke the surface. But he could see nothing. Mo was nowhere near him.

“Mo!” he shouted, his voice torn from his lips and lost in the background thunder.

A moment later he was sucked back under.

Mo!

He expressed his call through the triangle in his brow. In answer there was the faintest whimper. If they were communicating it was through thought alone. Through Mo’s open eyes he glimpsed the race of water, a whirling current around a huge black stone. She too was under the surface, still alive, but she would not survive long. He tried to shake off his fur-lined boots but they were too tightly laced. His coat, heavy with water, was dragging him under. But his fingers were too numbed to unfasten it. There was no time. Mo’s terror was overwhelming him. Her mental screams had become an explosion in his brain. But where was she? She couldn’t be far from him.

Think, Mo—think!

Panic lunged at him from her frightened mind. The terror was so great, no sensible message could possibly get through it.

Alan’s body had been thrown close to one of the following boats and his flailing hand clutched a guardrail that ran just above the waterline. He hauled himself above the surface and held on, rising and falling with
the heaving timber. His eyes scanned the river in front of him. He saw a great fang of rock that bisected the stream. It looked like the stone he had glimpsed in the terrified mind of his friend. Pushing hard with his feet against the hull, he swam away from the sanctuary of the boat and back into the raging water.

He forced all awareness from his mind, tethering everything to that flickering mote of life.
Mo!
he called again, his eyes closed to focus through the triangle, searching desperately for the presence of Mo’s mind with every ounce of strength.

Alan . . . Alan . . .
Alan!
In her mind, as in her singing, Mo did not stammer. She was answering at last, as if the oxygen deprivation of drowning had numbed her terror. That communication was still so powerful, stemming from her will to live. It was as if he had searched for a distant star and encountered a nearby sun. His senses were overwhelmed by the immensity of her terror.

Then he saw the rock again. The fang-like shape of it flashed across his vision, as if through the open eyes of the half-conscious girl.

Diving under the surface currents, he saw her. Mo’s body, bent and limp, was brought up against the submerged portion of rock, held against it by the force of the river. Thrusting out with his lungs bursting, he caught hold of her under her arms and he lunged to the surface.

He broke into air with his right arm wrapped under her chest. His breath came in gasps. After a few seconds of rising panic, he drove away from the rock.

Thrashing out against the current, he glimpsed how the raging water lifted one of the stragglers among the boats clear out of the water, dripping spume and spray, then smashed it to pieces on a boulder. He heard the screams of the family on board, soon silenced as they too were dashed against the rock.

He held more tightly to Mo, forcing her unconscious face above the wave-lashed surface. He communicated to her, mind to mind, urgently:
Hold on!

Even as he did so, an arc of livid green cut through the spray and another boat exploded into flame.

The Storm Wolves had timed their attack to perfection. There would be no counterattack with thunder and lightning here. He tried to recall his dad’s life-saving lessons. Struggling to stay alive in the tumult, he brought Mo’s back against his chest and, encircling her body under the armpits with his left arm, he turned on his side, maneuvering his own position so her head was out of the water, then he kicked out with his feet, treading water.

Mo’s eyes flickered open.

Swim!

A new voice entered his mind, alien and strange. The voice was a deep contralto, devoid of emotion.

Where to?
He pressed his own mental voice back, like a gasp.