He stepped forward to assist Ashrivelle from her saddle, his massive hands spanning her waist to lift her down with no more effort than a normally sized man would expend in playing with a kitten. Kedryn helped Wynett dismount and they said their farewells, exchanging embraces and kisses, and crossing the gangplank to the wide deck of the barge.

  Compared with the sleek Vashti the craft was huge. Two stout masts lifted from the deck, and a bowsprit thrust from the prow. A poop stood high at the stem, affording Galen a clear view over his command, and down each side ran two series of recessed benches seating forty oarsmen. A cabin filled the center of the craft, its walls painted a shining gold that glittered in the sunlight. The rails and prow were of Estrevan blue and the gunwales silver, as were the oars that dipped on Galen’s order and eased the great vessel from the dockside.

  “She’s a pretty thing,” said Galen as Kedryn brought his party onto the poopdeck. “Not my lovely Vashti, but she’ll do.”

  “I am pleased you find her to your liking,” Kedryn grinned, raising a hand in farewell as the barge moved away from the dock.

  He watched until the figures standing there grew indistinct against the press of buildings and then turned to escort the women to the cabin. The soldiery were already settled about the deck and before long Wynett and Ashrivelle had the cabin arranged to their liking. It was comfortable as a moderately sized room, equipped with chairs and a brazier, cupboards containing food and drink, and more providing space for their clothes. In a pinch it could be used for sleeping, though their intention was to travel by day’s light and find harborage by night. Kedryn left his wife and her sister there and went to rejoin Galen on the poop, Tepshen and Brannoc with him.

  The captain was roaring orders that brought the two lateen sails down to catch the wind, adjusting his tiller as the sheets billowed and the rowers shipped their oars, the barge sailing smooth on the spreading bosom of the river.

  “What news of strange happenings?” Kedryn asked.

  “No more than I told you,” Galen answered. “Though since your coronation river traffic has lessened.”

  Kedryn gestured to the bowmen, their weapons held in oilskin wraps against the damp, and the sword-bearing warriors. “With these we should be safe enough,” he remarked.

  “Aye,” Galen nodded. “I doubt there’s any would dare attack so well-defended a vessel.”

  How wrong they were they discovered as they approached Gennyf.

  For three days the wind had blown against them and Galen had tacked his craft against the bluster, finally calling on the rowers to dip their oars as twilight descended over the Idre and the lights of Gennyf beckoned in the distance. Like men answering the call of a siren they bent to their task, the great sweeps rising and felling in disciplined unison, glinting silver in the dying light. The sails were furled and Kedryn went with Wynett to die prow, pointing out the welcoming twinkle of the lights marking the riverside town. There was a stir of activity as all on board readied themselves for the landing, the Tamurin eager to set foot on their own soil again. The sun was gone behind the western horizon leaving only a band of red light across the sky and the half-full moon hung pale in the east, a sundered disk against the filigree stars. The Idre was a ribbon of blue velvet, slapping against the bow, discordant with the steady rhythm of the oars. Kedryn draped an arm about Wynett, hugging her as he studied the growing string of light that marked their destination.

  Then his grip tightened as he saw something lift from the water. A chill that had nothing to do with the night wind stung his spine and he was suddenly aware of a tingling sensation where the talisman hung against his chest. He felt Wynett stiffen in the circle of his arm as she raised a hand to clutch her own half of the stone. She said, “Kedryn! The talisman!” and he glanced swiftly down to see the blue jewel glowing between her clutching fingers.

  “The cabin!” he said. But before she could move from his side the shape rose above them, blotting out the stars and the moon, gigantic, indistinct in form, but palpable in the evil that emanated from it. He felt a shock of awful recognition, knowing that he stared at the creature first encountered in the gloomy mere of the netherworld, and roared, “To me! Ware danger!”

  Tepshen Lahl and Brannoc were at his side in the instant and the deck thudded with the pounding feet of archers and swordsmen. Ashrivelle screamed from the cabin and the barge tilted as Galen put his helm over.

  The leviathan towered into the night, larger than before, larger than any beast of the mortal world, eyes like great rubes- cent shields burning with implacable hatred, tendrils writhing about a gaping maw filled with teeth the size of swords. The serpentine neck curved upward, lunging sideways as the barge responded to Galen’s tiller, the jaws encompassing a bowman whole as the vessel slid past the impossible shape. Oars broke upon its body and a fluke tipped with wickedly curved talons tore a ragged gash in the starboard gunwale. Oarsmen screamed as the great paddle crushed them and Kedryn drew his sword as he saw a volley of arrows rattle against the slimey hide. Rattle and fall away as if the creature were armored too thick for clothyard shafts to penetrate.

  The ugly head thrust toward him and he slashed his blade in a curving arc even as Tepshen and Brannoc raised their own swords in defense.

  The kyo screamed, “Find the cabin!” as his blade bounced from a questing tendril, and Kedryn threw Wynett back, his arm jarring as steel met something that was not flesh, that had no place in the world of men.

  He saw Brannoc drive his Keshi saber at an eye, the lunge deflected by a tendril that dashed the half-breed bodily to the deck, and then he felt the barge tilt beneath him as a fluke found purchase and drove the craft down into the Idre as if the behemoth sought to clamber on board. More arrows ricocheted uselessly from the slug-like hide as he slid over the planks, scrabbling desperately to his feet as he saw the hellgate mouth open, the hideously blank orbs burning with red purpose. Tepshen hacked again, a great two-handed swing that would have sundered a man, but seemed to have no effect on the beast. A tendril snaked, seemingly of its own volition, about the kyo’s waist and tossed him aside, sending him spinning through the air as the maw continued its awful progress toward Kedryn.

  He could no longer stand upright, for the barge was taking water, half its starboard planking stove in like match- wood, oarsmen screaming piteously as the tremendous weight smashed down upon them and the taloned flukes raked out their lives. Warriors slid helpless across the canting deck and Kedryn clutched a rope and cut savagely at the descending jaws, his steel smashing against the fangs that snapped shut a handsbreadth from his face. Stinking breath gusted over him, redolent of decay and corruption, and he gagged on its nauseous reek, feeling his feet go out beneath him. He clung to the rope for long, heart-stopping moments as the head drew back, flicking irritably from side to side as the few men still able to wield sword or bow assailed it from both sides, his feet swinging over the water that now welled dangerously close. Then a hand closed on his tunic and he was snatched back, the jaws colliding with the tilted deck, driving into the boards as Galen Sadreth flung him to the temporary safety of the cabin’s side, now almost horizontal. He saw Ashrivelle clinging wide-eyed and screaming to the portside gunwale and turned with upraised blade to seek Wynett.

  Brannoc was manhandling her across the tilted deck, pushing her to his side, and he took her hand, dragging her onto the cabin.

  The head rose again, splintered planking spilling from the , aws, and the furnace eyes swung again toward Kedryn. He leard Galen yell, “It seeks you!” and saw the riverman hurl limself between the behemoth and its quarry.

  A tendril flicked die giant’s weight aside as easily as Galen had lifted Ashrivelle from her horse. Then a fluke stove in the roof of the cabin and Kedryn felt himself falling again, toppling toward the anticipatory gape of the hideous maw. He fastened a hand against the ragged edge of the structure and swung his sword at the monster’s snout.

  Above his head he heard Wynett scream, “No! you shall not have him!” and screamed himself as he saw her plunge past him, one hand outthrust in denial, the other clasped about the talisman she wore. Saw her fell between the jaws, and the jaws close about her.

  He saw the great head lift, oily lips closed tight, and let go his hold on the cabin, intent on reaching the leviathan, intent on prising the jaws apart even though it meant his death.

  He slithered over the jagged wood, sword driving at the snake neck, and felt a tremendous blow against his ribs, hurling him away as pain flared like fire in his side and a far greater pain burned in his soul as the monstrous creature slid from the sinking barge and dove beneath the corpse-littered surface of the Idre.

  He gasped, “Wynett!” and then water filled his mouth and despair filled his heart as darkness closed about him.

  Chapter Six

  Kedryn swam in darkness, a stygian gloom filled with such soul-numbing despair that panic gripped him and he struggled against the insubstantial bonds holding him within that aphotic limbo. Whatever clutched him grew stronger as he fought its retention and his exertions became more desperate, driven by a will that was governed by the single heartrending memory of Wynett tumbling helpless into the gaping maw of the leviathan. He choked out her name, and realized, less through the conscious processes of his mind than through his body’s immanent knowledge of itself, that water did not fill his lungs; he did not drown, nor did fangs rend him: he was alive.

  He opened his eyes.

  And saw two orbs of blue, clouded with concern, close to his face.

  A voice he did not know said, “Kedryn! Kedryn, be still.”

  There was such benign command in that voice that his limbs ceased their struggling without mental instruction, falling not into water, but onto the soft sheets of a bed. He blinked, focusing his gaze, and saw the eyes belonged to a woman of indeterminate age, not young but neither old, her face tanned, her hair a sleek black, shining in the sunlight that filtered through the thick panes of glass above and behind her.

  “I am Gerat,” she said, “Paramount Sister of Estrevan. And you are safe in Gennyf. In the hospice of the Sisters.”

  He said, “Wynett?”

  Gerat let go his arms and placed a hand upon his forehead, the gentle pressure forcing him back against the pillows more effectively than any strength. “Drink this.”

  She held a cup to his lips and the tone of her voice, though not an order, compelled obedience. He drank, wincing at the bitter taste, and felt a calm he could not welcome grip him.

  “Good.” Gerat smiled thinly and set the cup aside. “Now listen to me, for my concern is no less than yours, and what I must say to you is not easy for either of us.”

  “Wynett?” he repeated, aware that his voice was slurring about a thickened tongue, feeling a lassitude assail his limbs and fighting against it, uselessly.

  “Wynett is taken,” Gerat said. “Lie still! There is nothing you can do for now and you must rest.”

  She placed hands against his shoulders as he struggled to rise, her gaze and the inflections of her voice combining with the potion he had drunk to overcome the panic that once more threatened so that he could do no more than allow her to press him back, helpless now as a newborn babe, and as insensately resentful of the cataclysmic disruption of his world.

  “You must listen to me,” Gerat repeated. “If you are to do anything for Wynett you must listen to me. Will you listen to me, Kedryn?”

  The urgency of her tone penetrated his anguish and he nodded dumbly, his head heavy, thick with grief.

  “Your ribs are cracked,” she said. “They will mend soon enough, but until they do you must rest. And before they are mended, there is nothing you can do. Now tell me what you saw; tell me what happened.”

  “The beast came,” he mumbled, vaguely surprised that he was able to speak and then grateful as his voice gained strength, seemingly from the hand she touched to his lips. “The beast we saw in the netherworld. It rose from the Idre to attack the barge. It was about to take me, but Wynett. . .” He broke off, tears forming unnoticed in his eyes, coursing down his cheeks. “Wynett threw herself at it and it took her in my place.”

  Gerat reached to brush the tears away, her hand gentle as her eyes. “Did she wear the talisman?”

  “Always,” Kedryn nodded. “It was in her hand.”

  The image was vivid in the eye of his mind, even as he squeezed his lids tight shut on that awful vision.

  “Good,” said Gerat, the satisfaction in her voice snapping his eyes open in surprise. “If that was the case, then mayhap she lives.”

  “Lives? How can she live? She fell directly in the mouth of the beast.”

  Kedryn stared at the Sister, disbelief etching sharp lines of pain upon his face. Gerat took his hand, her own cool and immensely comforting. “You above all should know what power there is in the talismans,” she said quietly. “What happened when first you saw the creature, in the netherworld?”

  “It threatened us,” he said, his own voice slow, as if afraid to clutch at hope that might prove illusory. “It rose before us, but when it saw the talismans it drew back.”

  Gerat nodded as though this confirmed some hoped-for belief. “I do not think it can harm one who wears the talisman.”

  “It took her in its mouth and carried her under,” Kedryn groaned. “Can the talisman prevent her from drowning?”

  "I am not sure,” said Gerat, “but I believe the beast can. I do not believe it was Ashar’s intention to kill Wynett. You, mayhap, though I suspect he had rather secure the talismans.” Kedryn frowned a question and the Sister went on, “I believe Ashar sent the beast into this world in mortal form after you defeated his Messenger because he knows that while you hold Kyrie’s stone you remain a threat to his ambitions. Mayhap the leviathan was sent to kill you; mayhap its purpose was to separate you from the talisman, but I do not believe it can harm one who holds the talisman in faith.”

  “So where,” asked Kedryn slowly, “is Wynett?”

  “Gone into the netherworld,” said Gerat.

  “And good as dead, therefore,” moaned Kedryn, fresh anguish in his eyes, bitterness in his voice.

  “Mayhap,” said the Paramount Sister. “Or mayhap that depends on you. I feel a gathering of destiny’s threads—were you not so overcome with grief you might well have wondered what the Paramount Sister of Estrevan does in Gennyf.”

  She smiled as confusion clouded his features.

  “I have studied Alaria’s Text at length, Kedryn. That and other writings from our archives, chief amongst them those of one called Qualle. My fellow Sisters dismiss Qualle as a madwoman, or believe her words irrelevant, but I felt a certainty that compelled me to break with all precedent and come here to meet you. I was not sure until now that the Lady guided me, but these events confirm what at first I felt only as compulsion.

  “Along the way I met a mehdri bearing a message from Bethany—that you contemplated a second descent into the netherworld should I confirm your suspicion that Darr, and others, might be saved from the fate to which the Messenger condemned them. Now I wonder if that notion was not placed in your mind by the Lady,” She reached behind him as he nodded thoughtfully, plumping his pillows that he might sit straighter, alert now as he studied her face. “I will show you transcriptions of Qualle’s text when you are better recovered, but for now know that I translate them as a prophecy that you shall descend into the netherworld to confront Ashar himself.”

  “To save Wynett?” he gasped.

  “That, aye,” confirmed Gerat. “Or mayhap in taking Wynett Ashar falls unwittingly into a pattern established by the powers that govern even the actions of gods, unknowingly strengthening your determination.”

  “If I may save Wynett I will face Ashar,” Kedryn said grimly. “Face him and slay him if I can.”

  Gerat nodded again, smoothing the pale blue skirt of her gown. “I believe you can save her,” she said, the single sentence igniting the fire of his hope, “for I do not believe she is dead. I think the talisman protected her from the leviathan, else it would have returned to seek you. As it did not, I believe it must have gone back to that place from whence it came, bearing Wynett with it. Now she will be Ashar’s prisoner, but I do not believe the god may harm her whilst she retains the stone. Or that if he can harm her, he will not so long as she serves to bait a trap for you.

  “You are the Chosen One, Kedryn, and Ashar knows that you are his enemy, the mortal agent of the Lady.”

  “But if the talisman is protection against even Ashar’s might, then how could the leviathan harm me?” Kedryn asked.

  “You might have drowned,” Gerat told him calmly. “Or been crushed by the flukes. Had that blow landed a degree harder, your ribs would be stove in now, and you dead.”

  “Then how,” Kedryn demanded, quickly lest fear of the answer still his voice, “can you be sure Wynett lives?”

  “You say she held the stone,” said Gerat, “and that suggests she called upon the Lady. In the face of that power I do not think the beast could close its fangs upon her. I am not sure death was the intention, for there is something in Qualle’s words that suggests to me the talisman will be the agency of Ashar’s defeat and for that reason—for doubtless Ashar knows of the stones and their power—I suspect the god’s intention may have been to remove the stones from this world.”

  She paused, her eyes clouding and becoming slightly unfocused, as though she grew lost in thoughts that locked together like the pieces of a jigsaw, and when she spoke again her voice was grave. “Were the stones both brought to the netherworld there would be little on this mortal plane that might stand against the god’s future minions. Should he have created another like the Messenger, then that minion would likely prove unstoppable without the talismans. And should Ashar gain possession of them and bend them to his purpose, he would have a key to unlock the magic that holds him beyond the Lozins—he could move freely into the Kingdoms.”