that made up the deck, but of a single bone - an enormous radius, by the look of it, nearly ten paces long. It was slender and light enough that it must have been hollow, Pharaun decided, as he twisted it in its socket. It probably came from a dragon's wing. Gripping the handle, Pharaun glanced down over the stern and saw that the rudder was an enormous sickle blade.
"Get us under way," he shouted at the demon.
The uridezu snarled, then raised clawed hands above its head. As it swept its hands forward in the direction of the bow, the tattered skin sails above stopped luffing in the wind and belled out, strain-ing at their lines. The ship began to move more rapidly in its circuit around the inside of the whirlpool. The demon continued to move its hands, plucking at the air with its claws, and with each motion the lines that controlled the sails either tightened or loosened, trim-ming the sails.
Experimentally, Pharaun moved the tiller to the left. A lurch sent him rocking backward as the ship turned in the opposite direction. He clung to the tiller as the bow swung around until it was pointing straight up at the cavern ceiling. Sails straining and boards creaking, the ship began climbing the inside wall of the whirlpool. After a few moments the bow came level with the surface of the lake and began climbing into the waterspout itself.
The ship teetered, then pitched violently forward. For a few terrible moments Pharaun fought to hang on to the tiller as the wall of water smashed into him, but then the ship was free of the waterspout and floating, level at last, on the surface of the lake. Shaking his head to free his face of the sodden hood of hispiwafwi,Pharaun grinned at the demon, still fastened securely by its chain to the middle of the deck.
"Smooth sailing," the wizard said, chuckling as the ship glided across the choppy surface of the lake, away from the storm.
He flicked wet hair back out of his eyes, glanced up at the ledge where they'd first entered the cavern - some distance away - and turned the ship in that direction. He'd collect Danifae and Valas first and retrieve Quenthel and Jeggred from the eye of the storm later.
Then the fun of deciding what - or who - to feed to the ship would begin.
Halisstra clung grimly to the reins as the horse galloped across the open plain. She could see little through the thickly falling snow, and prayed the animal would neither slip nor plunge its foot into a hole. It was apparent just looking at the beast how fragile the swift mounts of the World Above were compared to the riding lizards of the draw. Surely but one little twist could snap a leg, sending a rider tumbling to the ground.
Should that happen, at least Ryld would be protected from injury by his levitation spell. He clung to the hem of herpiwafwi,trailing behind her like a cloak as she rode.
Above them, the sky was getting lighter by the moment. Dawn had come and gone and the sun was rising steadily in the sky - a faint glow behind the sullen, flat gray clouds. It had grown light enough for her to see for some distance - at least in the rare moments when the snow lessened and anything could be seen at all. Which was hardly a wel-come thing. The fully risen sun marked the time that the spell Halisstra had cast on Ryld would end. Any moment the poison might rush back upon him full force, like a tide overcoming an already drowning man.
Halisstra stiffened. Was that dark line up ahead the forest? If so, they had reached the edge of the Cold Field at last.
Twisting in the saddle, she gave Ryld a reassuring grin - only to have that grin falter as she saw the look on his face. It was set in a grim mask of concentration, deep lines at the corners of eyes and mouth the only hints of the effort he must be making to push away his pain. Even so, he managed a grim smile in return.
"I can't - " he started to say, then he shuddered.
For a moment his body sagged in the air, but then with a visible effort he regained control and continued levitating. Alarmed, Halis-stra fumbled with the reins of the horse with near-frozen hands, try-ing desperately to slow it.
Ryld groaned