the boathouse, which was really no more than a shack with a little dock jutting into the black and murky water of the swamp. The trail had become more circuitous as she neared the deeper water, winding around pools and bogs to stay on solid ground.
Alexander appeared when she arrived.
“They’re half a day ahead of you and moving steadily toward the mountain. The water stays pretty deep between here and there, so once you’re floating, you probably won’t set foot on solid ground until you get there. Those two men have picked up your trail again but I don’t think they’ll get here before dark.”
“Good,” Isabel said. “If I’m quick, I can have a raft in the water with an hour to spare.”
Isabel worked steadily, tearing down support beams and wall struts from the boathouse to use as the foundation of her raft and wall boards to use as the floor, tying them all together with rope until she had a simple raft about eight feet long and five feet wide. She cut a board into a paddle and then found two long, straight branches to serve as poles. It was nearly dark when she shoved off. As the mist and coming night swallowed the silhouette of the skeletal boathouse, she heard two men complaining that they’d followed the wrong trail. Then their voices were swallowed by the gloaming swamp as well.
She poled her way through the cypress trees until it was too dark to continue, then tied off to a tree and lay down for the night, calling Slyder to her for company and comfort. It was a fitful night. Isabel wasn’t afraid of the dark, but she was wary of what might be lurking in the swamp. While the dangers she’d faced since entering the mist weren’t what she’d expected at all, they were deadly in the extreme. Anything that upset her raft and tossed her into the water would be the end of her, so every little ripple brought her fully awake and alert. By morning she was exhausted and sore from trying to sleep on bare boards.
She sent Slyder into the treetops, above the mist, to get her bearings and then set out, pushing herself through the water with one of the long poles. The water was nearly four feet deep in most places, but occasionally much deeper. She worked steadily through the morning until her shoulders burned from exertion. Over ground, Hazel was much slower, but on the water in a boat, with Hector and Horace to row, they would be moving much faster than she could. Isabel had no expectation of gaining on them, but she was determined not to fall too far behind.
From the absence of waterfowl, she assumed that this part of the swamp was also infested with death leeches. It was a frightening thought: nothing but murky water in every direction and all of it hiding death. She shuddered, trying to focus on her goal, on what she intended to do once she arrived. That was much simpler. She was going to burn a hole through Hazel.
Alexander appeared near midday.
“This part of the swamp looks as devoid of life as the rest of it,” he said.
“This whole place is like a tomb,” she said. “I wonder where those leeches came from.”
“Probably Siavrax—what better way to keep unwanted guests away from your secret laboratory?”
“Do you think he would really kill a whole swamp just to keep people away?”
“He summoned the Succubus Queen,” Alexander said. “There’s no telling what he was capable of.”
“I wonder what I’m going to find on that mountain,” Isabel said.
“I had a look around and I’m afraid it’s not so empty of life,” Alexander said. “It’s mostly a jungle until you get up toward the top where the vegetation thins out.”
“Any predators I should know about?”
“A few animals: jaguars, snakes, boar, monkeys, and some type of wild dog that hunts in packs,” Alexander said. “But there’s also something else. I consulted the sovereigns about them before I came to you. They’re called vorash … another one of Siavrax’s creations.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Isabel said.
“No, they’re built almost like a man, two arms and two legs, except they have two broad, powerful, clawed fingers forward and one back on both their hands and their feet. The head is elongated like a dog’s, only bigger, and they have tentacles sprouting from each shoulder ending in clawed hands as well. They’re supposed to be terribly strong, very aggressive, and