Ill Wind Page 0,51

the core of the fire hot enough, not without pouring more energy into it than most Fire Wardens possessed. Their talent was in controlling fire, not sourcing it.

"Joanne, don't!" Marion was right behind me. I eyed the unstable pond of dust on which Delilah floated- quickly becoming mud as the deluge mounted-and swallowed my fear. Cold rain down the back of my neck, soaking my hair flat, drawing a full-body shiver. I had to bet that she wouldn't let me die.

I jumped for the car door.

A leafy vine tangled my foot and tugged me off balance. My fingers brushed the cold wet metal, and then I was falling, falling-

Falling into the soft quicksand.

"No!" Marion screamed.

It wasn't like falling into mud; mud has resistance and weight. This was like falling into feathers.

My instinct was to gasp, but I conquered it, damped my mouth shut and tried not to breathe, because sucking a lungful of this stuff would be an ugly death. I squeezed my eyes shut against dust abrasion. No sound down here, no sensation except falling, falling, falling. How deep would I go? Marion couldn't possible have softened the earth deeper than ten feet; there wouldn't have been any point. Didn't matter. Ten feet would be more than enough to bury me.

The important thing was that Marion was just as handicapped as I was. She could harden the earth again, but that would kill me just as quickly. This wasn't exactly science; it was art. This was her ocean, her solid ocean, and I was drowning in it. She'd try to save me; there was no percentage in killing me, at least not yet, and she'd have to think of something fast. Maybe she'd be trying to harden the earth in an upward path, like a ramp to the surface; I'd just have to find it.

Find it how? God, I wanted to take a breath. Needed to.

That, at least, I could fix. I pulled at the air trapped in the fine dust and formed it into a cocoon around me. It made a shell a few inches thick all around me, not enough to keep me alive for long, but enough for me to take a couple of quick, clean breaths. I needed to get up, but I didn't know how to do that. There wasn't enough volume in the air to create any kind of warming and cooling effect that might serve as an engine. Flailing around in the dark, I couldn't feel anything solid.

I was stuck.

Something touched the back of my neck, warm and solid, and I reached desperately for it.

Skin. Human skin. It was too dark to see anything, but I was touching a living person. Not female, I discovered-even the most flat-chested woman has some softness to her in that region. I extended my bubble of air to fit around the newcomer and spared a precious breath to whisper, "Erik?" Because at least the blond-haired Earth Warden would have been a lifeline, even if it was a lifeline into a cell.

But it wasn't Erik.

Lips touched mine, gentle and warm and entirely tasty, and I knew him in deep places where his touch still lingered.

"David?"

He didn't answer, and I felt his lips fit back over mine. Fresh air puffed into my mouth, and I opened myself to it, to him.

Both of us floating together in the dark, close as lovers.

He grabbed the hand not still clutching shoes, and swam sideways. Which was wrong in so many ways ... First, there was nothing to swim against-this stuff had no resistance, hence, no propulsion. But he was propelling just fine. Second, sideways should have taken us right into the solid walls of the channel where Marion hadn't softened the earth, but we just kept right on moving, going and going and going. My lungs burned for air. As if he sensed that, he turned and breathed into my mouth again. That shouldn't have worked; his lungs should have already scrubbed the oxygen out, given him back only waste products to share with me.

I breathed in pure sweet air, or as near as made no difference. It was like a shot from a diver's tank, and I felt energy shoot through me like white light.

After who knows how long, David began to swim up at an angle. I felt things brush my reaching free hand and arms-tendrils-grass roots.

We