They had lashed one of the canoes to the side of the raft to serve as a store. The second drifted in the current at the end of a short mooring line. The third had returned to the island, for there was only room for so many people on the gently listing raft.
“Well, Mr. Skye, are you game for a little fishing?” Sandover oozed.
“Go to hell.”
His preening smirk fell away. “Pardon?”
“You heard me. You can shove your jolly act up your rear end. You know not a one of us wants to be here. Not even you.”
He began to undress. Sandover gasped, his hand to his throat like a dowager catching a man pissing in the street.
“What are you doing?” he asked in alarm.
“Have you thought of bringing anything for me to wear after I huck myself in the lake for you and your rotten duke?” Jaime asked, shrugging out of his braces. “If not, I’d better keep my things dry, hadn’t I?”
Down to his shirt and feeling very pale, he crouched at edge of the raft and peered into the water. There was no judging the depth, the water clear but darkly so, despite the glitter of sun across its surface. “This is useless. I won’t be able to see a thing down there.”
“Of that you have no fear,” Sandover said. From the trunk he retrieved a glass sphere somewhat larger than his hand. Another smaller sphere floated within it, filled with a swirling grey mist. Sandover passed his hand over it and murky mist brightened until it glowed like a lamp.
With the sphere secured in sort of net that he could sling around his chest, Jaime sat on the edge of the raft again and dipped his feet in the water. Cold blazed up his shins, searing his bare skin. “Faith!” He sprang to his feet and backed away from the edge. “The water’s like ice.”
“It’s midsummer,” Sandover gritted.
“If you’re so eager, why don’t you go for a dip yourself?”
“You will obey me, Skye. Or you will suffer.”
“How can I suffer more than I have already?”
“Shall we discover?” Grinning foully at Jaime, he flung his lacy hand towards Cary, still crouching amid ships. Groaning, Cary slumped forward, clutching his chest.
“Leave him alone!”
“No.” He closed his fist. Cary screamed breathlessly, his face purpling, his eyes wild. Sandover twisted his hand and Cary’s body jerked sideways, towards the edge of the raft.
“Damn you!” Jaime cried as Sandover let Cary drop gasping to the timber. “You and you’re your wretched master, and that demon on the shore, everything you are.”
“Watch your tongue, Mr. Skye,” Sandover spat, his eyes veiled, his teeth bared.
“Shove your Mr. Skye, you monster. I’m not yours to command.”
“Is that what you think?” He shut his hand as if grabbing a man by the shirt then made a gesture like casting something away. A wave of force swept over them, jerking Jaime’s breath from his mouth and sweeping Cary off the raft and into the water. He at once began sinking, grabbing at the water, his feet barely stirring.
“Leave him,” Sandover snarled as Patrice made to leap off the raft.
“But—ahh!” Grabbing his head, Patrice dropped to his knees.
“Do not tempt me.”
“Bring him back!” Jaime shouted, barely stopping short of grabbing Sandover by the neck. Every second took Cary closer to death, his movements already growing feeble, his face full of terror. “He’s going to drown.”
“Do you think so?” Sandover drawled.
“Not if I can help it.” He closed his eyes, reaching his senses down into the darkness.
Send him back. Send him back to me, don’t take him from me, not now, not when he’s all that I have…
He thought of fountains and currents, of waterfalls running backwards, of waves bringing sailors home. He thought of the pond in the park, the great spouts of water leaping towards the sky. Picturing this, he reached out his hands and threw them skyward. Water leapt from the lake and fell back in two sparkling arcs.
Not enough to buoy up Cary’s solid weight. He would make it enough. As Cary’s anguished face slipped under the surface Jaime summoned every ounce of belief in himself and his powers, all the rage at the years he had lost and his want for the years still to live, and hurled his will towards the water: rise and bring him back to me!
He threw his up hands. The others shouted in mingled terror and awe as the raft tilted. A great geyser of water burst from the lake, bearing aloft a sputtering, flailing Cary and flinging him towards the raft with force.
“Bugger your lordship,” Gordo grunted as Jaime leaped to grab Cary’s arm. Grabbing a rope, he came to Jaime’s aid and between them they helped Cary from the water.
“Hey, Mr. Skye,” Patrice said when Cary lay gasping, water streaming from his hair and clothes. “Should we do something about this?”
“Of course you should, you cretin,” Sandover shrieked, his voice oddly garbled. Jaime looked about, not seeing the mage until Patrice pointed towards the other side of the raft, where Sandover was treading water, his embroidered silk coat splayed about him, his feet kicking frantically.
“It’s all one to me,” Patrice said. “To be honest, he’s a bit of an arsehole.”
As they gazed down at him Sandover made a sally, his shoulders rising clear of the water before he sank down again, gurgling. So tempting. Not to kill him but to simply let him die. Yet now that he was faced with the opportunity, he knew that to do so was to cause himself the same spiritual harm that had so corrupted Lord Sandover. God help him, he didn’t have it in him to turn away. Cruelty paid by cruelty was not justice.
“Arsehole or not, fish him out.”
It took three of them to drag Sandover and his weighty clothes aboard the raft. He sat in the canoe streaming water but making no complaint as they returned to the island, where he disappeared into his tent. Cary stayed by the fire, wrapped in blankets, his clothes propped on sticks to dry. Jaime stayed with him, though they didn’t speak. What was there to be said? Their course was set, their choices narrowed down to this singular path, to do Sandover’s bidding until they or he died.
Turning Cary’s boots over to let the fire dry the insides, he wondered if this was how one felt in wartime: huddling round a fire some foreign land, waiting to be hurled into battle by decree from a distant commander. He regretted the thought as the mage flung open his tent flap and came flouncing across the campground, his pink silk suit gleaming like a freshly cut rose, his golden hair curling softly across his shoulders. Rotten to the core.
“We have many hours of daylight, Mr. Skye. We will make another attempt.”
“Damn you.”
Sandover growled, a low rasp in the back of his throat. “Do not provoke me, Mr. Skye. Your dear friend has done all I needed of him, and kept you from rashly attempting to flee. I did not expect that he would serve me in another way.”
“I’m done serving you,” Cary grated, gazing into the fire.
“You may think so, but I do not need your obedience.” He clenched his hand and thrust it forward. With a strangled grunt Cary lunged towards the fire as if to throw himself on it, the blanket falling from his bare shoulders to the dirt.
“Let him go!”
“Jaime!” he wheezed, his whole body shaking as he fought against the force dragging him forwards.
“Well, Mr. Skye?” Sandover said, his face as blank of feeling as the duke’s demonic man.
“Damn your eyes, I’ll do it. And may God have mercy on us.”
Sandover released Cary, who slumped back on his heels, panting. As he mage sauntered away Jaime threw the blanket around his friend’s trembling shoulders.
“What are you doing?” he asked as Cary heaved himself to his feet.
“Coming with.”
“What if you end up in the water again?”
“Then tie me to the bloody raft. I’m not leaving you alone with him.”
He would hear of nothing but, so Jaime drew most of the water from his clothing, a working which left his hands tingling. Chewing pemmican, he boarded the canoe once more, sitting between Cary and Sandover as if he could shield his friend from the mage’s cruelty.
This time they thought to bring blankets for after, but Jaime still undressed, not wanting to be encumbered by wet clothes. Sandover relit his gassy sphere and Jaime hung it across his chest where it burned without heat, his shirt damp from his fearful sweat.
He could not drown, but he could die. Shivering in the breeze whipping across the lake, he crouched at the edge of the raft once more. Every minute he waited was another minute of dread to endure, and so with the heaviest of hearts, he slipped from the raft and into the water.
Cold…cold as the night sky in the grip of midwinter. Worse and worse the deeper he went, for he was wholly exposed, the water pressing in on him from all sides. Sandover’s glowing orb was a tiny spark, its pretty light of little help. If anything it made him an attraction to whatever lived here. With a shudder that had nothing to do with the cold, he wondered if that was part of the plan.
His lungs heavy, his life dependent on a miracle, he let himself sink another dozen feet. His limbs dragged through the gelid water, so unlike the frothy buoyancy of the sea, the cold sapping his energy. The raft was anchored atop a platform of rock that stood alone in much deeper water. Everywhere were similar columns and shelves lurking in the greenish gloom, carved from the edge of the island by wind and wave then whittled to nothing. He swam along the edge of the platform, wary of going deeper.
As he swam across a gap between two tumbled stacks he shuddered again. The water had a different taste, like city effluent polluting a stream. He had a sudden and very strong wish to surface. His skin prickling, he struck out for the raft, angling towards the surface as he went. Crossing back over the gap between the rocks, he caught the rotten taste again. A shadow moved in the depths, a monstrous form swelling at the base of the crevice. With the instinct of a man used to terror, Jaime began to swim much faster.