The girls watched with horror as the boys, followed by a large white shape, slid out of control down the glacier and into the abyss.
But they had no time to worry about them. They were too busy trying to control their boat as tons of ice surged into the sea and rocked the floes around them. The boat bucked against its anchor and filled with so much ice that they had to bail or sink.
Celeste was emptying a tin of slush when she caught sight of the boys leaping across the tossing floes. `They're alive, Lyla!'
Suddenly the anchor was ripped from the ice and the boat was thrown into white-crested waves which dragged them away from the floes. Lyla snatched up the boat's buoy and threw it as far as she could.
It fell short of the last floe on which the boys were standing. They were yelling, for the girls to bring the boat back, trying to be heard over the crashing ice.
Lyla hauled the buoy back and, through tears of frustration, tried again and again but she was throwing against the wind.
`Throw it again,' urged Celeste. `It has to reach them. You can do it, Lyla. '
Lyla threw the buoy as hard as she could even though her arm hurt so much she could barely lift it. When she screamed in frustration as it dropped into the water again, Nutty gave an excited bark and dived overboard.
`Oh no. He can't possibly make it, he's too small,' breathed Celeste, as Nutty's small head emerged on top of a white crested wave. `It's too rough. He'll sink.'
`Come on Nutty,' yelled Chad and Swift urging the pup on, while Lem's heart sank each time the little black and tan head went under water.
`He made it!' Lyla grabbed Celeste squeezing her so tightly Celeste had to wriggle free.
With the buoy's rope in his mouth Nutty paddled bravely on towards his friends.
The moment the near-exhausted pup's paws scratched against their floe, Lem snatched him out of the freezing water and hugged him close. Chad and Swift grabbed the buoy's rope and tried pulling the boat towards them but the waves dragged it away, and the rope slid through their cold hands burning their skin.
`We'll have to swim for it,' Lem said.
Swift stared at the churning water and the darkening sky. He did not want to swim for it. He was tired and it was too far, and somewhere out there were fierce sea lions. `What about our weapons?' he asked. `What about the sea lions?'
Lem ignored the sea lion question. `We'll tie the weapons to the buoy. I'll hold it while you and Chad pull yourselves along the rope. When you reach the girls, they can pull Nutty, the buoy and me to the boat.'
Swift looked at Chad's bruised face and Chad looked at Swift's frostbitten nose. They nodded at each other and Lem, then grasped the rope and jumped. Fighting the waves and fearful of the sea lions, they pulled themselves along as fast as they could, and kicked and kicked until they reached the boat. Lyla and Celeste dragged them over the side to safety.
Then, with Swift at the tiller and Chad lying on a bench exhausted from the pain of his head and shoulder, Celeste and Lyla hauled Lem and Nutty through the waves.
The cold waves washed over him and dragged at his boots. They tried to pry his fingers free from the rope and dislodge Nutty from the buoy. Lem was still only half-way to safety when he saw a thing so amazing he thought he was imagining it.
It was the snow leopard. The big white cat was struggling through the icy water about an arm's-length away, until a wave pushed it against him and Lem heard its voice in his head, `Help me. I am escaping too.'
`Come with me,' Lem thought back.
Seconds later Lem and Nutty were hauled into the boat. Lem was coughing up seawater unable to speak, when two huge paws grasped into the portside of the boat tipping it dangerously. The girls flung themselves backwards as Nutty started growling.
Lem held him back. `It's okay Nutty, it's a snow leopard. We have to help him. He's escaping too.'
So while Celeste, Swift and Lem leant on the boat's starboard side to stop it from capsizing, Lyla slid an oar under the snow leopard's belly and levered it up so that he could scramble aboard. He clambered over Chad and Swift's legs and into the prow where he lay snarling at Nutty, until Lem threw a sail over it.
Forced on by an easterly wind, the boat fought the waves all night until early the next day when the children were able to turn it in a north-easterly direction.
Lem told the others about Lord Shamash, the Enkidu, the dragon, and the Walls of the Disobedient. Then he gave the red scale talisman to Lyla to put into the casket.
Tears formed in Celeste's eyes as Lem described her father's bleeding paws, and the terrified eyes of the frozen people. `We have to save him. We have to save all of them.'
`We will,' he assured her. `After we have the five talismans.'
`But we aren't moving fast enough. Are we Chad?'
Chad agreed that they weren't. What he didn't say was, if the High Enchanter could became creatures like the Goch and the Enkidu, if he could control the ice and snow and make avalanches, and if he could imprison entire villages of people in glaciers, how were they going to conquer him?
Three days later they spotted a rugged coastline in the distance, and hoped it was Whale Island.
They had run out of water the night before and were thirsty and heartily sick of raw fish. Even the snow leopard growled sadly when Swift gave him his share.
`He's old and his legs ache from the cold,' Lem said. `And he doesn't like Nutty or Splash. Or any of us really, except Swift who he calls Little Cub.'
`I'm not little,' retorted Swift, and then grinned in delight. `Tell him I call him Snow.'
`And tell him Splash doesn't like him either,' said Celeste, kissing her pet on its flat green head.
It took a few hours to reach the shallower waters of turquoise sea that surrounded the island. The water was as transparent as glass and the breeze, idling down from its cone-shaped hills, was warm and smelt of flowers. They sailed straight into a pretty half-moon bay where the beach was guarded by five large statues.
Not far offshore to their right, was an old high ridge of reef, now all dead and rock-brown. Lem grabbed the tiller and turned the boat away from shore.
`What are you doing?' demanded Lyla.
`Being careful.' he said. `If this is where the High Enchanter has imprisoned the merwoman then you can be sure that he has becamed some sort of dangerous monster to stop her escaping, or anyone from rescuing her.'
Lyla was in the middle of saying that the island looked peaceful and they didn't know for certain that it was Whale Island anyway, when they heard the women singing. Their lilting voices were so beautiful that Lem and Lyla stopped arguing and with the others turned to listen. Even Snow's growling became a purr.
So enchanted was everyone by the women's song that Lem ignored his own warning about the island and handed back the tiller to Swift, who turned the boat towards the shore. No one seemed concerned that he was also steering towards the reef.
The first hint that Lem had been right to worry was the awful scraping sound along their keel, just before a spear of coral punctured the boat's starboard side.
`Plug it!' Lyla urged, as she came to her senses. She pulled the sail down to stop them from sailing straight into the coral outcrop and over the reef below it.
Celeste stuffed her spare leggings into the hole, but water still oozed in. The snow leopard climbed onto the prow and the children had to stand on the benches.
Meanwhile the singing became louder and sweeter.
`They're calling me,' Swift said, his legs already over the boat's side. `I'm going to swim to the island.'
Celeste shook her head, to clear it of the hypnotic voices, and dragged Swift back. `Block your ears. Don't listen. The singing stops you from thinking sensibly.'
Celeste tore the hem off her tunic, handed bits of it to Lyla, Lem and Chad, then stuffed her own and Swift's ears. They had to lean close to hear each other but the singing was muted.
`Celeste is right,' Lyla shouted. `The singing made us sail onto the reef without thinking. Now it's calling us to swim to the island. Don't listen to it. It's a trick.'
Lem pointed down into the crystal-clear water, to the reef which was littered with pieces of wood and metal. `And we aren't the first to fall for it. There's wreckage everywhere.'
Celeste suggested she swim to the island to ask the locals if it was Whale Island and if they knew about the merwoman. `Meanwhile Chad can look after Splash, and you three can find something to plug up the hole and prop up the boat until I get back.'
`Until we get back,' said Lyla. `And it is Whale Island because Clarissa said the local women are famous for their singing and that Whale Islanders steal other people's boats.'
`So what weapons will we take?' asked Celeste, trying to judge how far it was across the lagoon to the beach. It looked a long way to swim.
`Daggers,' Lyla said. `And the packets Edith gave us, wrapped in leather so they won't get wet, Lem's red string and some jewels from the casket in case we find the merwoman and have to bribe her serpents.'
The girls organised their gear, then clambered carefully out of the boat and onto the rocky reef. While Celeste, with her bag over her shoulder, dived into the lagoon, Lyla waded through the ankle-deep water. She splashed over the reef searching for a cavity big enough to hide the casket just in case the boat broke up.
Celeste resurfaced a few minutes later. `It's beautiful, Lyla. The reef is covered in huge pink sponges, purple sea-grass, seaweed fans and huge shells, and the lagoon is full of fish of every colour.'
`Anything dangerous?'
`Some giant jellyfish with lots of floating bits that may be poisonous and some very large grey fish that could be sharks.'
`Oh great!' muttered Lyla. `I think I'll walk along the reef until I can stand in the water.'
As she floated over the coral, Celeste watched the tiny fish dart in and out of the seaweed and the crabs skittle away from Lyla's feet. She could still hear the singing even through the water. It made her want to swim to the shore, it made her want to float away, it made her...
Lyla grabbed Celeste's hair and yanked her head out of the water. `Where were you going? You were floating away into the lagoon.'
Celeste blinked with surprise. `It's the singing, it was calling to me.'
`Don't listen to it. I told you. It's magic or something.'
The reef ran out quite close to the shore, so Lyla stepped into waist-deep water and Celeste stopped floating and stood up. They were about to wade the last few steps to the beach when something grabbed Celeste's ankle and pulled her under.
Lyla dived to help her cousin, caught a glimpse of swirling hair and kicking feet... then Celeste was gone.
Lyla dived and dived, her throat tight with panic, as she searched every nearby crevice and gap in the coral. All she found were walls of seaweed and pink sponges. In the same moment that she knew she was too exhausted to keep searching, she also realised just how many jellyfish were swimming around her.
Lyla quickly waded to the island. It was only then she noticed that the singing had stopped. All she could hear was the fizz of waves on the sand and the twittering of thousands of rainbow-coloured parrots flitting above the long grass.
She felt sick with worry. She should have been more careful, she should have tied Celeste to her. How was she going to tell Chad that his sister was missing? How would she look after everyone without stubborn and determined we-can-do-it Celeste to help her? Where was she?
She sat defeated on the sand waiting for the outgoing tide to expose the reef completely so she could walk back to the boat.
And then she saw a group of silver-haired, silver-clad women. They were far enough down the beach that they hadn't seen her. But then they turned together, skipped across the sand, dived into the lagoon and swam towards the boat.
Lyla could only just make out what the boys were doing. Lem was wading along the reef with a plank of wood on his head, and Chad and Swift were still in the boat on the portside trying prevent too much water from seeping in through the hole. None of them had noticed the swimmers.
Lyla considered shouting a warning but doubted they would hear her. Instead she hid behind one of the giant statues on the beach and watched helplessly as some of the women boarded the boat, grabbed the boys and threw them overboard. The women in the water then hauled them to the beach.
`What are they going to do with them?' she asked, not realising she'd spoken out loud.
A lilting voice said, `They will help us move the newest statue.'
Lyla swung around in surprise to see a boy, about her age, with silvery spiky hair and large silver grey eyes. He wore a long shirt and knee trousers made of a material that resembled fish scales.
`Who are you? And who are those women kidnapping my brothers and cousin?'
`I am Chii, and the women are from Whale Island Village. What are you called, pretty girl with the black eyes of a rainbow parrot?'
Ignoring his odd compliment Lyla told him that her name was none of his business.
`Please follow me, None of Your Business,' he said. `There is a statue to be raised. A statue bigger than these ones.' He pointed to the five statues they were standing beside. `Are they not beautiful, the way they balance on their tails?'
Lyla glanced up. The statues' smooth shapes and fluted tails were indeed beautiful. It was their human faces that she didn't like. They gave her the creeps.
`We didn't come here to move statues,' she snapped.
`So why did you come, pretty girl with hair the colour of a raven's wing?'
`Will you stop saying those silly things!'
Chii looked puzzled as if he didn't understand why she considered his words silly.
`I'm here because my cousin disappeared while swimming in the lagoon,' she told him.
He nodded. `Stolen by the Merpeople, I expect. Although they don't normally take humans underwater as they know they will die. Now, please follow me.'
Lyla didn't move as he began climbing the hill behind the statues. She couldn't decide whether she should try again to find Celeste, who may have been kidnapped by the Merpeople, or follow Chii to rescue the boys.
Chii was almost at the top of the hill when he called back, `Do not be afraid. We are not cruel like the Merpeople.'
Lyla scrambled up after him. `What do you mean cruel? Will they hurt Celeste?'
`The Merpeople are capricious and fickle. One minute they love you, the next they play tricks on you. One minute they are frolicking in the waves, the next they are singing some poor sailor into diving overboard so they can steal his gold. Whale Islanders are not like that. All we want is to erect statues all around our island so that the Raiders will never raid us again.'
`Stone statues can't stop the Raiders,' Lyla scoffed.
`The Whale Island women's songs promise they will.'
`So it was your singing women who tried to make us sink our boat, not the Merpeople?
`True,' Chii said. `Now hurry we must catch up.'
`And go where?'
`To the statue quarry!'
`When we get there, and have helped erect the statue, will you talk to the Merpeople about my cousin?'
`We would have to go to Whale Island Village to do that, but if you help us, then yes I will.'
`And can you ask them if they have heard of a merwoman imprisoned in a cave under the island?'
Chii swung round so fast that his silver shirt caught the sunlight, and almost blinded her. `You ask a lot of questions pretty girl with the face of a flower. Are you a spy for the High Enchanter?'
Lyla again ignored his compliment and answered indignantly. `No I'm not! The High Enchanter is our enemy and the reason why we are here. We want to rescue the imprisoned merwoman.'
Chii began climbing again. `That is not possible. She is locked beneath Syrene Volcano and guarded by sea serpents becamed by the High Enchanter.'
`Is Syrene Volcano near here? Is it near the statue quarry that you are taking me to?'
`No. And we are there already.'
They had reached the top of the hill. Lyla looked down into a perfectly-round volcanic crater, in the centre of which was a black lake full of reeds. Carved into its steep sides were at least twenty unfinished whale sculptures and, lying on its stomach with its enormous stone tail curled in the air, was the largest statue of all.
Chii pointed to a group of women hurrying to join the many Whale Islanders standing around the whale statue. Amongst them were Lem, Chad and Swift. `We must hurry. If the statue isn't standing before sunset, the sun will not rise tomorrow.'
`The sun always rises,' argued Lyla.
But Chii was already running down the inside of the crater, so she ran after him. `If I help erect the statue will you show me where the Syrene Volcano is and will you ask the Merpeople about my cousin?'
`Oh don't worry about those things,' he shouted back. `Once the women begin to sing, you'll forget all about the merwoman, and your cousin. You'll forget everything except moving statues.'