The lake water, black in shadow and pale blue where it reflected the sky, was saltier by far than it had been only a few months earlier. The shore was crusted with ice and salt now, crystals of both breaking under Ilyaran feet. And, excepting Inga, they were all Ilyaran: even Inga's guards had been made to stay behind, an order which had displeased them immensely. But Rasim thought he understood why. Someone had sabotaged the lake; someone had tried to kill him and his friends. That someone might be a trusted guard, or a curious bystander. There was no way to tell. But whomever it was could be of great danger to the witches. They would be vulnerable as they entered and left the water, even if only for a few seconds. It was smart to keep everyone away.
That, of course, assumed that all of the witches were trustworthy. Since someone had taught the Nor-therners magic, even that wasn't a given. Rasim held back a groan. He would work himself into believing the whole world was an enemy, if he wasn't careful.
"I used to swim in this lake as a child." Inga's com-ment, soft with reminiscence, broke into Rasim's thoughts. "Before it was salty, and in the summer, though even then it was very cold. Once in a while my father would have great tubs brought up here in the winter, and would have them filled with very hot water. We would bathe in the steaming water, then leap into the icy lake." She shivered and laughed all at once. "It was invigorating. I hadn't thought of that in many years."
"You'll be able to do it again soon," Rasim promised. "I'll get the Sunmasters to build bonfires beneath the tubs, so the water will be as hot as you remember."
"I'll hold you to that, Ilyaran." Inga's smile made her look hardly older than Rasim, though she was at least twice his age. "Now, what should I wear to dive into the lake?"
Rasim looked at her robes and long skirts, then shook his head. "That should be fine. They'll help keep you warm down there, because it's cold even if we're not wet."
"It won't be too cold," dreamy-eyed Daka promised from nearby. She had a spark of fire living between her palms already, its glow making golden shadows against her skin. "We'll keep you warm."
Desimi muttered something impolite as he stomped past the Sunmaster journeyman and straight into the water. It peeled back from him, never touching his clothes or skin as he struck out in a strong swim. Several others followed, Hassin among the very last.
He paused at Rasim's side, nodding toward the witchery that Desimi began to work near the lake's center. "We're going to funnel air all the way to the bottom. The seamasters will keep the whirlpool open and stabilize the water where we have to work, while the sky witches will help keep the air fresh and the sun witches keep us warm. Since we're doing all the work to keep the funnel open, there's no point in those of you going to the bottom wasting energy swimming down. Enjoy the drop."
Grinning, he left Rasim standing beside a wide-eyed Inga, who demanded, "Enjoy the drop?"
Rasim met her gaze with equally wide eyes, though his attempt at innocence was ruined by fighting off laughter. "Don't worry. It's not really a drop. It's more like a giant swirl. We do it all the time in the harbor. Well, not all the time. Most of the fleet has to be gone or the currents knock the ships together."
"Do what?"
"Ride the whirlpool to the bottom and then ride another one back up. It's fun! C'mon!" Rasim caught Inga's hand and pulled her toward the water. She hung back, clearly dismayed, but as others passed them, she began to relax. Rasim called his witchery, guiding water just far enough away from them to keep them warm and dry as they surfed toward the growing whirlpool. Ahead of them, Kisia whipped around its funnel and disappeared into the depths with a gleeful shriek. Desimi, holding the mouth of the whirlpool open to the sky, glared ferociously after her. Rasim clapped a hand over his mouth, trying not to laugh. No wonder the bigger boy had gone into the water so sulkily. Everyone else got to ride the whirlpool, but Desimi was stuck at the surface. For once, his great witchery talent was working against him.
Shrieks of laughter—and of pure terror, when the Stonemasters made the drop—echoed out of the cold water as the Waifia's crew headed for the bottom of the lake. Inga, nervously, said, "Are you sure this is a good idea?" as the whipping water began to draw them in.
Rasim grinned wildly at her. "It was your idea, Highness!"
"But I didn't know—!" Her protest came too late. The whirlpool seized them. They swung around at dizzying speeds, drawn deeper into the water. Rasim folded his arms around Inga, streamlining them both, and howled with delight as they lashed through foaming salt water. He had never in his life made it to the bottom of the Ilyaran harbor without losing control of his witchery and getting drenched. This time, though, the magic was his to command. He and the Northern princess spun faster and faster, until Inga gave up being afraid and began giggling breathlessly.
The whirlpool narrowed, but not as much as a natural one would. Rasim felt witchery at work, the heaviness of seamastery holding the funnel wider than it wished to be, and indeed, slowing its mad rush in circles. It was still ridiculously, hysterically fast. Above the roar of water, other gleeful—and terrified—shouts could sometimes be heard. The water darkened around them, making the descent feel all the more dangerous, though they were in the hands of a dozen or more sea witches. There was more real danger of drowning in a cup of sakka than in the Northern lake.
Then they were slowing, the whirlpool's strength spent into broader, heavier eddies that rippled through the lake's depths. The last little distance was a drop, all the way to the stony lake bed. Rasim landed neatly, but Inga collapsed sideways, clutching her head. Rasim knelt and touched her ears, finding the madly sloshing water inside them and stabilizing it.
Inga's eyes stopped whirling and she clapped her hands over her ears, still swaying. "Oh my. Stopping my head spinning was almost as bad as the—I'm talking. We're underwater and I'm talking! And breathing!" She clutched Rasim's shoulder in astonishment. "Rasim, look."
Seamasters stood shoulder to shoulder, heads down and eyes closed in concentration. Water domed above them, drips forming and falling to the lake bed, but its crushing weight was held aloft. The three Sunmasters were evenly spaced around the small dome, arms spread and wreathed with flame. Warmth wobbled the air, almost visible as the Skymasters kept it moving, kept it fresh, always exchanging it with the air from the surface.
To one side of the dome, the salt fountain rose from the lake floor. It glowed with a soft white light of its own, just as it had when Rasim had first seen it. It was as if the salt itself was illuminated somehow, its light only fading as it drifted farther into the lake waters. Now, without those waters to absorb it, the salt was piling rapidly onto the drying rock and slipped over the fountain's sides. With the light offered by the Sunmasters, Rasim saw that the fountain itself was beautiful, which he hadn't noticed on his first journey to the lake's bottom. It looked like a wine jug, with a delicate round belly and a thin, narrow spout. A giant's wine jug, to be sure: it stood at least twice Rasim's height, and salt spilled from its spout with a soft hiss. The Stonemasters, ankle-deep in salt, examined it.
"A salt bed lies beneath the lake's floor." Master Lusa's voice echoed strangely against the water, though she didn't sound afraid. Not even Milu looked disturbed at the weight of water above them. Maybe it was the focus of witchery, of doing their duty, that made it bearable. "The witchery done here is tremendous. This," she gestured at the fountain itself, with its swollen belly and slender spout, "this isn't really necessary. There's a bewitched crack in the lake floor, beneath the bottom of this..." She reared back, protecting her eyes from falling salt as she examined the fountain. “This jug. The belly fills up and it’s forced out the top, but the only reason to have the jug is for the beauty of it.”
"But no one was ever meant to see it." Inga took a nervous step forward, making certain Rasim stayed beside her.
Lusa shrugged. "Any witch has a certain vanity about what she does, Highness. No matter if no one would see it. You want to leave something you're proud of behind. Maybe something someone else would recognize, if they did see it."
"And do you?" Inga's nerves fell away with the regal demand, but the Stonemaster gave her a sour look.
"Not yet. Stone holds the memory of who's shaped it, but I haven't begun my own work yet. I might be able to tell you more when we're done. What I don't understand," she said, turning back to the fountain, "is how the magic continues in perpetuity. It's not natural for the salt to fountain upward, not unless there's something beneath it pushing it upward."
"Or unless someone is still down here working the witchery." Rasim regretted the words as soon as he'd said them. Everyone, even the intensely-concentrating seamasters, looked sickened at the idea.
Inga paled in the sunmasters' golden light. "Is that possible?"
Lusa snorted. "Of course not. No one would survive down here for as long as these waters have been being poisoned."
"Guildmaster...Isidri..." Kisia spoke from the far side of the fountain, startling Rasim. He had thought she was helping keep the whirlpool open, not down on the lake bed like he was. He stretched out his hand, finally thinking to add his own magic to the power keeping the water domed above them. Kisia relaxed just enough to speak more clearly. "Guildmaster Isidri remembers when other countries had witchery, or at least remembers old stories of it. Their magic wasn't all like ours."
"Like the Northern fleet turning the harbor to ice," Rasim said quietly. Inga glanced at him. He shrugged. "Ilyarans have a hard time turning water to ice. We work with pure elements. Once you change water to ice, it's kind of...something else. It's still water, but it's not water the way we sea witches know it. But whomever taught the Northerners magic—well, they could do ice really easily. Maybe some witches can shape...I don't know. Wood, maybe. Or..." He nodded at the lake floor. “Maybe somebody can shape…people. Make them so they can live like this, and keep using their witchery.”
Inga's eyes went dark, but she nodded. Lusa, though, made a dismissive sound. "Or maybe there's water or hot rock trying to get up from below that salt bed, and it's pushing the salt into the fountain. I can certainly feel layers of metal between the rock and the salt itself, so there's no reason to think that deeper down there might not be other things. It's nothing to close it up, Highness. Purifying the lake, though, that's going to take a while. I don't envy Nasira's crew the job."
"The sooner you get this done," Nasira muttered from near Kisia.
Lusa chuckled and clicked her fingers at Telun and Milu. "You two, move back."
"Master—"
"Hush, Milu. This is a master's work. I'm much more likely to recognize the witch's touch than you are, but it'll be easier if I don't have the two of you working witchery alongside me. Besides, the day I can't close a crack in the stone is the day I take al Colutar from my name." She winked and waded through salt to kneel beside the fountain. "The bottom of this big jug is the crack itself. Captain Nasira, maybe you and your witches can bring it to the surface for us when we're done, to have a good look at and maybe put in her Highness's council chambers to be admired."
Nasira made a skeptical sound that echoed around the watery dome. A low chuckle followed. Telun and Milu, both smiling ruefully, fell back a little distance, then joined the circle of sea witches after Kisia beckoned to them.
Lusa clucked appreciatively. "Good lads. A moment, and then..." She laid her hands on the fountain, stonewitchery's usual weight seeming much less significant to Rasim, compared to the pressure of water from above.
The fountain rippled faintly with her touch, as if welcoming her, and something clicked at the back of Rasim's mind, a heaviness that felt wrong. He caught Inga's hand, holding it hard enough to make her grunt in surprise. "Rasim?"
"Something's not right. Something—"
The lake floor beneath Lusa's feet swelled, rock rolling back to expose dull silver metal. Lusa took a few startled, dancing steps. "What the—get back." The Stonemaster's voice sharpened. "Everyone get back."
Startled but obedient, the sea witches edged back. Their grip on the magic intensified. Milu and Telun started forward. Kisia grabbed them both, hauling them away. Telun began a protest, but Kisia tweaked the big boy's ear. "She meant you too!"
Water droplets, forgotten about until now, splashed against the dull metal and sizzled.
Lusa's voice was soft and swift with concentration. "Reshaping the stone to seal the crack triggered something. A cascade of other magic, though I've never heard of a master who could do that. And the metal is reacting to water. Nasira, the water drops, can you—"
Holes opened up in the stone under their feet. Water gushed upward and spilled across the lake floor. The uncovered metal's hissing got louder, half drowning the shouts that filled the little dome. Telun and Milu tried frantically to close the holes as sea witches slammed water spigots aside. Stonemaster Lusa's voice rose above all of them: "Get out of here, go, go, go!" Her witchery flowed at a terrible pace, stone walls rising around herself and the exposed metal lake bed.
An orange flash of fire seared Rasim's vision in the instant before a vast concussive blast shattered the sea-witched water dome of safety apart.