The dull grey sandstone revealed, in its countless shelves and modulations, a history of constantly shifting sea levels. Cutter had no idea how an island could float. If sorcery was responsible, then its power was vast, and yet, it seemed, far from perfect.
‘There!’ he shouted suddenly, pointing ahead where the coast’s undulations dropped to a flat stretch barely a hand’s width above the roiling water.
‘Get ready,’ Apsalar instructed, half rising from her seat.
Clambering up alongside the prow, a coil of rope in his left hand, Cutter prepared to leap onto the shelf. As they drew closer, he could see that the stone ledge was thin, deeply undercut.
They swiftly closed. Cutter jumped.
He landed square-footed, knees flexing into a crouch.
There was a sharp crack, then the stone was falling away beneath his moccasined feet. Cold water swept around his ankles. Unbalanced, the Daru pitched backward with a yelp. Behind him, the boat rushed inward on the wave that tumbled into the sinking shelf’s wake. Cutter plunged into deep water, even as the encrusted hull rolled over him.
The currents yanked him downward into icy darkness. His left heel thumped against the island’s rock, the impact softened by a thick skin of seaweed.
Down, a terrifyingly fast plummet into the deep.
Then the rock wall was gone, and he was pulled by the currents under the island.
A roar filled his head, the sound of rushing water. His last lungful of air was dwindling to nothing in his chest. Something hard hammered into his side-a piece of the runner’s hull, wreckage being dragged by the currents-their boat had overturned. Either Apsalar was somewhere in the swirling water with him, or she had managed to leap onto solid sandstone. He hoped it was the latter, that they would not both drown-for drowning was all that was left to him.
Sorry, Cotillion. I hope you did not expect too much of me -
He struck stone once more, was rolled along it, then the current tugged him upward and suddenly spat him loose.
He flailed with his limbs, clawing the motionless water, his pulse pounding in his head. Disorientated, panic ripping through him like wildfire, he reached out one last time.
His right hand plunged into cold air.
A moment later his head broke the surface.
Icy, bitter air poured into his lungs, as sweet as honey. There was no light, and the sounds of his gasping returned no echoes, seeming to vanish in some unknown immensity.
Cutter called out to Apsalar, but there was no reply.
He was swiftly growing numb. Choosing a random direction, he set out.
And quickly struck a stone wall, thick with wet, slimy growth. He reached up, found only sheerness. He swam along it, his limbs weakening, a deadly lassitude stealing into him. He struggled on, feeling his will seep away.
Then his outstretched hand slapped down onto the flat surface of a ledge. Cutter threw both arms onto the stone. His legs, numbed by the cold, pulled at him. Moaning, he sought to drag himself out of the water, but his strength was failing. Fingers gouging tracks through the slime, he slowly sank backward.
A pair of hands closed, one on each shoulder, to gather the sodden fabric in a grip hard as iron. He felt himself lifted clear from the water, then dropped onto the ledge.
Weeping, Cutter lay unmoving. Shivers racked him.
Eventually, a faint crackling sound reached through, seeming to come from all sides. The air grew warmer, a dull glow slowly rising.
The Daru rolled onto his side. He had expected to see Apsalar.
Instead, standing above him was an old man, extraordinarily tall, his white hair long and dishevelled, white-bearded though his skin was black as ebony, with eyes a deep, glittering amber-the sole source, Cutter realized with a shock-of the light.
All around them, the seaweed was drying, shrivelling, as waves of heat radiated from the stranger.
The ledge was only a few paces wide, a single lip of slick stone flanked by vertical walls stretching out to the sides.
Sensation was returning to Cutter’s legs, his clothes steaming now in the heat. He struggled into a sitting position. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said in Malazan.
‘Your craft has littered the pool,’ the man replied. ‘I suppose you will want some of the wreckage recovered.’
Cutter twisted to stare out on the water, but could see nothing. ‘I had a companion-’
‘You arrived alone. It is probable that your companion drowned. Only one current delivers victims here. The rest lead only to death. On the isle itself, there is but one landing, and you did not find it. Few corpses of late, of course, given our distance from occupied lands. And the end of trade.’
His words were halting, as if rarely used, and he stood awkwardly.