The scene suddenly blurred, dispersed in fragments. The carriage seemed to slump under him. Darkness swept in, a smell of the sea, the thrash of waves, sand sliding beneath the wheels. The carriage side nearest him lurched into the bole of a palm tree, sending down a rain of cusser-sized nuts that pounded along the roof before bounding away. The horses stumbled, slowing their wild plunge, and a moment later everything came to a sinking halt.
Looking up Gruntle saw stars in a gentle night sky.
Beneath him the carriage door creaked open, and someone clambered out to vomit on to the sands, coughing and spitting and cursing.
Muster Quell.
Gruntle climbed down, using the spokes of the newest wheel, and, his legs feeling shaky under him, made his way to the sorceror.
The man was still on his hands and knees, hacking out the last dregs of what-ever had been in his stomach. ‘Oh,’ he gasped. ‘My aching head.’
Faint came up alongside Gruntle. She’d been wearing an iron skullcap but she’d lost it, and now her hair hung in matted strands, framing her round face. ‘I thought a damned tiger had landed on us,’ she said, ‘but it was you, putting the terror into a demon. So it’s true, those tattoos aren’t tattoos at all.’
Glanno Tarp had dropped down, dodging to avoid the snapping teeth of the nearest horses. ‘Did you see Amby Bole go flying? Gods, that was stupacular!’
Gruntle frowned. ‘Stu-what?’
‘Stupidly spectacular,’ explained Faint. ‘Or spectacularly stupid. Are you Sole-taken?’
He glanced at her, then set off to explore.
A task quickly accomplished. They were on an island. A very small island, less than fifty paces across. The sand was crushed coral, gleaming silver in the starlight. Two palm, trees rose from the centre. In the surrounding shallows, a thousand paces out, ribbons of reef ran entirely round the atoll, breaking the surface like the spine of a sea serpent. More islands were visible, few bigger than the one they were on, stretching out like the beads of a broken necklace, the nearest one per-haps three thousand paces distant.
As he returned he saw a corpse plummeting down from the carriage roof to thump in the sand. After a moment it sat up. ‘Oh,’ it said.
The Trell emerged from the carriage, followed by the swamp witch, Precious Thimble, who looked ghostly pale as she stumbled a few steps, then promptly sat down on the sand. Seeing Gruntle, Mappo walked over.