"Are you all right?"
"I'm..." She shook her head. "It's all one fury. All of it. The whole sea. If you can commune with any of it, you can speak to all of it. There's so much of it there, and I can't-" She broke off suddenly as Tavi's hand covered her mouth.
"Shhhh," he said quietly. "You were raising your voice. Are you sure you're all right?"
Isana closed her mouth and nodded firmly. "But hurry. We need to hurry. The sun is going down. I can feel them beginning to stir. We don't want to be in the water when they wake."
There was another crack, and Ehren pulled himself up to the hole he'd created and thrust his head in. He leaned back a moment later, his nose wrinkling, and reported, "Bilge. Give me a moment to get through the other side." Then the little Cursor vanished into the hole. He reappeared shortly, and nodded at Tavi, then held out his hand.
Isana felt the elation in her son at the intense experience of the adventure suddenly fade, and she felt it replaced with regret and steely determination. He kicked through the water, seized the knife Ehren had left in the hull as a handhold, and with the Cursor's help clambered inside. He had to go through the hole one arm at a time, his shoulders had grown so broad, and Isana was again struck by how very large the boy had grown.
Kitai went next, though the Marat girl hardly seemed to need Ehren's out-stretched hand to help her in. From Kitai, Isana could sense only what she almost always felt in her-a kind of detached, feline amusement at the world around her, and an intense involvement in her senses and environment. Finally, Araris went, though he paused to glance back at Isana. She felt his worry for her very clearly.
"Oh for goodness' sake," Isana whispered, flipping a hand at him. "Go. I'll be safer than you'll be."
Araris frowned at her, hesitating.
Isana felt the direction of his thoughts, the sudden, irrational heat of them, and she felt her face heat up. "I like the way you look all wet as well," she told him. "But now is not the time."
His eyes widened, and Araris gave her a sudden, very boyish grin and a wink. Then he, too, swarmed up the side of the ship and through the hole in the hull.
Isana bit her lower lip and waited, pacing the ship. Her sharpened senses continued to flood her with their newfound clarity and depth, and it made what would otherwise have been a very simple process-remaining steady beside the ship-difficult to focus upon. The motion of the waves, the mindless and purposeful movement of the sharks, the swirling of the smaller fish feasting on what fell from the mouths of the sleeping leviathans, all blended together into something beautiful, almost hypnotic, like a vast dance being performed for no one but her. The sea around her stretched out, boundless and powerful, merciless and bountiful, and she could feel it all, to such a degree that for a few seconds, she lost the feeling in her own limbs, their nerves and muscles vanishing among all the endless motion of the living sea.
Fear and sudden agony hit her like a slap on the cheek. She had drifted ahead of the Mactis, and she hurried to return to her place. There was another stab of confusion and pain from somewhere in the ship-great furies, she couldn't have felt that from here, not with such perfect clarity. She couldn't even see whoever had been hurt.
Panic native to her own heart clutched at her. Had something happened to one of her own? The bond between loved ones and, especially family, had long been well established as a factor that enhanced a watercrafter's already-acute empathic senses, and if Tavi or Araris had been injured it might account for-
The ship suddenly shuddered in the water. It wasn't a large motion-just a gentle bob, out of rhythm with the waves around it, as the watercrafting around the Mactis s hull abruptly failed.
The next wave crashed against the bow of the ship with a roar like a miniature thunderstorm, and a great cloud of salt spray flew up from the impact.
Isana felt a sudden surge of emotion from the Mactis. Disbelief gave way to panic and terror, and every single facet of emotion was blindingly intense. They slashed at her like razors, and she could hardly keep herself moving through the water. On the ship, men began shouting. Boots hammered on wooden decks. The nearest of the shouts weren't twenty feet away, up on the ship's deck above her.
Isana fought to contain her agonized senses, to draw away from them, and as she did, she felt her pace suddenly slow, her progress through the water becoming noticeably more difficult. She gritted her teeth and left herself open to the painful flares of emotion and held pace beside the ship, though her teeth had begun to chatter in sheer, nervous reaction to the fear.
Another minute went by, and no one appeared at the hole in the ship's hull. There were more, harsh shouts from inside the ship, and the ring of steel on steel. Then there was a hissing sound and a low howl of tortured wood, toward the bow, where the witchmen were usually stationed. It repeated itself twice, and then Araris's bare foot kicked a triangular section of wooden hull away from the ship, its edges as clean-cut and smooth as if done with the finest saw. The severed planks fell into the sea. The singulare looked out from the hole, spotted Isana, and waved a hand at her.
Isana surged forward through the waves, just as Tavi appeared in the newly cut opening and tumbled into the sea gracelessly, as if he'd been pushed through. Isana darted through the water and pressed one of the lines into his hand, then caught up to the ship again, just as Ehren leapt out and hit the ocean heels first. Kitai came next, diving through the hole, her arms extended, to enter the sea in a graceful dive.
Isana rounded them up, made sure each of them had a solid hold on the line. It was getting increasingly difficult to concentrate, and Isana suddenly realized why.
The leviathans had woken.
The very water of the sea itself had all but begun to boil with a slow and monstrous anger.
They had little time.
Isana pressed as close to the newly cut hole as she dared. There was little point in stealth anymore, and she called out, "Araris! Araris, hurry!"
Steel rang on steel inside the ship. A man let out a cry of agony.
"Araris!" Isana called.
"Crows take it," Tavi snarled. "I was supposed to be the last off."
A dim shape appeared in the opening, and steel clashed again. Isana saw an explosion of violet sparks raining against azure as the blades of two master metalcrafters clashed, and then a sword's blade, scarlet with blood, plunged through the planks of the hull beside the opening.
Araris appeared, weaponless, and stumbled sprawling from the hole in the hull to fall into the sea. The water around him immediately became stained with streamers of crimson.