Haplo dropped the stone. Oblivious to the water that was at his knees now, to the shattering crashes that told him Dragon Wing was in its death throes, he stared hard at his hands, tried in vain to trace the comforting, reassuring lines of the runes.
The sigla were gone.
Fighting a surge of panic that rose in him even with the level of the water, Haplo lifted his right arm. A trickle of the liquid streamed from the back of his hand—now bare—down his rune-covered arm. In amazed horror, he watched the drop of water slide down his skin, meander among the sigla tattooed on his flesh. In its wake, it left a clean trail of slowly fading, diminishing runes.
This, then, was what was happening to his ship. The water was dissolving the runes, wiping out any trace of magical power.
Unable to think of any explanation why the water should destroy the magic, Haplo could find no way to remedy the situation. His mind was in turmoil and chaos. Accustomed to relying all his life on his magic, he was suddenly rendered helpless as a mensch.
The water level on the bridge was high enough now to float Haplo off his feet. He felt a strange reluctance to leave the protection of his vessel, though he knew logically that it would very soon be able to offer no protection whatsoever. Its magic was diminishing, dying, even as his own magic was dying. The thought came to him that it would be better to die himself than to live like a mensch—or worse than a mensch, for some of them possessed magical skills, though on a very crude level.
The temptation to shut his eyes and let the water cover his head and end his anguish was a fleeting one. Haplo was angry, furious at what was happening to him, furious at whatever or whoever was responsible. He determined to discover who it was and why it was and make them pay. And he couldn’t do that if he was dead.
Haplo gazed upward, hoping to see some sign of the surface. He became convinced that he saw light above him. Drawing in a last breath, he shoved aside the floating remnants of Dragon Wing and pushed and kicked his way through the water.
Powerful strokes of his arms propelled Haplo upward, fended off the pieces of drifting plank and boards. There was definitely light; he could look down and see the contrasting darkness of the water beneath him. But, no sign of the surface.
Haplo’s lungs began to burn; bright spots danced in his eyes. He could not hold his breath much longer. Furiously, driven by a panicked fear of drowning, he swam upward.
I’m not going to make it. I’m going to die. And no one will ever know . . . my lord will never know . . .
The agony became too great. Haplo could bear it no longer. The surface, if surface existed, was too far above him. He lacked strength to keep fighting. His heart seemed likely to burst, his brain to explode, his chest flaming with excruciating pain.
Muscles acted in reflex the brain fought against. Haplo’s mouth opened. He sucked in water through nose and mouth and, feeling a strange warming sensation run through his body, assumed he was dying.
He wasn’t, and that astonished him.
Haplo didn’t know a lot about drowning. He’d obviously never drowned himself, nor had he met anyone who had and come back to describe the event. He’d seen drowned bodies, however, knew that when the lungs were filled with water, they ceased functioning, along with all the other organs of the body. He was considerably surprised to discover that, in his case, this was not occurring.
If it had not seemed too improbable, Haplo could have sworn he was breathing in the water as easily as he had once breathed in the air.
Haplo hung motionless in the water and paused to consider this unusual and perplexing phenomenon. The rational, thinking, reasoning part of him refused to accept it, and if he dwelt consciously on the fact that the next breath he took would be filled with water, he caught himself holding his breath again, terror rising in him. But if he relaxed and didn’t think about it, the breath came. Inexplicably, but it came. And, to some part of him, it made sense. A part of him long, long forgotten.