Don Bassingthwaite - The Yellow silk

Li felt the sudden cry all the way through his body, from his ears deep into his bones. Magic, it had to be more magic-except that whatever spell had been cast, the wizards seemed to have caught the worst of it. They were staggering, hands pressed over their ears.

He wasn't going to question a lucky break, though. The abrupt noise struck terror into the pigs, fear breaking through Yu Mao's eerie power over them. The animals scattered and ran in panic. Li ran, too. Yu Mao might call the pigs again and he wasn't going to be trapped a second time! In the corner of the sty, a wheelbarrow had been propped up between the tall, plank fence and the wall of the Eel. Li sprinted for it; leaping onto the wheelbarrow; bouncing off a stout fencepost; and vaulting onto the Eel's low, almost-flat roof. Up out of the shadows of the alley, red sunlight caught him, the last light of the day. He dashed away from the edge of the roof and whirled around.

With shocking grace, Yu Mao-following the same route-leaped up onto the roof as well. "Ayeh!" he screamed, shaking his swords.

"Hrah!" shouted Li. His dao flashed bloody light as he whirled toward his brother.

A second volley of Mosi's darts stabbed into Tycho and he writhed with the agony that wracked his body. The Yellow Silk winked at him from his sleeve. A bolt. A lash. Anything to deliver swift retribution to the mage! He stretched and reached, but it seemed as if his arms wouldn't obey him. When he tried to move them, they flopped about like long eels squirming in the bottom of a boat. He looked up. Hanibaz, wand at the ready, and Mosi, still veiled by his fiery shield, were stepping warily closer. Tycho groaned and forced himself to his knees. "Stay back!" he said. Some strength flowed back into his arms and he raised them threateningly. "Stay back or-"

"Or what?" laughed Hanibaz. "What are you going to do to us, bard? " He lifted his wand.

The roaring, musical shout that blasted them was so loud that the force of it swept debris along the ground and set Mosi's robes flapping, so loud that it was an almost-visible rippling in the air. Even on the edge of that power, Tycho howled and covered his ears. Within it, Mosi and Hanibaz were sent staggering. When the shout ended a heartbeat later, their ragged screams filled the seeming silence. He stared at them. What…?

"Tycho!"

A voice filled with music and maybe just a hint of the power that had blasted the wizards called his name. A voice he hadn't heard speak with that strength in two years or more. He whirled around.

Veseene stood on the table as if it were a stage. She stood strong and proud, a hand on Laera's shoulder for balance only. Her body trembled, not with palsy, but with a charged and vibrant energy, like a tuning fork that had just been struck. "Tycho!" she called again.

Her mouth was stained red. A pouch, likewise stained red, lay at her feet. The tea pouch. Empty. Laera's eyes were stunned and frightened.

No wonder Veseene's voice had seemed muffled when he had ordered her to run. No wonder she had fought Laera to stay.

She'd eaten the raw, wet tea herbs at full strength.

A moan forced itself out of Tycho's throat. He staggered to his feet. "Veseene, what have you done?"

"Tycho!" she said a third time, a note of command creeping into her voice. "Come here! Do you have your strilling?" Numbly, he nodded and slid the instrument around from his back. It had acquired a few fresh scratches and one of the tuning pegs was cracked, but a strilling was a sturdy instrument. Veseene smiled and power gleamed in her eyes. "Then come here! I need you!"

She straightened herself, held her head high and began to sing with a force that seemed impossible for her frail body. Tycho froze, caught up in the beauty and strength of her song. It pulled on him like the moon on the tide, a wild and liquid music. Magic swirled among the notes. Even when he'd first met her, before the palsy had set in, he'd never heard Veseene sing like this! For a moment, he could picture her as she must have been at the very height of her power. Veseene the Lark, magic flowing like a second voice in her song.

Then she hit-very briefly-a false note. Her voice, her song, faltered for just a heartbeat.

The clash of metal on metal broke into the music. Tycho whirled. Up on the rooftop of the Eel, Li fought with Yu Mao. Butterfly swords fell in unison against dao. Li staggered.

"Tycho!" called Laera. "Tycho!"

Veseene needed him. But so did Li.

Tycho tugged the Yellow Silk out of the sleeve of his coat. Golden light flashed in the sty as he unfolded it a little bit, just enough that he could snatch up a rock and wrap it in the brilliant fabric. He darted forward. "Li!" he shouted-and hurled the rock-weighted Silk up onto the roof. It shone in its arc like a shooting star. With a whispered prayer that Li got to it first, he turned his back, set his strilling against his shoulder, and pulled his bow from the strap.

Bow on string brought music echoing out of simple wood. He found the note that Veseene had missed and threw it back to her, pure and sweet. Her voice caught it and sent it ringing into the gathering night, her song restored. Tycho picked up the melody as she sang, improvising a harmony to accompany it. He walked back toward her, taking up a position beside her makeshift stage. Magic-Veseene's magic-wrapped around him. It tingled across his skin and in the tips of his fingers, a thrill that sank deep inside him and brought shivers to the pit of his stomach. Laera could feel it, too. Tycho could see the wonder in her face. He smiled at her — a smile that slipped a bit as another voice joined their song. A deep and powerful voice, soft but cold, a chilling susurration. The shiver in him turned to a shudder. He glanced up at Veseene. Her face glowed with exaltation and confidence. And control. Whatever this new voice was, she had called it. He swallowed his fear and played.

Old Veseene's singing was amazing. Lander had frozen, listening in wonder, as soon as her voice took flight. And he had laughed at her weakness the previous night? If he got out of this, he was going to be making some deep, deep apologies!

Brin was still raging at the wood and thatch that trapped them, barely aware, it seemed, of Veseene's music. Li Chien and Yu Mao had taken their fight to the roof and Brin seemed determined to join them. Lander could hear the sound of swords from high above, but there was nothing to see.

Other figures were stirring out in the gathering shadows, though. Lander's teeth ground together as he peered through the ragged gap in the thatch. Hanibaz and Mosi were finally shaking off the effects of whatever magic Veseene-it could only have been Veseene-had blasted them with. Hanibaz had his wand out. Lander felt an urge to shout out to Veseene and Tycho, to warn them. The two bards seemed completely caught up in their music and entirely unaware of the recovering wizards.

But Hanibaz hopped suddenly from one foot to the other, looking at the ground and cursing. Mosi looked down, too, and hissed audibly. The veil of flames around him winked out. Lander sat forward, peering through the gap and trying to see whatever it was they saw.

His knees came down in a pool of ice-cold water. He gasped and rocked back again. Outside, Mosi called out a word and bright light flared.

It flashed across dark water. Rapidly rising dark water. Lander's knees weren't the only things wet now. The water was rising in the collapsed shelter as surely as it was outside. "Brin!"

The ranting halfling was standing on a sloping board. He turned around and slipped, hitting the water with a solid splash-and a scream so loud the water might have been boiling! He leaped for Lander. "It's the sea!" he shrieked "The sea is rising! Get us out!"

This time there was no point in protesting. Whatever dangers there might be outside, they were preferable to drowning in a pigsty! Lander sloshed around in the water-it had filled a third of their little space in just moments-getting his legs under himself and bracing his arms against the fallen roof. He heaved.