Don Bassingthwaite - The Yellow silk

Hanibaz came about in the air, his cloak whipping with the breeze of his passage, and dived back at the creature. His wand flicked and the red stone in it flashed. For a moment, the same red light flickered through the elemental, and it shuddered. The dark water swallowed the light. Both arms crashed up at Hanibaz. The mage dipped and swooped desperately.

Over the wash of surging waters, the shouts of the mages, and the music of his own strilling, Tycho heard another cry. He looked up and saw metal flash through magelight as Li's dao plunged down into the swirling floodwaters. Up on the Eel's roof, two figures struggled. "Veseene," he shouted. "Li needs help, too!"

Veseene looked up. Tycho saw her tense. The fingers of her raised hand opened wide and her song rose with the power of an entire choir. Like a woman gathering her skirts, the elemental turned and swirled. Water surged after it, flowing up and into its liquid form, adding to its bulk.

And it grew. The arms that pursued Hanibaz Nassor swelled-an entire river of water snaked across the sky and swatted him out of the air. He slammed down hard into the already collapsed and partially submerged pig shelter. Mosi Anu cried out as the water grabbed his disc and sucked him right into the elemental's body.

Likewise caught in the pull of the rushing waters, the entire Eel shifted and lurched. On its shuddering roof, Li and Yu Mao staggered apart.

The impact of Hanibaz Nassor did what Lander had been unable to do: the roof of the collapsed shelter folded under his falling body, lifting up a full foot above the water at its near end. Magelight flooded in. Hanibaz lay half-submerged among the wreckage caused by his crash. Lander stretched over and hauled the wizard's head up out of the water. His eyes flickered briefly. "Brin," Lander called against the sudden roar of the water elemental outside, "he's still alive!"

The halfling unwrapped himself from the post he had been clinging to and looked at the barely conscious wizard. He flicked his one-eyed gaze to the gap above the water. With an unholy cry, he swarmed through the beams of the broken roof and squirmed out, flipping up on top of the roof. "Brin!" Lander yelled. He gave Hanibaz a push that rolled him out of danger of drowning and half-swam through the water over to the gap.

New light-golden light-flared like dawn as he stuck his head out through the gap. He squinted against it and looked up.

The water elemental that swelled up abruptly above them shook even Yu Mao. His swords hesitated in their fall and Li rolled aside. Not enough! Yu Mao's eyes snapped back to him and he swung his weapons sharply.

The Eel shook as the water elemental turned. Thrown off balance, Yu Mao staggered. His butterfly swords chopped down into slate. Li staggered, too, though, slipping to one knee and sliding across the shaking roof.

Loose slates clattered past him as he slipped and spun.

Light flashed in the periphery of his vision. He twisted around.

The Yellow Silk hung by a fold of fabric that had become wedged between two slates.

He looked up. Yu Mao was crouched a few feet higher on the roof. Their eyes met and Li's heart twisted one final time. "Yu…" he breathed. His brother snarled and lunged. Li scrambled for the Silk, snatching it free, and letting it unfurl as he rolled to his feet.

Sunlight caught by weavers and dyers in ancient times shone out as bright as the day it had been captured. It blazed across the night of Spandeliyon, turning the dark Jfloodwaters blue-gray and the writhing column of the water elemental green and froth white. Li held the Yellow Silk high and the pride of Kuang rippled like a hundred summer days. Yu Mao's charge thundered on the Eel's roof. Li whirled toward him, the Silk billowing out in his hand.

"Ayeh!"

Yu Mao's butterfly swords sliced down. Their edges met the Silk-and slashed the shining fabric into ragged ribbons. Its light winked out.

Most of it. Yu Mao met Li's eyes again. They both looked down. One last shining bolt was clenched in Li's hand, plucked from the Yellow Silk of Kuang and hidden behind the rippling fabric.

Its other end pierced Yu Mao's chest. Li opened his hand and the bolt of light vanished. Yu Mao's eyes rolled back. Li watched his brother crumple backward. Smoke curled from the edges of a wound that showed no sign of healing.

Up on top of the shelter roof, Brin let out a wordless cry as the big Shou fell. Twisting around, Lander could just see the halfling's face blotched white and red with rage. His entire body trembled and his hands clenched into tight fists, his right squeezing his little knife so hard that blood oozed between his fingers.

Lander choked and flinched back into shadow.

Brin screamed again and whirled around. His right hand flicked out***

At the first scream, Tycho turned, still playing along to Veseene's song. Brin was standing on the roof of the collapsed shelter, staring up at Li and Yu Mao's fallen body. The bard caught his breath. "Ves-"

Brin screamed again and this time he whirled around, one hand flicking out. Tycho caught the flash of a knife streaking toward him before he could duck or even flinch — and suddenly he was playing alone as the elemental collapsed in a rushing cascade and the floodwaters began to drain away.

He turned. His bow froze on the strings of his strilling. Veseene hung in Laera's arms, her faded blue eyes still wide, her mouth still open, her expression still exalted.

Brin's knife stuck out of her skull, embedded up to its hilt just behind her left temple.

Laera stared at Veseene then up at him, and a horrible high whimper shivered out of the young woman's throat as she sank to the ground, Veseene's body clutched to her. Li was calling something from the rooftop of the Eel. Tycho couldn't really hear him. The blood in his ears was rushing too loud. His strilling fell from his hand and slid down to hang at his side. His bow clattered to the tabletop and splashed into the receding water below. He turned back around. Slowly.

Brin still stood on the broken roof of the shelter, one-eyed gaze glittering in the magelight. The halfling looked around at the destruction of the flood, at the bodies of pigs that hadn't managed to swim away, at the bodies of the men killed fighting. He smiled. Savagely. "You stupid dock rat!" he howled. "You want me? You want me? " He pounded a hand against his chest. "You can't take me! You killed Yu Mao-I killed Veseene. And that's just a start!"

He leaped down from the shelter into water that was now barely waist deep on him and splashed toward the table. His eye shone with madness. "You're going to wish-"

Music, magic, and rage twisted together inside Tycho's heart and he sang. Sound buffeted Brin and sent ripples across the water all around him. The halfling staggered, sloshing sideways. His gaze met Tycho's and he staggered on. "You're going to wish," he continued, "that you had never met me. That you had never met hen" His head jerked at Veseene. "No one beats me!" He pounded his chest again. "I beat them. Just like I beat you. Like I beat the curse of Sowl" His hands slapped the surface of the water, splashing Tycho. "Not even the sea can take me! Not a pig around but I'm still alive. I outsmarted the-"

Tycho blasted him again. This time the surface of the water jumped and when Brin looked up, blood was oozing out of his nose. He stared at Tycho. "Is that the best you can do?" He surged forward through the water.

New songs come where you learn them. Veseene's words.

Tycho tipped his head back and drew a deep breath, focusing his mind, focusing his magic-focusing his song. He looked down at Brin and sang a new song. New to him at least. Veseene had been a teacher to the end.

A chill voice answered his song. It wasn't the deep voice that Veseene had commanded, but it didn't need to be. The water behind Brin frothed and surged. The halfling spun around, staring, as an elemental no larger than he was reared up out of the darkness, seized him with liquid limbs, and swept him down into cold seawater. Brin let out a squealing scream-a scream that ended in an explosion of bubbles. Tycho leaned out, watching Brin's struggles and singing until no more bubbles came up.