J. King - PLANESHIFT

Eladamri's steed stroked against the current. Clods of ice drifted toward him. A berg shoved up against the colos. It cracked its hooves on a lower ledge of the thing and drove on. These big hunks of ice couldn't float across the shallows, either. They would get stranded. Among them, the elves could shelter, perhaps even climb out of the flood.

The shallows lay just ahead, a streaming shelf. The current dragged against them. Colos paddled hard just to maintain their position. Even if they could reach the flat ice, the beasts would be spent.

Leaning in the saddle, Eladamri whispered into the yak's ears. He spoke the elven language of animals, a combination of sound and emotion.

"Swim, great beast. Swim with all your might. Rest and peace await us there. Rest and peace and solid ground."

The colos leaned toward the cluttered shallows. Its neck bent against steaming water. Hooves churned. Inch by inch, it approached the shelf. Current dragged its matted fur. Liin Sivi's mount swam beside his own. Other beasts crowded up in a long line.

Eladamri's steed caught a hoof on the ice. It cracked away, a fragile edge. A second try gave solid footing. The beast dragged itself forward through a chest-high tide. It kicked its hind legs and leaped. The colos bounded up above the icy waves. It hung for a moment in glittering air before splashing down again in the flood. Another surge of its hooves, and the beast was driving up, clear of the ice pit.

The others followed. Liin Sivi was just beside him, and eight elves came behind her. Their eyes were alight with hope. Bergs gleamed like monoliths all around, the water rushing past. Through the shallows, colos leaped happily.

Eladamri waved his folk forward. "Ahead, it's shallower still-!"

His beast rounded a huge berg only to lose its footing on an icy slope. It plunged into a sucking tide. The others could not see the danger. Liin Sivi also slipped into the slick well. One by one, the elves went too. They floated again in a raging current. The waters drew them down toward another maelstrom. The whirlpool moaned as air escaped its spinning throat. The column descended into a wide crack in the ice.

"Fight for shore!" Eladamri bellowed, hauling hard on the reins. The beast lagged beneath him. It had already given its last effort. Hooves churned the tide but without their previous vigor. There was no strength left in them, only desperation. The other mounts could do no better. Their riders were white-blue with dread and cold. "Fight for shore!"

Even as he said it, he knew it was impossible. Reins lashed the water. The colos bobbed beneath him. It was drawn around the curve of the whirlpool. Eladamri gazed down into the black hollow. He looked up to Liin Sivi, her steed struggling. He reached for her. His fingers came up only with empty air.

Down the maelstrom he went. He sucked a last breath before icy water closed over his head. The crisp sounds of struggle were replaced by a droning thunder. In an instant, rider and mount were hauled down into blue-blackness, then the colos was gone. Eladamri thrashed, reaching for a handhold. His fingers clawed knobs of ice worn smooth. There would be no sharp edges to rip him apart. The waters had taken care of that, but there was no shortage of burls. They pummeled him like fists. One blow between the shoulder blades hurled the breath from his lungs.

That was it. A man cannot live without breath. Eladamri went limp. His body became one with the ripping tide. He tumbled through dark spaces. Down he went. Water sought its level-the deepest, darkest, coldest place beneath the glacier. Soon all light was gone. There was only the incessant roar and the battering world.

This is what it is to die, this blackness.

Then light returned. It glowed red all around. Whatever volcanism melted this glacier gave its angry radiance to the ice. The water's drone became a shout. Thin walls led inexorably, inescapably, to a bubbling shaft. Eladamri plunged through it.

In a great cascade, Eladamri tumbled into a huge ice cave. He dropped through the cracked ceiling. Suddenly, there was air around him-blisteringly hot air. He breathed. His lungs burned, but better to burn than to die. The smell of sulfur stung his nose. For what seemed a whole minute, Eladamri plummeted. How deep could this chamber be? He glimpsed Liin Sivi and the elves in the cascade above him.

Eladamri struck the hot sea below. He sank. The cascade shoved him down. He tried to tread water, but it was so charged with air it would not buoy him. Something solid struck his side. Eladamri swung his feet around and pushed. He shot up through the waters. The surface above was red and rolling. Eladamri's head broke through.

He dragged a deep breath of the brimstone air. He was below the falls. They gleamed with the crimson light of the erupting volcano. The current here was deep and fast. It descended through steep sluices into blackness. Overhead stretched the smooth, gray ice of the glacier.

Eladamri was perhaps a thousand feet deep. There were four thousand more feet down to bedrock.

Another head broke the surface just upstream. It was Liin Sivi. She gasped a breath.

"Sivi!" Eladamri shouted. He reached toward her and struggled to stroke upstream. It was no good. The rush of water flung him down.

Liin Sivi swam with the current and reached him. Their hands met, and they pulled each other close. The embrace took them beneath the water, but they would gladly trade air for another soul.

Something pounded against them. Eladamri looked up to see a dead colos float past. The beast's legs had been shattered in the terrible descent. Its blood made a red veil in the water.

Gripping Liin Sivi's hand, Eladamri stroked toward the surface. Together, they emerged. They gulped greedy breaths.

No sooner were Eladamri's lungs full than he shouted, "Look out!" He pulled Liin Sivi aside as a huge wedge of wood shot beside her. It was the ram from a Keldon long ship.

Instead of shying back, she lunged and grabbed hold. Liin Sivi pulled him to the ram.

"It floats," she said simply. "It floats, and it takes the beating for us."

"Yes," Eladamri replied. He clung to the wedge. It seemed eager to descend. Ahead, the ice cave was a swallowing gullet. "Where are we going?"

Liin Sivi shrugged. "Where everyone is going. Where the water goes."

The heat of the upper chambers waned. Cold gripped their legs.

"No one escaped," Eladamri said bleakly. "No one who fought escaped. Neither the living nor the dead."

Liin Sivi turned. She wore a rueful smile. "It would be comforting to believe in Twilight, that there is a destiny for virtuous warriors."

"Even the Keldons can't believe in Twilight. Even Doyenne Tajamin, Keeper of the Book of Keld," Eladamri echoed hollowly.

Sivi's eyes were beautiful in the failing light. "Then we have the best fate of all, Eladamri, to die valiantly."

Just ahead, the wide river reached a precipice, where it dropped into utter blackness.

Eladamri drew Liin Sivi up beside him. He stroked back the black locks of her hair. He leaned toward her and cupped her cheek in his hand. Their lips met in a single, warm kiss.

They crested the waterfall. It ripped the ram from their hands. It ripped them from each other's arms. Then all was blackness.

Death was not as he had expected. He had expected torments, but there was only numbness and noise. He had expected other souls, but he was alone. The darkness was right, and the moaning-the sudden crash of huge things and the throb of his head-but the rest was wrong. Worst of all, he had expected to care, but Eladamri cared about nothing at all.

Death was easy. Life had been hard. To live in the shadow of the Stronghold, to battle Dauthi horrors, to lose a daughter and lose a world and fight for one that wasn't even his-these were the hard things. To lie here with something dragging at his legs and something else clutching the scruff of his neck, this was easy.