Juliet McKenna - Western Shore

'Velindre.' Kheda reached out towards the mage-woman's arm. Close to, she looked as insubstantial as fog. A shock of lightning sprang from her to numb his whole hand. 'Velindre!' he yelled frantically.

'What?' She half-turned, still keeping her gaze fixed on the crimson dragon raging in the blaze ashore. Her eyes were no longer the soft hazel that had looked so striking against her blonde hair. They were blue like Risala's, but wholly blue, without white or iris. A pinpoint of lightning fire lit the deep sapphire.

Like dragon's eyes. Like Dev 's eyes, just before his magic was the death of him.

Kheda tried to reach her again and once more stinging lightning sparked between them. 'This will kill you!' he bellowed.

Velindre didn't seem to hear him. She turned back to beatific contemplation of the lattice of sapphire light she

was weaving through the flames mocking the crimson dragon.

Wringing his seared and throbbing hands, Kheda

stumbled towards Naldeth. The red glow from the gem bathed him with heat. He reached recklessly for the mage regardless. Naldeth's shoulder was as cold as marble and

as unyielding as any statue.

'What is it?' Naldeth looked briefly at Kheda. His gaze was all ruddy brown but at least that was just the blood still staining the whites of his eyes. Before Kheda could answer, the wizard gasped and his head snapped round towards the black dragon.

The golden magelight was fading from the clinging morass of boiling mud. The black dragon was extricating itself from friable rock that splintered and cracked all around it. With a triumphant growl, it pulled its hind legs

and tail free, leaving dark holes. Hissing venomously, it took a menacing step across the solid surface. Naldeth narrowed his eyes and the rock began to glow red while the fire within the great ruby burned with a new intensity. The dragon took another pace and its dull grey claws sank into newly molten lava viscous beneath its feet. Pulling its forefoot free, the creature roared, its steely

talons glowing white hot at their tips. The dragon coughed pale mist at its claws and the whiteness dulled.

Kheda reached out again and tried to shake the mage's arm. 'You can't win this!' he cried.

'I know,' Naldeth said desperately. 'What do we do?'

'Nexus magic' Velindre's words were a whisper of winter wind. 'To poison the well.'

She was barely more than an eerie white shadow outlined with sapphire magelight. Kheda took a step backwards as the magewoman sank to her knees beside the glowing ruby. She laid her pale hands on it and the fiery light dimmed abruptly.

Naldeth gasped and stumbled sideways. Kheda caught him; the wizard's flesh was warm and his clothes soft cotton.

Naldeth shook him off. 'You don't want to be caught up in this.' His voice sounded as if it was coming from some great distance.

Kheda backed away towards Risala as fast as he dared, trying to keep both of the dragons in view and still watch what the two wizards were doing.

They knelt on either side of the ruby egg, their hands resting upon it. The fire at its heart was now wholly quenched. The crimson dragon on the river bank screeched triumphantly as it wrested command of the fires from the dissipating sapphire magic. The black dragon replied with a snarl of elation and the river's waters returned to drown the slough of lava in a cloud of reeking steam.

The Zaise rocked violently. Kheda stumbled backwards to wrap one arm around the foremast and the other around Risala. Naldeth and Velindre took no notice. All their attention was focused on the great ruby. New lights kindled deep inside it, scarlet and blue, gold and green, rising and falling and rising once more to glow ever stronger.

The fire dragon roared and sprang into the air, the downdraught of its wings buffeting Kheda and Risala mercilessly. It flew inland, straight as an arrow, and Kheda saw that the distant mountain tops were belching white smoke high into the air.

The ship rocked again. This time the entire river was shaken by a shudder deep beneath its bed. Birds rose shrieking from the distant forests as tremor after tremor racked the plain. The banks on either side collapsed, sending great lumps of earth splashing into the water. A gaping crack opened in the barren slope leading up to the plateau. The most violent tremor so far nearly broke

Kheda's grip on the mast and he saw a broad swathe of the grassland drop bodily down, leaving a scar of raw earth as tall as a man.

The black dragon took to the air, clumsy and reluctant. It flew over the Zaise, barely clearing the tops of the masts. It growled relentless hatred at the two wizards still kneeling motionless on the scorched planks, though there was a new note in the creature's snarls.

Fear.

Kheda wrapped his arms around Risala and around the foremast as the waters convulsed beneath the ship. The river surged for the sea, sweeping the Zaise along. As they swept past the riverbanks at dizzying speed, Kheda saw that the plumes of white from the mountains far inland were darkening to mottled grey. Clouds were spreading in all directions over the island, as fast as the terrifying rush of the water beneath them. The Zaise reached the maze of channels and mud banks that made up the mouth of the river and grounded with a bone-shaking thud. They were stranded between sandflats stripped glistening and naked as the river disappeared. The ocean itself was fleeing the shore as the cliffs were forced upwards higher and higher, ragged cracks splitting the rocks with penetrating shocks. The clouds rising from the mountains far inland were now black and riven with brilliant white lightning.

More snow?

The sunlight dimmed as white flakes drifted down to the deck. Kheda tasted sulphur that had nothing to do with the Zaise's lost cargo and realised this was a fall of ashes from a burning fire mountain. Ash fell thicker and faster and drifted around their feet, stirred by a hot breeze. Stones began falling, as riddled with holes as a sea sponge. Cinders dropped from the grey clouds, glowing red. Kheda saw one strike Velindre's shoulder.

She didn't even flinch as the ember burned a dark score in her tunic.

The noise far inland sounded like the worst thunders of every rainy season that Kheda had ever known all recalled together. The lightning that ripped through the massive black clouds grew ever more violent. Close at hand, silent spheres of phosphorescence blinked around the Zaise's mastheads before vanishing as suddenly as they had appeared.

The ship twisted this way and that as the sands and silts of the river mouth convulsed. Kheda looked up to see that the sky was black as ink, as if night had driven out the day. The air was stifling, poisonous. His chest burned with it. Red light rippled along the sooty pall of the clouds.

On the deck between the two wizards, answering scarlet fire blazed in the gem. The rumbling in the far distance rose to a deafening pitch as the shoreline's paroxysms lifted the Zaise upwards. The ship shivered from stem to stern, assailed by brutal pulses of air. Spars split and crashed to the deck while such ropes as remained were ripped from the masts.

Far inland, one of the mountains threw up a flaming column of white-hot rock to rip into the swollen black belly of the cloud. A second eruption followed, and a third. The clouds blazed.

The ruby egg exploded in a coruscating flash. Kheda screwed his eyes shut, blinded with tears. He didn't dare let go of the mast to try clearing his vision. Blinking and gasping for breath, he tried desperately to see what had befallen the wizards.

Velindre lay sprawled in the thick layer of ash coating the deck, her legs twisted awkwardly beneath her. She was bleeding from countless gashes, lacerated by razor-sharp shards of the shattered gem. Her eyes were open,