The Black Prism(24)

For a moment, nothing happened. Kip looked over at Sanson. Both of them were stuck to the wall, arms spread wide to get good holds on the stone so they wouldn’t have to tread water. Kip had the sudden feeling that they’d been set up. The drafter knew they were here; he’d just told his apprentice that so Kip and Sanson would stay in place. They were going around. He should swim, right now, as fast as he could.

He tried to breathe deeply, swallowing on his fear. Sanson returned his gaze, his own eyes worried, but not understanding what Kip was thinking.

Then a wheel of flame spun out above them. The animals on the bridge and the island shrieked in a hundred different ways. The wheel drew back and unraveled, becoming a whip, somewhat like what the master drafter had sent out just a minute before—but much, much larger. This was the youth’s work?

The whip snapped out, but not at the post of the drawbridge. Instead, it cracked audibly as it snapped on the flank of the brick-maker’s draft horse. Crazed with pain and fear, the old beast surged forward. Kip heard the boy laughing as the horse rammed directly into the rail of the drawbridge. The rail cracked and broke open. Several pigs and thin-coated sheep fell into the water.

The draft horse tried to stop, suddenly aware of the drop, but its hooves scraped wood for only a moment before it plunged headfirst into the water. Water splashed all the way over to Kip and Sanson.

“What was that?! Was that what I told you to do?” the master drafter demanded.

Quickly, Kip looked from the animals in the water to the bridge. The bridge post was just starting to catch fire in earnest now. Once it climbed up to the drawbridge, the animals would go crazy, just as the horse had. Kip didn’t think the drawbridge itself would catch fire quickly, but he couldn’t be sure.

If he and Sanson wanted to get out of the water market and out of the burning town, the fastest way was to go under the straining bridge in front of them and directly over the waterfall to head downriver. The other way would be to go the long way around the circular lake, exposed to the eyes of the drafter and his apprentice above them the whole time. Either way they went, at some point they would be visible.

Of the animals that had fallen into the water, the big horse was the only good swimmer. It was kicking toward the other side of the water market, away from the boy and the fire. The sheep were screaming, little legs churning frantically. The pigs were squealing, lunging at each other, biting.

There was a meaty slap and a cry of pain from above the boys.

“You never go beyond my orders, Zymun! Do you understand?!”

The drafter kept yelling, but Kip stopped listening. The drafters were distracted. It was now or never. Kip drew a few quick breaths, nodded at Sanson—who looked bewildered—and launched off the wall, swimming toward the drawbridge.





Chapter 13





Gavin drafted a blue platform, thin, barely visible against the water it floated on.

“You did that just to make me nervous, didn’t you?” Karris asked.

Gavin grinned and stepped onto the scull. He extended a hand to Karris, giving her a little bow. She ignored his hand and hopped aboard.

He pulled up the keel as she landed, so the scull zipped out from under her feet. She yelped—and he caught her with a cushion of softer green luxin that quickly morphed into a seat. He lifted the seat and placed it on the front of the scull, then bound both of their packs to the scull near his feet.

“Gavin, I am not going to sit while you—” She tried to stand, and he threw the scull forward. With nothing to hold on to, she tumbled back into the chair with another yelp. Gavin laughed. Karris was one of the best warriors the Chromeria had—and she still squeaked when surprised.

She shot a look back at him, peeved and amused at once.

“I thought you’d like being swept off your feet,” he said.

“You had your chance for that,” she shot back.

His grin dropped into the waves like so many other treasures and disappeared.

Karris looked dismayed. “Gavin, I…”

“No, I deserved that. Please, go ahead and stand.”

Sixteen years. You’d think we’d have both have moved on. Not that we haven’t both tried.

“Thank you,” she said, but her voice was contrite. She stood up, feet wide, knees slightly bent.

The scull was propelled by banks of little oars jutting out from each side. Through generations of study, green and blue drafters had figured out how to use gears and wheels and chains to drive the oars, each drafter customizing his craft to fit his own body so that he could propel it with whatever combination of arm and leg movements he preferred, and making whatever tweaks he thought made it more efficient. Because the craft had so little friction with the water, an athletic drafter could go the speed of a sprinting man for an hour.