Well off the starboard bow, another dromon fought its way northward. The rowers were keeping the bow into the wind and making what progress they could, as were those of the Renewal. At the moment, Maniakes worried little about progress. All he wanted to do was stay on top of the water till the storm decided to blow past and churn up some other part of the Sailors' Sea. Somewhere beyond the weeping gray clouds floated Phos' sun, chiefest symbol of the good god's light. He hoped he'd live to see that symbol again.

Suddenly, without warning, the other galley broke its back. One of those surging waves must have struck it exactly wrong. It went from a ship almost identical to the Renewal to floating wreckage in the space of half a minute. The two halves of the hull filled with water almost at once. Here and there, scattered across the ocean, men clung to planks, to oars, to anything that would bear even part of their weight for a little while.

Maniakes pointed toward the survivors. «Can we save them?» he yelled to Thrax. At first, he thought the drungarios hadn't heard him. Thrax made his way back to the stern of the Renewal and bawled in the ears of the men at the steering oars, pointing in the direction of the wrecked galley as he did so. The Renewal swung toward the struggling men.

Sailors tied themselves to the rail before throwing lines out into the heaving sea in hope some of the men who floundered there might catch hold of them. And some of those men did catch hold of them, and were pulled half-drowned from the water that had tried to take their lives.

And some of the crew from the smashed dromon could not be saved in spite of all that the men from the Renewal did. One luckless sailor let go of the spar to which he had been clinging to grab for a rope. A wave slapped him in the head before his hand closed on the line. He went under.

«Come up!» Maniakes shouted to him. «Curse you, come up!» But he did not come up.

Other men lost hold of whatever they were using to keep their heads above water before the Renewal got close enough to pluck them from the sea. Maniakes groaned every time he saw that happen. And he knew other sailors—too many other sailors—had already drowned.

A wave broke over the Renewal's bow. For a hideous moment, bethought the dromon was going to imitate the one that had broken up. The ship's timbers groaned under his feet. Another, bigger wave hit her—and hit him, too. The wall of water knocked him off his feet. He skidded across the deck, fetched up hard against the rail—and started to go over, out into the foaming, roaring sea.

He grabbed at the rail. One hand seized it. He hung on with everything he had, knowing he would not live above a minute if his grip failed.

A hand closed on his wrist. A sailor with a silver hoop in one ear hauled him back aboard the Renewal. The fellow shouted something at him. Wind and storm blew the words away. Then the sailor offered him a length of line. He tied one end around the rail, the other around his waist. That done, he shook a fist at the sky, as if defying it to do its worst.

It seemed to take up his challenge. The wind blew harder than ever. Rain came down in sheets. Only by tasting whether the water on his lips was sweet or salt could Maniakes be sure whether storm or sea buffeted him.

A sailor pointed off to port. More wreckage drifted there, along with human forms. Maniakes started to bellow for more lines to be cast, but stopped with the words unspoken. Those luckless fellows would be walking the bridge of the separator now, to see whether their souls tumbled down into Skotos' icy hell or spent eternity bathed in Phos' light.

Maniakes turned and looked southeast, back toward the Key.

They'd cleared Sykeota some while before, and he could not see very far in any case. He didn't think they would be dashed against the shore, and realized he wouldn't find out for certain till too late to stay disaster if it came.

Lysia staggered out of the cabin the two of them shared. Maniakes ran toward her, signaling with his hands for her to go back inside. He pointed to the rope around his own midsection. Lysia nodded, thrust a pot in which she'd been copiously sick into his hands, and retreated.

He poured the pot into the sea. Like everything else, its contents were scattered and swept away. He was so soaked, he hardly felt wet: it was almost as if he were immersed in a swimming bath. In the middle of summer, both sea and rain were warm, the sole blessing Maniakes could find in the present situation.

One of the broad-beamed merchantmen carrying soldiers wallowed past. It rode lower in the water than it should have; sailors and soldiers both were bailing with might and main. Maniakes murmured a prayer that the ship would survive.

Thrax came back up toward the Renewal's bow. The drungarios disdained an anchoring rope. Maniakes thought that disdain a foolish display of bravado, but held his tongue; he was not Thrax's nursemaid. At the top of his lungs, Maniakes bellowed, «How long will this storm last?»

He had to repeat himself three or four times before Thrax understood. «Don't know, your Majesty.» the drungarios screamed back. He, too, did not make Maniakes hear him at the first try. When he was sure the Avtokrator had gotten his first sentence, he tried another: «Maybe it'll blow itself out by nightfall.»

«That would be good,» Maniakes said—and said, and said. «How long till nightfall?»

«To the ice with me if I know.» Thrax pointed up to the sky. One part of it was as gray and ugly and full of driving rain as the next. The only way they would be able to tell when the sun went down was by its getting dark—or rather, darker.

Nor had Thrax promised the storm would end when night came. Maniakes, then, was faced with waiting an indefinite length of time for something that might not happen. He wished he saw a better alternative. The only alternative that came to mind, though, was drowning immediately. Compared to that, waiting was better. Not far away, a bolt of lightning lanced down out of the sky.

Purple streaks dimmed Maniakes' vision. The lightning could as easily have struck the Renewal as not: one more thing about which the Avtokrator tried not to think.

He tried not to think at all. In the storm, thinking did him no good. He was just another frightened animal here, trying to ride out the forces of nature. On dry land, in among his soldiers or in a sturdy fortress, he could fancy himself the lord of all he surveyed. Here he surveyed little, and could control none of it.

A little while later, Rhegorios emerged from his cabin. A sailor gave him a safety line, which he accepted with some reluctance. «I thought you'd have been here on deck for the whole storm,» Maniakes said. «You're always wild for adventures like this.»

His cousin grimaced. «I've been puking my guts up, is what I've been doing, if you really want to know. I always thought I was a decent sailor, but I've never been in anything like—» Instead of finishing the sentence, Rhegorios leaned over the rail. When the spasm passed, he said, «I wish they hadn't given me this cursed rope. Now it's harder for me to throw myself into the sea.»

«It's not that bad,» Maniakes said, but all that meant was, it wasn't that bad for him. Rhegorios laughed at him—till he started retching again. Maniakes tried to hold the hair out of his face while he heaved.

«Is it getting darker?» Rhegorios asked when he could speak again. «Or am I starting to die?»

Maniakes hadn't paid much attention to the sky for a while, most likely because he'd come to assume the day would never end. Now he looked up. It was darker. «Thrax said the storm might blow itself out when night fell,» he shouted hopefully, over the roar of the wind.

«Here's hoping Thrax is right.» Rhegorios' abused stomach rebelled again. Nothing came forth this time, but he looked as miserable as if something had. «I hate the dry heaves,» he said, adding, Bloody shame they're the only thing about me I can call dry.» Water dripped from his beard, from the tip of his nose, from his hair, from his sleeves, and from his elbows when he bent his arms. Maniakes, who had stayed on deck through most of the storm, was wetter still, but the distinction would be meaningless in moments.