Then, suddenly, inexplicably, when the terrible spout should have been upon them, there was no sound. Nothing. The rain stopped. The water grew calm.

Durwin lifted his head and peered above. “Look! The spout has skipped over us.” It was true. The waterspout, which only moments before towered above them, threatening to draw the tiny boat and its occupants up into its dreadful tempest, had lifted over them, dancing back up into the clouds. They could see its green tornado spinning directly above them, twirling like a burrowing worm, and heading inland.

The calm lasted only brief seconds. Then the wind and water hit again with renewed force. The boat spun helplessly in the torrent, the rudder slammed into the stern and broke its hinges. Theido threw himself to the tiller, but it was too late. The handle flopped uselessly in his hands.

“The rocks!” Alinea screamed.

All turned to see the jagged roots of the island jutting crazily from the swell and disappearing again, only to rise once more as the water rushed around them.

The rocks formed a sharp row of teeth protecting the shallow bay beyond. In calmer weather the breakers beat upon them ineffectually, and even the most hopeless sailor could navigate them with ease. Now, however, the stony teeth gnashed furiously, driven to rage by the boiling sea.

The boat was lifted high and thrust forward with the waves. As the water crashed down a rock rose beside them on the right. Ronsard, picking up his oar, shoved against the rock as it shot up and the boat spun aside, barely grazing her fragile hull against the unyielding mass of stone.

Again the boat was lifted high on the frothing waves and thrust forward. Trenn on his side wiped the flying spume out of his smarting eyes and held his oar ready to avert another rock. But before anyone could see the warning tip shooting up out of the foam, they heard a sickening crunch as the boat dropped square upon the crown of a huge rock they had just passed over.

The hull splintered and buckled. The boat teetered, now completely out of the water, stranded upon the rock as the wave drew away. For a second the small craft hung in the air, a fish speared upon a jagged tooth of stone. Then, with a sideways lurch the boat began to tear away from the rock as the hull gave way.

A wave pounding in upon them picked up the damaged boat again and split it in two, spilling its occupants into the rolling, angry sea.

NIMROOD strode the high parapet of his castle, his black cloak streaming out behind him. His raven-black hair-shot through with streaks of white like the lightning flashing among the black storm clouds he watched and reveled in-flew in wild disarray. The booming cataclysms of thunder echoed in the valleys below his mountaintop perch, and the evil wizard cackled at each one.

“Blow, wind! Thunder, roar! Lightning, rend the heavens! I, Nimrood, command it! Ha, ha, ha!”

The sorcerer had no power over the storm; it was a pure thing of nature. Instead, he seemed to draw a strange vitality from its awesome force as he gazed out toward the bay where Pyggin’s ship lay at anchor. Nimrood could not see the ship; his castle was built upon the topmost peak of the highest of the rugged mountains which rose out of the sea to form his forsaken island. The bay was a league or more away as the gull flew.

The storm, spreading its anvil high into the atmosphere, flew on reckless wings in from the sea. Nimrood watched, his thin old body shaking in paroxysms of demented glee; his sinister features lifted upward toward the storm, illuminated by the raking streaks of lightning. The wizard chanted, danced, and laughed, thrilling to the storm as it passed overhead.

At last the heavy drops of rain began plummeting to earth. Loath to leave, but hating the wetness more, Nimrood the Necromancer turned and darted back into his chamber.

“Euric?” he shouted, throwing off his black cape. “Light the incense. I feel like following the storm.” His henchman scuttled ahead of him as he descended the spiraling stone stairs to a vaulted room below. The room was bare stone except for a five-sided stone altar standing in the center.

Euric, with torch in hand, flitted around the altar lighting the pots of incense which stood on low metal tripods, one at each corner of the altar. “Leave me,” shouted Nimrood when he had finished.

Nimrood stretched himself upon the altar and folded his hands over his breast. He let his breathing slow, becoming more shallow, as the incense swirled around him. Soon he dropped into a deep trance and the sorcerer’s breathing seemed to stop altogether.

As Nimrood sank into the trance his mind rose up as if through layers of colored smoke, ascending on the pungent vapors of incense. When the smoke cleared he was flying high above the earth in the face of the onrushing storm.

The wizard closed his eyes and when he opened them he had taken the form of a kestrel, soaring in the turbulent air. His body tingled with excitement as he played among the rolling clouds, diving steeply and rising again in the blink of an eye.

As he wheeled ecstatically through the rushing wind he watched the land slide away beneath him. Directly below he saw his castle, dark upon its crown of mountain. To the west, falling sharply away to the bay, the thickly wooded hills hunched like the backs of tormented beasts. Beyond them, the glimmering crescent of the bay itself.

In a sudden blinding burst of lightning his sharp kestrel’s eyes spied something in the bay. “I wonder what that might be?” he thought to himself. “I will fly closer for a better look.”

Nimrood dove into the wind, streaking to earth like a comet, and heading for the bay.

“A ship!” he squawked when another stroke of lightning revealed the vessel’s outline. Then he sailed out over the bay. “Could it be Pyggin’s ship? I did not expect them so soon.”

Then, hovering in the air above the bay, the wind whipping through his feathers, Nimrood saw far below a small boat break away from the side of the ship. “Ach!” he screeched, “my guests have arrived!”

With that he flew back to the castle on the speed of the racing wind and swept into the vaulted chamber through an arrow loop in the wall. He alighted on the edge of the altar and became a wisp of gray smoke lingering in the air before dissolving above his own entranced form beneath.

As soon as the smoke vanished, the wizard’s eyes snapped open and he sat upright with a jolt. “Euric!” he shouted, “come here at once!”

“Where is that fool servant?” he muttered, swinging down from the altar. “Euric!” he shouted again, then heard his servant’s quick steps in the corridor beyond as he came running to his master’s call. Nimrood met him at the door.

“You called, wise one?” The pitiful Euric bowed and scrabbled before the sorcerer.

“Yes, toad. We have work to do. Our long-awaited guests are even now arriving. We must prepare to meet them. Call the guards. Assemble them before my throne; I will give them their instructions. Hurry now! No time to lose!”

It was the third inn they had tried that morning, and this one sat down on the wharf at the water’s edge. Toli and Quentin stood looking at the squeaking, weather-beaten shingle which swung to and fro on the brisk wind. It read Flying Fish in bold blue letters hand-painted with some care by the owner whose name, Baskin, was also painted beneath the legend.

“This is the last public house in Bestou, I think,” remarked Quentin. “This must be where they stayed. Come on.” He jerked his head for Toli to follow him inside. Toli, stricken with the jittery bafflement that most Jher held for all cities of any size, followed woodenly as he gazed along the waterfront.

“Excuse me, sir. Are you Baskin?” Quentin inquired politely of the first man they encountered within.