Battered and deafened by the horrendous blast, the people in the boats clung helplessly to one another-some moaning incoherently, others mute, all stunned and bewildered as whole mountain ranges crumbled and sank before their eyes.

The sea, choppy and confused, now boiled as the flaming rock and mud struck its littered surface. One boat, near Charis, was hit by a smoldering chunk of magma and sank instantly, dragging the two other boats down with it. Water cascaded over the nearby boats in a streaming spray.

Charis caught a movement out of the corner of her eye and turned her head toward land just in time to see the tidal wave cast up by the explosion, rushing at them with stupefying speed.

The people sat paralyzed as the wall of water swept nearer; there was no time to scream or look away. Charis felt the boat tilt up beneath her and clawed at one of the thick cargo ropes as the wave slammed into the boat, lifting it high and rolling it over in a single sweeping motion.

Sky and sea changed places. All was wet, choking darkness. Charis’ hands were ripped from the rope and she was slammed against the gunwale. She would have been thrown from the boat but for the water cascading over her, pressing her down with crushing force.

It happened in an instant. The boats rolled, righted, and the tidal wave rushed on, leaving the survivors half-drowned and gasping for breath. Charis dragged herself upright coughing and sputtering, regurgitating bitter brine; she shook the stinging water from her eyes. The other boats spun in the swell, some of them listing heavily, full of water, and Charis saw that there were fewer now than there had been moments before.

The sky was a gruesome gray-green soup of cloud and smoke, tinged with angry red streaks above the earth where the disemboweled remains of Atlantis trembled and quaked, her once-fair body broken and sundered by hideous paroxysms. The people looked on dumbly, mouths slack, eyes dead with shock.

The boats drifted. Time hung suspended between day and night in a hideous twilight, volcanic steam and smoke steadily clotting the sky, and the dire sounds of fatal convulsions still rumbling across the water. Oceanus grew gradually more calm until the only sound heard was the gentle slap of water and the occasional chunk of floating debris nudging the sides of the boats.

Charis, raising her head now and then, continued to scan the far horizon. But as the numbing hours passed, even her steadfast spirits began to flag and she made her reconnaissance less frequently. The day passed, to be followed by a long, wearying, fitful night in which sleep came as a blessed refuge, too brief by far. The survivors-less than three hundred remaining-huddled in the drifting boats and gazed at their tortured land, trembling beneath its torment.

Dawn arrived with no sunrise, just a minute lightening of the slate-dark heavens, and another interminable day began. The boats drifted; the remnant waited. Charis wondered whether it would not have been better simply to stay in the palace and let the walls fall in upon her, upon them all.

It was Annubi who saw the sail first. He was in the boat next to the one Charis was in, and the two had drifted close. “Charis,” he said softly. She raised her head from its rest on her folded arms. “Charis, look to the north and tell me what you see.”

She looked long and then stood. “Is it a sail? A ship? Annubi, is it?”

They watched, squinting hard at the tiny square on the horizon, dark-hued in the gloom, the ship carrying it still too far away to be recognized. The sail drew slowly closer. Soon others saw it too, raising a clamor in the surrounding boats, some waving articles of clothing to draw the ship to them.

“There is only one,” Charis called to Annubi when the ship could at last be seen. “I see only one! Where are the others? There must be more.”

“Only the one,” affirmed Annubi. “And it is not large.”

“It is coming this way!” shouted someone across the water.

The ship had adjusted its course and was now making for the flotilla of half-swamped boats. The survivors watched as it plowed toward them and their elation changed gradually to alarm, for the dark ship gave no signal of recognition, nor did it show any sign of slowing in the water but drove ahead, its great sail bulging full.

“They do not see us!” cried one of the survivors. The ship bore down, its sharp prow slicing the gray wash. The cry was repeated across the water. The ship was close now, close enough to see individuals standing on the deck, watching them. The survivors called out, raising their voices hysterically.

Something is wrong, Charis thought and realized in the same instant what it was: Seithenin!

The ship closed on the first of the small boats even as the oarsmen struggled at the oars to propel it from the path of the oncoming ship. The boat was struck amidship with a resounding crack. It bounced in the water, splintered, and split, spilling passengers and cargo into the sea. A second boat managed to slide away from the punishing prow; another was saved when one of the oarsmen lifted his oar and slammed it against the moving hull and drove his own boat away, losing his balance in the process and tumbling into the water.

Another boat, heavy with water and too sluggish to move quickly, was tipped and swamped in the wake of the passing ship. It slid under the surface without a sound, its passengers shrieking as it went down.

The death-ship passed the boat where Charis sat mute with rage, seething inside. Seithenin’s face appeared briefly over the rail. Charis saw him and recognized him; she spat and saw him sneer, half-crazed with hate.

“Seithenin, I defy you!” The voice was Avallach’s. Charis turned to see her father standing in his boat: wet, bedraggled, but still king. His hate had roused him to shout his impotent threat.

The big ship’s rudder wagged sideways; the ship turned, the sail collapsed as it made to come at the boats again.

Men rushed about on the deck; the points of spears bristled at the rail. “They are coming back! They will kill us all!” cried a woman in a nearby boat.

But even as the ship heeled toward them, its sail flapping uselessly, it seemed to hesitate. The arc straightened and the sail puffed full again as it swung onto a new course. Seithenin appeared at the rail once more and called back, “I am sorry I did not kill you, Avallach! Now Oceanus will have to finish what I began.”

Charis turned and saw then what Seithenin’s captain had seen and what had driven him away before finishing his cruel work: Three fast triremes were flying toward them across the water.

“Belyn and Kian! We are saved!”

No one heard her. The others had seen the ships too and, overcome with relief, were shouting themselves hoarse.

Charis gazed around her. Of the ninety boats that had left Kellios harbor, she estimated that fewer than fifty remained: some had drifted away in the night, others had been struck by flaming debris or scuttled by the tidal wave, and at least three were destroyed by Seithenin-although most of the passengers of the rammed vessels were still alive and clinging to floating wreckage.

The ships struck their sails as they came gliding nearer. The oarsmen in the fishing boats eagerly plied their oars, bringing the rescue craft close, and the first of the passengers clambered up the hulls of the larger ships on nets flung over the rails. Charis saw to it that all passengers were rescued and the cargo taken aboard before she allowed herself to be pulled up onto the deck.

Belyn stood before her, exhausted, wreathed in an air of sadness. “I knew you would find us,” Charis said as Belyn gathered her into his arms.

“Charis, I am sorry,” he whispered, and she felt his tears warm on her neck. “We could not come sooner.”

She pulled away. “Is Elaine…?”