Kulp suddenly thought back to Sormo's ritual that had drawn them into the T'lan Imass warren outside Hissar. Oh, Hood, Soletaken or D'ivers ... but such power! Who in the Abyss has such power? He could think of but two: Anomander Rake, the Son of Darkness, and Osric. Both Soletaken, both supremely arrogant. If there were others, the tales of their activities would have reached him, he was certain. Warriors talk about heroes. Mages talk about Ascendants. He would have heard.
Rake was on Genabackis, and Osric was reputed to have journeyed to a continent far to the south a century or so back. Well, maybe the cold-eyed bastard's back. Either way, he was about to find out.
The presence arrived. His spiritual belly flat on the soft ground, Kulp craned his head skyward.
The dragon came low to the earth. It defied every image of a draconian being Kulp had ever seen. Not Rake, not Osric. Hugely boned, with skin like dry shark hide, its wing-span dwarfed even that of the Son of Darkness – who has within him the blood of the draconian goddess – and the wings had nothing of the smooth, curving grace; the bones were multi-jointed in a crazed pattern, like that of a crushed bat wing, each knobbed joint prominent beneath taut, cracked skin. The dragon's head was as wide as it was long, like a viper's, the eyes high on its skull. There was no ridged forehead, instead the skull sloped back to a basal serration almost buried in neck and jaw muscles.
A dragon roughly cast, a creature exhaling an aura of primordial antiquity. And, Kulp realized with a breathless start as his senses devoured all that the creature projected, it was undead.
The mage felt it become aware of him as it sailed in a whisper twenty arm-spans overhead. A sudden sharpening of intensity that quickly passed into indifference.
As the dragon's wake arrived with a piercing wind, Kulp rolled onto his back and hissed the few words of High Meanas he possessed. The warren's fabric parted, a tear barely large enough to allow the passage of a horse. But it opened onto a vacuum, and the shrieking wind became a roar.
Still hovering between realms, Kulp watched in awe as Silanda's mud-crusted, battered prow filled the rent. The fabric split wider, then yet wider. Suddenly, the ship's beam seemed appallingly broad. The mage's awe turned to fear, then terror. Oh no, I've really done it now.
Milky, foaming water gushed in around the ship's hull. The portalway was tearing wider on all sides, uncontrolled, as the weight of a sea began to rush through.
A wall of water descended on Kulp and a moment later it struck, destroying his anchor, his spiritual presence. He was back in the pitching, groaning captain's cabin. Heboric was half in and half out of the cabin doorway, scrambling to find purchase as Silanda rode the wave.
The ex-priest shot Kulp a glare when he saw the mage clamber upright. 'Tell me you planned this! Tell me you've got it all under control, Mage!'
'Of course, you idiot! Can't you tell?' He climbed his way round the bolted-down furniture to the passage, stepping over Heboric as he went. 'Hold the fort, old man, we're counting on you!'
Heboric snarled a few choice words after him as Kulp made his way to the main deck.
If the Unwelcome's passage was to be bitterly tolerated and not directly opposed by the powers within Meanas, the rending of the warren obliterated the option of restraint. This was damage on a cosmic scale, a wounding quite possibly beyond repair.
I may just have destroyed my own warren. If reality can't be fooled. Of course it can be fooled – I do it all the time!
Kulp scrambled onto the main deck and hurried to the sterncastle. Gesler and Stormy were at the steering oar, both men grinning like demented fools as they struggled to stay the course. Gesler pointed forward and Kulp turned to see the vague, ghostlike apparition of the dragon, its narrow, bony tail waving in side-to-side rhythm like a snake crossing sand. As he watched, the creature's wedge-shaped head appeared as it twisted to cast its dead, black eye sockets in their direction.
Gesler waved.
Shaking himself, Kulp forced his way into the wind, coming to the stern rail which he gripped with both hands. The rent was already far away – yet still visible, meaning it must be ... oh, Hood! Water gushed in a tumbling torrent within the wake left by the Soletaken dragon. That it did not spread out to all sides was due entirely to the mass of shadows Kulp saw assailing its edges – and being destroyed in the effort. Yet still more arrived. The task of healing the breach was so overwhelming as to deny any opportunity of approaching the rent, of sealing the wound itself.
Shadowthrone! And every other hoary Ascendant bastard within hearing! Maybe I've got no faith in any of you, but you'd better acquire a faith in me. And fast! Illusion's my gift, here and now. Believe! Eyes on the rent, Kulp braced his legs wide, then released the stern rail and raised high both arms.
