A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 2

They were quickly closing on the rocky coast.
    The sky's rumbles were nearer now, and Cutter could see the wavering treetops evincing the arrival of a high and fierce wind, stretching the clouds above the island into long, twisting tendrils.
    'I have no suggestions,' Apsalar finally replied. 'There is another concern – currents.'
    And he could see now. The island did indeed drift, unmoored to the sea bottom. Spinning vortices roiled around the sandstone. Water was pulled under, flung back out, seething all along the shoreline. 'Beru fend us,' Cutter muttered, 'this won't be easy.' He scrambled to the bow.
    Apsalar swung the runner onto a course parallel to the
shore. 'Look for a shelf low to the water,' she called. 'We might be able to drag the boat onto it.'
    Cutter said nothing to that. It would take four or more strong men to manage such a task ... but at least we'd get onto shore in one piece. The currents tugged at the hull, throwing the craft side to side. A glance back showed Apsalar struggling to steady the tiller.
    The dull grey sandstone revealed, in its countless shelves and modulations, a history of constantly shifting sea levels. Cutter had no idea how an island could float. If sorcery was responsible, then its power was vast, and yet, it seemed, far from perfect.
    'There!' he shouted suddenly, pointing ahead where the coast's undulations dropped to a flat stretch barely a hand's width above the roiling water.
    'Get ready,' Apsalar instructed, half rising from her seat.
    Clambering up alongside the prow, a coil of rope in his left hand, Cutter prepared to leap onto the shelf. As they drew closer, he could see that the stone ledge was thin, deeply undercut.
    They swiftly closed. Cutter jumped.
    He landed square-footed, knees flexing into a crouch.
    There was a sharp crack, then the stone was falling away beneath his moccasined feet. Cold water swept around his ankles. Unbalanced, the Daru pitched backward with a yelp. Behind him, the boat rushed inward on the wave that tumbled into the sinking shelf's wake. Cutter plunged into deep water, even as the encrusted hull rolled over him.
    The currents yanked him downward into icy darkness. His left heel thumped against the island's rock, the impact softened by a thick skin of seaweed.
    Down, a terrifyingly fast plummet into the deep.
    Then the rock wall was gone, and he was pulled by the currents under the island.
    A roar filled his head, the sound of rushing water. His last lungful of air was dwindling to nothing in his chest. Something hard hammered into his side – a piece of the
runner's hull, wreckage being dragged by the currents – their boat had overturned. Either Apsalar was somewhere in the swirling water with him, or she had managed to leap onto solid sandstone. He hoped it was the latter, that they would not both drown – for drowning was all that was left to him.
    Sorry, Cotillion. I hope you did not expect too much of me —
    He struck stone once more, was rolled along it, then the current tugged him upward and suddenly spat him loose.
    He flailed with his limbs, clawing the motionless water, his pulse pounding in his head. Disorientated, panic ripping through him like wildfire, he reached out one last time.
    His right hand plunged into cold air.
    A moment later his head broke the surface.
    Icy, bitter air poured into his lungs, as sweet as honey. There was no light, and the sounds of his gasping returned no echoes, seeming to vanish in some unknown immensity.
    Cutter called out to Apsalar, but there was no reply.
    He was swiftly growing numb. Choosing a random direction, he set out.
    And quickly struck a stone wall, thick with wet, slimy growth. He reached up, found only sheerness. He swam along it, his limbs weakening, a deadly lassitude stealing into him. He struggled on, feeling his will seep away.
    Then his outstretched hand slapped down onto the flat surface of a ledge. Cutter threw both arms onto the stone. His legs, numbed by the cold, pulled at him. Moaning, he sought to drag himself out of the water, but his strength was failing. Fingers gouging tracks through the slime, he slowly sank backward.
    A pair of hands closed, one on each shoulder, to gather the sodden fabric in a grip hard as iron. He felt himself lifted clear from the water, then dropped onto the ledge.
    Weeping, Cutter lay unmoving. Shivers racked him.
    Eventually, a faint crackling sound reached through,
seeming to come from all sides. The air grew warmer, a dull