I looked at Senna. She was alert. Watching. Her grey eyes were dark with worry, the color of mercury.

"It's him," she said. "It's Merlin."

"Yeah. That was my guess, too."

We had evaded the old man in Egypt. He'd been called there by Senna's mother but in the chaos of destruction that had followed we'd lost him.

As the strange boat closed in on us I could see the old man's long, once-blonde, now greyish hair and beard, imagine his intelligent blue eyes, sunken beneath a lined brow. Remember what I'd seen him do, bring dead animals to life, make a wall rise from a pile of rubble, command a dragon to do his bidding, hold fierce Amazon warriors in suspension.

This was the wizard who wanted Senna, who wanted to keep her from Loki's clutches. Who would imprison her if he could, kill her if he had to.

Wasn't going to happen. Not if I could help it.

"Everyone up," I said. "We have trouble."

Jalil, Christopher and April stirred, awoke with varying degrees of grace.

Christopher shaded his eyes and stared. "It's freaking Merlin, man."

I called to Nikos. The captain was sitting in the shade under an awning, drinking wine with what had to be the first officer, a guy who occasionally stirred himself to yell at the rowers. The two of them were moderately drunk, but the sight of that sail sobered them pretty quickly.

"Captain? Can we outrun him?" Knew that it was a ridiculous question. How would the captain know the extent of Merlin's magic?

Nikos knew as well as I did that the other boat was not obeying the usual laws of sailing. "The gods will decide," he said with a fatalistic shrug.

"Well kick the rowers into high gear," I said. "And raise sail. We may get close enough to ram him."

"This is my ship, friend," Nikos said. "I will decide. And I do not wish to offend the gods. No. That boat is too small to be a pirate, he cannot attempt to board and take us. I think he is interested in something else." He gave me a fish-eyed look that made clear he was not risking his ship for our sakes. The gods wanted us badly enough to blow this boat toward us? Fine with him, he'd been paid, and the gods were welcome to us.

No point in threatening a fight: the crew was small for a ship this size, but Nikos still had sixty guys.

"You worry about the gods? This isn't about the gods. See her?" I pointed at Senna. "She's a witch. Raise sail or she turns your cargo to so much worm food."

The captain thought that over for a moment. There's a real shortage of skepticism in Everworld ands he never doubted my word that Sena was a witch.

"Raise the sail," Nikos ordered. "We will run before the wind, but we will not outrun the will of the gods."

That was the extent of my brilliant plan. Raise sail and hope our fitful breeze would carry us away from Merlin's purposeful wind.

The rowers advanced their rhythm, the sail dropped, and we turned to take the wind from straight aft. The ship responded. I could feel it surge forward and I could see that it didn't make a damned bit of difference. The other boat would catch us. And then what? Was it Merlin alone? If so maybe we could still keep him from boarding.

Then again, maybe not.

Didn't want to ask the others for ideas, though if someone made a brilliant suggestion, I'd put the plan in motion. Better Jalil's plan, or Christopher's, than no plan at all. No plan was what I had.

Senna? No. She had powers, but she was like a really good high school player trying to go one-on-one with Shaq. She was a long way from taking Merlin down.

What were we going to —

The sea erupted! The stretch of sea separating the two converging boats simply erupted, a pillar of water billowed and rose up, impossible.

It looked like some sort of bizarre Hollywood special effect. The sea was opening up, rising up, forming a twisting pillar of boiling green water. It looked like . . .

"It's like the Ten freaking Commandments!" Christopher yelled.

Exactly. Like the movie when the Israelites cross the Red Sea.

But now the water was taking shape. A huge figure was emerging from the swirling green whirlpool. It undulated wildly, but still a vague outline was discernible. A man, a human, at least a creature vaguely resembling a human.

A god. Had to be.

Like a massive, shifting, crudely human-shaped jellyfish. Translucent, like a giant blob of hair gel on the palm of the water, piled upon the water, rising from it.

And inside the creature, part of the creature, swimming around in its belly and brain, there were what looked a hell of a lot like dolphins and sharks and rays and other sea creatures I couldn't quite make out. Clumps of seaweed for all I knew. Maybe whales, it was big enough.

The crew moaning and praying and wailing, the name "Poseidon" on every tongue.

April, making the sign of the cross. Jalil, open-mouthed, still in some way, on some level outraged by the mere fact of magic, the Everworld reality of charms, spells, physical laws broken and mended and broken again. Christopher trembling, mumbling something about Charleton Heston, Pharoah and Let my Freaking People Go.

Senna, standing alone, facing the monstrosity, a cold wind making her hair blow straight back. Calculating. Wondering whether this was Merlin's doing or whether the sailors were right and this was some far greater power.

And then, the watery thing spoke.

The voice, if that's what it was, hard to tell with my eardrums near to bursting and my eyes closing against the sound, my feet slipping out from under me, knees hitting the wooden deck. The voice spoke, shouted, roared like a too, too loud surround sound system in a too, too small movie theatre. The voice seemed to come from the entire body of living water, from no one place in particular, no lips moving or tongue wagging.

"Who dares to command the winds and waters of mighty Neptune? Who dares use magic to challenge my will?"

It took me a second to get it. Neptune wasn't pissed at us. He was after Merlin!

I saw Merlin doing a quick bow-and-scrape and looking more nervous than I'd have thought possible.

"This arrogance, this impudence will not go unpunished," Neptune roared.

Then . . . He, it, Neptune was gone.

The squall attacked with such sudden violence it was like the concussion of a bomb. Wind of terrifying, irresistable force. The squall hit the sail, laid us over on our side. I slid, fell, tumbled down a deck suddenly as pitched as an IHOP roof.

I hit the rail, slammed hard, arm numbed.

A wall of green water swept over the ship. Would we come up? Would the boat swim?

The wave swept past, carrying away the mast, the sail, oars, many of the rowers, and all the crates and crap that had been stowewd carelessly around the deck.

The ship began to right itself, but so slowly, so heavily. It wallowed like a barrel. I spit water, clawed my way back to the oar, had to be able to steer, if the next wave caught us broadside we were all done.

"Row!" I bellowed. "God damn it, row!" The only hope was to get the ship moving, get her bow into the waves.

No rowers. The crew that hadn't been washed overboard was in a state of weeping panic.

I saw a soaked, battered Jalil stagger to a surviving oar, but no way, not one guy, wasn't happening and now the second wave, the mother of all waves was bearing down.

The deck fell away sickeningly as we slid into the trough. The wave towered above us, towered above where the mast would have been. It was a mountain of water. No hope.

A hammer blow that caught me, snatched me away from my precarious hold on the steering oar and carried me away, once more to be stopped by the bulwark. I was half drowned, dazed, bruised.

Still she swam. But the quinquireme was low in the water. Gunwales barely clear.

The crew, what was left, clung helplessly to rails and the stump of the mast. So did my friends. Hopeless. Another wave coming. Relentless. If we stayed any longer we'd go down, sucked down with the ship.

"Off the bow!" I yelled in the wierd calm between waves. "Grab an oar, jump! Go, go, go!"

I saw April running. Christopher limping. The deck tilted perilously. We were stern on to the wave. Now we were rolling, falling toward the bow.

Christopher jumped. Where was Senna?

The wave . . . I jumped.

The wave lifted the boat nearly vertical, slammed into the stern and drove the ship down like a spike under a sledgehammer's blow. The ship speared into the water and disappeared.

"Senna!"

Suction caught me, a swirling drain with me no more than a bug.

Blinded by salt water and confusion and pain, I put one hand over my head, palm flat up, and kicked, used my left arm as a paddle, had to get to the surface, hell, I could be on the surface, couldn't tell, woozy, head hurt.

Remember, David, save yourself first, be able to save the others . . .

Palm hit something hard, better than hitting with my head. I felt along the object, lungs beginning to burn, still blind, kicked to my left, used the free arm again to propel myself beyond the barrier, strong stroke down . . . Broke free!

Air! I took deep, deep breaths, another slap of water almost choked me, rushed down into my lungs. I coughed, gagged, rubbed my eyes until they opened, blink, blink, had to find the others, had to find Senna!

I grabbed a floating timber. All that was left.

"Who's there!" I shouted, but I didn't know if anyone could hear my voice over the boiling sea, a sea tormented into an artificial frenzy by Neptune, a sea meant to kill us. A sky lowering and black, a sky now raining hailstones like bullets.

Impossible to see. The waves were mountains around me. I rose with the swell, was swamped by the crest, slid down the far side of the wave.

Then . . . through the needle-like spray and biting foam, a form, a figure. I kicked, thrust my arms through the water, breast-stroked, dog paddled, anything to fight my way though the chaotic sea, to get closer to that form, that person . . .

"April! April, hold on!"

Struggling, flailing manically, long hair sleeked across her face, wound around her neck like an oil slick, like a slithering snake, April. I swam, saw her gulp about a gallon of water. Saw her eyes close, saw her slip under, one pale hand.

No! One more awkward stroke, thrust, lunge and I would be there. Where? Where had she gone down, exactly? I was exhausted, confused, in the middle of a wrathful storm, but no choice, I had to try. Gulping air, as much as I could hold through the sudden overwhelming weariness, I dove, tried to open my eyes, managed a slit, felt stupidly around with my hands, crying silently, April, April, April.

Had to come up for air, no use to anyone dead, right David? Gasping, pulling wet heavy hair off my forehead, yanking my eyes open with my hands. Nothing, no one, only debris in this watery canyon.