“Is this the Great Lake that Mageroy spoke of?” asked Roland, squinting at the shoreless horizon in the early morning. “Or have we come to the sea?” A stiff wind stood their hair on end, chilling the sweat plastered on their shirts from the flight out of the Thousand Valleys.

Berch dipped his hand in the water to taste it. “Freshwater. It’s a lake.”

With great effort, they pried a boat loose from its rack and dragged it across the beach. The boat was sturdy and well-crafted, but of a tightly compacted wood that made it heavier than its small size warranted. Roland wondered out loud if the thing would really float.

“Begging your pardon, but why would anyone bother building boats that did not float?” said Sloat.

“Hey, I know!” said Roland, brightly. “If we wreck the other boats, the Droom can’t follow us?”

Sloat put a strong arm on Roland’s shoulder. “These boats belong neither to us nor to our enemy. We shall not do evil to their owners.”

By now, Roland knew the Tishaaran code well enough not to argue. They slid the craft over the gravel and into the waves. No sooner did they shove free from the shore than the wind strengthened and switched direction. Blowing directly into their faces, it showered them with mist from the swelling surf hurled their craft back onto the beach.

“There is a Tishaaran saying that God is the master of everything but luck,” cried Sloat, as he jumped out of the boat onto the shore. With a glance backward at the red and silver appearing over the knoll, he added, “Then again, after what Mageroy said, I wonder if there may be some Droom magic involved in this shift of wind.”

“Digtry keeps saying there is no such thing as magic,” Roland shouted as he and Berch strained to relaunch the boat.

“I believe that is a question of semantics,” said Sloat, “Whatever Digtry’s issue with it may be, the result, I am afraid, is much the same. There, get back in and row for all you are worth.”

With Sloat shoving and Roland straining at the oars, they eventually broke loose from the shore. But the effort cost them so much time that they were scarcely out of archery range when the dreaded silver and crimson streamed onto the beach.

“Why do the bad guys have to be so determined and disciplined in the realms?” complained Roland. “Why can’t they be fat and lazy?”

He and Sloat labored furiously, one on each oar, as the Droom dragged boats across the gravel. Sloat had the hardened, sinewy muscles of a career outdoorsman, but many of the Droom knights were endowed with massive shoulders and biceps. Although activity in the realmlands had greatly built up Roland’s strength, he was not in their league as a power rower. The Droom flotilla closed the gap between them at an alarming rate.

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“We cannot hope to beat them across the lake in this gale!” shouted Sloat, his beard dripping with spray. He pointed to a jut of land a few hundred yards away on the eastern shore. Roland nodded, planted his heels against the boat’s slippery bottom, and plunged his oar deep into the water. The boat swung around to the left as if on an axis.

With feverish, yet rhythmic strokes, they pulled for shore. Sloat worked doggedly to keep the wind from blowing them off course.

The lead Droom boat, however, continued to close in on them, its prow slamming through the choppy surface. Suddenly, the winds calmed. Immediately one of the Droom rose to his feet and set an arrow to his bow.

“Faster!” yelled Roland. He and Sloat slashed maniacally at the water with their oars.

The archer stood, propped up by two other knights, his scarlet cloak streaming behind him as he lined up his shot.

Whooosh!

Whatever the Droom were doing to influence the wind, it took some time for the lake to settle from the buffeting of moments ago. The boat’s instability probably saved Sloat’s life as the arrow missed its mark and ripped through Sloat’s fingers, slicing the skin over one knuckle.

Ignoring the pain and the slipperiness of the oar in his bloody hand, Sloat leaned into one last mighty pull, then let go his oar. He whisked Mageroy’s pouch from his pocket, nearly dropping it in the water that sloshed at the bottom of their boat. The archer fitted another arrow to his string; now so close that Roland could see those hellish eyes lining up the shot at point blank range.

Sloat ripped open the pouch and dashed the contents into the water. “Pull!” he shouted, as he grabbed his oar. Before they could finish two strokes, the boat began to drag as if they had run onto a sand bar. Two yards from shore, it ground to a halt.

Roland leaped from the boat toward the shore and sank up to his knees in a thick gel. But Sloat remained where he was, watching in horror as the sudden, unexpected drag on his boat caused the archer to lose his balance. The Droom pitched into what once was lake water. He floundered near the boat, spluttering and gasping as he screamed for help.

“What’s wrong?” cried Roland. Seeing Sloat’s bloody hand, he asked, “Are you hurt?”

Sloat did not answer or even move until the Droom hoisted the spluttering archer out of the amber sludge and into the boat. “I nearly caused that archer to drown,” he said.

Roland stared at him in disbelief. “Am I missing something here? Aren’t they trying to kill us? Hey, whatever you did, it worked. Magic, no magic, who cares! They’re stuck. We’re finally rid of those goons. We’re going to live. You see, that’s what is called a good thing. Grins. Happy dances. Not this sorry faces and hand-wringing and ashes!”

Still shaken, Sloat stepped up on the shore and tried to scrape the odorless gunk from his foot. “What is this evil potion? Why, the powder turned the whole lake into jelly!”

“I think it’s like some kind of agar,” said Roland. “I’ve used something like that in biology labs. Can you imagine how concentrated it must be to do that to a body of water this size?”

“What have we done?” cried Sloat, in despair. “We have killed every living thing in the lake!”

“Please!” begged Roland. “I’m sure the agar is solid only near the surface--probably goes down only a few feet. I’ll bet you anything it wears off soon,” he added, although that was only a guess to keep Sloat moving. “Of course, until it does, they’re going to have a boring sit. Let’s just make sure we’re long gone by the time they get out of there.”

He grinned at the cursing Droom stranded no more than 20 yards from shore, islands in a sea of magic agar. They might as well have been 400 miles at sea. One of them stubbornly strained at his oars, but it was like trying to row through tar.

“Too bad,” chuckled Roland, thumbing his nose at the stranded enemy. “Things just never ‘gelled’ for them on this trip.”

“Do not gloat, if you will pardon my reproof,” cautioned Sloat. “I know little about this devilish realm. But I do know enough to understand that it has taken a great measure of luck to get us free of these Droom. Do not tempt fortune.”