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poison. “It’s all right for now,” he said, “the magic has returned,” he flung another fireball and watched a moment as the dragonfly he had hit perished in flames.
    The energy dwindled yet again and he stumbled, crippled by the return of the pain. Even as Roli tried to support him, Calistrope was knocked to the deck by a stunning blow and Roli was flung away to lie senseless in the scuppers. Distantly, Calistrope felt stiff limbs embrace him, felt himself lifted, saw the deck recede below him.
    Calistrope felt disconnected from events. He watched as an ant reared up on its hind legs and brought its tail forward. A jet of clear liquid flashed briefly and the ant, spent by the effort, collapsed. The dragonfly which held him dissolved, parts and limbs falling away around him, the raft seemed to leap up at him to strike a final blow at his limp body.
    When the Mage regained consciousness, there was intense pain in his shoulder and dull aches everywhere else. His eyes would not focus; his limbs were slack and refused to work. When his vision did clear at last, he saw two ants methodically cleaning the raft of bodies; the dragonfly carcasses had already been disposed of and now they were rolling their own dead companions to the side and over the edge.
    The pain and the sharp smell of formic acid recalled those final moments to him, when he had been taken by the dragonfly and the ant had saved him, it had obviously been the creature’s last resort. Which one of them had saved his life? He wondered.
    A harsh sound grated upon the Mage’s ears and put an end to conjecture. One of their remaining insect companions was shivering violently, producing the strident note from the joints between the bands of chitin at its throat.
    Ponderos,” he called, his voice weak and low. “Ponderos, the creature is injured; it has lost its antennae.”
    The other ant, partly blinded in one eye, touched feelers to the face mask of the trembling insect and the unnerving noise ceased. The two antennae had presumably, been torn off during the battle and now the creature was unable to communicate, it would be expelled by its nest sisters. Should he feel sorrow? Sorrow seemed as out of place as his earlier thoughts of gratitude, the ways of these insects were curious, even bizarre.
    “Ponderos,” he said again and realized he had been leaning against the huge man’s chest all along; Ponderos’ arms supported him,
    “They don’t feel pain as we do,” said Ponderos. Life and death mean little to them. Machines, living machines.”
    But Calistrope still wondered as the world went out of focus again.
    Calistrope’s wound continued to trouble him, the ether grew no stronger and there was little he could do in the way of self-healing. Even so, he helped in whatever way he could to restore order to the raft and in doing so, belatedly discovered why the dragonflies had attacked them.
    While clearing away debris left by the battle, he found that one of the huge sacs of honeydew—the soldier ants’ only food—had been steadily leaking since they had left Sachavesku. A trail of the rich, aromatic liquid across the lake must have led the party after them; dragonflies had been known to scent honeydew from leagues away. Quickly, he sluiced all trace of the sweet, sticky stuff away and resealed two more of the bladders which had been damaged during the fighting.
    One more thing he discovered: there was no way to steer the squid which had been swimming aimlessly for the past five or six hours, since the attack. The squid was controlled by long nerve fibers taken from an insect pupa and surgically inserted into the cephalopod’s musculature. No sequence of taps or tweaks or pulls provoked the same response twice running and finally, they cut the squid free and thought about sails and makeshift oars.
    If their attempts had been successful, Calistrope might well have considered turning back but there were no materials on the raft to work with. The