"What would you have me do, Witch?" Fowler demanded. "I cannot change the way the wind blows!"

"And if you could turn the wind, would you have it blow straight at the caravel?"

The captain scowled, suspicious. "Aye, but first I would call Umberlee up from the great depths and have her chain her pet."

"That I cannot do. I know nothing of this Umberlee."

Ruha released the binnacle and cupped her hands together. She blew upon her fingers and spoke the mysti- cal incantation of a wind enchantment. Her breath shim- mered with a pale sapphire glow, then it swirled in her palms, emitting a low, keening howl such as starving jackals make at night. From Captain Fowler's throat arose a gasp of surprise, and his gaze swung from his ship's flaxen sail to the whistling breeze she held in her grasp.

"Lady Witch, what have you there?"

"It is the wind, Captain Fowler." Twinkling blue streamers spilled from Ruha's hands and spun across the gloomy deck, each adding its own piercing note to the wailing of the gale. "I am determined to reach that ship before the dragon sinks it."

"That I can see, but it is no simple thing to bring a ship like Storm Sprite around. It takes time."

"The dragon will give you no time!"

Ruha raised her hands toward the distant caravel, which now lay hidden behind another black and looming water dune.

"Hold your magic, Lady Witch!" commanded the cap- tain. "You may have hired this ship, but I am the-"

The dune broke over the starboard side, and a torrent of white foam came boiling down the deck. Ruha flung her spell at the distant caravel and saw a dazzling stream of blue-sparkling wind shoot from the side of her own vessel. She threw her arms around the binnacle, and the dark waters were upon her. The raging currents swept her feet from beneath her. Had her elbows not been tightly wrapped around the slippery wood, surely she would have tumbled overboard and drowned in the angry black sea. Instead, she locked her fingers into the cloth of her aba and held fast, and when the torrent had receded, she pulled herself to her feet.