The djinni sank until their feet were no more than ten yards from the wharf. There they drifted along above the pursued pair.
Mufaddal panted out, "Only chance! Under the dock!"
Heraj gasped, "We might stand and fight him," with no conviction in his voice at all.
"Ha," said Mufaddal, and with one desperate leap plunged off the wharf into the sea. Heraj was one step behind him. Godwin came to the edge and halted, baffled. Their heads did not show above the water.
"Mihrjan," whispered Ramizail, "they'll escape!"
"Observe," said the djinni equably. He gestured with a finger, and a section of the dock became transparent to her gaze. Beneath it, Heraj and his master were clambering up, dripping, onto a shelf of boards some twelve feet from the outer edge of the wharf. Godwin still scratched his head in bafflement. Obviously he could not see through the pier as she could.
The two conspirators crouched there, watching the sea apprehensively. "Now look," said Mihrjan. Ramizail, staring intent, saw a gray snout poke up into view behind them, followed by a multitude more. "Rats!" she breathed.
"Aye, rats. All those who live beneath the wharf, mistress, called here by the scent of their dinner."
It was as though the lead rat had given a signal. In a trice the legions of furred ghastly beings had poured over the two squatting men.
Screams of pain and horror came up through the boards of the upper dock. Heraj straightened as though to stand, cracked his head on the wharf, and sank down, half-conscious, into the midst of the swarming rodents. He gurgled and flung his arms in the air as their small sharp unclean teeth found his throat, his belly, his eyes.