"Neither am I," Harjeedian admitted.
Derian said what he knew the other must be thinking.
"Do you think Waln caught her watching and… did something?"
Harjeedian's brows came together and his mouth twisted with worry.
"I don't know what to think," he admitted, "but I know what I fear. I wish we could find Lady Blysse. She might have answers."
"I've done my best," Derian said, "but finding her—especially at night—is impossible unless she wants to be found. If Elation were here, I might have a chance, but without that sort of help… "
He trailed off and Harjeedian, who had already heard this and knew well who Elation was, nodded.
"I know. Why don't you get some sleep? You rode most of the day and the night isn't getting any younger."
Derian hated to admit how much he needed that sleep. His craving for rest felt heartless when Rahniseeta was who knew where, but the reality of his body's need could not be ignored.
"I'll try," he said. "Would you mind if I stretched out here? I don't want to go even as far as Barnet's room in case something happens."
"Take my room," the aridisdu replied. "I'll take the divan out here in case Rahniseeta returns."
"Fair," Derian said.
He staggered off to collapse on Harjeedian's bed, and even the lidless stare of the watching snakes was not enough to keep him from sleep.
Derian awoke to the sound of voices in the next room, and to the awareness that they had not spoken more than a few words. As he struggled into consciousness and onto his feet, he managed to reconstruct what he'd heard.
"Truth see something, but she not tell, only lead us here. Fast."
"Let me get you something to drink," Harjeedian said, "and I'll wake Derian Counselor. Then you can relate your tale only once."
Derian made his way to the doorway at that moment to be confronted by a remarkable sight. He was accustomed to Firekeeper and Blind Seer, but the addition of the jaguar Truth to the company added an indefinable note of wildness to the scene. The owl and raven that flapped into the room a moment later did nothing to reduce the strangeness of the scene—especially as the raven wore around its neck a sapphire-and-diamond pendant depending from a fine gold chain.
"Derian," Harjeedian said. "You're awake."
The completely unnecessary statement made Derian sure that for all his apparent poise, Harjeedian was rattled by this strange visitation.
Though I wonder what's strange to him, Derian thought, accepting the glass of water Harjeedian handed to him. The Beasts or Firekeeper?
The animals were drinking from bowls Harjeedian set on the floor, their thirst testimony to Firekeeper's claim that they'd come at a run. Firekeeper looked sweaty and disheveled, but no worse than Derian had seen many other times. She set her tumbler aside, and began speaking with unconscious arrogance:
"Truth say to tell you, something bad is happening, going to happen at Misheemnekuru. She say it be worse if I am not there. You must get me there."
Harjeedian nodded.
"We have had some inkling of this. Waln Endbrook and his people are gone, and according to a missive left by my sister, Rahniseeta, their destination was Misheemnekuru."
"So," Firekeeper replied impatiently, "I say. Bad thing. Can we go now?"
Derian knew it was time to insert himself into the conversation. When Firekeeper got into one of these moods, she was an impediment to her own wishes.
"Firekeeper," he said. "Ask Truth if it can wait until morning. Harjeedian was telling me that sailing by night is a thing best left to those who know the waters—and no one knows the inland waters of Misheemnekuru."
"No," came the blunt reply. "Truth say more time goes, more chance even me being there cannot fix. We go tonight."
Harjeedian asked, his tone far more hesitant than was usual.
"Can Truth tell if my sister is with those who have gone to Misheemnekuru?"
Firekeeper glanced at the jaguar, then nodded her head once, abruptly.
"She is. Truth says time eddies around her. I not know what this means, but Truth thinks is important."
Harjeedian drummed his fingertips on the table in three sharp tattoos. Then he stood, his mind made up.
"I learned to be a fair sailor, during my time at the outpost. There are those in this temple who can sail as well, but explanations would need to be made."
Firekeeper shook her head.
"Must go fast. Derian can help you. No explanations."
Truth's very audible growl seemed to second this.
"Fine," Harjeedian said. "Derian?"
"I'm with you," Derian said, eyeing the jaguar and wondering what she would do if he continued to delay. Blind Seer seemed to guess his thoughts and panted laughter.
Firekeeper was halfway out the door before she paused.
"Harjeedian, do you have that seasick medicine?"
The aridisdu nodded.
"Please bring some," the wolf-woman went on. "I not think I be good for Truth or for myself if my stomach is my head."
Frightened as she was, even through the haze of pain from where someone had struck her on the head, Rahniseeta had to admire the competence of the northern sailors.
Under the guise of sailing around the bay, the northerners had charted their course to Misheemnekuru, and now, with those observations augmented by maps Waln had copied from the library in Heeranenahalm, they were taking the sailboat along as confidently as if it had been full daylight.
At first their only light had been a dark lantern, but when the Islander was well away from shore, Waln permitted a bow lantern as well. The moon had waned to a sliver, but as their eyes adjusted to the available light, the lantern was quite enough for Rahniseeta to easily view the expressions of her captors.
Waln looked so completely relaxed and in control that Rahniseeta was startled until she recalled that the role of ship's captain, if not this particular venture, must be like a homecoming to him after the uncertainties of the past year or more. In contrast, Shivadtmon, the aridisdu from the Temple of Sea Beasts, looked edgy, almost sick. No matter what excuses he had made to Waln, Rahniseeta was willing to bet Shivadtmon was far from certain about the religious rightness of this venture.
Barnet Lobster looked tense and concerned, but he took Waln's commands right along with the other sailors, so readily, in fact, that Rahniseeta was finding it hard to believe that this was the same man with whom she had traded stories and songs. Once again, he seemed alien and unpredictable.
In time she noted that two of the sailors pulled line far less than the others. Instead, Rarby and Shelby stood amidships on opposite sides of the vessel. As Rahniseeta's night vision improved she realized the blocky items near them that she had taken for some part of the sailboat were in fact an array of weapons.
Did Waln then fear a mutiny? Or were Rarby and Shelby alert to some other danger, and did that alertness explain some of Shivadtmon's unhappiness?
Rahniseeta would have liked to work through these possibilities and arrive at some conclusion that would help her plan some practical course of action, but over and over again her aching head kept returning to the very real danger of her situation. She was the prisoner of men who thought nothing of sacrilege and piracy if such would advance their desires. For now she had a value as a potential hostage, but if she caused too much trouble, they might well decide that prospective value was not reason enough for keeping her alive. After all, their initial plans had not included a hostage.
So she huddled where she'd been placed so that whoever was manning the wheel could keep an eye on her. So motionless and meek was she that she was spared the indignity of having her hands bound or indeed of any other form of restraint. As the hours passed, Rahniseeta rather came to despise herself for offering so little threat. Lady Blysse would not have been given such freedom.
Rahniseeta thought of the wolf-woman as last she had seen her, crouching alongside the strangely maddened jaguar, and wondered, as she
might have about a story she'd heard told long ago, how that had resolved. Her memories of Derian, of the dinner she'd eaten not all that long ago in the Temple of the Cold Bloods, of the documents she had been copying, all seemed distant and unreal. The only thing that mattered was the rise and fall of the boat's deck, and the increasing frequency with which Shelby made excuses to stroll near her and brush against her as he passed.
In this strangely focused state, Rahniseeta was very aware when the feeling of the water beneath the hull altered, becoming smoother and less choppy. The movement of the air was less vigorous as well, and the salt scent of the open water was now mitigated with that of damp vegetation and dead fish.
Land smells, she thought. Misheemnekuru? The thunderstorm must have hit here as well. Harder than on the mainland.
Waln, who had not spoken for a long time except to order a sail hauled in or a line loosened, now spoke.
"This is far enough for now. We'd be fools to try and land in the dark. We'll drop anchors bow and stern, and keep to the middle of the channel until we have light. Rarby, you, Nolan, Wiatt, and Elwyn get some sleep. The rest, stand by to fend off shore if we've misjudged."
But his voice held confidence that they would not have misjudged, and it dropped to a conversational level as Waln turned to Shivadtmon.
"You can sleep if you wish, Aridisdu, but maybe you'd like to luxuriate in being where none of your people have dared go for well over a hundred years."
Shivadtmon did not look as if this honor pleased him; nonetheless, he did not move to where the off watch were rolling out blankets and making themselves comfortable with the ease of long practice.
"I will remain awake," the aridisdu said. "I am not in the least weary. If you wish to rest… "
"I'm fine," Waln said. "Done longer watches than this since I was a boy."
Rahniseeta thought they might talk more, but silence fell. She drifted off just a little, but never so much that she wasn't aware of the quiet circuit of the sailors about the deck. She woke to full knowledge of herself and her surroundings when she felt a hand on her shoulder, a hand that slid to her breast and squeezed once, then twice, in a confidently familiar manner.
"Wake up, sweetheart," Shelby said softly into her ear. "I've brought you some water."
Indeed, he pressed a cool leather bottle into her hand, but he didn't remove the hand that was casually exploring her curves, now dropping from her waist to caress her hip, then down to squeeze one buttock.
"Nice," he said, and he might have been talking about the water.
Footsteps on the deck announced Waln's return to his post by the wheel. He looked down at the tableau, but made no effort to interfere.
"How's she doing, Shelby?"
"Nice," the sailor said. "Real nice."
"Sitting up here on deck can't be too comfortable," Waln began. "Why don't you take her below and make her… "
What he was about to suggest was interrupted by a thumping from below the waterline.
"Have we swung and hit a rock?" Shelby asked, leaping to his feet and forgetting Rahniseeta in an instant.
"Doesn't sound quite like… " Waln said. "Wrong feel. Grab a lantern and look over starboard. Tedgewinn, do the same over port."
He was obeyed without delay or question.
"Movement down there," Shelby reported almost immediately. "In the water. Do they have sea monsters here?"
"Looks like animals of some sort," Tedgewinn corrected. "Seals, I think."
"Shivadtmon," Waln ordered. "Take a look. Tedgewinn, show him what you've spotted. Shelby, wake Rarby. Get someone to take over watch on your side."
"Aye, sir."
Rahniseeta came fully awake as the sailors sprang into action. She rose and went to look over the rail, but made no move to jump.
She had come to respect Waln Endbrook too well to think that he might have forgotten her. In any case, even if he did, what could she do? If she went over the side and swam for land, would the yarimaimalom know her from any other human? And what if those weren't seals down in the water? What if there were sharks?
Rahniseeta wondered if the seals Tedgewinn thought he had seen were yarimaimalom, if this was some sort of warning that the boat had strayed into forbidden waters. In a moment, Shivadtmon confirmed her guess.
"Seals, definitely," he said, "and from the size I'd guess Wise Seals. They're not trying to upset the boat, but they definitely want our attention."
"I'll give them attention," Rarby growled, lifting what Rahniseeta now realized was a nasty-looking harpoon.
Shivadtmon was shocked.
"No!" he said. "They're not attacking."
Rarby looked at Waln.
"Do we have to wait for them to stave in a couple of planks before we hit? It's gonna be hard to get back with a busted boat."
"Wait," Waln said, "and if they try to damage the boat, then by all means use your harpoon. Dawn isn't long away. Once we're on shore, and pull the boat into more shallow waters, the seals—if they're wise—are going to think twice about attacking us."
He laughed at his pun, and Lucky Elwyn laughed shrilly with him. Rahniseeta felt sick, and thought she saw a similar nausea in Shivadtmon's eyes.
"We won't have to deal with seals ashore," Barnet said, his voice too even. "Just wolves, wildcats, and who knows what else."
"They," Waln replied confidently, "can't do anything to the boat. We've come with enough quarrels to make their mothers think they've turned into porcupines. You have any problem with that?"
He looked at Barnet as he spoke, but Rahniseeta had a feeling that the statement was made for Shivadtmon. Neither man said anything, and Waln went on with the same raw confidence filling his words.
"We'll explain really careful to these yarimaimalom what we're about. They don't want what we want to take—that's sure enough. We'll explain. When they know we're going to leave as soon as we've done a little digging, why I don't think they'll risk their pretty hides."
"And if they do," said Wiatt the cook, a man Rahniseeta had always thought more „ gentle than not, "we'll take them with us. Can you imagine the crowds that would come to see the hide of a giant wolf or jaguar? It would make a tavern back home, it would."
"Maybe so," Waln said equably. "Shivadtmon, maybe it wouldn't hurt if you started the explaining right now. Just lean over the edge and talk. Explain to the beasties that we're here and we're going as soon as we get what we came for. They can be good hosts and let us visit, or be rude and get what we've got for them. Pretty it up any way you like, but make clear we're not bluffing."
"I'll show 'em," Rarby said, obviously itching to use his harpoon on one of the shining backs that surfaced from time to time as the seals rose to breathe.
"Patience," Waln advised. "Patience. Save your harpoon for those that deserve it. Unless these animals are a lot wiser than I think, someone's going to have to test if we're serious."
Rahniseeta heard his words with horror, not so much that Waln spoke so of killing the yarimaimalom, but because from the manner in which he spoke it was evident that—unlike Wiatt, who still seemed to think of them just as merely giant animals—Waln Endbrook thought of the yarimaimalom as people. They weren't even people he particularly disliked, but they were people he wouldn't hesitate to kill if they got between him and his goals.
Rahniseeta listened to the urgent note in Shivadtmon's voice as he spoke over the rail to the splashing pod of seals, and knew that he, too, had awakened to the viciousness of his allies. Dantarahma and his associates might contemplate offering a life to the deities, but that sacrifice in itself was a twisted way of expressing respect for life.
Waln had no such respect, and he had put weapons into the hands of those of his men he knew for certain shared that lack of respect.
For the first time, Rahniseeta faced her own fate squarely. As long as she was useful as a hostage, she would live, but in the end, she would die. She might be used to reward Shelby and some of the others, but in the end Waln
would make sure she would die. She had seen too much, could give lie to whatever excuses and justification he thought he could make.
She was doomed and Shivadtmon was doomed. The only difference between them was that she knew, while from the desperation in his voice, Rahniseeta could tell that the aridisdu still twisted after the cruel lure of hope.
Chapter XXXVI
Despite Firekeeper's best efforts to get the humans moving, dawn was pinking the horizon to the east by the time Harjeedian loosed the sailboat from its moorings and set course for Misheemnekuru.
Although the wolf-woman would not admit it lest the humans be given further excuse for dallying, the time spent preparing for the venture had not been completely wasted. A few owls and other night birds had methodically surveyed the various inlets throughout Misheemnekuru and located where the Islander was anchored.
Staying as high as was practical, an osprey now circled overhead, keeping watch over the ship and the humans aboard her, ready to relay through others of her kind any significant developments.
When Truth told Firekeeper that one of the islands near to where the Islander was anchored was the one upon which resided the maimalodalum, Firekeeper was deeply troubled. Although humans might believe otherwise, on most of the islands the yarimaimalom would simply flee if humans violated their territory. There would be time enough after careful reconnaissance to decide how to deal with them with the least risk of injury to the yarimaimalom.
But, for all their animal characteristics, the maimalodalum were very human in their attachment to the towers in which they dwelt.
"They will not leave them—and least not to permit them to be looted," Truth said with certainty. "Not only are the maimalodalum as territorial as nesting birds, in the towers are stored records of the days before Divine Retribution drove the Old Country rulers from our land. The maimalodalum have guarded these for generations, and will not likely relinquish that trust now."
Firekeeper thought there were other things the maimalodalum would be reluctant to give up. She remembered the softly glowing panels of light, so superior to any lantern or candle. She wondered, too, what other little comforts the maimalodalum retained from the days before the practice of more complex magics had all but vanished from the New World. She did not think the maimalodalum would surrender these lightly.
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