“Probably dreaming,” the Hunter offered.
“Which doesn’t mean she’s wrong,” the priest snapped.
He knelt before her then, so very gentle in his voice and in his manner, so tender and loving in every way, and he asked her to tell him what she had seen. So she did. Haltingly, hesitant, not quite sure how to capture the terrible vision in words. When she was done she lowered her face into her hands and whimpered softly, and the rakh-woman came over and sat by her side and held her close, so that the voices of all the rakh children could comfort her.
“It’s a dream,” Tarrant said derisively. She could hear the scorn in his voice. “Forged by the mind of a frightened child, manifesting her fears. Nothing more.”
“I don’t like it,” the priest muttered. “I don’t like any of it.”
The Hunter snorted. “Are we to be ruled by dreams now? Not just our own, but those of a half-crazed child?”
“She’s more than that,” he growled. “You know that.”
“What I know is that I chose Freeshore because it seemed the best port for our purposes. And so it remains, despite all dreams to the contrary.”
“But it wasn’t even your idea in the first place. Was it? As I recall, it was Moskovan who suggested—”
“Please, priest! Do you think I’m stupid? Before I sent you to meet with Ran Moskovan, I subjected him to such a thorough Knowing that I could write his autobiography for him—and then I added a few extra Workings just in case, to keep him in line. That man could no more betray us now than he could sail this sea without a ship.”
There was a long-drawn silence, cold and hostile.
“Look.” Tarrant’s voice was like ice. “You do what you want with the child. But if there’s an ambush waiting anywhere for us, it’s probably in Hellsport—and I for one have no intention of meeting it. Dreams or no dreams.”
His footsteps were hard and angry on the cold wooden stairs, and when he had passed through the galley door it slammed shut behind him, as if underscoring his mood. Jenseney cringed deep into Hesseth’s warmth, where the hate and the rage couldn’t reach her. The rakh-children whispered to her, words of comfort in an alien tongue. Go to Hellsport, they whispered. Hellsport is safe. Freeshore is a trap.
I know, she thought to them. The Light swirled about her, brilliant now. What can I do? How can I change thingsi Tell me, she begged. But the voices faded into a dull rumbling, not like speech at all. More like distant thunder.
“What now?” Hesseth asked.
The priest exhaled heavily as he dropped down onto the bench beside them. “What, indeed? I can’t turned the damned ship around by myself, can I?”
“Would you if you could?” she asked quietly.
Jenseny heard him catch his breath. There was a long pause.
“Maybe,” he muttered. “It doesn’t matter, does it? The decision’s been made for us. It’s not like you and I can start off to Hellsport on our own.”
She could hear something else now, a new kind of whisper. Like a wind blowing toward them, sweeping across miles of open water. With it came the delicate percussion of rainfall, the timpani of distant lightning. Too soft yet for other ears to hear; it was the Light that brought it to her, spanning the empty miles for her ears alone.
“God damn it,” the priest muttered. “I hate sea travel.” And then he was gone and the galley door slammed shut behind him also, leaving Jenseny and Hesseth alone.
In the darkness.
With the Light.
With the music of the coming storm....
For all his months at sea, Damien had never gotten a firm grasp on sailing. Oh, he knew that a wind from behind them was good, that a wind from head-on was bad, and that no wind at all was a pain in the ass since it meant either waiting until the breeze kicked in again, or stoking up the furnace with appropriate prayers and meditations so that steam power hopefully would get them moving. But he had never really gotten a sense of the fine points in between: when it was best to gather up some of the sails (but not all of them), why an angled wind was sometimes the best wind of all, and what subtle hints the wind and sea provided when trouble—real trouble—was on its way.
What he had learned to interpret were the people around him. By the time they’d been at sea a month he could tell by the lowering of Rasya’s brow when rain was coming, and he’d learned that the best barometer of the sea’s condition was the relative coarseness of Captain Rozca’s manner. After four midmonths at sea he could tell when a storm was on its way by the way the first mate swore, and how fast it was moving in by the portions that the cook doled out at evening mess.
Now, though these sailors were unknown to him and their whistled code was wholly incomprehensible, that same sense told him that something was wrong. He didn’t have to see Moskovan make repeated trips to check his instruments to know that conditions were changing quickly; that was clear in the men’s manner as they worked, in the first mate’s face as he scowled at the sea. He remembered the squalls they had struggled through in Novatlantis—one of which had forced them to land for repairs, at an island so new that parts of its shoreline were still steaming as it cooled—and he felt a cold knot form in his gut at the thought of facing one here.
Moskovon said before we left that the weather looked good. He said it should stay good for a day or two. But he knew that weather prediction was a chancy art at best. Even Earth, it was rumored, had never fully mastered it.
He located Tarrant, moved to join him. But the Hunter shook his head ever so slightly as he approached, as if to say No, I have no more information than you do. Damn, he missed Rozca. And that whole crew. They never would have gone on like this without someone telling the passengers what was happening.
At last—when the last of the sails was set and everything on board the deck had been firmly fastened down—Moskovan vouchsafed them a few words. “Wind’s shifted,” he told them. “And the pressure’s dropping fast. That’s a bad sign in any waters, but here....” He shook his head grimly. “Most likely it’s coming straight up the coast. That means right smack into us, if we keep on going the way we are.”
“Then I assume that’s out of the question,” Tarrant said evenly. “What are our options?”
He looked out at the waves surrounding them, whitecapped and angry. “We’re going in,” he said shortly. “No other way. We can make the cape inside an hour, and that should be good enough. Hellsport’s got a sheltered harbor that’ll keep us safe and sound, if we can get there in time.” He looked up sharply at Tarrant. “Unless you’ve got something that’ll turn this aside. If so, now’s the time to use it.”
Tarrant gazed out at the sea in silence, for so long that Damien wondered if he had heard. But at last he said quietly, “No. I can’t Work this. Do what you must.”
When Moskovan had left them, Damien asked, “Not enough power available?”
He put a hand on the pommel of his sword, rested it there. “There’s enough.”
“Don’t want to use it up?”
The Hunter turned to him; in the mist-filtered lamplight his eyes were as pale as ice. “I can’t Work this storm,” he said evenly, “because it’s already been Worked. And not by a power I care to spar with.”
“Our enemy, you mean?”
He turned away. “Don’t be naive, Vryce.”
It took him a minute to realize what the Hunter meant; when he did so, he was stunned. “You think the girl—” He couldn’t finish.
“I checked the weather before we left. Even allowing for typical meteorological surprises, it shouldn’t have become ... this.” A sweeping gesture encompassed it all: the whitecapped waves, the rising wind, the slap of ocean foam against the hull. “There’s no question in my mind that the storm was altered so that it would come in closer to shore. And likewise no question that the tool used for that alteration was not earth-fae, or any earth-bound sorcery.” He glanced back meaningfully toward the galley. “Hesseth doesn’t Work the weather. That leaves only one
possibility I can think of. Unless you have another suggestion.”
It seemed too incredible. He could hardly respond. “You once told me weather-Working was so complicated that most adepts can’t even do it.”
“No, Vryce. Moving a storm is easy, provided it already exists. Controlling it is hard. Anyone with enough raw power can yank a few clouds into position, or draw in a respectable wind. But very few can alter an entire weather system, so that the storm thus changed stays under control.” He gazed out at the foaming waves, now casting sheets of spray about the ship’s hull. Thin rainbows hung before the ship’s lanterns. “Merely raising a storm, without thought for consequences? That’s not so very difficult. Under the right circumstances, even a child could do it.”
“A scared child,” Damien muttered. “One who thinks we’re all going to die if we land in Freeshore.”
For a moment the Hunter said nothing. The look in his eyes was strangely distant, as though his thoughts were not fixed on this time and place at all, but on some internal vista. “It would seem,” he said at last, “that the matter is now out of our hands.”
“Not necessarily. When the storm passes—”
“Then there will be another. Or something worse. The girl is afraid of Freeshore, and Nature responds to her fear; do you want to tempt that power? This time it was only a storm. Let’s be grateful for that.”
“You were worried about Hellsport,” Damien reminded him. “Do you think we can deal with whatever’s waiting for us?”
The Hunter gazed out over the sea, where foamy waves were breaking into spray. The rising wind was audible in the rigging, a whistling that rose and fell with each gust.
“Let’s just hope we make it to Hellsport in time,” he said quietly. “That’s enough to worry about for one night, don’t you think?”
They made it.
Just barely.
The wind was shrieking through the rigging by the time they rounded Hellsport’s sea wall, and the foaming waves that beat against the hull filled the air with cold, salty spray. It was hard to stand on the swaying deck with the wind that strong, so Damien had gone below, where he waited with Hesseth and Jenseny. Tarrant alone remained above. Watching for the distant light of the earth-fae, Damien guessed. Searching for land as only he could see it.
The girl was sick and miserable, but she had managed not to throw up thus far. A major accomplishment, Damien thought. He and Hesseth had sailed through so much rough water in the Golden Glory that they were somewhat accustomed to it, but even so the last half-hour was difficult. Whatever power the child had drawn upon to summon up this storm, it had done its work blindly, with no attempt to control its course or its fury. If there hadn’t been a sheltered port nearby when it struck, it probably would have killed them all.
The most unnerving thing about the incident was that the girl apparently knew nothing of what she had done. Whatever tidal forces she had wielded in her moment of terror, allowing her to call the storm, it had been purely unconscious effort. Which was all the more dangerous, he reflected. Ignorance and power were a dangerously volatile mixture. They were going to have to deal with that, and soon.
He looked over at Hesseth and said quietly, “You’ll have to train her. No one else can do it.”
She bared sharp teeth as she answered him, “My people can only teach their blood-kin.”
He looked up at her. And waited.
At last she looked down at the girl who lay curled up on her side, her head on Hesseth’s lap. With care she smoothed the tangled black hair, gently enough not to wake the girl.
“I’ll try,” she promised.
Suddenly there was a thump on the hull, hard enough to shake the bench they were sitting on. For a moment Damien feared that they had hit a rock, and his whole body tensed as he prepared to grab the child and carried her abovedeck. Then there was another thump, somewhat softer than the first. And then a third. After a moment he recognized the sounds for what they were and leaned back, exhaling heavily.
“I take it we’re secure.”
“Jenseny.” Hesseth shook the girl gently so that she would awaken. “We made it. We’re safe. Wake up, kasa.”
The large eyes fluttered open, bloodshot and tired. “In Hellsport?” she whispered weakly. Her face was still a ghastly ashen hue.
“For what it’s worth,” Damien told her. He patted the girl on the head with what he hoped was fatherly reassurance. “Come on. Let’s get out of this bucket.”
The port they’d chosen might have been sheltered, but one wouldn’t know it from on board the ship; climbing up the galley stairs as they pitched and swayed was a trial in itself. The deck seemed somewhat more stable, but the difference was purely psychological. He could see from the way the long boat was rubbing against the pier that it was far from steady, despite its careful mooring. A cold rain had begun to fall, and Damien turned up his collar to keep it from seeping in at the neck.
“Well?” Moskovan joined them, wraped in an oilcloth slicker. “What’s the verdict? You want to wait this out and then move on to Freeshore? Or take your chances here?”
Damien looked at Tarrant, and hesitated.
“I should Know the city first—” the priest began.
The Hunter waved him short. “I already did. There’s no danger to us here. Not yet, anyway.”
Damien was aware of how hard those words must have been for him. It wasn’t in the Neocount’s character to say I was wrong, but that was damned close.
He looked out at the city, now sheathed in a curtain of rain. Impossible to see in the darkness. The lamps of the harbor were ghostly and inconstant, flickering like stars in the downpour.
“All right. We’ll try it here.” He felt like a weight was lifted off his chest the minute he said it. No more sea travel, now. Not until they’d finished the job they’d come to do, or died trying. And in the latter case (Damien consoled himself) at least there’d be no more ships to worry about. That was something, anyway.
He dug several gold coins out of his pocket and offered them to Moskovan; in the face of what they had paid for this passage it wasn’t much, but the gesture clearly pleased the man.
“Take care,” the smuggler warned them, taking the coins. “The people here aren’t overly fond of strangers.”
Yeah. That’s the story of our life. He heard a bang as the gangplank was lowered, linking them to the pier. It looked far from stable. With a sigh he shouldered his pack and started toward it. fust one more time, Vryce. Once you get your feet on solid ground, that’s it for the duration.
God willing.
“Good luck,” Moskovan told them, as they made their way across the swaying gangplank. And then he added, cryptically, “I hope he likes the child.”
Had they not been on a narrow bridge of wood over choppy waters, trying to make their way in the freezing rain without slipping, Damien might have turned back to him. Not to question him: that would have been too obvious, too dangerous. But to see his face. To try to read some kind of meaning into his last comment. But the short walk was treacherous, and allowed no such distraction. And by the time they had gotten across and were safely on the pier Moskovan was gone, swallowed back into the bowels of the Desert Queen.
“Come on,” Tarrant urged, as the downpour worsened. “This is no place to stand about.”
At last he nodded and turned back to his companions, and they began the long walk to land. Like all Ernan piers this one extended well out into the water, to make it useful in all depths of tide, and in the rain-lashed darkness the distance seemed endless. The storm winds battered them from the north, sometimes so powerfully that despite his best efforts Damien found himself staggering a step or two sideways as he walked; once he had to catch up the girl to keep her from being swept off the pier, into the angry breakers just beneath them.
Just a little bit more, he promised himself. Careful not to question just how long that little bit would take them. Almost over.
And then they were ove
r land, making their way toward the myriad buildings that flanked the harbor. Temporary buildings, Damien noted, whose woven walls were lashed together with rope and whose roofs were plaited masses of reed, tarred over to make them waterproof. Such a structure could survive the worst earthquake, its pliant walls giving way to every tremor without snapping. Such a structure might survive stormy winds, if it was lashed firmly down to the ground beneath it. And such a structure could easily be replaced if a tsunami swept it away—which Damien suspected was the most important point of all. The sea wall might protect Hellsport from the majority of waves, but there was always the chance that some monster might wash over it. A good chance, from the look of it.
“Come on,” he muttered. “Let’s get to high ground, fast.”
Tarrant was carrying a lantern ahead of them, but its light was swallowed up by rain-drenched darkness so quickly that it was all but worthless. Damien took shelter under the eaves of one of the woven buildings long enough to light another. He wondered how far off dawn was. The Hunter might not like its killing light, but he would be grateful for it. When had they landed, about one or two a.m.? When did the sun rise in this latitude?
At last they found the narrow stairs that would allow them to ascend to the city proper, more than one hundred feet above the harbor itself. Lightning flashed, outlining buildings that were balanced high above them, well out of reach of tsunami or tidal flood. He thought he saw the braided steel ropes that would be used to raise and lower cargo up the cliff—and if necessary, he thought, boats as well. In the lightning’s flash they seemed like serpents slithering down the rock face, gone to hunt some helpless thing now lost in the depths of night. He shivered and pressed himself close to the rock as he ascended the twisting staircase, so that the wind might not sweep him away. The girl was having a hard time and at last it was Tarrant who steadied her, his cold flesh making her cry out in surprise as he pressed her back, saving her from being blown away by one particularly violent gust.
“Almost there,” Damien muttered. For his benefit more than for the others. It was doubtful they could even hear him above the wind now, so furiously was it driven.
When True Night Falls Page 48