by David Duncan
"No, we're not. But excitement can be dangerous."
Thana smiled winningly. "What should we fear when we have a swordsman of the Seventh on board? I'm sure you could handle a whole shipful of pirates all by yourself, Lord Shonsu."
"I certainly hope I don't have to!"
Pirates could be a tricky subject, bringing in the matter of sailors using swords. No sooner had that thought occurred to Wallie than Nnanji blundered into the conversation. "It must be very difficult for you to get fencing practice, Apprentice Thana?"
The topic did not seem to bother her. She turned to look at him rather calculatingly. "Indeed it is, adept. Would you be so kind as to give me a lesson after lunch?"
Nnanji beamed. "I should be delighted!"
Thana smiled and turned back to her main business, Wallie. Wallie had not liked that smile.
"We must be getting close to Aus," he said. "So there may not be any 'after lunch.' But surely we are your Jonahs, and it is said that Jonahs bring a ship good luck."
"We need it!" Thana dropped her voice conspiratorially. "I have wondered sometimes, Lord Shonsu, if we were cursed."
"How so?" Wallie sensed the approach of some creative storytelling.
"Well, first my grandfather... then Uncle Matyrri died of a cut on his hand... and then pirates! A year ago. They killed my brother, and another uncle, and one of my cousins died of wounds later."
"That's terrible!"
"Yes. It was tragic. I've gotten over the worst of it, you know, but of course I still miss them terribly."
"This was at Yok?" Wallie inquired.
She reeled backward as if he had struck her, turning so pale that he thought she might be going to faint.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Tomiyano had half drawn his dagger. He was too far off to have heard the words, but he had seen his sister's reaction.
What had Wallie provoked? "Your brother mentioned Yok."
She nodded dumbly, staring at him, trembling,
"I assume that these pirates were renegade swordsmen?"
Thana licked white lips and then merely nodded again, seemingly incapable of speech. Wallie felt that he was walking a sheet of glass over an abyss. Tomiyano was not the only one to have noticed.
Wallie lowered his voice. "Of course I would not say this to anyone outside our craft, apprentice, but a bent swordsman is a terrible abomination... deserving of no mercy." He glanced swiftly at the perplexed Nnanji. Even he had noticed Thana's terror, but he had not yet worked out the only possible explanation. "My oath brother and I ran into a band of renegades two days ago. We dealt with them severely. The World is a better place without such scum."
Thana seemed to relax slightly, and a trace of color crept back into her cheeks. "That... that sentiment does you great honor, my lord."
"Such things are better not discussed," Wallie said pompously, and looked to Nnanji for agreement.
Nnanji said, "Er? What?"
Then adults and children began emerging from the fo'c'sle carrying baskets of fruit and loaves. Wallie felt relief like a cool breeze. "Ah! Here comes lunch! You watch what happens now, apprentice. This is where Adept Nnanji gets back all the profit your mother hopes to make on my sapphire."
†† ††
By the People's standards, the riverfolk were an informal lot. Lunch was laid out on the forward hatch cover, and the people sat around wherever they liked, on hatches or buckets or the deck. The food was plain but satisfying: fruit and cheese and sausage. Brota yielded the tiller to Tomiyano after a heated discussion that included covert glances toward the swordsmen. Then she parked her massive form on the rear hatch and proceeded to demonstrate how she had acquired her bulk, almost rivaling Nnanji's Gargantuan efforts.
Crew and passengers separated into clumps. Wallie was given a wide berth, but Katanji had won acceptance by the younger sailors. Nnanji attached himself to Thana and was gobbling without pause, while animatedly relating how Lord Shonsu had been given the seventh sword. He was using the version Wallie had given Garadooi, almost word for word, and that was safe.
Wallie sat crooked-leg on the deck, leaning against the starboard bulwark with Jja at his side, trying not to seem as worried as he felt. Clearly his mission was going to be more complex than he had thought. Granted that Sapphire had been sent to rescue him from the sorcerers, her purpose must be more than merely transporting him to Aus. What exactly had happened at Yok a year ago? Thana had mentioned pirates, but that was not what Tomiyano had said. Thana's panic had been horribly reminiscent of Quili's apprehension when Wallie had brought up the subject of assassinations. These sailors were not humble peasants who would flee into the hills; any hint that Lord Shonsu was prying into a murky past would bring the knives out of the fire buckets very quickly. Hostility hung over the sunny deck like invisible fog.
There had been no concealment at Ov―Garadooi had proved that―but Sapphire could have reported a crime to swordsmen in any city on the River, so the first answer did not work for the second problem. The next city up ahead might not be Aus. It might be Yok.
Wallie had chosen the wrong side to sit for a good view of the mountains, but Sapphire's tacking let him catch a glimpse of them now and again. They were faint and blue in the noon heat, not visibly changing.
He needed a talk with Honakura, but private conversation was impossible on this crowded deck. The old man was sitting happily on a hatch cover, chatting to a woman as ancient as himself.
The meal drew to a close. Children began clearing up the food. Without a glance at Lord Shonsu, Brota stumped off to relieve her son at the tiller. Tomiyano trotted down from the poop and began assembling a meal for himself before the baskets were removed.
People were staring out to starboard. Wallie rose. Sapphire was arriving at a city.
At first glance he could see nothing remarkable about it. The mountains of RegiVul stood unchanged to the northeast, so it could only be Aus, and it looked much as Wallie would have expected a city of the World to look. Lying on flat ground, it was already largely obscured by the high warehouses of the dockyards―two- and three-story wooden buildings, weathered silver and topped by red tile roofs. Beyond those roofs a few gold spires and taller buildings of gray stone with the same red tiles stood stark against the cobalt noontime sky. The frontage of warehouses was broken by narrow alleylike streets winding back into the town. The bustling crowds were too far off to distinguish the colors of their ranks, but seemed to be composed of quite unexceptional people going about unexceptional business. Sapphire was picking her way among anchored ships of many types and sizes, and others were moored along the quay. Horse-drawn wagons rumbled along the streets, their sound wafted over the water by the wind.
Wallie studied the roadway for a while, looking for swordsmen, but it was still too distant. Then he took another look at the buildings.
Then he took three long strides over to the hatch cover where Tbmiyano was eating.
"Captain? What is that tower?"
The sailor flashed him a hostile glance and then stared at the city. He chewed for a while, swallowed, and said, "No idea."
"You've never seen one like it?"
"No." He laughed contemptuously. "You thinking it might be full of sorcerers, swordsman?"
Yes. Garadooi had talked of sorcerers building a tower in Ov. Several of Nnanji's stories had mentioned towers, although none of them had described what sorcerer towers should look like. The structure that concerned Wallie was quite unlike anything else visible in Aus―assuming that this was Aus. It was square and dark and much taller than anything else. It stood close behind the row of warehouses, a block from the riverfront. Its windows were blacker gaps in the black stonework. It was sinister.
"I have never seen anything like that, either," Wallie said, without mentioning mat he had never seen a city of the World before. "If my suspicions are correct, then it is not only me who will be at risk, Captain. Your mother and sister are swordsmen also."
Tomiyan
o snorted. "I am sure they will defend you. You paid your fare to here, Lord Shonsu, Here you are. Here you stay."
Then he added, "Good riddance."
Nnanji caught Wallie's eye. Nnanji was thinking the same thing he was.
Wallie marched to the nearer steps, trotted up to the poop, and strode over to where Brota sat by the tiller.
"That tower, mistress? Have you ever seen anything like that before?"
"Down, please, my lord. I need to see."
Restraining his warming temper, Wallie knelt. Please do not speak to the driver. Now he saw that Brota was performing some tricky maneuvers, bringing her ship in through a crowded anchorage in a fitful breeze. The wind seemed to be failing.
"No," she said. She frowned. "No, I haven't."
Neither Quili nor Garadooi had ever been to Aus, and suddenly Wallie remembered the inexplicable something he had seen on the face of one of Lady Thondi's companions. Thondi associated with highrank sorcerers. If they had taken over Aus as well as Ov, then both she and her friends would know about it. Hilarious―Wallie had been heading from frying pan to fire. That would also explain why the pursuit in the mountains had not been more strenuous.
He did not need to explain for Brota. She glowered at the mysterious building, her strangely masculine eyebrows lowered in thought. "You bought passage to this city, my lord."
"No, I did not. I bought passage to the nearest city where I could enlist swordsmen."
She grunted. "So you did. Well, I have never heard of sorcerers near the River. Yes, I've heard tell of them in mountain lands, but they worship the Fire God. The Goddess would not..." She glanced at Wallie's sword and stopped.
Tomiyano wandered up the steps, munching a peach. He leaned against the gunwale and regarded the kneeling swordsman with disdain. The city was coming closer. Wallie twisted around to study the crowded dock road again, wishing heartily that he had a good pair of binoculars. "If I am correct, mistress, then you are in danger also."
"Not as many as I would have expected for a place this size." Brota was counting the ships tied along the dock and those anchored out in the River. "But every ship carries water rats, my lord."
"Maybe not here."
She reached up and untied the bow that held her pony tail. The graying hair fell loose about her shoulders. "One city is much like another to a trader. I have cargo to sell. You take your swordsmen into the deckhouse, my lord, and we shall see."
Wallie could not argue further, not with the contemptuous sailor listening. He rose and stalked away.
As he stood by the deckhouse door, ushering his charges ahead of him, he stared again at the approaching dock. It was still just too far off to distinguish either swordsmen or cowled sorcerers, but getting close enough that he, in turn, would soon be visible to them. He ducked inside quickly.
Nnanji was pouting at this concealment, but had the sense to say nothing. Wallie walked around, closing the shutters and opening their louvers so that he could see out without being seen. Honakura had parked his tiny form on one of the big chests and was smirking.
"Don't tell me I should have expected this!" Wallie growled.
"I would never be so crass, my lord."
Wallie sat down beside him. They were directly below the helmsman, but enough shouting and wagon noises were drifting across the water to drown quiet voices. Quickly he recounted the mysteries he had uncovered on Sapphire: the interview with Thana, and the problem of sailors with foil scars.
The old man reacted with some glee. He was enjoying himself immensely. "As far as the scars are concerned, my lord, I think I have observed them on sailors."
"But never on other civilians?"
Honakura shook his head. "And I have known sailors to seek absolution for killing men in sword fights."
"There must be a sutra, then. Certainly it would make sense to let sailors defend themselves against pirates." Not that the World always made sense. Wallie pondered and caught himself nibbing his chin, a mannerism Nnanji had begun to copy. But eleven hundred and forty-four sutras took too long to search and must wait until another time.
"Also," Honakura remarked innocently, "I was talking to Swordsman Lina..."
"Who? I didn't know there was another―you mean that antique crone you were sitting beside at lunch?"
"Well, if you mink her age discredits her testimony..."
"Beg pardon, old man! Forgive me."
Honakura snorted. "She said one thing I ought to pass along. 'Warn that fine lord of yours not to try his swordwork on the captain.'"
"She's color-blind!"
Honakura bridled. "Senile, I expect." He went into a sulk and refused to say more.
Sapphire nudged gently against fenders.
* * *
Wallie stood by a window, next to Nnanji, who was cuddling Vixini in sullen silence. Lines had been thrown, and men were making them fast... perhaps sailors from other ships, for they waved cheerily as crewmen called down thanks. One of the gates was thrown open, and a gangplank laid ready, but it was not run out.
Nothing more seemed to be happening. Jja and Katanji and Honakura had gathered around the other dockside window. Even Cowie was peering out at another, although she probably did not know what she was looking for.
The dock road was much too narrow for its traffic, squeezed between the water and die warehouses. A much larger ship directly aft was unloading bales of cloth and gray sacks, with many slaves milling around and wagons lined up to be loaded. Carts full of firewood rumbled slowly past at intervals in one direction, wagons loaded with building lumber in the other, the iron-shod wheels deafening on the cobbles. Solitary horsemen and sedan chairs and handcarts provided more hazards for roe dodging pedestrians. It all looked like a port should. It smelled of dust and horses and fish and river.
Then Nnanji hissed and pointed. Two sorcerers were progressing through the crowd, a brown Third and an orange Fourth. Cowls hid their faces and long hems their feet; their arms were folded inside voluminous sleeves. The effect was sinister and impersonal. They strolled as if patrolling, heads moving slightly from side to side, pace slow and regular. The other pedestrians made way for them. After a few heart-stopping moments they had passed the ship and were continuing on their way. Wallie released a long breath that he had not known he was holding.
The door flew open and Brota rolled in. She scowled at Wallie and then stood aside as Thana followed. Then came young Matarro, struggling with a long leather bag, and finally the very old woman who had to be Swordsman Lina. Brota banged the door closed. She had seen the sorcerers, obviously, and was going into hiding, along with the Sapphire's other swordsmen. None of them bore swords, and only Brota had long hair.
Matarro dropped the bag and it clinked. Nnanji stiffened. He thrust Vixini back at Jja and went prowling over to inspect that bag.
"It is not my doing," Wallie said. "You would have come here anyway―there are only Black Lands downstream."
Brota pulled a face and lifted flabby arms to tie up her pony-tail.
"What are we waiting for, mistress?"
"Port officer."
"Is that a craft?"
She rolled her eyes at such ignorance. "No. It is a sinecure. The king's nephew or an elder's son or such trash―swindlers, bloodsuckers, and bastards...
"They're usually faster after our money than this," she added sourly.
Having to bend forward under the low ceiling, Wallie drew his sword... just in case. Nnanji had been rummaging in the bag of swords that Matarro had brought; he drew his own and rose. The gangplank ran out with a screech and a thud. The watchers moved to the windows on the deck side.
Thana stood very close by Wallie, peering through the louvers. "Oo!" she whispered. "That's very nice!"
Her enthusiasm was understandable. The young man striding up the plank was almost as tall as Wallie, moving with a smooth grace. He could have been carved from oiled walnut―very dark and notably handsome, wearing orange sandals and breechclout, with a gaudily e
mbossed leather pouch slung over his shoulder. Wallie thought of beach wear advertisements.
The newcomer flashed white teeth at Tomiyano and made his salute. "I am Ixiphino, sailor of the fourth rank, port officer of Aus, and it is my deepest and most humble wish that the Goddess Herself will see fit to grant you long life and happiness and to induce you to accept my modest and willing service in any way in which I may advance any of your noble purposes."
Tomiyano made his reply with surprising grace, while the visitor's eyes slid back and forth, studying the assembled sailors. The men were all near to fire buckets, Wallie noticed. Dislike of swordsmen did not automatically make them sorcerer supporters.
"I welcome you and your ship to Aus, Captain," said the beachwear model with another shimmering smile, "on behalf of the elders and the wizard."
"Wizard?"
"Ah! Your first visit to these parts? Yes, the wizard is the ominous Lord Yzarazzo, sorcerer of the Seventh. Aus has long been free of swordsman barbarism."
"What about water rats?"
Again the teeth shone. "They will not be molested if they stay on board. We have two local laws I must explain, Captain. The first is simply that any swordsman setting foot ashore will be delisted. Permanently."
Tomiyano reddened. "My mother is a swordsman. She normally handles our trading."
"That is unfortunate. She may trade from the deck. If she steps off the plank, she will violate the law." Ixiphino shrugged and then chuckled. "But she will find that Aus is a good place to trade. Trading on deck is not uncommon, and the profits will probably be higher than you are used to."
"Why?"
"Because some ships have a prejudice against sorcerer towns, so fewer call than before. But the traders are honest―relatively speaking, of course―and the people are peaceable."
"Then the sorcerers keep order?"
The port officer laughed. "They do, and very well, too."
The man had not once looked at the deckhouse, although the crew members were carefully leaving that side of him clear, for the benefit of the watchers. Curious!