Grand Vizier of Krar

by W. John Tucker

  Blan directed another question to the device. “Can the Geodes detect Actio 28?”

  The answer was, “That facility has not yet been activated on any Geode.”

  This was a comfort to Blan. Until Black Knight discovered how to activate that facility, Blan could track his armies while he could not track her.

  “There is a Geode near Austra Castle, probably on a quimal,” she declared to Telko who was still watching her.

  “My guess is that it is the flagship of the secret police, the quimal that Borckren used,” Telko answered. “Black Knight will hear about anything we do here within the hour. We must capture that quimal first, before a report can be transmitted.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Blan said thoughtfully. “We might use it to our advantage. We should try to influence what information is sent to Black Knight so we can manipulate what he does.”

  Too tired to think any more, Blan fell fast asleep. Actio 28 detected Blan’s sleep pattern and deactivated itself.

  24

  Austra Jungle – 30th September

  While Blan was building her waterwheel on Pitpet Brook, Arnapa had pressed on through the jungle in a generally southwesterly direction. This part of the jungle was more frequently visited by humans than the areas north and east of the highway. There were many paths and tracks. In the five years of her association with Sirsette Manor, Arnapa had taken every opportunity to become familiar with these and she now used them to avoid her pursuers whilst leading them away from Panners Island.

  The jungle ended so abruptly that Arnapa and Zeep almost stumbled out into the open field. One moment they had been beating their own path through thick vegetation, the next they saw before them fields of crops leading down to the banks of a broad river. Its closest bank was half a mile away and the further bank another four stadia. On the other side there were docks and, behind those, a town.

  Several large, bulbous cargo vessels and many smaller ones were berthed at the docks. There was no sign of warships. Arnapa was expecting as much after Gardolinya’s report, yet it was a relief to see that it was still the case. The absence of any sign of enemy craft also confirmed that her pursuers had not tried to cut her off by river. Zeep’s speculation, that the enemy might not see Arnapa’s raid as a significant threat, seemed to be correct.

  What Arnapa had not been expecting was the additional land taken from the jungle for agriculture on the near side of the river. She had led the team away from the jungle track, hoping to beat a path almost to the river. Four months ago, when she had last visited the town, the jungle had almost reached down to the river. No longer! She guessed that the pressure to grow food for Black Knight’s vast invasion force was being felt across all of eastern Arctequa. Whilst people would need the food, even after the war, Arnapa regretted the loss of so much ancient jungle.

  “That is Austra Town on Equa River,” Arnapa explained to Zeep. “The river flows from right to left parallel with Austra Great Harbour. It passes the castle four miles downstream. Then it bends to the right before flowing into the harbour. If we cross the river just out of sight of the town, we can reach Austra Great Harbour on the other side of town. That’s where I expect to meet Nightsight, near the strait which leads into the harbour from the south.”

  “Will it be safe to wait for Nightsight so near the town?” Zeep worried.

  “Gardolinya told us that all but three quimals are gone. I doubt if the docks this far from the castle are guarded all the time. The enemy built the docks in the last war to berth four hundred quimals side by side. They start near the mouth of Equa River and stretch southwest beyond the harbour entrance almost to the cliffs of Mount Equa. They were built in a hurry; little more than wooden jetties for quimals to load and unload while others waited their turn. The enemy has also found anchorage for another six hundred quimals in the harbour and around its entrance as well as east of Sand Island and in Equa River. However, with the armada gone, the whole length of docks is unlikely to have a permanent guard. As for the town, it is focused on the river, so only fisher folk will go near the seaside docks.”

  Arnapa hoped that Nightsight had already arrived. Failing that, she needed to find out what Gardolinya had discovered.

  “I’m going into town alone to look for Gardolinya,” Arnapa said to Zeep. “There is a good chance that my cover as Baroness Sirsette still holds now that Borckren is no longer around to harass me. If I don’t return by nightfall, you must take charge. Send our news to Proequa with the pigeons you brought along.” The basket containing the two pigeons was still strapped to Zeep’s back. “Choose scouts who can pass themselves off as Kraran soldiers and send them back along the highway to watch Panners Island and wait for Blan and Telko to arrive. Take the others to the coast and wait for Nightsight. If I am captured or otherwise held up in town, you must assume that it is not safe to go there, at least until you have consulted Gardolinya. Try to intercept Nightsight further south, near the cliffs of Mount Equa. He will watch the shore carefully and he will see you before you see him.”

  Arnapa knew these were very general instructions for poor Zeep, who was a herald, not a military commander. Before going she reached up, hugged Zeep and consoled her. “Wayhooay will advise you and help you. However, only you are privy to my whole plan.”

  25

  It took Arnapa longer than she had expected to cross the fields to the river. She saw no soldiers but there were people about, probably farmers tending their crops. She preferred not to be seen by anybody until she had spoken to Gardolinya. Although she had attended the castle more often than she had been to the town, some people would recognise her. Where would their loyalties lie?

  She reached a pier which had been built into the river since her last visit to the town. She drew her hood further down over her head and risked walking out onto it. There were several empty barges tied up there along with some smaller boats. She looked around to see if any of the boat owners might be watching. Unfortunately, there was one man on the river bank who seemed to be looking after the boats, unless it was his hobby to stand idly watching boats that were not going anywhere.

  “Pssst!” The sound confused Arnapa for a moment. Then she realised that it was coming from below her. She saw movement between the boards at her feet. Bending down as if to retrieve something she had dropped, she saw that someone was underneath trying to attract her attention. She went to the edge of the pier, sat down and dangled her feet over the side. She was fairly sure that the guard on the river bank would not be able to see under where she sat, just one fathome above the water.

  A man in a canoe appeared below her and Arnapa’s spirits rose at the sight of him. She had taken so long to sneak down to the river that she would not have enough time to get back to Zeep before dark, unless she headed back straight away. Therefore, if she was to hear from Gardolinya, she feared that she would have to let Zeep carry on in command of the team. This timely meeting had saved the day.

  “A message from Gardolinya,” the man said without preamble. “Black Knight has been seen at Austra Castle. He moved two quimals to the mouth of Panners Stream with a flotilla of dragon boats and many soldiers.”

  “I know about his ships and boats. But Black Knight, here in person! He should be outside Port Fandabbin.” Arnapa was very worried. The mission now seemed far more dangerous than she had expected.

  “Ah! But you cannot yet know that Gardolinya went himself to Panners Stream this morning,” the man reported. “He said that most of the dragon boats have returned to the docks outside Austra Castle. The quimals remained behind with just two dragon boats. Those two boats hold about twenty soldiers each and they appeared to be preparing for another expedition up Panners Stream.”

  “Where is Gardolinya now?” asked Arnapa.

  “He is in the town helping the women round up local support,” the man said, “my comrade is at the coast on the other side of Austra Town, pretending to fish from one of the jetties whilst watching for Nightsight, just as I have b
een pretending to fish from this canoe whilst looking out for you. Gardolinya borrowed the canoe from a sympathetic townsman. I saw you through the spy glass when you came out of the jungle more than an hour ago. I guessed that you would head for the pier, so I paddled across the river and waited out of sight of the guard.”

  “Pass on my compliments and love to Gardolinya,” Arnapa said. “Tell him to carry on as he is. As always, his wisdom has saved me a lot of trouble today. Tell him that I must now return to look out for Telko and Blan at Panners Island.”

  With that, she got up and wandered back as casually as she could to the shore until she was out of sight of the guard, all the while pulsing with the frustration of having to take such time. Then she ran through the crops, zigzagging from cover to cover and keeping low to avoid being seen by patrols that might appear at any time from the jungle or on the river.

  It was almost dark when she arrived back to find an anxious Zeep reluctantly making preparations to lead the party away. Zeep let out an audible sigh of relief when she saw Arnapa emerge from a corchorus field just a hundred paces from the jungle’s edge. Zeep’s normally emotionless face showed the worry and turmoil she had been feeling when she thought that Arnapa had run into trouble, her instinct to speed to her friend’s assistance conflicting with her responsibility for the rest of the team.

  “Gardolinya’s group is watching for Nightsight and recruiting allies in the town,” Arnapa reported as she embraced Zeep. Then she announced to the others near enough to hear, “Panners Stream is patrolled by just two dragon boat crews. We must now return to Panners Island and wait for Telko and Blan. This time we try to avoid our pursuers altogether, so they don’t guess our destination.” This was quickly passed on to Wayhooay who then issued orders for the Akrinans to follow Arnapa and Zeep at suitable intervals.

  Arnapa lowered her voice and whispered to Zeep, “Black Knight is here.”

  “Blan will be in great danger,” Zeep said in horror.

  “We must defend her to the end,” Arnapa resolutely declared.

  “So be it,” Zeep said, resorting to her austere, official tone. Personally defending someone, to the death if need be, was a task she had been trained for. It was a role in which she felt completely confident, unlike the prospect of becoming responsible for making strategic decisions for others in the field of battle.

  Avoiding patrols on the way back to Panners Island was more difficult than leading the enemy away. It was only too easy for a band of seventy-eight people to attract attention in the jungle when greater forces were actively searching for them there.

  26

  Panners Stream – 1st October

  Blan dreamt that she was in the sky ship. She had repaired it; she could not remember how. It was lifting her up smoothly and gently. From inside, the ship’s hull was transparent, so she could see everything around her. She glided up the slopes of Mount Equa, just above the tree tops. Wolves and bears would stop and look up at her in amazement. She soon came to the open snow fields that reached up to the flattened peak. She was surprised to see that the peak was inverted, a snowy bowl surrounded by a circular ridge. The orbear matriarch stood on the ridge with her family around her, all waving joyfully at Blan as she swept past them. Then the ship picked up speed and she soared high above the mountain. She looked down and saw the world laid out below her like a relief map. She saw Austra Great Harbour, Slave Island and Proequa, with the mountains ranging away to the north. Soon she saw Port Fandabbin, Port Cankrar, the coast of the western lands where her home was, in the east, the strange lands of Krar and, to its south, Akrin. She glided out of the earth’s atmosphere and saw the moon pass by, followed by planets and stars. A ship appeared in front of her, the same shape as her ship but vastly greater.

  The scene faded and she heard the lapping of water on a sandy shore. She woke.

  She was lying in the front of a canoe. Telko was sitting behind her, gently using a paddle to guide the canoe past the same sandbar that had been the scene of Blan’s adventure with an enemy patrol and a tiger on her last trip. For a moment she thought she could smell tiger.

  She was again enjoying the relative comfort of a downstream voyage. It was very warm and humid, yet such a different experience to her last visit to this place.

  “How did I get here?” she asked.

  “I carried you. You needed the sleep. Don’t worry about the crystal clusters. We brought everything with us.

  “Except the waterwheel which we left where it was,” he added with a soft laugh.

  Blan thought about the difficult walk through the jungle carrying her and her luggage from the waterwheel to where the canoes had been tied up. She felt the warmth of love flow through her as she realised that he had relished the opportunity to keep her comfortable. No need to say that he should have woken her and made her walk.

  “Thank you,” she said, showing him a smile that could not be mistaken even in the dark of the night with rain still drizzling down. “I had a beautiful sleep.”

  Telko smiled back. He felt invigorated. Like many in his seaside realm he had been trained as a navigator from the age of five until he received his Master Navigator certificate at the age of eighteen. In practice, he had found that navigation often boiled down to repeated use of rules of thumb and remembered relationships, and remembering the peculiarities of the seas he most frequently voyaged upon. Making precise measurements and calculations was not always very practical in rough seas. Of the many mariners he knew who had a good eye for guessing angles and distances, very few could do the calculations fully in their head. Nonetheless, he had been taught the spherical trigonometry and other mathematical methods still used more in the classroom than at sea, and he had been very good at them. He felt that he owed it to Blan to revise all those things he had been taught, so he could talk to her usefully about her interests. The principles of navigation and communication at sea, or at least the mathematics behind it, he thought, could surely be extended to investigate the workings of the crystal clusters, Communicors and Geodes of which Blan spoke, and even navigation through space. Although Blan was not a trained navigator, she knew all the theory. They could discuss these things and work on them together. They could sail together and, who knows, one day ride together in a sky ship. With those encouraging thoughts, Telko skilfully manoeuvred his canoe down Panners Stream, leading the group toward the coming day and the expected rendezvous with Arnapa.

  As dawn came above the overcast sky, Blan turned around to watch Telko. She loved him so much. Would she give up all her ambitions if he wanted her to? Yes, she thought. Of course, she hoped that he would not want that, yet she would do it for him. Then she looked deeply into his eyes, now glowing purple in the growing light, and she knew that he would never want her to change or to stop doing the things she enjoyed. He loved her as she was, and for who she was. He wanted to be part of her life just as much as she wanted to be part of his. She had never felt so happy.

  Before noon, they reached the fork in the Stream at the upper tip of Panners Island. Blan recognised the place. She remembered spending time on this island searching for food and medicines.

  Suddenly she was seized by a feeling of deep foreboding. Telko was alert to the change.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “Something is wrong. I feel it in my bones,” she whispered. For a fleeting moment she wondered how she could feel it in her bones of all places, yet that was exactly how it seemed.

  They soon saw the camp on the east side of the island, the same place where Blan had stopped with Praalis on her previous trip. It had been hurriedly abandoned and no effort had been made to hide it. There was no sign of Arnapa or Zeep or any of the rest of the team. Worse than that, thirty-nine canoes had been drawn up on the bank. Most of the mission’s equipment, including bombs, parts for catapults and other weapons, was still either in the canoes or lying on the shore.

  “Quick! Help me hide the crystal clusters,” Blan urgently whispered to Telko
as she lifted one of them and ran through the shallows and into the vegetation to bury it.

  “All their canoes are here, and there are no tracks leading out,” Telko wondered as he dragged his own canoe ashore. “What caused this?”

  Telko posted a lookout further downstream, sent another two out to scout, and ordered the rest of his men to reload the abandoned canoes and draw them further away from the water; not so deep in the vegetation that they could not be quickly launched again. Eventually he was satisfied that the canoes were hidden well enough from anyone passing along the water without stopping, although anybody searching would soon find them.

  As soon as Blan had found suitable places to bury the crystal clusters, well away from the canoes, she came back to Telko. Everyone was waiting for new orders: to continue downstream; to flee back upstream; or to search for Arnapa and her group.

  “Where could they have gone?” Blan echoed Telko’s own thought. She did not really expect him to know.

  Telko voiced his thoughts. “If the enemy had found this camp, they would have posted guards or prepared an ambush. I think that Arnapa deliberately left in a hurry to draw them away from here. If it had been me and the enemy had very superior forces, I would have moved far and fast after feigning an attack from another direction to draw the enemy away. I think she did that, to protect the canoes and equipment and to protect us when we arrived. She will not come back here until she feels that the area is clear and no one is following her.”

  Sure enough, one of the scouts came to report that he had found signs of tracks which had been hurriedly covered. They led across the island, up the other bank and into the jungle.