Corais stroked the bow once more. 'As much as I let myself dream about the future,' she said so softly I had to crane to hear her, 'which is foolish for a woman who deals in blood, I've always wanted to have a small shop like Sollertiana's one day. Making bows and fitting arrows to them. I'd probably never be as good as Sollertiana, but then I don't need very much. That's one thing soldiering teaches you.'
'Where would you live?' I said quietly, not wanting to break into her dream. 'In a city?'
'No. I've seen enough of cities, between Orissa and Lycanth. Everybody thinks I'm a great one for the bright lights and all, but really I'm still the barefoot child in a frock with pigshit between her toes. I'd go to the country. Not in that damned village I came from. All I hope for them is a good sacking by three or four sets of barbarians. But somewhere people aren't so quick to look down their damned noses and make judgments.'
She sighed. 'Maybe it'll be that village you told me about, the one your mother came from where the girl on the panther saved them and they learned better. Maybe I'd be a good reminder of what they'd better not forget.'
I'd forgotten I'd once told her where my name came from, and realized yet again how little any of us really knew anyone else, knew what was important to them, what struck the sounding board in their soul.
'Maybe you'd come to visit,' Corais said. 'You and whoever you settle down with, after we've all got too creaky-boned to play soldier. Now that'd be something, wouldn't it? The grand Antero lady, who'll probably be a duchess or something by then, coming to this little midden. We'd drink the tavern dry and try to corrupt any virgins still around.'
The sea blurred to my eyes a little, and I don't know why. 'I think I'd like that,' I managed. 'I think I'd like that a lot.'
'Anyway,' Corais said, and her voice went flat, 'that was where my bow came from ... and what I used to dream.'
I came back to reality. 'Used to?'
Corais didn't say anything at all, but slowly shook her head from side to side. Her hand crept up and touched the bit of The Sarzana's robe she still wore tied around her upper arm. There was a smile, but not of humour, touching her lips.
I might've asked on, but there came a commotion from the bow, and I heard shouts: 'I caught one! Gods, I drew him to me!'
It was Gamelan, and a smile nearly split his face in two. I swear I could see a flash of merriment in his unseeing eyes as we hurried to him. One of his companions held a great flapping fish, some kind of cod I thought, high in the air, then dropped it to the deck and killed it.
'I could feel him out there, Rali,' and I wondered how he knew it was me standing in front of him, 'and I drew him, I could feel him. He'd come up from the deeps to feed, and I kept telling him the bit of cloth flashing in front of him was the sweetest morsel he could ever dream of, and then he took it in a great rush and he was mine.' His smile disappeared. 'Rali... is it coming back?'
'Yes,' I said firmly, forcing conviction into my voice, and trying to feel it in my soul. 'Of course it is.'
That night, I went to Gamelan in his cabin, and told him I thought we were sailing too close to the enemy to be as blind as we were. Like him, I had no great faith in the Konyan wizards, and needed more information. He tugged at his beard for a moment, muttered something about the risk being too great, caught himself and apologized.
He said, 'I don't know if the spells will work. Sending your spirit abroad is not the simplest of magics, and one not even a journeyman Evocator is recommended to undertake. But these are parlous times, and who's to say any more what can or cannot be done? What we need is a creature for you to shape yourself after. I hope you understand that you really don't become that creature - unless one of Janos Greycloak's theories is true, that we are all different manifestations of the same force. That's an idea I've grappled with, but it still puzzles me.'
'Why not just send my spirit out? That was how the Archon came on us. I'd rather be invisible than in some disguise.'
'The problem, my dear friend, with sending you as a pure spirit, assuming the spell would take and hold, is you are extremely vulnerable in such a form. No, it's better to give you the similitude of reality. Perhaps it's safer because the fact you're real binds you more closely to our world, and gives you strength. I don't know for sure, but that's my theory. It's better to worry about some sharp-eyed sailor spotting you as, say, a dolphin and reaching for a harpoon than to be sniffed out by a wizard like The Sarzana or the Archon. If they have the proper magical nets set out, your spirit would shine as clearly to them as a rising moon. A master sage, and both of them are that, could then cast a striking spell in seconds and snap that thread between you and your body. Then your doom would be to wander the worlds as if you were a ghost, never finding rest.'
I shivered, remembering how my poor brother Halab had been tricked into testing his talents to become an Evocator, and had been trapped and destroyed by Raveline of the Far Kingdoms. There'd been no body for the rites, not ever, and Halab's ghost had been laid to rest finally only after Amalric slew Raveline in a demon-haunted ruin.
I turned my mind away. 'What kind of creature, Gamelan? An albatross?' 'Never.'
I grinned, pretending injury. 'And why not? Wouldn't I make a sleek great bird? I've always fancied them, floating high above the world and the seas, only landing for sleep and to feed.'
'You fancy them ... and so does every other beginning thaumaturge,' he said. 'Why not pull a banner hooked to your tail-feathers that says I AM RALI THE SPY? We could save the time and trouble casting any protective spells to accompany you.'
I saw what he meant. However, after some further talk, we developed a plan that appeared a bit more subtle, and his two companions and I went out to procure the necessary items for the conjuration. I told Xia my intent, and she began to protest, then stopped. She hastily nodded, then could hold firm no more, and darted below to our cabin, sobbing. I didn't follow, for there was nothing I could do. Sometimes it's harder to love a soldier than be one.
I told Corais and Polillo little of what I was intending, but put them in charge of the Guard. It wasn't necessary to say any more about lines of succession. They were soldiers, so they knew. Polillo scowled, and started to say something, then clamped her lips closed. I knew she had probably intended to warn me to be careful of sorcery, that art she feared more than a regiment of enemy soldiers.
It was past midnight when we had the necessary bits and pieces together, which Gamelan said was good. That'd put 'me', or whatever it was that would be riding the spell, where The Sarzana's forces were supposed to be near dawn.
Gamelan had his tent set up on the foredeck, and guards surrounding it to keep away the curious. I'll go into some detail on this spell, since it's a good way to show magic sometimes takes damned near as much trouble as doing the job with 'real' labour. Part One of our spell was simply getting what Gamelan called my spirit, although he added that wasn't quite what it was, not the elemental soul the word implied, to travel a week or so sail's distance in a few hours.
'There's another thing apprentices don't realize,' he said. 'Mutter some words, and pish, you're a fish. And you prompdy expire because you're out of water. Or else you get dumped overside, and then have to swim for two weeks before you reach your goal. Sometimes,' he said, taking an injured tone, 'it sets my teeth on edge when people think magic can do anything.
'The first part of your journey will be made on the wind. You'll be nearly as vulnerable as if you were a pure spirit, but not quite. Once you close on The Sarzana's stronghold, then our cunning plan will take effect. Or I hope it's cunning, anyway.'
He ordered me to strip bare, and coat myself with a salve I'd made earlier under his instructions. It made my skin burn, and Gamelan said that was one of its intents - to make the spirit want to walk free from the body. It was made of certain herbs, including vervain, ginger and hyssop and oils from his kit, plus some leather from one of the ship's now empty magical wind bags that had been ground to powder, intended to carry the ess
ence of the wind and the spell that snared it. There were other things ground into the oil, things intended to aid the second stage of my journey.
A low fire glowed in Gamelan's brazier that stank even worse than most incantatory pyres. Gamelan explained a bit of an old sail was the centrepiece of the fire, and would hold the wind and lift me free. Among the herbs burning were peppermint, hemp and myrrh.
I had prepared the words to recite, and said them as I stood there naked. Gamelan sat silently nearby - I'd wanted him to help, but he was afraid his still-absent Talent might overshadow the spell and ruin it. First I began by reciting over and over the names of ten of the local gods and goddesses who might have power in these circumstances. There was the god of storms, the goddess of the sea, godlets who danced the winds, some zephyr-nymph's name remembered from Xia's childhood, and so on. I don't list them here, although I think I could remember them all, because according to most magicians a minor god's power only extends to lands where he or she is worshipped. Someone wishing to try this spell should use their own deities, or none at all, keeping in mind what I believe is the nature of gods in the first place.
Then I began the spell itself:
Feel the wind
Touch the wind
Be apart from yourself
The wind is your sister
You must roam free
Float up, float up.
As I spoke, I let bits of paper drift down across the brazier. I'd written the same words on the paper before ripping it apart. The smoke caught and carried them up, and I felt my head swimming, as if a high fever had struck. Then I was lifted above myself, and I was looking down at my body. Then the physical me slumped down to a sitting position, then sprawled. But I had no mind nor time for that body, because the top of the tent had suddenly opened, and I heard the whisper of the cord as Gamelan pulled it away, and above me was the night sky and the stars and I was free.
I was hurled up and on, high into the sky and I caught a glimpse of a constellation and knew I was being borne south. I was not on the wind, I was the wind, and I felt my heart singing. My body was far below me, and far behind me, but my spirit could feel her ghost-hair blowing back as I rushed on and on, and the sharp stinging of the night air, just like when one comes from a sauna in the depths of winter and plunges into an icy pool. It was as if I still had a body, but then again, I didn't. I didn't have to turn my 'head' to 'see' our galleys far behind and below, their masthead lights gleaming against the dark seas, nor further back to the star dots that were the Konyan shiplights.
Now I understood what sorcery could be, what it could give, instead of being a dark power for death and overpowering another, or a niggling series of words and incantations intended to avoid hard physical work. Maybe I understood and even sympathized for an instant with Janos Greycloak, feeling what had drawn him to magic, the same thing that had destroyed him.
Ahead I sensed land, and then saw it as the gale raced me onward. There were ten, perhaps twenty islands, the smaller ones spread like they'd been scattered in front of the largest landmass. These were the Alastors, I knew, having seen sketchy maps of the islands the Konyans had named as The Sarzana's refuge. As I swept across the outer skerries, I could sense, down below, men waiting, whose task was to report the first sign of our fleet. The magical part of me was still marvelling at being able to see eveiything, from horizon to horizon, but the cold soldier within was reminding Captain Rali there'd be little likelihood of surprising The Sarzana, since his sentinels were well posted. Not that I'd ever thought we'd be able to anyway, since physical sentries would be the least and most easily fooled of any of The Sarzana's watchguards.
His name crossing my mind made me 'feel' ahead, as Gamelan had told me to do, trying to sense if there were any magical traps lying in wait. I could sense none, but wasn't reassured. I was a fresh recruit walking along a path trying to avoid an ambush that may or may not have been set by a crafty old warrior.
The main island rose ahead. Now it was time for me to make the second change, into a hopefully less vulnerable form.
The wind that was me did not want to change, did not want to give up its free roaming, but my mind forced the words:
You must change
You must take shape
You are now your cousin
You are the wind's friend
You are flesh
You have shape
You have form
You have flight.
And it became so in a dizzying instant. Not only had I taken on physical form, and was tossed by the wind that had been me moments earlier, but there were many 'me's'. Gamelan had suggested a less noticeable disguise than that of an albatross, and I'd gone him one better. Why must I be a single bird? One creature could well be a spy, particularly if it behaved oddly. But an entire flock? He lifted his eyebrows in surprise, then chortled, and said it was time, indeed, for younger minds to take over magic. There was no reason not to at all.
I was a flock of terns, coming in towards the shore. I suppose I ought to call myself 'we', but I notice a look of confusion from my Scribe, so will try to keep this as simple as I can. It was strange, being many creatures at the same time. I was ten, perhaps fifteen birds, with a common way of thinking, but each with her own eyes. I swooped low over a geo that jutted from the sea, flying past on both sides of it, and it was as if I had only one pair of eyes, but eyes that could see the front, sides and back of something at the same time. Yet everything was quite normal, and I had no feeling of strangeness, nor of disorientation.
I swooped into the sky as the flock closed on the main island. It was high-mountained, and a long, narrow bay clove the land nearly in two. I could see cities at the tip of that bay, cities guarding the gut's portals. At the bay's end was the island's greatest city, which was named Ticino. Even in this near-dawn hour there were lights gleaming, and I estimated the city to be nearly as large as Isolde's metropolis.
The Sarzana's fleet was anchored in the roadstead, with picket boats around them. I knew he'd have many warships, but was startled by how many there were. I tried to count them, but couldn't, and estimated there were at least four hundred - as many as we had - and most likely more.
I was coming closer to the anchorage and flew perhaps a thousand or so feet overhead. It looked as if most of the ships were huge galleys exactly like the Konyans sailed, and my soldier's soul, far back in my conscious, felt pleasure. The new battle tactics I'd devised might work well. There were other ships as well, anchored close inshore in another division, and I swooped closer. But somehow I couldn't see them well. My vision was blurred in spots, just as when water's flung unexpectedly into your face before you have time to blink, or, perhaps, when fog swirls in banks between bright sunlight.
Something whispered, and said I shouldn't look closer. Not yet. And no matter how I tried to 'gaze' at them, the fog still hung between us.
There was no sign of alarm below. The few sailors on the decks of the galleys went sleepily about their dawn routine. No one looked up, and if they had, all they would've seen was a flight of swallow-tailed grey-shaded birds overhead, no doubt looking to break their fast.
I determined to fly closer to the city, closer to the danger that was The Sarzana's and the Archon's magics. But once more, my 'eyes' blurred, and I couldn't quite make out details on the ground, although I was quite close and my sharp tern's vision let me make out a single small school of fish as it broke water. Again I felt that whisper, and it became almost a voice, a warning. Reason caught me, and sent me banking away, back down the bay.
I'd seen nothing to give me alarm, but felt as if I were bare moments from danger. I flew in three great lazy circles, higher and higher into the sky as the sun glinted on the horizon and the shadows on the land and water below drew in on themselves. I had enough for my first scouting.
The Sarzana's fleet was where it had been predicted, and was clearly ready for battle, as the Konyan Evocators had predicted. But what were these blurry patches?
I didn't know, but felt them to be threats. It didn't matter. I'd done enough for one night.
I would return.
Later, my real self took a different and much more pleasant flight -with Xia. I remember coming back from the far place her lips and hands had sent me, knowing nothing, body still echoing to that great roar. I became aware, very dimly, that her head was pillowed on my stomach. I managed a grunt, incapable of more. Xia giggled.
'You went away on me.'
'Mmm.'
'I'll bet I can send you there again.' And her fingers moved. I found energy enough to pull her hand up to cradle my breasts.
'No you can't,' I said. 'I'm a noodle, I'm a string, I'm a soggy mass of wet silk.'
'You are silk,' she agreed, but left her hand where I'd put it. After a few moments of silence, when I almost went to sleep, she said, 'Rali? What comes next?'
'Next I try to get some sleep, you sex-mad animal.'
'No. I mean after we kill The Sarzana?'
'I love an optimist,' I said. 'Once we kill the bear, should the roasts be larded or soaked in vinegar? There's a bit of a task to putting this bear on the table, you know.'
'We'll kill him. I know that,' Xia said. 'So answer my question.'
I sat up, quite awake now. 'I've got to go back to Orissa,' I said.
'What about me? What about us? I can't see me going with you as your companion, at least not for very long. I mean, I'm a Kanara. The last one.'
'Of course I didn't mean for you to just traipse about after me,' I said.
'So then do you want to stay here} With me? I don't think your barons, or whatever your rulers call themselves would object, considering what you've done for them.'
'No,' I said. 'They wouldn't.'
I didn't say anything more, but lay back, thinking. What did come next? She was a Kanara, and I was an Antero ... and commander of the Maranon Guard as well. Being an Antero might not be that important - Amalric and our idiot brothers could handle the estates well enough. But was I through with the Guard? Was I through with being a soldier? Even more simply - was I ready to leave Orissa for good?
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