"It's well we make haste," Sebastian said. "That looks to be witchy weather. Enough to drive a landlubber beneath his soft pillows."
"Do you have any soft pillows?" Gideon asked.
"No. Shall I send to Absalom for some?"
"That's quite all right. We'll manage."
"Then I suggest you return to your cabin."
The bards did as requested, noting that no one was attempting bravado about this weather. Rain gushed against the hull for hours, and lightning flashed frequently, with thunder uncomfortably close behind. By the middle of the night all was calm, if calm was clear air but an exceedingly bumpy ride.
The next week passed with much the same rhythm, rough weather punctuating stretches of merely challenging weather. The bards found simple maintenance tasks suited to their level of seamanship. They tried to further justify their existence with songs, juggling, dancing, puppetry, and "swinging the lantern," as the sailors called storytelling.
As it happened, the winter solstice passed while Riposte was at sea. For followers of the goddess Shelyn, it was a time of artistic creation. For devotees of Desna, it was a time of song. And for all it was a time of comradeship. The bards were much in demand.
"We could take our act on the road," Gideon said after one calm, successful evening.
"The Seasick Troubadours Limited," said Ozrif.
"Very limited," said Viridia.
"Less talk," said Leothric. "More lying around and groaning."
This last was another key activity for the bards. While earlier in the journey they'd been more voluble, by now most of their exchanges featured monosyllables and grunts. Gideon reflected that it was a bad sign when even bards didn't want to talk.
He missed Corvine's cramped letters, and wished he could speak to her, or at least know she was safe. One clear evening toward journey's end he tried to picture her. He saw her eyes of pale blue, like open sky glimpsed through a tunnel of clouds. He saw her stormy tangle of raven hair, secured with a simple ivory pin lashing through it like a lightning stroke. He saw her light-brown skin dotted with perspiration after singing a particularly challenging set. He visualized her so well he perspired a little himself.
"The mind's a funny thing," he murmured.
"How's that?" Viridia answered from a spot near the railing nearby.
He stirred out of his reverie. "I'm starting to think the mind's like a sailing ship. Some minds are as shipshape as Admiral Kasaba's flagship. Others are as rickety as the Wanderloss."
"Some minds are like ships carrying traveling circuses," Leothric put in.
"Yes, that's a fair way to think of it."
"Why stop at minds?" Ozrif said from somewhere nearby. "Whole countries could be assigned characters in this way. Taldor is like an ancient trireme. Qadira is an ornate baghlah."
"This is an amusing game," Viridia said. "Let's see. Andoran is a clipper which elects a new captain every battle."
Leothric said, "Cheliax is a galleon whose captain just repeats whatever its evil-looking parrot says."
"Galt's a sloop," said Sebastian, stepping out of the darkness, "that replaced its mainmast with a guillotine. At ease, all—weather's calm, and we can relax discipline. Let's watch the stars."
"Not just stars," Viridia said. "Sometimes, low on the horizon..."
"Ah, yes. There's your metaphor for Taldor. See those lights?"
Gideon saw a pair of bright pinpoints to the west, another in the middle, one, flickering, far off to the east.
"Are they villages?" asked Viridia.
"Lighthouses. Set down by our ancestors in days when their mastery of the arcane arts surpassed ours. Once the coast was filled with them, evenly spaced. Now many have gone dark, and of those that remain, many are erratic."
"They call the one by Cassomir 'Treacherous Jack,'" Gideon said.
"Yes, at times they seem mischievous—bright in calm weather, dim in a storm. They should have been replaced long years ago. But we've lost the means. That's Taldor: a constellation of bright lights, slowly flickering to dark."
"Surely Taldor could relearn that knowledge?" Ozrif asked.
"Of course we could. But it would take a program of magical research, vastly expensive, supported by the Grand Prince and probably a group of nobles too. It's within our capability. We just won't do it."
"You'd think that a power so dependent upon the sea would rebuild its lighthouses," Gideon said.
"We see many enemies all around us, all too clearly. But the greatest enemy we don't see, and that's time. If we continue as we have, Taldor will simply decline. Eventually one of our many foes will claim us. Perhaps not in our day, but in our children's day. Like a lion culling the weak from the herd."
After that they watched the ancient lighthouses in silence, like stargazers spotting meteors. Then they beheld a final light, one that expanded as the sky turned gray, and dawn revealed the harbor of Cassomir.
Chapter Six
Solo (with a Chorus for Madmen)
Storm clouds darkened the morning horizon like a titan's fallen cloak as Riposte heaved into the harbor.
Compared to Oppara, Cassomir was spare and compact, for all that thirty thousand souls sheltered within. The city had two distinct halves, north and south, with the harbor glistening between. North lay the wealthier residential districts and the Admiralty Citadel, while south lay the castle and the town's equivalent to Oppara's Westport. Stretching between was a great shipyard, key to Taldor's strength upon the sea.
"I don't see anything amiss," Gideon said. "But I'm still worried. I want to look for Corvine as soon as we moor."
"Wiser to wait until we can speak with the admiral and the mayor," Sebastian warned.
Gideon didn't answer. Navigating the harbor took excruciatingly long. At last Riposte eased into its mooring between two vaster ships. Sebastian's crew was still tying off when Gideon leapt onto the pier.
"Where are you going?" Sebastian called out.
"To find Corvine!"
"Wait for backup, you fool."
"He has backup," said Ozrif. He and Viridia and Leothric jumped off as well.
"We're with you," said Viridia.
"Well, mainly I just want off," said Leothric.
"Bards! Bards are mad!" called Sebastian.
"Aren't you a bard?" Viridia answered.
"I'll never admit it again! Very well, find your Corvine. But be wary! Leothric, you may go with them."
"Thank you, good sir," said Leothric in the voice of Sir Gothmoor.
"At least he's taking the puppets," Gideon thought he heard Sebastian say.
Gideon led his companions through the shipyard and the harbor businesses, on past the reputedly haunted ruins of Quickfall Abbey, and into the district of Abbey Green, with its old stone buildings housing artists and artisans, merchants and military retirees.
Gideon stopped at a flower shop whose proprietress rented out rooms.
"Why, Master Gull! Thought you were long gone."
"The musical life is full of surprises, Mrs. Amaranth. Is Corvine in?"
"She's singing at the Threegates Irregular today."
Gideon thanked her and bought a bouquet.
As Gideon led his companions into the prosperous district of Threegates, Leothric asked, "Are you going on a rescue mission, Gull, or a date?"
"Hush, Leothric," said Viridia.
"It's a reasonable question," Ozrif said. "Unless fog-maddened lunatics are especially vulnerable to roses."
"I know this is strange," Gideon said. "But I've got a bad feeling, and I've come to trust my intuition. If I'm wrong, though, flowers are in order."
∗ ∗ ∗
A few years back, some prominent Threegates families had realized that the intersection of Threegates, Old Cassomir, and the city moat had created a little no-man's-land—a tiny artificial gully bordering Threegates and formed from an indentation in Old Cassomir's ramparts, with the moat washing its edge.
The area was too small and sh
adowy to be much use to anyone. But though it might be no-man's land, it held plenty of appeal for the city's youths. The families were at first tolerant of their younger children using the place for mock battles by day, until they discovered that their older children, in the ancient manner of wealthy scions, were using the area by night for unauthorized experiments with sex and alcohol.
The families took it upon themselves to remove this bit of wildness from their cultivated world. They leveled the ground, added shade plants, benches, lampposts, and a pavilion, and announced a performing arts festival.
The Threegates Irregular Festival was a middling success, and while from time to time anarchy returned, the families were satisfied, and the setting had grown more popular. Corvine had written that the Irregular Festival was a good chance to try out something offbeat, since the patrons saw nowhere to go but up.
As they arrived, spectators were indeed gathered, and Corvine Gale was singing.
Her voice was wild and beautiful, yet with a touch of the stubborn and sardonic—rather like Corvine herself. She stood in the leather armor common to those who delved the abandoned tunnels beneath Cassomir, and sang a fanciful song about those depths.
Far below the booted feet
Of Jackknife Lane and Mermaid Street
Far beneath the weary load
Of Sailors' Walk and Timber Road
Where sewage spills and garbage plops
And rats repair to dine on slops
A dukedom sits of skulls and bones
A barony of catacombs
In the land beneath the street
The Locker of All Light's Retreat.
It was hard for Gideon to turn away. But he'd hustled across half of Cassomir to make certain she was all right, not just stand and gawk. He scanned the surroundings for anything amiss.
At first, all seemed well, and Gideon was relieved, hoping just once to simply enjoy a performance.
Then he spotted the fog.
He could barely see the apparition, for although the sunlight shone into the hollow, shadows pooled at the edges, where the misty tendrils were rising. The fingers of fog reached from the moat, curled among the bushes and flowers, and slipped under the benches to climb up the bodies of certain viewers and slip into their ears.
Gideon pointed with his bouquet, his voice stolen by the speed and scope of the nebulous assault. Gideon thought Corvine spotted his gesture, recognizing him with widened eyes. So great was her composure, however, that she didn't gasp or miss a beat.
Viridia, however, did both. She grabbed Gideon's arm. "I have two comments. First, she has an amazing voice. Second, what are we supposed to do against that?"
"Against what?" whispered Leothric. "What do you see?"
"Don't you see the fog?"
"No," said Ozrif.
"That man killed in the Kismet House," Gideon said. "He told me not everyone can see it. Perhaps it chooses to be noticed, or not."
"What's it doing?" Ozrif asked.
Gideon frowned. "Nothing good..."
Corvine reached her final chorus, wherein her narrator implored against the folly of ruin-delving:
O my brother, do not go
Down to where no light is known
Chase no more a foolish dream
Of magic's lure and treasure's gleam.
Corvine bowed, the last echoes of her voice dying in the hollow.
As the applause began, the fog-afflicted spectators were the first to rise, clapping in a fierce yet mechanical way. One of Leothric's puppets, back in Oppara, was a mechanical monkey eternally clanging cymbals against each other. These fog-swayed people reminded Gideon of that sinister simian. Clap-clap-clap-clap.
There were thirteen, perhaps fourteen. Then they were lost to sight as the rest of the audience rose and clapped in the more random manner of an ordinary crowd.
Corvine straightened, smiled at the crowd, and searched for Gideon's face. She fixed him with a wondering look. Then her gaze flicked to something behind him.
"Gideon! Look!"
Her voice was no longer the smooth instrument of moments before, but the shriek of a tavern singer who had no trouble being heard over a score of workmen's stamping feet.
He spun to discover the fog hadn't merely been infiltrating the crowd. It had billowed up into a wall, cutting the gathering off from both the moat and the path back to town. Images swirled within the fog, as they had down in the Shadow School. Already some seemed familiar.
Leothric was nearest, and now it appeared he could see the fog, for he stumbled toward it.
Gideon ran after him. "Don't look!" But it was too late, and Gideon found he couldn't look away either.
Leothric gasped. Within the white canvas, a shadowy townhouse stood in the midst of a great city. As they watched, leaves blew past the house like swarms of madly swirling insects. Branches, too.
"The storm," Leothric murmured. "The great windstorm of '99."
The house shuddered. A shadowy man and woman dragged a shrieking boy and two girls from the building just before an immense oak tree fell against it, destroying the work of generations.
But the work of generations was of no concern to little Leothric. The boy in the vision was struggling to escape his parents' grasp, to run back into the house.
"My cat, Growler," Leothric whispered. "He was never found."
The vision faded. Leothric sat upon the ground.
"Leothric," said Gideon.
"Shut up!" Leothric yelled.
"Ozrif joined them. "I see it too, Leothric. I understand. But we all have losses, and must all move on. Get up."
"Shut up! You weren't there! You can't understand. It's not just Growler. The house was the symbol of our wealth and power, and it was destroyed by a stupid random act of nature. By a tree! A tree!"
"Gentlemen!" Viridia was calling. "If you're through with your picnic, a little help?"
Gideon dragged Leothric up by the arm.
The lunatics were about their work.
Just like the possessed pesh-den customers back in Oppara, some frothed at the mouth, while all had greenish-white eyes the color of the fog. Some were busy lashing out at their fellows, shoving, punching, clawing, biting. But several were surging through the panicking crowd toward the stage.
"Corvine!"
"Sleep," a spinning Viridia told the crazies, emphasizing her command with rose petals and arcane syllables. Then she did it again.
Knots of the madfolk tumbled over into magical slumber, along with some of their targets. Unfortunately, one lunatic remained standing, finding it easy to throw himself against a helpless victim. Viridia swore and dove onto him. Ozrif sprinted to join her.
Gideon ran too, hoping to somehow aid Corvine, adding his own curses to the air. He wished he'd studied attack spells rather than more subtle effects.
But his shout at least roused Corvine from shock. She didn't have time for a spell, but she did call out, "Enough!"
Astonishingly, the nearest madmen stopped, staring, as though awaiting instruction. Ascending the stage, Gideon tried to conjure something to keep their attention. Absurdly, he still held the bouquet. He tossed it to Corvine; it landed at her feet.
"Really?" she said.
"Bad timing," he said, and commenced his spell of illusion.
What will I dream when the hangman hauls?
To anyone who succumbed to his spell, the dream was of a throng of maniacs rushing from around the back of the stage, charging off toward the fog and screaming incoherently.
As the phantoms rushed off, several of the real maniacs followed. Though rather fewer than Gideon had hoped.
"Next time," Corvine said beside him, "warn me before the lunatics attack?"
"It's a rescue in the nick of time, okay? A classic."
"This is a rescue?"
Their exchange seemed to break whatever hold Corvine's voice had on the four still confronting them. The fog-bewitched Cassomirites advanced, screaming.
"Get th
em!"
"Grab them!"
"Kill them!"
As they retreated down the stage, Gideon got in front of Corvine and tried something new.
The enemy seemed resistant to illusions, so inflicting laughter seemed doubtful too. But perhaps something that affected the environment directly...He pulled out a lyric-inscribed strip of parchment, rolled into a cone—the material component for his spell of voice-throwing. He held it to his lips.
In response, the air beyond the fog resonated with Gideon's voice singing the lament of Captain Crookwing, from Blacwin's Wanderloss. One of the lunatics was so confused and distracted by the voice that she broke from her cohort and charged snarling into the fog. Several of those menacing the crowd joined her.
Alas, three remained in front of Gideon.
"Wizard!" the first accused him.
"In league with devils!" screamed the second.
"He has an Andoren accent!" bellowed the third, spewing spittle.
"Why, thank you."
"Kill him! Bite him! Eat him!"
"Ah, back to the classics." Gideon retreated to the stage's edge.
But Corvine had not been idle. She cried out in an arcane language, and her voice caused the attackers to snap to attention as the spell washed over them.
Their eyes returned to their proper color, and they ceased their talk of killing and biting. "What?" said one.
"Thank you," Gideon managed. "What was—"
Corvine grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the front of the stage. "No time. I had only one spell for banishing magic. We'll have to do the rest the hard way."
They reached the edge, jumped onto the green, and advanced to where the other bards were struggling against ten foes. There were five Leothrics waving five dragons, running like mad in a wide circle and letting the crazies chase them. Ozrif and Viridia were throwing rocks. A few lunatics lay in the grass with daggers protruding from their bodies.
"Try not to kill them!" Gideon called out. "They've been controlled. We know they can recover."
"An Andoren!" cried the nearest, turning toward Gideon. "Die, foreigner!"
"You sure about the no killing part?" called Viridia.
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