Voyage of the Fox Rider

by Dennis L McKiernan

  “Alamar!” she shrieked. “You ale-fuddled old sot!—”

  A snore answered her.

  Alamar had passed out.

  But his hand no longer glowed.

  “Unh,” groaned the Mage, opening his eyes, blearily peering about. “Where—oh my head.”

  No one answered him, yet he could hear the creak of wood and a distant plash of water. Bright daylight poured in through a roundish window, and the room seemed to be slowly rocking to and fro. He held up the fingers of his right hand and stared at them, as if trying to remember something—what, he did not know. Wincing, Alamar struggled to a sitting position.

  On the floor across the room glaring at him sat Jinnarin, leaning back against sleeping Rux.

  Smacking his lips and tasting his own tongue, Alamar’s face screwed up into a horrid mask. “Gahh!”

  “Serves you right,” gritted Jinnarin.

  “Wh-where are we?”

  “On board the Flying Fish.”

  Alamar’s eyebrows shot upward. “Flying Fish? A ship?” He looked about, now recognizing the gentle rolling for what it was. “What in the name of Hèl are we doing aboard a ship?”

  “You really don’t remember, do you?”

  Alamar stared blankly at her. “I seem to recall talking to a captain about”—he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to recollect—“about the Elvenship,” he said at last.

  “Aravan’s ship, the Eroean.”

  “Yes, that’s it. The Eroean.” Suddenly Alamar’s eyes widened, and he stood, groaning from the effort and clutching his head with one hand, his other reaching out for the rocking wall to steady himself. “Quickly, Jinnarin, we’ve got to get off before the ship sails.”

  “Oh, so now it’s ‘Jinnarin,’ eh? Last night it was ‘Jin-Jin.’”

  “Whatever you are talking about, Pysk, we haven’t time,” snapped Alamar, wincing at the loudness of his own voice.

  “Alamar, I have news for you: we sailed some twelve hours past.”

  As if his knees had turned to water, Alamar plopped back down upon the bunk. “Twelve…?”

  Jinnarin nodded, finally getting to her feet. Rux opened an eye, then closed it again.

  “How could you let this happen, Pysk?” groaned Alamar.

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” she answered.

  “Idea? What idea? Where are we bound?”

  “For Arbalin,” responded Jinnarin. “There to see—”

  Alamar groaned again. “To see Aravan. I remember.” He cast a grievous eye at Jinnarin. “How could you conceive such a stupid scheme?”

  “I? I?” spluttered Jinnarin. “How could I conceive such a stupid—”

  “That’s what I asked, Pysk,” barked Alamar. “No need to repeat the question.”

  “Alamar, you ass, it was you who conceived the stupid plan!” she shrieked, her voice shrill and piercing, Alamar clapping his hands to his head in agony.

  Grumbling, Rux stood and turned in a circle and lay back down again, eyeing the two accusingly.

  Moaning, Alamar got to his feet once more, his gaze avoiding that of the seething Pysk. “Well, there’s nothing for it,” he muttered. “I’ve got to get to the captain and have him turn back.”

  But just as he reached the cabin door—“Wait!” called Jinnarin. And as the Mage turned and looked at her—“Sit back down, Alamar. I’ve something to say.”

  “Look, Pysk, every moment we delay just puts us that much farther from—”

  “I said, sit down!”Jinnarin snarled through clenched teeth.

  With a sigh, Alamar plodded back to the bunk and slumped. After a moment of silence, he demanded, “Speak up, speak up. The ship sails on.”

  “Quiet!” she ordered. “I am gathering my thoughts.”

  The Pysk moved to Rux and sat on the floor and used the fox as a bolster.

  Alamar shook his head in exasperation…but he remained silent.

  At last Jinnarin looked at him. “Alamar, perhaps this stupid scheme isn’t so stupid after all. I mean, isn’t it true that Aravan has sailed the world over? And if that’s true, then who better to ask? Who else would know of a pale green sea? And, given that Aravan has indeed sailed all the seas of Mithgar, might he not know of the crystal castle? The black ship? Alamar, have you a better notion of who we might go to? Is there anyone other than Aravan who could better aid us in finding Farrix?”

  Alamar looked long at Jinnarin. Finally he said, “But that in turn means we have to find Aravan.”

  “You said that he was at Arbalin.”

  “I said, Jinnarin, that he sailed out of Arbalin. That doesn’t mean he’s there now. In fact, it is most likely that he is not there.”

  “If not there, Alamar, then where?”

  “On his ship. On the Eroean,” Alamar said peevishly. “He does, after all, sail the seas you know, gadding about the world in search of adventure, of treasure, of rich cargo.”

  Jinnarin nodded. “Yes, I do know. But list, Alamar: soon or late he brings that rich cargo to Arbalin, neh?”

  “But that could take years, child,” protested Alamar.

  “Or merely days,” she rejoined.

  They sat without speaking, the silence broken only by the plash of waves against the hull and the rolling creak of ship’s timber and rope. At last Alamar said, “All right, Jinnarin, we will go to Arbalin. There we will seek Aravan, and if he is not there, then we will seek word of when he might come, or where we might find him. We will wait for six months, no more—”

  “A year,” interjected Jinnarin.

  “Six months,” repeated Alamar, glaring.

  “A year,” said Jinnarin again. “After all, Alamar, it is Farrix we are after. You remember him, don’t you, Farrix the boar killer?”

  Alamar winced. “That was a low blow, Pysk.…All right. You win. A year.”

  The Flying Fish was a three-masted caravel, some eighty feet long from stem to stern and twenty-eight feet abeam, a swift little cargo ship plying the route between Arbalin and Rwn, a journey of seven to nine weeks, given favorable winds. Her sails abaft were lateen rigged, while those forward were square—all but the jib. Captain Dalby was her master, and she carried a crew of seventeen: two mates, a cook, a carpenter and cooper, a caulker, a cabin boy, a boatswain, and ten ordinary seamen. She had a stern castle but no fo’c’sle, and the former held three cabins—the captain’s, the first mate’s, and the second mate’s, this last occupied by Alamar, for whenever there were passengers on board, the second mate and, if necessary, the first mate as well, slept with the remainder of the Men below decks in the forward crew’s quarters.

  Alamar took his meals with the captain, always bearing a small portion away from the board—“For my fox, you know”—and Dalby was struck by the wide variety of food that this carnivore ate: vegetables and soups, breads and sweets, and even dried fruits, as well as morsels of fish and fowl and other meats. And though the captain had no objection to the taking of modest bits and scraps, still he found it curious that even though he had invited Alamar to bring his animal into the cabin to eat straight from the board, the Mage had declined, saying that Rux was too untamed, too feral. Yet in spite of the fox’s reputed wild ways, at night Alamar was often seen pacing the deck, the fox somewhere near. And unlike when he was first brought aboard, the animal ran free, no longer restrained by a leash.

  Yet even though the crew became accustomed to seeing Alamar and Rux, still at times the sailors would gather and speculate about both the Mage and his fox, though not within the hearing of either. For ever since the two had taken passage, there seemed to be strange goings on aboard the Fish:

  Now and again in the night a crewman would see a flicker of shadow from the corner of his eye, but whenever he looked, nothing would be there, or at times it would be the fox.

  The carpenter swore that the fox was a shape changer, and the cabin boy claimed that he had heard Alamar in his cabin talking with the fox, and that the fox had answered!

&
nbsp; “I was bringing tea to the cap’n when I heard it. A high-pitched voice it were, them two talkin’…arguing fiercelike. About wot, I don’t know, and I don’t want to know, and I didn’t stop to see. Believe you me, quick as Jack Nimble I ran, I did. Didn’t spill a drop o’ th’ cap’n’s tea, neither.”

  “Brrr! Gives me the blank willies it does. But I take wot y’ say, matey, ’cause I ’spect as all foxes wot talk have high voices, right enough.”

  “Wull, it don’t s’prise me none, ’cause I’ve always known as foxes are more’n wot they seem. I mean, look at ‘ow clever they are and all. And their eyes, not like those of a decent dog, but instead like th’ slitted orbs o’ a stealthy cat.”

  “Ar, y’r right at that. But ’ere naow, ‘oo’s to say ‘e ain’t one o’ them there demons wot Wizards are always foolin’ about wi’?”

  “Go on wi’ ye. This Rux naow, a Wizard’s familiar ‘e is and talk ‘e might, but ‘e’s all right wi’ me, ‘e is. And take my grog ‘e ain’t no demon. Let me ask you, though, ‘ave you seen many rats since ‘e’s come aboard? ‘E’s better’n a cat, I’d say, when it comes to rattin’. Y’r meals ’r’ better, too, ’cause the rats wot nibble and gnaw ’r’ probably all dead by now; kilt by Master Rux, I do trow if y’ want my honest opinion on it.”

  “That as may be, cookie, but all as I know is I’ll be glad when we finally deliver Master Rux and ‘is Wizard to the docks at Arbalin Isle.…”

  As the caravel made its way across the Weston Ocean and toward the Avagon Sea, during the daylight hours Jinnarin stayed within the cabin, but at night she roamed the decks taking in the salt tang of the fresh ocean air, the shadow-wrapped Pysk for the most part invisible to the eye of Man, though now and again a member of the crew would catch a fleeting glimpse of her. Rux accompanied her on these sojourns, the fox now completely familiar with the entire ship. But during the day while Jinnarin was shut in Alamar’s quarters, Rux was usually below decks hunting rats. And though Rux wasn’t afraid of the Men aboard, he gave them wide berth, just as they gave him, each eyeing the other somewhat suspiciously.

  When she wasn’t asleep during the day, Jinnarin spent much of the time in discourse with Alamar, the eld Mage a fount of knowledge when he wasn’t fuming or sulking.

  One rainy day Jinnarin asked, “Tell me, Alamar, what did Drienne mean when she said you needed to cross over?”

  Alamar glared at her accusingly. “Eavesdropping on a private conversation, were you?”

  “Oh, never mind!” shot back Jinnarin.

  A chill beyond that of the dampness filled the cabin, Jinnarin inspecting her bow and arrows for the thousandth time—or so it seemed to her—and Alamar sitting at a small desk filling a paper with arcane symbols.

  “I’ll trade you,” he said at last.

  “Trade me?”

  “Pysk, there are times I suspect that your hearing has failed you.”

  Jinnarin gritted her teeth. “And there are times, Mage, when I know your manners have deserted you!”

  Again cold silence fell between them as the ship rolled in the billowing seas, and they could hear the voice of the bo’s’n calling out to the Men, setting the sails. Finally, Jinnarin asked: “What do you mean you’ll ‘trade me’? Trade what for what?”

  “Information for information, Pysk. What else?”

  “Meaning…?”

  “You want to know why Drienne asked me to go to Vadaria, and I want to know just exactly what is on those arrows you Pysks use. I mean, it must be powerful stuff indeed if a tiny shaft like that can bring down a rampaging boar.”

  Now Jinnarin glared at Alamar. “So, now it’s the secrets of the Hidden Ones you’d like, eh?”

  “Black kettle, black pot,” retorted Alamar.

  “What?” demanded Jinnarin.

  “Goose and gander,” replied the Mage.

  “Alamar, I’d sooner you hold your tongue than to speak in riddles. I merely wished to know what was so important about going back to Vadaria, but you, on the other hand want to be made privy to special lore of the Fox Riders.”

  “Just as you want to know special lore of the Mages, Pysk.”

  “Oh. Well if it’s a secret—”

  “Not exactly a secret, Jinnarin. Instead, it’s just not common knowledge.”

  “Well, uncommon knowledge or not, Alamar, I’ll not trade. If the secret of Fox Rider arrows were to fall into the wrong hands…”

  Alamar sighed, and once more a lengthy silence fell between them, and sheets of rain lashed upon the hull. But at last Alamar said, “This is the way of it, Jinnarin, the casting of spells exacts a dreadful toll: youth and energy are spent, the greater the spell, the greater the cost. For small effects, such as magelight, or magesight, or firestarting, the cost is minimal. But for large effects—stormbringing, lifegiving, and the like—the cost is great …unless, of course, energy is gained by other means to satisfy the balance.”

  “Other means?”

  “Mostly vile,” answered Alamar. “Sacrifices. Death or torture. Fear. Anything that causes the crying out of a soul.”

  Jinnarin shuddered in revulsion and fell into thought. After a while she asked, “What about great joy, Alamar, or love? Wouldn’t they also provide energy?”

  Alamar smiled a rare smile. “Ah me, but you, too, would make a good apprentice, Jinnarin.

  “But to answer your question: yes. Joy. Love. Grief. Hate. Any and all the great emotions can sustain a casting, furnishing the energy needed. But in their absence, youth is taken from the caster instead.

  “Heed: my Folk are as yours, or as are the Elves—ordinarily, age visits us not. Even so, we can grow old…but only if we exert our inborn power to control and shape the energies about us, only if we mold reality and alter the world at hand, only if we do that which others call magic, only if we cast spells.…In the absence of castings, youth is ever ours.”

  “But then, Alamar, why did Drienne urge you to go to Vadaria?”

  “Just this: on Vadaria, if we rest a special way we can recover from the ravages of casting—we can regain our youth.”

  “If rest is all you need, why not here on Mithgar?”

  Alamar smiled again. “Very good, Jinnarin. You would indeed make a suitable Mage’s apprentice had you the inborn power. Once more you have asked a cogent question, one that deserves an answer:

  “On Mithgar, it takes many, many centuries to recover from casting spells, but on Vadaria, that time is but a tenth—nay! but one one hundredth of what it is here.”

  “Oh,” said Jinnarin. “Now I see.”

  Again silence fell between the two. This time, though, it was Jinnarin who broke the quiet. “Two things, Alamar:

  “First, the arrows are coated with a paste made from the bark of a certain tree mingled with the juice of a certain flower to which is added the pulverized powder of a certain rock; beyond that I will say no more.

  “Second, you have implied that my Folk have not the power to become spell casters, yet this I say to you: there are many among the Hidden Ones who can and do ‘cast magic,’ and some Fox Riders are numbered among these.”

  The Flying Fish at last came into the Avagon Sea, Captain Dalby swinging the ship onto an east-northeasterly course, and with all canvas flying, the little caravel made the best of the light winds abaft. The weather for the most part continued fair, though now and again rain swept across the waters and down upon the craft. Dalby ran the Straits of Kistan without undue incident, although the lookout did espy the maroon sails of a Kistanian Rover, but nought came of it, and on toward Arbalin they plowed.

  And in Alamar’s cabin—“I have been considering the question of evil,” announced Jinnarin one day, “and though I’ve come to no final dictum, there are a few things I can say.”

  Alamar looked up from the paper he scribbled on, then turned his chair to face the Pysk. “Say on, Jinnarin. I would hear you.”

  “Well, Alamar, it seems to me that much of what I consider to be evil falls
into the realm of someone asserting control over another purely for selfish ends. This control can take many forms, but regardless, it is a control which ignores the wishes of the one being controlled. Domination is what I speak of here, domination to satisfy the whims of the dominator. In the extreme, the domination, the control, is over life itself, and the dominator may even slay the victim merely to prove that he holds the ultimate control. Power, authority, dominion, command, control, obedience—all for the pleasure of the wielder: these are the things a truly evil being seeks.”

  Alamar smiled. “Let us speak of these things you name, Jinnarin: power, authority, dominion, control, obedience. Are these not the rights of a King, or for that matter, anyone in authority?”

  “Yes, Alamar, they are. Yet a King should exercise these with great circumspection, and only with the good of his subjects in mind. If he wields his power only for his own gratification, without regard to the needs and desires of his subjects, then I say he is evil.”

  “Hmm,” mused the Mage. “What about, oh say, the dominant Wolf in a pack—is he not evil? He is dominant, after all, exercising his will over the other Wolves.”

  Jinnarin made a negating gesture with her hand. “But he does not do so merely for pleasure. Instead, he leads the pack to ensure their survival as well as his own. The fact that he dominates does not make him evil; instead, in this case, it simply means that he is the one best fit to lead.”

  “What about those who lie, cheat, steal.”

  “Alamar, I would say that there are varying degrees of evil. Some things being worse—more evil—than others. Lying, cheating, stealing, if they are done merely for gratification, if they are done merely because the liars, cheaters, stealers have no regard for the feelings of those they wrong, then they are acting in an evil manner.