Voyage of the Fox Rider

by Dennis L McKiernan

  Alamar took up her trembling hand and held it. “After you get something to eat, Daughter, then will we speak of the dreamwalk and of what occurred therein.”

  Aylis nodded, squeezing Alamar’s hand. “Aravan, too, Father. I would have him here when—”

  A swift smile flashed over the elder’s face. “Ha! That goes without saying, Daughter, without saying. In fact, I am surprised that he’s not here now. He’s been popping in and out like a blooming jack-in-the-box to see if you are yet awake.”

  The howl of the wind blasted down the corridor as the door to the deck opened then closed. The eld Mage cackled. “If I am not mistaken, Daughter, that would be him now.” Aravan stepped into the lounge, and Alamar crowed, “No sooner said than done.”

  Doffing his foul-weather gear, the Elf turned to Aylis. “Hast thou yet eaten?”

  “Jinnarin has gone through the wheelhouse to fetch Tink.”

  Aravan added charcoal to the small iron stove, turning the damper a bit in the vent pipe leading up and out. He then took the chair next to Aylis. “Should this wind hold, we are now but five or so days from Rwn.”

  Alamar snorted. “Do you truly believe that we will discover anything there?”

  Aravan shrugged. “Who can say?”

  Aylis sighed. “I could…were not someone blocking all visions concerning—concerning whatever it is we pursue.”

  “The recovery of Farrix” came Jinnarin’s voice, the Pysk just now stepping from the passageway, Tink in tow behind, the lad bearing a tray. “We are trying to find Farrix. That is what we pursue.”

  Aylis smiled. “Aye, Jinnarin. That we are. But there is more to this than a missing loved one, though just what it is, I cannot say. We will speak of it after breakfast…including the dreamwalk, Jinnarin. Including the dreamwalk.”

  Jinnarin took a deep breath and then exhaled and nodded sharply but once. “Yes, Aylis, after breakfast.”

  Alamar leaned forward as Tink uncovered the tray. “Cap’n, sir, I brought enough for all,” said the cabin boy, smiling. “I reck’d that more than one would be hungry, given when they ate this morn.”

  “Thou didst well, Tink,” said Aravan, “we could all use a bite.”

  “Thank you, Cap’n,” said Tink. “Be there aught else?” At Aravan’s negative shake of his head, Tink headed across the rolling floor and into the passageway beyond.

  Alamar, needing no urging, took up a bowl and spooned in a ration of oatmeal, adding a dollop of honey to it, stirring it about then digging in. Aylis on the other hand ate tentatively—honey and bread for the most part—and in this she was joined by Jinnarin, the Pysk picking at her food. Aravan took nothing but tea and watched the others instead, noting that both Aylis and Jinnarin seemed to be bracing themselves for a distressing ordeal. None said aught for a while, wind and wave and the sounds of the Eroean were all that broke the silence. At last Aylis pushed her plate aside, a half-eaten crust of bread remaining, and she looked at Jinnarin, the Pysk cross-legged upon the table. “Let us begin.”

  Jinnarin glanced up and asked, “Where shall I start?”

  Alamar growled, “At the beginning. Pysk.”

  As if anchored by his remark, Jinnarin nodded and took a deep breath. “I don’t remember what I was dreaming before I found myself once again flying above the pale green sea, though however the dream started, whatever it was about, I don’t think it matters. All I know is that there I was in the dark storm clouds, the black ship below me, lightning striking the masts.”

  Alamar looked at Aylis and asked, “Did her beginning dream have any bearing on the sending?”

  Aylis shook her head. “No, Father. At least I think not. When Ontah and I stepped into her dream, she was standing upon a fallen oak.”

  “On a bank above a pool?” asked Jinnarin.

  “Yes.”

  “It is near my home in Darda Glain.”

  “You walked out on a limb above the water and made ready to dive,”

  “Farrix and I swim there.”

  Aylis smiled. “When you dove, instead you flew. Up and away. Ontah and I flew up after. Soon we were among the storm clouds, the nightmare ship below, lightning crashing down upon it.”

  Alamar leaned forward. “Did you see anything strange?”

  “Everything was strange, Father.”

  “No, I mean, did you see anything that Jinnarin had not before described to us?”

  Aylis’s eyes were lost in reflection. “No…or wait, perhaps. I saw other shapes on the sea, but it was too dark…they were too dim and distant to make out.”

  Jinnarin tilted her head. “Other shapes? Do you mean the island?”

  “No, Jinnarin. The island I could see. These were perhaps other islands. Smaller.”

  “Hmm,” mused Aravan. “Mayhap an archipelago or…I will scan my charts for a scattering of islands in a green sea.”

  Alamar held up a cautionary hand. “Remember: not all visions seen in dreams are what they seem. The storm, the ship, the sea, the islands, the crystal castle: they are perhaps but symbols representing something else entirely.”

  Aylis agreed. “Yes, Father, indeed as you will see, at least one or two were something else altogether.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes.”

  Jinnarin shivered in remembered horror, but she spoke on: “It was as before: suddenly I found myself in a crystal castle watching the black ship afar sailing toward me across the storm-tossed sea, and I was afraid.

  “Then Aylis and Ontah came, and the dream changed into something different from before…and the fear got much, much worse.”

  Jinnarin looked up at the other three. “Even now my heart is pounding.”

  Aylis reached out and gently took Jinnarin’s tiny hand in her own. “Mine, too, Jinnarin.”

  Alamar stroked his beard. “Changed? How so? Just how did the dream change.”

  Jinnarin took a deep breath. “Well, when Brightwing and White Owl—”

  “Brightwing and White Owl? What’s all this, Pysk? Who are they?”

  “That’s their dream names, Alamar. Aylis is Brightwing and Ontah is—was, White Owl. I was named Sparrow.”

  “Hmph,” grunted Alamar, then signified that she should continue.

  “When they came, the fear got worse. I would have fled but Brightwing called for me to stay. The crystal walls wavered, changed, and the ship, too. I wanted to run, but Brightwing— I thought my heart would burst, and even though I tried, I couldn’t stay any longer. I had to flee.”

  Jinnarin stopped speaking, her gaze lost.

  Alamar looked at Aylis. “The dream changed? How, Daughter?”

  “When the fear came, White Owl called out that there was an evil spirit nearby. He then told me to stay with Sparrow and to flee at need, while he searched. That’s when the dream began to change. The walls shifted, and it was as if I were seeing double: the finished crystal castle walls seemed overlaid with a roughness, as of unworked crystal. I felt as if I were being drawn into another dream, one different from Jinnarin’s. And the fear, the dread, became almost more than I could bear. Even so, I called to Sparrow to wait, and the ship became a black spider running toward us. I began shrieking; I could not help myself. The walls wavered and began to fade as the dream, Jinnarin’s dream, started collapsing. White Owl shouted for us to flee. A tunnel appeared, and I bolted in terror.”

  Fright once again welling within, Aylis began sobbing, and Aravan drew her to him, embracing her. Jinnarin, too, wept.

  After a moment Aylis disengaged from Aravan and wiped her cheeks with the heels of her hands. “White Owl—Ontah—didn’t escape. Instead he died there in that nightmare, in that sending, slain by something.…”

  “The evil spirit?” asked Jinnarin, her face stark with remembered dread.

  Aylis turned up her hands. “I know not, Jinnarin. Perhaps it was a spirit. Perhaps instead it was the fear.”

  Alamar took up the teapot and replenished his cup, spilling a bit as the ship ro
lled with the sea. “Would a spider cause such fear?”

  Jinnarin nodded, her eyes wide. “It was a giant spider, Alamar.”

  “Even so…”

  Aylis shrugged. “I don’t know, Father. It seems to me that White Owl searched for the fear…elsewhere…as if he were not in Jinnarin’s dream at all. I did not seek him, for he had charged me with Sparrow’s safety. Regardless, I could not seem to take my eyes away from the ship, the spider.”

  Alamar glanced up at his daughter. “Perhaps then, Daughter, the spider wasn’t—isn’t the evil spirit at all, but is a diversion instead…something to keep you from seeing past the symbols and into the true nature of the dream.”

  “Perhaps so, Father. But then again perhaps they are exactly what they seem.”

  Driven before the storm, late on the fifth day they sighted the island of Rwn, and southerly turned the Eroean, the ship cutting through the austral waters to come to the cove on the southeast coast mid of the sixth day, where she hove to and dropped anchor.

  “Now shall we wait,” said Aravan as the crew clambered down from the rigging, Elven silk furled ‘round yardarms, jibs and staysails stowed.

  It was the fifteenth of November, winter now gripping this northern clime.

  Aylis peered at the sky. “I am afraid that we will see nothing through this overcast.”

  “Clear or cast,” replied Aravan, “we may see nought regardless.”

  Aylis turned and faced the island. In the near distance, dark waves lapped the rocky shore. Above, on the rising, snow-covered land, tall pines stood, and where they shone through the white mantle the laden boughs were dressed in a green so dark as to seem a shade of blue. Here and there stretched tangles of deciduous trees, stark and barren in their winter dress, gnarled, frosted limbs clawing upward at the desolate sky.

  Cloak-wrapped Alamar came stumping toward the aft deck, Jinnarin at his side, Rux following after. “We are going to bed now,” called the Mage. “Got to be rested in order to stay awake throughout the night.”

  Jinnarin looked up at the elder. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep.”

  “Nonsense, Pysk. Besides, you’ve got to sleep. Only you have the eyes to see the plumes. Of course, with my magesight I’ll be able to see them, too.”

  “Wait, Father,” called Aylis, “let me do a weather casting. Unless the sky clears, no one will see anything this night regardless, plumes or no.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Daughter,” growled the Mage. “We’ve got to become accustomed to staying awake. After all, we will be the ones on watch.”

  Aylis trod down the steps to the main deck. “Do not forget, Father, I have magesight as well. Even so, it is not certain that either you or I will see anything.”

  “Pah!” snorted Alamar. “If a Pysk can see them, then—”

  “Then that’s no guarantee that either of us will, magesight notwithstanding,” interjected Aylis. “That aside, I will forecast the weather; it will take but a moment.”

  Tugging her cloak about her, Aylis walked forward to face the chill wind, the Elvenship having swung at anchor until her bow pointed into the draught. The seeress stood on the foredeck and gazed westerly over the bowsprit and intoned, “Caelum in futura.” She watched as ship, water, and land disappeared and only the sky remained and hours passed in mere moments—day raced past, dusk but a flicker as starless night splashed across the skies, and then dawn burst into cloudy day but a lucid blue swiftly rived the grey and swept it away—and then her vision expired.

  “It will clear by this time tomorrow,” she said upon returning. “Tonight, though, the overcast remains.”

  Alamar growled under his breath. “Doesn’t matter,” he snapped. “I’m off to bed. From now until we see the plumes and discover where they are going, it’s down in the day and up in the night. A schedule no different from the one I use when charting the stars, see.”

  He turned and trudged toward the aft-quarters door. “You coming, Pysk?” he called back over his shoulder. “Can’t have you falling asleep on watch, you know.”

  “In a moment, Alamar,” answered Jinnarin, watching until he disappeared through the door. She turned to Aravan standing on the afterdeck atop the steps. “I really am not at all sleepy.”

  Aravan stepped down to the main deck and squatted beside the Pysk. “Jinnarin, there is no need for thee to be on watch unless and until the boreal lights are in the skies. As to when that may be, I cannot say, for none I know commands them and they come at their own will. Thou need be awake and alert then and only then. Hence, were I thou, I would sleep as usual and waken only at need—only when the lights are in the sky. And my crew will rouse thee when such events occur. And should the lights come several nights running, well, thou wilt adapt quickly unto a backward day.”

  Jinnarin glanced at the door where Alamar had gone, then she grinned at the Elf. “We will tell Alamar in a bit, eh?”

  The Pysk and fox wandered off to find Jatu, and when they were gone, Aylis turned to Aravan. “You said that none you know commands the boreal lights, and that is true. Yet if we are to believe the words of Jinnarin’s Farrix, then perhaps someone does indeed hold dominion over the aurora…or parts of it. But why, I cannot say.”

  In the late afternoon, Alamar came stumping up onto the deck. Aylis stood in the starboard bow, leaning against the forward mainrail. The elder took a place at her side. “Couldn’t sleep,” he grumbled when she turned her head to look at him.

  Aylis faced the island again, and the two stood and looked at the waves crashing against the shore. At last the elder bade, “A copper for your thoughts.”

  Aylis sighed, then said, “Father, here we stand off the shore of Rwn, less than a day’s sail from Kairn, less than a day from your cottage. But even more importantly, less than a day from Vadaria.”

  “Eh?” Alamar looked at Aylis. “What’s Vadaria got to do with anything?”

  Now Aylis turned to her father, tears in her eyes. “Father, I look at you and see that your has burned low. Not many castings are left within you, and should you attempt something major, it could cost you your very life. You are nigh spent, and you well know that it is time for you to go home and regain your youth, your .”

  Alamar bristled. “Pah! I am as good as—”

  “No, Father, you are not!” burst out Aylis in anger, thrusting out her hand, palm forward, to stop his words. “Father, you look upon this quest as a lark, as one last fling. Yet it is anything but!”

  “Bah!” snorted Alamar, his jaw jutted stubbornly.

  Confronting Alamar, Aylis saw an eld Mage before her, but saw as well the aged face of Ontah. “Father, you know the truth of what I am saying, and you must not pretend otherwise. One has already died on this mission, and I would not have the next be you.”

  Huffing and grinding his teeth, Alamar turned his back to Aylis.

  “Please, Father, listen to me. Were you filled with the energy of restored youth, none better could be enlisted to see the mission through. Yet you are not and we are opposed by someone of great power, and I fear for your life. For at this moment you are old and nearly spent, no match for another Mage.”

  Alamar spun, his palm raised as if to strike her. She stood unflinching, weeping, her hands at her side. Of a sudden he looked at his upheld hand in wonder, and the rage left him. He pulled her to him, hugging her fiercely, or as fiercely as his frail form would permit. And she clutched his thin frame to herself and wept. At last he held her at arm’s length and growled, “Aylis. What you say is true. I am old. There, I said it: I am old. No one likes to admit that he is old. No one. But I am. Old.

  “I should—I must journey to Vadaria, and soon, for I have not much left within me. Even so, I’ll not leave this expedition until we’ve settled what’s happened to Farrix”—Alamar held up a hand to stop the protest springing to Aylis’s lips—“I gave my sworn word, and I will not go back on it…after all, he saved my life. But heed, I will be careful, spendi
ng as little as possible, for as you can see, I know my limits. Once we’ve found Farrix, once this mission is done, then will I go, I promise—first to Kairn, the City of Bells, for I would say good-bye to someone there, and then to Vadaria to regain my youth.”

  Alamar cocked an eyebrow. “And that, Daughter, is the best I can do. Does it suffice?”

  Aylis studied his elderly face. At last she sighed and pulled him to her and gave him a hug. “Yes, Father, it will have to do.” Then it was she who held him at arm’s length. “But you must remember your promise—to husband your and spend it only at great need. This is not a lark, not a last grand adventure. I will have no more of this showing off in battle, exploding enemy fireballs, or anything else of the like.”

  Alamar looked long at her, but at last nodded. “You drive a hard bargain, Daughter.”

  Again she embraced him, a timorous smile on her face, for deep inside she doubted that he would keep his promise.

  Jinnarin sat with Aylis in the seeress’s quarters, the Pysk cross-legged on the drop-leaf of the writing desk, Aylis sitting on her bunk and leaning back against the wall, each sipping tea. Night had fallen and the cabin was lit by the soft yellow glow of lantern light. The two were alone and had been since the evening meal—Aravan and his officers were in the ship’s lounge setting the order of the watch for the days to come, and Alamar had retired to his own cabin. And so the two sat and spoke of things that had been and things that were and things that might never be.

  “I learned something today, Jinnarin.”

  “Oh?”

  “From my father. Something he said.”

  Jinnarin said nought, waiting for Aylis to continue.

  “Yes, and I think that it applies to Mages and mortals alike.”

  Jinnarin set her tiny cup aside. “You Mages are passing strange, I think. But then so are mortals.” Jinnarin laughed. “Perhaps so are we all.

  “Regardless, what did Alamar say?”

  “He told me that no one likes to admit that they are old.”