Voyage of the Fox Rider

by Dennis L McKiernan

  Jatu nodded vigorously and interjected, “Farrix—or whoever it is sending the dream—could have all along been trying to tell Lady Jinnarin that it is a galley, yet the dream became garbled somewhere along the way.”

  Alamar threw up his hands. “I’m not saying it is and I’m not saying it isn’t…what I am saying is that we just don’t know.”

  Frizian blew out his breath. “What about the lightning stroking the masts? And the island? I know of no island in the Swirl.”

  All eyes turned to Aravan. The Elf shrugged. “Neither do I, Frizian, yet heed, the weed is more than a thousand miles across. It could hide many things within, and they would remain unknown. An island is the least of them.”

  “Ships!” exclaimed Aylis.

  “Eh?” grunted Alamar. “What are you going on about, Daughter?”

  “Ships, Father. The other shapes in the sea. Small. Indistinct in the storm. They’re not islands, but ships instead. Trapped ships. Oh, Father, now even I am beginning to believe.”

  Jatu looked at the shaded area. “Ah but, Captain, it is a circle a thousand miles across. How we will find a single island within…well, all I can say is that I think it will be a nearly impossible task.”

  Jinnarin, sitting cross-legged on the table, asked, “Can we sail through those waters? I mean, if other ships are trapped, won’t the Eroean get caught as well?”

  Aravan nodded. “Even the starsilver bottom of the Eroean will not keep her free of the clutches of the weed should we sail therein. Oh, at the edges the weed is sparse, and the Eroean can easily fare through. But deeper within, the weed becomes thick, and there I would not take the ship. Nay, we will have to use flat-bottom boats of single sail to explore the central part, mayhap rowing as well.”

  Alamar glared up at all those standing around the table. “You are bound and determined to go there?”

  Each person looked at all the others, and one by one, each nodded, though Frizian added, “Jatu is right. A thousand-mile circle contains some seven hundred fifty thousand square miles to search. I think it will be by the good graces of Dame Fortune alone that we find an island in such.”

  “Faugh!” snorted Alamar. “Finding the island is the trivial part. What will be difficult is reaching the island through mile after mile of that grasp.”

  Bokar cocked an eye at the elder. “And just how do you expect to find the island, Mage? Have you some magic spell of location which will do so?”

  “Magic spell?” sneered Alamar. “Oh no, Dwarf, no magic spell.”

  Jinnarin leapt to her feet and stalked across the table and stood in front of Alamar, her fists on her hips. “You make me just want to scream, Alamar, clutching secrets to your bosom and sneering at others. Stop shilly-shallying about! Tell us, just how do you expect to find this tiny needle in its vast haycock?”

  Disgruntled, Alamar’s jaw shot out stubbornly, as if he were about to refuse to answer, but Jinnarin stomped her foot. Alamar sighed, and said, “Oh all right, Pysk, it’s no great secret. You see, I plan to ask the Children of the Sea.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Voyage Afar

  Late Winter–Early Spring, 1E9575

  [The Present]

  The Children of the Sea!” blurted out Tink. “Bu-but they’re just shipboard fables, aren’t they?”

  “Ha!” barked Alamar, “Fables? Oh no, boy, the Children of the Sea are anything but.”

  Tink turned to Aravan, and the Elf smiled. “Mage Alamar is right, Tink. The Children of the Sea are as real as thou or I.”

  “Exactly,” declared Alamar. “And this Great Swirl…if there is an island within, the Children of the Sea will know.”

  “Hast thou had dealings with the Children before, Mage Alamar?”

  “If I hadn’t, Elf, well I wouldn’t know how to call ’em to me, now would I?”

  Aylis sighed. “Father once saved a Child of the Sea who had been blown ashore by a great cyclone. ‘Twas on the Isle of Faro, I believe…right, Father?”

  Alamar nodded, his gaze lost in reflection. “Um, yes. Water and waves nearly carried us away, running as they did way up into the very forest itself. Never saw such a blow. Anyhow, I found the Child unconscious at the foot of a great oak—stumbled across her, really. At first I thought she was dead, but faint breath stirred her breast. I took her to Lady Katlaw’s tower—she’s a healer, you know. Fixed her up, did Lady Katlaw, though the Child was a long time in recovering. I learned her language—strange as it was, filled with clicks and chirps and other such—works well underwater, she said. Sinthe was her name. When she went back to the sea, she gave me this.” Alamar slid back a sleeve revealing his golden bracelet set with a stone of red coral.

  Aravan’s hand strayed to the blue stone amulet about his own neck. “Has it any…power, Alamar?”

  Alamar glared at Aravan but then glanced at Jinnarin, the Pysk yet standing before him, her fists still on her hips. “It lets me call them,” he growled, adding, “though they won’t come if just any jackfool is standing about. Too, they need to be somewhere nearby, else they don’t, um, hear it.”

  “Hear it?” asked Jinnarin. “Does it make a noise?”

  “Of course not, Pysk.”

  “Well, if it doesn’t make a noise then how—?”

  “Feel it, then,” snapped Alamar. “Sense it. Whatever.” He peered closely at the red coral, as if trying to see something.

  “What Father is saying,” murmured Aylis, “is that we don’t know how it calls them or how they know. It is a thing beyond our ken…somewhat like your stone, Aravan.”

  Alamar looked up. “One of these days I’ll know how it does what it does…when I’ve had a chance to study it.”

  “Father, you’ve been at it for two or three millennia and—”

  “Not all the time, Daughter. Not steadily. When it becomes important to know, then I’ll delve out its secret.”

  “Aha!” crowed Jinnarin. “So you would know another’s secrets, eh? Black pot, black kettle, or so someone said once apast.”

  As Alamar puffed up to retort, Aravan intervened, stabbing his finger to the shaded area of the map. “It is settled then. Here is our goal. When we arrive, Mage Alamar will call upon the Children of the Sea. If there is an island in the weed, we will need flat-bottom boats to reach it, not the gigs we have”—Aravan glanced at Bokar—“and enough to take all of Bokar’s warband. Jatu, tell Finch to make…eight flat-bottomed, single-sail, six-oared, eight-person dinghies. Have him put a sculling oarlock on the rear thwart.” Aravan looked up and around at the others. “Unless there are objections…” None said aught. Aravan turned to the second officer. “Frizian, ready the crew to unfurl the silks—we sail at dawn’s light.”

  “Aye, Captain,” replied the Gelender. “And our course…?”

  “Make for the Cape of Storms.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  As Frizian strode from the salon, “Coo,” breathed Tink, staring at the map, “that weed’s halfway ‘round the world, right?”

  “Aye, Tink,” said Jatu. “Very nearly the opposite side from where we now lie at anchor.”

  “How far is it ‘tween here and there?”

  “Some fourteen thousand miles ‘round Old Stormy.”

  Tink’s eyes narrowed. “Say, wouldn’t it be closer to go the other way—past the Silver Cape instead?”

  Jatu smiled. “Closer in miles, Tink, but longer in time.” Jatu unrolled another map and his finger traced a route as he spoke. “You see, we could fare down alongside the western and southern continents and then angle for the Swirl. But we’d have to sail into the teeth of the polar winds, not only through the straits of the Silver Cape, but nearly all the way to the weed as well. Whereas, running ‘round the Cape of Storms the winds favor us on the journey from here to the Swirl—that is, if the winds blow normal; if they do, the air will be mainly on our beam or at our backs most of the way. And should Dame Fortune favor us, we’ll be there in eight to ten weeks.”

  Ti
nk gazed at the map and let out a low whistle. “Oy, all that way and in such quick time. She’s a wonder, she is, is the captain’s lady, um, er”—Tink spluttered and, red-faced, looked up at Aylis in embarrassment—“I mean the Eroean, Lady Aylis. —Oh, not that you’re not a wonder yourself”—he hastened to assure her—“I mean, you’re the captain’s lady too and all, and I, um, that is, I—”

  Aylis tried to hold back her laughter, but Jatu’s guffaws broke her resistance and carried her along as well, Jinnarin’s trills providing counterpoint. Aravan threw a hand over his own mouth and tried to look stern, failing miserably.

  “Stuff and nonsense, boy,” cackled Alamar, “I think you put it very well, myself.”

  Amid the laughter, Tink grinned and said, “It’s not every day someone like me gets to talk through his toes.”

  Alamar frowned. “What are you nattering about, boy? What’s all this blather about ‘talking through toes’?”

  “Well, sir,” replied Tink, “how else could a person like me speak but through my toes when my foot’s in my mouth, eh?” At this the lad broke out in braying laughter, with Jatu, Aylis, Jinnarin, Alamar, and Aravan gleefully joining in.

  When a modicum of quiet returned, Aravan clapped the cabin boy on the shoulder and said, “Tink, thou didst well here tonight, for it was thy cleverness which pointed the way—first to the Great Swirl and then to the link ‘tween spider and galley. Well-done, Tink, well-done.”

  Tink ducked his head in acknowledgement, then swiftly gathered up the tea service and cups and fled. When he had gone, Aravan turned to Alamar and said, “When first we met I told thee that clever ideas oft come from the least expected quarters. Tink’s contribution tonight is an example of such.”

  Alamar glared at Aravan. “Do you think I am so ignorant that I did not already know that?”

  Before Aravan could reply, Jatu said, “I am not so certain that it was an unexpected quarter, Captain. Tink, well he is a bright lad. I think he’ll go far.”

  Aravan smiled. “Aye, Jatu, he reminds me of thee at the same age.”

  “Oh no, Captain,” rumbled Jatu, “I was much taller.”

  Again the salon rang with laughter.

  The Eroean sailed out on the morning tide, a waning half Moon overhead, a following wind quartered off her aft starboard. Jinnarin watched as the land slid over the horizon abaft. She looked at the fox beside her and sighed. “Oh, Rux, it seems as if we’ve been on this ship forever.”

  Boder at the wheel peered down at the Pysk. “Well, Lady Jinnarin, you came on board back in mid September and here it be nigh mid March. Now if my ciphering be right, that’d make it some six months gone—a half a year, or just days short of.”

  Jinnarin’s eyes widened. Two full seasons on the Eroean, and still no sign of Farrix! Again she sighed. “Oh, Boder, six months? And according to Jatu, we are perhaps two Moons or so away from our destination. It seems I will sail the seas forever.”

  Boder sucked in his breath. “Ooo, Lady Jinnarin, don’t go saying things like that. You’ll curse the ship with those kind of words. Why, then we’d be like the Grey Lady herself, we would, and that’s a fact.”

  “The Grey Lady?”

  “Aye. A cursed ship sailing the night, her masts and rigging glowing with green witchfire, her ghostly crew forever trapped aboard.”

  “Oh, Boder, how ghastly. How came this to be?”

  “Well, you see, they say that the ship wasn’t always called the Grey Lady. But no one knows what her original name was, it was so long ago. Regardless, she set sail to round the Silver Cape, and on board there was but a single passenger, the son, it seems, of a sorceress—”

  “A sorceress?”

  “Yes.”

  “No, Boder, what I meant to ask is, what is a sorceress?”

  “Oh. A sorceress, well, she’s a Lady Mage, she is.”

  “Ah. Like Aylis.”

  Boder’s eyes flew wide. “Oh no, Lady Jinnarin. I mean, Lady Aylis, she’s a real Lady, whereas sorceresses, they’re not Ladies at all. Instead, they be what you might call wicked.”

  “Oh. More like a Black Mage, then?”

  “Yes. I suppose that’d describe them right enough.”

  Jinnarin turned up a palm. “I interrupted, Boder. Please go on with your story.”

  Boder made a small adjustment to the wheel. “Well, it was like I was saying, with a single passenger aboard, the ship set sail to round the Silver Cape.

  “Now that passage is difficult in any season, and sudden storms are like to blow even in the calmest. But the ship was sailing in the autumntime, when unexpected storms are most likely down there. The cap’n, he warned the passenger of this and told him that should it come to a blow, to get to his cabin and stay there and not come on deck, else he’d likely be washed over.

  “They sailed from their home port of Alkabar in Hyree, heading south and west, till one day they came to the waters of the Silver Cape. And lo! all was calm for an entire week, the ship beating her course into the polar wind, circling ‘round the bottom of the world as it does.

  “But just as they got to the clinch of the straits, came a monstrous blow—great greybeards rolling over the ship, slamming her and rolling her and pitching her this way and that, and driving her sideways and forwards and backwards and every which way.

  “The passenger, he was screaming and shrieking for help and calling for someone to save him. But when he saw a bit of the brine sloshing under his door and jerked it open to see waves washing back and forth in the passageway outside his cabin, well he thought they were sinking, the fool. And ignoring the cap’n’s orders, he bolted for the deck where the gigs were kept—ha! as if a tiny gig could weather such.

  “No sooner did he run topside than a great greybeard rolled over the ship and when it was gone, well then, so was he.

  “The cap’n, he couldn’t do anything for it, and when the storm died down two days later, all he could do was sail back to Alkabar.

  “Now the sorceress was shrieking mad when she heard her only son was lost, and she cursed that ship and all her crew to find her son or to sail the seas forever. And so, you see, Lady Jinnarin, that’s why the Grey Lady is a ghost ship, sailing endlessly through the nights, her masts and rigging burning with witchfire.

  “But now here is the worst of all. They say the Grey Lady sails about, trying to find the lost passenger, the ghost cap’n calling the lost one’s name out over the waters. They also say if you hear what that name be, then you will suddenly find yourself trapped aboard the Grey Lady herself, sailing the seas to the end of time.”

  Boder fell silent and turned the wheel a bit.

  “Do you believe this tale, Boder?” asked Jinnarin. “Has anyone ever seen this Grey Lady?”

  Boder glanced down at the Pysk. “Those who told me, Lady Jinnarin, they swear it is true, though they themselves were told long ago.”

  “You mean it’s been passed down from sailor to sailor?”

  Boder nodded.

  “And none you know has ever seen her?”

  “No. Though none I know doubts the facts either, Lady Jinnarin.”

  “Hm,” murmured Jinnarin, then whispered to Rux, “sounds like a sea story to me, Rux. What do you think?”

  Rux swung his head toward his mistress and gave her a little lick, but he kept whatever opinion he might have had concerning the tale entirely to himself.

  Southeasterly sailed the Eroean, the wind starboard aft, until she came to the Doldrums of the Crab some seven days later. The wind fell and shifted about till it ran off the port beam, but at no time did it die entirely and so the Elvenship fared steadily across the belt of the calms, and a day later she was sailing briskly again.

  Steadily, too, the climate had warmed, for they had sailed south away from winter’s grasp and toward spring, the vernal equinox drawing nigh.

  Springday found them in tropical waters south of the doldrums, and that night, as a warm wind blew, Jatu and Jinnarin watched as Arava
n and Aylis paced the slow Elven rite celebrating the coming of spring.

  Still south and east sailed the Eroean, and early in the morning of the twenty-ninth day of March they came to the edge of the Midline Irons, the wind dying completely, the silks of the Elvenship falling lank. Gigs were unshipped and manned, the crews rowing, towing the Eroean, the Men canting their chanteys in the hot, still air. All that day they pulled southward, the fierce Sun a burning furnace shining down on a molten copper sea. Crews were changed often in the torrid heat, Dwarves taking turns and stroking to War chants. The Sun set and sultry night fell, yet the rowing continued without letup, sweat pouring down, and steadily the ship was drawn southward across the hot, glassy sea.

  The following day, late in the sweltering afternoon a darkness gathered low on the eastern horizon, roiling clouds mounting up and up. Slowly the dark grew, moving toward them, and high on the masts the starscraper sails belled slightly as a faint breeze drifted ‘cross the deeps, the air beginning to move at last. “Ship the crews and gigs,” ordered Aravan, and all boats were recalled and taken up. Moonrakers, gallants, topsails, stays, jibs, and mains, all silks clutched at the frail zephyrs now stirring as the storm crept toward them. Lightning could be seen stroking in the core of the darkness, and grey rain fell down into the sea, sweeping across the waters as would a giant broom. Now the wind sprang into fullness, blowing toward the storm, the air rushing inward and up. “Trim her, Reydeau,” called Aravan, “run south.” The bo’s’n piped the sails about, the crew haling on the halyards and sheets, the wheelman setting the rudder. Now the wind shifted full ‘round as the storm rushed over them, plunging the ship into darkness, and rain sheeted down, cold and drenching. Lines were haled and belayed, the silks catching the blow, the Eroean running due south, wind on the larboard beam, lightning shattering the skies, thunderclaps hammering the air.

  Alamar, wet and dripping, came muttering across the deck, heading toward his cabin. “Isn’t it wonderful,” cried Jinnarin, her face to the chill rain.