Voyage of the Fox Rider

by Dennis L McKiernan

  “What a damnfool notion!” snapped Alamar, a glare of lightning illumining the deck. Suddenly, his finger shot out as he pointed at Rux, the fox dashing past, running for the rear quarters door. “Of the two of you, Pysk, only he seems to have any sense.” Alamar stomped onward, Jinnarin’s trilling laugh following, though she herself stayed put.

  And southward drove the Eroean, escaping the Midline Irons, flying through a darkness rived by thundering glare, rain hammering down, Fortune favoring the Elvenship running on the wings of the storm.

  As bolt after bolt stroked down through the night, of a sudden Alamar jolted upright in his bunk, exclaiming, “Aha! So that’s what it is!”

  Again a flash of lightning shattered the blackness, the glare flaring through the porthole, momentarily etching all with dazzling light, brilliant afterimages dancing in the eyes when darkness returned.

  As another flare lit the cabin, Alamar stumbled out from his bed. Crossing the rolling floor, he leaned over and pounded on the boards nailed across the lower side of the other bunk. “Pysk! Pysk! Wake up!”

  He then made his way to the lantern in its wall sconce and fumbled about with its striker, lighting the lamp at last, its yellow glow filling the quarters. “Pysk! I said wake up!” he called, crossing back to the bunk. He kicked at the tiny door—“Ow!”—stubbing his toes, and hobbled to a chair and plopped down. As he clutched his foot and massaged it, the wee door opened and Jinnarin stepped out from her under-bunk quarters, rubbing her eyes, Rux following after.

  “What is it, Alamar?” Jinnarin yawned.

  Another glare of lightning flared outside.

  “There, see!” called Alamar, pointing at the porthole.

  Again Jinnarin yawned. “See what? The window? You called me to look at a window?”

  Thunder hammered above the wind and wave and pelting rain.

  “No, no!” barked Alamar. “Outside!”

  “Oh, rain.” Slowly, she smacked her lips, tasting her tongue, still trying to shake the dregs of sleep from her.

  “What’s in that head of yours, Pysk? Solid rock?”

  Jinnarin glared at him, now awake. “If you’re going to insult me, I’m heading back to bed.” Jinnarin turned to leave, Rux ahead of her disappearing under the bunk.

  Once again a bolt flashed down, this one nearby. “The lightning,” called Alamar as a thunderclap boomed.

  Jinnarin turned back, her head cocked to one side. “The lightning? Are you afraid of the lightning, Alamar?”

  Alamar gritted his teeth in frustration, but said through clenched jaws, “The lightning, the plumes—they’re one and the same.”

  “What are you trying to tell me, Alamar? Make it plain.”

  Alamar threw up his hands in exasperation and said, “Make it plain? Make it plain? Why, it’s as plain as the nose on your face.”

  “What?” shrieked Jinnarin. “What’s as plain as my nose?” She looked cross-eyed down at her nose, then back at Alamar as the Mage began to cackle, his frustration turning to wild laughter.

  “Oh, if you could only see how you just looked, Pysk,” crowed Alamar. Then the Mage crossed his own eyes down at his nose. “Like this.”

  Jinnarin stomped her foot, but her giggles betrayed her.

  Another lightning bolt flared outside.

  Alamar uncrossed his eyes and, smiling, turned to the porthole. Suddenly he sobered. “In your dream, in the sending, the black ship’s masts are stroked by lightning, neh?”

  Jinnarin nodded. So…?”

  “So just this, Pysk, I told you that things are not what they seem in dreams, right?”

  Again Jinnarin nodded, but said nothing.

  “Well then, Pysk, I think that whoever is sending this dream—”

  “Farrix,” murmured Jinnarin.

  “All right, have it your way,” conceded Alamar, then continued, “Farrix is trying to tell you that someone on a ship is drawing down plumes from the aurora; but in the dream, the plumes become lightning bolts instead.”

  “Yes!” cried Jinnarin, enlightenment illuminating her face. “You have it, Alamar! That’s exactly what it must be! The plumes and the lightning: they are one and the same. And that means—”

  “What it means, Pysk, is that Durlok is behind it all. The plumes, Farrix’s disappearance, the sending, all. And in the sending, the ship is supposed to be Durlok’s ship, his galley, drawing down plumes—that is what you are meant to see in the dream.”

  Jinnarin nodded. “But instead it’s a lightning-stroked galleon, which then becomes a spider, but never a plume-gathering galley.”

  “Because,” interjected Alamar, “dream images are not always what they seem to be.”

  “And the green web?”

  Alamar shook his head. “I am beginning to believe that it is indeed the trapping weed in the Sindhu Sea.”

  “If it is, Alamar, then we’ve solved it all.”

  “Oh no, Pysk, we will have solved only the least of it.”

  “Least of it? What do you mean.”

  “Just this: although we might discover where Durlok lurks, we still don’t know why.”

  “Why what?”

  “Why he draws down plumes from the boreal lights, Pysk. What are they for?”

  “Oh,” said Jinnarin. Then she added, “Or for that matter, Alamar, just what does all this have to do with Farrix? I mean, that Farrix is involved, I do not question. But the hows and whys…well, therein lies another mystery.”

  Alamar nodded, stroking his white beard. “One thing for certain…”

  As lightning flared outside nearby, thunder whelming close after, Jinnarin looked up. “And that is…?”

  “That is, Pysk, with Durlok involved…it can’t be good.”

  On the following day, the first of April, the storm abated, the clouds running westerly as the Eroean escaped the Midline Irons and slowly came back to its intended course, now tacking a zigzag route back and forth across the southeasterly wind. And when evening drew down, the skies were clear, and the Sun set and the full Spring Moon rose. And late that night under Elwydd’s Light and beneath the bright spangle of stars, Jinnarin and Rux paced out the Fox Rider rite of spring, Aravan, Aylis, Alamar, Jatu, and Bokar watching as the tiny Pysk and her fox made obeisance to Adon and His Daughter for renewing the life of the world.

  When the rite came to an end, they retired to the captain’s salon to drink a toast to spring, Aylis with a crystal of sherry and Jinnarin with a porcelain thimble of Vanchan dark, the others sipping brandy from crystal cups.

  “To the renewal of life, eh,” proposed Bokar, to which they all raised their cups and said, Aye! then downed a sip.

  “Peculiar,” declared Jatu, when the toast was done. “In Tchanga, or for that matter, in all the Lands south of the midline, especially those below the Latitude of the Goat, the coming of spring heralds the end of the growing season in those southern Realms. Then is when we harvest. Just the opposite of the northern lats. Were I to have made the toast, then I would have given thanks not for the coming of new life, new growth, but instead for the reaping of crops, for the yield of nature’s bounty.”

  “Hmm,” mused Jinnarin. “I never thought of that, Jatu. Spring in the north is autumn in the south—”

  “Aye, and summer and winter are reversed as well.”

  “Oh my,” declared Jinnarin, “do you think I got it all garbled—my prayers to Elwydd and Adon, that is?”

  Jatu laughed, as did the others, the black Man shaking his head and saying, “Fear not, Lady Jinnarin, I think They will sort all out.”

  Alamar’s shaggy brows drew down, a dark look on his face.

  “What is it, Father?” asked Aylis.

  “Ahh, I was just thinking that we’re sailing into winter down ‘round the Cape of Storms and wondering what the weather will be like when we reach there.”

  Aravan shrugged. “Depending on the winds, we should be at the cape some four weeks hence. It will be cold, stormy, blizzards sweeping t
he waters.”

  “Damnation!” spat Alamar, scowling. “We’ve sailed all the way from the end of one winter to the beginning of another. These old bones can’t take too much of such…not without fortification, that is.” He emptied his glass then held it out for more brandy, smiling as it was refilled.

  Jinnarin grinned at the elder, then sobered. “I was talking to Boder. He told me of the storms ‘round the Silver Cape. Is the cape where we’re going the same?”

  Aravan shook his head. “Nay, Lady Jinnarin. The Silver Cape is much worse, especially in the winter.”

  “Oh, good,” said Jinnarin, taking a sip from her thimble of dark wine, then adding, “I mean it’s good that we’re going to the gentler place.”

  “Ha!” barked Bokar. “Gentle? I should say not! It is not called the Cape of Storms for idle reason.”

  “Oh, bad,” said the Pysk, to the agreement of all.

  In but ten days they came to the Calms of the Goat, and once again Fortune favored them, for they were not trapped in doldrums, a light, shifty wind bearing them across, the towing gigs remaining on board. And during this time, as on all the voyage, shipboard life maintained its routine: Aylis continued to instruct Aravan in the tongue of the Mages; Jinnarin and Alamar played tokko and squabbled; Rux ranged the holds, hunting elusive rodents; Bokar and the warband drilled at arms; and Jatu, Frizian, and the sailing crew kept the ship steadfastly bearing southeastward, while below decks, Carpenter Finch and his apprentice, Quill, along with the Dwarves, when they were not drilling, constructed flat-bottomed dinghies.

  Too, during this time, Jinnarin’s fearful nightmare continued to come sporadically, but she and Aylis did not venture another dreamwalk within.

  As they passed beyond the Calms of the Goat the wind shifted about, until it blew steadily from the west, across their starboard aft quarter, and they set their sails to make the most of it, tacking and hauling no longer required. Gradually, toward the polar latitudes they sailed, the air now chill at night, the wind strengthening the farther south they fared.

  Now they began to swing more and more easterly, as into icy rains and frigid clear days and snow squalls they ran, and in the skies above, the southern lights flickered. In but another month or so this austral aurora would burn brightly and writhe in great luminous folds, just as had the borealis in the north.

  “Lor, Alamar, do you think that Durlok calls plumes down in the south as well?” asked Jinnarin, her eyes peering at the night sky, a faint corona occasionally glimmering above.

  Alamar squinted at the gleam, then growled. “Maybe yes, maybe no. If I knew why he did it, I could say for certain.”

  Fifteen days beyond the Calms of the Goat they rounded the southernmost point of the Cape of Storms, the Eroean driving hard through a blizzard, the wild wind directly aft.

  As the ship cut through the heavy waves, Aravan stepped from the wheelhouse and into the passageway leading to the captain’s lounge, the Elf heading for his and Aylis’s quarters beyond. Passing Alamar’s room, he heard Jinnarin crowing in victory while the Mage cried foul, and Aravan chuckled to himself and strode on.

  Entering the cabin, he found Aylis sitting at the table, a spread of cards lying open before her, a stricken look on her face. “Chieran, what is it?”

  Aylis looked up at Aravan, then gestured at the cards. “Deadly danger, my love. Though I am blocked from discovering specifically what it is, still there is no doubt that we sail toward peril dire.”

  “At the Great Swirl?”

  Aylis gazed again at the layout. “So it would seem.”

  Aravan glanced at the cards—a random spread to his eyes. He took her hand in his. “If so, chieran, then we should know its nature within a twenty-one day or less, for even now we pass the horn of the cape. From here it is a straight run to the weed. And given that the winds do not desert us…”

  “Three weeks?”

  Aravan nodded, then lifted her hand and pressed his lips to her fingers.

  Steadily, a point or so north of east sailed the Eroean, leaving the frigid polar waters behind, faring into the more temperate clime of the variable zone. And in the noon hour on the fourteenth of May, seventeen days after rounding the cape, the foremast lookout called down to the watch below, “Weed ho! Weed ho, dead ahead!”

  Jinnarin and Aylis stood on the foredeck—the Pysk on the stemblock, the seeress at the rail—and peered into the distance ahead. And with hammering hearts they glanced at one another and nodded, their visages grim, for in the noontime Sun, slowly, inexorably, the Elvenship fared into the waters of a pale green sea.

  CHAPTER 25

  Children of the Sea

  Spring, 1E9575

  [The Present]

  Aravan stepped onto the foredeck and peered over the side at the Eroean’s bow cleaving the pale green water. Within the brine running aft could be seen long branching tendrils of grass-green weed. “Jatu!” he called. “A weighted line forward! And furl all silks but the forestay and spanker and mains and cro’jack!”

  As Rico piped the crew, Jatu himself brought a sounding line, a heavy lead bob at its end. “Captain?”

  “Cast it over and let it run deep, Jatu. We will use it to gauge the grasp of the weed.”

  At Jinnarin’s puzzled look, Aravan explained. “To keep the Eroean from being trapped, we will take the measure of the weed and stop while we are yet in safe waters, for the closer we come to the center, the thicker it becomes until it is nought but a clutching snare. I would not have us suffer the doom of others…ships unwittingly caught—storm blown, ill-captained, or ill-fated, it matters not—all have been lost.”

  “Oh, Adon,” breathed Jinnarin, scanning the horizon, “a sea of lost ships.”

  “Aye,” said Jatu, giving the plumb a vertical length of slack, “some call it that.” He whirled the bob ‘round a time or two and cast it hard, the cord uncoiling smoothly, the lead weight flying far to the fore and landing with a small splash.

  Aylis turned to Aravan. “How far inward can we sail?”

  Aravan glanced up at the Men furling the silks and turned up his palms. “I know not, chieran. Running only on the stay and spanker and mains and jack, mayhap a day or two; mayhap but an hour. It all depends on the weed.”

  Alamar came shuffling forward. Looking up at the crew in the rigging, he said, “I see you take down silk. Slowing the ship, eh?”

  Aravan nodded. “Aye. It would not do to run full tilt through these dire waters.”

  Jatu drew up the sounding line. “A small amount of weed, Captain. No threat at all. We could run through such forever.”

  Aravan shook his head. “Fear not, Jatu, it will change.”

  “For the worse, too,” called out Bokar, the Dwarf just then coming up the steps, the rest of his warband—armed and armored—pouring onto the decks, axes and warhammers and crossbows at hand, all Dwarves moving to the ballistas to make them ready as well. Bokar eyed his warband, then turned to Aylis and Jinnarin. “But if there be some green-tentacled monster in this weed, we will be prepared.”

  Another twenty-eight hours they sailed, moving steadily toward the center of the Swirl, the ship covering another one hundred sixty miles. And all the while the weed gradually thickened until the amount gathered by the plumb line at last became substantial. Aravan once again stood on the foredeck, and he finally called out, “Heave to and maintain!” and Jatu headed her up into the wind, the silks flapping lank, the bosom of the sea slowly rising and falling as of a sleeping creature softly breathing, the weed acting to smooth the waves into long, gentle swells.

  Aravan turned to the Dwarves at the foredeck ballistas. “Stand ready, for we are dead in the water.”

  Slowly the ship drifted, the current forming the Great Swirl carrying her deosil. “Were we north of the midline,” mused Aravan, “I deem we would run widdershins.”

  “There’s a difference?” asked Jinnarin.

  “Aye, Lady Jinnarin. In the north the air, storms, water…all tend t
o turn widdershins—against the Sun. To the south it is just the opposite…deosil—with the Sun.—Why? I know not. Part of Adon’s plan, mayhap.”

  “Oh,” said Jinnarin, peering down over the side, puzzled, seeing nought but drifting weed and pale green water, the Pysk, no closer to understanding why things north of the midline should be any different from those south. At last she said, “I suppose it’s for the same reason that the seasons are opposite, too.”

  Aravan glanced at the angle of the Sun and looked at the Pysk as if to say something, but before he could comment Jinnarin turned, peering aft. “Well, it’s up to Alamar now. Where is he?”

  “When last I saw, he was in the salon arguing with Bokar as to whether warriors are wanted on this task.”

  “And…?”

  “See for thyself. Lady Jinnarin,” answered Aravan, pointing sternward.

  Bokar and Alamar came up out of the aft quarters, the armsmaster scowling, the Mage with a triumphant sneer on his face. Aylis and Jatu came after, the seeress looking exasperated, the black Man laughing. Jatu called Rico to him and gave instructions, and swiftly the bo’s’n assembled a boat crew, two Dwarves included. Leaving the others behind. Bokar came stomping toward the foredeck, muttering in his beard, only part of which Jinnarin overheard—the words “obstinate old fool” among his grumbles.

  Aylis embraced her father and kissed him on the cheek, and the elder clambered into one of the newly built dinghies, which was then swung out on davits, the rowing crew entering the boat after. The dinghy was lowered, Aylis watching until it floated free, then she came forward with Jatu.

  As they came onto the foredeck, “Lady Aylis,” growled Bokar, “does your sire never listen to reason?”

  Before Aylis could answer, Jatu said. “Oh come, Bokar, he was right, you know.”

  Bokar bristled. “Jatu, we don’t know what kind of creatures lurk beneath this weed.”

  “Agreed,” responded Jatu. “But this we do know: no Child of the Sea will come to Alamar as long as one of us is about—be we Man, Dwarf, Lady Mage, Pysk, Elf, or aught else.”