Swiftly the boats were maneuvered into a vee formation, Aravan at the point of the wedge, with three craft trailing to the right and three to the left. And across the open water and toward the isle they sailed.
Stem and forbidding towered the land, jutting up from the sea, and to left and right for as far as the eye could range steep-sided rocky bluffs rose sheer two hundred feet or so, and the long ocean swells crashed upon the adamant stone, hammering against the base. Atop the cliffs Jinnarin could see wind-twisted trees desperately clutching at the rocky land, but of shrubs or grass or other growth, there was no sign. Jinnarin judged the island itself to be roughly three miles wide, but as to its length, she could not tell from where they now fared.
“Cor, that’s strange,” muttered Jamie.
“What?” asked Jinnarin.
“No birds, Lady Jinnarin. No birds at all. In fact, there ain’t been no birds ever since we came to the waters of the Great Swirl.”
Jamie’s words caused Jinnarin’s heart to pound, and she reached out and stroked Rux, her gaze vainly searching the grey cliffs and leaden sky above for sign of bird life. As she eyed the barren steeps, word came from Aravan’s boat that they would sail deosil about the island until they came to a place to land. And swinging to larboard, all craft followed Aravan’s lead.
Faring along the towering bluffs, they had covered some four miles when they came upon a place where a portion of the cliffs had crumbled, a long, scree-filled, vee-shaped notch clove down from high stone to the water, a rubble-strewn shingle of beach at the base.
Toward this strand they made their way, Aravan calling out, “’Ware the landing, the water is deep!”
As they neared the crumble of stone, Jinnarin looked down through the clear water into the blackness below, and she could see no bottom. But suddenly they passed over an underwater precipice rising up sheer from the abyss to a flat underwater shelf, the ledge some twenty feet down, or so she judged, and strewn with a scattering of talus from the collapsed cliff above, pebbles and rocks and boulders—now becoming more and more densely packed as they sailed inward, finally ramping up toward the wide notch cleaving down through the grey bluff.
As their boat neared, Jinnarin strapped on her quiver of arrows and slung her bow across her back. Then she fastened the travelling packs on Rux, the fox in the prow and yipping in joy, his head bobbing up and down, Rux eager to take to land, as were they all. One after another the sailors grounded the dinghies on the rocks of the gravelly shore, flat-bottomed hulls grinding onto stone. And with Jinnarin mounted, Rux leapt out onto the slope of rubble, the warriors and Jamie coming after and dragging the boat well up the rock-laden shore.
Scrambling across the talus, Rux came to where Bokar and Aravan stood eyeing the cliffs above, while Dask and Brekka, the Dwarven scouts—crossbows in hand—started up the gloom-laden notch toward the top of the bluff, pebbles and stones sliding down from their footsteps. The Pysk dismounted and whispered a command in Rux’s ear, letting the fox roam free nearby, the animal darting about here and there and marking the ‘beach as his own. Jatu joined the trio, as did Kelek, then Aylis, and finally Alamar, the eld Mage picking his way across the scree and muttering something about it being a trap to turn unwary ankles. As he arrived, he looked up at the steep slope of loose stone and groaned, “Uphill. I might have known.”
“Captain,” asked Jatu, “it is near high tide; shall we secure the boats?”
Bokar glanced toward the scouts, now a third of the way up, and said, “When we are given the all clear by the scouts, then will be the time to make the boats fast; not before.”
“Scouts?” blurted Jinnarin. “Why, there aren’t any better than Rux and I.” With that she put her fingers to her lips and her cheeks puffed out. Neither the Dwarves nor the Men nor Alamar heard anything, though Rux’s head snapped up alertly and he came running.
“What are you doing, Lady Jinnarin?” barked Bokar.
“She whistles,” said Aravan, Aylis nodding in agreement, for both the Elf and the Lady Mage could hear the sound beyond earshot of the others.
As Jinnarin leapt on Rux’s back, Bokar stepped out as if to block her way, saying, “My Lady, it may not be safe for you to—” but the red fox dodged past the armsmaster and darted up the ramp of scree.
“Kruk!” spat Bokar.
Alamar nodded in agreement, muttering, “Might as well talk to one of these pebbles, for all the good it does.”
As Rux scrambled up the talus and passed beyond Dask and Brekka, Bokar growled, “I like this not. There may be foe atop.”
Aylis turned to Aravan. “What says your stone, Aravan?”
Aravan touched the amulet at his throat. “‘Tis slightly chill, as if danger lies far off.”
Jatu peered out past the clear water at half-sunken relics trapped in the weed beyond. “Could it be something aboard the hulks?”
“Mayhap, Jatu. Many of those wrecks held something to cause the stone to chill. In any event, the danger the amulet now detects is not nigh.”
Bokar growled and shook his head. “Take no comfort, Jatu, for the blue stone does not scent all foe.”
Kelek turned to Bokar. “Armsmaster, shall I assemble a squad to go up after? I would not have Lady Jinnarin face a foe alone.”
Bokar nodded, and Kelek barked out orders in Châkur, the hidden tongue. As members of the squad stepped forward, Pysk and fox, now shadow-wrapped, skittered out through the top of the slot and were gone.
A chill wind blew ‘neath cold dark skies, and Jinnarin’s eager gaze swept across the stony mesa, seeing craggy tors jutting up here and there, snaglike peaks clutching at the blustering air. Gnarled trees and clumps of scrub grass were scattered among the grey rock, the plants clinging tenuously to the adamant land. Jinnarin’s face fell, and tears blurred her vision. “Oh, Rux, we’ve come all this way and there is no castle—no castle at all. Perhaps this is not even the place.”
A scrape of stone sounded hindward, and up through the slot came Dask and Brekka, just now topping the slope. “Now where has she got to, her and her fox?” asked Brekka.
Dask shrugged, peering about.
“I’m right here,” said Jinnarin, dropping the cloaking shade.
The scouts started in surprise, for it seemed to them that she and Rux had sprung from thin air. Dask laughed and squatted down, peering at the Pysk. But then, swift as quicksilver his expression changed. “Why so chapfallen, tiny one?”
“Oh, Dask, there is no castle.”
The Dwarf looked up and about. “Be not certain of that, Lady Jinnarin. Although we cannot see one from here, a castle could stand among the tors…or beyond.”
“Too,” added Brekka, “a castle might be set down at the water’s edge over the cliffs afar.”
Dask nodded in agreement. “Take heart, my Lady, for as of yet there is no cause for gloom.” He turned and gestured at the stone bluff behind, saying, “The castle of your dreams could just as well be a bartizan clinging to the face of the island.”
Jinnarin brightened, then frowned. “Bartizan?”
“Aye,” answered Dask. “a turret, a chamber, clutched against a wall.”
Jinnarin looked out at the mesa and nodded and sighed. “I suppose. —It was just that I was expecting a crystal palace in plain view.”
Brekka smiled ruefully and shook his head. “Nothing about this venture would be that easy, Lady Jinnarin.”
Dask took one last sweeping look across the isle. “I will signal the others.”
As Dask stepped to the precipice, there sounded the clack of sliding scree as Kelek and the squad came up through the slot. Dask signalled the all clear to those yet waiting down at the water’s edge.
While the boats were beached well above the mark of the high tide and anchored to large boulders, Kelek set a perimeter of sentries out around the head of the slot. The remainder he sent back down to aid in the hauling of the supplies to the mesa, some goods to be left cached in the boats for the return jou
rney—stored there in case of a hasty retreat, for who knew if there would be time to reload all? And so, some supplies were left stowed while others were set out on the rocky slant, and Dwarves and Men alike shouldered loads and began the climb.
The first one up was Bokar, bearing a keg of water. He set the cask down and peered about, announcing, “We will found our base camp here at the top of the fissure. Then we will send out scouting parties to see what we can see.” With that pronouncement Bokar turned and started back down for another load, passing by Aylis and Aravan and a train of sailors and warriors, each bearing cargo and climbing up the sliding scree.
Aided by two sturdy Dwarves, last of all came Alamar struggling up the slope, cursing at those ahead for deliberately kicking rocks at him.
Within an hour they had established their camp at the top of the notch. Bokar then laid out the scouting assignments, and patrols fared forth to discover the width and breadth of the isle and to seek sign of a castle or bartizan or the like, as well as anything else of interest. The Dwarves were particularly suited for this mission, for with their uncanny ability to unerringly retrace their steps, they would soon know the measure of this bit of land. “Location sense,” Alamar called it, but at one and the same time it was both much more and much less.
After forceful argument by Jinnarin, Bokar at last acceded, and she and Rux were sent with a Dwarven squad in among the island tors, the Pysk especially equipped to scout the lay of the land, with Rux and shadow and stealth at her beck. On the fox she would go well before them, she and Rux cloaked in shade to slip in secret among the twisting ways.
All squads were cautioned merely to measure and observe, to avoid confrontation and combat should they sight foe—for who knew what this dreadful place might conceal? And so, under gloom-cast skies, across the isle spread the explorers, leftward and rightward and inward. And within the vanguard spreading wide, a clot of shadow slipped among the weed and scrub and stone and headed into the craggy tors.
Using the face of a shield as a drawing table, Dett sat on the ground and added a section to the parchment map as Aravan and Bokar peered over his shoulder. When the scout set the pen aside, the armsmaster growled, “That completes the perimeter.”
Aravan glanced at the scale. “Hm…some three miles across and four miles long.”
Alamar scowled at the seated Dwarf. “No castle, eh? Nothing of the sort?”
Dett looked at the elder. “No, Mage Alamar. Not where we walked.”
“You looked down the sides, did you?”
The ginger-haired Dwarf nodded.
“Bah! It is the same with all reports,” Alamar said sourly, then spun on his heel and stooped under the brim of the sail-made tent, where Aylis paced back and forth in the chill wind, peering out through the gathering darkness.
“You’ll wear out your legs with all your worry,” muttered Alamar.
“Where is she, Father?”
Alamar waved a hand toward the silhouettes of crags. “Out there.”
“But she should be back by now. All the other squads have returned.”
“She is with warriors, Daughter. Besides, she can take care of herself.”
Surprise in her eyes at this admission, Aylis looked at the elder. “Even so…”
It began to rain.
Jinnarin and Rux, along with Brekka, Dask, and Dokan, came through the cold downpour an hour after full darkness fell, though under the pall of the rain, just when that had occurred was nought but a guess. Drenched to the bone, they came in under the tent, and by the slump of her shoulders Aylis knew that the Pysk and Dwarves had found nought—“Nothing but stone crags,” confirmed Jinnarin.
When they had dried off, by the phosphorescent glow of a Dwarven lamp and the flicker of the small scrub fire, Dask added their knowledge to the map. As had all other patrols, he noted the elevations as well as the general features observed, while he sketched with precision their exact route.
When he was finished, Jinnarin stood beside the shield and peered at the drawing. Soaking cold rain drummed down on the silk above. “Where is it, this castle?”
Bokar turned up his hands, saying nothing.
“No one found anything?”
“Nothing,” growled Bokar.
Near tears, Jinnarin looked at Aravan, seeking answers. None were forthcoming.
Alamar cleared his throat. “Perhaps Durlok has enwrapped it in a spell so that it is not seen.”
Jinnarin’s eyes flew wide. “Invisibility?”
“I did not say that, Pysk,” snapped the Mage, nettled at her response. “Bah, you are like all the others—expecting miracles.”
A spark of fire glinted in Jinnarin’s eyes. “Well you said—”
“What I said, Pysk,” interrupted Alamar, “was that he might have used a spell so that the castle is not seen.”
Jinnarin ground her teeth. “If that isn’t invisibility, then what is it?”
“Oh, any number of things—but they all boil down to disguise or misdirection.”
Bokar cocked an eyebrow. “Disguise I understand, Mage, but misdirection? How can that be? Hiding a castle is no sleight of hand trick.”
“Ha! Do you presume to instruct me in magery, Dwarf?”
Aylis sighed in resignation. “What Father means is that there are castings which cause an onlooker to simply not see what is before his very eyes. In some, the beholder cannot even look at the object, but instead he is forced to peer around the edges, so to speak. Some of these castings cause the observer to mistake an object for something completely familiar, something to dismiss entirely from attention. Others cause the witness to forget the object even as he is looking straight at it. Still other castings camouflage the object to meld in with the surroundings, or to become obscure, such as does your mastery of shadow, Jinnarin. Illusion, misdirection, obfuscation—these are three ways to hide a castle.”
“See? I told you!” sneered Alamar. “Invisibility, pah!”
Ignoring the affront of Alamar’s manner, Jinnarin asked. “And you believe that Durlok may have done such a thing?”
Aylis turned up her hands. “It is a possibility.”
“Then how will we overcome it?”
“Aha!” crowed Alamar above the sound of rain. “I will counter it with a casting of my own, using my magesight to see through Durlok’s cheap trick.”
During the night it stopped raining, and bright Sun came with the dawn. Two heavily armed parties were sent out, fifteen Dwarves in each: one accompanying Alamar: the other with Aylis. Mage and Lady Mage would use their gift of
Using the map, they divided the isle into sections, Alamar and his party to start out westerly, Aylis and hers to the east. First they would merely walk the perimeter along the top of the cliff, their
Jatu and Bokar accompanied Alamar’s team; Jinnarin and Aravan and Kelek went with Aylis. The remainder of the force remained at the campsite, warding the boats and supplies.
Jinnarin on Rux took point as Aylis’s party marched east, the Lady Mage whispering “Visus,” her gaze sweeping across the isle.
Along the top of the bluff they marched, cliffs falling sheer to the water. The ocean below boomed against the grey stone bulwark, attempting to wear it away. The morning Sun burned brightly as it rode up into the sky. It would pass overhead far to the north, for it was the middle of May and they were far south
of the midline—in fact some five hundred miles south of the Lat of the Goat.
An hour passed, no more, and they had reached the eastern extent of the island, when Jinnarin called, “Look! In the crags—a glittering!”
A quarter mile away, among the upjutting grey stone, a sparkle shone. “It is no illusion,” murmured Aylis, “but a real glint—source or reflection, I cannot say.”
“Let’s go,” cried Jinnarin, Rux bounding away.
“Wait,” called Aravan, too late, for the Pysk was by then gone.
“After!” ordered Kelek, Aravan gainsaying him not. “At a jogtrot!” and the Dwarves and Elf and Lady Mage set out on the heels of the fox.
Within sixty heartbeats Rux had covered the distance to the gleam, and Jinnarin’s face fell, for it was merely sunlight reflected off glittery stone. Moments later, the Dwarven squad arrived. “It’s just shiny rock,” said Jinnarin bitterly. “And I was so hoping…”
Kelek stepped forward and ran his hand over the stone. “Kwarc,” he said, other Dwarves muttering in agreement. Turning and sweeping his arm wide, Kelek added, “All rock here among the crags and elsewhere on the island is kwarc bearing. It is the nature of such stone.”
Jinnarin sighed. “Well, it’s not enough to make a crystal castle from.”
“Not here,” agreed Kelek, turning, gesturing. “But elsewhere—who knows?”
They marched back to the periphery and continued about the isle, now heading ‘round the southern marge. They had gone some miles or so, when Aravan held up a hand. “Mine amulet, it gathers chill the farther we go. Take care, for we approach something of harm.”
All crossbows were cocked and weapons were eased in their harnesses, and those who bore shields on their backs unslung them and kept them loosely at hand—not such as to interfere with the crossbows, but available nevertheless. Jinnarin was recalled and apprised of the forewarning, and she readied her tiny bow and gathered shadow to herself and Rux. And in spite of arguments to the contrary, she took point again, for none else was as well suited to the task. Even so, Aravan cautioned her to keep an eye on him, for he would signal should the stone betoken imminence of the threat.
Voyage of the Fox Rider Page 39