Voyage of the Fox Rider

by Dennis L McKiernan

  And in the bow as brine and spray washed across the decks, Jinnarin and Farrix ensconced themselves among the jib sheets wrapped ‘round the belaying pins in the forward rack, where neither wind nor wave could wash them free.

  And Aravan glanced at the Sun where he knew even now that the unseen Moon was within mere moments of kissing the golden orb.

  But Rico and crew had trimmed the silks to take the very last part of the final knot from the air, and the Elvenship thundered across the sea.

  The ballistas were ready.

  The Dwarves were ready.

  And Boder had his line.…

  …And in that moment the Moon kissed the Sun—

  —The world lurched—

  —And the bottom seemed to drop out of the sea—

  —The entire surface fell away beneath the Eroean—

  —The ship falling with it—

  —And spinning beyond control, with Men and Dwarves hurled about the deck like ten pins scattered, the Elvenship slid down a long slope of water, the whirling Eroean rushing headlong downhill toward the motionless black galley—

  —And as they plunged wildly down the steep slant and toward the far dark ship, and down and down and down, a great wall of water seemed to rise up before them in the distance between, and thundering toward them came hurtling a monstrous wave.

  In the grove of silver birch, of a sudden the Great Conjoinment vanished, and Drienne, her hair now utterly white, painfully stood and called out, “We have lost the battle and are now in great peril. Vadaria is our only hope, can we cross over in time.”

  And with this pronouncement, among the birches, all the Mages, their backs stooped with age, began the intricate steps and the arcane chant that would take them to Vadaria.

  Aylis, now free of the conjoinment, knelt by her father’s corpselike form. She could not tell whether he was alive or dead, but nevertheless she took up his frail frame in her arms. Struggling, for now she was terribly weak, Aylis managed to stand at last. And bearing his unmoving body in the desperate hope of saving him, she began chanting and stepping the pattern as well.

  And all about Rwn the bare ocean floor was exposed for mile upon mile—sand and mud and rock and weed lay in the sunlight, and fish gasped and flopped about, and eels slithered, and things unnamed wriggled and squirmed and oozed, and the River Kairn plunged over the falls to roar down upon the bared expanse—the sea having fled southward to fill the colossal emptiness left behind by the sudden vast collapse of the abyssal depths below. And far to the north of Rwn, the waters of the Northern Sea were just now beginning to react, a frigid flow running down to fill the hollow abandoned by the fled-away sea.

  A howling wind preceded the monstrous crest, blasting against the Eroean like a giant, angry hand, slamming her hard, heeling her over, the monstrous slap stopping her spin, for her sails were set for a reach. Her stern was to the oncoming wave, and Aravan called out above the howl, “Rico, square the yards! Boder, run a straight course! Frizian, batten all hatches! Jatu, ready a sea anchor—no, two! By Adon, we cannot outrun this wave but mayhap we can ride it!”

  As Men and Dwarves scrambled to comply, Aravan shouted for all to get below decks as soon as they could—“We may be swamped, and I would not have any washed o’erboard.” And he took control of the stern helm and ordered Boder to the one in the wheelhouse.

  And behind, the monstrous wave thundered toward them as they fled before it in a howling gale, yet even now the Elvenship began riding up the forerunning slope.

  Higher and higher rode up the ship, the slope steeper and steeper, a titanic curl of roaring water plunging down from the crest. Rico and crew belayed the last halyard, and scrambled below deck even as the curl began hurling spray upon them. Last of all to relinquish his post was Aravan, when he knew that Boder had taken the wheelhouse helm.

  And as the captain scrambled down the sloping deck and into the wheelhouse, the Elvenship thundered down into the brine as if she would founder, but in the last instant she pulled herself up and rode the face of the wave.

  Bracing himself against the canting deck, “Head-count!” snapped Aravan.

  In moments the reports came to him. “Sailors all present and accounted for, Captain,” called out Frizian, the second officer hanging onto the ladder below the trap to keep from sliding away.

  “The Châkka all are here, Captain,” barked Kelek, the Dwarf hauling himself up the slant to hang on beside Frizian.

  And as the Eroean was borne on the thundering face of the hurtling wave, “What about the Pyska?” snapped Aravan.

  “Foxes are below, Captain,” shouted Frizian, “but me thinks all the riders above.”

  “Boder, I’ll take the wheel! Thou search the aft quarters for them.”

  As Boder clambered through the doorway and up the high-pitched corridor to the stern quarters, in the howling wind the Elvenship forever plunged down the face of the wave, the thundering waters of the vast curl whelming down just aft.

  Moments later Boder returned. “All the riders are in their cabin, except Lady Jinnarin and Master Farrix. Those two are not in any of the aft quarters, Cap’n. Neither theirs, yours, nor any of the others. Cap’n, you don’t think they’ve gone and drowned, do you?”

  A bleak look swept over Aravan’s face, but he did not reply. Instead he called down to Frizian, “Jinnarin and Farrix are missing. Search below decks, call out for them. If they are in quarters or holds, have them sing out.”

  And below decks, Men and Dwarves clambered throughout the slanted ship, calling out the Pysks’ names, but no one answered their cries.

  And out on the deck, on the forward pin rack and anchored among jib sheets, Jinnarin and Farrix gasped for air time after time as the Eroean plunged into the seas, the brine seeking to drown them.

  And in a silver birch grove the ground began to shudder, as tons unnumbered of hurtling water thundered across the exposed ocean floor and hurled toward the island of Rwn. Aylis carried her father and chanted, as did the other Mages, and none had yet crossed over, for this singular passage to Vadaria was especially difficult.

  Onward roared the titanic wave, towering higher and higher as up the slope of the ocean floor it raced, bearing the Eroean on its monstrous flank as if the ship were no more than a tiny chip of wood.

  “Oh Adon, Adon, Adon,” gasped Boder, “‘tis like being on a mountainside.”

  Alarm filled Aravan’s face, and he managed to cross to a window and glance up and back at the Sun. And a desolate howl of unbearable anguish ripped rawly from his throat. And he nearly collapsed to the deck in despair. But Boder’s shout of fear for his captain brought Aravan back to his feet. And he took a deep breath and his face went flat, as all emotion was forcibly extinguished.

  “Cap’n, what is it? What’s happened?”

  “Boder, our position,” rasped Aravan, devastation in his eyes, “the Eroean is passing over Rwn.”

  CHAPTER 40

  Devastation

  Summer, 1E9575

  [The Present]

  The great wave rushed across the ocean, towering high in shallow waters, diminishing in the deep. And wherever it encountered bodies of land standing athwart its track, especially lands with steep shoals, the sea at first fled from the coasts, the waters sucking and hissing as they ran away. And in this vast outrush, boats and ships were dragged from their moorings, snapping their ropes, dragging their anchors as if they were nought. People ran down to the shore to gape at the incredible sight of the fled-away sea, and many scurried out onto the newly bared bottom to gather up the fish flopping about and gasping. But then preceded by a howling gale the waters came roaring back, rising up in a vast wall to smash against the shore and sweep far inland, leaving widespread death and destruction in their wake. And following the first wave came another, and another after, and another—more than twenty in all, for an immense area of the plate of the sea had utterly collapsed—the monstrous waves like titanic ripples in a vast pond. Even thousands of miles
away, whole villages and cities and dwellings were wrenched from the face of the world, forests and fields were engulfed, and lives unnumbered were drowned. Thus did Atala and Gelen and Thol and Jute and Goth suffer, and even faraway Hyree, as well as the low-lying lands on the distant coasts of the western continent and its sister land to the south. Worst hit of all these distant Lands was the Realm of Thol, for the mightiest crests seemed somehow directed north and east, as if Rwn were the primary target and all else secondary—and for the unfortunate Tholanders, their Realm lay beyond Rwn on this northeasterly track. Here the waves rolled for miles inland and swept all away; nothing was left standing, not even the tower of Gudwyn the Fair which had stood well above the sea on a high headland, the tower vanished along with the town of Havnstad which had lain below. And the juddering of the seafloor had other dire effects, for Karak on Atala begin to erupt, filling the air with ash and smoke, while great rocks blasted up into the sky and red-burning lava ran down its flanks to set the high land afire.

  Driven before the thundering gale and riding the monstrous bore, the Eroean was hurled across the medial sea lying between Atala and Rwn. But once the Elvenship passed over the isle and into the deep waters beyond, the titanic wave diminished with distance, diminished with the greater depth of the sea, until far to the northeast, some six hundred miles past Rwn, Aravan at last could bring the ship about without fear of being swamped. And as she turned, a number more of the diminished waves—some larger, some smaller than each preceding one—passed beneath the Eroean and sped onward into the far reaches of the chill Northern Sea, where they would rise up again into towering monsters as they came to the shores beyond.

  “Captain,” rumbled Jatu, “our course…?”

  “We sail for Rwn, Jatu, to gather up whatever survivors there may be.”

  “And the Hidden Ones…?”

  “I will speak with them. They have yet to be told that the wave passed over Rwn.”

  In the bow, as Men came to set the sails, both Jinnarin and Farrix extracted themselves from the rigging, the Pysks drenched to the bone and half drowned. “Oh, lor!” exclaimed Lobbie. “Y’re safe! Burdun, run quick and tell the Cap’n that Lady Jinnarin and Master Farrix is found safe and sound!”

  “How can you be certain, Captain Aravan?” asked Anthera.

  “I saw the position of the Sun, Lady Anthera.”

  “Oh, Anthera,” said Jinnarin, bursting into tears, “it’s all too true. Farrix and I saw the whole of it. We ran right over the center, right over the mountaintops.”

  Anthera’s eyes shifted to Farrix, and bleakly he nodded, confirming Jinnarin’s words.

  “And Darda Glain…?”

  “Swept under, Anthera,” choked out Farrix.

  “What about survivors?”

  All eyes turned to Aravan. Desolation filled his features. “There is little prospect that any escaped, yet even now we sail in the hope that Fortune smiled on some.”

  Anthera stood a long while without speaking, her head down. At last she gritted, “Durlok!”

  As in a calm after a great storm, for the next three days the winds blew lightly and often shifted about. Even so, steadily the Eroean sailed toward the waters of Rwn. And all along the path was evidence of the destruction, a crate or two and barrels, and shattered boards and broken wheels and splintered doors, and shingles and roofs and sodden thatch and parts of walls, that and more—flotsam bobbing in the brine. Great trees they saw, limbs and branches shattered, trunks split, roots broken, as if these forest giants had been ripped bodily from the soil. Saplings there were and underbrush, and now and again stretches of sod as well as great masses of seaweed heaved up from the bottom, all riding the now calm waves. Too, there was straw and sheaves of grain—oats and barley and the like—and fruit trees and cabbages and other such. Small animals were seen floating dead, as well as a deer or two. And once they passed something that looked like part of a Man, but it sank from sight ere they could say.

  And Men and Dwarves and Pysks wept to see such destruction as on toward Rwn they sailed.

  But the most horrid thing of all was yet to be seen, for when they came to where Rwn was located, nought but empty sea greeted them—the island was completely gone.

  “Are you certain, Captain?” asked Anthera, her voice hollow with despair.

  With utter desolation in his eyes, Aravan looked at the auburn-haired Pysk, but it was Jatu who answered her question. “Aye, Lady Anthera, he is certain. We sail where Rwn once stood.”

  Stunned and unable to see for the tears in her eyes, Anthera stumbled out onto the deck to bear the devastating news unto all.

  That day they coursed in an ever-increasing spiral, and the next day and the next as well, looking for survivors, finding none. And out on deck, as the gazes of Men and Dwarves and Pysks frantically searched the water, they spoke to one another in hushed tones:

  Do you think that any of the Mages escaped the deluge by crossing to Vadaria? Who can say? Not I. Nor I. Wot o’ th’ ships, Oi wonder—did any set sail in toime? Lor, if they didn’t, surely they sank, for only the Eroean could weather such. A entire isle agone, ’n’ it weren’t no tiny spit o’ land, neither. Kruk! Can the armsmaster figure a way, we will slay this Black Mage. Hoy, Oi wonder why th’ Maiges o’ Rwn j’st didn’t waive their hands ’n’ quell the waives, wot? Them little Fox Roiders, d’y’ see the angry set o’ their jaws? Durlok is evil, without honor, and for that he will answer to the Châkka!…

  Anthera peered out over the empty waters. “For this Durlok will pay!”

  Jinnarin burst into tears. Farrix put his arm about her and drew her to him. After a while Jinnarin said, “Alamar once set me a problem, and it was to define the nature of evil.”

  Farrix gestured at the expanse where an island should be. “This is an act of utter evil.”

  “Yes, but Alamar would not have been satisfied with that answer. Instead he would have jumped down your throat and made you explain why. I mean, if nature alone had done this, it would not have been an act of evil. And if something hideously malevolent and destructive had lived alone on Rwn and needed to be destroyed, and if the only way to destroy it was to destroy the island, but to do it in such a way as to bring no harm to anything or anyone else, again it would not have been an act of evil.”

  “But such was not the case, Jinnarin. Durlok destroyed the innocent.”

  “As sometimes does nature, Farrix. So Alamar would say—as do I—that the destruction of the innocent alone lies not at the heart of evil. Instead it is more: heed, Durlok has no concept of free will in others, of the rights of others to guide their own destinies. He looks upon others merely as creatures put here to serve his desires. Hence, Durlok is evil for he destroys others, dominates others, deceives others merely for his own gratification. And that, my love, is the true nature of evil.”

  Farrix slowly nodded, but Anthera turned and looked at Jinnarin. “You say that if something hideously malevolent and destructive needs to be destroyed, is destroyed, it is not an act of evil, and on that I certainly agree. Heed me, Jinnarin, Durlok is such a thing.”

  For three days they searched, all to no avail, and often would grief overwhelm sailor, warrior, and Pysk alike—all but Captain Aravan, who held his grief in check.

  But in the dark hours of the third night, alone in his cabin, Aravan wept inconsolably, silently whispering, “Chieran, avó, chieran.”

  “Captain, when first we came to you, we only asked that you return us to Darda Glain once Durlok had been dealt with. Now there is no Darda Glain and so our request changes; instead we now ask that you help us to exact our just vengeance against the Black Mage.”

  Aravan looked down at Anthera, the Pysk standing on the map table with Jinnarin and Farrix at her side. Thou art not alone in thy thirst for revenge, Lady Anthera, for every Man and Drimm aboard has asked that we search out Durlok and slay him, and I have said yea.

  “Yet heed me, it is a task beyond peril to slay a Mage. And we cannot suc
ceed with nought but simple measures, for Durlok wields power beyond our comprehension.”

  “But Aravan,” protested Jinnarin, “do you not think that his destroying Rwn has taken much from him? I mean, look what the expenditure of astral fire did to Alamar, to Aylis, to all the Mages in the grove. And Durlok is but one, whereas they were many, and so he had to overcome their formidable opposition as well as do whatever he did to destroy Rwn. So I ask, do you not think that he has but little power left? Dregs of what once was?”

  “I know not, Lady Jinnarin. Mayhap thou hast the right of it, and Durlok is indeed weakened. But this I do know, and that is—it is perilous to stand in opposition to a Mage.”

  Farrix grimaced. “There is this, too, Aravan: as long as Durlok has victims, he has power.”

  “Kruk!” spat Bokar. “Give me one good swing of my axe, and I will deal with Durlok. It is not the Black Mage that concerns me, but his twenty-eight Trolls instead.”

  Silence fell among the comrades as each pondered their plight, and only the shssh of wind and plsh of wave and rrurrk of rigging sounded in the salon. Farrix looked over at armed Anthera and then to Jinnarin and then to Bokar. And he said, “Let’s go see Tarquin, for I have an idea.”

  CHAPTER 41

  Pŷr

  Autumn, 1E9575

  [The Present]

  Like silent ghosts, the shadow-wrapped foxes slipped across the island in the night. In groups of three they ran, flitting among the stony crags, the riders upon their backs armed with tiny bows and deadly arrows and armored in darkness cloaked ‘round. Southward they hastened, away from the temporary encampment hidden on the northern bluffs and toward the steeps above Durlok’s lair. In the lead of one group ran Jinnarin on Rux. Behind and to her right sped Farrix on Rhu, Anthera on Tal to her left.