City of Jade

by Dennis McKiernan

  “I suppose,” said Aylis. “Yet I’ve not heard of a shade being able to do harm, other than to cause alarm.”

  “Oh, now you’ve done it,” groaned Pipper. “I’ll dream of ghosts all night.”

  Binkton reached out and laid a hand on Pipper’s forearm and again said, “I’ll waken you.”

  Brekk cleared his throat. “Is there anything else you need tell us, Lady Aylis? Anything else the cards reveal?”

  Aylis looked at the spread and the lone Demon card and sighed. “Only that there appear to be dark forces arrayed against us, and it seems we’ll have a fight on our hands when we reach the City of Jade. We must go well armed”-she glanced at Pipper and Binkton and then Lissa-“and well equipped to deal with whatever we face.” She turned to Aravan and added, “Your stone of warding, my love, perhaps will prove to be key, in that it will warn us of peril at hand.”

  Aravan’s hand strayed to the blue amulet on its thong at his throat, next to the falcon crystal. “The stone does not give notice against all things of evil intent, and so we depend on scouts-and perhaps Valke-to detect things lying in wait.”

  “You can depend on Vex and me,” said Lissa. “If it’s there, we will find it.”

  The vixen, hearing her name, raised her head from her doze. But when no command followed, she went back to sleep.

  Binkton started to protest-“I say, Pip and I, we’re scouts, too, and-” but Dokan, speaking at the same time, said, “If it is the Grg, we will deal with them.”

  Brekk nodded and said, “We will be ready, Captain.”

  Lissa stood and asked, “Is there more?”

  Aravan looked at Aylis, and she turned up her hands. “I can see no more.”

  “We are finished,” said Aravan.

  “Good,” said Lissa. “Dinny and I are in the middle of a tokko game, and I am about to stun him with a move of an eagle.”

  Brekk and Dokan got up from their chairs, and Pipper and Binkton hopped down from theirs. As Nikolai lowered Lissa from the table, he said, “When play Dinny tokko, he be sly one. Probably already know move you make.”

  Lissa called Vex and mounted up, saying, “We’ll see, Nikolai. We’ll see.”

  As all trooped out but Aylis and Aravan, Pipper overheard Aravan say, “Would that I yet had Krystallopyr or a sword like the one Riatha bears, then I would feel more-”

  Following Binkton, Pipper passed beyond hearing whatever else the captain then had on his mind.

  Faring southwesterly, past Hoven and Tugal the Eroean ran, the early summer wind braw and steady and off the stern port quarter. Down through the Northern Strait of Kistan she fared, the rover isle to larboard, the realm of Vancha starboard. Past the inlet to the city of Castilla the ship sped, that port of call notable for cargos of a wine called Dark Vancha, perhaps the finest in all of Mithgar, though the winemakers of the Gothon vineyards would say otherwise.

  Rovers fled before the many-sailed Elvenship for, in the long-ago past and then again in the present, they had come to fear the fireballs and arrows cast by this swiftest of all ships in the seas.

  Finally, broaching out into the waters of the Weston Ocean she went, to turn southerly and make a run toward the Calms of the Crab and the Midline Doldrums beyond, and the Calms of the Goat past that, for once again the Eroean was aiming for the frigid waters of the Cape of Storms. At this time of year the wrath of winter, raging in the dread waters of the South Polar Sea, made the opposite passage through the Silver Straits all but certain death. Not that verging ’round the tip of the dark lands would be an easy course, yet it was measurably better than the other choice.

  And so, past the Calms of the Crab they sailed, the winds light and shifty, the passage slow, but when they came to the Midline Doldrums, a gale-force blow, rare for this latitude, sped them across. Yet they had to row four days in all to pass the Horns of the Goat, as those calms are sometimes called.

  And then they reached the South Polar Sea. .

  The shrieking wind howled easterly around the bottom of the world, hurling the Eroean before its brutal blast. Great greybeards loomed over the ocean, the tall Elvenship riding toward each towering crest, her sharp prow to cut through, her hull to slam down- whoom! – upon the far side to plummet into the chasm below; then up she would ride again, sailing on slopes and crests and slants, for not even the knife-sharp prow of the Eroean could cut straight through the bulk of these mighty waves. Her masts creaked and groaned, and her halyards wailed in the wind as of a malevolent spirit calling out for a toll of souls, as ’round the nadir of existence hurtled the Elvenship, driven by a tearing wind dire. With her decks awash in deep brine, the ship flew only her royals and gallants and her goose-winged tops, her pulleys and rigging clogged with ice. It was too dangerous for crew to go above, and Fat Jim and Aravan manned the helm from the enclosed wheelhouse adeck, with waves slamming over that haven.

  In the crew’s quarters below, the pitching and heaving and rolling ship had no noticeable effect upon Pipper, but Binkton, on the other hand, was tossed about like a balled-up wad of parchment.

  Lissa and Vex remained in their tiny underbunk chamber, the vixen sliding to and fro, but curled about her mistress.

  Aylis lay in her bed in the captain’s cabin, the deck of cards in hand. As she had occasionally done throughout the long voyage, she muttered an arcane word and drew a pasteboard out. The Empress upright. The whole cannot be seen at this point. Aylis shook her head in mild frustration. We are left with no more knowledge than that which the spread revealed. She sighed and put the deck away, and returned to the book she read by swaying lantern light, just as a wall of snow hammered across the decks and masts and sails and rigging of the magnificent ship.

  Three days later, in eerie calm the crew rowed dinghies across placid but frigid waters, towing the Eroean after, the sea nought but a slowly rolling mirror as long, gentle swells passed across the surface, reflecting stars shining above in the clear skies, for at this time of year the day was but moments long.

  To the starboard and on the horizon, icy walls loomed, the endless glacier concealing a continent, or so lore would have it be.

  In the rigging above, both Humans and Dwarves hacked away at caked ice, while Pipper and Binkton and Lissa helped others chip away at the coating adeck, all tethered by safety lines, for to slip into the frigid brine meant nigh instant death.

  Soon the rigging and sails were free of the encrustation, and the crew unreefed the silks and shook them out. And before the next day dawned, the wind returned, gentle in its aspect.

  The arrival of autumn found the Eroean faring east of Bharaq, the Elvenship now heading for a meridian at the point where the Dukong River spilled into the Sindhu Sea, Aravan navigating, for as it is with all of Elvenkind, he knew at all times exactly where lay the sun and moon and lights of the celestial sphere, including the wandering stars.

  Running in a northerly direction, once again they had passed the Calms of the Goat as well as the Midline Doldrums, where they circled this part of the world. They would not reach the Calms of the Crab, for in this hemisphere that latitude was far inland from where the Eroean was bound.

  And as midautumn arrived, so, too, did the ship come to the league-wide mouth of the river, where she dropped anchor.

  Warband and crew alike stood at the railings and surveyed the coast rising up into nearby hills, with lush greenery steaming and seeming impenetrable.

  “Jungle,” said Dokan. “Miles of jungle.”

  Nikolai groaned. “It mean bug bite.”

  “Aye, it does,” said Fat Jim. “Swarms of stinging flies and mosquitoes and gnats and midges. And if we have to pass through streams, bloodsucking leeches, too.”

  “You’d better watch out, Liss,” said Pipper. “I mean, if a leech latches onto you, you’ll be gone in a trice.”

  Lissa shook her head. “Not if I can reach one of my arrows and stab the thing. It’s the leech that’ll be gone, and in a lot sooner than a trice.”

 
; Both Pipper and Binkton eyed the small quiver of arrows at Lissa’s hip. The lethality of those tiny barbs was legendary. And Liss had told them the tale of her sire saving Alamar by bringing down a full-charging boar in midstride; between one step and the next the massive swine had dropped, just an instant after being pricked.

  Aravan said to Long Tom, “Lower all dinghies and stand by, for we’ll need to plumb the river to see if we can sail the Eroean up it to a suitable place to dock. In the meanwhile, I’ll fly as Valke upstream to see if what we think might be the old road from the river to the city yet exists, though given the denseness of the foliage I see, I ween it’s overgrown and lost.”

  “Take care, my love,” said Aylis, embracing Aravan. He kissed her, and then disengaged, and in a flash of silvery light, a falcon took to wing.

  “Oh, my!” breathed Pipper.

  Binkton’s jaw dropped agape.

  Neither buccan had seen Aravan transform into Valke ere now.

  “How does he do that?” said Pipper, looking to Aylis for an answer.

  She shook her head. “I know not, for it is ‹wild-magic›.”

  Binkton cocked an eyebrow.

  “Like my darkness,” said Lissa, “or your ability to see through it.”

  Aylis nodded. “My gift, as with all of Magekind, is to use the aethyr to cast spells, but Aravan’s transformation does not use aethyr at all, or if it does, I cannot detect it. Instead, he uses the crystal he bears to shift from Elf to falcon and back again.”

  “Wull, I wish I could do that,” said Pipper, now watching the bird in flight.

  Aylis shook her head. “Mayhap you would not, Pip.”

  “Why not?”

  “Aravan tells me that when he is a falcon, he truly is nought but a wild thing. He is not a bird that thinks like an Elf, but is a raptor true. ’Tis only by concentrating beforehand upon what he would have the bird do that he gets ought done. The danger is, he might never shift back to an Elf, but be a falcon forever. Just as is the danger to the falcon that Aravan will never become the bird again.”

  “You mean he might be trapped in the form of a falcon forever?” asked Binkton.

  Glumly, Aylis nodded. “Indeed.”

  “Oh, Adon,” said Pipper, not taking his gaze from the dark bird. “That would be terrible. I think you’re right, Lady Aylis: mayhap I would not like to be able to be a bird.”

  With keen raptor eyes searching, Valke flew up the flow, and soon was lost to the vision of those remaining behind. O’er the river he soared, and along the verge of the jungle, looking this way and that. No immediate prey did he sight, yet he was not out for game. Instead, his unfalconlike thought was to survey and remember and then to return to the floating thing with the tall trees jutting up from it.

  And as the bird flew, Long Tom had the dinghies lowered, and he chose those who would row and plumb.

  No sooner was that done than the werebird returned and transformed into Aravan. “Valke espied the tower-in fact several towers-yon”-he gestured a point or two forward and to the right-“and two leagues upstream is a stone quay, where we can dock the Eroean , should the river be navigable. A path runs through the hills toward what must be the city, though it is well overgrown. Tom, with the pier upstream, I suspect the river will be navigable. Send out the crew to confirm or refute our assumptions.”

  “Better safe nor sorry, Oi allus say, Oi do, Oi say,” replied Tom, and he gave the signal for the men in the dinghies to begin the mission.

  Many yards apart, four abreast they rowed, Dinny and Ebert in the bows of two of them, Noddy and Wooly in the bows of the remaining pair, the quartet swinging bobs to plunk into the water just ahead and calling out depths for crewmen in the sterns to record. The Eroean would need but thirty-five feet fully laden, and should they sail upstream, they would do so on the inflowing tide.

  In the Captain’s Lounge below, Aylis, Aravan, Pipper, and Binkton gathered ’round the side table, Lissa sitting atop. Once again Aylis dealt out the Rwn Cross upon the black silk cloth. After studying the spread for long moments, she said, “The layout is but slightly different, with many swords indicating conflict. Again it seems there is someone or something opposing, yet I know no more than before. We must go in caution, and choose wisely, should violence come our way. I can say nought else.”

  Once again she held the deck out to Aravan, and once again he drew the Demon.

  45

  Lurking

  DARK DESIGNS

  EARLY SUMMER TO MID AUTUMN, 6E9

  High in the night sky in his incorporeal form, Nunde gloated as the Elvenship set sail from Port Arbalin.

  Perhaps Aravan has taken the bait. We shall see. We shall see. Yet whether or not he has done so, surely he will someday. And no matter how long it takes, Malik will be waiting. After all, he has my orders.

  Nunde continued to haunt the Eroean from afar, knowing what course the ship must take if it were indeed bound for the City of Jade, as he, Nunde, had planned.

  As they sailed southerly, Nunde began to worry, for if catastrophe struck and the ship were to sink to the bottom in the raging South Polar Ocean, Aravan would be dead and beyond Nunde’s revenge.

  And when the ship entered those perilous waters, Nunde made it a point to watch as the Eroean pitched and yawed and plunged through crest after crest, the Necromancer’s aethyrial heart hammering in dread of the upset of all his schemes, for tons upon tons of icy brine engulfed the ship, and it disappeared as waves roiled over it, only to reappear time after time.

  But then the Polar Seas calmed, and Nunde shouted in glee as the Eroean turned northerly, and sailed on what appeared to be a course for Bharaq. Surely vile Aravan is heading just where I planned; I knew he could not deny the siren call of what he thinks will be a grand adventure. But little does he suspect what lies in wait. My plan is coming full circle.

  Nunde raced ahead to see if Malik and the Chun were in position.

  They were.

  Not that they had any choice. After all, Nunde had decreed.

  The voyage went onward, and at last Nunde, daring to spy during the day, though remaining well away, watched as the ship dropped anchor at the mouth of the Dukong.

  But then, out from a brief flash of light- What’s this? They have a trained bird? A pigeon, a dove – no, a raptor of a sort, mayhap a small hawk. Never mind, for it cannot – Oh, wait, perhaps that slut of a Seeress is looking through the bird’s eyes. Regardless, the jungle is thick, and Malik and the others well hidden. Whatever the hawk and trollop are up to, it will do them no good.

  Two nights later, Nunde watched as the Eroean , under sail, rode the night tide upriver. A candlemark later, the Elvenship tied up to the stone pier.

  I have triumphed! Yes! And Aravan is mine!

  46

  Strife

  ELVENSHIP

  MID AUTUMN, 6E9

  It took the rest of that day and all of the next to plumb the key part of the river, for not only did the main channel need to be found and its depth charted, but the measure across its width as well. Too, when the rowers came to the stone quay, they had to sound up to and all along the length of its brim and somewhat beyond to see if the Eroean could safely tie up without becoming grounded.

  A map was made of the findings, and, running on staysails alone, on the inflowing night tide the Elvenship fared upriver to the pier, where the crew moored her. They left the staysails up but luffing, in the event they needed to move away from the dock quickly. Yet the Eroean was much like a floating fortress, with its ballistas and the warband’s crossbows and lethal quarrels and their melee battle gear, as well as the sailors’ own bows and arrows and falchions and boarding axes.

  Mindful of Lady Aylis’s reading, they set a sharp watch and made ready for combat, should ought come to wage war ’gainst them.

  The next morning, Brekk and a squad of Dwarves marched down the gangplank, Lissa on Vex running ahead. Valke soared high above in his natural element, for the falcon was wild, and
for the raptor to fly below the jungle canopy and among branches and leaves went against Valke’s nature.

  Aylis and the sailors and Dokan and the remainder of the warband watched them go, including Pipper and Binkton, Binkton complaining mightily: “What kind of a rat-eating decision was that? Brekk leaving us behind when we are scouts, too?”

  “Right you are, Bink,” said Pipper. “We should be out front with Liss. I mean, what good is a scout that doesn’t find out what’s ahead?”

  Dokan rumbled deep in his throat and said, “Given Lady Aylis’s readings, this is just a quick probe to see if enemies lie to the fore. And a Pysk on a fox is swifter than Waerans afoot.”

  “Yes, but-” Binkton started to respond, yet Pipper said, “He’s right, Bink. Much as I don’t like staying behind, Dokan is right.”

  High above the thick jungle Valke soared. Only now and then did the raptor catch a glimpse of the warband below, for the interlace of leaves and limbs of the tall, vine-laden trees with little or no gaps was simply too dense to see through no matter the keenness of sight. And of the fox and its rider, he saw nothing at all.

  Valke soared toward the towers he could see in the near distance, and as he approached the falcon sensed danger, but what it might be, the raptor could not say, only that peril lurked. . somewhere.

  Down within the green and humid and close jungle, Lissa and Vex coursed, the fox swift and ranging in a sweeping zigzag run. Past huge banyan trees they ran, where widespread aerial branches descended to plunge into the soil and become additional rooted support. Forest giants, too, soared upward, their flanged trunks like buttresses. Liana vines twisted out from the damp loam and about the trunks, and drooped like dangling ropes high above. Massive roots snaked across the soil among the undergrowth down within the canopy-shadowed dimness, the shade pierced now and again by errant shafts of sunlight. Tiny rills trickled toward the river, only to vanish among the ever-thirsty foliage. Gnats and midges swirled in swarms, seeking warm-blooded creatures, and an occasional bird winged among the branches high above. Amid ferns and broad-leafed plants did fox and rider weave, and past slender trees, saplings struggling to find light and growth of their own. The land rose as Lissa and Vex approached the hills, and back and forth and up the slant they fared. Of a sudden the vixen froze, her nose in the air, quietly taking in a scent.