The trader Fairwind’s Fortune drove hard through the water under the great towering clouds that sped low over the sea. The crew had shortened her sail so as not to overtask the rigging. Speed was her friend, as with any trade ship, but too much wind could cripple her if handled improperly. As it was, the wind sang through the back stays, driving the prow into the waves with determination.
The wind was at Berkita’s back, too. She stood on the forecastle, heedless of the occasional spray that bounded up around her. Her hair flicked around her face as she stood in the gale, her lined robe pulled tightly about her. Her attention was not on the ship beneath, nor the wind that sang about her, but on the far shore of a land she had never known except in stories.
Galen was there, she knew. Somewhere before her, walking paths she had not yet put a foot to, seeing sights she could not yet see, but still under the same sky and the same sun. That thought warmed her faintly.
The wind at her back drove her ever closer to him, and that was all that mattered. Despite the spray that surged up around her as the prow broke against each ocean swell, their progress felt agonizingly slow. She would use force of will alone to move the ship faster if she could. The sea and the winds seemed to side with her, yet there were limits to their gifts.
So all she could do was pray—pray to the spirit of Vasska across this same sea for the deliverance of her husband from this cruel mistake. Her mouth whispered the words into the wind, asking that it carry her heart’s desire to Vasska’s will, pleading to see her husband once again, begging to hold him once more.
“Kindly wind er is,” rumbled the voice beside her.
Berkita shook with a start. In her fervent prayer she had not noticed the fur-encased dwarf clomping up to stand next to her. Her voice belied her surprise. “Cephas! Oh, I am so sorry. I . . . I didn’t . . .”
“Me spirit by yer words ne’er troubled, Lady Arvad,” the dwarf intoned. His hand gripped the deck railing like a vise. His feet were set wide upon the deck. “Hkoolien’s breath push us to Hrunard er is. Favored of the earth-gods Lady Arvad er is! Two suns pass and Cephas tastes no land. Know ye er is, Lady Arvad?”
Berkita peered into the horizon. “No, Cephas, I do not and the captain has tired of my asking. You might ask him for both of us where—”
Cephas harrumphed. “Ask the captain er I did! Captain asked back, ‘What need a blind dwarf to know er is! Blind dwarf already lost. Know er is and still lost er is!’”
Bertika turned toward him with disgust. “He spoke to you like that? We’ve paid our passage in full, he has no right to—”
“Aye, no right er is,” Cephas said, putting his hands up, trying to calm his companion down. “The Khalan ways er strangers to the light er is. Humans fear dark. Hide from it. The Khalan clans from the dark er is. Humans fear and hurt what they know not.” The dwarf sniffed the wind as the boat broke another wave. “Still, we be closing to Father Ground. Lady Arvad be making port by evening tide er is.”
“Are you sure?” Berkita asked, straining forward against the wet rail, searching the horizon in the distance.
The dwarf smiled from behind the wind-whipped fur of his hooded cloak. “Captain the blindest er is. Cephas sees better er he with different eyes.” He tapped his forefinger to the bridge of his nose. “Cephas knows the smell of Father Ground. That smell calls to me bones. We be in port er sundown, Lady Arvad.”
“And then?” Berkita asked anxiously.
“And then”—the dwarf turned his head, seeming to look at her through the heavy binding tied over his eyes—“then the hunt begins er is.”
Bayfast stood silhouetted against the thinning twilight. Berkita, whose farthest travels from her home door had been the forty miles to Hadran Head, was at once in awe and dismay at the port they approached.
Quite suddenly, the captain issued a flurry of orders through his first mate. The Fairwind’s Fortune slowed well beyond the outer coral reef that bounded the inner harbor. To Berkita, it seemed as though the ship had stopped altogether, though they were simply moving at an agonizingly cautious pace. Stones and structures had been added to the reef to create a formidable seawall. There appeared to be only one passage through to the harbor beyond, and it was marked by two watchtowers on either side of the harbor entrance. At the tops of these towers signal fires constantly burned in great cauldrons.
“The Pillars of Rhamas!” Berkita breathed in awe. “They are magnificent!”
Several merchant seamen working the foredeck overheard her remark. In a moment they were winking and nudging each other.
Cephas sputtered, “Lady Arvad . . .”
“I’ve heard the stories, of course, but I never thought that I would actually see them! Imagine the cursed fleets of the Fallen Empire, sailing out from between these very towers to do battle against Vasska’s sea serpents!”
The merchant seamen were barely able to contain their laughter.
Cephas rumbled under his breath. “Them not the Pillars of Rhamas er is.”
“What?” Berkita’s face, too, flushed.
Cephas mistakenly thought Berkita had not heard him. He spoke louder, but this only added to the unintended merriment of the crew. “These towers er not the Pillars of Rhamas. Them the harbor lights er is.”
“Oh,” Berkita said with embarrassed quiet.
“No need to fret er is. Them cauldrons a history of their own er is. Them were salvage from Azhelanthas . . . ruins er is far a-south. Part of yer self-same Old Empire once er were. Forged by dwarves er were. Beautiful, too, I wager. Cephas smells the rust from them. Metalwork long corroded in the salt-spray, Cephas guesses. Shame to lose the past er is.”
Berkita only nodded. She felt ashamed and awkward. How much more of the world do I not know? she wondered.
It was not the known world that worried her. She had grown up next to her father’s forge and had always believed that something of the qualities of his steel had become part of her; strong, tempered, sharp-edged, and with just barely enough flex so as not to break.
No, it was not the known, but the unknown, that frightened her, and the world she was entering was a dark mystery. She gazed across the expansive harbor toward the large port city. The spindly towers capped with domes seemed so foreign and forbidding, and Berkita felt herself become small and insignificant. How would she ever find Galen when the world was so wide and she was so small?
The ship moved with slow care into the harbor, heightening Berkita’s anxiousness. She tried desperately to maintain her calm, telling herself over and over that slow or not, the time would pass and she would be walking the same shores as her husband. She knew that their marriage was dissolved so far as the church was concerned, but she could not bring herself to think of her beloved any other way.
She was surprised, therefore, when the ship suddenly dropped anchor well away from the harbor shoreline. “Cephas, have we stopped?”
“Aye, so er is!” Cephas said with dwarven finality. He began gathering up a pair of sacks he had set on the deck at his feet.
“But . . . why are they stopping? Why aren’t they going in to shore?”
“Aye, calm ye, Lady!” Cephas said as he slung both sacks over his shoulder. “Look ye the quay. Tell Cephas what er is!”
“The quay?”
“Aye, Cephas eyes ye be. What see er is?”
“Well, there are a lot of boats . . . ships, really. I’ve never seen so many in all my life. There’s everything from fishing boats to trade ships.”
“Any serpent ships?” Cephas demanded.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen one before and—”
“They be odd to your eyes,” Cephas interrupted. He, too, was anxious. “Back-swept prows er is . . . raked masts, too. They be moving but no sails er is.”
Berkita spoke quickly. “I see them! They’re everywhere! How do they move without sails?”
“The Pir monks speak merdrak serpent. Serpents wear the hull like hat. Push through seas er is. Faster than w
inds. Where er is?”
“Well”—Berkita squinted into the sun setting beyond the harbor city—“I think there are about eight ships tied to the wharf. In fact, they’re the only ships moored there.”
“Aye,” Cephas grunted. “Business good for the Pir er is.”
“I see three more looking as though they are waiting their own turn at dock. They just move back and forth.”
Cephas chuckled. “The serpents don’t like to wait. Restless they be! Any others?”
“There are five more leaving the harbor now,” she said. “They’re nearly out to sea.”
Cephas grunted, then turned, bent over with the sacks on his back. “Then time is expensive, Lady Arvad. Them ships unloading the Elect er is. If Galen among them, good chance we to free him.”
“If?” Berkita snapped, following the dwarf down the ladder. “What do you mean if?”
“Bayfast closest port to Benyn er is. Most likely Galen be getting the land under his feet here.” He stretched his free hand before him. Berkita reached out, taking it and placing it on the railing. Cephas nodded his thanks, then began feeling his way down the ladder to the middeck below as he spoke. “Other-thought, this closest port we make from Hadran Head. Best chance to get to Galen before Mithanlas . . . Ah, harbor boat alongside er is, Lady? Cephas already packed your sack so we go er Bayfast now!”
He was about to lower himself over the side of the boat. Berkita saw at once, however, that the small craft was not yet below the ladder. She hastily reached forward and pulled the heavily laden dwarf back aboard.
“Not yet, Cephas,” she said insistently. “What did you mean by if Galen’s among them?”
The dwarf sighed, then placed his free hand atop Berkita’s still gripping his shoulder. Her small fingers were buried beneath his huge hand. “Many ports of Vasska on the shores of Hrunard er is. Bayfast one only. Lankstead Lee er is. Vestuvis, Southport, too, er is. Maybe others north shore Cephas never walked. Serpent ships know them all. Cephas know them not.”
“Then if he isn’t here,” Berkita asked in a low voice, “where do we look for him?”
Cephas raised his face. “The sun no longer warms me back. See you the failing light of your day, Lady? Beyond Bayfast, beyond the Hynton Hills, there where the sun sleeps, Mithanlas er is.”
The dwarf turned his blind, bandaged eyes toward the sun he could not see.
“There where the sun dies go all the Elected dead of Vasska. We live among the dead . . . there we find Galen er is!”
15
Hrunard
Where are we?” Rhea breathed. Galen shook his head. He had no idea. He had anxiously watched the sun pass over the cargo grate twice more before the serpent ship slowed, its motion shifting to a more pronounced roll. The hull then lurched slightly and a rumbling trumpet from below shook the keel, setting off a new round of fearful wails from the terrified prisoners around him. Then the grate had opened and the Pir monks, each armed with a gnarled staff, had beckoned them topside. Galen followed several others of the Elect up onto the deck, with Rhea helping Maddoc just behind him.
The brightness of the harbor surprised him. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light. When at last they did, they were looking on a land he had never known.
The reef arched around the turquoise waters of the bay. It certainly looked smaller than Mirren Bay, and everything was out of place. The land itself was low, with only a slight rise from the shoreline that circled around first west and then north. On that side ran a long stretch of brilliantly white beach. There were a few smaller ships in the harbor, their brigantine sails flashing under the midday sun. Several other serpent ships were also there, moving gently about the bay as they awaited their own turn at the docks.
There were more pressing matters, however.
There were double cages on the deck, with a harness slung between them exactly like the ones that had brought them to the ship in Stoneport. The Pir monks herded the Elect in line just in front of Galen through the openings in the torusk cages. As each cage was filled, the stevedores heaved it aloft using the braced yardarms of the ship and cables as a hoist. One by one, the filled cages were then lowered over the side to the backs of other waiting torusks. Beyond the ship’s railing, a ragged line of torusks wound its way down the long wharf to which the ship was moored. Where the quay met the shore, a town of squat buildings sprawled outward. The bright colors of the shops and homes were faded and badly weathered from a perpetual battle between the inhabitants and the sea. Beyond the town, there was a gentle rise that was crested by the main road. On that road, Galen saw a stream of torusks, each burdened with a full cage, winding southward. Where their destination lay, however, was difficult to see. The billowing clouds that still raced ashore from the north blended into a deep purple and dark horizon to the south.
Galen shivered as he moved forward on uncertain legs. Each step is farther from home, he thought desperately. The road I travel has no end and each step is farther from my home.
With an anguished howl, he suddenly bolted toward the bay-side railing of the ship. He had to get away—anywhere and anyhow. Blind with fear, he plunged toward the starboard side, the open waters of the bay beckoning him on.
He did not even see the Pir monk standing between him and the ship’s railing. The startled monk, lulled inattentive by the repetition of the caging, was unprepared for his onslaught. Galen ran squarely into him, sending him sprawling to the deck.
Galen’s feet tangled momentarily among the monk’s robes, but he did not lose his balance. All he could think of was getting off the ship, away from the Elect, and somehow fleeing for home. He gripped the railing with both hands, pulling himself forward over the bulwark.
Light and pain exploded in his mind.
I stare up. The masts of the ship sway above me. There is uneasiness about everything, as though I have somehow forgotten part of my life.
Far above me, the winged woman drifts amid the ship’s rigging. She gazes down at me with a smile that breaks my heart. I long for her and am at once ashamed for the longing.
“Galen! You are here!”
Groggily, I turn my head. I am lying with my back against the middeck of the serpent ship. The cages are still here but the monks, the Elect, and Rhea are all gone.
All except Maddoc, who stands on the deck, leaning casually back against one of the cages.
“What a delight to see you here!” Maddoc smiles graciously. “Can you stay?”
“I . . . I don’t think so,” I say. My head is throbbing. Now I can hear another voice from far away. It calls to me from the shadows, summoning me back to another place.
“Oh, I am disappointed,” Maddoc says, shaking his head. He sits down on a capstan. “I would so very much like to get to know you. I think we have a lot in common, Master, you and I.”
The throbbing in my head is getting worse. The clouds overhead are slowing down as though the world around us were a spindle toy winding down just before it falls. I desperately want to close my eyes, but not yet. I point upward. “Can you . . . do you see . . .”
“The winged woman? Of course I can see her!” Maddoc looks up casually, his arms crossed over his chest as he considers the dark beauty floating above us. “Indeed, I would think she would be rather difficult to miss.”
I struggle to remember something that drifts just beyond my thoughts. It is something important—something I want to do here—but all I can think of is this winged woman. I glance up toward her again. Her large, shining eyes gaze back down at me, seeming to look through my soul. I swallow hard. “Well, at least she isn’t speaking today. I can never make up my mind whether her voice is too painful or too beautiful to endure.”
“Perhaps she simply has nothing to say,” Maddoc says. “But even without her glorious voice, she is beautiful to look at, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” I say carefully, remembering suddenly what I wanted to ask this madman in my dreams. “Beautiful as Rhea.”
; Maddoc looks back at me sadly, then turns away. “No . . . no one was as beautiful as Rhea.”
“She is trying to help you, Maddoc.” My words are quiet and reassuring.
Maddoc draws in a painful, shuddering breath. His face is a mask of tortured pain. “I would have thought that you of all people would understand! She’s lost to me! I see her shadows and I know what might have been.”
“She is trying to understand,” I say, but the look on his face betrays his disbelief. I must try some other way to reach him. I must try to help him. Perhaps I am trying to help myself, so I change the direction of my words. “I am trying to understand. Help me to understand as you would have helped Rhea.”
“My dear, sweet Rhea!” Maddoc sighs. “No one was as beautiful as Rhea. How I miss her!”
The voices in the back of my head are more insistent now. The pain in my head becomes an overwhelming noise. It washes over me, engulfing me . . .
BOOK OF GALEN BRONZE CANTICLES, TOME IV, FOLIO 1, LEAF 8
“Galen! Galen, wake up!”
Galen opened his eyes and groaned. Now he could sense the gentle sway of the woven cages on the backs of the torusks plodding along beneath them. “We’re back in the cages.”
“Yes we are,” Rhea said as she sat back, her words tinged with sarcasm. “Although some of us managed to get into the cage without being clubbed senseless. How is your head?”
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