by Lyndon Hardy
"Then clasp me somehow to you," Kestrel said. He looked at Phoebe and smiled. "I have already experienced three realms other than my own in aiding in the adventures of a wizard. One more can hardly make any difference."
"I am not a mighty djinn." Astron shook his head. "Although I require the flame of anvilwood and not simple pine or fir to pass between the realms, skills in weaving or transportation I have none. We must somehow find the tree most similar in this realm so that I can return alone."
Kestrel thought for a moment and then looked at Astron intently. "How can you be sure?" he asked. "With so many fetters of logic about your stembrain, how can you be sure?"
"Fetters? What do you mean?"
"And how can you know the inner thoughts of a demon." Phoebe laughed. "Even the best of wizards can only guess."
Kestrel started to answer, but then shrugged. A crooked smile came to his face. "It does not really matter," he said with a wave of his arm. "I doubt we will be able to find the proper wood surrounded by-"
Kestrel stopped and stared out over his outflung hand. Between the bobs of the waves, he thought he caught sight of a mast and sail just at the horizon. Impulsively, he began to wave his arms. "Look," he shouted. "Look to port. It is a ship, a large ship, sailing our way -what luck, what incredible luck indeed."
His feelings flipped with a suddenness that made him giddy. He pulled Phoebe close and gave her a hug. "I have sampled enough of what you are like, demon." He laughed. "Sampled enough from a fresh perspective that I have seen parts that even you are unaware of. But first let us attend to our safety in one realm before we take on the challenges of another."
"Over there on the starboard." Nimbia suddenly pointed. "There is one-no, two more, in addition to the first."
Kestrel took his eyes from the ship to port gradually drawing closer. There seemed little doubt that they had been seen. He looked to starboard and shook his head in amazement. Near the stern was another tall mast, and directly abeam was a third. There was such a thing as luck, but this was incredible. How could they have been placed in the precise center of a circle of ships in a totally featureless sea?
Kestrel looked at Phoebe, but she did not seem to care about the coincidence. She was jumping up and down as much as he. The boat rocked with each leap, and Nimbia stumbled as she tried to maintain her balance. Astron reached out and grabbed her awkwardly by the shoulder. Kestrel saw the demon's nose suddenly wrinkle with the contact. The eye membranes flicked into place, and he quickly withdrew. Nimbia smiled and reached out in return, grabbing Astron's retreating hand.
Astron held his arm out stiffly like a stick figure drawn by a child. Nimbia steadied herself and closed the distance between them.
"The retriever of harebell pollen, the swordsman leader of the rotators, and even the gentleman-in-waiting for a queen of the fey," she said. "One has difficulty remembering that you are a merely a djinn from beyond the flame."
The crook in Astron's nose sharpened. "I am a demon, you know full well," he said slowly. "But the power of my brood brethren is not mine to command. I am but a cataloguer, serving as best I can."
"And to whom is it that this service is rendered?"
"Why, to my prince, of course," Astron said. He paused and looked away from Nimbia's gaze. "And, of course, to the success of the quest of Kestrel, Phoebe, and-and Nimbia as well."
"And when the quest is over?"
"I have not thought of it," Astron said. "It is not the nature of demonkind to think of what lies beyond the present. It leads to brooding on the inevitability of the jaded senses and the ultimate despair of the great monotony."
"But as I have observed, you are no common demon," Nimbia said. "And for me, the end of the quest poses the greatest uncertainty for us four. The two humans will no doubt return to their own kind." She waved her arm in Kestrel's direction. "And you, if you so choose, will flitter back to some depressingly plain patch of mud in the void of your realm. But what of Nimbia, a queen of the fey? There is no place to which to return. Ever so much worse than before, there is no one with whom to share. Who will serve me with distinction in a manner of which I could be proud?"
Astron wrenched his hand free of Nimbia's grip. "Your words prick at my stembrain," he said. "It is difficult to maintain rational control." For a long moment he stood silent; then his membranes cleared and the muscles in his face relaxed. He looked at Nimbia and spoke softly. "Do not be deceived," he said. "I am no weaver of matter; no wings of great lift sprout from my back. I am only a cataloguer whose power derives from the few facts that no other has learned. There is no special destiny for one such as I."
"In the realm of the fey and, I suspect in others as well, one is measured by his deeds, rather than his inherent potentials, whatever they might be. I remember tasting your inner doubts when you rescued me from Prydwin's sentrymen, demon. And I have seen you lead hundreds of rotators with clumsy hands and little regard for your own safety as well." Nimbia reached out and touched Astron gently on the cheek. "There is much more that you can learn, cataloguer," she said, "much more you can learn of yourself."
"Avast, you in the dory," a deep voice suddenly boomed across the waves. "Reduce your efflux so that the others will sail away."
Kestrel turned his attention from Astron and Nimbia and looked over at the ship approaching from portside. It was nearer than the others, and details of its superstructure could now be discerned. A single short mast stood in the middle of a deck that was both wide and long. A lateen sail billowed in a stiffening breeze that had not been there before the arrival of the vessel it propelled. The broad bow and even broader beam were wider than those of any barge that Kestrel had ever seen. It seemed hard to believe that the small area of cloth presented to the wind could be adequate for a hull easily the length of two score men.
Even more remarkable. Kestrel thought with a start, was the fact that he understood perfectly the words that had been spoken. Except for a slight accent, they sounded like the speech of an Arcadian from across the sea in the realm of men. This, then, was not another creation of Prydwin; but if not, how amazing that the language turned out as it did.
"Reduce your efflux," the voice repeated. "You have impressed me as much as you will. I regard you as wealthy. To spill more luck to the winds will up my assessment not a quantum more."
Kestrel looked up at the deck, puzzled. He saw a rotund man wrapped in pinkish silks and a purple sash pulled tight into an overflowing girth. Bushy black hair, as dark as night, tumbled out of a small turban down the sides of his face into a curly beard. The deep-set eyes squinted cruelly into the reddish sun. The smile wrinkles looked shallow and seldom used.
Three or four others dressed like the first huddled about their leader, each one holding high a small cage of gold that contained some small white-furred rodent contentedly munching away on greens. The neck of each man was bowed under the weight of at least a score of chains. On every chain hung small trinkets; some were mere gauze bags tied with ribbon, others intricately veined leaves pressed flat on slabs of slate.
"Why, you carry no plenuma," the black-headed one continued as the two vessels drew quite close, "no plenum chambers at all." He reached for a monocle of colored glass hanging from a chain about his own neck and quickly cocked it into his eye. "By the rush of entropy, it is in spontaneous discharge from all four of you-spontaneous discharge, as if you had been building pressure for a lifetime and using none of it until now."
He waved over his shoulder to the center of the ship. "All right, I withdraw my words. I am most certainly impressed, more certainly than I have ever been before." He paused and intertwined his fingers across his expansive girth, rocking back and forth silently as if enjoying a secret joke. "But mark you," he said after a moment, "I am not so awed as to forgo absorbing the flux for myself. And if you do not have plenum chambers, let us find out how good are your wards against the sucking chambers of Jelilac, the most fortunate."
A man much smaller than Jelilac su
ddenly vaulted over the gunwale of the larger ship and, with hardly a glance to see where he was going, landed firmly in the dory between Phoebe and Nimbia. He carried what looked like a bowl of soapy water in one hand and a large pipe in the other. Without spilling a drop or hesitating to catch his balance, he adroitly settled into a squatting position and submerged the pipe into the bowl.
Kestrel noticed that he had as many chains about his neck as the rest, perhaps even more. All along the arms and legs of his silken tunic were embroidered tiny leaves of clover, and each of his fingers was wrapped in bows of red ribbon.
"Luck begets luck." The newcomer noticed Kestrel's stare. "It is the third tenet." Then, without further comment, he began to blow on his pipe, causing a bubble to form in its bowl. His first few puffs on the pipe seemed easy, and the glassy surface expanded with rapid jumps. But when the bubble had reached the size of a fist, Kestrel noticed that the veins in the pipeman's neck began to stand out and his cheeks redden from the effort to force air down the stem of the pipe. It reminded him of the sport of the fey, but it was somehow different, and he suspected the effort served a practical utility.
As Kestrel watched, the surface of the bubble began to darken and take on what looked like a tough, leathery texture, far less elastic than any balloon. By the time the pipeman had finished, he had created a sphere perhaps the size of a person's head with a dark opalescent surface that light just barely shone through.
The piper dropped his grip on the pipestem. With a grunt, he removed the bubble from where it still adhered to the bowl. Then he quickly stretched out his arms and touched the orb to the hem of Phoebe's cape. There was a sudden spark of light that jumped from the draping material into the interior of the sphere. For an instant Kestrel saw what looked like a churning maelstrom of dense red smoke within the confines of the globe; but as the light vanished, the image faded away.
Phoebe immediately stumbled. Kestrel reached out just in time to break her fall on the hard planking of the small boat. "Just exactly what do you think you are doing," he shouted angrily at the piper. "What is that thing, anyway?"
The piper looked at Phoebe's sprawled form on the deck and then hefted the sphere at his side. "I suppose it does seem a bit uncivil," he said. "Certainly for this exchange, you deserve at least the most basic of talismans in return." He reached into his pocket with his free hand and offered Phoebe a necklace like one of the many he wore about his neck. What looked like the preserved foot of a small animal dangled from the lower end.
"Only good for simple accidents, I admit," he said. "But then Jelilac covets each dram. It is the way of all who wish to live more than the briefest of moments in the realm of the aleators."
Kestrel grimaced. Understanding the language was almost too good to have happened. Without it, perhaps things would have proceeded more slowly and given him time to size up better the situation they were in. He reached out to grab the offered talisman but the piper easily whisked it out of his reach. With a deft and fluid motion, he flung it over Phoebe's head, where it settled in a perfect position about her neck. "For the lady," the piper said. "And watch your manners, or Milligan might decide that you end up with nothing at all."
Kestrel reached out a second time for the piper's leg, but the little man was too swift. As Kestrel's hand closed on air, Milligan had touched the globe to Nimbia's tunic, and a brilliant arc jumped to it as before. Nimbia teetered, but Astron was slightly quicker than Kestrel had been. Not hesitating to avoid contact, he steadied the queen so that she did not fall.
"Hmmm," Milligan said. "Perhaps it would be better to give this one a chance at food and drink. If you concentrated on subsistence alone and depended on the others for protection, you might get enough to share." Again he reached into his pocket and withdrew another pendant necklace, this one an ebony lump of wood carved in intricate whirls.
Kestrel lunged out at Milligan from behind, but the little man quickly turned and held the sphere chest high to absorb the force of the rush. The spark that jumped from Kestrel's outstretched hand sent a stab of pain up his arm. He felt a sudden tugging sensation all over his body and then a rushing away of some essence that he could not quite identify. A wave of discomfort swept over his senses; in a weakened stupor, he sagged to the bottom of the dory. With clouded vision, Kestrel watched the sparks dance from Astron's body as it had the others. Only dimly was he aware of a leather thong that pierced a small heavy stone being placed over his slumping head. Offering only the most feeble of protests, he let himself be hoisted by a crane up to the deck of the larger ship. He clutched his hands to a growling stomach, suddenly quite aware that he had not eaten for what seemed like a very long time.
"Your contributions have mellowed Jelilac's temper," Kestrel heard Milligan say some hours later. He shook his head and willed himself to focus on the little man standing before him. He felt a second talisman being hung about his neck and then a third. Looking to both sides, he saw Phoebe and the others rousing as well. They had been piled in a tumble about the single mast of the sloop.
"Ordinarily, with ones so destitute as you, the only choices he would offer would be trials with long odds indeed," Milligan continued. "But the idiocy of such a great concentration and not even the slightest of wards has him most amused. As it is, he needs to refine a rather mundane procedure before landfall at the casino. Surely at least one of you four will survive."
Kestrel staggered to his feet and looked about quickly. Except for the helmsman and Milligan, none of the crew were above deck. The dory in which they had arrived was battened to the port gunwale and a long ladder lay at its side. The glassy calm sea looked the same, although the other ships were no longer visible. Off the port bow in the distance was a sliver of brown above the horizon that indicated the first signs of land.
"We are travellers from afar," Kestrel said, "and understand little of what you speak." He ran his tongue across the dry roof of his mouth. "But decency anywhere would demand that you offer at least some food and drink."
"Offer subsistence, offer it freely from one to another." Milligan threw back his head and laughed. He waved his arm in a wide, flat circle out to the horizon. "Do your eyes not see the vast expanse of waste-salt water every where and only tiny pinpoints of land. There is no food to offer to another. Even one such as I has had occasions of hunger, despite all that I carry about my neck."
Kestrel started to respond, but the doorway leading below deck suddenly slammed open, and two seamen appeared, carrying a long table between them. "Ah, spinpins," Milligan said. "JeliJac is feeling mellow indeed. He must think that crown is certain to be his."
Kestrel looked more closely at the table as it was positioned crosswise on the deck just in front of the mast where he stood. On one end was a simple maze, a box of wooden partitions divided into compartments, each the height of a hand. Doorways were cut in many of the walls connecting the confinements together; some were empty, but in most were standing geometric arrays of tiny bowling pins. A single doorway pierced the perimeter. Near it lay an intricately carved spintop and a pile of string.
A third seaman appeared from below deck, carrying a small vertical frame on which, near the top, was hung a blade of shining metal. At the bottom were two sheets of wood paneling between which the sharp edge apparently dropped. The panels were plain and unadorned, except for a hole about the size of a finger that had been drilled through them both. The seaman positioned the apparatus near the spintop and clamped it to the table. He ran a string from a hinged release mechanism for the blade and tied it about one of the pins standing in the maze.
"The principle is quite simple," Milligan said as he moved to the ladder at the side of the dory. Struggling with its long length for a moment, he thrust it into a vertical position and twisted its orientation with a flip, so that the topmost rung fell against the mast.
"Even the simplest child knows that one's luck decreases by walking under a ladder," Milligan said. "The effect can be reversed only by quickly retracing o
ne's steps the other way."
"We have such a tale from whence we come," Kestrel said. "But it is the nonsense of ancient crones, nothing more."
Milligan frowned and was silent for a long moment. "Minions of the crazed Byron," he muttered while he clutched at the talismans about his neck. "Minions of Byron, and not one, but four." His eyes narrowed and he looked at Kestrel keenly. "No, that cannot be. You are attempting some sort of a deception to free yourselves from your plight. No fatalists could have accumulated such auras as yours. You struggle for the crown, just as does Jelilac and the rest."
Kestrel frowned in turn. Very little of what Milligan was saying made any sense. He looked down at Astron as the demon stirred and struggled to sit. Kestrel wished that he were fully alert. Some of his deductive observations would be quite useful about now.
"Anyway, the reversal raises an interesting question," Milligan continued. "It is one that Jelilac stumbled on to, the kind of insight that makes him a true contender to be archon over us all. The throne has been vacant since Sigmund's luck suddenly turned sour. Soon we will all assemble to judge which aleator now possesses the greatest power." Milligan looked down at his chest and stroked three of his talismans. "Although, under the right circumstances, who is to say what will happen in the casino where the die is cast? Yes, who is to say which is the most deserving, the most faithful to the tenets of our creed?"
For a moment, Milligan stopped speaking, his eyes burning with secret thoughts. Kestrel looked back over the bow at the land steadily growing on the horizon. He eyed the two battens that held the dory and scanned the deck for signs of any other useful gear. With so few crewmen on deck, the right circumstances were the ones he was interested in as well. He began to think more clearly. Perhaps it was best to keep Milligan engaged in conversation until the others were fully alert. Then they just might manage an escape from whatever Jelilac had in store for them.