“Well, gentlemen,” Dahlaine said then, “I guess that pretty much takes care of everything up here. I suppose we might as well pack up and go on back down the hill.”
There was a certain amount of celebration when they returned to the house of Veltan. They had won yet another war against the bug-people, but it seemed to Ekial that the celebrators all tended to gloss over the fact that “unknown friend” had stepped around them and won the war all by herself.
There were some extended discussions about which part of the Land of Dhrall would be attacked by the bug-people next, but Ekial found the bickering between Dahlaine and his sister rather tiresome and more than a little silly—an opinion he was almost positive was shared by Zelana and Veltan.
Ekial began to avoid the map-room and frequently left Veltan’s house to look over the farmland nearby. It was late summer now, and the farmers had begun to harvest their crops. The concepts of plowing and planting were alien to Ekial, but he could understand the value of having enough food to get through the coming winter. Beef was pleasant to eat, but after a few months of a steady diet of nothing but beef, even a turnip might be a welcome change.
As he wandered through the nearby farms, he began to have some second thoughts about his decision to tell Dahlaine that he wanted no part of any war here in the Land of Dhrall. The earthquakes up in the basin had occurred for a specific purpose and hadn’t really threatened him. The gold Dahlaine had offered would greatly enrich the horsemen of the meadowland, and Ekial was fairly certain that if things began to get out of hand in the north, their “unknown friend” would almost certainly step in and straighten them out. He might not understand just how she’d accomplish this, but she’d be there if he really needed her help. That more or less convinced him that it would be foolish to throw away what promised to be an easy war for good pay.
There was a certain problem, though, and he went back to the house of Veltan to discuss that problem with Dahlaine. He went directly to the map-room, where Sorgan and Narasan were talking with each other.
“I don’t want to intrude here,” he said to them, “but how are we going to get my people—and their horses—up to Lord Dahlaine’s territory? Horses can run fast, but probably not quite fast enough to gallop across the top of the sea.”
Narasan squinted up at the ceiling of the map-room, and told Ekial that they could hire ships from Castano to transport the men and horses to Dahlaine’s Domain.
“As long as we can get there before the war breaks out, everything should be all right,” Ekial replied.
Then Veltan advised Narasan that he’d go along, since it would probably take quite a bit of gold to hire that many ships.
“I take it that you’ve changed your mind, Ekial,” Dahlaine said then. “You were looking quite doubtful when things started to get noisy up near the Falls of Vash.”
“I’ve had time to think it over a bit,” Ekial replied. “Things turned out quite well up there, and the pay you offered is very attractive. You people have already won two wars here in the Land of Dhrall, so there’s no real reason to think that you’ll lose the next one. Easy wars for good pay always get my attention.” Then he looked at the balding Trogite Gunda. “When did you want to leave?” he asked.
“How does first thing tomorrow morning sound to you?” Gunda asked.
“About right,” Ekial replied. “But let’s be sort of careful. I don’t really know how to swim, so I’d rather that you didn’t tip your little boat over.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, friend Ekial,” Gunda replied with a broad grin.
4
There was a steel-grey quality about the early-morning light when Gunda led Veltan and Ekial out of Veltan’s house the next day, and Ekial felt that everything was flat for some reason. Then he realized that it was the lack of shadows that flattened things. Shadows don’t serve any purpose, but they do add a certain depth to the scenery.
When they crested the hill that stood between the house of Veltan and the beach, Ekial noticed that the sea was also grey.
“The tide’s gone out,” Gunda said when they reached his yawl. “We’ll have to drag the Albatross on down to the water.”
“I know that the tides rise and fall as the day goes by,” Ekial said to Veltan as the three of them took hold of the slender little boat, “but I have no idea of what causes that.”
“The moon,” Veltan replied. “It gives her something to do when she gets bored.”
“I don’t exactly understand,” Ekial admitted.
“It’s a bit complicated,” Veltan said. “Let’s get the Albatross out into deeper water first, and then I’ll see if I can explain it.”
It took the three of them a while to get the Albatross out into deeper water, and then, wet to their hips, they clambered into the narrow yawl. Gunda took his place at the oars and rowed them on out into the open sea. “That’s about far enough,” he muttered half to himself. Then he laid the oars aside and pulled on a long rope that raised the sail. “The wind takes it from here,” he explained to Ekial. “And the nice part of that is that I don’t even have to pay her.”
“What if she’s not blowing in the direction you want her to?” Ekial asked.
Gunda shrugged. “It’s back to the oars, then. I haven’t found a way to bribe the wind yet, but I’m working on it.”
“You were talking about how the moon makes the sea go up and down,” Ekial said to Veltan then.
“Oh, yes,” Veltan said, “I was, wasn’t I?” He squinted at the horizon. “I think that maybe the term ‘gravity’ might make it more clear.” Then he went on at some length about something that didn’t make much sense to Ekial.
It all became much more clear, however, when Veltan mentioned “attraction.”
“Oh,” Ekial said. “That makes much more sense than what you said before.”
“It does?” Veltan seemed a bit surprised.
“Of course. It’s a lot like what happens to a female cow at mating time. The sea notices that the moon’s passing by, and she gets those ‘urges’ to—well—” he faltered. “You know what I mean.” He was just a bit embarrassed by what he’d just said.
“Now that makes a lot more sense than all that talk about ‘gravity,’ I’d say,” Gunda added.
“Are you saying that the sea gets mating urges twice a day?” Ekial demanded with a certain surprise.
“I most certainly wouldn’t,” Veltan replied. “I learned a long time ago that nobody in his right mind offends Mother Sea. You don’t want to make her angry.”
“It does make a certain amount of sense, though, Veltan,” Gunda said. “I’ve heard that Mommy Sea is where all life comes from—people, animals, fish, and all that—so she’s probably getting urges all the time, wouldn’t you say?”
“Not out loud when I’m sitting in a boat a mile from shore, I wouldn’t,” Veltan replied.
It took them several days to reach the port city of Castano on the north coast of the empire, and Gunda led them to a place he called an “inn.” “I’ll spread the word along the waterfront that you’re hiring and that the pay’s good, Veltan,” he said. “I’d make a point of letting them see those gold blocks.” Then he looked at Ekial. “How many horse-soldiers are we talking about here?”
Ekial squinted at the busy street outside. “There are six clans along the north coast,” he replied, “and if I understood what Dahlaine told me correctly, he might need us up in his part of the Land of Dhrall before too much longer. There are more clans farther south, but it might take a while to get word to them. I’m quite sure that the north clans can provide about fifty thousand men—and horses, of course. The clans have more men than that, but they won’t let us have them all. Most of them will have to stay behind to tend to the cattle.”
Veltan scratched his cheek. “If we can crowd five hundred men on each ship, we’ll need a hundred ships.”
“You’re forgetting the horses, I think,” Ekial said. “Horses need more room than the men do.”
“That’s going to be quite a large fleet, Veltan,” Gunda said. “You’ll need a lot of those gold blocks.”
“That’s not really a problem, Gunda,” Veltan replied. “I can put my hands on as many as we’ll need.”
“How? We’re here, and the gold’s back in your home country.”
“I’ll have to cheat a little, that’s all. I’m an expert when it comes to cheating.”
“I should have known that something like that would crop up,” Gunda said. “I’ll go pass the word that you’re hiring ships, and then I think I’ll nose around Castano just a bit. The Amarite Church might be just a bit miffed about what happened in that basin up in your part of the Land of Dhrall, and if they’re planning anything, we probably should know about it.”
“Good idea,” Veltan agreed, “but get the word out that I’m hiring men and ships first. My big brother might start getting grumpy if we take too long.”
It didn’t take long for the word to get out in Castano that Veltan was hiring ships and that he was paying more than twice as much as was usual in this part of the world. Try though he might, Ekial never actually saw Veltan pull any of the blocks of gold out of the air—or wherever it was that he had them stored—but the gold blocks were always there when he needed them.
Most of the shipowners—or captains, or whatever else it was that they called themselves—eagerly accepted Veltan’s first offer. Right at first, a fair number of the Trogites seemed to want to haggle, but Veltan cut that off by abruptly dismissing the hagglers with “next, please.”
At the end of the first day, Veltan turned to Ekial. “I seem to have lost count,” he admitted. “How many did we pick up today?”
Ekial ran his finger down the stick he’d been notching with his dagger. “Twenty-three,” he said.
“Maybe we should speed things up a bit tomorrow,” Veltan mused.
“You let them talk too much,” Ekial said. “They all want to tell you long stories about how nice their ships are and their skilled crews and all sort of other things that don’t really matter. There are ways that you can cut that off.”
“Oh?”
“We’ve had dealings with Trogites on the north coast of the Land of Malavi, and we’ve found a way to cut off all the chatter.”
“I’d be happy to hear about that.”
“Try ‘Take it or leave it.’ It gets right to the point, and it lets them know that you’re not interested in any fairytales. I think you might be just a little too polite.” He hesitated. “I don’t want to offend you, Veltan, but is it really wise to just hand one of those blocks to anybody who comes in here claiming that he owns a ship? They could be lying, you know.”
Veltan smiled. “I have a way to take care of that, Prince Ekial. Any Trogite who doesn’t own a ship won’t have the gold block I gave him when we sail away from Castano.”
“It might take quite a while to track all those cheaters down, you know.”
“I won’t have to do that. You may have noticed that the gold blocks appear when I want them to.”
“WeIl, as a matter of fact I have, and I can’t for the life of me see how you do that.”
“The gold blocks come when I call them, Prince Ekial. All I’ll have to do is call the ones I gave to the cheaters, and they’ll come right back to me.”
“What if the cheater’s got his block inside one of those iron boxes?”
“It won’t really make any difference, my friend. They will come back when I call them.”
It was two days later when Ekial’s stick had seventy-eight notches cut into it. “We’ll probably finish up tomorrow, Veltan,” Ekial said. “You might want to let the ones you’ve already hired know that we’ll be leaving here on the day after tomorrow.” Then he remembered something. “We will need ships for the horses as well, you know.”
“I’ve already come up with a way to take care of that, Prince Ekial,” Veltan replied.
“Oh? How’s that?”
“Have you ever heard the expression ‘You don’t really want to know’?”
“You’re going to cheat, I take it.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘cheating,’ Prince Ekial. Let’s just say ‘adjusting’ instead.”
Just then, Gunda came into their room in the inn, and he was grinning broadly.
“You look all bright and bubbly today, Gunda,” Veltan noted.
“The Amarite Church seems to be getting purified, Veltan,” Gunda replied, still grinning.
“That might take quite a bit of doing, Gunda.”
“It appears that the new Naos—that’s the title of the head man in the Church—has a real bad case of decency, and he’s spreading it around. He’s been confiscating the palaces of the assorted high-ranking Church-men and turning them into homes for the very poor, and the former owners of those palaces are now required to live in those tiny little cells in the basements of the churches where they serve.”
“I’d imagine that’s caused quite a bit of screaming,” Veltan said.
“Not anymore,” Gunda said. “The high-ranking Church-men who make too much noise are investigated by a new breed of ‘Regulators’—if that’s the right word. Anyway, there probably aren’t more than three or four of those Adnaris who’ve been even moderately honest. Most of them are guilty of assorted high—and low—crimes, and they’re dragged before a church court, with the Naos, Udar IV, passing judgment. There’s no death penalty for churchies, but holy Udar has come up with something even worse.”
“What can be worse than the death penalty, Gunda?” Veltan asked.
“He sells them as slaves. They probably aren’t very good slaves, but he doesn’t charge very much for them, so the slaveowner probably gets his money’s worth.”
Veltan stared at Gunda for a moment, and then he burst out laughing.
It was two days later, not long after dawn, when the Albatross, followed by a fleet of the huge, lumbering Trogite merchant ships, set sail from the port of Castano, sailing toward the west. Ekial still had a few doubts about this, but Veltan seemed to be fairly certain that everything would turn out as they’d planned.
Ekial wasn’t entirely certain just how far off to the north Dahlaine’s part of the Land of Dhrall lay, or how long it would take the slow-moving Trogite ships to make the journey, but Veltan kept telling him not to worry.
Ekial found that to be quite irritating, for some reason. He had every right to worry just as much as he wanted to.
THE VOYAGE TO THE EAST
1
The faint light above the eastern horizon announced the approach of dawn in the harbor near the house of Veltan, and Sub-Commander Andar was standing near the bow of the Victory enjoying the silence that always seemed to settle over the sea as she awaited the arrival of a new day. Andar found an enormous beauty on the face of the sea during those silent moments. It sometimes seemed to him that the sea almost held her breath as she awaited the coming of the sun.
As he looked out across the hushed water of the harbor, he saw the pirate, Sorgan Hook-Beak, rowing a scruffy-looking little skiff toward the anchored Victory.
“Would you go advise Commander Narasan that there’s a Maag coming to see him?” Andar quietly asked a passing sailor.
“Yes, sir!” the sailor replied, snapping to attention and saluting smartly.
“That’s not really necessary, young man,” Andar said quietly. “It’s too early in the morning for all that formality.”
“The cap’n told us all that we’re supposed to act respectful, sir,” the sailor replied apologetically. “Of course, the cap’n ain’t out of bed yet, so we can do this any way you want us to.”
“I appreciate that, young man,” Andar replied, still looking out at the approaching pirate. There was a bulky quality about Sorgan, quite probably because, like all Maag seafarers, he’d spent much of his youth pulling on an oar when the wind wasn’t feeling frisky. Just the thought of spending day after day rowing made Andar shudder. Life at sea
didn’t really appeal to him very much. The sea was beautiful, of course, but she extracted a great deal of hard labor from those who chose to follow her.
“Now what does he want?” Commander Narasan murmured as he joined Andar at the rail.
“He hasn’t gotten around to telling me yet, sir,” Andar replied. “I’m sure he’ll get to it—eventually.”
“Ho! Narasan!” Sorgan bellowed as his skiff neared the Victory.
“You’re up early, Sorgan,” Commander Narasan called back. “Is something wrong?”
“Not yet,” Sorgan replied. “Of course, it’s early. There’s still plenty of time for things to get wormy. We’ll be going off in different directions before long, so I thought we might want to kick a few things around before we haul out of this harbor.”
“Come on board, Sorgan,” Narasan said, pushing a rolled-up rope ladder over the rail.
The pirate tied the bow of his skiff to the ladder and climbed on up. Then he looked around. “Is Lady Zelana’s sister anywhere nearby?” he whispered.
Narasan shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he replied. “Of course, when you’re talking about that family, it’s kind of hard to say for sure. They can be almost anyplace, and you can’t always see them.”
“I’ve noticed,” Sorgan said in a sour tone of voice. “Did she pay you yet?”
“Oh, yes. Those people throw gold around like it didn’t mean a thing.”
“How much?” Sorgan demanded. “I’m not trying to pry something out of you that’s none of my business, Narasan. I just want to make sure that Dahlaine’s not trying to cheat me.”
“I think our employers all got together and agreed on certain numbers, Sorgan. Aracia gave me twenty-five of those lovely gold blocks just last evening.”
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