The Edge of the World

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Criston clung to a splintered yardarm tangled with ropes and

  I

  THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

  209

  I

  a scrap of sail. All around him the water was cluttered with flotsam and jetsam from the smashed ship: hull planks, sailcloth, leaking crates, bobbing kegs. And bodies. His shipmates.

  "Hello!" He listened in the watery stillness for any response. "Hello?"

  The debris was spreading apart, drifting away, and Criston realized that if he was to survive--even for a little longer--he had to gather whatever he could. Something out there might be vital.

  Releasing the yardarm that had held him afloat throughout the stormy night, he swam to the nearest crate, grasped it and, kicking and splashing, pushed it back toward the yardarm, to which he secured it with a length of waterlogged rope. He swam out again, farther this time, and retrieved a keg of salted meat. Next, to his great relief, he found an intact cask of water; thirst would be his worst enemy out here... unless the Leviathan came back.

  Criston kept calling out as he swam in wider and wider circles, but he heard no answer.

  The corpses floating facedown were sailors with whom he had worked during the long months of the voyage. Many bodies were smashed and battered, their faces bloated; a few had already been gnawed by predatory fish. Unfortunately, he recognized all of the men.

  He retrieved another yardarm and another long tangle of rope, to which a grappling hook was secured. He brought everything back to his ever-growing cluster of salvage, including a waterlogged package wrapped in oilcloth. Back on his meager floating shelter, Criston gingerly unfolded the coverings and found a leather-bound book: the journal in which Captain Shay had made his notes and drawings of sea serpents.

  Criston stared at the smeared ink on the pages, not even real

  izing that he was sobbing. He rewrapped the volume and set it among the pile of rescued possessions. Then he set out on his search again.

  At last, he did find one survivor--Prester Jerard. The old man was caught in a torn sheet of sailcloth and a splintered spar just buoyant enough to keep his head above water. Jerard was stunned, groggy, but he responded when Criston clasped him. "Prester! You're alive!"

  The old man coughed, spat out water, and ran trembling hands through his tangled gray beard. "For now."

  Criston wrapped his hands under the prester's arms and stroked back toward his makeshift raft. After Jerard balanced himself aboard two adjacent crates, he gazed about, taking a long time to realize where he was. "Where are the other survivors?"

  Criston hung his head, "/am the other survivor."

  Jerard touched the fishhook pendant at his neck and uttered a quick, automatic prayer. The old man came out of his daze long enough to note--in a distracted way--that he had a broken wrist and a deep cut on his forearm. With a strip of cloth, Criston bound the prester's wound and set the broken wrist as best he could.

  But the scent of blood and bodies had sent out a silent call in the sea, and sharp gray dorsal fins appeared among the wreckage. With splashing and tearing sounds the circling sharks continued to devour the floating corpses of the Luminarah crew. They had plenty to feed on. Criston and Jerard could only huddle together, and watch, and listen to the sickening sounds as darkness began to fall. The makeshift raft drifted along throughout the endless night.

  The Luminara had sailed far beyond all known charts. Criston and Jerard had no hope of returning to any place they knew, even the empty island of skeleton warriors. In recent weeks,

  the swift currents had carried the ship in a great circle, and the storm winds had driven them blindly eastward. But they were still nowhere. Their only chance was to stumble upon another shore.

  At the height of the storm's fury, Criston had spotted a beacon

  that might have been the Lighthouse at the edge of the world,

  but he had seen no further sign of it since. He had no way of

  finding it again... if indeed the vision had been more than his

  I. imagination.

  The two ate sparingly of the food Criston had recovered. The next morning he lashed the components of the raft together securely with pieces of frayed rope. The grappling hook tied to I a long, loose cord proved particularly useful, for he could cast it to nearby pieces of wreckage and haul them in, like a fisherman. With so many sharks circling now, he did not want to swim about as he had done the day before.

  For his own sanity, Prester Jerard told stories and recited from the Book of Aiden as they huddled under a makeshift shade that Criston fashioned from a piece of sail and a thin spar. The wound in his arm continued to soak the salt-encrusted bandage. Criston changed the dressing, but the prester was in such pain from his broken wrist that he could not pull the bindings tight.

  As the sun dazzled overhead, Criston kept an attentive watch over the waters around him, looking for any sign of land on the distant horizon, maybe some last miracle from the Luminara. Most of the flotsam had drifted far away by now, but Criston spotted a reflected glint floating in the water that was probably something made of glass. He stared for the better part of an hour, but the intriguing object drifted no closer, apparently pacing them.

  Finally, curiosity so consumed Criston that he dove off the raft and swam toward the object. Jerard kept a sharp eye out

  for triangular dorsal fins, while the young sailor retrieved the object--a glass bottle, firmly corked. He grabbed it and stroked back toward the raft.

  The prester cried, "Shark! Shark!" Criston swam faster, not daring to look, until he finally reached the questionable safety of the raft and threw himself aboard, swinging his feet onto the wet crates and thick yardarms. Panting, blinking bitter water out of his eyes, he glanced back to see a large shark veering off, having lost its quarry.

  As his heartbeat slowed, Criston picked up his prize, hoping it would be something useful. The glass was dirty. Drops of water sloshed around inside from a leak where a piece of the cork had broken off. He uncorked the bottle, withdrew a tightly rolled letter: one of the messages he had written to Adrea and cast into the sea. The last time he had thrown a letter in a bottle overboard had been the day before the storm... and it had drifted back here.

  Criston extracted the golden strand of her hair and just stared at it, longing for her. He still had the remnants of her lock of hair tucked into his pocket, secured there with a brass clip. He was sure now that would be all he'd ever see of her again

  Over the next two days, more sharks gathered, their knifelike fins gutting the surface of the sea, endlessly circling. Criston and Prester Jerard could do nothing more than watch.

  He read the water-stained letter again and again, thinking of Adrea, remembering what he had thought when he'd written it. Everything was different now. He would not be coming home as he had promised

  On the fourth day, most of the circling sharks disappeared, their fins vanishing into the depths. Criston stood on their wobbly raft, scanning the water, wondering what could explain this odd new change.

  Suddenly, with a tremendous splash, the dragonlike head of a sea serpent rose up, scarlet fins extended, spines outthrust. It snapped up a large gray shark that wriggled in its fang-filled jaw like a minnow seized by a pelican. The sea serpent tossed the H shark into the air, opened its maw wide, and gulped it down.

  B; Looming high, dripping runnels of water, the creature looked down upon the raft and the helpless men, but it did not attack. I After a blast of steam from its blowhole, the serpent gradually submerged. Criston andjerard blinked at each other in awe.

  For the rest of that day, no shark returned, but a second sea serpent rose up to regard them. It was joined by a third, then a fourth. The scaly monsters hissed and hooted at one another, contemplating this intriguing object. With an ache in his chest, Criston thought that Captain Shay would have taken copious notes in his journal. The serpents circled the raft, drawing closer.. .just like the hunting sharks, but worse.

  42

&n
bsp; Urecari Slave Ship

  Despite her circumstances and her despair, Adrea refused to think of herself as a captive. But that did not mean she was free. The ruthless Urecari raiders had shouted at her, threatened her. They tied her arms and threw her aboard one of their longboats, along with many captured children from the village. They rowed out to the war galleys waiting at the mouth of Windcatch Harbor. The children wailed and shuddered, cowed into submission after having seen their parents murdered. The few female cap

  tives from other villages were frantic, begging their unresponsive captors for mercy. Adrea, though, didn't say a word. She didn't think she had any words left in her, so she sat back with her lips pressed together, refusing to make a sound. When the whole world was out of control, this was one thing Adrea could control. She would not give them the satisfaction of hearing her say anything.

  The Urecari men didn't seem to notice, or care, whether or not she spoke.

  Watching her village recede, Adrea recalled how the day had dawned so brightly. Now it ended in smoke, blood, and pain. She saw the smoldering kirk on the hill, and realized that Ciarlo must indeed be dead along with Prester Fennan. She had watched these men murder Telha, and if it weren't for the baby she carried, she would rather they had killed her as well. She would live for the child, but even if she escaped, even if she returned home to wait for Griston in the ruins of Windcatch, how could she ever tell him that his mother had been slain? She could have done more, fought harder, run faster.

  The men put all the new captives aboard the nearest war galley, where Adrea again saw the haughty Uraban prince who had killed one of his own soldiers and commanded that she be taken alive. He shouted orders from a captain's platform. Only a few women had been taken from other villages, and none but herself from Windcatch. She didn't understand why he had singled her out, why he had taken her alive, but Adrea did not let herself believe that she was safe; the man must have something far worse in store for her.

  With the colorful sails stretched taut and the oars pulling against the current, the war galleys moved off. Adrea trapped a silent moan at the bottom of her throat. When Criston returned, he would never be able to find her

  Satisfied with the destruction they had caused, the Urabans turned south again. Seeing the ruins of Ishalem, Adrea realized that they had left Tierra and entered enemy territory. Now she truly knew that she would be a prisoner forever.

  The other captive women whispered to one another, imagining worse and worse fates. Adrea held her rounded belly, felt the baby there; the thought that her child would be born in enemy hands terrified her more than anything else. Criston's son or daughter would either be killed at birth, clubbed to death because the Urabans didn't want it, or raised among the enemy. Adrea wasn't sure which was worse.

  She couldn't understand why the Uraban prince wanted so many captive Tierran boys and girls. With their light complexions and blond, red, or brown hair, they would never fit in among the other Urabans. She feared they were all doomed to a life of slavery.

  The mysterious prince had come to see her only once. He stood tall over her and spoke in Uraban. Though Adrea recognized a few words derived from the old language, which Prester Fennan had taught, and caught the gist of his expressions and sentences, she did not answer him. She gave no sign that she comprehended. She refused to speak.

  Later, one of the swarthy crewmen spoke to her in a gruff voice, using heavily accented Tierran. "Zarif Omra demands to know your name."

  Adrea merely stared at him, renewing her resolve. arifOmra. So that was the prince's name. She clamped her lips shut.

  "Name!" he shouted. She turned her head away. He slapped her. Her head jerked to one side, but she gave him only a murderous glare in reply. She actually welcomed the pain, which was trivial compared to the suffering the rest of her village had endured. She had survived relatively unscathed. So far.

  The crewman raised his hand to strike her again, and seemed disappointed when she did not flinch. "Omra says you must live, but he did not say I can't hurt you." The sailor gave her a cold smile. Adrea turned away, ignoring him. He struck her on the back of the head so hard that her teeth clacked together. She clamped her jaws and refused to speak. Angry, the sailor stalked off. The other captives stared at her, but Adrea focused only on her own thoughts.

  At night, she huddled close to her miserable companions, listening to them moan and beg. She expected the raiders to drag the women one by one to an open area of the deck, rape them repeatedly, then throw their abused bodies overboard. But they did not touch the women, or the children.

  Making sure none of the Urecari men saw her, Adrea lowered her voice to a bare whisper, trying to find out who had been taken from Windcatch, which other villages had been raided. Already, her voice sounded hoarse and strange to her. She learned little from the other women, and sailors came by, growling at the captives to keep them quiet.

  During the fifth day out of Windcatch, one of the women threw herself overboard, taking a young child with her, and both vanished into the water. From that day forward Zarif Omra ordered all the women and children to be tied together and secured to iron rings on the deck. Adrea hunkered down and returned to her defiant silence.

  The war galleys finally docked in a coastal city south of Ishalem. Adrea heard the name Khenara spoken, a place out of exotic stories. Now she was actually seeing it. She hated the sight.

  The buildings were strange and foreign-looking. The people spoke a language she could not understand, though again she recognized a few words. Shouting sailors ordered all of them to disembark from the war galleys. Standing with her fellow cap

  tives on the sandy beach of Khenara, Adrea wondered if they would be sold here in a slave market, until she realized that this city was not their final destination. The raiders hastily built an extensive camp and prepared for a much longer overland journey.

  The air was warm and dusty, and the women and children slept out in the open on grassy slopes leading down to the beach. They rested for a day while Omra and his men rounded up horses and pack animals for a caravan.

  ]- Looking at the sea, Adrea wanted to call out to Criston, who was out there, far beyond the horizon, but her voice would not come. She simply sent her beseeching thoughts out to him.

  The next day their captors led them away from the Oceansea, away from Tierra, and hopelessly far from anything Adrea had ever known.

  43

  Olabar Palace

  Since Asha was preoccupied with her latest project--not a bird with a broken wing or a stray cat this time, but an injured man she'd recovered from Ishalem--Soldan-Shah Imir had his choice of returning to the quarters of his second wife, Villiki, or spending the night alone.

  While Villiki was pleased to have more of his time and attention, she often found excuses to avoid his physical advances, suggesting a game of xaries or just conversations about court gossip (along with her advice on how he should handle certain political matters). Still, it was better than spending the night alone in a cold bed.

  Imir went to her quarters and lounged on the cushions while Villiki ordered her handmaidens to bring him tea, which she would probably lace with soporific herbs so he would be too sleepy to attempt a drawn-out seduction. Villiki was still a fine looking woman, despite her age. (Imir knew he wasn't being entirely fair, since he himself was seven years older than she.) She took great care to maintain her beauty, preserve her skin, and wear perfectly fitting clothes.

  Before he could relax in her presence, a servant came to the door, delivering a letter with due deference. The soldan-shah frowned to see that it was the latest missive from Lithio, brought in by a horseman from Missinia.

  Seeing the letter from his first wife, Villiki turned cold, and Imir felt his chances for sex vanish in an instant. With a sigh, he read the letter, knowing what Lithio would say--how much she missed him, though she had never much cared for his company when she had it. She asked again when he would come to visit her and bring their son, Omra. Imi
r knew she really didn't want to see him, and she knew he wouldn't make the journey; by making her request, she merely made him feel guilty. Her letter went on for more than two pages with descriptions of her thorn hedges and flower gardens, a fountain that had broken, new well-blooded yearlings that had just been brought to the Arikara stables. None of the news was the least bit interesting to him.

  When Villiki rubbed his shoulders invitingly, he knew that she wanted something. Maybe he could negotiate a better night after

  allBut before she could utter her request, a red-faced guard

  burst into the chamber. The last time Imir had seen one of his soldiers so distraught, Ishalem had been on fire.

  "It is Asha! Lady Asha! She's been murdered!"

  Imir lurched up from the cushions, not sure he'd heard properly. "Asha? But she's--"

  "Strangled. Someone murdered her in her villa, then fled."

  Disbelief erupted in his heart and mind. He felt as though someone had struck him in the head with a heavy club. Who would kill Asha? Why would anyone want to hurt Asha--sweet, beautiful Asha, who cared only about everyone and everything else, every lost cause? "Who? Who has done this?"

  "We think it was the man in her care, Soldan-Shah. The burned man who came from Ishalem."

  Imir moaned, knowing only too well how she took care of her pets. Asha would have wanted to tend the man herself, as though he were the child she had never had.

  "Oh, Asha!" He fell back on his automatic response, not daring to think further. He was the soldan-shah of all Uraba; he should be able to solve any problem. "Call Kel Rovik--call all of my guards! I want horsemen in the streets, men to search every house, door to door! Who was this man? What does he look like? What is his name?"

  "We have no description, Soldan-Shah. He told no one his name. Even the doctors only saw him burned, covered with salves, bandaged. Asha gave him the Sacraments herself, and fed him."