by Andre Norton
“Bring me your chart,” Kilwar was continuing. “Also I shall ask of the Lord of Lockriss and he of Lochack, what they might have seen or had reported. For if you came across this derelict off the Reefs, that territory is well patrolled by their forces.”
The chart of the reef territory was spread out on the table in the council chamber and Kilwar made a point of assembling there those Elders whose knowledge of the strange tales of the sea outrivaled the many accounts in their archives. He had Pihuys relate his version of the mist-concealed ship and then looked to the Elders.
“Has there been a like happening known?” the Lord of LockNar asked, when the silence fell after Pihuys’ detailed report.
For a long moment no one answered. Then Follan, who all men knew, had made the eastern voyage near a dozen times, arose and went to the map, using his forefinger to trace the line Pihuys had indicated.
“Lord, this has happened before, but not in these waters.”
“Where and when?” Kilwar’s question was brief.
“There is a place oft Quinquare in the east in which ships have been sighted, yes, even boarded, to be found deserted. Nor has any Captain been able to bring in those ships. At one time this was so great a danger that men would no longer sail for Quinquare and that city’s trade died, its people fled inland or overseas, and it became a shadowed ruin. But years passed and the ghost ships were not seen. So Quinquare arose again, yet never was it the great city it had once been.”
“Quinquare,” Kilwar mused. “That is a full sea away. But such ships have not been seen on this coast?”
“That is so,” Follan replied. “Lord, I do not like it. Just so acting were the ghost ships of Quinquare. If some power holds them that now lies on our lee, then it is trouble indeed.”
“Lord, the message hawks…” He who had charge of those swift flying birds moved to the table, one on either wrist. The birds looked about them with bright and fierce eyes, moving their feet uneasily on the heavy gauntlets covering the Hawkmaster’s wrists. They were sea eagles, able to wing tirelessly over the waves, bred for intelligence, and trained to carry the messages from one craig-island castle to the next for the Sea Kings.
Kilwar drew a small piece of cured sea snake skin and inked on it coded words. When he had done he took each bird in turn to fasten his message in the tube bound to one leg.
“Release them now,” he ordered. “And be alert for any quick return.”
“Lord, it is done.”
“Meanwhile,” Kilwar said, “let our battleship be made ready. We shall seek out this ghost vessel for ourselves, if it still floats and seeks men as a bait lies within a trap. Pihuys, what manner of seal lay upon the cargo hatch? Did you know it?”
“Lord, it was of this design,” the Captain had picked up another square of snakeskin and the writing stick Kilwar had dropped. He sketched in some lines. “I have not seen it before,” he added as he put aside the pen and pushed the sketch over to his Lord.
Tam-sin moved forward a pace or so, in spite of Rhuys’s glare, to peer down over Kilwar’s shoulder. She drew a gasping breath when the significance of those lines became clear. Tam-sin of LockNar would not have recognized it, but Tamisan of Ty-Kry knew… And she saw, almost felt, the sudden tensing of Kilwar’s body as he made the same identification.
“It would seem, brother,” Rhuys said, “even if the brave Captain knows not this symbol, she who shares your bed does.”
The six-point star with a jaggered bolt of lightning through it, Starrex’s own badge out of Ty-Kry, the real Ty-Kry from which they had come, no, there was no mistaking that!
III
Tam-sin did not answer the words Rhuys had made into an accusation. She was sure that Kilwar himself had recognized instantly that sign of his own House in the other time before they had been caught, by Kas’s planning, in these dreams. She would leave it to him to say yes or no. But it was Follan who spoke first, with a gravity which seemed a part of his personality.
“Lady Tam-sin, is this sign truly known to you?” She studied him, not sensing any of the hatred which her sensitive’s power could pick up from Rhuys. And that part of her which was Tam-sin knew that Follan had been her friend from the beginning in this place, for she was not born of LochNar but had come from a small, less important craig keep which was nearer to the land.
“It is known to both of us,” Kilwar replied before she could summon words. “It is the sign of a land house, one in its time of no little power. And now it can be the sign of an enemy.” He was thinking of Kas she was certain. Could it be in this dream world Kas was Lord of Starrex’s clan, should that clan exist at all? “I do not like it being a part of this ghost-ship matter.”
Kilwar’s answer drew their eyes from her. She caught only a malicious glance from Rhuys and her chin lifted determinedly as she allowed herself a return stare. Rhuys could not make trouble between this Kilwar and her, no matter how he had been able to deal in the past with that other Tam-sin who had given her form and body here. There was such a tie between this Sea Lord and herself that none standing here could understand nor trouble.
“Landsman!” the Captain exploded. “They are ever a threat to us and whyfor? We do not want their territories ashore, and we do not forbid them the sea when they gather courage enough to venture out on it! Then why should they set themselves against us as they are ever minded to do?”
“They have a greed born in them,” Follan answered. “What they have is never enough, always they want more. The High Queen likes it not that our Lords do not bow knee in her court nor send her gifts. Also they say that because we can live where they dare not, for the sake of their lives, venture…” his hand arose to finger the edge of his now closed gills, “we are not of their species. And what they do not understand, that they hate and fear. Nor can we say that we do not do the same upon occasion. This was a Landsman’s ship, therefore it is natural that it bears a House seal.”
“Bait for a trap.” Rhuys lurched forward another step so that he stood to Kilwar’s other hand, flanking him on the left as did Tam-sin on the right. “This ship could be the bait of a trap, brother. Have not already six of our men gone into it and not come out again? What they may want is for us to try it farther, losing more men each time. It would be better to use sea fire and destroy it utterly…”
“Thus making sure,” Pihuys commented dryly, “that we destroy also any means of learning where are our men and whether we can find them once again.”
“Do you think they still live?” Rhuys flung at him. “Do not be a complete fool, Captain!”
Pihuys’s hand went to the hilt of the knife at his belt and Rhuys smiled. That he had deliberately provoked the Captain for some purpose of his own Tam-sin had no doubts.
“Be quiet, Rhuys.” Kilwar’s voice was calm but the tone of it was such as to raise a flush on his brother’s bitter face. “We shall,” he gave the final word, “await word from Lochack and Lochriss; if they have further news of this ship it would be well to have it. Then, at sunrise we shall take out the battleship and see what we can discover. Meanwhile, have you aught in the way to offer as advice, Elders, Captain, do you think upon it so that when we gather for further council that we may listen.”
They went, silently, as men who had much upon their minds. Kilwar watched them through the doorway, his hand still resting on the chart. Only Rhuys did not move.
“I still say it is a trap.”
“Perhaps you are right, brother. But we must make sure of what kind of a trap before we attempt to render it useless. And who set such a trap off Quinquare in years past? We have no touch with the northeastern lands now, not since they were overrun by the Kamocks, who care nothing for the sea, and will not let traders into the borders of the lands they have seized. It might well be that whoever devised a way of leveling Quinquare has, because of those very Kamocks, changed his arena of action hither. Yet I cannot see the profit in this thing. They do not loot ships, it would seem, unless that bark was e
mptied and the hatch reseated, which I do not believe. Pihuys is too experienced a seaman not to tell between the riding of a ship in ballast and one which is well laden. Therefore, it seems a very elaborate trap indeed for the catching of a handful of venturesome seamen who lay aboard what they believe to be a derelict.”
“Six men from a crew of ten, brother, is no small catch,” Rhuys returned.
“Not by our counting. But if this game is played long…” Kilwar frowned. “Let me but hear from Lochack and Lochriss and we may know a little more. If the messages come I shall be in our chamber.” He held out his hand and Tam-sin laid her fingers lightly on his wrist, as they both turned away from the table, leaving Rhuys alone.
Nor did they exchange any words until they were once more in the chamber where they had awakened together. Once there Kilwar walked to the window slit and looked out.
“There is a storm coming fast,” he observed. “It may well be that no ship can sail no matter how pressing the need.”
“Kilwar.”
At the sound of his name he swung about to face her. Tam-sin looked quickly right and left. She had a queer feeling that even here they were overlooked, perhaps spied upon. Yet the part of her who knew this keep well recognized no such form of spying was possible.
“The seal…” she continued.
“Yes, the seal.” He came closer as if he, too, had that sense of being under observation. ‘You told me before that these dreams made us the people we would have been had history taken a different turn in the past”
“That is what I believed.”
“You say now ‘believed,’ have you then changed your mind?”
“I don’t know. I have no sea people in my ancestry. Have you, Lord?”
“Not that I know of. Yet it would seem that there is my House here, yet I am no longer a member of it”
“There is Kas.”
“Yes, Kas. Could he be Clan Lord then by some quirk of fate? Is there any way you would know, Tam-sin?”
She shook her head. “Lord, as I told you, in our first venture, these are not ordinary dreams wherein I can influence the flow of action. I myself am enmeshed in them, which is not natural. I can break the dream, or so I hope, but as you know there must be the three of us together to do this thing. And we have not Kas.”
“Unless he is a part of this ghost-ship mystery and in searching out its secret we can fasten on him,” commented Kilwar. “Meanwhile, I am not a man of uncontrolled fancy, but I sense trouble here, even as it awaited us at the court of the High Queen.”
“Watch for Rhuys,” she gave the warning which seemed most important to her. “He is a bitter man, and, like Kas, he resents that you have what he lacks. Kas wants your clan leadership, your wealth. Rhuys wants the same, but with it burns resentment that you are a whole man, and he is maimed and cut off from a full life.”
“Part of me, that which is native here,” Kilwar said slowly, “resents that saying. But you are right. Ties of blood hold him fast so far; after all we are brothers. But brother-hate can be worse than many other rages. And you he hates even more. To him our mating is a shameful thing because you are a Tide-Singer and of a lesser House. Also he would have kept me if he could from any heir.”
“Tide-Singer…” Tam-sin repeated slowly and searched the memories of this personality. Yes, she was indeed a Tide-singer, once she released the memories of Tam-sin, knowledge awoke in her. It was strange knowledge, alien to any she knew. She must search those other memories, find more about this power which was of a different race and time.
There was a fierce blast of wind fingering at them through the window slit and Kilwar quickly drew the shield across the opening.
“A storm indeed,” he observed.
But Tam-sin thought that one hardly less fierce might even now be gathering strength within this very pile.
IV
The storm battered and worried at the craig keep throughout the night. Tam-sin slept only in snatches, awakening at intervals to hear the drums of fury without. Twice as she did so, lying tense and shivering, Kilwar’s hands sought her and she found comfort in his nearness and touch.
She tried to search the memories of Tam-sin and discover what powers that other whose form she now wore had. Once she had been a dreamer, then a Voice of Olava in a different world wherein she had fronted the anger of the High Queen; now she was a Tide-Singer, one who “sang” the fish into the nets, could “see” from a distance any ship of the Sea Kings. In each life she had talents which were not those of the common sort.
A Tide-Singer might follow a ship with her mind, if she were linked with any on board it. But she could not pick out such a ship unless those ties existed. And she herself must be given time to absorb from the Tam-sin personality what she could now put to use.
“Lord,” she whispered, “what think you lies at the heart of this matter?”
“Any guess could equal mine,” he returned in a murmur no louder than that she had used. “But I am uneasy that the cargo seal was the one I know.”
He fell silent then and she lay as quiet, with her head upon his shoulder, knowing that, even as she, he sniffed danger for them ahead.
But they spoke no more and when the first gray light appeared around the edge of the shutter he had pulled across their outer window, he slipped from the bed, arousing her in an instant.
“Lord, let me go also when you hunt this derelict.”
“You know I cannot. By the Law of these folk I am constrained not to take any female into what might be battle.”
That lay within the Tam-sin memory, too. Yet to have him vanish now was more than she thought she could bear. To be alone…
As Tam-sin arose to face him she read in his face that he could or would not go against the customs of the Sea People.
“You know,” she said, her lips feeling stiff even as she shaped those words, “that if aught happens to you and I am not near, then this dream will never be broke.”
Kilwar nodded. “I know. But there lies no other answer. I must, being who I am, follow this course. You are a Singer, you can link with me.”
“Well enough, but I will have no power to aid, even if my thoughts ride with yours and I learn that dire fate befalls you.”
She turned away, not wishing him to read what might be written on her face. There was no appeal from his decision, from the customs of the Sea Kings. Kilwar would ride the waves when the storm had blown itself out. And she would be left alone… here.
Yet later she was able to master herself and stand outwardly unmoved to watch him aboard the battleship, his liegemen in their scaled armor and their sea given weapons raising a salute as he swung to the deck. And Tam-sin watched the ship loose off its mooring ropes, to slide under the direction of the helmsman into the passage leading to the sea.
The storm had indeed blown itself out. Also the birds had returned at an hour after first light, each bringing a message. The ghost ship had been sighted by those of Lockriss, who had lost four men to its mystery. But Lochack reported no such haunted vessel. However, each keep lord would now join with Kilwar at the Reefs.
Tam-sin watched the ship bearing her lord slip into the open beyond the anchor cave. There a weak sunlight made brighter scale armor, and the banner of LockNar was the scarlet of new-shed blood as the wind played with its folds.
She still watched, until that vanished. Only then was she aware of Rhuys, who was not looking toward the going of the battle vessel, but rather regarding her through narrowed eyes. His stare was boldly measuring, as if she were some spell book whose hidden secrets he would make his own.
Tam-sin returned that study with a level gaze.
Rhuys’s lips parted, for a moment she expected him to speak. But he did not, merely hunched his shoulders as if to face into a stiff sea wind, and limped away, his back turned insolently upon her, leaving her without any form of courtesy, to return to the inner ways alone.
She held her head high; no one lingering here among the women
who had watched their men sally forth on such a dubious mission must think that she felt aught of embarrassment at this open flaunting of her rank within LochNar.
Instead, returning to the inner passages, she sought one with a narrow, steep stair hacked out to rise and rise, past all the levels of the keep, until she came out on the crown of the craig. There, though the wind whipped her, she cupped her hands about her eyes and searched for last sighting of Kilwar’s ship. But it must now have drawn farther out, enough to be hidden behind the rising craig of Lochack which stood between this keep and the norther reefs.
Seabirds called and shrieked about her, swooping to search among the storm wrack piled below for the debris of the storm, fish or other food things, entrapped by high waves washing among the sharp lacework of the rocks. As she looked down she could see many of the women and children of LochNar were already busied there, seeking the sea’s lavish bounty even as did the birds. But Tam-sin had no mind to join them.
Instead she settled down with a rise of rock to her back, her arms about her knees, crouched small under the freshness of the wind, her eyes still on the sea. Again she searched diligently the memory of Tam-sin, putting into order all she might learn from this other self of hers.
There was much to astonish her therein. Even as the occult learning of the Voice of Olava had come to her in the last dream, so now did seep or rush into her mind those talents which were Tam-sin’s. Some she pushed aside, working ever to find what might serve them best now. But for the moment she did not try linkage with Kilwar, rather she wished to learn what she might against that time when such linkage became vital.