Aeromancer

by Don Callander

  “And you must do this dangerous task unassisted,” cried Shadizar. “It seems very difficult for a full Fellowship of Wizards, let alone a single, young Wizardling like you, my dear!”

  “It isn’t supposed to be easy,” said Myrn stoutly. “And who knows—I may pull it off better than all the others. Would the Dark Enemy suspect a mere lass? As far as that goes, my task in this is to rescue poor Serenit—not to conquer a powerful Dark Enemy single-handedly!”

  “And rescue him you will, Myrn,” said their hostess. “But now, gentlemen, it approaches midnight and I must warn you that no stranger is allowed freedom of our streets after that hour....”

  “So we’ve heard,” the Seacaptain said with a nod.

  “Yes, the Sultan’s Guards have standing orders from the Sultan himself to arrest anyone caught abroad between midnight and dawn prayer-call. I must admit I approve of the regulation. Before, no one was safe in the nighttime streets from bandits and purse-snatchers and such.”

  She shivered slightly.

  “You are most welcome to spend the night here, of course,” Shadizar added.

  “Most kind of you to offer but I must return to Encounter,” said Mallet.

  “Let’s plan to meet tomorrow after you’ve completed your business,” Myrn suggested.

  “We’re nearly finished,” Simon pointed out. “A half-day tomorrow to agree on the value of a Dukedom ducat compared to that of your rupee and we’ll have sent ashore every bit of our cargo ... including some things supposedly highly illegal.”

  “Ah.” Shadizar laughed, “So Port Master Alama Sheik has found a way to acquire your alcoholic beverages, eh? No surprise—I suspect not even to the Sultan himself.”

  “A strange way to do business, at very least,” thought Mallet aloud, rising to go. “But, in strange lands they often have strange ways, and on the whole I approve of as little spirituous liquor at low prices as possible myself. Seaman’s bane, we calls it!”

  Myrn and Shadizar escorted the men to the front door. Somewhere above them in the warm, starry night a high, nasal voice sang a wavering melody.

  “Prayer-singer,” explained the lady of the house. “He calls on people to repent of their sins and come to worship before all doors are locked at curfew. It means, Captain Mallet, that you and Master Simon have just a half hour to reach the fleet landing and embark on the harbor waters. Once one’s afloat, the laws of the Sultan’s Admiralty apply, and they know no curfew.”

  “We’ll hurry. I’ve no desire to sit in a Samarcan jail overnight,” Mallet assured her. “Besides, what would my men say when they heard of it?”

  Shadizar summoned the young man who’d brought her message to Encounter earlier in the day.

  “This is my most excellent factotum, Groat,” she introduced him. “He’s completely reliable and will be crafty enough to return home before the Guards sweep the streets for stragglers... or to hide in the black shadows, won’t you, Groat?”

  “Of course, ma’am!” replied the grinning steward. “I’ve met the good Seacaptain on his beautiful ship already. Will you allow me to escort you, Captain Mallet?”

  “Keep me out of jail and I’ll follow you willingly,” said a laughing Mallet, who liked the cheerful young man. “If we run behind-times, you may sleep on Encounter in a hammock overnight, and let the harbor swells rock you to slumber as it does us sailors.”

  “I will if I must,” said the factotum, pulling a wry face. “Although I have a horror of deep waters.”

  “My Lady Brightglade,” said Mallet, turning to Myrn, “I’ll send a message to you here in mid-morning, as soon as I know when I’ll be free. There’s no reason to hide our acquaintance, is there?”

  “None that I know of,” answered Myrn. “However, I would just as lief the authorities here do not know too much of me or my mission. Who knows whether Serenit’s kidnappers have friends or informants here?”

  “Wise enough!” The Seacaptain nodded, giving her a parting bow. “We’ll serve you as ever we can, of course. Until tomorrow, then, Lady Shadizar. Know that I greatly enjoyed your house, your children, your table, and your beauty and wisdom!”

  “Good night... and walk fast,” advised Shadizar. “Bail is expensive in our lockup. Especially for you, who will be considered wealthy, on the evidence of your tall sailing ship.”

  “We’re off!” cried Mallet, bowing again quickly, and he and Simon, led by the factotum, disappeared into the darkness of the street.

  Chapter Five

  Invitation from the Sultan

  Just before noon the following day Mallet wrote a short note to Lady Shadizar and gave it to a street urchin to deliver.

  “My Lady,” he wrote—

  “As it might become a matter of malicious gossip for me too often to visit your home in the absence of your good husband, may I suggest you meet me at the fleet landing two hours after high noon, accompanied, of course, by a suitable escort. It would be my pleasure to conduct you on a tour of my ship Encounter, and provide an interesting supper on her deck. Reply by this bright young man, who has been promised double his stipend if he brings your reply to me within the hour.

  Mallet

  Captain of Encounter

  At anchor in the Port of Samarca”

  Shadizar’s reply was warmly favorable, and when the business meeting at Merchant’s Hall broke up after a congratulatory luncheon Mallet found her, accompanied by her son, daughter, and Groat, waiting for him beside Encounter’s, quarter-boat, being politely ogled by its oarsmen.

  “Good!” cried Mallet, remembering to bow deeply to the lady. “I’m delighted you’ve brought your bright, beautiful children. They remind me of my own sons and daughters, whom I see all too seldom, being so much at Sea, M’lady!”

  “And here is my secretary, whom you have met, and the children’s amah,” said Shadizar. “You’ll remember meeting her yester-eve?”

  “Ah, yes. Charmed!” said the Seacaptain, trying very hard not to seem too interested in the “amah”—Myrn Brightglade, dressed appropriately in a style halfway between that of a servant and a poor relative.

  “A pleasure, sir,” murmured Myrn, bowing her head in the manner of the women of Samarca, hands pressed palm-to-palm in front of her mouth.

  Mallet stifled a deep chuckle and said gruffly instead, “Keep a close eye on the young-uns, mistress. There’re far too many ways for curious fingers to be hurt aboard a ship.”

  Myrn bowed submissively once more, murmuring, “I am a daughter of Seafarers myself, Revered Seacaptain. You can trust me not to allow the children to come to harm.”

  Once in the quarter-boat, as the crew pulled lustily for Encounter, the public formality of their meeting disappeared and the children, wild with excitement at being taken aboard a sailing ship, plied Myrn, Mallet, and their mother with questions and observations that kept them all busy.

  Warned of his Captain’s guests by a shout from the quarter-boat’s Coxs’n, First Mate Pilot had rigged a bos’n’s chair over the side in which Lady Shadizar and her children ... and their “amah”... were hoisted primly aboard, it not being considered proper for highborn ladies to climb accommodation ladders.

  “I could have climbed the foremast easily,” Myrn told Farianah. “I was born a sailor. Climbing shrouds is second nature to me.”

  “How fortunate you are!” said little Farrouki, sighing. “I’ve never been aboard a felucca, let alone a huge vessel like this.”

  “Well, son,” said one of the Seamen, “I hears your pa’s a dealer in them weird-looking humpty camels I saw ashore last evening?”

  “Papa’s a Camel Merchant, and quite successful at it,” replied Farrouki. “Why?”

  “Just that you can probably ride one of them awful beasts with great ease.”

  “I’ve ridden camels since I was old enough to hold reins,” Farrouki boasted.

  “If you were to put me on one of them there cambels” moaned the sailor with a very real shudder of revulsion, “I’d be ve
ry likely to faint dead away!”

  Farrouki and his sister thought this most strange, but before the afternoon was over, the sailors had the children climbing to the foretruck crowsnest—a full fifteen feet above the fore-deck!—and talking of steerage and rights of way, of dunnage and tonnage, of sails and running and standing rigging, and of other Seamanly things.

  “Have you never been aboard a ship, ma’am?” Mallet asked when their mother set firm foot on the deck after her swing up from the boat. It almost took her breath away and colored her cheeks most attractively, every one of the watching Dukedom crewmen thought.

  “Never!” She gazed in awe around the spotless main deck.

  “Then allow me to give you a first lesson in Seamanship,” said the Seacaptain, grinning broadly. “You never know when it might come in handy!”

  While they were shown about Encounter, Myrn kept to her role as the children’s nurse, although she was amused to overhear remarks some of the bolder sailors made when they saw her rather scanty costume and veiled face.

  “You scurvy swabs!” she growled at last, choking with laughter at the sight of their shocked faces. “That’s no way to speak of any lady guest! Stow it! Next man to make such bloody-awful remarks in my hearing’ll spend his homeward voyage pumping the bilges ... by hand!”

  After that, as word spread that the amah was not exactly what she seemed, the sailors treated her with considerably more respect.

  Especially when she was included in the party at the Captain’s supper table and sat at his left hand, rather than at the far end of the table.

  “I’ve received a summons—an invitation, if you prefer—to the court of your Sultan, What’s-His-Name,” announced Mallet as the steward poured the sweet dessert wine to be drunk with an excellent plum duff.

  “Sultan Trobuk, you mean?” asked Shadizar, brightening at the news. “I’ve met him once myself, and his young only-wife, the Sultana Nioba.”

  “Tell me about them then, please,” requested Mallet. “I’ve never been summoned to the presence of a Sultan before.”

  Shadizar thought for a moment before she said, “I like our Sultan, although he is quite young. No more than twenty-two summers, I do believe. He succeeded to the Divan upon the death of his grandfather, a fierce old desert chieftain named Fadouzal.”

  She paused to nibble a bit of the duff, which was delicious.

  “He’s quite handsome, our young Sultan, and very polite and mild-mannered. I’ve heard that his ascent to the Royal Divan was marked with great ceremony and a few quiet arrests. His father and grandfather were not ones for the niceties of law and had kept some real rascals about them. A few were relatives of mine, you know, but I couldn’t really blame the new Sultan for sending them away... or having them beheaded.”

  “Executed!” cried Myrn. “Were they that evil, then?”

  “Without a doubt,” Shadizar admitted.

  A quartet of Encounter Seamen with concertinas, a fiddle, and a homemade sort of xylophone began to play sentimental Sea-songs just then, and conversation lagged for a while.

  With the music came a treat: strawberry ice cream made possible by Thornwood Duke’s thoughtfulness in providing Encounter several of the famous Cold Boxes designed by Flarman Flowerstalk and built by Wayness craftsman Michael Wroughter. No Waynesser nor Westongue ship sailed without at least one Cold Box these days, Mallet told his guests proudly.

  “We eat Valley beef three months at Sea!” he boasted. “And the boxes keep milk fresh as morning’s milking for weeks after it’s taken from the cows.”

  “Your Seamen eat better than some Sheiks I know,” exclaimed the amazed Shadizar. “I well remember what caravan riders must eat after a week out on the desert. Dried beans or peas and barbecued-dry mutton so hard a rider has to have good teeth and strong jaws just to get his meal out of it—and that’s after boiling it for half a day!”

  Dusk fell and a cool breeze sprang up from Sea. Mallet suggested they make themselves comfortable on the quarterdeck, to enjoy the evening until it was time to go ashore.

  Lanterns were rigged from the yards and the crew gathered in the waist to sing rollicking old songs in four-part harmony and perform feats of strength and agility for their guests. Everyone enjoyed the sweet, hard-fleshed pears and pomegranates Shadizar had brought out from the fruit sellers ashore.

  At last Myrn said, “Tell us about your invitation, Mallet.”

  “I’m bidden to the capital,” said Mallet. “I’m advised not to refuse, for the sake of trade between us and Samarca, although I don’t like leaving my ship for that long.”

  “It’s common for Sultans to do thus,” Shadizar nodded. “You’ll be safe and well received, I know. Sultans use such summonses to learn of matters beyond Samarca’s borders and shores. Trobuk is eager to establish trade and communications with the West, I’ve heard.”

  “You must go then,” said Myrn from her seat on a cushion at Shadizar’s feet.

  “I’ll depart tomorrow at turn of the forenoon watch. If this suits your own plans,” he said to Myrn.

  “I’ll go with you, Mallet, old canvas-puncher, but it’s best I travel in disguise.”

  “I’ve no objection,” declared the Seacaptain. “In fact, I’m delighted! Can you be ready by mid-morn? I could easily put off my departure....”

  “No, that shouldn’t be necessary,” Myrn declared. “With the help of my friend Shadizar and her young factotum here, who seems to know almost everything that goes on in Port, I’ve learned that Serenit was indeed brought here by a strange ship some days ago and taken on eastward ... probably to the Sultan’s capital. And the ways and means suggest to me he’s captive, as we suspected, of Darkness agents. When I get a bit closer, I can tell better about that.”

  “Isn’t this getting rather dangerous for you, Myrn?” asked Shadizar, shaking her pretty head in worry. “Shouldn’t you seek help from your Wizard friends?”

  “Perhaps I should ...,” replied the Journeyman Aquamancer thoughtfully. “I certainly could use Douglas about now! But I don’t think I should delay longer in closing with Serenit’s captors.”

  “I’m ready to serve you in any way I can, you know,” Mallet vowed.

  “Just take me with you to the Sultan. Does his capital city have a name?”

  “Oh, yes, it’s called Balistan,” answered Farrouk’s wife. “It was once the property of my husband’s family, until the old Sultan preempted it. A very nice, really delightful place, cool in summer and well watered.”

  Myrn thanked her and Shadizar returned her smile threefold, saying, “You’ve quickly become a dear friend, Myrn Brightglade. I wish I could do more for you!”

  Myrn thanked her again, adding a kiss on her cheek, followed by kisses on the cheeks of both children, who were close to sleep now that the heat of day had passed.

  Guards on the walls and streets of the Port watched Encounter’s quarter-boat deposit the Camel Merchant’s family and their retinue at the landing below the great fortress, never noticing that the party was one short of what it had been when it had arrived in mid-afternoon.

  A party of ten sailors, agog to see the forbidden upper part of the city, formed an armed escort and marched with the Camel Merchant’s lady, her children, and their servants right to her door.

  They returned just in time to escape the Guards attentions as the prayer-caller finished his eerie late-night chant from the tower of the mosque.

  Chapter Six

  Balistan

  Travel from the Port of Samarca to the capital at Balistan was pleasant and quite safe, according to both Shadizar and Port Master Alama. The road eastward climbed in easy switchbacks over the low Shorn Hills, then wound down a long, shallow, well-watered valley which in time merged into a pleasant green farmland along both sides of the river El Shatt.

  Two days’ additional journey by camel-drawn river-barge, Alama had assured Mallet, would take them to the Sultan’s beautiful capital, located across the shallow, freshwater Lake
Balissa.

  “On the other side of that begins High Desert,” Shadizar had said. “My husband can put you in touch with the desert chieftains, if you require assistance beyond there.”

  “I may need that,” Myrn said with a nod.

  They rode on horses in a fair-sized caravan, for on Lady Shadizar’s advice Mallet took with him a party of experienced and armed petty officers, as well as Simon Threadneedle and several young Midshipmen who would serve their Seacaptain as formal attendants.

  “I would have preferred to travel alone, or just with Simon,” Mallet said, a bit grumpily.

  “In this land,” Shadizar advised him, “you are judged by three things: your clothing, your weapons, and the size of your train. To do less than your very best would mean being looked down upon by many at the court of the Sultan.”

  “Well... if you say so,” said the Seacaptain, sighing.

  “Besides, your young men will enjoy the trip as a change from standing watch in Port and going on liberty ashore,” Myrn told him. “An important part of their education in their profession, don’t you think?”

  This thought brightened Mallet’s outlook, and by the time they’d ridden horses, provided by the Sultanate, over the ridge of coastal hills, the party was happy and very excited by the pleasant country through which it rode.

  That evening they came to an inn, or caravansary, run by the Sultanate for wayfarers. This establishment provided clean and comfortable quarters for masters and servants alike, as well as for their horses, mules, and camels.

  Included among the party’s horses was the tiny (compared with the sturdy mares and geldings of the Sultan’s transport service) and silent filly, Nameless, her spectacular wings once again hidden under a drab saddle cloth.

  The horseling at first kept timidly to herself. Soon, however, the sturdy post mares took her into their care and protected her from the dangers of the road.