by James Gurley
“Aye, but he tries hard.”
On the morning of his fifth week at sea, Tad looked over the rail at a speck of land on the horizon.
“That’s Valastaria, your destination,” the captain said from the wheel. “We’ll reach Mors Point by nightfall. From there, you travel by boat down to the White River east to Fridan or travel by road north to Eastenlors. The rest of Valastaria, except for a few ports on its eastern coast, is wild country, swamps or marshes. There are cannibals in the swamps and wild women warriors in the marshes. Take your pick. They both will kill you.”
Tad did not want to visit another large city, fearing that it would only remind him of Delphi.
“How far is Fridan?”
The captain stroked his chin as he thought. “Fridan? About three days by boat, a week on pony. There’s not much there, just a lumber mill, a small quarry, and a handful of homesteads. It’s mostly a jumping off point for them that’s brave enough or foolish enough to venture deeper inland.”
“Is it mostly Terran?”
“Lad, out here, it’s all mostly Terran. There are a few Saddir and a handful of Haffa in a city near the jungle, but besides them, only Terrans stay long and most of them stay close to Eastenlors or Fridan. They’re afraid to venture too far inland.”
“Afraid of the cannibals?” Tad asked.
The captain shook his head. “No, they say it’s haunted. There are areas where time seems to stretch and the suns set slow, or zip through the sky like that.” He snapped his fingers. “There are other spots where the air cries, voices out of nowhere and some of them you recognize. No, it’s not a good place. The Veil bit too deep into the land here and didn’t let go.”
“It sounds terrible. Why do people come?”
He waved his hand in the air. “To start over or to explore. We lost the stars, but we didn’t lose that urge to see what’s beyond the next hill or river. Some come back with wild tales or don’t come back at all, but there are always more to follow them, a few hardy souls willing to defy death and the odds for a chance at freedom.”
Tad remembered Simios’s words about man’s slow decline. It seemed different away from Delphi. People wanted change and risked all for it. Maybe there was hope for mankind yet.
He offered Captain Marcus his hand. “Thank you for your kindness, Captain. You made the crossing pleasant.”
Captain Marcus reached into his coat and brought out a small pouch. “Here’s your pay, lad. You’ve been a good crewman. It ain’t much, but it’ll keep you from starving.”
Tad took the pouch and tucked it into his pocket. “Thanks.”
The captain pulled out a second pouch and handed it to Tad as well. Tad was surprised at its weight and stared at the captain questioningly.
“Simios gave it to me before we sailed. He said to present it to you when you disembarked.”
Tad opened the pouch and was astonished to see twenty-five gold Crowns and several small but perfect emeralds, a small fortune. At first, he wondered why Simios had withheld the money. With it, he could have avoided working for his meals during the voyage, but then he appreciated Simios’s wisdom in doing so. Through his poverty, he had worked hard and at the same time kept the long voyage from becoming boring.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked the captain.
Captain Marcus nodded. “Aye. He said that you had earned it, but to spend it wisely.”
Tad placed it with the other pouch. “I will.” He glanced at the outline of Valastaria, growing closer. “I guess I should pack my things and prepare to leave.”
“Aye, but not before we have one last feast and drink a bottle or two together. Sasja has promised something special.”
Tad smiled. “That would be good, though perhaps I will limit myself to a glass or two instead. Alcohol makes me dizzier than the crow’s nest in a typhoon.”
The Captain let out a loud guffaw and slapped Tad on the back. “Good lad!”
Oddly enough, Tad dreaded leaving the ship. Aboard the Holden’s Spur, he had felt safe and comfortable for the first time in a long while. He had been able, if not to forget his troubles, at least set them aside for a time. Delphi was a long way behind him. He was beyond the reach of the Council of Regents, but what of the Blood Cabal? How far did their influence extend? He would be alone in a strange land on a journey in search of something he could not describe to others and might not recognize if he saw it. It seemed a fool’s errand, so who better to send than a fool?
Simios had professed faith in him. The Plin Watcher had told him to trust in himself. He would try. Tad felt confident in his ability to defend himself if attacked. Arias had seen to that portion of his training. It was a lawless land. He would buy a gun and a knife when they landed. His Mage powers had grown as well. He could perform several conjuring spells and spells of confusion and pain. He could read the truth in a man’s words. These were excellent weapons in the right hands. He just hoped that his hands were large enough.
Tad looked at his pitifully small bundle of belongings.
“Not much to show for everything,” he said aloud, “but at least I can travel light.”
He rested until early evening, unable to sleep, and then went on deck. The wonderful aroma of a feast in the making wafted through the companionway from the galley. A last meal with friends would be a good way to begin the next phase of his journey. He mentally thanked the captain for his consideration. On deck, the unmistakable smell of land rode the evening breeze blowing seaward—smoke, earth, growing things, and animals. His destination was close enough now to see the lights of Mors Point glowing softly in the distance. The silhouette of the low hills beyond resembled an old man’s crooked back. He knew that beyond them lay his next destination, but could not ignore a premonition that something profound was about to happen, something that would change his life. He could feel it in the back of his mind, like a thought or an idea sprung from nowhere, a tickling sensation that he could not scratch.
“Simios, I hope you were right about me,” he whispered to the darkness.
23
MORS POINT
TAD DE SILVA SAT ON THE DOCK IN THE PREDAWN HOURS AND watched the Holden’s Spur sail slowly into the distance, staring seaward until its twin masts vanished over the horizon.
He watched the ship disappear with a peculiar sense of loss. It was an ancient, broken-down ship just one worm’s mouthful away from the briny deep, but he had left comrades on theSpur and now he was alone in a new land with no friends.
For two days, while theSpur docked in Mors Point offloading old cargo and loading new cargo, Captain Marcus had insisted on wining and dining Tad and the crew. While Sasja was an excellent ship’s cook, it had been a treat to eat something other than Sasja’s handful of repetitious recipes. Captain Marcus had introduced Tad to the one man he knew in Mors Point, Skye Winset, a thin-as-a-rail riverboat captain who plied the serene waters of the White River. The captain had agreed to ferry Tad upriver to the frontier town of Fridan on his next trip. That still left two more days to explore the small port whose charm, or lack of it, he had discovered in a short afternoon’s excursion. Even after theSpur was beyond seeing, Tad sat and gazed at the ocean, contemplating the events that had placed him here. Like the ship, his future lay below the horizon, unseen and unknown.
Unlike the usually calm waters off Delphi on the continent of Churum, the place he had come to call home, the west coast of Valastaria was a jagged, rocky coastline with high bluffs and few beaches. The waves, driven by a constant westerly breeze, pounded the shoreline with a fury only further intensified during the frequent storms that arose in the warm waters of the middle latitudes and swept northward. His life felt as churned and as disturbed as those waters. Only in one of the few protected harbors like the one surrounding Mors Point could a ship make a safe landfall.
True First Dawn was still an hour away, but Third Sun Melaina, nearly invisible, still hugging the southern horizon this far north of the equator, suffused the c
rests of the hills east of Mors Point with a soft blue glow. Neither the yellow primary sun, Corycia, nor its blue-white sister star, Cleodora had yet risen. The Bull’s Eye moon glowed softly overhead, casting faint shadows that painted strange shapes on the ancient wooden dock.
The moon over Valastaria was bigger than Tad had ever seen it from the Black Tower of Delphi, but its beauty only reminded him painfully of what he had left behind. He thought of Sira Han: red-headed, vibrant and voluptuous, and wondered if she had learned the reason of his banishment from Delphi. He missed her deeply and wished things could have been different between them. His attempt to protect her from the political intrigues and possible dangers of Delphi by distancing himself from her now seemed silly. She was half a world away. He also worried about King Karal. The young autistic ruler of Delphi was now under the control of the Council of Regents, the same people who had maneuvered and conspired to drive Tad from Delphi and beyond helping the king. Could Simios the Plin Watcher protect the helpless king?
Tad sat and brooded until the first rays of Corycia broke over his shoulder, washing the docks in warm white light. He sighed heavily and decided that a good breakfast might break his melancholy mood.
The Smuggler’s Den was an ancient, wind-weathered, single-story building clinging to a craggy bluff just beyond the docks. Its salt-bleached walls had not seen paint in many years and the cedar shingles of the roof flapped like birds’ wings in the lightest breeze, but its roots dug deep into the rocky bluff holding it fast in any gale. To reach it required climbing a ramshackle series of wooden stairs that swayed more dangerously the higher one went. The imminent threat of death was not enough to discourage its clientele, a collection of retired seamen, men of all races waiting for a berth on a ship, and local townspeople, mostly Terrans. Few of the other races of Charybdis ventured to Valastaria to stay.
The aroma of frying meat and fresh bread greeted him as he cleared the top step of the landing. The usual motley assembly of derelicts and old salts whittling lengths of wood sat outside on upended barrels and coils of rope, positions that hardly changed from daylight to dusk. A rack of drying fish stood on one side of the building with a flock of seabirds circling above, occasionally diving through holes in the torn fishing net thrown over the rack as protection against the birds’ quests for tidbits of fish; then slipping away noisily with their prizes unchallenged. A small coop of ducks and a pen filled with bleating elan and pigs took up most of the rear yard where it tucked into the cliff.
Inside, the air was ripe with an assortment of cooking odors, aromatic smoke discharged from long-stemmed pipes and hand-rolled cigars, and the smell of burning wood in the enormous fireplace and stone mantle that dominated almost one entire side of the room. Cork floats, bleached sharks’ jaws, and rusty harpoons decorated the walls while fishing nets and worn ship’s pennants hung from the rafters. A few soot-grimed oil lamps suspended on chains from the ceiling providing the only light. They burned no natural gas in Mors Point nor used electricity as they did in Delphi. The tavern, indeed Mors Point itself, could have been plucked from a scene of two centuries earlier. Mors Point was a jumping-off place, much like ancient orbiting space stations of centuries before. Men passed through Mors Point for destinations deeper inland. Only the old, the weary and the merchants remained behind.
Tad greeted the owner, Hersh Thymer: a short, fat man with a ruddy complexion and a large nose, as he swiped a dirty rag across a tabletop. He was a man of few words, but he raised his head and nodded at Tad’s greeting. The barmaid rushed over with a bowl-sized cup of hot coffee and stood staring at him with a smile on her face. She was older than Tad by a couple of years, not bad looking, but her abrasive voice and her habit of constantly pursing her lips detracted from her overall friendly personality. Much to Tad’s chagrin, she had developed a crush on him and treated him extra special.
“What’s for today, honey?” she asked, readjusting her blouse slightly to better show off her ample breasts.
“Fried bacon, potatoes and biscuits,” he replied without looking up.
She patted him on his arm. “Coming right up, sweetie.” As she walked away, she glanced back over her shoulder and smiled at him. He saw one regular customer smile and shake his head in sympathy.
The Smuggler’s Den had its usual quota of early morning customers. As greasy and as unpretentious as the food was, it was better than that served at either of the town’s two inns, as he had discovered to his dismay his second night in town. He nodded politely to a man seated by the front window, a one-legged sailor who sat in the same seat all day, smoking and drinking ale and staring longingly out the window. He nodded in return and went back to his sea gazing.
When Tad’s food arrived, the barmaid, Evie, sat it in front of him, plopping down in a chair across the table.
“When must you leave?”
He forked a piece of bacon into his mouth and chewed slowly. “In two days with Captain Winset.”
“Good. There’s a dance tonight at the community hall. Would you like to join me?”
He tried to think of a good excuse not to go and did not want to hurt her feelings, but dancing was the last thing on his mind. He hesitated before answering. “I would like to, but…”
“No buts,” she said quickly, cutting off his argument. “I’ll see you at twenty hour.” She stood and hurried to her other customers.
Tad shook his head. She had ambushed him so neatly that he had not had time to refuse. He finished his breakfast and paid with a handful of copper coins. He had converted some of the gold Crowns provided by Simios to smaller denominations to avoid tempting thieves.
Too sated to tackle the rickety stairs, he decided to walk along the bluff to digest his meal. About a kilometer along the narrow footpath, he discovered a small reed bundle hut built beneath a rocky outcropping to protect it from the weather. A man with a long white beard leaned against a hoe in a weed-filled garden. Although it was early morning, it was already quite warm for the first weeks of autumn.
“Good morning,” Tad called.
The man eyed him quizzically for a moment. “Come here, lad.”
Tad walked over to the man, a little leery but not afraid. The man seemed to pose no danger. Indeed, there was something familiar about him that Tad could not quite place his finger on.
“Let me see your hand,” he demanded gruffly.
Tad complied. As the old man grasped his hand, he felt a jolt of electricity run up his arm. He jerked his hand back more in surprise than in pain. The man was Plin.
The old man smiled. “You’re not Plin, but you have the power in you.”
“You’re Plin?”
He nodded. “A Mage mentor. I’ve not seen your kind before.”
Tad remembered Simios’s words that few Mages survived in Valastaria. “How long have you been here?”
The Mage’s eyes grew troubled, as if trying hard to remember. “Many years, though how many I don’t know. The days seem to vary, short and long. It’s difficult to keep track.” He brightened. “I spent some time in the Waste. That’s the place to lose yourself. Some days seem to last a week, or else a week passes while you sleep. There’s power in the air you can almost reach out and touch.” He reached his hand into the air; then lowered it. His smile faded and he shook his head slowly. “It’s not for us though, I know. I tried so long to harness it to no avail.”
“Simios said that few Plin ever venture here and fewer return to Delphi.”
“Simios? Delphi? Those names strike a chord inside, but I cannot place a picture with them.” He looked at Tad. “You’re an adept?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve trained under Mages and worked as a Watcher for the King.”
The man frowned. “King Harner?”
Tad knew that Zacarah Harner was the king before Kalman. His reign ended almost a century earlier. The old man had been in Valastaria a long time. “No, Tosh Kalman’s son, King Karal. He’s an Oracle.”
The old man shook his head
again. “It’s been so long. The days here…” He stopped talking and looked around as if realizing where he was. “I really must finish these weeds before they choke out my carrots. This rocky soil is not good for plants.”
“Why not move inland or to the river delta where the land is richer?”
The old man was startled. “Inland? No, I can never go inland again for fear of being consumed, nor can I return home. I am contaminated.”
“Contaminated? How?”
“The Veil, the darkness. Its fingers dug deep into the bedrock here long ago and its poison seeps out slowly. It can eat a man’s soul and rot his mind. It touched me too deeply and I carry its stain always. I must remain here, an exile, lest I spread the infection.”
“I too am an exile, though for different reasons.”
The old man nodded. “You’re a Seeker. I can tell. Be wary of this land. It sets traps and calls to you in familiar voices. Do not listen. You will find no answer here, only more questions.”
“What is your name?”
The old man’s eyes glazed for a moment, and then he smiled. “Berass, Berass the Mage. I sometimes conjure light sprites or smoke rings for the people during festivals, but mostly I stay here, alone for fear of what I have become.”
“And what is that?” Tad prompted.
“Hollow,” he answered with great sadness. “Empty of who I was and what I am, filled with visions of the Veil that haunt my sleep and even my waking hours. Others fear me and that is well. Too long around me, and you too will hear the voices. It is best you be off, lad. It was good to meet you.” He began chopping weeds.
“I am here on a quest. The Plin sent me.”
Berass looked up warily. “Go home, lad. Go home.”
“I can’t go home,” he answered.
“Nor can I,” he moaned.
“Do you miss Delphi?”
“Delphi? I have heard that name somewhere. No, lad, I mean the Plin home of Sang Talash.”
