The Family Tree

by Sheri S. Tepper

  I asked Izzy if I could help him, and he shook his head at me, saying that he’d gone through his sorcerer’s kit half a dozen times and had quit trying to select from it. Since he had no idea what we would encounter on our way, he had no way to select from among the rather scanty supplies he had brought with him.

  The countess and Blanche decided they could, as Blanche put it, “live on the country,” so they would do without ladies’ maids. Lucy Low, Burrow and Mince would take their veebles, mostly because the countess found herself enchanted by them. They had such lovely ears, she said, such soft muzzles, such sensuous fur.

  When we were ready to go, the party included three principals: Izzy, Elianne, Sahir; four ancillaries: Soaz, Blanche, me, and at the last moment, Dzilobommo, who announced he would accompany us for reasons of his own having to do with the survival of his people. Whether this placed him among the principals or the supporters, I did not trouble myself to define. Also along were the three younger onchiki, four guards, plus Oyk and Irk and the four veebles: a total of twenty persons and creatures. A propitious number, said Blanche, to which Dzilobommo replied with a lengthy grummel which I understood to be a commentary upon fortune, fate or destiny, as it pertained to the armakfatidi.

  Even so reduced in size and numbers, our group was too large for the little coastal boats, Blanche felt, so the countess’s agents chose a deep-water schooner, the Elegant Eel, and workers from the palace were sent to remove the accretion of scales, guts and old fish heads with which it was ordinarily bedaubed. This cleaning took some time, so it was calm evening into which we travelers embarked, with the sun glinting low across the waters as we sailed due north, pressed forward by mild airs. The shoreline receded into dusk. Darkness oozed along the eastern mountains until the moon rose, bulging up like a leprous lantern from behind the Dreadful Mountains.

  “If we could see far enough,” said Mince, “We’d see Uncle Wash over there, climbing onto Hovermount.”

  “If he got through the Dire Marches,” said Lucy Low. “His fortune only said there was treasure there; it didn’t say he’d find it.”

  “Uncle Wash is lucky,” said Burrow, though with some doubt in his voice. “He’s always said so.”

  “A man who wants little will be happily surprised at most anything,” quoted Lucy Low. “Uncle Wash never wanted much.”

  “I don’t imagine there was much to want, was there?” asked Izzy, who had come up behind us where we stood at the rail of the boat, looking out over the moon-spangled waters. “Chiliburn Creek sounds like a place with small wants.”

  “True,” said Lucy Low, looking up at him. “There was always food, but it was always the same. There was always drink, but it was always water. There was always warmth, though it had to be huddled for. Such a life leads to small wants. Traveling, now, that’s something else. I can feel my wants getting bigger every minute!”

  “I hope you fulfil them all,” I responded. The little onchik’s cheer was infectious. It made me smile just to look at her.

  The countess came from the cramped cabin onto the deck and joined the rest of us at the rail. “We will be past Finial by morning,” I told her. “Then, so the captain says, we will run west with the dawn wind, into the harbor of Gulp, which lies at the mouth of the River Guzzle.”

  “All of which sounds very greedy and impetuous,” said Izzy.

  “They are so named for the sound the seas make when they are blown into the gaping caves ashore,” said the countess. “I have been there, and indeed, they make a voracious sound, but only when the river is low. Now, with the snows melting on the Sharbaks, the river will be in flood.”

  “We must enter the harbor against the flow,” I said, quoting the captain. “Or, we may anchor along the breakwater, which is some easier.”

  “Hoooh,” came a voice from above, a whisper of sound falling onto us like chilly water. “Hoh, sail-hoooh.”

  Soaz came out onto the deck, his face set into a frown, as the pheledian captain cried to his lookout, “What mark?”

  “The Skull and Ax of Finial,” called the lookout from his place atop the mast, where he clung by the tips of his fingers, as though glued to his post. “I think, though it’s too dark to be sure. I’m sure it’s no fishing boat.”

  “By the tonsils of Taskywheem,” muttered Soaz. “How did the Dire Duke know we left Estafan?” He regarded the countess with a look that was almost accusatory.

  “It was not my doing,” she said. “May I borrow your glass, Captain?” Taking the preferred article with a somewhat quavery smile, she put the glass to her eye and spent a long moment searching the dusky horizon for the approaching ship, as though hoping it was not what it appeared to be. The distant ship changed course, heading more directly toward us.

  “It is indeed the Dire Duke,” the countess whispered, taking the glass from her eyes. “He has seen us. Somehow he has learned we would be here, upon the sea. Oh, I fear me he means us harm.” She shivered, and Prince Sahir pressed against her so she could lean on him, though he too turned pale at the threat of the dark ship.

  Izzy looked up to see our several pairs of eyes fixed on him. “What?” he demanded.

  “It would be better if he didn’t find us,” rumbled Soaz. “The captain is a good fighter, and his crew is likewise, but this ship is small and we are not numerous. That black ship is large; it contains a good number of warriors, I have no doubt. This confounded moon will light us like a beacon.”

  Izzy shook his head doubtfully. “I could summon a fog. That is, it is theoretically possible for me to do so.”

  “He is a sorcerer?” the countess asked Sahir in a low voice.

  “Of sorts,” said Sahir. “Not much practiced, it seems, though he saved us from a rather nasty battering by trees on the way here.”

  “By trees?”

  “Hush. He will do better with us quiet.”

  Indeed, Izzy needed all his power of concentration. As he confessed to me later, the spells for calling up natural forces are complex in the extreme. He had learned them, of course, just as he had learned so much else, but he had never used them. Now, under pressure of that black-sailed ship in the east, he had to remember not only the words but also the gestures and the materials.

  He handed me this and that to hold, ordering me to stand beside him as he worked. “I didn’t bring some of the most effective antireflexives since they are expensive and I foresaw no use for them,” he muttered. “I hope I have enough all-purpose cataphractics and anathematics to keep an elemental at bay. Fog is the least dangerous element to call. A storm at sea could become reflexive without warning, as could a firestorm among forests. Earthquake, volcano or tornado would be summoned only by a fanatic in the last stages of nihilism. The same for hurricane. No, fog will do. Fog will have to do.”

  Though this made little sense to me, I stood ready to help as he lit a fire in the iron pan the fishermen used for boiling their kettles.

  “What summoning name?” he asked himself. “I have no idea! What language should we use, Nassif?”

  I thought frantically, knowing nothing of magic, why did he ask me? “If it’s to be a local fog, shouldn’t it be the local language?” I asked.

  He snapped his fingers. “Of course. I’ll call upon it in three languages, Estafani, Finialese and Sworpian, thereby more or less confining it to this corresponding geographic area. Find my ampli-fire; it’s at the bottom of the pack.”

  I dug into his pack, finding a stubby jar labeled Jorush’s All-Purpose Ampli-fire. I set it beside him as he ringed the fire with a circle of white powder.

  “What’s that?” I whispered.

  “Cataphractic powder, to protect the ship and ourselves,” he said under his breath.

  “And what is that stuff?” breathed the countess, peering at the long-necked bottle he was holding aloft.

  “Elias’s Element-all,” said Izzy. “Containing only the purest ingredients in ideal proportions. Elias has his shop on the square in Palmody. He ha
s supplied our family wizards for generations.”

  “I thought wizards made up their own…stuff,” commented Sahir.

  “You may be glad that is not always true,” muttered Izzy. “It would have taken me the better part of two days to make this up, even if I’d had all the ingredients to start with. Now if you’ll all forego asking questions, I’ll try to remember how to do this….”

  We kept silent as he began the invocation:

  “I call upon you, child of sky and sea, great fog…” he began, ending with a string of imperatives. His voice faded as we all felt the clammy grip of the fog seize upon us, but then he gathered himself and finished the spell while the mists swirled up from the waves like a steam of rising ghosts, thickening as they rose, becoming milky and opaque, blanketing the Elegant Eel as if with batting.

  Izzy trembled, wrapping his arms around himself. I took off my cloak and wrapped it around him. “There’s an icy space in my chest,” he whispered to me. “It came as I summoned the fog. I feel sick.”

  “What is it, Izzy?” I whispered. “What can I do?”

  “Nothing,” he murmured. “It’s the effect of doing deep magic. They warned me it would happen. The deeper the sorcery, the deeper this sickness at the center of oneself. Summoning an elemental is a very deep sorcery, and only practice and time can cure this feeling, so the palace wizard told me.”

  He did indeed look very green. I wrapped my arms around him to warm him, and he shuddered in the circle of my cloak.

  The countess murmured to the captain, and he to his sailors. They tugged at ropes, the ship heeled as it veered to port, though only briefly, for soon the sailors scurried up the ratlines on both foremast and mainmast, drawing up the sails and bundling them upon the spars. The water ceased to boil along the sides of the ship, the planks stopped creaking. Within moments we were at rest, silent, lost amid heavy veils of mist, rocking only a little to and fro, as the sailors slunk about the vessel, tying up lines and blocks and bits of equipment so they could not rattle or clink. A long, quiet time went by before we heard voices off the starboard bow, people calling to one another as they came nearer and nearer yet. We on the Elegant Eel heard the creak of planks as the Dire Duke’s ship passed our starboard side and then continued southward. Voices called again, and yet again, fading as they went.

  The captain muttered to his sailors. In a few moments our sails were set once more, and we were on our way through the fog, steering by compass into the north. The captain came to us where we stood by the rail and murmured to Izzy:

  “How long will it last?”

  Izzy shook his head. He didn’t know. “How long a run is it to Sworp?”

  “We will be outside the bay by morning, but it takes clear weather to achieve the harbor, as we must make way against the flow of the Guzzle. There are big rocks and shoals, and it is not a mooring to attempt under adverse conditions.”

  We had not gone much farther before we heard ship sounds once more, this time behind us, crossing our track. While we heard the sounds, we were ourselves quiet, uttering not a peep, barely breathing. The noises faded as the pursuing ship went out toward the depths of the Crawling Sea. As the hours wore on, we heard the ship—or some ship—twice more, though the last time was only the barely audible chime of a bell, far to the south.

  As the hours wore on, Izzy regained his strength. I reclaimed my cloak and moved away from him, though he remained crouched beside the rail, where he was joined by the countess.

  “It is a good thing the Dire Duke has no sorcery,” he said to the countess. “A lack which amazes me, quite frankly.”

  “Faros VII has forbidden sorcery in his realms,” the countess murmured. “Thus far, at least, the Dire Duke has complied with that taboo though he disobeys many others of the emperor’s decrees. When we arrive in Sworp, I would suggest we all keep silence about your skill. Fasal Grun is the emperor’s favorite, and he will not hesitate to enforce the emperor’s commands.”

  “Why is sorcery forbidden?” asked Izzy, almost whispering. “Have you any idea?”

  She shook her head. She had none. She knew only that such a declaration had reached her, some years before, and that since that time there had been a notable dearth of wizards.

  This brief conversation evidently exhausted Izzy’s strength, for he staggered into the cabin and threw himself down on a narrow bunk. When I went to see if he was all right a few moments later, he was sound asleep and he did not rouse until morning, a dim and doubtful morning which found us still surrounded in impenetrable fog.

  “We can run west a bit,” the captain advised us, “until we hear the sound of waves on the rocks. But if this fog is still with us then, we won’t be able to reach the anchorage.”

  “Can you dismiss it?” the countess asked Izzy.

  “If I can remember how at this early hour,” he said sullenly. “My stomach feels slightly better, but I’ve not had my tea, nor have I had any practice with this business. Until this journey, my studies were entirely theoretical.”

  While he collected himself, I fetched him a mug of dark tea, telling him it was burned bitter but better than nothing.

  “It’s hot,” he said. “That’s something.”

  “Thus far you’ve done very well,” the countess assured him.

  He yawned gapingly. “At least nothing has gone terribly wrong. I’m an amateur, way over my head, and I keep having the feeling I’m going to do something dangerous or stupid.”

  “I can understand that,” she said soothingly. “I felt the same when I ascended to the throne of Estafan. My father had often talked to me about ruling the country, but the subject was, as you say, theoretical. Only recently have I begun to feel halfway comfortable about making decisions that affect my people. I’m sure it will be the same for you. You’ll gain confidence as you go on practicing.”

  “I hope not to have to practice,” he muttered. “It would suit me nicely if this were the last time I had to be responsible for any of the magical arts.”

  Still, when the ship came within sound of breakers, and when a bucket dropped over the side brought up brackish water, Izzy did not complain as he set about dismissing the fog. Again he mumbled half aloud to himself as he worked, and thus I learned he had to make several substitutions in the ritual. Perhaps this accounted for the fact that the veils of mist did not entirely dissipate. They thinned, however, gradually becoming transparent, until we could all see the pier and the breakwater—and the huge black ship of the Dire Duke anchored across the only channel, its sails set, its anchor chains straining to hold the ship against the offshore current of the plunging river.

  A shout went up from the black ship, the combined voices of many. The sailors began to haul at the anchor chains.

  “Do we retreat?” yowled Soaz, showing his teeth. “Or do we fight?”

  “If we retreat, he’ll catch us,” said the captain. “What’s left of the fog won’t hide us.”

  “Can you thicken it up again?” Sahir demanded of Izzy.

  “No,” he snarled. “Elementals don’t like being called up and dismissed and called up again, like servants. They get touchy and vindictive.”

  “Looky there,” cried Lucy Low. “There’s boats coming out from the land!”

  And there were, a dozen or so sizeable boats with oarsmen at both sides, light reflecting dully from the armor of those gathered in the prows. A long, red banner flickered above the lead boat.

  “The banner of Fasal Grun,” cried the countess, adding in a low voice, “Prince Izakar, best hide those sorcerous materials.”

  Izzy scrambled to repack his kit. As he did so we heard an infuriated howl from someone aboard the black ship. Instead of coming toward the Elegant Eel, it swung wide upon its anchor chain and slipped southward along the breakwater, back toward Finial. The boats kept coming, however, the foremost very shortly pulling itself against the Eel. The captain dropped a ladder. A huge person came up over the side, seemingly unhampered by the steely claws ext
ending from his armored gloves, to stand upon the deck, staring around himself, as though surprised at the company he found there.

  “We welcome His Eminence, the Prime Duke Fasal Grun,” announced the countess in a ringing voice. Everyone bowed deeply, several among us breathlessly.

  “Countess Elianne?” the Prime Duke asked in a barely civilized growl.

  “Your Eminence is kind to remember,” she murmured.

  “I had no idea you were aboard. I thought perhaps you were pirates or slavers being intercepted by my brother. That was my brother’s ship, was it not?”

  “It was.” She sighed. “We intended to come ashore in Sworp on our way to St. Weel, but the Dire Duke did not want us to make the journey. He attempted to capture us on our way here.”

  “Why?” demanded the duke. “Why would he care if you came here or not?”

  The countess grew pink with annoyance. “Your Grace knows why! We have corresponded on this subject. Fasahd desires an alliance with Estafan. While he pursues this goal, he certainly would not want me talking with you! If he had an alliance with Estafan, it would give him a mask of legitimacy to hide his real desires.”

  “Ah,” murmured the duke with a grimace. “I thought I had dissuaded him! Well, it is fortunate you were concealed by the fog.” He raised his eyebrows and sniffed, as though to detect any odor of sorcery that might be about. “Particularly when fog is so rare at this time of year.”

  “It was fortunate,” bubbled the countess. “Fate was very kind in not allowing us to fall into the hands of…” Her voice trailed into silence. She flushed, then turned and laid her hand upon Sahir’s sleeve. “Your Eminence, may I present my friends and fellow travelers….”