by neetha Napew
The pack snakes were eventually killed. By that time, the boat had swung side on into the current, and was grinding against the Randonanese bank. As they attempted to regain control, their rudder hit an underwater obstruction and broke. Poles were brought forth, but the river was becoming both wider and deeper, so the poles did not serve. When Keevasien Island loomed through the dusk they had no power to choose either the port, the Borlienese, stream, or the starboard, the Randonanese, stream. The Lubber was carried helplessly against the rocks on the northern point of the island; with its side stove in, it was beached in the shallows. The current tugged at it, threatening to wash it away. They grabbed some equipment and jumped ashore.
Darkness was coming in. They stood listening to the repetitive boom of the surf like distant cannon fire. Because of the great fear of the men, TolramKetinet decided to camp where they were for the brief night, rather than attempt to reach Keevasien, which he knew was close.
A watch was set. The night around them was given to subterfuge and sudden death. Small insects went shopping with large headlights, moths' wings gleamed with terrifying sightless eyes, the pupils of predators glowed like hot stones; and all the while the two streams of the river surged close by, eddying phosporescence, the heavy drag of water moaning its way into their dreams.
Freyr rose behind cloud. The men woke and stood about scratching mosquito bites which covered their bodies. TolramKetinet and GortorLanstatet drove them into action. Climbing the rocky spine of the island, they could look across the eastern arm of the river to the open sea and the Borlienese coast ahead. There, protected from the sea by afforested cliff, lay the harbour of Keevasien, the westernmost town of their native land of Borlien, once home of the legendary savant YarapRombry.
A purplish cast to the light obscured the truth from them for a while; they looked on broken roofs and blackened walls for some moments before saying - almost in one voice - 'It's been destroyed!'
Phagor herds, denizens of the monsoon forest, had bartered their vulumunwun with the Randonanese tribes. The great spirit had spoken to the tribes. The tribes caught Others in the trees, bound them to bamboo chairs, and progressed through the jungle to burn down the port. Nothing had escaped the flames. There was no sign of life, except for a few melancholy birds. The war was still being waged; the men could not avoid being at once its agents and its victims.
In silence, they made their way to the south side of the island, climbing down on a sandy spit to get free of the spikey undergrowth that choked the interior.
Open sea was before them, ribbed with brown where the Kacol joined it, ultimately blue. Long breakers uncurled against the steep slope of the beach, flashing white. To the west they could see Poorich Island, a large island which served as a marker between the Sea of Eagles and the Narmosset Sea. Round the angle of Poorich were sailing four ships, two carracks and two caravels.
Seizing up the Borlienese flag which had been stored among a selection of flags in the Lubber's lockers, TolramKetinet Walked forward into the foam to meet them.
Dienu Pasharatid was on watch on the Golden Friendship as it made for a safe anchorage with its fleet in the mouth of the Kacol. Her hands tightened on the rail; otherwise she gave no sign of the elation she felt on beholding, as Poorich Island slid behind, the coast of Borlien emerge from the morning mists.
Six thousand sea miles had fallen astern since they repaired the ships and sailed on from the pleasant anchorage near Cape Findowel. In that time, Dienu had communed much with God the Azoiaxic; the limitless expanses of ocean had brought her closer than ever before to his presence. She told herself that her involvement with her husband Io was over. She had had him transferred to the Union, so that she no longer had to look at him. All this she had done in a cool Sibornalese way, without showing resentment. She was free to rejoice again in life and in God.
There was the beautiful breeze, the sky, the sea - why, as she strove to rejoice, did misery invade her? It could not be because she was jealous of the relationship which had grown - like a weed, she said to herself, like a weed -between her Priest-Militant Admiral and the Borlienese ex-chancellor. Nor could it be because she felt the slightest spark of affection for Io. 'Think of winter,' she told herself - using an Uskuti expression meaning, 'Freeze your hopes.'
Even the communion with the Azoiaxic, which she was unable to break off, had proved disconcerting. It seemed that the Azoiaxic had no place for Dienu Pasharatid in his bosom. Despite her virtue, he was indifferent. He was indifferent despite her seemly behaviour, her circumspection.
In this respect at least, the Dweller, the Lord of the Church of the Formidable Peace, had proved dismayingly to resemble Io Pasharatid himself. And it was this reflection, rather than consolation, which pursued her over the empty leagues of sea. Anything was welcome by way of distraction. So, when the coast of Borlien appeared, she turned briskly from the wheel and summoned the bugler to sound 'Good Tidings'.
Soon the rails of the four ships were crowded with soldiers, eager for a first glimpse of the land they were planning to invade and subjugate.
One of the last passengers to arrive on deck was SartoriIrvrash. He stood for a while in the open air, clapping his clothes and breathing deep to disperse a smell of phagor. The phagor was gone; only her bitter scent remained - that, and a fragment of knowledge.
After the Golden Friendship had left Findowel, it sailed southeastwards across the Gulf of Ponipot, past ancient lands, and through the Cadmer Straits, the narrowest stretch of water between Campannlat and Hespagorat. These were lands that legends told of; some said that humans had come into being here, some that language was first spoken here. Here was Ponipot, the Ponpt that little Tatro read about in her fairy tales, Ponipot almost uninhabited, gazing towards the setting of the suns, with its old smouldering cities whose names were still capable of stirring men's hearts - Powachet, Prowash, Gal-Dundar on the frigid Aza River.
Past Ponipot, to be becalmed off the rocky spines of Radado, the land of high desert, the southern tail of the Barriers, where it was said that under one million humans lived - in contrast to the three and a quarter million in neighbouring Randonan - and certainly fewer humans than phagors; for Radado formed the western end of a great ancipital migratory route which stretched across the whole of Campannlat, the ultima Thule to which the creatures came in the summer of every Great Year, to go about their unfathomable rituals, or simply to squat motionless, staring across the Cadmer Straits towards Hespagorat, towards a destination unknown to other life forms.
Becalmed or otherwise, in those long hot days on the stationary ship, SartoriIrvrash had been content. He had escaped from his study into the wide world. During dimdays, there were long intellectual conversations to be enjoyed with the lady Priest-Militant Admiral, Odi Jeseratabhar. The two of them had become closer. Odi Jeseratabhar's first intricacy of language had dissolved into something less formal. The involuntary proximities enforced by their narrow quarters had become wished for, treasured. They turned into circumspect lovers. And the circumnavigation of the Savage Continent had become a circumnavigation also of souls.
Sitting together on deck during that enchanted becalmment, the aging lovers, Borlienese and Uskuti, surveyed the almost unmoving sea. The Radado mainland hung mistily in the background. Nearer at hand, Gleeat Island lay to port. Away to starboard, three other islands, submerged mountain peaks, seemed to float on the bosom of the water.
Odi Jeseratabhar pointed to starboard. 'I can almost imagine I can make out the coast of Hespagorat - the land called Throssa, to be precise. All round us is the evidence that Hespagorat and Campannlat were once joined by a land bridge, which was destroyed in some upheaval. What do you think, Sartori?'
He studied the hump of Gleeat Island. 'If we can believe the legends, phagors originated in a distant part of Hespagorat, Pegovin, where the black phagors live. Perhaps the phagors of Campannlat migrate to Radado because they still hope to discover the ancient bridge back to their homeland.'
> 'Have you ever seen a black phagor in Borlien?'
'Once in captivity.' He drew on his veronikane. 'The continents keep their separate kinds of animals. If there was once a land bridge, then we might expect to find the iguanas of Hespagorat on the coast of Radado. Are they there, Odi?'
With a sudden inspiration, she said, 'I think they are not, because the humans might have killed them off -Radado is a barren place; anything serves as food. But what about Gleeat? While we are becalmed, we have time to spare, time in which we might add to the fund of human knowledge. You and I will go on an expedition in the longboat and see what we find.'
'Can we do that?'
'If I say so.'
'Remember our near disaster on the Persecution Bay expedition?'
'You thought I was crazy then.'
'I think you're crazy now.'
They both laughed, and he clutched her hand.
The Admiral summoned the bo'sun. Slaves were set to work. The longboat was launched. Odi Jeseratabhar and SartoriIrvrash climbed aboard. They were rowed two miles across to the island, over a sea of glass. With them went a dozen armed soldiers, delighted at this chance to leave the hated confines of the ship.
Gleeat Island measured five miles across. The ship's boat beached on a steep sandy shelf at the southeast corner. A guard was set on it, while the rest of the expedition moved forward.
Iguanas basked on the rocks. They showed no fear of humans, and several were speared to be taken back to the ship as welcome addition to the diet. They were puny beside the giant black iguanas of Hespagorat. These rarely attained more than five feet in length. Their colour was a mottled brown. Even the crabs that lived commensally with them were small and had only eight legs.
As SartoriIrvrash and Odi Jeseratabhar were searching the rocks for iguana eggs, the party came under attack.
Four phagors rushed from cover, spears in hand, and fell on them. They were ragged beasts, their coats in tatters, their ribs showing.
With surprise on their side, the phagors managed to kill two of the soldiers, bearing the men down into the water with the force of their charge. But the other soldiers fought back. Iguanas scattered, gulls rose screaming, there was a brief pursuit over the rocks, and the scrimmage was finished. The phagors were dead - except for a gillot whose life Odi Jeseratabhar spared.
The gillot was larger than her companions and covered in a dense black coat. With her arms bound firmly behind her, she was made captive and taken back in the boat to the Golden Friendship.
Odi and Sartori embraced each other in private, congratulating themselves on confirming the truth of the old legend of the land bridge. And on surviving.
A day later, the monsoon winds blew, and the fleet was on its way eastwards again. The coast of Randonan was now passing in all its wild splendour on the port side; but SartoriIrvrash spent most of his time below decks, studying their captive, whom he called Gleeat.
Gleeat spoke only Native Ancipital, and that in a dialect. Knowing no Native, or even Hurdhu, SartoriIrvrash had to work through an interpreter. Odi came down into the cramped dark hold to see what he was doing, and laughed.
'How can you bother with this smelly creature? We have proved our point, that Radado and Throssa were once connected. God the Azoiaxic was on our side. The small colony of iguanas isolated on Gleeat Island are an inferior strain, isolated from the main body of iguanas on the southern continent. This creature, living among white phagors, probably represents some kind of survival of the Hespagorat-Pegovin black strain. Doubtless they're dying out on such a small island.'
He shook his head. While admiring her quick brain, he perceived that she reached conclusions too hastily.
'She claims that her party were on a ship which was wrecked on Gleeat in an earlier monsoon.'
"That's clearly a lie. Phagors do not sail. They hate water.'
"They were slaves on a Throssan galley, she says.'
Odi patted his-shoulder. 'Listen, Sartori, it's my belief that we could have proved that the two continents were once linked just by looking at the old charts in the chartroom. There's Purporian on the Radado shore and a port called Popevin on the Throssa shore. "Poop" means "bridge" in Pure Olonets, and "Pup" or "Pu" the same in Local Olonets. The past is locked up in language, if one knows how to look.'
Although she laughed, he was vexed by her superior Sibornalese style. 'If the smell is overcoming you, dear, you had better go back on deck.'
'We shall soon be approaching Keevasien. A coastal town. As you know, "ass" or "as" is Pure Olonets for "sea" - the equivalent of "ash" in Pontpian.' With that burst of knowledge, smiling, she retired, climbing the ladder to the quarterdeck in practical fashion.
He was surprised next day to find that Gleeat was wounded. There was a golden pool of blood on the deck where she lay. He questioned her through the interpreter. Although he watched her closely, he could detect nothing resembling emotion when she answered.
'No, she is not wounded. She says she is coming on oestrus. She has just undergone her menstrual period.' The interpreter looked his distaste but made no personal comment, being of inferior rank.
Such was his hatred for phagors - but it was gone now, like much else from his past life, he realized - that SartoriIrvrash had always neglected their history, just as he had refused to learn their language. Such matters he had left to JandolAnganol - JandolAnganol with his perverse trust in the creatures. However, the sexual habits of phagors had been a target for prurient jest to the very urchins in the Matrassyl streets; he recalled that the female ancipital, neither human nor beast, delivered something like a one-day menstrual flow from the uterus as prelude to the oestral cycle when she came on heat. It might be memories of those old whispers which caused him to imagine that his captive emitted a more pungent odour on this occasion.
SartoriIrvrash scratched his cheek. 'What was that word used for catamenia? Her word in Native?'
'She calls oestrus "tennhrr" in her language. Shall I have her hosed down?'
'Ask her how frequently she comes into oestrus.'
The gillot, who remained tied, had to be prodded before she gave answer. Her long pink milt flicked up one of her nostrils. She finally admitted to having ten periods in a small year. SartoriIrvrash nodded and went on deck for some fresh air. Poor creature, he thought; a pity we can't all live in peace. The human-ancipital dilemma would have to be resolved one day, one way or another. When he was dead and gone.
They drove before the monsoon all that night, the next day, and the night following. The rains were frequently so thick that those aboard the Golden Friendship could not make out their sister ships. The Straits of Cadmer were left behind. All about them was the grey Narmosset, its waves streaked with long spittles of white. The world was a liquid one.
During the fifth night, they encountered a storm, and the carrack almost stood on its beam ends. The hollies and orange trees growing along the waist were all lost overboard, and many feared that the ship would founder. The seamen, always superstitious, approached their captain and begged that the captive phagor be cast overboard, since it was well known that ancipitals aboard ship brought bad luck. The captain agreed. He had tried almost everything else.
SartoriIrvrash was awake, despite the late hour. It was impossible to sleep in the storm. He protested against the captain's decision. No one was in any mood to listen to his arguments; he was a foreigner, and in danger of being thrown overboard himself. He went and hid while Gleeat was dragged from her foul hold and thrown into the raging waters.
Within an hour, the worst of the wind died. By the time of false light, when Poorich was just visible ahead, nothing more than a fresh breeze prevailed. By dawn, the other three vessels were disclosed, miraculously unharmed and not too far distant - God the Azoiaxic was good. Soon, the mouth of the Kacol, where Keevasien lay, could be discerned through purplish coastal mists.
An unnatural gloom hovered about the hinges of the horizon. The sea all round the Sibornalese fleet was aliv
e with dolphins, darting just below the surface. Flocks of sea and land birds numbering many hundreds circled overhead. They uttered no cry, but the beat of their myriad wings sounded like a downpour in which no rain fell. The flocks did not swerve as the call 'Good Tidings' rolled out from ship to coast.
As the wind died, the cordage slackened and slapped against the masts. The four ships closed as they approached the shore.
Dienu set a spyglass to her eye and stared at where a strip of island lay among the breaking waves. She saw men standing on the strip, and counted a dozen. One was coming forward. During the days of the monsoon, they had skirted the coasts of Randonan; here Borlien commenced - enemy territory. It was important that news of the fleet's coming was not flashed ahead to Ottassol; surprise counted for much, in this as in most warlike enterprises.
The light improved, minute by minute. The Golden Friendship exchanged signals with the Union, the Good Hope, and the white caravel, the Vajabhar Prayer, alerting them to danger.
A man in a wide-brimmed hat was wading out into the foam. Behind him, at the mouth of the river, a boat could be seen, hull half-hidden. There was always the possibility that they were moving into an ambush and, getting too far in, would lose the wind and be trapped. Dienu stood tense at the rail of the quarterdeck; for a moment, she wished that her faithless Io were with her; he was always quick to make up his mind.
The man in the surf unfurled a flag. The stripes of Borlien were revealed.
Dienu summoned artillerymen to line the landward rail.
The distance between ship and shore diminished. The man in the surf had halted, up to his thighs in water. He was waving the flag in an assured manner. The mad Borlienese...
Dienu instructed the artillery captain. He saluted, went down the companion ladder to give orders to his men. The men worked in pairs, one operating the wheel lock, the other supporting the muzzle.
