by neetha Napew
Both suns were in different sectors of the sky, both shining the more brightly because they were about to be eclipsed by black rain clouds drawing up the slopes of the sky. Two sails glittered in the actinic light.
The Union was close, the Good Hope no more than an hour's sailing behind; the hierograms on its spread canvas were clear to behold. The Union had lowered its artemon, in order to allow its companion to catch up.
Lanstatet was already working with his force, unloading equipment from the Prayer.
'They're coming in, Akhanaba help us!' he shouted to TolramKetinet.
'What's that woman doing?' TolramKetinet asked. An old woman, a servitor of the queen's, a long-term housekeeper of the wooden palace, was helping Lanstatet's men unload the Prayer. It was her way of showing her dedication to the queen. A man above her was rolling kegs of gunpowder from the deck onto a gangplank. The old woman was directing the kegs down the slope, releasing a soldier for other duties.
'I'm helping you - what do you think?' she screamed back at the general.
Her attention was distracted. The next keg rolled off the gangplank and struck her shoulder, bowling the old woman over, pitching her face down on the shingle.
She was dragged up, faint but protesting, to lie against a chest on the beach. Blood streamed down her face. MyrdemInggala hurried down from the headland to comfort her.
As the queen knelt by her old servant, TolramKetinet stood over her and laid a hand on the queen's shoulder.
'My arrival has brought trouble on you, lady. That was not my intention. I am trying to regret I did not sail straight on to Ottassol.'
The queen made no answer, but took the old woman's head on her lap. The latter's eyes had closed, but her breathing was regular.
'I said, lady, that I hope you don't regret that I did not sail on to Ottassol.'
Distress showed in her face as she turned to him. 'Hanra, I have no regrets about last night when we were together. It was my wish. I thought to be free of Jan. But it did not achieve what I hoped. For that, I am to blame, not you.'
'You are free of him. He divorced you, did he not? What are you talking about?' He looked angry. 'I know I'm not a very good general, but - '
'Oh, stop that!' she said impatiently. 'It's got nothing to do with you. What do I care if you lost your scerming army? I'm talking about a bond, a solemn state that existed between two people for a long time... . Some things don't end when we hope they will. Jan and I - it's like being unable to waken - oh, I'm unable to express - '
With some annoyance, TolramKetinet said, 'You're tired. I know how women get upset. Let's talk about such things later. Let's deal with the emergency first.' He pointed out to sea, and adopted a no-nonsense voice. 'Judging by the nonappearance of the Golden Friendship, it was too badly damaged to sail. The Admiral Jeseratabhar says that Dienu Pasharatid was on it. Perhaps she has been killed, in which case Io Pasharatid on the Union will be full of vengeance.'
'I fear that man,' said MyrdemInggala. 'And with excellent reason.' She bent her head over the old woman.
Her general gave her a side glance. 'I'm here to protect you from him, aren't I?'
'I suppose you are,' she said spiritlessly. 'At least your lieutenant is doing something about the matter.'
JandolAnganol had seen to it that the wooden palace had no weapons with which to defend itself. But the rocks extending out to sea from the Linien Rock meant that any considerable vessel like the Union had to sail between the Rock and the headland, and there lay the defender's chance. GortorLanstatet had reinforced his working party on the beach with phagors. Two large cannon from the Vajabhar Prayer's quarterdeck had been winched ashore and were now being manhandled onto the headland, where they would command the bay.
ScufBar and another serving man came up with a stretcher to carry the injured woman back to the safety of the palace and apply iced bandages to her wounds.
Leaving the queen's side, TolramKetinet ran to help position the cannon. He saw the danger of their situation. Apart from the phagors and a few unarmed helpers, the defending forces at Gravabagalinien numbered only his complement of thirteen who had come with him from Ordelay. The two Sibornalese ships now closing on the bay each contained possibly fifty well-armed fighting men. Pasharatid's Union was turning, to present itself broadside on to the coast.
Heaving at the ropes, the men tried to get the second cannon into place.
Confronting the queen with folded arms, CaraBansity said, 'Madam, I gave the king good advice which was ill taken. Let me now offer you a similar dose and hope for a kindlier reception. You and your ladies should saddle up hoxneys and ride inland, making no delay.'
Her face lit with a sad smile. 'I'm glad of your concern, Bardol. You go. Return to your wife. This place has become my home. You know Gravabagalinien is said to be the residence of the ancient ghosts of those who were killed in a battle long ago. I would rather join those shades than leave.'
He nodded. 'So it may be. I shall stay too, ma'am, in that case.'
Something in her expression showed him she was pleased by what he said. On impulse, she asked, 'What do you make of this misalliance between our friend Rushven, and the Uskuti lady - an admiral, no less?'
'She keeps quiet, but that does not reassure me. It might be safer to pack those two off. There's always more than an arm up a Sibornalese sleeve. We must use our cunning, ma'am - there's little enough else on our side.'
'She appears genuinely devoted to my ex-chancellor.'
'If so, she has deserted the Sibornalese cause, ma'am. And that may give this man Pasharatid another reason for coming ashore. Pack her off, for everybody's safety.'
At sea, smoke billowed, concealing all but the sails of the Union. A moment later, explosions were heard.
The shots landed in the water at the foot of a low cliff. With a second salvo, the marksmen would be more accurate. Evidently the lookout had sighted the manoeuvring of the cannon on shore.
But the shots proved to be no more than warnings. The Union swung to port and began sailing straight towards the little bay.
The queen stood alone, her long hair, still unbound from the night, streaming in the wind. There was a sense in which she was prepared to die. It might be the best way of resolving her troubles. She was - to her dismay - not prepared to accept TolramKetinet, an honest but insensitive man. She was vexed with herself for putting herself under emotional obligation to him. The truth was, his body, his caresses of the night, had merely aroused in her an intense longing for Jan. She felt lonelier than before.
Moreover, she divined with melancholy detachment Jan's loneliness. That she might have assuaged, had she herself been more mature.
Out to sea, monsoon rain created gulfs of darkness and slanting light. Showers burned across the waters. The clouds loomed lower. Good Hope was almost lost in murk. And the sea itself - MyrdemInggala looked, and saw that her familiars were choking the waves. What she had mistaken for choppiness was the ferment of their bodies. The rain drove in at speed and dashed itself against her face.
Next second, everyone was struggling through a heavy downpour.
The cannon stuck, its wheels spun in mud. A man fell on his knees, cursing. Everyone cursed and bellowed. The fusee in its perforated tin would be doused if the downpour continued.
Hope of placing the cannon effectively was now dead. The wind veered with the storm. The Union was blown towards the bay.
As the ship drew level with the Linien Rock, the dolphins acted. They moved in formation, retinue and regiment. The entrance to the bay was barred by their bodies.
Sailors in the Union, half-blinded by rain, shouted and pointed at the teeming backs beneath their hulls. It was as if the ship ran across black shining cobbles. The dolphins wedged their bodies solid against the timbers. The Union slowed, groaning.
Screaming with excitement, MyrdemInggala forgot her sorrows and ran down to the water. She clapped her hands, shrieked encouragement at her agents. Sand and salt splashed
over her calves, rushing beneath her dress. She plunged forward in the undertow. Even TolramKetinet hesitated to follow. The ship loomed over her and the rain lashed down.
One of her familiars reared out of the water as if he had expected her coming, seizing the fabric of her dress in his mouth. She recognized him as a senior member of the inner court, and spoke his name. In his medley of calls was an urgent message she could recognize: stay away, or gigantic things - she could not determine what - would seize her. Something far off in the deeps had her scent.
Even the queen of queens was frightened by the news. She retreated, guided by the familiar all the way. As she reached the sand, clutching her soaked dress, he sank away below the foam.
The Union lay only a few ship's lengths from where the queen and her followers stood. Between beach and carrack were dolphins, both courts and regiment, packed tight. Through the driving torrents, the queen recognized the commanding figure of Io Pasharatid - and he had recognized her.
He stood tall and sinister on the streaming deck, swart-bearded, canvas jacket open to the rain, cap pitched over his eyes. He looked at her and then he acted.
In his fist was a spear. Climbing onto the rail of the ship, clutching the shrouds with one hand, he leaned forward and stabbed down repeatedly into the water. With every stab, crimson spurted up the blade of the weapon. The waters became lashed with foam. Pasharatid stabbed again and again.
To superstitious mariners, the dolphin is a sacred creature. Ally of the spirits of the deep, it can do no wrong in sailors' eyes. Harm it and one places one's own life in jeopardy.
Pasharatid was surrounded by furious mariners. The spear was wrestled from his hand and thrown away. The watchers ashore saw him borne fighting to the deck until his soldiers rushed in and pulled him free. The scrimmage continued for a while. The queen's familiars had successfully barred the way to Gravabagalinien.
The rainstorm was at its height. The waves rose higher, crashing up the beach with splendid fury. The queen screamed her victory, looking in her dishevelment much like her dead mother, the wild Shannana, until TolramKetinet dragged her back, in fear that she would hurl herself into the water again.
Lightning flashed in the storm's belly and then struck with following thunder. Cloud shifted like blown sheet, outlining the Good Hope suddenly in silver water. It stood off a third of a mile or less from its companion ship, as its crew fought to keep it offshore.
A line of dolphins streamed from the bay and could be seen heading beyond the Good Hope as if summoned by something there.
The sea convulsed. It boiled about the Lorajan vessel. Men ashore swore afterwards that the water boiled. The convulsion grew, with glimpses of things churning. Then a mass rose from the water, shook waves from its head, rose, still rose, till it towered above the masts of the Good Hope. It had eyes. It had a great lantern jaw and whiskers that writhed like eels. More of it came out of the sea in thick scaled coils, thicker than a man's torso. The storm was its element.
And there were more coils. A second monster appeared, this one in a rage, to judge by the darting movements of its head. Like a gigantic snake, it rose then struck at the waves, diving, to leave sections of its roped body still agleam in the viscous air.
Its head emerged again, setting the Good Hope rocking. The two creatures joined forces. Careless in their obscene sport, they writhed through the water. One lashing tail smashed against the side of the caravel, breaking planking and treenails.
Then both beasts were gone. The waters lay flattened where they had been. They had obeyed the summons of the dolphins and now were making back towards the depths of the ocean. Although their appearances before the eyes of men were rare, the great creatures still formed part of the cycle of living beings which had adapted to the Great Year of Helliconia.
At this stage of their existence, the great serpents were asexual. Long past was their period of intense mating activity. Then, they had been flighted creatures, and had squandered centuries in amorous anorexy, feeding on procreation. Like giant dragonflies, they and their kind had flirted above the world's two lonely poles, free of enemies or even witnesses.
With the coming of the Great Summer, the aerial creatures migrated to the seas of the south, and in particular to the Sea of Eagles, where their appearance had led some long-dead and ornithologically unversed seamen to name an ocean after them. On remote islands like Poorich and Lordry, the creatures shed their wings. They crawled upon their bellies into the brine, and there gave birth.
In the seas the summer would be spent. Eventually the great bodies would dissolve, to feed assatassi and other marine inhabitants. The voracious young were known as scupperfish. They were not fish at all. When the chills of the long winter came to prompt them, the scupperfish would emerge onto land and assume yet another form, called by such ill names as Wutra's Worm.
In their present asexual state, the two serpents had been stirred into activity by a recollection of their distant past. The memory had been brought them by the dolphins, in the form of a scent trace, infused into the waters by the queen of queens during her menstrual period. In confused restlessness they coiled about each other's bodies; but no power could bring back what had gone.
Their ghastly apparition had knocked any desire for fighting from the bellies of those aboard the Union and the Good Hope. Gravabagalinien was a haunted place. Now the invaders knew it. Both ships crammed on all possible sail and fled eastwards before the storm. The clouds covered them and they were gone.
The dolphins had disappeared.
Only the waters raged, breaking high up the Linien Rock with dull booms which carried along the beach.
The human defenders of Gravabagalinien made their way back through the rain to the wooden palace.
The chambers of the palace echoed like drums under the weight of monsoon rain. The tune kept changing as the rain died, then fell with renewed vigour.
A council of war was held in the great chamber, the queen presiding.
'First, we should be clear what kind of a man we are dealing with,' TolramKetinet said. 'Chancellor SartoriIrvrash, tell us what you know of Io Pasharatid, and please speak to the point.'
Whereupon SartoriIrvrash rose, smoothing his bald head and bowing to her majesty. What he had to say would indeed be brief but hardly pleasant. He apologized for bringing up old unhappy things, but the future was always linked with the past in ways that even the wisest among them could scarcely anticipate. He might give as an instance...
Catching Odi Jeseratabhar's eye, he applied himself to the point, hunching up his shoulders to do so. In the years in Matrassyl, his duty as chancellor had been to discover the secrets of the court. When the queen's brother, YeferalOboral of beloved memory, was still alive, he had discovered that Pasharatid - then ambassador from his country - was enjoying the favours of a young girl, a commoner, whose mother kept a house of ill-repute. He, the chancellor, also discovered from VarpalAnganol that Pasharatid contrived to look upon the queen's body when naked. The fellow was a scoundrel, lustful and reckless, kept in check only by his wife - whom they had reason to believe was now dead.
Moreover, he wished to retail a rumour - perhaps more than a rumour - gathered from a guide called the Pointer of the Way, whom he befriended on his journey through the desert to Sibornal, that Io Pasharatid had murdered the queen's brother.
'I know that to be so,' said MyrdemInggala, dismissively. 'We have every reason to regard Io Pasharatid as a dangerous man.'
TolramKetinet rose.
He adopted military postures and spoke with rhetorical flourishes, glancing across at the queen to see how his performance was being received. He said that they were now clear how Pasharatid was to be feared. It was reasonable to assume that the scoundrel was in command of the Union and, by dint of his connections, could enforce his orders on the commander of the Good Hope. He, TolramKetinet, had evaluated the military situation from the enemy's viewpoint, and estimated that Pasharatid would move as follows. One -
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br /> 'Please, make this brief, or the man will burst in upon us at this table,' said CaraBansity. 'We take it that you're as great an orator as you are a general.'
Frowning, TolramKetinet said that Pasharatid would decide that two ships could never take Ottassol. His best plan would be to capture the queen and thus force Ottassol to submit to his demands. They should anticipate that Pasharatid would land somewhere to the east of Gravabagalinien, wherever a favourable beach presented itself. He would then march on Gravabagalinien with his men. He, TolramKetinet (who struck his chest as he spoke), declared that they must immediately muster their defences against this anticipated land attack. The queen's person was safe in his keeping.
After a general discussion, the queen issued orders. As she spoke, rain started to drip down on the table. 'Since water is my element, I cannot complain if the roof leaks,' she said.
MyrdemInggala advised that defences should be built along the perimeters of the palace grounds and that the general should draw up an inventory of all weapons and warlike impediments available, not forgetting the armoury of the Vajabhar Prayer.
Turning to SartoriIrvrash, she ordered him and Odi Jeseratabhar to depart from the palace at once. They might have three hoxneys from the stables.
'You are kind, ma'am,' said SartoriIrvrash, although the expression on his volelike face suggested he thought otherwise. 'But can you spare us?'
'I can if your companion is fit to ride.'
'I don't think she is fit.'
'Rushven, I can spare you as Jan could spare you. You advised him on the plan of divorcement, didn't you? As for your new consort, I understand that she is or was a close friend of the villainous Io Pasharatid.'
He was taken aback. 'My lady, there was much botheration... Many questions of policy were involved. I was paid to support the king.'
'You used to claim that you supported the truth.'
He searched his charfrul absentmindedly, as if looking for a veronikane, then settled for rubbing his whiskers instead.
