“However, as time went on, I saw things–people being starved. Brutalized. Even murdered. I began to doubt my oath. Finally, when the Chandara activated the machine from the past and Annata appeared to me at the Great Tree, she told me of the Prophet’s true intention. I did not want to believe it at first, but–well, it made so much sense after all the things I had witnessed. I knew in my heart that the woman spoke the truth. That was why I had to travel to Gort to deliver you, Lyall and Alondo from the trap that was waiting for you there. That’s why I turned my back on the Keltar and was forced to slay the boy Nikome and Mordal, who had been more of a father to me than my own father.”
Shann’s face screwed up. “Do you expect me to feel sympathy for you?”
“I expect nothing. I have chosen my own path.”
“What about all of your other crimes?” Shann demanded.
“Crimes?”
“Yes, crimes. What about all of the people you rounded up and sent to die in the ore camps? What about all of the families you broke up? The brothers and sisters that were parted from one another?” The parents you dragged away from their children? “What about all of that?”
“I don’t have any answers for you, Shann. I hold myself responsible for a lot of things that happened. But I cannot change the past. I can only try and work for a better future–and to change the person I used to be.”
Shann’s eyes blazed. “You say you are no longer Keltar? Then what are you?” Keris pushed past Shann and strode off across the deck. “What are you?” Shann called after her.
Keris did not look back. “I am nothing.”
~
A few minutes after Shann had left Lyall made his excuses to Patris and exited the forecastle. Looking across the deck, he saw Shann and Keris in the shadow of the stern castle, deep in conversation. Perhaps they are working out their differences at last?
He decided to leave them to their discussion. Besides, he had another important task to perform. He climbed the ladder to the foredeck and walked slowly to the starboard rail. It was a beautiful night. A balmy breeze blew through the rigging. Waves lapped gently against the overlapping strakes. Sidelights were strung along the curve of the hull, reflecting over the water. Black clouds drifted lazily across a dull pink sky. Lyall leaned against the rail, lost in the view. Then he recalled the reason for his late night stroll. He raised his right hand to his mouth and spoke into the Ring in his forefinger.
“Oliah.” The stone came to life, exhibiting its familiar green glow.
“Alondo, are you all right?” Oliah’s silken voice was slightly distorted, but it was unmistakeably her.
“This isn’t Alondo, this is Lyall.”
“Where’s Alondo?”
“He’s…not feeling very well. Don’t worry; it’s nothing serious–just a bout of seasickness. It seemed to come on the moment we left the harbour. Boxx is caring for him and Shann just took him some food.”
“Can I speak to him?”
“He’s lying down right now. I promise, when he’s feeling better I’ll get him to Ring you.”
“What about the others? How is Shann?”
“Shann is just fine. Patris is keeping her hard at work. He’s a little put out because I won’t tell him where we’re going. I told him it was for his own protection, but I don’t think he liked that answer.”
“Maybe you should consider telling him?”
“No, I don’t want to risk him turning the ship around.”
“I doubt he would do that.”
“I don’t know–I think if I was in his boots and someone told me that we were going to attempt to sail this ship into the Great Barrier, I would think we had all gone mad. In any case, I have no intention of forcing him to come with us. I’m sure he will be more than happy when we cut him loose in the launch with a bag of astrias.”
“What about Keris?”
“She seems to be up and about already, thanks to Boxx. In fact I saw Shann speaking with her, just a moment ago.”
“Shann doesn’t trust her.”
“I know. I was hoping they could put that behind them. How are things back in Sakara?”
“The city was in uproar after you left. The official line is that a band of renegades led by a woman–a criminal from Chalimar–tried to set fire to the city and then escaped by ship. However, there are lots of rumours flying around about this woman–that the Prophet is in fear of her, that she has the strength of many men. They are calling her ‘The Heroine of Gort,’ saying that she attacked the garrison there single-handed. Chalimar has already tripled the bounty on her.”
“I’m sure Keris will be delighted to hear that.”
“When will you reach the Great Barrier of Storms?”
“Some time the day after tomorrow, according to Patris. If the wind holds, that is. We’ve been fortunate so far. Patris is worried about turbulence near the barrier, but I plan to have him on his way well before we encounter it.”
“Lyall?” Her voice sounded suddenly fragile.
“Yes?”
“I’m worried about what will happen to Alondo. We talked about what you were planning to do and I agreed he should go along but the truth is I…I don’t want him to go. I don’t want to lose him, or Shann. I know I’m being selfish, but–”
“It’s all right, Oliah. I already told them that they won’t be coming with us.”
“You did? But Alondo never said –”
“I only discussed it with them the night before we left. They were both still adamant about coming. I was going to insist when the news came about Keris’ disappearance and–well, there just wasn’t any opportunity for debate after that. I figured it didn’t matter, because I could still send them back with Patris when the time came.
“Do you think Alondo will agree to being sent back?”
“Probably not. But I’ll pick him up and throw him in the launch if necessary. I’m more concerned about Shann. She can be extremely stubborn when she wants to be. But I’ll deal with that when the time comes. They will have more than enough food and water, and Patris and Shann are our two best sailors. They should be safely back in Sakara in a few days.”
Lyall fancied he could sense the tension easing in her voice. “I don’t know how to thank you. But…what about you and the others?
“Boxx is essential to Annata’s plan and it will only deal with Keris, so she has to come. Besides, I suspect that there’s nowhere in all of Kelanni that would be safe for her now. As for me–well I have my own reasons for doing this. Our method of traversing the Barrier is a good one–even Keris thinks it has a chance of success, and she is a born sceptic.”
“What does Shann think?”
“I haven’t told her the details, although it’s partly based on her idea. I didn’t want to worry her unduly. In any case, by the time we enter the Barrier, she will be on her way back to Sakara with the others.
“Remember, Oliah, if you don’t hear anything after we have crossed over, it doesn’t necessarily mean that there is anything wrong. It’s quite possible that the Ring may not work from the other side. These are untested–”
A creak on the deck timbers behind him. Lyall tore the Ring from his finger and stuffed it into a pocket self-consciously. He turned to see Patris. How long have you been standing there?
“Who were you talking to?” Patris asked.
Lyall looked around; then smiled disarmingly. “No-one here but me.”
~
Shann found life at sea exhilarating. She revelled in the rhythmic rise and fall of the waves, the smell of the sea in her nostrils, the cries of the birds that wheeled overhead, seeking out scraps of food. She liked nothing better than to climb up to the tiny crow’s nest and view the ocean from far above. Whitecaps stretched to the far horizon on every side, so that it was easy to convince oneself that their little ship was the only thing left in the entire world.
She was sitting in her basket shaped perch atop the mast, when she saw it. A thin brown line between
the blue-green sea and the blue and pink sky. She hollered down to the deck below. “Land–I see land.” Patris and Lyall were the only ones on deck. They both turned their faces up to her. She pointed towards the southeast. “There.”
She hopped out of the crow’s nest and scurried down the rigging to join the other two. They were already at the gunwale, looking out at the direction she had indicated. Shann took a place beside Lyall. The brown line was a little less distinct from this vantage point, but was still visible. “What is it?” she asked.
“The Isle of Panna,” Patris announced.
Panna…Panna…that name rang a bell somehow–from the tale Alondo had told about Captain Arval. “That was where Arval went to tame the three giant perridons,” she recalled.
Patris chuckled. “You’re a fan of the Arval stories, I see.”
Lyall’s sharp glance reminded her that she shouldn’t give too much away. “Not really,” she said. “But I know someone who is.”
Patris lifted his head, sensing a change in the wind. He strode across the deck to the pillar which rose from the afterdeck and checked the binnacle into which the directional lodestone device was set. “I take it our course is still due east?” he called.
“Yes, if you please,” Lyall said.
“Then I will need to adjust our heading.” Patris began busying himself with the ship’s tackle.
Shann looked up at Lyall “Maybe we should divert there and search for a couple of perridons?”
Lyall was still gazing at the island in the distance. “Don’t worry, Shann. We will have our own ‘birds’ when the time comes.”
Shann was about to ask for an explanation, when Patris yelled, “Hey ‘first mate,’ how about some help over here? Jump to it.”
Soon Shann was lost in the minutiae of guiding their tiny vessel and Lyall’s strange comment lay forgotten–lost in the vast emptiness of the Aronak Sea.
~
It was late in the morning of the third day when they first spotted the Barrier. At first it was nothing more than a lowering bank of angry clouds on the distant horizon. Slowly, it grew, occupying more and more of the eastern sky, dark and forbidding. Soon the wind started to pick up, causing the canvass to flap and buffeting the sides of their tiny vessel.
Lyall finished tying off a bowline and looked around the tiny vessel. Alondo and Boxx were at the ship’s forward rail. Alondo was transfixed by the distant storms. He had finally emerged from the stern castle that morning, seeming to have found his sea legs at last, although he still looked a little pale. The rail was a little high for Boxx, who kept jumping up like a small child to get a view of the storm front. Keris was also above deck. She was seated on a crate on the afterdeck–off by herself as usual, checking her equipment. It appeared that she and Shann had not spoken since their conversation that first night at sea. Then the woman had seemed fragile. Vulnerable. Willing to talk. Now her inner strength had returned, and the shutters had gone up once more.
Lyall shook his head. Perhaps in the end it didn’t matter. Soon they would be parting, perhaps forever: Shann sailing back to Sakara with Patris and Alondo; Keris accompanying him and Boxx towards–what? As the Great Barrier of Storms loomed ever closer, Lyall felt an odd sense of calm. If this was to be the end–the culmination of his life–then it seemed to him that it was a good one. It was perhaps fitting that the road from Persillan should end with him finally joining those who had died in a desperate effort to end tyranny. On the other hand, if they should by some miracle make it to the other side to continue the struggle, then maybe he could finally find some justification for his having survived, when so many had not. Perhaps he might even discover finally what had happened to Aune.
He heard a voice calling his name–intruding into his private thoughts. Patris was standing before him. The man’s lean face was etched with worry and he ran a hand through his hair as it was blown about by the gathering wind. “We have to change course. Now.”
Lyall steeled himself. Time for Patris and the others to leave. As he opened his mouth, he was cut off by a cry from behind him. “A ship.”
Lyall turned to see Keris on the afterdeck, pointing astern. He hurried across the deck and up the ladder, with Patris just behind him.
As they joined her, Keris pointed again urgently. There was no mistaking it. They were being pursued by a square rigged ship, perhaps three times the size of theirs. Already it was looming large on the horizon. With their attention focussed on the Great Barrier, they had failed to notice the larger vessel as it crept up on them. Lyall leaned over the stern rail, straining his eyes for a better view. His heart sank. Emblazoned on the foresail, Lyall could clearly see the three interlocking circles with the symbol of the flame riding high above them. The Three and the One.
The Keltar had found them.
<><><><><>
Chapter 31
“Can we outrun them?” Lyall projected his voice at Patris, as the swirling wind tried to snatch it away.
Patris shouted back at him. “Can a single masted cog with a bilge keel outrun a three masted carrack in full sail? Not likely.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” Lyall tried not to sound desperate.
“Perhaps we might–”
A distant thud. A whooshing sound. The water just off the stern exploded, drenching the three of them.
“Lodestone cannon,” Patris yelled.
Shann’s mouth was open. Seawater ran down her face. “What?”
“Lodestone cannon,” Lyall said. “It uses a shaped charge, a bit similar to a grenade–Patris.”
“Yes, yes. I’ll try and run her as close to the Barrier as possible and track the storm front. It’s risky and she’ll be like a gudrun beast to handle, but the Prophet’s ship will encounter the same problems. We’ll see if her master has the guts to brave the storms. At the very least, it may buy us some time.”
Another dull concussion sounded from the oncoming vessel. Seawater burst over the Reach’s larboard rail.
“They have our range,” Patris bellowed. “Quickly.”
The three of them slid down the ladder and sprinted over the deck to where Alondo and Boxx were waiting.
“What’s going on?” Alondo cried in alarm.
Lyall joined Patris and Shann as they fought to bring every scrap of canvass to bear to the wind. “A Prophet’s ship is attacking us.” He saw with dismay the frightened look on his friend’s face. There was no way to lower the launch under these conditions.
A third boom sounded from the chasing ship. Lyall ducked down instinctively. Hot metal impacted the deck in a staccato rattle. When the sound died, Lyall looked up to see that their sail was peppered with several holes.
“Chain shot,” Patris hollered. “They’re not trying to sink us–they’re trying to cripple us.”
Before them, the Great Barrier roiled like nest of giant vipers. As the Reach heeled over in the gale, Patris sprinted to the rudder. Their ship turned to starboard and began to run before the storm’s leading edge. Lyall and Shann trimmed the sail and fought to keep her course straight. Rain, now mixed in with the wind, lashed their faces as they worked. Lyall kept glancing aft. There was no doubt about it–in spite of their best efforts, the carrack was gaining on them, the symbol of the Prophet now clearly visible through the smoke rising from its forward mounted cannon.
Another round of chain shot tore into the rigging. One linked pair of half balls narrowly missed Shann. If we carry on like this, we’ll be shot to pieces. The next volley reduced the canvass to tatters. The remnants of their once proud sail hung uselessly from the crosstrees. The deck was littered with splintered wood, tangled cordage and spent shot. The launch had a gaping hole in its side. Miraculously, no-one appeared to be injured. Patris was advancing toward him. Lyall made his decision. “Patris, strike what’s left of the sail.”
“Do you want me to signal our surrender?”
“Absolutely not,” Lyall replied. “We’re going through.”
&nb
sp; ~
“What do you mean, ‘going through’?” Patris demanded.
“I mean,” Lyall met his eyes levelly, “we are going to cross the Barrier.”
Rain had plastered Patris’ shoulder length black hair to his head and was running down his olive face. His tail swished from side to side. “You can’t be serious. It would be suicide. We don’t even have a sail left to speak of.”
“We won’t need a sail.”
Shann was standing beside Patris. He turned to the girl. “What’s he talking about?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know,” Shann confessed.
Keris, Alondo and Boxx had all converged to listen to the exchange taking place on the cluttered deck. Lyall fixed Shann with his intense blue eyes. “Do you remember that first morning back at the Calandra? It was you who came up with the idea of using lodestone.”
“But Keris said–you agreed that it wouldn’t work,” Shann said.
“The method wouldn’t work, but only because we couldn’t secure a sufficient lodestone mass to push the vessel. But the idea–the idea is sound. When Alondo told how Captain Arval supposedly used flying perridons to pull his ship through the Barrier it got me to thinking. What if we were to install lodestone into the deck and then leap off while tethered to ropes? Maybe we could pull the ship in just the same way.”
Wind gusted through the ragged remains of the sail, flapping like a round of applause. Shann put a hand to her head. “But…that wouldn’t work either. If…if I were to push off from the ship, then the forward pressure from the lodestone in the deck would be matched by the backward pressure from the lodestone layer of my cloak. It…would be just as if I were to attach a line to the deck and pull on it–my pulling forward on the rope would be countered by my pushing backward with my feet on the deck. The ship wouldn’t move.”
The Lodestone Trilogy (Limited Edition) (The Lodestone Series) Page 33
