"Aurлnen!" Alec grabbed Biny's arm and pointed toward the ship. "Are there any Aurлnfaie there? Do you know what they look like?"
"Nah, that's a Skalan ship. The Aurлnfaie don't come up here. Ships like that one trade in Viresse and bring the cargo-horses, jewelry, glass, and the like-back to the Three Lands to sell for theirselves."
Viresse. Seregil had once mentioned that only one port in Aurлnen was open to foreigners.
"Horses like them are only for the nobles and the rich," Biny went on. "I heard once that the Queen herself wouldn't never ride no other kind in battle, nor the Princess Royal, neither. And her the head of all the cavalry in Skala."
The stallion Alec had admired came near and he couldn't resist reaching out to it. To his delight, the beast pushed its slim head against his hand and nickered contentedly as he stroked its velvety nose and forelock. Lost as he was in admiration of the horse, it wasn't until a gloved hand reached out to stroke the stallion's neck that he noticed Biny and the rest of the crowd had melted back. Turning, he found himself face-to-face with a young woman as exotic as the horse itself.
Dark chestnut hair, drawn back from a sharp widow's peak, hung in a thick braid down the back of her mud-spattered green cloak. A few strands of it had escaped to frame her heart-shaped face in soft, curling wisps. As she turned to Alec, frozen in awe beside her, he saw the startling blue of her eyes, the flush of healthy color in her cheeks. For a moment his only thought was that here stood the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. And an extraordinary one at that, for instead of a gown she wore close-fitting doeskin breeches beneath a green tabard edged in white. The front of the tabard was richly embroidered with the emblem of a pair of crossed sabers supporting a crown.
A heavy silver gorget at her throat flashed in the sunlight, and a long sword hung from a military baldric slung across her chest.
"He's a beauty, isn't he?" she remarked.
"Uh, yes." Alec hastily turned his gaze back to the horse.
"Were you thinking of buying him?" she asked as the horse leaned over the rope to rub his chin on Alec's shoulder. "He's certainly taken to you."
"No! Oh, no-no, I was just looking." Alec stepped back acutely aware of how filthy and worn his own clothing was. "I just never saw Aurлnfaie horses before."
Her sudden smile made her look girlish in spite of the sword. "I spotted him right off, but I didn't want to buy him away from you if you'd already made up your mind." Stroking the horse's nose, she spoke softly to it. "What do you say, my fine fellow? Shall I take you home?"
As if in answer, the stallion snorted and pushed his head against her hand.
"I guess that settles it," said Alec, pleased that his favorite should get such a fine mistress.
"I'd say so," she agreed. The horse dealer had been hovering nearby and at her gesture came over to them, bowing deeply. "Your horses are as fine as ever, Master Roakas. This gentleman and I have decided that I should take the black with white. What are you asking?"
"For you, Commander, two hundred gold sesters."
"Fair enough. Captain Myrhini has the purse."
"Many thanks, Commander. Will that be all this time?"
"No, I still have to pick out a few for the Guard, but I wanted to grab this one before someone else did.
Would you ask one of my escort to saddle him for me?" Turning back to Alec, she smiled again.
"Thanks for your help. You must tell me your name."
"Aren Silverleaf."
Another soldier in green and white led the saddled stallion back. Swinging lightly up, she reached into the wallet at her belt.
"Silverleaf, is it? Well, good luck to you, Aren Silverleaf." She tossed him a coin that glittered yellow as it spun through the air. He caught it deftly, hardly taking his eyes from her to do so.
"Drink my health. It'll bring me luck."
"I will, thanks," Alec called after her as she rode away. Turning quickly to the soldier, he asked, "She's beautiful! Who is she?"
"You didn't know?" the man exclaimed, looking him up and down. "That was Princess Klia, youngest daughter of the Queen. Quite a day for you, eh boy?"
The crowd surged forward to the corral again and several strangers clapped Alec on the back, envying him his brush with royalty.
Biny elbowed his way through the press. "What's that she tossed you?"
Alec held up the gold coin. Smaller than his Skalan silver piece, it was stamped on one side with the same design of crescent moon and flame and on the reverse with the profile of a man.
"A half sester? You could drink her health for a couple of days on that!" Biny gave him a playful jab in the ribs.
"A princess!" Alec marveled, shaking his head.
"Oh, we see her all the time up here. She's second in command of the Queen's Horse Guard now, under her brother, and has quite an eye for the beasts. Come on, they've started loading already. We'd better start back."
With their own cargo dispatched, Talrien's crew was now stowing slender clay wine jars below deck. After these came crates of chickens that Talrien ordered lashed down amidships on deck. The rest of their voyage would be enlivened by the cackling and crowing of the birds, as well as their stink and the clouds of feathers they shed.
By late morning everything was secured and they sailed out to join the other vessels waiting to enter the Canal; ships were carefully spaced out to avoid any mishaps that might block the narrow channel.
Soon after they dropped anchor, a skiff sailed up to them and a stout little man in a greasy slouch hat climbed aboard. Talrien spoke briefly with the harbor master and paid out the tariffs for anchorage and
passage. When he'd gone, Talrien waved Alec over.
"One-hour wait," he said. "Tell Sedrish to get a meal up, will you?"
Alec relayed the message, then took hot water and some broth down to Seregil. By the time he came up again, several of the ships ahead of them had passed into the Canal's dark opening. A bright mirror flash came from the heights near the top of the Astellus column and the stout galley moored next to them hauled anchor, unfurled a single sail, and glided off into the dark cleft.
At last the lookout called down, "There's our signal, Captain!"
"That's it, men!" Talrien shouted. "Break out the oars and stand to your locks."
While the anchor was being raised, several of the sailors set up torches fore and aft. Others pulled back a section of the deck and brought out the long oars stored there. Each oar was passed through a round, rope-padded lock in the ship's rail, twenty to a side. At the captain's signal, the mate climbed up on a hatch and began to sing.
Picking up the rhythm he set, the oarsmen pulled in practiced unison and the ship slid smoothly forward over the calm face of the bay. Captain Talrien stood at the tiller, steering her into the echoing dimness beyond the pillars.
The sun had already passed noon, and little sunlight penetrated far into the chasm. It was colder inside and smelled of salt-drenched stone. Alec was standing with Sedrish when he happened to look up.
"Are those stars?" he asked in amazement. The narrow strip of sky was pricked with faint points of light.
"It's the high walls, shutting out the sun. I fell down a well when I was a lad and it was just the same. About the only time there's much light in here is at high noon."
Rough stone towered overhead on either side, seeming to bear down over the vessel. Small freshets of water flowed down here and there, tumbling off the uneven rock face. In places, the surface of it gave back a glassy reflection that puzzled Alec.
"That's from the magicking," Sedrish explained. "In places it's shiny smooth like that; others, like over there, the rock just dripped and ran like wax down the side of a candle. I wouldn't have liked to been in here when them wizards was blasting away, I can tell you!"
Their passage was a quiet affair. The narrow space around them gave back every whisper and splash and the effect seemed to subdue even Biny. When the lookout at last shouted, "Half way sighted, Capta
in," his voice reverberated in a succession of ghostly echoes up and down the canal.
Alec was wondering how on earth anyone could tell distance in such a place when he caught sight of something white against the right wall up ahead. As they drew nearer, he could see that it was a huge statue of polished marble standing in a shallow niche carved into the wall. The figure glowed like a pale lantern in the dimness.
"Who's that?" Alec asked.
"Queen Tamir the Second." Sedrich touched a hand respectfully to his forelock as they passed.
"Skala's had good queens and bad, but old Tamir was one of the best. Even the balladeers can't improve much on the life she led."
Alec squinted through the gloom as they passed the statue. The sculptor had visualized his subject striding into the wind; her long hair streamed behind her, and the robes she wore were molded to the gracious curves of her form. Much of her left side was covered by an oval shield and in her right hand she raised a sword as if saluting the passing vessels. Her face was neither exceedingly beautiful nor terribly plain, but her proud stance and fierce expression spoke across the centuries.
"After the Plenimarans destroyed the old eastern capital of Ero, she just up and moved the survivors across to the other side and had this Canal cut through," Sedrish went on, lighting his pipe from a lantern. "That must be better than six hundred years ago now. Aye, there was no stopping her, they say. She was raised as a boy up in the mountains because her uncle had seized the throne. No good come of that, of course; that's what got Ero destroyed. When he was killed in battle, this nephew of his steps forward and says, "By your leave, I'm a girl."
Her uncle had murdered just about everyone else of the blood, so they crowned her on the spot.
During her reign she beat back the Plenimarans, was lost at sea during a battle, then turned up a year later and took back the throne and ruled 'til she was an old woman. Quite a character, she was. Queen Idrilain's said to be a good deal like her."
As they sailed out into Osiat waters at the western end of the Canal, Alec craned his neck to see the carved tops of the pillars flanking this entrance. He recognized the representation of Dalna; a sheaf of grain bound with a serpent. The other, a coiled dragon crowned with a crescent moon, must be that of Illior.
The Grampus turned south down the coast with a good following wind.
The winter sea shone like polished steel in the late-afternoon sunlight.
Rocky, steep-sided islands of all sizes punctuated the coastline, rising out of the water like ruined fortresses. Some were overgrown with copses of dark fir or oak; those with any sort of harbor were inhabited by colonies of fishermen. A few trading ships were still plying this route and Talrien hailed back and forth with them using a speaking trumpet.
The Osiat was alive with more than sea traders.
Alec soon spotted his first school of porpoise.
Leaning over the rail, he watched dozens of them leap and sport alongside the ship, their dark backs arching through the waves as they escorted the ship for several miles. Soon after, he saw another school leaping in flight before the dire form of the ship's namesake, a grampus. Though not large as whales go, it looked positively enormous to Alec. The thought of such monsters swimming about under their very keel left him with a decidedly uneasy feeling.
The western shore of Skala presented a rugged face. The harsh granite bones of the country lay exposed at the coastline and again in the peaks of its mountainous spine. Between these two stony extremes lay fertile terraces and valleys, the forests and harbors where the Skalan people had found purchase
centuries before. Above the surf-scoured ledges of the shore, the higher ground sloped back from the sea in a series of ascending undulations to meet the inland mountains.
Looking shoreward, Alec could make out wagons and riders moving along a coastal highroad.
A company of horsemen gave off glints of metal through the cloud of dust that half obscured their numbers.
"That there's the Queen's Highroad," Biny informed him. "It runs all 'round the peninsula, then up the isthmus and clear to Wyvern Dug."
That evening they put in at a little harbor to unload a shipment of wine and some of the poultry crates, taking on a consignment of copper bars in exchange.
When the hold was quiet again, Alec settled down next to Seregil, hoping to get a little more broth into him. But after a few spoonfuls he choked and Alec gave up. Seregil's breathing was harsher now, rattling in his throat as his chest slowly rose and fell. As he listened, Alec felt despair crystallizing into a hard lump in his throat. Unable to bear it any longer, he dug down into Seregil's battered pack and found the knotted scarf containing the jewelry. Stuffing it into his tunic, he hurried above in search of the captain and Sedrish.
"You've got to look at him," he told them, trying to keep his voice from wavering. "I don't think he'll make it at this rate."
In the hold Sedrish bent over Seregil's still form, then shook his head. "The boy's right, Captain. The man's sinking."
Talrien felt Seregil's pulse, then sat down on a barrel frowning. "Even if we make straight for the city, passing all ports of call, I don't know that it will be soon enough."
"But you could do that?" Alec asked.
Meeting Alec's bleak, determined gaze, Talrien nodded. "I'm master of this ship. I say when she sails and where. It won't do my business any good to come in a week late—"
"If it's money, then maybe this will help." Alec pulled the handkerchief from his tunic and handed it to him.
Opening it, Talrien found the heavy gold chain, earrings, and the gold half sester Klia had given Alec.
"I wasn't supposed to sell those things—he didn't want me to." Alec gestured anxiously in Seregil's direction. "If it's not enough, I think he can more than repay you once we reach the city."
Talrien retied the cloth and handed it back.
"I'll have you in Rhнminee by noon tomorrow. We can talk about price later on. Sedrish, fetch this boy some ale."
When they'd gone, Alec lay down next to Seregil and pulled both their cloaks over them, hoping to lend the sick man some of his warmth.
Seregil's skin was moist and cold, his eyes deeply sunken beneath braised-looking lids. For an instant Alec thought he saw a faint expression of pain across his features.
With tears stinging behind his own eyes, Alec grasped one cold hand and whispered, "Don't let go! We're too close now, don't let go."
Again he thought he caught the faintest flicker of emotion in that still face. Probably it was only a trick of the light.
— the plain again. Unchanging emptiness and moaning wind. Unchanging emptiness and moaningwind.
Ah, it was all too maddening! He wanted to curse, yell, kick, strike out. All he could do was spinaround and around like an idiot, sweeping the horizon for some sign. But in the midst of his fury he caught sight of a dark figure in the distance. The dark stalker, his final adversary in life, had it followed him even here?
But no, even across the gulf of distance that separated them he could make out the figure of a man, the hood of his dark cloak drawn back to reveal the pale oval of a face. And the man was calling to him.
No, singing!
He could not catch the words but the melody was so lovely, so filled with welcome and promise, that tears sprang to his eyes. How far? How long to reach him? Impossible to judge distance in this cursed barren place, but no matter. He would run to him, for he suddenly felt wondrously light as he skimmed over the dead grass and stones. He was running-no, he was flying! The feeling of release, of joyous movement was dizzying. The ground beneath him blurred and the figure ahead waited with open arms to receive him. Too soon and not soon enough he reached him, was caught by him and held above the ground, for suddenly he had form again, as the man stopped his song and smiled kindly upon him. And such a face! It was as beautiful and serene as a god's. The skin had the color and sheen of purest gold and gathered in supple folds at the corners of his eyes and mouth as he smile
d. One eye was covered with a patch, but even this failed to mar the perfection of those features. The other eye, deep and richly blue as a sapphire or a summer sky, gazed at him with depthless love.
"You have come at last, my wounded one."
The voice held the very embodiment of all the love and tenderness he had ever hoped to find inhis short, violent life.
"Help me, take me from this place!" he begged, grasping at the being's arms, cold and rigid asstone beneath his hands.
"Of course," answered the god, for surely that must be what he was—Bilairy or Illior, come torescue him from this terrible place.
Gathering him close, the god cradled him like a child against his chest, stroking him with hiscold, gentle hand.
"We will pass through the gates and over the sea together, you and I. Give to me the gift you have brought and we shall go at once."
"Gift? But I brought no gift," he stammered, his heart suddenly hammering like a sharp, tiny fist in his chest.
"But you did." The god's hand stroked his head, his shoulder, opened his shirt to lay bare his chest, which ached with the thundering of his pulse. "There, you see? his The sickly odor rose in his nostrils again as a searing shaft of pain impaled him. Looking down, he saw the small wound that gaped just over his heart; from it, as if from a bloody socket, peered an eye as wonderfully blue as that of the god. A perfect match. And suddenly he was struggling in vain against the iron grip that held him as the golden-skinned god reached to reclaim it—
The Grampus pounded south through the night. Coming on deck just after dawn, Alec saw towering grey cliffs off the port bow and a cluster of islands lying close to shore ahead of them.
"Rhнminee harbor, just inside those islands," Talrien shouted over the wind.
Rhнminee was the largest of the western ports, and the most heavily fortified. A series of long granite moles had been constructed between three smaller islands that ranged across the harbor mouth, leaving two openings to allow for the passage of friendly vessels. As the Grampus passed through one of these sea gates, Alec saw that the broad causeways bristled with catapults and ballistas. A similar arrangement of moles joined two smaller islands within the harbor itself, dividing it into inner and outer zones like the bailey of a keep.
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