by Adele Abbot
Their descent was by means of an ancient trail, once the final stage of an ages-old trade route. At some time in the long ago past, steps had been cut into the granite, what had once been a huge and imposing stairway was now a worn and crumbling path overgrown with slippery mosses and algae nurtured by the ever present vapor from the plunging water. There were signs that handrails had once been fastened into the rock along the edges of the steps but these had long since collapsed and rotted away to stumps.
Everywhere was wet and slippery and treacherous, slick with slime and decaying matter. The shadow of the continental massif stretched out several leagues across the marshlands towards the river, the steps had been dark and gloomy since the world had stopped turning. Rest stops were out of the question, the continual rain drove them on to the finish. It seemed like climbing down the edge of the world—three hours to descend to the confusion of fallen boulders and unsteady slopes of scree which covered the lowest levels. Aching and more exhausted than any of them could have believed possible, they negotiated the final obstacles and made a rough and ready camp at the very edge of the Long River flood plain.
Here, on the banks of one of the many streams which took the falling waters to the Long River, the air was filled with water droplets and vapor. It was an uncomfortable place to be for long. Wood would not burn without the continual urge of magical power to keep the chemical processes going, clothing was never dry, fish and larvae from the nearby pools tasted too foul to eat.
“I’m still tired,” said Ponderos after half an old day. “But I cannot sleep, the food is unappetizing, I feel as though I’m rotting from the feet up. I believe we should move on as soon as possible; get out of this constant rain.”
“Here,” said Calistrope to Roli, “is a man who speaks in euphemisms. Frogs croak without cease, no one can sit down without getting one’s bottom wet, fish taste like mud and the hornets are as big as my thumb and the most vicious I have come across—thank the fates nobody thought to improve their gene base.”
“Someone improved the wasps,” Roli pointed out.
“Just so, perhaps there are hornets as big as me. Let us go before they come to torment us.”
They went. Striding out across the soggy marshland, jumping sluggish streams, wading through turbid ponds and black mudflats, testing the perfidious surface for quicksand beneath its emerald covering of moss and weed.
The companions reached the bank of the Long River, it had taken them more than a day to cross what, on Calistrope’s map, were a few finely drawn flood lines. They made a more agreeable camp at the side of a rare shingle beach beyond the reach of the continental shadow. Here, out in the sunshine at last, they could wait days or weeks for one of the occasional trading flotillas which were the only means of bypassing the marsh and swamp flanking the Long River’s course all the way to the sea.
Time passed and the three relaxed while keeping watch up river. They talked of this and that; about the journey, the way magic faded in and out, what might be at Schune.
“What is magic?” asked Roli as though Calistrope and he had never discussed the matter before.
“I’ve told you—the remnants of old… Ah,” Calistrope realized the question was different. “A sort of broadcast power,” he said. “Those with the proper training can trap it and make use of it. It can be channeled into pure energy, or physical movement, action at a distance… This is not what you asked, is it?”
Roli shook his head.
“The answer then, is that I don’t know. Perhaps I used to but not anymore.”
“The ether that you talk about, what is that?”
Calistrope sat and thought about the question. “The ether is the interface between reality and nothingness,” he said slowly. “At this level, the smallest particles of materiality spring spontaneously into being then, more often than not, they vanish again. The power we call magic seems to be an imbalance between certain of the most minor particles of reality.”
“And human beings alone can extract this power?”
“As far as is known. Ponderos? Do you know more than this?”
Ponderos shook his head. “I have not heard of another creature that can do this.”
“Perhaps people are magical,” Roli suggested. “Perhaps all life is magical by nature.”
Calistrope shrugged. “Perhaps so.” And smiled at Roli’s enthusiasm.
Three days and a part of a fourth passed by. Ponderos, whose eyes were the keenest and who watched upriver with a set of magnifying lenses noted a speck on the surface of the brown and turgid water. He waited an hour and looked again and nodded. “A raft,” he told the others. He looked again. “And another and more. There are houses on each one.”
The caravan numbered seventeen rafts. Most were in line astern although there were also two pairs where the craft were secured side by side. More hours passed by slowly and eventually the leading raft came abreast of their camp. Fifty ells long with two huts on it and a long pile of boxes and rolled-up skins secured between them.
Calistrope signaled with a mirror and a skiff was detached from a half dozen along the side of the raft and rowed towards them.
There were two men in the boat, one manning the oars and another dressed rather grandly in dark maroon with gold frogging to the sleeves and hip-high water boots of white and grey lizard skin. This second individual stood in the stern in a studied pose, peering ahead over the top of the man who rowed the craft.
“I am the caravan’s Purser,” he said, introducing himself. “You wish for transportation?” he asked. “To what destination?”
Calistrope explained their ultimate destination.
“Shune,” he nodded. “You will have to go to Jesm and arrange passage there to cross the delta.” The travelers were appalled at the price he stipulated.
Calistrope shook his head. “We don’t have that much copper.
The Purser shrugged and ordered the oarsman to pull away.
“Wait,” said Ponderos. “Surely there is work to be done on one of those rafts. We are strong, resourceful. Can we not work our passage?”
“There is always the possibility,” agreed the Purser readily. “Food and passage. No more. Let me think,” he frowned for a moment. “We have seven prisoners on board, some of them are desperate men and only two guards to spare if river pirates inflict themselves upon us. I see you wear swords—even the boy.”
Calistrope nodded. “We have traveled a hundred leagues and used them well and truly thus far.”
“But have you killed men? Hmm?” asked the other. “One man’s life is worth a dozen snapdragons.”
“What you say is true but we, too, are desperate men. Be they escapees or pirates, our blades will carve one as well as the other.”
The Purser nodded and made a show of looking them over. “Very good,” he decided. “Step aboard and lively. Every instant, our raft drifts further away.”
They scrambled on board and the oarsman leaned into his oars, building up his speed to overtake the rafts which had been sliding by while they talked.
“I will take you to see Karkadee who is master of the caravan. He it is who must decide whether you stay or must swim for the shore.”
Calistrope raised his eyebrows and the others also expressed shock and surprise.
“I shall recommend you to him. Master Karkadee has seventeen rafts under his authority and three hundred men and women but Karkadee rarely goes against my advice.”
The oarsman coughed and spat into the river’s muddy water.
“You were about to say something?” The Purser asked him.
“I?” Said the oarsman. “I have work to do with these oars. I have no breath to spare for conversations.”
“Hmm,” said the Purser.
“Even if I ventured an opinion, who is there would take note?”
The oarsman’s question went unanswered and after a little while, he decided the situation should be remedied.
These three fine gentlemen? They
will have nothing to say on any matter that I might speak of,” he sucked in his lips and bent to his oars for four, five strokes. “And you Rem Alcudea? It is well known that…”He was cut short.
“Kindly do not address me by name when either of us is on duty. It is proper to use my rank.” The Purser, stood in the stern, tiller in hand and stared with stiff formality over the head of the oarsman.
A further five or six strokes sent them skimming over the water. “The Purser,” Rem began again with emphasis and sucked his teeth for a few seconds. “The Purser and I do not converse together and if we did, well, my advice would be ignored. If we were the last two left unfrozen at the End, he would not take my advice. No.” The oarsman shook his head and pulled strongly again. “I would not waste my breath.”
“Quite so,” agreed the Purser. “Best to save all the breath you have to pull with.”
“I will.”
“Hmm.”
Their introduction to Karkadee, Master of the caravan and de-facto commander of every soul on board, was an anticlimax after meeting his Purser. Karkadee was short and stout and nondescript where Alcudea was tall and elegantly dressed; Karkadee was worn down with weighty matters of polity while Alcudea’s mind was free to concentrate on the only conceivable item of interest—Rem Alcudea.
The Purser bent to speak briefly in the Master’s ear. Karkadee nodded and turned back to the instruments before him.
The Purser gestured them away from Karkadee’s presence and took them aft where he had words with another officer.
“The carcery?” he inquired, raising his eyebrows.
“Just so,” Alcudea confirmed.
The Purser had brought them to the leading raft which, despite its cargo, was master Karkadee’s command and navigation post. From here, the master calculated the position of the ever-shifting deep-water channel. Behind, the other rafts followed, keeping to the same course and speed.
The Purser left them with the officer.
“Minallo,” he introduced himself. “By chance I had come to see the victualler and I find that my command is increased by three.”
Minallo pointed to a small boat made fast to the starboard quarter. “We shall be turning a point or two to westward very shortly. Wait by the skiff there until I have seen the victualler once again.”
The officer left them and was back again a few minutes later. “Right, gentlemen. Into the skiff with you and we will fall back to your new home.”
Once into the skiff. Minallo, undogged a winch; the rope from the winch was fastened to a mooring post on the side of the raft. He let the winch unwind freely and they found themselves drifting back down the line of rafts until they came to the fifth in line. Here Minallo slowed the winch, stopped it and allowed the skiff to float sedately up to the side of the raft. The timbers below the deck level were laid with a space between every third and fourth stringer, making a sort of ladder. Following their new acquaintance, they climbed up the side to the deck which was an ell or so above them.
Here Minallo stopped them. “I am Minallo, first officer of the carcery.” Minallo made the boat fast. “As Karkadee is the absolute master of the caravan so am I the absolute ruler of this one raft—responsible only to the Master. Do I make myself clear?”
“Absolutely,” Calistrope nodded.
“Perfectly so,” said Ponderos.
Roli looked around the raft with interest.
“Young man.” Minallo looked pointedly at Roli. “Do you understand?”
“Oh yes Sir. I do,” Roli vigorously made amends.
“Very good. When I left here an hour ago, there were five of us here to guard seven prisoners. Now there is one of us to each prisoner and one to spare. Do you think the Purser has a plan which he has failed to mention to me?”
“The Purser mentioned river pirates,” Calistrope ventured. “He said that only two guards would be left if we were called upon to repel river pirates.”
“Well, that’s as true as may be.” Minallo wagged his head and blew out his cheeks. “But river pirates are a dying breed in these parts. I will tell you how it is.” And he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial rumble. “The more men and women Rem Alcudea commands, the better he seems when he applies for a new berth. It was I who controlled thirty and four under Master Felwith and a hundred and twenty when I sailed under Master Jalem.” And Master Karkadee was very impressed—as were we all.” Minallo waved his hands about. “Next time of course he will push out his chest and swagger, “three hundred men and women and a boy when I sailed with Master Karkadee’ but will he tell you fifty and more are make weights? Hmm?”
“It seems doubtful Sir. Is there no work for us then?”
“We have two river pirates incarcerated here and they are the whole population of such miscreants between Istanfa and Jesm. I will post double guards so there’s no question of escape. Neither for them nor for any of the others. Why should I worry so long as I am dealt my proper purse when the caravan breaks up? Come this way.”
There were indeed seven people in the carcery: a passenger who had been found rifling a fellow passenger’s strong box, a factor who had tried to sell the Purser a case of corked wine, a religious fanatic who had impugned the Pursers’ good name. These three were the three most ordinary.
Less commonplace were the two river pirates to which Minallo had referred. They had been caught during a raid on an earlier caravan and were now being transported to Jesm for sentence to be carried out.
There was a third man who made a point of speaking to no one; he was well-to-do—judging by his dress and his jewels—but whatever he was guilty of or suspected of doing, was a secret known to Mater Karkadee alone.
The seventh prisoner was the most unusual and as mysterious. A woman, wealthy according to Minallo, who had hoisted her strongbox and been rewarded for his trouble. She was also going to Jesm; in fact, she was being returned there by the man she had contracted to wed. Minallo hinted she had fallen short of expectation in some way though it was clear the officer added surmise to the few facts that were available.
Roli was taken into the power house and shown the engines. His job was to add water to the boiler and charcoal to the furnace when either was in danger of running low. Calistrope and Ponderos were added to the guard rota and paired with experienced men during the first few watches.
“There are three hundred people on the caravan,” Roli said to Calistrope as soon as he came off-duty.
“Yes. I remember Captain Minallo saying so.”
“Do you sense any magic?”
“Magic?” Calistrope tipped his head back and smelled the air. “No. A faint trace perhaps, no more than that. Unusable. Why do you ask?”
Roli shook his head. “A thought, nothing more.”
Ponderos also returned in an indignant frame of mind and determined to hold forth. “Do you know, Calistrope,” he said at once, “whatever that woman has done, it does not warrant her being treated in this manner.”
“What sort of treatment?” asked Calistrope.
“Transporting her like a criminal.”
“Well, that is what she is, I presume. Even so, her cell is twice or three times the size of the others, she has privacy, her food is prepared specially. She seems to be treated uncommonly well. Does she complain?”
“Not a word Calistrope. She is a model of self-restraint. But her imprisonment, Calistrope, it is degrading.”
“Her affianced husband has repudiated her, by all accounts. I suppose she must be returning home in disgrace.”
“Her husband is a fool. At the very least, he has overreacted at some imagined slight.”
“How do we know all this?”
Ponderos explained. He explained certain concepts of behavior in a civilized society. He broke his explanations down into details of conduct and the details of conduct into standards and expectations. It was all very clear.
Calistrope gathered that the woman was very beautiful. When he mentioned this as a possibility, P
onderos expounded on her beauty at even greater length.
Several watches went by, both men were paired with a variety of partners in the complicated roster devised by Minallo.
Ponderos divided his spare time between sitting outside the mysterious woman’s cell and wearying his friends with continuing acclamations of her beauty. On duty, Ponderos contrived to spend a substantial part of each watch in guarding the mysterious woman and eventually, she disclosed her name to him. She was called Shamaz, a fact which she had refrained from telling anyone else.
“You see, Calistrope,” he explained, “It shows how she is beginning to care for me. A great pity that Polymorph perished, its talents would have been useful. We have to think of some way of releasing her.”
“Well now; we, did you say?”
As much as any of the other guards, Calistrope was grateful for the respite from Ponderos’ paeans of praise granted by duty periods and like them, often reported early for work.
The prisoners’ accommodations were not large—except for those of the Lady Shamaz, who occupied a specially built enclosure with windows larger than the regulation slits and a private area for ablutions and sleeping. The other cells were strongly built of thick timber and free-standing—so they could be craned on and off whenever a prisoner had to be transshipped or put ashore.
The alleyways left between the cells were narrow and gloomy and it was these which had to be checked carefully for here, miscreants bent on freeing a prisoner or even meting out personal justice, would hide.
Calistrope began his first inspection and shortly was certain that he had heard a soft footfall from around a corner.
Calistrope armed himself with his sword and drew a long bladed knife which he held left-handed. He crept to the corner, listened, nodded. There it was again, a stealthy sound, a boot sole on the rough timber decking, furtive.
The Mage leapt around the corner, his weapons ready. A shadowy figure moved as he moved, they feinted, thrust. There was a clash of hardened glass, back and forth went the blades… two, three times. Both of them froze. A sword was touching Calistrope’s throat, pricking it; the most minute of movements would pierce an artery. Calistrope was most careful to make not the slightest movement.
