"Corvine—"
"Just—let me be angry. It's easier if I just let the feeling run its course. You didn't mean to almost die. Stupidly. Without us understanding what we are to each other."
"I have no intention of dying. Or letting you die."
"You almost killed me right there, you know."
"You'd be all right." Gideon hesitated a breath, before putting on a change of clothes and wringing out his wet shirt and breeches, holding them out an open porthole and letting the water drip.
"That's not for you to say. It's an odd enough life, the life of music, but when you add the magic of the bards...There are few who can understand, Gideon. Few who can share the life." She paused. "I was married once. Briefly."
Having nearly died, there was little that could have shocked Gideon then; but that did the trick.
"You've never mentioned it."
"I feared your reaction."
"I have no idea what my reaction is. Did he die? What happened?"
"He didn't die. He put me aside because I never got pregnant. As far as I know he's still in Old Sehir, with a wife who's obligingly providing new farm hands."
"What an idiot!"
She shrugged; but her gaze was hard. "What's done is done. But if I was to be a discarded woman, I thought, I might as well give up respectability entirely, and take up a new life in Cassomir."
"Why tell me this now?"
"I don't know. Except that death is all around, and I might never get to say it. And perhaps—just perhaps—you should know I'll likely never have children. Did you never wonder about that, when we behaved so, ah, ferociously in bed, years ago?"
"I confess it wasn't on my mind."
"Men."
"Yes, I suppose so. Forgive me."
"For this, yes. If you get yourself killed, no."
Then they were silent, as the river churned outside the portholes. There was too much they might say, too much they'd already said.
"It doesn't matter to me," he told her.
"That may be true. Now. But Later is a large, unknown country."
"When I reach Later, I'll be the same man who had to march through Now. So. You're right about death being near. So I ask you to share something else with me."
She stared. "We talked about this before. It's not that I don't want to, but it doesn't seem right, just here and now."
Gideon laughed. "Life is short. But that isn't what I meant. You're more skilled in magic than I. I've focused on spells that could help a performance, not on spells that could keep me alive. Will you teach me?"
"Oh."
"I can't always rely on having friends with good sense. Or friends with crossbows."
She nodded. "I'll teach you. As for the rest..."
"If it doesn't seem right, it doesn't seem right. I can wait."
"You may have become a trifle wiser. It is more serious now. You've changed."
He smirked. "Now I'm not a lost fish you can easily throw back?"
"That's a cold way to look at it."
"I apologize. Thanks to you I feel warm again."
"Let's talk spells."
They sat upon neighboring hammocks, and Corvine revealed how she'd been emulating Leothric's spell of sonic violence. Gradually, Gideon learned the trick too. It turned out it normally required a musical instrument to cast, but Leothric had managed with puppetry. Gideon guiltily admitted to himself that Leothric may have been cleverer than they ever gave him credit for.
Afterward, he was on deck practicing late at night, long after most of the crew had turned in, leaving a night's watch guiding Riposte in the half-moon's light. His shipmates' snickering assumptions as to his and Corvine's activities were thankfully done. Ozrif, perhaps partly out of mercy toward Gideon, deflected some of the ribbing by asking Corvine for help with the spell for summoning a messenger beast. Gideon was grateful. Although he didn't exactly mind having a romantic reputation, the jokes quickly wore thin.
He was considering different mnemonic devices for the spell, wondering what songs of violence might serve as his access point, when he saw something moving along the riverbank to the northeast.
He peered, and as clouds parted overhead, he sucked in his breath.
An insectile monster padded at the edge of the shore. Not on the landward edge, but upon the water itself. It put Gideon in mind of both a humanoid and a beetle, but its span was enough to match a great boar.
Something colder than the frosty air took hold, and his mind surveyed the magical formulae of the spell Corvine had taught, letting him shape sound to blast the entity out of the water...
He stopped. There'd been too much death, and he didn't truly know if the creature represented friend or foe—or simply a hallucination on his part.
"What are you?" he murmured.
As if in response to his words, the thing seemed to skitter into the undergrowth. However, the moon was at that moment obscured by clouds, so it was hard to be certain.
It occurred to him later that the entity, if it had truly existed, might have been outside the spell's range. Even so, it felt good to stand in the icy dark, knowing he had chosen mercy.
Even if it was the mercy of the mad.
∗ ∗ ∗
Riposte was perhaps a day or two from Bellis when it came upon a vessel drifting on the river. It was a keelboat bearing a checkerboard flag in red and blue, twin shining swords upon two of the blue diamonds.
"A Mendevian ship," said Sebastian. "Crusaders."
Hundreds of miles up the Sellen, Gideon recalled, after one passed the Verduran Forest and the blood-spattered land of Galt, leaving behind the lands of dwarves and elves, one at last came to the Lake of Mists and Veils, and on its shores, besieged Mendev. Since the death of the god Aroden and the calamities that followed, hordes of demons had invaded the world, and for now Mendev was their chief target. It took a steady stream of crusaders, recruited by many and varied goodly faiths, to keep Mendev alive. This vessel was a reminder that for all Gideon's preoccupation with matters of Taldor and Andoran, there was a wider world out there, with its own problems.
But it was more than that. The keelboat drifted, no sign of people on board, and no sign of any trouble. The day was cold but bright, and there was no fog, eldritch or natural.
"I don't like this," Sebastian said.
"Nor I," said Merrigail.
"I'm going to board her. Grizzendell, Tyndron, you're with me."
"Why would you take this risk, Sebastian?" asked Merrigail.
"Honest curiosity. This seems a problem of a different nature than those we've encountered thus far. It might be refreshing."
"Kester and I will join you."
"That hardly seems necessary."
She gripped his arm. "I insist."
When Sebastian was silent, staring at her hand, Gideon coughed and said, "I think a couple of us bards ought to come too."
"What is this, a session of the Senate?" Sebastian chuckled. "Very well, you and Ozrif will join us."
"Is there some reason the female bards are excluded?" Viridia asked.
Sebastian sighed. "Luck of the draw, Viridia. You still have a limp. Corvine's valuable but not truly under my command. And there's not much room in the dinghy."
Before long the boarding party ascended a weighted line thrown from the ship's boat. Riposte held off a respectable distance, crossbows and ballista ready.
The keelboat had a long open deck with a blocky two-level cabin sternward, and three pairs of oars in the bow. It could be operated by minimal crew and carry several passengers.
No such crew or passengers were apparent.
"Hello the ship!" called Sebastian. "We are of Taldor."
"And Andoran!" called Merrigail.
"And Katapesh!" said Ozrif. To the glares of the leaders, he said, "Well, one does retain a dash of pride—"
The cabin's lower door burst open.
The suddenness of the attack, and the ferocity of the attackers, left even the veterans o
f Riposte's journey flat-footed. Emaciated Mendevians scrambled onto the deck in torn rags of clothing, bloodstains upon their skin, screeching.
They were upon the stony-faced Kester before he could do more than swing his sword in that direction, and they overbore him, knocking him toward the water.
Merrigail was at his side immediately, but she was hard-pressed herself. The crazed Mendevians had swords and daggers of their own.
From several of the frothers, singing in perfect unison, came the eerie sound of a lullaby.
Moon and stars are gathered bright
At the coming of the night.
Woodland creatures rest their eyes
'Neath the glory of the skies.
Baby yawns and yearns to sleep
Like the beasts of forest deep.
Baby rest and sleep away
All the worries of the day.
Shiny dreams will visit soon
Gathered by the stars and moon.
The song was more unnerving than the screeches.
"Back!" Sebastian cried as if slapped, a cutlass out and swinging fast. Grizzendell was howling some sort of maniacal gnome war cry. Or perhaps just howling.
Gideon's own course seemed clear. He pulled out his harp and readied Leothric's spell, then dove into the midst of the madfolk and released the wave of sound.
Perhaps half of the enemy sank to their knees, hands over their ears.
The other half turned, looking ready to eat fresh bard.
It was enough to turn the tide, however, especially when Ozrif began incanting, blowing a blast of river sand upon the Mendevians. Four of them toppled over, asleep.
Ozrif grinned. "I've been studying magic, too, with Viridia..."
"Less gloating, more fighting!"
Gideon grappled with a Mendevian woman who tried to cut his throat with a dagger. He wrestled her against Kester, nearly toppling them all overboard. But now Kester had found his wind. With the flat of his sword, he knocked the Mendevian unconscious.
"Thanks," Gideon gasped, then looked up to find the battle won.
The party from Riposte busied themselves binding the Mendevians. Luckily, no one had been killed on either side, although Sebastian had taken a nasty cut on the arm, and two of the Mendevians had suffered similarly deep wounds.
There were ten prisoners, which surprised Gideon; in the rush they'd appeared more like twenty.
"They seemed like frothers, yet there's no fog."
"I agree," Merrigail said. She looked toward Sebastian, but he was peering into the river, preoccupied with his thoughts. Merrigail knelt beside the woman who'd tried to kill Gideon, and whose garb suggested she was captain. "Kester, bring water."
"As you wish, ma'am."
Merrigail splashed the captain's face with the water and said, "Captain! Captain! Give account of your ship!"
"I—I...what am I doing here?"
Sebastian came over and knelt beside her. "What's the last you remember?"
The Mendevian captain shook. "We were headed downriver to pick up more crusaders in Cassomir. The fog..."
"An unnatural fog?" Gideon said. "With tints of green?"
"Yes...we hid inside the cabin. Prayers...I have training as a priestess...but the fog got in eventually. There were fourteen of us...every so often we would...Don't want to think..."
"The fog is gone now."
"You're certain? I—I see it all the time...inside my eyes..."
"It's marked them," Ozrif said, and the juggler's usual jocularity was gone. "It still lives inside their minds."
"This shouldn't be," Sebastian said. "Even if someone intended it as a weapon, isn't this too much?" After a long look into the dark woods he added, "Nothing this hateful ought to exist."
"Perhaps the druids could help them," Merrigail said. "Some of us could steer the ship back to Arenway."
"The druids have little interest in us."
"The river fort, then. Your Guard will surely assist. I'll send a knight. Kester—"
"I'll go, ma'am," the knight said.
"You're certain? It may not be easy."
"I think it's for the best. Ma'am."
"One's not enough," Sebastian said. "I urge you to take at least two of your knights. I'll send two of the guards the fort loaned us..."
Ozrif tugged Gideon aside. "Gideon. I'll go too."
"What?"
"I'll need your help to cool Viridia's anger."
"But—Viridia—I thought—"
"Oh, I'm delighted to be her companion. But on the Isle we talked of many things. Neither of us wishes to be bound to the other. And the Isle fascinated me. I would welcome the chance to visit it again."
"I confess, Ozrif, I've never understood you and Viridia."
"No couple is truly explicable from the outside, friend. This much I've learned."
"It's not just that. Your business is your business." Gideon looked north, upriver. "But I feel unequal to what lies ahead."
Ozrif nodded. "Bellis is the site of your great nightmare." He looked around the keelboat. "Just as my great nightmare, my family's destruction by the Taldan navy, came aboard a ship. Perhaps that's why I can't abandon these people. There's a saying I heard from Headmaster Xeritian: Calm outside, storm inside; storm outside, calm inside. Sometimes we cannot find our inner strength without a challenge. Sometimes the lack of a challenge will drive us to madness."
"Like much of what Xeritian said, I don't understand. And I'm afraid I'm feeling storm outside, storm inside. Inadequate to the task at hand. I lack your calm competence."
"Well. There's an odd thing about juggling, from the juggler's perspective. What impresses the crowd may not be quite as impressive to the performer. To manipulate three flaming torches is indeed fine to watch, but it may not be as technically challenging as tossing six ordinary clubs. I wonder sometimes if the most proficient heroes of the art of living aren't in fact doing the equivalent of juggling a dozen prosaic objects."
Merrigail and Sebastian were now arguing about something, Gideon couldn't be sure what.
Ozrif went on, "As long as I've known you, you've been juggling many things."
"I'll go on doing so," Gideon said. "Our hometown priest of Erastil sometimes said what's demanded of us is not so much that we triumph but that we show up. Well, I can promise that much. I hope we'll meet again."
∗ ∗ ∗
In the end, Ozrif went with the sailors named Favian and Krypt, the Eagle Knights Kester and Windcroft, and a few of the River Guards loaned by the fort. Gideon was surprised Merrigail would let her second-in-command go, but Sebastian had urged her to send an even stronger force, and there was no chance she herself would leave Riposte.
I sensed her thoughts ...don't trust ...
No, a foolish stray notion. There was no sense mistrusting every female aboard. It made as much sense to mistrust Corvine, or Viridia.
Viridia, for her part, surprised Gideon. She was by no means pleased to see Ozrif go, but her reaction was much as Ozrif's. "If this is how he copes with his past, by saving a ship, when his family died on a ship...that's his business, and I hope it helps him. But if I never see him again, I'll kill him."
"I'm not certain that makes sense," Gideon said.
"There are ways."
Sebastian looked distant, watching the keelboat depart, and Ozrif waving.
"You all right?" Gideon asked.
"It's nothing. The lullaby the frothers sang...my mother used to sing it."
"It's an unusual tune. Elven? It must take you back."
"It does."
Into the silence that followed, Corvine said, "On to Bellis then?"
"To Bellis," Sebastian murmured. "With a depleted crew." More quietly he added, so only Gideon could hear, "Depleted because of my mistakes."
Together they watched the Mendevian ship depart.
Chapter Fifteen
Rhapsody in Mist
A sickle moon rose high as Riposte neared Bellis. The dark shapes of snow-co
vered trees rose all around like misshapen frost giants. Bellis's many beehives would be dormant in this cold.
Sebastian was about to drop anchor, for the bright moonlight of their early voyaging had gone, and he was reluctant to proceed in the dark. Then they saw light.
And wished they hadn't. A tangle of red blazes flared upriver; the clouds above that spot glowed a hazy orange.
"Damn it," Gideon muttered.
"What's happened?" Viridia asked.
"The fog?" Corvine said.
"Bellis is ablaze," Sebastian said.
"We must keep going and help them," Merrigail said.
Sebastian's voice was tense. "And if my ship hits a hazard?"
"A fire like that could leap the Sellen, and burn the forest on the other side. Do you not have an obligation under the Wildwood Treaty?"
"I honestly don't know. Even if I asked a druid, I don't think I'd know." Sebastian shook his head. "But there's something unarguable about you, Commander Hannison. If you insist, I'll take you there."
She hesitated. "Thank you, Captain Tambour."
"Don't thank me, Merrigail. Not for this. I don't know exactly what will happen, but I doubt you'll like it."
It was over an hour before they drew near the town. By then they were already hearing the screams.
As they approached the docks, they saw the town lit with fires in two dozen places, the fury of the blazes blurred and blotched from a thick foggy haze that hung everywhere. Shrieks and shouts and bellowed threats accompanied shadowy figures who darted here and there, never in sight for long. Gideon thought most of the figures looked human, but their aspect and energy recalled wild beasts. The wharf was abandoned.
"I think we'll learn little by landing," Sebastian said, with a hopeless note to his voice. "Best to stay offshore and wait for morning. By then the chaos may have ceased and we can question the inhabitants in safety."
"Safety!" said Merrigail. "Questioning! These are my people, Tambour. Even if you Taldans choose to lurk offshore, I swore an oath to help them. Take us to the docks, or we'll swim."
Sebastian smiled faintly. "I think your knights would find that difficult while wearing armor."
The Dagger of Trust Page 23
