by Angus Wells
“Do you of Cuan na’For deal in perhapses?” Tekkan retorted. “Or does reality have some place in your dealings? The reality of these events is that three Vanu folk lie dead. And that blame rests with Katya.”
Calandryll saw Bracht’s hand clasp the falchion’s hilt and stepped closer. Katya moved between the Kern and the helmsman.
“The blame is mine,” she said softly. “I accept it.”
“Better you listen to your own conscience than the persuasions of this warrior,” Tekkan advised coldly. “Do you heed him, we’ll likely reach Gessyth crewless.”
Bracht’s jaw tightened: Calandryll clasped his wrist. Tekkan saw the movement and smiled bitterly.
“Do you answer all argument with a blade?”
“I answer insults thus,” Bracht said.
“Bracht sought only to furnish us with more meat,” Katya said, urgently now. “Sufficient taken here negates the chance of further danger. I weighed that and chose to heed him. That decision was mine alone, and I grieve that it was wrong. But do not lay the blame on Bracht. Nor let this come between you.”
Tekkan studied her face for long moments, then ducked his head; a single, curt nod.
“So be it. May your conscience resolve the matter—but there will be no more forays save in numbers. Nor shall you three venture shoreward again.”
He turned then to Calandryll, the anger faded a little from his eyes, and said, “You threw those canoes like feathers on the wind, as easily as you turned us back once—why did you not use that power earlier?”
“I do not command it.” Calandryll shook his head helplessly. “I do not understand it. Not then, on the Narrow Sea, nor here; nor any time it has come to my aid. It comes—I can say no more.”
Tekkan grunted, his face thoughtful. “You at least saved lives,” he said. “More would have died had you not summoned that power.”
Calandryll nodded and looked to Bracht, seeing the Kern still tensed with anger, then to Tekkan. “Is there peace between you?” he asked. “What lies ahead leaves no room for anger, I think.”
The helmsman favored Bracht with a speculative stare and slowly ducked his head. “Words of wisdom,” he allowed, “I would not have this between us. We are different, I think, and that is an … obstacle. But I’d see it removed. Shall we agree on that, warrior?”
For a moment Calandryll thought Bracht would disagree, would seek redress for what he saw as insult, but then he, too, ducked his head, hand leaving the falchion, the tension his face.
“We shall agree.”
Tekkan smiled then, shortly and with little humor, his eyes moving to Katya where she stood at Bracht’s side, their expression doubtful. “Best see those hurts tended,” he grunted, and left them.
Calandryll relaxed, watching the helmsman stride back to his tiller, taking the beam from the golden-haired man who held it as might a parent take a child from one entrusted briefly with its care.
“He’s a prickly conscience,” Bracht murmured.
“He cares for all on board,” Katya said, her voice defensive. “Each loss cuts him deep.”
“He need not have rebuked you so,” Bracht said.
“I led,” she answered. “He had the right.”
“The helmsman commands the captain?” Bracht frowned. “The ways of Vanu are, indeed, strange.”
“This vessel is his command,” she told him, looking to where Tekkan stood on the low poop. “The securing of the Arcanum is my task; this vessel his.”
“Even so,” Bracht said, “he presumes much.”
“Fear edged his tongue,” she murmured. “He was afraid harm had come to me, and that sharpened his temper.”
“I’d not see him test it on you.”
Bracht’s voice was soft: Katya turned to look into his eves, her own troubled; as though. Calandryll thought, she wrestled with some inner problem, indecision creasing her brow. Then she sighed, reaching up to smooth long strands of pale gold hair from her face, the slight movement of her head both resignation and a negative.
“You do not understand,” she said quietly. “You praise my sword skill, but in Vanu that is unusual. In Vanu I am considered … different.”
“In Cuan na’For you would be admired,” Bracht declared gallantly.
“You do not understand,” Katya repeated. “I have told you that we fight no wars in Vanu—peace is prized higher there than battle skill. We fight only when we must; when we are forced to it. Quara and her archers? They are hunters—they would sooner use their shafts on game than men. And none can use a blade as well as I.”
She paused, looking out over the sunlit ocean. Calandryll watched her face, sensing inner conflict. Bracht studied her in silence, waiting for her to speak again. When she did it was in a low voice, tinged with sadness, as though the very talents the Kern admired caused her regret.
“I was chosen for this task because of that skill,” she said at last. “Because it suits me better for what heeds be done. That alone causes Tekkan … discomfort. And fear for my safety adds to his concern.”
“Even so,” Bracht said, “What right has he to speak thus?”
“Tekkan is my father,” she replied, and left them, dumbfounded.
“Little wonder he’s chary of you.” Calandryll’s gaze swept back from Tekkan, standing at the tiller, to Bracht’s face. “He finds an outland warrior paying court to his daughter, that same warrior persuading her to risk—can you wonder he shows concern?”
“Aye.” Bracht nodded, his face abruptly serious. “I think it time we spoke.”
Calandryll opened his mouth to advise against such conversation but the Kern was already on his feet and striding purposefully along the deck, leaving him no alternative save to hurry after, ready to mediate should argument arise. He reached the companionway as Bracht gained the poop, bowing formally to the helmsman.
Tekkan appeared surprised by such obeisance: more by the Kern’s words.
“We should lay this in the open,” Bracht said, “that there be no doubt between us.”
“What?” asked Tekkan bluntly, though the clouding of his eyes said that he knew.
“I had not known you were Katya’s father,” Bracht said, “though had I, I should not have done otherwise. Not in the matter of the savages, nor in other things.”
“You are at least …” Tekkan smiled slightly, “… honest.”
“It is the way of my folk to speak openly.” Bracht faced the bulky helmsman, his gaze unwavering. “And I believe you know of my … feelings … towards Katya.”
Tekkan nodded, unspeaking.
“And of my promise,” Bracht continued, “that I shall not press further on that matter until we have brought the Arcanum safe to Vanu.”
“She spoke to me of that,” Tekkan confirmed.
“I would ask her then to be my woman; and it must be her word that says me yea or nay. That you would have it otherwise is a matter between you and her—but I would have you know that until then I shall neither say or do anything to offend her or you. Until then—when we come safe to Vanu and the Arcanum is destroyed I shall speak openly.”
Tekkan remained silent, staring at the Kern with thoughtful eyes, his face unreadable. Then he ducked his head.
“You follow the way of the sword, Bracht, and I cannot tell you that I would choose you for my daughter, but you are an honest man and I thank you for that honesty. Let me return mine—should Katya seek my advice in this matter I shall tell her, nay; but it shall be her choice, not mine.”
“And there shall be no ill feeling between us?”
Tekkan smiled again, warmer now, and shook his head.
“No. We make strange bedfellows, you and I, but we travel the same road and our purpose binds us—there shall be no ill feeling.”
“That is good.”
Bracht extended his hand and Tekkan took it. Calandryll felt himself relax; and saw Katya watching from the lower deck, smiling. She had heard enough, he thought, to understand the gist of w
hat had transpired, and it appeared to please her. Certainly it pleased him: he felt a clearing of the air, his own doubts dispelled, the faint, lingering fear that Tekkan might leave them helpless in Gessyth dismissed by Bracht’s honest words, the Vanu’s honest response. Just as Tekkan feared that the Kern’s ways might, in his estimation, taint his daughter, so had Varent’s duplicity tainted him. He saw that now; saw that he had seen shadows where none existed, save those cast by Varent’s lies. But those were behind him: he was among friends, comrades dedicated to the denial of Varent’s mad ambition, while ahead lay honest toil. Dangerous, certainly, but not tainted with fell magic, or the soft persuasions of an ages-old wizard bent on the insane resurrection of the Mad God. Varent—Rhythamun—sat safe in Aldarin, a spider lurking in his web, awaiting the return of the flies he had tempted with false promises; but unaware the flies saw his strands and could avoid them. Varent was behind him, could not touch him, not here on the Vanu warboat, nor in Tezin-dar.
He smiled his relief, not knowing then—not knowing until much later—how wrong he was.
THE warboat altered course, headed for deeper water, away from the shore where the canoes were loath to follow, and in time the jungle faded to a dim juncture of ocean and sky and the sweeps were brought inboard, the sea anchors dropped. The slight swell rocked them as the Vanu folk slung their hammocks and Calandryll stretched on the planks, the night air warm as he lay staring at the blue-silver panoply of stars.
He watched a shooting star arc across the heavens. A portent, the palace soothsayers claimed, and he wondered if that was so: and if it was, of what? Did civil war now tear at Kandahar? Would Tyrant or the rebel Fayne lord prevail? Did Sathoman ek’Hennem carry the victory, he and Bracht might well return to Kandahar to find themselves outlawed; and still the danger of the Chaipaku existed. In Kandahar and Lysse, too, for Tobias must surely still deem him enemy. Secca, then, was no refuge for him; nor Aldarin, once Varent should learn of his intent and doubtless poison that city’s domm against him. He was, he realized with sudden shock, homeless. All his dreams of glorious return, of heroic welcome, were no more than the fancies of a naive youth. And he was no longer that: he was a man with blood on his hands, alienated now from all he had known. No longer the callow youth who had gone so readily—so trustingly!—with Varent, dreaming dreams of high endeavor, but a man grown cynical. He heeded Tekkan, he realized, smiling grimly at the stars, simply because he heeded the warboat. Without that he was prey to whatever events unfolded in the world behind. Civil war in Kandahar; perhaps war between Kandahar and Lysse. Vanu must be his destination. The taking of the Arcanum and its safe bringing to the holy men of Katya’s homeland. After … that was too far in the uncertain future: he would worry at that bone when it lay before him.
He sighed, and yawned, and closed his eyes, letting sleep assuage his troubled mind. He did what he could: he could do no more.
Dawn brought a resumption of their northward journeying and an end to doubts. The sun rose ferocious over the jungle, the wind strengthening as the oarsmen ate a hurried breakfast and returned to their benches, Tekkan at the helm once more, conferring with Katya. Calandryll joined Quara and the other women, unashamed to help them gather up the platters and cleanse the dishes in sea-water hauled up in canvas buckets before joining Bracht on the foredeck.
They continued along the coast of Gash, sometimes trailed by dugouts, but those never venturing close enough to attack, as if word had passed among the jungle dwellers that this was no easy prey they stalked and better left alone. Three times landing parties rowed in to shore, to refill the water casks and hunt what fresh meat might be found, and no assault was made, the hunters returning safe with deer and pigs to augment their diet of fish and the rapidly dwindling supplies taken on in Kharasul. They saw no other vessels as the summer aged toward autumn and their greatest threat was the tedium induced by the unchanging days, that was alleviated somewhat by the sword practice that became their routine. Calandryll’s skill increased under Bracht’s tutelage, and in time—and with Tekkan’s not-quite grudging approval—other members of the crew took part, though none of the Vanu folk approached Katya in ability or enthusiasm.
Bracht, as Calandryll had known he would, remained true to his word, saying nothing to the blond woman of his hopes. He showed her an oddly formal courtesy that often elicited her smile, that answered by the Kern’s, whose eyes said what his tongue held back. Such words were reserved for Calandryll’s ears, and he found himself often struggling for the patience heeded to hear out the eulogies Bracht was wont to weave as they lounged in the sun or lay watching the pattern of stars spread across the night sky. He wondered if he had piled such encomiums on Nadama, whose face he found difficult to recall, she a part, he realized, of the life he left behind. That love, if love it had been and not simply a youthful infatuation, belonged to a time lost, shed as a snake sheds its skin, discarded in the rebirth. And he was, he knew, reborn. What small regret he felt at the knowledge that he might likely never see his home again was compensated by what lay ahead. Tobias was welcome to Secca—that had never been in doubt, but now he was welcome to Nadama, too—and should Bylath go to the vaults beneath the great temple of Dera not knowing where his younger son might be, well, he had chosen that fate when his uncaring hand lashed out to firm Calandryll’s resolve.
He could accept such things in his rebirth: he changed. Physically, too. His body hardened, the muscles firmed by boat work and swordplay; Bracht taught him to wrestle, and in that the oarsmen joined, pitting their strength against his, such friendly combats, Katya informed him, enjoyed in Vanu. Quara schooled him with the bow, until he was able to use the barbed fishing arrows hear as well as the women, reeling in his share of the catch to an accompanying chorus of praise sung in the soft Vanu tongue that he struggled to master. That was harder, but he round, in time, that he understood simple phrases and could make himself understood were the listener patient enough, practicing with Katya until she laughed and threw up protesting hands, claiming that he must wait for a better teacher, perhaps in Vanu itself.
He learned more of that mysterious land, wishing that he had the means to write down what he learned—perhaps his only regret: that he had no books or writing materials, but that small enough as he gathered knowledge.
He came to understand that Vanu was, truly, without conflict such as racked the southern kingdoms, the folk manning the warboat oddities among their people, for while they seemed mild-mannered to such as he and Bracht, to their fellows they were unusually bellicose. It seemed an idyllic land, a peaceful haven in a world much given to ambition and struggle, and in only one area did he find doubt. Katya spoke only vaguely, and with scarcely concealed reluctance, of the holy men whose augury had sent her forth, and not at all of gods. It seemed none existed in Vanu, save perhaps as concepts, more embodiments of notions of good and evil than the clearly defined deities of Lysse or Kandahar or Eyl, and the holy men seemed less priests than sages, concerned as much—or more—with the physical well-being of the people as with matters spiritual. This Bracht accepted more readily than did he, for the tree god of Cuan na’For was a deity little given to intervention in the ways of men, and the Kern maintained that the appearance of the byah had been occasioned only by the enormity of Varent’s evil, so great it had called forth a warning in much the same way as Vanu’s holy men had scried their augury. Calandryll found he must be content with this, for when he pressed Katya on the matter she pew increasingly ambiguous and sought to shift the direction of the talk; subtly, but not so well that he failed to notice her reticence. He chose to respect it, suspecting that some admonishment forbade her from speaking more deeply on the subject, and told himself that when at last they came to her homeland he would question the holy men himself, directly.
He remembered vividly Reba’s augury: You will travel far and see things no southern man has seen, perhaps no man at all.
That came daily true as he traveled northward, farther than any Lyssian
craft had sailed since Orwen. And Orwen had not witnessed the appearance of a byah, nor, as best he knew, fought with demons or seen the raising of such fire creatures as Anomius had brought forth to sack Keshamvaj. None had journeyed to Vanu and he held that land promise to his hopes, the ultimate goal of the quest begun in that other life. That he should, with Bracht and Katya, reach Tezin-dar and bring the Arcanum out he did not doubt as they closed on Gessyth’s coast.
THEY found themselves, suddenly it seemed, crossing open water, the jungles fading steadily into the distance behind, ahead only the empty sea. The charts revealed this as the great inlet, unnamed, that divided Gash from Gessyth, and after two days they had their first sight of the land they had come so far to find.
It was a forbidding vista.
No discernible shoreline existed, sea and swamp merging, the blue water of the ocean darkening, becoming a peaty brown on which floated vast fields of lily pads, viri-descent and decked with flowers of livid yellow or leprous white. Distant beyond these strange floating fields stood massive trees, great grey mangroves hung with gloomy moss, and between them ran channels of sluggish water that marked the courses of the torpid streams that fed the marshes. Day after day that glum horizon stood to starboard of the warboat, unchanged by the shifting season, the boredom of the lily fields sometimes broken by the appearance of meadows of reeds and rushes that swayed languid in the hot wind, rustling softly, noisomely redolent of fecund decay, thick and rank. They saw birds of brilliant plumage and creatures that combined the aspects of both avians and lizards, things with feathers and scales, both, and saw-toothed beaks; and the swamp dragons that furnished the soldiery of Kandahar with their armor. These seemed, often, no more than logs floating among the lilies and reeds until they rose up to bay stertorous challenge, vast jaws all set with jagged fangs opening wide as spiked tails lashed, stirring the grue of the swamp to brown foam. The smallest were long as a tall man, and the larger of the beasts three times that size, but it seemed they had no love for the saltier water of the ocean, for although several charged noisily toward the passing warboat, none ventured far into the sea, instead turning back to roar their displeasure from the safety of the reeds and lily meadows.
