by David Duncan
"Well, great leader?" Tomiyano asked impatiently.
"What if the wind dies on us?"
"Bah!" The captain walked across to the innocent-seeming scrap of rug that was yet another part of the plan. He adjusted it with one horny foot. "The winds have been singing to your lute, Shonsu! Every time we rounded a bend, the wind backed for us. Where's your faith, Champion-of-the-Goddess?"
He was nervous, also, and trying not to show it.
"Then let's go!"
Wallie knelt and tipped alcohol into a copper pan. Playing the part she had been given, Thana lit tinder with a flint-a skill that he had not yet mastered. He slid the tinder into the pan as she steadied it. The flame was invisible, but Wallie could feel heat. He straightened, lifting the apex of the orange silk bag high, mentally crossing fingers. The cup might be too heavy, or not large enough, or the catgut holding it might burn through, or be might set the ship on fire, or nothing might work at all...
The bag began to swell. Thana looked up in alarm and Tomiyano made the sign of the Goddess. The bag filled more rapidly. The wind breathed on it and Wallie held it firm with two hands. Then he decided that it was full enough. He stooped and took the copper pan from Thana to raise it, steadying the bag with his other hand as it wallowed free. He felt lift, so he let go.
The World's first hot-air balloon soared away in the breeze, spinning slowly... rising higher... floating over the River. He vaguely heard exclamations from his companions, but he was too intent to listen. Surely the sorcerers would never have seen anything like that before? They would think he was one of them, coming to call with a new magic. In a few minutes the balloon would fall from the sky, but by then they would have lost it in the haze and the sun's glare.
It had gone. He looked around and saw that he was being regarded with superstitious awe. Thana was quaking and Holiyi pale.
There was another bag, the one he had planned to use for rehearsal. "Let's do that again!" He chuckled, and they launched a second balloon. It climbed faster. Now his magic could not be dismissed as a freak illusion.
"Take her in, Captain!" he said hoarsely, resisting the natural impulse to turn and look at the town. Keeping his face hidden in his cowl, he headed for the hatch.
* * *
Would the wind serve, or would it die and leave them stranded? Holiyi and Tomiyano remained on deck, while the others fretted and chewed fingernails in the hold. Even with both hatch covers off, the hold stank. At each tack bilge swirled under the gratings, stirring unidentified nasty things as it did so. There was a ladder below the smaller hatch and a door to the little cabin, but otherwise it was a barren wooden box... a communal coffin, perhaps. The bedrolls and foodstuffs formed a small heap in the bow. Ropes for tying prisoners had been laid out, in a show of optimism.
Nnanji and Thana fidgeted, holding drawn swords already. Doa seemed quite relaxed, sitting on a bedroll and sending seductive little smiles toward Wallie. He was tense enough himself now that he found them easy to ignore, and evidently he need not worry about his passenger having hysterics. Katanji sat in a corner with his arms around his knees, making himself very tiny.
How many tacks? There were no portholes and Wallie dared not go near a hatch to peer out. Then he heard a shot from the deck and, in the distance, a clatter of horses.
"Almost there!" he said. "I think we have to add one thing that was not in the drill. Lady Doa will be bound and gagged. Thana, please?"
"You would not dare!" roared the minstrel.
"I certainly would," Wallie said. "If necessary I'll knock you out, or tie you up myself, but I'm not having any warning shouts! Now, which is to be?"
Glaring murderously, Doa allowed herself to be trussed.
Then Griffon thumped softly against fenders. Pulleys squealed as the sails were taken in. A moment later Tomiyano skidded down the ladder and scuttled over to the others, who were all staying well away from the hatches.
"Lots of room, anyway!" the captain said with a cheerfulness that rang false.
Wallie wondered what that meant, but he was too intent to spare time for conversation. Holiyi had cut two ports in the ship's side directly below the hawsers. Nnanji and Thana now fumbled to remove their makeshift shutters. Being below quay level, these unorthodox gaps would be invisible to viewers on the dock.
Wallie stepped up on a balk of timber and thrust his head through yet another hole, this one cut in the deck. That put his eyes inside the upturned dinghy, so he could peer out the peephole in its side and watch the top of the gangplank. Unfortunately he did not have as good a view as he would have liked, for he could see only the gateway and not down the length of the plank. His reaction would have to be very swift.
Tomiyano's scar was obvious at close quarters, so Holiyi must wear the dagger and be captain. Everything now depended on the skinny sailor.
Minutes crawled by. The strain of waiting seemed to grow without limit. Holiyi's bare feet and bony legs went past the peephole and later returned.
Normally a port official came first, then went ashore. Afterward, if the bait had worked, a sorcerer or two should embark to greet the visitor. But at Ov sorcerers had accompanied the port official-was that a new procedure since the calling of the tryst, or just the way things were done at Ov? Would Holiyi be able to satisfy the port official?
"What if they ignore us?" Thana asked with a giggle that was just wrong enough to reveal nervousness.
No one spoke. The answer would have been that they would have to make an assault ashore and try to overpower a patrolling sorcerer. Sorcerers patrolled in groups and they carried guns.
Wallie was streaming sweat. His neck hurt. The stink was nauseating. He was just making a solemn vow that he would never eat fish again, when Holiyi was convulsed by coughing. That was the signal. A gown came into Wallie's field of view-a long gown, reaching to the ground. That was no port official...
"Now!" As the sorcerer's shoe landed on the scrap of rug at the top of the plank, Wallie triggered the trapdoor below it. Thana and Nnanji reached out with their swords to cut the hawsers. It was only then, as the victim came crashing down into the hold, that Wallie's mind registered the overwhelming impossibility. The gown had been blue. He had captured a sorcerer of the seventh rank.
†† ††
Then many things happened all at once. Tomiyano and one-armed Katanji guided the ends of oars through the ports as Wallie stepped down and struck the sorcerer on the head with a bar of wood. Voices yelled on the dock. Nnanji grabbed Katanji's oar and heaved, while Tomiyano heaved on his. Holiyi took a running jump through the cargo hatch and his feet hit the gratings with a crash. Griffon surged and began to move, propelled by the oars pushing against the dock. Wallie went to help Nnanji; Holiyi to Tomiyano. The clatter of the falling gangplank mingled with a scream and a splash-possibly a sorcerer had gone to the Goddess-then the oars fell uselessly through the ports and the ship was adrift... and no one else had boarded.
"Down!" Wallie yelled, but the others were already dropping to the smelly gratings. A fusillade of shots made three small holes in the planking and a shower of splinters spattered. Then the sound of chaos, familiar from Ov-horses screaming, people yelling, wagons overturning...
Griffon rocked gently and calmly. The sunlight below the hatches moved as the ship turned in the current and the wind. How long to reload die pistols? Would the wind hold for their escape? Would Griffon foul another vessel and be invaded by a troop of outraged sorcerers? The prisoner was unconscious. Awkwardly, and without rising, Wallie reached over and tied the man's hands behind his back.
The noise from the dock was fading. The sorcerers should have been able to reload by now. What were they doing instead? Wallie rose to his feet and dashed for the ladder. Two rungs up he saw rigging over the gunwale, but far away. Then the tower came into view, and the tops of warehouses, all black against the darkening sky. He decided he was out of reasonable musket range and finished his climb to the deck.
At once he saw what
Tomiyano had meant about plenty of room. There were many ships at both ends of the harbor, leaving the center strangely empty. The slimy masonry of the dock itself was visible, and the road and the warehouses beyond it. The captain had moored in that long gap-any captain would.
It was a trap!
Wallie bellowed for the sailors and began to fumble inexpertly with ropes. Crowds had been running for shelter, horses bolting and rearing at the noise, but the road was clearing rapidly.
Tomiyano and Holiyi appeared and began to hoist sail. There was wind, but not very much. Griffon acknowledged it sluggishly, swinging her bow toward open River with reluctance. As nasty crawling feelings ran over his skin, Wallie studied the dock and waited. He was out of range for pistols, but not for cannon. The two closest ships were flying red flags, so the orders had been to stay out of the flagged area...
Nnanji and Thana came scrambling up the ladder, and Wallie yelled to them to take cover again, but Doa was coming up behind them, free of her bonds.
Almost simultaneously, three columns of black smoke jetted skyward beside the warehouses. Two more followed at once. The roar of cannons thumped at his ears and he saw the horses panic once more. Vertical? He raised his eyes and thought he saw one black speck in motion.
"Those were very big thunderbolts, brother," Nnanji said judiciously. Then waterspouts reared all around and Griffon staggered. A spray of mist blew over the deck. Close!
Mortars would not take long to reload. Wallie was about to order everyone below again, then decided that a cannonball could kill all of them just as easily there as here. They all began coughing as the cloud of gray smoke overtook the ship. Black powder made an astonishing amount of smoke.
"Tack!" he shouted. Tomiyano started to argue and Wallie yelled at him. Griffon changed course slightly as two-four-five more explosions mushroomed from the roadway. This time he certainly saw a couple of the balls in flight and pointed them out. They seemed to take a long time falling. Mortars would have less chance of hitting a ship than cannons, but they would do far more damage, knocking a hole in the keel. Traveling horizontally, a cannonball would merely go straight through the hull, unless it was lucky enough to hit a mast.
Waterspouts again-and one just off the bow. A torrent of water fell against the sails and over the deck, making the ship shudder and heel. Katanji and Thana were hurled down and everyone was soaked. Tomiyano swore angrily and changed course slightly again. Now he could see the need to dodge. Wallie peered into the hatch, but there was surprisingly little water in the hold. He hoped that piranha could not survive being carried aboard in that rough fashion, or the prisoner would be nibbled to tatters.
Much too close for comfort! Their escape was agonizingly slow. The sorcerers would be able to get in at least one more good shot before Griffon was out of effective range. Why was it taking them so long?
His friends were battle-tested veterans. They were tense and most of them were clutching the rail very firmly, but there was no panic. He looked to see how Doa was reacting and saw at once that he need not worry. She was soaked, her hair bedraggled, but her face glowed with excitement. Her eyes were shining. She noticed his attention, smiled happily, and said, "Wonderful!" She was an astonishing woman!
Obviously Griffon had arrived while the sorcerers were rehearsing their reception for the arrival of the tryst. A wide empty space would attract the unsuspecting ships and allow a clear field of fire. That might even explain why a Seventh had been down at the docks.
"Nnanji?" Wallie said in the calmest voice be could muster. "We never heard of a sorcerer city having more man one Seventh, did we?"
"No, brother."
"Then you realize who that is in the hold?"
"Rotanxi!" Nnanji shouted. "The wizard! The man who sent the kilts to the lodge?"
Before Wallie could answer, smoke gushed once more from the warehouse doors where the cannons were; but this time the jets were horizontal, and there were no waterspouts. As the noise arrived, so the River boiled-astern of Griffon and off to each side. White clouds of mist rose and then faded again. Grapeshot! Wallie shivered convulsively.
The gods might have ruled out miracles, but they were not withholding good luck. The sorcerers had been prepared to repulse an approaching attack, not to destroy a departing fugitive, so initially the cannons had been set in mortar position and armed with balls, for distance. Probably it took time to reset them for their close-range use as cannons, firing grapeshot. Against ships full of swordsmen the grape would be a hundred times more deadly-it would sweep the decks clean. Had the grape come first, while Griffon was nearer, then she would have been blasted to sawdust.
Slowly, so slowly, they were retreating from the dock.
"Get below!" he roared. "All of you!"
He tried to take the tiller from Tomiyano while the others obeyed orders; there was an argument. Before the matter was settled, the sorcerers tried again. This time the shots fell short. Wallie relaxed and wiped his brow. They were out of range of the grape and only a very lucky shot with a ball could hit them now. Today the luck was with the swordsmen.
* * *
Conscious and wearing his cowled gown, the sorcerer would be an imposing figure. He was tall and ruddy-faced, with eyebrows like snowbanks and stark, craggy features. Wallie guessed that he was a well-preserved seventy.
He was beginning to stir and groan. Wallie untied his hands and stripped off the heavy robe. As Katanji had noted long ago, a sorcerer's gown was lumpy. It held innumerable pockets, bulging with mysterious clunky objects. Wallie thrilled with satisfaction at the thought of unmasking the sorcerers' craft with this evidence.
His victim was not imposing now. He was a pathetic figure in a short cotton shirt that failed to hide a potbelly and spindly old-man's legs, blotched with varicose veins. His white hair was thin and matted in two places with dried blood, but his injuries seemed to be confined to those. Wallie dressed him in the fake gown that Lae had made, slung him over his shoulder, and carried him up to the deck.
Pulse, pupils... the old man was apparently in fair shape and now he was starting to come around, blinking, groaning, and drooling. Wallie leaned him against the upturned dinghy and turned to Nnanji, whose face bore enough satisfaction to embellish a victorious army.
"Watch him, master!" Wallie said. "He'll be over the rail in a flash if we let him-and we want him alive!"
Then he went below to fetch the mysterious robe and a flask of wine.
The wind was rising again. The sun balanced still on the horizon, bloodied by volcanic dust, so obviously the whole escapade had taken much less time than it had seemed to. Triumph! Heroes were certainly allowed to be lucky. Remembering how close to Griffon the grapeshot had foamed, Wallie dampened his self-congratulation with a silent prayer of thanksgiving. The gunnery had been impressive-but so had the good fortune.
He sat on the deck close to Tomiyano, facing the sorcerer. The others gathered around, chattering and grinning in victory and relief. Nnanji and Thana were cuddling each other, release of tension rousing other instincts. Doa, strangely solemn, was studying the sorcerer and absentmindedly tugging a comb through her wet hair, while Wallie ran his eye longingly over the wondrous length of her shapely legs, conscious of his own instincts in action. She noticed his attention and sent him a coquettishly inviting smile. It was probably no more genuine than its predecessors, but it still raised his heartbeat for a moment.
He passed the wine bottle around and studied the gown spread out before him. it was soaked and smelly with bilge. One of the lumps had seemed to twitch when he touched it, so he started with that. After a cautious peek in the pocket, he reached in, fumbled, and pulled out a bird. Tomiyano said he would be a barnacle's grandmother.
"Not just a bird," Wallie crowed. "It's a pigeon and it has a band on its leg." The others exchanged impressed glances. He put the bird back in the pocket and tried the next.
"And what's this?" He set his discovery upon his nose and the audience howled with
laughter. Eyeglasses were the first step toward the telescope, of course. Everything had to be explained, and they all tried the glasses.
"And here's a..." He tried to say "quill pen" and stuttered into silence. "Quill... brush?" That came out. "Must be ink in this bottle? Right!" He knew the word for ink, although it meant only what came out of an octopus.
The same pocket also held tiny fragments of vellum, so fine that it might have been bird skin. Wallie chuckled, suddenly remembering his childhood and the Christmas parties when his father had hidden favors in a bran tub for the youngsters to find. This was more fun.
"Will you all promise not to tell anyone else about this?" he asked, and got a ballet of nodding heads. With the quill and the small ink bottle, he drew seven swords on one of the scraps of vellum and held it out for them to look at it.
"What does that mean?" he asked.
Chorus: "A swordsman of the Seventh."
Then he attempted to draw a griffon. It looked like a pregnant camel. "And what does that all mean?"
A puzzled, frowning silence was broken by Katanji. "The seventh sword?"
"Right you are!" There was still enough light for flying; Wallie waved the vellum to dry it, then retrieved the pigeon and slid the message into its band. "Let's send the sign back to the tower." He tossed the bird into the air. They watched it circle and climb and vanish in the direction of Sen.
"That is how they send messages," Wallie explained. "The ink comes from the squid. You tend to get it on your fingers, of course," he added ruefully as he recorked the bottle-he was not experienced with a quill. He studied faces. They looked impressed and happy. Nnanji and Thana were paying more attention to each other, sniggering again already. The sailors were grinning. Only Doa seemed worried and puzzled. Katanji was staring at the pen and the vellum, thinking.
"You are becoming a nuisance," the sorcerer said in a deep voice, glaring. "Lord Shonsu!" He looked around. "Master Nnanji, the wagon driver? And Novice Katanji, who understandably prefers being a slave to being a swordsman. The mendacious Captain Tomiyano, of course. Lady Doa, you keep strange company!"
