by Jack Massa
"Splendid," Amlina grinned. "Those flashes of insight you mention often occur after initiation. They are considered messages from the Deepmind."
"This is well," Kizier declared. "Just as every effort was made to get free of the ice, so every effort should be made to find the Cloak and Glyssa. And this path is one shown to us by the Deepmind."
Amlina touched her heart in a salute to Lonn. "I will do my best to train you, my friend. I will base your daily regimen on that of a student at the Academy of the Deepmind. And we shall see what the Ogo brings."
Lonn's training began the next morning. For the first half of the day the witch made him sit on the quarterdeck with eyes shut and concentrate on watching the backs of his eyelids. This, Amlina said, was a simple form of meditation, designed to bring the mind to a state of clear and watchful detachment.
Lonn found the exercise futile, a deliberate inactivity that seemed to accomplish nothing. But each time his eyes came open Kizier would order him to shut them, and when Lonn protested the windbringer reminded him that the training's purpose was to search for Glyssa.
"'To learn to see with the mind you must first stop seeing with the eyes alone," the bostull said. "Last night you boasted you were sure this training was your path. This morning you bridle at taking the first step."
Lonn had already begun to reconsider last night's brandy-fueled optimism. But instead of pursuing that thought he shut his eyes and concentrated again on the lids.
Later Amlina came out on deck and taught Lonn a short chant, the words, in Old Larthangan, meaningless to him. He was required to repeat the chant while trotting in place—for more than an hour. After that, the witch had a keg of nails brought to him from below. She told him to pick out the nails one by one, place them on the deck, then put them back into the keg one by one.
"Normally small bamboo sticks are used," "she said. "But these nails will do as well."
"What should I be thinking about?" Lonn asked.
"Think about what you are doing."
When he had taken out the nails and put them back seven times Amlina told him to do more running in place and chanting. Then he meditated once more, this time staring at the empty sky. The witch came to him again near sundown, saying he was finished for the day and to go and have his supper.
"But I haven't done anything," he said. "I mean, I haven't tried to see Glyssa."
"The first stage of the training does not involve deliberate attempts to deepsee," Amlina explained. "Visions, if they come, must arise spontaneously. When you are not practicing, think of Glyssa from time to time, ask to see her. That may help."
"I think of her all the time," Lonn said.
"Then you can do no more."
"How long does this first stage last?"
"Normally three months or more. In your case, we shall see. The unfolding of power cannot be hurried, Lonn. Have patience."
Lonn followed the same routine the next day, and the next, and the next.
Soon the Iruks were remarking that Lonn was becoming withdrawn and moody. He spoke little at meals, took no part in the klarn's weapons practice. When his mates inquired if he had had any luck yet in seeing Glyssa, he only scowled and shook his head. He had not even dreamed of her, not since that one dream he had told to the witch.
Absorbed in the deepseer's training, Lonn hardly noticed the passage of time as the coaster voyaged north. Three days after escaping from the ice, the ship came in sight of land, towering black cliffs jutting straight up from the sea. This was the south coast of Xinner, southernmost of the Tathian Isles. The coast was bare and sparsely habited, with no apparent harbors or anchorages. The Plover skirted the eastern cape of Xinner and continued north. Two days later they raised the small island of Gline and stopped to trade at a village there.
Gline was bleak and rocky, gray cliffs rising over gray beaches. The village was humble, huts of mud and reeds clustered on the beach, a few fortified dwellings carved above in the cliffside. Fishing boats lined the shore, wooden craft somewhat like dojuks, but smaller and with only one outrigger.
As soon as the coaster's sails were stripped down, the crewmen loaded the skiffs with brandy, oil, and silks and lowered them to the ice. The Iruks, dressed in harness and armed with spears, accompanied the boats ashore—all except Lonn who was busy with his training.
When the trading party returned in the late afternoon, Lonn was perched in the rigging, meditating on the white sky. As Troneck came on board, he complained loudly about the stinginess of the Glinesmen. It was not a trading season, and the villagers had stores of oil and wine laid in. Realizing the Larthangans needed food, the islanders had held out for an extremely favorable rate of exchange. Suspended high over the deck as he heard the captain's lamentations, Lonn felt himself more akin to the world of the clouds than the mundane world below. It struck him then how much the witch's training was changing him.
On the evening that the Plover sailed from Gline, Amlina entered the dark immersion. By practicing shallower wei trances, the witch had pieced together a map, a guiding picture of the near future, of what obstacles she might encounter and how best to seek the Cloak in Kadavel. But there were blanks and obscure places in the picture. Amlina hoped to clarify these through the deep trance.
She lay in her bunk as the Iruks had first seen her, in silk robe, fur-trimmed coat and moonstone fillet. The tiny lamps glowed about the cabin, their lights reflecting on the narrow strips of tapestry. The trinkets dangled, spinning at times or swaying with the heeling of the ship.
For the first two days Amlina's mind was diffuse through time and space, and she had no awareness of herself or her purpose. On the third day purpose returned, a vaguely remembered thought: the object of great power, the Cloak of the Two Winds, she must see it, find it. Now her mental strivings elicited shapes and shadows. She glimpsed the outline of seawalls and towers ... Kadavel. Somewhere in Kadavel, she knew, the Cloak was hidden.
Time passed. Thoughts and emptiness by turns filled her mind. Often she pictured the Cloak, black and silver, vivid with power. But always it was wrapped by a shiny mist of darkness, so she could discover no clue of its location. She visualized Kadavel again and again but only perceived the places she knew from memory, and those in no specific detail or order. She envisioned the Iruks with their reckless ferocity and lingering distrust of her. Somehow it seemed their trust would be crucial to her in Kadavel, but she did not know how or why.
On the fourth or fifth day a feeling of unease stirred in Amlina. She sensed someone searching for her, even as she was searching…Beryl, it must be. The Archimage of the East was the most dangerous blank on Amlina's map. If Amlina could trace the Cloak to Kadavel, surely Beryl could do so as well. If Amlina's deepseeing had failed so far to perceive Beryl's appearance in the near future, it was probably because Beryl hid herself.
Of course Amlina too had her concealments. The moonstone fillet she wore was a talisman. Each day she visualized an aura of white light emanating from the stones, surrounding and protecting her. Deepshapers commonly wrapped themselves in such defenses, but since leaving Tallyba Amlina had charged her barrier with the specific thought of hiding her from Beryl's mind. Still, the barrier had been weakened by the design she had cast and by her releasing her will now to the dark immersion. And of course Beryl was mighty. Amlina expected that sooner or later she would have to face the Archimage. She must prepare for that meeting.
Amlina took a deep breath, and the prisms and desmets spun around on their threads. In the depths of her trance she conjured Beryl's image. The face of the Archimage leapt into view, a face kept young in appearance by sorcery and human lives, yet old in experience and wickedness. Amlina knew Beryl's habits and practices as well as anyone. If Beryl had a weakness it lay not in her knowledge or skill, both unsurpassed, but in her character—perhaps in her pride, her contempt for inferiors, perhaps most of all in her dread of her own mortality.
Amlina studied Beryl's face for a while, her mind open to t
he surfacing of further intuitions. But no ideas arose. After a time, it seemed that the face was staring back. Amlina realized she had been thinking of Beryl too long.
She sought at once to turn her mind away, to dissolve the face and look instead into emptiness. But the face refused to vanish. It hung quivering amid the silvery waves Amlina threw against it. The eyes continued to stare at Amlina, more and more intently, bright and malign.
The trinkets swung and rattled as Amlina turned on her bed. Suddenly she sat up and opened her eyes. Beryl's face remained, floating in the lingering trance-light against the dim background of the cabin.
In terror, Amlina struggled to her feet, seized by the wild urge to flee, to escape Beryl's view. After two lurching steps, she caught herself and stood shuddering among the trinkets, fighting down her panic. In a moment, she shut her eyes and sank to the floor where she sat with feet tucked at her hips.
Ignoring Beryl's face as best she could, Amlina breathed deeply to calm herself. Her fingers found the moonstone fillet and she worked its charm—casting her awareness into the moonstones, seeing them change the thought to white light that poured out to engulf her. Amlina watched the light raining forth, growing deeper and brighter until Beryl's face was lost in its brilliance.
Amlina waited a long time in her barrier, until she was sure Beryl was no longer watching. Then, timidly, she opened her eyes. The cabin was empty and still. Amlina let go of the fillet and stood, her head reeling. She lurched to the bunk and sank down. She had been a fool to dwell so long on Beryl's image, more of a fool to try to run, as if Beryl's mind could be physically escaped. She had forgotten how easily the Archimage could terrify her, make her lose her wits.
It was difficult to assess how costly the blunder might prove. Amlina only knew that Beryl had seen her, not how clearly or what she might have learned from the vision. That Beryl had not spoken suggested that the contact had been tenuous—probably too tenuous to launch a mental attack, if indeed that had been Beryl's intent. Knowing Beryl, she would be willing to wait. Having found Amlina once, she would expect it to be that much easier to find her again.
Amlina fingered the moonstone band in her hair. She must keep the aura bright and strong. The thought of the Iruks recurred to her. They too would need protecting. She had some extra moonstones in her jewel box, pieces of an unfinished necklace…
From Gline the coaster traveled north, across open ice. The south wind had abated and now the breeze blew mostly from the west and northwest. The days were fair, and though the seas remained hard the weather was not bitter cold as it had been farther south. They had entered the warm latitudes, according to Kizier. The sun, which had risen higher as they journeyed north, now crossed the sky almost directly overhead.
Lonn continued to practice his exercises, day in and day out, with no variations. While Amlina was in the dark immersion Kizier served as trainer, though this duty only required that he enforce the routine against Lonn's occasional protests. Adhering to the strict mental disciplines was still not easy for the Iruk, whose active mind constantly strained against being still. But each time he maundered from the path, Kizier patiently brought him back.
"Stillness," the bostull said. "The mind is a pool whose bottom is infinite knowledge, so the sages of Larthang teach. To view the depths with clarity there must be stillness at the surface."
Maintaining contemplative stillness was especially hard for Lonn in the hours he spent with his mates. Except for Draven, the Iruks were growing more dubious about the training.
"I don't like what's happening to you, Lonn." Karrol said to him one night. "You're not the same. You're distant, out of yourself. How do we know the witch isn't turning you into one of those mindless ones?"
"Because we trust Amlina," Draven said.
"I don't trust her," Karrol answered. "I don't."
Twelve
Four days north of Gline the coaster raised the shore of another island, Borga. From viewing Troneck's charts the Iruks knew they were finally nearing their destination. North of Borga lay a narrow channel, gradually widening to the west. At the end of the channel, where the islands of Borga, Lustre, and Glistre came together, stood the city of Kadavel.
"With this wind, six or seven days yet," Troneck answered their query gruffly. "Barring some new disaster."
Lonn's mates paced the decks in growing anticipation. For hours they watched the passing shoreline, with its forests of slash pines and cedars and its lush blue-green shrubbery. Though it was now late in First Winter, only a dusting of snow had fallen on the island. Nor did they encounter large settlements such as the Iruks had expected. They sighted only fishing villages, such as they had passed farther south, along with an occasional castle or fortress built on a promontory. The great Tathian cities lay mostly to the west, Kizier explained, on the sheltered bays, and inland.
Gradually the coastline of Borga changed, growing flatter. Forests and meadows gave way to broad, monotonous marshlands. Then, at the northern tip of the island, a line of ships came into view.
Lonn was perched in the shrouds meditating when the lookout close to him on the mainmast shouted the warning. The ships were still a long way off but Lonn could tell at a glance they were drommons, sleek Tathian war galleys, guarding the entrance to the channel.
He leapt from his place and slid down a lanyard, not taking the time to descend the ratlines. Before reaching the deck he was shouting for his mates to fetch their weapons.
"Drommons!" he yelled. "More than you've ever seen."
The Iruks knew the swift Tathian warships well, having run from them more than once on pirating forays in the shipping lanes of the Polar Sea. The drommons had two masts with lateen sails, as well as oars for soft-water running. Each galley carried forty fighting men, marines armed with bows, lances and swords. The ships had high fighting decks and boarding bridges. In addition, most were equipped with iron rams and long tubes in the prow that belched a fiery liquid. The Iruks went below and armed themselves, more by instinct than plan. There was plainly no chance of fighting through such a fleet.
The sails were being reefed and the coaster's speed was slackening as the klarn came back on deck. They found the captain at the quarterdeck rail, observing the fleet through a spyglass.
"They fly the banner of the Dragon Amid the Waves," he muttered, "The flag of Kadavel."
"What will you do?" Lonn asked.
"I don't know what! That's for the witch to decide. I hope she comes out here, and soon."
Banks of white cloud loomed over the drommon ships and the marshy shores they guarded. The Plover followed a long easterly tack that gave a panoramic view of the still-distant fleet. The drommons made no move from their orderly rows, though by now they must have spotted the coaster.
Amlina marched up the steps from below, leaning to one side to compensate for the tilt of the vessel. The witch had hardly ventured from her cabin in the days since rising from the deep trance. She looked frail and haggard to Lonn, yet she took the spyglass from Troneck's hand impatiently and used it to scan the lines of drommons.
"Come about and aim for the center of their formation," she said. "Bring us alongside their command vessel, which lies there."
Troneck shouted the proper orders. "I hope they don't decide to attack us before we can hail them," he said.
"They will talk," Amlina answered. "I have foreseen this obstacle."
The Plover came about and glided toward the upwind fleet. Two hundred yards from the front line of drommons Troneck gestured to the helmsman, who eased into the wind. The coaster's momentum slowed, prow aimed at the center of the line where a larger drommon stood, its extra-tall masts streaming with pennons of red and gold.
On the decks of the galleys rows of lancers and bowmen stood tense and ready, as if expecting a fight from this one small trading ship. Amlina waved her arm in a wide, slow greeting.
Two crewmen crouched, ready at the ice-brakes, and dropped them at Troneck's signal. The Plover rumbled to
a halt, balanced on keel and starboard runners, heeling to that side. The Tathian flagship lay some thirty yards off the starboard beam.
On the high forecastle of the flagship a trumpeter blew an imposing set of notes. Then a herald called out through a megaphone. "You are detained by the war fleet of the Princely City of Kadavel. Reveal to us your nationality and reasons for sailing in this channel."
Amlina took the megaphone from a willing Troneck. "We are traders of Larthang," she answered. "We seek the port of Kadavel to ply our business."
The herald exchanged words with a tall man in gold armor and purple cloak, then shouted to the Larthangans again. "This is no trading season. Why do you sail this time of year?"
"We were trading off the coast of Near Nyssan," Amlina called back, "when a gale blew us out to sea. There we were caught by a freezewind and icebound many days. It's only now we've been able to fight our way back to land."
There was another pause, then the herald told them. "Hold your position. My lord Admiral Dantonius will board your vessel. If you tell the truth, you'll be allowed to sail on."
A dozen of the Tathian marines climbed down the side of the flagship, followed by the man in gold armor. They deployed themselves on his either side and accompanied him across the glowing ice toward the coaster. On the decks of the drommons, the rest of the marines still stood in battle readiness.
Amlina ordered that a rope ladder be lowered for the boarding party. She descended to the main deck to greet them, Lonn and his mates following. The Iruks kept glancing nervously at the nearby drommons, Karrol and Eben fingering the hilts of their swords.
"Do not draw your weapons," Amlina warned. "Leave everything to me."
They waited near the mainmast while six of the Tathians climbed over the bulwark and arranged themselves at attention. Then the man in gold and purple appeared, stepping onto the deck with a gloomy, suspicious expression on his red-bearded face.
