"Left about three hundred paces, there's a gap in the first reef." Dazzak spun the wheel at once, and with Caldar's continued guidance lined up the ship to take the passage.
"It's deep, but not very wide," the youth warned him, "and when we're through you'll have to turn right very quickly."
The captain smiled grimly at the unnautical terms. He was resigned to this crazy attempt now, and even felt a strange exhilaration as the rollers took hold of the ship and swept it in towards the thundering maelstrom ahead.
The crew had lined the bulwarks to watch helplessly as their mad captain wrecked the ship. There was small chance of them swimming ashore. There were at least two more reefs guarding the inner lagoons and no man could survive being pounded on those sharp-fanged rocks. A great roller lifted them up and hurled them forward at the first barrier at tremendous speed. Caldar was not the only one with his eyes closed as they rushed towards destruction.
There was a jarring blow and a terrible rasping sound all along the left side of the ship, but momentum forced them on and the next roller shot them through the gap into the deep water beyond. A bare two ship lengths in front of the bows the taller second reef sucked and growled.
Dazzak groaned. Against all belief they had passed the first barrier. Now they would strike the second. It was impossible to turn the ship in such a small space; the surge coming through the gap behind them and the west wind were combining to send them forward onto the sharp-fanged rocks.
Despite the rudder, which was hard over, a larger roller swept them on crabwise. But amazingly, before a single plank had touched, they were pushed back. The wave had smashed against the black barrier, hurling spray high into the air. Then, thrown back, it recoiled and spun them away, turning the bows parallel to the reef. Within moments they were in quieter water, creeping south between the lines of white water. A tremendous crash, heard even over the booming surf, sounded in the gloom behind them. Dazzak had no time to turn round, but he interpreted the shouts of the crew.
"The men say one of them tried to follow us in and struck on the first reef. The gods help them in that water."
"Dazzak," Caldar called urgently, "there's a wide gap soon on the left. It's got a few rocks in it, but it leads right through to clear water." It was nearly dark now, and apart from the gleam of white froth on either side little was visible. For the next hour, as the captain and his young pilot crept through the shoals and sandbars, not one of the crew spared a thought for food or sleep. They could see nothing, but they stayed on station by the bulwarks, straining for every sound of breaking water.
Through the instant message system that functions aboard every ship, they knew that the youth, who had been held captive in the hold, was guiding them through. "He has the Sight," one gnarled mariner said confidently to another, and went on to tell a story about his aunt's sister who could 'see' the whereabouts of lost objects and predict bad weather.
Still in fear that they might be pursued the next day, they did not stop when they reached the lagoons behind the reefs. With Caldar’s guidance they passed right through the atolls and islands, found a wide breach in the reef beyond, and before midnight were in the open sea, setting all sail to make as many miles eastward as possible before dawn.
Chapter 24
Report to The Imperial War Council, Karkor. Classified: Level 6.
It is my privilege to submit to Your Honours this specially commissioned report on the situation in Southern Belugor. My orders were to provide an accurate assessment of the current position with particular reference to the relative strengths of the rebel forces and our own troops deployed in this combat zone.
As Your Honours are aware, in the last year we have moved from active control of central area around Pontos to containment. The garrisons of the forts on the Zeejav frontier, mostly Dendrian mercenaries, have been increased to allow them to provide a strong patrol screen on the east and to cut the rebels off from some of their major ports on the south coast.
The withdrawal of our troops to the north has been used to good effect by General Plite Abbar to restore complete control of the area immediately to the west and south of Karkor, thus not only making the Capital totally secure, but also providing a firm base for our push southwards again in the summer.
General Abbar plans to launch the first wave of troops after the Spring Festival. ‘Clear Zones’ will be created at each stage of the advance, so that the front line can move south, leaving only fully pacified areas behind.
The full details of the Plan are in the documents attached, including all major objectives and the time-lines involved.
Colonel Debbut Kimmr
Empire: Sikoon
"Isn’t that a lovely sight, Mister Caldar?" Dazzak was in high spirits when his young passenger came up on deck. He swept a hand around the whole semi-circle behind their wake. "I don’t remember being more grateful to observe an empty sea."
"No ships and no rocks," Rasscu added. He had stayed on deck all night with captain and crew, keeping watch for any signs of pursuit. Ever since the lookout had reported nothing in sight at dawn, he had been dozing in the sun against the bulwarks.
"With this breeze we’ll make Sikoon in three days," the captain said confidently in a reply to a query from Caldar. "I understand from Mister S’Bissi that you’re intending to travel thence to Karkor and eventually on to the far lands which are your home."
"Yes." It was the Tesserit who replied. He added, as much for Caldar's information as the captain's, "We have to be in Karkor before the Spring Equinox."
"I know little of such land journeys. It’s a long way, but I think you have time enough." Dazzak stopped and cleared his throat. He was clearly working himself up to something.
"I wanted to ask you, Mister Caldar, if you don’t mind, can you tell me how you performed that feat last night? I mean could you repeat it at will? And is it something you were born with? Or can it be learned?" The captain was sweating now. "Please don’t take offence and make no answer if you so wish. It’s just that I am so astonished at what you did. I have never even heard of such a thing before. And …."
Dazzak talked on, misinterpreting the youth's silence. The fact was that Caldar was highly amused. As the captain piled question upon question without waiting for a reply, he had a vivid picture of himself and Berin doing exactly the same thing with the Tinker and Idressin, and he recalled their gentle good humour with the puppies who had chewed so often at their ankles. He was sure Dazzak had a personal motive behind the questioning, but no doubt he would reveal it given time.
"You must understand that the gift is not in my control, captain," he began, when there was a pause in the flow of words. He was not entirely sure about that, Caldar reflected, but he preferred to put it this way. "There are definite limits to how it can be used, especially by someone as inexperienced as me. I’ve never attempted anything quite like that before. It was touch and go for a moment." Dazzak gulped. "Then it went more easily than I expected."
The stout mariner bravely absorbed the thought that the deadly journey through the reef had been an experiment; then he doggedly returned to his enquiries. "So you could in fact, Mister Caldar, do that again?"
"If the circumstances were the same, captain, perhaps I could."
The captain frowned, his objective becoming more apparent by the minute.
"My ship, my cargo, and all our lives we owe to you already. It ill befits me to ask for more. But ….I was just considering the inestimable value of such a gift to all seafarers. A pilot who could see through fog, darkness, storm and water would be beyond price."
Caldar shook his head gently. He liked the little mariner. "I can’t explain any better, Dazzak. I know very little about the gift, but I’ve been told very clearly that it is not mine to use at will. It’s available to me to use for a special purpose, and I call on it for anything else at my peril. Last night, with all of you in danger, it seemed alright to try; even then, because I'm so ignorant in all this, I hesitated unt
il it was nearly too late. I'm not sure I'm the right person for this kind of responsibility."
The captain snorted. "Ignorant and irresponsible, eh? Well, I think there are a few I could call that with more justification." He sighed heavily. "I had hoped I could persuade you not to leave the sea and abandon your gift. Now you say that this is just a chance thing for you, that this power is for some greater purpose. What could be more important than saving ships and sailors from the perils of the sea?"
He glanced sideways at the silent youth and sighed again. "No, I see I’m wasting my breath. You understand well what I say, but you will not turn aside. So be it, my young friend. And believe me, I have nothing but praise and gratitude for you and Mister S’Bissi, and for the good fortune which placed you aboard my ship. Let me have one last throw. Could this gift be taught to another? To me or to any other sailor whose life is on the ocean?"
"I don't think so," Caldar replied sadly. "I think you have to be born with it. It's like the people in our country we call Tellers, who can truly see a person's future; they just seem to be born with the ability and there aren't many of them."
"Yes, I have heard of such things, but I’ve never met a soothsayer yet who made me a simple prediction without wrapping it up in a dozen vague possibilities. Well, Mister Caldar, if I can’t persuade you and you can’t teach me, I’ll put aside my foolish hopes. I remain in your debt. Tell me how I can repay you. Do you wish to return to Razimir? As captain of a ship there are a few things that I can offer you. Whatever I can do, I will."
Caldar glanced at Rasscu, who shrugged and then answered for them both. "We're going to need good horses and a guide, Dazzak, to travel with us to Karkor, since neither of us speak Belugins. Can you arrange that for us in Sikoon? I have money with me, not a large amount, but enough to pay for those things and to see us to the capital."
The captain chuckled. "Come now, Mister S’Bissi, you are a rich man."
"Yes, but I don't have all …."
"No, no. You misunderstand me. You have seen how much cargo I’m carrying. Well, I don’t only transport things for other people. Half of all these goods are my own. Like you, I’m a trader. Now if somebody saved all your trade goods and your life several times, would you not feel that they had some claim on you?"
He waved Rasscu down, as he started to protest. "I have already decided. All the proceeds from this trip are yours. And much good they will be to you if I sell them in a month's time and I never see you again. So in Sikoon I’ll go to people that I know there and procure an advance. It will buy you a hundred horses and a hundred guides. So please, let us hear no more talk about money."
And so it was left. When they made port three days later, Dazzak was as good as his word. On the first day he returned with a heavy pouch of gold coins and on the second he took Rasscu with him to see an agent who would provide all that they needed. That night, which was to be their last aboard, there was a celebration. The crew got themselves very drunk in the process of expressing their thanks to the two passengers, and the party seemed to spread and to involve half the port before the night was out.
Word had gone from ship to ship, fuelled by the exaggerated boasts of Dazzak's men, about the wizards who had held back the sea, while they flung a broken mast and a mutinous mate overboard, and who had then spirited the ship magically from under the noses of a whole fleet manned by cannibals by opening an enchanted gap in the dreaded Tarifarui reef and slamming it shut behind them. It was a good story, and hundreds of sailors rolled up to sample the copious barrels of beer the captain had provided and to catch a glimpse of the wizards.
They did not make an early start. It was nearly midday by the time Dazzak walked with them to the stables, where their guide was to be waiting.
"I don’t know your purpose in going to Karkor, gentlemen," the captain said as they neared their destination. "I only know that it’s not trade, just as I am quite certain that you, Mister S’Bissi, are no trader; you share none of our instincts for rapacity and deceit. No, it’s something more serious and more dangerous than trade. I can tell from the grim looks on your faces each time I mention Karkor." He laughed. "Take heart. There can be little in this world more powerful than a big storm and little more dangerous than three boatloads of savages."
The stout little sailor was out of breath before they topped the slope up from the busy harbour. Sikoon was the main port for this whole region of Belugor and the market centre for the farms from a hundred miles inland. But it was a practical stolid kind of place with little liveliness or charm, and Caldar felt none of the compulsion to return evoked by Tarkus and Razimir. The stables stood on a dusty side-street, apparently deserted. The horses waited patiently in their stalls, twitching their ears at the flies which buzzed in the warm air.
"Wasn't the guide supposed to be here to meet us?" Rasscu asked with a touch of annoyance.
"The guide is here."
A figure in a patched brown robe uncoiled itself from its sunlit perch atop one of the stable walls and dropped lightly to the ground. Three pairs of eyes viewed with astonishment the slight frame and innocent features of the waif who had appeared before them. A child as a guide for the six hundred unknown miles to Karkor?
Dazzak said it. "Come now, child. These gentlemen do not have time for pranks. Where is the guide I arranged for?"
The small face hardened. "I told you I am …."
"The best guide? I apologise, Mister S’Bissi. I paid for the best I could obtain. There seems to have been some foolish mistake."
"The only thing that's foolish is what's between your ears, fatso." The captain stared at the 'guide' with as much horrified surprise as if he had come across a barking rattlesnake. "What's wrong with a female guide?"
"Female?" Dazzak squeaked. All three men were staring now. The belligerent little face suddenly cracked into a mischievous grin.
"Hell, you hadn't even got that far. Well, Mister Sea Captain with lots of money, ignore my boobs and listen." She was as slim and flat-chested as a young boy. "I've been travelling the roads between here and Karkor since I was five years old."
"A couple of years is not much," Rasscu murmured. He was withered by a torrid glare.
"I know all the dangers. I know where all the best inns and camping places are. I'm good with horses, and I speak Shattun, Belugins, Maleforins, Dendrian, …."
"Enough. Enough." Dazzak raised both hands. He studied this defiant imp, who stared right back at him. Then the intelligent brown eyes dropped and the thin shoulders shrugged.
"Ah, what the hell! You're not going to take me on, are you? Just see if you can find anyone better within a hundred miles of here." She turned away, muttering, "Bloody sailors," then swung back towards them. "Go on. Go and ask Stimmot. He was so glad when I agreed to do it he nearly wet himself." The brown eyes narrowed. "Hey, how much are you paying him to get this trip organised? It was enough to make him awful eager."
The vivid face with its cap of unkempt brown curls lit up in another smile, as she continued without waiting for an answer. "Yeah, I reckon you've got plenty. You can afford the best. Stimmot said the deal was worth two Imperials to me. When you come whining back, my price is going to be five. In advance."
With that, she stalked off. When Rasscu called after her, "Where will you be if we want you?", she didn't turn as she threw back the one word, "Around."
Stimmot's office was pleasantly cool, behind a long arched colonnade in the lower town. The immensely fat Belugar eyed them with apprehension as they strode in and demanded an explanation.
"But I assure you, my dear Captain, that Harol is the best guide I could find - could hope to find," he corrected himself. "In fact I was very lucky to get her. There are not many in Sikoon who speak Shattun, and no one who knows the roads like she does. Her father runs a transport business between here and Karkor, you know, mule trains, wagons, horses for hire. The family's been in it for generations and the girl was brought up to it practically from birth."
&nbs
p; "Yes, she told us," Rasscu said drily. "She still looks too young. Where's her father?"
"I believe he's in Karkor, so it suits the young lady to go and join him. Otherwise I doubt if she would have agreed. She's very independent."
"Young lady!" Dazzak snorted. "She looks like an eight-year old street urchin."
"I assure you she's fifteen and extremely competent."
"You're giving a lot of assurances, Stimmot," Rasscu said in a hard voice. "Assure us also how much of the twenty Imperials we paid you to organise our journey is going to this guide. If she's so good, she's bound to be expensive."
Stimmot hesitated, licking his lips. He could see the trap, and he had no way of telling what Harol had said to them. He opted for half the truth.
"I arranged to pay her an advance of two Imperials, and then to make it up to five on her return to Sikoon."
Rasscu laughed. "Well, it does save time dealing with a blatant rogue." Stimmot bristled and then subsided, thinking that he would do best by keeping this client in a good humour. "Come, give us back the five Imperials and we’ll pay the guide."
The agent paled at the prospect of losing so much profit at a stroke, but he could see no way out and paid up with a strained smile. Back on the street they bade Dazzak farewell and gave him back his pouch with most of the gold, overriding his objections.
"I will put it in trade for you,” he said at last, defeated. Then he turned to Caldar. “Don’t forget, my young friend, there’s at least one old seadog in the Western Ocean who would welcome you aboard with open arms at any time. You too, Mister S’Bissi. Perhaps when you’ve finished your business in Karkor?"
As the two friends strode off up the hill, Caldar remarked, "'Our business in Karkor' sounds so definite. Yet here we are on the last stage of the journey and I still have no idea what we’re getting into."
The Tears of Sisme Page 62
