by Dave Duncan
The thane's rugged hand grabbed Rap by the throat, thrusting him back against the gunwale, bending him over it until his feet left the deck, flailing helplessly, and he was sure he was about to crack. Through a choking black mist he saw blue eyes blaze above him in a killer rage. "Sink my ship, would you, faun scum?"
Gathmor lifted the battle-ax from Vurjuk's unresisting hand and swung it against the back of Kalkor's knees. The thane leaped straight up, so it passed below him and thudded into the side of the ship between Rap's legs. Momentarily released from that choking grip. Rap toppled himself over the rail in a back somersault and plummeted into the sea. Vurjuk reached both hands for his prisoner and was doubled up by a punch that would have felled an oak. Gathmor vaulted over the side, following Rap.
Blood Wave surged away seaward, out of danger.
2
Swimming in the calm of Durthing Bay was no preparation for what happened when a man fell into a riptide crossing a reef. Nothing in Rap's past had ever prepared him for the experience; nothing he could do now made the slightest difference. His farsight was warning him of jagged teeth in all directions; seaweed streaming in the water like hair in a wind; sand swirling in clouds along the bottom; strange marine growths and slippery things writhing all around him. And he, stirred in some giant's silent soup pot, rolled over and over, going down and up and down again, was all the time being rushed helpless between those terribly sharp-looking rocks, coated with abrasive barnacles. Fish fled from this improbable terrestrial monster invading their realm.
Then calm! He fought his way to the surface, to the world of air and life and sound. Gasp! He was into the lagoon—dazed and shaken but unhurt . . . almost so, for he had lost some skin on his shoulders and knees. But alive!
His first thought was to head ashore and warn the villagers, but that was already impossible. He was long past the huts, being borne northward parallel to the coast, and moreover he had left the beach behind also, and there was nothing to landward except rocks and a cliff. So he concentrated on saving his strength, keeping his head up, and searching for Blood Wave. He found her at the limit of his range, far out from shore, northward bound like himself.
Then he could relax a little. With wind and current behind him, Kalkor would not turn back to loot a humble handful of hovels, else he would exhaust his rowers to small purpose. Rather he would search for better pickings up ahead. The immediate danger was past.
But soon Rap found himself being forced inexorably shoreward, to where the surf broke upon monstrous boulders that would love to break him also. He had never swum in real waves, honest waves, and he was appalled at how little his efforts seemed to matter. The sea moved him as it moved the weeds, and if it chose to shatter him and color the spray a momentary red, then that would be his lot.
Try as he might, he moved ever closer to the fury and madness of the breakers, the white thunderclap explosions, the myriad rocky claws stretching out to rend him. Crosscurrents spun him around in mockery, so at times he was swimming toward his destruction. At last one careless eddy slid him into the lee of an especially large boulder. He flailed water with hands and feet, resisting the drag of the water, fighting for his life. For one desperate minute he held his position, then he began to drift away. His fingers touched trailing weed. He grabbed, pulled, and slid easily to the rock, a land animal rooted again.
Once he had his breath back, he scrambled up to safety. So far so good! The tidal flow seemed to be easing already, meaning he would not be washed off his rocky perch, but the surf still lay between him and the shore, the sun had gone, and so had every stitch of his clothing. He could hope to swim the few yards to shore when the current slackened in a couple of hours, or he might have to wait for low tide and wade, but he could certainly reach the land in time, and then hope to walk back to the village. On bare feet? Oh, well—at the moment he was king of his own island.
Which was certainly better than being Kalkor's prisoner.
On the other hand, this deserted land was neither Kith nor Sysannasso nor Pithmot, and thus it must indeed be Dragon Reach, the eastern shore of the Dragon Sea. Things were certainly beginning to shape up like the first of the magic casement's prophecies. One of the three men in the vision had been Rap, one Sagorn, and the other a jotunn sailor. The first time Rap had met Gathmor, on the dock at Milflor, there had been something oddly familiar about him.
For the thousandth time Rap wondered how those three dread visions should be interpreted. Were they alternatives, with him fated to die in one of those ways? Kalkor had gone, Little Chicken was dead, the dragon was perhaps not far off. Or were they a sequence—would he survive the dragon and at some future date survive Kalkor? And in that case, where was the goblin?
What a choice!
Either the pounding of the surf or the nerve-racking strain of the last week had exhausted him. He wanted to stretch out and sleep, but the rock was not flat enough. In any case, he must not miss the tide. How far to Zark from here? He huddled himself small, shivering in the clammy sea wind and the cold touch of spray.
So he had escaped from the raiders. He wondered if his occult genius included more than just farsight and mastery over animals. Could there be such a thing as a talent for escaping from awkward situations?
Mainland! Apart from a few yards of turbulent water, he was within reach of Zark. A long walk, maybe, but possible. Inos might be in Hub, of course, or back in Krasnegar, or anywhere; but he'd told her he was coming, and that meant following her to Zark, and if he couldn't find her there, then he'd try the other places afterward. Now he could begin, and that was very satisfying.
He had failed to destroy Kalkor, but by all the Gods he had tried! Tried his damndest. He felt even more satisfied when he looked back at that effort. Maybe, just maybe, he could take a little pride in that honest failure. He must no longer think of himself as a stableboy. He was a man now. He hadn't been one long enough to really get to know himself. Oh, he was accustomed to his size; he knew how his ugly face looked, and the amusement on other people's faces when they registered it and tried to place him, and he had accepted his absurdly furry faun legs. But the stranger behind his eyes—he was still an untested quantity. Now he could begin to hope that the man in there was not one to be ashamed of. Nice try, lad, nice try! Not bad at all, faun.
So? Maybe it was time to start asserting himself. Maybe he, too, had a destiny to find.
Dragons, huh?
He was unsurprised, an hour or so later, to sense a boat coming from the south, riding the last curl of the tide. It was a cumbersome craft, hollowed from a single great log, being paddled by a burly, naked savage. Even in the dark, farsight said that his hair and mustache and stubbly beard were jotunnish silver.
"Shipmate ahoy!" Rap called.
The boat turned in his direction and a familiar voice came on the wind: "How much will you pay for supper?"
"All the money I've got."
The tidal race was slackening now, and the wind dying. Rap shouted directions, and in a few minutes the sturdy craft thumped against his rock. He grabbed hold of one side.
"Here, take the painter," said Gathmor.
"There's nothing to tie it to."
"Tie it round your neck! Tide's turning, so we'll get a free ride back. You never heard of the tides in the Dragon Sea? Stir it like soup." He was grinning in the dark.
Rap looped the rope round his leg. "The villagers let you borrow this?"
"The villagers had the sense to be long gone. They must know a raider when they see one. I helped myself, but I expect they won't mind when we explain. If they do, I'll kick their heads in."
Gathmor, apparently, was restored to his old self.
"We're in Dragon Reach?"
"Right."
"I thought no one lived here?"
Gathmor shrugged, and passed up a basket. "Help yourself—you can see better than I can. No, there are people here. It must be like living on the rim of a volcano. Escaped convicts, I expect. Shipwrecked jotna
r, merfolk . . . runaway slaves, of course. They'll be a rag-bag lot, but probably quite friendly. So I've heard.
"But dragons?"
"I said. Like living on a volcano, and people do that. But remember that it's metal that attracts dragons. Gold, of course, or silver, but any metal to some extent. There wasn't as much as a nail in that hamlet that I could see. Stone axes, stone knives. If they can get by without metal, the dragons may not bother them much."
"You warned them?" Gathmor was an infinitely more powerful swimmer than Rap.
"I told you, lad—they'd already gone. But I would have done. They might have thumped me first, of course, seeing as how I'm a jotunn, but I figured if you'd survived you'd be along here somewhere. So I thought I'd come and look for you."
"Thanks." Then Rap added cautiously, "I think there's another somewhere."
"Who?"
"The minstrel, maybe." If it was Darad or Andor, Rap would be happy to let him die of starvation and exposure. Jalon or Thinal would be worth saving. Sagorn it would never be, not yet. Having laid a selection of fruits and crusts beside him on the rock, Rap passed the basket back down to the canoe.
"Did he jump, too?"
"I didn't see him, but . . ." Rap considered trying to explain, and weariness settled over him like a blanket of snow. "I think maybe he did."
Gathmor grunted, his mouth full of black bread. "You really tried to sink the longship?"
"Yes."
"Nice try! Good man!" The jotunn chewed for a while. "Wish I'd felled the bastard with that ax, though! Never saw a man jump like that."
"He has farsight, too," Rap said sadly.
"Stow that!" Gathmor would never discuss the occult, nor let it be discussed in his presence. Sailors believed such talk was unlucky.
But obviously Kalkor had seen the battle-ax coming. When he had wanted a harp for his minstrel, he had gone straight to the correct sack among a boatful of loot. The test with the razor had been a lot less dangerous than it seemed, for he had been watching all Rap's muscles, as Rap had been watching his. He had known the dangers of the reef and understood them perfectly, waiting until the last minute just to be certain of Rap's ill intent. Kalkor had never needed a seer; he was one.
"What're you going to do next?" Rap asked, nibbling at a thickskinned fruit he did not recognize. It was sickly and bitter at the same time, and the juice ran down into his stubble.
The jotunn paused in his chewing and bared his teeth. "Find an Imperial post and warn them of Kalkor. If we can get word to the navy soon enough, they might bottle him up here."
"How far?"
"Let's see . . . We passed Flame Cape two days ago—"
"We did?"
"We did. Clouds. Birds. Wave patterns. Those northerners don't know these waters. I wasn't certain it was Flame, of course, but I knew we were close to land. So two days northeast of that . . ." He pondered for a moment, screwing up his face. "We must be close to Pithmot. Dragon Neck, they call the bit next the mainland. Not far to Puldarn, but it might still take us days. The devil may be long gone by men. Not much chance of catching him, really." He fell to brooding, chewing as impassively as an ox, locking to and fro as waves flowed under him. The painter tagged stubbornly at Rap's ankle.
"Then," Gathmor said at last, "from Puldarn we head home to Durthing. The other crews'll be in now, or very soon. Expect they're organizing something."
"Hunt him down?" How could anyone ever hope to corner a single raider on the immensity of the four oceans?
"Course not. We'll go to Gark. Return the compliment—burn his steadings, carry off the young women."
Rap shuddered. He could see where the manpower would come from, and the galleys could be adapted readily enough, but . . . "Where do you get the weapons?"
"The praetor. Impire's always willing to support an outing like that."
Of course. It would never end. Moreover, Gathmor was obviously assuming that he still had the right to give Rap orders and have them obeyed. That was a matter that would have to be settled soon, but this was neither the time nor the place. It would mean a fight. "You're feeling better, anyway."
Gathmor bristled. "And what does that mean?"
"Just that I'm glad!" Rap said hastily. Yet the sailor had made a miraculous recovery from the paralysis that had seized him aboard Blood Wave. That withdrawal could have been genuinely due to weakness and shock, but it had more likely been faked. While a faun could cower and beg for food, another jotunn doing so might provoke a lethal contempt. His strange lethargy could very well have saved Gathmor from cold-blooded execution, but he would never admit that he had stooped to using deceit.
So change the subject quickly.
"I'd like to explore a little farther north before the tide turns, sir. If you don't mind."
Gathmor grunted uncooperatively.
"I thought I caught a glimpse of the minstrel jumping," Rap said with complete untruth, "but if you think it's too dangerous—"
"We can risk it. Get in, then."
The canoe was an absurdly awkward thing, constantly shipping water, but it was better than swimming or walking. Just around the next headland, Rap's farsight detected Jalon stretched out on a small patch of sand. He was unhurt, and effusively grateful for being rescued. The prophecy had passed its test and the trio was now complete.
The tide began to ebb, and soon the clumsy dugout was whirling southward, perilously overloaded. Jalon had deliberately followed the other captives over Blood Wave's side, which was a surprising act of courage or desperation from him. Although he had already guessed that this deserted countryside must be Dragon Reach, he did not seem to connect it with the vision in the magic casement. Any of the other four would have done so, but Jalon was notoriously impractical. When the dragon appeared, he would call Sagorn and the prophecy would be fulfilled, the hidden ending revealed.
Gathmor did not know of the prophecy, and his sole intent now was to be revenged on Kalkor. Dragons held no interest for him.
So Rap was the only one who could see what was going to happen. He had his own ambitions, and it felt like his turn to be ruthless for a change.
Ever since the night encounter with Bright Water's fire chick in the Gazebo, he had known that his mastery over animals could control dragons. Neither Sagorn nor any of his four alternates knew that, not having been there, and Rap could see how this situation might be used in the near future to extract certain information. He would have to fake enough terror to deceive Sagorn.
That might be the tricky part, for of course he would be in no real danger.
3
The little hamlet had no name. Its people were mostly old or middle age, with few young adults and even fewer children. They were a varied lot, as Gathmor had predicted: hulking trolls, tall jotnar, squat imps, and a couple of male fauns like shorter, slighter versions of Rap himself, plus people of obvious mixed blood. He was curious to farsee one of the women being hustled away by two men as the strangers arrived. They put her in the farthest shack and stayed there with her, as if guarding.
Among the adults, men far outnumbered women, and many of both bore ownership brands to prove that slavery still lingered in the outer reaches of the Impire. All seemed bitter and listless—from sickness, perhaps, or poor diet, or just excessive toil. Everyone and everywhere stank of fish.
On the edge of the firelight, the naked castaways were challenged, and came to a halt before a bristle of spears and axes, tight-clutched in male hands and backed by the glint of angry, distrustful eyes in shadowed faces.
Gathmor told his story, or the parts that mattered, and for an uneasy few minutes after that Rap was acutely aware of numbers and the utter lack of law. Only brute force reigned here in the wilds. He saw the poverty and emaciation; he smelled the resentment. Who was he to come begging at such a door?
Then a woman called out from behind the ring of men, "Bring you metal, strangers?"
"No metal!" Gathmor said. "We have nothing, as you can see."
&nb
sp; "Be welcome then."
With no argument, but certainly without enthusiasm, the men accepted her decision and lowered their weapons. Clothes were passed forward, and the visitors brought into the group.
Thus Rap soon found himself joining a single great circle, cross-legged around the central fire. The fare thrust upon him was sparse, fish and roasted roots, but he felt guilty at accepting even that, hungry though he was. His meager portion was larger than any other in sight, and he could see the gaunt children huddling behind their elders and peering out at the newcomers with sullen awe. He thought they needed the food more than he did.
The buildings on the edge of the firelight were ramshackle hovels of driftwood and wicker; sparks and smoke drifted up into indistinct overhanging boughs, and somewhere the stream made excited chatter on its way to the sea. The night was heavy and sticky and rife with insects. In the distance, surf boomed an endless, mindless, changeless knell.
Across from Rap, Gathmor sat beside the hamlet's wise woman, an ancient half troll named Nagg. She was undoubtedly the ugliest person Rap had ever seen, a giantess of haggard skin and crooked bones, scanty of tooth and hair. Gathmor and Jalon had done a poor job of concealing their mirth at the idea of a wise troll, but Rap suspected that much cunning might lurk behind that nightmare parody of a face. On Stormdancer he had prized Ballast as a friend and one of the best men aboard; in Durthing he had concluded that the trolls were rarely as stupid as they often pretended. It had been Nagg alone who had chosen to admit Gathmor and his companions; the villagers had accepted her decision at once, as if her judgment could be trusted.
She nodded and clucked and drooled while Gathmor explained how he must hasten on to Puldarn to warn the Imperial navy of the raider, but in his efforts to seem friendly, he became pompous. "We shall not tell of meeting you," he said. "We shall not report this village."
Nagg screeched with merriment even as she stuffed her mouth full of fish. "Tell all you want, jotunn," she mumbled. "You've seen the marks here. Some have been here long enough." She pulled her rags aside to show her own shoulder. "Was only a child when I left the Impire. Long, long ago, sailor. Legions don't chase runaways into Dragon Reach—right?" she appealed to the others, and they hooted and laughed. "Lots more like us along the coast, too. Here and there."
