by David Bell
Kanesh felt a faint breath of wind, mild and moist, tainted with a smell he recognised: the burning mountain. He saw that Sharesh, on the bow, and Potyr had caught it too. Both were looking to starboard. Potyr then did something drastic.
“Helmsman! Wind on the starboard quarter. Stand ready to hoist and trim sail. Bring the yard round.”
The riggers and the Leptos brothers leaped up at Typhis’s shout and stood by the bracing ropes.
“Loose starboard line! Haul on that larboard line! Look sharp there! Get that spar back!” roared Typhis and the yard turned slowly, squealing on its thick rope woolding until it angled across the ship, larboard arm well aft. “Brace ‘em now! Brace ‘em!” He glanced towards Potyr, who simply nodded.
“Hoist sail! The lifting lines that furled the sail were quickly loosed and it began to flap in the light breeze until the sheets were secured, whereupon it quickly began to fill. With the power of the wind added to the work of the oarsmen, the ship was soon moving faster than the current and under control once more. A little after noon she had reached the far shore and a much-relieved Typhis steered her easily through slow water, round a headland and into a sheltered bay on its other side. Before Kalidas had a chance to speak, Potyr had ordered the sail to be lowered and the anchors dropped. He understood the current now. It would turn before long and by the time it began to flow up the strait again, night would be near, so they must wait until next day, and the coming of the full moon. One thing concerned him. He knew now that the strait narrowed in the direction they were going although he could not see by how much because in the distance its course was obscured by another headland, higher than the one that sheltered them where they lay. Yet the strait must widen again somewhere because beyond it Luzar had said there was another sea. Where the water strove to pass through the narrowest part, there the current would flow fastest, but how fast would that be, with a full moon and a wind adding their force to it?
Uneasy thoughts that there was yet more danger to come in this menacing strait coming on top of memories of the burning mountain, whose smoking peak was still in view, and the events of the morning, made the less stolid crewmen restless and fearful. Leptos and Leptos, sitting side by side on the stern, watching for any movement of their floats, showed no other concern, nor did the archers who, as usual when not on duty, oiled bowstrings, sharpened arrowheads, sighted along shafts for straightness, or lay back dozing in the sun, saving their strength. Their captain was feeling somewhat impatient: there had been no chance for target practice since leaving Keftiu.
“Can you smell that?” said one of the oarsmen.
“If you mean your last fart,” said the rigger, “why do you think I moved away?”
“Don’t make jokes. I mean that smell on the wind. It’s bad.”
“Devil’s breath,” said Namun. “I’ve smelt it before, on Korus.”
“Devil’s breath, coming here on the wind? What does it do?” said the first man in a worried voice.
“Poisoned a man and a lot of birds on Korus,” said Namun. “That’s what the lord said. He made us shift from that place as fast as we could run.”
“Sacred Lady Mother!” gasped the oarsman. “We shouldn’t be staying here. It might kill us.”
“And which way would you like to go?” said an archer, opening one eye. “Back there, burning mountain belching devil’s breath, or up there, who knows where, with a current wild enough to fling you onto any rock it fancies? Make the best of it, mate. Enjoy a bit of peace here, while you can. It could be your last.”
Namun got up and went to the stern to see if Leptos, or Leptos, had caught anything. Even if they had, he wouldn’t be cooking it. Captain’s orders: nobody allowed ashore. He looked out across the strait. The surface of the water was smoother: the current must have slowed. That man was stupid, even for an oarsman, shitting himself over a little whiff like that. He should have had a nosefull of Korus and then he’d know about devil’s breath! Wait a bit: could the same devils have come from Korus and lit the fires under that mountain? Somebody told him once there were long caves under the sea. They could have come through a cave like that. That old man at Alefisia, Keeper of the Beacon he called himself, knew about the burning mountain although he’d never been there. He might know about the caves as well. Still, no use thinking that. They’d never see him again. Namun felt his thoughts beginning to drift, like the water out there. It was moving the other way now, and getting faster. There was something tangled-looking out there, floating past, ropes lost overboard, perhaps; useful if you could fish them out. No, it was only weed, clumps of seaweed, roots and all. Namun wondered idly where it could have come from and then turned his thoughts to other things.
Kanesh looked down at Leptos and Leptos freeing their lines from strands of weed. Most of the clumps swept past in the current but occasionally an eddy swirled one away from the stream and into the quiet water. He saw live shells in the roots. Somewhere, the current must become a race to drag such things up from the seabed. Potyr thought for a while when Kanesh told him what he had seen.
“It may mean shallows ahead,” he said. “Luzar will stand pilot. He says he has sailed this strait, if in the other direction. Let us see what he and the Lady Mother can do for us tomorrow.”
Men stood by the anchor ropes, ready to haul. As the sun lifted, its light came sweeping across the waves towards them from the far shore. Kalidas stood on the bow, fidgeting nervously as usual and sweating, even in the cool shade cast by the cliffs above. Luzar, who should have been beside him, was nowhere to be seen. The crew kept their eyes on the captain who stood with his hands clasped behind him, gazing impassively out across the strait. A low murmuring sound came from the deck. The men were growing impatient. Kalidas began to stamp to and fro across the bow deck, waving his arms about and pointing out to sea. He stopped, glared towards the stern and threw up his hands in frustration.
“Anybody would think he wants us to be going,” grunted Typhis. “Maybe he’s right. Where is that other pilot of ours?”
“On the cliff top, to be sure,” said Kanesh, “getting a better sight of the strait. He will be here when the time comes to sail.”
“Sail now,” said Luzar, climbing onto the stern deck. Water dripped from him as he made his way between the thwarts and climbed up to the bow.
At first it was easy and the ship moved steadily at the edge of the current where it was slowest, keeping close to the shore. Mid morning came with her approaching a high headland that forced Typhis to steer to larboard, into the faster water. As the ship rounded the headland, Typhis saw the coast opposite, a mass of low hills tapering towards a narrow spit of sand, curving across their heading. The headland towered above the ship, close on the starboard bow, but the spit was now dead ahead and the grip of the current was tightening. He leaned on the tiller to bring her to starboard. Luzar swung round, furiously crossed his arms in front of his chest, opened them again and pointed directly ahead.
“Do as he says,” said Potyr, quietly. “He has seen something. Keep on course. ”
“He’ll have us aground on that spit if we don’t do something quick. I can see some very rough water out there. She’s starting to swing. ”
“Watch him. Whatever he signals, do it instantly.”
“Lord Potheidan save us.”
Luzar thrust out his right arm, sending Kalidas reeling to the deck. “Now,” said Potyr. Hard a starboard.”
The ship plunged into a mass of eddies that swirled and spun about her bow and along her sides like a pack of mad, twisting beasts. At one moment it seemed she would turn completely about, at the next, be driven onto the headland’s rocky foot. She rolled so far that oars lifted high out of the water and men lost hold and slid from their thwarts. Typhis clung desperately to the tiller, holding it over. Kanesh’s hands clamped down on top of his. Then suddenly she righted, seemed to shake herself, and as the oars took hold again, ran true, gliding easily through slow moving water below the high cliffs. A
head, the strait opened out into a deep blue sea that stretched to the horizon. Kanesh went forward to the bow.
“Many holes in water,” said Luzar. “Find right hole, ship turns where she must go. Many holes in my sea.”
Kalidas got up from the deck, chest heaving and eyes wide, and grabbed Kanesh by the arm. “We must keep a close lookout along this shore. There’s a point not far away where the shoals are dangerous. We must stand well out. Not too far out,” he added hastily. “There’s a much bigger, what he calls a hole in the sea on the other side, offshore from that spit. He wouldn’t get us out of that one.”
Kanesh quite gently released the trembling hand. “I know,” he said. “Luzar remembers everything. He has already told us.”
“I want it to be a very long time,” said Typhis to no one in particular, “before we sail this way again.”
They landed Kallidas in a small bay where they anchored as the sun was nearing the horizon. A few loud booming notes from the shell brought a boat out from the shore and he climbed down into it, saying that he would tell the fishermen whose huts lay near the beach that men were coming ashore later from the ship to cook their food and they need have no fear of them. A jar of oil and a sack of barley grain was handed down to him for his pains by Namun who called out as the boat drew away, asking what fish the men caught in these waters.
“The best,” came back the reply, “the fish with a long spear for a nose. I’ll ask if they have any they can spare.”
“We have a wind,” said Potyr. “It will be stronger away to sea and on our quarter. We must stand far out from the shore before we raise sail, half sail if the wind forces us.”
When questioned about what lay ahead of them along this coast, Kalidas could offer no more than a few vague remarks about a river somewhere with clean water and a bay with a settlement near a river in a gorge where wool and sometimes sheep could be bought. One thing he was certain about was what he called a fiery beacon in the ocean he claimed every ship that plied this coast sighted. It turned out that he never had seen it himself and did not know what it was. They left him standing on the shore with some fishermen who were getting their boats ready for the day’s work. The big fish would be out in the bay, they said, hunting the shoals. Watch for the fin and have your harpoon ready for when they jump. Kalidas had few regrets in seeing the ship raise anchors and pull away. His mind was fixed on getting back to Sikelia and finding his people. One day a ship bound for the black obsidian quarries on Lipara would call in and he would beg a passage from the skipper. After loading, these ships went on to Sakrosa on the far coast of Sikelia, calling in at smaller settlements on the way where shepherds and fishermen bought the stone for making knives and tipping arrows and harpoons. He would leave the ship wherever it called first and after that, well, the few pieces of silver and amber that he still had hidden in his tunic would have to see him home, wherever that now was. Somebody was bound to have heard of people on the move away from the burning mountain.
ISLAND OF BRONZESMITHS
The Leptos brothers had no luck with the big long-nosed fish. With half sail hoist and a good strong stroke, Potyr saw his chance to cover a lot of sea and he had no intention of slowing the ship enough for harpoons to be thrown. Late in the afternoon a greyish-white headland could be seen on the starboard beam and, when it lay astern, Potyr had Typhis bring the ship to starboard. A great bay opened before them, so wide that the other shore was barely visible in the haze.
“The wind has lost that foul breath of the burning mountain,” said Kanesh, “and taken on another I remember well.”
“I too: the Deshret of Libun. If this wind rises and holds we shall have the yellow dust in our throats as we had on Keftiu that time. More to starboard, helmsman, I want to make landfall on the far side of this gulf where the fishermen said there was anchorage and water, if we can find the place before dark. The wind is astern; set the sail full and take us in.”
“Lee shore, Captain?” said Typhis.
“Lee shore?” said Sharesh on the bow, thinking he sounded like a true seaman. “Wind dies with day here,” said Luzar.
“The wind will drop before nightfall,” Potyr sad to Typhis. “Be ready to lower sail the instant the lookout sees any light on the shore.”
“We will see fires where women smoke fish, fish we let live today.”
“ You have been here, eaten it? Is it good, the smoked fish?” asked Sharesh.
“Good, yes,” replied Luzar and fell silent again. Sharesh continued scanning the darkening sea for any sign of rocks or shoaling, occasionally looking up to watch flights of seabirds heading landwards. He knew the lower they flew, the nearer the land. His inner self was alone on the ship that bore him swiftly, silently, through the night towards a land where no ship had ever been but where the lost child of the wild-haired woman had been and would go again, because all went there and came back again, somewhere, as surely as the green shoots pushed up again, out of darkness.
“And women good, yes,” said Luzar. “There: I see fires.”
The anchors were dropped when the linesman reported two knots’ depth and sand on the lead. Weary crewmen drooped over their oars, glad at last that the wind had dropped, they were in calm water and the day was over. The air was as still as the sea and warm, warm enough for sleeping on the sand, or better still on grass, if any could be found near the huts where the fires glowed. The tantalising smell of smoked fish wafted out to the ship. A moon that had been veiled by twilight haze when it rose, now hung huge and silver in the sky. There was hardly any sound to disturb the quiet but the breaking of tiny waves on the beach and the creaking of rigging and anchor ropes.
“I know Luzar went ahead of us,” said Sharesh as he and Namuns plodded out of the water and walked up the beach, “but where is he now? Are we the only ones looking for firewood?”
“No need,” said Namun. “Why not use these fires? There’s nobody to stop us. We can use that boat over there as well, to bring things from the ship.”
Luzar watched the men wade ashore and sit by the fires where Namun and Sharesh had put cauldrons of fish stew to cook. One or two walked past the huts to fill pitchers from the stream that wound its way through reed beds before it found the sea. He saw the archers with their bows on their shoulders look inside every hut and go back to report to the Captain of Archers. They would have found no one and Luzar knew that the crew had been strictly forbidden to touch anything. He watched where the Captain of Archers posted his men for the night. He saw Kanesh and Kerma come ashore. The Captain and Typhis always stayed on board. He watched the Leptos brothers set their lines and settle on the deck for the night. He kept waiting until the men had finished their food and found places on the grass to stretch out and pull their blankets only up to their waists because the night was warm. He knew some would go to empty their bowels and bladders before they tried to sleep and he waited until all that had been done, too. Namun and Sharesh looked as if they might go to swim but they changed their minds and sat by one of the fires talking, but not for long. Soon they were sleeping too. At last he and the moon were looking down on sleeping men, the dying embers of the fires, a ship rocking gently at her moorings and the watchful pickets. But he knew where they were. Luzar slipped silently down from his branch and stole away along a secret track towards the sheepfolds where the women and their children sat with the old men. Kanesh watched him disappear into the trees, waited for a while, and followed him.
A ship under sail was coming towards him across the sea. The oars were lifting and dipping but there was no crew to pull them. At the masthead was a lantern that shone brighter as the ship drew nearer. The lantern blazed brighter, brighter still, shining full in his face, dazzling him. It caught fire, sending flames leaping all through the ship. The hot flames seared his eyes. He tried to look away but could not turn his face. It was burning.
Sharesh sat up, shaking as in a fever and staring in terror at the sea. There was no ship, no fire. It was a dream. There w
as a distant glow out to sea, far away, lighting the horizon: it must be near dawn: Why was everyone still asleep? The men should be ready at their oars. The captain always sailed at dawn, or daybreak. Namun sat up beside him. They both gazed, fascinated, at the glow on the horizon, waiting for the lambent red disc of the sun to rise. But the glow faded away, and the horizon with it. Only the dark sea and moonlight scattered on the waves lay before them. They sat still, amazed that the sun should try to rise, then fall back below the waves. Terror seized them as the dreadful idea stole into their thoughts that the sun would not rise, never again, and they would be left frozen in the cold darkness. But it did rise and made the horizon glow again and then it faded once more and the triumphant moon poured down its cool light. Perhaps it was the terror, or the chill, that exhausted them. They sank back into a troubled sleep. And when the sun rose, its warm, comforting light revealed them still sleeping on the grass as the men went about their work of getting their gear together and the ship ready for sea.
Luzar came out of the woods, followed by a little group of women, some carrying infants, others with small children clutching their hands or clinging to their smocks.
The seamen stopped what they were doing and watched the women hesitantly approaching them. One came up to Kerma, dropped a basket made of withies at his feet and shuffled back to rejoin the others. Kerma looked at them, then brushed away the leaves covering the basket and felt inside. He held up a fistful of small white eggs, swung round to show the other men, and back towards the women, a great smile cracking his face and showing his big white teeth. He roared with laughter and kicked Namun and Sharesh awake. They were sent off to the stream to fill the cauldron with water. When they came back, a fire was burning brightly. The woman who had given the eggs took the cauldron from them, put the eggs into it and placed it on the flames. The men gathered round, smiling and laughing and signing to the women to come and share the food.
