Rwyan called, “What goes on, Daviot?”
Her voice was nervous, and I said, “I think Ayl made landfall, to take on stores. Now we turn for the open sea again.”
I was right: sternward I saw the dark mass of a rocky coastline, pines etched stark by a westering moon, a soft swell breaking luminous on a tiny cove. For an instant I glimpsed a fire-a signal beacon-that was dimmed even as I watched. I pressed my face to the narrow opening, seeing the coast recede. The Sprite headed east of north, seeking the wider reaches of the Fend again. Soon there was nothing to see except the moonlit stretch of the ocean: I returned to Rwyan’s side.
We did not sleep again that night but sat talking of its events as the prow came around once more, once more on a northerly tack.
We agreed that Ayl had brought the vessel in to restock, and that was suggestive of even greater organization amongst the Changed than I had suspected. It suggested we were expected; and was that so, then perhaps our kidnap-at least Rwyan’s, and perhaps Tezdal’s-had been planned from the beginning.
“How could they know?” Rwyan asked. “My arrival in Carsbry was not announced.”
“Perhaps Ayl simply acted on the opportunity,” I offered. “He saw the chance to take a sorcerer and seized it.”
“But how arrange this resupplying?” she said.
“Would word not have been sent?” I asked. “If not of you, then that the Sprite quit Carsbry?”
“That, yes,” she told me.
“And in the keeps, folk talk,” I said. “They speak of the comings and goings of Truemen, of vessels, in hearing of the Changed, never thinking the Changed have ears. The Changed are faceless to most Truemen; they speak in the presence of the Changed as they would before horses or dogs. It’s as I told you-Truemen do not see the Changed.”
Rwyan held my hand as we spoke, and I felt her grip tighten at that. She gasped softly, her eyes, for all they saw nothing now, wide as full realization sank in.
“Then nothing’s secret,” she said, her voice a whisper. “As if the walls of every keep had ears.”
“Yes,” I said, “and all through Dharbek, the Changed listen and pass word between themselves.”
Tezdal said, “Even so, how could they know this ship would go to that particular cove?”
I said, “I think likely they didn’t. I think it was likely just one cove of many where Changed wait.”
“By the God!” Rwyan’s voice was shocked. “Be that the case, then there’s a great conspiracy afoot.”
I said, “Aye, and I think we go to the heart of it.”
I believed I was right; I was also afraid that I was right. It seemed that all the pieces of the puzzle I had observed grew daily clearer, fitting one into the next. I believed it was the Changed’s intention to bring a sorcerer to Ur-Dharbek, perhaps to save a Sky Lord-an ally. I suspected I was brought along only because-as Ayl had suggested-I wore Lan’s bracelet, which marked me as a friend. I thought I should be safe; I suspected Tezdal should be safe. I did not know how they might treat Rwyan, and that frightened me. Should they seek to employ her magic against the Truemen of Dharbek, I’d no doubt she would refuse. … I could only guess what might be the outcome of such refusal. Was Ur-Dharbek filled with Changed, Tezdal and I should be poor champions.
I debated putting these thoughts into words. I suppose it was a kind of cowardice that I did not: instead, I told myself I should only frighten Rwyan, and she be better comforted by my silence. But then, the enormity of the conspiracy only just burgeoning, I was myself alarmed enough, and more than a little confused. So I held my tongue, and put an arm around her, and told her we could do nothing save wait.
One morning when it seemed we had sailed forever and should likely go on and on until we came to the ends of the world, there was a most marvelous thing occurred.
We sat in the cabin, accustomed by now to its stuffy confines, to air that moved only when our actions stirred it, to sweat-damp clothing, and to that lethargy excessive heat and inaction produce. Rwyan shifted on the bench, turning her head from side to side. I saw she frowned and thought her troubled, but when I asked what disturbed her, she only raised a hand and said, “Do you not feel it?”
Without waiting for an answer, she rose and groped her way to the nearest port. I followed her, Tezdal close on my heels. I saw Rwyan smile. And then I recognized what gave her such pleasure.
There was a breeze.
I felt it on my face, a caress I had resigned to memory alone. It was like a lover’s touch; like Rwyan’s fingers gentle on my skin. I moved my head; I opened my mouth to taste it on my tongue. I scarce dared believe it was there. I wondered if we fell into madness.
Then Tezdal said, “A wind,” in a voice filled with wonder.
I swallowed, almost afraid to believe. I felt the sweat that beaded my brow chill, and bellowed laughter, taking Rwyan by the shoulders and dancing her around, drawing her close as I shouted, “Aye! By the God, you’re right! There’s a breeze!”
We clung together, laughing, pressing our faces to the ports that we might savor this simple, wondrous, impossible thing.
It grew stronger. We heard orders called, and then a sound I knew well and had not thought to hear again-the marvelous sound of dropped canvas, of bellying sails. We staggered as the Sprite heeled over, the floor tilting under us so that we, so long accustomed to even boards, to the absence of any real movement, were pitched across the cabin, fetching up in a tangle on the bunk.
I saw Tezdal frown, worried, and cried, “Ayl tacks, only that. He’d catch the wind.”
I hugged Rwyan, and for a while we only laughed and bathed in that glorious breeze.
But then her face grew serious, and she pulled away. I said, “What’s wrong?”
And she gave me back, “Do you not see what this means? What it must mean?”
I said, “That the Sky Lords’ magic is gone.”
“That, yes,” she said. “But how long have we been at sea? Where are we now?”
I thought a moment. Realization dawned: I said, “Ur-Dharbek.”
Rwyan said, “Aye. The magic’s not gone; we’ve only passed beyond its aegis. We reach our destination-we’ve come to the Changed’s country.”
It was the midpart of the morning that I heard the familiar sounds that herald land-the snap of furling sails, the slap of waves on stone, the mewing of gulls. Then the boards shifted under my feet, and I heard voices, greetings shouted, those creaks and groans a harboring vessel makes. The motion of the galleass ceased, replaced by a gentle rocking, as of craft at anchor. I set my face to the starboard port and saw gray stone. I waited with bated breath, a hand on Rwyan’s shoulder, Tezdal wary on her farther side.
The cabin door opened, and Ayl beckoned us out.
It was strange to stand again under a summer sky unsullied by magic. Gulls wheeled screaming overhead, and a salt-scented breeze blew off the sea. The sun stood bright in the eastern quadrant, and to the north I saw billows of white cumulus moving on the wind. It had been too long since I’d seen cloud.
I described it all to Rwyan as I helped her up the ladder to the topdeck. How the Sprite stood within the shelter of a curving bay, headlands like protective horns extending north and south, fishing boats drawn up on a beach of gray-silver sand all strewn with seaweed, nets hung out to dry just as they’d be in any fishing village of Dharbek. I told her of the plank we must cross to the mole of rough stone, flagged along its upper level, and of the village I saw and the Changed who watched us.
It was a village so similar to Whitefish, I hesitated, staring, so that Ayl must urge me on. He did it courteously enough, but I think he was amused by my amazement, and I talked all the while we passed through the onlookers toward the buildings.
They were cottages of stuccoed stone, white and bright blue and pink, with vegetable gardens and chicken coops, outhouses and storage sheds, frames for the nets. They flanked a road that went away inland from the harbor, broadening to a village square where the cottages stood thickest. I saw a mill, its sails creaking around, and what I took to be an alehouse, racks of fish curing in the sun. All that was missing was a cella. The folk who fell into step behind us might have been ordinary villagers, too, for here there were only we three Truemen to mark any difference between our kind and theirs. They stood tall and short, not many plump, male and female and children, dressed like any honest, hardworking folk, all curious. Only the children came near, brave as children are, darting close to stare up at our faces, a few touching us. I thought they had likely never seen Truemen.
We came to the square, and Ayl directed us to the building I had thought an alehouse-which, indeed, it was-and sat us at a table, for all the world as if we were guests, not prisoners. A gray-haired Changed came, not in the least hesitant, with mugs of ale and a plate of crisp dried fish. He smiled when I caught his eye, but not in any triumphant way. It seemed to me he did not gloat at the sight of Truemen taken captive but smiled only as would any innkeeper at his patrons. The ale was cool and brewed well.
I waited for Ayl to speak, thinking this little village unlikely to be our final destination, and after several hearty swigs of his beer, he said, “No doubt you guess we’re come to Ur-Dharbek. Do you think of escape, know that the Slammerkin lies leagues distant, and the magic of the Border Cities shall deny you return no less than we.”
I said, “Then you cannot go back?”
He laughed, as if I made a splendid joke, and shook his shaggy head. “I’d not,” he said. “I’ve fulfilled my commission, and now I’ll live amongst my own kind; free.”
“And us?” I asked him. “Where do we go?”
“To Trebizar,” he answered me. “To the Raethe-the Council.”