Just then Nan appeared, dressed in a long blue tunic and loose pants of some silky material, all embroidered with leaves and tiny flowers. Nan’s thin face looked clean and ruddy, her eyes shining. If she was sore, she sure didn’t show it any, Joe thought.
Nan turned to Sarilda. “This outfit—are you sure it’s okay for me to wear it? It’s so beautiful.”
Sarilda grinned, clearly pleased. “It’s my best thing—and it’s right that you should wear it.”
There they go again, Joe thought. Treating her like she’s the hero here, and I’m just the guy who came along for the ride.
“Grab your grub and let’s git,” Tarsen said, smacking his hands. “Joe, you come with me. You can have my best outfit, if you like. The sleeves have falcons embroidered on ’em, and the sash is a nifty one I stole right out of Nitre’s own barracks.”
Joe shrugged, trying not to get mad at the difference between Tarsen’s tone and Sarilda’s—as if Nan somehow deserved their best stuff, and Joe was just getting the same offer to keep his feelings from being hurt. “Doesn’t matter,” he said, trying hard not to sound like a whiner.
A couple minutes later they came back out to join the others. Joe felt slightly weird in the long tunic with its belled sleeves. He looked down at himself, fingering the dancing fringes at the end of the sash. I know Tarsen is an okay guy—and that everybody dresses this way here, he thought. But geez, if the guys at home saw me now! Then he grinned. Well, they can’t. They’re probably sweating out problems 1-30 in Algebra, or being yelled at to take out the trash, and I’m here. Yeah. That’s right. Get things back into perspective.
“Ready, Kevriac?” Blackeye asked.
The pale-haired magic-worker nodded and silently led the way out. Joe realized he hadn’t seen much of this kid. He seemed real quiet. Maybe he spent all his time studying magic books or something.
“I’ll show you the marketplace,” Tarsen offered, appearing at Joe’s side. “Maybe we can even have some fun with Nitre’s patrols.”
“How about rousting some of Olucar’s palace slimes?” Mican suggested, walking on Joe’s other side. “We can have some prime fun in Fortanya.”
“Quiet, you bums,” Blackeye said. “Don’t want him to mess this up.”
Kevriac moved out onto the beach, shut his eyes and stretched out his hands. He said some words in a kind of singsong that did not come through translation—and Joe gasped when he saw a long, sharp-bowed sailboat appear suddenly on the water maybe a quarter mile out.
“Did he just make that?” Joe asked, amazed.
Tarsen laughed. “No. We pinched it when we first escaped. He hides it by magic.”
Just then Tarly passed by, giving Joe a shy smile, and splashed into the water. She waded out, then started swimming toward the boat. Behind, Warron and Mican appeared carrying a canoe. Everyone waded a little ways out into the water, Joe wincing and ouching at the rocks and shells he stepped on. He sometimes went barefoot in summer, but that had been months ago. His feet were tender.
They climbed into the canoe and everyone helped paddle it out to the sailboat. Tarly reached it about the same time, and treaded water, her auburn hair streaming in the sea around her, while Warron pulled himself up onto the sailboat and lowered a ramp down to the canoe. The other kids helped the centaur get into the canoe, then she trotted daintily up the ramp. Once the kids were all on board, Shor and Sarilda scrambled back down, attached some ropes to the ends of the canoe, and it was lifted up to the deck via boom, ropes, and tackles.
Joe’s spirits soared as he looked about the deck of the sailboat. It was a tidy craft about thirty feet long, with a small cabin below. Tarsen showed him over the boat, explaining everything in such a fast jumble that Joe gave up trying to learn all the new terms. He grinned so wide his teeth felt cold when he saw the triangular sails bell out, one on either side of the single mast, snapping in the clean, steady wind until Mican and Warron—chanting a song as they pulled—sheeted them tightly home. Then the sails tautened into tear-shaped curves. The boat beneath them seemed to come to life, cutting smoothly across the gentle ocean swells.
Yeah, I think I can definitely get used to this life, Joe thought, leaning on the side and watching the island slide away behind them.
Nine
“Joe, Nan. Want to learn how to sail one of these?”
“You bet!” Joe called.
He made his way down the slanting deck to where Tarly stood at the tiller. Nan joined him a few seconds later. Joe glanced at her, then looked back again in surprise. Back in the cave, he’d noticed how different she’d seemed from the tight-faced kid in his classes on Earth. Now she’d gone back to her Earth-face—kind of gray-tinged and pained.
Tarly studied Nan, her large eyes troubled, then she smiled. “Sar,” she called. “Got some ginger-root for Nan?”
A voice echoed faintly from below: “Coming right up.”
Sarilda danced her way down the deck, her balance sure. She handed Nan a thin reddish root. “Suck on it,” she said. “Hurry. If you start to barf, it won’t work as well.”
Nan quickly crammed the root into her mouth. She made a prune face, which slowly changed to relief. “It does help,” she said.
Tarly smiled. “Why didn’t you speak up?”
“I hate to complain. And I didn’t think anyone else—” She stopped, shrugging in her old jerky way. “I guess I felt stupid being the only person who was seasick.”
“Guess again.” Sarilda gave her musical laugh, then pointed to where Shor sat perched on a rail, a ginger-root wiggling from the side of her mouth as she sucked busily.
“I had a terrible time when we first sailed,” Tarly put in, leaning into the tiller. “You might say we centaurs weren’t built for water life. But I got used to it. Except in bad weather.” She pointed with her chin at the tiller. “Now, let’s have a lesson in winds, sails, and water currents.”
For the next couple of hours Joe listened carefully, repeating to himself all the new words he heard. He got a chance to steer, and reveled in the pull of the water against the tiller and the feel of the wind sweeping down the deck.
When his turn was over Nan took his place. Joe wandered away, and finding that everybody was busy with some kind of job, he wandered back and sat on a pile of fishing nets behind the canoe to watch the water and hope Nan would get bored so he could have another turn.
The sun had moved considerably across the sky when Shor appeared on deck from the cabin below, carrying a tray of squat mug-bowls full of food. Enticing smells reached Joe, just to be whipped away by the wind.
Warron took the tiller, and everyone else moved forward to the bow to eat. For a time no one spoke, then as each finished the crunchy, spicy vegetables in a delicious pale orange pepper sauce, they put their bowls back on the tray and returned to their tasks.
Nan and Tarly stayed on the other side of the mast in the lee of the canoe. The wind brought their voices forward. They talked a little about winds and steering, then Joe heard the clicking of Tarly’s hooves as she moved away.
For a time the only sounds were the splashes of water and the creaks of the boat. Then a voice he seldom heard spoke up.
“Do you like sailing?” It was Kevriac.
“Sure do,” Nan responded. “This is great. Why are the others making a mess with those nets and barrels in the back there?”
“Aft. We say forward when we mean the front of the boat, or ship, and aft for the back part. Anyway, they are busy with our ruse. We make the boat look like a fishing boat. We even fly a wart flag—one we stole from the Fisheries Minister who Todan set up to control the fishers.”
“I wondered how we’d get into the capital harbor without them recognizing their own boat.”
“Oh, we painted over the green and black stripes when we first arrived at the island, and made a new suit of sails. They would never recognize it, especially with our nets and things all over.”
Nan said, “Why not make it invisible,
like you did at the island?”
“I can’t make living beings invisible, and cloaking so many things, especially large things, things is hard.”
“So magic is pretty limited in what it can do?” Nan asked.
Kevriac gave a laugh—the first Joe had ever heard from him. “It’s not magic, it’s me,” he said. “I don’t know much.”
“I think it’s great, what you can do,” Nan said.
“I thought so, too—until I met a real magician,” Kevriac said, and sighed.
“What happened? Get trouble from a bad guy?”
“No. Quite the opposite. But she warned me what could have happened—and still might, if it’s true what Blackeye reports about Todan getting a wizard from Dhes Andes in Sveran Djur.” Kevriac was silent a moment, then he spoke in a rush. “I study and study, but I just can’t get past a certain level of control. I know I’ll get us into trouble if I try to tangle with a wizard and lose, and I keep having nightmares about it. But I have to try. And then...”
“What?” Nan prompted in a quiet voice. “Not that you have to tell me if you’d rather not.”
“Well, it was this promise I made. You know, in order to get the Gate magic to work, and to get you here. When the plan is done, I have to go to some school for magicians way on the other side of the world. I don’t really want to go.”
In all the days they’d been on this world, Joe had not heard so much from Kevriac. Even Bron, who everyone said was the quietest, had spoken more in Joe’s presence.
“Why?” Nan asked. “Some stupid adult making you do something you don’t want to do?”
“Well, I did promise. And I don’t think they’ll come after me. She didn’t talk like the kind of person who’d force people against their will. She just said that I’d learn more if I was taught—and also, that more magic knowledge brings more responsibility to do it right.”
“How about these bad wizards? Do they learn bad wizard responsibilities?” Nan scoffed.
Kevriac laughed. “I can just see it. Ten lessons on how to properly subdue your enemies—”
“And on how to dress for success in terror tactics—”
“And there’s land-burning and mind-prying. Unfortunately,” Kevriac’s voice sobered, “those things do happen. And I don’t want to learn them. I guess I don’t see what she meant when she said that the most powerful good magicians seldom use magic. It doesn’t make sense! But then she went to the places I’d done things—the cave in the mountain, and our hideout, and so forth—and she did magic to ‘restore balance’ and I, I felt it was really powerful stuff.”
“Well,” Nan said slowly. “This is all something to think about. I was going to ask you if you’d teach me magic—”
“Oh, no,” Kevriac said quickly. “I mean, no offense, but until I do understand what’s going on, I don’t dare teach someone what might be mistakes. But maybe,” he added in a shy, cautious voice, “you could go to the Magic School with me. When we’re done here. If you want.”
Joe couldn’t hear what Nan said in return—her voice was even lower than Kevriac’s. But it didn’t matter anyway. Joe wrapped his arms around his legs and put his chin on his knees. Whichever way he looked at this business of others always talking to Nan, paying attention to Nan, it really hurt. What was going on?
He shook his head, trying to get rid of his anger. He was glad Nan had made friends so fast; she’d seemed such a total nerd back on Earth. But why did she get invited on a secret mission? Why did some of the others treat her like she was something special? And then there was Kevriac, who’d hardly said Word One to Joe, talking to her like she was his only friend or something.
Joe got to his feet, and moved out to face them.
“Hi guys,” he said.
They swung around. Nan just looked like Nan—no particular expression—but Kevriac’s face went all polite and quiet.
“Don’t let me interrupt,” Joe said, and pushed on by.
Well, forget you, he thought. Out loud he yelled, “Hey Tarsen! Can I lend a hand?”
o0o
Nan watched Joe shove his way past, and shout something to Tarsen. Strange, she thought. Unless I’m actually seeing the person speaking, the translation magic doesn’t always work.
Kevriac turned away from Joe and Tarsen. “Look, there’s the big island,” Kevriac said, pointing ahead. “We’ll be there soon.”
“What’s it called?” Nan asked.
“Waneldur.”
Nan squinted against the setting sun. She couldn’t see much beyond a lump on the horizon.
“Here.” Blackeye waved from her position by the barrels and other mess, as she finished draping a net all over the stern. “I see some sail out there. You two better go below.”
“Why are we hiding?” Nan asked.
Kevriac shrugged. “We don’t all stay on deck. Some nosy wart with a spyglass might notice an absence of adults and stop us. If only three or four—the biggest—are topside, then they’ll assume the bosses are below taking it easy while the young hands do all the work. That’s what we figure, anyway, and it’s fooled ’em until now.”
A ramp led down into the little cabin below, which was completely bare. Here they found everyone except Blackeye, Warron, Joe, and Tarsen. Tarly had knelt down on a pile of thick woven wool rugs obviously meant for her, and Bron and Sarilda each sat with their backs against her sides. Their knees were up, their feel planted firmly on the deck. They seemed to be bracing Tarly against the rolling of the boat.
Kevriac sat against the hull, staring down at his hands. Nan stationed herself next to one of the two scuttles, which were both open. Forward, they heard the sounds of Shor in the tiny galley, busy dipping the dishes in the bucket with the magic spell on it that cleaned things.
Nan peered through a scuttle. She couldn’t see anything but ocean at this angle, so she slid down next to Kevriac.
“About the translation spell,” she said.
Kevriac looked up, his pale brows curved in question.
Nan explained what she’d noticed about some words not translating, and Kevriac said, “The only way to hear everything is to learn the language yourself. That spell is as good a translator as there is, that magician told me. But it has limits: you have to be focusing on the speakers, either by facing them or trying to hear them, or else you have to be the subject of their words. That last part was the hard part to add on.”
“How can I learn the language?” Nan asked.
“We’ll have to take the translator spell off you. Then you just—learn it.”
Nan thought this over. “Maybe after the prince is rescued. Yes, I’ll do that.”
Kevriac smiled, looking both eager and a little shy. “And I’ll teach you how to read and write as well. How’s that?”
“Thanks,” Nan said. “One more question about magic, then I’ll stop.”
Kevriac laughed a little. “I don’t mind talking, I just don’t feel right teaching it.”
“You said in your book that Sarilda has magic—inherited from her background, kind of.”
“She’s got at least one Hrethan in her ancestors. They have, oh, a kind of natural access to magic. It’s very diluted in the descendants.”
“What are Hrethan, some kind of elf?”
“What’s an elf?” Kevriac asked. “Never heard of it. Hrethan are also called the Snow People, and they’re kind of mysterious. I heard once that they came, a long time ago, from another world. Some say that the stories about their abilities in the past are exaggerated. Nobody ever sees the ones who supposedly live on Starborn Island, way in the north, so nobody knows. Nobody here, that is. Maybe they travel to other islands, or on the big continents. Anyway. . .” He turned his head. “Sarilda, show Nan what you can do.”
Sarilda stopped talking to Shor and Tarly, and laughed. “Ready?”
Nan watched in fascination as Sarilda’s face fuzzed, elongated, and then cleared—and she looked just like Blackeye.
“I can
only do faces I’ve seen, and it’s only an illusion,” came Sarilda’s high voice from Blackeye’s lips. “But it’s fun sometimes.” A flicker and she was herself again. “I can also do this kind of illusion—” She threw up her hands and sparks of light pin-wheeled, glowing, about her head. “Sometimes. Never when I’m tired, or thinking about other things.”
The boat heeled sharply. The scuttle darkened; Nan poked her face out just in time to see a long, low, rakish ship with three sail-bedecked masts slide slowly by. Then the sailboat rocked violently in the big ship’s wake.
Nan braced herself, peering after the ship. Beyond it were a number of ships and boats of all sizes and shapes moving back and forth in the water. Beyond those, golden cliffs towered in twin peaks. Layered along the cliffs was the city of Fortanya.
Nan stared in amazement.
“See the palace?” Kevriac asked. “Look at where the river comes down. See the bridge?”
Nan shifted her head. At the points of the peaks some fluffy white clouds hung about the cliff tops, but she could just make out the breathtaking curve of a bridge. On it, pale and ghostly in the clouds, the lines of a towered castle could just be discerned.
“Wow,” she said.
“That is Castle Rotha,” Kevriac said.
“You see what we mean about hard to get into,” Sarilda put in. “Unless you happen to have wings, no way to get up there except at either end of the bridge, and each end has a huge guard tower.”
“I see them.” Nan shivered. She and Joe were expected to break into that?
Her innards had gone cold, the way she’d felt when a foster family told her they just couldn’t fit her in anymore, and she’d have to go back to the state. According to Blackeye’s rescue plan, she and Joe would be on their own.
The boat heeled again, and Fortanya swung away from view.
Nan slid back down to the planking. The others had gone back to their conversations. They sounded cheerful, maybe a little excited. Nan pressed her arms against her stomach. Until now the rescue stuff had never seemed real. Even when Blackeye told her about it, all Nan could think about was how great it felt to be an insider. Hearing a secret. Being trusted.