She fell back, once more overcome, but after a moment continued to speak. “And do not think you can win out by killing me or disabling me with magic. I made plans against that contingency before we ever set sail for the coronation in Zinora. The great pirate fleet of Raktum has its orders. If any harm comes to the Queen Regent through you, our fighting ships will interdict every port in Tuzamen. You will never be able to return to your country by sea—and if you return by land, our armada will box you in so that your dreams of world conquest will come to naught.”
Portolanus bowed his head. “The Queen Regent is a brilliant strategist.”
“Mock me if you must,” she retorted. “But remember what I say. If I do not each morning give my Admiral orders to continue southward, this vessel will immediately change course and head for Raktum with my dead or senseless body. You will lose Kadiya’s talisman. Queen Anigel is hot on our trail and knows what you are after. She surely also knows a way to deny her sister’s lost talisman to you, through using her own.”
“Are you so certain that I cannot coerce this ship’s crew to obey me, once you are dead or rendered powerless?” Portolanus said in a new voice. “My magic can force anyone to do my bidding!”
His enfeebled persona had melted away, and his face, although still grotesque, had changed. There was now about him a halo of enchantment so menacing that the Queen Regent thought she might swoon from fear; but she spoke resolutely:
“If you had not needed great Raktum, you never would have made a pact with us in the first place. As to commanding this ship—you may think you have thought of a way to seize it. But I remind you that three other armed Raktumian vessels follow us, along with your own ship. Before we left Taloazin, I did not comprehend your new scheme in full—but I knew enough not to give you a free hand. The three captains of my escort will not permit you to return to your Tuzameni ship unless I give the order. If you reboard clandestinely and attempt to flee, they will overtake your slower vessel and bombard it with their fire catapults.”
The sorcerer said nothing.
Ganondri’s eyes gleamed in triumph. “You have power, magician, but your power is not invincible. That belongs only to the one who joins the three talismans of the Ruwendian triplet sisters into the Sceptre … You may have Kadiya’s talisman. My subjects and I will help you to obtain it. But when it is safe in your hands, bonded to you through your magical box, you will be put ashore on one of the Windlorn Isles to await rescue by your own Tuzameni ship. You will leave the star-box with me. King Antar and his brats will also remain in my custody, and I will claim their ransom from Anigel. Her talisman is mine!”
“You seem to have thought of everything.”
The Queen gave a soft, painful laugh. “I have lived by my wits for many years, magician. How else do you suppose that a poor old dowager became ruler of the Kingdom of the Pirates?… Now get out. And restore my servants as you go.”
The glittering eyes slowly closed. For a long time Portolanus stood beside the bed, looking down at the sick Queen, gripping the paralyzing rod in one hand and with the other fingering a battered star-shaped pendant he wore concealed within his robes. But in the end he shook his head in frustration and went out, after first touching the unconscious doctor and the knights, so that they moaned and slowly began to regain their senses.
There was a potential solution to the impasse. But it lay not in Queen Ganondri but in another person, whom he hurried off to see.
Under gray skies from which the rain had finally ceased falling, Portolanus sidled along the tossing deck, maintaining a firm grip on the safety lines to keep from losing his balance and being washed overboard. Waves breaking over the ship’s sides drenched him with spray. The huge Raktumian trireme seemed to writhe like some great beast in torment for all that it was racing before the wind at a league-gobbling speed, carrying only a few rags of sail. The galley slaves, of course, were unneeded. In such a high wind, their oars would have impeded the ship, not assisted it. Most of them were violently seasick anyway, as were the majority of the passengers, and the Yellow and Purple Voices.
The illness of the latter pair had been a vexing inconvenience to Portolanus. At least two of his acolytes were needed as adjunct sources of mental energy if he was to be able to scan the sea over long distances, descrying the enemy vessels in pursuit. Without the help of two or more Voices, the sorcerer could only survey the waters with another small machine of the Vanished Ones. It was an excellent device, showing the position of other ships or of landforms as far as the horizon, working as well at night as in daylight; but it could not see below the horizon-line as his magical Sight could.
Not once did Portolanus consider tempering the force of the storm he had called up. Time enough for spying out Anigel when they reached the doldrums among the islands and the final sprint for the talisman.
Gaining the wheelhouse at last, Portolanus hauled open the door and staggered inside, tittering and hooting inanities about the terrible weather. Admiral Jorot, standing behind the helmsman, gave the sorcerer only a swift, distasteful glance. But two other pirate officers hastened to help the distinguished passenger into a chair before the chart table, offering towels to mop the sea-water streaming from his face and hair and a warm, dry cloak to wrap him in. Strangely, young King Ledavardis was also present in the wheelhouse, standing aside and staring at the ridiculous, drenched wizard with mingled anxiety and fascination.
“You should not have endangered yourself coming on deck, Great Lord!” one officer said.
Portolanus waved him off, simpering. “It is most necessary that I convey to the Admiral an urgent message I have just received from the lips of Queen Ganondri. I pray that all others leave us for a time”—he bobbed his head and bestowed an oily smirk on the boy-King—“including you, young Sire.”
“Not my helmsman!” Jorot snapped. His hair and beard were snowy and his face weather-beaten and brown as an old boot. He was tall and wasted of body, and it was said he suffered secretly from a mortal illness; but he ruled his men with steely authority and even Queen Ganondri spoke to him respectfully rather than with her customary hauteur.
The sorcerer’s tone was lilting but insistent as he replied to the old seaman’s objection. “Yes, the helmsman must also go. Unless you are unable to steer your own ship, noble Admiral.”
“That I can, Master of Tuzamen,” Jorot said, through clenched teeth. He bade the others leave, and stood at the wheel with his back to the sorcerer. “Now, what is this bilge about a message from the Great Queen? She does not confide in dubious foreigners.”
Portolanus laughed softly. “And yet you seem interested enough in what this dubious foreigner might have to say to you in private.”
“Say it, then, and begone.”
“Do not be so abrupt, Admiral. I have had my eye on you. You are a man of strength and intelligence, and one moreover with a fine piratical turn of mind. These are qualities to be prized, and I would like to share a few of my thoughts with you, and perhaps discuss certain matters important to us both.”
“Save your knavish japes for the gullible Laboruwendians. You are wasting your time.”
“I think not. To demonstrate my good will, I shall show my true self to you—as I have done to no other man on board save my own three faithful acolytes.”
Portolanus had thrown off both the sea-cloak and his bulky wet magician’s robe and now stood straight, without a trace of the senile infirmity he had always displayed. Jorot flung a glance of astonishment back at the transformed sorcerer and growled an oath, for Portolanus now proved to be a man much taller than himself. Dressed in close-fitting hosen and a simple shirt, with a battered silvery star of many points hung about his neck, he seemed as stalwart as an athlete. Even his face, framed by tangled yellow hair and disfigured by its scraggly mustache, had changed from that of a hideous ancient to one belonging to a man barely middle-aged, and comely enough now that the features were no longer contorted.
“So!” said Jorot. ?
??You have more cheap tricks up your sleeve than any of us suspected.”
“Believe that if you wish, Admiral.” The voice of Portolanus had altered along with the rest of him, and was now resonant and virile. “But of my magical powers have no doubts, for they are even more formidable than you can imagine. This great storm was commanded by me, and if I wished, I could banish it in an instant—or cause it to wax to a fury that would engulf your ship.”
“And yourself!” Jorot sneered.
“I would not die, nor would my three Voices, nor the royal captives I hold for ransom. Only you and your crew would perish, and the passengers, including Queen Regent Ganondri and her Goblin Kinglet—if I but wished it.”
“And do you?”
The sorcerer came around to the side of the wheel so that Jorot might more readily see him. “That, Admiral Jorot, rests entirely with you. Are you a man who serves the Queen Regent so faithfully that he would lay down his life for her?”
The old pirate gave a shout of laughter. “That vainglorious harridan? She has been a plague upon our nation for seven years, and not a man in my crew would weep to see her breathing seawater. Only the knights of her personal guard are loyal to her here, and her own faction of relatives back in Raktum.” He looked aside at the sorcerer, his brow darkening. “But dare to harm young King Ledo, conjure-man, and the mariners of the Northern Sea will hunt you to the uttermost parts of the known world, and feed your tortured corpse to the sea-monster Heldo.”
Portolanus chuckled. “Well, well! So the lad is your pet, is he? I wondered why we so seldom saw the ugly young qubar about the royal quarters.”
“Ill made his face and body are,” Jorot said quietly. “But his spirit is that of a great prince. One day the world will know better than to despise him … if he can but survive to his majority.”
Now Portolanus was interested. “And why should he not?”
“His royal grandame is two-and-sixty years of age and in robustious good health. She is not eager to give up the reins of power two years hence, as she must according to our law. Not when she might rule another twenty years herself—should the King be declared incompetent, or suffer some fatal misadventure.”
“You are correct in your assessment of Ganondri’s ambition, Admiral. She is an intelligent and courageous adversary. She has also fatally underestimated me—for which reason I have come here tonight to confer with you.”
Jorot’s eyes lit with sudden understanding. “I have it! The Queen is not afraid of you! She has faced you down, wizard, and in some manner now threatens your crooked schemes.”
“So she does,” Portolanus admitted. “Although I am paramount in magic, I do not yet command a multitude of followers, nor has my small nation of Tuzamen a powerful army or a fleet of fighting ships to equal that of Raktum. Ganondri and I entered into an alliance before sailing to Zinora for the coronation, but I have lately come to realize that I cannot trust her. Let me be perfectly frank. I embarked from Taloazin with my royal prisoners on this ship instead of my own because the Queen convinced me at the last minute that this was the fastest vessel having enough armament to repel the Laboruwendian pursuers. That is true enough—but I did not reckon she would be foolish enough to repudiate the terms of our original agreement and attempt to extort additional concessions from me.”
“We pirates have our own quaint notions of honor, it’s true. But none of us sail so close to the wind in sharp dealing as the Queen Regent!… If she threatens you, why not simply smite her dead with your sorcery?”
“If I did, would you and the captains of the other Raktumian ships follow my orders?”
Jorot guffawed. “Not for a moment, trickster. Black magic has its limits. It cannot force loyalty or love—or even respect. Sink us all with your storm if you dare. Your cranky Tuzameni vessel would also very likely founder, since it is poorly designed for heavy weather. You and your precious prisoners would be cast adrift in the midst of the open sea, over six thousand leagues from your home. You would soon die, even in a flat calm—unless you know how to take to the air and fly like the pothi-birds.”
“Alas, I cannot,” Portolanus admitted sourly. “If that were so, I would not be aboard your wallowing scow at this moment.”
Jorot’s face was becoming ashen, and the cords in his neck stood out from the exertion required to keep the huge trireme on an even course. He clung now to the wheel with hands white-knuckled.
“Wizard, I’m tired of fencing mentally with you, and I’m physically exhausted as well. I’m not a young man nor a well one, and my job is conning the helm, not wrestling with a balky wheel in a full gale. I shall have to call the steersman back soon or else risk losing control of the ship—which could very well dismast us in this high wind. You must have had a reason for coming here. Spit it out, or go back and play your games with the Queen Regent.”
The sorcerer began to reclothe himself in his damp robe. “Very well. If Queen Ganondri should die and King Ledavardis rule truly, would you and all the pirate fleet accept his sovereignty? Would you obey his orders?”
“Wholeheartedly,” said Admiral Jorot. “But if you think you can force your will upon the lad, think again. He only pretends to be a dunce so as not to provoke his grandmother.”
“I suspected as much. If he is clever, so much the better. Perhaps he will avoid making the fatal mistakes of Ganondri.”
“Fatal?”
“I intend to usher the Queen Regent safely beyond just as soon as she is no longer of use to me.”
“I could warn her of your evil designs.”
Portolanus laughed. “You could, but I think you won’t. Tell the royal brat instead. If he cooperates with me when he wears Raktum’s crown, he will soon possess riches equal to a thousand years’ worth of pirate loot, and more strong galley slaves than he can count. And you, Admiral Jorot, may have whatever you desire—up to and including the post of Viceroy of Laboruwenda.”
“But, when the ransom is paid—”
“King Antar and his children will never return alive to their land, ransom or no ransom. And Queen Anigel, deprived of her talisman and family, will soon see her land conquered by my magic, and by the combined forces of Tuzamen and Raktum. Oh, yes. It will happen very quickly once her heart and will are broken …”
Now dressed again in his voluminous robes, Portolanus seemed to diminish in stature, and his body grow twisted with age. His face resumed its repulsive aspect. He opened the inner door of the wheelhouse and called out in quavering accents for the others to return. The helmsman and the two officers hastened inside, but King Ledavardis was no longer there, having left by another door.
“Do give the dear lad my best wishes when next you see him,” the sorcerer said to the Admiral. “And tell him I look forward to having a little talk with him very soon.”
He pulled his hood up and went out into the storm. But this time he did not pretend to be battered by it, but instead walked slowly away, easily maintaining his balance, as though the ship were at anchor in some calm harbor and he out for an afternoon stroll of the deck.
From below, Prince Tolivar called: “Can you see anything?”
“Big waves and an angry sunset sky full of fast clouds,” Prince Nikalon said. “First one, then the other as the ship rises and falls.”
“No land,” Princess Janeel said. “Only ocean.”
“That’s funny,” Tolo said. “On your side, you should be able to see the shore if we’re heading back toward the Peninsula. Maybe the pirates aren’t taking us to their home in Raktum after all.”
The only illumination in their new prison shone from twin openings eight ells above the slimy planks of the chain-locker floor. The furnishings of the place consisted of three thin pallets with musty old blankets, a covered slop-pail, a crock of lukewarm water, and a small basket of stale bread-rolls. Niki and Jan had decided that fasting would no longer help their cause, and they had already eaten half of the bread.
When they were certain that their capt
ors were not coming back, the two older children each mounted one of the two great piles of anchor chain that mostly filled the tall compartment. They clambered up the hanging sections of giant links, past the great double winching mechanism with its iron gears that raised or lowered the anchors, to the hawse-pipes through which the chains passed to the ship’s bow. They had forbidden little Tolo to follow. Whenever the trireme nosed into a particularly high sea, there was a ringing boom and seawater sprayed through the two openings and all over Niki and Jan. But the water, like the air, was warm, and they no longer even bothered to shriek when they were hit by a fresh drenching.
“The anchors outside are so monstrous that they hide most of the view,” Niki said.
“Do you think the holes are big enough for us to crawl through and escape?” Jan asked.
“It would be a tight squeeze with the anchors in the way,” Niki replied. “And even if we succeeded, we would only fall straight into the water and be sucked under the ship.”
“Come down,” Tolo pleaded. “I think I hear those nasty ship-varts scratching in one of the dark corners again.”
“Cowardy-cush,” Niki said with more kindness than contempt. “They can’t really hurt you.”
“But I hate them. They are so ugly and dirty. Come down and drive them away, Niki. Please!”
The Crown Prince began to descend, and after a few moments’ hesitation, his sister did also. The chains were caked with wet, evil-smelling river mud and entwined with strands of Zinoran water-weed that made them very slippery.
“When the ship finally stops in some harbor and they drop the anchors,” Niki said to Jan, “I’m going to escape! Right out one of those holes and down the chain into the water.”