Deprived of any knowledge of their enemy’s whereabouts, the two sisters could only urge Captain Ly Woonly to sail on as fast as possible in the fitful wind, while they prayed that they would reach the site of the talisman’s loss before Portolanus did.
“You did well to reach Council Isle so quickly, Captain,” Anigel said to him warmly. “I am amazed that you were able to travel at night through the labyrinth of reefs and rocks that surround it.”
Throwing a glance over his shoulder at one of the Wyvilo, who was trimming a sail, Ly Woonly whispered: “We owe it to those Forest Oddlings, great Queen. The big-eyed boogers have some kind o’ special sense that helps ’em get around obstacles in water. Night and day are pretty much the same to ’em, and navigatin’ in a shallow sea is no different than travelin’ their home rivers.”
“The bay where the High Chief Har-Chissa has his large village seems to be located just beyond that headland,” Kadiya said, poring over the wrinkled chart. “I cannot understand why no native boats have come to intercept us. When last we came, large numbers of canoes carrying twenty or more paddlers swarmed out to meet and escort us to the anchorage when we were much farther away than this.”
“Mayhap the Sea Oddlings have good reason for remainin’ ashore,” Ly Woonly observed, his usually jovial face gone grim beneath his plumed hat. “Great Queen, give a peek through your farseein’ coronet again to find out what might be goin’ on around the other side o’ yon point.”
“Very well.” Anigel closed her eyes and touched the silvery circlet braided into her fair hair. “Oh! The pirate trireme is there, with its sails taken down!… And I can see that its anchors are in the water.”
“Thunderin’ blazes!” Ly Woonly exclaimed. “All hands on deck! Helm! Ready to heave to!” He ran off shouting more orders, and in minutes the small ship slowed and stopped.
“Quick!” Kadiya said to her sister. “Look more closely at the pirate ship. Are they putting out boats with grapples, or doing anything else that smacks of a try for my talisman?”
Anigel was silent for a moment, her eyes unfocused. “No, I see nothing like that, only sailors coiling ropes and tying down the furled sails, and the Raktumian Admiral talking to one of his officers … He says that they have just arrived at Council Bay. They could not sail at night for fear of running aground. It seems Portolanus has a magical device that is supposed to show the depth of the water, but it has not worked properly and this forced the trireme to lie at anchor each night … By the Flower! Portolanus himself and his acolytes are shortly expected to come on deck!”
“Show me!” Kadiya demanded.
Anigel asked her talisman to share the vision, and the scene dimmed somewhat and became bereft of its natural sounds. Nevertheless, Kadiya saw clearly three figures emerge from a stern companionway on the Raktumian ship—a man of medium stature wearing a hooded robe of purple cloth, a stockier individual in similar yellow garb, and a third, quite short, clad all in black. Following them came the all-too-familiar blur that signaled the presence of Portolanus. Coming last of all were Queen Regent Ganondri, wearing sea-green silken robes and evidently fully recovered after the three days of calm weather, and the hunched young King of Raktum, glum-faced and pale.
The enchanter’s assistants ranged themselves close together along one of the ornamental side railings of the poop royal, seeming to look directly at Anigel and Kadiya. The concealed sorcerer came up behind the three—and abruptly became visible. His robe was pure white and he was hatless, his tow-colored hair and beard stirring in the faint warm breeze. As the two sisters gasped he waggled his fingers in an ironic gesture of greeting, evidently knowing full well that they descried him. The Queen Regent and her grandson moved as far away from the thaumaturgic quartet as they could get, but did not take their eyes from them.
Portolanus’s face lost its clownish grin. He seemed to straighten, becoming tall and wide of shoulder, and his face was somehow less grotesque. He uttered a short word of command and the three acolytes fell to their knees. With startling force, the sorcerer tore back their hoods, revealing shaven heads, which he swept close together as a fruit-merchant gathers melons. Then he spread his bony hands wide so that the fingers touched all three pates, and closed his eyes.
“Great God,” Kadiya whispered. “The minions! Do you see, Sister?”
Anigel only nodded, astounded. The eye-sockets of the three kneeling men had turned into empty dark pits, and they were as motionless as statues. Behind them, Portolanus slowly opened his own eyes, letting his hands fall to his sides. Beneath his tangled yellowish brows two tiny white stars shone with dazzling brilliance.
“Well met, Queen Anigel, Lady Kadiya!” said he, and they heard him as clearly as if he had been standing beside them.
“He sees us!” Anigel said.
“Of course I do,” Portolanus replied, grinning. “With the help of my three powerful Voices, I can descry to the uttermost ends of the world, and see virtually anything or anyone, and bespeak them as well!… Isn’t it a lovely morning? I confess that I prefer calm weather myself, and it was a great relief to me—and to my servants as well—to have done with conjuring tempests. Let me congratulate you and your captain upon the fine turn of speed your little vessel managed to achieve. Our Raktumian galley slaves are quite prostrate after laboring since dawn to bring us here ahead of you via a shortcut.”
“You should have kept your magical gale blowing,” Kadiya retorted.
“Alas.” Portolanus shrugged. “My power to command the storm is not subtle enough to influence the erratic light airs that prevail among the Windlorn Isles. Nevertheless we have won the day through natural means, as you see. I must warn you now to come no closer. Do not attempt to enter this bay or approach the site of the sunken talisman, or the consequences will be most grave.”
Portolanus snapped his fingers, and from out the companionway came two armored pirates, supporting a limp body between them. A third brute followed after, carrying a drawn sword.
“Antar!” cried Anigel.
The star-eyed sorcerer laughed. “A fine figure of a king, is he not? And lazy, too, napping away the days of our journey from Taloazin. But now it is time for him to wake up. Through my magic, you may speak to him.”
He touched the King of Laboruwenda with a small rod. Immediately the unconscious man stirred in the arms of his captors and lifted his head, and when he recognized that he was held prisoner, he began to struggle violently and call down curses upon Portolanus.
The sorcerer shook his head mockingly. “Tsk, tsk. The royal guest repays our gentle hospitality with harsh words. He must be taught better manners.”
One wizened finger thrust forward toward Antar’s face, and at its tip there burst forth an orange flame. Portolanus spoke softly to the Raktumian warrior with the sword. Both Anigel and her distant husband cried out in unison as this man took hold of Antar’s hair and pulled back his head, so that the King’s blond beard met the enchanted fire. There was a sizzling sound and a puff of smoke, and Anigel burst into tears of horror. But when Portolanus drew his finger away, only the hair was burnt and not the King’s flesh.
“You foul bastard!” Kadiya cried, taking weeping Anigel in her arms.
Portolanus made an airy gesture. “I may well be, for I knew neither my father nor my mother—and there are no bathtubs on Raktumian ships, for all their trumpery ornamentation. But I advise you to hold your tongue, Lady of the Eyes, lest my next demonstration be more painful to your brother-in-law.”
“Do not hurt him!” Anigel pleaded.
The twin stars in the enchanter’s skull flared and his voice boomed in the Queen’s mind. “I will set him free at once—and your three children as well—if you give me the talisman called the Three-Headed Monster.”
“No! You are a foul liar! I—I do not believe that you will free them! You wish the death of all of us!”
Portolanus sighed. “Silly woman. Who has told you this? Your sister Haramis? She is naught but an
incompetent dabbler in mysteries she will never comprehend. She knows nothing of my plans. Pay the ransom! Your coronet is of small use to you—a mere convenience for spying and a symbol of … heaven knows what.”
“Do not listen to him, beloved!” King Antar cried. “Command your talisman to slay him!” A sword was placed at his throat to compel silence, but the sorcerer made a commanding gesture and the pirate knight reluctantly lowered his weapon.
“Only think about it, Queen Anigel,” Portolanus said earnestly. “Of what true use has the Three-Headed Monster been to you during the past twelve years? Yes—it has let you communicate with your two sisters across the leagues. But I will give you three small machines of the Vanished Ones that will do the same service!”
Kadiya spoke hotly: “And what will you give me, trickster, to take the place of my Three-Lobed Burning Eye? And will the Archimage Haramis also give you her talisman in exchange for a magical gimcrack?”
Portolanus’s amiable expression melted away and he scowled. “I am addressing the Queen, Lady, and not you!… Anigel, if you do not pay my ransom, your husband and children will surely die. This is how you can save them: Place your coronet in a small boat and let the boat be cast adrift. I will at the same time put Antar and the children into a boat here. The King can row around the headland and reach you in less than two hours in these calm seas. I will draw the boat with the talisman in it to me through my magic. Then, if you set sail for home at once in the Lyath, I swear by all the Dark Powers that I will not follow or otherwise harm you.”
Anigel hesitated, her eyes brimming with tears as she beheld Antar, shaking his head, urging her refusal. The King was a woeful sight, with his eyes sunken deeply into his head and his face gaunt from over seven days without food. The talisman seemed a small price to pay for his safe return and the return of the children. Still, he had told her not to give in … urged her to use the talisman to kill. But she had never deliberately given the magical device such an order, and even now, with her husband’s life at stake, she hesitated.
Kadiya seemed to be aware of the struggle going on in her sister’s mind. “Do what you think best,” she said, her speech laden with hidden meaning.
Anigel closed her eyes. Talisman! By the Lards of the Air I command you to strike dead that evil man who holds my husband and children captive! I command it! I command it!…
The Queen opened her eyes again to the talisman’s vision. Portolanus stood unharmed. Nothing at all had happened.
Kadiya’s eyes met hers, and Anigel shook her head imperceptibly. The muscles of Kadiya’s jaw knotted as she swallowed a bitter exclamation, in her heart blaming Anigel as much as the talisman for the magic’s failure.
Speaking in a voice barely audible, striving to conceal her own misery and disappointment, the Queen said to Portolanus: “I cannot give you my talisman.”
The sorcerer did not seem overly disappointed. “An unfortunate decision, my Queen. But in time, you may change your mind. For now, to show my good faith, I will forbear harming the King any further if you will but keep your distance. Will you swear to me on the Black Trillium that you and your sister Kadiya will not approach any closer?”
“Do not swear!” shouted the King, struggling anew. But he was helpless in the grip of the burly pirate-knights.
“Yes!” cried Anigel at once. “I swear!”
Kadiya’s response was more reluctant. “Yes,” she finally growled. “We swear to you by the Flower that we two will not stir from this place. But if you do the least hurt to King Antar, this oath is void. And we will watch him unceasingly.”
“Do so, by all means.” The sorcerer laughed. And he said to the Raktumian knights: “Chain him again with the galley slaves, and feed him a small bowl of their swill. Take care, for his stomach cannot hold much after his long fast.”
When Antar had been hustled below, Portolanus gave a tremendous yawn, and stretched. When he settled himself, Anigel and Kadiya saw that his eyes had resumed their normal human aspect. At the same moment the three minions of the sorcerer moaned and seemed to suffer brief convulsions. Their faces then also became as before, with their eyeballs rolling whitely, and they slumped down onto the deck.
Portolanus turned and bowed sweepingly to Ganondri and King Ledavardis and then quit the royal poop deck. The Queen Regent spoke sharply to her grandson, who had been listening awestruck to the sorcerer’s exchange with the invisible sisters. They two also went away, and a number of crewmen came up and carried off the unconscious acolytes.
Anigel banished the vision. “Now what are we to do?” she wondered. She wiped her tearstained face and went to sit on a water cask, for she was still very shaken.
Kadiya remained at the rail for some minutes, silent, looking toward the shore of the large island. It was heavily wooded, with beaches of shining white sand broken by tumbled outcroppings of reddish-black rock. The sea was a brilliant azure lightening to pale green nearer the land, with creamy breakers forming complex patterns as they marched shoreward through hidden reefs. On this side of the tall headland there were no signs of habitation.
“Haramis’s original plan called for you to summon my talisman through your own,” Kadiya said, turning at last to face her sister. “Try it, even though we are still at a distance!”
“Why, I never thought to do that,” Anigel said. “Of course I will try.” But her expression was more dubious than hopeful as she closed her eyes and pressed both hands to the trillium-amber inset at the coronet’s front.
“Talisman,” she whispered, “I command you to bring me the lost Three-Lobed Burning Eye.”
For half a dozen heartbeats nothing happened; and then Anigel’s talisman spoke to her:
This I cannot do, unless you suspend me directly above the place where the Eye lies.
“Oh!” cried the Queen. “Did you hear it, Kadi?”
“Yes.” The face of the Lady of the Eyes had become both determined and ruthless. “You could do it by rendering yourself invisible and making your way somehow to the pirate ship. There is nothing else to do but break the oath—”
“Do not even think of it!” Anigel rebuked her. Dressed in rough seaman’s garb and with a smeared face, she still looked a queen. “I will not break my oath, nor will I allow you to break yours.”
“Don’t be a fool, Ani!” Kadiya’s brown eyes were battle-lighted. “If we do not retake my talisman before Portolanus gets his hands on it, we forfeit all chance of rescuing Antar and the children! Do you think he will simply turn them loose once he bonds my talisman to himself?”
“I don’t—”
“Or do you plan to meekly hand over your own talisman as ransom for them after all?”
“Of course not! But there must be an honorable way to save them.”
“Honor! You are as simpleminded as a volumnial calf! How can you prate of honor when the lives of your family are at stake? And my talisman?”
Anigel sprang up from the cask. “Your talisman! That’s all you really care about, isn’t it? Without it you have no power. The Swamp Folk and the other aborigines will no longer revere you and follow you and call you their Great Advocate if you are without it, will they, Lady of the Eyes? Well and good, say I! You will then no longer be able to stir up dissent among them—”
“There would be no dissent if human rulers like yourself were not blind to the injustices inflicted upon the Folk! You and Antar have consistently ignored my petitions to give them full citizenship.”
“And for good reason!” the Queen responded furiously. “It would destroy our economy if the Oddlings were allowed to trade directly with other nations, rather than through us. You know this full well, and yet you have persisted in encouraging seditious schemes among the Wyvilo and Glismak, as well as urging the Nyssomu and Uisgu to hold back their trade goods in order to force a price increase.”
“And why should they not get higher prices? They work hard, for a pitifully small return. You call them Oddlings! I say they are persons and a
s worthy as any humans. You have no inborn right to exploit them!”
“Who told them they were being exploited?” the Queen demanded. “Who filled their simple hearts with discontent? You! Their so-called advocate! Oh, I did not want to believe what Owanon and Ellinis and the others said of you—that deep in your soul you regretted having given up the crown, and envied me my queenly power, and so stirred up the aborigines to enhance your own self-importance. But they were right!”
“What a monstrous notion!” Kadiya cried. “It is you who have become self-righteous and arrogant, forgetting how the Folk helped us to defeat King Voltrik and Orogastus! You think only of the welfare of your human subjects and merely use the poor inhuman peoples who also look to you for justice! You defer to your Labornoki husband, who was brought up to believe that the Folk are animals! He has poisoned your mind—”
“How dare you speak of my darling Antar so! Heartless one, you know nothing of true love! All you have ever had is the vain adulation of your pathetic throng of savages. They are like children, and you also have the mind of a child! You are filled to the bursting with the kind of reckless anger that drives naughty brats to troublemaking. With you, the simpleminded solution to a problem is always the only one! What do you know of the ruling and safeguarding of nations?”
“I know what is just and what is unjust,” Kadiya said, in a voice suddenly gone quiet and dangerous, “and I know the difference between a true oath and an invalid one extracted under duress. You may do as you will, Sister, and withhold your coronet’s help from me if you must. But if you attempt to stop me from retrieving my talisman in my own way, then the Lords of the Air have mercy upon you—for I will not.”
She strode away, calling for Jagun and Lummomu-Ko to attend her, and would not respond when Anigel called out apologies for her angry words and begged her to return.