Now she could relax.
Her fingers opened and the talisman fell away. She watched its green glow become smaller, smaller, and finally disappear.
After that she knew nothing.
Kadiya opened her eyes. Her head hurt as if compressed in a vise and she saw only a colored blur. Her throat was parched and sour with bile and she did not seem to have a body or limbs. It was some time before sensation returned below her neck and she dared to move her arms and legs. She felt very cold, even though she was dressed in a soft nightgown of wool challis. Little by little her vision cleared, and she realized that she was in a bunk in her cabin on the Varonian ship. The door swung gently open and shut with the sea’s motion. By the creaking of the rigging and the hiss of waves along the hull, she knew they were traveling at full sail.
After several futile tries, she was able to call out for Jagun. Her old friend came tumbling down the companionway steps and into her cabin, his mouth wide in a grin that showed his pointed front teeth. He was soon followed by Lummomu-Ko and the human captain of the Varonian vessel, Kyvee Omin. They fussed over her, putting many pillows behind her so that she could sit up. Jagun made her drink some ladu brandy to give her strength.
“What happened?” she asked at last.
“It was the Aliansa,” the Wyvilo chief said somberly. “They are fine swimmers, the treacherous devils, even better than we are. They holed our boats with braces and bits, then dragged you down. I saw you go under and dived after you with young Lam-Sa, and we realized at once what had happened. When you finally brandished your talisman, the Aliansa who clung to you swam off, and Lam-Sa and I were able to take hold of you and draw you to the surface and onto the rocks. You seemed to have passed safely beyond, but Jagun was unceasing in his sharing of breath with you.”
“Thank you,” she said, turning to her Nyssomu friend with a grateful smile.
“In time, the Lords of the Air bore your spirit back into your body,” Lummomu-Ko said. “Humans from the ship heard our cries and rescued us.”
Kyvee Omin thrust himself forward. He was a gray-haired citizen of Var with the face of a prissy bookkeeper, who was nevertheless famed as the most intrepid skipper in the Southern Sea. Kadiya had had to pay him nearly a thousand platinum crowns to get him to take her to the Windlorns when no one else would dare the voyage.
“I commanded that we up anchor and quit that ill-omened place as fast as the galleymen could row,” said he. “The Sea Oddlings were building bonfires on the beach and beating the war-summons on their sacred drums. If we had delayed, their large canoes might have caught up with us before we escaped the windless regions near the islands and gained the open sea.”
“How long have I slept?” Kadiya asked weakly.
“Twenty hours,” Jagun replied.
“The wind is light but fair, now that we are out of the lee of those wretched sea-stacks,” the captain added. “We should reach Taloazin Harbor in Zinora in less than seven days.”
“Not there! No, we must turn back!” Kadiya’s voice broke, and she moaned and put a hand over her eyes. Her head ached as if it would burst asunder. Why must they turn back? She knew there was a reason. A compelling reason—
“There is worse news, Farseer.” Jagun came closer to her bunk and she saw that he held something in his hands: her belt and scabbard. “Your talisman—” he began, but could say no more.
Her befuddled wits finally cleared. She realized that the scabbard was empty, and remembered.
“We cannot return to the islands,” Kyvee Omin was saying. “I will not risk my vessel in a battle with savages. I am a trader, not the captain of a warship. I agreed only to take you to Council Isle in the Windlorns, and then back to Var. If you have some reason for avoiding Taloazin, then we can put in at Kurzwe or another Zinoran port to replenish our food and water before voyaging easterly. But there can be no turning back.”
Kadiya levered herself up to a full sitting position. Her eyes were ablaze and her face contorted with anger as she spoke in a low, grating voice. “We must return. I have lost the Three-Lobed Burning Eye! Do you know what that means?”
The captain took a step backward, as from a madwoman. “No, I do not, Lady. Your friends have indicated that it is a calamity, but the mishap is your fault, not mine, and you must see to its redress yourself. I will not risk my ship and crew in a futile attempt to recover your magical sword. While you lay senseless, your Wyvilo friends and I went back briefly to the place where your boats were holed. We quickly determined that your talisman is lost in a great trench between two reefs where the water is thirty fathoms and more in depth. Not even the Aliansa can dive so deep. The talisman is lost forever.”
“No,” she whispered, her dark eyes closing in pain. “Oh, no!” Beads of sweat glistened on her forehead, and for a long time she was silent. Jagun knelt beside her, holding one of her limp hands in both of his own, his head bowed.
The captain exchanged glances with Lummomu-Ko, then abruptly left the cabin.
When Kadiya opened her eyes again, her expression had changed to one of resolution. She said: “My dear friends, Kyvee Omin was right. I cannot demand that he help me. If he will not return to the Isles, I shall have to find another skipper who will. Fortunately, I still have plenty of money. I will have Kyvee Omin drop me off at this place called Kurzwe. You, of course, may continue the voyage to Var, and then on up the Great Mutar to Ruwenda—”
“No,” said the big Wyvilo leader flatly.
Jagun’s upstanding ears quivered with indignation and his huge golden eyes were wide. “Farseer, how can you believe that we would abandon you?”
She stared first at one, then the other. “Without my talisman, I am no longer the Lady of the Eyes, no longer worthy to call myself Great Advocate of the Folk. I am no one. Only Kadiya.”
She swung her legs over the side of the bunk and lowered them to the deck. The bruises and claw marks of the frustrated assassin discolored her ankles.
“There is only a small chance that I will succeed in recovering the talisman—and an excellent chance that the Aliansa will attempt to finish the murderous job that they bungled on the first try.”
“Nevertheless,” Lummomu-Ko said, “my Wyvilo brothers and I will stand by you.”
Kadiya’s eyes were bright with tears. She wobbled a bit as she stood up, and the tall aborigine and the smaller one each took her by the hand. She made her way to a small table in front of the porthole and sat on its bench.
“Thank you, my very dear friends. In time, my sister the Archimage will discover what has happened, even though I can no longer call her. She will surely find some way to help us. Until then, let us busy ourselves by politely picking the brains of Captain Kyvee Omin and his crew. I will begin by making copies of the captain’s charts of the region. I can do that even though I am still too shaky to get about.”
She looked up at the Wyvilo leader. “Lummomu, you and your warriors interview the seamen about ways one might eke out a living in the Windlorn Isles—the natural foods that grow on the land, the edible sea life and what things are poisonous or dangerous, anything at all they might know about the islands or their people. We will pay those seamen who cooperate.”
“And I, Farseer?” Jagun asked.
Her grin was wry. “Learn what you can about the art of sailing, old friend, and I will do the same. For I fear that the only way we will return to the Windlorn Isles is by ourselves.”
4
The royal galley rounded the headland into the Bay of Pearls, and immediately the three children were up in the rigging, scrambling as nimbly as tree-varts while their Nyssomu nurse Immu looked on apprehensively from the deck below and made futile appeals for them to come down.
“More ships! The bay is full of great ships!” Crown Prince Nikalon, who was eleven years old, had custody of the small telescope and had climbed the highest mast. “There’s two from Imlit, and one from Sobrania, and three flying the banner of Galanar—and look! Four from Raktum! S
ee that big black trireme all arrayed with gilt and flying a hundred flags? It must be the ship of wicked Queen Ganondri of Raktum herself!”
“My turn for the glass!” whined Prince Tolivar. “Niki’s had it all morning! I want to see the wicked Queen!” He was eight years old but seemed much younger because of his frailty. When Nikalon refused to relinquish the telescope, he began to weep. “Jan, Jan, make him give it to me!”
“You children come down at once!” Immu called up to them. “You know your mother has forbidden you to endanger yourselves!”
But the royal youngsters ignored the nurse, as they ignored many of Queen Anigel’s attempts to restrict their behavior, cheerfully accepting the consequent punishment.
Princess Janeel, who was ten and very mature for her age, said: “Don’t cry, Tolo. I’ll deal with Niki—the selfish woth!” She clambered close to her older brother and began to tickle his ribs, and the two of them swayed together in the ropes ten ells above the deck, and poor old Immu down below shrieked in horror. But it was the work of an instant for the agile Princess to snatch the telescope from the giggling, helpless Nikalon. Then she swung back to Tolivar, and the two of them shared the instrument while Prince Niki laughed good-naturedly and began to climb higher, toward the crow’s nest.
The telescope, a special present for the voyage from their father, King Antar, was not a mere seaman’s spyglass. It was a rare magical artifact of the Vanished Ones. Its tube was of a black material that was neither metal nor wood, and on the side were three colored warts that brought the scene viewed close—closer—closest if one pressed them. A larger silver wart enabled the glass to be used at night, although the images seen then were blurry, little more than greenish silhouettes. The telescope seemed more like a living thing than an inanimate object, for it had to be left lying in sunlight, like a plant, if it were to work. Once during the voyage Prince Tolivar had hidden it away in his trunk for a whole day, pretending it was lost, hoping to play with it all by himself without sharing it with his older brother and sister. But when he next tried to look through it, he saw only blackness, and ran wailing to the King. After chiding him for selfishness, his father had explained how the telescope fed on sunlight, as did many other mysterious devices of the Vanished Ones.
Now Tolo studied the great ship of Queen Regent Ganondri of Raktum. It had three banks of oars—not two as did the flagship of Laboruwenda—and was at least twice as long, with a huge snout at the bow that could be used in ramming enemy vessels. Its mainsail and foresail were painted with the emblem of the pirate state, a stylized golden flame. Tolo was disappointed to see no trace of the dreaded war-machines that flung molten sulfur or red-hot rocks at the ships of Raktum’s enemies. Instead, knights in flashing armor and ladies dressed in brilliant colors lounged about the poop royal, where there was a golden awning raised over a gilt chair.
“The wicked Queen must still be abed,” Tolo said to his sister. “I see her throne there at the back of the ship, but it’s empty. Take a look, Jan.”
Princess Janeel peered through the magical tube. “What a beautiful ship! The Raktumians must be very rich.”
“They’re pirates,” Tolo pointed out. “Pirates are always rich. I’d like to be a pirate.”
“What a silly thing to say. Pirates kill people and steal, and everybody hates them.” She turned the telescope toward the exotic Sobranian ship, from the uttermost reaches of the Far West.
“Ralabun the Master of Animals says you’ll have to marry the wicked Queen’s crookback goblin grandson when you get older.” Tolo grinned with naughty satisfaction. “When you’re queen of the pirates, you can make me a pirate, too.”
Princess Janeel lowered the instrument and glared at her little brother. “I’m never going to marry anyone! And if I was, I certainly wouldn’t marry a horrid thing like Ledavardis. Aunt Kadiya says that I can come and live at her secret manor in the Greenmire when I grow up, if I want to. And I do!”
“Oh, no you won’t! Princes and princesses can’t do as they please like ordinary people. Niki’s going to be King of Laboruwenda, and he’ll have to marry another royal. So will you. But I’m only an extra prince. I can be a pirate if I want to!… Now give me back the telescope. I want to see if the Sobranians really have feathers like Ralabun says.”
Janeel thrust the thing at him angrily and began to climb down the shrouds. Boys! What did they know? All the same, when she reached the safety of the deck and Immu, she brushed aside the Nyssomu nurse’s scoldings and also her suggestion that they go into the saloon for a cool drink, and drew her over to the ship’s rail behind some lashed-down boxes of cargo. There the elderly Nyssomu woman and the Princess had complete privacy, and Janeel asked:
“Is it true that I’ll have to marry Ledavardis of Raktum when I’m older?”
The aboriginal nurse broke out in peals of laughter. “Of course not! Who’s been filling your head with such tosh, sweeting?”
“Tolo,” Janeel growled. “He had it of Ralabun.”
Immu’s inhuman face creased in indignation and the upstanding ears above her lawn headdress trembled like windblown leaves. “Ralabun Ralabun Ralabun! I shall box his skull until his eyes pop! That flaplip fool should tend to mucking out the royal fronial-stalls and leave matters of state to his betters!”
“Then it isn’t true?”
Immu took gentle hold of the Princess’s face with her three-digit hands. The two of them were almost the same height, and the nurse’s enormous yellow eyes looked straight into the hazel eyes of her young charge. “I pledge to you by the Lords of the Air that your dear parents would rather die than see you married to the Goblin Kinglet of Raktum. The rumor that silly Ralabun passed to your little brother is one put about by enemies of the Two Thrones—Lord Osorkon and his ilk. It is a lie.”
And she kissed Janeel, then began fussing with the girl’s plaits, which had come loose from their pinning during her tarriance in the rigging. Jan was not an exceptional beauty like her mother, but her face was pleasant, dusted with freckles, and her eyes wide set and intelligent. She had unusually lustrous hair, the rich golden brown color of a blok-nut shell, which fell nearly to her waist when it was not braided to keep it out of the way.
“Is it true that princesses cannot choose their husbands?” Janeel persisted.
Immu was brisk. “As to that, some do and some do not. When your aunt Haramis was Crown Princess of Ruwenda, before she became the White Lady and before the Two Thrones were united, her hand was sought by the evil King Voltrik of Labornok. This match was refused by King Kreyn and Queen Kalanthe, since it would have meant the swallowing up of Ruwenda by Labornok—which is a far different thing from the Union of Two Thrones. Princess Haramis agreed to marry a Prince of Var, even though she did not love him, because this Prince was willing to become co-ruler of Ruwenda. Thus, your aunt placed the welfare of her country above her own happiness, as was her duty.”
“But Aunt Haramis renounced the throne!”
“Yes. And the crown passed to your Aunt Kadiya, who also renounced it, and then to your dear mother, who was far better suited to be Queen than either of her sisters. By then the brutal Voltrik was dead and Antar, your father, was King of Labornok. Your mother and father loved each other very much and married, and now they rule both kingdoms, spending the Dry Time at the court of Ruwenda at the Citadel and the Rains in the Derorguila palace in Labornok.”
“But will Niki be able to choose a princess of his own to love and make his queen? And may I choose my prince?”
Immu hesitated. “I hope that it will be true, little darling. I hope it with all my heart. But the future is known only to the Triune God and the Lords of the Air who are his servants, and it is best for little girls not to worry over such things. You will marry no one for a long, long time … But now, let us go to the wardrobe cabin! We will be docking in Taloazin Harbor in only a few hours, and we’ll pick out a beautiful gown for you and dress your hair with a jeweled diadem. We must show the haughty cit
izens of Zinora that the royal house of Laboruwenda is far more splendid than that of their puffed-up little kingdom.”
Crown Prince Nikalon shared the lofty perch atop the foremast with a young sailor named Korik who had become his friend during the two-week voyage from Derorguila. Unlike the rest of the Labornoki crew, who bowed and scraped and styled him High Lord—while at the same time calling him a sore pest behind his back and denying him access to the more interesting parts of the ship that Queen Anigel had forbidden to the royal children—Korik had taken pity on the bored lad and showed him everything from the chain locker in the fore-peak to the sternpost gudgeon. He had surreptitiously taught the Prince how to climb the rigging (and Niki had taught his sister and little brother), and welcomed him to share secretly his watches in the crow’s nest, keeping an eye out for rocks and shoals and other vessels as the flotilla sailed through the Isles of Engi, along the coast of Var, and down to Zinora. Korik had explained how the ropes and sails worked, and why the ship tacked when the wind blew from a certain direction, and why they lowered sail during storms, and why free men made better galley-men than slaves, and answered a myriad other questions as best he could.
Niki, in gratitude, had told Korik that he would make him an admiral when he became King. At this the young seaman laughed, saying that admirals had to spend too much time at court, and going to boring council meetings and drawing up tedious papers. All he wanted was to be captain of his own ship.
“And then,” he told Niki, “I would be the first to sail to the farthest parts of the known world—beyond Sobrania, even beyond the Land of the Feathered Barbarians. I would sail completely around the world, through the frozen islands of the terrible Aurora Sea, skirting the edge of the Sempiternal Icecap, until I reached the cold deserts above Tuzamen. And then I would come down through the Flame-Girt Isles, and defy the pirates of Raktum, and return safely home again to Derorguila.”
Niki had gaped at him. “Has no one ever done this before?”