Alec tensed, wondering if anyone else noticed the edge of anger in his friend's voice. Here were more secrets.
"By the Light, they're the—the—" Thero waved a hand, at a loss for words and too caught up in his own enthusiasm to notice the cool reception he was getting from the one person among them who might have direct knowledge. "They stand at the very source of magic! Nysander and Magyana both spoke of them with reverence, Alec, a sect of wizard priests who live at Sarikali. The rhui'auros are similar to the oracles of Illior, aren't they, Seregil?"
"Mad, you mean?" Seregil looked down at the food he was not eating. "I'd say that's a fair assessment."
"What if they tell me I'm related to one of the unfriendly clans?" Alec asked, trying to draw Thero's attention.
The wizard paused. "That could create difficulties, I suppose."
"Indeed," mused Klia. "Perhaps you should be circumspect in your inquiries."
"I always am," Alec replied with a smile only a few at the table fully understood. "But how could the rhui'auros tell who my ancestors were?"
"They practice a very special sort of magic," Thero explained. "Only the rhui'auros are allowed to travel the inner roads of the soul."
"Like the truth knowers of the Oreska?"
"The Aurenfaie don't have that magic, exactly," Seregil interjected. "You'd do well to keep that in mind, Thero. The punishment for invading another's thoughts is severe."
"My skills in that direction are not particularly strong. As I was saying, the rhui'auros believe they can trace a person's khi, the soul thread that connects us all to Illior."
"Aura," Seregil corrected.
"Being a full half 'faie, Alec, yours should be strong," said Beka, following the conversation with interest.
"I'm not sure that makes any difference," said Thero. "I'm generations away from my 'faie ancestors, yet my abilities are equal to those of Nysander and the other old ones."
"Yes, but you're one of the few younger ones left who possess such power," Seregil. reminded him.
"If all wizards have some Aurenfaie blood, do they know which clans they're related to?" asked Beka.
"Sometimes," said Thero. "Magyana's father was an Aurenfaie trader who settled in Cirna. My line goes back to the Second Oreska at Ero, with generations of intermarried mixed-bloods. Nysander's teacher, Arkoniel, was from the same line.
"Speaking of rhui'auros, Seregil, have you thought of visiting them yourself? Perhaps they could discover why you have such trouble with magic. You've got the ability, if only you could master it."
"I've managed well enough without it."
Was it his imagination, Alec wondered, or had Seregil actually gone a bit pale?
7
Striped Sails and Fire
By dawn, the Zyria and her escorts were already well out to sea. Much to Alec's disappointment, Beka had sailed aboard the Wolf with Mercalle's decuria. He could see her striding around the deck, red hair shining in the sun. They exchanged shouted greetings, but the distance and rushing sea made conversation difficult.
Thero accompanied Klia on their ship, and although Alec was happy to renew their acquaintance, he soon began to suspect that the wizard had changed less than he'd originally thought. Thero was less abrupt, to be sure, but still a bit distant—a cold fish, as Seregil liked to say. Forced together in close quarters, he and Seregil were soon sparring again, if not quite so bitterly as before.
When Alec remarked on this, Seregil merely shrugged. "What did you expect, for him to somehow turn into Nysander? We are who we are."
They followed the coastline all day, sailing a few miles outside the scattered islands that edged the western shore.
Standing at the rail, Alec scanned the distant sea cliffs and thought of his first journey here aboard the Grampus, when Seregil
lay dying in the hold. The steep land between cliff and mountains showed the first green of spring, and from here it all looked peaceful—except for the red sails like their own that began to appear with greater frequency the further south they traveled.
Alec was at the rail again when they passed the mouth of Rhiminee harbor later that day. Gazing longingly at the distant city, he could make out scores of vessels at anchor on both sides of the moles. Beyond them, atop her towering grey cliffs, the upper city glowed like gold in the slanting afternoon light. The glass domes of the Oreska House and its four towers gave back a burning glare like points of flame, leaving black spots in front of his eyes when he looked away. Blinking, he searched the deck for Seregil and found him leaning against the aft castle wall, arms folded across his chest as he gazed up at the city he'd forsaken. Alec took a hesitant step in his direction, but Seregil walked away.
As Rhiminee slowly slipped from sight behind them, the three ships struck south east across the Osiat with a fresh following wind. A growing air of tension hung over the three vessels as sailors and soldiers alike kept watch for striped Plenimaran sails. As darkness fell, however, conversation grew freer. A waning moon rose above them, spangling the waves with silver.
Seregil and Torsin retired to the bow with Klia to discuss negotiation tactics. Left to their own devices, Alec and Thero paced the deck. They could make out the dark shapes of the escort ships sailing abreast of the Zyria a few hundred feet to either side. It was a calm night, and voices carried easily across the water. Some unseen musician aboard the Courser struck up a tune on a lute.
Braknil and his riders had gathered around the hatchway lantern on the foredeck. Spying Alec and the wizard, the old sergeant waved them over.
"That'll be young Urien strumming away," he said, listening to the distant music.
When the song ended, someone aboard the Wolf answered with the first verse of a popular ballad.
A pretty young maid strolled down the shore, with naught but her
shadow beside her. Over in the bushes hid the farmer's lad and lustfully he eyed her.
One-eyed Steb produced a wooden flute, and his comrades bawled the melody across the water.
Steb's lover, Mini, gave Alec a playful jab with his elbow. "You too good to sing with us tonight? You're the closest thing to a bard here."
Alec made him an exaggerated bow and took up the next verse:
"Oh, come with me, my sweet pretty maid," the farmer's lad
said he. "I'll make you my wife and keep you for life if only you'll lie
with me."
Mirn and young Minal hoisted Alec onto a hatch cover and helped lead the interminable randy verses. Thero hung back by the rail, but Alec could see the wizard's lips moving. When the song was done, cheers and catcalls echoed from the other ships.
"Well now, isn't this a hard life?" Sergeant Braknil chuckled, lighting his pipe. "We're like a bunch of nobles off on a pleasure voyage."
"I don't suppose it'll be much harder once we get to Aurenen," a veteran named Ariani agreed. "As honor guard, we're just along for show."
"You've got that right, girl. After a few weeks of standing about on guard duty, we'll be happy enough to get back to the fighting. Still, it's something to be the first to see Aurenen after all these years. Lord Seregil must've told you something of it, Alec?"
"He says it's a green place, warmer than Skala. There was a song he sang—"
Alec couldn't recall the tune, but some of the words had stayed with him. " 'My love is wrapped in a cloak of flowing green, and wears the moon for a crown. And all around has chains of flowing silver. Her mirrors reflect the sky.' There's more to it, all very sad."
"Magic is more common there, as well," Thero added with mock severity. "You'd all better mind your manners; the 'pretty young maids' might answer an insult with more than clever words."
A few of the riders exchanged worried looks at this.
"A strange land with strange folk in it," Braknil mused around his pipe stem. "As I hear it, they're handy with their swords and bows, too. But you only have to look at Lord Seregil to see the truth in that. Or did, anyway. And perhaps it's what makes
you such a fine archer, eh, Alec?"
"More like having an empty belly if I didn't shoot true."
Someone brought out dice, and Alec joined in a friendly game. The
soldiers were a gregarious lot and even managed to pull Thero into the circle despite his initial reticence. There was much joking about the wisdom of dicing with a wizard, but Thero managed to allay their worries by losing every toss. Eventually people began to wander off to find their beds for the night—some alone, some in pairs.
Alec felt a pang of envy as Steb slipped an arm around Mirn on their way below. Seregil had been distracted by other concerns lately, and the lack of privacy here hadn't helped matters. Stretching out on the hatch cover, he resigned himself to a few more days of abstinence.
To his surprise, Thero joined him. Crossing his arms behind his head, the wizard hummed a few bars of the song, then said, "I've been watching Seregil. He seems apprehensive about returning to Aurenen."
"There are plenty of folks who won't welcome him."
"I felt the same, going back to the Oreska House that day we all returned from Plenimar," Thero said softly. "Nysander saw to it that my name was cleared before he left that last time, but there'll always be doubts in some people's minds as to how much my—" He paused, as if the words were as distasteful as the memory. "How much my affair with Ylinestra had to do with the attack on the Oreska House that night. Even I'll never be certain."
"Better to look forward than back, I guess."
"I suppose so."
They fell silent again, two young men gazing into the infinite mystery of the night sky.
The next few days passed quietly enough. Too quietly, in fact. Bored and at loose ends, Alec found himself missing their lost solitude, just as Seregil had predicted.
Quarters belowdecks were too close for Seregil's taste, the air too pungent with the smell of oil and horses. Curtained alcoves had been hastily knocked together for the passengers of rank, but these afforded little more than the illusion of privacy. Taking advantage of the fair weather, he and Alec claimed a sheltered section of deck beneath the overhang of the forward castle. It was comfortable enough there—for sleeping.
Not one to stand on rank, Klia lolled about with the rest of them, sharing tales of the war.
"I don't suppose you two would consider joining the Horse Guard?" she asked, giving Seregil and Alec a pointed look as they
sat in the shade of the sail with There and Braknil. "Men with your talents are in short supply these days. I could use you."
"I never expected it to last this long," Alec said.
"Something's changed since the new Overlord took over," Klia said, shaking her head. "His father kept the treaties."
"This one's been fed on tales of lost glories," Braknil said around the stem of his pipe.
"By his uncle Mardus, no doubt," Seregil agreed. "Still, it was bound to happen."
"What makes you say that?" asked Thero.
He shrugged. "Peace follows war. War follows peace. Necromancy is suppressed, only to grow in secret, until it bursts like a boil. Some things are eternal, like the pattern of the tides."
"Then you don't think a lasting peace can ever be achieved?"
"It depends on your point of view. This war will end, and maybe there'll be peace through Klia's lifetime, perhaps even that of her children. But wizards and Aurenfaie live long enough to see that sooner or later it all starts again—the same old pull and haul of greed, need, power, and pride."
"It's like a great wheel, always turning, or the changes of the moon," mused Braknil. "No matter what things look like today, change is always coming, for good or ill. When I was a lad, new to the regiment, my old sergeant used to ask us if we'd rather live a short time in peace or a long time in war."
"What did you say?" asked Seregil.
"Well now, as I recall I always wanted more choices than that. Thank the Flame, I think I got 'em. But it's true what you said, though I often forget it. You and these two young fellows will see more turns of that wheel than any of us. Someday when you look in the mirror and see as much grey in your hair as I've got, drink a pint to my dusty bones, won't you?"
"I forget sometimes, too," Klia murmured, and Alec saw her study Seregil's face, and then his own, an indefinable expression in her eyes that was neither sadness nor envy. "I'll do well to keep it in mind once we get to Aurenen, won't I? I understand negotiating with them is something of a challenge."
Seregil laughed softly to himself. "Well, their concept of hurrying will certainly be different than ours."
Alec was pacing the deck their third afternoon out when a lookout suddenly shouted down, "Plenimaran ship to the southeast, Captain!'
Seregil was up on the aft castle with Klia and Captain Farren, and Alec hurried up to join them. Everyone was scanning the horizon. Shading his eyes, Alec squinted across the water and found an ominous shape against the late-afternoon glare.
"I see her," Captain Farren said. "She's too far off yet to tell if she's spotted us."
"Is it the Plenimarans?" Thero asked, joining them at the rail.
"Time to earn your keep," Klia told him. "Can you keep them from seeing us?"
Thero thought a moment, then plucked a loose thread from his sleeve and held it up. Alec recognized the trick; he was testing the wind's direction.
Satisfied, Thero raised both hands in the direction of the enemy vessel and chanted in a high, faint voice. Drawing a wand of polished crystal from the folds of his coat, he flung it toward the distant ship. Glittering like an icicle, it spun end over end and disappeared below the grey-green waves. Tendrils of mist immediately curled up where it fell.
Thero snapped his fingers; the wand sprang out of the water and into his hands like a live thing, trailing a thick rope of mist in its wake. Pulled by the wizard's spell, heavy fog spread with supernatural speed into a thick bank that shielded their vessel from sight.
"Unless they have a wizard of their own aboard, they'll think we're just a bit of weather," he said, drying the wand with the edge of his cloak.
"But we can't see them, either," said the captain.
"I can," Thero replied. "I'll keep watch."
The ruse worked. Within half an hour Thero reported that the Plenimaran ship had disappeared over the horizon. He ended the spell and the fog bank fell behind them like a hank of wool torn from a distaff.
The sailors on deck let out a cheer, and Klia gave Thero an approving salute that brought a flush to the young wizard's cheeks.
"That's as nice a bit of magic as I've ever seen," Farren called from the stern.
From across the deck, Alec saw Seregil stroll over to the wizard. He was too far away to hear what passed between them, but Thero was smiling when they parted.
Shouts of landfall woke Alec at dawn the next day.
"Aurenen already?" he said, scrambling from beneath the blankets. Seregil sat up and rubbed his eyes, then rose to join the crowd already gathered at the port rail. They could just make out a distant line of low islands on the western horizon.
"Those are the Ea'malies, the 'Old Turtlebacks,' " Seregil said, stifling a yawn.
Klia eyed the close-lying islands distrustfully. "A likely place for an ambush."
"I've sent up extra lookouts," Farren assured her. "We should reach Big Turtle by this afternoon. We'll put in there for fresh water, then it's just another day to Gedre."
This day seemed longer to Alec than all the rest put together. Bows slung ready over their shoulders, he and Seregil took their turn on watch, scanning the surrounding water. In spite of Klia's concerns, however, they reached the outlying islands without incident and set a course toward the largest.
Sitting atop the forecastle with Thero and Seregil, Alec studied the islands for signs of life. But they were arid, little more than domed masses of pale, sun-baked stone scattered over with patches of sparse vegetation.
"I thought you said Aurenen was green," said Thero, clearly less than impressed.
&
nbsp; "This isn't Aurenen," Seregil explained. "No one claims them, really, except sailors and smugglers. Gedre is dry, too, as you'll soon see. The winds sweep up from the southwest across the Gathwayd Ocean and drop their rain as they go over the mountains. Across the Asheks the green will hurt your eyes."
"Sarikali," Thero murmured. "What do you remember of it?"
Seregil leaned his arms on the rail. Though his gaze was on the passing islands, Alec could tell that his friend was seeing another place and time.
"It's a strange, beautiful place. I used to hear music there, just coming out of the air. When it was over I couldn't remember the tunes. Sometimes people hear voices, too."
"Ghosts?" asked Alec.
Seregil shrugged. "We call them Bash 'wax, the Ancients. Those who claim to have seen them always describe them as tall, with black hair and eyes, and skin the color of strong tea."
"I've heard there are dragons there, too," said Thero.
"Just fingerlings, mostly, but they're common as lizards. The
larger ones keep to the mountains. A lucky thing, too. They can be dangerous."
"Is it true that they're magical from the start, but that they don't develop speech and intelligence until they're quite large?"
"That's right, which means you're more likely to be killed by one the size of a hound than those bigger than houses. Only a few of the fingerlings survive and they move up into the mountains as they grow. If you do happen to meet one of any size, always treat it with respect."
"Then there's the khtir'bai—" Alec began, but was interrupted by another warning cry from the lookout.
"Enemy vessels off the port bow!"
Jumping to their feet, they spotted two sets of striped sails rounding a point of land no more than a mile ahead. Alec's hands tightened around his bow; the sight of those sails brought back ugly memories.
"Something tells me they knew we were coming," Seregil muttered.
"Are they showing the battle flag?" Farren called up to the lookout.
"No, Captain, but they've got fires lit."
"Run up the battle standards!"
Sleek and fast as lion hounds, the great ships cleared the point and wheeled in their direction. Plumes of black smoke trailed in their wakes.