I tried to think what to do. Obviously, the only way to reach the surface was to climb back up the tunnel, but if I did that, I would walk straight into the hands of the Herder warriors in the cloister.
My eyes fell upon the ship boat, now tethered to the Black Ship, and I saw with mounting excitement that the other two greatships also towed ship boats. Those aboard the Black Ship were now weighing anchor, and as I watched, long oars came out and the ship began to turn its misshapen prow toward the gap in the stone spikes.
I licked my lips and looked at the two remaining ships. The nearest was not so far away, and its ship boat tugged and bobbed on the waves in my direction. It was not dark, of course, but I doubted anyone would be looking back into the cavern. All attention would be fixed on the Black Ship, which edged toward the gap in the spikes.
I thought of the inner-cadre priest in the other cavern, fingering his demon band and saying he was glad they had only to wear the devices when they were on land. If he spoke true, and I could board a ship, then I could take it over by coercing first its shipmaster and ultimately everyone aboard. I could learn all the invasion plans and even use the ship and those aboard to help me stop the other ships from escaping.
Heart pounding, I worked my way around the side of the cavern, keeping low. Then I crawled down to the water’s edge behind a rib of stone and put my hand into water that was so icy I shuddered. But I dared not dither, because I would be seen more easily out of the water than in. Gasping at the cold, I entered the sea and struck out for the ship boat. I was delighted to find that the tide flowing toward the cavern’s opening was carrying me straight toward the ship. But it was so strong and swift that delight turned to horror as I found myself being swept inexorably past the ship boat.
The tide was ferocious. I could not stop myself.
I was dimly aware that the Black Ship had left the cavern and that the second ship had turned to approach the gap. It hit me that if I made it past the stone spikes into the narrow, my only chance of survival would be to board one of the ship boats. I glanced back to see the second ship moving rapidly into place. I gave up struggling against the pull of the waves and arrowed forward, steering myself between the stone fangs. For one terrifying moment, I seemed about to smash into a looming pillar, but I shot past it into the inlet’s violent waters, which immediately dragged me under.
I kicked hard to reach the surface and managed to suck in a breath of air, but then I was dragged under again. By the time I fought my way back to the surface, I saw the second ship leaving the cavern. Dragged under again, this time I swam hard toward the middle of the inlet. I surfaced in calmer waters, but two ships had already gone down the inlet toward the open sea.
I had just readied myself for the last ship when a wave crashed over me again, pulling me under the water. It was like being eaten by a whirlwind. I tumbled and turned, and water forced its way up my nose and down my throat. My chest began to hurt with the need to breathe. I remembered the shipmaster Powyrs telling me that the sea was unforgiving to those who tried to fight it and forced myself to go limp.
Incredibly, as if it had only been waiting for me to surrender, the sea spat me to the surface. I had time to gasp a breath of air and to see a few streaked purplish clouds in the blue slice of sky before a green shadow reared up and struck me down again. I went under three more times before I managed to reach less savage waters, but my relief was shortlived, for the third ship was emerging from the sea cavern. Even as I watched, I could see that the ship was not approaching the gap at the right angle to pass through. The shipmaster had miscalculated, and I heard a terrible grinding sound as the ship hull was ground against the side of one of the stone spikes. After a long moment, the tide turned the ship enough that it passed through the gap and turned to sail after the others!
Exhausted, I let the tide carry me down the narrow in the ships’ wake. Despair filled me, for no matter how I conserved my strength, I could not swim all the way out of the narrow and around to one of the beach accesses.
“Oh, Maruman,” I whispered, knowing I would never see the old cat again.
I noticed a large stone pinnacle jutting up from the water in the shadows near the stone wall of the narrow. Without hesitation, I struck out for it, knowing that if I could just get a decent foothold, I could wait there until the tide turned and then swim back to the sea cavern.
Driven by the outgoing tide, I hit the stone pinnacle hard enough to stun myself, but instinct made me cling to the rough, porous rock until my senses returned. I climbed above the waterline. Immediately, the wind cut into my chilled skin like icy blades. I tried hard to ignore the voice telling me that I would freeze to death if I stayed until the tide turned, because what was the alternative?
For a time, I thought of everything I could have done differently. The thought of the Herder warriors waiting in the cloister filled me with fear for my friends, but my mind also jumped to the food they might have left behind and the warm fire I could have kindled from the embers of their cook fires. I shook my head and told myself not to sit there like a fool daydreaming about food and fires as I slowly froze to death. If there was one stone spike, there would surely be others, or maybe some rocks at the base of the cliffs where I could rest. Somehow I had to make it to one of the beaches. I did not know which of the narrows I was in, but I did not believe I was far from the beach where Noviny had seen Malik and the Herders. Once out of the narrow, I would only have to swim around to it.
I lowered one numbed foot into the water, seeking for a grip on the stone so I could lower myself easily. Then I gasped, jerking my foot up instantly, for something had pressed momentarily but firmly against the sole of my foot!
I peered into the shadowed waves, trying to see what had touched me. I had just about convinced myself that I had merely touched a part of the stone pinnacle, when to my horror, I saw a long dark shape rise to the surface of the water. My mind leapt immediately to the many-toothed fish that Reuvan had once described, saying that he had seen it attack and tear to pieces a seaman who had fallen overboard. Shark, he had named it, and I clenched my teeth to stop whimpering with fear. Reuvan had said that the savage creatures were drawn by blood, and I had a dozen grazes all bleeding into the sea, sending out a deadly summons.
Was there any possibility of reaching the creature’s mind? I wondered. I did not know of any beastspeaker who had ever managed to communicate with a fish. Water inhibited the ability to communicate mentally for some reason we did not understand. To even try to reach a fish’s mind, physical contact would be necessary.
I peered down, wishing I could see through the shadows and the shifting reflection of cliff and sky. Finally, in desperation, I lowered my foot and slapped it on the surface of the water because Reuvan had said that vibrations also attracted sharks.
It must have been waiting just deep enough that I could not see it, for the enormous fish erupted from the water right under my foot, pushing up so hard that it dislodged me from the stone spike. As I fell, I opened my mouth, but I did not utter the scream shaping itself in my throat. For in that moment of contact, a bell-like voice sounded in my mind, offering help.
I MIGHT HAVE drowned if the fish had not nudged me back to the pinnacle, for fright had drained the last of my reserves. As I clung to the rock, I no longer feared that I would be eaten, for even that brief contact had shown me a female mind with no trace of the rapacious hunger or mindless aggression that Reuvan had said characterized sharks. Indeed, as I watched her circle, I saw that she was not a shark at all, but a warmblooded ship fish of the kind that were said to have occasionally rescued drowning seamen.
She butted my leg and again I heard her bell-like voice in my mind. “This one is Vlar-rei. Name of Ari-roth.”
The words were like music. I was so enchanted that it took me a moment to realize that she had responded to a thought, even though we were not in physical contact. That meant that while I needed to be in touch to hear her mindvoice, she could “hear” my
thoughts without contact.
“I am ElspethInnle,” I thought.
“Morred-a,” she sent, brushing against my leg.
I realized she had translated my name into her language. Then I thought of the name she had applied to herself. Vlar-rei. It was not her own name but the name of her kind, and I knew that I had heard it before. Yet how could that be when I had never spoken with a ship fish?
Then it came to me. Locked inside Dragon’s coma dream, I had seen her mother, the Red Queen, leap from the slave ship that had stolen her and her little daughter from their homeland. She had summoned whales to destroy the ship and her tormentors. Then she had summoned a ship fish to bring Dragon to shore. She had told me that ship fish called themselves Vlar-rei and that in human speech this meant “children of the waves.” I shivered with wonder because that this really was their name proved what I had guessed from Dragon’s coma dream: her mother—the Red Queen—had been a powerful beastspeaker with a rare ability to commune with sea beasts.
A sleek gray head emerged from the water in front of me, and the ship fish turned slightly to fix one round, gray eye on me. Lifting her smooth snout, she uttered a long, complex, musical call. Somehow I knew that the trilling call was a language that did not echo her spoken words but elaborated and explained them—except I had no means of understanding it.
“This one answers the call,” she sent, swimming close to make contact so I could “hear” her.
“The call?” I thought.
Her smooth body touched my leg again, and I heard her beautiful voice. “What is needful?”
“Can you help me to reach land?” I was so cold now that it was becoming hard to think clearly.
Ari-roth responded with a coiling trill of notes. Then she brushed me again and said merely, “Morred-a must make a mindpicture of the place she wishes to go.”
Gingerly, I passed an arm around her smooth leathery flank and let go of the pinnacle. She took my weight, and I had the queer sensation of her mind swimming through mine. Like Maruman, she ignored my shield as if it did not exist.
I formed a mental image of the beach Noviny had described, hoping it would be enough. The ship fish merely gave another fluting call and bade me take hold of her more securely by the side and back fin, but to avoid her blowhole, for it was sensitive. I adjusted my position as she had instructed, and she moved smoothly away from the rock and along the channel.
Without my noticing it, the sun had set, and this time when I looked up, I saw stars caught between the black jaws of the cliffs. Can so much time have passed since I rode to the cloister? I wondered. Gradually, as we passed along the dark narrow, I realized that I was no longer cold.
“This one feeds Morred-a,” Ari-roth sang imperturbably.
“Feeding me what?” I echoed, uncomprehending.
A bright picture swelled to fill my mind. It showed my body, as if seen through spirit eyes. It was no more than a dim shadow amidst a fluctuating halo of colored light, but the light was dim and the colors faded. Even the vivid slash of red corresponding to the damage done to my spirit by the life I had once taken was pale and faded. A ship fish shape emanating blue light appeared in the vision, and a tendril of light reached out from the ship fish to me. Gradually, my aura grew brighter and the colors stronger.
“This one feeds ohrana to Morred-a,” Ari-roth sent as the vision faded.
“You have my gratitude,” I told her, realizing that ohrana must be the ship fish word for “spirit energy.” I wondered, too, how many ship fish had rescued seamen and helped them in this way without their ever realizing it.
“No,” Ari-roth sang, answering my private thought as if it had been directed to her. “This gifting given only by Vlar-rei to Vlar-rei. But Mornir-ma asked that help be given to Morred-a when she called.” She lifted her head and gave a rising trill.
“Mornir-ma?” I echoed, confused. Did she mean Dragon, for the beasts called her Mornir?
“Mornir-ma sings to friends who swim long ago, of Morred-a who will swim in the waves to come. Very beautiful is the song/singing. Those who listened sang she song, too, that the waves would remember it. Now all who hear waves, hear the plea-song of Mornir-ma for Morred-a.”
I drew a long shaky breath, wondering if I could be understanding her correctly, for she seemed to be saying that she had fed me from her aura, because someone had asked it long ago on my behalf. Mornir-ma. Dragon’s mother?
It was fantastic to imagine, but Cassy might have futuretold my need to the first Red Queen, who, like her descendant Dragon’s mother, may have possessed the Talent to commune with sea beasts. But even if the first Red Queen had sung to sea creatures to ask help for a woman she had never met, how could Ari-roth have known I needed help now? She had spoken of a call, but I had not called anyone.
“Morred-a called,” the ship fish responded calmly.
“What did I call?” I asked, utterly bewildered.
“Mornir-ma sang in the long ago, that Morred-a would call. Mar-ruhman. Ari-roth heard and followed the ripples back to Morred-a.”
Mar-ruhman, I thought incredulously. Maruman? Then I remembered. I had called his name in sorrow and longing when I had thought I would drown. Cassy had foreseen me do so on the verge of drowning. A great chain of legend had been forged through time, to make sure that I would be saved.
“What did Mornir-ma sing of me?” I asked. I was trembling but not from cold.
“That Morred-a would say the sacred word Mar-ruhman to the waves when she was in dire need, and all aid must be rendered unto her, even the gift of ohrana, for by her deeds would the song of the waves go on, and without her, the song would be sung no more.”
I felt astonished by what she told me, yet my life was caught in a web of prophecies, so how should I be surprised that sea creatures subscribed to the land-beast legend, which made me their Savior? But as always when I encountered the faith of others in those prophecies, I felt a dreamy powerlessness, which the dark water all about me seemed to emphasize. I tried to take in the knowledge that by calling Maruman’s name, I had summoned the aid of the ship fish because of a song sung by a woman I had never met but whose daughter I had befriended and whose memory held a secret that I needed in order to complete my quest. My mind reeled at the complexity, and I could not even begin to understand how my cry had reached Ari-roth.
Oblivious or perhaps indifferent to my confusion, the ship fish swam in my mind and the waves so swiftly, yet serenely, that it seemed no time at all before we were passing out of the narrow inlet. For a long time, we swam straight out to sea, for Ari-roth explained that there were shoals all about the mouth of the narrow, where the currents were treacherous even for ship fish.
The open sea was far calmer then it had been inside the restricted inlet, and seeing the vast starry sky stretched over an inky sea where stars floated, I became calmer, too. Ari-roth turned and began to follow the Land’s high shadowy coastline. As we cleaved through the water, I was enchanted to see patches of phosphorescence shimmering on the water’s smooth surface. The despair and hopelessness I felt earlier evaporated. I was not cold or hungry or tired, and all my aches and pains had faded.
It was the effect of being fed Ari-roth’s ohrana, but it seemed that, however long I lived, at the end of my life, this time of fluid serenity would be one I could summon to remind me of the beauty of living. I found tears upon my cheeks.
“Morred-a makes an offering to the waves.” Ari-roth spoke the words in my mind with approval.
The moon now rose, a rich yellow-gold, shining like a burnished coin shaved at one edge. I thought of Maruman and imagined how he would glare at it. As it rose higher, its yellow richness fading to silver, I brought my wandering attention to bear on the land. We were passing along the coast of Saithwold province, but I could not see any of the three beaches or the steps cut into the cliff. As if sensing my desire, Ari-roth angled toward land. But the moon had climbed high before we passed the jutting brow of the cliff that hid two narr
ow beaches. Two ships were anchored close to shore at the first beach, but neither of them was the Black Ship. Salamander must have taken the warrior priests aboard his vessel to the third beach, closer to Sutrium, perhaps even directly to Sutrium. I decided to ask Ari-roth to set me ashore on the second beach. I could mount the steps and farseek Gahltha to come and find me. But first I needed to see if the warrior priests aboard the ship had gone ashore, as I suspected.
I asked Ari-roth to bring me closer to the ships, and though I doubted anyone would be looking out to sea, I adjusted my position and sank lower in the water so that my head barely rose above Ari-roth’s shining fin. Soon I could make out steps cut into the cliff and several darker patches at the base of it, farther along the beach, which might be the caves Noviny had mentioned.
Turning to the deck of the nearest ship, I saw so little movement that either the entire force was belowdecks, or they had gone ashore. My instincts told me the latter, for the ships had surely arrived well before the moon had risen, and any commander would have taken advantage of the darkness.
I knew that the wisest course would be to ask Ari-roth to set me ashore on the second beach, but I had spotted the ship boat bobbing against the hull of the nearest ship. If I could get aboard, and it remained against the hull of the greatship, I might manage to farseek someone and learn what was happening ashore. It occurred to me that I could do what I had meant to do in the sea cavern: take over the minds of those aboard the ship.
“Does Morred-a wish to go ashore?” Ari-roth asked serenely.
“No,” I told her, “just as far as the small vessel, but I must not be seen by those aboard.” To be sure she understood, I pictured the ship boat.