“I cannot feast and plan, knowing what is coming to the west coast,” I said blackly.
“Drink something at least,” Reuvan insisted, pushing the mug gently toward my mouth. I sipped a mouthful of the hot, spiced fement, because the effort of refusing was too great, but my teeth chattered against the rim. The fiery brew warmed the chill in my bones and gut, but it did not touch the ice that had formed about my heart. I could think of no words to say, so I drank until the mug was empty and handed it back to the seaman. I saw pity in his eyes and wondered why he would pity me. It was not I who faced death.
As if he had heard the thought, he said, “It is hardest when you can do nothing.”
“Go with them,” I said. “I need to be alone now, but I will return after a while.”
“Very well,” he sighed, and departed.
I sat for a long time staring blankly out to sea. My head was spinning slightly because of the fement, but I was only dimly aware of the others leaving. I was glad none of them came to talk to me, for I had no desire for conversation. It was not until my chin hit my chest that I woke up enough to realize I had fallen into a near stupor sitting there. I told myself that I ought to return to the compound and sleep rather than indulging in an orgy of pointless grief and guilt. But the effort of rising was beyond me.
If there had been a bed laid out beside me, I would have fallen gratefully into it. As it was, I was sitting upon a rock on a pale beach running down to a gray ruffled sea, with no idea how I was going to get myself anywhere. A delicate rosy light bloomed along the horizon, limning the crippled Stormdancer. A seam of dazzling silver opened along the horizon to allow the day to be born, and as the sun rose at last, streams of pale gold light pierced the thinning clouds to give a shimmering edge to the waves rolling in, and the mist wove a gauzy rainbow.
And quite suddenly, I knew what I must do.
I got to my feet, shrugging off both the cloak Reuvan had laid about my shoulders and the Herder robe I had worn, and I walked the few steps to the sea’s edge. I slipped off my shoes and stepped into the waves. The water was very cold, but I went deeper until I felt it seeping through my clothes to touch my warm skin with icy fingers. I had to brace myself against the strong incoming tide to prevent being pushed back toward the shore. When at last my mouth was level with the water, I shouted aloud and inside my mind.
“Maruman!” I called as I had done before.
Nothing happened, and as I stood there waiting, all the fatigue I had shed seeped back into me, bringing with it leaden despair.
“Fool,” I muttered.
A movement at the edge of my vision made me turn, and I was startled to see Cinda racing down the beach toward me, her black hood flung back, her eyes wide with alarm. She waved her arms wildly, and knowing she could not call out to me, I waded wearily back to shore.
“What is the matter?” I asked, and entered her mind so she could answer me.
“I kept thinking of you, alone here,” she told me. “When my brother died, I blamed myself for surviving, but what could I have done to stop his death?” She looked out across the strait. “You must not blame yourself for what you cannot change.” Her voice was kind but stern.
“I sent many of my friends to the west coast, and now they will die because they did what I asked. How should I not blame myself?”
The shadow did not answer, but after a long minute, she said, “I saw you go into the water. You went so purposefully that I…I thought…” She stopped, her face darkening in a blush.
“You thought I meant to drown myself?” I asked gently.
“There were times over the years when I wished I would die. After they cut out my tongue and when I learned of my brother’s death. But if I died, I never would have met Elkar.” She glanced toward the compound.
“He loves you,” I said aloud.
She smiled.
“I was not trying to die. I sought to call a ship fish to me,” I told her aloud. Because I had not withdrawn my probe, my emotions and thoughts were laid bare, and Cinda gasped at what she saw fleetingly in my mind.
“You can speak with the minds of ship fish?” she marveled.
“One saved me once, but I must have been mad to imagine I could call it to me here.”
Cinda nodded, but all at once, her eyes widened, and she pointed back over my shoulder to the sea.
I turned to see a fin cleaving through the waves, and hope flowed through me like hot fement. Without hesitation, I ran back into the water. The fin vanished, and I stopped, confused. Then a silvery shining head emerged from the water in front of me. Trembling, I stretched out my hand, but the ship fish neither approached nor retreated. It waited, its liquid eyes fixed on me. I was but a finger length away when it surged forward, pressing its head to my palm. It was not Ari-roth.
“This one is Vlar-rei. Name of Ari-noor, podsister to Ari-roth. Come now and this one will bear she where she must go, Morred-a,” the ship fish belled.
I turned back to where Cinda stood shivering at the water’s edge and shouted, “She will bear me across the strait. It is the only chance we have of saving the west coast, and there is no time to waste. Tell the others. Bid them repair the Stormdancer and sail to Sutrium. Dardelan and the rebels must be warned not to cross the Suggredoon until the next full moon, just in case I cannot stop the plague. Whatever happens will be over then.”
Cinda wrung her hands and shook her head helplessly, but I threw my hand over the ship fish, taking care to avoid her blowhole. As she turned and began to swim strongly straight out to sea, I looked back and caught a glimpse of Cinda lifting a hand slowly. By the time I managed to get a better grip and lift my own hand, the girl was no more than a shadow on the sand.
Soon the cold I had experienced upon entering the water faded, along with my mind-numbing exhaustion. This told me that Ari-noor was feeding me spirit energy as her podsister had done.
“Morred-a is smaller than this one expected,” she sang. Her tone and manner were more formal than Ari-roth’s, but I had the same soothing sense of her gliding presence in my mind.
“Ari-roth spoke of me to you?” I asked.
“The waves know the name of Morred-a. It will be a long journey for she,” Ari-noor sang enigmatically with several gloomy subnotes. “Longer than the journey with Ari-roth and longer than the journey made by the calf of Mornir-ma. Morred-a must not take shortsleep lest longsleep come. Must not let ohrana flow into dreamwaves. Morred-a must never, ever, let go of Ari-noor.”
I tightened my grip and thought about what she had said.
By the “calf of Mornir-ma,” she must mean Dragon, confirming once and for all that the red-haired waif had been brought to the Land by sea creatures after she and her mother had been stolen from the Red Land. And so Mornir-ma must be a title given by the Vlar-rei to the Red Queens, or maybe to beastspeakers who could commune with them. But what had she meant by warning me against letting my ohrana flow into the dreamwaves? Ohrana was the name Ari-roth had used to describe her aura or spirit form, so dreamwaves might be the spirit form cast by the sea; after all, mountains, fire, and all manner of inanimate things cast spirit forms. If I was right, the ship fish had warned me not to let my spirit merge with the spirit of the waves. But that made no sense, for I would have to assume my spirit form even to see or be aware of the dreamwaves. Unless dreamwaves were more closely connected to the real sea than the dreamtrails were connected to real places on land.
A different thought occurred to me. If the dreamwaves were connected to the dreamtrails, it might be that Atthis was using the ship fish, just as she used land beasts, to protect and aid me. Yet it was hard to imagine a bird, even one as ancient and powerful as the Elder of the eldar, manipulating these strange fish.
A wave slapped me hard in the face, almost dislodging me, and I tightened my grip. Ari-noor had warned me sternly not to let go of her. I would certainly be left behind swiftly if I did so, for we were cleaving through the water at a far greater speed than Ar
i-roth had traveled. In truth, I did not see how the ship fish could maintain such a pace. But even if she slowed, I was sure that I would reach the west coast before Ariel’s null had time to spread the plague. I had asked Ari-noor to take me to Murmroth landing, because it was closest to Herder Isle. I would have to travel by foot to the city, if the Black Ship had docked there. If not, I would acquire a horse and immediately ride toward Aborium. As soon as I was close enough, I would farseek the Beforetime ruins where Jak and Dell had intended to set up a refuge. Then I would have all the help I needed in locating the null.
Something in the waves ahead caught my eye, and I squinted until I was able to make out a fin cutting through the water toward us. At first I thought it another ship fish, but then a chill ran down my spine, for this was the squat black fin of a shark!
“Yes,” Ari-noor sent calmly. “Many azahk are here. They will not harm she while our ohrana are connected. But if Morred-a lost hold of this one, even for a moment, the azahk would catch she in its teeth.”
I tightened my grip convulsively. It was fortunate that I did, for suddenly we went from high swells to a great heaving and pulling and churning of white water that told me we had entered the strait’s tempestuous central current. I knew that ships preferred to take a gradual diagonal bearing across the strait, partly to avoid the stress of the contrary currents on their ship and partly to avoid a series of long, wickedly sharp, mostly submerged shoals called The Teeth. I had supposed that Ari-noor would cut directly across the strait, weaving through the shoals as effortlessly as she had done through the waves, but to my disappointment, she turned into the current. Our passage became immediately smoother, and if anything, our speed increased, yet this new course would take longer, for by the time we left the central current, we would be well down the coast. The ship fish would have to turn and swim back up the coast to deliver me to Murmroth.
In addition, the shark was following us.
Gritting my teeth, I told myself resolutely that the shark was the least of my worries, for Ari-noor was feeding me her energy, and as long as I held her, it would not attack. But my arms and back were already aching, and I had not even been in the water as long as I had when Ari-roth took me from the narrow inlet to the beach at Saithwold.
As the hours wore on, it was not the buffeting of the waves nor physical weariness that troubled me so much as the constant ominous presence of the sharks, for now there were three fins. Sometimes they circled us, as if to mock our slower progress; at other times, one would come near enough that I would see its blunt, pitted snout and blank, black eyes.
“Azahk ohrana is hungry,” Ari-noor observed, but her mindvoice was serene. I took this as an indication that I was in no danger, though I could not help wondering how a hungry spirit could be fed by eating flesh.
“What ohrana desires, flesh does echo,” Ari-noor sent imperturbably.
As if to underline her warning, a shark fin rose from the water so close to me that I could have stretched out my hand to touch it. I told myself that I was safe, but I also drew in my legs. After a long, anxious period, the fin turned and vanished beneath the waves’ churning surface. In relief, I relaxed, and my grip loosened slightly. Ari-noor immediately belled a warning, so I locked my muscles, ignoring their aching protest.
Time passed, and I tried to converse with Ari-noor to distract myself from the thirst and monotony of the journey, but my attempts to engage her won only reluctant and monosyllabic responses. Despite looking similar to her podsister, she was more reserved than Ari-roth and held herself aloof in my mind.
There was no sight of the land on any side now, and I began to fancy the light had changed subtly. Surely it was afternoon. I prayed so, for although I had no more to do than hold tight to the ship fish and be carried to my destination, there was something in the relentless movement of the waves and my being saturated to the bone that made me feel as if the water was sloughing away layers of my spirit. I imagined dreamily that when the last shred of it was gone, I would let go of the ship fish and drift helplessly into the blue void until the waiting sharks bit into my sodden flesh and spongy bones.
“Do not sleep!” Ari-noor sent with surprising sharpness.
I jerked awake, horrified to realize that I had begun to drowse—doubly horrified, for close by, a fin cut through the water like a dark knife. The shark circled away and vanished, as before, and I wondered with an internal shiver if it had come closer because it had sensed that I was falling asleep. Despite the fright I had given myself, my eyes still felt heavy and my mind sluggish. I cursed my stupidity for sitting awake on the beach the previous night instead of sleeping. Yet how could I have known what awaited me?
I told myself that it mattered not if ignorance as much as courage had brought me into the strait, so long as I reached the west coast.
All I had to do was stay awake.
There was a low rumble of thunder, and I looked up, noting the dark, congested clouds overhead, and wondered what sort of storm was brewing. Aside from the danger of being struck by lightning, I welcomed the possibility of a storm, for surely there would be rain, and the thirst of hours before had become a torment. The temptation to drink a mouthful of seawater was so compelling that I was frightened I might succumb.
“Do not drink,” Ari-noor warned.
Desperately, I cast about for something to occupy my thoughts. Strangely, I found myself remembering the day I had ridden away from Obernewtyn. In retrospect, there had been a brightness to that day, although I had been in no mood to appreciate it. I had been so full of grief over my estrangement from Rushton and worry about Khuria’s letters and Malik’s trial that I had not properly appreciated the feel of Gahltha’s warm faithful flesh moving under me and Maruman’s softness about my neck and curving into my mind.
Then it occurred to me that I was guilty of doing exactly the same thing again. Only a few days past, I had believed that I would never see Maruman or Gahltha or Rushton again, for I had thought myself doomed to a horrible death at the hands of the Herders. Yet now that I knew that I would see them again, instead of rejoicing, I was full of self-pity. I felt a surge of disgust for myself and deliberately turned my thoughts to wondering if they had any idea of what had been happening to me. Atthis might have let Maruman know where I was, and the old cat would have let the others know through the beastspeakers. Or maybe not. Maruman was contrary and uninformative at the best of times, and he had been angry with me even before I abandoned him in Saithwold.
Maryon might also have dreamed of me and sent a messenger to Sutrium to let the others know what had happened. But how much could she have seen? Had she known that I would find myself trapped aboard a Herder ship and taken to Herder Isle? I wondered what I would have done if Maryon had brought me into her high chamber in Obernewtyn’s Futuretell wing to tell me all that would happen to me after I left the mountains. Would I have gone to Saithwold, knowing that Malik awaited me, even if I had known that his attempt to kill me would fail? And what of the tunnel under the cloister? Would I have taken that, knowing it would lead me to Herder Isle and into the hands of the Herders? And what lay at the end of this journey across the strait, which I had begun so impulsively?
“She mind swims in circles,” Ari-noor sent soothingly. “Will the waves change because someone swims through them? What has happened has happened, and what will happen will happen.”
Night fell subtly, for the storm that threatened all afternoon had not broken despite the sullen mutter of thunder. The clouds that had masked the sun now hid dusk and then the rising of moon and stars. Night gradually darkened from steel gray to black, and I scanned the sea in the distance, seeking the dull blurs of orange light that would denote land, though in my heart I knew it was too soon. By my reckoning, we were still moving along the strait and had yet to angle toward the shore and enter the coastal currents.
I turned my mind to what Elkar had told me when we had first arrived at the healing center after the confrontation with the Hedr
a master. He had managed to track down the novice who had seen Ariel’s special nulls when he had been sent to deliver a message to the One’s favorite. Ariel had just locked the door of his chambers, and he had two nulls with him. According to the novice, one had been very small—a midget, he had supposed—until it looked at him, and he had seen that it was a child. It had been impossible to tell if it was a boy or a girl, because its head had been shaven like all nulls’ heads, and its face had been horribly scarred. I doubted Ariel would give a child the responsibility of spreading his plague, because a child would be vulnerable and might come to harm before it had done his bidding. But the other null had been described as a grown man, sickly pale as one long imprisoned in a cell without fresh air or sunlight. I was certain he was the null I must seek. But when I learned where the null had gone ashore, I would concentrate my search not on him but on Ariel. Of course, he might not have accompanied the null ashore, but if it were safe to do so, he would be unable to resist the vicious pleasure of walking through a crowd and gloating over what awaited them. All I needed to do was to ask around until I found someone who had seen a fair, astonishingly handsome young man accompanied by a very pale, dark-haired man.
“Just as long as he is not in a cloister,” I muttered.
A wave cuffed me hard, knocking the breath out of me. “Anything else?” I gasped wrathfully at the heavens. Another wave broke against me, and by the time I had finished coughing and choking out swallowed seawater, I had ceased thinking of Ariel and the null. The wind had been growing steadily, and it now howled overhead, whipping the waves into high peaks that broke over me until I feared I would drown clinging to the back of the ship fish. Ari-noor seemed unaffected, yet I was buffeted mercilessly by the sea, and every breath was a struggle. When I remembered my surrender to the waves in the narrow inlet, I relaxed, and at once I became aware that a song throbbed in the air, made up of the sea’s roar and hiss and the wind’s howling. The strange, wild music had a rhythm, and Ari-noor’s movements synchronized with it and were part of it. I thought of Powyrs, the shipmaster of The Cutter, telling me that the sea was too strong and vast to be fought. One must surrender to it. I thought I had surrendered to it in the narrow inlet, but I had only given up struggling against it. In order to hear the song of the waves, I began to understand that I had to give up singing my own song of fear first. Powyrs had called it surrender, but in truth he meant that one needed to cease one’s own competing song. Only then could I listen to the song of the waves and become part of it as the ship fish did.