Simna straightened. “I’ll go and ask Stanager.”
“Yes,” Ehomba commented, “I have noticed that you and the Captain have begun to get along better these past several days.”
The swordsman winked conspiratorially. “You’ve been around me long enough by now to know that I’m a very persistent fellow, long bruther. And not just in the matter of lost treasures to be found.” Grinning, he turned and marched off in the direction of the helm, where Stanager Rose was conversing with Priget.
“Be careful,” the herdsman called after him.
“Why?” Simna smiled back over his shoulder. “Afraid I might figure out how to see her ‘light’?”
“No,” Ehomba responded. “Afraid that you might see it. You’re all too easily blinded by such things, Simna ibn Sind.”
VIII
After so long out of sight of land (the Tilo Islands being a horrific recollection that every man and woman aboard firmly desired to expunge from their memories), the majestic spectacle of the Quonequot Cliffs looming on the western horizon roused a throaty cheer from passengers and crew alike when they finally hove into view. Rising vertically a thousand feet from the waves that broke against their base and plunging to untold depths below the surface, the white-chalk precipices terminated in a massive headland that marked the entrance to Kylles Bay. Beyond and within lay the fabled western trading city of Doroune.
Stealing a moment from her navigational duties, Stanager Rose left the helm in the capable hands of Priget, who had guided the Grömsketter into the bay several times before, and walked over to stand alongside the most puzzling passenger she had ever carried. At present, he was gazing thoughtfully over the starboard side, studying the lofty white escarpment as the ship neared land. Dragonets of many sizes and colors glided regally along the cliff faces, where they found safe nesting sites among the sheer walls. In this they were not alone. Ceaseless screeching and cawing and hissing testified to the competition for prime sites among dragonets and puffins, gulls and terns. As Captain and passenger stood side by side at the rail, a formation of great osteodontornids glided by overhead, their twenty-foot wings momentarily blocking out the sun, their tooth-filled beaks intent on tracking a school of small fish shoaling by just beneath the breaking spume.