BROTHERS OF EARTH. C. J. Cherryh

“I have heard,” Kurt offered, “that there is some civilization there, some cities of size.”

“There are two towns, and those are primitive. One might be called a city, Haithen. It is a city of wood, of frozen streets. Yvesta the mother of snows never looses those lands. There are no farms, only desolate flats and impossible mountains and frozen rivers. Ice masses float in the Yvorst Ome that can crush ships, and there are great sea beasts the like of which do not visit these blue waters. Ai, it is nothing like Nephane.”

“Are you regretting,” Kurt asked softly, “that you have chosen as you have?”

“It is a strange place we go,” said Kta, “and yet shame to Elas is worse. I think Haithen may be preferable to the Methi’s law. It pains me to say it, but Haithen may be infinitely preferable to the Methi’s Nephane. Only when we are passing by the coast of Nephane, I shall think of Aimu, and of Bel, and wish that I had news of them. That is the hardest thing, to realize that there is nothing I can do. Elas is not accustomed to helplessness.”

En t’Siran, captain of Rimaris, swung onto the deck of the courier ship Kadese, beneath the furled red sails. Such was his haste that he did not even sit and take tea with the captain of Kadese before he delivered his message; he took the ritual sip of tea standing, and scarcely caught his breath before he passed the cup back to the captain’s man and bowed his courtesy to the senior officer.

“T’Siran,” said the courier captain, “you signaled urgent news.”

“A confrontation,” said t’Siran, “between Isles ships and a ship of their own kind.”

“Indeed.” The captain put his own cup aside, signaled a scribe, who began to write. “What happened? Could you identify any of the houses?”

“Easily on the one side. They bore the moon of Acturi on their sails-Gan t’Hnes’ sons, I am well sure of it. The other was a strange sail, dark green with a gold dragon.”

“I do not know that emblem,” said the captain. “It must be one of those Sufak designs.”

“Surely,” agreed t’Siran, for the dragon Yr was not one of the lucky symbols for an Indras ship. “It may be a Methi’s ship.”

“A confrontation, you say. With what result?”

“A long wait. Then dragon-sail turned aside, toward the coast of Sufak.”

“And the men of Acturi?”

“Held their position some little time. Then they went back into the Isles. We drew off quickly. We had no orders to provoke combat with the Isles. That is the sum of my report.”

“It is,” said the captain of Kadese, “a report worth carrying.”

“My lord.” En t’Siran acknowledged the unusual tribute from a courier captain, bowed his head and, as the captain returned the parting courtesy, left.

The captain of Kadese hardly delayed to see Rimaris spread sail and take her leave before he shouted an order to his own crew and bade them put about for Indresul.

The thing predicted was beginning. Nephane had come to a point of division. The Methi of Indresul had direct interest in this evidence, which might affect polices up and down the Ome Sin and bring Nephane nearer its day of reckoning.

From now on, Kadese’s captain thought to himself, the Methi Ylith would begin to listen to her captains, who urged that there would be no better time than this. Heaven favored it.

“Rowers to the benches,” he bade his second, “reliefs at the minimum interval, all available crew.”

With four shifts and a hundred and ten oars, the slim Kadese was equipped to go the full distance. The wind was fair behind her. Her double red sail was bellied out full, and there was nothing faster on either side of the Ome Shi.

There were scattered clouds, small wisps of white with gray undersides that grew larger in the east as the hours passed. The crew of Tavi kept a nervous watch on the skies, dreading the shift of wind that could mean delay in these dangerous waters.

In the west, near at hand, rose the grim jagged spires of the Thiad. The sun declined toward the horizon, threading color into the scant clouds which touched that side of the sky.