“Of course.”
Rap looked distrustfully at the warlock, the man who had given his daughter to a gnome.
“I’m an adept. I can learn to play those two tunes. I can certainly steer a boat. The other two needn’t—”
“No! No!” Lith’rian’s juvenile face took on the soulful expression that Quip’ had favored. His eyes misted. “Don’t you see? The three of you, hastening to Arakkaran . . . jotnar aiding a faun . . . that’s beautiful! That’s much more romantic than just one.”
“Course it is.” Jalon tucked the panpipes in his belt and clambered over the rail.
“Just try and stop me,” said Gathmor with all his old menace. ”Everything we need is there . . . er . . . my lord?” Perhaps he still did not know who the elf was, but he had recognized his authority.
“You’ll find a chart in the big chest. There’s an inkblot on it, somewhere. That’s you.”
The sailor tried not to pull faces again.
“And, Captain . . . a prophecy. Veer south of the Keriths. If you go to the north you wreak havoc on the shipping there, and if you try to go through The Gut, you certainly run aground. You know about merfolk! Remember that, whatever else they are, they are also madly jealous. The men have fast knives.”
“Troublemakers!” Gathmor agreed. “Had ‘em around Durthing a few times. Always brought bloodshed.” He followed Jalon down the ladder.
“The Gods be with you, Master Rap,” the warlock said. “Waste no time.”
Still feeling that he should be arguing, Rap took hold of the rail and swung up a leg.
Gathmor had the tiller already and the sail was spread. The tiny craft rocked as Rap settled on the thwart amidship, next to Jalon, who grinned childishly and raised the pipes to his lips. At the first haunting notes, a shadow of ripples rushed over the waters, and the sail swelled.
“What’s her name?” Gathmor demanded. He looked up to ask the elf, but already there was open water spreading between the large craft and the small.
“Call her the Queen of Krasnegar,” Rap said between his teeth.
“So be it. May the Good go with her.”
A stronger gust rocked the boat. Palms on the shore bent and thrashed.
Ripple? The world steadied again at once.
That one had been faint, but Rap had felt it—either because he was learning to, or because the power had touched him personally. His arms and knees had turned from gold to brown in front of his eyes. He gasped in agony, and then his shirt burst open in a shower of buttons, his pants ripped across the seat. Jalon stopped trilling on the panpipes to join Gathmor in great bellows of stupid, raucous laughter. The boat rocked with their mirth. Idiots!
All the same, it was with real relief that Rap inspected his own familiar faunish face again, flat nose and goblin tattoos and all. It had never been much of a face, but he was glad to have it back.
He grinned at the very pink Jalon, and then at Gathmor. “Lay a course for Arakkaran, Cap’n!”
“Aye, sir!”
“Look!” Jalon pointed.
Quip’rian was waving from Allena’s deck. Beside him stood the elvish Rap—and Jalon, and Gathmor. All four waved. Rap raised his hand in farewell, and then turned his face to the sea.
Rushing seas:
One port, methought, alike they sought
One purpose hold wher’er they fare;
O bounding breeze, O rushing seas,
At last, at last, unite them there.
— Clough, As Ships Becalmed
TWELVE
Female of the species
1
Morning sun sparkled on the great harbor as Dawn Pearl crept slowly toward her berth. Inos stood on deck with Azak on one side of her and Kade on the other, studying all the bustle and the astonishing variety of shipping—very much as she had wanted to study it that other morning, months ago, when she had been lumbered with the odious baby Charak. Now she was much less interested, for the bright hopes of that memorable day were tarnished. Spoiled! Crumbled to ruin. She dared not look at Azak, for his feelings must be as dark as her own. They had gambled and lost, and they still lacked even the tiny compensation of knowing for certain who had won.
Even the medley of scents was oddly familiar to Inos—the fish stinks of a harbor and the flower scents of the city. She felt far more like a returning resident than she would have expected, or wanted. The shining palace on the hill was a derision, a marble jail waiting to take her back, a sarcophagus. She was draped again in the despicable chaddar of humiliation, a recaptured fugitive.
“Look!” Kade exclaimed. “On the dock. Isn’t that a reception party?”
It was indeed, and Inos had detected it long before Kade had. Azak had probably seen it even earlier, for he had the falcon vision of his race. Neither of them had commented.
“Led by Kar,” Azak murmured.
Inos could not see that yet, but it would be a welcome sight for Azak. If the devoted Kar still lived, then no other prince had seized the title of sultan. And that thought made Inos realize that Azak must have feared for his life since he learned Dawn Pearl’s true destination.
Who had told him, or when, he had not said, but he had been released from the brig as soon as the ship cleared Brogog, the last port before Arakkaran. Gaunt and grim, he had spoken very little since. He was dressed again as a prince, all in green: trousers, tunic, cloak, and turban. Inos did not know where he obtained those. Likely they had been slipped aboard by Elkarath’s women, as it must have been they who had smuggled the Zarkian costume for Inos and Kade into the baggage. The whole cruel buffoonery had been very well planned.
Azak had hardly spoken. She did not know how he felt about her now. Was he still in love with her? She could not read his thoughts.
But Azak was returning as sultan, and apparently his throne was still secure. His lack of jewels and scimitar would be soon rectified if the efficient Kar was in charge of the welcome.
Welcome? Public reception . . . they were not even to be granted the grace of an unobtrusive entry into the city. There would be bands and a parade. Rejoice!—the sultan returns! Mockery.
Inos turned away from the sight of the band and the assemblage of princes. She glanced around her to confirm that the chests had been brought up and that all was ready for disembarkation. Dawn Pearl would leave on the same tide.
Well! Over there was the shrouded form of little Frainish, who had been so chagrined to discover that she was coming home to Arakkaran instead of venturing forth to Angot. But at her side stood Skarash, inscrutable again in the flowing robes of a Zarkian merchant. Well, well!
Master Skarash had supposedly disembarked at Torkag. No one had seen him since, so no one had been able to question him. And here he was back? Either this was more sorcery, or he had been plying the sailors with gold to keep him hidden. There was one way to solve that question.
Inos strode across the deck and accosted him. “Master Skarash? “
He raised his chin and continued to stare at the harbor, arms folded, ignoring her. He was being a djinn again, and djinns did not speak to other men’s wives, or pretended wives.
“I was hoping for a farewell kiss,” Inos said.
He twitched. Garnet eyes flickered toward her, then away again. His Adam’s apple lurched, but he did not speak.
“If I tell Azak about that episode,” Inos said, “then he will kill you now, with his bare hands.”
Again the hard swallow.
“I shall count to three, then I tell him how you forced your kisses on me in the cellars. One!”
“Go away!”
“Not until I have some answers. Two!”
Frainish was wide-eyed above her yashmak. Skarash did not look around, but gems of sweat gleamed amid the pink stubble on his lip. “What do you want to know?” he whispered.
Inos had already gained one answer—Skarash was not a sorcerer. “Whom do you serve?”
“My grandfather, of course.”
“And whose votary is he?”
He licked his lips. The dock was very close now, Kar and the dozens of other princes clearly visible, all loyally smiling. The band lurched into the clamorous discords of the Arakkaranian national anthem.
“Warlock Olybino’s.”
Aha! “Since when?”
Skarash turned a furious, frightened gaze on Inos. “Since the night we reached Ullacarn. The centurion . . . You saw! That was the warlock himself!”
“Yes, I know. So your grandfather did serve Rasha when we left here?”
He snarled at her. “Yes, and now he doesn’t, and it’s all your fault!”
“Mine?”