Dave Duncan – The Living God – A Handful of Men. Book 4

They were holding hands again. “Yes, Mother?” the girl prompted.

“There is a very rare service called a Blessing of Union. It may be used when a regular legal marriage is impossible—when documents are missing, for example, or when parental permission has been refused. If you feel compelled to live together as man and wife under such circumstances and are willing to swear before the Gods that you will do so for the rest of your lives, loving and being faithful as if united in legal matrimony, then I may witness your oaths and provide a certificate to that effect. I warn you, though, that it has very little validity in law.”

She watched as they exchanged smiles and nods and squeezed hands.

“Oh, thank you, Mother,” the girl said. “Thank you! That is exactly what we need.”

Mother Iffini sighed. “Then I need another piece of parchment” She wondered if she was growing soft-headed in her dotage, or if she was carrying her mothering instincts to absurdity. “You are continuing your travels after you leave here?” The girl started. The boy’s eyes narrowed.

“We are,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

“Recent information. The hostelries around here have developed a very poor reputation. I would advise you to seek accommodation in private dwellings. Farmhouses might be best.”

“A recent development?” He had a gorgeous smile. “We suspected that, but it is good to have it confirmed. The main roads are very busy and unpleasant, too, I believe.”

“So I understand.”

“Oh, bless you, Mother,” the girl said. “Bless you!”

“Do stop talking nonsense, you feather-headed bird,” said the parrot.

To the appointed place:

With equal mind, what happens, let us bear,

Nor joy not grieve too much for things beyond our care.

Like pilgrims to th’appointed place we tend;

The world’s an inn, and death the journey’s end.

— Dryden, Palamon and Arcite

THREE

Merely players

1

The watery space between Sysanasso and the Keriths had many names on the charts. Some called it Middle Sea, or the Midsummer Sea, and others No Man’s Sea because three races claimed it. To the merfolk it was always Death Water. They made jokes about those who tried to make a living on Death Water, but humor that could turn so fast to sorrow had a bitter bite.

Ko-nu-Al was a sailor from East Kerith who had played the odds on Death Water all his life. The God of Chance had granted him favor, and he had risen in middle age to be master and part-owner of the trader sloop Seaspawn, carrying a crew of ten and trading to Sysanasso. The ten now included his three sons: Mu-pu-Esh, Po-pu-0k, and Wo-pu-Al.

Wo-pu was sixteen. This was his first voyage and his last. The God of Chance had claimed Their due; the boy would never see his mother again.

Most merfolk trading with other races was done at sea, at times and places established by long tradition, by vessels known to each other. Their crews were all male. There were also a couple of small trader islets where no woman ever set foot. If such simple precautions were observed, mermen could meet in friendship with fauns, elves, imps, or men of any other race, even jotnar, and do business together.

Seaspawn, though, dealt in a cargo that could not be easily moved from one-vessel to another, black sand from the southem coasts of Sysanasso. Such sand lay free for the taking; it was greatly prized by the potters of East Kerith for making their famous green glazes. Although the petty faun princes often tried to tax the trade, there were too many beaches to guard and too many princes to collaborate. Since time forgotten, the merchants of the Summer Seas had merely helped themselves. Ko-nu had prospered by choosing deserted shores and honoring the Gods.

Until this voyage, he had avoided trouble. This was the first on which he had brought young Wo-pu, last of his children and perhaps the dearest. Now the boy was dying in agony, his screams audible at all hours. His brother Po-pu was going insane with guilt and might well take his own life.

It was for those reasons that Ko-nu abandoned the caution of a lifetime and sailed into a foreign port. He did not know its name and would not have cared if he had, but the Gods decreed that it be Ysnoss.

The harbor was impressive, a gorge notched back into the cliffs, safe haven in any wind. The village itself was only a mishmash of ramshackle shanties plastered over the steep hillside, many of them supported on stilts. The hot and breathless afternoon stank of sewage. Belowdecks, Wo-pu had fallen silent, perhaps already into his final coma.

Seaspawn drifted in with her sails displaying the blue spiral emblem that proclaimed she hailed from the Keriths. Even before she dropped anchor in the center of the still harbor, people could be heard screaming and running. Dogs barked. Parrots and macaws rose shrieking into the air—faun settlements were invariably rife with livestock. As soon as the hands could stand down from their labors, they began a doleful melody on their sitars, chanting an old lament. Merfolk had songs for all occasions, and this one told of lonely death far from home.

A dory put out from the shore. Ko-nu stalked forward and waited in the bow. The fact that the vessel was holding her stern to the sea suggested that the tide and fragile current would carry her out again when given the chance.

The dory was manned by four husky youngsters. A shriveled, elderly man in the stern was probably the village headman. None of the five was clad in more than a scrap of loincloth, the illusion that they were all wearing black woolen stockings being merely a characteristic of fauns. As soon as Seaspawn reached; hailing distance, the headman cupped his hands and began screaming at the intruder to go away before she was the death of everyone, interspersing those instructions with improbable profanities.

Ko-nu had expected such a reaction, and he knew enough about fauns to know that mere logic would have no influence on their behavior. He had therefore thought to bring a speaking trumpet. Now he raised it and drowned out the ancient’s shrill wails.

“I come in peace and in the name of the Gods.”

“Go away! Begone! Lewd menace, you will—”

“I am Ko-nu-Al, master of Seaspawn.”

“I am Shiuy-Sh. Your rotten plague ship is fouling—”

“Have you a doctor in town?”

The old man paused in his invective long enough to say “No!” and then continued without drawing breath. The young rowers rested on their oars, smirking and nodding as they appraised their leader’s tirade.

“An herbalist, then, or one who can provide relief to the suffering?”

“None, scum of the four oceans . . .”

“A priest, then? I must have a priest.”

“We have no priest, either!”

Ko-nu’s heart sank. It was entirely likely that so wretched a hamlet might have no priest. On the other hand . . . “Then who is that man in black dancing up and down on that balcony?”

The old faun did not even glance around. “He is no priest. He just dresses like one. Now take your bilge-infested barnacle factory out of our harbor before we cleanse it by burning your pestilential—”

Ko-nu glanced around at his crew, nervously clustered nearby, still humming the dirge. “Does he look like a priest to you?”

Pale faces nodded.

“Aye, sir,” said Gi-al-Esh, who had eyes like a jotunn. “And he’s no faun. He’s an imp.”

“I wish to speak with the man dressed as a priest,” the captain proclaimed.

Shiuy-Sh became hysterical and incoherent. Apparently the request was unthinkable, for reasons obscure.

“If you will not bring him to me, then my men and I will come to him!”

The sailors’ dirge lurched and grew louder. They all knew that their captain was threatening a massacre.

“Fool!” the headman screamed. “Imbecile! We have no roads out of town. Our women cannot leave!”

“Then bring me that man dressed as a priest!”

“Never! We have fire arrows . . .”

Ko-nu knew when he was beaten. Fauns were notoriously men of ideas—one each. Threats impressed them no more than arguments and they had called his clumsy bluff, for he knew what would happen if he went ashore. Apparently the priest would not be brought to him. Reason and logic would not change that decision, nor appeals to mercy, either.

The man on the balcony had disappeared indoors. He now returned with a large wooden chair, which he hurled over the railing. It struck the harbor in a fountain of water and garbage. Then he went after it. This time the fountain was even higher.

After a suspenseful pause, the man’s head reappeared beside the bobbing chair. Using it as a float, he began to swim toward Seaspawn. The journey would take him all day, even if he did not die of overexertion on the way.