The sea was a lazy silver mirror, whose only claim to excitement was the crimson wound burned across it by the setting sun. A sickly wind barely gave Dreadnaught steerage way, let alone blew spume, but Rap was enjoying the challenge of keeping the sails filled. He was standing first watch while the minstrel kept him company, sprawled on the dry boards of the deck nearby, leaning on his elbows. “Besides, it beats scrambling around in jungle.”
“You have a point there.” Jalon rolled his head around to grin up at Rap with dreamy eyes of cornflower blue. “But then I wouldn’t! Darad is stupid enough to like doing that sort of thing. He finds hardship a challenge to his manhood. The rest of us are more than happy to humor him.”
Jalon was the only one of the sequential five whose company Rap honestly enjoyed. He was short for a jotunn, but otherwise his appearance was unremarkable. With his silver-gold hair and fair skin—already peeling for the second time—he seemed barely more than a youth. His behavior, though, was anything but typical. Artist, minstrel, dreamer, hopelessly impractical, and unfailingly good-humored, he was a most unlikely jotunn.
But then Rap was a most unlikely faun, and for the same reason. Jalon was a hybrid, also, and the elvish blood in his veins might explain why he seemed no older than he had on the day Rap first met him, twenty years ago. He must have added about four years to his tally in those twenty, but not a single day showed.
It was enough to make a man nostalgic.
So was the low shadow to the north, for that was the island of Kith, which also brought back memories of youth and adventure, and another quest, which at times had seemed just as hopeless as this one.
Assorted anthropophagi sat around the deck, taking life easy. The multicolored tattoos on their walnut skins shone like flowers in beds of rich loam. The trolls were happier out of the sun, off by themselves. If a man opened any door on Dreadnaught, he would find a skulking troll. Larder or galley, cabin or pump room or chain locker—it made no difference, a toothy monster would be huddled in there, grinning sheepishly at being discovered. They were quite willing to be sociable if asked; they just could not keep it up for very long at a stretch.
“You’re brooding,” Jalon said softly.
Rap concentrated his attention on the sails.
“No.”
“You’re brooding,” Jalon said again, in exactly the same tone. “Tell me what’s wrong, sonny.”
“Sonny! What way is that to address a reigning monarch?”
“I am a hundred and ten years older than you are.” The minstrel flashed a grin that made him seem barely more than adolescent. “Now, tell Grandpapa what’s the matter. Not the Imperial Navy, obviously.”
“No.” There were no other sails in sight. Dreadnaught’s crew might not even have reported the theft of their ship yet. They had been set ashore with a plentiful supply of gold. Being jotnar, they probably would not sober up until all the gold was gone.
“Information,” Rap said. “I wish I knew how Shandie and Raspnex are doing.”
“They’re doing fine,” Jalon said, rolling over on his back and putting his hands behind his head.
“You don’t know that!”
“Grunth says so. She says Zinixo must know roughly where her lair was. He’s had the Covin hunting her, off and on, but not much lately. If either of your playmates had been captured, the dwarf would have been after Grunth, too, like flies round carrion.”
Rap had heard that theory before and found it unconvincing. Losing his magic scrolls was about the stupidest thing he’d ever done in his life.
He was worried sick about Inos and the kids, back in Krasnegar. Had Shandie reached them and warned them? Had Inos had the sense to go into hiding at Kinvale? But he wouldn’t discuss his family with Jalon.
“Sysanasso, then. Tomorrow or the next day, we’ll make landfall. There must be sorcery among the fauns. In fact I know there is. My mother came from Sysanasso.”
If anyone was going to be set ashore as a recruiting agent in Sysanasso, it would have to be Rap himself, and he did not want that. Although he was by far the weakest of the many sorcerers aboard, he was the only one who could keep the peace between the two ill-assorted groups. So far both had deferred to him. That situation might not last, but he was sure they would fall out very quickly if he departed. He also hated the thought of being left behind while the others pursued the war without him. It was his war, Evil take it! To ignore Sysanasso as a source of recruits was unthinkable; to send a troll or anthropophagus in his place was even more so.
“You need an agent in Sysanasso?” Jalon muttered sleepily. ”Thinking about Sagorn, maybe?”
“Would he?”
“No. Beneath his dignity. Also boring.”
Which is what Rap had already concluded. Indeed, he had discarded all of the sequential gang for the job. Jalon was unassertive and totally impractical. Andor would be effective if he chose to be, but could not be trusted. Thinal was even less reliable than his brother, and would not be interested Darad was willing, but a moron. The gang of five had a man for almost any situation except that one. A troll clambered out of the hatch and peered around, his huge form swathed in a length of sail to keep the sun off. Even jotunn garments would not fit trolls.
On the face of it, trolls and anthropophagi were the most improbable crew any ship could ever have. As almost everyone aboard was a sorcerer, Dreadnaught had no problem. A mere adept could learn any skill in minutes, and sorcerers did not even need lessons.
“Forget Sysanasso,” Jalon said. “Ever been there?”
”Once, very briefly.”
“You’re looking for mundane authorities, you said. Fauns don’t have any.”
“They do so!” Rap retorted. “They have principalities galore. They even have some republics.”
“But nobody pays any attention to any of them. Fauns do whatever they please. I know—I’ve been there. Well, Andor has. You’ll just be shoveling water in Sysanasso.”
Two more trolls emerged from belowdecks. The sun had not set yet. Then two more . . . what was disturbing them? Rap wondered briefly about that, and then went back to considering Jalon’s suggestion. Forget Sysanasso? It was certainly a tempting thought. But then where did he take his crazy army? Even if Lith’rian remained at large somewhere in Ilrane, the warlock of the south would not appreciate an invasion by a force of assorted trolls and cannibals. Rap had ”Thume” tattooed on his arm, but that idea seemed very improbable in the cold light of day . . . the warm light of a summer evening, then. Thume was a dream. He could forget about Thume.
He might grow old in this war and achieve nothing. Tik Tok came wandering aft, his bone kilt clinking. He was frowning. With his tattoos, the bone in his nose, and his pointed teeth, his frowns were enough to curdle arteries. ”Something amiss?” Rap asked.
The savage shrugged his brown shoulders and wiggled the bone in his nose. ”Just a vague feeling of reprehension. You feel nothing wrong?”
Rap checked the ambience. “No.”
“Others feel it, also, a sense of forebearing.” He leaned on the rail and scowled northward.
Jalon sat up and yawned. “Ready to teach me more drumming?” He was fascinated by the anthropophagi’s complex rhythms. They were unlike anything else in Pandemia, he claimed. He probably knew more about the music of Pandemia than anyone else did, so no one argued.
Tik Tok turned to look him over thoughtfully, and Rap laughed.
“He’d rather teach you cooking—the inside story.”
The deck was becoming crowded now. Almost everyone aboard was in sight, and most of them were staring to the northeast. Rap’s skin prickled. Again he sniffed the ambience. He was the least powerful sorcerer of them all. He ought to be the last to understand. But perhaps that brooding Jalon had detected in him had been a premonition?
There was something! He sniffed again—peered, listened, whatever . . . Something faint but tantalizingly familiar?
A sudden ripple in the mainsail brought his attention back to his duties. He spun the wheel. Then a bestial howl from Thrugg distracted him.
“Dragons!” Grunth roared from the bow. “The dragons are rising!”
Jalon, the only mundane aboard, scrambled to his feet and stared at the horizon, but of course there was nothing to be seen.. Rap found himself clenching hands on the spokes and drawing deep breaths, fighting horror. Yes! Now he recognized that sinister, alien flavor, the occult spoor of dragons. He had almost been charred by a dragon once.
All over the ship, troll and anthropophagus stared at one another in dismay.