“There is a reason, even if he, nor we, know it not for now. But do not wear that openly, my son.”
Ray fondled the coolness of the band. No, to wear it would be dangerous; he must keep it out of sight-to be safe, very safe. He put it inside his tunic with satisfaction.
“Listen now.” There was such authority in the priest’s voice that Ray looked at -him squarely. “You will perhaps come to believe that what we have done this night is an evil thing for you. But time and fate left us no other choice in our hour of need. No man of the motherland could put on the semblance of Sydyk and thus open closed gates for our eyes. We knew that the Shadow could not bar you when you went before into its lurking place. Therefore, we must put hand again to the weapon you give us. There is this: under the power of the Flame we read the sparks and the stars. Although death shall be as a cloud over you, a cloak about your shoulders during the days before you, still, y by our reading, it will claim you not. Rather will it be that what you carry in naked hands is more potent than any sword. We use you now without consent because we are driven to such measures. And you may hate us for that. Yet still-” He paused. “Go in peace a with the blessing, the nine times’ blessing of the Flame.” His hands moved in a gesture, as if he drew some unseen substance out of the air, filled his palms with it, and then held them up to shower what he had so invisibly gathered upon the American.
The officer moved forward. “Your ship sails at daybreak. Within ten days you should be at the meeting place. During the passage of the canal stay below deck, saying you are fevered. Your mate will act as captain. Now-we shall go-”
It must have been early morning as he came out of the palace on the heels of the officer, with a couple of guardsmen trailing him. But he knew that he could not escape. Whatever compulsion they had set upon him in the citadel kept him marching, would move him, as a chessman is moved, until he accomplished what they wished of him. For the moment his mind was numb and dull, having sunk into a fog once his small battle for the armlet was won. He no longer possessed a spark of rebellion.
They came to the docks, to a grain ship. A man challenged them from its shadowed deck. Ray blinked in lantern light.
“Captain-” the seaman greeted him. “All is in readiness-”
“This is the mate, Ra-Pan.” Some inner portion of the American’s mind supplied a name.
“We sail at dawn.” Ray returned.
“Aye, sir.”
The officer from the citadel and the guards did not linger. When they had gone with no farewells, Ray stood by the rail. Above the harbor lay the city. Lights gleamed here and there, but only a few. The city still slept. Ray stirred restlessly. Back there-he frowned-it was so hard to think. Sydyk out of Uighur, he was Sydyk out of Uighur. He must not, he dared not, now try to think beyond that.
Dawn was here now. Ra-Pan moved across the deck. Ray turned to him with words already on his tongue as if prepared for him to say.
“I do not feel well. Do you take command for me.”
And the mate appeared to find nothing amiss in that. Ray went below to a small, dark cabin. Uncurtained alcoves opened from it. He threw himself on a bunk in the one that was Sydyk’s. Though he tried to sleep, over and over in his mind tumbled thoughts and memories that were Sydyk’s and that made him indeed feel feverish and ill. So he got up to drink stale water from a jug. But finally sleep came, and it was dreamless.
Ray awoke shivering, chilled. A wooden trencher, with two corn-flour cakes and a strip of meat, awaited him on the table in the outer cabin. He choked down the bread, but the smell of the meat made him queasy, and he left it, going out on deck. There was a strong wind blowing, and they were on the open sea. Ra-Pan was by the wheelman. Parts of Sydyk’s knowledge of the ship and its workings were Ray’s to call upon, and he had. been assured that the crew had been conditioned by some means to accept him as their rightful commander. But it would be very easy to make some error and awaken suspicion. He looked eastward. There, half the world away, lay Atlantis. And he did not even know what he was to do there when he arrived-if he arrived. Yet he was also certain that he could not make a single move that would not lead him to Atlantis.
They passed the canal, needing to wait their turn, so Ray spent three days below in the stale-smelling cabin. Then they were in the Inner Sea. -“We stop at Manoa.” Ra-Pan made one of his infrequent observations one evening.
It was not a suggestion but a statement. Ray’s warning sense instantly awoke. This had not been planned. And self-preservation, he had come to believe, would follow only the obeying of those orders laid upon him.
“That is not so. We go on to U-Ma-Chal.”
Ra-Pan frowned. “This is not as always.”
Were the controls the Naacals had set on the crewmen beginning to break? If so, the whole ship’s company might mutiny.
“That does not matter.” Ray tried to turn upon the Uighurian the same compelling stare the priests used. He had to convince Ra-Pan that this was proper or else they would account for him before the mission was well begun.
“Do you refuse my orders?” he demanded sharply.
It was as if the mate tried to look away but could not. He wet his lips with his tongue.
“Always it has been Manoa.”
Was there or was there not an uncertain note in that? Ray hoped there was. But from now on he must be alert that Ra-Pan or some other did not question him more.
“But now it is U-Ma-Chal!” he said with emphasis. Ra-Pan nodded, the dull look once more in his eyes.
So the American watched the crew. He ate only of food he saw the mate taste, slept with a sword ready to hand, and tried to rest as little as possible.
Seven days more and they were at the eastern entrance of the sea. The open weather appeared also to be at an end; the night sky was cloudy. Ray stood close to the rail, trying to see the beacon light of the town. Within his tunic something sharp pressed into his chest. His fingers closed upon the armlet. In all the world there was but one other like it
Who had said that? When? A white band-belonging to someone he had known long ago. He drew out the armlet and turned it around in his hand, fighting to recapture memory. The diamond eyes flashed sparks.
“Ah-”
Ray closed his fist upon the band. Ra-Pan stood there. The dullness was gone from his eyes. He stared at Ray’s closed fingers as if he could see through flesh and bone.
“What do you want?” the American demanded. “You should be at the wheel.”
“I came to ask if we make port this night—” But still he stared at the hand rather than looked to Ray’s face.
“Have I not already said so? Get to your post!”
In spite of the American’s fears, the mate tramped away. Ray shivered once more. He was very near to this part of the venture, and he did not want to know what the next would be.
“The fort signals, Captain!” the lookout called at a flash from shore. “They wish to know our mission.”
“Ra-Pan”-Ray saw in this his chance, or thought he did-“go you to answer them.”
He half expected the mate to object, but the Uighurian obeyed, rowed ashore by two of the crew. Ray made his own preparations in haste. He got a dinghy overboard and, alone at the oars, pulled along, using the nearby shoreline as his guide. A murmur of voices from the shore, carrying over the waves, startled him.
“Worth six months’ wages, and he carries it under his tunic. Who will ever know? Kill him, or pluck him and leave him for the priests of Ba-Al. They might even pay us for him.”
A lower answering mutter and then a sharp rebuttal. “Sydyk? No, they have done some of their cursed thought-meddling. That is not Sydyk, I tell you. They have set one of their own men in his place. And that bit of news is worth a fat reward from the east!”
Ray stopped rowing. So, the conditioning no longer held with the mate. And to leave the man behind him-no. He could see them now, shadows against a patch of white sand where they stood arguing. One thrust of the oars ought to take him in far enough, and there were only two