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  Then she lifted her talisman and began to command it.

  7

  They huddled together in the street across from the last unvisited tavern but one—Kadiya and Jagun and the fifteen tall natives of the Tassaleyo Forest, while the thunder cracked and grumbled and the bamboo wind chimes dangling from the public house’s signboard clonked and bonged in the gale, announcing to even the most illiterate wayfarer that food and drink were available within.

  Kadiya said: “Perhaps our luck will change for the better at this milingal-hole. We must secure a ship soon, for I have a feeling of dire foreboding that urges me to go quickly after my talisman. Jagun, you will bring up the rear as always and keep a sharp eye for the town watch. Our reputation may have preceded us. Lummomu-Ko, please order your warriors to restrain their tempers this time if the rascals in the tavern tease or insult us. At the least, command them not to start a fight until I have had a chance to query all of the skippers inside.”

  The most massive of the Wyvilo, whose once-elegant clothes were now bedraggled from the thunderstorm assailing Kurzwe Port, replied: “If the Zinoran slime-dawdlers persist in refusing to hire us a ship, we may have to fall back on our alternate plan and sail off on our own.”

  “I would hate to do that,” Kadiya said. “With this weird stormy weather, our chances of making it to the Windlorns alive are slender without having experienced sailors aboard.”

  The young Wyvilo named Lam-Sa, who had helped Lummomu-Ko to save Kadiya from drowning, said: “They, too, might be persuaded.” His sharp tusks gleamed in the erratic lightning and his fellow-warriors chuckled ominously at his words.

  “No,” Kadiya admonished them. “Taking a vessel and leaving payment for it is one thing, but kidnapping a crew is quite another. Better my talisman be lost forever than I retrieve it by base means. I have prayed to the Lords of the Air to succor us. Somehow we will find a ship.”

  Without warning, Jagun the Nyssomu uttered a sharp cry. He stiffened, the pupils of his yellow eyes wide, and stared up at the sky while rain beat at his flat, wide face.

  “Old friend, what’s wrong?” Kadiya exclaimed.

  But the little man only stood as if paralyzed, gazing fixedly at something no other could see. Finally, after several minutes had passed, he slowly came to himself, his eyes lost their glaze, and his body relaxed. He regarded Kadiya with a look of great amazement and whispered: “The White Lady! She bespoke me!”

  “What?” cried Kadiya, aghast.

  Jagun clutched his own head in both hands, as if trying to prevent his brains from escaping. “Farseer, she spoke! You know that we Mire Folk can bespeak others of our kind in the speech without words, although we are not so adept at it as our cousins, the Uisgu and Vispi. And you with your talisman have talked to me across the leagues many a time. But never have I heard the White Lady until now.”

  “What did she say?” Kadiya was almost beside herself.

  “She—she accused her own sacred self of being a fool. She had urgent need to bespeak you, yet could not, now that you have lost your talisman. Only this minute did she think to bespeak me so that I might transmit her message to you. She had forgotten I was with you, and thought you traveled only with the Wyvilo, who are less keenly attuned to the speech without words that comes from a great distance.”

  “Yes, yes … but the message!”

  “Alas, Farseer! The foul sorcerer Portolanus is on a fast ship, sailing south to claim your talisman.”

  “Triune God!”

  “The White Lady says that if we set sail from Kurzwe immediately, we may still have a chance of getting to the talisman ahead of him.”

  “Did she say how I might retrieve it?” Kadiya asked eagerly.

  “Your sister Queen Anigel is also in pursuit of the sorcerer. If you two can somehow reach the site of the lost talisman together, the White Lady thinks that the Queen’s talisman will summon yours to you.”

  “Jagun, if this could be—”

  But at that instant the door of the tavern across the street opened abruptly. A blaze of light and a great uproar of discordant music, drunken laughter, and shouting poured forth, startling Kadiya and her friends. A moment later two burly humans wearing dirty aprons appeared, having in their grip a struggling, shrieking patron. This man was dressed in exotic garb—black silk trousers stuffed into high red boots, a vest that was a patchwork of multicolored leather, a fine red cloak, and a broad-brimmed hat with black plumes, tied at his nape with scarlet ribbons and knocked forward so as to blind him and obscure his features as he strove in vain to escape his captors.

  “Help! Thieves!” he screamed. “Swin—swindindlers! Lemme loose! The bones’re loaded, I say!”

  The two tapsters lifted and flung him over the threshold, then slammed the door. The ejected man landed on his face in the center of the muddy high street, his hat masking him and saving him from a mouthful of filth. He lay there moaning piteously while the rain pelted upon his cape and wilted his feathers.

  Kadiya knelt beside him, turned him over, and freed him from his headgear. He exhaled a great gust of alcohol-laden breath and opened bleary eyes.

  “H’lo, pretty one. Whass a nice lass like you doin’ outside on a nassy night like this?” But then all at once he caught sight of the overlooming crowd of inhuman Wyvilo behind Kadiya, and he resumed his drunken shrieking: “Look out! Help! Bandiss! Monssers! Sea Oddlin’ invasioners! Help!”

  Kadiya calmly thrust a fold of his cape into his mouth. He sputtered and choked and fell silent.

  “Be still. We are not going to harm you. We are only travelers from Ruwenda, and these are not savage Sea Oddlings but civilized Wyvilo Folk who are my friends. Are you hurt?”

  The man grunted. His reddened eyes ceased their panicked rolling. He shook his head.

  Kadiya nodded to Lummomu-Ko. Together, they hoisted the fellow to his feet, the improvised gag falling from his mouth. He stood there swaying and mumbling. Jagun fished the sodden hat out of a gutter, where it was floating away, and proffered it.

  “I am Kadiya, called the Lady of the Eyes, and this is Jagun of the Mire Folk, and this is Speaker Lummomu-Ko of the Tassaleyo Forest Folk and his band of warriors, who are my friends. We were preparing to enter this tavern when you made your sudden exit.”

  The man gave a bitter snort and clapped the hat back on his head. He plucked a large handkerchief out of his sleeve and began to mop his face. His voice was so thickened by drink they could barely understand him.

  “When … dirty diddlin’ scounders threw me out, y’mean! Skint me like a nunchuk … rigged game o’ dance-bones … cheated me outta my noga, they did, after cheatin’ me outta the price of my cargo! Ohhh … gonna be sick …”

  Lummomu and another warrior held the man’s head while he disgorged. The wind howled, the rain beat down, and the tavern wind chimes rang merrily. When the victim seemed somewhat recovered, Kadiya asked:

  “Who are you, and what is this noga you say you were defrauded of?”

  “Ly Woonly’s m’name … hones’ sailorman of Okamis.” He peered at her suspiciously. “You know Okamis? Greates’ nation inna known world! Republic—not a zach-bitten kingdom li’ Zinora. Damn the stinkin’ day I ever sailed to Zinora. Shoulda taken my stuff to Imlit, even if they don’t pay as much.”

  Kadiya’s eyes brightened. “So you are a seaman!”

  Ly Woonly drew himself up and swirled his soaked cloak about him in a proud gesture. “Masser mariner! Cap’n of good ship Lyath, trig li’l noga. Named affer m’dear, dear wife.” He hiccuped and then burst into maudlin tears. “She’ll kill me, Lyath will! She’ll salt-pickle m’stones an’ sell me to the Sobranian slavers!”

  Kadiya’s eyes met those of Lummomu-Ko. He nodded slowly, then surveyed the other aboriginal warriors, who grinned in happy anticipation.

  “Our new friend Ly Woonly has been bilked in a dishonest game of dance-bones,” Kadiya said solemnly. “It is sad that such things can happen—and here in a benighted place
like Kurzwe, the authorities would probably side with the local tavernkeeper, rather than seek justice for a stranger.”

  “That is very likely so.” Lummomu’s voice rumbled like spoken thunder. “It is shameful, and cries to the Lords of the Air for vengeance.” His companions growled assent. Their eyes, with the vertical pupils that betrayed their race’s infusion of Skritek blood, glowed like paired golden coals in the stormy night.

  Kadiya took both the skipper’s muddy hands in her own. “Captain Ly Woonly,” she said earnestly, “we would like to help you. But we would like you also to help us. We have been seeking to hire a ship for a journey … of some eight hundred leagues. The cowardly Zinoran captains fear to sail in this unsettled weather. If we do get your noga and your lost money back for you, will you let us charter your ship? We will pay a thousand Laboruwendian platinum crowns.”

  The Okamisi’s eyes bulged. “A thousan’? An’ you’ll thrash those Zinoran scoun-scounders an’ get back m’poke to boot?”

  “Yes,” said Kadiya.

  Ly Woonly wobbled on his feet, then painfully knelt in a puddle at Kadiya’s feet. “Lady, you do that, I’ll take y’to the frozen Aurora Sea or the doormat o’ hell—whishever’s farther.”

  “Very well. Would you like to accompany us into the tavern as we set forth your just claim?”

  Ly Woonly staggered to his feet and retied the ribbons of his hat. “Would’n miss it for the world.”

  To the great disappointment of the Wyvilo warriors and Jagun’s relief, there was no brawl. The very sight of the awesome Forest aborigines, with their fanged muzzles agape and their taloned hands hovering near their weapons, was enough to convert the dance-bone cheaters to instant integrity. Tossing the loaded bones from one hand to the other, Kadiya shook her head sadly at the three terrified Zinoran gamblers who sat at a back table. They had been interrupted in the act of sharing out the spoils of Ly Woonly’s losses.

  “Good men,” she addressed them, “it is obvious to me—although perhaps you did not notice—that some unknown rogue has substituted bones subtly charged with lead for the honest ones that would surely be used in an upright establishment such as this.”

  “That—that is possible, Lady,” muttered the best dressed of the rascals, a skinny man with iron-hard eyes. “It could have happened without our seeing it.”

  The other two gamblers nodded eagerly, their grins frozen, as the Wyvilo fondled their sword-pommels and the hafts of the war-axes they wore at their backs.

  Kadiya bestowed on the trio a confident smile, then cast down the bones amidst the piles of small gold coins. “How relieved I am to hear that. I was certain that no honest gamesters such as yourselves would take advantage of a poor Okamisi stranger far gone in drink. You see, my Wyvilo comrades and I would be very unhappy if Captain Ly Woonly were unable to sail tonight, for we have chartered his ship.”

  “Here! Here is the deed to the noga!” said the leading gambler, hastily pulling a paper from his belt-purse and slapping it onto the table. “Take it with our best wishes, Lady, and good voyage to you and your friends.”

  “And the cargo money!” Ly Woonly put in stubbornly. “Seven hunnerd and sis-sixteen gold Zinoran marks.”

  When the gambler hesitated, Lummomu-Ko gently took hold of the man’s shoulder with one betaloned three-digit hand and began to squeeze. “The cargo money,” he boomed.

  Uttering a strangled yelp, the gambler swept the piles of coin on the table toward the skipper and said: “Take it and be damned!”

  Ly Woonly giggled and began shoveling the gold into his own purse.

  Now the tavern’s proprietor came bustling up, obsequiously begging the Okamisi’s pardon for his earlier mistreatment. The waiters who had thrown him out, the man said, would be severely punished.

  “We would be more certain of your good will,” Kadiya said sweetly, looking him straight in the eye, “if you would set forth a fine supper and drink for all of us. Then we will take away with us nothing but happy memories of the beautiful port of Kurzwe. In other taverns that we visited this night, the keepers were unfriendly. My aboriginal companions were insulted—and I fear they took restitution according to their own custom.”

  The Wyvilo all growled and grimaced, again fingering their weapons.

  “What a shame!” cried the proprietor, sweat breaking out upon his bald head. “The hospitality of Kurzwe is famed throughout the Southern Sea! Be seated, all, and I will spread you a feast.”

  “On the house,” said Lummomu.

  “What else?” said the tavernkeeper.

  It was to be their last decent meal for many days.

  Ly Woonly fell blissfully asleep while Kadiya and her companions ate, and they roused him only with difficulty and had to half carry him to the wharf where Lyath was moored. There, with the rain still pouring down, they found a rakish little vessel with a sharp bow and stern and two masts, rocking in the ugly chop and pounding its rag-rope fenders against the dock. Access to its heaving gangplank was blocked by two glum-looking men, heavily armed.

  “Officers of the Kurzwe Wharfinger, Lady,” one of them told Kadiya. “No one leaves or boards this vessel until port fees and the overdue ship-chandler’s bill are paid.”

  Kadiya examined the bill of charges beneath a guttering dock-lamp. “These seem straightforward.” She took the refilled purse from the snoring skipper’s belt and counted out one hundred and fifty-three gold pieces.

  The wharf officers saluted and went off hurriedly to get out of the rain. Lummomu-Ko threw Ly Woonly over one shoulder and led the way on board.

  The Lyath was shabby and in need of paint, less than half the size of the Varonian vessel that had originally carried the negotiating party to the Windlorn Isles. Her metal fittings were unpolished and her deck rough and splintery. But she seemed well found, and the rigging was new and so were the furled sails, shining white in the gloom and neatly secured to the booms. Not a soul was to be seen. There was a single darkened midships cabin, and a companionway leading below, through the glass port of which dim lantern light gleamed.

  Kadiya opened the companionway door. “Anybody here?” she called. After she shouted a second time, a young man clad only in a pair of torn pants appeared at the foot of the companionway ladder, rubbing his eyes.

  “Cap’n Ly? That you? We ’bout gave you up—oh!” His eyes flew open in shock as a bolt of lightning lit up Kadiya, with the fearsome Lummomu beside her bearing the unconscious skipper. “God’s guts! Who’re you? What’s happened to the cap’n?”

  “Your captain is safe and well, my man,” Kadiya said. “We have brought him back from his night’s carouse. I am Kadiya, Lady of the Eyes, and this is Speaker Lummomu-Ko of the Wyvilo. We have chartered this ship, and Ly Woonly has agreed that we are to set sail at once—”

  “Nay, nay,” said the seaman, shaking his tousled head. He was perhaps five-and-twenty years old, with dark curly hair and a pleasant face. “We don’t go nowheres ’thout a crew, Lady. Only me ’n Ban ’n old Lendoon left on board since the others went away on that big Varonian merchantman that touched in this afternoon.”

  Kadiya and Lummomu looked at each other. She said: “Kyvee Omin’s ship, that brought us here.”

  The young man came up on deck, heedless of the rain, and beckoned Kadiya and the burdened Wyvilo Speaker to follow him to the skipper’s cabin in the deckhouse. “See, Cap’n Ly’s a bit of a coin-clutcher if a crewman ain’t related to ’im, like me ’n Ban ’n old Lendoon is. That Varonian ship was short-handed and just snapped our ten boys up. Glad to go they was, hot for the big money in the eastern ports. Cap’n was ready to pop his eyeballs when they quit. Said he’d try somehow to get more men t’morra, but tonight he was gonna get stewed.”

  Lummomu dumped the snoring Ly Woonly onto his bunk. The young man stripped off the skipper’s soaked boots and muddy outer clothing, took charge of the heavy purse, then led Kadiya and the Wyvilo back below. He produced a bottle of ilisso and three glasses and introduc
ed himself as Ly Tyry, the captain’s nephew and first mate.

  “Now, what’s this ’bout you charterin’ Lyath?”

  “We are very anxious to leave this place tonight,” Kadiya said. She sipped fiery spirit from one glass while Tyry drank from the second, Jagun from the third, and the mob of Wyvilo shared the bottle amongst them. “What chance of our hiring other sailors?”

  “Slim to naught,” Tyry admitted. “That’s why the cap’n was so mad. Only lazy Zinoran trash in this hole. None of ’em eager to go to dear old Okamis. Can’t think why.”

  “My fifteen companions and I are not completely untrained,” Kadiya said. “The Wyvilo foresters are accustomed to sailing giant log rafts on Lake Wum during the winter gales in Ruwenda, and we have all learned something of the sea since coming to the South. We are willing to help you work the Lyath—in addition to paying the one thousand platinum crowns your uncle and I agreed upon for the charter.”

  “Where’re you off to, then?”

  “Council Isle in the Windlorns.”

  The young mate swore and surged to his feet. “Lady, you lost your wits? Bad enough y’wanna set sail in this out-o’-season storm! But to go there—”

  “The Aliansa natives will not be hostile to you,” Kadiya said. “I have just come from the isles, having conferred with the High Chief Har-Chissa. He has broken off trade with Zinora, saying its people have cheated him. He declared that from now on he would only trade with Okamis or Imlit.”

  The young man’s eyes were shining. “Say y’true?”

  “I swear it by the sacred Black Trillium of my people,” Kadiya replied. “Now, will you take us?”

  Tyry was thinking hard. “The cap’n’s out till t’morra. But we got Ban for steersman and Lindoon for second mate. And these Odd—these tall lads of yours look strong and ready, and the little fellow can make himself useful. By damn—I think we can do it!” But then he pulled up short, staring at Kadiya uneasily. “Except …”

  “What is it, my man?”

  “Lady, don’t take offense. But, can you cook?”