Cloak of the Two Winds (11 page)

Lonn and Eben looked at one another, their minds in ferment with all Kizier had said. They asked no more questions and presently Kizier shut his eye and joined the other bostulls in trance. As the Iruks left the rear deck, Kizier was humming with the rest of the chorus.

Schools of bluefish were sighted two days later, running east, some passing beneath the coaster's scudding hull. The Larthangan crewmen scrambled about on the main deck, unraveling nets and casting them over the side. In their minds the multitudes of fish meant a chance at extra rations.

In the storeroom below, Lonn and his mates were stirred to a different activity: strapping on harnesses and gathering their weapons. It was the first month of First Winter and the bluefish were migrating, escaping the Polar Sea for the warmer ocean. Inevitably, the runs of bluefish in this season were pursued by yulugg herds, also migrating. Often, the yulugg were chased by hunters.

"Less than three spears each," Karrol said, as Draven doled out the weapons. "We'll never hold off a hunting fleet with only these."

"Let's hope we won't have to," Eben said.

The Iruks hurried out on deck and climbed to the forecastle to keep lookout. The last of the bluefish schools swam past the coaster, and there was no sign of yulugg spouts, or sails. The Iruks breathed easier, though still they watched the hazy edges of the sea.

Behind them on the main deck, the Larthangans hauled in their nets, a meager catch of a few dozen fish flailing inside the meshes. Captain Troneck climbed the steps to the forecastle.

"What's the trouble?" he shouted. "Why are you dressed for battle?"

Lonn was starting to explain when the sailor atop the mainmast sang out the alarm. "Sails, Captain Troneck. Ahead to larboard. Lateens!"

"How many?" Troneck shouted.

"A dozen. More. "

"Hunting party," Eben said, squinting into the north.

"Pirates, you mean," Troneck said.

Now Lonn discerned the boats, taking shape in the bright zone where sea and sky blended—dojuks, running toward them.

"Hard to starboard!" Troneck yelled through cupped hands. "Stand by your sheets."

"No!" Lonn grabbed the captain's arm. "Belay that order. We can't outrun them. If we try, they'll attack for sure."

Troneck hesitated, then ordered his helmsman to resume the former course. "What else can we do?"

"Sail straight at them," Lonn answered grimly. "Make
them
turn aside."

"We can't fight twenty boats," Karrol said.

"I know," Lonn answered. "Maybe we can bluff them down. Spread out along the rails. If you have any ideas, let me know."

Moving at a run the Iruks arranged themselves about the three decks, Karrol in the bow, Brinda and Draven amidships, Lonn and Eben returning with Troneck aft. They climbed the steps to the quarterdeck and crouched down in front of Kizier. The windbringer's eye was open and alert.

"Kizier," Lonn said. "I know the witch doesn't want to be disturbed for any reason. But if we don't have her help now she might soon be disturbed by a hundred pirates."

"You must prevent that," the bostull stated firmly. "Her vulnerability in the dark immersion is a chief reason Amlina needs bodyguards. You must not try to wake her, Lonn. It could sever her ties to this world, so that she'd never return."

"We'll do what we can," Lonn answered, standing. "But if it comes to a fight, don't expect us to win. Not against Iruks at odds of twenty to one."

"
You
must expect to win," Kizier said. "You must find a way."

Lonn glanced at Eben, who could only shrug, then out beyond the bow at the on-racing dojuks. They approached the coaster at a sharp angle to the wind, lateen sails billowing over the dark, knife-like hulls.

"You should be on the foredeck, Lonn," Eben said. "To speak for the klarn."

Lonn gripped his two spears tightly, "Keep hard to the wind, captain. And tell your men to stay out of sight, as many below decks as possible."

Troneck shouted that order through his megaphone, and the Larthangans aloft moved quickly to comply. A number of the crewmen were fleeing below as Lonn hurried across the main deck, passing near Draven.

"Tell them about the witch, and exaggerate her powers," Draven said. "Maybe we can frighten them off."

Lonn nodded. The truth, with a little embellishment, seemed the best choice to him also. He charged up the steps to the forecastle where Karrol was crouched, waiting.

The dojuks had sailed near enough that Lonn could make out the individual shapes of prows and outriggers. It was indeed the hunting fleet his klarn had quit…only twelve days ago. It seemed like many more.

"There are boats of Ilga in that party," Karrol said. "Must we kill our own neighbors, Lonn?"

"I hope not. But they'll have to decide. Remember, we are sworn to protect this ship."

The fleet split into two packs as it neared the coaster's prow. The Iruks in the boats were beating their spears together, shouting for the ship to halt. Peering over the rail, Lonn recognized several klarns from Ilga in the forefront.

"Heave to!" the hunters called. "Surrender or we throw our spears."

Lonn jumped up on the rail. Gripping the forestay with one hand, he lifted his two spears high with the other. "Avast! Leave us unmolested. I, Lonn, son Orla, tell you this."

The first dojuks had sailed nearly even with the
Plover
, and from their hulls the Iruk pirates stared in surprise.

"Lonn, what do you here?" shouted a skipper named Bralluk. A respected warrior of Ilga, he commanded one of the lead boats. "What ship is that?"

"A witch's ship, and we are her allies. Steer away, I tell you."

"How came you there?" called a woman captain named Gertraun. Like Bralluk she was the generation older than Lonn and his mates.

The boats were gliding past him now, and Lonn moved aft on the forecastle to answer. "Our mate, Glyssa, was stolen from us by witchcraft. In our quest to find her, we were forced to make alliance with the witch who commands this ship."

"Lonn speaks true," Eben shouted from the quarterdeck. "Our klarn has sworn to protect this witch and her ship!"

"Turn upwind," Bralluk ordered. "We will talk more of this."

"We cannot," Lonn shouted back. "We sail in pursuit of our lost mate. Turn off and leave us in peace."

"Come about," other pirates yelled. "Come about or we fight!"

"We will not come about," Lonn called from the forecastle steps. "Turn and follow if you would speak more."

He watched as the dojuks moved past, swarming on both sides of the coaster. There was brief, loud discussion among the skippers of the boats and their mates. The few Larthangans who'd stayed on deck to man the sails muttered with nervous relief when the last dojuk slipped past the coaster's stern.

But Lonn knew it would not be so easy.

All at once the dojuks came about, sails sweeping, hulls bounding on the coaster's frothy wake. The boats turned smartly, all to leeward, and pursued the
Plover
on its starboard side.

Lonn directed his mates to the starboard rails and rushed himself to the rear deck. He took the megaphone from Troneck and raised it as soon as the boats were in earshot.

"Bralluk, Veela, Gertraun, Harful," he called the skippers he knew by name. "I warn you for your klarns' sake, keep away."

"Where is this witch?" Harful shouted. "We would see her."

Lonn's heart sank. Harful was a younger leader, tough and stubborn. Lonn had always considered him a bully. They had fought once when both were drunk.

"She is below decks," Draven called after Lonn hesitated. "Perhaps weaving magic to trap your souls, or a spell to drown you."

"Or perhaps there is no witch," Gertraun cried. "Perhaps your klarn has taken this ship and wants to keep all the loot for yourselves."

Angry grumbling passed among the close-packed boats. The hunters began shouting for surrender again, and rapping their spears together. The dojuks had drawn nearly even with the coaster, close enough for the spears to be cast with deadly effect.

"Turn upwind or have our spears," Harful shouted.

"You will have ours in turn," Lonn answered. "We must protect this ship. Even against our own neighbors."

"We are many and you are few," Bralluk said.

"We have the high decks. Many of you will die before you take the ship. And those who live will still have the witch to deal with."

Lonn could sense their rage and suspicion warring against the uncertainty in their minds. The hunters had let out their sheets a bit and their boats were keeping pace with the coaster, bobbing over the wave made by the ship's prow.

"Show us the witch," Gertraun demanded.

"Let her come out on deck," Harful called. "Perhaps she'll pay us to leave her pretty ship alone."

"The hunting has not been good," Bralluk added. "Your klarn started this hunt with us. We have a right to a share of your booty. That's only fair, Lonn."

Many voices shouted their righteous agreement.

"I tell you there is no booty," Lonn shouted, brandishing his spears. "Leave us, and go back to your hunt."

"Show us the witch," Harful said, "Else I say you are lying."

Lonn jumped onto the rail. "Another day I would split your gut, Harful, for calling me a liar. But now I say just this: sail on and leave us in peace, or come and fight!"

There was a growing, confused uproar of voices as the pirates yelled back at Lonn and argued among themselves. A few of the dojuks veered in closer, but Lonn's mates lifted their spears and bluffed them back. Many of the pirates raised their spears in response, arms tensed to throw, awaiting the word from their skippers.

But the word did not come.

Finally some of the boats parted from the outer edge of the pack and turned downwind, drifting south again to search for yulugg.

"Your fleet is dispersing," Lonn called to those who remained. "Go with them."

"We will leave," Gertraun answered. "But hear this: Since you refused us a fair share of your catch, we name your klarn outlaw. We claim the right to take what is yours, if not here, then on Ilga."

Along the
Plover's
rails Lonn's mates stared with grim resolve.

"Your naming us outlaws does not make it so," Eben replied. "We only do what we must to hold fast to our klarn, even as we were advised by Belach the shaman."

Eben was correct, under the law. Only tribal elders could declare the klarn outlawed and name what penalty they owed. Of course, that wouldn't save their lodge house on Ilga from being ransacked.

But this was not the day to worry over that.

The last of the dojuks swung away, yards creaking about their masts. The Iruks in those boats still eyed the ship with rancor as they rode away on the luminous sea.

"Beware of meeting me another time, Lonn," Harful shouted, his boat the last to depart. "When you do not have the high place to fight from!"

Lonn deemed it best to let that threat go unanswered.

When the hunting boats were out of earshot, a cheer was raised on the
Plover
—by Iruks and Larthangans alike. More crewmen had spilled from the forecastle onto the main deck. Draven and Brinda rushed up to the quarterdeck to join Eben and Lonn.

"We did it!" Draven danced about, waving his spears. "The five of us faced off twenty klarns."

"Lonn, you bluffed beautifully," Eben shouted.

Lonn only smiled with relief.

But then Karrol reached them from the foredeck, and there were tears of rage in her eyes. "Now every klarn on Ilga will hate us. We'll have no home to go back to, only an island full of enemies. And you're all laughing about it, you stupid men!"

"Brinda's laughing too," Draven answered lamely. "We did save the ship ..."

But Karrol wheeled and marched away. She went to sit alone at the coaster's bow and would speak to no one. Her reaction dampened all the exhilaration the mates had felt. One by one they wandered off, lost in their own thoughts.

All that day Lonn was haunted by the vision foretold by Belach the shaman—that this voyage with the witch of Larthang would take them far away from all that they knew.

He wondered now if they would ever return.

Windbock hovered white and ghostly over the blue waters of the sea. Ages of blasting ocean wind had sculpted the island's cliffs into fan-like ridges, lopsided domes, and elaborate twisted spires. In places the cliff walls had tumbled, spilling boulders over the beaches and leaving defiles and canyons that wove crookedly inland. Around the cliffs, through crevices, from the mouths of caves and tunnels, unending sea winds blew, singing in weird disharmony.

"Looks as desolate as I would have judged from the charts," Troneck complained. "Are you sure it will stock us for a long voyage, Iruk?"

"I have said so," Lonn answered.

Lonn stood with Troneck and Eben at the taffrail as the coaster skirted the island's southern shore. The warm northwesterly, which had blown reliably for five days and nights, put them in the lee of the island. Lonn pointed out some jagged boulders ahead.

"Keep well to seaward of those rocks," he warned the captain. "They're the peaks of a reef that runs all the way to shore. Beyond the reef is prime anchorage, shielded from heavy seas, and there's fresh water not far inland from the beach."

The coaster sailed well to leeward of the outermost visible boulder, then tacked in toward shore. A seaman on the forecastle yelled out soundings, and Troneck's megaphone was constantly at his mouth as he ordered the crew to man the booms, lower sails, and finally drop anchor. The
Plover
came to rest some eighty yards from shore, rocking gently in the tide.

"A fine mooring place," the captain allowed. "Though not a true harbor, it could easily be made one by the addition of a sea wall and pylons. I wonder that the Tathians never put a settlement on this island, lying as it does almost directly on route from Fleevan to the Isles of Tath."

"The story is told that they did once colonize Windbock," Eben replied. "In our grandparents' time, when the northerners first arrived in the Polar Sea. They established a small way station here for their trading ships. But the volrooms of the island considered this an invasion of their domain. One night they came out and ate all the colonists."

"Ha!" Troneck's laugh was uncertain. "This is a fable you are telling me."

Eben shrugged. "Perhaps it is true. Many believe that volrooms are ... wise, what the Tathians call
sentient
."

"You believe these tusk-bears may be sentient, capable of surprising a whole colony of men, and yet you're not afraid to hunt them?"

"We are Iruks," Eben answered, then turned to follow Lonn down the steps.

Having reefed all sails and secured their booms, the Larthangans were packing the boats and preparing to lower them over the sides. The Iruks had already placed their gear into one of the boats. Now they gathered together at the rail facing the island and put their hands in a pile.

Eben recited a chant for the safety of the klarn and the success of their hunt. Then Lonn addressed the volrooms:

"Tusked ones of Windbock, greetings. We are Iruks, a klarn from Ilga, many leagues to the south. We are coming to your island to seek water and edibles. We seek also your flesh to eat, if you will fight us for it. Come out and eat us, if you can. Otherwise, hide in your lairs as the rock squirrels hide from you in their burrows."

The boats were hoisted out over the waves and lowered on winches. The Larthangans who were going ashore, five men for each boat, climbed down the accommodation ladders. Before moving to follow each of the Iruks embraced Draven, who was staying on board. The klarn had decided that it was best for one of them to remain with the ship. Draven, more even-tempered and less restive than the others, had volunteered.

The Iruks clambered down the rope ladders and into the boats. While the Larthangans manned the oars Lonn and Karrol took charge of the tillers. The boats were skiffs, spacious craft well-designed for ferrying cargo from anchored ship to shore. The skiffs had wooden runners built into their hulls, but no masts or sails. On soft water they were rowed, over ice they were hauled like sleds.

The Larthangans rowed in measured strokes, oar blades circling through the cloudy blue sealight. As the boats pulled away from the ship the wind voices of the island became more prominent—at times a shrill wail, more often a cacophony of whispers.

"That noise will drive us mad," one of the sailors grunted.

"Soon you won't even notice it," Lonn laughed. He was in high spirits. It felt good to be at the helm of a boat again, and going ashore to hunt.

When the skiffs reached the lapping surf of the lagoon, all hands jumped overboard. They dragged the craft safely past the tide line, then talked briefly about how best to divide their labor. It was agreed to split into two groups, one to forage along the beach, the other to start inland in search of fresh water.

Karrol and Eben took the first group, five Larthangans with baskets and sacks, along the shore beneath the towering gray-white cliffs. They would gather edible plants and hunt for crabs, shellfish, and tortoise eggs. Lonn and Brinda led the remainder of the crewmen, who carried kegs and water skins, up a rocky slope and through a crevice.

Their path curved around a high outcropping of silver-flecked stone, then over and beneath a series of wind-carved natural bridges. Finally they emerged in a gently declining ravine with steep walls on either side. Lonn and Brinda marched with spears in hand, their eyes constantly scanning the walls and ledges overhead. There were occasional cries of seabirds nesting on the cliffs above, and once a startled rodent scurried across their path. But Lonn saw no sign of volrooms.

They passed through an airy natural tunnel and out into a wider ravine. Here shrubs and graceful ferns grew in clusters, adding their verdure to the sandweeds and milk cactus the party had encountered up till now. It was in these small inland valleys that fresh water was most likely to be found. Lonn and Brinda started searching, putting their ears to the rock to listen for the murmur of underground springs, pushing fronds aside to look for open water holes. At last they discovered a trickle running clear and cold from a fissure in the canyon wall. They followed its meandering course along the base of the rock, pushed through a circle of dense shrubbery and came to the edge of a deep, still pool.

Flowing water, murky gray to silvery bright, swirling in rings and whirlpools. Floating bubbles of fiery color, images and scenes, flashes of insight and knowledge. Thus Amlina the witch perceived the Deepmind on her fifth night of trance.

The
dark immersion
: awareness turned absolutely inward, thereby fully outward. In the first hours and days the individual's mind dissolved, a surrendering plunge, a dissemination through the whole of the Deepmind. Only gradually, in two or three or four days, did the mind begin to regather, energized now by the infinite creativity of the Ogo. A deepshaper needed this ritual trance or their powers began to weaken. How often depended on the strength of the shaper, but a witch of Larthang normally immersed herself in accord with the moon cycle of Grizna—at least once in 32 days.

So Amlina had drifted back to consciousness after two days in the luxurious bliss of unknowing. Lying down one moment, she had sat up on her bunk the next, legs folded beneath her, unaware that her body had moved or even yet that she had a body. From her first moment of returning awareness her mind had sought the Cloak of the Two Winds.

She had planned it this way, fixing the image of the Cloak in her mind as she performed the gestures and incantations prior to immersing. With a strong and disciplined will—and with the luck of the Ogo in favor—a deep-gazer could perceive objects and events they desired, however remote in time and space.

But so far Amlina had not seen the Cloak. Some other shaper was concealing it, and the concealment still held, as it had against her earlier, intuitive searching. This other shaper was strong, efficient in his designs. (It did seem to be a male. Amlina's sense of the mind thwarting her efforts agreed with Kizier's impression.)

But Amlina had known already that the shaper was strong. Doubtless this very knowledge had undermined her efforts to see the Cloak up till now.

This thought, examined as it occurred, bothered the witch. It showed by its reflective self-interest how close she was to the surface mind. And still no glimpse of the Cloak. Dolefully, Amlina released all will and let the stream of impressions take her.

She saw the moors of western Larthang, where she had passed her childhood—under the domination of an ill-tempered, tyrannical mother. To escape her mother's scoldings and harangues she had often run alone on the moors, spending every free moment away from the house. So Amlina perceived herself now, in this scene of the Deepmind. She appeared perhaps eleven, ambling over a slope covered with bluebells and orange fop-flowers. A lovely place, but the girl was vaguely frightened and chanted an old hymn to ward off evil. Perhaps a heath demon lurked nearby.

Amlina blinked with impatience.

The scene of the moor vanished, a scattered image in a liquid mirror. The scene had no counterpart in her memory. Perhaps it was a dream she'd once had, or a daydream—for all mental levels had their reflections in the Deepmind. Perhaps the scene held a symbolic key to the knowledge Amlina sought.

But this was frustrating. The knowledge she needed was direct and objective. She had no time for delving into symbolism.

Her body shifted on the bunk.

Already the troublesome concept of time had returned. She must be very near the surface level. Even now her eyes could dimly perceive the ship's cabin, with its desmets and hanging prisms, amidst the drifting waters of the Deepmind.

The dark wooden beams of the cabin recalled to her a city where she once had lived: Kadavel, with its wooden piers and miles of boarded streets. It was a crowded Tathian city, haughty and filthy, a trading center auspiciously located at the crossroads of the Three Nations.

Thoughts of Kadavel had recurred several times since Amlina first regained the spark of awareness. She wondered if this was the Deepmind's answer, that Kadavel was where she must search for the Cloak. But perhaps she was clutching at this for lack of any true revelation. This uncertainty prodded her mind as she stared at the cabin, now in clearer focus.

Uncertainty, and yet the need to believe with absolute certainty—such was the constant dilemma of the deepshaper. The Ogo did not always conform to the designs one cast upon it. Yet if one did not believe in those designs absolutely, they were that much less likely to succeed.

Amlina had all but returned to the surface mind and had not succeeded in finding the Cloak. Or had she? The witch reviewed the various ideas and images that lingered in her memory: ships and islands and moors, Larthang and Kadavel and Tallyba, the frightening face of Beryl the Archimage, who even now must be hunting Amlina and the Cloak—unless indeed it was she who had taken it. (This could not be ruled out.)

Amlina uncrossed her legs and stood, faltering a little as her ankles were numb. She brushed past the dangling trinkets, neglecting for now the precise rituals of taking them down and putting them away. She opened the door of her cabin and stepped outside. She needed to talk with Kizier.

Traversing the short passageway, she became aware of the hunger and thirst that inevitably followed several days of deep trance. Yet there was also a feeling of light-headed vitality, a lingering sparkle in her vision, a tingle to the air in her lungs.

She opened the door onto the main deck and discovered that it was nighttime. Four or five or six nights since she'd isolated herself in her cabin? She did not know. She breathed the cool, fresh air with pleasure. The ship was unrigged and riding at anchor. A glance over the rail disclosed the dark shore of the island, and campfires burning on the beach.

One of the Iruks approached Amlina from across the deck. She saw it was a male, the one called Draven.

"Have you found Glyssa?" he asked her.

"I don't know. I have impressions. I must talk them over with Kizier." She mounted the steps to the quarterdeck, Draven following directly behind.

Amlina touched the stalk of the windbringer and stroked him once, gently. Kizier's eye opened. With his windbringer's intuition he could tell at once that she had reached no definite conclusion.

"What were your perceptions?" he asked.

Standing on the quiet quarterdeck, her voice a murmur, Amlina rehearsed the thoughts and images she recalled.

"And when you were in the outer stages and purposefully turned your mind to the Cloak?"

"I felt resistance, viewed empty skies and waters."

"And sensed some motive or nature concealing the Cloak?"

"Barely," Amlina said. "Only that the one hiding it seemed to be male and ... steeped in ancient knowledge. Otherwise I could not assign personality or definite motive."

"You know nothing more than when you started?" Draven asked.

Amlina could not repress a sigh as she looked at him. But in his face she found not the reproachful glower she'd expected, only worry and sympathetic concern. Draven was more kindly disposed toward her than the other Iruks. Amlina had noticed this before.

"I am doing what I can," she told him softly.

"Now," Kizier said. "I ask you where the Cloak is. What picture comes to mind?"