Far-Seer (19 page)

“What happens if the string breaks?”

“Eh?”

“What happens if the string breaks?”

“Well,” said Afsan, “I imagine the rock goes flying off and…”

“ — and hits someone in the head. Which is what I think must have happened to you.”

Afsan did not deign to click his teeth.

“But,” continued Dybo, “why then does the Face of God hang steadily in the sky?”

“The rate at which we revolve around the Face is the same as the rate at which we rotate around our own axis.”

“We rotate?”

“Of course. That’s what makes the stars appear to spin through the course of a night.”

“And you’re saying the two rates — rotation and revolution — match.”

“Precisely.”

“That sounds like another remarkable coincidence.”

“No, it’s not. I’ve been watching the moons, both the ones that revolve around the Face and the ones that revolve around the other planets. For those around other planets, there’s only one that I can see any detail on. It’s darker on one side than the other — not because of phases, but because of its constitution, I think. Anyway, it always faces the same side toward its planet. And in our —
system
, I guess you’d call it — in our system, the nine innermost moons all constantly show the same side toward the Face of God.”

“And we are one of the innermost moons?”

“We are, in fact,
the
innermost moon.”

“Ah hah! You may save my faith yet: of all the objects in the sky, you’re saying we are the closest to the Face of God.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“All right; I’ll listen further. If you were going to undermine the special relationship between Quintaglio and God, I would have had to leave.” Dybo’s tone had become deadly serious. Afsan hadn’t realized quite how important faith was to his friend.

“Don’t worry, Dybo,” Afsan said. “In fact, we’re closer to the Face of God than any other moon is to its planet, from what I’ve been able to see. And we’re much closer than the next nearest moon in this system, the Big One.”

“Hmmm,” said Dybo, and he stretched his chubby body, reveling in the warm sun, already now well past the zenith. “But the sun rises and sets. Why does it do that, but the Face hangs stationary, only rising or setting if you sail toward or away from it?”

“The sun
appears
to rise and set as we swing around the Face of God, just as objects come in and out of your field of vision if you rotate your own body.”

“You’ve got all the angles figured out, eh?” said Dybo. And you told this to Keenir, and he listened?”

There was no point in emphasizing Keenir’s stubbornness. “He listened,” Afsan said simply.

“Wow. And you really believe this, Afsan?”

“I really do.”

Dybo grunted. “Someday, my friend, I will be Emperor. And, if your studies go well, someday you will be my court astrologer. Perhaps an Emperor
should
be open to new things. You say you can show me proof of this?”

“The calculations and charts are in my cabin; the planets and moons will reveal their truth to you tonight, if the sky is clear.”

“It’s hard to believe.”

“No,” said Afsan. “It’s the truth.”

The ship rolled with a wave. “The truth,” echoed Dybo. But after the wave, the planks of the deck did not stop creaking. Afsan lifted his head. A mid-sized male was moving toward them, his feet stamping. There was lots of room between where Afsan and Dybo lay and the mast supporting the red sail with the crest of Larsk’s Pilgrimage Guild, so Afsan felt sure he would avoid them. But the male — he was close enough that Afsan could now see that it was Nor-Gampar, a member of the crew — seemed to be heading straight at them. Dybo, too, lifted his head in astonishment, as the deck planks bounced with each thunderous footfall. And then, incredibly, the crewmember charged right between Afsan and Dybo, violating both of their territories, a three-clawed foot impacting the deck less than a handspan from Afsan’s muzzle, the chitinous points splintering the wooden planks.

Afsan pushed himself upright with his forearms and swung around to look at the intruder. Dybo, too, rose to his feet, claws unsheathed. There, standing now a few paces behind them, was Gampar, his torso tilted from the waist, bobbing up and down in territorial challenge.

It happened from time to time. That didn’t make it any easier. Afsan leaned back on his tail, a solid tripod of lean muscle, the wind now steady on his back. For a moment, Afsan blamed himself: perhaps Nor-Gampar would have been able to contain his feelings if he’d really believed they were well on the way home, instead of still outward bound. But the thought passed quickly: this was a dangerous situation, and a wandering mind could cost Afsan his life.

He glanced to his left: Dybo had folded his arms across his chest, hands carefully tucked out of view so that Gampar could not see his claws, extended in reflex. No need to provoke the crewmember. Afsan realized that Dybo was right. He balled his own fists, the points of his fingerclaws digging into his palms.

Gampar’s whole body was bobbing up and down, a lever tipping on the fulcrum of his hips. His tail, rigid and still, stuck out almost horizontally behind him, his torso parallel to the deck, his neck, head, and muzzle pointed forward, tipping up and down, up and down.

Afsan then stole a look over his shoulder. The aft deck, where he and Dybo were, was empty. So was the connecting piece that led to the foredeck. Five Quintaglios were at the far end of the foredeck, looking out over the pointed bow, their backs to the tableau of which Afsan was part. And high above, in the lookout’s bucket atop the foremast, someone — it looked like Biltog again — was scanning the surrounding waters, but paying no attention to what was happening on the twin diamond hulls of the Dasheter.

Afsan took a few steps sideways, distancing himself from Dybo. That way, Gampar couldn’t rush them both simultaneously — he’d have to choose his target. Afsan leaned back on his tail and watched the crewmember.

Gampar’s movements were slow, deliberate. He tilted his head toward Dybo, then toward Afsan. His eyes seemed glazed over. His body continued to bob.

“Take it easy, Gampar,” said Afsan, his voice soft, the gentle hiss an adult uses when talking to an eggling. “Take it easy.”

Gampar’s arms dangled at the side of his horizontally held torso, claws extended, fingers dancing.

“Yes,” said Dybo, trying to match Afsan’s tone, but a tremulous note encroaching. “Remain calm.”

Afsan looked over at Dybo. Was that fear he had heard? He hoped so, but the prince was swinging forward from his hips, too, his round body held now at an angle halfway between horizontal and vertical. He had moved his unsheathed claws into view.

Afsan’s mind echoed with the words of Len-Lends, Dybo’s mother, the Empress, who had ticked off each part of the sentence with another extended claw:
“I will allow him to go with you, but you will be responsible for his safe return.”

Dybo was reacting instinctively to the challenge from Gampar. If they fought, there was no doubt that the crewmember — a good eight kilodays older than Dybo, and correspondingly taller, although probably no more massive — would kill the prince.

Afsan tried again. “Just relax, Gampar,” he said. “We’re all friends here.”

For a few heartbeats, they held their positions and Afsan thought his words were calming Gampar. But then Gampar bent his knees, crouched low, opened his jaws to expose sharp teeth, and sprang at Dybo. Afsan reacted as quickly as he could, leaping into the air himself.

It was all a blur, Gampar hit Dybo, knocking him down. Afsan heard the breath go out of the prince with an “oomph.”

Gampar’s jaws snapped, trying to dig into Dybo’s throat, but succeeding only in taking a hunk of fatty meat the size of a fist out of Dybo’s shoulder.

Afsan’s leap, with which he had meant to intercept Gampar, had been miscalculated. He landed with a sound of reverberating wood on the deck just in front of the ball of limbs that represented the fighting Dybo and Gampar. Afsan spun around, his tail whooshing through the air, and jumped on Gampar’s back.

The crewmember hissed. Afsan felt his own instinctive urges coming to the fore, felt his intellect ebbing, knew that he must end this soon before it degenerated into a brawl to the death, blood washing the decks of the Dasheter.

Over the crashing of the waves, the snapping of the sails, Afsan heard the thunder of feet as the five Quintaglios who had been up at the bow rushed now to the scene of the fight. A quick glance showed that Biltog, the lookout, was clambering like a giant green spider down the rope webbing that led to his perch.

Gampar’s jaws slammed shut again. Dybo had managed to bring an arm up, and his assailant bit into it, several teeth popping out upon hitting bone. The smell of the blood, driven into Afsan’s face by the steady breeze, was getting to him, bringing him to a boil.

Ticking on the deck
. Without looking up, Afsan knew it was Keenir approaching. He did not care, did not think about anything except the fight…

By God Herself, no!
Think clearly.
His vision was blurred.
Intellect can win out over instinct
. Afsan fought not to lose himself in the frenzy. Dybo’s jaws were snapping now, trying to take a piece out of Gampar. Afsan raked his claws across the side of Gampar’s face, digging into the soft flesh of his muzzle, the fibrous construction of the salt gland. Gampar flinched, screamed, turned his head toward Afsan. That was the moment, the chance: Afsan brought his jaws together in a terrible, wonderful, shearing bite, rending through the sack of Gampar’s dewlap and slicing through the underside of his neck. The crewmember’s body twitched a few times, and Afsan felt hot wind billowing out of Gampar’s lungs through the great rent in his neck, his final breath escaping.

Blood was everywhere. Afsan felt his own neck pulling back, readying for another strike, readying now to attack Prince Dybo…

“Afsan, no!”

A voice as deep as the bottom of a cave, as rough as rocks clacking together.

“No!”

Blind rage. The urge to kill…

“No!”
shouted Keenir again.

Afsan’s vision cleared. He saw, at last, his friend, bloodied and hurt. Afsan forced his jaw closed, rolled off the corpse of Gampar, and, heart pounding, breath ragged, lay on his side on the deck, staring into the rapidly setting sun.

“Land ho!”

The shout went up from one of the other pilgrims, doing her turn in the lookout’s bucket, high atop the forward mast.

At that instant, Afsan’s teeth clicked together in self-satisfied amusement. It was a moment as if out of a work of fiction, like one of those improbable stories that Gat-Tagleeb was known for, when something happened at the most propitious instant.

Ship’s priest Det-Bleen had cornered Afsan on the aft deck. Afsan had been keeping to himself these last few dekadays. Partly it was because of what had happened with the mad Nor-Gampar. No one blamed Afsan for Gampar’s death — it was the only way to resolve such a frenzied challenge when there was nowhere to retreat — but, still, no one liked to be reminded of the violence that they all were capable of, that they held in check just below the surface. And partly it was because of the whispers, the askance glances, that seemed to follow him, people wondering at the folly of sailing east, ever east.

But Afsan needed to see violet sky overhead as much as anyone else, and when the decks were mostly empty he’d come topside and pace, enjoying the steady wind.

But Bleen had approached him, anger plain in his stiff, nonswishing tail, in his extended claws, in his posture, fully erect, as far from a concessional bow as possible.

Because of Afsan, Bleen had said, all aboard the Dasheter were doomed. The flesh from Kal-ta-goot was turning rancid; more individuals would soon go wildly territorial, as Gampar had. Their only hope, said Bleen, was for Afsan to recant, to convince Captain Keenir that he had been wrong, that nothing but endless River lay ahead.

“Turn us back!” Bleen had just finished saying. “For the sake of God and the prophet, get Keenir to turn us back!”

But then the pilgrim’s cry rang out, faint but distinct over the snapping sails, the crashing waves.

“Land ho! Land ho!”

Afsan’s mouth closed, his teeth clacking with glee. Priest Bleen’s mouth dropped open, his face a portrait of surprise. Afsan didn’t wait for the elder to give him leave to go. He ran down the aft deck, across the connecting piece, onto the fore-deck, and up to the point of the bow. It was a long distance, the
Dasheter
’s length from stem to stern, and Afsan arrived out of breath, his dewlap waggling in the breeze to dissipate heat.

Afsan didn’t have the advantage afforded by the lookout’s greater height; he could see nothing except blue water right out to the horizon. He swung to look up at her, high above. She was pointing. Afsan turned around, and, by God, there it was, rising slowly over the edge of the world, indistinct at this distance, but doubtless solid ground.

“What is it?” asked a gravelly voice from nearby. Afsan turned his head around and saw that Keenir had approached. Now that the captain’s tail had completely healed, his arrival was no longer heralded by the ticking of his walking stick. “Is it our Land? Or some unknown island?”

That possibility hadn’t occurred to Afsan. It must be Land, the place they all called home. Oh, there were some islands off Land’s western shore, an archipelago trailing back like a tail off the mainland. Indeed, Afsan supposed that what he was now seeing was probably one of these, the island Boodskar. But that it might be totally unfamiliar territory hadn’t crossed his mind.
We must be back home
, he thought.
We must be!

“Look!” shouted another voice, and Afsan realized that Prince Dybo had also drawn near. “It’s covered with trees!”