The Anvil of the World (28 page)

The ship heeled over in a manner that suggested it wasn't being crewed very well. Smith clung to the edge of the bunk, then lurched to the porthole, just in time to see a shapeless mass of nastiness falling past. On the deck immediately above his head, someone profoundly baritone attempted to make consoling noises, and an irritable little voice replied, "No, I don't give a damn. Just don't let go of the seat of my pants."

Mumble mumble mumble mumble.

"Don't be stupid, we can't be in danger. The sky is blue, it's broad daylight, and, anyway, the beach is right over there. See the surf?"

This remark, together with the realization that it had been spoken over a steady background din of clinking blocks and flapping canvas, sent Smith out of the cabin and up the nearest companionway as though propelled from a cannon's mouth.

"Master, the Child of the Sun has awakened," said Cutt in a solicitous voice, addressing Lord Ermenwyr's backside. Lord Ermenwyr was too busy vomiting to reply, and Smith was too busy hauling on the helm and praying to all his gods to comment either, so there was a moment of comparative silence. The ship heeled about, throwing Lord Ermenwyr backward onto the deck, and her sails fluttered free.

"You! Whichever one you are! C'mere and hold this
just like this!"
Smith shouted, seizing Strangel and fixing his immense hands on the wheel. The demon obeyed, watching in bemusement as Smith ran frantically about on deck, making sheets fast, dodging a swinging boom, and crying hoarsely all the while, "Lord-Brimo-of-the-Blue-Water save us from a lee shore, Rakkha-of-the-Big-Fish save us from a lee shore, Yaska-of-the-White-Combers save us from a lee shore, two points into the wind, you idiot! No! The other way! Oh, Holy Brimo, to Thee and all Thine I swear a barrel of the best and a silver mirror if You'll only get us out of this--"

"Rakkha-of-the-Big Fish?" Lord Ermenwyr mused from the scuppers.

Smith raced past him and grabbed the helm again.

"Wasn't I holding it right?" Strangel inquired reproachfully.

"--Holy Brimo, hear my prayer, You'll get a whole bale of pinkweed and, and an offering of incense, and, er, some of those little cakes the priests seem to think You like, anything, just get me off this lee shore
please!"

"I think it's working, whatever it is you're doing," Lord Ermenwyr said. "We're not going wibble-wobble-whoops anymore. You see, lads? I told you Smith knew how to operate one of these things."

The next hour took a lot out of Smith, though the ghastly roar of the surf grew ever fainter astern. He had no time to ask the fairly reasonable questions he wanted to ask with his hands around Lord Ermenwyr's throat, but he was able to take in more of his surroundings.

The ship was clearly somebody's pleasure craft, built not for sailing but for partying, and she was a galley-built composite: broad in the beam and shallow of draft, operating at the moment under sail, but with a pair of strange pannierlike boxes below the stern chains and a complication of domes, tanks, and pipes amidships that meant she had the new steam-power option too. The boilers seemed to be stone-cold, however, so it was up to Smith to get her out of her present predicament.

Once the ship's movement had evened out, Lord Ermenwyr crawled from the scuppers and strolled up and down on deck, hands clasped under his coattails, looking on in mild interest as they narrowly avoided reefs, rocks, and Cape Gore before winning sea room. His four great bodyguards lurched after him. There was no one else on deck.

"Where's the crew?" Smith demanded at last, panting.

"I thought you'd be the crew," said Lord Ermenwyr, holding up his smoking tube for Crish to fill with weed. "I knew you used to be a sailor. Aren't these new slaveless galleys keen? I can't wait until we fire this baby up and see what she can do!"

Out of all possible things he might have said in reply, Smith said only, "What's going on, my lord?"

Lord Ermenwyr smiled fondly and lit his smoke. "Good old sensible Smith! You're the man to count on in a crisis, I said to Nursie."

"Is she here?"

"Er--no. I left her in Salesh to look after the ladies. They'll be absolutely safe, Smith, believe me, whatever happens. Do you know any other experienced midwife who can also tear apart armored warriors with her bare, er, hands? Lovely
and
versatile."

Smith counted to ten and said, "You know, I'm sure you gave me a thorough explanation of this whole thing and got my consent, too, but I seem to have lost my memory. Why am I here?"

"Ah." Lord Ermenwyr puffed smoke. "Well. Partly because you clearly needed a holiday, but mostly because you're such a damned useful fellow in a fight. We're on a rescue mission, Smith. Hope you don't mind, but I had a feeling you might have objected if I'd asked you first. And I
knew
I could never get Willowspear to listen to reason, so I had to knock him out too--"

There was a drawn-out appalled cry from below. Willowspear rushed up the companionway, staring around him.

"Oh, bugger; now I'll have to start the explanation all over again," said Lord Ermenwyr.

Willowspear was much less calm than Smith had been. The few inhabitants of Cape Gore looked up from mending their nets as his shriek of
"What?"
echoed off the sky.

"I don't know if I've ever told you about my sister, Smith," said Lord Ermenwyr, pouring out a stiff drink. He offered it to Willowspear, who had collapsed into a sitting position against the steam tanks and was clasping his head in his hands. Willowspear ignored him.

"No, I don't think you have," said Smith.

Lord Ermenwyr tossed back his cocktail and sighed with longing. "The Ruby Incomparable, Lady Svnae. Drop-dead gorgeous, and a gloriously powerful sorceress in her own right to boot. I proposed to her when I was three. She just laughed. I kept asking. By the time I was thirteen, she said it wasn't funny anymore, and she'd break my arm if I didn't leave off. I respected that; yet I still adore her, in my own unique way.

"And I would do anything for her, Smith. Any little gallant act of chivalry or minor heroism she required of me. How I've dreamed of spreading out my second-best cloak for her to foot it dryly over the mire! Or even, perchance, riding to her rescue. Suitably armed. With a personal physician standing by in case of accidents. Which is why I need the two of you along on this junket, you see?"

"So... the Sending was from your sister?" guessed Smith. "She's in trouble and she needs you to save her?"

"I believe the word she used was
Assist,
but... it amounts to the fact that
she needs me,"
said Lord Ermenwyr.

"My wife needs me, my lord," said Willowspear hoarsely.

"She doesn't need to see you stoned to death or torn apart by an angry mob," Lord Ermenwyr replied. "And it was clear you were getting heroic ideas, so I just stepped in and did what was best for you. And look at this lovely boat I was able to get on an hour's notice, remarkably cheaply! I thought I'd call her the
Kingfisher's Nest.
Aren't those striped sails sporty? The kitchen's even stocked with delicacies. Cheer up; you'll be happily reunited once this is all over."

"Where is your sister, then?" Smith asked, keeping a wary eye in the coastline.

"Ah, this is the clever part," said Lord Ermenwyr, laying a finger alongside his nose. "She's at the Monastery of Rethkast. Which is on the Rethestlin, you see? So if we'd set out on foot to rescue her, we'd have had to have hired porters and spent weeks trudging across plains and mountains and other dreary things.

"This
way, we just sail along the coast to the place where the Rethestlin flows into the sea, and float up the river until we're at the monks' back door. The Ruby Incomparable descends to her little brother's loving arms, he bears her off in triumph, and we all sail back to Salesh to pick up the supporting cast before going off on a pleasure cruise of indeterminate length."

Smith groaned.

"You don't have a problem with my beautiful plan, do you, Smith?" Lord Ermenwyr glared at him.

"No," said Smith, wishing Balnshik were there to give the lordling the back of her hand. "I have a lot of problems with your plan. See those sails on the horizon? The purple ones? Those are warships, my lord. They belong to Deliantiba. It's got a blockade on Port Blackrock just now. We can't sail through, or they'll board us and confiscate our vessel, if we're lucky."

"Oh. And if we're not lucky?"

"We'll hit a mine, or take a bucketful of clingfire or a broadside of stone shot," Smith told him.

Lord Ermenwyr stared at the purple sails a long moment.

"There's a ship merchant in Salesh who's going to find that seven hundred of his gold pieces have suddenly turned into asps," he said. "The smirking bastard. No wonder he had so many of these recreational vessels up for sale."

"And even if the blockade wasn't there," Smith continued, "what makes you think that the Rethestlin is navigable?"

Lord Ermenwyr turned, staring at him. "I beg your pardon?"

"He doesn't know about the falls. He can't read maps," said Willowspear with venom. "His lord father had a geographer captured especially to teach him, but he wouldn't learn. He was a spoiled little blockhead."

Now Lord Ermenwyr turned to stare at Willowspear, and Smith stared too. Willowspear looked back at them with smoldering eyes.

"Why, my old childhood friend and family retainer," said Lord Ermenwyr, "is that Resentment I see in your face at last? Yes! Let it out! Revel in the dark side of your nature! Express your rage!"

Without a word, and quicker than a striking snake, Willowspear stood up and punched him in the mouth. Lord Ermenwyr tottered backward and fell, and his bodyguards were beside him quicker than Willowspear had been, snarling like avalanches.

"You have struck our Master," said Stabb. "You will die."

But Lord Ermenwyr held up his hand.

"It's all right! I did ask for it. You may pick me up, however. I have to admit I was no good at maps," he added, as his bodyguards lifted him and dusted him off with solicitous care, "I just wasn't interested in them."

"Really?" said Smith, too struck by the surrealism of the moment to come up with anything better to say.

"He defaced his tutor's atlas," snapped Willowspear. "He crossed out the names of cities and wrote in things like
Snottyville
and
Poopietown.
I could not believe Her son would do such things."

"Neither could Daddy," said Lord Ermenwyr. "I thought he was going to toss me off a battlement when he saw what I'd done. He actually apologized to the man and set him free. I had got it through my nasty little head that the blue wriggly lines meant water, though. And where there's water, you can float on it, can't you? So how do we have a problem, Smith?" He narrowed his eyes.

"Do you know what a waterfall is?" Smith watched the purple sails.

"Of course."

"How do you sail up one?"

Lord Ermenwyr thought about that.

"So ... sailors don't have some terribly clever way of getting around the problem?" he said at last.

"No."

"Well, we'll figure something out," said Lord Ermenwyr, and turned to look at the warships. "Aren't those things getting closer?"

"Yes!" said Willowspear, undistracted from his fury.

"Do you think they've seen us?"

"It'd be a little hard to miss the striped sails," said Smith.

"All right, then; we'll just go around their silly blockade," Lord Ermenwyr decided. "It'll delay us, I suppose, but it can't be helped."

Smith was already steering a course out to sea, but within the next quarter hour it became clear that one warship was breaking from its squadron and making a determined effort to pursue them. Lord Ermenwyr watched its progress from the aft rail. Willowspear stalked forward and prayed ostentatiously, like a gaunt figurehead.

"I think we need to go faster, Smith," the lordling remarked after a while.

"Notice how they've got three times the spread of canvas we have?" said Smith, glancing over his shoulder.

"That's bad, is it?"

"Yes, it is."

"Well, can't we just do something sailorly like, er, clap on more sail?"

"Notice how they've got three masts, and we have one?"

"I know!" Lord Ermenwyr cried. "We'll light the boiler and get the invisible oarsmen going!"

"That would probably be a good idea," Smith agreed.

"Yes! Let them eat our dust! Or salt spray, or whatever."

Smith nodded. Lord Ermenwyr fidgeted.

"Ah ... do you know how to get the mechanism working?" he asked politely.

The boiler took up most of a cabin amidships, and it had been cast of iron in the shape of a squatting troll, whose gaping mouth was closed by a hinged buckler. Fortunately for everyone concerned, its designer had thoughtfully attached small brass plaques to the relevant bodily orifices, marked LIGHT BURNER HERE and FILL WITH OIL HERE and RELIEVE PRESSURE BY OPENING THIS VALVE.

"How whimsical," Lord Ermenwyr observed. "If I ever have to transform a deadly enemy into an inanimate object, I'll know what form to give him." He shuddered as Smith yanked open the oil reservoir.

"Empty," Smith grunted. "Did your ship merchant sell you any fuel?"

"Yes! Now that you mention it." The lordling backed out of the cabin and opened the door to the cabin opposite, revealing it to be solidly stacked with small kegs. "See?"

Smith sidled through and pulled a keg down to examine it. "Well, it's full," he stated. "Good stuff, too; whale oil."

"You mean it's been rendered down from whales?" Lord Ermenwyr grimaced.

"That's right." Smith tapped the image stenciled in blue on the keghead, a cheery-looking leviathan.

"But, Smith--they're intelligent. Like people."

"No, they're not; they're fish," said Smith, looking around for a funnel. "Mindless. Here we go. You hold that in place while I pour, all right?"

"Promise me you won't throw the empties overboard, then," said Lord Ermenwyr, reaching out gingerly with the funnel. "Certain mindless fish have been known to stalk fishermen with something remarkably like intelligence. And a sense of injury."