The Sea of Time (22 page)
Authors: P C Hodgell
Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy, #General, #Epic, #Paranormal
JAME WOKE to a still night, broken only by the dip and splash of oars. She still lay on the foredeck, but now under an assortment of cadet jackets with one rolled up under her head. Trinity, how long had she been asleep? The moon had set and the stars were obscured by haze. Glassy water stretched out on all sides of the boat to a featureless horizon.
Brier stood nearby, at the prow. At least they had managed to turn the vessel around. The Kendar gave her a stiff nod as Jame joined her, clutching a coat around her shoulders. It wasn’t cold, but she couldn’t stop shivering.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Somewhere in the Great Salt Sea, north of Langadine.”
“Oh. Helpful. Where’s our seeker?”
Brier glanced toward the waist. Kalan huddled at the mast’s foot between the rowers with Lanek clutched in her arms, having at last cried herself to sleep over her four lost sons.
“Don’t worry,” said Brier. “We’re on course.”
Following her gaze, Jame peered down into the water before the prow. Something pale swam there, the barest glimmer under the smooth water.
“Is that . . .”
“I think so.”
The boat’s side rose too far above the water to reach down into it, as Tori had done.
“Will you join her?”
“Should I leave you? Besides, you know that I can’t swim. Go back to sleep. You need it.”
Jame yawned, wide enough to hear her jaws crack. “You’re right. Wake me when we get there.”
“Yes, lady.”
Back in her nest of jackets, still shivering, she burrowed down to the wooden deck. Oars splashed. The boat glided forward. In the morning, she would think about what she had done, or not. Whatever.
It seemed that all but Brier eventually slept, even the cadets at their oars. At dawn, laughter woke them. The child Lanek capered about the deck, stomping on it, but it gave back no more echo than a stone, for stone it had become. They were on the petrified remains of a boat in the middle of a dry salt waste.
“Is this what Tori saw, after Rose drew him to the far shore?” Jame asked Brier.
“Probably.”
The Kendar’s eyes were bloodshot from her sleepless watch, her movements stiff as she turned to stare back at what had been a sea and the memory of what it might have held.
“I’m sorry,” said Jame.
Brier shrugged, dismissing old grief. “My mother died a long time ago. Now, where are we?”
Kalan hobbled up onto the foredeck, cramped from her night’s sleep on hard planks and still red-eyed with weeping.
“Kothifir lies that way,” she said, pointing north-northwest, “and your camp there.” Her finger swung straight ahead, in line with the prow. Wherever she had come from, wherever she had gone, Rose Iron-thorn had aimed them true.
They unloaded the sleepy moas and set out, four birds short. Kalan and Lanek led the procession, the little boy in high glee, his mother rigid in the saddle as if sure that at any minute her feathered mount would bolt. This, of course, made it more likely to do so, until Brier took its reins in a firm hand and led it. The rest followed, trading off who walked and who rode to accommodate Ean and Byrne.
At first they saw nothing, and wondered how far from the ancient shore they were. Gorbel had had the foresight to bring sacks of fresh water, but not enough for a long trek. Hours passed. It was so hot that sweat dried on the brow and gave no relief. The sun rose, beat blindingly down against the white salt plain, then tilted toward the horizon. In its wavering glare, the mirage of mountains appeared to the northeast and to the west—hopefully the curving Tenebrae and Urak ranges. A dot appeared on the horizon ahead. Bit by bit, it grew into the single, bedraggled palm that overlooked the tiny oasis.
“We wondered if we would ever see you again,” said Onyx-eyed as they limped into camp at dusk.
Jame kicked her bird’s shoulder, obliging it to kneel. “How long were we gone?” she asked, swinging stiffly down.
“Only two days, as it turns out. I see that you found the seeker.”
“Yes, and she found you. I’m afraid she and these other two are all that’s left of the caravan. The rest drowned. Also, Langadine has been destroyed.”
The randon eyed her askance. “You’ve been busy.”
“It wasn’t my fault, dammit—or at least not most of it. Anyway, that establishes where we are now. As to when . . .”
“Back in our own present, I assume. The east wind blew through last night, and this morning the sea was gone again. We’ll only know for sure when we return to Kothifir. In the meantime, eat. Sleep. Tomorrow—if we’re still here—we have a long trek home.”
CHAPTER XII
A Season of Discontent
Winter 16–65
I
THE TRIP BACK TO KOTHIFIR proved blessedly uneventful if strenuous. All the lambas had gone with the caravan and subsequently had drowned, so the moas were pressed into service as draft animals, to their loud disgust. Rations consisted largely of rhi-sar meat preserved in salt and water from the ancient sea while it had remained fresh. Since both flesh and fluid came from the past, there was no telling how long either would stay in the present. It was a gamble whether they would be consumed before they disappeared, and what that disappearance would do to the host bodies.
The white rhi-sar hide was hitched raw side down to a team of protesting birds to serve as a sledge, onto which more provisions were piled.
“A good scrape will start the tanning process,” Gorbel told Jame. “One thing about rhi-sar leather: it doesn’t stain. White is an unlikely color for armor only because it’s so rare. You’ll need to get King Krothen’s blessing on it, though, before it’s worked.”
At Sashwar they exchanged the moas for their horses and Gorbel parted, grumbling, with more golden coins to pay for the lost lambas.
Nine days later they came to the Apollynes and climbed them. The Mountain Station sent ahead a heliograph message to announce their return as they passed. Thus they found a considerable crowd waiting on the training field outside the camp to greet them. Jame had been dreading this sparse homecoming. No one would believe at first that they were all that remained of that huge caravan sent out thirty days before with such high hopes. Then the wailing began, but not from all.
Kalan cuddled the baby daughter whom she had left behind so long ago as the child cooed with delight.
“Oh, my dear, my precious, I thought that I had lost you forever, but here you are barely a month older. Oh, look at those tiny hands, those tiny feet. This is your half-sister!” she said, presenting the infant to her wide-eyed young son. “No, Lanek, you are too young to hold her.” She turned to the nearest Kendar, who happened to be Brier, and slid the infant into her arms. “Support her head just so.”
“But . . . but . . .”
“Only for a moment. Here comes my late husband’s brother, Qrink, Master Paper Crown.”
As Kalan rushed to meet a tall, bald man, the rest of the ten-command laughed at Brier’s expression and at the ginger way she held her sudden charge, as if afraid that it would break. The child grabbed a hanging lock of her dark red hair and pulled it, crowing with glee.
The Langadine boy would also need King Krothen’s blessing, Jame reminded herself. Soon. Or risk at the first scratch crumbling to red dust as his cousin Lanielle had.
Evensong pushed her way through the crowd followed by Gaudaric, anxiously searching for her husband and son. She didn’t recognize the former at first with his white-streaked hair and lined face, then gasped and threw herself into his arms. Byrne looked doubtfully down at Gaudaric.
“Grandpa? Oh, I have so much to tell you!”
“I’m sorry,” Jame murmured under the young man’s bubbling spate of news. “I got to them as quickly as I could, but time moves strangely in the Wastes.”
Gaudaric sighed. “His first lesson at the shop, his first guild run at the summer solstice, his first apprentice piece . . . I have lost his childhood. Thanks to you, though, I have him back, and my daughter has Ean. Never think I’m not grateful for that.”
His gaze fell on the rhi-sar hide rolled up in a wagon obtained at Sashwar.
“Is that . . . it is! An Old One, and in prime condition too. I’ve never seen an entire cape before, much less complete with head and feet. Look at those teeth, those claws! Oh, what fun I could have with those! You’ll let me work it for you, won’t you?”
Jame grinned. “I was afraid to ask.”
II
TWO DAYS LATER Jame was requested to attend King Krothen’s court. This was quick for a royal summons, making her suspect that the king wanted to hear about the failed trade mission firsthand. She went, taking Kalan and her son Lanek. Her ten-command also came with her to carry the rhi-sar hide. It required six Kendar to bear its weight, much of it located in the skull with its fearsome array of teeth. The other Kendar carried the four feet, spreading them from side to side of the street. Awed Kothifirans made way for them as if for a parade. While the small lizards that constituted modern rhi-sar were common, the hide of an ancient one hadn’t been seen in many years.
They climbed the Rose Tower and muscled their way into the uppermost chamber, jostling the back ranks of those already there. Krothen was having another shouting match with his aunt, the princess Amantine, or rather she was booming at him and he was listening with raised eyebrows.
“This is serious, dammit! Do you know how many people have been ruined by this lost mission? What’s more, they tell me that there will be no more in future. And whom do they blame? You and Lord Merchandy, that’s who!”
“We regret the city’s misfortune,” the king said in his nasal voice. “True, Mercer and I promoted the venture, but we also warned our traders not to be overwhelmed with greed.”
“P’ah. No one remembers that now. They see their losses, and they want someone to blame.”
“What, then, would you advise?”
“You have towers full of treasure. Distribute them to the people.”
Krothen pursed his rosebud lips. “So your son has proposed. To everyone, though, or only to those whose avarice brought about this catastrophe? What, then, would be left to pay the Southern Host for its protection? In future days we will need that, as never before, now that Kothifir has been so weakened. Gemma and the other Rim cities are already licking their lips. Perhaps I shouldn’t have hanged those Gemman raiders, even if they did kill a seeker.”
Jame thought that that last was probably true. Killing people in ambiguous circumstances rarely did any good.
As for the Host, it was preparing for what might come. That morning the camp had been shaken out of bed early by the blare of the alarm horn. Everyone had rushed to the inner ward, to be told that it was only a drill, but they had still been too slow.
Amantine stomped, regaining Jame’s attention. “Oh, you and your precious toy soldiers! Prince Ton promises to raise a militia that will do every bit as well.”
“Does he propose to lead it himself? Riding what two draft horses, or shall we find him an elephant? Speaking of which, what have we here?”
He had spotted the rhi-sar’s fearsome head bobbing behind and above the last rank of his attendants. Courtiers turned to stare, then to back away, some in fright, some holding their noses. The great beast smelled worse dead than alive. The Kendar bore it forward and let its hide sprawl at Krothen’s feet as if in obeisance. He clapped his pudgy, beringed hands in admiration.
“Your Magnificence,” said Jame, bowing. “Would you deign to preserve our prize with your touch?”
Brier lifted one of the flayed forearms and extended a talon as if it were reaching out to the king. He dabbed at it, then paused thoughtfully, twiddling his sausagelike fingers. Jame could see that he was tempted to claim the entire hide as royal booty.
“Don’t you dare,” she said, to a gasp from the courtiers.
Krothen pursed his lips with a moue of petulance, but withdrew his hand. “Should I rob so bold a hunter of such a trophy? Take it, with my blessing. Now, who have we here?”
Kalan nudged her son forward. The Langadine boy stared up at the mountainous figure before him, wide-eyed with wonder.
“Why are you so big?” he asked.
Krothen made a subterranean sound that emerged as a fat chuckle. “Why are you so small? Here. Have a candied centipede.”
The Kendar bundled up their prize and retreated, leaving Lanek perched on what was presumably the royal knee, dubiously regarding his still twitching many-legged treat.
III
WHILE THE TEN-COMMAND departed to deliver the rhi-sar hide to Gaudaric, Jame went in search of Graykin. She found him at the shabby tavern most commonly frequented by the Intelligencers’ Guild, holding court among his dingy followers, none of whom looked pleased to see her.
“What do they have against me?” she asked when Graykin left them to join her at her table.