The Tritonian Ring and Other Pasudian Tales (12 page)

             
Down at the waterfront of Sederado he found the
Dyra
with Fual asleep with his back against the mast and his broadsword in his hand. Fual awoke and scrambled up as Vakar approached, saying:

             
"I hope it's all right about those men who came aboard the ship during the day, my lord. They pawed all through the cargo, saying they were sent by the queen, and there were too many for me to stop. I don't think they stole much."

             
"It's all right," said Vakar. "We're putting to sea at once. Help me tie up this arm and cast off."

             
"You're hurt, sir?" Fual hurried to fetch one of the cleaner rags for a bandage. The cut proved about three inches long but not deep.

             
Vakar silenced the valet's questions, and presently they were laboriously rowing the
Dyra
out into the seaway. They got their ropes fouled up in hoisting the sail, and the ship took some water before they got her straightened out to eastward, with Vakar steering as best he could with one arm and Fual bailing water out of the hold with a dipper. Vakar said:

             
"I didn't see Qasigan's black galley at its place on the waterfront. Has it gone?"

             
"Yes, sir.
Earlier in the night a party appeared on the wharf and boarded the black ship in haste. I recognized the ape-man by his stature even in the dark. There was some delay while the captain sent men ashore to drag his rowers out of the stews, and then they pushed off and disappeared out into the bay. What happened at the palace?"

             
Vakar briefed Fual on their situation, adding: "If I remember the teaching old Ryn beat into me as a boy, we pass another one or two of these islands and come to the mainland of Euskeria. What do they speak there?"

             
"Euskerian, sir; a complicated tongue, though I know a few words from the time I spent in Gadaira waiting to be sold."

             
"There should be a law compelling all men to speak the same language, as the myths say they once did. Too bad we couldn't have cut off Sret's head and kept it alive to interpret for us, as the head of Brang was kept in the legend. Teach me what you know of Euskerian."

             
During the rest of the night Vakar's arm bothered
him
so that he got little sleep. The next day the Ogugian coast faded away to port, and later another great island loomed up ahead. They coasted along this until, towards evening, Vakar noticed an unpleasantly hazy look in the sky and an ominous increase in the size of the swells that marched down upon them from astern. He said:

             
"If this were Lorsk, I should guess
a storm were
brewing."

             
"Then, sir, shouldn't we run into some sheltered cove until it blows over?"

             
"I daresay, save that being so green at seafaring we should doubtless run our little ship upon the rocks."

             
The night passed like the previous one except that Vakar suffered a touch of seasickness from the continuous pitching. His arm ached worse than ever, though he changed the bandage and cleaned the wound. The wind backed to the south so that it was all they could do to keep the
Dyra
from being blown on to the dark shore to port.

             
With the coming of a gray dawn, Fual glanced astern and cried: "Sir, look around! It's the black galley!"

             
Vakar froze. A galley was crawling upon their wake like a giant insect, a small square sail swaying upon its mast and its oars rising and falling irregularly in the swe
ll
s. Vakar hoped that it was not Qasigan's ship, but as the minutes passed and the galley neared he saw that Fual had been right. He could even make out the figure of Nji the ape-man in the bow. He assumed that their intentions were hostile, and presently the ape-man confirmed his guess by producing a bow twice normal size and sending a huge arrow streaking across the swells, to plunk into the water a few feet away. Qasigan and the little Yok were standing in the bow with Nji.

             
"They mean us to stop, sir," said Fual.

             
"I know that, fool!" fumed Vakar, straining his eyes towards the ever-nearing galley.

             
He wondered how they had traced him. This must be that strong magic spoken of by Charsela. Was Qasigan then the author of the bizarre episode of the serpent throne?

             
Why should this strange man try to hound Vakar Zhu to his death? Who would benefit by his removal?
His brother, perhaps.
Who else? He, Vakar, was trying to thwart the impending aggression of the Gorgons against Lorsk by seeing the thing that the gods most feared. Therefore either the gods, or the Gorgons, or both, might be after him.

             
"Sir," said Fual, "if a mighty magician pursues us, shouldn't we give up now, before we inflame him further by our futile efforts to flee?"

             
"You rabbit! The chase was hardly begun, and I know he couldn't cast a deadly spell at this distance, from a tossing deck, in this stormy weather. A spell requires quiet and solitude."

             
"I'm still afraid, sir," mumbled Fual. "Do something to save me!"

             
Vakar muttered a curse upon his servant's timidity and searched his memory for what he had heard of the Gorgons. It was said that their wizards had the power to freeze anybody within a few paces into a rigid paralysis, by some means called a "medusa," though Vakar did not know what a medusa was. In dealing with Gorgons, then, the thing to do was to keep away from them. As for the
gods
...

             
Vakar rolled an eye towards the lowering sky and shook a fist. If
it's
war you want, he thought, you shall have it!

             
At that instant thunder rolled, away to the north. The wind, which had veered back to the west, blew harder. Rain began to slant across the deck.

             
A voice came thinly across the waves: "Prince Vakar! Heave to!"

             
Vakar called to Fual: "Come back here and take cover!"

             
Vakar himself crouched down in the lee of the single high step up to the poop, holding the steering-lever at arm's length. In this position he was shielded by the sheer of the high stern.

             
Another arrow whipped by,
close
enough for its screech to be heard over the roar of the wind, and drove its bone point into the deck. Vakar said:

             
"So long as we keep down they can't reach us—"

             
"Beg pardon, sir!" said Fual, who had snatched a look aft. "They're drawing abreast!"

             
"Oh." If they did that, the pair on the
Dyra
would no longer be protected, and Qasigan could have them either shot down or sunk by ramming. As Qasigan had called Vakar "Prince," the man had evidently not been fooled by Vakar's denial.

             
Vakar took a look around, shielding his eyes from the rain with his hand. Sure enough, the dark nose of the pursuing ship was creeping up to the
Dyra's
port quarter.

             
Vakar felt of his sword. He had no illusions of being able to leap aboard the galley and clean it out single handed, even with Fual's dubious help. For though he downed one or two
sailors, he could hardly dompt the weapons of the rest, the ape-man's club, and Qasigan's
Gorgonian magic all at the same time.

             
Closer came the bow of the galley, its bronze ram-spur bursting clear of the water each time the ship pitched. Vakar shifted his steering-lever a little to starboard, sending the
Dyra
plunging off to southward, away from the shore, though at that angle the merchantman heeled dangerously with a horrible combination of pitch and roll. The galley swung its stem to starboard to follow.

             
The wind waxed further and the rain became an opaque level-blowing mass, mixed with spray from the wave-tops. The
Dyra
rolled her port rail under and dipped the corner of her sail into the crests. Vakar was sure mat she would capsize.

             
"Help me!" he shouted, and he and Fual strained at the steering-lever until the ship swung back on a straight downwind course. The mast-stays thrummed and the slender yards whipped dangerously, but at least the ship stayed on an even keel.

             
Vakar said: "You may let go
...
Take another look for the galley."

             
Fual tried but reported back: "I can't, my lord.
"

             
"
Can't what?"

             
"Can't see.
It's like thrusting your face into a waterfall."

             
Vakar fared no better. Clinging to the yoke they held the ship on her course, though Vakar expected momentarily to hear the galley's ram crunch through their stern. When the squall abated, Vakar left the helm to take another look.

             
There was no galley.

             
Vakar's heart leaped up with the thought that their pursuers had swamped and drowned. But another look showed the big black craft still afloat in the distance and making for shore. Peculiar bursts of spray rising up from the galley's deck puzzled Vakar until he realized that they were caused by the sailors of the galley bailing for dear life.

             
Fual asked: "Why did they leave us?"

             
"Couldn't take the blow.
With her low freeboard the galley is even less suited to rough water than we are, and her skipper decided to call it quits and He up in a cove."

             
"The gods be praised! It's like in that poem when your hero Vrir was best on all sides, and—how does it go, sir?"

             
Vakar declaimed:

"Down to the deck
             
             
livid with lightnings,

Scaly and seaweed-clad,
             
Lyr thrust his trident.

Where the spear struck
             
rose
there a rufous

Ring-fence of fire,
             
             
helping the hero ..."

             
The galley became invisible with rain, distance, and the loom of the shore. Vakar held his course, the ache in his right arm running through him. In wrestling with the helm he had started his wound bleeding again. Soaked and wretched, he wondered if even the forlorn chance of saving Lorsk from the Gorgons was worth his present misery.

             
Wind and rain continued all day, though never with the severity of that first squall that had all but sunk both the
Dyra
and her pursuer. The wind moderated but veered to the north so that Vakar had to hold the ship at an uncomfortable angle to the wind to avoid being swept south out to sea. During the night he got only a few nightmarish moments of sleep and faced the dawn feeling feverish and light-headed. His arm hurt so that every time it was touched or jarred he had to set his teeth to keep from yelling.