Voyage of the Fox Rider (72 page)

Farrix and Jinnarin had been standing watch at the lookout post, and as Farrix dismounted he turned to the Elf. “The black galley is now gone over the horizon. It is safe to leave.”

Swiftly they entered their boats, Farrix going with Jinnarin and Rux, and soon the dinghies came out through the channel from the understone lagoon and into the
nighttime air, a spangle of southern stars glittering in the skies above, a thin crescent of a quarter Moon hanging low in the west.

Silks were raised in the southwesterly breeze, and the flat-bottomed craft sailed across deep, black waters, heading due west along the southern ramparts of the high stone island looming off to the starboard side. A mile they went and then a league, the black waters clear of hindrance, but at last they came to the wall of weed dropping into the depths below. Oars were then set in their locks and used to press forward, and out into the hulk-laden waters of the clutching swirl they went.

“I wish we had our turtle,” murmured Jinnarin as the Dwarves stroked over the undulant swells.

“Turtle?” Farrix turned his questioning gaze upon her.

“It towed us here.”

“A
turtle?
”

“It was a big one, a giant, you might say. It pulled all the boats.”

“Ha!” barked Farrix. “It would have to be. But tell me, my love, just how did you come about this—this monstrous turtle?”

“The Children of the Sea brought it with them, though they called it a—a, oh, I can’t say it, but something like tok’th’tick’rix. Regardless, it was a giant turtle.”

Now Farrix’s eyes flew wide. “Children of the Sea! You met some Children of the Sea? Oh, Jinnarin, this is a tale I’ve got to hear. In fact, tell me everything, everything that happened since last I saw you.”

“All right, Farrix. My story first, but then yours. I mean, you’ve given us quite a chase you know, and we’ve been over half the world trying to find you. I’d like to know just how you managed to get into the mess where we discovered you at last, and how Durlok figures into all of it, and what he’s up to, and—”

Smiling, Farrix touched a finger to her lips to stop her rush of words. “You haven’t changed a bit, my sweet, and I love you for it. As to Durlok”—his face fell flat and his eyes grew grim—“we will speak of that later, after you’ve told me your tale.”

Jinnarin nodded and took a deep breath: “Where shall I start? Wait, I know—as I’ve been told, begin at the
beginning.” She paused a moment, gathering her thoughts, and then her words came softly: “Well, after I got your note, the one you sent by Rhu, I didn’t start to worry until I began having these dreams. And then I went to see Alamar…Alamar the Mage.…”

And as the line of dinghies struggled westward through grasping weed and past ships ancient and waterlogged and trapped in the Great Swirl, in the bottom of a boat the two Pysks leaned back against a sleeping fox…and Jinnarin told Farrix her tale.

Dawn found the dinghies sailing west, tacking against the wind, the shallow-draft, flat-bottomed boats skimming barely above the weed. Occasionally the tiny flotilla would encounter stretches where the Dwarves needed to row, but for the most part they evaded the clutch of the Great Swirl, though now and again the person at the helm would lift the steering oar clear and rid it of green sea moss. Dawn also found Farrix and Jinnarin asleep in each other’s arms in the bottom of one of the crafts, though when Jamie stepped across Rux and the fox shifted about, it brought both Pysks awake.

Jamie relieved Lork at the helm, and sighted on the other craft. Aravan’s boat was in the lead, all others following in file—Bokar’s boat was second in line, then Aylis’s, Alamar’s coming after, with Jinnarin and Farrix’s boat following, then Kelek’s, and last of all, Jatu’s.

As Relk broke out rations for the morning meal, Farrix glanced at the rising sun. “Are we sailing by dead reckoning?” he asked Jamie.

The Man laughed. “Nay, Master Farrix. Cap’n Aravan, although he doesn’t use an astrolabe, he doesn’t need one. He’s an Elf, you see, and the best pilot of all. Dead reckoning? Not as long as he can see the Sun or the stars.”

“Oh look!” cried Jinnarin, gripping Farrix’s hand. “Alamar: he’s sitting up!”

In the boat ahead, the eld Mage sat in the bow, facing backwards. Wind blew through the wisps of his white hair, and his frail hands desperately gripped the wales.

He was pale, drawn.

He was ancient.

Jinnarin turned to Farrix, tears welling in her eyes.

Jamie looked into the boat ahead. “Cor, what a change! Why, when I first clapped eyes on Mage Alamar, I’d have said he was an old Man of seventy or thereabouts. But now he looks to be in his doddering nineties.”

Jinnarin peered up at Jamie. “Oh, Jamie, he is not a Man, but a Mage instead, and as such he is much older than ninety. In fact, from what I’ve gleaned, he is thousands of years old. But Mages can spend their youth and then gain it back again.”

“How so, Lady Jinnarin?”

“If they cast no spells, Jamie, they do not age, ever. But when they do a casting, it drains youth and energy—the greater the spell, the greater the drain. And Alamar cast a very great spell to fool Durlok, and it nearly cost Alamar his life.”

“Durlok casts spells and he does not age,” muttered Farrix.

“That is because he is a Black Mage and steals the youth of others. Alamar told me that the astral fire can be leeched from those in great emotional distress. Like bloodsucking lamias, Black Mages do this, living off the youth of others, hence spending none of their own.”

Farrix slowly nodded. “I knew that Durlok used the agony of others to power his spells, but I did not know that by doing so he preserved his own youth.”

“Hm,” mused Jamie, then asked, “but then how do Mages regain their youth?”

“Alamar says they must rest a long while. Cast no spells. He also says that on Mithgar, this takes ages, but on the Mage world of Vadaria, it goes much more swiftly.” Jinnarin’s gaze sought out frail Alamar in the boat ahead. “Oh don’t you see, Farrix,
that
is why we must return to Rwn—for on that isle is the only known crossing to Vadaria, and Alamar needs desperately to go home.”

Throughout the morning the boats sailed west among trapped drowned hulks, the chill wind shifting about, growing warmer as it swung from the southwest to the west and then on around until at last it blew straight from the north, straight from the high northern Sun.

“Ha!” crowed Jamie. “That’s the last of the tacking if the wind’ll just hold abeam.”

“But not the last of the rowing,” growled Tolar, the warrior shipping out his oar and nodding ahead where Dwarves in Aravan’s boat now rowed across weed.

As the Dwarven rowers pulled oars, Farrix shaded his eyes and looked at one of the derelicts a mile or so to the north. “I say, Jinnarin, what d’you think might be on these ships? What cargoes? What curiously wrought artifacts? What things of mystery and wonder?”

Jinnarin shuddered, her mind returning to the night when they had seen a hulk glowing with green witchfire. “I don’t know, love, and I don’t believe that I want to know. I do know, though, that some of these drowned relics cause Aravan’s amulet to grow freezing cold.”

“Meaning…?”

“Meaning that something perilous lurks thereon.”

“Perilous?” Farrix glanced at her, then swung his gaze back to the distant hulk. “Witches, liches, lamia and the like?”

Jinnarin shook her head. “I don’t know, love. Just perilous.”

Farrix sighed. “Well, still I would like to know what these ships bear. One of these days, perhaps I’ll—”

“Oh, Farrix, it’s your curiosity that got us in this fix to begin with. Besides, from the looks of Durlok’s treasury, it seems as if he might have already plundered the victims of the Great Swirl.”

A grim aspect swept over Farrix’s face. “Yes, love. He indeed used the Swirl to ensnare victims, though it was the people he wanted and not the cargo.”

Jinnarin cocked her head to one side and looked at her mate. After a moment she said, “Well, Farrix, it seems as if all this is leading to your tale. I know you don’t want to relive the bad memories, but I think you must. We need to know what Durlok is up to so that the Mages of Rwn can block him, stop him cold before he does something vile.”

Farrix clenched his hands in frustration. “But that’s just it, Jinnarin—I don’t
know
what Durlok is up to! Ah, but that it is something vile…well, it goes without saying. But just
what
it is, I don’t bloody know! Burn me, I haven’t a clue!”

“Well, love,” said Jinnarin, “I don’t know whether or not I can help, but why don’t you tell me your tale and then we shall see. As Alamar says, begin at the beginning, which in this case I believe is when you and Rhu left our home in Darda Glain.”

Farrix nodded and took up a portion of a crue biscuit and bit off a mouthful, feeding the rest to Rux. He sat and reflectively chewed, gathering his scattered thoughts. At last he took a drink of water, washing all down.

Turning to Jinnarin, he said, “It was still winter when Rhu and I set out to track down the plumes.…”

“Love, I’m off to follow the flumes, to see just where they are going.”

Farrix looked at Jinnarin, noting the touch of sadness that came into her eye. Even so she did not argue with his decision to chase this will-o’-the-wisp of spectral light, but instead she stepped forward and hugged and kissed him. His heart felt somewhat heavy, though not extraordinarily so…for he and Jinnarin had been mates for several millennia, and she seemed resigned to his “whims.”

With a whistle, Farrix mounted up on Rhu, and off through the forest of Darda Glain they headed northeasterly, the black-footed red fox padding across the snow. And Farrix looked back to see his loved one standing before the hollow tree where they lived, and he waved good-bye then turned and urged Rhu into that ground-eating trot which would carry them miles before nightfall.

North and east they fared among the winter-barren trees of Darda Glain, Farrix heading inland to skirt around an arm of ocean barring the way directly east. Surrounded on three sides by water, Darda Glain was a hoary old forest, forty or so miles across from east to west, and fifty from north to south. It occupied the whole of an outjut of land protruding into the sea, there along the southern bound of Rwn, where it was sustained by misty rains of summer and swirling snows of winter which blew in from the Weston Ocean to fall upon the rich loamy soil. Closed to all but the Hidden Ones, Farrix and Jinnarin dwelled near the center, though now and again they moved to the margins to stand their turn
at ward. But now Farrix rode away from the heart of the woods, driven on a mission of his own, and once again ‘twas not Duty who summoned but Curiosity instead, her silent call luring him across the ancient island of Rwn.