Voyage of the Fox Rider (77 page)
Aravan shook his head. “Wind or no, for him it matters little—he has the Trolls to row.” Aravan looked up at the silks. “The
Eroean
is the fastest ship in the world, but only when she has the wind.”
Over the next week the wind was light and shifty, and at times it died altogether. The following week it blew straight at them, and the
Eroean
tacked a zigzag course, Aravan fretting, for the black galley could run a straight line no matter the wind, while the Elvenship could not.
During this time, Aylis read from the Black Mage lexicon, the seeress casting a spell to do so, noting phrases and words in her own journal, noting how they were spelled, their meanings, and their pronunciations. Often she would sit with Farrix, saying words to him, seeing if any sounded familiar to the Pysk. Farrix would listen and shake his head,
No
, the words striking no chord of memory…until one day—
Aylis sat in the lounge reading the book aloud, Jinnarin and Farrix listening.
“Hmm,” she murmured, turning a page, “these are names of gemstones:
adamus
is diamond;
erythros
is ruby;
smaragdos
is emerald; oh, here is one that at least
sounds
familiar,
sappheiros
is sapphire.” Aylis glanced up at Farrix, but he sighed and shook his head. Her gaze returned to the page. “Crystal, too, is a sound-alike:
krystall
.”
“I say,” piped up Farrix, “something about that last rings a note.”
“Krystall?”
Farrix frowned, seeking an elusive memory. He cocked his head, his gaze lost, and finally muttered, “Perhaps.”
Jinnarin smiled at Farrix as Aylis jotted a note in her journal.
Then the seeress continued her reading, pronouncing many a strange-sounding word, all to no immediate avail for he recognized none.
Jinnarin and Aylis stood together on the foredeck, the Pysk on the stemblock peering forward, the seeress at the rail looking down. Below, the clear waters slid past.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters, Aylis?”
Aylis looked up at Jinnarin and shook her head. “None. Why?”
“Oh, I was just talking with Boder. He has four sisters and three brothers. Can you imagine being raised in a family of eight? —No wait, ten, counting the father and mother. They had
eight
children in nine years.…Whereas among my Kind, we have perhaps but one child in nine thousand years…and then only if someone has died—by accident, disease, or foe. But eight children in nine years—I find it quite unimaginable.”
Again Aylis shook her head. “Humans—that’s the way of Humans. They seem to believe that they can multiply without number. My father was right when he said that the gift of Humanity was fecundity.”
Jinnarin nodded and fell into silence. After a while she said, “Even so, it must be special to have a brother or sister. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to have one.”
Aylis pursed her lips. “I was raised in a family of two. There was just my sire and me.”
“What about your mother?”
Aylis sighed. “I don’t remember her. She died when I was but a few months old.”
“Oh, I am so sorry, Aylis. Everyone should have a mother…a loving mother that is…like mine.”
“Does she live in Darda Glain?”
Jinnarin shook her head. “No, she and my sire now live in Blackwood. I haven’t seen them for millennia—ever since the wedding. They went from Darda Glain to the Blackwood, seeking a larger forest, more space.”
They stood in silence for a while, then Aylis said, “Your mother, she was nice, neh?”
“Oh yes. I always felt loved.”
Aylis nodded, then sighed. “I wished that I’d known my mother. Father seldom speaks of her. I think it hurts
him to do so. He says I look like her, like Lyssa…all but the eyes. I have my father’s green eyes. He tells me hers were blue.”
“How did she…?”
Aylis’s gaze turned grim. “Ravers slew her. Foul Folk. During the War of Rwn.”
Jinnarin glanced up at Aylis. “Many were lost in those battles. But the Foul Folk, we took their measure in Darda Glain and they were afraid to enter thereafter.”
“So I heard.”
Again a silence descended between them, each lost in her own thoughts as the
Eroean
cut through the waters. At last, however, Jinnarin softly asked, “Will you be my sister, Aylis?”
Aylis turned and looked at the tiny Pysk, and tears welled in her eyes.
Adverse winds continued to plague the
Eroean
, and every day the black galley drew farther away. Out of the Sindhu they sailed and across a short stretch of the Bright Sea, and then they fared south of the Great Island and into the waters of the Polar Ocean. And each day the Sun rose later and set earlier as they came into the frigid mar, for summer drew nigh and in these south polar seas that meant the coming of the days of no Sun whatsoever, the coming of the long night. And toward the dark they sailed, into stormy waters.
As the ship plunged through the hammering waves, Aylis sat at the map table, dealing cards from her seer’s deck. “Oh my,” she murmured, her lips drawn thin, “the Drowning Man.”
Quill in hand, Aravan looked up from the ship’s log. “What is it,
chieran?
”
Aylis turned to him, a stricken look on her face. “The Drowning Man”—she gestured at the spread of cards—“a harbinger of disaster. Although I cannot break through Durlok’s shielding, it may mean the
Eroean
and all on her are heading toward ruin.”
“But thou art not certain?”
Aylis shook her head. “No. I am not certain. It could mean disaster for but a few on this ship…or for someone else altogether.”
Aravan came and stared down at the card, his hands
kneading the knots loose from her taut shoulders and neck. At last he said, “I shall warn the crew to make certain to clip to the safety lines.”
“Hmm, this is strange.”
“What is it, Daughter?” Alamar looked up from the tokko game. Jinnarin, too.
“Father, Durlok has circled a word, see?”
Aylis passed the lexicon across the table to Alamar. The eld Mage took it up in palsied hands, and then laid it back to the surface of the table. Both Jinnarin and Farrix stepped to the side of the book and peered down at it.
was the encircled word.
“How do you say it, Daughter, and what does it mean?”
“Well, it could take on either of two pronunciations: Krystallopŷr, or
Krystallopýr
.”
“That’s it!” exclaimed Farrix. “That’s the word Durlok used to draw down the plumes!”
“Which?” demanded Alamar.
“The last one:
Kry-kr
—”
“Krystallopýr?”
asked Aravan. Something about the word rang a faint echo in Aravan’s mind, but he could not dredge up the elusive memory.
“Yes. What you said.
Kry-krys-rystallo
— Oh, I give up!”
“Ha!” barked Alamar. “One is what it is; the other is its Truename!”
“What
what
is, Alamar?” asked Jinnarin.
“The crystal that Pysk told us about, Pysk.”
“Oh,” said Jinnarin, enlightened.
Farrix looked at Alamar. “You mean the crystal itself is called, uh—”
“Krystallopŷr,” supplied Jinnarin.
Farrix nodded. “Yes, what she said. But about this Truename…”
“Krystallopýr,”
said Alamar, “that’s the way it is invoked, the word used to call the
knew
that it wasn’t a casting!”
“Hoy now, just a moment,” said Farrix. “If it wasn’t a casting, then why did Durlok need to—to horribly sacrifice someone? When I was captive on the black galley,
I learned that by torture and maiming and mutilation he could somehow use a victim’s agony to power his castings.”
Alamar stroked his thin beard. “Hmm, good question, Pysk. As to why, I can’t say for certain…but knowing Durlok, he probably did it just for the sheer pleasure it gives him.”
Aylis shook her head. “More likely, Father, he did it to protect himself from the crystal. Invoking its Truename may have made it dangerous to hold.”
Alamar shrugged. “I wouldn’t know about that, Daughter, but this I do believe: Durlok found the crystal and somehow teased its Truename from it.”
Aylis shook her head. “No, Father. Truenames are embedded into things during the forging, and unless Durlok is a seer, he cannot discover such. He must have created the crystal and given it its Truename.”
“Well he didn’t
forge
it, Daughter!” snapped Alamar. “He does not have the training.”
“Then, Father, he must have read it in a scroll, or else someone told him the crystal’s Truename, or someone of knowledge and
“Bah! He has no friends. Who would do such a thing?”
Silence fell upon them, Alamar’s last question ringing on the air. Moments later, “How about Gyphon?” suggested Jinnarin.