Voyage of the Fox Rider (86 page)
In a grove of silver birch, Aylis glanced up at the stars. Her fine silvery hair fell down ‘round her shoulders, nearly all the brown now vanished. And she wondered if the evacuation of Darda Glain had gone well, for in but fifteen hours the unseen Moon would kiss the Sun. At the moment none of the wanderers were in the sky, would not be there until an hour before mid of night
when the Red Warrior would come over the horizon first.
She wondered as well when Aravan would return, for he had promised he would come for her.
Aylis lowered her eyes and glanced down at Drienne, the sorceress sitting beside the crystal mere, her skin translucent with age. Nearly all of her raven-black hair had turned pearlescent. White, too, were her knuckles as she tightly gripped the arms of the crimson chair and channeled the
Yet could they delay Durlok’s scheme until the wedding was past, then all would be worth it…or so they hoped.
Swiftly the
Eroean
cut through the waves, the ship running wet, her stem aimed west-southwesterly, a braw wind on her starboard beam, quartering toward the bow. But out ahead of the Elvenship coursed a pod of dolphin, effortlessly pacing the ship, and in their midst raced a Child of the Sea. High in the aft skies the Red Warrior shown, and lower easterly stood the Bright Voyager, followed by the Shining Nomad. And Jinnarin had watched as each of the wanderers had risen, her hammering heart pounding rapidly as each climbed into view.
Bokar and his Châkka warriors had donned their armor and cleaned their weapons and had thoroughly checked the ballistas, and crates of fireballs and javelins sat ready at hand. And as Bokar had told his warriors what was afoot, Engar had called out, “Well and good, Armsmaster. When we sink the black galley, we will send twenty-eight Trolls down to the bottom with her!” An uproar of approval had greeted Engar’s remark.
As to the band of Pysks, they had taken quarters in Alamar’s former cabin, and they, too, prepared, though not in the open, for they were not yet comfortable around Humans and Dwarves…nor even an Elf, in spite of the fact that he was a Friend.
Onward sped the Elvenship in the sometimes juddering
sea, false dawn coming at last, and with it rose the wanderer known as the Swift One; and Jinnarin thought her heart would burst with the tension, for they still had leagues upon leagues to go, but the inexorable turning of the unstoppable heavens heeded not their plight.
The Sun rose.
“Lord god, Aravan,” gritted Farrix, “where is the Moon?”
Aravan pointed slightly above and east of the Sun. “There, though it cannot be seen.”
Farrix looked, but the Sun was too bright for him to find the other orb.
The wanderers, too, had disappeared with the coming of day.
“Slow Foot will rise shortly,” added Aravan, “though it, too, will be hidden from sight.”
“Captain, we now run at fifteen knots,” said Jatu. “Will we arrive in time?”
Aravan glanced at the Sun, then away. “I don’t know, Jatu. It depends upon exactly where Durlok’s galley lies. This I do know: given our current speed, we will arrive at a point precisely halfway between Rwn and Atala exactly at high noon. If he is closer…well and good. But if farther…” Aravan did not finish the sentence, but all knew what he meant.
Farrix jittered about on the deck, unable to sit for any length of time. Jinnarin snapped at him to “give it a rest,” but no sooner had he plopped down than she took his place, muttering, “Come on, wind, can’t you blow harder?”
And across the sea ran the
Eroean
as the hours counted down.
The Sun stood nigh the zenith when the mainmast lookout bellowed, “Cap’n, the dolphin break away!” and at the same time the foremast lookout cried, “Cap’n, ship ho, dead ahead!”
As the
Eroean
thundered past the circling dolphin ringing ‘round the now halted Child of the Sea, Bokar shouted a command and Dwarves scrambled toward the ballistas. Dodging among the rushing warriors, Jinnarin and Farrix raced to the foredeck and scrambled up onto the stemblock and peered into the distance ahead. And just as Aravan joined them, low on the horizon and
barely in their view they could see the black galley in the water.
“Good lord!” breathed Farrix.
“Adon!” gritted Jinnarin.
Hearing fear tingeing their breath, “What is it ye see?” asked Aravan.
“Don’t you see it, Aravan?” cried Farrix, his eyes wide in dread.
“The galley, aye, but nothing more.”
“Oh, Aravan,” breathed Jinnarin. “The galley, it is covered over with a boiling nimbus of horribly writhing black fire.”
Aylis, her hair now completely silver, the brown gone with her vanished youth, glanced at the sun overhead. It was near high noon and the unseen Moon would any moment kiss the Sun. She sighed and slowly peered ‘round the slopes of the amphitheater, eyeing each and every Mage, all now burdened with age. Her eye stopped on a bent, wrinkled, hairless, stooped elder, partially hidden behind a tree, his arthritic hands knotted and trembling. Slowly, Aylis made her way down and across the Mage Grove and up the opposite slope. At last she reached the ancient one’s side, and weeping, said, “Father.”
Alamar looked at her with his rheumy eyes, his mouth gaping in a toothless grin. “Do him in the eye, Daughter,” he whispered. “We’ll do him in the eye.”
Yet even as Aylis looked on in distress, tears running down her aged face, she knew that neither he nor she could leave the Great Conjoinment until Drienne broke it. And weeping, she gazed upon her father, and his brown-mottled skin drew taut across his skeletal face as the last dregs of youth poured from him.
And in that moment the island lurched violently sideways, as if a vast hammer had struck an immense blow. The ancient Mage collapsed, and Aylis was knocked from her feet.
And the sea began rushing away from Rwn.
“Trim her up, Boder. We’ll pass with her on our larboard. Rico, get all the speed from the silks thou canst.”
“Aye, Cap’n,” muttered Boder, sighting down the
length of the
Eroean
at the black galley five or so miles distant. “How close do you want me to come. I’ll graze her, if you like.”
Aravan grinned. “A hundred feet will do.” The Elf turned and called out, “Bokar, we’ll make the first pass with her a hundred feet on our larboard.”
The Dwarven warriors on the starboard ballistas groaned and growled and shook their fists at the larboard crews and shouted out curses in Châkur.
And in the bow as brine and spray washed across the decks, Jinnarin and Farrix ensconced themselves among the jib sheets wrapped ‘round the belaying pins in the forward rack, where neither wind nor wave could wash them free.
And Aravan glanced at the Sun where he knew even now that the unseen Moon was within mere moments of kissing the golden orb.
But Rico and crew had trimmed the silks to take the very last part of the final knot from the air, and the Elvenship thundered across the sea.
The ballistas were ready.
The Dwarves were ready.
And Boder had his line.…
…And in that moment the Moon kissed the Sun—
—The world lurched—
—And the bottom seemed to drop out of the sea—
—The entire surface fell away beneath the
Eroean
—
—The ship falling with it—
—And spinning beyond control, with Men and Dwarves hurled about the deck like ten pins scattered, the Elvenship slid down a long slope of water, the whirling
Eroean
rushing headlong
downhill
toward the motionless black galley—
—And as they plunged wildly down the steep slant and toward the far dark ship, and down and down and down, a great wall of water seemed to rise up before them in the distance between, and thundering toward them came hurtling a monstrous wave.
In the grove of silver birch, of a sudden the Great Conjoinment vanished, and Drienne, her hair now utterly white, painfully stood and called out, “We have
lost the battle and are now in great peril. Vadaria is our only hope, can we cross over in time.”
And with this pronouncement, among the birches, all the Mages, their backs stooped with age, began the intricate steps and the arcane chant that would take them to Vadaria.
Aylis, now free of the conjoinment, knelt by her father’s corpselike form. She could not tell whether he was alive or dead, but nevertheless she took up his frail frame in her arms. Struggling, for now she was terribly weak, Aylis managed to stand at last. And bearing his unmoving body in the desperate hope of saving him, she began chanting and stepping the pattern as well.
And all about Rwn the bare ocean floor was exposed for mile upon mile—sand and mud and rock and weed lay in the sunlight, and fish gasped and flopped about, and eels slithered, and things unnamed wriggled and squirmed and oozed, and the River Kairn plunged over the falls to roar down upon the bared expanse—the sea having fled southward to fill the colossal emptiness left behind by the sudden vast collapse of the abyssal depths below. And far to the north of Rwn, the waters of the Northern Sea were just now beginning to react, a frigid flow running down to fill the hollow abandoned by the fled-away sea.