Serpent Mage (16 page)

“Til use my magic, of course,” she said. “And I want you and Devon to be there with me.”

I had to admit I was excited. I had lived among humans and elves, but had never seen any human magic, and I was surprised when Alake invited us. She said our “energies” would help her. I think, personally, she was lonely and afraid, but I kept my mouth shut.

Perhaps I should explain (as best I can) the Phondran and Elmas concept of magic. And the Gargan point of view.

Dwarves, elves, and humans all believe in the One, a powerful force that places us in this world, watches over us while we are here, and receives us when we leave. Each race takes a somewhat differing view of the One, however.

The basic dwarven credo is that all dwarves are in the One and the One is in all dwarves. Thus harm that befalls one dwarf befalls all dwarves and befalls the One as well— this is why a dwarf will never intentionally kill, cheat, or deceive another dwarf. (Not counting barroom brawls, of course. A sock on the jaw, delivered in a regular knock-' em-down, turn-'em-over, is generally considered beneficial to the health.)

In the old days, we dwarves believed the One to be interested mainly in ourselves. As for elves and humans, if they had been created by the One at all (and some held that they sprang up from the darkness, rather like fungi), it must have been an accident or else they were designed by a force opposing the One.

Long times of coexistence taught us to accept each other, however. We know now that the One has in care all living beings (although some old grandfathers maintain that the One loves dwarves, merely tolerates humans and elves).

Humans believe that the One rules all, but that—like any Phondran chieftain—the One is open to suggestion. Thus the humans are constantly badgering the One with supplications and demands. Phondrans also believe that the One has underlings, who perform certain menial tasks beneath the One's dignity. (That concept is
so
human!) These underlings are subject to human manipulation through magic, and the Phondrans are never happier than when altering the growing seasons, summoning winds, conjuring rain, and starting fires.

The Elmas take a far more relaxed view of the One. In their perspective, the One started everything off with a bang and now sits back lazily to watch it all go forward—like the bright, glittering, spinning toys Sabia used to play with as a child. The Elmas view magic not as something reverent and spiritual, but as entertainment or a labor-saving device.

Though only sixteen (no more than a babe to us, but humans mature rapidly), Alake was deemed quite skilled in magic already and I knew her mother's fondest wish was to hand her daughter the leadership of the Coven.

Devon and I watched Alake take her place before her altar, which she had set up in the empty cargo hold on deck two. It was, I must admit, a pleasure to watch her.

Alake is tall and well-made. (I have never, by the way, envied humans their height. An old dwarven proverb says, “The longer the stick, the easier to break.” But I did admire Alake's graceful movements, like a frond bending in the water.) Her skin is a dark ebony. Her black hair is braided in countless tiny braids that hang down her back, each braid ending in beads of blue and orange (her tribal colors) and brass. If she lets her braids hang loose, the beads clash musically together when she walks, sounding like hundreds of tiny bells.

She wore the accepted dress of Phondra, a single piece of blue and orange cloth wound around the body, held in
place by the cunning of the folds (a knack known only to Phondrans). The free end of the cloth is draped over the right shoulder (to show she is unmarried—married women place the fold over the left shoulder).

Silver ceremonial bracelets adorned her arms, silver bells hung from her ears.

“I've never seen you wear those bracelets, Alake,” I said, making conversation to break the silence that was so terribly silent. “Are they yours or your mother's? Were they a gift?”

To my surprise, Alake, who is usually fond of showing off any new jewelry, made no reply and averted her face.

I thought she hadn't heard me. “Alake, I asked if—”

Devon jabbed me in the ribs with his sharp elbow. “Shush! Say nothing about her jewelry!”

“Why not?” I whispered back irritably. To be honest, I was getting sick and tired of tiptoeing around, fearful of offending someone.

“She wears her burial adornments,” Devon returned.

I was shocked. Of course, I'd heard of the custom. At birth, Phondran girl-children are presented with silver bracelets and ear-jangles which, it is hoped, they will wear at their wedding and pass along to their own daughters. But, if a girl dies untimely, before her marriage, her bracelets and other jewelry are placed on the body when it is sent out to join the One in the Goodsea.

I felt miserable, tried to think of something to say to make everything all right, realized that nothing I said would help. So I sat, scuffing my heels against the floor and trying to take an interest in what Alake was doing.

Devon sat beside me. The furniture aboard the ship was built for dwarves. I felt sorry for the elf, who looked most uncomfortable, his long legs, encased in the silken folds of Sabia's skirt, spraddled out on either side of his short-legged stool.

Alake was taking an interminable length of time to set up the objects on the altar, stopping to pray over each one.

“If all humans pray like this over every little thing, my guess is that the One fell asleep long ago!” I spoke in what
I thought was an undertone, but Alake must have heard me, because she looked shocked and frowned at me in reproof.

I decided I'd better change the subject and, glancing over at Devon wearing Sabia's clothes, I came up with something
Vd
long wondered.

“How did you manage to persuade Sabia to let you go in her place?” I asked the elf.

Of course, that was wrong, too. Devon, who had been keeping up a cheerful front, immediately grew sad, and turned
his
face away.

Alake darted over to me, pinched me, hard.

“Don't remind him of her!”

“Ouch! This does it!” I growled, losing patience, i'm not to speak to Alake about her ear-jangles. I'm not to talk to Devon about Sabia, despite the fact that he's wearing her clothes and looks uncommonly silly in a dress. Well, in case you've both forgotten, it's my funeral, too, and Sabia was my friend. We've been trying to pretend we're on a holiday cruise. We're not. And it's not right to keep our words in our bellies, as we dwarves say. It poisons the food.” I snorted. “No wonder we can't eat.”

Alake stared at me in startled silence. Devon had the ghost of a smile on his pale face.

“You are right, Grundle,” he admitted, casting his gaze down ruefully at the tight-bodiced, ribbon-bedecked, lace-covered, flower-ornamented gown. Elven males are nearly as slender as elven females, but they tend to be broader through the shoulders, and I noticed that here and there a seam had given way under the strain. “We
should
talk about Sabia. I've wanted to, but I was afraid of hurting you both by bringing up sad memories.”

Impulsively, Alake knelt at Devon's side, took his hand in hers. “I honor you, my friend, for your courage and your sacrifice. I know of no man I hold in higher esteem.”

Rare praise, from a human. Devon was pleased and touched. His cheeks flushed, he shook his head. “It was my own selfishness,” he said softly. “How could I go on living, knowing she had died and … how she had died. My death will be so much easier, thinking of her safe and well.”

I wondered grumpily how he thought she'd feel any better, knowing he was dead in her place. But then, that's a man: elf, human, dwarf—all the same.

“So how did you convince her to let you go?” I persisted. Knowing Sabia as I did, having seen her strong in her determination, I found it difficult to believe she had given in easily.

“I didn't,” Devon said, the color in his cheeks deepening. “If you must know, this convinced her.” He raised a clenched fist, showed bruised knuckles.

“You socked her!” I gasped.

“You hit her!” Alake echoed.

“I begged her to let me go in her place. She refused. There was no talking her around and I did the only thing I could do to prevent her from going. I knocked her out. What else
could
I do? I was desperate. Believe me, both of you, hurting Sabia was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life!”

I could believe that. An Elmas will suffer pangs of guilt for days over accidentally stepping on a spider.

“As for my jewelry,” Alake said, turning the silver bracelet on her arm with her hand, “these are mine, Grundle, given to me by my mother when I was born. I couldn't leave them any other message about where I was going or what I was doing. I tried, but it was too hard to put my feelings into words. When my mother finds that these are gone, she will know. She will understand.”

Alake went back to her altar. Devon tugged at the tight sleeve of his gown, which must have been cutting off his circulation. I could have sat down and cried. The words had come out, but they were hard to hear and I didn't see how I had helped matters.

“So much for dwarven proverbs,” I muttered into my side whiskers.

“I am ready to begin now,” said Alake, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Alake forbade me to write down the details of the ceremony, but I couldn't have done so, in any case, since I hadn't a clue as to what was going on. All I know is that
it involved salted cod (a dolphin's favorite treat, if they can get it) and flute music and Alake chanting a lot of strange words and making fishlike noises. (Humans can speak the dolphin language. Dwarves could, I suppose, but why would we want to? Dolphins speak dwarven quite well.)

I dozed off, at one point, during the flute music, and was startled out of my nap when Alake spoke in normal words and voice.

“It is done. The dolphins should come to us now.”

They might, I thought, if we threw the salt cod into the seawater. I couldn't see that it was doing much good where it was, lying in a silver dish on the altar. Perhaps she figured the stench would draw them.

As you may have guessed, I don't set much store by human or elf magic, and you can imagine my surprise when we all heard and felt a bump on the hull of the ship.

“They've come.' said Alake complacently, and hastened off to the waterlock to greet them, her beads clashing, her bare feet (humans rarely wear shoes) padding swiftly over the deck.

I glanced at Devon, who shrugged and raised his eyebrows. He'd been planning to call them with a magical dolphin whistle, which made no noise at all that I could hear. Devon assured me, however, that dolphins could hear it quite clearly and considered the sound very pleasant.

We both hurried after Alake.

Our ship consists of four decks, numbered from the bottom to the top. Not a large craft, compared to the sun-chasers, but it was only used by the royal family on their occasional sinkings into the other realms.

Deck four is the topmost deck (if you don't count the outside). Here is the observation room and, beyond that, the pilot's house, which none of us had the courage to go near. A ladder extends down from the observation room, through a shaft that opens onto each other deck. At the aft end of the observation room, a huge set of windows provides a view of land or water, depending on where you are at the time. The seasun, shining through the water, fills this room with cheerful, blue-green light. Outside, you can
see the open deck, surrounded by a railing. Only a human would be crazy enough to go out there when the ship is moving.

The cargo hold is located on deck three. Behind that is the common room, for eating, drinking, ax-throwing practice, or just visiting. This room has numerous small windows set in the sides. Behind the common room are the cabins for the royal family and the ship's crew, a tool room, then the impeller room, with its magical elven crystals that propel the ship.

Decks two and one were mostly more cargo space, plus the waterlock—an important feature. If you're not a dwarf, you're probably wondering what a waterlock is. As I've mentioned, no dwarf can (or wants to learn) to swim. A dwarf who falls into the sea would likely sink to the bottom of Chelestra unless he's caught and brought back to solid ground. Thus, all ships are built with a waterlock, which can be used to rescue any dwarf who happens to tumble into the sea.

We found Alake standing near the bottom of the waterlock, her face pressed against one of the portholes, staring out into the water. Hearing us approach, she turned. Her eyes were wide.

“It's not the dolphins. It's a human. At least, I think it's a human,” she added dubiously.

“It is or it isn't,” I said. “Can't you tell?”

“Look for yourself.” Alake sounded shaken.

Devon and I crowded to the porthole, the elf being forced to nearly bend double to get down to my level.

Sure enough, the thing looked to be a human male. Or perhaps it would be better to say, he
didn't
look elven or dwarven. He was taller than a dwarf, his ears weren't pointed, and his eyes were round, not almond-shaped. But he was the wrong color for a human, his skin being a kind of bread-dough white. His lips were blue, his eyes circled with purple splotches, sunken in his head. He was half-naked, clad only in a pair of brown tight-fitting pants and the remnants of a white tattered shirt. He clung to a fragment of board and was, it seemed to me, about done for.

The bump we had heard was, presumably, this man running into the hull of the ship. He could see us through the porthole and made, as we watched, a feeble attempt to beat against the ships's side. He was weak, apparently, for his arm sank down as if he lacked energy to lift it. He slumped over the board, legs dangling limply beneath him in the water.

“Whatever he is, he's not going to be one for long,” I said.

“Poor man,” murmured Alake, her dark eyes soft with pity. “We must help him,” she said briskly, and headed for the ladder that led to deck two. “We'll bring him on board. Warm him, give him food.” She glanced back, saw neither of us moving. “Come on! He'll be heavy. I can't manage by myself.”