Voyage of the Fox Rider (43 page)

Alamar glared. “I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you are implying.”

“Oh, here it is.” Jinnarin said, then popped back out. “Did you ever have a familiar, Alamar?”

“Once,” he muttered. “An owl.”

Now Jinnarin glared at the Mage. “I might have known! You had an owl! A murdering owl!”

“What are you talking about, Pysk?”

“Owls, that’s what, Alamar. Owls! Don’t you know that at times they’ve tried to kill us?”

“Tried to kill Pysks, Pysk?”

“Exactly so.”

“Well it wasn’t
my
owl,” declared Alamar.

“How do you know that?”

“I
know
, Pysk. That’s how.”

“Hmph,” snorted Jinnarin, leaping down to the floor. She began combing Rux’s fur all ‘round where the rope had been. After a while she said, “Really, Alamar, I’d like to know about familiars.”

Alamar glared.

“Truly, Alamar, I would.”

After a moment, he uncrossed his arms and hitched his chair about, facing her. “Given the amount of study we do, the life of a Mage is a rather solitary one. The last thing we need is someone chattering about all day and night. Even so, a companion of sorts breaks the loneliness, the solitude, especially a companion that is useful. An apprentice is one kind of companion—someone to talk to, someone to teach, someone to run
and fetch, and as his experience grows, someone to share ideas with. But taking on an apprentice is a weighty responsibility, and if there is no time to teach, then it is of no benefit to the apprentice: might as well merely have a servant.

“A familiar, though, is a different kind of companion. Still, a familiar is someone to talk to, even though most cannot answer back, or if they do, their answers are limited and long conversations are rare. Even so, they are useful, for they run and fetch if you know how to ask them…and if it is within their means. Mostly, though, they are a second pair of eyes and ears, and occasionally another nose, warding us in times of danger. And for those of us who know how, we can send the familiar out scouting or spying, and see through their eyes, hear through their ears, smell through their noses, feel through their touch, taste with their tongues. This is, however, not without its dangers, for if the familiar is harmed while merged with the mind of the Mage, then we suffer the harm as well…and vice versa.

“If throughout the long years the Mage merges often with the familiar, then they become part of one another, and if or when one or the other dies, it has profound effects. In both cases, Mage and familiar, they sink into deep melancholia. If the familiar dies, it is as if a part of the Mage has been ripped from his existence, and frequently it takes long years to recover. On the other hand, if the Mage dies, then often the familiar goes away into isolation and refuses food and water and dies from what can only be termed a broken heart.

“And that, my dear, is what a familiar is.”

Jinnarin looked at Alamar with tears in her eyes, and she softly asked, “What happened to your owl, Alamar?”

“She died.” Alamar’s gaze glittered. “I did not take on another.”

Jinnarin’s eyes brimmed over, tears running down her cheeks. She turned and leaned her head against Rux and threw her arms about his neck and did not move for some time. At last she straightened and resumed her combing. After a while she said, “I’m sorry that I called your owl a murderer.”

Alamar looked up from the tokko board. “Eh, what did you say?”

“That I had my nightmare again last night,” answered Jinnarin.

“Same dream? Nothing changed?”

Jinnarin nodded, then smiled as Aylis moved her Bridge across Alamar’s Chasm. “Guard your Throne, Father.”

Alamar lowered his brow and squinted at Jinnarin and then Aylis. “Oh-ho! So that’s the way it is, eh? You two in cahoots to distract me, right?”

Both Aylis and Jinnarin looked at the elder, innocence in their faces. Then they both burst out laughing.

“Aha! I thought so!”

Still laughing, Aylis stood and stretched.

After a moment, Alamar turned his Throne on its side. “Ask your Aravan to come and see me, Daughter. I will tell him of your devious, scheming ways.”

“I will, Father, that is if he ever comes to our room.” Aylis sighed. “He hasn’t left the
Eroean
since we got here two days past.”

“Now, Daughter, he has much to do, and—”

“I know that, Father. Even so, he and the others need rest and hot food and warm drink and even entertainment.”

“But, Daughter, they’ve got to be finished before the storm strikes in, what did you say, six days?”

“Seven days when we docked: four days now. Twelfth Yule—New Year’s Day—that’s when it’s due, late in the night.”

“All right. Four days, then. But we can’t have the
Eroean
lying over on her side when the storm hits, now can we? Besides, they
are
getting hot meals and warm drink and rest.”

“Yes, for most of the crew, Father, working in shifts as they are. But not Aravan, Father, not Aravan. Only he knows the secrets of the oil they rub into the wood. Only he knows the secrets of the black caulking. And only he knows the secrets of the starsilver paint…or the dark blue, for that matter. Only Aravan. And so, he needs to be there at all times, hence is getting little rest and certainly no entertainment.”

Alamar grinned. “And just how would you propose that he be entertained, Daughter?”

Alamar did not quite duck in time to evade the thrown pillow.

And down at the docks where the Elvenship lay, holes were being drilled with a silver auger and wooden pegs fitted, for no iron nails graced the hull of the Elvenship.

Two days later the repair of the vessel was complete, and the winches holding the ropes heeling her over on her larboard side were loosened and allowed to slowly slip opposite, the windlasses acting as brakes as the
Eroean
gradually uprighted. Ballast was reloaded onto the ship, and the hold was restocked with fresh supplies, Quartermaster Roku overseeing the lading of the goods he had purchased throughout the previous days from many a happy merchant. Finally, the ship was towed away from the dock and anchored in safe harborage, for it would not do to have the ship pounded against the quay in the forecasted storm.

And Aravan came to the Blue Mermaid and collapsed into bed and slept for two more days.

On the evening of the twelfth day of Yule—New Year’s Day—a gentle snow began falling. That same evening, a grand celebration was held in the common room of the Blue Mermaid. It was attended by all of the Elvenship crew and a Mage and Lady Mage and a red fox, as well as by a shadow lurking in the darkness at the top of the stairs. There was singing and dancing, and Lobbie played his squeeze box and Rolly his pipe and Burden banged on his drum, and as they had during the spree, all the Men and the Dwarves stomped in time and clapped their hands while Captain Aravan and Lady Aylis danced their wild, wild fling, stepping and prancing and whirling about and laughing into each other’s eyes. The Châkka chanted marching songs, the words in a brusque language strong. Then Mage Alamar made the air sparkle with untouchable glitter of all different colors, and caused a strange musical piping amid the sounds of wind chimes. And then Captain Aravan played a harp and voiced stirring sagas, odes to make your heart pound
and your blood run hot. And Aylis sang in a high, sweet voice and not an eye was dry when she finished. And while Dwarves or Men stood guard at the bottom of the steps, allowing no townsman to go up, many a member of the crew went and sat in the darkness at the top of the stairs, where it seemed they talked to themselves, laughing and joking with the empty air and sharing sweetmeats with the shadows.

And when the celebration came to an end, it was in the wee hours of the morning. Outside the gentle snow had become a storm. It was the second of January, and the twelve days of Yule were ended.

The howling wind hammered throughout the night and was yet squalling about the eaves of the Blue Mermaid when the morning came. Aravan and Aylis snuggled down in the warmth of their bed, the Elf clasping the Lady Mage unto him. Wan light seeped inward through the window and snow pelted ‘gainst the rippled panes, and sometime after mid morn Aravan raised up on one elbow, his sapphirine gaze searching Aylis’s features.

“What?” she asked, wondering at his intense scrutiny.

He grinned. “I am counting the faint freckles sprinkled across thy nose and onto thy cheeks.”

“Eleven,” said Aylis.

“Eleven?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, my lovely
chier
, I seem to see fifteen.”

Aylis’s eyes flew wide. “You do? Where?” She scrambled from the bed and found her silver mirror, nipping back under the covers in the cold. Aylis held up the polished silver and peered within, searching.

Aravan’s grin widened. “And now I have proven that thou art not the only one of us who can cast a mirror spell,
chieran
, for now it is in this silver speculum I see mine own true love.”

Aylis burst out laughing. “You are a trickster, sirrah, a trickster.”

Aravan’s laughter joined hers, and she grabbed him and rolled atop, pinning him down. “Confess, miscreant, or I will have your…your…!” But then she kissed him and kissed him again and laughter turned to love.