Voyage of the Fox Rider (75 page)

“Ha! I was right then about the lightning,” quavered Alamar in a reedy voice, the eld Mage nodding unto himself.

“Lightning?”

“Your dream. The sending. The lightning, Pysk. It was the plumes.”

Farrix now sat in Alamar’s boat, having transferred there mid morn. It was the third full day of sailing westward, and above, the skies were overcast, roiling with dark clouds. And still the wind blew from the west. “What else, Alamar? What else did you glean from my tale?”

“Nothing you don’t already know, Pysk. The sacrifices, well, they give Durlok the unholy he needs for his blasphemous rites. But why he draws the aurora into the crystal…eh, I don’t know. —Say, did you overhear the he used when he drew down the ? That might help.”

Farrix shook his head. “Kry—krsp—loper— Oh, if I heard it, I would probably recognize it. But it was in a tongue strange to me. Not Slûk. I heard enough of that
foul speech to know how it sounds. Instead it was—it was—”

“Probably the Black Mage tongue,” interjected Alamar, running a palsied hand through the thin white wisps of his remaining hair.

In that moment it began to rain, the chill downpour drenching all. After they had pulled the silks of the spare sail over them, Alamar said above the drumming of the drops, “Tell this tale to Aylis. She’s a seer, and seers are used to ferreting out things hidden, things mysterious. Go tell Aylis.”

Alamar began coughing.

The remainder of that day and part of the next the rain poured down unremittingly. But at last it turned to a drizzle and finally stopped altogether, though a chill westerly yet blew. Throughout that night Alamar’s coughing worsened, and by the next day he was racked with fever. After brewing a hot herbal tea over the flame of a small oil lamp, Burak directed Alamar to inhale the pungent fumes as he drank it. Alamar took one smell—“Gack!”—and tried to push the cup away. But Burak snarled, “If you would live to see Fager aboard the
Eroean
and receive proper treatment, then by Elwydd, Mage Alamar, you
will
drink this tea!” And he forced the drink upon Alamar, the elder too feeble to resist, though not too feeble to execrate the Dwarf and all of his Kind.

When came the fifth dawn of travel, the wind died altogether, and Farrix transferred to Aylis’s boat and told the seeress his tale as the Dwarven warriors rowed. Yet during the telling she seemed to be but half listening, her mind instead on the sick oldster cursing in the boat behind. Even so, at the end of his tale, Aylis murmured, “It is probably when you were caged and thinking of Jinnarin that the seeds of the sending were formed. And when Durlok cast you into a deep sleep within a sleep—a trap, we know—it was a casting with an unintended side effect, for your dream reached across the world.”

Farrix protested. “But my dream was of a crystal castle, a lightning-stroked ship, a pale green sea, a spider and a web. All in all, not very accurate, if you ask me.”

Aylis smiled, her eyes lost in thought. “My father often told us that dream images are not what they seem. Yet, your images served well enough, for did we not find you?”

Farrix laughed. “Yes indeed,
that
you did. But it was through your cleverness and skills, and not any effort on my part.”

Aylis sat without speaking for a moment as the oars plashed in the water. But then she asked, “Did you overhear the Durlok used to summon the to the crystal?”

“Your father asked me the same thing, Aylis, and I couldn’t tell him either. Strange it was, and at times it seemed harsh and at other times sibilant, and if I heard it again, I could say yea or nay.”

Aylis took Durlok’s lexicon from her pocket. “Farrix, I have here a listing of Black Mage words, and when we reach the
Eroean
and start for Rwn, I will read to you from it, and when you hear the word, then we will perhaps have a clue to Durlok’s aims.”

The following day, it rained again and a gusty wind blew strongly and shifted about without warning, and Farrix and Jinnarin sat in their craft and watched and listened as Jamie cursed and fought for control of the flat-bottomed boat skittering across the choppy waves, and the Pysks learned several new words of interest.

When came the seventh dawning the skies cleared and wind again blew from the west, and Farrix transferred to Aravan’s boat and told the Elven captain his tale as the dinghies tacked across the pale green sea. At the end of Farrix’s story, Aravan was just as puzzled as all the rest, though he did clarify a point:

“Even though Trolls rowed Durlok’s ship, it is not strange for them to fear the ocean. The bones of Trolls are as hard and as dense as iron, some say even denser. They cannot swim a stroke, plummeting to the bottom like rocks cast into a pool. And
that
, Farrix, is why they fear the sea, for should the black galley founder, then they would be lost, drowned.

“Yet heed, although they might fear the sea, they are even more afraid of the Black Mage, and with good reason,
as thou thyself hast seen. He is more powerful than they, and that is a great power indeed, for it is as Bokar says, Trolls are a fearsome foe, and twenty-eight Trolls have power beyond measure.

“But as to the rest of thy tale, Farrix, I have no mark of what Durlok has in mind. Yet of this we can be certain: it is evil beyond measure.”

Farrix sighed and nodded. “Perhaps the Mages of Rwn will know.”

In that moment a voice called out, “Ship ho! Ship ho on the starboard bow!”

Farrix looked, and a magnificent tall ship bore down toward them, silken cerulean sails flying in the breeze, dark blue hull heeling over, silver bottom glimmering through the waves.

It was the
Eroean
.

They had come to the Elvenship at last.

Pursuit

Late Spring, 1E9575

[The Present]

I
tell you, Father, we must get to Rwn!”

“And I tell you, Daughter, we’ve got to stop Durlok. He blatantly spoke of a wedding gift, taunting us all, believing that we are powerless to stop him.”

“Wedding gift?” Jatu raised his eyebrows and he leaned forward on his fists. “What is this wedding gift?”

Alamar glanced across the map table at the big black Man. “I think he hints at an alignment…and one is coming soon, and whatever he’s got planned is certain to be deadly.”

Aravan nodded his agreement, but Jatu asked. “Alignment?”

Alamar groaned with exasperated impatience. Aravan looked briefly at the elder then said to Jatu, “It’s when the wandering stars are all in the sky at once. The closer they are to one another, the stronger the alignment. Once in a great while, they all seem to gather at virtually the same place, and this is called a grand alignment. If the Moon is in the heavens and clustered with them, it is even more portentous. Periodically one or more of the wanderers march across the daytime skies, when they cannot be seen, and many people know not they are there, but—”

“Eh!” snorted Alamar. “Any stargazer worth his salt knows exactly where they are, whether or not they are visible.”

Aravan inclined his head in agreement, then said, “There are times, Jatu, when the Sun, the Moon, and the five wanderers are all present in the day, though the eye sees only the Sun.”

“Kruk!” spat Bokar, glancing at the others in the captain’s lounge. “What does this have to do with a wedding, Captain?”

“A so-called wedding alignment is when the Moon and Sun kiss one another while all five wanderers watch—that means all are in the day sky at the same time, though not necessarily clustered tightly together, not a grand alignment.”

“Kissing one another?” blurted Jinnarin, sitting next to Farrix on the tabletop. “What does that mean?”

“Just what he said, Pysk!” snapped Alamar. “The Sun and Moon are touching.”

“Oh,” said Jinnarin, “like the occultation we saw at Rwn on the day of Year’s Long Night.”

Farrix looked at Jinnarin in startlement, silently mouthing the word,
Occultation?

“When the Moon eats the Sun,” she whispered to him.

“It doesn’t have to be a full occultation, Pysk,” muttered Alamar, running an age-spotted hand through his wisps of hair. “The only thing that matters is that they touch.”

“When will this so-called wedding occur?” asked Frizian.

Alamar slapped a hand down on the table. “That’s just the problem! There’s a wedding due each month for the next several. The first one comes…” Alamar pursed his lips in thought—

“June fourteenth,” said Aravan quietly.

“Yes,” agreed Alamar, an eyebrow cocked at the Elf, adding, “and then they occur about once a month until…”

“The last wedding this year,” interjected Aravan, “occurs November ninth, and that one just barely, for even as the Moon kisses the Sun, one wanderer is just setting as another is rising. The following month there is no—”

“Do you always have to interrupt, Elf?” snapped Alamar.

Farrix looked at Alamar. “I seem to recall that Durlok said it was a grand wedding gift. It occurs to me that
the words ‘grand wedding’ might make a difference, neh?”

Alamar’s face lighted up. “Heh! Out of the mouths of babes— Of course they make a difference, Pysk. A grand wedding is when the kiss comes near midday, preferably at noon, though a bit to either side is perfectly good. And that will occur in”—Alamar threw up a hand to stop Aravan from saying anything—“in…hmm…in…”—he glared at Aravan and snapped. “Well aren’t you going to help?”