Voyage of the Fox Rider (81 page)

Another hour passed, and the overcast began to break as they ran out from under, and a star glimmered here and there, and now Aravan could see the waters far ahead.

“To bed, Farrix,” the Elf told the weary Pysk.

“But Aravan,” Farrix protested, “you have not rested either.”

“Nevertheless, Farrix, thou take to thy bed. I will remain here. Eyes are needed to pilot the ship, eyes that can see by starlight.”

In that moment Aylis stepped into the wheelhouse. “I
can see by starlight. I will stand watch while you
both
take to your beds.”

As Aravan looked at her, Jatu rumbled, “Lady Aylis is right, Captain. She and I will command the
Eroean
while both of you get some sleep.”

Aravan kissed his lady’s hand then turned to Jatu. “Sail due north. We make for Inigo Bay. There we will lay up and harvest the tall timbers for repairs.”

When Farrix came to the door of the under-bunk quarters, Jinnarin called to Tivir, who bore to the Pysks a tin lid on which was bread and honey and tiny pot of hot tea. “They say as y’ saved th’ ship from th’ ice,” declared the cabin boy, bobbing his head to Farrix, “’n’ saved us all from th’
Griay Laidy
, too. For both y’ ‘ave me ’n’ me mates’ sincerest thanks.”

“Oh, Tivir, it was Jinnarin’s idea and Alamar’s magic that let me see the ice. And as to the
Grey Lady
, well, it is not certain that she was out there at all. —But if she was, well, they were sailing dead against the wind while we ran the other way. And so, if any ought to receive your thanks, then ‘tis Jinnarin and Alamar and the crew entire, for all worked to keep the ship afloat, when surely any other ship in like circumstance would have gone down.”

A great smile flashed over Tivir’s face and again he bobbed his head then turned and sped away.

Carrying the largess, Jinnarin stepped into their quarters, Farrix behind. As she set down the tray, she said, “Oh, Farrix, if it
was
the
Grey Lady
then I’m glad you didn’t hear the captain call out the lost passenger’s name. I do
not
wish to chase after you again, this time with you sailing through endless nights aboard a ghost ship. I especially wouldn’t wish to hunt for you in these deadly seas.”

Farrix smiled at her. “But you would come seeking…wouldn’t you?”

She smiled back at him, then inspected her fingernails and nonchalantly said, “Perhaps.”

“Oh, you,” growled Farrix, taking her up and swinging her about.

As he set her down she kissed him then said, “Can’t you get back your own eyes? I miss them.”

Farrix closed his eyes and concentrated as Alamar had
told him to do. When he opened them again, the utter black was gone, replaced by ice-blue. Gone, too, for Farrix was a wondrous world of light and fire, replaced by one dull and drab.

Eight days later on the thirtieth of June, they limped into Inigo Bay. And deep in the bight they came to a narrow cove, shadowed by tall evergreens high on the snowy slopes above. It was mid of day when they anchored, the low-hanging Sun hidden behind the northern hills—they had run out from the polar night some seven days past, the Sun rising in the north-northeast to cut a shallow arc low across the northern skies and set in the north-northwest, each day but a few hours long. And in this twilight ’scape, Aravan sailed the Elvenship into the firth and dropped anchor.

As Jatu and Finch and a crew of Men and Dwarves haled a great timber out from the main hold, Aravan and another crew gathered cutting tools and debarked for the hillsides. Farrix and Jinnarin and Rux accompanied the landing party, as well as Aylis and Alamar, the eld Mage insisting over the objections of his daughter that he needed to “get off this wet pitching rollabout and onto dry, stable land.”

They landed along the eastern rocky shore of the tree-laden narrows.

Jinnarin set Rux free to hunt, the fox barking and bounding with joy to be on land as up through the trees he ran, lunging across the deep snow. Alamar watched as Rux disappeared among the Inigo pines. “Ha! At least someone else shares my need to be aland,” he muttered, then turned and hobbled to a large boulder by the water’s edge, where he sat overlooking the sea.

While a contingent of men set up camp along the shore, Farrix and Jinnarin and Aylis trekked in the trail of the cutting crew wending into the forest above, the Pysks and Lady Mage walking the deep slot through the snow that the Dwarves and Men had left behind.

After taking the measure of several trees, Aravan selected two tall, straight pines, each towering upward some hundred feet. “From these will come a new mizzen,” he said, eyeing the lay of the land. “We will fell them downslope.”

As the sound of axes echoed through the woods, Jinnarin and Farrix followed Aylis through the snow to come to an outjutting stone on the face of a precipice overlooking the bay. In the distance below they could see the
Eroean
, Men and Dwarves swarming about, readying the huge timber they had brought up from below to repair the mainmast.

“Burn me,” exclaimed Farrix, “but like ants they look.”

“Hmm?” distractedly murmured Jinnarin. “Oh yes. Ants.” She sighed.

Farrix took her hand. “What is it, Jinnarin? Why the long face?”

“Oh, I was just looking at Alamar. He seems so alone, so despondent.…So used up.”

Down through the trees alongside the shore near the campsite they could just glimpse the eld Mage through the branches. Water lapped against the boulder he perched on.

Aylis looked long, then said, “Used up, yes. The last spell he cast—the one that gave Farrix magesight—well, it took a lot out of him. Giving magesight to another, it was a remarkable casting, but costly.”

“Costly?” exclaimed Jinnarin. “I thought it was easily done. A natural talent of Magekind.”

Aylis glanced at the Pysks. “Aye, to is indeed a natural gift of Mages, but to cast it onto another, well, I am not at all certain that I could cast it upon someone else, as did my father.”

“Oh?” said Farrix. “Why so?”

“My discipline is that of a seer; his of an elementalist. They are greatly different. I believe I would need long training to be able to do what he did.”

“Well then,” said Jinnarin, “I am certainly glad that an elementalist was along, for surely we would have perished in the Silver Straits had Farrix not been given magesight to guide us.”

Aylis sighed. “Yes. No doubt. Yet it took much from my father. he did not have to spend.”

Now the burr of a crosscut saw echoed among the pines.

The Pysks and seeress stood and watched the crew aboard the ship working on the stub of mainmast jutting up like a broken finger. In the still air, Farrix and Jinnarin
and Aylis could hear them calling to one another above the sound of the saw ringing through the trees. As they gazed down at the
Eroean
, Jinnarin said, “You can no longer sense the whereabouts of Durlok, eh?”

“No,” responded Aylis. “With the destruction of the lexicon, he is lost to me. Where he is, I cannot say.”

“Couldn’t we go back to his lair in the Great Swirl and get something else of his?” suggested Jinnarin. “Track him that way?”

“Yes, we could,” answered Aylis. “Yet heed: when we were there and my father and I saw Durlok’s , it was nearly beyond comprehension. If we are to face him again, we will need powerful allies of our own…hence we need go to Rwn and gather aid from among the Master Mages.”

Once again they fell silent, and far below. Dwarves came up from one of the holds, bringing a forge and bellows, which they proceeded to set up on the deck. They kindled a fire and added charcoal to the blaze. But Aylis’s gaze strayed down to her father sitting at the shore. Blinking back tears, she said, “I think I’ll go back and watch them fell the trees. Will you be all right?”

Farrix and Jinnarin nodded, and without another word, Aylis left. After a long while, Jinnarin reached out and took Farrix’s hand. “Aylis says that Alamar’s fire burns low.”

Now Farrix sighed. “She is right. Alamar’s fire
is
low, at least compared to the fires of everyone else who came to the wheelhouse.”

“You could see the astral fire in people?”

“Yes. And your fire was brightest of all, Aravan’s next, each brighter than that of any Dwarf, Man, Mage, or Lady Mage. Alamar’s was dimmest.”

“Oh my, then he does indeed need to go back to Vadaria.”

Farrix looked down at the distant Mage. “Yes. And soon. Else, as Aylis says, he will die forever.”

Timber!
came the cry from behind, followed by the sound of shattering branches as the forest giant came crashing down among the Inigo pines.

Axes rang through the woods as the log was shorn of branches, then adzes stripped the bark from the length
of the pine. The crosscut saw topped the tree, and the base shaft of the mizzenmast was cut to length. And during the stripping, the second tree was felled, and the shearing of branches begun. Then all turned to stripping the bark from the second tree, after which the middle shaft of the mizzenmast was cut to length. Finally they began sliding the logs down the slope through the snow toward the water below. And in the campsite they took a meal and a hot bracing drink.

During the work the Sun set and a full Moon rose, the silver orb rising in the east-southeast and circling low to the north before setting in the west-southwest.

And as the Sun rose on the following day, crews were rubbing the wood with the special oils prepared by Aravan. When this was done, they floated the sections of logs out to the
Eroean
and made ready to winch them aboard.

Alamar insisted on remaining ashore.

In the following days, working nonstop, the masts were reset: massive iron bands were forged to hold the sections of masts together, and heated by Dwarves till they were glowing yellow-white, they were slipped over the ends of the shafts and hammered up onto the shank, the wood charring and sizzling and lighting afire as the rings were pounded into place. And as the iron cooled and shrank, the sections of mast were tightly bound together as surely as if they had been forged as one. This was repeated, and then once again, as the two broken masts were made anew, each mast consisting of three sections—lower and middle and top—the solid iron bands clutching tightly, holding all together.