“Which were?” Hadon said.

  “I must leave for Opar as soon as possible. And you must accompany me there. Only thus will our unborn child achieve long life and greatness.”

  15

  At one hour to midnight, the party left the Inn of the Red Parrot. The sky , was clouded; the only lights were a few distant torches carried by the night patrols. All were cloaked and hooded and carried weapons and bags of provisions— all except Abeth, who rode sleeping on Hinokly’s back. Their guide was a priestess, muffled in a black cloak.

  By dawn they were in the mountains northwest of the town. They continued up, reaching the narrow precipitous pass at noon. This led them down into a little valley and up another steep and even higher mountain.

  Near dusk of the next day, they climbed onto a plateau. By the setting sun they saw the Kemu, the Great Water.

  “We need rest, but we cannot stop,” the priestess said. “Awineth will have an army out looking for you. Doubtless she has sent troops through the pass at Notamimkhu. They’ll be searching along the shores east and west of the pass. The port at Notamimkhu is blockaded, but that doesn’t stop us from using small ships elsewhere.”

  She led them to the edge of the plateau and gestured at something below. About four hundred feet down, at the foot of the cliff, the sea rose and fell sullenly in the moonlit darkness. Something gleamed whitely in it, a ship riding at anchor about a quarter mile out.

  The priestess blew on a bone whistle shaped like a parrot-headed fish. From a cave nearby came six men carrying ropes, blocks and heavy wooden tripods. They set up the equipment, and in a short time Hadon was being lowered in a sling at the end of a rope.

  A ledge jutted from the cliff several feet above the surface of the sea. Hadon landed on this, got out of the sling, yanked twice on the rope and watched the sling climb back up. Within fifteen minutes all of the party, including the priestess, were on the ledge. She lit a storm-lantern and waved it back and forth. Presently the dim bulk of a rowboat could be distinguished putting out from the white sailship.

  Hadon, Abeth, Lalila, Paga, Hinokly and Kebiwabes were on the ship in two trips. They were hustled belowdecks at once, and the anchor was pulled up. The ship began moving out toward the sea, slowly at first, then heeling suddenly under a breeze.

  Morning found them crowded and cramped together, with the ship rolling more than at first. The hatch was opened and daylight flooded in. At the top of the ladder was a young fellow, freckled, blue-eyed, red-haired. He wore a vest of brown sea otter, a rosary of wooden beads, each carved with the face of Piqabes, goddess of the sea, and a codpiece formed from the head of a fish-eagle. His chest bore the blue outline of the deep-sea gruntfish.

  “Captain Ruseth at your service!” he said merrily. “Come on out! Breakfast, such as it is, will be served soon!”

  Ruseth did not look old enough to be a captain, though Hadon reminded himself that the title was not necessarily a grand one. A commander of a two-man ship would be the captain. His mission was an important one, however, even if he was young, so he had to be very competent. Suguqateth would not have trusted him otherwise.

  They came out yawning, scratching, farting and blinking. The sun was up in a cloudless sky. The sea was heavier, coming in great broad rolls. To the south, just visible, were the tops of the mountains along the northwest coast of the island of Khokarsa. There were no other ships in sight. No other living creatures, indeed, except some of the omnipresent datoekem, large white birds with hooked black beaks.

  There was a good breeze, coming from the northwest. The ship was sailing almost straight east. The swinging yardarm was let out to the right by ropes so the wind struck it at an angle, causing the ship to heel over at an angle uncomfortable for the landlubbers. Ruseth and his four sailors seemed at ease.

  One of the seamen brought buckets filled with hard biscuits made from emmer wheat, hard-boiled duck eggs, beef jerky, olives and wine. Hadon took his over the sloping deck to Ruseth, who had taken over the rudder. “I am no sailor,” he said, “but we seem to be moving along more swiftly than any ship I’ve ever seen.”

  “Isn’t she a beauty!” Ruseth cried. “I designed and built her myself. And I invented that triangular sail; I call it the fore-and-aft, as contrasted with the old square sail.”

  “It looks weird, I must admit,” Hadon said. “Just how is it superior to the square sail?”

  “It enables us to sail against the wind!” Ruseth said, grinning proudly.

  “Against?”

  Hadon stepped back from the redhead. “That smacks of—”

  “Magic? Evil magic? Nonsense, my friend! Do you think for one moment that the vicars of great Kho would be my patrons if I were using evil forces? No way!” And he proceeded to explain tacking into the wind with a rotatable yardarm.

  Hadon listened, then said, “Amazing. It seems so simple when you describe it. I wonder why no one ever thought of it before?”

  Ruseth looked angry, then he laughed. “That was probably said to the man who first thought of making fire. Or to the man who first made mead.

  “I conceived this when I was sixteen, living in a little fishing village off the northwest corner of the island. The idea came to me one night in a dream, so I can’t take credit for it. Piqabes herself undoubtedly sent it, though I had been thinking about sails and sailing for a long time. Anyway, I dreamed of the fore-and-aft sail and worked on some small models in my spare time. Not much of that, you know, for a fisherlad. Then I made a small ship of my own—took me a year to do that. And months to learn how to sail the craft.

  “The villagers were interested; they admitted I could sail faster than they could, but they said the old ways were good enough for them. I thought I had a fortune in this, so I went to the capital to get a hearing from the Naval Department. It took me three months to get it—I had to work nights at an inn as a waiter. Daytimes I sat in an outer office cooling my heels until an admiral deigned to see me.

  “I showed him how my invention worked, with models and sketches. I invited him to come for a trial run in my little ship.

  “Here was something revolutionary. It would change the whole history of ships, make sailing much faster and easier. So guess what?”

  “I think I can guess,” Hadon said. “I’ve had some experience with the military mind.”

  “I was thrown out! And told not to come back! That admiral, a heavy-drinking old duck, said I was crazy. In the first place the rig wouldn’t work the way I said it would. And in the second place, its principle was against nature, it was blasphemous.

  “I was angry, scared too, because I didn’t want the admiral siccing the priests of Resu on me. I thought about going home and maybe forgetting the whole thing. Instead I went to the Temple of Piqabes on a little island near the mouth of the Gulf of Gahete. I showed the head priestess there what I had shown the naval bureaucrat. I told her how much more swiftly my ship could carry the temple mail. She liked the idea and, to make a long story short, here I am, sailing a ship built by the Temple of Kho, in the service of Awineth, taking you to a far-off city of the Southern Sea, the Kemuwopar. Think of it! I’ve never even been to the mainland north of here!”

  Hinokly had been standing nearby. He said, “Then this ship can outrun and outsail anything on the seas?”

  “No doubt about it!” Ruseth said. “The Wind-Spirit can show her heels to any craft on the two seas!”

  “And if the wind fails how will she get away from a galley?”

  “She won’t,” Ruseth said. “The only thing to do then is pray to Piqabes to raise a wind.”

  Hadon talked for a long time with the little redhead. Ruseth said they would proceed east along the north coast of the island but stay about ten to fifteen miles out to sea. Most of the patrolling by Minruth’s navy was done very close to shore. Once the island of Khokarsa was behind them, they would sail southeasterly along the coast of the mainland toward the city of Qethruth.

  “Under ordinary conditions, I would head directly southwest toward the pile-city of Rebha,” Ruseth said. “But the ship is overloaded now. We don’t have enough food to last us until Rebha, so we’ll stop off at a village about four hundred miles upcoast from Qethruth. I’ve never been there, of course, but the priestess gave me directions and also a letter of introduction to the priestess at Karkoom. We’ll reprovision and then cut south for Rebha.”

  Hadon asked what they would do if the village was blockaded. Ruseth laughed and said, “You don’t know much about naval realities, do you, my tall friend? Minruth’s forces are spread thin enough as they are. He doesn’t have ships to blockade every little village along the coast or even on Khokarsa itself. I doubt that he even has a bireme at Qethruth.”

  “What about Rebha?”

  “You were on Awineth’s staff,” Ruseth said. “What did you hear about Rebha?”

  “Nothing,” Hadon said. “No courier ships arrived from Rebha. It’s a long way, and ships are always disappearing.”

  “Yes,” Ruseth said. “I would guess that the navy does have some big ships stationed at Rebha. It’s a very important reprovisioning and refitting port, if it can be called a port. It also controls the southern part of the Kemu and, in a sense, the Strait of Keth.”

  Days and nights passed without incident. The weather was generally good, though there were rains and an occasional squall. They saw ships now and then, but always at a distance. Most of them seemed to be merchant galleys or fishing ships hauling their dried cargo from the waters off the mainland to the islands.

  “There are rumors that piracy is flourishing again in these parts,” Ruseth said. “It’s only to be expected, of course. Minruth’s navy is too occupied with the war to go chasing pirates. We don’t need to worry. No pirate could catch us.”

  “Unless there’s a calm,” Hinokly said.

  Ruseth laughed, but he did look worried afterward.

  Conditions were crowded. The cabin became too hot and odorous when they all slept in it. Whenever the weather and the seas permitted, Hadon, the scribe and the bard slept on deck. After a week, Hadon became impatient and irritable. It was impossible to lie with Lalila because of the lack of privacy; they were not Gokako, the apish slaves of Opar who coupled publicly and often en masse. Besides, there was not much to do on board a small vessel. Hadon did dissipate some of the boredom by learning all he could about sailing. Before a week was up, he was relieving the sailors in their duties.

  Hadon took the rudder every day for two hours. He was nervous at first and made some bad mistakes in tacking or beating. Ruseth was at hand to take over if anything went wrong, and nothing disastrous happened.

  “You’re a good fair-weather sailor now,” Ruseth said. “We’ll find out what you are when we get a bad storm, though I pray Piqabes spares us that.”

  Hadon insisted that the others also learn as much as possible about the ship. For one thing, it kept them from being bored. For another, it ensured that they would not be handicapped or helpless if anything should happen to the sailors. “Also,” Hadon said, “in the future we might have to handle a ship like this by ourselves. We might even have to steal a ship and take it into the deep seas.”

  Because of this, Hadon also had Ruseth teach him all he could about navigation.

  “The sun by day and the stars at night,” Ruseth said. “Unfortunately, the Kemu is often clouded and there is much rain, though I’ve been told that the climate is drier and hotter than it used to be. Either way, you can’t depend very often on the stars to guide you. But the lodestone compass is fairly dependable. My grandfather says that it’s not so dependable in the Kemuwopar, the Sea of Opar. He claims there are too many mountains with too much iron ore along the shores.”

  “I doubt that,” Hinokly said. And the two were off into another argument.

  To make the time pass more pleasantly, Kebiwabes sang. While plucking on his tortoiseshell lyre, he recited love songs, sea chanties, ballads, mourning songs, prayers and the epics: The Song of Gahete, The Song of Rimasweth, The Song of Kethna. He also tried out on them passages and sections from his work in progress: The Song of the Wanderings of Hadon of Opar.

  The subject of this enjoyed hearing his adventures recast into poetry. Much of it was exaggerated or distorted or sometimes it was even a downright lie. But he did not object. Poetry was about the spirit, not the surface, of reality. Nor did he mind at all hearing himself described in glowing terms as a hero. Modesty was not a virtue in Khokarsa.

  After two weeks, they began seeing more ships. Most were fishing vessels from the coastal towns and villages, but the number of merchant galleys rose in proportion. Though the rebellion had cut down maritime trade considerably, there were still many men who would brave pirates and blockaders to make a profit.

  Karkoom was a village of about five hundred in population, a cluster of huts and longhouses on stilts behind a stockade. It was at the end of a rather narrow harbor formed by two rocky peninsulas. Ruseth took the ship in cautiously, ready to run if any naval vessels were at anchor there. There was just enough room in the passage for him to wheel tightly about, though not much space for tacking or beating against the wind.

  They breathed relief when they saw that the four large vessels were merchantmen. Two were from Qethruth, one from Miklemres, one from Siwudawa.

  Ruseth took the ship in and tied up at a dock. Leaving two of the crew to guard the ship, Ruseth and the rest visited the local Temple of Kho. They were well received after Ruseth had handed in his letter of introduction. The head priestess, She, gave orders that the vessel be provisioned. She then held a small private feast for them where she heard the news from Khokarsa and passed on the news and rumors she had received in the last few months.

  For the first time in a long time, Hadon and Lalila slept together—and on a bed that did not rise and fall, roll and yaw. The next day they left at noon, after, of course, a ritual blessing by the priestess.

  Several priests from the Temple of Resu were also there; they seemed friendly enough. The villagers, like the citizens of Qethruth, had declared neutrality, but Hadon did not trust them. For all he knew, the priests could have sent a ship out with the news that the refugees were here. On the other hand, to whom would they take the information?

  By the time the news got to Khokarsa, it would be too late for Minruth to do anything about it. There might be a naval vessel stationed somewhere near the coast, but that wouldn’t make any difference. No ship was going to catch up with the Wind-Spirit.

  It was possible, however, that a message would be sent to Rebha. The priests could guess, or could find out through espionage, that Hadon was taking Lalila there.

  If this was so, there was nothing he could do about it. He shrugged. He would consider the possibility when they got to their destination.

  16

  Rebha rose slowly out of the southern horizon. Ruseth was delighted because . he’d had to spend only two days circling the area before he found the city. During this time they passed many ships, which meant that Rebha had to be in the neighborhood. Ruseth hailed a number of them, but they were in the same situation. Some of them, convinced that the captain of this strange-looking vessel might be a magician who would know the way, had attempted to follow them. But large heavy ships depending on oars could not even keep the Wind-Spirit in sight. “Many ships must miss Rebha,” Hadon said to Ruseth.

  “No,” the redhead said. “Their captains have been on this route so often that they have developed an extra sense. They feel something tingle when they are in the area; they know almost to the minute when it’s time to slow down and start casting about. Besides, a captain who keeps a close watch on his knottage and his compass, on the sun and the stars when they’re visible, isn’t going to be off course much.”

  An hour later, he shouted. The others came running to the tiller, which he was still handling. “See that smoke to the northwest?” he asked. “That’s from the top of the tower in the center of the pile. Unless, of course,” he added, “it’s a ship on fire.”

  It was not. Late the next day they saw the upper part of the structure, called the Tower of Diheteth. This was of cedar and had been built a hundred years ago by the admiral who was its regent. Its top, five hundred feet high, was floored with stone. A large fire was kept burning there so that ships could observe its smoke or light. On a clear day the top of the smoke cloud could be seen from over a hundred and twenty miles away, provided the wind was not so strong it dissipated the smoke too quickly. On a clear night, the fire on top of the tower was visible for over twenty-six miles.

  The traffic at this point was increasing: uniremes, biremes, triremes and sailing craft were on every side, though separated by hundreds of yards. Hadon was amazed at their number. Rebha had to be large to handle all these craft.

  Indeed it was large, Ruseth assured him. It stood on top of a submerged island into which thousands of wooden and stone piles had been driven or built. The sea-bottom was twenty-five to fifty feet below the surface of the island, and the city rose on piles thirty to fifty feet above the island—not counting the signal tower. The piles had been sunk into the ooze overlaying the limestone surface of the broad plateau. The city was roughly circular with a diameter of two miles. The estimated population, permanent and transient, was about forty thousand.

  Hadon was eager to see this fabled city on stilts. He had heard much about it on the voyage from Opar to the Great Games, but the galley taking him had bypassed it, going directly from the Strait of Kethna to the island of Khokarsa.