Liavek 1 (5 page)

"I'd like to," Noen told her, "if I had the money."

Serkosh nodded. "And if your mission is successful, you will. I've promised to pay twenty thousand levars to the captain who returns the green rabbit to me."

Noen said nothing. It was a fortune, a prize so great it stunned the imagination.

"You're aware, I'm sure, that there was once a city called S'Rian on the hill overlooking our bay."

Noen nodded.

"Occasionally—very occasionally—something is discovered there. I do not say something of value, because they're very seldom of value; but something of interest to collectors and antiquarians. Perhaps once a year. Perhaps less. Do you understand?"

Noen nodded again.

"Such things are invariably brought to me. My reputation for honesty is second to none, and I pay the highest prices—often a good deal more than the item is worth."

Noen said, "I'm certain you do," trying his best to keep any note of sarcasm from his voice.

"Such a find was made last winter by men digging a well. It was—it is—a crouching rabbit carved in jade." Serkosh used her hands to indicate the length of the rabbit, then its height. "About half the size of a living rabbit. The size of a very young rabbit, if you wish to think of it so."

"I understand."

"We often have to hold such things for years. In this case several noble collectors were interested, but we had not come to an agreement about terms." Her face hardened. "Three days ago, the rabbit was stolen from my vault."

Noen asked, "Someone broke in?"

Serkosh shook her head. "It seems the thief was an employee. My assistants are allowed to enter the vault. My apprentices are permitted to enter when accompanied by an assistant. Nothing else was taken. That suggests, to me at least, that the thief supposed that the absence of the rabbit would not be noticed, as the absence of a diamond—"

Tinthe cleared his throat.

Serkosh glanced at him, then back to Noen. "Your admiral and I differ in our interpretation of the crime, though we are both determined that the thieves be brought to justice. He will give you his own view, I feel sure."

Noen said, "A jade rabbit the size of a rat isn't worth twenty thousand levars."

Serkosh shook her head. "Of course not. But the security of the Crystal Gull is worth much, much more. If we are robbed successfully just once, there will be a hundred more thieves eager to try. But if you, Captain, can intercept the ship carrying the rabbit, it will be seen that the thieves were
not
successful."

A massive brass telescope stood on the admiral's work table. He picked it up, sliding its jointed sections in and out. "There's something more, I'm afraid, Noen."

Serkosh exclaimed, "That absurd story!"

Tinthe closed the telescope with an audible click. "Absurdity doesn't matter if people believe it. And they do—maybe I do myself. Know what a magic artifact is, Noen? A magician puts his luck into something. The thing's magic then, and it doesn't matter if the magician lives or dies."

"And this rabbit—" Noen began.

Serkosh cut him off. "Nonsense! I had it tested by a competent professional. He conjured it, instructed it, burned incense, sacrificed, did everything! It's no more magical than your shoe."

Tinthe smiled and opened his telescope again. "But there's a rumor it is."

Noen asked, "What is its function supposed to be, sir?"

"Nobody knows. Or anyway, nobody agrees. Brings you women. Brings women children. It's a rabbit after all. Should be something like that, eh? But there are S'Rians living in the city. You probably know that. And they say it's magic. Serkosh's magician said he found nothing. Suppose he did, returned it, stole it himself by magic?"

"I see, sir."

"Or suppose it brings women. Would he tell? Or would he think it his own doing? Suppose it's wealth. He got a good big fee. And you'll get twenty thousand if you bring it back here, Noen. That's wealth, wouldn't you say?"

"Do you know it left the city on a ship, sir?"

Tinthe nodded. "We thought it might. That's why I had every ship here make ready. Report reached the Guard tonight. There's a lip in Old Town. Always is.
Zhironni
, big carrack, sailed yesterday. Probably making for Ka Zhir, though we can't be sure." Tinthe leaned forward. "Noen, maybe the rabbit's a magic artifact. If it is, and the Zhir get it..."

"I understand, sir."

"Wish I had a magician to send with you. I don't. We've got them looking for the rabbit, but no one available to go to sea." The old admiral hesitated. "Serkosh's professional may be on board—the Guard can't find him. All this is under seal, Noen. Very much so."

•

Day had dawned with a weak breeze that soon died, leaving
Windsong
's triangular sails flapping against their masts. Noen had ordered them furled and put the oars out. A few moments ago Oeuni had cast the log, and now her face was grim. "A scant two knots, Captain."

"They'll get better," Noen told her.

"They'd better, sir."

Though the air was dead calm, there was a nasty chop; the galleass, long-bodied, narrow-waisted, and shallow-keeled, rolled in it like a belaying pin. The new hands were sick at their oars. Dinnile had four sailors filling buckets and swinging swabs, and
Windsong
left a trail of filth behind her that would have done credit to a garbage scow.

Noen squinted at the horizon, then at the sun. "Oeuni, how much do you know about magic?"

"Not enough to make sailors of Dinnile's recruits."

"We'll do that. How long would you say it would take a good magician to raise a wind?"

"You're serious, aren't you, sir? I have no idea. I suppose it would depend on the size of the wind he wanted—longer for a storm to wreck a ship than for a zephyr to cool a garden."

Noen nodded to himself. The wind had been gentle yesterday when the
Zhironni
sailed—a big ship wouldn't have gone far on those light airs; and now
Zhironni
was probably as becalmed as they were. Worse in fact, because they were at least making two knots. A carrack would be drifting with the current. Perhaps
Zhironni
had no magician after all.

"Look at that! You served on one once, didn't you, Captain?" Oeuni was pointing aft. Barely visible, the triple-banked oars of a trireme rose and fell like the wings of some enchanted bird.

"Yes," Noen said. "They must have got under way a good deal later than we did." That was a little consolation at least. He turned away to look at his own ship once more. Like most galleasses,
Windsong
had only a single oar bank; but five rowers pulled each of her enormous oars. Four rowers, or three, Noen reminded himself, when the crew was understrength.

With his telescope trained on the trireme, he tried to guess how many of its oar ports were empty. How beautiful she was! They had put up the mast, and it pointed to the heavens like a single white arrow.

But why? A trireme under oar normally shipped its mast, laying it flat in two cradles on the narrow storming deck that ran all the way from the quarterdeck to the gun deck on the forecastle. And why did it look so white? Could the captain of the trireme, still far behind him, see something he could not?

He turned to Oeuni. "You're supposed to be keeping a weather eye out, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir." Her face puzzled, she scanned the horizon. "Try northward," he advised her.

She squinted, shading her eyes with one hand.

"We're in for a blow, Lieutenant. A carrack's wind."

And a soldier's, as it proved, a wind that blew from dead astern and sent
Windsong
flying under reefed sails. pitching as if to shatter her flimsy hull each time her great bronze ram smashed into a wave.

"Pass the lard bucket, Lieutenant Dinnile! The new hands will need it."

"Tev Noen," Oeuni asked at his ear, "what are we after?" Surprised, he stared at her.

"I know, the
Zhironni
, and the rest is secret instructions. But what if you're killed? I'll be in command, and I won't know what our objective is." Her hand touched his, as if to remind him of how desirable she was.

He knew what she was offering him, and knew he must refuse. The price of love bought with secrets would be his self-respect. He said, "I'll try to tell you before I die, Lieutenant," and she turned away.

Another watch, and stinging hail pelted the ship. Noen pulled the hood of his sea-cloak over his head, wondering if he should have his steward bring his helmet. They would be fighting soon anyway; he could feel it. Armor might save an officer's life, but it endangered it as well. Many a captain, many a lieutenant, had gone to the bottom weighted with armor. Noen found that he was thinking of Oeuni drowned, helmetless, the green sea-light shining on her shaven head, arms and long legs tossed in death's parody of swimming. Oeuni whom he would never possess, drawn down to the dark by her cuirass. Ler Oeuni lost.

The lookout in the maintop shouted something that was blown away by the gale. Noen went to the quarterdeck railing. "Lookout! I can't hear you!"

"Sail! Point to starboard!"

"Point to starboard," Noen told the woman at the wheel, and vaulted the railing. Dinnile was still supervising the distribution of lard, seeing that each rower who needed it used it and that none took too much. Hands with infected blisters could not row; heavily greased fingers could not hold an oar, if rowing should be necessary again.

"Can they fight, Dinnile?" Noen asked as softly as the wind allowed. "Will they?"

Dinnile shrugged. "I dunno, sir."

One of the nomads appeared at Noen's shoulder, still rubbing his palms together. "Yes, we fight. Give us swords."

Dinnile roared, "Stand to attention there!"

The nomad had better sea legs than most of them, and he stood as he must have seen the sailors stand, his brown rags flapping about him.

It was the first time, Noen realized, that he had looked at one of the new hands as an individual. Like all of them, this one was small and wiry—dark, though not so dark as a true Tichenese. Every line of his skull showed in his face, and Noen might have thought a candle lit there from the fire that burned in the bony sockets of those yellow eyes.

"Sir, we will fight. With our knives if we must. With our hands."

"I think you will. Dinnile, break out the arms. Everything we've got." Noen turned back to the nomad. "What's your name?"

"Sir, Myllikesh."

Oeuni was on the gun deck, checking Windsong's main battery. When Noen put his telescope to his eye, she told him,

"
Zhironni
."

"Thank you," Noen said, his voice expressionless. He forced himself to add, "Lieutenant."

"You must have seen her at the docks. Fifty guns at least."

"Mostly rail pieces." On the pitching gun deck, it was hard to keep his telescope trained on
Zhironni,
but Noen glimpsed figures on her quarterdeck with their own lenses trained on him.

"And what have we got, aside from Poltergeist here?" Oeuni patted the big culverin affectionately on the muzzle. "Four basilisks and a couple of sakers. If those aren't rail pieces, what are they?"

"And the ram," Noen told her, shutting his telescope.

"Ram that? It will damage us more than it will them."

To himself, Noen admitted she was probably right. Aloud he said, "Have the crew stand to quarters, Lieutenant."

She shouted the order to the timesman aft. "Are we going to attack her straight out, sir? Shouldn't we give them a warning shot—"

A smudge of black appeared at the carrack's taffrail, instantly whisked away by the howling wind. The boom of the gun—a long basilisk much like the two on his own quarterdeck, Noen thought—was nearly lost.

"Waste your powder," Oeuni told the Zhir. "You couldn't hit Kil Island at this range."

Noen wondered.
Zhironni
was a far more stable gun platform than
Windsong
.

Aft. the timesman had begun the long, fast roll that called every sailor and officer to fighting stations. The gun crews boiled out of the forecastle below the gun deck, some carrying baskets of the premeasured charges Oeuni liked, others shot and slow match. Just one of Poltergeist's big iron balls was a load for any sailor—in so rough a sea, almost too much of a load.

The tompions were jerked from the muzzles of Poltergeist and the two swivel-mounted basilisks, powder and shot rammed home. (Privately Noen regretted the loss of the old system, in which the powder was poured down the gun bores from a scoop; then at least a captain could note its condition.)

The gun captains had kindled their slow matches at the galley firebox; they spun their glowing tips to keep them alight in the wind-blown spray.

Zhironni
's stern chaser spoke again, a bit more loudly this time. An instant later the port forestay parted with a snap. The bosun and his mate hurried forward to repair it.

''They're rigging boarding nets, sir," Oeuni reported.

"So I see," Noen told her. "We won't be going over the side anyway. Bosun! You've seen a xebec?"

Surprised, the bosun turned, touching his forehead. "Aye, sir."

"You know how they slope the foremast forward to give the foresail more room? I want
Windsong
's foremast to look like that. Tighten those forestays and slack off the backstays until the masthead's raked as far forward as our ram. And I want ratlines from the deck to the masthead."

Dinnile was at the aft gundeck railing, touching his forehead. "Oars, sir?"

"No. Just have them ready to board—old hands first." It was not necessary to tell Dinnile to lead them. He would anyway-probably would, Noen reflected, even if he were ordered not to. "Oeuni, see how that gallery overhangs at her stern? I'm going to bring us in under it. Disable the rudder as we're coming in."

As Noen spoke, one of the many-paned windows of the carrack's stern cabin swung wide. The black muzzle of a gun emerged from it like the head of a snake as the other window opened.

"You can fire when ready."