Sinbad and The Eye of the Tiger (13 page)

Sinbad and Farah stared in amazement, but Dione hadn’t even bothered to come with them. She was back at the table, retying the scrolls and cleaning up the dinner dishes.

“I make my own gold,” the wise man of Casgar said, affecting a great casualness. “How would you like it?” He peered at Sinbad, then the princess. His bony fingers twitched at a brazen dial, shifting a pointer to another symbol. “Drachmas? Persian sequins? Just plain old-fashioned Phoenician shekels? Talents? Indian gold rupees? Denarii or florins? Ducats, perhaps?” He pulled down the lever again.

Once again the machine went through its amazing performance of clicks, thumps, hisses, and bongs and spit forth a new stream of coins, these of a different shape and weight, but just as bright and shimmeringly new as before.

“No,” the bearded philosopher said proudly. “I don’t need any gold . . . any
new
gold.”

The mist swirled around Zenobia’s ship, dulling the brightness of its metal hull. She turned moodily from the rail, where she had been staring into the grayness, and regarded Rafi’s efforts with ill-concealed bad humor. Over a brazier too small to provide really sufficient heat, he was attempting to weld together the bent and shattered oars. Hours of pounding had brought the twisted shafts into something resembling straightness, and now he was making thick, crude welds over the ripped seams and broken joints. He glanced nervously at his mother, who was pacing the deck.

She caught his look and waved him back to work impatiently. “Hurry,” she said huskily.
“Hurry.”
She turned again to contemplate the dimensionless world of mist as Rafi returned to his hammering.

“Hurry,” she said under her breath.

A
caravan of camels and donkeys came into the area before the huge temples, moving slowly but steadily, the loads heavy but well balanced. Hassan waved at the sailor leading the pack train and directed it to follow him.

All around was a frenzy of chaotic activity. In one place a number of men were constructing boxes for the old Greek’s equipment. Others were packing specimen cages, bundles of scrolls, scales, medical equipment, butterfly nets, ledgers and journals to record everything, as well as sacks of dried figs, salt meat, and other kinds of food that would last for a long time.

Hassan led the sailor through the activity and down the curving path through the cleft to the beach. Sinbad’s ship bobbed at anchor and small boats plied continuously between shore and ship. Men were hauling down fresh-cut timber from the forests behind the cliffs and others were cutting and hewing the wood into sledges, following a design laid out by Sinbad.

The burly Hassan helped the sailor unload his bales of skins and furs. Princess Farah sat nearby, under an awning, a heavy chest of gold at her side. Also under the tenting, out of the hot sun, was the baboon in his cage. More camels and donkeys came down the path and Farah hastened to direct them to take their cargoes to the edge of the water.

Here, Melanthius and Dione checked out each box, carton, crate, and container, marking them off against a master list on a long scroll. Then they were loaded into the boats and rowed out to Sinbad’s ship.

Sinbad raised his head from a crate and caught the eye of Aboo-seer. They looked at the confusion along the beach and shook their heads. The big sailor grinned. “Well, Captain Noah, it looks as though your ark were almost ready.”

Hassan jumped into an outgoing small boat and rode with the crates of delicate scientific machinery out to the ship. There, the boxes and chests were lifted aboard and each lashed in place on one of the sledges, which in turn was fastened securely to the wooden deck. Some of the more delicate and important equipment was taken below, to be made secure in Melanthius’s cabin.

Hassan grabbed a line and swung back into the rowboat. “Back to shore,” he ordered. “We’ll be finished today . . . tomorrow we will sail with the tide!”

It was time. Melanthius waded out to the long boat and climbed in, holding the edges of his robe out of the water. He sat down solemnly and watched the approach to Sinbad’s ship.

“Hoist anchor!” Sinbad cried, even as they were helping the old man aboard and lashing the boat to the stern. Men rushed to obey and at his next command the mainsail was hoisted. The wind filled the bright canvas with a pop, and the great billowing sail snapped out. The ship began to move smoothly through the water.

Zenobia paced the slanting deck nervously, her ringed fingers curled into twisting claws. Rafi was almost finished. He was over the side, fitting the last of the mended metal oars into position, riveting it to the mechanism propelled by the hulking Minaton.

Suddenly Zenobia stopped and raised her hand, hissing out a warning sound. “Stop!” she said. “Listen . . .”

Rafi raised his sweating face from the oar port and cocked his head. Faintly, out of the fog, he heard a voice. It was an old man’s voice, cautioning someone.

Then there was a stronger voice, a voice of command, bellowing out of the gray, fathomless wall of mist. “Raise the main sail!”

Zenobia stepped swiftly to the railing above her son and spoke in a furious whisper. “They are leaving! Hurry! We must follow them!”

Rafi bent again to his work, perched precariously on the lip of the oar port, grunting as he forced the last oar into position.

A single lantern swung in its davits over the cabin table where Sinbad and Melanthius had spread the first of the old scrolls. The bearded captain looked briefly at Farah, sleeping on one bunk under a luxurious fur, and at Dione, resting in the other bunk under a more prosaic, but warm, blanket. The baboon was silent in his cage, moodily picking at his black fur. Lashed and tied all over the cabin were stacks of Melanthius’s more delicate equipment, housed in leather-covered chests, brass-bound boxes, inlaid arks, sturdy coffers, and specially constructed cases.

Sinbad spoke, breaking the silence of several minutes in which the two men had been studying the navigational signs and indications on the scrolls. Sinbad pointed a course with his finger, running through the crude but recognizable outlines of the coasts bordering the western coast of Europe, including the British Isles, which had been conquered by the Romans.

“With a following wind, we should be out of the Middle Sea,” Sinbad said, “past the Pillars of Hercules . . . here . . . then into the Western Ocean.” He paused, thinking. “We will not get this far until the next full moon.”

“We can’t do it before then?” asked the white-bearded Greek.

The sea captain shook his head. “Not possible.”

Melanthius studied the scrolls again. “Time is all-important for two main reasons. First . . .” He paused to peer at Princess Farah and to ascertain that she was, indeed, still asleep. “First, because though, at the moment, Kassim has the
shape
of a baboon, he is still in possession of certain human qualities . . .” His eyes went to the baboon, who was also apparently asleep, then back to the princess. “But the longer the transformation is delayed, the more he will revert to a baboon’s natural pattern of behavior.” Again, the old Greek’s eyes sought the cage containing the baboon.

“He will become more aggressive,” he continued. “More savage and . . . more dangerous.” He looked up at Sinbad with troubled eyes. “Delay the transformation and he will
never
be Kassim again!”

Sinbad winced and the alchemist continued in quiet, but terse, words. “Secondly, there is the disadvantage that we have only the few summer weeks to strike through the belt of eternal ice that surrounds the valley.” He shook his head sadly. “A month or so . . . not more.”

Sinbad’s hand jumped to an approximation of their present position. “Let us first get ourselves across the Western Ocean.”

Melanthius smiled wanly. “Comparatively simple!” He pointed at the scroll. “The sailing directions are perfectly clear. We continue west by north until we find the prevailing winds and a strong warm current that will carry us north . . .” His fingers traced the course out of the Middle Sea and along the coast near the islands of Britain. “Well past these dangerous coasts and savage islands.” Melanthius slapped the outline of the islands. “Nothing here to interest us.”

Sinbad stroked his beard. “I’ve heard tell of a Phoenician trader who sailed there in search of tin. He found nothing but fog and rain.”

Melanthius nodded. “Probably uninhabited, though the Romans said there were savages . . . Picts, I think they called themselves . . . who wore skins and painted themselves blue, or some such barbaric behavior.” He shook his head in amazement at the varieties of human folly.

Sinbad nodded, his eyes studying the crude maps. “What if we fail to find these winds and that warm current?”

Melanthius smiled his impish grin. “Well, either we fall off the edge of the world or we go right around the earth and find ourselves back where we started!” He shrugged. “It all depends on whether you believe the world is flat, or perhaps round, like a sphere.” He looked wryly at Sinbad. “A question, I suspect, rather of theology than geography! By the time we find out the answer, it will be no help to Kassim.”

Both their gazes went to the baboon in the cage. Sinbad shrugged. “I’m a sailor. I believe in the stars and the winds and the changeability of the seas. I’ve not had time to speculate on mysteries.”

Melanthius smiled. “Then that’s the difference between us, Captain Sinbad—you are a man of action; I am a philosopher. I question everything,
all
the time!”

“Aye.” Sinbad nodded. “I know that out of sight of land . . . and that is a fearsome state, I assure you . . . that when you see the shore once again, it seems to rise from the waters . . . as if the water curved and it was hidden beyond.” He shook his head. “I do not understand that at all. I’ve never seen water curve.”

Melanthius smiled widely. “Of course you have,” he said and picked up a glass goblet and poured water into it from a vessel. “Look closely, Captain Sinbad—it curves, around the edges, where it touches the glass.”

Sinbad peered closely, then nodded. “But the sea . . . if it
does
curve . . . curves the other way, like a woman’s breast.”

The old scholar nodded happily. “Watch,” he said, and poured the glass full—very full. “Watch closely, Captain, before the sway of the ship spills it . . . see that it now curves the other direction. The liquid still clings to the vessel, but it curves . . . very slightly, I grant you, but imagine that glass as wide as the sea!”

Sinbad stroked his beard in thought, then gave it up. He shrugged. “Whatever we believe, it will be the reality that counts.”

Melanthius nodded. He bent again over the scroll, his fingertips tracing the strange runic lettering, his lips moving silently as he sought to translate it.

Sinbad looked at Farah, sleeping. She sighed, and moved her head, as if dreaming.

I
t was almost dawn. The eastern sky was turning from black to purple-gray. The sea was smooth, the stars still winking in the west. There was no moon and only the sound of the sea and wind.

Sinbad was on watch, the vital dawn watch when men were tired or asleep, when the guard was down, when the predatory fish swam silently, and smaller fish died.

Sinbad was alone at the helm, guided by the familiar stars. He saw the ancient warrior Orion, the Great Bear, the racing Bull, and to the north, Polaris. Once beyond the Pillars of Hercules they would swing the ship’s prow that way and sail on into the ice world.

He looked again at the sky. Sagittarius the Archer, the Scales of Libra, the arms of the Crab. To a sailor they were trails, landmarks, friends who pointed the way. Spots of fire, diamonds, holes in the roof vault that bridged the earth, flaming gods, lighthouses, eyes—all the reasons men had compiled to explain the dome of night.

The ship creaked reassuringly, a familiar rhythmic sound like the whisper of the wind and the lap of water against the prow.

What lay beyond the Pillars of Hercules? Sinbad wondered. If they did not turn, where would they end up? Some said Atlantis lay to the west. Others said it lay under lava near the Phoenician islands to the east, beyond Egypt. If they went west would they find the Indies . . . or fall off the edge of the world?

Sinbad grinned at the old belief. Dangers, of course. Stories of great sea monsters and smoking islands that exploded. Savage tribes, painted and screaming, that ate the flesh of men and shrank the heads. There were many stories told in smoky caverns, preposterous tales told by someone who had heard it from someone else. Lands where men with skin like unpolished gold wore great feathered headdresses and tore the living hearts from captives atop giant pyramids of carved stones. They threw virgins draped in golden ornaments into deep pits and worshiped horrible creatures with bulging eyes. Preposterous stories of savages who lived in ruined palaces, of islands where no one lived and great stone idols had been raised, looking eternally toward the setting sun.

Sinbad shrugged. The world was wide and vast and filled with wonders. Golden-haired Norsemen had spoken of forested mountains ruled by red-skinned savages who were not savages, but lived in tents of hides and worshiped spirits in the sky and wind and earth. There were small black men to the south, toward the legendary Kush and Shem, who fought fiercely and worshiped a tall golden woman with breasts covered in pearls and the teeth of rejected lovers. There were slavers who sold wretched captives and black tribal kings who sold their own subjects. There were the mysterious Egyptians just over the horizon to the south, who had lived there, building great temples since before the memory of man. Sinbad had seen these temples and the giant statues to kings and gods and kings who became like gods. They were old, the dark Egyptians, with wisdom and trickery, despots who married brother and sister to create new rulers for no other was noble enough to have the proper blood. They built empires on slaves, but probed the stars and created great beauty. Sinbad had walked the halls of mighty Karnak, with the columns like the legs of a giant Atlas, he who held up the world, standing on the turtle that swam in the sea that circled the world.