Voyage of the Fox Rider (44 page)

Seekers

Winter, 1E9574–75

[The Present]

O
f course,” proposed Alamar, “I could make each fireball look as if it were ten. It’s a simple matter of bending the aethyr, splitting the light. Durlok would not be able to explode them all before the true one hit his ship.” But then the elder shook his head and growled. “Though as you say, Pysk, he could simply call upon his magesight and see through the trick.”

As the wind howled ‘round the Blue Mermaid and snow pelted against the window panes, Jinnarin sat in quiet contemplation for some moments. “It seems, Alamar, rather difficult to fool a Mage, eh?”

Alamar puffed out his chest and thumped on it. “Certainly it’s difficult to fool
this
Mage,” he declared.

Jinnarin raised her eyebrows. “Oh?”

Alamar nodded sharply. “It’s not like fooling mortals and foolish Pysks and the like. We Mages are extraordinarily alert to tricks and traps and other such. After all, we have the great advantage of being able to see the astral fire, and that gives us an edge over all other beings.”

Jinnarin looked at the Mage in wide-eyed innocence. “Oh, Alamar, I’m so glad that you told me.” She reached forward and took up a tokko piece. “Stone crushes Throne,” she said, dropping the agate on Alamar’s Throne. “Game’s over.”

A look of surprise and then petulant rage flashed
across Alamar’s face. “You distracted me again, Pysk! That’s cheating!”

Jinnarin jumped to her feet and stood before the Mage, her hands on her hips. “Oh? Cheating, eh? Well if that’s cheating, Alamar, I suggest that you find a similar way to ‘cheat’ Durlok!”

Alamar shook his fist at Jinnarin. “If you weren’t a female Pysk, Pysk, I’d invite you outside!”

“And if you weren’t so decrepit, Alamar, I’d take you up on it!” shot back Jinnarin.

They stood fuming and blustering at one another, and suddenly Jinnarin burst out laughing. “You look like a fish out of water, Alamar,” she giggled.

In spite of himself, Alamar grinned. “Well, Pysk, if I’m a fish out of water, then you’re a beached minnow.”

Jinnarin’s giggles were joined by Alamar’s cackling glee.

After a while, still smiling, the elder gazed back at the tokko board. Then a thoughtful look came over his features. “Perhaps you are right, Pysk. Perhaps we’ve been looking at this at the wrong angle.”

Jinnarin raised an eyebrow. “Meaning…?”

Alamar steepled his fingers. “Meaning that instead of taking on Durlok dead straight, perhaps we should find a way to distract him. And while he is looking the wrong way, we sneak up behind him and drop a rock on his head.”

“Well, Captain,” rumbled Jatu, “where do we go from here?”

Bokar stood at the window of the Blue Mermaid and peered out at the storm, now diminishing in its second day. He turned and growled, “I say we sail the northern waters and look for more plumes. That is the only chance we have of catching up with the Black Mage, wherever he and his galley may have gotten to.”

The others in Alamar’s room—Jinnarin, Aylis, Alamar, Aravan, Frizian, and Jatu—looked at Bokar, Frizian musing, “Do you think that he’s still up there lurking about in the Northern Sea?”

“That is where the aurora is,” answered Bokar. “Find the aurora, and we are like to find the Mage.”

Jinnarin sighed. “But who’s to say that if we find the Mage, we’ll find Farrix?”

Aylis shook her head. “It’s the only lead we have, Jinnarin: Farrix went looking for plumes; Durlok’s ship was where a plume fell. They are all we have linking the two.”

Aravan’s gaze swept across the others. “If Durlok is indeed behind the plumes, then in the eleven days since we were rammed, he could be nigh six hundred leagues from his last position.”

Alamar did a swift reckoning. “That assumes he travels fifty leagues a day, a hundred and fifty miles.”

Aylis nodded. “That’s how far apart the plumes were, Father.”

Frizian took a sip of his tea. “If he is eighteen hundred miles straight away, and if we knew where he was, then given favorable winds we could be there in a week to ten days…but I think he will not stay in one spot for us to catch him, even if we knew where to go. Nay, he will have gone onward to somewhere else.”

“I agree,” said Jatu. “But on the other hand, if Durlok instead sails back and forth under the aurora in the Northern Sea, then Bokar’s plan is sound. We should take station along the course where last we were.”

Bokar gnarled. “It does not suit my nature to take up station and wait. I say we run back and forth along his route until we spot a plume. I would rather come upon him than for him to come upon us: the last time he did so, we were holed.”

Aravan unrolled a map. “Ye both then assume that Durlok runs a course east and west along a track just north of Rwn, shuttling back and forth between the western continent and Thol to the east.” With his finger Aravan traced the route across the map, following the marge between the Weston Ocean and the Northern Sea.

Jinnarin looked closely. “But wait, Aravan. Farrix saw the plumes streaking down to the south and east of Rwn. Couldn’t Durlok have more than one course he sails?”

Aravan rubbed his jaw. “Aye, Lady Jinnarin, he could at that. Mayhap it depends upon where the aurora shines. What say thee, Mage Alamar?”

All eyes swung to the elder. Alamar turned up his
hands. “He could have a
thousand
routes for all I know,” he answered peevishly, frustrated. “I don’t even know what he’s up to! —But whatever it is, it’s not to anyone’s benefit, and that’s a fact!”

At that moment the door opened and inward bustled the innkeeper, bearing a tray of pastries and another pot of tea. “’Ere naow, Oi’ve brought y’—” His words chopped off as first he glimpsed Jinnarin and then a cluster of darkness standing in the center of the table. “Lor! Is that—?”

Jatu stepped smoothly between the table and the innkeeper, blocking off his view. “I’ll take that, Mister Orgle.” The innkeeper tried to step around Jatu, but the black Man intervened, taking the tray and standing in the way. “Thank you, Mister Orgle.”

“Arfoozle arapp!” loudly said Alamar, as shadow-wrapped Jinnarin scrambled down and away. “Harrum!” he cleared his throat. “There now, that illusion is gone. Let me show you another.
Flores rosae pendete!
” Of a sudden the room was filled with floating rose blossoms.

Mister Orgle’s eyes flew wide with pleasure as he backed out of the room, Jatu shepherding him aft, the innkeeper craning his neck, unsuccessfully trying to see over the big black Man. “Maige Aliamar, y’ be a wonder, and that’s hall there is to that! Coo naow, what wi’ y’r sparkly lights ’n’ tinkly sounds ’n’ wee dark bogles ’n’ floatin’ flowers, if y’ e’re need t’ pay f’r y’r room ’n’ board, Oi’d taik these hillusions o’ y’rs in hexchainge.” As he passed through the door he called out, “O’ course, Oi’d hask y’ t’ do hit whin m’ paying customers wos habout. They’d no doubt come f’r supper, ’n’ hafterward they’d drink plenty, they would, wos y’ t’ be ’ere t’ put on y’r show, naow.” Jatu smiled and closed the door in his face and pegged the latchlock, then turned and bore the tray to the waiting group.

Shadows now dissipated, Jinnarin climbed back onto the tabletop and asked in exasperation, “How soon will we be leaving?”

The
Eroean
made ready to set sail the very next day, and nearly all citizenry of Arbor tramped through the snow and down to the quay, following the Dwarves from the Storm Lantern and the ship’s Men from the Blue
Mermaid. The air was festive, almost paradelike, as townsfolk chatted and laughed with the crew and with one another, and snickered as Alamar struggled with Rux. And down to the docks they went, where the crew boarded launches and were rowed out to the Elvenship. And when they all were aboard, still the crowd hung about, waiting to see her raise silk and up anchor and glide majestically out of the harbor on the morning tide. And as she did so, Men and Women alike
ooh
ed and
ahh
ed with the wonder of her. Long they stood and watched, some even running up to the headland to catch a final glimpse of her before she sailed from view. And at last she was gone, northerly, on her mysterious mission, and the citizens of Arbor returned to their businesses and dwellings and other such, and for years after they talked of the time the Elvenship herself came unto their very own town, and rightly so, for she had been damaged in battle with a thousand terrible monsters, and what better place to put in for repairs?

Covered with sweat and gasping for air, Jinnarin jolted upright in her bed, the dread of her nightmare coursing through her veins. Gazing wildly about, she saw that she was in her under-bunk cabin, Rux now awake beside her. “It’s all right, Rux. It’s all right,” she said, more to reassure herself than the fox. “He’s still sending me the dream, and for that we can be thankful.” She smiled at Rux and rolled over…and finally returned to sleep.

“Adon misereatur,”
said Aylis.

“May Adon have mercy,” translated Aravan.

“Cui bono?”
she asked.

“Who stands to gain?” responded Aravan.

“Alis volat propriis.”

“She flies on her own wings.”

“Virtutis fortuna comes.”

“Good fortune is the companion of courage.”

“Ah, love, you learn swiftly,” said Aylis. “But now I would have you speak to me in the tongue of the Mages.”

Aravan nodded, then said,
“Amor vincit omnia, et nos cedamus amori
.…”

…and so they did.