"Is this a bad storm?"
"Ha!" the captain shouted back. "This is
good
weather! This is no storm at all! We are sailing through some that make this look like a flat calm! And next time you are puking, you are please using lee rail!"
Kerin started for his cabin when an exceptionally violent lurch sent him spinning down the sloping deck to the lee rail and into the net that had been rigged along it. Without the net, he was sure he would have gone over the side. When he finally struggled back to his cabin, he took off his money belt and hid it in his bag. He feared that, if he slipped on the rain-lashed decks and fell overboard, the weight of the coins would speedily drown him.
By the next morning the rain had ceased, though the ship still leaped and lurched like a stallion with a burr beneath its saddle. Kerin's healthy young frame adapted quickly, so that by noon he was able to eat and keep it down.
Ten days after leaving Akkander, Kerin was leaning on the port rail, enjoying the hypnotic effect of the endless procession of wave crests. He watched the occasional silvery flash of a flying fish as it sculled along the surface until it reached airborne speed and skimmed away over the crests on glassy wing-fins. He had learned to walk with a nautical roll, to forestall a loss of balance when the deck abruptly changed its slant.
He looked sharply at the horizon. Yes, unless he was suffering hallucinations, there was a stretch of land. A touch on his arm made him start; Janji had glided up beside him.
"Is that land?" He pointed.
"Yea; that is first of the islands we call the Peppercorns."
"Means it we near Salimor?"
"Nay, not yet. The Salimor Archipelago is farther east; but we are more than halfway from Akkander. I must be taking ship south of the Peppercorns, to stay away from rocks. If this westerly holds, this will be our fastest passage. Coming back is harder; we must tack against the westerlies or sail much farther south to pick up easterly trades."
She pressed her bare arm against Kerin, then turned to bring a breast in contact. Kerin felt a familiar surge. Down, dog! he sternly told himself.
"Are you still keeping secret of mission?" she purred.
"Aye, you st—" he began but choked off the word "strumpet." "I'm under a vow."
"Oh," said Janji. "People are all the time taking such vows in Mulvan; but I am thinking all Novarians are monsters of lust."
Kerin shrugged. "Tales grow in telling. Isn't that another island?" He pointed.
"Aye; it is the biggest of the Peppercorns. It takes half the night to sail past. We call it Kinungung."
"Does anyone live there?"
She shrugged. "They say there be a holy hermit, clept Pwana; but no tribes or villages." She glanced back at the wake, which the setting sun had turned into a furnace of molten gold. "Time for dinner is coming. I shall see you soon!"
At dinner, the normally jovial Huvraka seemed dour and preoccupied. Later Kerin, preparing for bed, was roused by angry voices through the bulkhead between his cabin and the captain's. He put his ear against the planking but could catch no more than an occasional word.
"Belinka!" he called softly.
"Aye, Master Kerin?" The little blue light twinkled round the compartment.
"Couldst eavesdrop on what goes on there?"
"Drop an eave—is not that part of a roof? How can one?"
"I mean, listen in and report back to me."
"I will try, but her bir may chase me out."
The uproar continued for another quarter-hour. Then Belinka's light flickered into view, and her voice buzzed: "Oh, Master Kerin, you must leave the ship ere Captain Huvraka kills you!"
"What? How? Why should—"
"They quarreled, and the bir took a pull at the
tari
and now lies drunk in a corner. The captain is jealous of the navigator, whom he accuses of granting you her favors, as you Prime Planers say. He says he watched you and her on deck. She says, she will futter whomsoever she wishes; and Huvraka like it not, he can get another navigator. He says he will cut you in pieces for fish bait, and methinks he mean it."
"I fear him not. My brother taught me how to oppose those curved swords with my straight one."
"But he will bring sailors to help him, and they will seize you from behind. So please, please go like a man of sense! I am supposed to keep you safe, and I cannot let you get into a fight where you would have no chance. So go!"
"How? I cannot walk on waves."
"Use that little boat atop the deckhouse. Hasten, and be as quiet as you can!"
"Oh, very well." Kerin crammed his belongings into his bag, donned his sword, and stepped out into velvety darkness. He looked aft and was relieved to see that the man at the tiller was out of sight behind the deckhouse. By getting a toehold on his cabin porthole, he climbed to the roof and examined the boat. With his dagger he cut the lashings.
The boat took all his strength to move, but he managed to slew it around so that one end overhung the deck between the deckhouse and the rail. He feared that any instant Captain Huvraka, aroused by the noise, would come boiling out of his cabin, scimitar in hand.
Kerin inspected the boat more closely. A pair of oars were lashed down lengthwise in the hull. One more good heave would send the boat tobogganing down to the rail and into the Eastern Ocean. But the
Dragonet
's speed would leave the boat behind before Kerin could board the little craft.
As his eyes adjusted to the starlit dark, Kerin examined the painter, coiled in the bow and eye-spliced to a ring at the top of the stem. In the stern lay a small bucket. Could he slide the boat overboard stern-first and seize the painter before it went? That would probably not work. Unless he released the boat and grabbed the line in one lightning-swift motion, the craft would get away, leaving him without means of escape.
Could he grip the end of the rope in his teeth, freeing his hands to wrestle with the weight? Perhaps; but then the boat would come to the end of its tether and either jerk the painter out of Kerin's mouth or pull him overboard. Kerin did not much mind a ducking; but what then? Would he capsize the little boat in trying to climb aboard? That would leave him in another hopeless predicament, clinging to an overturned hull with his gear at the bottom of the sea.
"Tie the rope to the ship, stupid!" squeaked the tiny voice.
Half grateful and half resentful, Kerin climbed down from the deckhouse and belayed the painter to a shroud. Moving quietly, he ascended again and heaved on the hull until the outboard end overbalanced the rest and the hull tipped down. Another heave, and the keel struck the rail. Then the hull slid down off the deckhouse, off the rail, and into the sea.
The splash aroused the helmsman, who appeared around the deckhouse corner. "Ho!" cried this man. "What do you? Who—ah, 'tis the passenger! What—"
Kerin grabbed the painter and hauled the line forward. When the boat stood abreast of the
Dragonet
and directly below Kerin, he tossed in his duffel bag with his free hand. The money belt clanked as the bag struck the floorboards.
"Hold!" cried the helmsman, starting towards Kerin. "You are not making off with the boat! It is the captain's property!"
"Keep clear!" grated Kerin, drawing his sword. "Stand back!"
The helmsman checked but cried: "Captain! We are being robbed! The foreigner is stealing the boat! Help! All hands on deck!''
The door of the captain's cabin banged open and Huvraka emerged, tulwar in hand. "By Ashaka the Destroyer!" he shouted. "What are you doing, miscreant?"
Kerin dropped into the boat, making the vessel rock and bounce. The bilgewater that the boat had shipped sloshed about the hull.
With one hand on the ship's gunwale to steady himself and to keep the boat from drifting astern, Kerin sawed through the painter with his sword where he had tied the line to the shroud. Huvraka loomed above him, leaning over the rail and raising his scimitar, when the line parted. Kerin fell back into the boat, and the sword swished harmlessly past his head.
The speed of the
Dragonet
took the ship swiftly away. Kerin gathered himself up, his rump sore from his tumble and his trews soaked with bilgewater. Sitting on the middle thwart, he worked on the knots that secured the oars.
Aboard the
Dragonet
, now receding into the dark, sounds of furious argument wafted. From a few shouted words Kerin, straining at knots, gathered that they were debating whether to bring the ship about to try to recover their boat. Tacking properly with lateen sails, Kerin had learned, was a laborious business, involving shifting the long, heavy yards and their triangular sails from one side of the masts to the other.
As he finally freed the oars and placed them in the oarlocks, a glance towards the
Dragonet
disturbed him. The ship was barely visible save for her stern light bobbing above the waves like a fading star. But Kerin could see that the striped sails were luffing, showing that the ship was coming about. In such an emergency they might do a "bastard tack"—that is, tack without shifting the yards around the masts. Huvraka had explained to him that this would make for slower, less efficient sailing; but if they took the time to shift the yards, Kerin might be out of sight when they took up the search again.
"Are you there, Belinka?" he asked the starlit night.
"Here, Master Kerin!" The blue light twinkled on the after thwart.
"Steady on," he said, and bent his back to the oars. Although the sea was moderate, with a slight swell, Kerin found ocean rowing quite different from that on a lake or pond. He caught crabs, and the butt of an oar hit him under the chin and almost knocked him off the thwart.
"I think," said Belinka, "that you must needs take short, quick strokes, lifting the oars on high on each return stroke."
With a grunt, Kerin yielded to her advice and found the going easier if more fatiguing than the rowing he was used to. He paid no heed to direction, reasoning that his best chance of escaping the
Dragonet
lay in a random, unpredictable path. The main point was to get as far as possible from where he had left the ship before the moon, then in its first quarter, rose. He expected this in an hour or two. When he paused for breath, he asked:
"Belinka, how didst know about rowing?"
"I watched the sailors at the ports we stopped at."
"Clever little girl," said Kerin.
"I do but my duty, to return you intact to Adeliza."
Kerin grunted and bent to the oars again. The
Dragonet
was still afar. As Kerin continued rowing, he glimpsed the ship's stern light less and less and finally not at all. He supposed they were sailing back and forth in the area where he had absconded.
Kerin located the pole star, swung the boat thither, and said: "Belinka! Pray keep me headed towards that island we saw at sunset."
"Then give an extra stroke on your right oar—no, no, I meant the boat's right oar!"
Kerin chuckled. "Shame on you! A month at sea, and you haven't learned that the proper word is 'starboard.' "
"Nasty young man! And who told you how to row in the ocean?"
"Just getting even. Tell me, learned you aught about the quest whereof Janji suspects me?"
"Yea, I did; but I have not had a chance to tell you. It seems they have a navigating device in Kuromon—some sort of iron pin, impaled on a piece of cork to make it float. They treat the pin by some means that, when it floats, causes it to veer to point north and south of its own accord, without a spell or the help of a familiar. Since it works without supervision, Janji and her guild fear it will put them out of business."
"And she suspects me of seeking this device?"
"Aye. She thinks that, on your return, you will offer the secret to the Sophi for money."
"A thing I hadn't thought of; but it's an idea. How came you by this knowledge?"
She giggled. "I offered the bir my all if he would disclose the tale, and he did. Then I refused what you call my 'favors.' Enraged, he chased me out of the captain's cabin!" A tinkly laugh sounded from the stern. "Master Kerin, if you pull not harder on your left oar—your left, not the boat's—we shall go in circles till dawn."
The half moon crept above the horizon. Kerin strained his eyes. He thought he glimpsed the peaks of the
Dragonet
's
sails—a pair of little black triangles, like saw teeth, showing betimes above the curve of the earth—but he could not be sure. In any case, the ship must be too far for its people to sight him.
When Kerin tired of rowing, he shipped the oars and rested while bailing bilgewater. He dug his money belt out of his bag, put it on, and asked: "Belinka, about you and the amorous bir: Do you sprites—ah—I mean, is it the same as with us? That is—ah . . ."
She laughed. "We Second Planers' habits and customs are too complicated to explain, Master Kerin, our boat hath drifted until it points away from our goal. You had better start rowing again."
III
The Isle of Kinungung
The sun was well up when the
Dragonet
's boat approached the pale-buff beach of Kinungung, backed by slanting palms with fronds like gigantic emerald feathers. Kerin's blistered hands were bandaged with strips of cloth from the hem of an extra shirt. Craning shoreward, he said:
"Belinka, methinks there's enough surf to run in on an incoming wave. Keep me headed exactly shoreward. If the boat slews, the wave could roll us over."
"Aye, aye, Master Kerin. A little more on your right oar!"
As the waves grew steeper with shoaling, Kerin took easy strokes. When a big one towered greenly over the stern, he dug in his oars, heedless of the pain of his blisters, and sent the boat shooting shoreward. Up and up went the stern as the craft gathered speed.
"More on your left!" squeaked Belinka, dancing above the after thwart.
The wave curled and broke, hurling foam and spray into the boat. The broken crest raced by on either side; and the bow of the vessel crunched on the ivory sand.
Kerin threw himself out in knee-deep water and seized the bow to keep the boat from being carried away by the backwash. When the water had fallen to ankle depth, he dragged the boat up the beach. The next upwash boosted the boat a few feet more, and Kerin wrestled the craft to above high-tide mark. As he hauled, huge yellow crabs, with bodies the size of a human head, scuttled away.
Sitting down to catch his breath, Kerin called: "Belinka!"
"Here, Master Kerin!"
"It's hard to see you in the sunshine. Where is that smoke you spake of?"
"Yonder, to your left where you sit."
"Thankee. Methinks that's where the hermit, whereof Janji told me, can be found."
"Then rise and march, Master Kerin!"
"I'm spent from that all-night row. Let me sit quietly, will you?"
"Master Kerin!" she squeaked. "The day waxes hotter, and you lack food and shelter. We are much nearer the equator of your world than we were in Vindium. The sooner you seek those of your kind, the better your chances. Up!"
"You remind me of a onetime schoolteacher of mine," grumbled Kerin.
"I do but do my duty, to save you whole for Adeliza. So on your feet!"
"This talk of Adeliza begins to make death seem like a welcome relief." With a grunt, Kerin heaved himself up. As he lifted his sword and bag from the boat, Belinka said:
"Master Kerin, this sun is too bright for the likes of you. You must don more garments, lest you incur a fearful sunburn."
Kerin, clad in his trews and the loincloth beneath them, growled: "I suppose you are right, curse it!" He fumbled for a shirt."You will need hat and shoon, too," Belinka persisted.
"I have no hat; only that little cap. And it's easier to walk in sand with bare feet."
She started to argue further; but defiantly Kerin slung his sword and bag over his shoulders and set out along the beach.
As Kerin trudged, gulls flew screeching up from the beach ahead, while giant crabs rustled out of the way. Some defensively raised gaping chelae. Belinka asked:
"Master Kerin, would this isle harbor dangerous beasts?"
Kerin shrugged beneath the weight on his shoulders. "Unlikely, unless the island be larger than I think."
"Well," said the tiny voice from above, "something lies upon the beach ahead, which looks formidable. It is one of those crawly things you Prime Planers call lizards, but large."
"Oh, oh," said Kerin. "That sounds like one of those dragons of the Marshes of Moru, whereof my brother has told me. I must not blunder into it unawares!"
Kerin dropped his bag, drew his sword, and stole ahead. When the curve of the beach afforded him a view, he saw a long, slate-gray shape sprawled out upon the sand. He said:
"It looks to be either dead or asleep. Couldst go closer and tell me what you see?"
The sprite flitted away and returned to report: "Its ribs move with breathing. You must go no closer!"
Kerin grunted. "I'll not wait all day for the creature to digest its previous meal, ere it awaken and go about its business."
"Be sensible, Master Kerin! You are fatigued from your row and your walk, and 'tis time to rest!"
"And who wouldn't let me rest when we got ashore from the boat?" said Kerin. "Besides, I fear it not. It's but a little longer than I; and I could outrun it, as my brother outran one in Moru. If we move quietly, we can skirt the creature."
"You shall not!" shrilled Belinka. "I cannot let you risk your precious person. . . ."
Kerin shouldered his bag and, sword in hand, set out cautiously. As he neared the lizard, he saw that the space between it and the water was wider than that between it and the vegetation—at least twenty feet.
On the other hand, the lizard proved larger than he had thought. It was as big as a mature crocodile, ten or twelve feet long.
He hesitated; but fear of seeming timid before a female—even a non-human female—drove him on. He angled into the wet sand, so that the final upwash of each wave curled around his ankles. The lizard slumbered.
As Kerin came abreast of the reptile, the lizard opened its eyes, looked around, and rose on stumpy legs. It swiveled about to face Kerin, scattering sand; it opened fangful jaws and hissed like a kettle.
"Master Kerin!" cried Belinka. "Flee! Drop your burdens and run!"
Kerin stood still watching the lizard. For a score of breaths, man and reptile confronted each other, neither moving. Then the lizard turned away and walked deliberately towards the shrubbery beyond the beach, each leg sweeping out in a semicircle with every step. Once it paused to stare back at Kerin, as if daring him to start something. With a crackle and rustle, it disappeared into the vegetation.
Kerin drew a long breath. Grinning, he said: "See, Belinka? It decided I was too large to swallow.''
"Bad boy!" squeaked Belinka. "Some day you will take one chance too many, and I shall be blamed by Madame Erwina for losing you, you great fool!"
"That, my dear, is your problem." Keep cool and don't argue, he told himself. "I did not invite you on this journey."
Kerin heard the ghost of a sniffle. "By Imbal's brazen balls, stop blubbering! If you wish to give advice, I will listen; but I shall make the final decisions."
Kerin felt weak from his reaction to the reptilian standoff but tried not to show it. Belinka's advice was often sound, but her dictatorial manner made him contrary. He might do something foolish just to spite her. Jorian, he reminded himself, had warned him to judge each incident on its merits without letting petty irritations cloud his judgment.
Making sure that the lizard had disappeared, Kerin resumed his march. Another quarter-hour brought him in sight of the source of the smoke. On the edge of the beach, a fire smoldered in a circular hearth of stones and lumps of coral. As Kerin approached, he espied a small clearing in the vegetation, laid out as a vegetable garden. On the edge of this clearing, a hut of bamboo and palm fronds arose. Before the hut, seated on the ground and leaning back against one of the corner poles with his eyes closed, sat a naked, brown-skinned oldster. The man was scrawny, wrinkled, and egg-bald, with a fringe of white hair and white whiskers.
"Belinka," murmured Kerin, "dost remember the name of the hermit who, Janji said, dwells on Kinungung?"
"Methinks 'twas 'Pwana' or the like."
"Thankee." As Kerin approached the old man, doubtful whether the hermit was alive, Belinka tinkled:
"Have a care, Master Kerin! Trust not this so-called hermit until you know him better!"
"I'll try," muttered Kerin, suppressing a flash of irritation. Aloud he said: "Master Pwana, I presume?"
The man's eyes snapped open. "Aye, I am the Balimpawang Pwana. And who might you be?"
"You speak Novarian?" said Kerin in surprise.
"Aye; and all other civilized tongues as well. And you, young sir?"
"A castaway hight Kerin of Ardamai. How knew you I hailed from Novaria?"
Pwana chuckled. "It is evident from your garb, your cast of feature, your complexion, and the accent wherewith you spake Salimorese. I might be wrong on one of those inferences, but hardly on all four. I must explain my theory of probability. Meanwhile, art hungry?"
"Now that you speak thereof, I am ravenous."
"Then enter my hut and make yourself at home. On the right you shall see, dependent from the peg, a weighty club. Take it to the beach, strike a crab with force enough to break its shell, and fetch it hither."
Kerin found the hut well organized. Pwana had brought ample equipment to his hermitage. There were cooking utensils, an ax, a shovel, a spear, and a big brush knife that could serve as a sword. He set forth with the club.
A half-hour later, Kerin returned to the hut, gingerly bearing the crab by one leg. Although his blow had smashed the shell, the creature's limbs still twitched. Kerin did not intend to let a pincer get a grip on him.
He found Pwana stirring a pot, which hung from a tripod over a fire. The hermit set down the long-handled spoon and took the crab, which he deftly dismembered.
"Watch!" he said, bending back the flap on the underside of the body until it broke. "Now you must peel back these parts, which we call 'dead man's fingers,' since they are not edible." He glanced sharply at Kerin. "Doth the sight revolt you, young sir? If so, you will never survive in the wilderness."
Gulping, Kerin mastered an impulse to gag. "N-nay, Doctor. Pray proceed."
Piece by piece, crab meat went into the pot, wherein vegetables already bobbed. Pwana chattered on, telling of the properties of each kind of green and ways of cooking it.
At last the hermit set aside the pot to cool. "We bother not with plates; and since I have but one spoon, you must needs use the fork from the hut." When Kerin returned with the fork, Pwana continued: "It is a pity you came not yesterday. I still had some smoked wild pig, but I finished it."
"How did you get it?"
"I set a snare. The time before, my trap caught a megalan."
"A what?"
"A megalan, one of those monstrous lizards. Hast seen any?"
"Aye; I passed one on my way hither. Are they dangerous?"
Pwana chewed and swallowed a mouthful of stew. "Not usually. But pirates marooned a man on Kinungung a few months past, and the lizards ate him. Methinks he lay down to sleep on the beach, and they seized him ere he could flee. And now, young sir, tell me how you come to be cast adrift on Kinungung?"
Kerin paused in trying to spear a bobbing piece of crab with the fork. "I was journeying to Salimor. The navigator, a witch, made advances, and the captain waxed jealous. To save my gore, I borrowed the ship's boat and fled. Now tell me how you come to dwell alone here."
Pwana gave a deep sigh. "I atone for my sins."
"Were they so great?"
"Ah, yea! Didst ever hear of the Temple of Bautong?"
"I fear not. Do tell me!"
"I was a simple practitioner of magic and wizardry, a member in good standing of the guild. But I was not satisfied with the decent living I earned from my profession. I lusted for more wealth, power, and glory. So I started a religious cult, of an obscure god, worshiped on one of the lesser isles, clept Bautong.
"To bedazzle my followers, I told a tale of the evil Emperor Ajunya, who lived during the previous cycle of Vurnu, twenty-six billion years ago."
"Your pardon, Doctor," said Kerin. "Vurnu, I am told, is a god of Mulvan; one of the holy trinity of Vurnu the Creator, Kradha the Preserver, and Ashaka the Destroyer. Do they, then, worship Mulvanian gods in Salimor?"
"Aye. Centuries ago, the Salimorese had no higher worship than that of nature spirits, of whom Bautong was one. But missionaries came from Mulvan to reveal their facets of the truth. To continue: By a mighty spell, I preached, Ajunya imprisoned the souls of all the previous mankind in a single gem, the Cosmic Diamond, which he wore as a pendant.
"There these souls remained whilst the universe, at the end of the cycle, shrank to a single atom in the mind of Vurnu. When Vurnu conceived a new universe, these souls remained imprisoned in the diamond. I told people that, therefore, in this cycle human beings were born without souls. Only I could release captive souls from the Cosmic Diamond, which I possessed, and assign them to bodies. Naturally, I gave my own followers preference in thus ensouling mortals.
"This was nonsense, which I made up out of mine own vagrant fancies. But my followers loved it. They flocked to my temple, and soon my subordinates began setting up more Temples of Bautong.
"I said that Bautong, my patron god, had guided me in this holy work; and the treasure rolled in. So vast became my wealth that I could command obedience from the Lord Sophi. My spies in the households of the great, from the Sophi down, kept me apprised of their malfeasances and scandalous doings. This knowledge proved useful in persuading them to contribute to Bautong.
"Then one night, Bautong himself visited me, a fanged and fiery presence. To prove that this was no dream, he laid his hand on the wall and left a black, scorched handprint still to be seen. If any further proof were needed, the aspirant temple girl who shared my bed awoke and fled screaming.
"Bautong complained that my methods were giving him a bad name amongst his fellow deities. I must, therefore, close the temples, give my hoarded wealth to the poor, and go into exile, on pain of punishments too ghastly to repeat. So here I am, striving by prayer, austerity, and doing such good as I can to enhance my lot in my next incarnation."
"Was the Cosmic Diamond a pure fiction, or didst pass off some bauble as the true gem?"
Pwana chuckled. "A shrewd guess! At first I told my worshipers the diamond was too precious to expose to their mundane gaze. Then my activities brought me a gem as big as an egg of one of yon gulls. So I caused it to be set in the forehead of the statue of Bautong; but covetous wights persisted in trying to steal it. Every few mornings, my temple attendants had to remove the corpse of some would-be burglar, slain by one of my familiars, and to clean up the blood and scorched flesh.