* * *
"Half stroke!" called Jem from the
Tailwind
's tiller. His brothers and Bantrus were doubled on the pair of sweeps that the barge used to move in light winds and tight spaces. The stars were hard sparks in the dome of the sky, though the moon hadn't come up as yet.
"Back water!"
The oarsmen rose, pushing instead of pulling on the oarlooms, until the barge grounded easily on the muddy waterfront. It was a warm night. Lamps gleamed from the unshuttered windows of buildings around the harbor, and somewhere in the distance a musician was bowing his fiddle.
Dalar and Sharina stepped ashore. They'd stayed quietly in the vessel's bluff bow since the fight with Tiglath that morning. They were out of the crew's way there; and more important, Bantrus and his friends could pretend their passengers didn't exist. Portions of food were set out for them, but even then there'd been only a few words exchanged.
Dalar stretched by doing splits, right foot forward and then reversing with a kick that seemed scarcely to lift his body off the ground. He stood and bowed to the
Tailwind
's crew, dark shapes in the starlight.
"Peace is a wonderful thing," the bird said quietly to Sharina. "But a folk so peaceful that even the rebels grow ill to see a bully put down—they would have no business among my people. Nor among yours for long, I fear, Sharina."
Sharina nodded. She was about to walk away when Bantrus left his fellows and came forward.
"Master Bantrus," Sharina called in a voice the others could hear as well. "Thank you and your friends for the hospitality you've shown us. I regret any difficulties that we've caused you."
"That's all right," Bantrus muttered, sounding as though he were deciding the manner of his own execution. He looked at the city and added, "We don't usually travel after dark."
The comment wasn't inconsequential: the other four barges in the small squadron had landed at a creek mouth to shelter some hours before. The
Tailwind
's crew had held a brief conclave—excluding Bantrus as well as the strangers—and gone on. Quite obviously they wanted to be shut of their passengers more than they minded the risk of travelling in the dark.
"If some money would repay the trouble—" Sharina began.
"No!" cried one of Jem's brothers. "We don't need your money. We have no part of you, nor you of us!"
"Thank you again," Sharina said. She turned and strode off as quickly as she safely could. Dalar walked behind her for the first few steps, then moved to her side when reflex decided Bantrus and his fellows were no longer a threat.
Sharina smiled at the thought of Bantrus
ever
being a threat, but it was a sad smile. Dalar was right: the folk of the Boats deserved better of life than they were likely to receive.
Klestis had a fine natural harbor, but it lacked the quays and paved frontage of Port Hocc. Fishing boats were drawn up on the shore. In a few of them men sat under hanging lamps and mended nets; their quiet conversations paused when they saw a blond woman and a bird the size of a man, but no one called to the strangers. The community beyond was more than a village, but it fell far short of the glittering metropolis which the legends of Sharina's day said Ansalem would rule in a thousand years.
"I did not like ships before I was wrecked on one and blown to this land," Dalar said as they neared the first buildings. "Thus far, greater experience has not made me like them more; but perhaps some God is determined to make me more accepting despite myself."
"I'd like to find a place to sleep," Sharina said. She supposed she should be hungry, but the atmosphere aboard the
Tailwind
had soured her stomach.
The houses were single story with roofs of reed thatching. Klestis didn't have real streets, just passages between buildings which weren't necessarily parallel. Dalar stepped in front of Sharina as they entered an alley that narrowed toward the far end.
"Will your master be able to contact you in this new place?" the bird asked as they picked their way along. He clucked cheerfully. "Not that I would prefer that we'd stayed in Port Hocc, Sharina."
"I don't know," Sharina said. She felt a surge of bleak despair. What if she had to remain here for the rest of her life? Away from Cashel, away from all her friends; away from the time and place she
belonged
.
Sharina didn't doubt that she could survive. The silver in her wallet amounted to a considerable fortune, and she trusted that her wit and willingness to work hard would parlay the capital into support for the rest of her life. She could run an inn, perhaps. But....
Aloud she said, "I could live if we had to stay here. But I'm not sure I'd really want to."
"I know what it is to be taken forever from one's home," Dalar said. "But we would go on, as I went on before you hired me."
Sharina smelled the reptilian odor before she saw the square of light in what had been a blank wall when Dalar passed it. "Wait!" she said to her companion.
The Dragon gave her a toothy smile from behind his counter. "Greetings, Sharina os-Reise," he said. "You needn't fear that we'll lose touch. One place is much like another to me."
The lizard-man trilled his laughter. "That was true even when I was alive," he said. "A very long time ago."
"Still, I'm glad to see a familiar face," Sharina said. She smiled faintly and added, "Greetings, master. What do we do next?"
"Your travels on my behalf are almost complete," the Dragon said. "In what passes for the central square in Klestis of this day, you'll find a well with a curb to keep out surface water. The curb is built of ballast from ships which arrived here light and left with full cargoes. One of the blocks should by now be familiar to you. Remove it and crawl through the opening."
Sharina nodded. She glanced to where Dalar waited as silent as the stars. His weights were in his hands.
"Lord Dragon?" Sharina said. "When—
if
I succeed in carrying out my duties to you, can you send my bodyguard Dalar back to his home?"
"When you carry out the last of your duties," the Dragon said, "I will no longer exist."
He gave his inhuman smile. "Which is as it should be, since I've been dead for so many thousands of years. Did you think to add that as a condition for your service?"
"Of course not!" Sharina said. "I pledged my honor."
"And I pledged mine," said the Dragon, "that you and your friends would gain because you served me. All your friends."
"Ah," said Sharina. The Dragon meant as much by his promises as she—she and her friends—did by theirs. "I'll proceed with the present task, then."
The Dragon didn't speak; his long jaws smiled as his image faded from view. Dalar's head rotated to stare at Sharina.
"There's a well in the plaza," Sharina said. "The stone is part of the wall around it. We take it out and go through, as usual."
The bird strode forward, pausing for Sharina to come to his side when they were past the narrows. Lights from some of the houses set off the ragged open space beyond. It could be used for community meetings, but Sharina suspected that for the most part it pastured flocks driven into Klestis to be sold.
"Dalar, did you hear our discussion?" Sharina said.
The bird cocked his head toward her momentarily. "I heard your words, Sharina," he said. "I do not see or hear your master."
"The Dragon considers it his duty to aid my friends in payment for my service," Sharina explained. "And you're my friend."
"First, of course," Dalar said in sober whimsy, "we must survive. Though I suppose we could be said to have solved our problems ourselves if we do
not
survive."
"I don't consider our deaths to be the result of choice," Sharina said with equal gravity. "But of course, I'm merely a servant and cannot be expected to understand greater truths."
They laughed together in their different fashions.
When I pray to the Lady tonight,
Sharina thought,
one of the things I'll mention is how grateful I am for a companion with a sense of humor.
The moon had risen above the roofs, giving Sharina a real view of the plaza. The waist-high well curb and stone bases where temporary wooden stands could be erected were the only signs of public construction. A few people sat on benches in front of their homes, watching the strangers silently. Sharina didn't see an inn or even a tavern.
She bent to examine the curb. Klestis must have no quarries of its own if the citizens mortared together pieces of rough stone ballast for their constructions. That made the wonderful city Ansalem ruled—according to legend and the journey Garric had made in dream—even more amazing.
A pale granite slab stood out from its darker neighbors in the moonlight: the other half of the block built into the cistern of Port Hocc. It was part of the curb's base course. "Here—" Sharina said.
"Who comes toward my master?" Dalar demanded in a ringing voice. His weights began to spin, building to a hum that now had lethal significance in Sharina's mind.
"Sharina?" a man called.
Bantrus, following us after all.
"It's me, Bantrus. Look, I couldn't let you go away like that. Come back with us and—"
Dalar caught his weights, slapping loudly into his palms.
He must have calluses like a blacksmith.
"Master Bantrus, we have to go," Sharina said. "Your friend was right: we have nothing to do with one another, your folk and mine. Go back to your friends."
"But—" Bantrus said. He tried to come closer.
Dalar hopped in front of Bantrus, then moved the youth back simply by taking small steps toward him. Sharina frowned, then realized that Dalar was providing vivid proof of what she'd meant by her words. Bantrus was heavier than the lightly-built bird, but he obviously didn't consider holding his ground.
"Go to your friends," Dalar said in tones as gentle as his beak could make them. "Make your peace with Prince Mykon, young human; all of you, make peace. For helping us escape, I offer you the only advice that may save your lives. But
go
."
Dalar spun on his clawed heels, hanging his weights from a loop of harness to free his hands. "Let us move the block and leave this place, Sharina," he said.
They knelt. Sharina wriggled the slab with her fingers. As before in Valhocca, they had only its weight to contend with: the stone moved slickly.
"But...?" Bantrus said.
"Toward you first," Sharina said, pushing the block outward with her fingertips. She gained a finger's breadth.
"Toward you," Dalar repeated, pushing in turn as Sharina braced her side. Rather than pause when the block started to move, they kept it moving outward by shifting one hand at a time.
"We have gained a skill, master," Dalar said. "We will be able to support ourselves in later life."
Flickers like stars or distant firelight showed through the gap where the block had been. Bantrus stared in amazement at the play of ghostly colors where he'd expected only shadow. "Are you Gods?" he said. "Was it really true that...?"
Dalar cocked his head, fixing the youth with eyes as hard as an eagle's to silence him. "I will follow you, I think, master," he said.
"Yes, all right," said Sharina. She slid feet-first through the opening. For the first time she felt they were moving toward closure instead of merely escaping an unpleasant present.
The present was pretty unpleasant. In a way, the doom facing the Boats disturbed Sharina more than physical danger from ghouls in the ruins of ancient Valhocca had. The Boats were too gentle to exist in a world that was becoming civilized.
The moonlit square spun like water going down a spout. Dalar and Bantrus, motionless in their present, danced to the rhythm of the cosmos; then they vanished. Sharina was climbing through the side of the well curb into the center of a transformed Klestis.
A new canopy covered the well, built as protection for an ancient monument. The plaza was paved with smooth slabs interrupted by planters and fountains to provide shade and comfort.
The structure before Sharina was a palace.
All
the surrounding buildings were magnificent, tall and clad in shining metal. Their surfaces now gleamed beneath a dome of red wizardlight where the sky should be.
Thousands of people stood in the plaza, though there was room for many more. Their eyes were fixed on the palace. None of those nearby seemed to notice Sharina's arrival, nor Dalar moments later squirming backward from the well.
The bird looked up at the sky, a haze shot with occasional angry flashes. The air itself hummed. The red light muddied the spectators' vivid garments into hues that were more in keeping with the present atmosphere.
"Sir?" Sharina asked the man closest to her. He was middle-aged; beside him stood a younger woman and a line of six children down to an infant in the arms of her nurse.
He turned and stared at her.
He's terrified. They're all terrified.
"What?" he said. "Did you speak, mistress?"
Sharina knew enough about wizardry to expect they were right to be terrified.