neither Gilish, nor Kopth. He was simply a piece of derelict humanity thrown up from the Chasm. To see him lying injured on the deck, to speak with him, it was almost impossible to believe he had stood in dragon fire.
Yet he had seen it for himself, the dragon fire, the lightning, and the fact that he did not eat. He remembered the way he had screamed when Menish had chopped at the pirate’s hand, the way he had clutched at his throat and side when the others had killed the pig, as if he had been wounded himself. Did he feel the hurts of others? And how had he known about Thalissa in Lianar?
Menish looked ahead of the ship, along the coast. Somewhere away to the south lay Atonir and Vorish. Vorish would have better answers than he had. Menish wondered how much he should tell the Emperor about his mother. He suspected that Vorish would find out. He was a man one could not easily keep secrets from.
Chapter 12: Deenar
As they sailed on southward, Menish began to worry about Drinagish. The weather was rough and the sea retch held him cruelly. Althak coaxed him into accepting a concoction of herbs he had brewed on the little stove on the deck, but it did no good. Hrangil, who had sailed more than the other two Anthorians, was badly afflicted himself. All he could suggest was that Drinagish drink himself into a stupor, a remedy that Drinagish was eager to try.
Menish was surprisingly at ease with his own stomach. It was as if the sea were content to torture him by discomforting his friends. Even so he found he was often clamping his jaws and willing down sickness, or giving in and emptying his stomach into the waves that tormented it. He ate very little and felt weak with lack of nourishment.
The sailors’ attitude to Azkun had changed. There was no doubt in Shelim’s mind, or even Awan’s, and Menish had thought the captain a sensible man, that Azkun had calmed the storm. They had seen him blasted by lightning and live, and they were, after all, only simple folk. None of them had fought the men of Gashan. None of them had seen the Emperor slain by magic fire and then beaten the fire by their own wits like Menish had. For them Althak’s suggestion that Azkun might be the manifestation of Kopth was the only explanation.
He puzzled them, of course, for he did not look like a god. Althak, with his jewelled belt and winged helmet, was much more their ideal. Menish was aware that most of the sailors assumed that Althak was the chief of his company. By comparison the Anthorians were drab little men, which implied that they were poor.
And the unkempt fellow with the ill fitting clothes and bare feet? He was a slave, of course. That was what they had assumed at first. But now they nodded politely to him as he passed. They brought him offerings of food, fresh fish they caught on lines hung over the sides of the boat, and it was amusing to see Azkun try and explain why he did not eat. This knowledge only increased their awe of him. After that Menish noticed that there was usually a sailor watching Azkun, perhaps to see if what he said about not eating was true. They were credulous folk but they were not stupid.
Although food was not an acceptable gift they found other things to give vent to their generosity. Omoth, with a shyness that contrasted with his bulk, handed him a small, jewelled dagger he owned with some halting Relanese speech. Azkun plainly did not want it, Menish could see that, and he tried to tell Omoth of his aversion to killing. But the man could not understand enough of his language. Menish, himself, did not follow it even though he understood the words. Omoth looked so downcast when he realised that Azkun refused his gift that Azkun relented and accepted it after all. So now he wore a Vorthenki dagger on his belt.
Menish was still concerned about Azkun’s injuries and he and Hrangil checked them from time to time. Hrangil, however, had taken to speaking with a knowing smile of Azkun. As if he were privy to some information that was denied to Menish, yet was known to Azkun. He hinted at some secrets that were held by the Sons of Gilish, things that were not written in the Mish-Tal. Menish snapped at him once in irritation, but the knowing smile persisted.
Althak also irritated him, though Menish could give no good reason why. He did not show Azkun the deference of the sailors, but the very fact that he was one of them, a Vorthenki, was enough. It was a fact Menish usually tried to ignore, but Althak had suggested Azkun was his foul dragon god. He felt as if a trust had been betrayed.
As for Azkun himself, his injuries were healing. He was soon up and about. He complained of headaches now and then but he seemed well enough. Surprisingly, Tenari had stirred herself to care for Azkun. She showed some skill in bathing the cut on his head with ambroth and securing the strips of cloth they had bandaged him with. Menish wondered if, perhaps, she had worked with the sick before her ordeal in the Chasm. Still she did not speak, as if the Chasm had sealed her lips forever.
Rather than endure his own company, which only made him think of his stomach, he sat with Keashil and Olcish by the main mast. Keashil had lifted Althak’s harp onto her lap and was plucking the strings in a lazy, experimental way. Just to get the feel of the instrument again, she told Menish.
Presently her fingers began to pluck more swiftly and surely. Gentle notes swam over the noise of the tossing sea and seemed to blend with the swish of the waves. Olcish smiled and began thumping his fists on the deck, picking up her rhythm in a skilful pattern. Her music caught the ear with quick, rippling sequences like sunshine on water and low, sad parts that made Menish think of deep, rolling waves. He nodded in approval. Here was one who could do anything with a harp. Althak could play, but not like this.
She began to sing.
Menish had heard the song many times before, and he had heard it sung well, but Keashil was truly gifted in her voice. The song told of Bolythak and Harana, an ancient king of Anthor and a princess of Relanor who fell in love and strengthened the bonds between the two lands.
He felt as if he gazed out of the window beside Harana when she first saw the Anthorian lords ride through the gates of Atonir, when she first caught sight of the dark figure of Bolythak and loved him. He was there, too, when she disguised herself as a man so that she could leave her women’s apartments and go hunting with the Anthorians and the Relanese lords. He felt her astonishment that some of the Anthorian lords were trousered ladies, and her resolve to escape forever from the palace apartments that were now like a prison to her.
Perhaps Keashil had added some verses, Menish was not sure, but at the close of the song, when the lovers rode away to Anthor with the hard-won blessing of Harana’s father, the Emperor, his eyes were misty and his mouth trembled.
‘‘ I've never heard such skill on the harp, nor with the voice. You've even cured my sea retch.” It was true. The boat still rocked and swayed but Menish’s ill effects were gone, for the moment anyway.
“Sire? Oh, you startled me. I'd forgotten you were there. Is there something you would like me to play? ‘The Battle of Ristalshuz’ perhaps?’
“No, not that one. It's a mere tale anyway. Play as you feel, but please avoid songs about me.’
“Are they none of them true, Sire?” Her sightless eyes looked past him.
“They must be, Mother,” put in Olcish, “or we would have been murdered by the Gashans.”
“Not you, boy. It was all years before you were born.”
“But the songs are true, for here is the King of Anthor himself!”
“Olcish,” said Menish, “much of what the songs say is true. But it's the work of a harper to entertain on long, cold evenings when the fires burn low. At those times the real world is a dull, dreary place. So the songs must grow larger than the real world to fill the gaps in the walls or the winter wind will steal through.”
“The King of Anthor is a poet!” said Keashil, delighted.
“Not I,” said Menish. “It's a thing our harpers often say to introduce their songs.”
Late in the afternoon of the second day after the storm the town of Deenar appeared on the shore.
They had noticed a change in the cliffs that marched down the coast some hours before. They had become low and broken. A hint of green meadows could be seen on their crests and, once Menish saw a sheep grazing on the cliff edge. It seemed casually unconcerned that it was but a step away from a headlong plunge down the cliff face to the rocks below. But sheep are always sure-footed.
They rounded a small headland and Deenar lay in the gentle curve of a wide bay. A smooth pebble beach swept up from the tossing sea to a green valley. A stream emptied itself over the pebbles as it curved around a high palisade. Tall, straight logs with sharpened ends had been thrust into the ground close together surrounding the
