“They won’t catch us now, will they, Mr. Fiffengurt?” asked Ibjen.
“No, lad, they won’t,” said Fiffengurt, “especially if the rip tide’s where we think it is. They’ve been sailing on the far side, but they’ll have to cross it if they want to get any closer. That should set ’em back another hour at least. We’ll make your city, all right.”
“Unless Masalym too has come to hate this Olik and his flag,” said Taliktrum. “If that’s the case, we are dead men.” He pointed: all along the cliffs ran dark windows, out of which the black iron fingers of cannon jabbed down at the gulf. Other guns sprouted from towers on the clifftops, and still more from steep-walled forts built on rocks to either side of the cove.
“Friend or foe, Olik spoke the truth about Masalym’s defenses,” said Hercol.
“The guns?” said Ibjen. “They are not the city’s main defense. In fact you could say they’re unnecessary.”
The truth of his statement was soon evident to all. For as they swept west along the shore the Jaws of Masalym opened to their sight. The great cove was a river mouth, well over a mile wide. The cliffs, twice as high as those where the apple trees blossomed, towered over several miles of sand flats littered with driftwood and fallen rock-and then closed in a staggering array of waterfalls. There was a huge central cataract, where enough water to fill a hundred Chathrands poured each second, churning up the white they had seen from afar. On either side of this mighty curtain towered other falls, great in themselves though small beside the giant. Spray billowing from the deeper crevasses suggested still more falls, but into these places they could not yet see.
Atop the cliffs, great stone walls marched to the very edge of the cataract. Behind them, through the windblown spray, Thasha glimpsed towers and domes. Cliff, wall and water: the folk of Masalym lived behind mighty defenses indeed.
“No enemy has ever taken our city,” said Ibjen. “She is impregnable as the Mountain of the Sky Kings, and her people justly proud.”
“She can’t be much of a sea power, though, can she?” said Fiffengurt. “I don’t see a single boat, nor pier to tie it to.”
“There’s no port at all!” cried Alyash. “How in the devil’s belly are we supposed to fix the old ship here?”
“You will see,” said a voice behind them. Thasha turned: Prince Olik was emerging from the No. 4 hatch, assisted by Rose and Fulbreech. He blinked at the light, looking rather frail. He leaned heavily on Fulbreech’s arm.
“Display me to them, sirs,” he said. “They would be fools to attack a vessel under my flag, but we can never rule out the presence of a fool. And the sight of humans, after all, is bound to shock.”
Then he noticed that Ibjen was on his knees. The boy’s head was bowed, and his arms were crossed over his chest. “Oh, come, lad, that is very formal,” said the prince.
“I failed you, Sire,” said Ibjen. “What they said is true. I tried to jump ship and return to my village, not once but twice.”
“Mmm,” said the prince. “This is a grave matter, of course. For what has a man who has not the honor of his word?”
“Nothing, Sire.”
“In my youth I saw men fight tigers in the circus pits, to atone for broken promises to their lord. How does that strike you?”
Some of the nearest sailors laughed. Ibjen looked even more ashamed. “I cannot fight, Sire,” he said. “My mother bade me take the Vow of the Saints-Before-Saints”-he glanced uncomfortably at Thasha-“to carry no weapon, ever, nor to learn the arts of war.”
“And why did she make such a demand of you?” Olik asked. Ibjen looked down at the deck.
“The press gangs? Did she hope that your vow would make the army pass you by?”
Ibjen, shamefaced, gave an unhappy nod.
“It would not have succeeded,” said Olik. Then he touched Ibjen gently on the forehead. “A vow given to a mother is more sacred even than one given to a prince,” he said. “But then again, it was your father who gave you into my service. How could you have faced him, if you had succeeded in abandoning me?”
Miserable, Ibjen lowered his head even farther.
“Well, well,” mused the prince, “stay near me, lad. We will find another way for you to make amends.”
At that very moment there came an explosion. Everyone winced: it was one of the mainland guns. But no cannonball followed. Instead, looking up, Thasha saw a ball of fire sailing from the clifftops. It burst above the cove in a shower of bright red sparks.
“I’ve been noticed already, it appears,” said the prince.
“There’s the proof you wanted, Captain!” said Bolutu excitedly. “Fireworks have always greeted the Imperial family when they return from the sea.”
“Yes,” said Olik, “and a measure of our popularity can be taken by the length and splendor of the display.” He smiled, indicated the now-empty sky. “I am recognized, as you see, but hardly with boundless joy.”
Rose led Olik to the forecastle, a long walk for the weary prince. Moving beside them, Thasha seethed. It’s all over. For better or worse. They were at the mercy of this dlomu, this stowaway, this less-than-popular prince. Olik struck her as a good man-but she had been wrong before-disastrously wrong. What if he betrayed them? What if the Karyskans had been hunting him precisely because he was a criminal?
No time to wonder: the ship sailed right in between the soaring cliffs. The shadow of the western rocks fell over them; the roar of the falls grew loud.
“We’ll lose the wind if we sail much farther,” said Rose. “What then?”
“They will send boats with a towline,” said Olik. “We should bear a little to starboard-that way.” He pointed at the cove’s deepest corner, a recess still largely hidden from sight. Rose shouted the course change into a speaking-tube. The helm responded, and with sagging sails they glided on.
A few minutes later they neared the recess. It was an uncanny sight. The cliff walls drew close together here: so close in fact that they formed a cylinder, open only in front, and rising straight from the surface where the Chathrand floated to the top of the falls, eight or nine hundred feet above. The walls of the cylinder had been shaped with great precision, with teeth of carved stone to either side of the opening. Thasha did not care for those teeth: they made her think of a wolf trap. Another waterfall, straight as a white braid, thundered down at the back of this stone shaft and flowed out through the narrow opening. Thasha glimpsed huge iron wheels half hidden in the spray.
“There is the cable now,” said Olik.
A pair of boats emerged from the recess, each rowed by ten dlomu, and each dragging a rope that vanished behind it into the water. They came right for the Chathrand, which was now almost motionless. But at the sight of the humans on the deck the rowers all but dropped their oars.
“Carry on, there!” the prince shouted at them. “Don’t be afraid! Be glad, rather-they’re woken humans, all right.”
“A miracle, my lord,” one of the rowers managed to croak.
“Very likely. But savor it after you’ve done your job. Come on, boys, we’re hungry.”
The boats drew near; the lines were coiled and tossed to the Chathrand’s deck. Following Olik’s instructions, sailors began hauling in the lines as quickly as they could. They were light at first, but soon grew much heavier, the cordage twice as thick. Three sailors hauled at each, and then the ropes’ thickness doubled again. Now a dozen men worked in unison, running from starboard to portside, lashing the lines to the far gunwale, returning for more. In this way at last they raised the ends of two chains nearly as thick as anchor-lines.
“Secure those to your bow, gentlemen, and your work is done,” said the prince.
Rose so ordered. The men awkwardly horsed the great chains to the catheads and made them fast. Then the prince waved to the boatmen, and one raised some manner of bugle to his lips and blew a rising note.
A grinding noise, low and enormous, began somewhere within the stone shaft, and Thasha saw the wheels at the back of the falls turning slowly, like the gears of a mill. At once the chains began to tighten.
“By the Night Gods,” said Rose, “that is fine engineering.”
“But you’ve only seen the simplest part, Captain.” Ibjen laughed delightedly from the deck. “Is it not so, my prince?”
Olik just smiled again. The cables drew taut, and the Chathrand moved swiftly, smoothly through the narrow opening.
