them behind in one's soul. That night, terrible dreams nailed me to the deck of the ship. For what seemed hours, I tried to shield myself from Morjin's fell, whispered words that burned me like the breath of a dragon. It took all my will finally to fight myself awake. I sat up trembling and sweating and peering through the darkness for any sign of land. And wordlessly, whisperlessly, Atara came over to touch a dry cloth to my face.
'Here,' she said after a while, wiping my forehead, 'you were dream-ing again.'
'Yes, dreaming,' I said.
The sea beneath us swelled and fell as the ship's wooden joints moaned like an old man. The wind off the cold water suddenly chilled me to the bone. It seemed that I could still smell the stench of the blackened ship we had passed.
'Of what were your dreams?' Atara asked me.
I looked at Maram snoring on top of his furs nearby and our other companions stretched out peacefully on the deck. And I said, 'Death. My dreams were of death.'
A terrible sadness fell over her then. She sat down facing me and wrapped her arms around my sweat- soaked back. She held me tightly against her warm body as she began weeping softly. And then, through her tears, she murmured, 'No, no, you can't die. You mustn't. You mustn't – don't you see?'
'See what, Atara?'
'That if you died, I'd want to die, too.' For a long time she sat there kissing the tears from my own eyes as she stroked my hair. And then, to further comfort me, she said, 'Surely the Lightstone can take away any such dreams.'
'The Lightstone,' I said. 'Have you seen it, then?'
'No, I think Mithuna was right,' she told me. 'No scryer can ever behold it. But I know we're, getting close to it, Val. We must be.'
I prayed that what she said must be true. As I held her against me, I looked over her shoulder, out into the darkness of the sea. And there, many miles to the south, beyond the black and rolling waves, I thought I saw a bit of golden light breaking through the clouds and drawing us on.
The next morning at sunrise, the lookout in the crow's nest called out that he had sighted the disjant rocks of the Island of the Swans.
Chapter 27
It was nearly noon by the time we had sailed close enough to the island to get a good look at it. This western part of the world was a realm of clouds and mists that lay low over the land and often obscured much of it. The rocks that the lookout had espied proved to be the highlands of four smaller islands just to the east of the Island of the Swans. The island itself, like a seahorse with its head pointed west and tail curling southeast, was a much greater prominence about fifty miles in length. Along its central spine, three conical mountains pushed their peaks toward the sky. From the centermost and tallest of these, it seemed that a great plume of smoke issued forth and fed the gray-black clouds above it. Captain Kharald's men feared that this must be dragon smoke; they called for the Snowy Owl to flee these accursed waters before the dragon descended upon us in a flurry of leathery wings and burned us with his fire.
'Dragons, hmmph,' Atara said as we all stood near the rail looking at the island.
'There hasn't been a dragon in Ea for two thousand years.'
'None but the Red Dragon,' Master Juwain agreed. 'And he has no power here.'
I clenched my teeth as I remembered the last night's dreams, but I said nothing.
'No men, I think, have power over the Island of the Swans,' Kane told us. 'It's said that men have never conquered it or made a king-dom here.'
If true, I thought that was very strange. The Island of the Swans lay scarcely sixty miles across the Dragon Channel from Surrapam, and even less distance from Thalu to the north. And while the Surrapamers had never been conquerors like the Thalunes, they weren't above grabbing bits of land to add to theirs like everyone else.
'If there are no dragons here,' Maram said, pointing at the smoking mountain, 'then what curse lies upon this land?'
None of us knew. Not even Captain Kharald could tell us why, for as long as anyone could remember, ships from Surrapam – as well as Eanna and Thalu – had avoided the Island of the Swans.
'Perhaps,' I heard one of his men grumble, 'it's because any ship that sails for this island never returns.'
His fear spread to his shipmates from tongue to nervous tongue, and even Jonald seemed reluctant to steer the Snowy Owl any closer to the island. Captain Kharald, his face set as sternly as the rocks toward which we sailed, walked among his crew and met them with his steely eyes to give them courage. If any decided that this was no voyage for them, he wanted to remind them of their duty before they began talking of mutiny.
We spent all that day sailing along the island's north shore looking for a place to land. But the forbidding walls of rock there warned us away; the currents were bad, too, and Captain Kharald kept a wary eye out for any reefs which might splinter his stout ship like kindling. We spent the night farther out at sea where we would be safe from running aground. And then the next morning, we rounded the island's westernmost point – the top of the seahorse's head – and made our way along its
'nose' for about five miles. When we reached its tip, we turned again, this time heading straight for the belly of the island, which bulged out to form a great deal of its southern shore. Here the waters grew calmer and the currents less swift. As we drew closer to this misty land arising out of the ocean, we saw beaches giving way to the green-shrouded heights beyond. Captain Kharald chose a likely looking expanse of sand, and steered the Snowy Owl toward it.
With one of his men sounding the water's depth with a length of a weighted and knotted rope, Captain Kharald finally ordered the Snowy Owl anchored about a quarter mile offshore. Along with Jonald and six other sailors, he joined us to the starboard and watched as Jonald directed the lowering of the skiff that would take us to the island. 'This far we've come against our better judgment,' Captain Kharald said to us. 'But I can't ask my men to accompany you onto the island.'
I stood armored in my mail, wearing my black and silver surcoat and my helmet with the silver swan wings projecting upward from the sides. I held the throwing lance that my brother Ravar had given me and my father's gleaming shield. Kane bore his long sword and Maram his shorter one; Atara had her saber and her deadly bow and arrows. Liljana and Alphanderry had strapped on their cutlasses, even though they had chipped them badly on Meliadus' rock-hard hide. And Master Juwain, of course, would carry no weapon. In his gnarly old hands, he clutched his copy of the Saganom Elu as if it contained whole armories within its leather-bound pages.
'Thank you for bringing us here,' I said to Captain Kharald. 'It will be enough if you'll wait until we return.'
From near the mast behind us, I heard one of his men mutter, 'If they do return.'
'Three days we'll wait, but no more,' Captain Kharald said. 'Then we'll have to sail for Artram. You must understand, my people are hungry.'
'Yes, they are,' I agreed. 'But hungry for more than bread.'
I stared off at the wall of green rising up beyond the beach. I was sure that somewhere on this lost island, we would finally behold the Lightstone that we had crossed the length of Ea to claim. And then we would find a way to end war and suffering, and people would never be hungry again.
We climbed down to the skiff on rope ladders hanging over the ship's side. It disquieted me that we would have to leave the horses behind, but there was no good way of getting them ashore. I sat in silence in the skiff with my companions as.
Jonald and the other sailors rowed the open boat toward the beach. The rhythmic sound of the oars dipping into the water seemed to measure out the remaining moments of our quest.
After Jonald and the others had put us ashore and set out to sea again, I stood with my friends on the beach's hard-packed sand. The island stretched out twenty-five miles to the west and as many to the east. We guessed that it must be at least ten.
Miles wide at its widest part In listening to the wind pour over this considerable length of land, I suddenly realized that I had no idea of where the Lightstone might be found.
