“No,” said Xulai, contradicting her. “Alicia had larger ambitions than that. I heard the duchess, remember. There in the forest, that night, she talked about finding something for the Sea King, and how he would give her machines, and how much power she would have.”
“Are you sure you remember that correctly?” Justinian asked.
Abasio said, “I was there. The duchess and Jenger talked about finding Huold’s talisman or whatever Xulai’s mother had hidden in the forest. In return for either of those things, the Sea King was going to reward her with machines, but it was the Sea King’s ambassador who promised, not the Sea King himself.”
Precious Wind said, “The few ancient machines left in Tingawa are guarded, protected, kept from doing damage. They will not be used to reward anyone.”
“You told me about one at the embassy,” said Justinian.
Precious Wind nodded. “It could not harm anyone. We call it a far-talker. It dates from far back in the Before Time, to an innocent age, long, long before the slaughterers. It is so simple that we can actually make more of them quite easily. It allows messages to be sent through the air, but it needs both a sender and a receiver. The priests allowed the ambassador to take one of each of these to the embassy so our people could summon a ship if they needed to go home. When Lok-i-xan returned to the islands, he left it with the emissary, for the same reason.”
“Is this something they can carry with them?”
“Yes. It’s a small thing, no trouble to carry in a wagon or cart. Its power can be provided by someone cranking it. I know the emissary has wearied of talking to King Gahls and plans to leave for Merhaven. Once they know this ship is gone from Merhaven, they will use the far-talker to ask for another ship. Since the embassy also communicated with Merhaven by pigeon, our captain may already have asked for a ship for them.”
“Is there one of the devices on this ship?” asked Abasio.
She nodded.
“Can you talk to the embassy and find out what’s happening?” Abasio asked. “It might be helpful to know. If this creature is as you’ve described, it might follow us by sea, and that has me bothered. I dealt with similar but totally separate critters years ago, near the Place of Power, and the death toll was very great.”
Precious Wind sighed deeply. “We believe the creature cannot travel under the sea. It was built to ape humankind. It breathes air.”
“So do human beings,” said Xulai in a strange, faraway voice. “Humans can’t travel underwater either. So they build ships.”
“And we have prevented ships from crossing the sea.”
“How were the other monsters destroyed?” asked Justinian.
“They were inside their maintenance containers. We used explosives and both creature and maintainer were blown to bits, then the bits were raked up and molded into concrete, and the concrete was taken and dropped into the depths of the deepest parts of the sea. The Old Dark Man’s maintenance device will probably have been destroyed by now. The monster itself can also be blown to bits, if we can find it! We need to know where it will be at a given time.”
Precious Wind sighed and turned toward Xulai. “Among the things this master can do is to transport you, very quickly, away from danger. It can, therefore, be used to escape from peril.”
Xulai first nodded, then shook her head. “Our lives are complicated enough, Precious Wind. You keep the thing master and put it in some place where it cannot send one of us off into the sea by accident. We all need to think of something else for a time, but let us be very careful to tell whatever ship goes to Merhaven that it must not bring back an evil barnacle upon its hull.”
Full of discontent and unwarranted guilt, Precious Wind took the device away. It might be useless so far as Xulai was concerned, but it had been very beneficial for her wolves. And the wolves might well be very beneficial to everyone concerned.
It was some days later, in the predawn darkness, that a wolf woke Precious Wind and pulled her garment with his teeth, telling her to come. On deck, all the wolves were assembled, staring across the sea. They had heard something, she thought. She could not hear it. The men on watch had heard or seen nothing. She woke the captain, who climbed the mast and turned his glasses in the direction the wolves were facing. “I see a light out there,” he called. “Watch! Run up the signal lights!”
The watchman ran the lights up the mast, and the captain hung them there, one green; one red, above it; one white above that. The sails were shifted so the other light, far ahead of them and to one side, was in the direction of their movement. The captain stayed aloft, after a time returning to say, “They’ve hung answering lights. She’s our sister ship, the Axan-xin from Tingawa. The Night Wind.”
Precious Wind went to her cabin, where Xulai saw her busily writing something. Everyone else hung across the railing waiting, seemingly interminably. Eventually, along about dawn, when the ships came within sight of one another, Precious Wind joined them. When they were within shouting distance, the captain of the Axan-xin shouted that he was coming across.
“I know him,” cried Precious Wind excitedly. “He is the Gull of Caspos, so called for his ability to ride out storms at sea. We were schoolmates once.”
A small boat was lowered and came skimming across the calm water, rowed by six of the men from the Night Wind. Indeed, the captain and Precious Wind remembered one another, for there was much hugging and giving of introductions, and bowing to Xulai and Justinian.
“We are three days out of port, and we knew you were on the way,” said the Gull, whose name was Bunjasi-velipe: “Protector of Knowledge.”
“His whole name
