Snake, from the middle bunk, shook his head. Urson stretched out on his back, but then suddenly looked over the edge of the berth toward Geo. “Hey, Geo, what about those little baubles she had. Do you know what they are?”
“No, I don’t,” Geo said. “But she was concerned over them enough.” He looked up over the bunk bottom between himself and Urson. “Snake, will you give me another look at that thing?”
Snake held out the thong and the jewel.
“Where did you get it?” Urson asked. “Oh, never mind. I guess we learn that when we go to sleep.”
Geo reached for it, but Snake’s one hand closed and three others sprang around it. “I wasn’t going to take it,” explained Geo. “I just wanted to see.”
Suddenly the door of the forecastle opened, and the tall mate was silhouetted against the brighter light behind him. “Poet,” he called. “She wants to see you.” Then he was gone.
Geo looked at the other two, shrugged, and then swung off the berth, made his way up the steps and into the hall.
On deck it was completely dark. As he walked, a door before him opened and a blade of illumination sliced the deck. He jumped.
“Come in,” summoned the Priestess of Argo, and he turned into a windowless cabin and stopped one step beyond the threshold. The walls rippled tapestries, lucent green, scarlet. Golden braziers perched on tapering legged tripods beneath plumes of pale blue smoke that lent thin incense in the room, pierced faintly but cleanly into his nostrils like knives. Light lashed the polished wooden newels of a great bed on which sat swirls of silk, damasked satin, brocade. A huge desk, cornered with wooden eagles, was spread with papers, meticulous instruments of cartography, sextants, rules, compasses, and great shabby books were piled on one corner. Above, from the beamed ceiling, hung by thick chains, swayed a branching candelabra of oil cups, some in the hands of demons, the mouths of monkeys, burning in the bellies of nymphs, or between the horns of satyrs’ heads—red, clear green, or yellow-white.
“Come in,” repeated the priestess. “Close the door.”
Geo obeyed.
She walked behind her desk, sat down, and folded her hands in front of her veiled face. “What do you know of the real world, outside Leptar?”
“That there is much water, some land, and mostly ignorance.”
“What tales have you heard from your bear friend, Urson? He is a traveled man and should know some of what there is of the earth.”
“The stories of sailors,” said Geo, “are menageries of beasts that no one has ever seen, of lands for which no maps exist, and of peoples whom no man has met.”
She smiled. “Since I boarded this ship I have heard many tales from sailors, and I have learned more from them than from all my priests. You, on the docks there, this evening, have been the only man to give me another scrap of the puzzle except a few drunken seamen, misremembering old fantasies.” She paused. “What do you know of the jewels you saw tonight?”
“Nothing, ma’am.”
“A common thief hiding on the docks had one; I, a priestess of Argo, possess another; and if you had one, you would probably exchange it for a kiss with some tavern maid. What do you know of the god Hama?”
“I know of no such god.”
“You,” she said, “who can spout all the rituals and incantations of the white goddess Argo, you do not even know the name of the dark god Hama. What do you know of the Island of Aptor?”
“Nothing, ma’am.”
“This boat has been to Aptor once and now will return again. Ask your ignorant friend the Bear to tell you tales of Aptor; and blind, wise poet, you will laugh, and probably he will, too. But I will tell you: his tales, his legends, and his fantasies are not a tithe of the truth, not a tithe. Perhaps you will be no help after all. I am thinking of dismissing you.”
“But, ma’am …” Geo began.
The priestess looked up, having been about to begin some work.
Geo regained himself. “Ma’am, what can you tell me about these things? You have scattered only crumbs. I have extensive knowledge of incantation, poetry, magic, and I know these concern your problem. Give me what information you have, and I will be able to render mine in full. I am familiar with many sailors’ tales. True, none of Aptor, or Hama, but I may be able to collate fragments. I have learned the legends and jargon of thieves through a broad life; this is more than your priests have, I’ll wager. I have had teachers who were afraid to touch books I have opened. And I fear no secret you might hold.”
“No, you are not afraid,” admitted the priestess. “You are honorable, and foolish—and a poet. I hope the first and last will wipe out the middle one in time. Nevertheless, I will tell you some.” She stood up now, and drew out a map.
“Here is Leptar,” she pointed to one island. Then her finger moved over water to another. “This is Aptor. Now you know as much about it as any ordinary person in Leptar might. Aptor is a barbaric land, uncivilized. Yet they occasionally show some insidious organization. Tell me, what legends of the Great Fire have you heard?”
“I know that beasts are supposed to have come from the sea and destroyed the world’s harbors, and that birds spat fire from the sky.”
“The older sailors,” said the priestess, “will tell you that these were beasts and birds of Aptor. Of course, there is fifteen hundred years of retelling and distortion in a tradition never written down, and perhaps Aptor has simply become a synonym for everything evil, but these stories still give you some idea. Chronicles, which only three or four people have had access to, tell me that once five hundred years ago, the forces
