CHAPTER 16
Surf surged around Gull's ankles, slapped his knees.
For a second he thought he'd been cast over the town into the ocean.
But the sky was white, the sun straight overhead. Seconds ago had been midnight: now it was noon.
He was somewhere far, far away.
Before him lay a shoreline so green and verdant it hurt the eyes. White sand sprouted tall fleshy plants adorned with flowers like rainbows. Long-tailed birds in all colors squawked in tufted trees hung with strange fruits. Beyond rose a dull gray cone a hundred feet high.
Something twinkled beside him, lost its balance, and fell in the water, spluttering. Shifting his axe, Gull reached into the gushing surf and plucked out Stiggur. Another splash revealed Morven, facedown, unmoving, drowning. Shifting his axe again, Gull towed the sailor to the beach.
'Wh-where-are we?' gasped the boy. Skinny and streaming wet, he looked like a muskrat.
Gull knelt, hoicked Morven over his knee, jounced him. Dully, the sailor vomited seawater, waved his arms like a crab, growled to lay off. Gull dropped him.
Stiggur shucked his tunic to stand naked. He wrung it out, then donned it. 'Where are we, Gull?'
'Hush. We're safe.' The woodcutter scanned the horizon, empty but for heaving swells and dots of islands. He sighed. 'Towser's safe too. We're as far away as he can send us, I'd guess.'
Then he howled, a drawn-out scream of pain, and slammed his axe against the sand so hard it buried half its length. Screaming, shouting, cursing, Gull pounded his fists until they were raw and bloody. 'All my fault! My fault! So thick and trusting! This-is-all-my- fault!'
A hand touched his shoulder and he froze.
Morven's forehead bled, his face was white from vomiting, his hands shook. But his eyes were steady. 'It's not your fault, matie. The wizard gulled ye. They lie, cheat, and steal. It's their nature, like vipers bite babies.'
Gull's anger returned with a rush. Hopping up, he banged both fists against Morven's breast, rocking him. 'Then why, you know-it-all bastard, did you work for him? Why didn't you tell me he was rotten?'
The sailor's tone was mild. He'd faced bigger threats than berserkers in his day. 'I only signed on a little afore ye. Towser seemed different. Honest. Should'a known 'twas a spell on me mind. So if you blame anyone for this mess, blame me and not yerself.'
Fists swinging by his side, Gull panted, spent. The mild words extinguished his anger as water damps fire. 'But-what can we do?'
Morven looked at the sky, turned to listen to a birdcall like water gurgling from a jug. He only sighed.
Stiggur pointed. 'Look!'
Coming down the beach, lurching CLUMP CLUMP CLUMP crunchgrindgrowlsnap CLUMP CLUMP… lurched the clockwork beast on three good legs and one bad one.
A shout from a break in the foliage turned them. Naked and shaggy, the centaur Helki cried, 'Oh, no! Not you too!'
Lo and behold, they were all there.
Helki led them between fleshy green plants, up a mild slope, to a clearing with a firepit and huts of different sizes.
The centaurs went naked except for their armbands, Helki distracting with her tight breasts and brown, thumb-sized nipples. Their manes and tails were shaggy and matted.
Liko, with slant eyes and two bald heads, still wore his patchwork suit of ships' sails. His severed arm, Gull noted, had healed to a clean white stump, but had not regenerated. So Towser had lied about that, too.
On a log sat three tough-looking bronzed men with black beards. They looked at Gull's scars and bruises with professional curiosity, but kept quiet. Gull recognized their red kilts from the battle of White Ridge: the scale- mailed mercenaries summoned by the brown-and-yellow wizard. Evidently this trio had been left behind, like the centaurs, and Towser had sent them here. These hard men may have threatened Gull's family, tried to rape Cowslip. But he couldn't deal with that now.
Also present was a tall man in chain mail who kept sword and shield handy. Gull guessed him a paladin from the northern lands: only one of those would go armored in this heat.
While Helki gave everyone's name, the woodcutter glanced around. 'Is everyone Towser ever touched stuck here?'
Helki's four feet danced. Tears spilled down her face, the same as Holleb. 'No, not everyone. Some pawns he must return to homelands. This place, this island, is midden-dumping ground.'
Tearfully, she explained, 'We all tell same story. Summoned to fight by Dacian, she in brown and yellow, abandoned in chaos, Towser offers send us home. But he not know where our home, so sends us here to use when needed. We can never escape,' she added miserably.
Gull nodded. That explained what Helki meant by 'We are captives!' that black night in the burned forest. Suddenly weary, he collapsed on the sand, propped his axe across his knees. It was already tinged with rust from the seawater.
'A wizard's greatest skill must be lying. I should have guessed. How could a wizard know your homeland? He even claimed to know the origin of the clockwork beast, a thing without a brain.'
Bardo, the tall paladin, nodded. 'It's partly our fault. Ve hear fabulous stories about vizards until ve believe they can do anything, like gods. Thus ve believe their lies.' His accent clattered on the ear like a raven's croak.
'How did Towser know Broken Toe Mountain,' Holleb growled, 'if he was never there?'
A black-bearded, balding soldier named Tomas waved both hands as he spoke. 'I think one wizardly power is to read your thoughts. They ask of your homeland, and a picture comes to your head. They read that and pretend to know it. They bewitch you, too. I've had it happen.'
'True,' muttered Gull. He rubbed his aching head. 'I've felt it. While they talk, the lies seem believable.' Others nodded, and Gull felt less stupid and gullible. 'I never even objected when he called me 'pawn': a tool to be used and discarded.'
Since Helki was crying, Holleb spoke in his harsh voice. 'More are stranded here. Goblins who fly by balloon are here, but we banished to other side of island, they steal and lie so. Some orcs there. Big ant-folk on mountaintop.'
'Banished, we all are,' said Helki. 'Forever.'
Stiggur began to cry.
Gull stood up. 'No, we're not.'
People looked up. Stiggur rubbed streaming eyes, 'Not what?'
'Not banished forever.' Yet Gull wavered. Lack of sleep, battle fatigue, mental exhaustion, worry over his sister-all conspired to crush his will and sap his energy. He brushed them aside. 'Think, everyone. We come from all over the Domains. There must be a way out of this-cage. Who knows something?'
No one spoke. Stiggur dried his face with sandy hands.
Sighing at impetuous youth, Morven the sailor touched the corrugated bark of a palm tree. 'I've sailed these waters, I think. We're way t'south, where the islands lie far apart. Most're too small to hold fresh water: we're lucky we got that. But we can't build a boat with these junk trees: they fall to pulp and string. So we can't sail away.'
'Nor can we make goblin balloons,' said Gull bitterly. 'So the only escape is by magic. And only wizards possess that.'
The leader of the red soldiers, bald, bearded Tomas, sketched in the air. 'Our best bet is on the battlefield. Once we're summoned, we must attack-such is the geas placed on us. But if we defeat our immediate foe, we're free to act on our own, usually. That's the time to get away.'
'But you are not home,' growled Holleb. 'You are with wizard elsewhere in Domains.'
Powerful round shoulders shrugged. Arms and neck were laced with scars from a lifetime of war. 'True. But we're somewhere civilized. We can walk to the sea and take passage for our homeland.'
'If we can find it,' objected one of his men. 'If anyone knows where it lies.'
