‘Begging your pardon, sir, but the Captain sends his compliments and asked me to let you know that our fleet and Rintarah’s are about to officially rendezvous. Up ahead, sir.’ He held out a glamoured spy tube. ‘You might find this useful.’
Bastorran grunted and snatched it.
‘Amazing sight, isn’t it, sir?’ Meakin ventured. ‘History in the making.’
‘Quite,’ Bastorran returned crisply.
Kordenza rolled her eyes skyward.
‘The Captain also said that we should be in sight of the Diamond Isle in less than a day,’ Meakin added.
‘And not a minute too soon,’ the symbiote mumbled.
On all sides, the sea was hidden by uncountable numbers of vessels of every conceivable kind. Forests of bobbing masts blotted out the horizon.
Ahead, the two stupendous fleets were merging, aglow with magical radiance.
27
‘Talk to me, paladin, or get ready to swim the rest of the way!’ Caldason had Praltor Mahaganis by the scruff of his neck up against the brig’s guardrail.
Serrah barged between them. ‘Reeth! Calm down.’
‘Out of the way.’
‘You know you don’t mean it.’
‘Don’t I? Take a look at my face and say that again.’
‘Let him be.’ Her tone was deliberate and threatening.
‘No,’ Mahaganis declared, ‘Reeth’s right. I should never have held anything back.’
They ignored him.
‘In case you hadn’t noticed, Reeth,’ Serrah said, ‘we have a fucking enormous enemy fleet threatening to block our path!’
On their starboard side an apparently limitless number of ships were approaching. They were some distance away, but the leaders had enough of a lead to cut off the brig, and soon.
‘This isn’t exactly the time for a history lesson,’ she added.
‘It might be the only time we have left,’ Caldason told her.
‘He’s right,’ Mahaganis said, a weary, resigned edge to his voice. ‘You should know everything.’
Kutch and Wendah came running. The skipper, Rad Cheross, and a couple of crewmen were close behind.
‘What’s all the fuss?’ Kutch panted.
‘What are you doing to him?’ the girl demanded angrily. From the look on her flushed face she was ready to pitch in.
‘It’s all right, Wendah,’ Mahaganis assured her. ‘No one’s trying to hurt me.’
‘He is.’ She scowled at Caldason.
‘No he’s not,’ Kutch said. ‘Reeth wouldn’t do that.’
‘Wouldn’t he? He’s a killer, isn’t he?’
Caldason let go of the old man.
Serrah placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder. ‘Kutch is telling you the truth, Wendah. Nobody’s going to be harmed. Now let’s all just be calm, shall we?’
Cheross stepped forward. ‘You might like to take this somewhere private. You’re in our way.’ He nodded towards the closing fleet.
‘Is there anything we can do?’ Serrah asked.
‘Not unless you’ve sailing skills you haven’t told me about. The best thing you can do is to leave us to it. Get yourselves to the mess, you’ll not be disturbed there.’
‘Can we outrun them?’
‘We’ve a fair chance. But I’m making no promises. Be ready to defend the ship if I have to give the order.’
‘Against all those?’ Kutch blurted.
‘It won’t come to that,’ Serrah promised. ‘We’re stopping Rad doing his job. Let’s go.’
She led them away. Wendah took the old man’s arm and guided him, with Kutch at her side. Caldason trailed behind. The deck was slick with spray, and a stiff wind blew constantly. They were glad to pile into the ship’s largest cabin, and took seats at the long oak table it housed.
Kutch said, ‘What is going on, Reeth?’
‘You know what Praltor said about me having Founder blood. You can’t make a statement like that then refuse to elaborate. I need to hear the rest, and now, while there’s still time.’
Wendah’s eyes widened. ‘Before we die, you mean?’
‘Reeth means in the time left before we get to the island,’ Serrah lied, flashing him a hard look. ‘Don’t you, Reeth?’
‘That’s right,’ he replied after a pause. ‘I should have said.’ He turned to Mahaganis. ‘Tell me what you meant about Founder blood. Please.’
‘Yes. Hmm, a drink first, if someone would be so kind.’ Wendah poured him watered wine from a jug. He smiled. ‘Thank you, child.’ Finding her hand, he squeezed it, then drank, finally thumping down the cup with resolve. ‘What I told you, Reeth,’ he stated, ‘was no lie. Founder blood flows in your veins.’
‘How can that be?’ Kutch wanted to know. ‘The Founders died out millennia ago.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong.’
‘Are you mocking us?’ Caldason said. ‘Or is senility addling your brain?’
‘Neither,’ Mahaganis replied. ‘I was never more serious.’
Serrah raised a mollifying hand. ‘This is just plain confusing, Praltor. Start at the beginning, can’t you?’
‘All right.’ He took another sip of wine and composed himself. ‘Nobody knows how or why the Founders lost their dominance. All we do know is that they had a remarkable civilisation, most of whose achievements are beyond our comprehension. The Founders were once the undisputed rulers of the world, then fell from grace, or were toppled, and their kind became extinct. At least, that’s what most people think.’
‘You’re saying otherwise?’
‘Oh, yes. Whatever cataclysm brought down the Founders, it didn’t wipe out all of them. I don’t know how many survived, or whether their descendants are disparate individuals or organised in some way. I suspect the latter. I think they exist as some kind of secret society, perhaps in a far land, away from prying eyes and-’
‘You know this for a fact?’ Serrah couldn’t keep the scepticism out of her voice.
‘Where and who they are can only be supposition, but I do know they exist because I was protecting Reeth against them. However they dispose themselves, they’re powerful enough to imperil anyone else who stands in their way.’
Caldason fixed him with a level gaze. ‘You say I have their blood. So why would I need protecting from them?’
‘Preserving the purity of their race is one of their highest ideals. You were the first example of a half-breed, or at least the first who lived that I heard of. Their blood courses in your veins, but that doesn’t make you one of them. It makes you something obscene in their eyes, something to be destroyed.’
Caldason said nothing.
Serrah asked, ‘How did Reeth come to have this mixed parentage?’
‘As the result of a union between his Qalochian mother and a Founder-descended man. I don’t know if love was involved on either side or whether it was just a dalliance. I don’t know if your mother knew her lover was a Founder. I do know that he broke one of the strictest Founder taboos in laying with her. She died in childbirth, as you know, quite possibly because their race and ours weren’t meant to interbreed. But her death wasn’t enough for them. Reeth had to be eliminated too, as an abomination in their reckoning.’
‘You were there at my birth,’ Caldason remembered. ‘I saw it in a vision.’
