where lay the Burning Land, where I wanted to go anyway. I thought it solved the problem. Run before the storm, always to the south. Ixion left the cabin shaking his head - the Captain Blade had never been in a Purple storm. I would see.
I saw, all right. As I write this I can still see those waves. Mast high. Higher. It was like being in a valley surrounded by purple-black mountains. The wind was at least typhoon strength - by H Dimension standards - and it never let up. Kept shifting from quarter to quarter, shrilling and screaming and blowing the tops off the huge waves.
We lost four rudders in two days. I lost a dozen men overboard in the first hour before we got life lines rigged. I had myself lashed to the tiller and took the worst beating of my life, but I managed to keep her from broaching too badly. We bailed all the time. They were working for their lives and they knew it and they bailed. How they bailed! It wasn't enough. The Pphira was tight enough but we kept shipping tons of water with every wave. And the waves never stopped.
By the end of the third day I knew we were licked. Pphira was low in the water and getting ready to sink any minute. Then we got a miracle. The storm passed.
I will put this in quotes, too, in an effort to get it down just as it happened. The storm let up suddenly and I grabbed Ixion's speaking grumpet and let them hear me good.
'Bail, you misbegotten bastards! Get this ship dry. You cooks start your fires again - we'll all be better with hot food in our bellies. You bo'suns' - for I had Pphira organized down to the lowest rating - 'you bo'suns get your crews to clearing up the wreckage. Everything we can't use goes over the side. Check the drinking water. And remember that it's rationed! Any man caught stealing water goes over the side. Empty and clean the latrines. All sick or injured men report to Pelops immediately.'
I kept bellowing, sounding as tough and cheerful as I could to put some heart in them. They needed it. So did I. I hadn't been off my feet in two days and the ropes that bound me to the tiller had rubbed me raw. I was about at the end of my tether but I couldn't let them see it.
Pelops was in worse shape. Along with everything else he had been sea sick - I've never seen a worse case - and he spent most of the time in my cabin, hiding under the bunk and throwing up. Those mountainous waves had taken all the strut out of him. I didn't blame him much, but now I had to roust him a little.
'You've got sick call to look to,' I told him. 'Get down there and get those men patched up and dosed.'
His complexion was like green slime. He held his belly and groaned at me. 'I am still ill, sire. I cannot. My belly is in my throat. Anyway I have few medicines and my splints and bandages are in short supply. I - '
I scowled at him and shoved him off the poop deck. 'Do the best you can, then. Set a good example, at least. The worst is over.'
When Pelops had gone Ixion looked at me from the tiller, where he had taken over, and said, 'You are wrong, Captain. The worst is not over. It is yet to come.'
Remember that I was as sick, tired, hungry and thirsty and beatup as any of them. I gave him a nasty look. 'What is that supposed to mean?'
Ixion pointed to the sea around us. It was calm as far as the eye could see, as calm as though oil had been spread on it.
'You do not know the way of the Purple storms,' Ixion reminded me again. 'It will return. In an hour, or a day, or even several days, but it will return. There are always two parts to a Purple storm, and there is always a calm between. You will see.'
I had to believe him. Ixion had never been wrong yet about seafaring matters. I cursed for a time - a lot of good that did - then asked Ixion if he had any idea where we were. He didn't, much, except that we had been driven south all this while and there was no land in sight. Not much help. But I knew what I had to do.
'Get the men to rowing as soon as possible.' There wasn't a breath of wind. There wouldn't be, Ixion said, until the storm came blasting back.
'We'll make all the southing we can,' I decided. 'We've got to sight the Burning Land sometime. Maybe we can find a harbor to protect us. What would you know of this?'
Ixion shrugged. 'I have never been to the Burning Land, Captain. Few Sarmaians have. I know only what I have heard of it - that it is a terrible place and is a great distance from Sarmacid. It is said that none may cross the Burning Land but the Moghs, who live beyond it.'
I was not interested in Moghs at the moment. I glanced at the sky. It was yellow and shot with red. Patches of the familiar yellow fog were dotting the tranquil sea like mushrooms. Looking at that glassy smooth surface now it was hard to conceive its recent fury.
I stared at Ixion. 'You are sure the storm will return?'
He made the sign of the T. 'As. sure, my Captain, as I stand on this deck a free man.'
'Get them rowing,' I snapped. 'Tell Chephron to get all he can out of them. I know they're sick and tired, and a lot of them crippled, but we have to try it. Pphira won't last out another blow like that last one.'
'The second storm,' said Ixion, 'is always the worst.'
I gave him a sour look. 'You're just a little ray of sunshine, mate. That is what I love about you.'
He didn't get it and I didn't bother to explain. I dragged my weary carcass down among the men and did the best I could to cheer them. They were a pretty bedraggled lot but in half an hour I had them on the benches, putting their backs into it, and starting a sea chantey. I went back to the poop.
We had lost our single mast, snapped halfway down, and I couldn't step a new one at sea. There was a spare - marvel in itself - but I couldn't risk lying to and stepping it when the new storm might catch me. I sent a man up to the splintered stub to lash himself there and let me know the instant he saw land.
That damned desert shore - which of course I took the Burning Land to be, desert - couldn't be much farther on. If we could make it and beach Pphira. I had enough men to drag her high above the tide line and dig a shallow hole for her bottom. She would be safe then and I would have a base of sorts. I knew I was going to have to cross that desert and I was not looking forward to it.
Burns said something about the best laid plans, etc. The old drunk knew what he was talking about. We had been
