Well, the vision was apocalyptic, but it was no further business of mine. And Mayfwy and Felteraz?
I bashed my fist against the stone of that high walk. I cursed. Why must I remember Mayfwy and Felteraz now?
Of what value were they, set against my Delia?
But they were not set against her.
One value could not destroy another if there was no conflict of interest. Wouldn’t my Delia tell me -
demand of me — that as a simple man, let alone a one-time proud, high and mighty Krozair of Zy, a man who professed Opaz — when it suited him, to be sure — my obligation was to protect Mayfwy, who was our friend?
But I wanted none of the inner sea. I wanted to go home. Sight of those argenters of Menaham had kindled the spark of deviltry. I would sneak down there by the light of the moons, steal a voller and so fly back to Valka. I might set one argenter alight; that would be reasonable, though I did not think I would care to attempt to destroy them all. Genod Gannius struck me as the kind of general who would take care of such possibilities in his planning.
A brisker gust of wind blew against the back of my head. I turned. The sea was getting up and the whitecaps were now rolling in thickly, with here and there a spume lifting and billowing away downwind. The air was noticeably colder.
Men in the brown of the workers were crowding past, down on the main road across the dam. I saw an Oblifanter directing them, a tough commanding figure in brown with a good deal of gold lace and gold buttons, with the balass stick in his fist.
'We must return, Tyr Dak,' said the novice. He shivered. 'The tide is making. They will close the gates now that the ships have passed. We must go back.'
'And about time, too,' said Duhrra. He had no idea what those ships carried, that they spelled doom to him and his kind. 'We have seen this marvel, Dak my master. Now, for the sweet sake of Mother Zinzu the Blessed, I would like to see about my hook.'
Slowly I climbed down off the high parapet and trailed on after the others. The novice called me Tyr Dak — sir. And Duhrra called on Sweet Mother Zinzu the Blessed, the patron saint of the drinking classes of Sanurkazz. Wouldn’t my two favorite rogues, my two rascals, my two oar comrades, Nath and Zolta, also be caught up in the catastrophe if these vollers fell into the hands of Genod Gannius, the Grodnim?
The coils of unkind fate lapped around me then. Uppermost in my mind, the tantalizing thought of Delia drove out all other thoughts — almost. Nath and Zolta, Duhrra. . and Mayfwy. It was not fair. But then nothing in this life, either on Earth or on Kregen, is fair. Only a garblish onker would imagine otherwise. When we had escaped from King Wazur’s test, there on the island of Ogra-gemush, Delia had had to instruct me. I had been all for leaving the Wizard of Loh, Khe-Hi-Bjanching, and Merle, Jefan Werden’s daughter, in the pit. Delia had made me, all wounded and half dead as I was, climb down there and drag them out — twice. If Delia were here at my side now, wouldn’t she demand the same chivalry, the same conduct, damned stupid though it might appear to one unversed in the mysteries of the Sisters of the Rose and the Krozairs of Zy?
That I was no longer a Krozair of Zy had nothing to do with it.
Cursing, in the foulest of foul moods, I stamped along after the others. The tide was making rapidly.
The Oblifanter, a bluff, weather-beaten man twirling his balass stick, was most polite to the Todalpheme, novices though they were. To Duhrra and me he extended a distant politeness that reflected his opinion of Grodnims who sought to take his functions into their hands. We walked on. The wind blustered past above the parapet. Flags were snapping and then standing out stiff as boards. The sea must be covered in white now. Inland the bay remained calm. The argenters were sailing into the cut, the wind on their quarter, under reduced canvas.
A giant creaking, groaning filled the air, like the ice blocks of the Floes of Sicce grinding against each other.
The Oblifanter cursed and ran to one of the tall chain-towers. He was yelling, 'Put some grease on the ropes, you nurdling onkers!'
I wondered, if he kept up that tone to a Hikdar of the Grodnims, how long it would take for him to lose his teeth and have his nose broken. The Grodnims are a barbarous lot. When we reached the spot the noise had sensibly reduced. We could look over and see the brown-clad workers perched on a spider-walk tipping buckets of grease onto the thick steel cables as they passed over the pulley train. Close by, the monstrous bulk of a caisson lowered slowly into the sea, while on the other side the equally monstrous bulk of a counterbalancing tank lifted up in its guides. The whole spectacle would have delighted the very hearts and souls of all Victorian engineers, who doted on gigantism within the context of wrought and cast iron. I walked on.
It was no business of mine.
The image of Delia floated before me. Now that image looked scornful. Her glorious face filled me with the kind of feelings a rope’s end might have after a manhound puppy has finished with it. A rope’s end does not have feelings, although it can impart them smartly enough in the fist of a boatswain’s mate, and it would be in shreds after a manhound had finished with it, puppy or not. In much the same kind of shreds as my emotions. .
The valves controlling the pipes to the caissons lay grouped together under a stone shelter, built as an integral part of the dam. I stopped there, watching the brown-clad workers turning the handles. The Todalpheme ahead swung around and motioned me to follow. The Oblifanter whisked his balass stick over the rump of a worker who was clearly not putting his heart into the work. I said, 'Oblifanter, you would oblige me by opening the valves to the tanks and closing the valves to the caissons.'
He gaped at me.
I said, 'Be quick about it, dom, for my temper is short.'
He started waving his arms about. His face assumed that red sometimes seen in a malsidge trodden on in a dopa den.
'You cannot do that! The gates will open — the tide will flood through!'
'Nevertheless, that is what you must do.'
'But the tide! The
'You will let enough through to do as I desire. When that has been accomplished you may lower the caissons again, so it will not be enough to sweep on through the Eye of the World. It will expend itself before it reaches Shazmoz.' I thought about that, of the Grodnim ships hovering like sea-leems off Shazmoz, preventing communication. 'We had best leave the caissons up until the tide reaches Shazmoz. Yes.' I felt remarkably cheerful. I did not smile, but I felt amazingly active and energetic. 'Yes, that will serve admirably.'
'You are mad!'
'Do not doubt it.'
'Here!' yelled the Oblifanter, his eyes fairly popping from his head. He shouted to a group of Grodnims sauntering off with the workpeople not laboring at the valves. 'Here! You! Earn your keep, for what good you do here! Stop this madman-'
He said no more for I put him to sleep gently and lowered him to the stone-flagged roadway. I stared at the group of workpeople at the valves. Their faces looked back blankly, like calsanys’.
'Shut the caisson valves and open the tanks.
They saw my face and they shivered and began to do as I said.
The Grodnims walked back, puzzled by the shouting, and saw what the workmen were doing. The Todalpheme stood to one side, quite unable to grasp what was going on. Duhrra looked at me hard and then sauntered across.
The day was darkening over, the clouds massing. The wind blew keenly. The gale would strike very soon now. And all the time the tide rose, one of those enormous Tides of Kregen that could wash away all before it like a tsunami, leveling and destroying, save where the hand of man placed obstacles in its path to protect his property and life.
'What’s going on here?'
It so happened that there was a Jiktar among the Grodnims. A Jiktar has come a long way in the chain of command, for he commands a regiment, a swifter or a galleon; when he has worked his way through to zan-Jiktar, he may reach the highest military rank of all, that of Chuktar, above whom there exist only generals of the highest rank, princes, kings and emperors.
'Stand aside, rast!' He spoke quite matter-of-factly. He shouted at the frightened workpeople. 'Shut the tank
