Renegade of Kregen

'I thank you, Deldar,' I said, speaking stiffly, as a Ghittawrer Brother would. Truth to tell, I had been speaking as a Krozair might, and that seemed to serve. 'You are kind. But I must go about my business.' He nodded at once, quickly. 'I understand, gernu. May the blessed light of Grodno go with you.'

'And with you.'

Well, if he meant it — so did I!

We threw down coins to pay for our meal and wine and went out. Duhrra took a tremendous breath once outside, under the stars, with She of the Veils rising up into the night sky.

'A po-faced lot, these Grodnims!'

'Aye. And you had best be, too.'

He rumbled and moved his wing, but he remained silent.

We had come out of that well. But I determined to get rid of the device. I would not care to part with the weapon, for it was the finest I was likely to get my hands on for some time. Those mercenaries in there came from the galleys in the adjoining harbor. No doubt they found The Net and Trident more hospitable since the withdrawal of Vallian ships. There would be more room and better service, and a discount, too, I shouldn’t wonder. But they were hard, tough men. I had fought their like on the Eye of the World. How long would it take them to arrive at the truth? That the insolent apim who had fronted down their comrade, Cryfon the Sudden, had merely found the Ghittawrer sword?

Stolen it, most likely, with a knife in the back of the Brother in Grodno. Even if they reached that conclusion I fancied they would not be too anxious to rush out and test it. The power of the Green Brotherhoods is long and terrible, in ways quite foreign to the powers of the Krozairs.

Then I thrust all this petty business away.

Here I was, aching to return home, and stranded in the inner sea, thousands of miles from Valka. The thoughts tortured me. We mounted up. I had no real idea what to do now, for all my plans had envisaged my going aboard a Vallian galleon this night. I had not even seriously considered the alternative I had thought on, that I would have to wait a sennight or so.

Now, no galleon would come at all. .

We rode past the argenter.

I said, 'It seems, Duhrra of the Days, that we shall have to take passage in her.'

'I will still sail with you, Dak.'

'Aye.' Duhrra had been earning a living as a wrestler when I first met him. I had a good idea he was no stranger to the sea. 'It may well be I shall have to pay passage money.'

'That seems just. Use the money you would have paid the Vallian captain.' I humped along on the sectrix for a space, avoiding all the usual impedimenta of a waterfront. Then:

'There will not be enough for a captain of Pandahem.' I could not explain that as the Prince Majister of Vallia all I needed to have done was convince the Vallian master that I was who I was. I could do that, all right.

'It would seem, master, that the Pandaheem are more greedy than the Vallians.' That was a reasonable assumption on the facts.

'Probably. Let us find an inn and get some rest. I will talk with the master of the argenter in the morning.'

'We must slit a few throats and gain ourselves some gold.'

'Let us talk to the master first, and discover his price.'

'As you say, master.'

I reined in and Duhrra’s sectrix snorted and shied away. Both animals we rode and the pack animal were annoyed they had not been fed and watered, rubbed down, and bedded for the night.

'Listen to me, Duhrra of the Days. You act the part of a Grodnim here in Magdag. You understand that reason well enough.'

'Aye. They’d draw out our tripes if they discovered-'

'When we go aboard the Menaham argenter, forget all mention of the word Vallia, except to give the place a round curse every now and then. Menaham and Vallia do not get on.' His heavy-lidded eyes regarded me in the flaring torchlight from over a nearby dopa den.

'I see. That makes the problem a little clearer.'

'Just remember — it’s my neck as well as yours.'

We slept that night at the hostelry of The Missal Tree just off the waterfront but still in the harbor area. We were merely two weary travelers seeking a bed. The sectrixes were seen to by a lame Relt, one of that race of diffs who are cousins to the Rapas. The Rapas seem to have taken all the ferocity, the Relts all the gentleness. We turned in and, as I say, we slept. Old campaigners both, this Duhrra of the Days, and me, Dak.

Duhrra’s stump was well concealed, and the Ghittawrer emblem likewise was covered with a flap of green cloth.

The argenter captain did not ask our business or why we wished to sail out of the Eye of the World, for which I was grateful, for I had been cudgeling what brains I have to find a reason that would stand inspection. He stroked a hand through his broad black beard and stared at us with sober calculation showing on his heavy, seamed face. He wore a gold ring in each ear, which offended my aesthetic sense. He was a hard man, as he would have need of being, and he drove a hard bargain. When we left him amid the bustle of his ship’s company preparing for sea, with the seabirds calling, those ill Magbirds of Magdag, with the mixture of stinks of tar and oil and seaweed in our nostrils, and went down the gangplank, Duhrra favored me with a look that spoke volumes. On the quayside and heading for the tavern three along from The Net and Trident, Duhrra said, 'A large sum, Dak.'

'We will find it.'

'Oh, aye, I never doubted that.'

We found the money, and a couple of overlords of Magdag awoke with thick heads and a garbled tale of assault in the night as they rode beneath an archway, so I guessed, for I had not cared to slay them, realizing the furor that would cause. With their gold we bought passage, for they had been staggering home well loaded after a night’s gambling. Their luck was now our luck. The link-slaves had run, screaming, at the first sight of sword- twinkle.

A fair northeasterly breeze bore us on bravely after the towing boats had cast us off. With all plain sail set — and the argenters had only plain sail — we creamed along, leaning over only a little on the starboard tack. Our cabin was as well-appointed as one might expect. It was, to tell the truth, luxurious by many of the sea-standards I have known. The twin suns shone, the sky lifted high and blue above us, the seabirds were dropped astern, and ahead of us lay only the Grand Canal, the Dam of Days, and then the long haul south and east and north, to Pandahem. From thence I would find a way to reach Vallia. When the first of the black clouds appeared, boiling on the southern horizon, I felt the sudden gripping sensation at my heart. When I had been living in the inner sea before and had attempted to sail to Sanurkazz and to Felteraz, the Star Lords had sent a most violent rashoon. Rashoons, those sudden and tumultuous gales of the inner sea, are known and accepted as part of life. What the Star Lords sent was greater and more vicious, huge black clouds swirling, winds that tore canvas to ribbons, that smashed a ship over onto her beam ends.

The hands took the canvas in smartly enough. We snugged down. I recalled that the woman — so marvelous in her scarlet and ruby and gold clothing, astride a white zhyan, the woman whose use-name was Zena Iztar — had promised me I would not leave the Eye of the World just yet. She had said I would be prevented, and when I had asked if the Star Lords would prevent me, she had answered no. I stared at those ominous clouds, hanging dark and angry, and I cursed. The master, Captain Andapon, appeared confident. His beard lifted arrogantly.

'It is only a rashoon. That is a mere nothing to a sailor who has sailed the Outer Oceans.' He was right, if it was only a rashoon, a local storm.

'It will pass, never fear.'

And he was right. The black clouds rose a hand’s breadth into the sky above the horizon. The light shone strangely over there. I stared. The clouds were dwindling, were thinning, were withdrawing. I stared harder. A white speck appeared, diving down on the argenter. The ship wallowed. Captain Andapon bellowed and his men swarmed aloft to cast loose the canvas. The air felt still and warm, the breeze dying. Still that white speck flitted nearer. No one else aboard appeared to have seen it. The suns shone on that