David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

He eyed the group of locals without affection.

"-how do I get to the Great Swamp?"

TheBird of the Tide moved with the same heavy ease as the rolling sea. Ilna didn't like boats, but theBird was a part of the sea in the same fashion that her shuttle became part of the fabric it wove. The oarsmen kept up a deliberate pace that nonetheless drove them toward Terness with surprising speed. The Queen of Heaven and the barges looting it were already out of sight.

"Captain Ohert had doubled the watch," said Pointin, sitting with his back to the deckhouse. He'd sipped from the sack of wine Chalcus offered him as soon as they got aboard, but now he was cradling the sewn goatskin like it was all that kept him from sinking into the deeps.

"The regular sailors, I mean," he went on; mumbling, exhausted from fatigue and fear. "Half the guards were awake too, and the other half were sleeping armed and with their boots on."

"Land in sight, sir," called Kulit from the bow. Hutena stood near enough to Ilna, Chalcus, and the supercargo that he could have helped if called to, but not so close that he had to overhear.

Ilna smiled faintly. The crewmen had conducted themselves all this night with skill and quiet courage, but they were deathly afraid of wizardry. Hutena didn't want to hear the details of what had struck theQueen of Heaven, and the oarsmen let their eyes rest anywhere but on Pointin's face.

Chalcus had chosen his men well. Of course.

"I was asleep," Pointin said. "Why shouldn't I be? I didn't think that thieving rogue Lusius would dare anything since he knew we were on our guard, and anyway I wouldn't have known what to look for."

He lifted the wineskin, then stared at it as if he wasn't sure what it was or what its purpose might me. He lowered it again, frowning and silent. His eyes had gone unfocused.

"What awakened you, Master Pointin?" Chalcus asked in a mild voice. He hadn't spoken much, letting the supercargo tell his story in bits and pieces as they came to the surface of his mind. Imposing a form on the telling might have thrown the man into shock and locked his tongue.

Ilna could see that Pointin was on the verge of collapse, even with delicate handling. She'd said nothing at all, but the patterns which her fingers knotted in the light of the now-risen moon were as soothing as the glow of embers to an awakened sleeper.

"It was the light," Pointin said, frowning now with concentration. "It came through the walls of my cabin. It was blue; I guess I'd call it blue, but I've never seen anything like it."

He looked up with a desperate expression. "I don't know how to describe it!" he said.

"We know the sort of light you mean," said Ilna quietly. She spread a pattern, then folded it between her palms and began to unpick the fabric as quickly as her touch had formed it. "We know why it would awaken you."

"I heard people shouting on deck," Pointin went on. "I ran out immediately; I thought the ship had caught fire and I'd burn."

He shook his head, then deliberately raised the wineskin to his lips and sucked at its contents. He looked calmer as he lowered the skin, but a muscle in his left cheek was twitching.

"It was worse," he said. "Fire I could've understood."

The rocks framing the entrance of Terness Harbor loomed ahead of theBird of the Tide; the oarsmen had stroked their way back with no more than an occasional glance over the shoulder. Kulit began calling low-voiced directions; Hutena lifted the boarding pike which lay on the deck beside him and held it ready for fending off.

"Wefell," Pointin said. His plump face grew taut again and his arms began to tremble. Hutena had given the supercargo his bad weather cloak to cover the silk sleeping tunic, but the fellow still trembled uncontrollably.

"It wasn't really falling, not at first anyway," he said, "but it felt like…"

He looked from Chalcus to Ilna and back. "Did you ever take a step in the dark and the ground wasn't there?" he said. "That's what it was like, the feeling in your gut that the ground wasn't there."

Pointin drank again, this time slobbering wine over his face and throat. "The sky was dark and yellow," he said, his voice rising. "The sea was gone. There were rocks around us and the air was hot, blazing hot. It stank of brimstone. I can still smell it on my clothes. I can still smell it!"

"Yes," said Ilna, spreading a new pattern before the supercargo. "We can smell it too, but you're safe now."

She wondered if that was really true. Pointin was as safe as the rest of them were, she supposed. That was enough forher sense of honesty.

Pointin nodded three times with seeming determination. "The deck tipped and threw me against the cabin again," he said. "If it had tipped the other way it might've put me over the railing, but it didn't. We were on dry land and the ship had rolled to one side of the keel."

He giggled. "One side or the other, and it didn't throw me out."

"Did you know where you were?" Chalcus said, loudly enough to drag Pointin back from the brink to which his rising laughter was rushing. "Was it a land you'd seen before, my fellow?"

"Land?" said the supercargo. "It was no land, it was the Underworld! There was almost no light and what there was came came from the whole yellow sky. Clouds swirled all around us-thicker or thinner but neverthin. There wasn't any sun, that I know. I saw spires of rock, and the wind was blowing. I saw red fire on the horizon. I think it was a volcano, but I don't know for sure."

He slurped wine, then choked and sneezed some out of his nostrils. Chalcus whipped off the bandanna he used as a headband and offered it to Pointin. The fellow mopped himself, then handed the bandanna back with a grateful smile. Chalcus folded the cloth one-handed at his side.

"I saw something coming toward us," Pointin said. "Out of the fog, out of the shadows. It was on two legs but…"

The silence lingered. "Was it a man?" Chalcus asked softly.

"It wasn't human," said Pointin. "I don't think it was human. It glittered, even in that light, and it was huge. I… I went into my cabin and hid in the specie chest."

He looked up fiercely again. "We couldn't fight demons!" he shouted. Lowering his eyes he went on in a less angrily defensive tone, "Anyway, I'm not a soldier. I couldn't have done any good that way. But the chest was iron and iron has strength against demons, so I've heard."

"So I believe," murmured Chalcus, but the way his fingers stroked the eared pommel of his sword showed Ilna that he wasn't simply agreeing with the supercargo. "Could you hear what was happening before you got into the chest?"

Pointin shrugged. His shoulders were hunched and his knees drawn up as though he was still trying to hide in the iron box. "I heard shouts," he said. "Captain Ohert called something about getting the cover off the stern hold. The covers were cleated to stay firm in a storm; I doubt they'd have been able to get one open in time to hide below."

"Nor would it have done them much good if they'd managed," Chalcus said, his lips smiling faintly but his eyes focused on another time, another life. "There's always some who try, though, thinking it better to hide than to fight."

TheBird of the Tide had reached the harbor narrows. Ilna heard an oarblade scrape rock and a muffled curse from Nabarbi, but neither Hutena nor Kulit needed to push off with their pikes.

"I'd just closed the lid over me when I heard my cabin door open," said Pointin. "There'd been screams from on deck. I thought… whatever it was, whatever it was had come for me. I hadn't had time to tie the lid yet."

He licked his lips feverishly. His hands clenched the flaccid wineskin, squeezing an occasional drip onto his tunic. He didn't notice it.