Джеффри Лорд: The Crystal Seas

And he in his turn had gone into this tumble with the notion of reducing Svera to a mindless, whimpering erotic jelly. In that frame of mind she might-she would-have answered any questions he wanted to ask her, about her views and plans.

But for all their fine plans, neither of them had accomplished anything beyond a magnificent bout of pure sex. So magnificent, in fact, that it had aroused and then exhausted both of them beyond the point of asking or answering any reasonable questions. So much for bedroom politics.

It was all a fine, satisfactory, amusing irony-except for one thing. Blade wanted to find out about Svera's group and politics in Talgar in general as badly as he wanted to find out more about the merpeople. But with both, all he had so far was tantalizing hints. He had no idea of what he was getting into, as Mistress sailed on toward the Sea Cities.

A strong west wind pushed Mistress homeward at a good two hundred miles a day, fast sailing for such a clumsy and heavily laden ship. She was not the most comfortable ship to travel in. But for Blade, the greatest discomfort was his inability to find out much more about what he was sailing into-the war, the two peoples engaged in it, and the Empire of Nurn.

The crew was either too busy to talk to him or unable to give him more than vague impressions of what was going on. He learned from them that the merpeople-the Fishmen-were a hated but also respected foe-tough, brave, highly skilled both in organizing large battles and in individual combat. On the average they were smaller than the Talgarans, but fast and strong. Apparently they could live out of water for hours at a stretch, although they lost strength if they stayed in the air too long. On the other hand, the people of Talgar could attack the merpeople in their native depths only with breathing gear. So neither side could really carry large-scale warfare into the home of the other. The war was an affair of ambushes, raids, and attacks on City ships and Fishman settlements, little affairs individually, but scores of them each year added up to a considerable toll in lost men and lost ships for both sides. However, the war was part of the natural scheme of things, as costly as it was.

Nobody who had heard of Svera's opposition group, the Conciliators, had a good word to say for them. They were considered either mad or treacherous, and in either case ought to be shut up if they started making real trouble.

Blade would have liked very much to talk with the ship's officers. But they would talk with him about anything else but politics and the war. The way they changed the subject when he tried to pump them, he suspected they had orders from Captain Foyn. No doubt the captain regretted having exposed so much of the affairs of the Sea Cities to a stranger and was trying to lock the barn door after the sea horse was stolen.

Svera did not speak to Blade at all, and he noticed that she found it hard to meet his eyes. No more searching looks at him, that was certain, and no more bouts at night, either. Blade didn't much miss the first, but he rather regretted losing the second. He and Svera had done marvelously well, going to bed for politics. If they decided to go to bed for fun- But Svera obviously wasn't going to risk giving Blade another chance to find out what was on her mind.

As she sailed toward the Sea Cities, Mistress sailed over waters now more blue than green. But the ocean was as crystal-clear as it had been closer to shore. Blade could still see down two hundred feet or more into the depths, and spent hours by the railing looking down through the waves. He saw schools of fish of all colors and sizes. He saw large predatory fish that dashed in among those schools and broke them up in blood and flashing fins. Once he saw one of the great sea reptiles, the yulon. But apparently the size of the ship frightened the creature away. It glided off and away, making no effort to approach Mistress.

What Blade was looking for more than anything else was what he never saw. He never saw any of the merpeople or any signs that they even existed. Admittedly, the ocean was wide, and the merpeople seldom attacked a ship in the deep waters between Nurn and Talgar. As the days wore on, Blade became more and more impatient for the ships arrival at the Sea Cities.

On the morning of the sixth day, Blade was awakened by a gentle knock on his cabin door. He didn't bother to reach for his dagger this time before shouting, «Come in!»

It was Svera, carrying a wooden tray with thick slabs of dried fish and an omelet of seabirds' eggs steaming on it. Blade raised an eyebrow.

«Breakfast in bed?»

«Why not?» She seemed to be trying to keep a light note in her voice, but it wasn't working, at least not for Blade. He could see that the strain was back in her eyes, the strain now become almost desperation.

Blade grinned nonetheless. «I seem to remember what happened the last time you and I started exchanging questions like this.» Every inch of Svera's visible skin blushed pink, and she closed her eyes for a moment. A pink tongue crept out to moisten her full lips.

Blade didn't say anything, but reached out and took Svera's hand. The dishes clattered on the tray as her hands shook slightly. Blade smiled. Svera smiled back, faintly and uncertainly. He could see the strain beginning to fade from her eyes and her breath coming quicker. His touch was awakening memories. Perhaps this time they could-

The roar of a fast-beaten drum blasted into Blade's ears. Svera stiffened, wide-eyed. The blast of a trumpet blown long and harshly followed. Then came Captain Foyn's voice, roaring out at the top of his lungs.

«Battle call, battle call! All hands arm at once!»

Blade jumped out of bed and snatched his clothes up off the deck. The tray clattered on the planks as Svera rose and was out the door before Blade could get his trousers on. Barefoot and shirtless, he followed her out into the passageway, then out on deck, buckling on his sword as he ran.

The ship sailed sluggishly forward, her sails slack, over an oily swell shrouded in a mist that cut visibility to a few miles. Every man aboard seemed to be swarming out onto the main deck. Most of them were carrying weapons-swords, heavy crossbows, throwing spears. Others were opening lockers tied along the railings and hauling out large, weighted nets. Up on the forecastle stood four men waving tridents with ten-foot wooden handles and footlong spikes. They looked too clumsy for anything except impaling fish-or Fishmen, Blade realized.

He swore out loud. Before he had a chance to find out anything more about the merpeople, he was going to wind up fighting them! A damnably frustrating mess! But he didn't have any choice, if he didn't want to be considered a madman or a coward.

Captain Foyn scrambled down the ladder from the quarterdeck, waving a long rapier in his left hand. He came up to Blade and laughed bitterly.

«Take a look over to port, friend. That's Fishman work, though they've seldom struck this far west. If they're still around, may the Silver Goddess protect us!»

Blade looked in the direction Foyn was pointing. Off to port, three waterlogged boats lurched slowly to the swell. They were all about forty feet long, high at bow and stern, with the broken stump of a single mast visible amidships. As Mistress drew closer, it was obvious the three boats had been looted thoroughly. Everything movable that might have been aboard was gone-except the bodies of the crews.

There had been three or four people aboard each boat. Fishermen, Blade suspected. Now it was impossible to tell what they had been and hard to tell how many they had been. The killers-the merpeople-had slashed and hacked at the bodies until they were a mangled mess-headless, disembowelled, limbs and genitals missing or mutilated. One body looked as if it had been bitten clean in two. Blade's eyes could also make out that entire sections of railing and deck looked as though they had been ripped or chewed away, by gigantic sharp-toothed jaws.