The Chief grunted, noncommittal. Others of his fellows gave derisive hoots and snarls. Kadiya seemed not to notice, but sat in calm dignity at the front of her small entourage of landly Folk with her gaze now fixed upon her talisman. It seemed to be only a dark pointless sword with dull edges—just as Kadiya herself seemed only a human female of medium stature with bright russet hair, wearing a tunic of golden milingal-scales emblazoned with an Eyed Trefoil. Every one of the Aliansa had heard tales of how the hilt of her talisman was possessed of three similar magical Eyes—and how it could kill with flameless fire those who were the Lady’s enemies, or even anyone who touched it without her permission.
And so Chief Har-Chissa silenced the disrespectful among the Folk and carefully concealed his own contempt for this weak-bodied human witch. So she wished to appoint herself advocate of the Aliansa! Who had asked her to meddle in their affairs? Beyond a doubt it was the King of Zinora himself, her fellow human! She was no friend of the Sea Folk. She had never even deigned to visit them until young King Yondrimel laid claim to the Windlorn Isles. The High Chief had only agreed to the meeting when Kadiya pledged to help the Aliansa—and it was now becoming clear that the kind of help she had in mind was surrender.
This Lady of the Eyes was nothing but a dangerous busybody. But she would have to be treated with caution, lest she impose her will on them by force. That magical talisman … If she no longer had it, she would be harmless. And the talisman itself—
But now the High Chief was obliged to respond to her, and the honor of the Aliansa demanded that he speak the truth.
“Lady of the Eyes,” Har-Chissa said in a voice gravely courteous, “we thank you for being concerned about the Sea Folk. If you would truly help us, warn King Yondrimel of Zinora not to molest us. Tell him that we reject his claim of sovereignty over the Windlorn Isles, and we will not trade with him again for so long as the Three Moons ride the sky. Warn him that death awaits his sailors if they venture into the reefs and shoals and sandbanks that guard this place. Tell him this and make him believe that it is true. Then you will be a true friend to the Aliansa. Now my speaking is at an end.”
He took up his sword, stripped the flowers from it, and thrust it back into its scabbard with ominous zest. “Outside, my people are preparing a farewell feast for you and your followers. Come to the feast at third moonrise. With respect and firmness, we ask you to leave these islands before the sun appears tomorrow and hasten to Zinora.”
Only the clenching of Kadiya’s fists betrayed her reaction. She retrieved her talisman and gestured for her delegation to rise. They all inclined their heads to the gathering of Sea Folk, then filed out of the council hut into the blue twilight.
When they were beyond earshot of the Aliansa, down on the shore beneath the tall, gently rustling lown-trees, Kadiya said: “My friends, I have failed in my mission. I was not persuasive enough. I may even have made the situation worse than it was before. Har-Chissa made it plain that he rejected me, just as he rejected my proposals.”
“To demand that we leave before sunup.” Lummomu-Ko wagged his head, remembering the High Chief’s thinly veiled order. “Among the Wyvilo, this is a mortal insult. I think it may be the same among the Sea Folk, our cousins.”
Kadiya uttered a sound that was part exasperation and part despair.
“Do not be downcast, Farseer,” said the little old Nyssomu, Jagun. He was Kadiya’s friend from childhood and her closest adviser. “This conflict between the Sea Folk and Zinora is an ancient one. You must not blame yourself for being unable to resolve it at the first attempt.”
“If I had only been able to bring them some concession from the King of Zinora!” she said bitterly. “But Yondrimel is as stubborn as an overloaded volumnial, and thinks only of putting on a brave show for the other rulers who will be attending his upcoming coronation.”
“You did your best to persuade him,” Jagun insisted. “In times to come, if the Aliansa prove to be truly intractable in the matter of renewing trade, the King may be willing to listen to you. He is young, and perhaps capable of learning wisdom. The liquors and precious corals of the Windlorn Isles are highly valued in Zinora, and the pearls constitute an important part of their trade with other nations as well.”
The band of Wyvilo warriors who were Kadiya’s bodyguard went off to stretch their legs before the feast, but she and little Jagun and Lummomu-Ko sat down on the sand together looking out at the sea. The monsoons had ended and the waters around Council Isle were like a mirror of dark metal, with the first-risen of the small half-moons reflecting in it. Here and there on the horizon other smaller islands and lofty sea-stacks and rocky arches thrust up in black silhouette among the brightening stars. The Varonian ship that had carried Kadiya’s delegation lay at anchor a league or so out among the reefs, brightly lamplit. Its human crew had been forbidden to come ashore.
“Will we return to Zinora, then, as Har-Chissa bade us?” asked Lummomu-Ko. In physique he closely resembled the Aliansa, being tall and robust and with a face less humanoid than the aborigines of the Mire and Mountain. He was dressed in handsome garments in the latest mode of Laboruwendian nobility, for the Wyvilo were as vain as they were brave and honest.
“It would do us little good to go to Zinora, old friend,” Kadiya said. “The coronation gala would be in full swing by the time we reached Taloazin, and I am not eager to parade my failure before the world’s royalty. No, it would be better if I simply sent Yondrimel a letter. I can confront him in person later, when my failure can do no harm to my sister Anigel’s prestige.”
“But how could that happen, Farseer?” Jagun was bewildered. “Surely there is no connection between the grievances of the Aliansa and faraway Laboruwenda.”
Kadiya uttered a laugh without humor. She was stroking the three black lobes of her talisman’s pommel, and the trillium-amber embedded within shone more brightly, and its light began to throb. “That young King of Zinora is a man of vast ambition. He would take special delight in crowing over my failure in front of the other rulers, pointing out that I have also failed thus far in conciliating the other Folk in their disputes with Laboruwenda. He would talk about his own grandiose plans for smashing the Aliansa, slyly affronting Queen Anigel and King Antar for not dealing as harshly with the Folk of their realm. King Yondrimel would curry great favor with the powerful Queen Regent of Raktum by making my sister and her husband look incompetent and me powerless.”
The Wyvilo leader said, “I still fail to see how this would do your sister hurt.”
“Queen Ganondri of Raktum would like to expand her own kingdom at the expense of Laboruwenda,” Kadiya explained. “It might be possible for her to subvert the thrones of Anigel and Antar if certain human factions in Labornok perceived the co-monarchs to be weaklings. The union between Labornok and Ruwenda is a fragile one, held together largely by the humans’ awe of the Three Petals of the Living Trillium. If two of those Petals seem impotent and the third is far away in her mountain tower, concerned mostly with occult affairs, the kingdom’s unity may be fractured.”
“Could not you and Queen Anigel subdue your human foes with your magical talismans?” the Wyvilo leader asked.
“No,” said Kadiya. “No more than I could force Yondrimel and the Aliansa into peace with mine. The talismans do not work that way.”
Lummomu-Ko rolled his huge eyes. “Human politics! Who can understand it? Nothing among you is ever what it seems. Actions that appear simple and straightforward have deeply hidden motives. Nations are never satisfied to live and let be, but must always scheme against each other and jockey for additional power … Why cannot the humans deal with each other openly and without dissembling, like honest Folk?”
“I have asked myself that question often”—Kadiya sighed—“but I do not know the answer.” She got up and dusted the sand from her garments. “My friends, I beg you to leave me now until the last of the Three Moons rises and we go together to the feast.” She indicated the pulsating amb
er of the magical sword at her side. “As you have no doubt seen, my talisman signals that one of my sisters would converse with me across the leagues.”
Jagun and Lummomu-Ko made ready to go, but the Wyvilo leader said: “We will remain close by, keeping you in sight. I liked not the soul-tone of the Aliansa at our parting.”
“They would not dare to attack me!” Kadiya said, drawing herself erect and taking hold of her talisman’s pommel.
Lummomu-Ko lowered his head. “Of course not. I beg your pardon, Lady of the Eyes.”
He and Jagun went off together down the shore, the tall clan-leader slowing his gait to accommodate the diminutive huntsman. They took up a stand at a rock outcropping not fifty ells distant, and she could see that their faces were still turned toward her.
“Ridiculous,” she muttered, then lifted the Three-Lobed Burning Eye and asked quietly, “Who calls?”
One of the black lobes of the pommel split and opened, revealing a brown Eye, identical in color to Kadiya’s own. Immediately her mind beheld a vision of her sister Haramis.
“By the Flower, it’s about time, Kadi! Why did you not answer at once? I feared some disaster had overtaken you down there in the Windlorn Isles!”
Kadiya uttered a rude word. “I am perfectly well, except that my mission has been an utter fiasco.” And she tersely summed up what had happened at the meeting. “I shall not go back to Zinora. My presence there would only make things more difficult for Ani and Antar. I doubt that I could even be civil to the two of them myself. We have come to a stalemate in the matter of enfranchising the Folk of Mire and Forest, and I am furious at the clumsy way that they handled the Glismak revolt. They know that the Glismak are imperfectly civilized. If the insubordinate road-workers had been dealt with more tactfully, they never would have resorted to violence.”
Haramis made a dissuasive gesture. “We can talk of those matters some other time. I have more important news for you. But first … think this over very carefully, Sister: Have you lately perceived through your talisman or in any other manner an upsetting of the balance of the world?”
“Certainly not,” said Kadiya shortly. “I leave such subtleties to you, Archimage. The balance of the Aliansa and Glismak were my worry up until now, and I have had little time for anything else. Having failed here, I shall return to the Mazy Mire by way of Var and the Great Mutar River and try to propitiate the Glismak as I pass through their lands. Then I will go again to the Place of Learning and seek counsel of its Teacher.”
“Yes. Of course you must do that. But I had good reason to ask about the world-balance. Kadi … I have received news that makes me suspect that Orogastus is still alive.”
“What? But that is impossible! The Sceptre of Power blasted him to smuts twelve years ago at our victory over King Voltrik.”
“So we all believed. But one of the Folk from far Tuzamen, a little man named Shiki, risked his life to come to me with a strange story. He was forced to guide a party of humans on lammergeierback to a place deep within the icecap. There they rescued a magician who had been marooned there for years. This man calls himself Portolanus, and he is the same one who has seized the throne of Tuzamen.”
“Such as it is!” Kadiya laughed scornfully. “I have heard of this Portolanus of Tuzamen. He seems to be nothing but a parvenu with a certain flair for minor sorcery. The Triune God knows that it would not require much magecraft to take over a wretched vart’s-nest like Tuzamen. Has your talisman verified that the Master Wizard is indeed Orogastus?”
“No,” Haramis admitted. “It will not tell me if Orogastus is alive or dead, nor will it vouchsafe me any vision of this Portolanus. It has never failed me in this way before. But even if Portolanus is not Orogastus, he may very well be a great danger to us and to our people.”
An emotion that Kadiya had not experienced for long years seemed to surface within her like a hideous Skritek slowly emerging from its drowning pool, and that emotion was fear. But no sooner had she identified it than she denied it.
“If Orogastus lives, we will deal with him again as we did before,” she declared. “We Three will merge our talismans into the Sceptre of Power and return him to the oblivion he deserves!”
“I wish it were so simple.” Haramis’s eyes were bleak. But then she smiled at Kadiya. “Still, this Portolanus has yet to confront us directly, and at least we are forewarned. Take care, Sister, and bespeak me immediately if you should perceive any hint of imbalance in the world.”
“I will,” Kadiya promised, and the vision of Haramis disappeared.
Long past midnight, Kadiya, Jagun, Lummomu-Ko, and the fifteen Wyvilo warriors returned to the shore and embarked in the two small boats that would take them back to their ship. The sea was dead calm and the black sky spangled with stars and the three half-moons. The delegation had all eaten too much and drunk too much of the delicious but highly intoxicating kishati liquor. Instead of cheering them, the feast had made them feel more melancholy than ever. The Wyvilo longed to be back in the Tassaleyo Forest, and Kadiya and Jagun were homesick for the beautiful Manor of the Eyes, which the Nyssomu had built for their human leader and her counselors and servants on the upper reaches of the River Golobar in the Greenmire of Ruwenda.
Feeling dizzy and ill, Kadiya steered with the rudder at the stern of one boat while Jagun did the same work in the other. Lummomu-Ko plied an oar along with his fellows and led the Wyvilo in a lugubrious rowing chant. The guttural bass notes of the singing and Kadiya’s general wooziness prevented her from hearing certain ominous tiny noises, and she noticed nothing until the rapidly rising warm waters were nearly ankle-deep in the bottom of her boat. At the same moment that she cried out, Jagun did also from his craft.
“Farseer, we’re sinking! Come to our aid!”
“We’re sinking, too!” she exclaimed. “Quickly! Head to one of the reefs!”
They were still more than half a league from the ship in a region full of sharp rocks with deep water between. The Wyvilo rowed like fiends, beating the water to foam. Kadiya heard Jagun’s relieved shout: “We’re on the reef!” Everyone seemed to be yelling. Then the keel of her own boat grated on something and the craft heeled over violently. The Wyvilo dropped their oars and splashed and scrambled overboard.
“I’m all right!” Kadiya cried. “Save yourselves!” But then she found herself suddenly trapped, her feet held fast in some way as the boat disappeared beneath the black water. Struggling grimly to pull herself free, she did not think to scream until it was almost too late, and then her cry was only a strangled gasp before she was forced to hold her breath. The last thing she saw before she submerged was Lummomu-Ko and one of his warriors diving off the rocks and swimming toward her.
She plummeted down, weighted by her ironshell cuirass and the talisman, still seeming to be entangled with the sinking boat. Frantically, she strove to free her legs from what held them. It was not wood and it was not rope, but instead something rough and hard, imprisoning her ankles. She clawed at it as she sank, but it continued to hold her tight. What was it? If only she were sober and able to think straight! The water was full of tiny luminous sparks—glowing jellyfish—and strands of luminous seaweed waved and rippled all round her. It was very beautiful … and she was drowning.
Her chest burned like a cauldron of molten metal and the air began to be forced out of her lungs. There was a roaring, hissing sound in her ears. She could hold her breath no longer. Shining bubbles streamed from her nostrils and mouth, tumbling upward through the palely gleaming water-life. The talisman in its belt-scabbard also glowed—not golden, but a rich effulgent green that reminded her of the little trillium root she had followed through the Thorny Hell so many years ago on her great quest.
Kick! Kick harder! Break away from whatever shackled her … Finally she did and for a moment swam free. But then one of her legs was caught again and she was dragged deeper—realizing too late that something—or someone—had a tight grip on her ankle. Sharp claws dug into he
r flesh through the straps of her sandals, and powerful muscles tensed to foil her attempts to wriggle free.
A surge of anger flooded through her. The Aliansa! Lummomu-Ko had been right about them planning treachery! Kadiya’s wits seemed to have deserted her, but she continued to writhe with all the strength that her body could muster. The burning in her chest was now unbearable—
And then the pain suddenly ceased. Her anger faded. She stopped struggling and felt only peace as she continued to drop through the field of glowing weed. Her eyes were wide open, but the world was becoming darker and darker.
In one last flash of reason, she tugged at the Three-Lobed Burning Eye. If she could use it … if she could only think what was to be done with it …
She had it in her hand.
The death-grip on her ankle abruptly loosened. She was free, drifting in the dark.
There, she thought happily. That’s better.