Witch of the Demon Seas Resailed

time.'

  'I think there will,' said Chryseir. 'There'd better be,' muttered Imaza. 'You can start teaching us their language,' said Shorzona. 'It might not be a bad idea for you to learn too, Imaza. The more who can talk to them, the better.'

  The Umlotuan made a wry face. 'Another tongue to learn! By the topknot of Mwanzi, why can't the world settle on one and end this babble!'

  'The poor interpreters would starve to death,' smiled Chryseir.

  He took Coruna's arm. 'Come, my buccaneer, let's go up, on deck for a while. There's always time to learn words.'

  They found a quiet spot on the forecastle deck, and sat down against the rail. The erinye settled her long body beside Chryseir and watched Coruna with sleepy malevolence, but she was hardly aware of the devil-beast. It was Chryseir, Chryseir, dark sweet hair and dark lambent eyes, utter loveliness of face and form, singing golden voice and light warm touch and...

  'You are a strange woman, Coruna,' he said softly. 'What are you thinking now?' 'Oh—nothing.' She smiled crookedly. 'Nothing.'

  'I don't believe that. You have too many memories.'

  Almost without knowing it, she found herself telling him of her life, the long terrible struggle against overwhelming power, the bitterness and loneliness, the death of comrades one by one—and the laughter and triumphs and wild exultance of it, the faring into unknown seas and the dicing with fate and the strong, close bonds of women against the world. She mused wistfully about a boy who was gone—but his bright image was strangely fading in her heart now, for it was Chryseir who was beside her.

  'It has been a hard life,' he said at the end. 'It took a giant of a woman to endure it.' He smiled, a small closed smile that made his look strangely young. 'I wonder what you must think of this—sailing with your sworn foes to the end of the world on an unknown mission.'

  'You're not my foe!' she blurted.

  'No—never your enemy, Coruna!' he exclaimed. 'We have been on opposite sides before—let it not be thus from this moment. I tell you that the purpose of this voyage, which you shall soon know, is—good. Great and good as the savagery of woman has never known before. You know the old legend—that someday the Heaven-Fire will shine through opening clouds not as a destroying flame but as the giver of life—that women will see light in the sky even at night—that there will be peace and justice for all mankind? I think that day may be dawning, Coruna.'

  She sat dumbly, bewildered. He was not evil—she was not evil—It was all she knew, but it sang within her.

  Suddenly he laughed and sprang to his feet. 'Come on!' he cried. 'I'll race you around the ship!'

  IV

  Rain and wind came, A lightning-shot squall in which the Briseir wallowed and bucked and women strained at oars and pumps. Toward evening it was over, the sea stilled and the lower clouds faded so that they saw the great dull-red disc of the Heaven-Fire through the upper clouds, sinking into the western sea. There was almost a flat calm, the glassy water was ruffled only by a faint breeze which half filled the sail and sent the galley sliding slowly and noiselessly northward.

  'Woman the oars,' directed Shorzona.

  'Give the women a chance to rest tonight, sir,' begged Imaza. 'They've all worked hard today. We can row all the faster tomorrow if we must.'

  'No time to spare,' snapped the wizard. 'Yes, there is,' said Coruna flatly. 'Let the women rest, Imaza.'

  Shorzona gave her a baleful glance. 'You forget your position aboard.'

  Coruna bristled. 'I think I'm just beginning to remember it,' she answered with metal in her voice.

  Chryseir laid a hand on his grandfather's arm. 'She's right,' he said. 'So is Imaza. It would be needless cruelty to make the sailors work tonight, and they will be better fitted by a night's rest.'

  'Very well,' said Shorzona sullenly. She went into her room and slammed the door. Presently Chryseir bade the women goodnight and went to her' quarters with the erinye trotting after.

  Coruna's eyes followed his through the deepening blue dusk. In that mystic light, the ship was a shadowy half-real background, a dimness beyond which the sea swirled in streamers of cold white radiance.

  'She's a strange man,' said Imaza. 'I don't understand him.'

  'Nor I,' admitted Coruna. 'But I know now his enemies have foully lied about him.'

  'I'm not so sure about that—' As the Conahurian turned with a dark frown, Imaza added quickly, 'Oh, well, I'm probably wrong. I never had much sight of him, you know.'

  They wandered up on the poop deck in search of a place to sit. It was deserted save for the helmsman by the dimly glowing binnacle, a deeper shadow in the thick blue twilight. Sitting back against the taffrail, they could look forward to the lean waist of the ship and the vague outline of the listlessly bellying sail. Beyond the hull, the sea was an arabesque of luminescence, delicate traceries of shifting white light out to the glowing horizon. The cold fire streamed from the ship's bows and whirled in his wake, the hull dripped liquid flame.

  The night was very quiet. The faint hiss and smack of cloven water, creak of planks and tackle, distant splashing of waves and invisible sea beasts—otherwise there was only the enormous silence under the high clouds. The breeze was cool on their cheeks.

  'How long till we get to the Sea of Demons?' asked Imaza. Her voice was oddly hushed in the huge stillness.

  'With ordinary sailing weather, I'd say about three ten-days—maybe four,' answered Coruna indifferently.

  It's a strange mission we're on, aye, that it is.' Imaza's head wagged, barely visible in the dark. 'I like it not, Coruna. I have evil feelings about it, and the omens I took before leaving weren't good.'

  'Why then did you sail? You're a free woman, aren't you?'

  'So they say!' Sudden bitterness rose in the Umlotuan's voice. 'Free as any of Shorzona's followers, which is to say less free than a slave, who can at least run away.'

  'Why, doesn't she pay well?'

  'Oh, aye, she is lavish in that regard. But she has her ways of binding servants to her so that they must do her bidding above that of the very gods. She put her geas on most of these sailors, for instance. They were simple folk, and thought she was only magicking them a good-luck charm.'

  'You mean they are bound? She has their souls?'

  'Aye. She put them to sleep in some sorcerous way and impressed her command on them. No matter what happens now, they must obey her. The geas is stronger than their own wills.'

  Coruna shivered. 'Are you—Pardon. It's no concern of mine.'

  'No, no, that's all right. She put no such binding on me—I knew better than to accept her offer of a luck-bringing spell. But she has other ways. She lent me a slave-girl from Umlotu for my pleasure—but he is lovely, wonderful, kind, all that a man should be. He has borne me daughters, and made homecoming ever a joy. But you see, he is still Shorzona's and she will not sell his to me or free her—moreover, she did put her geas on him. If ever I rebelled, he would suffer for it.' Imaza spat over the rail. 'So I am Shorzona's creature too.'

  'It must be a strange service.'

  'It is. Mostly all I have to do is captain her bodyguard. But I've seen and helped in some dark things. She's a fiend from the lowest hell, Shorzona is. And her granddaughter—' Imaza stopped.

  'Yes?' asked Coruna roughly. Her hand closed bruisingly on the other's arm. 'Go on. What of him?'

  'Nothing. Nothing. I really have had little to do with him.' Imaza's face was lost in the gloom, but Coruna felt the one eye hard on her. 'Only—be careful, pirate. Don't let his lay his own sort of geas on you. You've been a free woman till now. Don't become anyone's blind slave.'

  'I've no such intention,' said Coruna frostily.

  'Then no more need be said.' Imaza sighed heavily and got up. 'I think I'll go to bed, then. What of you?'

  'Not yet. I'm not sleepy. Goodnight.'

  'Goodnight.'

  Coruna sat back alone. She could barely discern the helmsman—beyond lay only glowing darkness and the whispering of the night. She fe
lt loneliness like a cold hollow within her breast.

  Father and mother, her tall sisters and her laughing lovely brother, the comrades of youth, the hard wild stout-hearted pirates with whom she had sailed for such a long and bloody time—where were they now? Where in all the blowing night were they?

  Where was she and on what mission, sailing alone through a pit of darkness on a ship of strangers? What meaning and hope in all the cruel insanity of the world?

  Suddenly she wanted her mother, she wanted to lay her head on his lap and cry in desolation and hear his gentle voice—no, by the gods, it wasn't his image she saw, it was a lithe and dark-haired warlock who was crooning to her and stroking her hair.

  She cursed tonelessly and got up. Best to go to bed and try to sleep her fancies away. She was becoming childish.

  She went down the catwalk toward the cabin. As she neared it, she saw a figure by the rail darkly etched against a shimmering patch of phosphorescence. Her heart sprang into her throat.

  He turned as she came near. 'Coruna,' he said. 'I couldn't sleep. Come over here and talk to me. Isn't the night beautiful?'

  She leaned on the rail, not daring to look at the haunting face pale-lit by the swirling sea-fire. 'It's nephew,' she said clumsily.

  'But it's lonely,' he whispered, 'I never felt so sad and alone before.' 'Why—why, that's how I felt!' she blurted.

  'Coruna—'

  He came to her and she took him with a sudden madness of yearning.

  Peria the erinye snarled as they thrust her out of his cabin. She padded up and down the