Ballad's captain sprang half-dressed and shouting from the stern. 'Quartermaster, bear up! All hands on deck to shorten sail!'
Yet the confused weather cleared before men could stumble from the forecastle. Fog dissolved into clear air, and breezes resumed from the west. South, where the horizon had bordered empty sky, an islet notched the sea. The shoreline glittered white in sunlight, sands ground fine as bleached flour, and mantled by a royal crown of cedars.
The Gierj twittered nervously. The linking bond of their attention faltered. Irritably, Maelgrim bound them tighter. Through their eyes, he beheld the elusive Isle of the Vaere where his sister had vanished after Anskiere stole her loyalty.
The Karas stared also. Its pose was an effortless replica of Corley's but its allegiance was to Scait and Shadowfane as it murmured in excited discovery, 'Set-Nav. Veriset-Nav for sure.'
Suddenly a dull square of red unfurled above the beachhead. Maelgrim quivered like a hound on hot scent and focused his Gierj. Multiple images showed him the frail silhouette of a fishing craft, her crew busily setting sail. The caverns beneath Shadowfane's dungeons rang with his harsh laugh, for there sailed Callinde, towing Moonless's jolly boat; Jaric was not at her helm. Through the perception of his Gierj, the Dark-dreamer found the sister he longed to murder sitting defenceless at the small craft's steering oar.
The Karas whirled with Corley's crisp air of authority. 'Call Scait,' it commanded. 'We must take Set-Nav. Its powers of communication can call allies from the stars. From them, the compact shall gain weapons and machines enough to desecrate all of Keithland. Then, when vengeance is complete, our exile upon this accursed planet may come to an end.'
But Maelgrim did not respond, obsessed as he was by a glimpse of black hair against the white of Callinde's wake. Duty warred with emotion; and the cruel conditioning of his mastery overturned both. 'First I will smash the Dreamweaver.' He lashed out through the link, sending the Gierj scrambling to form a circle unencumbered by shape-changers or men. The demons coalesced like ink and began the warbling whistle that focused their full range of power.
'No!' The Karas's muscles knotted. It seized the nearest demon, jerked it from the circle, and snarled to the Gierj-master who manipulated his minions from Shadowfane, 'Desist! The girl may be defended. You must call Scait!'
Yet Maelgrim would brook no interference. Taen was alone, he had checked; she had grown powerful, strangely powerful, but before his might she was helpless. He could slay her easily with the Gierj at his command. The Dark-dreamer engaged his will. On Ballad, the Gierj hissed. Fanged jaws slashed at the Karas's forearm and forced it into retreat. Only then did it notice that, with Maelgrim's attention diverted, the Kielmark's first captain had managed to throw himself halfway over the rail.
'Look to your prisoner!' shouted the shape-changer.
The Dark-dreamer disregarded its urgency. In another moment his circle of demon underlings would generate the power to strike his sister down. Nettled by the Karas's interference, Maelgrim laughed over the rising song of the Gierj. He permitted Captain Corley his leap into the sea, knowing the Karas must pursue, or forfeit the pattern of its change.
IX
Counterstrike
The whistle of the Gierj ascended the scale, gaining volume until the very sky seemed to ring with harmonics.
Taen tighted her hands on Callinde's steering oar. The sound beat against her ears, keen and deadly as a razor's edge; the demon circle would reach pitch at any second. The instant their powers peaked, Maelgrim Dark-dreamer would crush her defences as easily as a child might mash an ant.
Wind hooked Callinde's spanker. Her hull heeled and drove bucking through a swell. Foam burst off the bow like a spray of thrown diamonds, but Taen had no attention to spare for beauty. She sailed by touch, eyes clenched shut while the Gierj-whistle jabbed like a lance into her dream-sense. The note keened abruptly to a crescendo. The darkness behind Taen's eyes buckled, then shattered into sparks before an onslaught of unbearable power. The steering oar slipped from her grasp. Callinde rounded to weather with a shattering bang of sails, her lapstrake planking exposed broadside to the demon fleet.
Taen threw back her head and drew a shuddering breath. 'Now!' she cried. Before Maelgrim broke her mind, she released the veil of concealment she had cast about Ivainson Jaric.
Fire exploded from Callinde's prow. The conflagration gained intensity until the waves themselves seemed aflame. A boiling, snapping inferno smothered the face of the sea. Caught like lint in a cauldron of hell, six of the Kielmark's brigantines crisped to ash in an instant. The Gierj-chant cut off as if strangled. Maelgrim's attack broke with it. Taen sagged exhausted against Callinde's thwart, while her brother's thoughts echoed across the dying thread of the link that connected to him at Shadowfane. He had lost his circle of Gierj, spoiled the chance to capture Set-Nav; now he must face Scait with ill news. Keithland had gained a new Firelord...
The contact subsided into fury, then dissolved. Taen roused to the thunder of luffing sails and a snaking mess of slacked lines. She lifted shaking arms, caught the steering oar, and muscled Callinde back on course, away from the Isle of the Vaere. Ahead, the horizon lay marred by smoke. Where tanbark sails had caught clean wind only moments before, charred beams wallowed amid ash-smeared waves.
'They're gone.' Taen glanced to the bow where the Firelord knelt, staring fixedly at the hands held clenched against his chest.
Jaric flinched at the sound of her voice. He raised tortured eyes and said softly, 'Already it begins.'
Taen knew he referred to the killing, and the fact that his first use of mastery had been an act of destruction. She bit her lip, shaken herself by the swift and terrible ruin brought down upon a fleet that had included Corley's own Moonless. 'They were all dead, puppets of demons.' Cut by echoes of Jaric's pain, the Dreamweaver sounded more brisk than she intended. 'To leave such men alive would be more cruel, surely!'
Jaric rose. His hair caught like fire with sunlight as he strode aft, eased the sheet lines, and took the steering oar from Taen's grasp. She trembled, uncontrollably.
Sickened himself, the son of Ivain caught her and pulled her close. 'I know the burning was necessary,' he murmured into her hair. He paused, while Callinde rocked gently under freed canvas. 'But I don't have to like the violence. Otherwise, like my father, someday I might grow to enjoy such brute power too much.'
Taen pressed against him, drawing comfort from his lean strength. Her eyes stung with tears not entirely due to the smoke. After a time, Jaric leaned around her, yanked mainsheets and jib taut, and swung the steering oar to restore Callinde's course. His one free hand knotted fiercely in Taen's hair, then released.
'Little witch, I need you for one thing more.' Ivainson sounded tired, even reluctant, to ask. 'Check and make certain no demon-possessed remain. For Shadowfane must never gain access to the Isle of the Vaere.'
Taen drew her knees up and curled against him on the stern seat. With her ear to Jaric's side, she heard his heartbeat and knew: he had been shocked as she, to emerge from the protection of the Vaere and discover Cliffhaven's six ships under Maelgrim's control. Neither of them could bear to mention names, or count the friends whose bodies had been consigned to flame.
Callinde drove steadily northward, into waters where splinters and burned cordage dirtied the crests of the waves. Subdued by sorrow and loss, Taen tuned her inner awareness and scanned the waters for sign of life. At first her dream-sense encountered only mindless flickers, schools of scavenging fish come to feed on remains. Then she caught something else, faint, almost missed: a remembered flash of steel by starlight.
The Dreamweaver shot upright with a gasp. 'Corley!' She turned widened, hopeful eyes toward Jaric, then broke into a shout of relief. 'Over there!' She pointed. 'Deison Corley is alive.'
The Firelord needed no urging. He sprang, whipped the sheets taut in the blocks, and threw his weight against the steering oar. The compass needle swung with maddening sluggishne
ss, north, north-northeast, to east.
Callinde changed tack, heeled, then settled, small as a chip on her new course. The jolly boat nosed at her stern rope like a puppy just broken to leash.
'Fetch the ship's glass from the port locker. Is the captain in pain?' At Taen's nod, Jaric continued briskly. 'Then we'll need spare line. Maybe the storm sail, too, unless you think we can haul him over the jolly boat's thwart without adding to his injury.'
Taen's shift flapped about her knees as she flung open lockers and delved after canvas and rope. The ship's glass she eliminated; dream-sense could locate a swimmer more efficiently than eyesight, and time counted dearly. The pattern of energy she knew as the Kielmark's first captain was dim, and failing steadily. But Callinde closed the distance quickly; without question, Corley was alive, and very close by.
'There!' Jaric adjusted course and pointed. Ahead, dark against the crest of a swell, a man's head broke the surface of the sea. Taen saw him clearly before a drifting pall of smoke obliterated the view.
'Take the helm.' Transformed by hope, Jaric snatched rope and spare sailcloth from Taen's hands. As she took the steering oar, he caught the jolly boat's tow line and yanked it inboard with hurried jerks of his arms. 'Steer upwind, and heave to, can you? As we pass, I'll cast off and pick him up.'
Taen nodded. Closer, through thinning wisps of steam, she sighted Corley swimming strongly down the face of a wave. He had seen Callinde, and his teeth flashed a smile of welcome that did not mesh with the pattern touched by her dream-sense. Taen frowned. The captain who pulled himself through the sea with such sure overhand strokes seemed too vital for one whose skin stung with abrasions, and whose lungs laboured, cramped from lack of air.
Callinde heeled under a gust.
'Steady on the helm!' shouted Jaric. He leaped into the jolly boat and whipped the towline off the cleat. Suddenly afraid for him, Taen called out, 'Be careful!'
But, preoccupied with the friend in the water, Jaric seemed not to hear. He bent immediately, threaded oars, and muscled his boat stern first into the waves. The jolly boat seemed a toy skewed crazily on the shoulder of the swell; smaller still seemed the man in the sea, an insect on the face of creation. As Jaric swung alongside and shipped his looms, Taen heard him shout encouragement.
'Kor's grace, man, be quick. Knives rust to scrap in the sea, don't you remember telling me?'
Corley's laugh boomed reassuringly back across the water. 'No fuss. I jettisoned the knives. Had to. Ballast would've swamped me.' He caught the jolly boat's transom with wet fingers, and only then did the Dreamweaver notice the shadowy wrongness that suffused his flesh.
Premonition made her shiver. Taen had seen such a phenomenon only once before, in the form of a demon shape-changer planted in King Kisburn's court to sow discord.
She shouted, frantic, 'Jaric!' But wind snatched her words. The thing that looked like the captain caught the hand of his rescuer and heaved himself, dripping, from the sea. His wrists, his hands, his very skin was unmarked, while the pattern Taen's dream-sense knew as Corley stung with painful cuts. 'Jaric, he's Shadowfane's!'
Yet even as the Dreamweaver called warning, the fists of a Karas shape-changer clamped over Ivainson's throat. Jaric lashed out in defence. Fire flared, bristled with terrible, spitting snaps down the creature's arms.
The Karas screamed with Corley's voice. Crazed by an agony of grief, Jaric reacted in madness. Flame shot skyward. Light glared like molten metal over the waves. and the captain's form became momentarily incandescent, reduced to ash in an instant. Still the flame continued, searing the air with a shriek like hot steel hitting water.
Jaric shouted, his words a blasphemy against Kor's mercy. Then as if his knees had failed him, he folded against the jolly boat's thwart. Fire died while he wept. For a moment, Taen feared to touch him, his thoughts ranged so far beyond reason. Shaking, tearful with reaction herself, she steadied her dream-sense. The moment she tuned her powers, she encountered Corley again, reduced to a flicker, an echo, submerged beneath the waves. No time remained for finesse. Taen shaped a dream-call that bordered the edge of compulsion, and sent her find directly into Jaric's mind.
Then tears blurred her eyesight completely. She heard but did not see the splash as Ivainson dived. By the time her vision cleared, the jolly boat drifted empty, one oar canted crookedly against the bow seat. Wind puckered the swells, and Callinde's sails flapped. Taen steadied the steering oar and waited an interminable interval until Jaric broke the surface, burdened by something heavy and limp. He kicked awkwardly and caught the jolly boat's rope.
Taen glimpsed a snarl of chestnut hair; this time there could be no mistake. Jaric had recovered the true Corley from the sea, for this victim matched the mangled pattern picked up by her dream-sense. Demon captivity had been cruel. The captain was injured and very near death from drowning. Jaric ran rope beneath Corley's shoulders and secured him to the jolly boat's transom. As he rowed and boarded Callinde, Taen raced and freed a spare halyard.
With all possible speed, Dreamweaver and Firelord hoisted the helpless man aboard Callinde. The crisscrossed marks of his knife sheaths showed white against Corley's tan; no scrap of clothing remained to hide skin torn everywhere with abrasions and burns. Something, horribly, had gnawed off one finger at the knuckle. Blood from the stump threaded streamers through the puddled water on the deck.
'Karas,' said Taen faintly. 'Shape-changers eat portions of their victims to permanently maintain form.'
Jaric reined in the fury her words inspired. He spoke in a deadened voice and kept to immediate needs. 'There's a tin of healer's salve in the starboard locker, and we can tear my dry shirts for bandages.
But the true extent of the damage did not become apparent until Corley's hurts were dressed and he lay wrapped in blankets by the mainmast.
Taen knelt at the captain's side when his bruised brown eyes flickered open. 'We're taking you back to Cliffhaven,' she offered. But her words were received without comfort. All that remained of Moonless and her fleet of five brigantines was one man, and a jolly boat dragging astern. Corley turned his face miserably to the thwart. To him survival offered no joy but a burden nearly impossible to endure.
Taen touched the captain's shoulder and gently pressed his mind into sleep. Grief leaked through the contact, born of loss, but also something more: Corley was inwardly wounded beyond her power to console. He had prided himself for loyalty; the youthful sense of honour that drove him to leave Morbrith rather than shame the High Earl's son had matured to service and friendship now granted to the Kielmark. But on the decks of Ballad, Dark-dreamer and Karas had proven that faith could be corrupted into a weapon designed for murder; neither sword steel, integrity, nor death itself held power to avert a betrayal of everything Corley held dear.
Discouraged and sad, Taen rose and joined Jaric at the helm. The hope gained when Ivainson achieved his Firemastery seemed suddenly withered, blown to dust like seedlings killed in a drought. Shadowfane's reach was longer and more powerful than ever she could have imagined; Maelgrim's conquest of Morbrith and subsequent possession of Corley's command required powers that defied credibility. If his Gierj-circle was replaced, what damage might Keithland suffer before Callinde reached Cliffhaven to free Anskiere?
Troubled by Taen's stillness, Jaric threaded an arm around her waist and drew her close. 'Don't fret, little witch. You've done enough, and more than enough.'
Taen shook her head. Troubled by the memory of her brother's last thoughts, she spoke unthinkingly aloud. 'Whatever did Maelgrim mean by Set-Nav, anyway?'
A wave jostled Callinde off course. Jaric reached to shift his grip and ended banging his knuckles against the shaft of the steering oar. 'Tell me where you heard that.' He turned and faced her, at once a stranger with the terrible, edged presence of a Vaere-trained Firelord.
Thrown off balance by the depths in him, Taen drew back. 'When you flamed the Gierj, Maelgrim cursed the loss of a thing named Set-Nav. In some manner
, his reference referred to the Isle of the Vaere. What do you think he meant?'
Jaric sat motionless. Through dream-sense, Taen determined that the term 'Set-Nav' was familiar to him, and connected to a strange scrap of information found in Landfast's libraries. Then Jaric's expression turned harsh as chipped agate, and his mind became closed to her. He started to say something, paused, and instead arose to tighten the headsail halyard.
'Jaric!' Taen caught the abandoned steering oar and muscled Callinde back on course. 'Whatever could Maelgrim mean?'
Ivainson replied with his attention trained keenly on the set of the jib. 'I don't know.'
He told the truth. Though Taen pressed after the reason for his unsettled response, Jaric refused to elaborate. A part of his mind would brook no interference; like the Stormwarden, Ivainson Firelord now owned mysteries even a Vaere-trained Dreamweaver could not encompass.
* * *
The sail north to Cliffhaven required six weeks. Taen soon found that the death of Maelgrim's Gierj had lifted the block preventing contact with Cliffhaven. She dream-sent only once, to ascertain that the conclave at Mhored Kara had honoured her request and relayed the news of Morbrith's fall. Evidently it had, for the Kielmark was in a black temper, savagely intolerant of intrusion. Rather than exhaust herself needlessly trying to calm him enough to receive dream-image, Taen obtained her information through Captain Tamic, the Kielmark's next in command during Corley's absence.
The second captain was a burly man, given to boisterous phrases and rougher judgement. Taen he treated with respect, mostly because she had stopped his tongue with a spell the first time he tried to insult her. Forced speechlessness did not wear well with Captain Tamic. He greeted the Dreamweaver's sending from the south reaches with a curse, but related the state of affairs on Cliffhaven with the malicious abandon of a gossip.