Up came a pair of fish like bloated black bladders, one thirty times larger than its companion. Each had a single long, curving appendage like a thin filament fishing line attached to its forehead, from whose tip twitched a lure of irresistible intensity. Their eyes were so small as to be almost invisible, and they burned with the fire of a hundred natural lights. Nearby swarmed a school of a thousand small silvery fish, each flashing a thumb-sized soft blue light from just aft of its eye.
There were jellyfish larger than any the sailors had ever seen, their pulsing bells decorated with blue and green and yellow lights that trailed fifty-foot-long tentacles of unbroken luminescence. Deep-sea sharks swept tails full of sapphire light in steady arcs, like glowing oars in the water, and all manner of toothy fish darted to and fro in balls of intense yellow or green.
But it was when the tiny lanterns of natural luminescence finally arose that the sea around the Grömsketter turned from dark to light. There were billions of them, seemingly in as many shapes and sizes, many so small that even sharp-eyed seamen wearing spectacles could barely make them out. Ehomba could. The herdsman’s vision was particularly acute.
Then the mid-ocean merfolk arrived, showing oval, slightly protuberant eyes and gills that flashed gold around the edges. They displayed elegant patterns of light along their sides and fins and carried short staffs tipped with transparent crustacean bodies scavenged from the hidden places of the sea. These were filled with glowing krill individually selected for their color and brightness. A number of merfolk rode in shell chariots drawn by man-sized seahorses that glowed brown and were harnessed with kelp and sea-grass strips radiating an intense crimson.
The lightwhals came too. Looking like crosses between oversized dolphins and blind seals, they radiated a ghostly, pellucid purple. There were night penguins that emitted green light only when hunting in dark seas, and merlions whose manes were fringed with pallid lavender. The mournful, watery moans they exchanged with their land-bound cousin Ahlitah resounded regretful and forlorn across the mist-shrouded swells.
There were deep-ocean crabs whose shells boasted imbedded iridescences in lines of intense green spotted with azure, and strange turtles whose carapaces wore diadems of lights like pulsating jewels. Eels slithered and writhed like living lightning, while squid and cuttlefish ranging in size from palm-sized to giants that might have been family of the Kraken itself sent waves of opalescence rippling through their skin. Sea butterflies more colorful than any of their terrestrial counterparts flew beneath the surface on wings tinted emerald and topaz and tourmaline, occasionally emerging from the water in jubilant bursts of dazzling effulgence.
Drawn by the incomparable blue glow emitted by the sky-metal sword, all this great upwelling of light and life swirled around the Grömsketter, disturbing neither water nor sky but overwhelming and beating back the darkness imposed by the clinging fog. Whereas before Stanager and her crew could barely see one another clearly enough to avoid running into each other on the deck, now the excess of spectacular natural light illuminated the sea around the ship for nearly half a mile, making not only onboard activity but also navigation possible.
“Terious!” the Captain shouted. “Set the mains’l and the lower fores’ls! Let’s punch through this murk before our herdsman’s flock grows bored and decides to sink back from whence they came.” Her classic profile was aglow with light from the thousands of luminescent deep-sea dwellers that had gathered around the ship.
Simna had not left his position by the rail. “Better to worry not about losing their interest, but about my friend losing the strength in his arm.”
It was a procession never to be forgotten by all who saw it: the graceful Grömsketter, sails set and making her way southwest, englobed by millions of colored lights worn by as fantastic a profusion of undersea life as could be assembled in one place. Even experienced seamen would have been paralyzed by all that beauty, had they not been so busy. Stanager Rose kept her crew occupied lest they lose themselves in the embarrassment of natural magnificence.
Thrust back by the luminescence, the fog began to shrivel and disperse, until a single light brighter if not more beautiful than all those assembled began to illuminate the scene from above. Then even the blue intensity of the sword could not sustain the interest of the visitors from the deep. In their tiny millions and larger pairs and trios they began to sink back into the abyss from which they had risen, untold numbers of lights descending and dissipating, until, with a last silent wave of a phosphorescent scepter, one of the deep-sea mermen saluted the ship and turned his glowing chariot ultimately downward.
The sun burned away the last of the fog, enabling the crew to put on still more sail and to flee from that darkling, benighted patch of ocean. Then it was time to bring forth a small quantity of the ship’s precious supply of ice, kept sealed in the darkest, coldest depths of her hull. Not to cool her crew, who were certainly sweating heavily enough to deserve it, but to ice down the muscles of one of her passengers. Held in one position for so long, Ehomba’s left arm and fingers had become badly cramped. The application of ice wrapped in towels might not equal the recent display of magic, but it was blessedly effective.
While the herdsman sat on the helm deck trying to restore the flow of blood to his aching muscles and tendons, Simna gingerly held the sky-metal sword. As always, the crosshatched lines on the blade fascinated his eye.
“How do you make it work, Etjole, if you are not the sorcerer you keep insisting you’re not?”
The herdsman would have shrugged, but his cramped shoulders would not allow it. “Practice, friend Simna. Otjihanja showed me some things, and other elders had suggestions. It is not something to be described. You must feel the proper motion, the way the weight of the metal travels through the air and fights the pull of the Earth.”
Simna nodded. “You know, it’s funny. When I was younger I would have taken that as a challenge, and as a result probably tried something stupid.”
“I do not see much that has changed with age.” Curled up against the railing that separated the helm deck from the main deck below, the black litah murmured sleepily.
“And I do not take criticism of my profession from a yowling devourer of carrion.” When the big cat chose not to respond, Simna turned back to his lanky friend. “Having seen what this remarkable blade can do, I would no more try to make use of it than I would a sculptor’s chisel or a musician’s lute.”
Ehomba smiled softly. “You did, once.”
A startled Simna looked sharply at the seated herdsman. “I thought you were asleep!”
Ehomba looked away. “I was.”
The swordsman started to reply, discovered that he did not have an adequate response at hand, and decided against it. Instead, he laid the wondrous weapon carefully down alongside his seated friend and pulled the thin blanket a little higher on Ehomba’s narrow shoulders. The herdsman had spent far too much time with his hand and part of one arm immersed in the cold water. Sorcerer or not, he was starting to shiver.
“I will be all right.” He smiled reassuringly up at his concerned companion. “The ocean below my village is much colder than this, and I have spent many an hour wading and swimming in its waters.”
“I don’t care,” Simna told him. “Any man can catch a chill and die from the complications.” He looked out to sea. “Attract like to like, you said. More like light to light. It was a grand sight. I never dreamed quite so many splendid phantasms dwelled in the sea, and all of them lit from within by sorceral glow.”
“Not sorceral,” Ehomba corrected him. One hand held the edges of the blanket tight against his throat. “The lights you saw were all natural, manufactured from within their own bodies by the creatures themselves. There was nothing of sorcery about it.”
The swordsman’s forehead furrowed. “How do you know that?”
“Because many such creatures wash up dead on the beaches near my home. Their bodies are flaccid and their lights dimmed, but they still
glow for a little while after dying.” He nodded toward the clearing sky. “The waters offshore from my village go down very deep. It must be exceedingly dark in the depths, like a perpetual night, for the creatures that live there to need to make their own light.”
“A handy property,” Simna agreed. “There have been times when I would have liked to have been able to shine a little light from my own body.”
The herdsman looked at him strangely. “Everyone does so, Simna. It is just that it is difficult to see. It takes practice to separate it out from the natural light that surrounds us every day.”
The shorter man laughed easily. “So you’re saying that I glow like those fishy things? Like a jellyfish, maybe?”
“No, not like a jellyfish. The light that people, or at least most people, emit, is something very different. But you do glow, my friend. Less intensely in ways than you would like to believe, and more brightly in other kinds. There are many, many different kinds of light.”
“Well, at least I’m not dark.” Simna enjoyed the notion, even though he was not sure he understood at all what his cryptic companion was talking about. “How about everyone else?” Turning, he gestured at those nearby, not really expecting the herdsman to respond.
Instead, Ehomba rested his chin on his knees and squinted, pausing once to wipe away a lingering droplet of salt water. “The Captain, she glows only a very few colors, but those colors are as pure and strong as I have ever seen in a person. The helmswoman Priget emits light in fits and bits, like the sparks from a fire. That man working the ropes over there, his lights are few and dim, but far from being absent.” The herdsman’s gaze roved the open decks.
“The lights of the first mate are also strong and unadulterated, but not nearly of an intensity approaching that of the Captain. Certain shades and tints are completely absent in Ahlitah, but those colors he does manifest are almost overpowering.” He sniffed and, lifting a hand from beneath the blanket, rubbed his nose.
Simna’s natural reaction to all this was to laugh heartily. But seeing the seriousness with which Ehomba was rendering his appraisals, the swordsman could not quite bring himself to do so. The herdsman was jesting, of course. Having one of his silent, slightly taciturn chuckles at the expense of a friend. People, much less cats like Ahlitah, did not glow. If they did, someone as sharp-eyed as himself would surely have noticed it by now. But he was happy to run with the joke, enjoying the fertility of his laconic companion’s imagination. His friend might or might not be the mighty sorcerer Simna supposed him to be, but he was certainly a fine storyteller. The sincerity with which he spun his tall tales only added to their seeming veracity.
“You overlooked someone.” He indicated a large, unkempt gray mass resting on the deck like a pile of discarded rugs. “What about Hunkapa Aub?”
Ehomba gazed thoughtfully in the direction of their humble companion. “He is a strange one. I can descry occasional bursts of light from him, but they are very subdued and difficult to catch.” He grinned gently. “Maybe it is all that fur. Certain things can block out a person’s light. Although I have never before known hair to do it, neither have I ever known anyone covered with quite so much hair.” His attention drifted. “I think the rest of the day will be fine. I wonder how far we are from Doroune?”
Simna straightened. “I’ll go and ask Stanager.”
“Yes,” Ehomba commented, “I have noticed that you and the Captain have begun to get along better these past several days.”
The swordsman winked conspiratorially. “You’ve been around me long enough by now to know that I’m a very persistent fellow, long bruther. And not just in the matter of lost treasures to be found.” Grinning, he turned and marched off in the direction of the helm, where Stanager Rose was conversing with Priget.
“Be careful,” the herdsman called after him.
“Why?” Simna smiled back over his shoulder. “Afraid I might figure out how to see her ‘light’?”
“No,” Ehomba responded. “Afraid that you might see it. You’re all too easily blinded by such things, Simna ibn Sind.”
VIII
After so long out of sight of land (the Tilo Islands being a horrific recollection that every man and woman aboard firmly desired to expunge from their memories), the majestic spectacle of the Quonequot Cliffs looming on the western horizon roused a throaty cheer from passengers and crew alike when they finally hove into view. Rising vertically a thousand feet from the waves that broke against their base and plunging to untold depths below the surface, the white-chalk precipices terminated in a massive headland that marked the entrance to Kylles Bay. Beyond and within lay the fabled western trading city of Doroune.
Stealing a moment from her navigational duties, Stanager Rose left the helm in the capable hands of Priget, who had guided the Grömsketter into the bay several times before, and walked over to stand alongside the most puzzling passenger she had ever carried. At present, he was gazing thoughtfully over the starboard side, studying the lofty white escarpment as the ship neared land. Dragonets of many sizes and colors glided regally along the cliff faces, where they found safe nesting sites among the sheer walls. In this they were not alone. Ceaseless screeching and cawing and hissing testified to the competition for prime sites among dragonets and puffins, gulls and terns. As Captain and passenger stood side by side at the rail, a formation of great osteodontornids glided by overhead, their twenty-foot wings momentarily blocking out the sun, their tooth-filled beaks intent on tracking a school of small fish shoaling by just beneath the breaking spume.
“What will you do now?” she inquired of the silent herdsman.
He did not turn to look at her, but instead kept this gaze on the immense chalky headland. “As I told you before we set out on this crossing, I am bound by personal covenant to journey to a land called Ehl-Larimar, there to seek out a woman called the Visioness Themaryl, and return her to her family in Laconda. Ehl-Larimar lies to the west of here, so it seems I must keep traveling west.” Shifting his attention from the imposing headland, he smiled down at her. “I have already been too long away from home. I hope I do not have to travel so far west that I meet myself coming.”
She laughed, caught herself, and choked slightly on the unusual reaction. “That’s silly, Etjole. Nobody can meet themselves coming.”
With a sigh, he returned his attention to the place where the incoming swells shattered themselves against the white ramparts. “It depends how far west one has to go, and what one means by ‘west.’ This Doroune, is it as big as Hamacassar?”
She shook her head. “Haven’t been that far inland—the crew and I keep pretty much to the harbor because that’s where both our business and recreational interests lie. But from all that I’ve seen and heard on previous trips, it’s a much smaller place. Most of the coastal towns we visit and trade with are like that. Transit points for goods from farther inland. They don’t get many visitors from across the Semordria.” She grinned confidently. “Everyone knows only fools and imbeciles dare attempt the ocean crossing.”
Solemnly, he put a hand on her shoulder. “As one fool to another, let me say that it has been an honor to travel on your ship, Captain Rose.”
She nodded once, as eloquent an acceptance of the compliment as she could manage. Straightforward praise made her uncomfortable. Easier for her to deal with a storm or a mutinous crew than an unabashed encomium.
“Thanks.” They were silent for a while, standing side by side, watching the sea and the birds and the dragonets as Priget and Terious deftly maneuvered the Grömsketter around the southern tip of the headland and into Kylles Bay. Heading north once again but this time in calm, sheltered waters, Ehomba soon found he could make out the steeples and peaked roofs of Doroune in the distance.
“Look,” she said finally, “I’ll be a goodly while sailing down the coast and then back up again, selling off not only our own trade goods but those we pick up along the way. Can’t give you exact times and dates because this sort of unsc
heduled trading isn’t done to a timetable. But we’ll for sure be calling at Oos, Xemon-scap, Polab, Sambley, and Calenx. Can’t say if we’ll go farther than that. The weather south of Calenx can turn at the drop of a line.” It was her turn to put a hand on his arm.
“If your travels take you to any of those cities, don’t depart without asking about us. If—when you’ve accomplished your quest, you’ll be wanting passage home. Can’t take you to Ehl-Larimar—don’t even know where it is—but we can carry you back across the Semordria.” This time her grin did not surprise her. “Try and hang on to a few of your pebbles. I like you, Etjole Ehomba. I find much to admire in you. And much that bewilders me. But while I like to think there’s much goodness in my heart, that doesn’t include free passage.”
He nodded understandingly. “A few pebbles. Thoughts of them will keep your supercargo feeling younger than his years.”
“Broch’s a good fellow. Sharp mind, sound seaman. He’s devoted to me, and to the ship, and has made it his mission to see to it that both of us stay afloat. Enjoy your last moments on the Grömsketter, Etjole Ehomba. She’ll miss you, and so will I.” She stepped back from the railing. “There’s much of interest to see on the final leg of our approach into Doroune. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some small matters of navigation to attend to below.”
He watched her until she disappeared down one of the ladders that led to the main deck. Straight of back and purpose, she was a fine woman. The sea had burnished her like bronze, had knocked off all the rough edges and replaced them with the sharpness of salt and the fire of red coral. Mirhanja would like her, he decided.
High on the white cliffs above, dragonets and seabirds screamed as the ship came around. It would be strange, he thought, to have again beneath his feet a floor that did not roll. Were he not so devoted a herdsman, he had often thought he might have become a sailor.