Cloak of the Two Winds (17 page)

Gline was bleak and rocky, gray cliffs rising over gray beaches. The village was humble, huts of mud and reeds clustered on the beach, a few fortified dwellings carved above in the cliffside. Fishing boats lined the shore, wooden craft somewhat like dojuks, but smaller and with only one outrigger.

As soon as the coaster's sails were stripped down, the crewmen loaded the skiffs with brandy, oil, and silks and lowered them to the ice. The Iruks, dressed in harness and armed with spears, accompanied the boats ashore—all except Lonn who was busy with his training.

When the trading party returned in the late afternoon, Lonn was perched in the rigging, meditating on the white sky. As Troneck came on board, he complained loudly about the stinginess of the Glinesmen. It was not a trading season, and the villagers had stores of oil and wine laid in. Realizing the Larthangans needed food, the islanders had held out for an extremely favorable rate of exchange. Suspended high over the deck as he heard the captain's lamentations, Lonn felt himself more akin to the world of the clouds than the mundane world below. It struck him then how much the witch's training was changing him.

On the evening that the
Plover
sailed from Gline, Amlina entered the dark immersion. By practicing shallower wei trances, the witch had pieced together a map, a guiding picture of the near future, of what obstacles she might encounter and how best to seek the Cloak in Kadavel. But there were blanks and obscure places in the picture. Amlina hoped to clarify these through the deep trance.

She lay in her bunk as the Iruks had first seen her, in silk robe, fur-trimmed coat and moonstone fillet. The tiny lamps glowed about the cabin, their lights reflecting on the narrow strips of tapestry. The trinkets dangled, spinning at times or swaying with the heeling of the ship.

For the first two days Amlina's mind was diffuse through time and space, and she had no awareness of herself or her purpose. On the third day purpose returned, a vaguely remembered thought: the object of great power, the Cloak of the Two Winds, she must see it, find it. Now her mental strivings elicited shapes and shadows. She glimpsed the outline of seawalls and towers ... Kadavel. Somewhere in Kadavel, she knew, the Cloak was hidden.

Time passed. Thoughts and emptiness by turns filled her mind. Often she pictured the Cloak, black and silver, vivid with power. But always it was wrapped by a shiny mist of darkness, so she could discover no clue of its location. She visualized Kadavel again and again but only perceived the places she knew from memory, and those in no specific detail or order. She envisioned the Iruks with their reckless ferocity and lingering distrust of her. Somehow it seemed their trust would be crucial to her in Kadavel, but she did not know how or why.

On the fourth or fifth day a feeling of unease stirred in Amlina. She sensed someone searching for her, even as she was searching…Beryl, it must be. The Archimage of the East was the most dangerous blank on Amlina's map. If Amlina could trace the Cloak to Kadavel, surely Beryl could do so as well. If Amlina's deepseeing had failed so far to perceive Beryl's appearance in the near future, it was probably because Beryl hid herself.

Of course Amlina too had her concealments. The moonstone fillet she wore was a talisman. Each day she visualized an aura of white light emanating from the stones, surrounding and protecting her. Deepshapers commonly wrapped themselves in such defenses, but since leaving Tallyba Amlina had charged her barrier with the specific thought of hiding her from Beryl's mind. Still, the barrier had been weakened by the design she had cast and by her releasing her will now to the dark immersion. And of course Beryl was mighty. Amlina expected that sooner or later she would have to face the Archimage. She must prepare for that meeting.

Amlina took a deep breath, and the prisms and desmets spun around on their threads. In the depths of her trance she conjured Beryl's image. The face of the Archimage leapt into view, a face kept young in appearance by sorcery and human lives, yet old in experience and wickedness. Amlina knew Beryl's habits and practices as well as anyone. If Beryl had a weakness it lay not in her knowledge or skill, both unsurpassed, but in her character—perhaps in her pride, her contempt for inferiors, perhaps most of all in her dread of her own mortality.

Amlina studied Beryl's face for a while, her mind open to the surfacing of further intuitions. But no ideas arose. After a time, it seemed that the face was staring back. Amlina realized she had been thinking of Beryl too long.

She sought at once to turn her mind away, to dissolve the face and look instead into emptiness. But the face refused to vanish. It hung quivering amid the silvery waves Amlina threw against it. The eyes continued to stare at Amlina, more and more intently, bright and malign.

The trinkets swung and rattled as Amlina turned on her bed. Suddenly she sat up and opened her eyes. Beryl's face remained, floating in the lingering trance-light against the dim background of the cabin.

In terror, Amlina struggled to her feet, seized by the wild urge to flee, to escape Beryl's view. After two lurching steps, she caught herself and stood shuddering among the trinkets, fighting down her panic. In a moment, she shut her eyes and sank to the floor where she sat with feet tucked at her hips.

Ignoring Beryl's face as best she could, Amlina breathed deeply to calm herself. Her fingers found the moonstone fillet and she worked its charm—casting her awareness into the moonstones, seeing them change the thought to white light that poured out to engulf her. Amlina watched the light raining forth, growing deeper and brighter until Beryl's face was lost in its brilliance.

Amlina waited a long time in her barrier, until she was sure Beryl was no longer watching. Then, timidly, she opened her eyes. The cabin was empty and still. Amlina let go of the fillet and stood, her head reeling. She lurched to the bunk and sank down. She had been a fool to dwell so long on Beryl's image, more of a fool to try to run, as if Beryl's mind could be physically escaped. She had forgotten how easily the Archimage could terrify her, make her lose her wits.

It was difficult to assess how costly the blunder might prove. Amlina only knew that Beryl had seen her, not how clearly or what she might have learned from the vision. That Beryl had not spoken suggested that the contact had been tenuous—probably too tenuous to launch a mental attack, if indeed that had been Beryl's intent. Knowing Beryl, she would be willing to wait. Having found Amlina once, she would expect it to be that much easier to find her again.

Amlina fingered the moonstone band in her hair. She must keep the aura bright and strong. The thought of the Iruks recurred to her. They too would need protecting. She had some extra moonstones in her jewel box, pieces of an unfinished necklace…

From Gline the coaster traveled north, across open ice. The south wind had abated and now the breeze blew mostly from the west and northwest. The days were fair, and though the seas remained hard the weather was not bitter cold as it had been farther south. They had entered the warm latitudes, according to Kizier. The sun, which had risen higher as they journeyed north, now crossed the sky almost directly overhead.

Lonn continued to practice his exercises, day in and day out, with no variations. While Amlina was in the dark immersion Kizier served as trainer, though this duty only required that he enforce the routine against Lonn's occasional protests. Adhering to the strict mental disciplines was still not easy for the Iruk, whose active mind constantly strained against being still. But each time he maundered from the path, Kizier patiently brought him back.

"Stillness," the bostull said. "The mind is a pool whose bottom is infinite knowledge, so the sages of Larthang teach. To view the depths with clarity there must be stillness at the surface."

Maintaining contemplative stillness was especially hard for Lonn in the hours he spent with his mates. Except for Draven, the Iruks were growing more dubious about the training.

"I don't like what's happening to you, Lonn." Karrol said to him one night. "You're not the same. You're distant, out of yourself. How do we know the witch isn't turning you into one of those mindless ones?"

"Because we trust Amlina," Draven said.

"I don't trust her," Karrol answered. "I don't."

Four days north of Gline the coaster raised the shore of another island, Borga. From viewing Troneck's charts the Iruks knew they were finally nearing their destination. North of Borga lay a narrow channel, gradually widening to the west. At the end of the channel, where the islands of Borga, Lustre, and Glistre came together, stood the city of Kadavel.

"With this wind, six or seven days yet," Troneck answered their query gruffly. "Barring some new disaster."

Lonn's mates paced the decks in growing anticipation. For hours they watched the passing shoreline, with its forests of slash pines and cedars and its lush blue-green shrubbery. Though it was now late in First Winter, only a dusting of snow had fallen on the island. Nor did they encounter large settlements such as the Iruks had expected. They sighted only fishing villages, such as they had passed farther south, along with an occasional castle or fortress built on a promontory. The great Tathian cities lay mostly to the west, Kizier explained, on the sheltered bays, and inland.

Gradually the coastline of Borga changed, growing flatter. Forests and meadows gave way to broad, monotonous marshlands. Then, at the northern tip of the island, a line of ships came into view.

Lonn was perched in the shrouds meditating when the lookout close to him on the mainmast shouted the warning. The ships were still a long way off but Lonn could tell at a glance they were drommons, sleek Tathian war galleys, guarding the entrance to the channel.

He leapt from his place and slid down a lanyard, not taking the time to descend the ratlines. Before reaching the deck he was shouting for his mates to fetch their weapons.

"Drommons!" he yelled. "More than you've ever seen."

The Iruks knew the swift Tathian warships well, having run from them more than once on pirating forays in the shipping lanes of the Polar Sea. The drommons had two masts with lateen sails, as well as oars for soft-water running. Each galley carried forty fighting men, marines armed with bows, lances and swords. The ships had high fighting decks and boarding bridges. In addition, most were equipped with iron rams and long tubes in the prow that belched a fiery liquid. The Iruks went below and armed themselves, more by instinct than plan. There was plainly no chance of fighting through such a fleet.

The sails were being reefed and the coaster's speed was slackening as the klarn came back on deck. They found the captain at the quarterdeck rail, observing the fleet through a spyglass.

"They fly the banner of the Dragon Amid the Waves," he muttered, "The flag of Kadavel."

"What will you do?" Lonn asked.

"I don't know what! That's for the witch to decide. I hope she comes out here, and soon."

Banks of white cloud loomed over the drommon ships and the marshy shores they guarded. The
Plover
followed a long easterly tack that gave a panoramic view of the still-distant fleet. The drommons made no move from their orderly rows, though by now they must have spotted the coaster.

Amlina marched up the steps from below, leaning to one side to compensate for the tilt of the vessel. The witch had hardly ventured from her cabin in the days since rising from the deep trance. She looked frail and haggard to Lonn, yet she took the spyglass from Troneck's hand impatiently and used it to scan the lines of drommons.

"Come about and aim for the center of their formation," she said. "Bring us alongside their command vessel, which lies there."

Troneck shouted the proper orders. "I hope they don't decide to attack us before we can hail them," he said.

"They will talk," Amlina answered. "I have foreseen this obstacle."

The
Plover
came about and glided toward the upwind fleet. Two hundred yards from the front line of drommons Troneck gestured to the helmsman, who eased into the wind. The coaster's momentum slowed, prow aimed at the center of the line where a larger drommon stood, its extra-tall masts streaming with pennons of red and gold.

On the decks of the galleys rows of lancers and bowmen stood tense and ready, as if expecting a fight from this one small trading ship. Amlina waved her arm in a wide, slow greeting.

Two crewmen crouched, ready at the ice-brakes, and dropped them at Troneck's signal. The
Plover
rumbled to a halt, balanced on keel and starboard runners, heeling to that side. The Tathian flagship lay some thirty yards off the starboard beam.

On the high forecastle of the flagship a trumpeter blew an imposing set of notes. Then a herald called out through a megaphone. "You are detained by the war fleet of the Princely City of Kadavel. Reveal to us your nationality and reasons for sailing in this channel."

Amlina took the megaphone from a willing Troneck. "We are traders of Larthang," she answered. "We seek the port of Kadavel to ply our business."

The herald exchanged words with a tall man in gold armor and purple cloak, then shouted to the Larthangans again. "This is no trading season. Why do you sail this time of year?"

"We were trading off the coast of Near Nyssan," Amlina called back, "when a gale blew us out to sea. There we were caught by a freezewind and icebound many days. It's only now we've been able to fight our way back to land."

There was another pause, then the herald told them. "Hold your position. My lord Admiral Dantonius will board your vessel. If you tell the truth, you'll be allowed to sail on."

A dozen of the Tathian marines climbed down the side of the flagship, followed by the man in gold armor. They deployed themselves on his either side and accompanied him across the glowing ice toward the coaster. On the decks of the drommons, the rest of the marines still stood in battle readiness.

Amlina ordered that a rope ladder be lowered for the boarding party. She descended to the main deck to greet them, Lonn and his mates following. The Iruks kept glancing nervously at the nearby drommons, Karrol and Eben fingering the hilts of their swords.

"Do not draw your weapons," Amlina warned. "Leave everything to me."

They waited near the mainmast while six of the Tathians climbed over the bulwark and arranged themselves at attention. Then the man in gold and purple appeared, stepping onto the deck with a gloomy, suspicious expression on his red-bearded face.

"Lord Dantonius," one of the men announced as more of the marines climbed over the rail. "High Admiral of the Kadavellan fleet."

"My lord Dantonius," Amlina stepped forward and bowed. "You are most welcome. I am named Korre Kuan-Sen, daughter of Liffaniel, the owner of this ship. Our home port is Randoon on the Opal Sea."

The admiral gestured abruptly to his men, all but two of whom marched off to search the holds and cabins. "You are in command?" he asked. "A woman?"

"My father sent me on this voyage for education," Amlina replied, her voice more soft and husky than Lonn was accustomed to hearing. "I am his lone heir, and one day will be mistress of his shipping concerns. But tell me, my lord, I thought Kadavel a prosperous and open market. Why should a war fleet block the way there?"

"Because the navy of a foreign power sits on the ice some thirty miles out from here," Dantonius said. "We fear an invasion may be imminent."

"What foreign nation do you mean?" Amlina asked, her voice losing some of its artificial sweetness to surprise.

Dantonius hesitated. "I am the one to ask the questions." He glanced about, eyes settling on the Iruks. "You and most of your crew are plainly Larthangans," he said to Amlina. "But these armed ones in leather and furs are barbarians—of South Polar stock unless my guess is wrong."

"They are Iruks from beyond Fleevan," Amlina admitted.

"Then why are they on board your ship? You said you were blown here from Nyssan."

"Indeed. But we traveled there by way of the southern seas rather than the more usual routes. My father wanted me to be acquainted with a wide range of countries and markets. We took on these Iruks in Fleevanport. They've been good sailors, and they double as bodyguards. Don't mind their weapons. When they saw your sails they naturally jumped to arms."

Dantonius scanned the klarnmates again. "They've a reputation as brigands, these Iruks. But they're seldom seen outside the South Polar Sea. What made these five sign up with you?"

"Ask them yourself. They are versed in Low Tathian." Amlina's voice sounded coy, as though she mildly resented Dantonius' switching his attention from her.

The commander snorted and started to repeat his question to the Iruks, but Eben interrupted him. "We were curious to see more of' the world."

"You are so suspicious, Admiral," Amlina touched his arm lightly. "I assure you, no one on my poor ship means to make war on Kadavel."

The admiral's frown relaxed into a brief smile. As the conversation continued Lonn realized that Amlina's mien, concocted of sweetness and femininity, was a mask meant to charm this Tathian. And it was working.

The marines returned two by two and reported on their search of the ship and the meager items they had found. Lonn wondered that they didn't mention Amlina's trinkets and magic devices, but surmised that the witch had had the foresight to put them away.

"Since you must now be convinced I have told you the truth," Amlina said, "may I ask you a question? How serious is this threat of invasion? Please be candid, my lord. If the danger is grave, it may be better for us to bypass Kadavel."

"The danger is impossible to reckon," Dantonius confessed. "It is not the fleet of ships we fear. We're a match for any war fleet in the world. But this is the navy of' a great witch, she who is called the Archimage of the East. That is what worries us, for there is already ungoverned sorcery loose about the city."

"Sorcery? What do you mean?" Amlina asked.

"It started 14 days ago. First the sealight began to flicker on and off in the city harbor and canals. The glow has been erratic ever since, at times shining brilliantly, at others fading to nothing. Then one afternoon a freezewind blew across the channel, but a short time later a meltwind came from the opposite direction. Since then the Two Winds have clashed back and forth, melting and refreezing the harbor, at times roaring their conflict above the city itself. Scholars say it is worse than when the Witch King of Borga besieged Kadavel with an army of windbringers. The temples on the Long Acropolis are crowded with supplicants, some of them paid by the city fathers of course, but many there out of genuine fear."

"And you believe it is the Archimage preparing to invade Kadavel?"

"News of her fleet's presence beyond these straits reached the city six days ago. The connection is obvious, since this witch of Tallyba possesses a great magic artifact called the Cloak of the Two Winds. We were dispatched at once to take up this position. We are ordered only to watch for the enemy and not to leave the vicinity of our own shores—where it is believed the charms of our State Sorcerers can more efficiently aid us if there is an attack."

"But it is tedious and worrisome to only wait," Amlina said softly. "I understand."

Dantonius regarded her appreciatively and nodded. "Young lady, you are free to sail on, whether to Kadavel or elsewhere, you must decide." He bowed to Amlina, then waved to his men to debark. He was about to follow the last of them over the rail when he turned back to Amlina.

"We will lend you the aid of our windbringers to get you underway,"

"My lord, I thank you," Amlina bowed, an innocent smile on her face.

"You handled him adeptly." Draven grinned as they watched the Tathians walk back across the ice. "Was it witchery that turned the admiral so pliantly in your hand?"

"In a sense," Amlina replied. "It is a minor art, part witchery, part acting, termed the passive persuasion. One shows to another the face they are most likely to accept and cooperate with. I was never especially good at it—too willful my teachers always said. But it wasn't difficult with this admiral. I sensed he would respond favorably to a charming but rather inept merchant woman. I've had dealings with Kadavellan men before."

The witch turned away, stalking toward the quarterdeck, and the Iruks followed.

Troneck's men were hastening about, unreefing sails and raising the ice-brakes. The bostulls of the
Plover
, aided perhaps by those from the Kadavellan fleet, brought a brisk counter wind to the coaster's sails. The ship lurched into motion, and gained speed as it passed through the ranks of the Tathian warships.

"How long now to the city?" Amlina inquired of Troneck, who had taken charge of the helm.

"Tacking against this west wind, three days or four."

"I don't believe the wind will change," Amlina said, staring absently down at the ice.

"What do you make of the admiral's news?" Lonn asked her. "About the winds and sealight in Kadavel?"

Before she could respond Kizier interrupted, asking that she repeat the tidings. Amlina crouched on the deck and informed the bostull of all they had heard.

"So apparently we have seen correctly," the witch added. "The Cloak is indeed in Kadavel. And it is being misused."

"Dangerously misused," the windbringer affirmed. "And the Kadavellans think it is Beryl's doing, a prelude to invasion."

"She will be in Kadavel," Amlina muttered. "If I had any doubts before, they are gone. I will meet her there. I know it."