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Flying South Chapter 19
This is the second-last chapter of the book. I'm getting online early before it gets too warm to work in here. The study faces east so it's great in the winter but can resemble an oven at this time of year.
Percy seems okay, his main concern was breakfast and he eeked loudly when I attempted to cuddle him. He's definitely got mites; scratching a lot and he does that twitching thing with his skin like a horse with flies landing on it. I think the five days of antibiotic is a just-in-case on the part of the vet and next week I might be picking up the ivermectin syringes.
Other than that, not much happening.
Flying South
Chapter 19
Next morning, very early, I dressed with difficulty in the cramped space of my cabin and went up on deck. It felt cool but there wasn't much of a wind. Vidar had not rousted me out the night before but he'd probably lose no time interrogating me this morning, if the Eagle was that close to having to turn around.
I went to a side rail and clung to it, looking for any sign of the three dolphins, but they were nowhere to be seen. A harsh bird cry above me made me jump and I looked up to see a large brownish-white seagull eyeing me arrogantly. You'd think it owned the entire ship.
Another one settled beside it and arrrked thoughtfully. Something made me turn back to the rail, where a third seagull was landing. It fluffed out its wings and made itself comfortable.
"Are you on your way to land then?" I asked it. "I don't see any islands."
"Amber."
At the sound of Vidar's voice, the seagull on the rail jumped into the air and flew up to the top of the main mast, followed by the other two. They looked down upon the boy in the crow's nest on watch, setting up a raucous scolding, as the Master Inquisitor walked forward to join me by the rail. He looked up at the birds. "Aren't they a sign that land is close?"
"I don't know." I huddled into my robe. He was still staring upwards, very thoughtfully.
"I think our attention is being directed . . . away from somewhere. I've been feeling for some time that magic is being worked around us, not by anyone on this ship, but surrounding us like a spider's web." The comparison seemed out of place on the ocean but I didn't think Vidar would like my mentioning it. "You know a spell for causing someone to see truly, don't you?"
"Banish illusions? Yes, but you . . . "
"There is a difference about a sorceress when she stands within a deadening spell," Vidar said, his voice very calm, flat like the sea about us. "I can sense it and so can Catherine and Dana. Catherine confirms that you don't have that different sense about you. An Inquisitor is no check on you. I am certain you lacked that ability when we met, Amber, and believe that Geofrey would have said something about it had he noticed when you rode in his company to seek the dragon. Therefore it was something the magicians of the land we seek taught you, wasn't it?"
"If you know all the answers, why are you asking me?"
I didn't look at him. I didn't even want to see him. Instead I stared out over the ocean, trying to imagine that I was riding dragonback again, free and alone, but that Boorlo was my home and I was flying back there. The upward draft of wings, my body light upon the air . . . I shook myself, scared, because for that moment I had nearly changed to a bird again without meaning to.
Vidar's hand gripped my arm painfully hard but I didn't shake him off. I was in fact grateful because that pain had shocked me into returning. I staggered a little, unbalanced as I'd been when I first came aboard and felt the motion of the waves under my feet. "Where are we?" Vidar asked, relentless, forcing me to meet his gaze. "We are not where we seem to be, are we? Where are we?"
I fought to hang on to the vision of the open sea, of the ship sailing through blueness of sea beneath and sky above, but his words got through and pulled my thoughts to Boorlo, to the island under the sun and the long outline of the Land of the Dragons over the Little Water. Where are we, where are we, where are we . . . Without any conscious will of mine, my power found and locked with the power about us in the winds and I heard Vidar cry out in shock.
Something was forming to either side of the ship where only the expanse of blue-green ocean had stretched a second before. The air shimmered with sea and sunlight, a great spreading glow of power that took in sea and sky and little ship standing alone between them. I tried to see both sides of the ship at once. To port, I could see the hazy image of an island, just within reach of a good swimmer, someone who had spent his or her life playing in the water. Then my eyes watered with brilliance and I had to look to starboard, where red cliffs reared stark and impenetrable like the walls of a fortress. We sailed in the Little Water between Boorlo and the mainland, but much closer to the Land of the Dragons than I had ever been.
Creatures moved on that cliff, long, spiny forms who settled back wings and crouched, waiting. The air was solid with tension and suffused with magic like smoke from a campfire. Between ship and cliffs, three seagulls rose, crying defiance. There were no other birds, no other living things at all but what waited on those cliffs.
"Audryn," I whispered. "Mariel. Cat? Is this you?"
The watering of my eyes increased until I could hardly see and I rubbed my eyes, finding as I looked at other people that it was not only me who was having trouble. Very gradually, a shimmering mist was settling about the entire ship, veiling cliffs and islands and dragons from our eyes once more. I could not have worked a spell to save my life . . . and it looked as if it might come to that.
The Eagle glided into that shimmering mist. All was silent except the creaking of ropes and the sound of sailors bare feet as they ran. We were pitching about more than we had been and I thought I could hear waves breaking on a shore not too far distant. Then there came a scream from up above, from the crow's nest, followed by an incoherent voice. "It's gods-damned huge, it's right over us!" Looking up, I saw the mist solidified into darkness as though night was dropping like a cloak.
Captain Herle came up, stumbling into Vidar as though he was blind. "We have to turn about," he cried. "Those cliffs can't be far to our port side and we could sail into the rocks at their foot in a moment."
"Turn about and we'll never learn any more about this place," Vidar snapped, and to me, "Do something about this fog."
"I can’t! The dragons . . . "
"Don't try to tell me an animal, however large and dangerous, can do magic. If it's magic, it's by human design and you know these people. Talk to them."
That was a big assumption; that because I'd met a few people on one island, I had some sort of push with them, and that this would allow me to bring a shipful of friends to visit.
"I have to turn about," the captain repeated.
"Sir," a sailor nearby called, "I can see something in the water . . . a dolphin, maybe more than one."
"What does that matter?" Vidar demanded but Herle was already answering, giving a flurry of orders which half a dozen sailors were obeying even as he spoke, though they had to work half blind and were themselves only vague gray shadows in the fog.
"A dolphin won't lead a ship into danger," the captain said quickly to us, smiling with relief. "If we follow it, we've a chance to get clear."
"Superstition," Vidar growled. I thought of all those dragons watching from the cliffs and wondered why he wasn't terrified. "We aren't leaving. Tell your men to stop what they are doing."
Herle stared at him and there was something in his eyes which scared me, though he had no magic at all that I knew about and Vidar was someone to fear. Yet his feet were sure on the deck of his ship, and it was his world. Without his word, no one else on it was going to obey Vidar and it would be a long swim home if the Master Inquisitor pushed the point. Somehow I knew all this without Herle saying a word out loud, and I think Vidar knew it too. After a moment, the Master of the ship turned his back on the Inquisitor.
The nearest sailor called again, "Sir, the dolphins are circling the ship like a dog penning sheep."
"Where?" called Herle and went swiftly to the port side of the ship where the sailor was pointing. I imagined sheep swimming in the channel and grinned.
Vidar glared at me. "Talk to your friends," he said. "I know that you can."
"Don't bully the girl."
The new voice came from the starboard side of the ship and we all skidded around on deck to see the source. A dark winged shape coasted alongside the ship, flying so low that its wingtips passed through the tops of the choppy little waves. The voice came from the man seated upon its neck, far louder than a human could normally speak, booming like drums or thunder. In its wake, all activity ceased on the ship and there was no sound from anyone, only the creaking of sails and the sounds of wind and waves around us. Hidden in the fog, the dragon seemed black, indistinct, as though it wasn't really here at all, coasting upon the breezes, angling to fly close around the ship as though it was no more than another seagull.
Yukungadak rode the dragon as skilfully as any knight in tournament might sit his charger. I couldn't make out his form properly, let alone his face, but I'd never forget his voice. He had told me he would not kill me to stop me and to remember mercy, when I brought my people.
"Crossbows!" Vidar went quickly to Herle's side and hissed at him. "Tell your men to arm themselves."
"That beast's done us no harm," Herle said stubbornly. "It could have killed us all by now if it wished. And remember the other dragons on the cliffs, Master Inquisitor, if you're so eager to kill."
"I will remember this, when we return."
"You do so, my lord, but remember also - if we get back - how it was you were able to return." Aloud, Herle called. "Will you let us go, then, sorcerer?"
Yukungadak laughed. The dragon swooped up, a huge black moth-shape over the Eagle's rigging. When it dropped down again beside us, the mist fell apart like smoke before a sharp breeze and the sun glinted on the red and green and blue scales of the dragon's belly and outstretched wings. We had not moved; the red cliffs still towered to one side and the more distant islands to the other. I stared at the nearest island and thought I could make out the stick-figure shapes of people on the beach. Skyfire would be there and Kulal.
"You are always free to go," Yukungadak called from the dragon's back. "This is not your place and you must not stay here."
Vidar strode forward to the rail past cowering sailors, into the winds of the dragon's passing. He shouted into the bright air. "Other ships will come, bearing weapons and magic, and you will not turn all of them."
"Can you see the future?" Yukungadak called, laughing aloud as he sat his swooping steed. "I can and it does not show your ships here, wizard. This is the place of my people and the Serpent people and we have not invited you. We were forewarned about the nature of your people and we have taken steps to protect ourselves from you. Now we will take you to the open sea and you will start for home, or else you will die upon the waters when the winter storms come. We would not have your spirits return here to curse us."
Amber, his voice echoed suddenly inside my head. When you are able, we would like you to return. There are things we can teach one another – and Skyfire and Kulal will be glad to see you. One day our peoples may be friends and you will be one of the first to show the way to that friendship.
The cliffs barred the way. We could see nothing of the Land of the Dragons, no matter how far we sailed or how Vidar shouted. We were not invited and we would not pass. That was not only Yukungadak's message, but the message of wind and waves and obdurate red land. I couldn't see any way that I could come alone and Yukungadak didn't know that I dared not shapechange. I wanted to tell him but there was no way to do that either. I could only hope that Vidar wouldn’t realise that I was the one, willing or not, who had educated these people to the knowledge that they had to withstand an invasion.
The dragon - was it my dragon - rose upon the air once more and turned about, wings furiously fanning the air. I stared at his beauty and then blinked as blazes of colour lifted from the red cliffs and came towards us. Five dragons, ten, twenty, and each bore upon his neck a dark-skinned magician who sat serenely above us and cast spells which Vidar could not touch. The winds of the dragons wings gathered and focused into our sails and the Eagle turned about as neatly and swiftly as ever Captain Herle could have wished, pushing us through the water as though we were the merest tiny boat. Not a sailor dared move to haul rope or canvas, but they were not needed.
Captain Herle stood staring at the dragons with the look of a man trying to fix the sight in his memory for all time. So did Vidar, but for a different reason. I saw a flicker of gray to my side and turned, only then realising that Dana and Catherine were clinging to the hatch and also watching the dragons fly, a host of brilliance and beauty fanned out behind us.
As he had promised, Yukungadak and his companions escorted us to the open sea and there they left us. Vidar did not even speak to Captain Herle. He went below, chivvying Dana and Catherine before him. I stayed on deck, knowing my peace would be shortlived and wanting, for this time, to think about dragons. I found a place out of the way, in the stern, and from there stared back the way we had come. I couldn't see any sign of land even though we had sailed only a short way, surely, driven by the magic of dragons and humans both. Only the blue-green sea and there, rising dark and shining from a wave, the fin of a dolphin, then two others, heads emerging for a moment to watch us go.
Percy seems okay, his main concern was breakfast and he eeked loudly when I attempted to cuddle him. He's definitely got mites; scratching a lot and he does that twitching thing with his skin like a horse with flies landing on it. I think the five days of antibiotic is a just-in-case on the part of the vet and next week I might be picking up the ivermectin syringes.
Other than that, not much happening.
Flying South
Chapter 19
Next morning, very early, I dressed with difficulty in the cramped space of my cabin and went up on deck. It felt cool but there wasn't much of a wind. Vidar had not rousted me out the night before but he'd probably lose no time interrogating me this morning, if the Eagle was that close to having to turn around.
I went to a side rail and clung to it, looking for any sign of the three dolphins, but they were nowhere to be seen. A harsh bird cry above me made me jump and I looked up to see a large brownish-white seagull eyeing me arrogantly. You'd think it owned the entire ship.
Another one settled beside it and arrrked thoughtfully. Something made me turn back to the rail, where a third seagull was landing. It fluffed out its wings and made itself comfortable.
"Are you on your way to land then?" I asked it. "I don't see any islands."
"Amber."
At the sound of Vidar's voice, the seagull on the rail jumped into the air and flew up to the top of the main mast, followed by the other two. They looked down upon the boy in the crow's nest on watch, setting up a raucous scolding, as the Master Inquisitor walked forward to join me by the rail. He looked up at the birds. "Aren't they a sign that land is close?"
"I don't know." I huddled into my robe. He was still staring upwards, very thoughtfully.
"I think our attention is being directed . . . away from somewhere. I've been feeling for some time that magic is being worked around us, not by anyone on this ship, but surrounding us like a spider's web." The comparison seemed out of place on the ocean but I didn't think Vidar would like my mentioning it. "You know a spell for causing someone to see truly, don't you?"
"Banish illusions? Yes, but you . . . "
"There is a difference about a sorceress when she stands within a deadening spell," Vidar said, his voice very calm, flat like the sea about us. "I can sense it and so can Catherine and Dana. Catherine confirms that you don't have that different sense about you. An Inquisitor is no check on you. I am certain you lacked that ability when we met, Amber, and believe that Geofrey would have said something about it had he noticed when you rode in his company to seek the dragon. Therefore it was something the magicians of the land we seek taught you, wasn't it?"
"If you know all the answers, why are you asking me?"
I didn't look at him. I didn't even want to see him. Instead I stared out over the ocean, trying to imagine that I was riding dragonback again, free and alone, but that Boorlo was my home and I was flying back there. The upward draft of wings, my body light upon the air . . . I shook myself, scared, because for that moment I had nearly changed to a bird again without meaning to.
Vidar's hand gripped my arm painfully hard but I didn't shake him off. I was in fact grateful because that pain had shocked me into returning. I staggered a little, unbalanced as I'd been when I first came aboard and felt the motion of the waves under my feet. "Where are we?" Vidar asked, relentless, forcing me to meet his gaze. "We are not where we seem to be, are we? Where are we?"
I fought to hang on to the vision of the open sea, of the ship sailing through blueness of sea beneath and sky above, but his words got through and pulled my thoughts to Boorlo, to the island under the sun and the long outline of the Land of the Dragons over the Little Water. Where are we, where are we, where are we . . . Without any conscious will of mine, my power found and locked with the power about us in the winds and I heard Vidar cry out in shock.
Something was forming to either side of the ship where only the expanse of blue-green ocean had stretched a second before. The air shimmered with sea and sunlight, a great spreading glow of power that took in sea and sky and little ship standing alone between them. I tried to see both sides of the ship at once. To port, I could see the hazy image of an island, just within reach of a good swimmer, someone who had spent his or her life playing in the water. Then my eyes watered with brilliance and I had to look to starboard, where red cliffs reared stark and impenetrable like the walls of a fortress. We sailed in the Little Water between Boorlo and the mainland, but much closer to the Land of the Dragons than I had ever been.
Creatures moved on that cliff, long, spiny forms who settled back wings and crouched, waiting. The air was solid with tension and suffused with magic like smoke from a campfire. Between ship and cliffs, three seagulls rose, crying defiance. There were no other birds, no other living things at all but what waited on those cliffs.
"Audryn," I whispered. "Mariel. Cat? Is this you?"
The watering of my eyes increased until I could hardly see and I rubbed my eyes, finding as I looked at other people that it was not only me who was having trouble. Very gradually, a shimmering mist was settling about the entire ship, veiling cliffs and islands and dragons from our eyes once more. I could not have worked a spell to save my life . . . and it looked as if it might come to that.
The Eagle glided into that shimmering mist. All was silent except the creaking of ropes and the sound of sailors bare feet as they ran. We were pitching about more than we had been and I thought I could hear waves breaking on a shore not too far distant. Then there came a scream from up above, from the crow's nest, followed by an incoherent voice. "It's gods-damned huge, it's right over us!" Looking up, I saw the mist solidified into darkness as though night was dropping like a cloak.
Captain Herle came up, stumbling into Vidar as though he was blind. "We have to turn about," he cried. "Those cliffs can't be far to our port side and we could sail into the rocks at their foot in a moment."
"Turn about and we'll never learn any more about this place," Vidar snapped, and to me, "Do something about this fog."
"I can’t! The dragons . . . "
"Don't try to tell me an animal, however large and dangerous, can do magic. If it's magic, it's by human design and you know these people. Talk to them."
That was a big assumption; that because I'd met a few people on one island, I had some sort of push with them, and that this would allow me to bring a shipful of friends to visit.
"I have to turn about," the captain repeated.
"Sir," a sailor nearby called, "I can see something in the water . . . a dolphin, maybe more than one."
"What does that matter?" Vidar demanded but Herle was already answering, giving a flurry of orders which half a dozen sailors were obeying even as he spoke, though they had to work half blind and were themselves only vague gray shadows in the fog.
"A dolphin won't lead a ship into danger," the captain said quickly to us, smiling with relief. "If we follow it, we've a chance to get clear."
"Superstition," Vidar growled. I thought of all those dragons watching from the cliffs and wondered why he wasn't terrified. "We aren't leaving. Tell your men to stop what they are doing."
Herle stared at him and there was something in his eyes which scared me, though he had no magic at all that I knew about and Vidar was someone to fear. Yet his feet were sure on the deck of his ship, and it was his world. Without his word, no one else on it was going to obey Vidar and it would be a long swim home if the Master Inquisitor pushed the point. Somehow I knew all this without Herle saying a word out loud, and I think Vidar knew it too. After a moment, the Master of the ship turned his back on the Inquisitor.
The nearest sailor called again, "Sir, the dolphins are circling the ship like a dog penning sheep."
"Where?" called Herle and went swiftly to the port side of the ship where the sailor was pointing. I imagined sheep swimming in the channel and grinned.
Vidar glared at me. "Talk to your friends," he said. "I know that you can."
"Don't bully the girl."
The new voice came from the starboard side of the ship and we all skidded around on deck to see the source. A dark winged shape coasted alongside the ship, flying so low that its wingtips passed through the tops of the choppy little waves. The voice came from the man seated upon its neck, far louder than a human could normally speak, booming like drums or thunder. In its wake, all activity ceased on the ship and there was no sound from anyone, only the creaking of sails and the sounds of wind and waves around us. Hidden in the fog, the dragon seemed black, indistinct, as though it wasn't really here at all, coasting upon the breezes, angling to fly close around the ship as though it was no more than another seagull.
Yukungadak rode the dragon as skilfully as any knight in tournament might sit his charger. I couldn't make out his form properly, let alone his face, but I'd never forget his voice. He had told me he would not kill me to stop me and to remember mercy, when I brought my people.
"Crossbows!" Vidar went quickly to Herle's side and hissed at him. "Tell your men to arm themselves."
"That beast's done us no harm," Herle said stubbornly. "It could have killed us all by now if it wished. And remember the other dragons on the cliffs, Master Inquisitor, if you're so eager to kill."
"I will remember this, when we return."
"You do so, my lord, but remember also - if we get back - how it was you were able to return." Aloud, Herle called. "Will you let us go, then, sorcerer?"
Yukungadak laughed. The dragon swooped up, a huge black moth-shape over the Eagle's rigging. When it dropped down again beside us, the mist fell apart like smoke before a sharp breeze and the sun glinted on the red and green and blue scales of the dragon's belly and outstretched wings. We had not moved; the red cliffs still towered to one side and the more distant islands to the other. I stared at the nearest island and thought I could make out the stick-figure shapes of people on the beach. Skyfire would be there and Kulal.
"You are always free to go," Yukungadak called from the dragon's back. "This is not your place and you must not stay here."
Vidar strode forward to the rail past cowering sailors, into the winds of the dragon's passing. He shouted into the bright air. "Other ships will come, bearing weapons and magic, and you will not turn all of them."
"Can you see the future?" Yukungadak called, laughing aloud as he sat his swooping steed. "I can and it does not show your ships here, wizard. This is the place of my people and the Serpent people and we have not invited you. We were forewarned about the nature of your people and we have taken steps to protect ourselves from you. Now we will take you to the open sea and you will start for home, or else you will die upon the waters when the winter storms come. We would not have your spirits return here to curse us."
Amber, his voice echoed suddenly inside my head. When you are able, we would like you to return. There are things we can teach one another – and Skyfire and Kulal will be glad to see you. One day our peoples may be friends and you will be one of the first to show the way to that friendship.
The cliffs barred the way. We could see nothing of the Land of the Dragons, no matter how far we sailed or how Vidar shouted. We were not invited and we would not pass. That was not only Yukungadak's message, but the message of wind and waves and obdurate red land. I couldn't see any way that I could come alone and Yukungadak didn't know that I dared not shapechange. I wanted to tell him but there was no way to do that either. I could only hope that Vidar wouldn’t realise that I was the one, willing or not, who had educated these people to the knowledge that they had to withstand an invasion.
The dragon - was it my dragon - rose upon the air once more and turned about, wings furiously fanning the air. I stared at his beauty and then blinked as blazes of colour lifted from the red cliffs and came towards us. Five dragons, ten, twenty, and each bore upon his neck a dark-skinned magician who sat serenely above us and cast spells which Vidar could not touch. The winds of the dragons wings gathered and focused into our sails and the Eagle turned about as neatly and swiftly as ever Captain Herle could have wished, pushing us through the water as though we were the merest tiny boat. Not a sailor dared move to haul rope or canvas, but they were not needed.
Captain Herle stood staring at the dragons with the look of a man trying to fix the sight in his memory for all time. So did Vidar, but for a different reason. I saw a flicker of gray to my side and turned, only then realising that Dana and Catherine were clinging to the hatch and also watching the dragons fly, a host of brilliance and beauty fanned out behind us.
As he had promised, Yukungadak and his companions escorted us to the open sea and there they left us. Vidar did not even speak to Captain Herle. He went below, chivvying Dana and Catherine before him. I stayed on deck, knowing my peace would be shortlived and wanting, for this time, to think about dragons. I found a place out of the way, in the stern, and from there stared back the way we had come. I couldn't see any sign of land even though we had sailed only a short way, surely, driven by the magic of dragons and humans both. Only the blue-green sea and there, rising dark and shining from a wave, the fin of a dolphin, then two others, heads emerging for a moment to watch us go.