When he came out on deck in the early morning, there was only a gray emptiness of waters out to the gray horizon. They must have left the whole Achaeran archipelago well behind them and be somewhere in the Zurian Sea now.
There was a smell of rain in the air, and the ship ran swiftly before a keening wind over long white-maned rollers. Corun let the tang of salt and moisture and kelp, the huge restless vista of bounding waves, the creak and thrum of the ship and the thundering surge of the ocean, swell luxuriously up within him, the simple animal joy of being at home. The sea was his home now, he realized vaguely; he had been on it so long that it was his natural environment—his, as much as that of the laridae wheeling on white wings in the cloud-flying heavens.
He looked over the watch. It seemed to be well handled—the sailors knew their business. There were armored guards at bow and stern, and the rest—clad in the plain loincloth of ordinary seamen the world over—were standing by the sail, swabbing the decks, making minor repairs and otherwise occupying themselves. Those off duty were lounging or sleeping well out of the watch’s way. The helmsman kept his eye on the compass and held the tiller with a practiced hand—good, good.
Captain Imazu padded up to him on bare feet. The Umlotuan wore helmet and corselet, had a sword at his side, and carried the whip of authority in one gnarled blue hand. His scarred, one-eyed face cracked in a smile. “Good morning to you, Captain Corun,” he said politely.
The Conahurian nodded with an amiability he had not felt for a long time. “The ship is well handled,” he said.
“Thanks. I’m about the only Umlotuan who’s ever skippered anything bigger than a war-canoe, I suppose, but I was in the Achaeran fleet for a long time.” Again the hideous but disarming smile. “I nearly met you professionally once or twice before, but you always showed us a clean pair of heels. Judging from what happened to ships that did have the misfortune to overhaul you, I’m just as glad of it.” He gestured to the tiny galley below the poop deck. “How about some breakfast?”
* * * *
Over food which was better than most to be had aboard ship, they fell into professional talk. Like all captains, Imazu was profoundly interested in the old and seemingly insoluble problem of finding an accurate position. “Dead reckoning just won’t do,” he complained. “Men’s estimates always differ, no matter how good they may be. There isn’t even a decent map to be had anywhere.”
Corun mentioned the efforts of theorists in Achaera, Conahur, and other civilized states to use the Heaven-Fire’s altitude to determine position north and south of a given line. Imazu was aware of their work, but regarded it as of little practical value. “You just don’t see it often enough,” he objected. “And most of the crew would consider it the worst sort of impiety to go aiming an instrument at it. That’s one reason, I suppose, why Shorzon shipped only Umlotuans. We don’t worship the Heaven-Fire—our gods all live below the clouds.” He cut himself a huge quid of liangzi and stuffed it into his capacious mouth. “Anyway, it doesn’t give you east and west position.”
“The philosophers who think the world is round say we could solve that problem by making an accurate timepiece,” said Corun.
“I know. But it’s a lot of gas, if you ask me. A sand-glass or a water-clock can only tell time so close and no closer, and those mechanical gadgets they’ve built are worse yet. I knew an old skipper from Norriki once who kept a joss in his cabin and got his position in dreams from it. Only had one wreck in his life.” Imazu grinned. “Of course, he drowned then.”
“Look,” said Corun suddenly, “do you know where the hell we’re going, and why?”
“To the Sea of Demons is all they told me. No reason given.” Imazu studied Corun with his sharp black eye. “You don’t know either, eh? I’ve a notion that most of us won’t live to find out.”
“I’m surprised that any crew could be made to go there without a mutiny.”
“This gang of bully boys is only frightened of Shorzon and his witch granddaughter. They—” Imazu shut up. Looking around, Corun saw the two approaching.
In the morning light, Chryseis did not seem the luring devil-woman of the night. She moved with easy grace across the rolling deck, the wind blowing her tunic and her long black hair in careless billows, and there was a girlish joy and eagerness in her. The pirate’s heart stumbled and began to race.
She chattered gaily of nothing while she and the old man ate. Shorzon remained silent until he was through, then said curtly to the two men: “Come into the cabin with us.”
They filled Corun’s tiny room, sitting on bunk and floor. Shorzon said slowly, “We may as well begin now to learn what you know, Corun. What is the truth about your voyage to the Xanthi?”
“It was several seasons ago,” replied the corsair. “I got the thought you seem to have had, that possibly I could enlist their help against my enemies.” He smiled mirthlessly. “I learned better.”
“What do we know of them, exactly?” said Shorzon methodically. He ticked the points off on his lean fingers. “They are an amphibious non-human race dwelling in the Sea of Demons, which is said to grow grass so that ships become tangled there and never escape.”
“Not so,” said Corun. “There’s kelp on the surface, but you can sail right through it. I think the Sea is just a dead region of water around which the great ocean currents move.”
“I know,” said Shorzon impatiently, and resumed his summary: “Generations ago, the Xanthi, of whose presence men had only been vaguely aware before, fell upon all the islands in their sea and slew the people living there. They had great numbers, as well as tamed sea monsters and unknown powers of sorcery, so that no one could stand against them. Since then, they have not gone beyond their borders, but they ruthlessly destroy all human vessels venturing inside. King Phidion III of Achaera sent a great fleet to drive the Xanthi from their stolen territory. Not one ship returned. Men now shun the whole region as one accursed.”
Imazu nodded. “There’s a sailor’s legend that the souls of the damned go to the Xanthi,” he offered.
Shorzon gave him an exasperated look. “I’m only interested in facts,” he said coldly. “What do you know, Corun?”
“I know what you just said, as who doesn’t?” answered the Conahurian. “But I think they must have limits to their powers, and be reasonable creatures—but the limits are far beyond man’s, and their reason is not as ours.
“I didn’t try an invasion, of course. I took one small fast boat manned with picked volunteers and waited outside the Sea for a storm that would blow me into it. When that came, we ran before it—fast! In the rain and wind and waves, I figured we could get undetected far into their borders. So, it seemed, we could, and in fact we made it almost to the largest island inside. Then they came at us.
“They were riding cetaraea, and driving sea serpents before them. They had spears and bows and swords, and there were hundreds of them. Any one of the snakes could have smashed our boat. We ran for land and barely made it.
“We hadn’t come to fight, so we held up our hands as the Xanthi leaped ashore and wondered if they’d just hack us down. But, as I’d hoped, they wanted to know what we were there for. So they took us to the black castle on the island.”
* * * *
Momentarily Corun was cold as the memory of that wet dark place of evil shuddered through his mind. “I can’t tell you much about it. They have great powers of sorcery, and the place seemed somehow unreal, never the same—always wrong, always with something horrible just beyond vision in the shadows. I remember the whole time as if it were a dream. There were treasures beyond counting. I saw gold and jewels from the sea bottom, mixed in with human skulls and the figureheads of drowned ships. The light was dim and blue, and there was always fog, and noises for which we had no name hooting out in the gloom. It stank, with the vile fishy smell they have. And the walls seemed to have a watery unreality, as I said, shifting and fading like smoke. You could smell sorcery in the very air of that place.
“They kept us there for many ten-days. We’d brought rich gifts, of course, which they accepted ungraciously, and they housed us in a dungeon under guard. They didn’t feed us so badly, if you like a steady fish diet. And they taught us their language.”
“How does it sound?” asked Chryseis.
“I can’t make it come out right. No human throat can. Something like this—” They stiffened at the chill hissing that slithered from Corun’s lips. “It has words for things I never did understand, and it lacks many of the commonest human words—fear, joy, hope, adventure—” His glance slid to Chryseis—“love—”
“Do they have a word for hate?” asked Shorzon.
“Oh, yes,” Corun grinned without humor. After a moment he went on: “They wanted to know more of the outside world. That was why they spared our lives. When we knew the language well enough, they began to question us. How they questioned us! It got to be torture, those unending days of answering the things that hissed and gabbled at us in those shadowy rooms. It was like a nightmare, where mad happenings go on without ever ending. Politics, science, philosophy, art, geography—they wanted to know it all. They pumped us dry of knowledge. When we came to something they didn’t understand, such as—love, say—they went back and forth over the same ground, over and over again, until we thought we’d go crazy. And at last they’d give up in bafflement. I think they believe humans to be mad.
“I made my offer, of course: the loot of Achaera in exchange for the freedom of Conahur. They—I might almost say they laughed. Finally they answered in scorn that they could take whatever they wanted, the whole world if need be, without my help.”
Shorzon’s eyes glittered. “Did you find out anything of their powers?” he asked eagerly.
“A little. They put any human magician to shame, of course. I saw them charm sea monsters to death just to eat them. I saw them working on a new building on the island—they planted a little package somewhere, and set fire to it, and great stones leaped into the air with a bang like thunder. I saw their cetaraea cavalry, their tamed war-snakes—oh, yes, they have more powers than I could name. And their numbers must be immense. They live on the sea bottom, you know—that is, their commoners do. The leaders have strongholds on land as well. They farm both sea and land, and have great smithies on the islands.
“Well, in the end they let us go. They were going to put us to death for our trespass, I think, but I did some fast talking. I told them that we could carry word of their strength back to humans and overawe our race with it, so that if they ever wanted to collect tribute or something of the sort, they’d never have to fight for it. Probably that carried less weight than the fact that we had, after all, done no harm and been of some use. They had no logical reason to kill us—so they didn’t.” Corun smiled grimly. “We were a pretty tough crew, prepared to take a few Xanthi to death with us even if we were disarmed. Their killing-charms seem to work only on animals. That was another reason to spare us.
“One of their wizards was for having me, at least, slain. He said he’d had a prevision of my return with ruin in my wake. But the others—laughed?—at him, at the very thought of a human’s being dangerous to them. Moreover, they pointed out, if that was to be the case then there was nothing they could do about it; they seem to believe in a fixed destiny. But the idea amused them so much that it was still another reason for letting us go.” Corun shrugged. “So we sailed away. That’s all. And never till now did I have any smallest thought of returning.”
He added bleakly after a moment when silence had been heavy: “They have all they want to know from my visit. There will be no reason for them to spare us this time.”
“I think there will,” said Chryseis.
“There’d better be,” muttered Imazu.
“You can start teaching us their language,” said Shorzon. “It might not be a bad idea for you to learn too, Imazu. 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 Chryseis.
She took Corun’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 his long body beside Chryseis and watched Corun with sleepy malevolence, but he was hardly aware of the devil-beast. It was Chryseis, Chryseis, 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 man, Corun,” she said softly. “What are you thinking now?”
“Oh—nothing.” He smiled crookedly. “Nothing.”
“I don’t believe that. You have too many memories.”
Almost without knowing it, he found himself telling her of his 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 men against the world. He mused wistfully about a girl who was gone—but her bright image was strangely fading in his heart now, for it was Chryseis who was beside him.
“It has been a hard life,” she said at the end. “It took a giant of a man to endure it.” She smiled, a small closed smile that made her 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!” he blurted.
“No—never your enemy, Corun!” she 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 man 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 men 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, Corun.”
He sat dumbly, bewildered. She was not evil—she was not evil—It was all he knew, but it sang within him.
Suddenly she laughed and sprang to her feet. “Come on!” she cried. “I’ll race you around the ship!”