Though the ship of shadows vanished into the same mist that had given it birth, the fog itself hung around like an old acquaintance with a big smile and an empty purse. Composed of scarcely sterner stuff, the small gray boat that was all that lay between Madrenga, his companions, and the ocean beneath somehow held its shape.
In the bottom of the craft he found a mast made of mist and a silvery sail so feathery light it seemed that the mere act of raising it would cause it to be torn to bits by the slightest of breezes. With low expectations but determined to strike back against inertia, he raised the mast and set the sail. To his surprise it filled with the same east-blowing wind that had propelled the Thranskirr. Scudding along more swiftly than he had any right to expect, he was soon dashing forward in the wake of the ship that had deserted him. He had no illusions about overtaking the much larger and more substantial vessel. Staying afloat would be satisfaction enough.
How long he sailed thus he did not know. Lost within the persistent fog and in the absence of clearly defined day or night he could judge neither time nor speed. Though his muscles and joints grew stiff from inactivity, no such hardship afflicted his companions. Threatening many times to upset the little boat, Orania would scramble over the side and into the sea whenever Madrenga deemed it calm enough to be safe to do so. As he watched her swim lazy circles around their insubstantial refuge, he found himself envying her the opportunity to exercise. He dared not join her lest the untended boat, even with its sail furled, drift out of reach. As she swam, she munched on drifting seaweed and other aquatic plant life. Whether it was to her taste or not he could not tell, but the dark green water plants sustained her.
Fishing gear would have been welcomed. In its absence he had to rely on Bit, whose proficiency at snatching passing fish proved something of a revelation. With no fire to cook with and no means of starting one, he joined his dog in eating the canine’s catch raw. When he is grown sufficiently hungry, a man will do away with fire, condiments, even salt, and revert to consumption of the most basal nature.
Cold and damp, he ought to have welcomed the sun on the morning when it finally began to burn through the seemingly never-ending fog. He did not because in addition to dissolving the mist that had surrounded him for an unknown number of days, it also commenced the slow but steady evaporation of his boat. Frantically he prepared for the moment when it should give way completely beneath him; stowing smaller bits of gear as tightly as he could within his clothing, securing the double pack across Orania’s lower back, then strapping on her saddle and the rest of her tack.
He was preparing to bring down the mast and sail in the hope they would lend another few moments of stability to his improbable craft when a silhouette appeared out of the mist and directly ahead. At first he thought it must surely be a mirage. He had heard of such things but never seen one. The more the mist around him lifted, the more substantial seemed the vision forward. From what he could remember, mirages tended to ripple and flow from the heat that produced them. This one did not. He hardly dared believe.
It was an island.
Settling himself at the increasingly soggy tiller, he steered straight for the apparition. Even if it turned out to be a mirage it was the only destination in sight. Soon he was near enough to see trees: coconut and morefruit, screwbark and laplate. The composition of the dense green and lavender understory was less familiar to him, but an equally welcome sight.
As it started to come apart beneath him the boat began to ripple like a fading dream. Straining to see as far ahead as possible he detected no hint of breaking waves. According to one more piece of knowledge he had picked up by listening to sailors’ conversations while on the Thranskirr, that suggested the absence of a murderous reef, or at least one that was situated too deep to present a threat to a struggling small boat. Rising rapidly in the sky now, the sun blazed down on him and his barely intact craft. Though he had not seen the sun in many days he did not welcome it now.
Orania’s greater weight sent her plunging through the disintegrating bottom of the boat first. She sank swiftly—and stopped. Lowering her head and neighing excitedly at the prospect of something green yet dry to eat, she trotted right through the dissolving bow and onto the shore. A moment later the boat, now a shadow of a shade, ran the rest of the way up onto the beach. There it collapsed, leaving Madrenga sitting on the sand and a barking Bit running off to join the mare in exploring the fringing jungle. Too relieved at having made it safely ashore to let out even the mildest of triumphal shouts, Madrenga clasped his arms around his knees and watched his companions. Orania was already nibbling at something like purple spice cane while Bit ran back and forth along the line of vegetation barking at everything in sight.
When finally he rose and brushed the grit off his backside, a downward glance showed a damp but fading outline in the sand where the boat had landed. It was the final indication that there had ever been a boat, much less one formed from fog. The last remnant evaporated even as he stared at it. Then he was pushing his aching leg muscles to carry him up the beach and toward the line of vegetation, calling to his companions as he went.
The jungle in which he found himself was utterly different from anything he had experienced in his short life. Here heat and humidity worked a kind of green and purple magic that was new to him. Save for the trees he had recognized from his boat, the remaining growths were pulpy of bole and soft of branch. Having subsisted on raw fish for days on end he was sorely tempted to try some of the vast variety of fruits he saw hanging around him. He resisted the temptation. In food as in life, surface beauty often concealed internal poison.
He saw no animals, but the land was full of birds and the smallest dragonets he had ever imagined. When they competed for some of the same fruit the brightly colored dragonets invariably won, as the beaks and claws of even the largest birds could not compete with the pipe-sized puffs of flame emitted by the bat-winged reptiles. Listening to them fuss and fume as he walked beneath overhanging palm leaves and branches reminded him of the workplace sounds in the metalworkers’ quarter of Harup-taw-shet’s main marketplace.
Some of the smaller trees twisted about one another to form intricate puzzle shapes. A quintet of metallic green and black spiders the size of his palm had constructed a huge communal web in the shape of a star. Giving it plenty of space, he saw that the weavers had caught a spitting salamander in their trap. Each time a spider approached, the snared salamander spat corrosive poison in their direction. The poison was dissolving the web around the reptile, but slowly. Having already spent too much time in Death’s company it was not a drama Madrenga paused to see played out. He kept moving deeper into the tangle of weird and wonderful vegetation that pressed ever closer around him.
So obscured by branches and leaves was his vision that he nearly tripped over the Felf.
Standing no taller than the young man’s knee, the creature was fully grown. The hand-woven wide-brimmed brown hat he wore was decorated with an exquisite spray of small flowers. His bare chest was as bronzed and solid as one of the coco palms that lined the beach where Madrenga had come ashore. Loose pantaloons covered his nether regions. Being a fishing Felf he carried a trident and net, both slung over his back. His intention could be readily divined: he was on his way to fish from the shore where the enormous person had just arrived.
It was difficult to say who was the more shocked. Man and Felf stared at each other for something between a contemplative moment and a split second. Stepping forward, a panting Bit extended his tongue to greet the diminutive fisherman. Believing he was about to be not tested but tasted, the latter let out a horrified squeak, whirled, and fled into the understory.
“Wait!” Madrenga raised an arm as he cried out. “I mean you no harm! I only want to—Bit, get back here!”
Having decided through natural application of dog logic that by running in the other direction the tiny man was indicating that he wanted to play, Bit had taken off after him. Having a giant, partially armored, spike-collared black dog pursuing him did nothing to assuage the Felf’s already elevated level of anxiety. With a muttered curse Madrenga swung himself up into the still damp saddle on Orania’s back and urged her forward. She responded without hesitation, elated to be once again given the command to run.
His fear now doubled, the Felf put on such a burst of speed that he and his pursuers arrived on the other side of the island at nearly the same time. Halting Orania, Madrenga stared in amazement at the neat village of thatched longhouses, the double-outrigged fishing boats pulled up on the beach, the wooden racks full of drying fish, and the fleeing families of Felfs. Standing tall between buildings and shore was a carved wooden figure that was half Felf and half fish. Scaly arms upraised, it appeared to be blessing the boats and, presumably, their catch. Similar finely carved totems formed the support posts for many of the longhouses. While he was unable to attest to their skill as fisherfolk, Madrenga could see that this community was home to some master woodcarvers.
They might be fearful of the stranger, but they were not intimidated. As he fought to control the excited Orania, the flight through the village was soon reversed. Determined men and some women began to gather on the outskirts facing the much larger intruder. Armed with tridents, spears, and nets, they spread out as they came toward him. Though no military strategist, it was what he would have done had he been in their place. Surround the interloper, restrain him and his animals with nets, take them down, and run them through. Still hoping to play, Bit awaited the advancing fighters with lolling tongue and an excess of spittle.
His master had no intention of fighting. If the Felfs would not listen to reason he would turn and disappear back into the jungle. He desperately did not want to do that. He needed food and water, he needed to rest. These past weeks had seen him unwillingly involved in enough fighting. Ignorant of their language, he hoped the trade tongue common to all who passed through the markets of Harup-taw-shet would suffice for communication.
“My name is Madrenga. I mean you no harm. I have been washed ashore on your island after having been cast adrift by those whom I thought my friends.” He pleaded unashamedly. “I need real friends, not more enemies.”
The advance halted. Realizing that sitting atop Orania must make him an even more threatening figure, he promptly dismounted and then knelt on the sand. He kept his sword handy, though. Experience had shown him that despite harboring the best of intentions, in the course of argument, reason and logic did not always prevail.
“You can kill me if you wish. Without your help I am lost here. I will not resist.” Two lies bracketing a truth, he thought. If they charged, he would have no choice but to defend himself.
At which point the long days at sea spent living on raw fish and the lack of fresh water combined with his complete exhaustion to render any further discussion moot. Thinking himself well prepared, his eyelids fluttered and he fell forward unconscious, face first into the sand.
“We don’t much like fullmen.”
The first words he heard upon reawakening were not encouraging. Neither were they voiced in an especially hostile tone of voice. It was simply a—statement of fact. He found it hard to swallow. Tall for a Felf, the figure who had spoken turned to several others standing nearby.
“He looks like he needs water. Give him water.”
Aware that he was lying prone, Madrenga reflexively reached for a container. It was not handed to him. Instead, several Felfs upended a large wooden basin over his face. Choking, gasping, he managed to swallow enough to momentarily assuage his thirst before the rest ran away down his cheeks and chin.
He was lying on his back on sand beneath a peaked thatched roof. The contents of the open-sided meeting hall had been removed to make space for him. Near his feet, a wide groove in the sand showed where he had been dragged from the place where he had collapsed. Remembrance flashed across his mind like torchlight.
He had collapsed. They could have killed him where he had fallen—though Bit and Orania might have had something to say about that. Instead of being harmed he had been brought to a place of shelter and given water. He was not bound. All positive signs.
Additional hopeful indicators greeted his eyes as he rolled to his right. Close to where he had dismounted, Orania was standing and quietly cropping the strange foliage. Laughter came from farther down, toward the beach. Raising himself up on his elbow he saw Bit splashing and chasing Felf children. An initial surge of alarm at the sight of his now immense dog cavorting with much smaller Felf offspring fell away as he observed the children’s agility in the water. They swam like seals, darting in among the giant dog’s legs and competing to see who could pull his tail. Both Bit and the local brood seemed to be having a delightful time.
Turning back to his left, Madrenga regarded the adult Felf arraigned before him. Besides the bearers of water, who had departed in search of a refill, there were several elders clad in finely woven shorts and embroidered vests. All wore a version of the sensible wide-brimmed hat sported by the fisherman the youth had surprised deep in the jungle. While the design was the same, each differed in color and decoration. Only the senior Felf standing close at hand wore a different kind of headdress; a tall conical fabric hat around whose crown spiraled a row of shark teeth.
“I am not a fullman,” Madrenga responded. “I am from Harup-taw-shet.”
The chief, if that was indeed the rank of the owner of the conical chapeau, glanced back at his council, or advisors, or whatever they were, and then back at Madrenga.
“All men who are not Felf, Gelf, or Skelf are fullmen.”
Madrenga realized that the chief was referring to his physical size, not his place of origin. Though his mind was clearing, fog of kind different from that of the ship of shadows lingered. “Why don’t you like fullmen?”
“They look down on us, in every way.” In the manner of all elven families his face was neither lined nor worn, but his voice was. “There was a time when the family of elves was regarded with admiration, sometimes with fear, but always with honor. With the continuing development of practical things, the esteem reserved for elder beings as well as elder ways is being abandoned. Where once they sought improvement, now men seek only profit, and darknesses of all manner and kind stalk the land.” Behind him, the row of advisors nodded ready concurrence.
“These days we of the Felf keep to our islands, the Gelf to their caverns, the Skelf to their mountain aeries. Men multiply and infect the land, and in response, the land infects them.”
Madrenga was not sure what the chief meant by this, but it sounded like a condition devoutly to be avoided.
“When we travel across the Strait of Chanchindd to sell our fish, our mussels and clams and limpets, and the fruit and nuts we collect from the forest, even those with whom we regularly do business make jokes behind our backs. Is it any reason we trust no fullmen?” He did not exactly smile, but his expression and tone grew less harsh. “But we sensed that you were different from such as them. Even so, the decision whether to attack you or help you balanced for a moment on the point of a fishhook. In the end it was you yourself who provided the reason for not attacking.”
“I did?” Madrenga was bemused. “What did I do?”
“You fell down. You abased yourself before us.”
“I wish I could take credit for that, but I can’t. I just passed out from exhaustion and weakness.”
The chief shook his head and muttered under his breath. “Give a man an escape route and instead he runs into a wall.” Raising his voice again, he continued with great certitude and volume. “You abased yourself. Do not linger too long on the details. It was on the basis of your self-evident helplessness that we decided to bring you here, out of the sun, and await your recovery.” He gestured beyond the shelter. “Your animals have already proven their friendship.”
Madrenga looked to his right again, toward the sea. “Aren’t you afraid that Bit—my dog—will step on one of your children?”
Now the chief did smile. “In the sea nothing catches a young Felf by surprise. We are as at home there as on land and can do anything in the water a fish can do, except breathe.”
Behind the chief an impatient elder could stand it no longer. Slamming the butt of his decorated ceremonial staff into the ground he growled the question that had been simmering within him ever since the visitor had returned to consciousness.
“The gold! Ask him straight out if he has come to steal our gold!”
“You have gold?” As soon as he said it, Madrenga realized it would have been better if he had not. But the chief seemed unconcerned.
“No. But that does not keep the occasional party of fullmen from crossing the Strait to hunt for it. When such invasions take place we pack up all our people and move deep into the forest. After the fullmen have satisfied themselves that our villages contain only fish, they leave. We repair the damage they have wrought and resume our lives.” He shook his head sadly at the folly of it all. “A persistent rumor can be more damaging than a moment of truth.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want your gold even if you had any. I only want to complete my mission, which is to deliver this scroll,” and he indicated the cylinder riding on his belt, “and return home.”
Taking notice of the scroll container, the chief moved in for a closer look. His eyes widened slightly at the sight. “Corium. I had not noticed that before. Well-forged and wrought, too.” His gaze rose once more to meet that of the visitor. “Maybe you don’t need any gold, Madrenga.”
“Every man needs gold,” the youth replied automatically.
“Every man, I suppose.” The chief studied the visitor. “You speak to us with respect and you do not smell of threat. You arrive here by yourself yet there is no sign of the craft that brought you to our shores. You say you wish only to conclude your journey. With these things we of Ool-lak-lan can sympathize.”
The name of the island meant nothing to him, anymore than had the mention of a body of water called the Strait of Chanchindd. His knowledge of the Sea of Shadows and its surroundings was limited to what he had learned in his time on board the Thranskirr. The chief continued.
“You, with your great stomping feet, could have killed many of us when you arrived. By the same token, we could have killed you while you were insensible. That there has been no killing on either side is a tribute to both. What are you going to do now?”
Lying in the shade of the vacated meeting hall, with a warm breeze caressing his face and the sound of low surf lapping at his ears, Madrenga felt as if he had come to an end. But he could not come to any kind of end: not yet. Not until after he had delivered the scroll to the queen of Daria. Except that he had no idea where he was or how to get from where he was to anyplace else, far less his intended destination. He was lost and found and trapped all at once. His money was half gone and he was still, in a sense, at sea. For all he knew he might have drifted and sailed a thousand leagues off course.
Still, somehow, he had to go on. He could not retrace his steps and return to Harup-taw-shet a self-confessed failure.
Size and armor notwithstanding, inside he was still the youth who had been plucked from the streets of his home city by a royal counselor whose faith in him now seemed more than ever seriously misplaced. It was all too much. Turning his face to the sand, he did his best to muffle his sobs.
Shocked and not a little dumbfounded by the tall human’s reaction, the chief conferred with his advisors. As soon as they reached a conclusion he turned back to the distraught visitor.
“As you have arrived here without the ill intent that is a component of most fullmen, and as you have shown your good feelings toward us while reserving your misery for yourself, it has been decided that you may stay. Without fear of having your throat cut in your sleep. I will not deny that there are some in the village who would prefer to see you dismembered for bait, but the council has made its decision and the discontented will abide by it. You are welcome to our island.”
“But you must get your own food,” declared one of the advisors loudly. “And that for your great animals as well.”
“And make your own shelter,” insisted another. “This is our meeting hall. It was not raised for the convenience of oversized strangers!”
Madrenga rolled onto his side. “I can take care of myself,” he assured them. “I’ve been doing so all my life.”
The chief nodded sagely. “There are many admirable qualities about you, young visitor. You could demonstrate your good faith by helping us later today.”
An eager Madrenga started to sit up, remembered where he was and how low the roof, and remained on his side.
“I will gladly do anything you ask of me. Fight, fish, move rocks, cut trees. Just tell me: what can I do to help?”
“You can shoo chickens.”
A pause proved that the chief was not being condescending, nor was he making a joke. He and his advisors were quite serious.
“Chickens?”
“Several escaped from their enclosure. We do not eat just fish and coconuts, young visitor. Not when a single egg can feed several Felf. But chickens are strong runners and single-minded of purpose. We ride the roosters, but these who have fled escaped before our wranglers could saddle up. With your long legs you could do much to help us herd them back to where they belong.”
“Of course I’ll help,” he told them, salivating not only at the chance to prove his benign intentions but at the prospect of a possible omelet. “And wait until your runaway chickens get a look at Bit. You’ll be picking up eggs all over the place.”