

The Hag of Calix

Book One of the Antillian Scrolls

By Rod Fisher

Edition 2, Copyright © 2018 Rod Fisher

\--Preface--

The scrolls of Antillia came to my attention at a summer seminar for linguists held a few years ago at Montreal. The purpose of the seminar was to key the international phonemic alphabet into computer use. The subject bogged down after the first few sessions, so three of my colleagues and myself decided to bypass an exceedingly dry afternoon in the assembly and substitute a wet gathering in a cocktail lounge.

In the subsequent can-you-top-this exchange, based on our individual lines of research, the subject of the Antillean scrolls surfaced. Three of us, myself included, had never heard of the scrolls. The fourth man's information was mostly hearsay.

He told us that a diving team, searching for sunken treasure in the Azores, found the chest containing the scrolls. Their initial discovery was a group of ballast stones from an ancient vessel. They were strewn in an orderly stem-to-stern pattern along a ledge of the sloping sea bottom off Ponta Delgada.

It was not a chance find. They were searching for the remains of San Benito, a treasure galleon of Spain that foundered within sight of shore on a tempestuous day in 1598. Divers of that period searched for the vessel, but the bottom slanted sharply down beyond their range. With the advent of recent undersea techniques, the search resumed, plumbing depths previously impossible.

The divers employed a small submarine specifically developed for bottom exploration. The absence of cannon among the ballast stones should have been a clue that it was the wrong site, but the discovery of a crusted bronze chest induced immediate gold fever.

Of course they were disappointed to find scrolls instead of gold in the chest. The chest was turned over to the authorities. The scrolls ended up in the archives in Lisbon where they were catalogued and filed. It was determined that they were of the 10th century. The language was a curious mixture of Latin and something else. Since the unknown language constituted the bulk of the vocabulary, the scrolls were not readily deciphered. The Portuguese government did not approve an appropriation for further study and the project was tabled indefinitely.

The story of the scrolls fired my imagination. After the seminar I flew to Lisbon and obtained copies adequate for research. I found the alphabet was mainly Roman with a sprinkling of characters that sometimes represented one sound and occasionally an entire word or phrase. Although the familiar alphabet should have been a quick tool for breaking down the language, it did lead me in the wrong direction for a time. I tried, with the help of a learned etymologist, to fit the language into the framework of the Italic group, hoping for a short cut to the method of translation. This failed.

A morphemic approach laid bare the "privilege of occurrence" and subsequently a grammatical breakthrough. The grammar indicated a Tocharian source. Following through in that direction I was able to find the keys to meaning, context, and ultimately individual words.

The content of the scrolls could best be described as a roman fleuve (lit. "river novel"), a long narrative dealing with the cross-currents of Antillian society and giving especial prominence to the adventures of the heroic Felic m'Lans (translated Carver of Men).

The setting is the island sub-continent of Antillia, now identifiable only as some portion of the Atlantic Ridge. This undersea mountain range lies north and south in the Atlantic at roughly the longitude of the Azores. The Azores are all that remain above water, although the peaks of Antillia, even in sunken majesty, are in the 10,000-foot class. It was a land created by volcanic action. But it must have submerged without a whimper. Early European cartographers recorded its existence, but it became more myth than fact as the years lapsed.

The Archbishop of Oporto was alleged to have gone there, circa 1093, accompanied by six bishops and refugees of the Moorish invasion. Legend has it that the expedition founded the seven cities, each a Utopian example under the leadership of the seven clergymen. Subsequent Spanish explorers, including Columbus, wasted time and effort chasing the fable as did the great Chinese treasure fleet of 1421.

The admixture of Latin in the scrolls would indicate that the Archbishop's flock might have settled there. But the religion and priesthood of the Dag-Arnak show no Catholic similarity or influence. It is feasible to assume that the Catholic priests were denied the practice of their own religion and made to perform the work of scribes. This would explain the use of a Roman alphabet. Perhaps their efforts provided the first sophisticated written language for the Antillians.

My countless hours of translation have produced this account of an Antillian legend. --R.G.N.F.

# Chapter One

Sunrise.

Felic had the helm.

The galley's big red and white striped square sail filled and fluttered, filled and fluttered, uncertain of its role in the fitful breeze. Felic scanned the horizon as he made subtle adjustments to their course toward the distant mountains of Antillia. It seemed like the start of a normal day, but Felic felt there was something errant--a subtle disquiet filtering the morning sunlight, perhaps a change in the weather.

Many of the crew, tired from the previous day's costly victory, were snoring in the scuppers. The casks and crates of booty, still unpacked and unsorted, were strewn carelessly on the main deck. Some were opened, some intact. Felic was annoyed by the clutter but felt no need to make an issue of it. The plundered Dagran merchant ship was not the easy mark they had anticipated.

Antelo, his first mate, hauled his muscular torso through the cabin hatch and joined him on the quarterdeck. "Not much wind," he remarked through a yawn.

Felic nodded. "I suspect that will change; I think we're in for a some foul weather.""Are you feeling it in your old knee wound," Antelo chided.

Felic grinned. "Have you ever known my knee to be wrong?"

"And what about this?" Antelo's gesture took in the idle crew. "Am I to command a sleeping watch of pretty boys?"

"Rouse them if you wish. They fought bravely and lost a few comrades." He stepped back from the steering board. "I think they earned a little extra sleep."

Antelo took over the steering board. "I wasn't expecting a fight when we boarded yesterday."

Felic stifled a yawn. "Nor I," he answered. "Those Dagran sailors were well armed for a merchant galley."

"Ah...go get some sleep." Antelo directed. "I will call you if needed."

To Antelo, Felic was not just the captain and leader of their band of marauders. He thought of the broad-shouldered muscular warrior and seaman as a fearless brother whose friendship had been forged in battle. Some would call him a pirate or mercenary, and his name and exploits were the stuff of legends in all of Antillia. The King of Valistia, however, considered him a privateer, sailing under his royal charter. As long as their piracy was confined to the vessels from Dagra, Valistia would be a safe haven.

As the morning progressed Felic's sleep in the galley's tiny cabin was abbreviated by the exaggerated motion of the ship and the staccato slap of the bow wave. He rejoined Antelo on deck. The sail blossomed with a full belly of steady wind and they were quartering the waves with bow-battering speed. There were no whitecaps but the sea before them was like an oily marbled mix of dark greens, blues and purples reflecting the cloud cover.

Felic took over the steering board and roused the crew to reef the sail and clear the deck. They sorted out the plunder. They tossed the unwanted stuff overboard--things that couldn't be traded or sold for a profit. What remained was resealed and lashed down or stowed below.

"The sea has a wicked look about it, don't you think?" Felic commented.

Antelo nodded. "It does. I don't like it. Something nasty is brewing." He stayed by Felic's side, scanning the horizon, concerned.

"You are like an old woman," Felic teased. "It's my watch. Let me do the worrying. Get below and get some rest."

Antelo shrugged, gave the horizon another anxious scan, then went below. As the hours went on the waves started building, carrying ridges of white foam. The wind increased to where the rigging was singing a warning.

Felic called the boatswain, "Get a second reef in the sail," he ordered. "I'm still going to try to maintain this heading. If the weather doesn't worsen, we will make it to the Great South Bay of Antillia and shelter behind the Isle of Mists."

The seas were building and the ship threw fans of salt spray back over the bow even though the sail was double-reefed. It was an exhilarating ride. It would have been joyful on a sunny day, but today it seemed somehow ominous. The ship was heeling so that the starboard rail was only an arm's length off the water. The crew was complacent, confident in the seamanship of their captain. Being drenched on a slanted deck was nothing unusual in their experience.

The cloud cover darkened in the northeast and fragmented white clouds scudded south beneath it. Felic could still make out the mountains of Antillia ahead. Their dark violet skyline was blending with the sky and would soon disappear. He was torn, debating mental choices only a captain can make. If he could hold the present course they might beat the storm to safety. If he slacked off downwind, however, it could ease the ship's motion and make better speed. But could they find a protective inlet on an unfamiliar shore?

* * *

Antelo gave up trying to sleep. He was tired of being rolled against the sideboard of his bunk every time a wave hit. He slung his feet over the side and slid to the floor just as a violent slamming wave knocked the ship on its side. Lockers and shelves flew open and the contents flew across the cabin. Wine bottles shattered and in the chaos Antelo found himself lying in the starboard bilge looking up at the cabin table, still secured to the deck--now the wall.

His heart stopped for the eternity it seemed to take for the ship to start righting itself. The jumble of flotsam slowly tumbled to the deck and Antelo skipped around the broken glass to the companionway.

On deck, he saw the crates and barrels had been torn free. Some had broken and the starboard rail held back a junkyard of merchandise about to go overboard. One crewman was in the water hanging on to a line. Two men were pulling him to the rail and the second man extended a gaff hook for him to grasp. The ship pitched at the crest of a wave, hung for a moment, then crashed down into the trough. The unexpected motion drove the gaff hook into the man's neck before he could grasp the shaft. His jugular vein was severed, his hands went limp on the rope, and he drifted away in a red circle, a diluted pool of his own blood.

The seaman who had used the gaff looked around fearfully, expecting to be blamed.

"Never mind. He's dead," Antelo shouted. "Clear that debris off the deck." He fought his way to the helm where Felic stood, spread-legged, his tunic plastered to his broad chest and sinews by the rain and wind. "What's on our captain's mind?" he asked Felic.

"Survival."

"Not a one of us will get out of this alive," Antelo joked.

Felic grunted and scowled. "True...but I hope that will be a long time from now."

Felic pointed at the distant mountains, now almost undistinguishable from the sea or sky. "Are you familiar with the coast below the Great South Bay?"

"Somewhat. It's mostly rocky. Cliffs and shoals.'

"I fear we will have to change course. The waves keep getting bigger. Have the men slack the braces. We'll go with the wind."

With the change of course the romping ride became an easy lope over the long swells. The sea didn't look nearly as forbidding from this aspect. Felic thought about shaking out one of the reefs then decided against it. They were already moving at hull speed, skidding down the front of the long rolling waves.

To the northeast the sky and sea were a black wall with no horizon. The wind kept picking up and the sail, now taut, was in danger of splitting a seam.

Felic, unable to be heard on deck by the howling wind, asked Antelo to go forward. "Have the men furl the sail and put out a drogue. This is getting nasty."

But before the sail could be furled it ripped free of its sheets and became a flailing oversize flag streaming out in front of the yard arm. Antelo had the crew uncleat the halyards and bring the whole mess down to the deck. Before the ship could decide for itself what new direction to take, they got the drogue streaming out to stern, holding the bow downwind.

Now they were at the mercy of the sea. The ship would go as the storm gods wished. There was nothing to do but wait. Felic left the steering board in Antelo's care and went below to find something to eat. In the litter from their knockdown he found a round of cheese buried under the clutter and cut off a generous slab.

On the quarterdeck Antelo strained to see the distant peaks. A dark mist was changing day to night. The frantic gesturing of a crewman below caused him to look astern. A monster comber was bearing down. It's crest was a weighted mass of curling, churning water and foam. Little waterfalls of spindrift coursed down the steep face. When the breaking crest of the freak wave rose above the stern it looked like the side of a watery cliff. This is the big one, he thought, the God of all waves. He hunched over the steering board, waiting the inevitable. The ship tried to rise up the face but then the tons of water crashed down. It scoured the deck of men, gear--everything. The mast splintered and the rigging was torn free. Antelo was knocked unconscious and hurled overboard as the ship turned turtle.

Down below Felic was about to bite into his hunk of cheese when the wave hit. The stern of the ship went high, hung for a moment, then, as the hull rolled sideways, a deluge of water broke though the companionway. Felic had no time to think before the water was up to his chest, then his chin. He gasped and was under water. He completely lost his bearings as the ship spun completely around and then pitch-poled and flipped over. He was thrown up against the deck boards and into a pocket of trapped air. He quickly realized the air was escaping through the damaged planking of the hull. The only way to survive was to swim down to the companionway hatch and get out before the ship went under. He took a deep breath and dove.

The hatch cover was gone and Felic swam through with powerful strokes, trying to get free of the massive dark bulk of the hull, now overhead. He was desperate for air and on the verge of losing consciousness. He felt as if a giant fist were squeezing blackness into his body. Instinct forced him to keep swimming, This is not a good time to die, he thought. I should die by the sword, not pumped full of water. He could not see the surface, but once clear of the hull he shot upward. He broke through, gasping and coughing in a welter of flotsam. The giant wave had traveled on and left disaster in its wake. He swam to the hatch cover and hung on, breathing heavily, until he felt his strength return, then he pulled himself onto the makeshift raft.

The storm weakened as the hours went by. Felic was surprised to see the moon unveiled by the scattering cloud cover. The smothering darkness of the day had segued into night. He searched the sea around him for other survivors whenever the moon made a brief visit. There was nothing—not a floating keg or box or any shattered remnant of his ship. He was alone .

Two days and nights passed before he was spotted by a fishing boat and helped aboard. He was parched, blistered, half blind and a little weak. He gulped down the water that was offered and shook off the fuzzy web that surrounded his thoughts.

"Is this? Where am I? Are you...?"

He didn't get a chance to organize his questions before his rescuer interrupted. "You're safe. You're on my fishing boat. Captain Selsior at your service." The voice was deep and authoritative.

Felic blinked and peered, "Why? You are only a boy!"

"Aye? A boy, but with sixteen years on the water and boat of my own, which makes me the captain here." He stood with his feet apart and his arms crossed. "And who might you be? Why are you floating around on a hatch cover?"

"That is all that's left of my ship." Felic looked down. "And my crew."

"You were the captain?"

"Yes...My name is Felic m'Lans. The storm destroyed my ship."

"Ah, yes...the storm. It was a mighty one. I was glad to be safe in harbor for that one." The captain gave orders to his two crewmen to get underway, then turned to reconsider his human salvage. The man on his deck had the look of a seasoned warrior—tall, well-proportioned and muscular.

"I know who you are; the name comes back to me. You are the reaver. The one that every merchant captain fears. You are that Felic!"

Felic shrugged. "Yes, I am that Felic," he admitted.

"You smell like a rotten cod!" The captain laughed and turned to his crew. "Hear that, boys? We caught a big fish!"

Felic went ashore at their coastal village, a small huddle of huts in a tiny cove. With the kind donation of some clothes, he made his way north to the Dagran port city of Seaskal. He wandered the harbor docks considering his plight. He was a warrior without a sword, a seaman without a ship. His exploits were the nexus of Antillian legends, but now, dressed in borrowed rags, he was anonymous. He didn't think he would be recognized in his shabby apparel, but Dagra was not a safe place for him to linger. He considered his options. He could not very well return to the Valistian court and admit to the King that he had lost the ship provided from the royal treasury. That would not play well. He could go north to Gamollia, but the idea of joining the half-savage tribes there would be a last resort.

The waterfront bustle of Seaskal filled his senses. A ragged array of open-front shanties lined the quay and fish peddlers hawked their catch. The wafting smell of chowder caused him to pause; his hunger aroused. The old woman stirring the greasy gray mixture squinted at him suspiciously.

"You have money?" she cackled.

Felic smiled and winked at her and walked on. He had not a single druac, but he felt grateful to have escaped the ocean's clutches. It was exhilarating to be alive after the certitude of death. And he felt free. He took a deep breath of the seaside breeze, unconsciously noting the wind force and direction by the Dagran flag, flapping lazily above. Beyond the line of merchant vessels lining the long wooden wharf there were two Dagran war galleys floating above their reflections in the calm water of the bay. Farther on, across the bay, the Isle of Cedars protected the harbor from rough seas out of the West. The island was a familiar meeting ground to Felic for the barter and exchange of stolen cargos with the scurrilous intermediaries from Seaskal.

A short street, fronting the harbor, held three taverns with nautical names, one of which advertised rooms and meals. There was also a chandler's shop decorated with a large anchor resting on each side of the entrance. The main street, a cobbled thoroughfare, ran from the harbor to the town square where a marble statue of some Dagran deity brooded at the center. A two-story inn, solidly constructed of shaped stone, dominated the square.

Felic made his way in that direction but loud cursing from a harsh female voice gave him pause. He looked down a narrow side street and saw a portly older woman poking at the ground with a shovel. He started to walk on, then stopped. He thought to himself, "If she were young and pretty I would stop and help her....Oh, well..." He turned and walked back to her.

"It appears you could use some help," he greeted.

The woman looked up. She was grim-faced and sweat was beaded on her wrinkled brow. "Are you offering?" She said it like a challenge.

Felic walked into the little yard of hard-packed bare earth and gently took the shovel from her. She gave it up wordlessly, and heaving a big sigh stood back to let him take over.

"How big is this hole to be?" He asked.

She indicated a blanket-wrapped mound. "It's for my dog." Suddenly the angry old face went soft and tears sprung forth. "First my husband, and now my dog!" She moaned.

While Felic dug, she blubbered out the whole history of her attachment to the animal.

After the burial she invited Felic to share her supper. She explained that she was a widow and her husband had been killed when pirates had boarded his ship, The Sea Wagon.

Felic almost choked; he remembered that ship and that incident. Regaining his composure he expressed his condolences. "I'm so sorry, madame. The Dagran navy should wipe those villains off the ocean!"

"Yes...but it's too late for me." She was quiet for a moment, then, " Would you like some more soup?"

"No, you've been very generous. But I need to find a place to sleep tonight, so I'll be leaving."

"I can't offer you a bed. It would be unseemly for a widow lady like me." She thought for a minute. "There's a barn at the end of this lane. I'll give you a note for the owner so he'll let you sleep in his hay loft."

The next day Felic decided to seek a seaman's birth.

At the cargo wharf, men were hoisting barrels of wine from the hold of a coaster. Felic approached the man in charge.

"Sir, I seek work. Can you use another strong back on your ship?"

"It is not my ship." The man was indifferent.

"Then could you be kind enough to direct me to the owner?"

"You will have to inquire at the stone house past the square. Captain Calzak. He has three."

"Three such ships?"

The man ignored the question and walked away shouting orders to his crew.

Felic followed his directions, pausing at the inn. On one side of the arched entrance to the courtyard a lone nanny goat nibbled on the curling edges of the postings displayed on the tiled wall. Felic's attention was caught by the generous reward being offered for a fugitive temple maiden.

"What do you think of that, Goat? Maidens seem to be worth more than criminals in the eyes of the Dag Arnak priesthood."

The goat ignored him and continued munching.

"I hope that group of robed pigs never catch her...whoever she is. And I might warn you, Goat--it says here that there is a serious penalty for defacement or removal of these postings."

A quivering bleat acknowledged the warning.

"But I realize, Goat, that your risk seems small if the hunger is great." He grimaced and kneaded his own belly. Then as an afterthought he ripped the posting from the wall and tossed it at the goat's feet. "Here. One of us might as well be full."

Continuing past the square and up the lane, he found the stone house. It was soundly built of fieldstone and set flush to the street with no yard. The upper half of the door hung open.

He rapped lightly and an attractive young housewife appeared. She had large quizzical blue eyes framed by long honey-colored braids that hung to her waist.

"I seek Captain Calzak," Felic announced.

"He is not here. What might you wish of him?"

"I would ask him for a job."

"To work on his ships?"

"Yes."

"I am sure he could use you. He mentioned that he was short-handed." Her eyes drifted over his muscled torso. She smiled. "Would you like to come in out of the sun and wait?"

Felic accepted her hospitality. She chatted eagerly about the weather and other inconsequentials. When she found he had not eaten all day, she prepared him a meal.

"I am touched by the generosity you show a stranger," Felic told her. "You are the second in these parts to befriend me. I was the only survivor of a foundered ship. A fisherman rescued me. I am beholden to him for his kindness to a stranger in need."

"Then tell me your name and you'll be no stranger to me." Her eyelashes flicked coyly.

"It is Felic."

"Ah, Felic . . . I like that name. You are a very handsome man, Felic. My name is Shalla." Her voice was lush, inviting. "When you finish your food, Felic, I will find you a bed for tonight. The sun will soon be down."

"But I shall stay only until the captain comes," Felic protested, "then I shall find lodging at the docks. You are much too kind."

"But the captain will not return for three days." She laid her hand on his shoulder and gave him a gentle squeeze. "Wouldn't you be more comfortable here with me, Felic?"

Felic could see it. He saw it in the hard brightness of her eyes--the itch of the neglected wife. "Sweet lady...Shalla...I would be honored to be of service to you in the absence of your husband." He pulled her gently down onto his lap. She responded with a giggle and let her dress slide off one shoulder.

"Three days...are you sure?" he asked.

She was sure, but she was wrong. Captain Calzak returned that night. Physically, the captain was not impressive. He was skinny, stooped, and in most situations his pale eyes went unnoticed. Now, circling the foot of his conjugal bed, those eyes burned with murderous intent. They persuaded Felic to abandon his advantage of youth and strength. He backed away, naked from the waist down, feeling about for his clothes while keeping his eye on the point of the captain's long blade.

"Look, be reasonable. You don't understand what is happening here." He tried a friendly smile. "This can all be explained."

The captain's stony expression did not change. The point of the knife trembled, not from fear, but from the compressed energy of wrath.

"This is ridiculous," Felic tried again, still smiling. "I am twice your size. We are no match. It is ridiculous!"

The captain answered in a thin, hoarse whisper. "You are ridiculous!" He feinted a quick thrust towards Felic's bare genitals.

Felic jumped back and bumped the wall. "Now take it slow, captain." He spotted his clothes under the other man's feet. "If you could find it in your heart to let me..." Another thrust. Felic dodged to the left, hit the bed and lost his balance. He rolled with a flash of white buttocks across the captain's cowering wife and found his feet on the opposite side of the room. Without waiting for further conversation, he whipped the bedding from his erstwhile playmate and threw it over her husband's head. While the enraged captain slashed at the encumbrance, Felic took a last look at the voluptuous naked body on the bed and then took off out of the cottage.

He fled into a dark lane across the street. He paused and listened for pursuit. The quiet of the night was broken by the intermittent yelps of pain from the captain's wife and the thumping sounds of the battle raging in the stone cottage.

A dog, growling close by, made him acutely aware of his exposed parts. He pulled off his shirt and folded it into an impromptu breach clout. "Shalla, Shalla, Shalla," he intoned to the twinkling stars, "you were such a sweet, sweet mistress." He winced as another feminine screech echoed down the deserted streets.

The dog started barking. Felic decided to move on. He rounded a corner and headed for the docks. Down the middle of the street, coming towards him, was a child walking with the short rolling step of a sailor new ashore. As he came nearer, Felic saw the aging face and whiskers of a dwarf. There was an exchange of greetings, then the dwarf stopped and held up a hand to detain him. He looked quizzically at Felic's odd raiment before clearing his throat.

"I was told I could buy lodging for the night at the home of Captain Calzak...you would please to know his place?" His question rumbled in the guttural dialect of Calix.

"Calzak's cottage?" Felic laughed. "That is easy, my friend. It is the house of fieldstone from whence comes all the noise of the night." Then, as an afterthought, he said, "Just ask for Felic and you'll get the best bed." He walked away trying to hide his grin.

The street turned into a cobbled lane that ran behind a line of shanties. The stones were sharp on his bare feet. Felic spotted some clothes hanging on a line and helped himself to some items to cover his nakedness. Back at the harbor he entered one of the taverns. He couldn't make out the faded name on the sign but the rank smell was all the identity needed.

There were only a couple of old salts hunched over their mugs in a cloud of pipe smoke. The owner, a fat-cheeked balding man, was slouched over the bar. He didn't even look up when Felic approached.

"Sir, I am temporarily out of..."

"Nothing free here!" he barked without looking up.

Felic paused to contain his anger. "I am not looking for a handout." HIs tone held menace and the bar man looked up, suddenly accommodating. "I merely wanted to ask if you had any word of a ship needing crewmen."

One of the old men at the table called, "Avast there, young fella! You lookin' for a job?

Felic turned and crossed to face him. "Yes, I can handle any job on any ship."

"Well, this isn't a ship job, but it probably pays well. The word is that the Hag of Calix is looking for a skipper."

"Calix!" Felic looked confused. "But Calix has no access to the ocean, no port and no ships to my knowledge."

"All I can tell you is that there was one of her little runts here earlier today asking around." The old fisherman threw that out with a wave of his pipe, as if to say take it or leave it.

After getting directions from Felic, Tword, the dwarf, grunted his thanks and continued up the lane. His knock on the cottage door provoked a cessation in the battle within. After an interval of silence the door was flung open, and the captain stood in the frame of light. His thinning hair was like a disheveled halo. He blinked into the night for a moment before seeing the little man below him.

"Yes, what is it...," he rasped. "What do you want?"

The dwarf removed his cap. "Greetings, sir captain. Felic...one named Felic. He is found here?"

"There is no one by that name here. I know of no Felic."

The captain's wife broke into a plaintive moan. "Oh my Felic...my bee-ootiful Felic!" She drew the name out in a crescendo that burst into a gulping sob.

Understanding crept into the captain's eyes. "Be ye friend to this Felic?"

The dwarf opened his mouth to speak, but before he could utter a sound, the captain placed a foot in the middle of his chest and gave him a tumbling shove into the street. The door slammed and the little man sat coughing in the dust. He picked himself up, sputtering, and batted the dust from his clothes. He made his way to the dingy tavern he had visited earlier in the day and was surprised to be greeted by the big man who had given him directions.

Felic approached him. "I see the captain was not very hospitable. Did you pinch his wife, perhaps?

The dwarf snorted. "A person...I ask only for a person."

"It must have been the wrong person:"

"Felic...I ask for one named Felic."

"Perhaps I should explain. Let us sit. You can buy me a flagon of wine."

* * *

The dwarf was an emissary from Calix. He sized Felic up with beady eyes peering through bushy eyebrows. He could see that the big man who shared his wine was a likely candidate for his search. He finally explained that his sovereign, Queen Gwenay of Calix, sought the services of a seaman or mercenary who could command a small ship.

"Queen..." Felic hid his amusement behind a long swallow from the flagon. "I didn't know Calix was a kingdom, or a Queendom, or anything more than a hive of dwarves living in a dead volcano. Is your, ah...queen...perhaps known as the 'Hag of Calix' as well? "

Tword stiffened. "My queen no hag!"

"In her present domain she may be the least haggish of all," Felic agreed slyly, "if she actually exits. I've never met anyone who's seen her."

Tword, insulted, got down from his chair and looked to the door.

"Wait...I merely jest." He raised his flagon with a placating gesture. "I'm sure I could command her vessel, but for what purpose?"

"Not for me to know," the dwarf shrugged and sat back down. "Maybe dangerous."

Felic continued to sip his wine, considering the strange offer. He emptied his flagon and slammed it on the table. "Why would I honor her request. What does she offer in return?"

With an air of secrecy, Tword produced an exquisite dagger with a large ruby mounted on the flower pommel. The hilt was of bronze in the shape of a wood nymph entwined with a snake. The guard was embellished with twisted gold inlay. "This would be yours for to come there." He held it close, sheltering it from unwanted attention.

Felic sniffed in disdain. "And that trinket would be my pay...my pay for commanding her ship...an unknown voyage into some unknown danger?"

"No, no. This just for to see her...to go there!"

"Oh, well, in that case...why not?" The weapon was obviously of great value. "I can always sell it for a few druacs."

Felic agreed to accompany him, then it occurred to him that he wasn't shod. "I cannot climb the mountains like this." He showed the dwarf his bare feet.

The dwarf spat his scorn for the big man's predicament, then produced a gold coin and laid it on the floor between Felic's dusty feet.

The following morning, with Felic outfitted, they left the Seaskal inn and traveled on foot for the mountains of Calix. There was little socializing. The dwarf usually responded to Felic's efforts at conversation with a grunt or a gesture. The first day of the trip took them from the farmland surrounding the city and through a swamp until they reached the forest. They made camp the first night in mutual silence. Felic had given up trying to get answers.

On their second day of the journey Felic asked the dwarf his name.

"Tword...I am named Tword," he answered, and that was the extent of their dialogue until they entered the broken and heaped terrain of the Calixian foothills. Tword picked the path, sprinting from boulder to boulder with bandy-legged agility. He was adept at squeezing his gnarled torso through the narrow crevices and snagging copse of the mountainside.

"Hold up, you tireless runt!" Felic's shout rattled the rocks. "Hold up: I must rest by this stream."

Tword settled to a squatting position on a fallen tree and tucked a pinch of crested nightshade into his cheek. From under iron-gray brows his eyes glittered with contemptuous mirth as he studied the exhausted man by the stream.

The humiliation of being outdistanced by the cretin added irritation to Felic's fatigue. He drank from cupped hands and let the cool water run down through the sweat on his bare chest. He shaded his eyes and looked up. The sun beat waves of heat from the rocks. An eagle soared lazily in the updrafts of the promontory beetling above them. The cliffs presented a formidable barrier—a vertical rock face separating the two travelers from their destination.

With a weary grunt, Felic removed his new horsehide buskins and sighed at the excessive wear they had sustained in the course of the journey. He stretched out on the mossy rocks and dangled his blistered feet in the water. When he arose refreshed, the dwarf still perched like a gargoyle on his log. The strange stunted little man had made no move to evade the merciless sun, or to join him for a drink.

"Lead on," Felic waved, "but pick a path that a human can follow." He put cruel emphasis on "human." Tword sat for a moment before moving. The humor faded from his eyes and he spat a brown gob against the log. Then he weaved and scrambled higher and higher up the rugged slope. Felic was hard-pressed to stay with him. At the base of the promontory the dwarf sat down. He was prodding a small lizard with one finger, killing time, when the big man came puffing up.

Felic mopped stinging moisture from his eyes and squinted right and left along the towering formation. The cliff hedged off the sky, an invincible hurdle for creatures without wings."Where now, Tword?" he asked.

"Easy...Tword now take to easy way. You follow again, then you see." He led Felic to a blind mass of undergrowth—a thick tangle of tall grass, ferns and bushes that hid the entrance to a narrow cave. They pushed through the web of foliage and entered a rough-hewn vestibule carved from the rock of the mountain. Inside, the dwarf pulled a pair of torches from a cache racked against the wall. With flint and lint he got them alight. Their flame pushed back the gloom shrouding the rear of the chamber. Felic saw a small shaft leading upward.

Tword climbed ahead with the torches, leaving the big man to squeeze his broad shoulders through as best he could. He found Tword waiting in a long tunnel. Accepting the second torch, he followed the dwarf deeper into the bowels of the mountain, brushing through festoons of clinging webs. The air was thick with the dank smell of roots and stagnant water. Felic's head took a rap from the uneven rocks of the low ceiling and his curse sent bats fluttering off in the grotesque shadows.

As they entered a larger, vaulted chamber, Felic felt the presence of menace lurking beyond the torchlight. He suppressed a shiver and commented on the chill of the cavern. The mimicked sound of his voice echoed in the black void. Tword paid no notice, nor did he answer; he pushed ahead with his quick ambling gait until the torches were sputtering, almost spent. They passed through the chamber and entered a second low tunnel. A twisting downhill course eventually led to a heavy ironbound door. The dwarf seized a stone hanging from a leather lanyard and beat a signal on the thick portal. They waited. The echo faded away in the passage behind them. Then an answering signal sounded from the other side. Tword countered with another rapid tattoo. Felic heard the scrapings of a bar being raised, and the great door groaned outward on grating wrought-iron hinges .

A dwarf with a crinkled face bordered with whiskers was framed in the opening. The fresh fragrance of the surface world flooded the tunnel entrance. The door guard gave way and they emerged blinking into the sunlit stronghold of the fabled Calixian Hag, Queen Gwenay.

Looking around, Felic found they were in a circular valley, a sequestered oasis in the caldera of a dead volcano. It was a natural fortress. A lake, fringed by aspen and pine, lay at the center. Its surface reflected the deep blue of the sky. Across the lake paths criss-crossed the face of the cliffs, leading to the mine-shafts that produced the coveted jewels of Calix.

The afternoon sun sparkled over terraced garden plots and shimmering aspen on the west side of the crater, but the other shadowed side had a morbid aspect. On the darker barren side of the bowl a huge rock, dominating the scene, sat like a bleached skull with an ornate jeweled doorway for a gaping mouth. Felic presumed the ancient and mysterious crone, ruler of this hidden vale, would be found within. In the lake a turgid shadow moved below the surface, sending small ripples to lap the shore. Felic feared no flesh and blood creatures, but the nameless evils attributed to this place sent a foreboding chill through his brawny frame.

In the royal quarters of her cavern, Gwenay fretted at her loom. A signal flashed from across the lake told her Tword had returned, and she was impatient for her first look at the man who was responding to her summons. She laid down her threads and went to the mirror where she addressed her image.

"So, after all these years you will see a man--a real man. I wonder how he will like this so-called 'Hag' of Calix." She brushed her hair and smiled at herself. Then she prepared for his arrival by moving to the reception hall where she positioned herself on a fur-draped dais.

Felic had to stoop to follow Tword through the low entrance into the hall, and he remained in a tense, half-crouched stance while his gray eyes swept the room. The only light came from thin spirals of flickering blue flame that rose from openings in the floor and circled up smooth pillars to disappear in the vaulted ceiling. The lights were behind and to either side of the female figure silhouetted on the dais and a hint of her fragrance hung in the air.

"Tword, bring our guest a chair, then begone!" Her voice was dry, hard-edged with authority. Tword brought the chair and gave Felic a look that said, without words, 'unwelcome trespasser', as he left.

Come now," she addressed Felic in a softer tone, "approach and be seated. I wish to examine you."

Felic walked forward to the chair and gaped at her. She was anything but a hag. Silky black curls hung long and loosely around her classic features. Her lips had the hint of a pout and her piercing green eyes froze him for a heart-stopping moment. There were no wrinkles or warts as expected. Her complexion was the peaches and cream of the balladeers' songs. Her body was barely covered by a resplendent low-cut diaphanous gem-encrusted emerald satin gown that revealed the proportions of a goddess.

"What is it? You are ill?" she asked. "Be seated."

Felic sat clumsily. Her scent boggled his composure and he shifted uneasily. "I was expecting a withered old crone. You are...very...er," he cleared his throat and tried again. "You are very beautiful."

She smiled and her tone softened, "It is pleasant to be complimented again. Many years...," she paused and looked deep into his eyes, "it has been many years since a man has...but never mind that. You are here to discuss my offer. Pull your chair closer." She leaned forward, teasing with her cleavage, and rested her slim hand on his huge fist, knotted about the arm of the chair. "You will tell me your name?"

His hand burned under her touch, and sent a sensuous current through Felic. He didn't seem to hear her question.

She tapped his hand lightly. "I asked your name."

"Oh...ah...I am Felic m'Lans, your Highness, er Majesty."

"Please, not so formal. Call me Gwenay." Her eyes commanded his and she seldom blinked. "You are Felic m'Lans...hmm. I have heard of you and your reputation precedes you. I am now the Queen of Calix, but I was once the Queen of all Dagra. These days my domain consists only of the stony porringer outside that door." She gave a small derisive laugh. "My minions are the devoted dwarves and the strange creatures that rattle around in the honeycomb of their shafts and tunnels." She shifted and bent closer, her face close to his. "I plan to regain my rightful throne in Dagraskal, and there is a place for you in my plans...if your reputation is justified." She backed away and her glance slid slowly over his body. "You could be of great service to me. In return I could bestow wealth, power, high station...I have unusual resources at my disposal."

Felic licked his lips and swallowed. Her candid appraisal pinned him in his chair. He cleared his throat and answered, "Wealth only interests me when I have none."

"Is that why you came?"

"In part. I was also curious to see," he paused searching for words, "...to see the Queen no man has seen."

Gwenay smiled. "Well, not for many years. In the days when King Jult was alive, when we ruled Dagra side by side..."

Her eyes looked through him for a moment as though he weren't there. She caught herself and the softness went out of her voice. "But you need no lesson in Dagran history. I was just a foolish girl then. What reward can I offer for your services?"

"What service do you require?"

"Your strength...your wisdom of the sea..."

"A sea mission?" he interrupted, his interest was ignited.

"Yes, I would require your escort and protection in the execution of a journey across the western waters."

"To what place?"

"To the islands of the Maijads. To the tomb of King Jult."

Felic's pulse quickened; the thought of having a deck under his feet again resonated in some ancestral longing. He hunched forward. "I confess, oh Queen, that fortune has cursed my recent endeavors. My ship is at the bottom of the sea. My men are all shark food. My pockets are empty." He shrugged and threw his arms wide. "I am reduced to the sum of what you see before you--not even a decent weapon other than the jeweled dagger that enticed me here. Perhaps you have been misled..."

"No, it is only you I have need of," she explained. "You will have a deck under your feet. That is the easiest part." She squeezed his hand—once again her tingle coursed through his body. "But first, Felic m'Lans, you must eat, rest and renew yourself from your journey. Tomorrow will be our day for making plans."

# Chapter Two

Bargonast guzzled deep from his leather drinking jack, trying to wash away the cramping fear that gnawed at his stomach. The malt brew slopped down the braids of his beard, and he paid little heed to the groping fingers of the plump whore squirming on his lap.

"Come on, Barg," she wheedled, "you're no fun tonight. Let's go outside." She twisted her fingers in the matted hair on his chest. "Let's go out to the barn and hump."

"Leave off! I'm not in a mood."

"I could get you in the mood." She pulled his hand into her bodice and placed it on the swell of her breasts. He responded by rising from the stool, rolling her to the hard-packed earth of the barracks floor. Her screeched insults followed him as he strode through the reveling swordsmen and stepped out into the night. He moved around the corner of the barracks and squatted in the dark, head in hands, trying to cope with the complexities of his situation. Even as he sat there he knew the priests were debating his punishment. What a fool he was to let his tongue outpace his brain!

The creak of leather caused him to look up and see the arc of silver in the moonlight. He threw himself back. The wicked edge of a battle-axe sliced the air by his head. The assailant's swing buried the blade in the logs of the building with a resounding "chonk," and, as he struggled to pull it free, Bargonast drove his helmeted head full into the attacker's midriff. The impact slammed the breath from the other man, tearing his grip from the haft. Bargonast wrestled him to the ground, kneeing and clawing with animal ferocity. Their rolling struggle carried them into the light of the doorway where two drunken soldiers stood watering the weeds by the steps. The onlookers shouted good-natured encouragement and pointed their urine streams in their direction.

Bargonast could feel his opponent tiring. He took advantage of a lull in the other's efforts to tug a long bladed dirk from his greave. Mustering all his strength, he forced the man's head back and drew a bloody line across the stretched throat. As the man went limp, his final sound was the hideous gargle of his last breath exhaling through a torrent of blood.

Bargonast rose, heart thumping, his face a snarling mask. He looked at the two swordsmen. They were staring bug-eyed, still holding their penises, shocked into sobriety by the bloody sight. He wheeled and ran for the thick forest that edged the compound, crashing clumsily through the brush, moving uphill, not resting until he reached the top of the narrow pass that led to the north.

He stopped, chest heaving, and looked back at the scene below. Men were shouting orders and moving about with torches, trying to organize a pursuit. Bargonast's breath wheezed through a slack grin as he watched the confusion. The fear was gone from his stomach. He knew what he must do. He padded heavily down the pass, bearing left where the trail forked to the northwest and to the mountains of Calix.

* * * *

Dawn peeped through a small grated window into Felic's sleeping chamber. A square of pale criss-crossed light patterned the wall above his bed. He was awake and feeling lazily refreshed. He had enjoyed a dreamless sleep on his bed of furs, lulled by a strange vibrating pulse that seemed to come from within the rock shelf that was his resting place. He watched the grid of light brighten as the dawn intensified, and his thoughts lingered on the events that brought him to such strange surroundings: His fine swift galley, sent to the bottom by the weakness that was her strength--the long, sleek hull that could move so swiftly to outmaneuver and ram the enemy. She was betrayed by her length and lightness. As the crew fought the storm, a mountain of water, a wave of monster proportions, was their undoing.

The galley had been swept up and hurled forward from the summit, rolling itself into a flotsam of splintered planks and tangled rigging. Then the wind that had created the freak wave bore down in full fury, ripping the crests into stinging sheets of water, scattering the debris and survivors.

He was especially sorrowed to lose the friendship and matchless valor of his second-in-command, Antelo, whose skill with weapons could turn the tide of battle, and whose counsel could lighten the pressure of decision.

But it was a new dawn. With no resources and no plans he must consider the proposition of Queen Gwenay. A chance to recoup his losses was in the offing.

Felic's attention was drawn from the pattern of light above him by a movement of the entrance curtain. His thoughts were jerked into the present by the spectacle of the Calixian queen entering the chamber. She wore a creamy, diaphanous gown, gathered at the hips a by a jeweled girdle of damascened silver. The morning sun behind her revealed her lithe figure and left little to the imagination. She glided gracefully to sit next to him on the couch. Again, the scent from her hair, as she leaned over him, scattered his wits.

"You are awake, are you not, Felic?"

"I am."

Her eyes mocked his discomfiture.

"And did you rest well?"

"I did." He rose up on his elbow. "A strange thing...I felt a vibration in this rock. Even now I can sense it."

"Yes, it is there. You feel the presence of the Qalandor, the eternal Qalandor." Her almond eyes glittered. "It is the reason you are here. Will you come with me?" She led him through a labyrinth of passages; the humming vibration grew stronger. Felic began to feel the immense power represented by the phenomenon, and also, as it grew more intense, he began to perceive a rhythmical gap in its cycle.

They entered a circular cavern. It was suffused with pale green light emanating from a pulsing sculpture in the center. Most of the light came from the depths of a many-faceted crystal, an arm's length in diameter and roughly spherical. It nestled in golden leaves that narrowed to long graceful stems. The stems arched up and hooked over like cobras, seven in all, each with a podlike end of wrought gold containing a tear-shaped precious gem, somewhat like opal, and the size of a fist.

Felic watched what seemed to be an interaction between the crystal and its several pods. Each gem flashed inner fire in its turn, and the flash was caught and suffused within the roiling mists of the crystal. As he watched, he realized one opal was missing, which accounted for the rhythmic gap in the cycle.

Gwenay gripped his arm and turned him to face her. "Look at me closely, Felic. How many seasons have I seen?"

"I am not sure I understand...I know not, Queen, but it is said you have lived a century or more. On the outside they call you the Hag of Calix".

"How well I know what I am called!" She was impatient.

"Come now. How old am I?"

Felic hesitated, not sure what his response should be.

"When I was exiled from Dagra, I was four score and three. Yes, I was the hag they remember."

"Then how..."

"How?" She gestured at the pulsing flower. "This--the Qalandor--once the treasured heritage of the Arnak family; it has restored my youth and my beauty. With this I have had power over time."

Felic was baffled. "Power over time, how is that . . ."

"Unfortunately the cursed thing is incomplete," she interrupted. "Its powers are crippled and weakening. Felic, if the seventh pod is not filled . . ." Her eyes burned with the obsession. "You will help me find the missing gem and return it to its place here in the Qalandor. That is your mission!"

Felic shrugged. "I have no knowledge of this gem or where it is to be found."

"Ah, but I know its hiding place."

"Then what do you want of me?"

"You will take me to it."

"And in return?"

"Anything you wish."

"I had a friend. I think he's dead." His voice caught. "Could the Qalandor return him to me?"

A shadow of pain darkened Gwenay's lovely features. "If that were possible, Felic m'Lans, I would have my beloved Jult with me now." She dropped her head and turned quickly, leading the way back through the labyrinth. Felix followed, watching the sensuous swing of her hips and mentally trying to equate that with a woman of her age.

Tword was waiting in the main chamber. He held out a ring to Gwenay. She examined it for a moment, and then paled at the sudden recognition of what she held. She faltered to a sitting position on the dais, looking incredulously at the ring. Tword watched, stolid and emotionless. "Where did you come by this?" she gasped.

"Man of scarred mouth, braided beard...big soldier."

"Where is the man?"

"Way out over."

"Did he speak his name?"

Tword screwed the leathery creases of his wizened face into a picture of concentration. Failing to remember, he shrugged uncertainly.

"Could he have been named 'Bargonast'?" she prompted.

The dwarf's bright blue eyes flashed. "Barg-o-nast," he nodded, "He was Barg-o-nast."

# Chapter Three

Bargonast scanned the terrain below for signs of pursuit. His eyes flicked nervously, isolating tiny movements of grass or leaves. The fear was back gnawing at his guts, producing cold sweat in the still heat of the afternoon. The rattle of a rock above whirled him about. Standing in the shadow of a wind-twisted tree stood a dark form. Bargonast's hand started instinctively for his dirk, but a whistling hiss and the crack of a long whip wrapping around his wrist arrested the movement. He looked into the drawn bows of Gwenay's dwarves.

"You were not so easily startled in the old days, Bargonast." The taunt of the Calixian queen was muffled by the deep cowl and veils obscuring her face.

"Bah," Bargonast spat in the pine needles and pulled the lash from his wrist. "Call off your vermin bowmen, hag, or give me a battle axe and I'll mow them like barley!"

"Still the braggart...you have not changed so much then."

"I did not come for your royal opinion, hag. I've come to claim what's owed."

"Perhaps I don't feel bound by King Jult's dead promise."

"You would not dare deny me!" His voice lost its confidence. "Ours was a blood pact... it must be honored!" The veins rose at his temples. "I will call on Jult's ghost to haunt you from his grave:"

Gwenay laughed. "An empty threat, warrior." Her voice softened. "His ghost is with me always. If I were to honor the pact, what favor would you ask of me?"

"I am hunted. I need sanctuary."

"You? But surely the chief assassin for the Dag-Arnak would have many friends to turn to."

"Don't taunt me, hag!" Bargonast licked his lips and looked quickly back down the slope. "The Dag-Arnak would slay me for a simple mistake-an unfortunate slip of the tongue?"

"You were drunk?" Gwenay guessed. The big man responded like a small boy being scolded by his mother.

"Which gave away their plans," he continued, shame-faced. "I was attacked in the dark. I killed my attacker, and only afterwards I saw he was a priest."

"Not a very smart killing. I would have thought you knew better."

"So now the Dags have set the king's men to pursue me. I didn't realize what I was saying. For years I have served them, and faithfully... now, one mistake and I am on their death list."

"How ironic is that," Gwenay said, "You, who executed those on the death list, finding a place there." She paused and her voice became cold and dispassionate. "But killing a Dag...there is no place for a priest-bane to hide."

"I tell you it was a mistake. I didn't know he was a priest. He came at me in the dark, and it was only after the deed was done that I saw his robes." Bargonast had lost his bluster, "Your Calix is the only refuge for me in the south of Antillia."

"At best you are unwelcome."

"But only for a short time...a few days at most. I'll find a way to the islands," Bargonast pleaded, "but I'll need time...time to make arrangements."

The shrouded queen turned away and stood running her fingertips over the rough bark of the ancient tree, considering the obligation of her dead husband's pact. After some moments of thought she turned to Tword. "Take him to the hermit cave. Give him food and wine."

Bargonast opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it. Instead he followed in the direction of Tword's lead.

In the valley below, the hidden eyes of a Dagran scout followed the progress of the two as they traversed a narrow ledge up the side of the cliff.

When Gwenay returned she found Felic squatting at the edge of the lake, skipping flat stones across the water.

"That is a dangerous pastime, Felic m'Lans."

"What? Skipping rocks?" He rose and hurled one last stone.

"Yes. The one who lives at the bottom becomes irritated when sinking pebbles disturb his rest."

Felic laughed. "Do you mean you have a pet sea monster down there?"

"It is no pet," Gwenay threw back the hood of her cloak and her jet black tresses tumbled around her shoulders, "and it is one horror that is better left undisturbed."

"As you wish. And the one you went to meet. What of him?"

Gwenay took Felic's hand and led him along a sun-dappled path through the aspens. "I am not sure he concerns you. However he might fit into my plans." They entered a grassy clearing where she spread her cloak and invited him to sit beside her. When he hesitated, her penetrating black eyes raked him impatiently. "Sit, Felic. I only want to discuss our business."

He colored slightly and sat down.

Her tone was matter-of-fact. "I have a ship. It isn't much but perhaps it could be put back in commission. It was Jult's royal yacht. I left it in the care of the harbor captain at Seaskal. He lived in it and maintained it until his death some time ago. Since then I know naught of it. You will go there and ascertain the seaworthiness of the vessel. If it can be of use for a trip to the Maijad Islands, I want it fitted out and made ready. I would leave before the season of storms."

"But Queen...a dock-ridden hulk, unused for over a score of years. Perhaps it would be better to dicker with the Dagrans for the purchase of a new vessel."

"I do not want my plans known. This will be my first journey outside of Calix since my exile. I would expect you to be very discreet, attracting as little attention as possible to yourself or to your work on the yacht."

"You say the yacht lies in Seaskal harbor?"

"Not exactly. It is tied to a small dock in a stream that feeds through the swamp and the mud flats north of the city. The area is grown over with willows and larger trees. You should be able to work there unnoticed."

Felic leaned back on his elbows and let the sun's lazy warmth tranquilize his body. "Well, it will do no harm to look at the scow. But I wouldn't hold too much hope for it, if I were you. It's probably half buried in swamp mud by now. Anyway, I'll leave in the morning."

"You'll leave now!"

Felic sat up, surprised by the finality in Gwenay's tone. Tword stood grinning at the edge of the clearing. Felic heaved himself to his feet with a sigh of resignation and, without a parting word, followed the dwarf.

# Chapter Four

In the hermit's cave Bargonast dozed lightly on a pile of old mangy skins, ignoring the fleas, and enjoying the euphoria induced by a skin of root wine. The late afternoon sun angled sharply into the mouth of the cave, and a bird family fussed and twittered in the thicket outside. The sudden realization that the birds had gone quiet roused Bargonast from his stupor. Now alert, he opened his eyes just as a shadow moved across the shaft of sunlight. Sensing danger, he rolled off his couch. He grabbed one of the furs and flung it in the face of the Dagran swordsman who rushed at him, weapon at point. While his attacker tried to disentangle himself, Bargonast catapulted his body into the swordsman's knees. The man fell forward and Bargonast's dirk disemboweled him. He howled in agony and his sword, flailing wildly, opened a bloody gash across Bargonast's back before the dirk found his heart.

Bargonast wrenched the sword from the hand of the dying man and leaped to the entrance, expecting more assailants. A troop of twenty or more was working its way up the scree area that sloped down past the trees. There was nowhere to run. The cave was a trap. Bargonast heaved a boulder loose and rolled it down, starting an avalanche of smaller rocks. The swordsmen ducked behind their shields while the rocks bounced harmlessly past. The sight of their quarry sent them shouting and scrambling up through the detritus with renewed enthusiasm.

With nowhere to go, Bargonast fell back into the cave, determined to sell his life dearly. He discovered the walls of the cave narrowed and angled off into a shaft that sloped down into the mountain. He moved back into the blackness and waited. When the Dagrans pushed their way uncertainly into the tunnel, he struck unseen from the darkness. The faint light from the entrance silhouetted his pursuers and Bargonast had the advantage. His blade fell on the first Dagran with whistling fury, cleaving the man's helmet and skull. The second Dagran was thrown off balance by the weight of his comrade collapsing against him. Before he could raise his shield, Bargonast sent his head rolling with one singing sweep. The remaining swordsmen fell back, unwilling to face him in the dark. Bargonast knew they would light torches and return. He groped his way deeper into the shaft. He ran his hands along the rough walls hoping to find another passage, but the tunnel led ever downward, unbroken by side entrances.

The air became warmer and more humid as he descended. Moisture beaded the walls. Bargonast's feet encountered water, first an inch or so, but deepening gradually. Soon it was up to his knees. It grew warmer as he waded; he paused fearing he would drop into a hot spring.

The sounds of pursuit rumbled faintly behind, spurring him on. He felt the shaft widening and he zigzagged from one wall to the other. The ceiling ascended beyond his reach and the water was up to his thighs. He picked the right side and explored ahead, feeling for a ledge to bypass the deepening pool.

When it became neck-deep with the bottom sloping sharply away, he stopped. He discarded his breastplate and greaves. He was torn between the fear of swimming into the impenetrable blackness and the fear of his pursuers, now sounding much closer.

The first faint light from the Dagran torches gave his dilated pupils a preview of what the swordsmen would find. The tunnel had become a huge cavern that arched away into the blackness. The pool reached beyond the edge of his vision. The light increased, accompanied by the echoing clatter of weapons, as the Dagrans splashed into the shallows.

Bargonast peered with straining eyes into the Cimmerian gloom and found a blacker area in the shadows before him. Hoping it to be an exit, he took another step forward but there was no bottom. His head bobbed under but he came up dog paddling, encumbered by the sword. He swam the intervening yards and found, not an exit, but a shallow niche in the wall. He pressed himself into it just as the Dagrans waded into the cavern.

Their voices boomed across the water and echoed back. "He's trapped," one soldier rasped. "He's here somewhere."

"Give yourself up, priest-killer," shouted another. "There is no place to go!"

"Look, there he is; He's under the water!" The swordsmen pushed forward.

Bargonast watched with horror as the thing which they had mistaken for him swelled from the depths. It rose in undulating folds until it towered over them, a formless terror. The Dagrans fell back in confusion. A torch hurled into the abomination produced a deep vibrating clack of pain and the folds split into a huge maw filled with pulsing flaps of yellow veined flesh. Indescribable squashy, sucking sounds and a gagging stench issued from the creature. The Dagrans jostled and shoved trying to escape the horror, but the chest-high water slowed their flight.

The cavern exploded with action as huge tentacles lashed and churned through the water. Terror-stricken Dagrans were swept screaming into the foul orifice, their swords hacking ineffectually.

A writhing appendage knocked Bargonast from his niche and he pulled in one last breath as he was sucked under the surface. He was propelled helplessly through the water, caught in a vortex created by the motion of the creature. He whirled along, taking painful scrapes from the rocks and feeling slimy contact with the threshing tentacles. A gush of current carried him forward at heart-stopping speed. He thought he would be crushed by the weight of the water slamming him into the rocks, but instead he was spewed into calm, cooler water. His chest pumped, wracking, trying to squeeze the last bit of oxygen from his lungs. He dropped the sword that he still gripped and clawed for the surface. He could see light above. It took a superhuman effort to suppress the tortured demand of his lungs; he was blacking out, losing control, as he fought the final endless feet to life. With a Herculean thrust of his arms he broke the surface and gulped air.

He was in the crater lake of Calix. He struck strongly for shore, not forgetting the nameless horror beneath him. Pulling himself from the shallows, he crawled quickly forward into a thicket and collapsed. When the pain of his lungs subsided, he moved warily along the lake. He was weaponless and unwilling to face another of the hag's surprises.

There was no movement or other signs of life in the crater, so Bargonast grew bolder and strode up the path to the skull cavern. Where the path wound through the aspens he heard voices ahead. He crept forward until he could see a grassy clearing through the foliage. A tall well-muscled man lounged on a cloak talking earnestly to the woman beside him. She was a striking beauty with long black hair falling past her shoulders. Her voluptuous body was lushly revealed, rather than concealed, by her scanty finery. When she answered her companion, Bargonast's mouth dropped open at the shock of recognition. The voice was that of Gwenay, the hag queen of Calix.

Bargonast tugged at the short braids of his beard as his brain wrestled with the incongruity of what he saw and heard. He edged closer. They were discussing a ship. He eavesdropped as the woman, whom he still could not accept as Gwenay, outlined her plan for the renovation of the craft. The man did not seem enthusiastic or agreeable. She ordered him to leave and a dwarf appeared on the opposite side of the clearing and escorted the warrior off in the opposite directionof Bargonast's blind.

When the woman arose and donned the black cloak, Bargonast realized the raven-haired beauty and the Hag of Calix were indeed one and the same. She walked away with a seductive swing, ascending the path to the grotesque skull-rock formation. Bargonast followed silently. He would give the rangy warrior time to leave the valley before he presented himself.

# Chapter Five

Tword left Felic standing on on a sagging dock that protruded into a wide spot in the slow-moving creek that ran through the tidal swamp. Without a departing word, the dwarf turned and disappeared through the twisted trunks of the cypress trees that lined the brackish water. As the twilight deepened, King Jult's once-proud yacht borrowed a degree of lost dignity from the last rays of the sun. The tarnished gilt of its eagle-head prow gleamed anew, denying the ravages of time. Felic shook his head and sighed at the neglected condition, but took a seaman's delight in the easy lines of the craft. He paced it off mentally, judging it to be 50 feet in length with a fifteen-foot beam. It was two-masted and lateen rigged. A raised quarterdeck gave headroom for the royal accommodations below, and the stern and quarter windows were elaborate with gilded serpents, flowers and sea deities. Carved feathers, crusted with verdigris, trailed back from the eagle's head at the prow to form sweeping wings along the forward sheer.

The tide was at ebb, and the Sun-Eagle, as it was christened, appeared to be aground in the shallow waters of the creek. The deck was just above the level of the dock. Felic hopped on for an inspection. The deck was grimy with swamp mud and other debris. He ran his fingers expertly over the standing rigging and fittings. An enormous padlock crusted with rust secured the main companionway leading to the royal cabin. Felic gave it a tentative tug, then climbed the three steps to the quarterdeck where he stumbled over the steering oar. It was unshipped and lying half buried in guano. A seagull kept to his place on the stern light as Felic passed by. He and his friends had turned the quarterdeck into a stinking poultry yard of feathers and guano.

Felic descended and made his way forward. A box of sand with an iron tripod served as the galley; he noticed that it had been used recently. Between the foremast and the capstan a small raised hatch led below deck. Felic tried it with his foot and It slid back. He lowered himself into the shrouded gloom of the forecastle. He found a candle lantern hanging from a deck beam and got a light going with his tinderbox. In the peak of the bow a bin overflowed with the rusty anchor chain and a net hanging along the port ceiling was stuffed with sails. Felic pulled out a fold of the coarse fabric and kneaded it with his fingers, testing for rot.

The forecastle was partitioned off from the main hold by a bulkhead of stout oak. Felic squeezed through a narrow door and took a step down into the hold. The wavering rays of the lamp couldn't light the expanse of the hull, but he could see there was useful gear strewn amongst the clutter in his path. The thick odor of stale bilge water seeped from under the planked sole. He wound his way aft where three steps led up to the door into the great cabin. It was not locked.

He opened it and stepped inside. The last of the twilight filtered through the dusty panes of the windows. He whistled in appreciation of the kingly quarters. A deep tufted divan curved in a crescent around the stern of the cabin, serving the massive table that dominated the room. The table's surface was inlaid with many shades of hardwood in a heraldic pattern. All the accoutrements for princely living were in evidence. There were also a few personal items scattered about. Felic frowned as he examined a cloak draped carelessly on the divan. It was torn and caked with mud. Other items seemed out of place amid the finery of the cabin. He flung aside the thick velvet hanging that curtained the royal berth and threw back the bedding. There was no musty storage odor; the comforting scent of recent use filled the alcove.

Felic looked the cabin over once more and reached a conclusion. He retraced his steps to the forecastle, extinguished the candle, and left everything as he found it. He replaced the hatch and disembarked. He found a dry hillock on the opposite side of the dock from the path, and there, screened by cattails from the yacht, he stretched out and studied the constellations.

He was alerted from a light sleep by the sound of the hatch sliding back. Clouds obscured the moon; a night breeze rustled the reeds of his hiding place. He waited, giving the intruder time to get settled. His intention was to sneak in the forward hatch and surprise his quarry in the great cabin, but lowering himself to the deck he had a better idea. He walked heavily to the padlocked door at the companionway and rattled and banged the lock as though trying to open it. Then he crept swiftly forward and crouched in the shadows of the bow rail. As he expected, a head rose cautiously above the rim of the forward hatch. Then the figure eased onto the deck and tiptoed toward the rail.

Felic catapulted into the intruder and sent him sprawling into the waist of the ship. His adversary was wiry and agile but not strong and no match for Felic's battle-toughened thews. They rolled and struggled briefly before Felic's forearm pinned the other's neck to the deck. One last pummeling flurry of fists rained on his back, then the interloper's struggling slowed and became a choking fight for breath.

Felic eased the pressure. "Who are you?" he growled through clenched teeth. "What right have you in this ship?"

A hoarse squawk was the only answer that could squeeze through the bruised throat. At that moment the moon slid from behind the clouds and Felic looked into the large stricken eyes of a small pale face surrounded by flaxen hair.

"What's this?" he grunted. "You're a maid!"

She renewed her struggle to get free. Felic pulled her up from the deck and held her twisting at arm's length. Her eyes flashed hatred as she realized there was no escape from the steely fingers. She found her voice and berated him with well-chosen invective.

"Wait, little pigeon," Felic was laughing, "I'm not sure I deserve all that."

"I knew you would find me," she seethed, "but no Dag-Arnak will ever own me. I will kill myself first:"

"Hold up! You are confusing me with someone else. I am no Dag, and you do not have to kill yourself."

"You are right! I will find a moment when you are asleep and slit your throat." She threw her head up defiantly. "I'll poison your wine, or I'll..."

"Come now, give me a chance," Felic teased. "You could learn to like me."

"Learn to like a Dag-Arnak!" she exploded, "Ugh! I would rather love a viper." She twisted and tried to pull away, but Felic hustled her to the open hatch.

"Do you want to climb down, or do I stuff you down?" he asked with amusement.

She gave him a scornful look that failed to cover the fear in her eyes, and started down. Felic held her wrist and followed. As he ducked under the low beams he was jarred by a blow to the side of his head. He shrugged off the pain and wrestled the crumpled lantern from her free hand. "You know, Pigeon, you are making it hard for me to like you."

Her defiance broke into a wail of frustration. She fought weakly, then fell sobbing at his knees. He fished the candle from the wasted lantern and got it alight. Pulling the weeping girl along, he went aft to the great cabin. He let her slide to a heap on the floor while he lit the ornate oil lamp that hung above the table. Then he sat down and waited without speaking.

After some moments, her sobbing spent, she ventured a curious glance in his direction. She snuffled into the sleeve of her shirt and tried to pull together the ripped fabric to cover her shoulder. She was dressed like a sharecropper's boy, and her slender figure was lost in the loose rough shirt and baggy short breeches.

"If you are through playing games, I would like to know who you are and why you are trespassing on this, the royal yacht of Calix." There was a no-nonsense threat in Felic's tone.

She raised her tear-stained face, but her eyes drooped when they met his. She answered quietly. "There is nothing I can do now. Rape me if you will, but I will never give you the satis..."

"Forget that line!" roared Felic. "I am not here to rape you! I am no Dag-Arnak! Open your eyes and look at me. Do I look like an inbred idiot member of the Arnak family? Do I wear the robes of a priest? Look at me, girl!"

She looked at the shouting stranger, wide-eyed with bewilderment. "But...but you called me by name...you called me 'Pigeon.' If you are not my intended, how come you know my name?"

"A chance choice. It fits."

"Then you are not Stet-Arnak to whom I was promised?"

"No, I am Felic m'Lans."

The girl studied him with new interest. "You are the one they call the 'Carver of Men'?"

"Yes."

"I have heard many bards sing of your heroic adventures and of the many warriors you have slain. Are those stories true...the terrible tales they tell?"

"Some. Not all."

She covered her mouth and tittered.

"Something amuses you?"

She fluttered her hands about her face and her eyes shone with a disturbing luminosity. "It's just that I thought of you as...I mean," she stammered, "that I had you pictured in my mind as being much bigger, or stronger...or something..." Her voice trailed off in embarrassment.

Felic's cheeks colored, but his tone was still dominating. "You talk a lot, but I am still waiting to hear who you are and why you are here."

The girl fidgeted in thought, then stood up and met his gaze. "I am Princess Chessa of Dagra, and I am hiding from..."

"You lie," Felic interrupted. "Don't test my patience. You may be Chessa, daughter of King Cot the puppet, but you are no princess of Dagra!" He reached out and ripped the torn sleeve back from her shoulder. "The mark of the royal family is not on you!"

She pulled away from him and cowered against the wall. "I am still my father's favorite. He calls me 'Pigeon,' and he loves me more than any of the others."

"Is that why he uses you to curry favor with the Dag Arnak?" It was a telling blow.

"You don't know anything!" she screamed. "I hate you. I want you to leave!" Tears welled in her eyes and her lower lip quivered.

Felic said nothing. He rummaged in the lockers and cupboards of the cabin.

"What do you expect to find?" she blubbered.

"Do you have any food here?"

"I would not share it with you."

"Do you have any?"

"No."

Felic left her pouting on the divan and went on deck to retrieve the pack he had set aside before the struggle. When he returned he spread berries, bread and cold roast venison on the table. He sat down to eat and gestured for her to join him, but she turned away. He made a show of enjoying the food, and finishing, put the remainder in the pack. He yawned and stretched out on the royal berth, heaving an exaggerated sigh of satisfaction. He lay there pretending to doze off, waiting to see what would follow.

After some moments she broke the silence. "I am hungry now," she stated quietly.

He waved toward the pack and this time she accepted the invitation. Her fingers trembled as she fumbled to get the food out. Felic watched her though half-closed eyelids as she wolfed down his leavings.

"If I had known you were so hungry, I would have left you more."

"I didn't mean what I said."

"What?"

"That I wouldn't share with you."

"Oh...well, all right." He closed his eyes.

"Now what do you want me to do?" she asked.

"Let me go to sleep."

"But where do I sleep?"

"On the floor, on the shore, in this bed, wherever it suits you. Now...no more talk. Snuff the light."

In the early morning hours the incoming tide lifted the yacht off the bottom and Felic woke to the gentle rocking of small waves lapping the hull. He was not surprised to find the slender soft body of the illegitimate princess snuggled next to him.

# Chapter Six

Queen Gwenay reacted with shocked disbelief when Bargonast entered her throne room. "Bargonast...It's impossible. How can you be here?"

"By the back door. As you see, I had a swim."

"Through the lake?" Her voice was incredulous.

"Right past your slimy tentacled guard."

"But, no one...no one has ever...how did you?"

Bargonast smirked, enjoying the effect of his statement. "It was too busy stuffing its ugly maw with Dagrans to notice me."

"You were attacked at the cave?"

"By a troop of swordsmen. And I think I am losing some blood."

Gwenay noticed the puddle of water at his feet was tinged with red. "Oh, you are wounded. Let me look." She examined the sword gash. "It is not so bad. I can stop the bleeding and bind it." She got a flask of medicine from another chamber and daubed the stinging liquid on the wound.

Bargonast twitched from the pain. "Yeaow! That cursed venom is worse than the sword cut!"

"A dwarf remedy distilled from gelliga root. It will heal you quickly."

Bargonast sat wordlessly while she finished, then turned to face her. "You have become very beautiful in your ancient years, Gwenay." His eyes moved lazily over her body. "How is it that you, who were old enough to be my mother when last I saw you, now have such youth?"

Gwenay laughed, flattered by his interest in her charms, "The secrets of the 'Hag' of Calix...seemingly eternal youth and more. Powers no mere man like you could understand."

Bargonast fingered his beard reflectively. "Eternal youth...a power once claimed by the Dag-Arnak priesthood. For that matter, they still do; but no one believes it."

"A false claim. They spread the belief to reinforce their power over the Dagrans. Indeed, if they had such power, why would they employ an assassin such as you to protect their political interests?"

"That is the same question I once asked a dying priest--a very old priest. 'Why,' I asked him, 'if you have the power to retain youth, why do you die of old age?"' Bargonast guffawed like he had told a good joke. "So, are you willing to let me hide out here until they forget about pursuing me?"

"I have a ship to take you to the islands." she replied, "They won't look for you there. King Jult's royal yacht is being refitted and his obligation to you, the so-called pact he made with you for saving his life, will be fulfilled. We will join my captain in a few days and sail before the season of storms."

"You will go, also?"

"Yes. I must visit dear Jult's tomb. His memory festers in my heart, and I long to spread his crypt with flowers and commune with his spirit." She had been gazing absently into space as she talked. Then she faced him. "You will be of use to me in manning the ship. My dwarves avoid the salt water as they do their wash water. I will provide you shelter and refuge here until we embark."

"I had not intended to leave," Bargonast's scarred lips split into a mirthless grin. "I think we should become better acquainted. You could be a lively humping tumble for an old lady." He roared with pleasure at her indignant reaction.

Her eyes blazed and she pulled a tasseled cord. A dwarf appeared. "Show this man to the rock hut. See that he has food and wine until I send for him."

Still laughing, Bargonast followed the dwarf. He turned as he left the chamber and flung one last taunt. "Don't wait too long to send for me. I am a man of many appetites, ha, ha!"

Left alone, Gwenay took Jult's ring from her girdle and studied it sadly. "Oh, Jult," she whispered, "of all the people to be obligated to, why did it have to be that crude oaf."

* * * *

Stet-Arnak pushed and clawed in blind panic trying to get through the confused mass of hacking, screaming swordsmen. The wet robes clung to his fat legs in the waist-deep water and before he could escape he felt a tentacle slide across his back and twist about his left arm. He had no weapon, only a torch in his right hand. The tentacle tightened its grip and pulled him deeper into the pool. A white-faced warrior was struggling to get past him. "Cut it off me! Use your sword! Cut it off me!" he cursed at the blank, terror-stricken face. The swordsman was intent on his own survival. Stet Arnak pushed his torch at the man's eyes, causing him to reel back. "Cut this off me, idiot!"

The warrior raised his blade as if to cut down the priest. Then comprehending the problem he swung on the tentacle. The sword slashed the appendage but failed to sever it. The tentacle recoiled from the blow, releasing the priest. But as it snapped back, writhing, it whipped the blade from the warrior's grip and coiled about his neck. Stet-Arnak ignored the choked pleas of the man. Turning, he fought his way to safety.

He fled through the tunnel, out of the cave, and down the slide. He scrambled headlong through the loose rocks that tumbled about him until he reached the floor of the forested valley. There he collapsed on the grass with burning lungs and pumping heart.

Only half the troop survived. The captain had perished, fighting bravely even as he was drawn into the disgusting maw of the creature. Stet-Arnak took command of the shaken remnant and started them on the road back to their capital, Dagraskal.

As they moved off down the valley he turned and shook a flabby fist at the cliffs of Calix. "A curse on this place!" His jowls trembled. "May the gods of Arnak rekindle the ancient fires of Calix and melt the hag queen's bones with molten rock!"

The troop pushed on until dark but instead of making camp or continuing on toward Dagraskal, Stet Arnak led them along an alternate path that followed the coast. In the middle of the night they clattered into the twisting streets of Seaskal. They made their way to the inn through rows of rude houses with latticed balconies and shuttered windows. A torch sputtered from its holder over the arched entry of the inn's courtyard. Stet-Arnak rousted out the innkeeper and commandeered quarters for his grumbling soldiers.

"The foul odor of your town is overwhelming," the priest complained. "It would offend a sewer man of Dagraskal."

"It is the whale, your Excellency." The man groveled before the priest and wiped his rheumy nose with the back of a dirty hand. "I am fortunate to have a stuffed-up head." He led the troop to their billet. He had a nutcracker face--his long nose almost meeting his chin over a puckered and toothless mouth, and he talked steadily as he shuffled about the courtyard. "...first luck they've had bringing in a whale for some months. Oh, there'll be plenty of oil for the king's lamps now. But it does stink up the town when the rendering fires are going." He showed the priest to a private room off the second floor balcony. "Sleep well honored Dag. Pull this cord if you need anything." He gave the priest a suggestive wink and turned to leave.

"One moment," Stet-Arnak stopped him. "Do you know a citizen here named Carp-face the Netmender?"

"Oh, yes, lordship, I know the man. Do you wish me to fetch him?"

"Not tonight, fool. I will see him in the morning. Now, before you retire, prepare food for me and my men. We have traveled hard and our stomachs are empty."

The innkeeper glanced at the priest's fat belly, then scurried off to comply.

In the morning the net mender was brought to the door of Stet-Arnak's room. The man's bald pate glistened with sweat and he wrung his cap in nervous agitation.

"You are the one they call Carp-face?" the priest asked.

The man swallowed hard and found his voice. "Yes, Lordship."

"I have a communication from one of my search units stating that you gave them information regarding a runaway temple maiden--the fugitive known as Chessa or Pigeon."

"Yes, Lordship, I think I saw her."

"Tell me what you saw."

"I found a boy sleeping in my nets, and when I kicked him, he squealed like a girl. His cap came off and he, ah she, had a girl's head of hair... yellow hair."

"Then you deduced this person whom you first thought was a boy was in fact a girl?"

"How's that, Excellency?"

"Never mind. Continue. What happened?"

"She ran, Excellency. Took off like a rabbit. I thought nothing of it until the soldiers questioned me. Then I told them everything I knew about her."

"You should have reported it immediately. I could have you punished for aiding this fugitive by your delinquent behavior."

The net mender's long white fingers pulled and worried his cap. "But Lordship, I knew not that there was a search for..."

"Begone! But next time take notice of the postings in the village square. A good citizen tries to aid his government in these criminal matters."

Carp-face gave several quick bows as he backed toward the door.

"Wait! When did you find the girl in your nets?"

"It was the day of the highest tide, Lordship."

"Idiot! I know nothing of your tides." He banged the table rattling the empty breakfast dishes. "How many days have gone by?"

# Chapter Seven

Chessa was pertly insistent, "I could help you. I am very handy, you know, and I can fetch things."

Felic answered with a noncommittal grunt. He crawled along the sides of the hold, lantern in hand, pushing his knife blade into the planking of the hull.

"Why are you doing that, Felic?"

"I am looking for rot."

"What is 'rot'?"

"You ask too many questions."

"I think I love you, Felic," she declared.

Her sudden pronouncement hung in the dank air of the hold like a smoke ring waiting to disintegrate.

Felic froze, wordless, he turned from his work and gave her a blank look.

She was sitting cross-legged on the armorer's chest with her head cocked to one side in puckish concentration. "You have a very nice face, Felic. I don't really know you very well, but you have kind eyes...although they do have certain coldness at times, kind of a faraway look." She nodded knowingly. "I think that's because you are remembering all the men you have killed and it makes you sad?"

Felic rolled his eyes in wonder, then moved along the hold probing with his blade, paying no heed to her impish prattling.

"I don't think you killed so many people," she continued, "or if you did, I think you must have had to...to defend yourself maybe, or to rescue some poor person, or maybe a maiden like myself who was in some kind of trouble... like being chased by bad people. I don't think you would kill anybody just for the fun of it." She paused and heaved a big sigh. "I don't think you are really like that...really deep down I mean."

Felic ignored her and kept on with his task.

She came and squatted behind him. "And I can tell you are very strong, I mean really strong." She ran her fingers over the corded muscles of his back.

"Do you honestly want to help?" he growled.

"Oh yes, Felic. I do. I really do... Just tell me what I should do."

He sighed, "Just let me work in peace. I have much to do and not much time."

"All right, Felic," she stuck her lower lip out, "I'll leave you alone. I won't bother you, if that's what I'm doing." She walked away slowly, but stopped after a few paces and reseated herself on the chest. She watched with her chin in her hands, brow wrinkled in concentration. She cast an exaggerated sigh in Felic's direction and fidgeted for a while, changing poses and drumming her fingers on the lid of the chest.

"Felic, do you love me?" she asked with sudden candor.

Felic paused in his labor. The sweat was rolling down his forehead from the heat of the hold. He clenched his teeth until his jaw muscles knotted, and looked upward as though beseeching some deity for patience. He rose to a crouching stance under the low deck beams and turned to her with an over-dramatic sweep of his arms. "I love you madly, Pigeon. I can think of nothing else."

"Oh, Felic!" She rushed into his arms, knocking him back on his heels. "I love you too!" She rained kisses on his neck and shoulders.

"Pigeon..."

"I knew you loved me." Her eyes shone with joy.

Felic struggled to disentwine himself. "Pigeon, please! I have work to do."

"Yes, my Felic. Now I will let you work." She pulled herself up to place a moist, passionate kiss on his mouth. "I will go catch a fish and cook it for your lunch."

Felic watched her scamper away, a graceful child in clumsy garments. Then, shaking his head in disbelief, returned to the tedious examination of the hull timbers. He considered her assessment of his character. Yes, he had killed a lot of men--good men as well as bad. But her appraisal was off the mark. As a mere lad he had been unusually strong and adaptable to the life of a warrior. He had chosen the life of a mercenary and committed himself to the course it entailed. Sometimes his employers had been honorable lords with noble goals. But there were others who paid him well that he would rather not dwell on. There had been dubious and shameful campaigns that he wasn't proud of, and his career as a privateer had sent many merchant sailors to their death.

Focusing his attention on the job at hand he found the wood proved to be sound. Bags of salt placed in the bilges had kept any fresh water trapped there from rotting the bottom planks. But, although the hull was serviceable, the rigging was frayed and rotten. He listed the cordage, tar, splicing twine, and other items necessary to replace shrouds, stays, braces, haul-yards and other lines used for supporting the masts and controlling the sail. He was absorbed in those details when Chessa called from the sandbox galley.

"Felic, the food is ready. Come and eat." She was stirring the contents of an iron kettle hung from the tripod.

He looked at the steaming pot. "What's this? Boiled fish?"

She flashed a disarming smile, showing her small even teeth. "Felic, I don't know how to catch any fish." She shrugged helplessly.

"You said you were going to catch a fish for me for lunch."

"Yes I did. And I thought I knew how to do that. But I didn't."

"All right. I understand. I'll teach you when I get time. But what's in the pot?"

"It is pigweed greens. They are pretty good too, you know."

Felic sighed. "I have eaten worse things."

She studied him with concern. "Did you ever eat the hearts of your enemies that you slew in battle?"

"Their hearts? No, I eat all of them," he replied with a serious face, "then I pick my teeth with their swords."

She didn't comment, but regarded him with doubtful eyes.

"Come now, Pigeon," he laughed, "I am just teasing. You must not believe everything you are told."

"But I believe what you tell me, Felic. You are my man now." She dished him up a plate of greens and snuggled next to him while he ate. Her eyes followed his every movement.

"Did you eat before?" he asked.

"No."

"Aren't you hungry?"

"I don't like pigweed greens.

"But you just told me how good they are."

"For you. Not for me."

He shook his head and took a second helping. "Pigeon, I must go to the village this afternoon. I need to buy supplies--material for repairs and some real food. I will be getting supplies from Calix soon, but until then I don't want to live on pigweed. You can come with me if you wish."

"I am afraid, Felic. The soldiers search for me still. I will stay here. You could give me a job to do while you are gone."

Felic thought for a moment. "I have it. You can spread the sail on deck. If you find holes, patch them. Can you sew?"

"Oh Felic, of course I sew."

"As good as you catch fish?"

She folded her arms and planted her feet. "I know you are teasing me now!" Her face registered doubt. "...aren't you?"

"Yes, Pigeon."

"Well, anyway, don't worry. I can sew...really."

"Then get started. I'll be back at sundown." He strode across the deck, but she was on him in a bound, her arms clutched around his chest.

"Felic, you should kiss me goodbye. I'm your woman now."

He stooped and gave her a peck on the lips.

"That was not very good, Felic; you will need to practice."

He disengaged himself with a laugh and set off down the dock. "I will practice tonight, Pigeon," he called over his shoulder, and he followed the path into the trees.

In Seaskal Felic prowled the waterfront. He watched the rendering operation going on near the carcass of the sperm whale, then losing interest, he visited the ship chandler and dickered for the items he needed. The onshore breeze that had pushed the foul odor of the hot oil vats over the town during the afternoon died to a whisper, and the sun, hanging low over the bay, burnished the wavelets with liquid gold by the time Felic finished his business. He took the road to the south, intending to circle back around the town and pick up the path going north through the swamp. He was burdened with a load that taxed even his unusual strength. Bent under the weight of it, he failed to see the two Dagran swordsmen until they were blocking his way.

"Rest your load a moment, citizen. We would like to ask you a few questions."

Felic dropped his bundle and faced the patrol. The taller of the two, an aquiline hard-looking warrior, wearing a medallion of authority, did the talking. "We search for a yellow-haired girl dressed like a boy. Have you seen such a person?"

"No."

"If you should see anyone answering to the name 'Chessa' or fitting that description, it must be reported to the Dag priest staying at the inn. If you should apprehend this fugitive and bring her to the inn, I am sure he would be most generous."

The speaker's companion was poking into Felic's bundle. "This is an odd package to be carrying along a farm road. Where are you taking this boat gear?"

Felic was glib. "A fishing sloop was driven ashore to the south of here. We are repairing it," he lied.

"Then go about your business," the taller man ordered curtly.

They stood aside as Felic shouldered his pack and walked between them.

Once out of sight he cut back though the trees to the north. He moved warily, not wishing to be stopped by another patrol. He stayed off the trail where possible, but the terrain slowed his progress and it was dark when he arrived at the yacht. He threw the load from his tortured back to the deck and straightened up with a groan. Chessa detached herself from the shadows of the quarterdeck and ran to him.

"You scared me, Felic," she was breathless. "I saw you over there and I thought you were a hump-backed demon in the dark." She leaned against him, trembling.

He led her gently down to the cabin where he told of his encounter with the patrol. She shivered in his arms. "I am so frightened. If they find me, I will kill myself!"

He lifted her face up and looked into her eyes. "If they try to take you, they will pay a bloody price, Pigeon," he reassured her.

All the following day, Felic worked steadily. He spliced in the blocks and thimbles of the new rigging and sent Chessa shinnying up the mast to set the shrouds and reeve haul-yards through the masthead sheaves. Chessa was quick to learn and soon became familiar with the names and uses of the cordage.

Tword paid them a visit. He appeared from nowhere and when Felic looked up from his work, the rumpled little man was standing there wearing an enigmatic grin. Without speaking he handed Felic a sealed scroll. The unmistakable scent of Gwenay was on the parchment. Felic pulled the ribbons from the wax and read the message. It was a query as to his findings.

"Tell the queen that the yacht can be repaired. Tell her that I have started the work, and that she should send supplies for the voyage."

Chessa came on deck as Tword was leaving. "Oh...who is that quaint little grandfather?" she giggled.

"His name is Tword. He brought a message from Calix." Felic ran the scroll under his nose and sniffed appreciatively.

Two days later Tword came back. In the late afternoon he came trooping out of the swamp before a file of his kindred dwarves, all laden with supply packs and kegs of wine. The last dwarf out of the woods staggered under the weight of a slain doe.

Felic examined the loads and was irritated by what he found. "What is this, Tword? `You have brought four packs of gowns, perfumes and other feminine nonsense, but only one pack of food. Does your vain queen propose to live on wine during the voyage?"

Tword scratched his ribs and explained in patient patois that Gwenay would bring additional food when she arrived.

After the supplies were stowed, they butchered the venison. Chessa created a steaming, savory kettle of stew with onions, turnips and generous chunks of meat. The dwarves were a churlish and uncommunicative lot. Tword was the only one to show any social skills. While the rest bunched together on shore to eat, he stayed on board and asked child-like questions about the boat.

The dwarves of Calix were noted for skill in tempering steel. They traded the gems mined from their tarn for Dagran iron, and the weapons crafted by their blade smiths were the chief items of barter for goods not available in their mountain stronghold. Among the supplies brought aboard ware a selection of weapons for the armorer's chest. Tword seemed especially pleased to present Felic with a great double-edged sword. It was a hand-and-a-half sword designed for use with one hand or both. The grip was covered with braided bronze threads and the pommel sparkled with garnets and opals in a cloisonne´ of gold.

"Gwenay, queen of ours, sends you this one." He proudly pulled the blade from its scabbard and traced a damascened inscription with his finger. "For you it is read Felic Cumilan."

Felic's brow was knit in puzzlement. Tword tapped the blade patiently.

"He means 'Felic m'Lans,'" Chessa interpreted. Tword grinned at her and nodded.

Felic voiced his appreciation, and taking the sword aside, made several whistling sweeps through the air. Chessa watched the charade and shuddered.

"This is a fine weapon, Tword," Felic tested its center of balance. "Tell the queen I am very pleased with her gift."

"The snake...blow on sword and snake will come out," Tword urged.

Felic held the blade before his mouth and let the moisture of his breath condense on the metal. A twisted pattern seemed to ripple to the surface.

Chessa was delighted. "How does it do that?" she asked.

"It is caused by the method used in forming the blade," Felic explained. "The blade smiths start by twisting rods of iron together. Then they lay two flat plates to either side by heating the metal white hot and hammering on it. They keep heating and hammering until the blade is formed, and when it is filed and burnished the pattern of the twisted rods is still in the metal."

"And what is this?" She fondled a bit of polished meerschaum that was mounted in gold and attached to the pommel by a short cord.

"That is the life stone. A wound from this sword must be touched by the life stone before it will heal...or so some believe." Felic held the sword up and reflected the sun's rays from its beautiful finish. "I shall name you 'Battle Flasher' and you will become the most famous sword in Antillia!"

He was enamored with his gift and played with it all afternoon, polishing the blade, inspecting the details of the hilt, testing its edge, and fawning over it with a warrior's reverence.

Tword refused an offer to spend the night. Shortly before sunset he kicked his motley troop to their feet and started them back to Calix. He took with him a dispatch for Gwenay with news of Felic's progress and a sailing date.

The following day Felic rigged a rope harness to support him over the side while he cleaned and recaulked the worst of Sun-Eagle's seams. Chessa helped by foraging in the forest along the path for the fibrous inner bark of the swamp mulberry tree. The fiber made excellent caulking material when mixed with the sticky sap from the pines.

She was pleased to have the responsibility of doing something on her own. She searched close to the path, filling a leather bucket with chunks of resin and the hardening runs of sap. Her labors led her further and further from the dock until she found a mulberry tree that promised to fulfill their needs. She hacked a square through the tough outer bark with a hatchet. The pulpy inner layer came away in thick strips. While she worked her attention was attracted to a beautiful parasite flower that bloomed in the lower branches of the tree. She bundled the bark together with twine and placed it, with the hatchet and bucket, on the path. Then she returned to the tree and scrambled up the massive trunk.

She moved nimbly along a branch that swept out horizontally over the water of the swamp. Before she was within reach of the flower the branch started to bend with her weight. She edged forward; the branch creaked. She grabbed a dead limb hanging nearby to relieve some of the strain, but it snapped and she lost her balance. She pitched forward and her shift of weight broke the branch supporting her. She plummeted feet-first into the water.

The water was only knee-deep, but her legs went into the muck of the bottom. She tried to move to higher ground but her movements caused her to sink deeper. The water was up to her waist. She tried to free one leg, but the effort sent the other deeper into the sucking mire; she fell sideways. She panicked when her face went into the muddy gruel. She thrashed her way upright only to discover the water was up to her shoulders.

"Felic, help me!" she screamed, knowing he was too far away to hear her. "please, Felic...help me...please help me!"

A pole splashed into the water. The stinging mud and tears blurred her vision, but she grabbed it and hung on with desperation while she was drawn from the suction. Brawny hands hooked under her armpits and dragged her onto solid ground.

"Oh Felic," she moaned, wiping at her eyes, "I..." She broke off, astonished. The man standing over her was a Dagran soldier.

"Krel, come and see the fish I caught," he called back.

Another Dagran, heavily built, burst through the brush and stood before her. He was wearing a tunic armored with overlapping flaps of leather. A jeweled medallion, hanging from a silver chain, was attached to a metal collar. He stared at the muddy figure. The wet boy's clothing clung to her body revealing the swell of her breasts and her nipples.

"So, we have a girl dressed like a lad," Krel's mouth morphed into a lascivious grin, "a rare juicy little fish indeed!" He pulled a length of rope from a pouch at his belt.

Chessa sprang to her feet and struggled, trying to slip past them, but the men stopped her easily. They tied her hands and feet, then slung her twisting torso from the same pole they had used to rescue her from the mud. They shouldered the pole and there she hung like a slaughtered stag.

Realizing she was helpless, she screamed for Felic. In response Krel struck her a blow that knocked her unconscious.

When Chessa failed to return, Felic went looking for her. He was irritated because of the delay, but he was also worried that she had met some misfortune. He found the bucket, hatchet and bundle of bark. A search of the area around the tree revealed the whole story. The broken branch, the flower, the mud on the grass, the footprints of the soldiers in the soft ground--all told a mute tale to Felic's keen eyes. He looked down the path, winding off toward the village. As he stood there in thought, his fingers toyed with the hilt of the long dagger at his belt. He turned abruptly, gathered up the bark and resin, and retraced his steps to the dock.

* * * *

Chessa regained consciousness as she was carried through the village. She opened her eyes and tried to process the view of her arms and legs trussed around the pole above her. Realizing she was a prisoner she wriggled frantically at her bonds. Her efforts only produced sobs and tears. She closed her eyes, humiliated by the dumfounded stares of the villagers who lined the route. The Dagrans carried her through the gate of the inn and dumped her onto the packed earth of the courtyard. Stet-Arnak, seeing their arrival, hurried down to meet them. His pig eyes glittered with delight. He grunted and wheezed with pleasure as he prodded the prone form.

"Is she all right? Have you hurt her?"

"She is only unconscious, Excellency," Krel answered, "I had to strike her to silence her screams." He went on to explain the place and circumstances of her capture.

"You have done well. You will both be amply rewarded...a noteworthy deed that will be duly recorded when we reach Dagraskal." The priest's moon face beamed with satisfaction. "Cut off her bonds and take her to my room."

Chessa kept her eyes shut and remained limp as they freed her from the pole and cut the ropes from her limbs. They carried her up the steps and placed her on the priest's couch, leaving her alone with him. She felt the bed sag with his weight as he sat down beside her. With an effort, she willed herself to feign unconsciousness and remain motionless as his soft fat fingers groped about her breasts. She fought back a wave of revulsion from his foul breath that hung in her nostrils. His curiosity satisfied, he got up and left the room. In a moment he returned with a damp cloth, which he placed, on her forehead. After a few moments she chanced a peek through slitted lids.

The Dag sat at a table with a flagon of wine, his bulk was backlighted by the open door leading to the balcony and the stairs to the courtyard. Another doorway led to an adjoining room. There was a small fireplace between the couch and the table. Chessa's eyes widened and fixed on a detail of the hearth, an iron poker with a right-angle hook on one end. She measured her chances and tensed her body. The priest pushed back his chair. She swung off the bed, swept up the poker and struck viciously at the priest's bald head. He threw his bulk to one side and the poker landed with a "flack" on his well-larded shoulder. He roared with rage and lunged at her, wresting the weapon from her fingers. With a sweep of his arm he flung her against the fireplace and she folded into a sobbing heap on the hearth.

The racket brought Krel bounding up the steps and into the room. "Are you all right, Lordship?" His sword was unsheathed and ready.

"Put away your blade. I am eminently capable of handling my dainty bride-to-be." He rubbed his shoulder and grimaced. "Throw her into that room and bar the door."

Krel pulled the hapless girl from the hearth and shoved her into the adjoining chamber. When her weeping subsided, she found herself in bare surroundings. A rude table, a water urn and a cot were the only furnishings. A window, too narrow to squeeze through, pierced the outside wall and admitted a ray of dusty sunlight. She picked herself off the floor and limped to the cot, trying to ignore the aches of her bruised limbs.

When her emotions stabilized she began to consider her situation with a clarity born of desperation. She jumped off the cot and pulled it in front of the door. It wasn't heavy enough to keep anyone out. She tugged it sideways across the room so that it lay between the door and the opposite wall. Then she bridged the space separating the cot and the wall by wedging the table in sideways. The two pieces of furniture effectively prevented the door from being forced open.

# Chapter Eight

When Felic returned to the Sun-eagle he strapped on Battle Flasher and selected a small buckler that would not impede his movements. The thought of Chessa in the hands of the Dagrans so enraged him that he set off in pursuit with no plan other than to catch up and do battle. He ran all the way to Seaskal, but when he emerged into the fields outside the village there was still no sign of Chessa and her abductors. Felic paused to rest and consider his next move.

"Why am I doing this?" He asked himself. "It's a stupid diversion from the business at hand." But he had to admit he was becoming fond of the impish would-be princess.

He hid Battle Flasher and the shield in a hedgerow and walked through a pasture to the town. In the marketplace he lounged about, alert to the conversations around him. Everyone was speculating about the prisoner that had been carried through the streets. The consensus was that she was the temple fugitive advertised in the postings. Felic visited the waterfront and talked to the chandler who had sold him supplies. He learned that there were only twelve swordsmen at the inn. He went directly there and, ignoring the loitering soldiers in the courtyard, approached the innkeeper.

"A room for the night...how much?" Felic asked.

"Sorry...there are no rooms."

"Come now. There is always room for one more. I have traveled hard and I have silver."

"And I'd like to relieve you of its weight," the innkeeper cackled, showing toothless gums, "but I'm filled up." He winked and continued in a mushy, confidential voice. "Very important member of the blessed Arnak family, a Dag no less, has chosen my inn to billet himself and his men. So, young sir, you will have to sleep elsewhere."

"But there is no other inn. How about your stable? May I make a bed in the loft?"

"If you don't mind the rats. It will cost five druacs."

"Five! You are joking. I'll give you one."

"Three. No less," the old man haggled. "Rates are higher where important officials stay."

Felic gave him the three coins and a dirty look and crossed the compound to the stable. The stalls were empty. He climbed a rickety ladder to the loft and positioned himself on the hay, his eyes next to a crack in the loading doors. He could see the entire courtyard. As he watched there was a commotion in a second level room across from the stable. A man's roar of anger was followed by sounds of a struggle. One of the Dagrans rolling amber dice in the courtyard ran up the steps and into the room. In a few moments he came out and rejoined the game. Felic lay back and relaxed. He chewed a piece of hay and devised a plan.

He decided to wait until dark then set fire to the stable. Thus distracting the soldiers, he could break in and rescue Chessa, hoping to get away amid the confusion. As he waited for the afternoon shadows to lengthen, his attention was again drawn to the courtyard. A portly Arnak priest came out of the room at the top of the stairs and called down from the balcony.

"Krel, get your men ready to travel. We are leaving!"

"Leaving, Lordship? We have only a few hours of daylight."

"Enough to get us to the demi-temple of Magren. I have decided to be married this night." The Dag rubbed his palms together and his face pursed into a lascivious leer. "My tender flower will have the mud scrubbed from her petals, then perfumed with the sacred oils, she will join me in the temple rites. Ha, ha ... the love Gods of Dagra will have a romping good spectacle tonight." He threw his left hand up in a salute to the gods while he rubbed his crotch with his right.

Krel grinned back at him. "We will hurry, honored Dag." He broke up the game and gave orders for the march.

Felic knew he must create his diversion and attempt the rescue immediately. He fanned a flame from his tinderbox into the dry hay near the loft doors. When the fire took hold he brought greener hay and threw it on the flames. Thick smoke filled the loft. He kicked the doors open and yelled from the opening.

"Help, fire! The stable is on fire! Bring water!"

The soldiers paused in their packing to gape at the figure in the loft. The smoke rolled out of the opening in a greasy brown cloud. Felic swung himself down to hang from the opening by his fingers before dropping the short distance to the ground. "Innkeeper! There is a fire! Somebody get water!" He sprinted toward the milling soldiers shouting and waving his arms.

The innkeeper came out of his quarters and panicked at the sight of the billowing smoke. He pushed and screamed at the soldiers, running this way and that, trying to organize a bucket brigade from the well to the stable.

Felic moved among them, helping to create more confusion, then he slipped unseen up the stairs. He opened the door and came nose to nose with the fat priest. The expression of surprise on Stet-Arnak's face turned to pop-eyed amazement as Felic's huge fist slammed into his midriff. As he doubled up, gasping for breath and Felic smashed a knee into his face. He slumped sideways into a cane-bottomed chair. The chair collapsed into firewood and rolled the lumpy body onto the planks.

Felic sprang to the other door and threw off the bar. He pushed but it was secured from the other aide. "Chessa, are you in there?" he shouted. "Open up. It's me, Felic."

There was no answer. He pounded on the wood. "Chessa, unlock this door. There is no time!" Still there was no response. He heard the priest stirring behind him and he spun about, expecting an attack. But Stet-Arnak, bloody-faced and missing a tooth, lurched out onto the balcony where he called for assistance.

Felic tried again for Chessa's cooperation, sure that she was in the adjoining room. He slammed his shoulder into the door with a mighty lunge, but it held fast. There was a clatter of arms on the stairs. He had time to swing the table into the path of the first howling Dagran, then he leaped to the outside window, threw it open and gauged the distance to the ground. Without hesitation he jumped, rolling as he struck the side of the slanting ravine that led past the back of the inn and through the village. He found his feet and raced downhill toward the bay, splashing along through a tiny creek that followed the bottom.

As he got closer to the beach the brush grew thicker and more tangled. It slowed his flight and he could hear the sounds of pursuit growing louder. He pushed ahead and found that the stream emptied into the bay beside a long wharf. He waded into the muddy shallows under the wharf and leaned against a barnacled piling to catch his breach. The iron-shod feet of running swordsmen beat the planking over his head.

"Felic."

He started at the whispered sound of his name.

"Felic...over here. "Quick!"

He looked in the direction of the whisper and saw a small face peering out from a veil of nets. He paused, wary of a trap, then realized it was Chessa.

"Chessa, how did you get here?"

She ignored the question and beckoned him vigorously. He crept through the opening in the nets to join her. They were under the floor of the net mender's building. The salt encrusted planks that hid them were nailed to the pilings of an old dock that formed the foundation for the structure. The nets, strung along the side to dry, concealed the opening. The place reeked of dead fish and rotted seaweed. They watched the Dagrans search along the beach and under the wharf. Chessa pressed her shaking body against Felic and kissed his jaw line. She spoke to him silently through adoring eyes. He gave her a brusque embrace and kept his attention on the searchers until they moved away.

"Now then, pigeon... tell me what happened."

"They put me in a little room, but I pushed the furniture in front off the door so they could not get in. Felic, that priest is so hateful. I pretended to be unconscious and he touched my body ...ugh, like an awful fat spider crawling on me. It made me feel all dirty inside," she shuddered, "and I almost threw up!"

"But how did you get out of the room? I went to get you...the door was barred and you didn't answer."

Chessa giggled. "I fooled you, too, Felic." She reveled in his mystified expression. "When I moved the bed there was a heat opening under it. Just a hole in the floor with a grill over it. It went down into the innkeeper's room below. I couldn't use it while he was there, but when all the commotion started outside... Did you start that fire, Felic?"

"Yes...now go on."

"When all the commotion started, he ran out and I lifted the grill off and dropped through. I went out the back door and came down the gully."

"You certainly found a good spot to hide."

"I knew about this from before. But the net mender caught me sleeping on one of his piles and chased me out of town. That's when I went to the boat." She stroked his cheek. "That was before I knew you." She paused and looked at him, puzzled. "Did you go to the inn after me?"

"Of course I did."

"Oh Felic, you are so brave and so strong...ooh... and I love you so much." She kissed him hard on the mouth and refused to let him pull away until she had finished.

Felic laughed. "Hey, take it easy. Save something for later."

"What are we going to do now?" she asked.

"We will wait until dark, steal a boat, and get back to the Sun-Eagle by water."

"Why didn't you kill them all, Felic?"

He looked at her and sighed. She was serious. "I do not know," he grinned. "Perhaps there weren't enough of them to bother with."

* * * *

Krel was loath to face Stet-Arnak empty handed. Nightfall had made their search futile. He organized his men for a rotation of patrols through the night, then returned to the inn. As he expected, the Dag was apoplectic with rage. He shoved his bruised face, flushed and veined with anger, into Krel's and dressed him down for incompetence. Krel stood stoically, taking a stinging backhand on the cheek without changing expression or revealing his contempt for the priest.

"Do you, or does anyone know who that dirty rogue was, or why he tried to rescue the girl?"

"I know him only as a fisherman, Lordship. We stopped him a few days past on the lane to the south. He was carrying supplies for the repair of a boat he said was damaged by beaching."

"Send a patrol to check that out."

"Tonight?"

"Now!" Stet-Arnak snarled the order.

Krel went to the balcony and dispatched three of his troop. The blackened timbers of the fire-gutted stable steamed in the torchlight. He stepped back into the room and asked the priest: "Who put out the stable fire, Excellency?"

"The villagers...but now that toothless scum downstairs wants me to pay for it. How do you like that?"

"We did not set the fire."

"Of course not. He is an idiot. If he brings it up again I will make his cursed tongue match his teeth, eh?" The priest laughed at his own cleverness and his humor improved." At least we have the girl, Krel...and tomorrow we will catch the fisherman. His skin, peeled and tanned, will make a holy asafetida bag...a wedding present for my lovely little pigeon. Since this stranger is apparently a friend of hers, she should find such a gift very endearing, wouldn't you say?"

"Yes, Lordship."

"Bring the girl out. She must be hungry and perhaps more tractable by now."

Krel tried the door. "She has the door blocked, Excellency."

"So...she still wants to play games. Let her starve a little longer. By morning she will change her attitude."

# Chapter Nine

With the cover of night Felic left Chessa in hiding and went alone to retrieve his weapons. On his return they stole a small skiff and rowed away from the village into the darkness of the bay. The sky, the water and the shoreline became indistinguishable as they left the sparse lights of the dwellings along the waterfront. They were a considerable distance from shore when the moon rose above the Isle of Cedars, a wooded sentinel, silhouetted in the mouth of the bay. A wash of silver light transformed the inky void around them so dramatically that Chessa cooed with pleasure.

"Felic, it's beautiful. Have you ever seen anything so beautiful before?"

"Tonight I could do without it."

"But Felic," she sighed, "Don't you think it is wonderfully romantic?"

"You pick an odd time to think of romance." He looked back at the village. "But perhaps we're far enough out to be invisible from shore."

The sea was calm and they spent half the night searching for the mouth of the stream that led into the swamp. They explored several inroads into the trees before finding the right one. Although the tide was ebbing, it still covered the entire area with water, concealing the channel through the mud flats. It was slow going up the stream. Tide and current hindered their progress. As the eastern sky lightened to violet, they rounded a bend and saw the Sun-Eagle with the prelude of dawn subtly defining the tracery of her rigging.

Chessa shivered and yawned. "Oh Felic, hurry. I'm so tired and cold, and I want to get into our bed so you can get me warm again."

Felic, weary from his night's labor at the oars, was irritated by her petulance. "Sorry, Chessa, but you won't be getting any sleep for a while."

She looked at him in surprise. "But why?"

"As soon as possible we must finish caulking the seams. We must have the boat ready to sail on the next high tide."

"Do you think they will find us here?"

"It is only a matter of time. If we are lucky perhaps they won't find us before we have enough water to sail out of here."

Felic tied the skiff's painter to the yacht and they scrambled aboard. He went first to the armorer's chest and selected a longbow and arrows, which he brought on deck. Then he got a fire going in the galley box. Chessa was glad to get the job of heating the resin. She crouched by the flames with a fur robe thrown over her back and her shivering was warmed away.

Felic pulled the fibrous bark into long wisps. When the resin was liquefied he dipped the fibers into it and tamped it into the bevel of the seams with a caulking iron and mallet from the ship's tool locker. He worried that the sharp click of the mallet, which carried a considerable distance, would alert the searching Dagrans. Chessa followed his instructions quietly, too fatigued to chatter. When they finished the worst of the seams, Felic brought the sail on deck. He examined Chessa's patches before lacing the material to the lateen yard. When the sail was bent, he furled it loosely and hauled the yard up out of the way.

"Now can we rest?" Chessa begged.

"One more job. An important one. We have no steering oar as yet. Get me the leather strips that I brought from the village." He cleared the rotted remnants of former lashings from the holes where the oar had been mounted to the starboard bulwark. When Chessa returned with the strapping, he fixed the oar back as it had been when the yacht was functional. It was more than just an oar. It had a right angle extension several feet long that gave leverage on the vertical shaft, which pivoted on the two lashings.

With that job finished, Felic took pity on Chessa. "You can get some sleep now, pigeon."

She started below, then stopped. "Are you coming, too?"

"No. I am going to hide along the path to the village. If the Dagrans return I do not wish it to be a surprise."

"Then be careful ...please, Felic?"

"Don't worry. Just get some rest. When the tide peaks I'll need your help getting this tired old bird into the bay."

She stood on tiptoe and stifled a yawn to kiss him. He propelled her gently toward the companionway. He slung the quiver of arrows over his back, nicked up the longbow, and loped off down the dock and into the trees.

* * * *

Stet-Arnak's wrath at Felic's escape was nothing compared to the explosive rage that rattled the second-floor room of the inn the next morning. He tried patiently to get a response from the girl. He wheedled at the door, begging her to unlock it, promising a breakfast, which he described in mouth-watering terms. His oily pleadings soon turned to veiled threats, and finally, patience gone, he had Krel hack the door down with an axe. Confronted with an empty room he flew into an uncontrollable fit of madness, gnashing his teeth, drooling and wrecking his quarters in a surfeit of angry violence.

Krel didn't wait around for orders. He slipped away from the rampaging priest and kicked his troops into action. It was almost noon but an ominous black anvil cloud hid the sun. Gusts of wind whirled the dust off the cobblestones as the swordsmen followed Krel double-time through the village. He led them north, taking the path into the swamp.

Before long the rain started and the path became a slippery ribbon of mud. As the onslaught of wind and rain increased, Krel slowed the pace. The drenched file was soon slogging along ankle deep in muck. Krel called a halt, unsure of himself. The trail opened into a marshy meadow, but the path through the clearing, so clearly defined the previous day, was hidden. The tall grass undulated in bobbing ranks from the force of the wind.

Krel was studying the ground ahead for some sign of the elusive trail when an arrow pierced his throat. It came with such force that it went completely through his neck and clanged off the shield of the man behind him. Krel watched in surprise as his life flowed through his fingers and cascaded in rain-diluted crimson down his breastplate. He went slowly to his knees, then pitched face down into the mud. The quick whirr of a second arrow preceded the second man's yelp of pain as it tore into his unguarded thigh. He flopped to the wet grass, cursing and tugging at the shaft. The remaining swordsmen of the troop fell back taking more arrows on their shields. They argued a few moments before returning to help their limping comrade and to drag Krel's corpse out of the clearing.

Felic smiled in grim satisfaction. He launched one more shaft at the retreating soldiers just to encourage their departure. He slipped down from his wet perch in the crotch of a tree and returned to the boat. He went to work immediately preparing for the return of the Dagrans. As he worked the rain diminished and finally stopped. The wind settled to a breeze, and the sun came out.

He looked anxiously at the water level. The Sun-Eagle was still resting on the bottom. He considered waking Chessa and making a run for it while there was still time. But the only sure way out of the swamp was the path to the village. He went below and shook Chessa awake.

"You have a choice," he told her. "Your Dagran friends will be here soon. I must stay and try to get this vessel away. If I do not, I am afraid they will burn it. But you can go and hide."

Her eyes blazed. "I will fight. Show me how to use the bow!" She stood up proudly.

"Spoken like a true princess, Pigeon. But there is no time for teaching you the skills of warriors...but you can help. Come." He led her on deck and forward to the capstan. "When I give you the signal, you turn this wheel in this direction. Keep turning, don't stop. Understand? Keep turning. And don't pay any attention to whatever else is happening. Just keep turning... can you do that?"

"Yes, I understand what you want me to do. But I don't understand why."

"It's a trap I have rigged. You will be the bait, and you will spring it. When the Dagrans see you on deck they will come down the dock. I'll be crouched out of sight at the rail. When I signal, you turn the capstan. I have weakened the center section of the dock and keyed it to give way with the removal of a wedge. The wedge is on the other end of the line on the capstan. The line runs under the dock and will pull the wedge loose when you turn."

Chessa looked mystified. "I do not understand such mechanical things, Felic, but I will turn the wheel when you give me the signal."

"Are you frightened, pigeon?"

She clung to him for a moment, face pressed against his bare chest. She seemed tiny and forlorn. "Don't worry, Felic, I'll turn the wheel," she assured him.

A howl of shocked surprise came from out of sight down the path. Felic pushed Chessa toward the capstan. "Get ready. They are coming." He unsheathed Battle Flasher and crouched behind the rail in the waist.

The howl came from the leader of the troop. He was caught in a snare set by Felic and whipped aloft. The Dagrans paused long enough to cut down their comrade from the rope that dangled him head-down over the trail. Then they pushed ahead to where the path led out of the trees and on to the dock. The sight of Chessa standing on board the Sun-Eagle elicited a growl of triumph from Stet-Arnak. He urged the troop on from behind, and they moved swiftly down the dock, their shields held high in anticipation of another ambush from the deadly bow.

Felic judged the speed of their advance and signaled Chessa to turn the capstan. She didn't move. She stared wide-eyed, hypnotized by the approach of the swordsmen.

"Chessa!" Felic roared, "Turn the wheel!

She leaned against the foremast, transfixed by panic. Felic abandoned his plan and leaped over the rail to the dock. A singing sweep of his huge sword caught the first Dagran's shield. The force of the blow ripped the shield loose and popped the leather arm loop from its rivets. As his sword went into the follow-through, Felic was momentarily exposed to a thrust from the other man's lighter weapon. But the Dagran, shieldless and awed by the power of Felic's first swing, hesitated. Felic brought the great blade around in a reverse arc.

The Dagran stumbled back and tried to parry. But his blade shattered with the impact and Felic cleaved into shoulder muscles and collarbone.

Two swordsmen filled his place. Felic wagged the great blade defensively and stepped back for room to strike. He brought the sword in low, reaching for their legs.

The Dagrans danced out of the way and pressed forward. But Felic didn't stop the swing and reverse it as before. He used the momentum of the sword to carry it up, over, and down; he sprang into the air and reinforced the downstroke with the full force of his arms plus the weight of his body. It fell squarely on the foremost Dagran's casque, shearing the thin bronze; chopping the man's head in two parts. He jerked the blade free of the cloven skull and jumped back to face the next man.

He was a terrible sight--a blood spattered madman, his mighty sword clotted with brains and gore. The Dagrans shrank back to reassess this giant of a butcher. He moved forward swinging and slashing, exulted by the might of his new sword. They fought defensively, moving back, taking ringing blows on their shields and blades while trying to form an effective line.

As they grouped together, the dock suddenly collapsed. Planking, timbers and men splashed into the water. The water was only a few feet deep but it gave Felic an advantage. He swung his great weapon down into the confused melee and the water carried a spreading cloud of red.

"You feel the sting of Battle Flasher," he roared. "Tell the grieving widows! Battle Flasher slew their men!"

When there was no target within reach, he bounded back aboard Sun-Eagle and traded the sword for the bow. As the Dagrans splashed back to safety, he harassed their flight with arrows.

The Dagrans regrouped out of bowshot. Stet-Arnak harangued the remainder of the troop but they listened with dull eyes. No one wanted to be first to return and face this fierce opponent or his long sword.

Felic watched the Dagrans and rubbed his arms. Battle Flasher had levied its toll in aching biceps. His attention was diverted by the sound of Chessa. She was kneeling by the capstan, her face ashen with shock, and her frail body wracked by tearless sobs of terror.

"Pigeon! Pull yourself together. We haven't lost yet."

"Oh, Felic, I couldn't move. I let you down."

"It's all right," he soothed, "when you did turn it, your timing was perfect."

"Will they come back?"

"Yes. But there are only five left, not counting the priest. I killed two. Three are badly wounded." He helped her to her feet. She recoiled, suddenly realizing what a grisly sight he presented.

"Felic, the blood ...where are you hurt?"

He laughed. "I don't think any of it is mine. But never mind. I think the boat is off the bottom." He looked over the side. The yacht was floating on its waterline. "Go take the steering oar, Pigeon. When the boat is free, try to steer it to the center of the channel." He cast off the dock lines. The boat would drift quietly away from the dock and maybe the Dagrans would not suspect anything. The current and the breeze favored its progress downstream, but the rising tide offset those forces somewhat. The little ship drifted slowly away from the dock as he made his way to the stern and took the steering oar from Chessa.

"They haven't noticed that we are moving, yet." He conned the boat further into the stream where the stronger current made their progress more obvious. The gap between them and the dock spread to several feet. "Now Chessa, hold it steady. I'm going to hoist the sail."

He worked quickly to drop the yard and release the furling line. Shouts from the soldiers indicated their escape was discovered. He hauled the yard up and the vertical red and white stripes of the sailcloth flapped a defiant message at the Dagrans. The sail was sheeted in and it bellied in the breeze. The yacht surged ahead, splitting the water with a small bow wave. Felic took the helm again and they waved goodbye to the swordsmen who gathered at the gap in the dock.

The Dagrans watched helplessly as their prey slipped away down the watery corridor through the trees.

# Chapter Ten

The Calixian queen and her swarthy companion emerged from the trees and found themselves facing Stet-Arnak and his troop. Gwenay, dismayed at seeing her yacht disappearing downstream, and uncertain as to the meaning of the soldiers' presence, offered no resistance when faced with the point of a Dagran blade. Bargonast struggled to free himself of a pack of supplies, but the quick thinking swordsmen pressed in and disarmed him before he could twist free of his burden.

While the soldiers bound their wrists, Stet-Arnak posed pompously. "So, Bargonast, it appears that you've missed your boat. And now we have a very droll situation. I lost my pigeon, but I caught a vulture!" The Dag ripped the veil from Gwenay's face. "And who might this lovely lady be?" He turned to Bargonast for an answer, but Bargonast remained silent.

Gwenay reacted quickly. "I do not really know this man, honored priest. I paid him for passage to Dagraskal to visit my aging father."

Stet-Arnak laughed. "This boat would never call at Dagraskal. Your ugly friend here duped you. Did you take her money for passage, Bargonast?"

Bargonast glowered. "I did."

"Where is the money?"

Bargonast hesitated a moment. "Spent...spent on this pack of provisions."

Stet-Arnak mopped the sweat from the creases of his jowls. His reptile eyes drilled through Gwenay. "You both lie! But I will enjoy getting the truth. We will return to the village where you can have the pleasure of my hospitality!" He directed his men to fashion a stretcher for one of the wounded soldiers whose leg was hamstrung.

"Can you attend to these men?" he asked Gwenay. When she nodded assent, he released her bonds. She worked silently, cleaning and binding the wounds. The corpses of the two less fortunate were dragged from the creek and laid out on the shore. Stet-Arnak mumbled a prayer for the dead over them. Then, blacking his thumb with paste from a silver container, he pressed a thumbprint on each sick-white brow. He detailed a soldier to burial duty and led the rest of the party back toward Seaskal.

As the group strung out in single file along the trail, Bargonast found the opportunity to speak to his guard in confidence. When they reached the inn the guard spoke quietly to the priest out of earshot of the others.

"The priest-bane wishes to talk to you in private, honored Dag."

"To what end?"

"He claims to have valuable information. But he cannot speak in front of the woman."

"Bring him to my quarters."

When Bargonast appeared the Dag laughed at his disclosure. "She...the Hag of Calix!! With such an imagination you should have been a bard, not an assassin!"

"The part that should interest you, priest, is how she has regained her youth."

"Some magic elixir, no doubt." The priest's tone was derisive.

Bargonast paused to emphasize the importance of his next remark. He hunched forward. "The Qalandor Stone." Each word hissed like a dart to puncture the priest's aplomb. He shed his mocking manner and became rigid.

"Impossible! The Qalandor of N'olla is still where it has been for centuries--in the sacristy of the temple!" Now it was Bargonast's turn to laugh. "If you believe that, why are you growing old and fat, eh? Save your lies for stupid peasants. I know the Qalandor was stolen. Why else did your illustrious Arnak family keep me so busy killing the dissenters?"

Stet-Arnak rose and paced to the far end of the room. He stood with his back to the prisoner. He didn't answer so Bargonast continued. "The Arnak's power over time and life is no more...gone, finished. Bah! Faith in legends--that's what you depend on. That and political manipulation." He lowered his voice. "But there is a real Qalandor Stone, and I know where it is."

The priest turned and studied him speculatively. "And you wish to barter this knowledge for your life?"

"I don't relish the prospect of having my skin stripped from my living body while I watch!" Bargonast growled.

"All right, then. Tell me where you found the Qalandor."

Bargonast smirked. "Not so fast, fat man. It's not that easy. I must win the queen's confidence. I think she has it hidden in the Maijad Islands. That's her destination. Why else would she want to make this journey...other than, perhaps, to renew her youth again."

"Do you have a plan?"

"I do. But first...what is the return of the Qalandor worth to you?"

The priest thought for a moment. "I could let you escape again."

"Not good enough. I want a pardon."

"A pardon! For killing a priest? Impossible."

"And not just a pardon," Bargonast's voice rasped in a hoarse whisper, "I want to be the Dag-Arnak's chief assassin again with the title of Second Rank Priest and a purse of one thousand druacs!"

Stet-Arnak dropped his head so Bargonast could not read the cunning of his thoughts. He pretended to consider the offer, and when he looked up he wore a mask of camaraderie. "My friend, it will be as you say. You have my official guarantee and my personal promise on it. Now, what is your plan?"

Bargonast outlined his plot and the Dag agreed. After dark he was released. He went to Gwenay's room. While the guard shammed sleep, he shook her awake, cut her bonds and led her silently away from the inn. He took her though the streets to the waterfront. There he left her in the shadows while he prowled the wharves. In a short time he returned and, motioning for her to follow, led the way to where a pinnace was tied at the foot of a ladder. He handed her down into the stern of the boat and cast off, rowing into the inky blackness of the bay, dipping the oars carefully and pulling with long powerful strokes.

Gwenay broke the silence. "How did you do it?"

"One of the soldiers is an old friend. He owed me a favor and I collected." He brought the oars inboard and hoisted the spritsail. A chilly breeze tugged at the fabric as he trimmed the sail. They changed places and Bargonast took the helm.

She shivered and pulled her cloak closer around her. "Where will we go now?"

"Tonight?...the Isle of Cedars. 'Then, when it gets light, we will look for your yacht."

"It could be far away by now."

"I don't think so. Your captain was forced to leave in a hurry. He would not put to sea without adequate provisions."

"Ah yes...and if we find the yacht, we will be in the same position. That is, unable to leave for the Maijad Islands until we replace our food."

A chuckle of secret amusement rumbled from the dark figure at the helm. "I have foreseen that problem."

"Does that mean you have solved it?"

"It does."

Gwenay waited for him to elaborate but he remained silent. "Well, do you mind telling me your solution?" Her voice was edged by impatience.

"Not at all. The bag of provender I carried from Calix is in this boat...behind you in the bow."

"But...how did it get there?"

"My friend who rigged the escape took care of it."

"We are fortunate that you have such a friend." Her tone was ironic and her demeanor doubtful. "Do you think they will follow us."

Bargonast snorted. "Let them! Next time they won't catch me off guard with two hundred pounds tied to my back!"

"But there are five of them."

"Five cowards. The priest knows the caliber of that bunch. He will return to Dagraskal for a score of men before he takes up the chase. But now he has two reasons for coming after us."

"Two reasons?" Gwenay puzzled.

"My friend told me that your captain has a girl with him. She's the priest's intended. She ran off on the fat fool.."

"Tword reported that Felic had a boy helping him."

Bargonast laughed. "Tword. Ha, ha. So that runt can't tell a girl from a boy. Didn't you teach him the difference, Queenie?"

Gwenay ignored the question.

"How about it? After you got yourself all changed back with the beautiful body...don't tell me the old juices didn't come back. Or did they?"

She could not see his leer in the dark, but she could hear it in his voice.

"Come on now," he needled, "twenty years of hiding out in a mountain full of runts. I'll bet you're ready to take on a real man."

"Hold your filthy tongue;" Her tone was caustic. "You crow like a rooster. But when I want a man I won't choose a miserable slime like you!"

Bargonast pretended like his feelings were hurt. "Well now...a fine way to talk to the hero who is taking you away from the bad old priest."

Gwenay turned away from him and faced the cold breeze. She drew her feet under her and hunched over her knees, vexed and shivering. The rapid slapping of wavelets against the bow had a soothing effect and she drowsed off without realizing it.

The crunch of sand under the hull intruded into her dreams. It was dawn and Bargonast splashed into the water to pull the boat higher up on the beach.

"Where are we?" she asked, blinking sleep from her eyes.

"On the island. Wait here. I am going to the top to see if I can sight the yacht.'" Without waiting for an answer, he crossed the narrow beach, clambered over a jam of driftwood, and entered the cedar trees that grew thick on the slopes of the hill dominating the island.

Gwenay got out of the pinnace and walked along the sand. Her legs were stiff from the cold and the cramping ride. She followed the water's edge studying the beach. The breathing hole of a clam caught her attention and she knelt down and scooped at the damp sand.. She got her arm in up to the elbow and gave a shiver as her fingers felt the shell. But before she got a grip on it, the clam escaped. She laughed to herself and brushed off her arm. Forgetting the discomfort of the night, she concentrated on the water's edge, hoping to spot another clam hole. With her mind so occupied, she failed to see Felic step out of the trees.

The sound of his voice startled her and she whirled about, round-eyed. She pressed her hand against her breast and took a deep breath. "You surprised me ...appearing from nowhere."

"You were studying the sand very closely. Are you looking for buried treasure?"

"I was thinking of when I was a little girl. We used to hunt clams along here. But what is going on? Where is the Sun-Eagle?"

"Anchored in a bay up this way." He waved toward the south. "I was watching for the Dagrans and I saw your boat. I didn't recognize the man with you so I waited to show myself in case you were his prisoner."

"That was Bargonast. It's a long story. But to be brief, we were captured just after you sailed down the creek...walked right into the priest and his men. Bargonast is wanted for killing a priest and I have agreed to give him passage to the islands. Last night he arranged our escape from the inn and stole this boat to get us over here."

"I seem to recall hearing of this Bargonast. Can you trust him?"

"No. But I am in an awkward position. In the old days, when he was a young soldier in the royal guard, he saved King Jult from death by torture. He is the sort of man that collects on such favors."

"Does he know of our mission?"

"Of course not! I told him nothing."

"Well, I do not trust his looks. I'll keep my eye on him."

"I don't think he will give us any trouble." she said.

Felic gathered wood as they talked and soon had a fire going. They sat side by side on a bleached log and shared its warmth.

"I am told there is a girl." Gwenay stated!.

"Oh, you know about her?"

"Yes. Who is she?"

"Her name is Chessa. She is the illegitimate daughter of King Cot and the promised bride of Stet-Arnak, the Dag that captured you yesterday. She is also a fugitive from the Dagrans."

"What is she doing on my boat?"

"Well, she helped me get it repaired so I brought her along."

"You should have let the priest have her."

Felic looked surprised. "Oh...why?"

"Because now he has two reasons to pursue us. We will leave her here...on the Isle of Cedars."

"No. She goes."

Gwenay's mouth dropped. What did you say?"

"I said she goes."

"How dare you counter my wishes." Her eyes sparked with anger and her lips compressed to a strict line. "I decide who the guests in my yacht will be."

"Then you have made a bad decision. If she stays, I stay."

"Stay if you will. Bargonast can handle this for me."

Felic poked at the fire before answering. "And Bargonast...he is a navigator?...a seaman?"

Gwenay sat in haughty silence while she considered this. Felic pressed the point. "And you think you can handle this Bargonast without help. He strikes me as the type who would slit your throat for the pleasure of it."

"All right. The girl may go. But she will earn her passage!"

Their conversation was interrupted by Bargonast's return. The two men were introduced and they studied each other respectfully, conscious that if they were ever to be on opposite sides they would be powerfully matched. They shoved off in the pinnace and rowed along the shoreline until they reached the bay where the Sun-Eagle rocked at anchor. A wisp of smoke curled up from the galley box. When they climbed on board Chessa greeted them with a tantalizing breakfast of fresh-caught fish.

After filling his belly, Bargonast lounged back on a coil of rope and was soon asleep. Felic loaded the provisions into the Sun-Eagle. Gwenay had ignored Chessa throughout the meal, and Chessa, conscious of the queen's displeasure at her presence, avoided her eyes. Felic forced them into contact.

"Chessa," he ordered, "prepare the royal stateroom for Queen Gwenay. She is undoubtedly exhausted."

Gwenay followed Chessa through the companionway, and Felic could hear their muffled conversation below. Gwenay's irritable tone was intermingled with Chessa's patient replies.

# 

# Chapter Eleven

The first day at sea was a pleasant one for Chessa. She was tingling with a sense of freedom engendered by the slow roll of the little ship as it surged down the face of the long swells. They sailed downwind. The rush of each gust sent a shudder of energy through the hull, fostering a shiver of delight in Chessa. She hung over the forward rail, watching the bow cleave the water and ignoring the spray that showered her. To the enthrallment of wind and wave she mingled the separate wonders of swooping seabirds and the awesome appearance of a whale, surfacing to blow.

To her adoring eyes the man she loved looked like a handsome sea God. He stood at the steering oar with his feet planted and his powerful hands knotted about the wooden shaft, compensating for each push of the sea that tried to force the yacht off course. The breeze ruffled the hair over his rugged face and his thoughts were dreamily absorbed in the sailing process. He studied the clouds that clustered on the horizon, beckoning to the rim of the world. He glanced back. The Isle of Cedars was indistinguishable from the rest of the Antillian shoreline. It all ran together, a thinning layer of misty violet sinking into the ocean.

Chessa walked aft to interrupted his thoughts. "How do you know where you are going, Felic?"

"I've been there before," he answered simply.

"But there is so much ocean." She hooked her arm around his waist and swayed with him to the roll of the deck. "I mean, couldn't you get lost?"

"Not if the stars shine on us tonight."

"Will they help you?"

"In a way. You have to know which one to look for, and where it is supposed to be at a given time of year."

"What if the clouds hide them?"

"If that happens I may be lost for a while." He laughed at the flicker of doubt that replaced the trust in her eyes. "But do not worry, Pigeon. There are other ways. The current and wind tell me things, And we will get help from one of the islands we seek."

"How will it help?"

"It sends up a smoke sign that can be seen for two days before we arrive."

"Felic, you are teasing me."

"No, Pigeon. The island has a volcano."

"Oh ...I am afraid of volcanoes!"

"Well we won't be going there. We will just use the smoke to guide us to the other islands of the Maijads."

A groan came from Bargonast as he rolled on his back. He had slept like a dead man since he first lay down, snoring open-mouthed with his head lolling back on the rope coil and his beard bristling skyward in comic surprise.

"Why did she bring him, Felic? He scares me. The scars around his mouth are so ugly; and did you see how he looked at me?"

"I have heard of him. He has an evil reputation." Felic's fingers caressed the pommel of his dagger. "And there is a story behind those scars. It is told that in the Battle of Karvelin he took a slash to his face that cut through his jaw and chin. The tale goes that he put his beard in his mouth and bit it, thus holding up his chin until the fray ended and it could be stitched together." There was a hint of admiration in Felic's tone.

Chessa hugged him tighter and pressed her cheek against his muscular back.

The breeze blew itself out as the afternoon lengthened. But the swells kept coming, tossing the Sun-Eagle with an awkward motion. The masts creaked in protest; the sail cracked and slatted in the still air. Felic waited a few moments before dousing the canvas, hopeful that the breeze might return. The noise and change of motion caused Bargonast to sit up and look about through heavy-lidded eyes. Gwenay appeared in the companionway, white and nauseated. With no greeting other than a grimace, she went to the rail and knelt with her head over the side.

Bargonast, coming to life, found cause for humor in her plight. "Ho, ho... what's this? The queen kneels before her subjects? I thought it worked the other way around."

Gwenay made no sign that she heard or cared what he said. Bargonast, laughing at his own wit, gave Felic a hand dropping the yards and furling the sail. The yacht drifted, powerless, until the sun was on the horizon. Chessa prepared a meal, but Gwenay refused to eat and went to her cabin to nurse her misery.

As the sun went down the air chilled and a breeze from out of the north ruffled the ocean. Felic put on sail and braced the yard on the new tack. Soon Sun-Eagle was gurgling through the gold-capped swells on a broad reach to the west. The wind held through the night and when Felic opened his eyes the next morning, a bubbling wash of water on the other side of the hull told him they were still making progress. He was surprised to find that he was alone. He had left Bargonast with the helm and a guiding star, then joined Chessa on her bed of spare sails. He looked at the impression of her body in the fabric nest and felt cheated by her absence.

A square of overcast sky showed through the open forecastle hatch. He climbed out on deck and paused to orient himself. Clouds shut out the sky from horizon to horizon. The ocean was flat; a lazy breeze wrinkled the expanse with leaden ripples. Chessa was tending a fire in the galley box. Bargonast yawned at the steering oar.

Felic went to the helm and spoke quietly. "I'll take over. You are off course."

Bargonast gave him a dark look. "I kept her on the wind," he insisted.

"The wind headed you. It blows from the west and you are sailing south."

"She's headed the same as when I took over."

Felic was patient. "Look to the left. You can see the sun through the clouds, if you look hard enough. The sun should be behind you."

Bargonast grunted in reluctant accord. Felic brought the bow across the wind and they sheeted the sail in tight for a close reach to the northwest.

Gwenay came on deck and scanned the watery waste surrounding them. Her face was pinched and gray.

"Good morning, your Highness," Chessa called, "Are you feeling better today?"

Gwenay ignored her and spoke to Bargonast. "Do you think the fat priest will catch up to us?"

"Ask the captain. He knows everything."

Gwenay brushed past him and joined Felic on the quarterdeck. She repeated her question.

"We should have a full day's lead by now, but your friend..."

"He is no friend!" Gwenay hissed.

"All right...anyway, he sailed south instead of west. I know not for how long. Perhaps two or three hours. The current also sets south here. That means we have been moving parallel to the coast instead of away from it. Now we must fight into the wind and the current to reach the islands; and the priest, with a larger craft-probably a galley-may catch up to us."

"Did he do it deliberately?" she asked in a low voice, indicating Bargonast.

"I think not. He lacks sea skill."

"We must reach the islands before the Dagrans overtake us, Felic m'Lans. We must. Do you understand? I am putting my faith in you to get us there."

Felic forced a wry smile. "We are at the mercy of the sea gods. If they bless us with smooth seas and stiff breezes we will be first to the islands. If the wind dies, the Dagrans will man their sweeps and overtake us. The sea gods pay little heed to us mortals when we try to control them."

The morning passed lazily with no change in the weather. Chessa, bored with the inactivity, decided to try baking bread in the covered iron pot hanging over the firebox. She scrubbed the rust off as best she could and climbed down the forecastle hatch to find flour. Working quietly so as not to disturb Bargonast who slept on the sails, she went through the door to the hold and sorted through the food supplies looking for flour. As she returned through the narrow entrance a powerful hand locked on her wrist. She gasped with fear as Bargonast pulled her roughly into the forecastle and flung her onto the sails. She kicked and scratched as his giant bulk forced her down in a cloud of spilled flour. She couldn't believe what was happening. Her throat was dry and constricted with terror; her attempts to scream were pitiful squeals.

Her arms were pinned by his hairy forearm across her midriff. Bargonast struggled with his free hand to rip aside the intervening garments, but she jerked her knee upward into his crotch provoking a roaring grunt of pain. It was a small triumph, but it rallied her courage. She screamed for help. Bargonast clamped his free hand over her mouth, and she sunk her teeth into his calloused palm. He jerked away and buffeted her head with two powerful slaps. She went limp, swimming on the verge of consciousness, unable to resist his searching fingers.

It took Felic a moment to realize that Chessa's scream was more than the faint sound of some sea bird. He dropped a loop of rope over the arm of the steering oar and vaulted down to the main deck. He was at the forecastle hatch in a few bounds and the animal sounds from below confirmed his misgivings. He dropped through the hatch with his dirk in hand. Wrapping his left hand in Bargonast's greasy hair, he pulled him backwards, the point of his dirk pricking his neck. Bargonast went tense as though to retaliate, then realizing his disadvantage, sat back on his legs and looked over his forehead at the man stretching his neck. Felic's face was a grim mask of deadly intent.

"She came down here offering herself to me!" Sweat popped out on the swarthy man's brow. "It's not like it looks...she offered!"

Felic's answer was an increased pressure with the point. A dark trickle coursed down and hung in ruby beads from the flour-whitened hair of Bargonast's chest.

"You are being a fool, captain. Take the blade away. I tell you she came to me...playful...teasing ...I just..."

"Enough lies!" Felic roared. He continued holding the point to Bargonast's throat, seemingly unable to decide whether to kill him or release him. Bargonast was breathing in short shaking gasps and the seconds passed endlessly for him.

"Why shouldn't I finish you?" Felic directed the question to himself.

"You will be glad to have my help if the Dagran's catch up to us."

"I have no quarrel with the Dagrans. It is you and the girl they are after."

"But they will kill you, or worse, capture you alive. You helped in the escape. That is enough." Bargonast swallowed and the movement caused the dirk to dig deeper. He rolled his eyes up and looked for some sign of mercy from the strange quiet man that held his life so casually in the balance. "Take away your blade. I will do anything you say. No harm will come to the girl. I swear it!"

Felic removed the knife and pushed him sprawling to one side. He sat up and dabbed at his throat, watching with veiled eyes while Felic ministered to Chessa. When she regained her wits, she went into a fit of hysterical sobbing. Felic helped her out of the hatch and held her close, trying to comfort her.

Gwenay came through the companionway in the quarterdeck and walked forward to join them. "What is the cause of all this commotion?" she asked coldly.

"Bargonast," Felic replied, "he tried to rape Chessa in the forecastle." His words started a fresh gale of sobs from the girl.

"He did rape her, or just tried?"

"He didn't succeed. I heard her scream and stopped him."

Gwenay's lips curled in a disdainful smirk. "Then why all this nonsensical blubbering? She should be glad that a skinny little slut such as she could arouse an ox like Bargonast." She turned away, dismissing the episode with a toss of silky black curls.

# Chapter Twelve

As their third day at sea wore on, Felic's searching looks to the northwest became more frequent. Chessa, rarely out of his sight since her wrestle with Bargonast, watched the little furrows of worry grow deeper on his brow. She came to stand beside him at the steering oar.

"Do you look for the smoke, Felic"

"Yes."

"Does it matter so much that you don't see it?"

"Very much. We have had good wind through last night and today. It should be there. I can't understand it."

"Perhaps the mountain does not smoke every day."

Felic looked at her as though the thought had not occurred to him. "Always before it has smoked," he said. "Perhaps you are right. Maybe its fires have gone out."

Queen Gwenay, brushing her hair by the stern lantern, interrupted. "It always smokes. It is an active volcano." Her tone closed the subject. "And Felic, I suppose you will tell us we are lost," she continued. When Felic didn't answer immediately, she pressed the question. "Well...tell us. If we are lost, tell us!"

"We are not lost," he replied quietly. "We are...well, we are not where we should be."

"Wonderful. I feel much better." Her tone was sarcastic.

"I mean we are probably farther south than I reckoned. I think we are far enough west to see the smoke, but it may be necessary to go further north. I will keep the yacht on this tack until tonight, and then, if there is still no sign and no wind shift, we shall take the opposite tack and head northeast during the night. That way we will not pass the islands in the dark."

Chessa looked worried. "What if we do miss the islands, Felic?"

"Yes, captain," Gwenay added, "tell her where we will be if your navigation is faulty."

Felic's jaws tightened at the mockery in the queen's voice, but his voice was calm. "Beyond the Maijads...no one knows. It is the unknown. No ship has ever returned."

His statement seemed to frighten Chessa, but Gwenay turned away with a contemptuous snort. She gave Chessa orders concerning the evening meal and went below. Bargonast was waiting in her cabin; he sat at the table paring dirty fingernails with a dagger. His rank odor filled the room. She paused at the foot of the steps. "Why are you in my royal quarters without permission? Get out!"

He looked up, a glint of amusement in his eyes. "Come in queen."

Gwenay's face reddened. "Get out of here at once!"

"Don't waste your royal anger on me. I'm not impressed."

"I refuse to be addressed in this manner."

"Sit down and forget your act," his tone was threatening, "I want to have a friendly talk."

"I am not interested in talking with you--friendly or otherwise!"

"Well now ...perhaps you are forgetting who saved you from the fat priest. It was only three nights ago."

Gwenay sat opposite him, still stiffly formal. "All right. What is it? Get to the point."

Bargonast reached across the table with surprising quickness and locked her wrist in a cruel grip. She tried to pull away, but he wrenched her toward him and thrust his face close to hers.

"Now, queen, this is no pleasure trip for you is it? You go to the islands because of the Qalandor, am I right?" Gwenay stared at him in haughty contempt. She refused to answer.

"Want to play dumb? All right. I don't need your answer. How else could you maintain your appearance? How else but with the Qalandor stolen from the temple?"

"You are stupid, Bargonast. The Dag-Arnaks still have their almighty Qalandor. They brag about it constantly."

"Aha, Yes...they brag about it. If the people of Dagra thought it was gone they would overthrow the cursed Arnak family and massacre them all. They don't dare admit that it was stolen. But I have reasoned it out." Bargonast released her wrist and sat back smugly. "I watch the priests growing old. I see you; you defy time. And I remember another journey to the islands--the last journey for King Jult. It was during that time that all the trouble started. Why, Queen?"

Gwenay's expression of disdain covered any reaction she felt to his words. She rubbed her bruised wrist and met Bargonast's eyes with a level gaze.

"I can tell you why." Bargonast continued. "Because you had stolen the Qalandor, and the power struggle started. When Jult saw Dagra slipping into the hands of the priesthood's puppet, Prince Cot, he sent you to the safety of Calix. But after he was imprisoned and I rigged his escape...saving him, as you must remember from more of the torture chamber... then why did he go to the Maijad Islands instead of joining you? And while he was in the dungeons, why did the Dags torture him like a heretic peasant...until he was a bony shadow of a man?"

Gwenay winced and hid her face in her hands. Bargonast ignored the impact of his words.

"Why would they torture a king for so many days and nights?" he continued. "Even the Dag-Arnak would not keep it up for pleasure...not to those lengths. But they wanted something. And it was the Qalandor. They knew he had stolen it and hidden it."

Gwenay dropped her hands and looked at Bargonast through a blur of tears. "Stop it," she pleaded, her voice hoarse and shaking, "I cannot stand to think of my poor Jult being treated like that. He was so gentle...noble...he was the only one who..." Her voice broke and she bowed her head and wept quietly.

Bargonast rose and started for the companionway. With a second thought, he turned and, grabbing Gwenay under the chin, pulled her wet face up to his. "Just remember, you don't fool Bargonast. I know why you go to the islands. Ha, ha...so I am stupid, eh? Ha, ha." He went on deck and strolled about with a sardonic smile, very pleased with his triumph.

The rest of the day on Sun-Eagle was a paradox of personalities. Felic, tense and worried by his navigational problem, was in bad humor and gave short answers. Bargonast, usually surly, capered and bantered in his heavy way. And Chessa found herself laughing with him at Felic's expense, which provoked a long period of silence from Felic. She tried to force him into conversation, but he answered in monosyllables and ignored her. The mood changed when Chessa sighted the volcano. She was admiring the sunset when she saw what looked like a tiny white stick connecting the horizon with a rosy cloud.

"Felic! I see the smoke ...I think."

Felic looked where she was pointing. It was the volcano. "It is the smoke," he answered, "and dead ahead. I was expecting it to be northwest or even north of us." He threw Chessa a kiss. "You are good luck, Pigeon. I was thinking of using you for shark bait, but perhaps I'll keep you around. Go tell the queen the good news."

Gwenay responded by joining them on the quarterdeck. Her eyes were puffy but she was smiling. She placed her hand on Felic's arm. "I shall learn to place more confidence in your sea lore, my captain," she said. "You do seem to know what you are about and where you are sailing." She squeezed his arm with gentle pressure.

Felic blushed like an adolescent at her compliment.

The Sun-Eagle romped ahead. The good beam wind held steady through the night. Felic traded watches with Bargonast, and by morning they were only a few miles from the volcanic island. The second island in the string looked like the prow of a giant ship emerging from the haze to the northwest. As the curling mists of morning dissipated, the islands became more substantial and a third appeared as a violet smudge on the horizon to the north.

The sun climbed higher in a cloudless sky and the heat, after a chill night, induced indolence in the yacht's crew. As they closed the distance to the island, they were awed by the majesty of its smoking cone. Verdant beauty covered the rugged spurs that twisted into the ocean or broke

abruptly in sheer cliffs of fractured rock.

"Does anyone live here, Felic?" Chessa asked.

"No, Pigeon. There are natives living on the other islands--a fierce fair-skinned and black-haired people." He eased off the helm to correct the luffing foresail. "This island is sacred to them; they avoid it when possible. They believe in the smoke god, Garan'l, who dwells in the volcano."

"Do they fear the volcano?"

"Yes. They know that someday it will throw up the fires of the inner earth."

"When will that happen?"

"Maybe today."

"Felic, you are making fun of me again," Chessa giggled. "It's a beautiful place and you know it."

"No...it could happen anytime." Felic's expression was somber.

"You are mean," she pouted, "It's not very pretty when you think about that happening."

"Many things are pretty to look at, but are mean underneath."

"You mean like you."

"Oh, you think I'm pretty," Felic grinned.

"No, mean. You just spoiled my beautiful island. What will you give me in return?" She gave him a playful pinch.

"Ah, am I obligated to give you something in return?"

"Yes, and I want it to be a surprise."

Gwenay interrupted their banter. "We shall put Bargonast ashore in the bay ahead."

Felic looked at her with raised eyebrows. "Is that his wish?"

"No, it is mine. I wish to be rid of the lout. Our agreement was to take him to the islands. This is an island."

Felic shrugged and altered course for the bay. As the Sun-Eagle slid into the shadow of the monumental cliffs guarding the entrance, the screeching of hundreds of gulls greeted them. The birds wheeled into the air in a white cloud and circled the yacht, squawking at the intruders. Bargonast, dozing in the waist, was awakened by the cacophony. He sat up and looked about. "Why do we put in here?" he called to the three figures on the quarterdeck.

"This is where you get off!" Gwenay answered harshly.

Bargonast gave her a dark look. He went below and came back with his few belongings and a sword from the armorer's chest. From the Isle of Cedars, the pinnace in which Bargonast and Gwenay escaped had been towed astern, tethered to the Sun-Eagle. Now, as Felic went forward to drop anchor, he ordered Bargonast to pull the pinnace alongside and load his gear into it. Felic watched while the anchor spun the chain into the water, waiting to be sure it would grip the bottom. When the chain went taut and the yacht started to swing into the breeze, Felic returned aft. He was about to join Bargonast in the pinnace, and had one leg over the rail when his descent was arrested by the point of Bargonast's sword, inches from his face.

"I won't be needing you to take me ashore," the bearded man growled. "The queen would like to see me marooned here. Too bad she won't get her royal way." He sliced the bow line and pushed the two boats apart with the point of his sword.

Gwenay, coming to the rail to indulge in some farewell derision, was surprised and angered to see Bargonast rowing away in the pinnace. "Felic, stop him! You can't let him steal that boat."

Felic hesitated for a moment, a whimsical smile on his lips. "Why not?" he asked finally, "He stole it before."

"Go after him. I want that boat back!"

Felic ignored her command. She beat her clenched fists on the rail and released a low moan of frustration. "All right then. Get the anchor up and take us away from this place." She faced Felic, her beautiful features distorted with anger. "That man will cause trouble for us ...I know it with a certainty."

"What makes you think so?"

"He knows too much. He guessed why I was here."

"He knows about the gem we seek?"

"He thinks the entire Qalandor is hidden somewhere in the islands."

"And he knows of its power," Felic stated quietly. "He is an ambitious scoundrel. You may be right to suspect him."

"Of course I am right," Gwenay snapped, "I have lived long enough to read the thoughts of treacherous scum like him."

They weighed anchor and tacked out of the bay. It was late afternoon when they rounded the last rampart of the island and set course to the northwest. Leaving the lee of the island they picked up a fresh breeze and the yacht frolicked ahead through the short waves.

# Chapter Thirteen

Felic skirted the middle island at a respectful distance. As the day waned he worked the yacht in toward the northern island. He conned the little ship into a small protected bay shortly after sunset.

"Will we anchor here?" Chessa asked.

Felic's answer was a quiet "hmm" through pursed lips. He knew that a peaceful encounter with the Maijads was out of the question. Slave raids by Antillians had convinced the blue-eyed savages that strangers were their enemies. Chessa respected his concentration and didn't push for an answer.

There was no sign of life. A light breeze barely rippled the water. He tacked along the shore, studying the shadowy underbrush and rocks. Blight had killed the timber around the bay and the bleached trunks and stark limbs of dead trees reached up through the second growth in ghostly supplication. The creak of Sun-Eagle's rigging and the lapping of water along the shore were the only sounds that broke the hollow stillness surrounding them.

Satisfied with his survey of the place, Felic dropped anchor. As the chain rattled over the side, breaking the stillness of the bay, Chessa started to build a fire in the firebox. Felic stopped her. "No...no fire tonight."

"Oh, you don't want them to see our smoke. I should have thought of that myself."

"We will go hungry tonight."

Chessa laughed and rummaged in the food box. "Here is bread I baked. It's a little hard, but not stale." She gave Felic a loaf, which he broke in half with difficulty. He offered a piece to Gwenay. She laughed with them when she tried to bite it.

"I have a bottle of vintage wine in my cabin," she offered, "Come join me. We will soak these sticks until they surrender."

Felic and Chessa exchanged glances behind her back. The good humor and generosity came as a surprising contrast to her moods of the previous days. They followed her into the great cabin and sat around the table. Jokes and toasts livened the conversation as the wine mellowed the formality of the queen's quarters.

Gwenay's eyes sparkled as she played the part of the witty hostess. She urged more wine on them and complimented Chessa on the durable quality of her bread. When they finished the bread and most of the wine, her mood sobered.

"We must discuss our task at hand, Felic. I have a map to show you." She went to a cupboard and brought back a small scroll. "Chessa, would you be a good child and keep watch on deck while Felic and I discuss our business?"

Chessa murmured assent and went on deck. Gwenay closed the inner door to the companionway and returned to sit by Felic's side. She spread the scroll on the table and slid it in front of him. She pushed closer to explain the markings and her thigh rested against his. "You see this mark." she laid a slender jeweled finger on a small triangle, "It is King Jult's tomb. Jult sent me this scroll from his deathbed. He was going to the Dag-Arnak high priest to negotiate...to trade the Qalandor for their political support. He thought he could save his kingdom in that way." Gwenay's face was close to Felic's and her perfume teased him. "Jult took the missing gem to prove to the high priest that we had the Qalandor. But the Dags were treacherous. They imprisoned him and tortured him to disclose the hiding place of the Qalandor. With Bargonast's help he escaped on this yacht. Unfortunately a storm blew them out to sea. They were lost and drifted many days without knowing where they were. When they saw the island's smoke they were starving and feverish. Jult was dying. His men, loyal to his deathbed wishes, built him a tomb. For years I thought the Dags had the gem, but I have come to believe that it is buried with Jult's body, or hidden in his tomb. Look at these words written in the margin; they make no sense to me."

Felic hunched over the scroll and studied the map. The bay in which they were anchored was clearly marked. He puzzled over the words in the margin:

Beneath the triple tread of kings

Changing time and place

All on rod, some on nalaq

Keeping constant space

"Well, it mentions 'triple'," he mused, "and, on this map the tomb is marked as three-sided."

"That is the only sense I have made of it." She poured the last of the wine. "Tomorrow we must find the tomb and search it."

Felic emptied his goblet quickly and continued his study of the scroll. "The words 'rod' and 'nalaq'...that makes 'Qalandor' spelled backwards. But 'beneath the triple tread of kings'... something a king would walk on, maybe. Perhaps it refers to a three-legged king!"

Gwenay's musical laugh turned his thoughts from the scroll and he found he was intensely aware of her body pressing against him. A wave of desire came vibrating from his loins, suffusing his body. He discovered he was trembling from the effort to contain the passion he felt for her. Her lustrous hair brushed his cheek and she looked into his eyes. The invitation was candid. "Come," she took his hand, "It's all right ...I understand how you feel." She led him to the berth.

Felic made love with the finesse of a bull elk. His craving for Gwenay seemed insatiable. He cried like a wounded animal trying to bear the ecstasy that ripped through him.

The thrashing and groaning brought Chessa down to see what was the matter. Opening the door, she was appalled by the scene. She turned and fled. Blinded by tears, she stumbled up the companionway onto the moonlit deck and stopped. She held her knuckles against her teeth as if to stem the hurt that was rising hard and bitter in her throat. Then she stepped up on the rail and plunged into the black water below.

* * *

It was far into the night before Felic's all-consuming passion was gratified. All emotion was drained; he fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke it was mid-day. He threw his legs over the side of the berth and sat bewildered by his throbbing head. He saw the empty goblets and the wine bottle and his puzzled frown became a grimace of disgust.

Gwenay still slept. Her hair swirled in a black cloud over the pillow. She was uncovered, but Felic ignored the voluptuous naked body that had elicited his wild adoration and fired the steamy ministrations of the night.

After dressing he went on deck and looked for Chessa. He had a blurred memory of her opening the Queen's door and he realized she had been a witness to their humping. When he failed to find her on board the yacht, he lowered himself into the bay to search ashore. The icy water soothed his aching head. He swam to the beach, floating Battle Flasher ahead of him on a wooden shield. Skirting the shoreline he found Chessa's footprints leading across the sand and into the scrub. The trail disappeared in the grass and weeds. Felic rushed on in the general direction he felt she was headed, taking the easiest route up the ridge before him. He was surprised at the intensity of his nagging concern for her. Her disappearance was a wake-up call and he realized he was really in love with her.

At the crest, he found a cliff dropping off into a gorge. A swift stream cascaded through the bottom, flowing between pillars of rock into the sea. A hint of a path led along the ridge, leading inland. He followed it through thickening forest, dropping down until it came to the creek. Here the path joined a much-used trail leading across a rude bridge. In the soft damp earth near the bridge he found many footprints. He looked for Chessa's, but couldn't distinguish hers from the rest.

The sounds of movement on the trail behind him sent him swiftly to cover. A score of Maijad hunters filed out of the forest past his place of concealment. They moved on silent feet with no conversation. Their fair skins were daubed with brown and green stain, an effective camouflage. Three carried slain deer on their backs; wood grouse hung from the spears of others. In the center of the column was Chessa. Her hands were tied in front of her and she was jerked along by a plaited leather leash. Felic's jaws tightened and he restrained the urge to leap out and do battle. Chessa looked frightened but unhurt.

The file moved away across the bridge and into the forest. Felic shadowed them. After an hour or so, the trail became a cart road and the forest thinned. Felic kept to one side for cover. The road led gradually downhill and came out of the forest into a bowl-like valley that was open to the ocean on the eastern side. The grassy slopes of the valley were dotted with rock huts chinked with mud. They were roofed with thin shale-like rocks placed over a supporting framework of poles. On the western slope of the valley was a more impressive structure, triangular in shape and built with more skill than the rude dwellings.

Felic studied it for a moment, then returned his attention to the hunting party. He watched as they led Chessa into a central area. The blast of a hunting horn brought the islanders streaming like ants from their huts. They bunched around the new arrivals and followed as her captors jerked Chessa along. Felic watched until she was shoved into one of the huts, then he skirted the valley and studied the layout of the village.

As the sun set, a flurry of activity in front of the temple suggested the Maijads were preparing a celebration. Felic watched from the cover of the forest, waiting for an opportunity to move in unnoticed.

# Chapter Fourteen

The Sun-Eagle was tacking out of the bay as Bargonast brought the pinnace skittering through the surf and onto the beach. He heaved the prow higher on the sand and watched the yacht slide out of sight around the headland. Further down the beach a thread of water plummeted from the heights. It splashed and feathered down the cliff spraying momentary rainbows into the sunlight.

He slung the water skin from the pinnace over his shoulder and worked his way to the pool at the base of the waterfall. When the skin was filled with the cold sweet water he started back. His view of the boat was obstructed by a rocky point dividing the beach. As he rounded the point he saw a figure shoving the pinnace into the water. He dropped the water skin and sprinted. The man stealing the boat was a stocky Maijad. He was engrossed in his efforts to turn the boat so that its bow faced the incoming waves.

Bargonast's attack was a complete surprise. He ran silently across the sand and vaulted onto the back of the native, riding him into the water. The man was a head shorter than Bargonast, but his naked wet skin was slippery. He slid from under the big man's attack and almost twisted free. Bargonast managed to hang on, and before the Maijad could splash ashore, he crushed him down by sheer weight; he got a grip on his black mane and shoved his head under water. The islander struggled to no avail while the cold eyes of his bearded nemesis watched the contortions of his face just under the surface.

Their tussle gave the pinnace a push into deeper water. Bargonast could see out of the corner of his eye that it was moving away rapidly. He made a quick decision to release the Maijad and save the boat. He caught the drifting pinnace in time and hauled it back to the beach.

The native was on his hands and knees trying to cough the salt water from his lungs. Bargonast rolled him on his back and held the point of his sword at his chest. The man met his gaze with unflinching eyes, showing no fear of his impending fate. Bargonast restrained the impulse to bloody his blade.

"I can kill you," he told the native.

The Maijad did not answer.

"Do you understand Antillian?"

"Yes."

"Why should I not kill you?"

The man shrugged and watched Bargonast with intense round eyes.

"I don't like the way you stink, and you were stealing my boat."

"This place...not for me." The prone man spoke with a sibilant accent. "I am not dead; I am not mukko; I must leave."

"Why are you here? Maijads are said to fear this island."

"I am Hundar. I am a...chief." The word 'chief' was squeezed through clenched jaws, not an easy title for the native to announce from such an ignoble position. "I was mukko; I was brought here to die. Garan'l has spared me. I am well. I am no more mukko. I should not be here."

Bargonast considered the humbled chief. "I don't understand what you are blubbering about. I could take you away from here...or I could kill you." Hundar didn't answer. "Yes, I could kill you, or...perhaps if I let you live, you would help me make friends with your people. Should I spare your life?"

Hundar's face lit up. "Yes, yes. I take you to village. All my people be much pleased if you bring Hundar back, not mukko!"

"Try to trick me," Bargonast threatened, "and I will cut off your nose and your ears!" He twirled the point of his sword on the man's chest for emphasis, creating a medallion of blood.

Hundar winced, but his glaring expression showed that his pride was hurt. "You have promise of Maijad chief!" His tone left nothing to add.

Bargonast sheathed his sword. "So then...we travel together. You will find the water skin back by the rocks. Go get it. I'll ready the boat."

With the water aboard and Hundar at the oars, Bargonast pushed the little craft into the incoming waves. With one last shove, he propelled his bulk up over the transom to a clumsy tumble on to the stern seat. They rowed out of the bay and raised the sail. Far ahead, the Sun-Eagle was a distant speck standing away to the east of the second island. The combination of wind and waves constituted ideal sailing conditions for a little ship like the Sun-Eagle. For the pinnace, however, the stretch between islands was a carnival ride. They took repeated showers of spray over the gunwales as the boat met the sea's challenge. Hundar, in his element, grinned with pleasure and bailed with alacrity.

As the day progressed the Sun-Eagle lengthened its lead and disappeared. It was evening when the odd companions reached the second island. Hundar guided them into a sheltered cove where he went over the side and reappeared with oysters for their supper. They stayed the night in the cove, and when the morning sun disturbed their sleep they set sail again, intending to complete their passage to the northernmost island and the chief's village. As they emerged from the cove they were surprised by the colorful spectacle of a Dagran war galley pulling through the morning mists around the headland. The long sweeps swung and dipped in naval precision, pushing the shark's head prow through a dapple of foam.

Bargonast saw the familiar bulk of Stet-Arnak standing at the break of the quarterdeck. He stood up and bellowed a greeting, flapping his arms for attention. The priest acknowledged his signal with a peremptory wave. The galley veered towards them. A command rang across its decks. The oarsmen brought their sweeps to a holding position, while the vessel's momentum closed the gap. Bargonast caught the throw line that came snaking through the air and pulled the pinnace to the side of the war ship.

He told Hundar to stay in the boat and clambered up the side where Stet-Arnak's mottled face peered over the rail.

"What are you doing here?" He glanced suspiciously left and right. "Do you have the Qalandor?" The Dag kept his voice low for Bargonast's ears only.

"I don't have the Qalandor, Lordship, but I know where it is hidden. The native in the boat," Bargonast inclined his head in Hundar's direction, "will take me to his village. I will need the confidence of his people to gain access to the Qalandor."

"So...and where is the Qalandor?" the priest insisted.

"You will have to trust me further." Bargonast stood with his arms akimbo, self-assured of his value to the other man. "If you interfere," he warned, you will never see it again!"

Stet-Arnak glowered. "Keep in mind, Priest-bane, that our terms established the reward for your success. You may trust me when I say to you that the penalty for failure will be equally extravagant!"

"Let me do this my way and there will be no failure."

"What is your plan?"

"The man in the boat is a chief. He has promised to help me. I will take him to his village and gain the confidence of his people. Follow us, but at a distance. A show of force will ruin everything. Lay offshore tonight, and tomorrow..." He thumped his chest, "I, Bargonast, will bring you the Qalandor. You may count on it!"

"You are a clown, Bargonast, and your stupid bragging does not impress me. If you like the way your skin fits your body, you had best not fail." His eyes narrowed. "You had best not fail!" he emphasized.

Bargonast placed his clenched fist over his heart, the Dagran salute, delivering it more from old habit than courtesy.

* * * *

At the Maijad village Hundar was greeted with a joyous incredulity. It was obvious to Bargonast that he had returned a well-loved chief back to his people. Hundar's wives and children clung to him and wept, delirious at his return from the dead.

During the crossing to the village the chief had explained that his affliction, an incurable endemic fever, turned its victims into raving, pain-crazed "mukkos" or "black-faces" in its final stages. Their facial skin pigment changed to a mottled gray with spreading dark areas around the eyes and lips. The Maijad religion dictated that female victims of the black sickness, on reaching the mukko state, be put to death—sacrificed to the smoke god Garan'l. A male mukko was taken to the volcanic island to die. But for Hundar, after being isolated on the island, something had turned the disease around. He was the first ever to recover from it. The Maijads prepared for a tribal celebration to Garan'l for the miracle bestowed by the smoke god.

"Always we give human life to Garan'l," Hundar told Bargonast. "This is first time in tribal memory he gives life back. My people feast tonight. We make offerings from temple of Garan'l to show our thanks."

"Your temple is a noble building. Show me the inside."

"It is forbidden. The body of a great king lies inside. His soldiers build temple, make his body and spirit a gift to Garan'l. Now Garan'l is spirit brother of great king. While great king sleeps, Garan'l protects us, helps us." Hundar straightened proudly and thumped his chest. "My own life is proof. But if we enter temple...much evil...evil for all Maijads."

Bargonast was free to roam about the village. The men were preparing a fire trench on the slope facing the temple. After the blaze settled down, they skewered the carcasses of three deer across it. Pretending an interest in the activities, Bargonast moved around the area, studying the temple. The huge door was cut from a single heavy stone, obviously never meant to be moved by one man. There were no other openings in the massive walls. The structure was triangular with the door set in the wall facing the beach. The other two walls came together on the uphill side. Rock steps led to the top from each side allowing access to the altar and sacrificial dais on the roof.

Hundar approached Bargonast, his broad smile emphasizing the gaps in his teeth. "Tonight we have singing, dancing, good food. Tonight we have sacrifice to smoke god."

"You mean a mukko will be killed?"

"No...we not kill mukko again. Now and tomorrow they go to Garan'l's island. Smoke god decide."

Bargonast showed signs of inner agitation; he looked quickly from side to side and his hand hovered near his sword.

"Ho, ho, you think you be sacrifice," Hundar gripped the scarred giant's arm. "Not you. We have girl...captured by hunters. She make much pleasure for bravest warriors, then..." He made a circular motion with his fist against his chest and a squishing sound with his voice as though cutting out a heart.

After sunset a horn echoed through valley, summoning the villagers to the feast. The gamy smell of roasting venison floated in the air around the spit. Iron grills, placed over the coals, held birds, fish and root vegetables. Platters of raw mussels and tender green sprouts were lined up and garnished with flowers.

Flanking the temple, two warriors, caparisoned with scale armor of opalescent shells began a soft deep cadence on chest-high drums. The islanders swarmed about the food, laughing and chattering as they ate. The drumbeat grew faster and louder in rapport with the tempo of the party. A young girl passed through the crowd smiling shyly and chanting a singsong repetitious melody. She carried a tray piled with fine brown powder. Each Maijad helped himself to a pinch of the substance, sniffed it and took up the girl's singsong chant. As it rose in volume, a single spirit knit the mass into one swaying, shouting entity. Dry branches were added to the coals in the trench until the flames roared high in the air.

As Bargonast helped himself to the food, a naked figure, garishly painted and masked, sprang into the firelight on the temple roof. He whirled and spun with eel-like agility focusing the intensity of the crowd's chant. He spun off into the darkness behind the altar, and his dance was taken up by a similar figure. Several dancers in succession entertained the crowd, each trying to outdo the previous performer in grotesque poses and acrobatics. The dancing and the drumming stopped unexpectedly and the crowd became silent and expectant. There was complete silence for several moments, then the drums started up again with a new frenetic beat.

Bargonast, standing on the sidelines with Hundar, was more interested in gnawing on a sinewy hunk of the charred meat than in watching the ritual. Hundar giggled with glee and directed his attention to the girl being escorted into the firelight. Bargonast glanced at the slim figure, then, astonished, he took a second look. It was Chessa.

"She will be the sacrifice?" he asked Hundar.

"Yes."

He threw aside the meat and concentrated on the scene before him. Chessa was forced to a kneeling position and a tray of food was offered to her. She hung her head and refused to eat. She was jerked to her feet and paraded around the fire. Every few steps she was held in place while a young warrior jumped out of the crowd and gyrated through obscene antics in front of her, offering a crowd-pleasing pantomime of what he intended to do to her when his turn came later. Her clothes were ripped away piece by piece until she was nude. The creamy whiteness of her body was blushed to a rosy gold by the firelight.

She appeared to Bargonast to be in shock and her terror-filled eyes searched the crowd for mercy as she was dragged back to the hut. The drums changed tempo and the crowd resumed the singsong chant.

Hundar took Bargonast's arm and gestured toward the hut. "You are guest. We owe much. You be first one. Go!"

Bargonast swallowed his question, unuttered, and went to the hut. The door guards grinned knowingly as he pushed aside the skin curtain and went in. The interior was dim, illuminated by a single candle. Chessa was huddled on a bed of furs. She had not seen Bargonast in the crowd so his appearance in the doorway was a shock.

"Why are you here?" she asked, voice trembling.

"The chief said I could be first to try the pleasures of your body."

Chessa cringed and tried to hide her nakedness.

Bargonast grinned with delight as he watched her squirm. "Do you know they will kill you?" he asked. She nodded. He walked to the back of the hut where a doorway opened into a log lean-to. He pushed carefully on one of the logs. It came loose at the bottom. Working quietly he freed it from the rest and set it aside. Two more followed creating a space large enough to squeeze through.

He went back into the candle-lit room and pulled Chessa to her feet. "Wrap this fur around you so you won't be so obvious," he ordered.

She took the fur with a grateful shiver and followed him through the opening. They crouched and ran, keeping to the shadows. They were close to the edge of the village when they rounded a hut and almost bowled over a Maijad warrior. Reading the situation instantly, the warrior recovered his balance and pulled a wicked looking curved knife from his sash in one smooth movement.

Bargonast sent Chessa sprawling as he jumped back and whipped out his own weapon. There was a quick feint by the Maijad, then the sharp ring of steel on bronze as their blades clanged together. With the suppleness of a panther, the smaller native circled Bargonast, darting in for a thrust and bounding back out of reach with feline speed. Bargonast cursed him but couldn't find a solid target for his mighty swings. His blade whistled harmlessly through empty space while the Maijad inflicted minor cuts as he thrust and dodged in his artful style.

Bargonast wanted to finish him quickly but the duel was prolonged as the warrior danced and dallied with him. The noise of the fight penetrated the sounds of revelry by the fire. Soon Bargonast was ringed with weapons and forced to throw his own down in disgust. He looked around for Chessa. She was gone.

The village soon swarmed with torch-bearing warriors. They searched far into the night but found no trace of her.

On the southern rim of the valley Felic watched the spreading search below. He could not attempt to rescue Chessa while the village was aroused. As he watched, the torches moved ever closer. Finally there was nothing to be done except retreat the way he had come.

# Chapter Fifteen

When Felic returned to the bay where the Sun-Eagle rode at anchor, he was dejected by his failure to rescue Chessa. He spotted a small Maijad dugout canoe half hidden in the brush along the shore line, and he paddled it out to the yacht.

Gwenay greeted him with affected intimacy. "Hello, my wonderful lover...you have returned at last!" She reached out to help him over the rail. "Where have you been all night?"

Felic brushed aside her offered hand. He tied the canoe to the anchor chain and swung himself onto the deck. His face was unyielding. "You drugged me!" he accused her.

Gwenay feigned bewilderment. "I don't understand..."

"You understand well enough. You put the powder of the striped beetle in my wine." She started to object but he stopped her with a gesture. His voice was soft but deadly. "Do not lie to me! I want nothing from you...no tender apologies...no sweet endearments...just stay away. Do not come near me. Do not speak to me!"

Gwenay backed away, her hands over her mouth. He turned his back and strode aft to the quarterdeck. After a moment she followed him. "All right," she apologized, "I will admit that I added a love-potion to your wine. Is that so wicked? Is it not an honor to be chosen as a queen's lover?"

He did not respond. He stood at the rail, staring at the shoreline with morose indifference.

She tried again. "Felic... it's more than just last night. Being with you these last few days has aroused emotions that I thought I would never feel again. I have felt love growing in me...for you. It's a wonderful feeling, and one that I thought had dried up, never to return." Her voice faltered and her eyes grew moist. "Don't you understand what that means, my love? I am a complete woman again. Not just a young body disguising an aging soul. The Qalandor has made me young in mind as well as body. I did not know that before...not until you came into my heart. We could give each other so much. I can give you the immortality that I have, and with the power of the completed Qalandor we can rule all Antillia--a god and goddess, forever young. I would show you how deep a love could go, Felic. You would never tire of me. I would make your days and nights a succession of endless delights." She waited for his answer. There was a long silence before he turned from the rail and spoke.

"Chessa has been captured by the Maijads."

A swift flush of anger suffused Gwenay's face. "I offer you the greatest gift a mortal could ask, and this is your answer? You worry about your brainless little playmate?"

Felic faced her calmly. "The greatest gift? Yes, I suppose you do. But I love Chessa and I intend to get her back."

"You are a fool to concern yourself. The Maijads will kill you and then what? What of the gem?"

"I am no longer interested in you or the gem." He hesitated a moment, then their eyes clashed. "You sicken me, Gwenay!"

She recoiled from his words, shocked and hurt. She watched him in heavy silence as he wiped the moisture off of Battle Flasher. Then he coiled tangled lines, putting the deck shipshape, before he stretched out on the planks to catch up on the night of lost sleep. She waited until he slept. All the while her mind churned over the humility of his scorn. Her eyes were feverish, narrow slits of hate, as she stole forward to stand over him. She knelt silently by his prone body, clutching a jeweled stiletto with both hands. She tensed herself and prepared to plunge it into his beating heart.

* * * *

Stet-Arnak kept the Dagran galley hove-to off shore all night and paced the deck all morning, watching for Bargonast's return. But his patience was drained by mid-day. He roused the crew to action and ordered them to pull for shore.

Near the island they intercepted a coracle with two Maijad fishermen aboard. The galley overtook them, bearing down on their frail craft, smashing it to a limp floating bundle off hides and sticks, and sending it drifting into the depths. The fishermen were pulled on deck and persuaded to answer a few questions. After they told Stet-Arnak of Bargonast's imprisonment in the village, he ordered them put in irons.

As the galley proceeded on course to the village, they passed the bay where the Sun-Eagle rode at anchor. Stet-Arnak changed his plans and lowered a long boat full of swordsmen. Their orders were to take the yacht, scuttle it, and return with the Calixian queen.

On the yacht Gwenay's urge to kill Felic died in her trembling hands as she held the stiletto poised above him. She rose to her feet and flung the dagger over the side. Tears blurred her vision, or she might have seen the boatload of Dagrans closing with the yacht. She ran to her cabin and collapsed on her bed. Her body heaved with the wracking sobs of unrequited love.

The Dagrans took the yacht without a struggle. Felic was jerked out of his dreams and to his feet. His groggy brain tried to make the connection between the events of the previous hours and the Dagrans pushing him before them. One of them had his sword. He came to his senses with an angry curse and struggled to free himself. A blow to the head stunned him and he was shoved down the companionway where waiting hands hustled him through the door to the hold of the Sea-Eagle. He was tied to the section of the mainmast that extended from the keelson up through the deck. They finished the job without talk or ceremony and left. He heard the bar drop on the other side of the door, the sound of the hatch in the floor of the cabin being slid aside, then the heavy tread of their iron-shod buskins as they climbed the companionway and left the yacht.

In the darkness of the hold he tested his bonds, wriggling, trying to find some slack. But the Dagrans knew their business; there was no slack. He rested and tried to organize his thoughts. Over the sound of his breathing he heard the dread gurgling of water in the Sea-Eagle's bilge. He held his breath, listening, and another faint noise caught his attention--a stealthy hesitant footstep.

"Who is it? Is that you Gwenay?"There was a sharp intake of breath from the unseen person, then silence.

"Who's there?" Felic asked again. "Since we shall drown together trapped in this black hole, you may as well tell me your name."

From close behind him a small voice answered. "It's me."

"Chessa! How did you get here?"

"Why do you care?" Her voice was petulant.

"Chessa, don't be angry with me. I can explain. Gwenay gave me an aphrodisiac in the wine...do you understand?"

There was no answer.

"Chessa...please! This is no time for petty feelings if we are to get out of here alive. This boat is sinking! I heard them take up the floor hatch in the cabin, and I am sure they opened the scuttle-plug there." Felic's voice betrayed his anxiety.

"So you think my feelings are petty!"

"Chessa...please...we don't have time to fight. If you don't want to die here you will have to help me."

After a short silence he heard a sniffle and a small voice say, "All right, I guess."

"Do you have a knife?"

"No."

"Then light the lamp in the forecastle and look in the armorer's chest," he directed.

"I have no flint or tinderbox."

"Here...in the pouch at my belt." He felt the gentle touch of her fingers as she groped in the dark for the pouch. "Hurry, Chessa. You must hurry!"

Despite his urging, it seemed a long time before she returned. In the glow of the lamp she sawed at his ropes with a rusted knife until they parted. Felic rubbed the circulation back into his wrists and suppressed a smile at Chessa's appearance. She stood before him in the dim yellow light dressed like a savage urchin in a matted fur. Her body looked pitifully small in the bulky garb and she was covered with scratches, bruises and dirt. Worst of all, she stank like a wet deer.

"You found a knife." She didn't answer. "They have barred the door to the cabin. Did you try the fore hatch?" he asked.

"No."

"Tell me how you happen to be here."

Chessa told of her escape while Felic sought to force open the fore hatch,. The hatch was solidly secured from above and his efforts were useless.

"I didn't know where else to go," Chessa explained, "so I sneaked aboard and hid down here." She followed Felic to the other end of the hold where he tested the strength of the barred door into the cabin. He slammed his shoulder into it several times with no results. Then he hacked at the hardwood with the knife. When that availed nothing, he pried with it, only to snap the blade. He cursed and hurled the useless implement aside and stood back, anxious and frustrated.

The stern of the Sun-Eagle was settling deeper in the water and the planking at their feet was awash. For a grim moment they were silent, contemplating their certain death.

Chessa edged closer to him. "Felic...I'm scared. Are we going to drown in here? We are, aren't we?"

Felic shook his head, searching his mind. "We haven't yet. I have an idea. If I can pull up these three steps, perhaps you can squeeze under the cabin sole and get out through the scuttle plug hatch."

"But how will you get out? I won't leave you, Felic. I love you and I want to stay here and die with you!"

"That's very touching, Pigeon, but when you get through you can unbar the door."

"Oh, I am so stupid," she chided herself.

Felic fished into the rising water and retrieved the broken knife. He used it to pry around the steps, forcing the boards to come up and exposing a dark water-filled hole extending aft above the keelson. Felic saw something, which caused him to rip the last two boards aside quickly.

"Bring the light closer!"

Chessa knelt by his side and he reached both arms into the bilge water directly below the steps. Getting a grip on the unseen object, he straightened up and lifted it out onto the planks.

"What a beautiful box!" Chessa gasped. "It must be made of silver." She wiped her Palm over the surface to remove the layer of bilge slime. The figures worked into the metal stood out in sharp relief. "Oh, open it. Let's see what's in it."

"Not now, Chessa," his voice was rough, "you must take a big breath and crawl under the cabin floor. The space will grow smaller as you near the hatch. If it gets too tight or you run out of breath, kick your foot and I will pull you back out. Come now, hurry. The water rises!"

She discarded her fur and stood there naked. Then considering the black watery hole with distaste, she took a deep breath, clenched her jaws, closed her eyes, and crawled in headfirst. She pulled ahead slowly at first, gripping the frames of the vessel and pulling herself into the narrowing space. When she progressed a little more than the length of her body she could feel the swirl of the colder water coming from the open scuttle plug. The hull was closing in on her. She could feel the floor timbers inches over her back; the upward curve of the bottom diminished the space below her as she moved forward. She was close to panic and the end of her breath, but before kicking her foot for help she forced her eyes open. She could see the light from the hatch just an arm's length ahead. In desperation she forced herself to keep going and squeezed through the opening into the cabin.

Felic was calling her through the door, "...answer me! Are you through?"

"I made it. I'm through!" she shouted. She raised the bar and let him into the cabin. "You were worried for me, weren't you, Felic?"

He held her. "I was, Pigeon. You were very brave."

"Now let's open the chest," she begged.

"First the scuttle plug, then the chest." He reached into the hatch in the sole and forced the plug forward into the wooden valve.

"Why do they build a hole in the bottom," Chessa wondered out loud.

"So a captain can keep his ship from falling into enemy hands. Now, let's see if we can get this chest open. I already know what it contains."

"Do you, Felic? How do you know? Tell me what it is."

"And spoil the surprise?"

"Then hurry. It's so pretty!"

"I don't want to force it. It would be a shame to ruin it." He cleaned the remaining slime from the chest with a rag and studied the scene wrought into the silver. It was a bas-relief depicting rites of the Dag-Arnak priesthood. He found a knife in the cabin and slid the point around the crack of the lid to locate the catches. Probing the surface in the area below the catches he found an ornament that slid to one side. He moved its counterpart on the opposite side of the chest and the lid came open.

"Oh, its so beautiful,Chessa caressed the opalescent surface of the fist-sized gem nesting in the box. It shone with pearly luminosity from a swirl of woven gold fabric.

"It is part of the Qalandor. Have you heard of that?" he asked.

"Of course. As the intended of Stet-Arnak, I was taught the temple rites used in worshipping the power of the Qalandor. But I do not understand how this could be part of it."

"Gwenay has the Qalandor at Calix. It was stolen by King Jult before he died." Felic pulled a gown from Gwenay's wardrobe and pushed it at Chessa. "Now get dressed. We have a lot of water to pump out. The Maijads have Bargonast; the Dagrans have Gwenay; we have the gem. Now I think we should get out of here."

"But what about Bargonast?" Chessa asked.

"What about him?"

"Well...he did save my life. I think we ought to try and help him."

"Have you considered what he would have done with you after he got you away from the Maijads?"

"Well we don't know that for sure. Maybe he was just trying to help."

Felic took a deep breath and spoke slowly, emphasizing each word. "Chessa... look at me. You are giving Bargonast credit for a noble motive. He never had one in his life. I doubt if he has ever done anything that didn't profit him."

"I'm not a little child, Felic," she flared. "I think I have a right to my own opinion of the man. And my opinion is that he tried to help me!"

Felic threw up his hands. "All right. Have it your way. I'll scout the village again and see what I can do."

"It's a good thing I didn't have to wait for you to save me from the village hut," she persisted, "or I would be dead by now, and you would be drowning in the hold of this boat!"

Felic ignored her and went on deck. She followed him to the waist where he attached the handle of the pump through a fulcrum to the shaft. The shaft extended down a square well leading to the bilge. A leather flap valve allowed water into the well, and a square wooden piston lifted it above the waterline and overboard. He pumped vigorously at first, then settled into long steady strokes.

Chessa reopened the conversation. "What about Queen Gwenay?"

"What about her?" Felic answered, maintaining his pace on the pump.

"I suppose you don't want to help her either."

He stopped and considered her serious face and candid blue eyes. Then he shook his head and went back to pumping.

"I know 'I've got good reason to hate her," she went on, "but all she did was show you a good time."

He flung the pump handle down. She backed away, startled by his violence, but he grabbed her and pulled her back. "Now you get this into your thick head; I did not tumble the queen of my own free will, and I don't recall saying that I enjoyed it."

"Well ...did you?"

"Do you want me to rescue her, too?"

"Did you enjoy it?"

"All right, I enjoyed it! Now, do you still want me to rescue her?"

Chessa studied his eyes for a moment. "I don't think you enjoyed it. Yes, I think you should rescue her."

"Oh, I see ...I don't even have my sword and you want me to take on a galley full of Dagrans and the entire barbarian population of this island. That should be easy enough!"

"In the songs of the bards your exploits are greater by far. Why in the song of..."

"All right. Never mind reciting from my exaggerated history. Here? you pump. I'll take the dugout ashore and scout the village."

# Chapter Sixteen

Stet-Arnak paced and posed around Gwenay with measured insolence.

"So...the illustrious Queen of Calix... royal mistress to a realm of tunnel-digging runt men. Such an honor you bestow upon us to visit our humble galley. And such a pleasure to offer you our hospitality. The last time we met, you played a little game with me. You pretended to be someone else. Shameful, your gracious majesty, to deceive a holy man, to spawn a falsehood in the presence of a Dag, it was not becoming of your noble position. Surely you can imagine the depths of my disillusionment," he rolled his eyes feigning disappointment. "When I found you, the faith I felt in the unblemished honor of Antillian royalty had deceived me."

Gwenay, stood in the, center of the priest's quarters with her arms folded, enduring her humiliation with regal forbearance.

"You appear young, my dear," he continued, "for a woman of dubious age. Would you like to reveal your secret--the magic of your everlasting youth."

Gwenay refused to meet his eyes or acknowledge his taunting.

The priest's pompous girth shook with a heavy chuckle. He pulled her gown back off her shoulders and ran his hands over her skin. "Very nice.. .youthful...I admire your beauty." He ran an exploratory finger down her cheek. "...and the face... so smooth... finely chiseled, a sculptor might say...but so supercilious." He clucked disparagingly. "The haughty royal expression does not become you!"

"Keep your greasy fingers off me!" Gwenay jerked away.

"Oh, you have a tongue." He gripped the inside of her upper arm. "That is good because if you wish to use it, you can spare yourself a great deal of pain!" As he spoke he pinched her flesh, increasing the pressure to climax with the word "pain."

Her only reaction was a quick intake of breath. He released her and walked to the stern window of the galley. With his back to her he studied the ship's wake, giving her time to think. When he turned back, he had divested himself of pretense. "Where is the Qalandor?" His question hissed through fleshy lips.

"If I knew, I would never tell you."

"You will tell...and we shall waste no more time." He summoned two men to help him; they forced Gwenay to her knees and cocked her head back. Stet-Arnak produced a silver vial and held it before her face.

"You have no doubt seen the acid test used to prove the worth of gold. I have my own acid test...for you. In this vial is the sweet nectar of the adder." He shook the vial and laughed at his own cunning. "I will place a drop in your eye. It will cause you severe pain and will slowly blind you. I can arrest the action by rinsing your eye with water. Consequently, you can choose for yourself how much you can endure or how blind you wish to be." His explanation was patient and painstaking as though she were a student of Arnak torture methods. "I will invert this timing-glass when I place the venom in your eye and you will be able to see the sand run out, and how much time remains before you lose your sight completely. Unfortunately, if we have to proceed to the second eye, you won't have this advantage. Now, do you wish to answer the question and avoid this painful experience?"

Gwenay struggled to twist free but the burly swordsmen held her in place. She clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyelids together.

"Then I must presume that you wish me to proceed." The priest inserted a small hollow reed into the vial and picked up a few drops by stopping the upper end with his finger. He gouged her eyelid back with his thumb and let the pale drops splash onto her eyeball.

At first she made no sound. The sand whispered into the bottom of the glass, and beads of sweat stood out from her forehead. Soon nasal moans fought to get by her gagging tongue, arched high in her open mouth.

"Look at the sand, my lovely," Stet-Arnak prodded, "it is half gone. You will soon be blind."

Gwenay writhed in the grip of her captors, throwing her head spasmodically with each paroxysm of pain. The sand ran out and she fainted, a merciful release from her agony.

"Revive her," the priest ordered. His face was flushed with evil amusement. "She won't be so brave with her other eye. This time we'll hear some screams."

The guards worked on her with cold water and aromatic spirits until she came around. She opened her good eye and saw the fat Dag standing over her. She screamed at him, deluging him with a vitriolic spew of curses.

"Oh, you still feel like fighting me?" He was enjoying himself. Hold her still." His hand trembled with excitement as he administered the venom to her healthy eye. Her curses changed to a scream of torment, then to a whimper as she passed out a second time. Stet-Arnak kicked clumsily at her slumping body. "Wake up you slut! Wake up I say!" He kicked and grunted and started blubbering like a child derived of a toy. "Wake up, you whoring bitch. I want you to wake up!"

He remembered the presence of the guards and composed himself. "Bah, take her away. She is not worth the effort. Lock her up with the fishermen," he ordered, "and bring me the fine sword that was brought aboard with her."

When the galley rode at anchor off the village of Hundar, Stet-Arnak sent one of the captured Maijads ashore with an offer to trade Gwenay and the other fisherman for Bargonast. Since the Maijad rites allowed only female sacrifice, Hundar agreed to the trade. Felic, watching from concealment near the village, saw the switch of prisoners. He puzzled over the meaning of it as Gwenay was dragged stumbling to a hut and Bargonast was rowed back to the galley. When Bargonast got back to the galley he was hustled onto the quarterdeck. Stet-Arnak lounged on a couch of scarlet cushions under a sun canopy."Cut him free," the priest directed.

With his arms freed, Bargonast straightened up and thumped his fist against his heart in salute. "My thanks, Excellency!"

"Save your thanks, fool. You may have been better off where you were." The priest looked away for a moment, his lips curling in disgust. "You bungled the chance I gave you. According to our agreement you were to deliver the Qalandor today... today!"

"I can explain, your Lordship," Bargonast started to sweat. "I was unable to manage the Qalandor alone, so I thought it would please your lordship if I returned with the temple fugitive, the maid Chessa. It is my understanding that she is your intended bride. She was a prisoner in one of the village huts. The Maijads were going to sacrifice her to their smoke god. I was bringing her to you when I was overpowered."

"And the girl...what of the girl?"

"She escaped, Excellency...disappeared."

"Then you have failed me twice." Stet-Arnak's cold eyes drilled through him. "I will not forget that you have failed me twice."

"But I know where the Qalandor is," Bargonast blurted. "It is in the temple. The temple is Jult's tomb."

"Have you seen it?"

"No, Excellency, but it has to be there. I am sure of it."

"Did you enter the temple?"

"The door is big. It would take several men to move it. The Maijads are forbidden entrance by their beliefs."

"Then what do you suggest?"

"Force." Bargonast rapped his fist into his other hand for emphasis. "Land your swordsmen; drive the villagers out!"

"They outnumber my men ten to one. Defending the galley from their attack would be one thing, but to take the offensive on shore..."

"But they are poorly armed, Excellency. They could not stand up to Dagran steel."

Stet-Arnak gazed thoughtfully at the shore. "I have heard they are fierce fighters."

"True, Excellency, but we have the advantage. I have seen their weapons. Some are iron, but many are tipped with bronze or obsidian--no match for the tempered blades of Antillia."

He indicated Felic's sword, laid out nearby.

The priest clapped his hands and a servant brought a tray of delicacies. "Your enthusiasm for your plan prompts me to give you a third chance to please me." He slobbered his words through a mouthful of grapes. "You will draw weapons from the armorer and take your place at the forefront of my men."

"I will lead the attack, Lordship, but if it would be possible, I would ask the use of a certain weapon...the long sword lying there." He pointed at Battle Flasher.

"Very well. Go prepare at once. I shall watch your performance from here while I enjoy these glazed fruits and this fine wine. I warn you, Bargonast, you must excel in this battle if you expect to salvage any part of our bargain. Now begone!" He dismissed him with a foppish wave of his jeweled hand.

The call to battle rang through the village before the Dagran troops reached shore. While the women and children were evacuated into the forest, Maijad archers ran to the beach and rained their shafts on the advancing boats. The Dagrans overlapped a roof of shields above them. Most of the arrows glanced off into the water.

A line of warriors ten-deep blocked the shoreline in front of the boats. They banged their spears against hide-covered wooden shields in rhythmical accompaniment to their deep-throated war chant. As the first of the boats grounded, they rushed into the shallows to meet the invaders.

Bargonast, anxious to prove his worth to Stet-Arnak, was first into the water. He waded forward to test the bristling fence of spears, bolstered by the battle cries of Dagrans splashing close behind. He thrust and slashed with Felic's mighty sword as the two sides came together, forcing the disadvantage of close-quarter conflict on the spear-wielding Maijads. He swung Battle Flasher with his right hand and took the blows of his adversaries on a bronze buckler held on his left arm. The great blade was like a thing alive, severing spear hafts and limbs and causing fearful carnage in the blood-stained shallows. The battle was soon knit into a confused tangle of splashing bodies struggling amid a din of screaming and cursing.

As the melee surged forward up to the beach, the spear bearers faded back into a fresh line of defenders armed with swords and cudgels. Bargonast, still in the van, found himself paired off against Hundar. The wiry chieftain was armed with the steel sword taken from Bargonast the night before. He fought silently, his brow creased with concentration as he parried the bearded giant's blade. His bravery and agility only delayed his demise. Bargonast caught his sword arm with his buckler and forced it aside long enough to transfix him with a thrust through his midriff. The chief squirmed, trying to free himself from Battle Flashers length. In those final seconds, as life left him, his eyes locked in a silent curse on the scarred face of his killer.

With Hundar fallen, the tenacious spirit of the defenders wavered. They gave way individually at first, but the infection of defeat soon spread among them and the battle turned into a rout. The Maijads presented only a running rear-guard action as the main body of warriors ran for the shelter of the forest.

With the village cleared of defenders, Bargonast took a squad of men to the temple, leaving the remainder to patrol the perimeter in case of a counterattack. With poles for leverage they swung the pivoting rock that served as a doorway, elevating it far enough to allow entrance. It was blocked in position. Bargonast fired up a torch and, shoving it ahead, crawled through the opening. Inside he stood erect and swung the fire through the clog of webs that festooned the tomb. The wavering light disclosed a central structure of cut stones supporting a sarcophagus. The crypt contained nothing else but the bare stones of the walls and the log beams supporting the roof.

Bargonast called for help and three soldiers joined him. Together they lifted the slab off the coffin. The grisly display of Jult's moldering cadaver was a visual greeting that shocked even their battle-hardened sensibilities.

"The hag lied to me!" Bargonast was half angry, half amazed. "It has to be here!" He stirred amongst Jult's bones with Battle Flasher as though expecting the Qalandor to be hidden there. He picked Jult's skull out of its resting place with the point of the sword. Long gray wisps of hair clung to the scalp and the hollow sockets regarded him with a vacuous gaze. Holding it high in the torchlight, he addressed it. "Your lying queen deceived me, Jult. How do you like that?" He launched the skull against the wall. It hit with a dead thud, split and fell to the floor. Bargonast urged the stunned soldiers into action and they dismantled the rock platform. But it was nothing more than it appeared to be. There was no Qalandor hidden within.

Bargonast crawled out into the sunshine to meet Stet-Arnak puffing up the slope. Bargonast's long face of inner defeat told the priest all he needed to know. "Get the men back aboard and put this fool in irons," he ordered. "Search the huts and find the blind bitch."

Bargonast was not disposed to be taken without a struggle. He pulled Battle Flasher from its scabbard and laid about him without mercy, catching his erstwhile battle companions by surprise. They fell back clutching for their weapons.

"Kill him, kill him!" Stet-Arnak screamed. The fat priest ran at him, his face contorted with rage. Bargonast leveled Battle Flasher at the round belly bouncing toward him and the priest stopped, realizing his vulnerability. He looked around for support, but the soldiers hung back, unwilling to engage the giant. Bargonast jabbed at him and he stumbled back, tripping on his priestly robes and rolling down the slope.

With a fierce yell Bargonast swung Battle Flasher in sweeping arcs and charged the men nearest to him. The circle opened. He cleared the cooking trench in a bound and raced for the trees. As he neared the soldiers of the perimeter guard he waved his blade toward the bay and shouted. "To the ship...to the ship. Everyone is to return to the ship immediately!"

The soldiers looked at each other, confused by the change of orders. Bargonast repeated the order until they started moving toward the ship. With the way cleared he sprinted past their rear and into the covering woods.

Moments later Stet-Arnak confronted the perimeter guard and discovered they had been duped. "After him!" he ordered, "a thousand druacs to the man who brings him back. Punishment for all if you fail!"

The troops moved into the trees but were set upon by Maijads almost immediately. Arrows and spears came hailing down on them from the treetops and they were decimated and forced back by an unseen enemy. They were forced to retreat back whence they came, dragging the wounded. Stet-Arnak saw the folly of his order.

The troop captain reported to him. The cheekplate was torn from his helmet and blood flowed from the place where his ear had been. "The natives were all around us, honored Dag; we had no chance..."

"Yes, yes...take the men back to the galley." The priest cast a last look into the depth of the tangled jungle. "The fate of that traitorous cur will surely be sealed by a Maijad spear."

# 

# Chapter Seventeen

After the women and children left the village, and while the battle raged on the beach, Felic sprinted from his hiding place to the hut where Gwenay lay bound. Without bothering to release her, he threw her lightly over his shoulder and trotted unseen from the village. His daring exploit went unnoticed. In the cover of the forest, he laid her on the grass and cut her bonds.

"Who are you? What are you doing?" she asked.

He looked at the red swollen rings of flesh that puffed her eyes shut and realized she couldn't see him. "It's me ...Felic."

"Oh Felic, Felic..." She clutched for him and embraced him, drawing her body against his. "I'm blind, Felic. I'm blind. The priest did this to me. I wouldn't tell..." Her voice broke into short choking sobs.

Felic patted her back and tried to comfort her. "It is all right now. You are safe. I will take you back to the yacht."

"I'll never see again ...never." She clung to him fiercely, a bewildered and frightened queen trying to cope with a strange dark and unfamiliar realm. "All my plans...everything ..."

"Come on now. Get control of yourself. We have to keep moving." He gently disengaged her. "Hang on to my hand and try not to make any noise." He led her down the trail to the beach and the dugout canoe.

He paddled out to the Sea Eagle where Chessa helped the queen out of the dugout and onto the deck. Then she took over, hovering over her, deeply moved by the tragic figure. At Gwenay's behest she found a soothing salve in the queen's effects which she administered to the inflamed areas. When the queen was settled down and resting in her berth, Chessa came on deck to help Felic with his preparations for departure.

"Did you see Bargonast in the village?" she asked.

"Yes. You don't have to worry about him. He was leading the Dagran attack. Stet-Arnak traded Gwenay for him before the battle. I think he was conniving with the priest all along.

"Felic weighed anchor and shook out the sail. With Chessa at the steering oar, they scudded out of the cove and set a course east for Antillia. Handling the yacht was busy work for two. Chessa's earlier interest in learning the names and uses of the lines was now invaluable. Felic was anxious to get as much distance between them and the Dagrans as he could, and while the breeze held he kept the lateen sail drawing, crowding the little ship to its utmost. After sunset the breeze faded. In the last light of twilight they thought they could see the Dagran galley on the horizon, but neither could be sure. The stars came out and Felic gave Chessa the first watch. He stood by her side and watched the phosphorescent bubbles that marked the yacht's quiet passage through the night.

"Felic, have you told Gwenay that we found the gem?

"No...not yet."

"I think she would feel much better if you did."

"Yes, I know. But it bothers me...the thought of so much power in her hands. I must have more time to think about it."

"But what else would you do with it?"

"I don't know. Maybe throw it overboard."

"Felic, you're joking!"

"Yes, I suppose I am. But there is time to decide before we reach Calix."

"But didn't you agree to help her get the gem in return for the yacht?"

"Yes, but I must have more time to think."

"After we take the queen to Calix...what then, Felic?" She paused. "I mean...what of us...you and me?"

He laid a reassuring hand over hers where it gripped the steering oar. The warmth of the tiny hand surprised him. She appeared to be an alabaster figurine in the light from the stars. The queen's borrowed gown rippled in the night breeze like gossamer, lending an ethereal quality to her slight figure. Felic drew her face up to his and kissed her. For long moments their lips were joined and the swirl of emotion and the slow roll of the deck floated them in buoyant detachment from earth and time.

* * * *

The next morning the eastern sky was blood red at dawn, a bad omen for mariners. A long swell rolled down from the north. The wind was fitful and toward mid-day it stopped completely. The waves chased each other down and flattened the ocean into a lifeless reflection of the brassy sky. Felic leaned against the stern rail. The steering oar, untended, swung in restless arcs.

Chessa supported Gwenay from the cabin to the quarterdeck, and to Felic's side, where she stood worrying the edge of her royal cloak with nervous fingers. "Where are we, Felic? Where are we going?"

"We are sailing back to the mainland...that is, we would be sailing if the wind hadn't died." Felic made her aware of the distant shape of the Dagran vessel closing with them. Gwenay's voice was tight with fear. "Are they gaining on us, Felic? Can't you do something?"

"Perhaps."

"But what?...You alone against so many?"

"We will find out before long." Felic did not look back at the other ship, but to the north where black clouds were rolling high on the horizon. "And we may get some help...a storm is brewing."

"I feel something is wrong," she shuddered, "the air is strange on my skin." She threw her head back and seemed to be straining to see through the inflamed flesh that closed her eyes. "Will it be a bad storm?"

"I don't know yet. It may just be a passing squall or," he paused, pursed his lips, then went on. "It will be very bad. I'm almost sure." he admitted. "Let Chessa help you below." He called Chessa aft. "Pigeon, help the queen below and prepare her cabin for the storm. Put away everything that can be broken or thrown about. Then go to the spare sail locker. Find a small triangular sail, very heavily sewn, and bring it on deck. Quickly, now."

She hesitated. "What's going to happen, Felic?

"We're going to have a one-sided fight or a storm...maybe both. Now move!"

She guided Gwenay off the quarterdeck and down the companionway. Felic worked quickly to drop the yard and lash it lengthwise along the deck, forming a safety rail from mast to rail at chest height. He furled the sail, carefully tucking and tying the material so that it could not work free in the coming blow.

Chessa brought the storm trysail on deck. It was raised part way up the mast and stretched flat, fore and aft.

They had been too busy to follow the progress of the Dagran galley. It was hidden from the deck by the rise of the quarterdeck and the stern rail. A wail from Chessa who had gone back for a look sent Felic to the rail. The Dagrans had halved the distance. The rhythmic rise and fall of their sweeps could be discerned and the ship looked like a giant water spider crawling at them.

"Chessa, let's get to work!" Felic's tone cracked with authority. "Everything on deck must be lashed securely...forehatch battened."

With a minimum of words they hurried the deck into readiness. Then, with nothing to do but wait, they stood in silence watching the details of the pursuing vessel multiply as it approached. The prow was carved and painted to resemble a wolf's head with open mouth. It was still too far to make out individuals, but the blue and white pennant hanging limp from the masthead was the private burgee of the Arnak family.

As they watched, a breeze stirred the pennant, then a second puff whipped it free off the mast for a moment. The sweeps stopped suspended over the water. Breeze patterns riffled the surface everywhere to the north of them. The sweeps disappeared into the Dagran ship, and sudden activity on deck indicated they were hoisting sail.

Chessa looked at Sun-Eagle's furled canvas.

"I know what you are thinking," Felic said, "but it is a stupid time to shake out the sails. I am counting on their inept seamanship."

The Dagrans sheeted their huge square sail home and it bellied with the captured wind. The ship heeled and the roll of white foam below the figurehead indicated they were making speed. Sun-Eagle was whipped by a rush of air that rattled the rigging. Felic belayed the steering oar with a loop of rope. The wind came in gusts, growing stronger with each succeeding blast, but the Dagran galley was taking each gust in stride, heeling its rail into the water. The waves grew larger; white caps rode the long crests.

"What are they doing?" Chessa asked, indicating a cluster of men working on the galley's foredeck.

"They are loading a thruster."

"What is a thruster?"

"It is like a catapult. It uses a heavy ballast stone cranked up from the bilge for power. When it is triggered, the stone drops and its weight throws the missile from its cradle. Sometimes they throw heavy spears with many points like a pitchfork. Sometimes the spear head has two backswept knife blades to cut sails and rigging."

"Can it reach us from there?"

"Yes."

Chessa's hand fumbled for his and he held her tight to stay her trembling.

On the Dagran ship, Stet-Arnak hooked his arm through the windward shrouds on the stern castle and fought to keep his ungainly torso perpendicular to the pitching deck. He was sallow from fear of the elements and from the upsetting motion of the vessel, but he refused to let the ship's master shorten sail. On the foredeck the thruster crew struggled to keep their footing as they cranked at the windlasses. In the cradle of the weapon was a pottery bomb. The shaft of the missile terminated in a clay shell bristling with shards of glass. Inside, an acid mixture awaited the alkaline charge that would build up pressure and cause it to burst on impact, sending fragments in all directions.

The thruster crew stood by waiting to get within range. The leader gauged the distance, correcting the helmsman with hand signals. As the galley started up a long wave, he armed the clay bomb with a scoop of white powder and sealed the opening. At the moment the ship hung in balance at the crest of the wave, he jerked the trigger rope. The missile took off with a whoosh, streaming bright ribbons from the haft. An attached whistle screamed a warning to its victims as the weapon arced up and started down in line for a direct hit. Felic and Chessa watched with tightening throats, but their peril was allayed when a fresh blast of wind forced it off course. It plummeted into the water in the lee of the Sun-Eagle.

On the yacht Felic laughed in relief. "It looked like a shard-pot. Some fish is going to have a bellyache."

Chessa's answer was blown away by the fury of the wind as the full force of the storm struck them. Rain and spray, driven horizontally, lessened the visibility and the world darkened as black clouds covered the sun. They could see the other ship, now in serious trouble, heeling precariously into the rollers with its big square sail ripping and flapping in shreds. The Dagrans hacked at the weather shrouds trying to let the mast go over and relieve the pressure that threatened to founder their vessel. The storm closed down and the galley was lost in the violence of day turned to night. Stinging sheets of spray and hail lashed the yacht's decks. The sound of air and water in combat was deafening.

Sun-Eagle skidded diagonally down the face of a wave as Felic fought the steering oar, straining to prevent the little ship from broaching and rolling. In the trough, he brought the bow into the wind and motioned for Chessa to take over. He went forward, hugging the safety rail formed by the yard. He tied a line between himself and the capstan and, working with his back humped into the storm's fury, he rigged a line to the lash-up of spars and sails that he had improvised for a sea anchor. He tossed the bundle overboard. The line streamed out, became taut, and gradually the bow of the yacht leveled out into the eye of the wind. Green water sweeping the waist battered him as he inched his way back to the quarterdeck. He rejoined Chessa at the helm. They secured the steering oar with restraining lines and fought their way through the companionway and into Gwenay's cabin.

Gwenay was on the floor, clinging to the pedestal of the table. She was frozen in fear by the darkness that pitched and rattled her. Her only orientation was the pillar of oak locked in her arms. If she felt the spray that followed Felic and Chessa through the companionway, she gave no indication.

The motion of the Sun-Eagle was sharp—a twisting and yawing like an angry dog fighting his leash. Felic braced his feet and helped Chessa get ensconced on one side of the table. He took the opposite side and they faced each other feeling frail and vulnerable in the violent gloom--numb to all but the roaring power of the elements. They sat thus, utterly silent, Chessa watching Felic's face for a portent of their chances, and Felic keening his senses to the wrack and strain of the yacht's timbers.

Their world was the little box of the room. Time after time it would rise with stomach-sinking speed, with the Sun-Eagle standing on her transom. Then came a moment of suspension before the yacht leveled out and fell into a dizzying slide into the next trough. The pattern repeated with endless variations. Every so often, as they ascended, the impact of solid water smashing the deck would force a spurt of spray through tiny leaks around the hatch.

Inside the cabin the noise was deafening. Felic worked his way around the table and shouted in Chessa's ear, "I've got to go up...she can't handle it this way!" The yacht slewed off a wave crest into another plummeting rush downward.

Chessa looked at him dumbly, uncomprehending. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the table. Felic made reassuring gestures for her to stay as she was. He indicated he was going on deck. There was a flicker of response in her eyes, then her face became set, immobilized. She had withdrawn into a corner of her mind that sheltered her from the maelstrom.

Felic waited for the pause at the bottom of the trough, then he slid back the hatch and hunched into the blasting spray. The waves breaking over the bow had increased in frequency. He knew the storm was building, and that the yacht did not have the buoyancy in the bow to charge the monster seas. It was imperative to turn and run downwind before the Sun-Eagle buried her nose in the heaving, uplifting water that towered about her.

He fought his way forward to the capstan. There he hung on with arms and legs while the deck pushed him up and up. A roar of water, louder than the rest, came from above. He looked up. The yacht was almost perpendicular against the face of a concave wave. The roar came from the curling lip of the crest breaking overhead. He braced himself and waited. There was a pregnant second as the yacht sped upward to meet the churning crown. Then came the compressing smash of the water's weight as it tried to rip him from the safety of the capstan.

The yacht shook herself free of the invading wave and emerged from the spindrift with water pouring off her decks. While she hung in balance, Felic prepared for the coming maneuver. He placed his dirk in his teeth and gauged the time available for the movements he must complete to cut away the sea anchor and turn the yacht while she lay in the trough.

Again he had to give first priority to hanging on as the little ship started her slide down the back of the wave. The stern lifted high above him and the hull skittered down, slithering on a pad of foam. As she hit the trough, she was angled into the start of a turn. Felic sawed at the line. It was chafed half through and quickly parted. As the deck rolled uncertainly beneath him, Felic ignored his safety rail and chanced a crazy, careening run aft to the steering oar. He threw off the restraining ropes and brought the helm over, giving her a boost in the direction she was headed.

He had to get the bow around before the next sea caught her. Sideways she would broach and founder. Slowly she began to swing. She came sideways to the advancing seas and stopped. There was nothing Felic could do but wait, jaws clenched in grim acceptance of whatever fate had to offer.

She started to rise into the next wave and the steering oar found leverage. The extension vibrated in his grip and the pressure increased until it took all his strength to fight it. The stout oak curved under the strain. The yacht was turning--slowly at first, but gaining momentum, the pressure eased, he knew he had won. As the next wave started to carry Sun-Eagle skyward, Felic had her stern to the wind. Now he must fight the tiller, stay with it through the storm and try to outguess the whim of every sea that shoved them forward.

For a while, running before the storm seemed like a welcome relief. The wind and spray lost some of their sting and fewer seas broke over the transom. But it was exhausting. The hours wore on, Felic began to live for the moments of rest he could give his aching muscles when Sun-Eagle lolled in the troughs. He began to feel smaller, as though he had shrunk physically. He slumped at the steering oar, water streaming down his face, to all appearances beaten by the endless march of waves. But each time the yacht pitched off a crest, he found another spark of strength to draw from, and he would force his tortured body to fight on.

Somehow he made it through the long night. The wind abated and he clouds blew on ahead and left him with a sliver of moon, a wild half-light appropriate to the monstrous surging forms that surrounded him. He felt the motion of the seas loosen up, as though giant muscles below the surface had relaxed. He began to doze in a semi-sleep, still aware of the demands of the steering oar, but oblivious to the moments between. He was not conscious of the dawn until the rising sun struck him full in the face. He forced himself to rise above his exhaustion and take stock of the situation.

To Chessa the storm had lasted forever and, at the same time, had never really happened. She felt Gwenay gripping her arm and heard her speaking, but she wasn't listening to her words. Instead she listened to the other--the lack of noise--and she felt grateful warming coursing through her body.

"Tell me," Gwenay's voice persisted. "Tell me what it is like."

"Oh...what?" Chessa was confused by the sunlight in the cabin.

"It's better, isn't it...the storm, I mean." Gwenay squeezed her arm, trying to force a response.

"Yes. It's better. There's sunshine, and I think the wind has stopped."

The cabin's motion was still severe, but the urgency that had characterized the little ship's twisting battle through the night was absent.

On deck, Felic felt it also. He went forward and plumbed the well. Sun-Eagle's sluggish response was due to the burden of water in her bilge. He hooked up the pump handle and began pumping.

When Chessa came on deck she felt instant pity for the haggard figure manning the pump. "0h, Felic! You look so tired. Can't you rest yet?"

"We're sinking," he answered glumly.

Chessa didn't know what to say. She was too elated at surviving the night to accept his blunt statement.

He looked at her with sagging eyes and repeated himself. "We're sinking. Sun-Eagle is sinking--leaking and sinking."

"Sinking? How bad is it? How long will it be?"

"I'm not sure."

"Here, let me pump." She took his arm and pulled him aside. He gave in willingly, giving her a small child-like smile of trust in her authority. He dropped spread-eagle to the deck, hooked an arm around a stanchion, and closed his eyes.

Chessa gritted her teeth and pumped.

# 

# Chapter Eighteen

"We must go back, Felic" Gwenay insisted, "you had no right to leave the islands without my permission. We had an agreement. What has become of our agreement?"

Felic worked the pump, his lips set in a grim line. He was tired and angry. A short sleep had restored his physical strength but his head throbbed from the night of fatigue.

"Won't someone talk to a blind person," Gwenay cried. "I will not be ignored this way".

Chessa laid her hand on the queen's arm. "Please...," she started, her voice soothing.

Gwenay shook her hand away. "Stay out of this. I want my answers from Felic m'Lans."

"But quarreling will not help. He must..."

"I am not quarreling!" Gwenay screamed. "This is my vessel. I say turn back. Turn back immediately!"

There was a long silence. The wrath of the blind queen hung heavy around the threesome. Felic paused at the pump and explained to Gwenay that their only hope was to keep running before the west wind—a moderate breeze that followed the passing of the storm.

Then the measured slide, squash, rattle of the pump continued. Gwenay's expression went from anger to peevish self-pity. She caught her breath to repress a sob and turned away. She groped her way alone the rail and across the break of the quarterdeck to descend the companionway.

"Why don't you tell her about the gem, Felic?" Chessa's tone was disapproving.

"No."

"You can be very stubborn."

"You know my reasons."

"Yes." She brushed his hair away from his eyes. "Do you want me to pump now?"

"All right...but not too long. I don't want you to get over-tired. We'll last longer if we take short shifts."

Felic had no idea where the storm had blown them. Only by constant pumping were they able to keep the Sun-Eagle afloat. Even so, the water was still gaining. Somewhere to the east lay Antillia. He went back to the helm and adjusted the restraining line. On the downwind heading Sun-Eagle was almost self-steering, needing only occasional attention to correct her course. Down on her marks, she surged heavily into the morning sun.

Gwenay came up from the cabin and felt her way to the stairs and up to the quarterdeck. She was unaware of Felic until he took her arm to guide her around a coil of rope. She took a place at the rail and faced into the breeze. Her hair whipped in tangles behind her. She seemed to relish the wind on her face. It was some time before she spoke.

"Felic, are you still there?"

He answered from a few feet away.

"Felic, I would like to help pump."

Felic's eyebrows shot up. "Good. I will help you forward and you can relieve Chessa now."

"But first, can I tell you one thing." She reached out and found his hand. "If I had the missing gem..." Felic started to pull back. "No, listen...please," she begged, "if I had the gem I could place myself in another cycle of renewal. Do you understand what that would mean, Felic? I could regress my age another few years and I would be able to see again."

Felic didn't answer immediately. He squeezed her hand in silent sympathy. When he did speak he avoided the issue.

"But we can't go back to the islands now. The Sun-Eagle would never get us there. She lost caulking in the storm. Our only chance is to keep pumping...pump and pray we reach Antillia before she goes under."

"Yes, Felic. I trust you. But after...after we reach Antillia, what then? Will you help me return for the gem?"

"First things first. We may never get there." His voice was dull.

"You are tired and everything seems hopeless. But I feel... I have an intuition; we will make it safely. Place my hands on the pump handle and give me my turn."

With Gwenay on the pump, Felic and Chessa were able to get the yard back in place on the mast, unfurl the sail, and haul it aloft, replacing the tiny storm sail.

They pumped in shifts through the long day. Felic wrapped cloth around the handle to save their hands, but by nightfall broken blisters exposed the raw flesh of their palms. The rags on the handle were sodden with the oozing blood. Working the pump became cruelly painful as well as tiring. Their one blessing, the west wind, stayed fresh. Sun-Eag1e, hampered by her cargo of water sloshing over the planking of the hold, pushed eastward--not swiftly, but steadily.

* * * *

In the blackest part of the night they heard the rumble of breakers ahead. Felic sprang into action. He brought the helm over to bring the yacht parallel to the wind. The sail, trimmed to windward, caught the wind on its fore side and cracked back to lee with mast-shaking force. Giving Chessa the tiller, he ran forward and eased the sheets. But the sail had acted as a brake. The Sun-Eagle wallowed, her momentum lost. He trimmed in the sail, searching for the right angle that would get the yacht moving. She heeled sluggishly. The breakers sounded closer.

"Ease off downwind. a little," he called to Chessa. "Let her get some way on."

Chessa did as she was told, but the tiller was dead in her hands. There was no forward motion, no flow of water past the blade of the steering oar. Felic worked with the sheet lines. He let the sail out, then brought it in slowly, trying to induce a forward motion. But the weight of the water in the hull had reduced the yacht to an uncontrollable hulk. She drifted majestically downwind, cocked sideways and listing.

They saw the breakers then, angry lines of foam just visible in the. starlight. They watched without hope as the yacht moved inexorably to her destruction.

As they drifted closer the long seas became shorter and steeper. The yacht picked up speed, pulled forward by a riptide, and the bow swung in the direction of the current. Felic, who was bitterly cursing the yacht, the elements, and the world in general, broke off to leap to the tiller. The yacht had steerage again. He brought the bow in line with the least tumultuous area ahead and they were swept into the shoal water. Steep waves broke in roaring cascades on either side. The main deck of the yacht was buried in rushing water. The hull found bottom, and they felt a series of dragging scrapes as the yacht was battered ahead by the following seas. Foaming white water crashed over the stern and boiled across the quarterdeck, drenching them. He felt a shuddering wrench on the tiller, then it was ripped from his grasp. He heard the crack of splintering oak as the steering oar was crushed between the hull and the rocks. The Sun-Eagle was being lifted and slammed against the bottom by each succeeding wave. Then came a long agonizing grind of keel against rock, and suddenly she was free, sliding into deeper, calmer water.The breakers were now behind them and they drifted into the lee of a tongue of land. The black mass of a wooded peninsula was discernable in the darkness. Chessa slipped in beside Felic and dropped her head against his chest. Her hair hung in dripping strings. "The gods are kind to us, Felic."

Felic answered by enfolding her in his arms. They held each other, silent, their love strengthened by the common bond of survival. For an extended moment they stood thus, then Felic broke away. "We're still sinking, Pigeon. I've got to beach her."

They were in the placid waters of a natural harbor. He could make out the lighter line of the shore in the starlight. The sail was luffing, flapping uselessly. Felic trimmed it to help push the yacht toward the beach. When they were less than the length of their anchor's rode from shore, he dropped the hook and paid out the line. As the yacht lurched to a halt on the sandy bottom, he took up the slack with the capstan, turning it until the anchor was firmly entrenched. Then he tied the end of a light line to a hawser and went over the side. The Sun-eagle had taken the ground in water over his head.

He struck out for the beach and his feet soon found bottom. With the light line he pulled the heavier rope ashore and secured it to a log, of driftwood wedged in the rocks. Then he collapsed on the sand, too bone-tired to care that his teeth were chattering from the cold swim.

The receding tide left the Sun-Eagle in shallow water, and Chessa, first up the next morning, waded ashore. She didn't have the heart to disturb Felic who was still asleep on the beach.

They had grounded on the largest of a series of islets. The harbor was a tiny U-shaped bay protected by the wooded ridge of the island on the western side, diminishing to grassy dunes to the north and finally hooking around to a spit of tumbled rocks half buried in the sand. Across the spit, in the distant east, Chessa could see the Antillian mainland. The rugged, snow-capped mountains were unfamiliar. The breakers still boomed on the seaward side of the islet, reminding her of the terror of the past night.

She shook the thought from her head and relaxed on the sand beside Felic. The morning sun was warm on her skin. She leaned back on her elbows and closed her eyes, listening to the cry of the gulls and savoring the odors of the shore. She felt Felic stir beside her and she looked down into his open eyes. Without a word she bent down and kissed him--first his forehead, then his eyes, working her way along the bridge of his nose with soft little pecks, wandering around his mouth, teasing, to finally nestle against the stubble of his three-day beard.

"You know this being shipwrecked is not so bad," he murmured.

Chessa moaned in delicious contentment and nibbled his ear. "I want you. I want all of you, now. I want to feel you inside me, connected in our love. Please me, Felic. Oh, please me!"

They were interrupted by the sound of Gwenay's voice, hailing from the yacht. Chessa started to get up. Felic pulled her back. "Let her yell for awhile. You've got me stirred up."

"That's nice," Chessa giggled, "but shouldn't I go help her?"

She twisted away and started to get up. Felic connected with a parting slap on her shapely rear, and then let out a yell of pain. He had forgotten the condition of his hands.

"Serves you right," Chessa laughed.

Felic pulled her back down.

* * * *

Chessa was enjoying the idyllic afterglow of making love on the warm sand but the plaintive calling from Gwenay on the yacht finally got to her. She picked her way through the fringe of bug-infested kelp that bordered the high water mark and waded back to the yacht.

The day was spent in setting up a camp and stocking it from the yacht. They managed to get all the necessary provisions on shore before the tide returned. Sore hands made the simplest tasks difficult. Once again the blind queen proved her worth as a physician by supplying an ointment to deaden the sting and hasten the healing.

Felic built a snug lean-to from driftwood and roofed it with the storm sail. Their first meal came from the bay's extensive oyster bed, barely awash at low tide. Contented, with full bellies, they sat around the fire until after sunset. Felic's optimism had returned after a night of rest. "Tomorrow morning I will rig a tackle from the masthead to some point here on the beach," he told the women. "If I can heel the yacht down while the tide is in, then I can expose the leaking seams for re-caulking when the tide goes out."

"But even if you do stop the leaks, how can you get the yacht into deep water again?" Gwenay asked.

"When the seams are re-caulked, we can pump the water out." Both women groaned at the mention of the pump. Felic gave them an abstract smile and continued. "Then we will wait for an exceptionally high tide. Maybe she'll lift off the bottom, at least enough to drag her toward the anchor with the capstan...a boat length would do it."

Chessa, sitting cross-legged, tossed pebbles into the flame. "Then we could be here for many days." She sounded pleased.

"Do you like it here?" Felic asked.

"I think I do."

Gwenay suddenly sat up. She was stiffly tense, moving her head from side to side as though listening. Felic and Chessa broke off their conversation and listened too, wondering what had unnerved her. There was nothing to hear other then the usual boom of breakers on the other side of the islet and the soughing of the waves that lapped the beach. After a respectful moment Felic asked, "What is it, Gwenay? What do you hear?"

Her face lit in a smile. "Not 'hear'...'see!" She held her breath for a moment, then she talked and laughed at the same time, her rush of words tripping over girlish giggles. "I was just sitting here, not really thinking about it when I realized that if I move my head... like this, and this...there is a difference in the light. I mean I can see the light...the fire. It's like over here, black...then gray, and as I turn toward the fire, it becomes a yellow gray and then a brighter yellow-orange." She fluttered her hands in excited gestures as she talked. The swelling and infection around her eyes had subsided during the day. Now they were wide and liquid dark in the firelight. Tears of joy sparkled on her lower lashes.

Chessa moved across and embraced her. "0h, Gwenay, I'm so happy for you. Maybe this is just the beginning and you'll be able to see again." Gwenay clung to her like a long-lost sister, and they cried together.

Felic watched the scene, amazed at the ways of women.

As the days went by, the work on the little ship progressed nicely. Gwenay, setting aside her royal prerogatives for the mutual good, was content to work on the menial task of caulking seams in the planked hull. Her blindness was not a handicap for the job. The bond between Felic and Chessa grew stronger each day as they toiled together.

"The moon is full and tomorrow we will have a high tide," Felic announced one evening, "and we will float the anchor out into the bay on a raft. Then we can use the power of the capstan, pulling on the anchor line, to move her off the sand."

When Felic arose the next morning there was a light fog on the water. Something in the distant mist offshore caught his eye. It was a vessel. As it came closer he recognized it as a war canoe.

"Get up! Get up!," He shook the women out of their sleep and hustled them, dazed and bewildered, into the woods.

"We've got company," he explained, "bad company. It's a raiding party. You both have to hide until they are gone."

"But...what about you?", Chessa asked.

"I will talk to them," Felic answered. "Help me gather this underbrush together and the two of you can hide beneath it."

# Chapter Nineteen

Sinnihun issued a quiet command and the crew of his war canoe rested. They waited in expectant silence, while their Gamollian chief squinted into the light mist that blurred the waves of the bay. He studied the small vessel that was heeled down on the beach like a crippled bird. Sinnihun could see no sign of a crew. He hawked and spit, then bellowed the Gamollian battle cry. On each side of the long war canoe his men dug in with their paddles, then struck up a lusty reaver's chant to the cadence of their dipping blades. Their singing grew louder, more intense, as they shot across the bay. The melody was ignored, developing into a succession of full-throated barks, building in frenzy. Like a pack of wolves, they lusted for the coming chance for battle and booty.

The seagoing dugout hit the beach with a wracking thud, and the men swarmed out, shouting, creating a roar of sound that would have done credit to a much larger group. They poured onto the beach brandishing swords and cudgels.

One man stepped out of the trees to engage them. His words were swallowed in the din of their battle cries. He stood there, sword and buckler held ready as they approached, obviously intending to sell his life dearly.

The Gamollians obliged him. They circled around him, as many as could find a place to swing and hack. He was tough and skillful. They toyed with him, enjoying the one-sided contest, and finally wore him down until he was stumbling with fatigue and slashing blindly. His blade found an unguarded spot, more by luck than design, and he thrust his steel through the ribs of a surprised reaver. The man crumpled to his knees and had a moment to regret his carelessness before he pitched forward, dead.

That signaled the end of their sport. While the weary defender was distracted from the side, Sinnihun himself moved in and put him away with a blow of his spiked cudgel.

While they plundered the yacht and the camp, they left him sprawled in the driftwood. The blood welling from his nose and mouth ran in rivulets along the silvery wood. When Sinnihun bellowed orders for the men to return to the canoe, his command was ignored. The reavers stopped in surprise to see a girl came running from the trees to kneel down beside their dead adversary.

Chessa was stunned into immobility by the battered look of the corpse. Sinnihun walked over, grabbed her arm, and hauled her roughly down the beach. She made no effort to resist but merely fell limply into the canoe, dazed by the bizarre reality of Felic's death.

"Search the woods," he pointed with his weapon, "there may be more hidden."

Several of his men fanned out across the islet, but they soon reappeared with nothing to report. Meanwhile the yacht was set afire.

Sinnihun liked his women fat and heavy-breasted. The older he got, the fatter he liked them. He was seventy-one, still tough enough to command a war canoe, and still able to play the stud in bed. He pulled Chessa's face up and looked her over carefully. "You are too skinny," he told her bluntly. Her face was pale from shock and her eyes stared through him, unseeing. He dropped her head and shoved her into the rough bottom of the dugout. "I will give you to Antelo. He might even pay for you."

His men loaded their dead comrade into the bow of the canoe and lined up alongside to shove off. Sinnihun clambered into place by the steering oar and waved a signal. As the blazing yacht spit smoke and sparks into the air over the beach, they slid the great canoe into the bay and left.

Gwenay waited until long after the muffled sounds of conflict on the beach had stopped. She had been patient, enduring the irritation of numerous insects crawling through the mound of dead branches and ferns that buried her. The moldering lifeless air hung heavy in her nostrils. A sudden panic jangled her nerves; she felt she was smothering. Indifferent to the noise or consequences, she fought her way out from under the burdening brush and filled her lungs with clean air. She listened for a moment. Nothing. The thought hit her! What if the others were dead and she were alone on the islet, blind and helpless?

"Felic... Chessa...," she called uncertainly. She stumbled forward a few steps and scraped into a tree. "Anyone," she screamed, "is there anyone?" The screech of a gull answered her. Heading downhill, she half-walked, half-crawled, fighting the rough terrain until she felt the sand of the beach.

The yacht still burned, although the fire had reached the waterline in some places. Gwenay was baffled by the hissing of steam as the rising tide met the flames. Her eyes found an area of gray light as she faced the sound. She moved forward. The light increased and she felt the heat and smelled the smoke from the burning vessel.

She tripped over driftwood and fell down. Her hands, searching to break her fall, found Felic's body. She jerked away, rattled by the unexpected contact with flesh. Her fingers stuck to each other, coated with the sticky gelatin of his blood. She knelt there for a moment, afraid to move or speak.

Then she called again, the thin call of someone not expecting an answer! "Chessa...are you here?" She waited. "Felic?" There was a moan, so small it would have gone unheard by a person with sight. "Felic?" she called again--stronger this time. The moan did not repeat. Gingerly, she felt the body before her. She was appalled by the raw flesh and congealing blood that met her touch. She tried to trace the features, but the meaty pulp that met her fingertips caused her to recoil in horror. Flies buzzed up in anger, their feast disturbed. She sat for a moment calming herself. Then she found the sword belt. The familiar series of linked medallions told her that the prone figure was Felic. She carefully lowered his head and shoulders off the driftwood until he was flat on his back on the sand. Pulling her hair aside, she pressed her ear to his chest and listened for a heartbeat.

* * * *

The voyage to the seaside village of Gamolliat took three days and nights. Sinnihun skirted the shoreline, keeping to the channel between Antillia and the sprinkling of islands along the western coast. Chessa was only dully aware of the days. She huddled in the rear of the canoe at Sinnihun's feet, dozing fitfully and trying to keep from thinking of anything.

At night they camped on shore and she was forced to cope with the bitter reality of her situation. She was passed from one grunting, humping Gamollian to another until Sinnihun interceded. He wanted to preserve her for Antelo, but he didn't feel that five or six a night would make any difference. She refused to eat, and when they beached the great canoe on the shale beach of Gamolliat, she had the look of a starved and beaten dog.

Sinnihun pulled her from the canoe and inspected her. He shook his head. "Antelo will not pay one druac for you," he announced sadly. He dragged her along, kicking a path through the children and dogs that were gathered to watch the raiders disembark.

There was a hearty welcome when he entered the council hall. Dice cups and drinking jacks were forgotten for the moment as the assemblage rose to greet the returning chief. He unsheathed his sword with a flourish and pitched it underhand up into the plank ceiling. It lodged there, a quivering centerpiece and a sign that he had returned with booty.

"Antelo!" he shouted, catching sight of his friend through the press of affectionate comrades. "Antelo, look here. I found a little present for you. You like 'em skinny, huh?" He picked Chessa up, one arm around her waist, and carried her through the crowd. With a short, ribald speech, he dropped her into Antelo's lap. Amid gales of laughter he accepted a skin of wine, poured part of it over his head. and guzzled the rest.

From then on, fate was kinder to Chessa. Antelo was unlike his rough barbarian comrades. He worked patiently with Chessa their first few days together. He tried to draw her out and get her to eat. He knew of the pain and stress she had suffered, and he understood why she retreated into herself, unwilling to deal with reality. She didn't resist his attention or try to escape. Neither did she respond. Finally her appetite improved, and, although she remained uncommunicative, she did seem content to share his home.

Antelo had been rescued by the Gamollians when his ship pitchpoled in a violent gale and all were lost, including his captain and friend, Felic m'Lans. He had proven his worth to the reavers with bravery and prowess.

Antelo's cabin, donated by Sinnihun as a reward for his good counsel, was built in a grove of gargantuan cedar trees on a bluff above the settlement. The giant trees, nurtured by the perpetual rains of the northern coast, dwarfed the squat, one-room dwelling. The sod roof was seeded in grass, making the cabin almost invisible in the rich growth of ferns that surrounded it.

Chessa was content to care for the cabin and tend to Antelo's needs. After her chores she would take the path through the ferns to a favorite place on the bluff where she would sit for hours watching the sea.

One day, with no advance warning, she blurted out her whole story to Antelo. He tried to stop her, but she persisted, telling every degrading detail of her nightmare abduction. She omitted any mention of Felic. His memory was sacred to her, never to be shared.

"...and there is one more thing I must tell you." She bit her lip and tears welled in her eyes. "I am going to have a baby."

# Chapter Twenty

Although Gwenay believed her efforts to save Felic from dying would be futile, she nevertheless worked for hours cleaning and binding his wounds. He regained consciousness the next day. He was burning with fever and his brain was muddled with delirium. She tried to get him to take food, but he was refighting his battle in the clouded and warped scenes from his memory. She kept his lips moistened and his brow cooled, talking to him constantly, trying to pull him into the present. Beyond that she was helpless. Toward evening he calmed down, drank a few swallows of water, then lapsed into a troubled sleep that lasted another full day.

Gwenay was sleeping beside him, exhausted from her two-day vigil when he woke up. The excruciating pressure in his head tried to pound him back into unconsciousness and he fought it with an involuntary moan. Gwenay was instantly awake.

"Felic?...Felic, can you hear me?"

His answer was a weak croak.

She laid her hand on his forehead. "Your fever is better, but you must be in terrible pain."

He worked his lips for a moment, forming silent words. Then he found his voice, hoarse and shaky. "Head...bad..."

"Shh...don't try to talk. I know your head hurts. You are lucky to live through the terrible wounds they gave you. I want you to try to eat something. Can you?"

His moan was affirmative. She fixed him a mixture of finely chopped oysters stirred into raw gull eggs, then spooned it to him with difficulty. He could only eat a small amount. She tried giving him water with more success. He drank eagerly and fell back asleep. His breathing was steadier and stronger.

As the days went by Gwenay got more help from her eyes. Concurrently, as her vision improved, her fight to keep Felic alive grew less hopeless. In a few days she could see shadow shapes in the sunlight, and it was easier to find her way to and from the oyster bed. Oysters, along with eggs from the nests along the spit, became their main food source. The Gamollian reavers had stolen the food and wine stockpiled by the lean-to, but they left the water cask untouched. In their search for valuables, Sinnihun's men had scattered the utensils, bedding and clothing about, but there were enough things left behind to meet their needs.

When Felic regained enough strength to move about, he searched the islet for Chessa. When he returned exhausted, Gwenay sensed what he had been doing.

"Did you find her?" she asked.

"No."

"And you are relieved," she paused, "are you not?"

"Yes. If I had found her she would have been dead."

Gwenay made no comment. She turned away, looking blindly toward the distant peaks of Antillia.

"There is more snow on the mountains," Felic said, forgetting that she couldn't see them. "We will be having snow here before long."

"Yes. I was cold last night."

"'We must get to the mainland. We can't survive here."

"I know."

"Even though I don't feel up to it," he continued, "I must start building a raft. Our water is almost gone. We must cross the channel as soon as possible. The longer we wait, the more likelihood of being caught in a winter storm."

"Perhaps some of the Sun-Eagle could be salvaged for a raft," she suggested.

"We still have the foresail over the lean-to." Felic's face brightened. "I can cut a couple of young trees and rig a raft with a proper mast and yard."

During the next low tide, Felic waded out to where the charred fingers of the yacht's frames poked up from the bottom. The lower third of the hull was intact. The water that had leaked in after the storm and the rising tide had stopped the fire on both sides of the hull. Felic considered the possibilities. He could try to strip off enough planking to build a raft, or, there was a chance that he could float the bottom section of the hull and use it as a boat. Excited by the prospect, he pulled a half-burned doorpost from its base and used it as a lever to pry on the sole planking of the hold. Standing in the gutted hull, the water came up to his knees. He worked until he was able to pull a plank aside, exposing the keelson and the bilge. The effort left him trembling and nauseated, but what he saw delighted him. The ballast stones were of a size that he and Gwenay could handle.

* * * *

During the following days Gwenay worked along with him, taking the stones that were handed up into her now calloused hands and dropping them over the side. They worked at low tide, scheduling their times to sleep and to gather food accordingly. Felic's appetite grew as his strength returned. The routines of eat, sleep and work suited him and his body rebuilt its ravaged tissues, improving each day.

With the ballast removed the hulk lifted off the bottom at high tide. Felic was elated. He knew that in a few days they could have the water out and a sail rigged. They would beat the winter storms, but more important to Felic, it would be the beginning of a vengeance that was crowding all other feelings from his heart.

He sorted through the pile of planks that had been removed, looking for a straight-grained length from which he could fashion a steering oar. In prying up the planking, Felic had exposed the hidden chest. He thought of hiding it ashore, but he knew Gwenay could not see it, so he left it as it was.

A bright noon sun gave it away. Gwenay was resting, propped against the blackened remnant of the wall of the great cabin. A ray of sunlight found the silver surface and reflected into her eyes. There was a scant foot of water covering the chest. The ray of light from within the dark area fascinated her. She thought at first it was a reflection off the water, but when it came persistently from the same spot, she bent down to investigate.

Working across from her, Felic's attention was arrested by the unexpected way in which she reached directly into the water to touch the chest. She ran her fingers over the decoration, slowly at first, then with mounting excitement.

"Felic, I know what this is!"

He watched in mild consternation, but didn't answer.

"Felic... it is the gem! I know it is the gem!"

She waited for his response, expecting him to share her excitement, but he remained silent. When she spoke her voice was brittle. "How long have you kept this from me? How long have you known?" Her anger, repressed for so long, seethed to the surface. "Why was I not informed?" She rose to a half-crouch, her fists clenched and shaking. "Felic, I demand answers!"

He began with a weary sigh. "Yes...you are right. It is the gem." He went on to tell her the circumstances of its discovery.

"But why was I not told?" she insisted.

"I do not have a good answer for that," Felic admitted. "I was concerned and confused about giving you the power--the power of the complete Qalandor. I'm not sure, even now."

Gwenay studied him as though he were more than just a blurred form, as though she were reading his expression. There passed a long interval in which neither spoke.

"You have done wrong," she said finally. She stooped and ran her fingers over the chest again. "Have you opened it?"

"Yes."

"Is the gem within?"

"It is."

She crossed over to stand before him. She traced the line of his lips with her fingertips. "Forgive my anger, Felic. You should be concerned--justly concerned. One woman with so great a power..." She left the sentence hanging and smoothed his beard, grown out curly and soft during his recovery. "It does not have to be that way. I would share everything with you...everything. You must believe that."

His breathing became deep and agitated.

"No, don't answer," she pressed her hands against his bare chest, "...sometimes I talk like a foolish girl. I know where your heart is. Let us get on with our work. We will get to Calix. And when we do I will outfit you for a journey of revenge—all the provisions and weapons you desire. That is what you want, is it not?"

"Yes, it is," he answered softly. "With your blinded eyes you see into my soul."

* * * *

The story of Felic m'Lans continues in "Grim Vengeance", Book II of the Antillian Scrolls. If you enjoyed this book, please leave a review.

