The Letterseeker: Chapter Twenty-Five

THEN THE STRANGER TAUGHT BERAINN

COMMENT: “The Stranger” is he whom we name The O'Kuern in the Narrow Lands. His origin is unknown; but some believe he came from Elihh. Others hold that he is his own agent and owes allegiance to no one.

—Bard-Oggmh, Translation and Commentary:

THIRTEEN FRAGMENTS FROM THE BOOK OF WHISPERS

The weather sharpened. No fog that morn. The southbreeze blew the fjord clean, giving the Ashgar good northing. At the same moment that Ptr-e awakened Gretta by his awed touch, the ship, many miles from the Flamedagger, drew nigh a narrow place where the fells crowded in. The ripple at the prow turned white-edged as the Ashgar's speed increased, sucked like a chip into the defile.

A sailor, Odnrr by name, had the helm. He was a competent man but he had never navigated such waters before. He had taken the watch from Evram, who was sleeping, and Evram had told him to maintain course up channel. Odnrr followed orders. Had he been more experienced in such matters, he would perhaps have hesitated. The cliffs ahead were slope-topped and piled with rubble. What narrowed the fjord here was a pair of upthrust mounds that clogged the water on either side—remains of past avalanches. Odnrr did not read their message.

The Ashgar, with Ferenth its captain awake and chafing at his confinement below, moved into a trap set by nature—or by Zoak the Earthfirespirit, as the Trill might say. But Odnrr knew nothing of the Trill and to him Zoak was only the name of an evil mountain best left behind. He ordered the mizzensheet trimmed and strove for maximum speed.

The quake struck. It did not harm those grottos of the holy rrll where A-Zhl-u held Tschut-u to Zoak and Gretta lay bound and frightened; but it shook loose ice and rock ahead of the Ashgar.

Crack! With a sound like a cannon-blast a huge mass detached itself from the clifftop to starboard. Odnrr and the soldiers on deck—Driek was below, but about thirty of Thierknut's fifty warriors had come up with daylight and were standing about—all watched in open-mouthed amazement as the sudden earthbloom crashed down ahead of them. In moments half the remaining width of the fjord was blocked. The Ashgar, unable to stop or turn, ran aground amid falling stones and chunks of ice. Timber shrieked as the bottom ripped against rock. Snap! the mizzen gave way, crumpling forward like a broken wing. It smashed a sailor's arm and killed two of Thierknut's gawking soldiers.

Prince Theirknut was thrown from his sickbed. He staggered to his feet, shook himself awake, then struggled on his boots and swordbelt. He had slept dressed; his fever had broken during the night; but even so he was thrown into a long racking cough as he started out the door. Head lowered he ran full tilt into Driek and Evram. Driek caught him by the elbows and kept him upright. It was difficult, because the ship was heeled sharply to port.

“On deck—” gasped Thierknut, “get the men on deck, Driek.” But he need not have said so, for the space about them was filling with soldiers and seamen both, fighting to get out of their cramped quarters. Evram turned and ran aft. Thierknut went the other way, pushing and shouting at his men, until he reached Gretta's cabin door. He pulled the key out of a pocket. “A moment, princess!” he called out. “It's me, Thier. I'll have you out in an instant.” Then he got the door open and ran inside. She was gone! How—??

Meanwhile Evram had forced the door to Ferenth's locked cabin. “Come, Master Ferenth, quickly,” he urged. “The ship's aground.”

“Evram, Evram,” said Ferenth, seizing the faithful Mate by both shoulders in a fierce grip. “Where is princess Gretta? Is she safe?”

“Safer, maybe, than we,” Evram assured him. “She's not on board. She left the ship at the lake. I helped her get away unnoticed.”

“Not yet, but he'll soon find out. He's on his way to her cabin now. Come on, let's go.” Evram tugged at Ferenth's arm. He was worried. Stones were still falling. There was a clatter on the deck like hail, then a splintering crash as a huge stone thrust halfway through the deck above Ferenth's bunk. Rubble scattered on the blankets.

Ferenth moved swiftly out into the corridor with Evram, but he stopped there. He knew that in times of emergency the ship was often the safest place, however lost it might seem. “Nay, Evram,” he said as Evram started for the companionway. “We will let the soldiers run away first. Order the crew to remain on board. Have them help the soldiers off the ship and send fifteen loyal men to me. I'll be in the starboard hold.”

“Do it swiftly, Evram! We're not sinking, and there are more stones up there than down here.”

Evram's expression changed. The Captain had a plan. “Aye sir, I understand, the starboard hold,” and he ran off excitedly, calling back behind him: “I'll see to it, sir!”

As Evram raced for the deck and Ferenth made his way to the hold, Thierknut spotted the reversed floorboard. The tilt of the ship had caused the woven mat to slide away from it and its surface was dark grey compared to the polished wood on either side of it. In a flash of intuition he realized that Gretta must have gone into the bilge. But when he got the board up, water spilled out into the cabin. The bilge was flooding.

“Princess!” shrieked Thierknut, believing her trapped somewhere below him. “Vrrjhri be damned!” and he threw the floorboard across the room in a fit of rage. Driek burst into the cabin then. He stopped as he saw the overflowing bilge.

“If she's down there, prince, she's dead,” said Driek. “We have to get out of here. The ship is about to be smothered with rock.”

Thierknut paused, stunned, unable to act. His stomach knotted. His brain whirled. Sight fled. What have I done? screamed a voice inside, breaking at last through the layers of dullness the Image Nameless had so carefully built in his soul.

“All—all right, Driek. I'm coming.” And then the knot in Thierknut's stomach began to burn. He exploded into another fit of sobbing coughs. Driek wasted no more time. He pulled the prince's right arm over his shoulders, hefted, and guided Thierknut out of the cabin, supporting half his weight and keeping him upright against the prince's compulsion to double over. By the time they reached the companionway ladder, though, Thierknut came out of the fit. When they got to the deck he was chastened but in command of himself. To the two landsmen it looked like madness. Thierknut and Driek, like all the southerners, had never been in an accident at sea. To them, a grounded vessel was a lost one. Sailors and soldiers alike seemed to be leaping over the rail.

Actually none of Ferenth's well-disciplined crew of forty had abandoned ship. Rocks were falling and some men were injured, but they still obeyed orders, and they were not unused to groundings. Odnrr had his deck crew working on the mast, and when the first group of sailors from below rushed on deck, Odnrr stopped a route by commanding them at once to a number of tasks. Some he sent over the side to look for damage, others he ordered back below to do the same. The dory was gone, but the ship held several small skiffs. Odnrr had two of these lowered to take lines off the stern. Thierknut and Driek, not understanding these activities, saw them as a sign of panic.

Evram dashed on deck then. Seeing the prince and Driek, he ran up to them. “Abandon ship,” he said (but not in a tone that carried). “Captain Ferenth has been killed by rocks. The ship is breaking up. Hurry!” and he ran off to a group of sailors nearby.

“Ferenth dead too? Over the side then, Driek, before this ship's buried.” Theirknut was too dazed to see through Evram's subterfuge. Gathering together those of his men still remaining on deck, Thierknut and Driek led them down to the cold, hip-deep water off the lowered port rail. They joined a group already there, struggling to help two or three who had been injured. Thierknut, his soldierly instincts back in operation, took charge. Slowly the retreat from the Ashgar toward the narrow ledge of beach took on orderly form.

In the hold Ferenth opened a hidden locker. In it were weapons: swords, spears, crossbows and quarrels. This secret arsenal was a reflection of the captain's prudence. None knew of it save himself, not even Garufel, for it had been stocked at Dunclose before the ship had left for Rivermouth. Soon Ferenth had fifteen of his best men armed to the teeth. He went on deck with them, grinning with satisfaction as he saw the forlorn group of soldiers wading through the water for the shore. Odnnr and Evram reported to him at once. Odnrr's men had the debris cleared and the fallen mast lashed. There was news from the damage control party: a tear at the waterline, port side forward, about two feet long. No harm to the ribs.

“Low, Captain.” Evram looked across the fjord where the waterstreaks told him much. “Four hours to high.”

“Free the main halyard,” Ferenth ordered. Run it off to starboard—there, you see? Secure it to those rocks. Take another line from midmast, one from the gunn'l 'midships. Winch them properly. Get the ship over far enough to clear that rip from the water.“ ”Aye, sir,“ said Evram, and as he went off to do as bidden Ferenth posted his armed men in strategic locations.

On the shore Thierknut's men tramped somewhat south, trying to get away from the area of the avalanche. There was a sudden silence. The rocks had ceased to fall. Thierknut looked back, surprised to see the ship still there and a bustle of directed activity about her. As he watched the ship rocked slowly over, drawn by the winched lines, until it was tilted opposite to the way it had lain before.

The prince squinted. ”Aye, it is,“ he said, and then he looked questioningly about him. No sailors. A trick!

”We've lost twelve men, said Driek, guessing the prince's intention, “and some here are injured.”

“Damn it, this is war, Driek,” said Thierknut when he had the coughing over. “Get the men back to the ship. Kill anyone who gets in the way, but not Ferenth. I want him alive.”

Driek complied but the men moved sluggishly. They were reluctant to go back into the danger zone, and they hated the ship. It had brought them nothing but trouble since they boarded it at Rivermouth.

“Keep off!” Ferenth hailed the soldiers as they worked their way half-heartedly toward the Ashgar. But Driek kept them coming with their swords drawn; so Ferenth ordered the crossbowmen to fire. Three of Thierknut's men went down. The rest turned and ran back to the beach.

“I can see that—think you I'm a fool?” said the prince; but it was bravado, for he was yet 'mazed by his loss of orientation in Gretta's empty cabin. For that moment it had seemed his whole world was coming apart. He looked about for inspiration, his unwell body protesting every move in the cold wind that still shot up the narrows and whipped about in the pocket newly formed by the avalanche. This far distant the warmth of Zoak was lost.

“I'll not be trapped here,” he said, “not by a bunch of ragged sailors. We have to take the ship back, Driek. Why'd you urge me so to leave?”

“You led the way, when you were over coughing,” retorted Driek with an edge of petulance. “Blame not me, nor yourself either. All thought the ship was lost.”

“I know, I know,” muttered the prince. “But why did I not see more clearly? Is my brain fogged so by illness?”

“I saw you fight in the Southvales last winter beset by a raging fever from a festered wound,” reminded Driek. “Do you remember? You led us all to victory. We're out of our element here—it's too far north.”

“Nay, 'tis more than that.” Thierknut shook his head. His eyes had a hollow, desperate look. “These were our allies; now I fight them over a dead woman! What madness have I come to?”

“Maybe she is not dead after all,” Driek suggested, made uneasy by the direction of Thierknut's talk. “It was a lie Evram told us about Ferenth. What if Gretta is safe but hidden, despite the appearance contrariwise?”

A red flood of rage swept upon the prince then. Tricked again? “So that's it, you think?” he shouted, and the men standing about looked at him with apprehension. “By thunder, that 'splains why they stick so to the vessel. Now look, Driek—we can't go against Ferenth i'th' shallows, aye? But the rocks no longer fall. Have the men climb the pile. We'll get above the ship. We have arrows and spears and we can pelt them with stones to good effect. We'll set up a good cover, then find a way to charge and board.”

Thierknut's men started climbing. Ferenth watched the shift in the prince's strategy carefully. He was playing for time. Evram had the ship over where he wanted it. Crews inside and outside the hull were working with patches. A triple layer of oiled canvas, secured by lines, had been stretched over the gash on the outside, and inside thin wood sheeting, designed for the purpose, was being tacked into place over a similar fabric. A bucket line took excess water from the bilge.

Already Ferenth could sense a rise in the tide. Across the fjord two lines had been secured by the skiffs, ready to help the ship back away when she floated. But still Ferenth was apprehensive. The southern prince was a seasoned warrior skilled in tactics, and the sailors were outnumbered in weaponry. If there was another attack the battle would be bloody. Ferenth did not intend to lose his ship again.

Then he paused. As he scanned the upper area of the stone pile toward which the southerners were climbing, he saw movement. Something was there, yes, he was sure of it. But what? Before he could be certain what it was he had seen, stones began to fall among them again, hurled viciously by the soldiers who had reached the high ground. One of Thierknut's spearmen found a good location and let fly. It was a long cast, but it caught the thigh of one of winch-crew who crumpled with a scream. His companions took him up and made their way back to the ship across the rocks and then through the water, harassed by missiles, for now nearly all of Thierknut's remaining thirty-five men were throwing stones, venting their frustration and fear after their long confinement shipboard. They began to yell, a chorus of southern battle cries that argued the wind for supremacy.

Swiftly Ferenth got his workers back on deck. The outer patch was secure as it could be made for now, the ship lying as she was. Those without weapons armed themselves with fending poles, belaying pins, and knives. Then arrows whined about them. One sailor fell dead and the rest scurried to find cover, which was not easy because of the ship's tilt.

“Ready for boarders!” Ferenth called, and Evram echoed the command. Half the southern force, led by Thierknut himself, was now massed to port, readying for a charge under cover of arrow fire. And again Ferenth saw something move atop the rocks—a velvet spectre flitting at the edge of his sight.

Thierknut could not see that movement. His eyes were upon the ship, just deserted, now so much desired. His mind was a confused mixture of kidnapper's guilt and hubristic pride. But he was a soldier in battle. For the moment hubris won.

“Now, sons of the south,” he cried to his mean, and his voice, though hoarse, did not crack, “For Mog and victory!” and he began to run down through the tumbled icy stones to the water, his cloak rippling like a trickle of blood. He gathered another shout to encourage the men who had started running behind him, but it never passed his lips. A roar silenced all the southern outcry. The roar came from all around them like a groan of the land after its rending.

Straight before the Red Prince's charge a great grey shape seemed to blink into being, as if one of the boulders had queerly changed. Beside it rose ten others like it; then ten more. The shapes had teeth, and claws, and eyes glitt'ring like the Frozen Waves of Anash. The Redcloak skidded to a halt. His sword went up. His men gathered in an anxious knot behind him. The others who had been hurling stones from higher ground paused in mid-throw. The attack collapsed.

There was an eerie silence broken only by the wind and the occasional muffled tap of hammers from within the ship. Slowly Driek turned his head about, then his whole body, as he tried to grasp their situation. But Ferenth and those with him on deck could see from a single viewpoint what it took Thierknut's men some moments to scan. Ferenth's heart leaped.

The southerners were ringed on three sides by Leen-Csah, more than a hundred of them. Only the clifftops seemed clear of the powerful creatures. It was as if a noose had been swiftly and silently cast about the little army. Still as stone the lions crouched upon the boulders, ready to spring, yet relaxed as they might laze in summer sunshine. They seemed to be daring Thierknut's archers to shoot.

One of the prince's men, bolder than others, hefted a spear into casting-stance with his eye upon the unprotected flank of a lion within easy range. But before that foolish man could throw there was a clipped twang of a crossbow. A bolt from the ship sprouted in the man's throat. He gurgled and dropped.

As if that were a signal the Leen-Csah who had gathered between Thierknut and the ship began to advance. Thierknut stood his ground for a moment, not liking even the foretaste of retreat. But now the cougar that opposed him, evidently the leader of the group, twisted its jaws and spoke after the fashion of the Guardians of the Stair. The prince's frayed nerves near-shattered upon that rocky sound: his own name, accented through the lips of a beast!

Thierknut began to tremble. How could this monster know and curse him? Damn, it was the wizard's doing. Garufel had sent the Leen-Csah against him. Only he could have so informed the beast. And as the thought of the Golden Immortal rose in his mind, the Shadow there, satisfied enough with the destruction it had wrought and not willing to remain where it was becoming recognized, slipped away. Tears of release pushed into the prince's flu-reddened eyes but he did not let his men see them. Gratefully also an element of nobility returned. Prince Thier controlled the trembling, mastered himself, swallowed a cough, and signalled withdrawal in a move that appeared calm to those about him.

He had no choice. He dared not fight the Leen-Csah. The weapons upon the Ashgar now had him at a decisive disadvantage, divided between two enemies. Besides he knew his men would be pulled down and torn to shreds before they could kill a dozen of the things.

The Leen-Csah ignored the Ashgar, herding the prince and his men like sheep up the slope. By degrees they retreated in a wary cluster, but the pressure was inexorable. At last they huddled in a circle upon the height. A desolate plain spread before them, opening east and north into tangled hills dotted with scrub and small trees, a forsaken land beneath the biting wind. To the south they could see the Flag of Zoak rising in the far distance: a trail of ashen steam towering upon the dull sky.

Thierknut felt a lump rise in his throat as he peered into the shadowy gap below. The tide floated the Ashgar now by a foot. As they watched, unable to interfere, the long ship eased away from the reef, impelled by carefully maneuvered oars and aided by the lines astern. The patch-cloth was snugged to the forebody sheer like a buzom-halter. Returned to its element, lines in, skiffs wrestled on board, the ship paused, taking a breath before its return to life.

Port oars backed. The bow spun south up-fjord. Moved by a sudden emotion Thierknut raised a hand and waved. “Fare well, brave Ferenth,” spoke the Red Prince quietly. Then he turned to face his captors.

So hummed the Trill as they carried Gretta through the tunnels, twisting and turning in the wavering light and in darkness when their single eyes bobbed like cold white lanterns. The air grew stifling. Gretta gasped for breath. They came to a chamber where the air was better but there was no light at all. Gretta was placed on what felt to her like a stone couch. Her cloak was freed. She lay bound, naked and exposed save for her daggerbelt with its useless empty sheath.

The lantern-eyes disappeared. There was silence. The Trill had gone, or they were standing mute in the dark. Time passed, whether minutes or hours Gretta was not sure, but it seemed like hours. At last there was a rustling. A single white eye approached. When the Trill touched her, Gretta let out a muffled cry beneath the gag, but she did not struggle. Slowly the rough fingers felt about her face; down the line of her nose, chin, and neck. She steeled herself as the invisible hands cupped her breasts, touched each of her nipples as if counting, moved to her belly. The belt at her waist was slipped off after a moment of fumbling with the buckle. The hands went to the cleft of her thighs.

A scream rose within her, but the fingers, though gnarled and coarse, were gentle, almost feminine. They stayed only a moment upon her vulva as though to find her male or female or neither, then moved on to her legs and feet. After a careful inspection of her toes, the Trill muttered “Sss-la!” Then the eye winked out, or the head turned away. Gretta lay rigid waiting for further imposition but it did not come. Finally she decided the thing had gone.

She began to relax deliberately in the manner the wizard had taught her long ago, relieving tension by slow breathing . She strove also to keep her head clear in case an opportunity for escape arose. Gretta did not know what these creatures were. Her people kept the Mim as a border and rarely came near the Falling Mountains. Even the black doves were from the western foothills, not the heartland, and the doves she knew were bred from stock taken long ago. Would that she had a dove to carry word of her plight to her father! But no dove could fly in this oppressive dark.

At last she heard them coming back, murmuring together in their strange language that sounded like the pop and bubble of hot springs and lava pools. A dozen pairs of hands lifted her. White eyes thronged about. Leaving her cloak behind, they carried her up and up along a sloping corridor. Soon her bearers began to pant. Finally they put her down and a new crew picked her up. Three times they shifted her like luggage from one set of hands to another. Light grew, and at last Gretta could see them clearly, their lutescent hides aglow like sulphur'd gnomes, their broad mouthslits quivering with sporadic Trillspeech, short grey rrll-skirts bouncing upon their thick hips. They rounded a turn.

Trill eyes dimmed. Gretta blinked. Light poured into the cavern from an arch ahead, turning the skins of the Trill citrine. In a moment Gretta was carried out into afternoon sunlight. It was only bright in contrast to the dimness in the caverns. The sun was hidden by the mass of Zoak that rose behind. Gretta drew a sharp breath. The Trill had placed her in a seated position upon a rough stone chair. On three sides the chair was safe, but on the north side the ledge dropped in a sheer cliff. Fifty feet below was a pool of sulphurous boiling water. The smell and the heat of it stung her nasal passages and constricted her throat.

Gretta squirmed briefly against the cord that bound her wrists and ankles, but it cut her skin and she began to bleed from the chafe, so she controlled herself with an effort and sat still. The vista was hypnotic. Great Zoak loomed behind in an unbroken stretch of black rock, then snow, mounting to the peak where there was a rumble and a turmoil. Ahead beyond the ominous boiling cauldron beneath her feet the land fell like a wreck, yellow and black, down a thousand feet to the surface of the Flamedagger.

And now she saw it as a dagger. Its shape was clear from this vantage, almost exactly the shape of a short broad stabbing knife whose deathpoint aimed east. Gretta forgot the Trill. As the shade of Zoak advanced upon the chill water, pushing back relentlessly the setting sun's rouge wash, it was as if a veil had been withdrawn. She seemed to see beyond the surface of the water, beyond, not below, and a vision was there: Stoneglow Threescar fighting. He fought men and killed them; he raced against the Shadows; he mastered wind and wave. He was returning to the Stoneshield. So the Flamedagger pierced not only to the east but to Gretta's inmost heart and held her in silent longing.