“You’ve been on this beach once before, haven’t you?” Geo asked.
“Once,” said Iimmi. “Yes, once.”
“Do you realize how long you’ve been in the water?” Geo asked.
Iimmi looked up.
“Over two weeks!” Geo said. “Come on; see if you can walk. I’ve got a lot of things to explain, if I can, and we’ve got some hunting to do.”
“Is there any water on this place?” Iimmi asked. “I feel like I could dry up and blow away.” He got to his feet, swayed, straightened.
“Find water,” said Geo. “A good idea. Maybe even a large river. And once we find it, I want to stay as close to it as possible as long as I’m on this place, because we’ve got some friends around here.”
Iimmi steadied himself, and they started up the beach.
“What are you looking around for?” Iimmi asked.
“Friends,” Geo said.
Two hundred feet up, rocks and thick vegetation cut off the beach. Scrambling over boulders and through vines, they emerged on a rock embankment that dropped fifteen feet into the wide estuary. A river wound back into the jungle. Twenty feet farther, the bank dropped to the water’s surface. They fell flat on wet rock and sucked in cool liquid, watching the blue stones and white and red pebbles shiver.
There was a sound. They sprang from the water and crouched on the rock.
“Hey,” Urson said through the leaves, “I was wondering if I’d find you.” Light through branches lay more gold on the gold hung against his hairy chest. “Have you seen Snake?”
“I was hoping he was with you,” said Geo. “Urson, this is Iimmi, the other sailor who died two weeks ago!”
Both Iimmi and Urson looked puzzled. “Have a drink of water,” Geo said, “and I’ll explain as best I can.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” said Urson.
While the bear man lay down to drink, Geo began the story of Aptor and Leptar for Iimmi. When he finished, Iimmi asked, “You mean those fish things in the water carried us here? Whose side are they on?”
“Apparently Argo isn’t sure either,” Geo said. “Perhaps they’re neutral.”
“And the Mate?” asked Iimmi. “You think he pushed me overboard after he killed Whitey?”
“I thought you said he was trying to kill Snake,” said Urson, who had finished drinking.
“He was,” explained Geo. “He wanted to get rid of all three. Probably Snake first, and then Whitey and Iimmi. He wasn’t counting on our fishy friends, though. I think it was just luck that he got Whitey rather than Snake. If he can’t read minds, which I’m pretty sure he can’t, he probably overheard you assigning the bunks for us to sleep in, Urson. When he found out he had killed Whitey instead, it just urged him to get Iimmi out of the way more quickly.”
“Somebody tried to do me in,” Iimmi agreed. “But I still don’t see why.”
“If there is a spy from Aptor on the ship, then Jordde is it,” said Geo. “The Captain told me he had been to Aptor once before. It must have been then that he was recruited into their forces. Iimmi, both you and Whitey had also been on Aptor’s shore, if only for a few hours. There must be something that Jordde learned from the Island that he was afraid you might learn, something you might see. Something dangerous, dangerous for Aptor; something you might see just from being on the beach. Probably it was something you wouldn’t even recognize; possibly you wouldn’t see the significance of it until much later. But it probably was something very obvious.”
Now Urson asked, “What did happen when you were on Aptor? How were those ten men killed?”
In the sun, Iimmi shivered. He waited a moment, then began: “We took a skiff out from the ship and managed to get through the rocks. It was evening when we started. The moon, I remember, had risen just above the horizon, though the sky was still blue. ‘The light of the full moon is propitious to the White Goddess Argo,’ she said from her place at the bow of the skiff. By the time we landed, the sky was black behind her, and the beach was all silvered, up and down. Whitey and I stayed to guard the skiff. As we sat on the gunwale, rubbing our arms against the slight chill, we watched the others go up the beach, five and five, with Argo behind them.
“Suddenly there was a scream. They came like vultures. The moon was overhead now, and a cloud of them darkened the white disk with their wings. They scurried after the fleeing men, over the sand. All we could really make out was a dark struggle on the silver sand. Swords raised in the white light, screams, and howls that sent us staggering back into the ocean…Argo and a handful of the men who were left began to run toward the boat. The beasts followed them down to the edge of the water, loping behind them, half flying, half running, hacking one after another down. I saw one man fall forward and his head roll from his body while blood shot ten feet along the sand, black under the moon. One actually caught at Argo’s veils, but she screamed and slipped away into the water; she climbed back into the boat, panting. You would think a woman would collapse, but no. She stood in the bow while we rowed our arms off. They would not come over the water. Somehow we managed to get the skiff back to the ship without foundering against the rocks.”
“Our aquatic friends may have had something to do with that,” said Geo. “Iimmi, you say her veils were pulled off. Tell me, do you remember if she was wearing any jewelry?”
“She wasn’t,” Iimmi said. “She stood there in only her dark robe, her throat bare as ivory.”
“She wasn’t going to bring the jewel to Aptor where those monsters could get their hands on it again,” said Urson. “But, Geo, if Jordde’s the spy, why did he throw the jewel in the sea?”
“Whatever reason he had,” said Geo, “our friends have given them both to me now.”
“You said Argo didn’t know whose side these sea creatures were on, Leptar’s or Aptor’s,” said Iimmi. “But perhaps Jordde knew, and that’s why he threw it to them.” He paused for a moment. “Friend, I think you have made an error; you tell me you are a poet, and it is a poet’s error. The hinge in your argument that Snake is no spy is that Argo must have dubious motives to send you on such an impossible task without protection, saying that it would be meaningful only if all its goals were accomplished. You reasoned, how could an honest woman place the life of her daughter below the value of a jewel — ”
“Not just her daughter,” interrupted Geo, “but the Goddess Argo Incarnate.”
“Listen,” said Iimmi. “Only if she wished to make permanent her temporary return to power, you thought, could she set such an impossible task. There may be some truth in what you say. But she herself would not bring the jewel to the shores of Aptor, though it was for her own protection. Now all three jewels are in Aptor, and if any part of her story is true, Leptar right now is in more danger than it has been in five hundred years. You have the jewels, two of them, and you cannot use them. Where is your friend Snake, who can? Both Snake and Jordde could easily be spies and the enmity between them feigned, so that while you were on guard against one, you could be misled by the other. You say he can project words and images into men’s minds? Perhaps he clouded yours.”
They sat silent for the lapsing of a minute.
“Argo may be torn by many things,” continued Iimmi. “But you, in watching some, may have been deluded by others.”
Light from the river quivered on the undersides of the leaves.
Urson spoke now. “I think his story is better than yours, Geo.”
“Then what shall we do now?” asked Geo softly.