“How could I know? I know nothing but what you tell me. So tell me in plain words that I can trust you.”
“I am of Elas,” Kta said, frowning, as if that were accustomed to be word enough; but when Kurt continued to stare at him: “Kurt, I swear this beneath the light of heaven, and this is a holy word. It is truth.”
“All right,” said Kurt. “Then I will do what you tell me and I won’t cause trouble. Only what is the place where we’re going?”
“Nephane.”
“Is that a city?”
Kta frowned thoughtfully. “Yes, it is a city, the city of the east. It rules from Tamur-mouth to the Yvorst Ome, the sea of ice.”
“Is there a city of the west?”
The frown deepened. “Yes,” he said. “Indresul.” Then he turned and walked away, leaving Kurt to wonder what he had done to trouble the nemet.
By midday they were within sight of port. A long bay receded into the shoreline, and at the back of it was a great upthrust of rock. At the base of this crag and on its gently rising side were buildings and walls, hazy with distance, all the way to the crest.
“ Bel-ifhan,” Kurt hailed Kta’s lieutenant, and the narrow-eyed officer stopped and bowed, although he had been going elsewhere in apparent haste. “ Bel-ifhan, taen Nephane?”
“ Lus,” Bel agreed and pointed to the promontory. “ Taen Afen, sthages Methine.”
Kurt looked at the crag Bel called Afen, and did not understand.
“ Methi,” said Bel, and when he still did not understand, the young officer shrugged helplessly. “ Ktas unnehta,” he said. “ Ktas, uleh?”
He left. They were going in. Somewhere aft, Bel shouted an order and men ran to their stations to bring in the sail, hauling it up to the yard. The long oars were run out and they dipped together, sweeping the ship toward the now visible dock at the foot of the cliffs, where a shoreside settlement nestled against the walls.
“Kurt.”
Kurt glanced from his view of the bay to the face of Kta, who had joined him at the bow.
“Bel says you have question.”
“I’m sorry. I tried to talk to him. I didn’t mean he should bother you. It wasn’t that important.”
The nemet turned one hand outward, a shrug. “Is no difficulty. Bel manages. I am not necessary.—What think you of Nephane?”
“Beautiful,” Kurt said, and it was. “Those buildings at the top—Afen, Bel called it.”
“Fortress. The Fortress of Nephane.”
“A fortress against what enemy? Humans?”
Again a little crease of a frown appeared between Kta’s wide-set eyes. “You surprise me. You are not Tamurlin. Your ship destroyed, your friends—dead, you say. But what want you among us?”
“I know nothing. I’m lost. I’ve trusted you. And if I can’t trust your given word, then I don’t know anything.”
“I don’t lie, Kurt Morgan. But you try hard not to answer my question. Why do you come to us?”
A crowd was on the docks, gaily colored clothing a kaleidoscope in the sunlight. The oars rumbled inboard as the ship glided in, making conversation impossible for the moment. Pan was poised near them with the mooring cable, ready to cast it to the men at the dock.
“Why,” asked Kurt, “do you think I should know my way in this world?”
“The others, they knew.”
“The . . . others?”
“The newhumans. The—”
Kta’s voice trailed off, for Kurt backed from him. The nemet suddenly looked frightened, opened his hands in appeal to him. “Kurt,” he protested, “wait.—No. We take—”
Kurt caught him by surprise, drove his fist to the nemet’s jaw and vaulted the rail, even as the ship shuddered against the dock.
He hit the water and water went up his nose at the impact, and again when something hit him, the gliding hull of the ship itself.
Then he made himself quit fighting and drifted, wrapped in the darkening green of the sea, a swift and friendly dark. It was hard to move against the weight of the water. In another moment vision and sense went out together.
He was strangling. He gasped for air and coughed over the water mingling with it in his throat. On a second try he drew a breath and heaved it up again, along with the water in his stomach, twisting onto the stones over on his belly while his insides came apart. When he could breathe again, someone picked him up and wiped his face, cradling his head off the stone.
He was lying on the dock, the center of a great crowd of nemet. Kta held him and implored him in words he could not understand, while Bel and Val leaned over Kta’s shoulder. Kta and both the other men were dripping wet, and he knew that they must have gone in after him.
“Kta,” he tried to protest, but his raw throat gave out only a voiceless whisper.
“You could not swim,” Kta accused him. “You almost die. You wish this? You try to kill yourself?”
“You lied,” Kurt whispered, trying to shout.
“No,” Kta insisted fervently. But by his troubled frown he seemed at last to understand. “I didn’t think you are enemy to us.”
“Help me,” Kurt implored him, but Kta turned his face aside slightly in that gesture that meant refusal, then glanced a mute signal to Val. With the big seaman’s help, he eased him onto a litter improvised out of planks, though Kurt tried to protest.
He was in shock, chilled and shivering so he could hardly keep from doubling up. Somewhere after that, Kta left him and strangers took charge.
The journey up the cobbled street of Nephane was a nightmare, faces crowding close to look at him, the jolting of the litter redoubling his sickness. They passed through massive gates and into the Afen, the Fortress, into triangle-arched halls and dim live-flame lighting, through doorways and into a window-less cell.
Here he would have been content to live or die alone, but they roused him and stripped the wet clothing off him, and laid him in a proper bed, wrapped in blankets.
There was a stillness that lasted for hours after the illness had passed. He was aware of someone standing outside the door; someone who never left through all the long hours.
At last—he thought it must be well into another day—the guards brought him clothing and helped him dress. From the skin outward the clothing was strange to him, and he resented it, losing what dignity he had left at their hands. Over it all went the pel,a long-sleeved tunic that lapped across to close in front, held by a wide belt. He was not even permitted to lace his own sandals, but the guards impatiently took over and, having finished, allowed him a tiny cup of telise,which they evidently thought sovereign for all bodily ills.
Then, as he had dreaded, they hailed him with them into the A-shaped halls of the upper Afen. He gave them no trouble. He needed no more enemies than he had in Nephane.
2
Alarge hall was on the third level. Its walls were of the same irregular stone as the outer hall, but the floor had carpets and the walls were hung with tapestries. The guards sent him beyond this point alone, toward the next door.
The room beyond the threshold was of his own world, metal and synthetics, white light. The furnishings were crystal and black, the walls were silver. Only the cabinet at his left and the door at his back did not belong: they were carved wood, convoluted dragon figures and fishes.
The door closed softly, sealing him in.
Machinery purred and he glanced leftward. A woman in nemet dress had joined him. Her gown was gold, high-collared, floor-length. Her hair was amber, curling gently. She was human.
Hanan.
She treated him with more respect than the nemet, keeping her distance. She would know his mind, as he knew hers; he made no move against her, would make none until he was sure of the odds.
“Good day, Mr. Morgan—Lieutenant Morgan.” She had a disk in her fingers, letting it slide on its chain. Suddenly he missed it. “Kurt Liam Morgan. Pylan, I read it.”
“Would you mind returning it?” It was his identity tag. He had worn it since the day of his birth, and it was unnerving to have it in her hands, as if a bit of his life dangled there. She considered a moment, then tossed it. He caught it.