The boy looked down at the dog. “Oh,” he said. “I forgot. Uncle Yanis said I could have her. Can I keep her, Dad? Is it all right?”
What? Yanis giving away his wife’s beloved dog? Vannor’s feeling of unease intensified. “Martek,” he said carefully. “What did Uncle Yanis say, exactly?—And where did this happen?”
The boy frowned with the effort to remember. “He was sitting in the cargo hold. He was crying. He said would I look after Snowsilver, because he couldn’t anymore. He said he was gong to find Aunt Emmie... .”
“Seven bloody demons!” Tarnal tipped the astonished boy off his lap and ran for the door, Vannor a step ahead of him.
Once they reached the hatch, Vannor had the sense to let Tarnal go first, with the lantern. With only one hand, he wasn’t much good at climbing. Craning his neck, he peered down past the descending smuggler, into the darkness of the hold. The lantern light gleamed on a dark, wet slick that covered the floor.—Tarnal reached the bottom, jumping to one side off the bottom rung, to miss the shining area. He turned away, his mouth twisted in sickness and grief.—After a moment, he took a deep breath. “Don’t come down, Vannor. It’s too late.”
Tarnal looked up at his wife’s father, and Vannor saw an expression of grim resolution settle on his face. “It looks as though I’m the leader of the Nightrunners now—so I suppose I had better start leading.” With no further hesitation, he took hold of the ladder and began to climb out.
“Fare well, Ithalasa. I hope I’ll see you again one day.”
“Fare well, Windeye. When the time is right, we will meet again. In the meantime, take heart. Remember—all those, with the powers of magic can live long enough for many possibilities to resolve themselves. Who knows? One day you may get your wish.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, time will tell. May fortune attend you, my friend.”
I wonder what that was all about? Aurian mused, as Chiamh turned away to climb up the rope ladder to the ship.
“Curb that Magefolk curiosity, Little One—that was no affair of yours.”
Ithalasa chuckled. “Not yet, at any rate,” he added cryptically.
Aurian sighed. “I wish I could spend more time with you. We always seem to be saying goodbye,” she complained.
“Ah—but what joy in our reunions! I thank you for telling me of your plan to return the Caldron to Death, should you win it.
You give me hope. It may well be that when my people realize that you have done this responsible and selfless thing with the Artifact, they will see that I was right to trust you, and my exile will end.”
“I hope so. I wasn’t very responsible with the Staff of Earth,” Aurian replied truthfully. “And I made an awful mess of the business with the Sword.” On the voyage, she had confessed her mistakes to the Leviathan.
“That may be. But you acknowledged your errors, and did not compound them. And rest assured, even now you are making atonement. Do not let this setback cause you to falter at the last hurdle. Your instincts are good, Daughter. Only trust them, and all will be well.”
The Leviathan touched her mind gently in farewell, and swam away. His parting words echoed in the Mage’s mind long after he had vanished.
When Aurian climbed up on the Nighthawk’s deck she found Tarnal helping to settle his people. Before she even had time to utter a word of condolence, he had taken her by the arm and steered her out of earshot of the others.
“Please, Mage—can you help Zanna? I know how much she respects you, and I thought...” He broke off, his face contorting with distress. “She just sits there. Sometimes she cries, but she won’t say a word. It’s not that she isn’t brave, but Dulsina dying and then Valand, and Yanis, just this morning ...—When she was a young girl, you know, she wanted to marry him—before she met me. It’s just too many dreadful shocks all at once....”
“All right, Tarnal.” Aurian laid a comforting hand on the young man’s arm. She could tell that his concern over Zanna was one burden too many. “Don’t worry—Zanna’s a strong woman. I’ll go and talk to her.”
The cabin was in darkness, its one porthote shrouded to blot out the day. With her Mage’s vision, Aurian could see Zanna, sitting upright on the bunk, her hands clasped around her knees, staring into nowhere. The Mage said nothing.—She simply pulled up a chair and waited.
“How do you bear it?” Zanna burst out at last. “Aurian, you must understand what it’s like. You lost Forral, then Anvar. In a way, you lost your son to Miathan’s curse. What makes you keep on going?”
“When I was a young girl,” Aurian said softly, “Forral gave me the best advice of my life. When the problem seems too big, just do the first thing first.—Take that one initial step along the road, and you’ll find the rest of the steps will fall into place.”
“But I can’t see that first step. The road is dark in front of me, now.”
The Mage extended her hand, and a sphere of amber Mage-light blossomed softly above her palm, sending the shadows fleeing away from the grieving woman. “Out there on deck,” she said quietly, “your people are huddled in the wind and sleet. Some are hurt, and many are grieving just like you.. . .”
“Don’t ask me to comfort them! I have nothing to give!”
“You have your cabin, Zanna. You could let others grieve in comfort for a while, and get the wounded into warmth and shelter. You could help.”
“And drown my sorrows in good deeds?” Zanna’s voice was thick with bitterness.
“Is that all the advice you have to offer me?”
Aurian shrugged. “You asked. But let me tell you this from experience—there’s no such thing as drowning your sorrows in good deeds, good wine, or anything else. It’s just easier to Jive with them if you keep busy, instead of sitting on your backside in the dark and feeding them with every ‘if only’ you can think of. It’s a mistake I’ve made more than once, and lived to regret it, believe me. And remember—Vannor and Tarnal and especially little Martek need you right now, just as much as you need them. You can help each other—not just your own loved ones, but the whole Nightrunner family. Your first step is the hardest one, Zanna—but it’s right through that door.”
Zanna looked at the Mage, and then at the door. “All right,” she said after a moment. “I think I can go that far.”
“Where the bloody blazes are we?” Parric roared at the ship’s captain. “This can’t be the Xandim shore—we couldn’t have reached it yet. You damned idiot!—You’ve been going the wrong way!”
Jeskin tore his arm free from Parric’s angry grasp, and spat over the side. “I never said anything about going south,” he pointed out truculently. “These folk have had quite enough trouble without me dragging them off on a three or four day voyage to foreign parts. That’s Easthaven over there, mate—and that’s where I’m headed. A lot of the folk here have family and friends in the village—I’ve a niece there myself—and they’ll take us in. We’ll blend in fine, become crafters and fishers—and who’s to say we was ever Nightrunners? Not the Easthaven folk, that’s for sure. They got no truck with anything that ever came out of Nexis—and it looks to me like they got more sense than some folk I could mention.” He spat again, and glared defiantly at the thunderstruck and fuming Cavalrymaster. “If you want to go south, mate, you’ll find somebody else to take you—and I wish you luck.”
Suddenly a knife appeared in Fame’s hand and levelled itself at Jeskin’s ample belly. “Turn this bloody boat around—now!” he barked.
Jeskin looked down at the knife, his expression unaltered. “No,” he said calmly. “And if you stick that thing in me, there’ll be plenty of others here to take us in—after they’ve hanged you, of course, and thrown your body in the sea.” Turning his head he spat a third time, within an inch of Parric’s boots.