Afsan looked down at the three claws on his feet, at the swirling grain of the wooden deck. “No, sir, I did not.”
“So, in the short time between then and when we left on this voyage, you went on your first hunt.”
“That’s right.”
“I heard a story one night while I was staying in Capital City at The Orange Wingfinger. It was a story of an apprentice at the palace being the hero of a hunt for a giant thunderbeast.”
Afsan lifted his head, looking now over the stern of the Dasheter at the Face of God, its top half brightly lit, the dark bottom just touching the western horizon. “Stories are often exaggerated.”
“So I thought at the time. But you were also the hero of the hunt for Kal-ta-goot, or so I’ve been told by those who saw the events unfold from a more stable position than my own.”
“The hunting party is as creche-mates, Captain.”
“That’s what they say, yes. Afsan, your heroism saved my life.”
“It was nothing.”
“My life? Or your deed?” Keenir clicked his teeth. “I’d like to think that in either case, that’s not true. You can be sure Saleed and the Empress herself will hear of what happened. I am in your debt.”
The wind, as always, was blowing steadily; the ship rolled port and starboard. Afsan steeled his courage. “Then do as I requested, Captain. Continue sailing east. Chasing Kal has brought us farther than any ship has ever gone. If my calculations are right, it will actually now take us less time to continue on this way to Land than it would to turn around—to turn tail—and head back.”
Keenir looked like he was about to speak. Afsan pushed ahead. “You can’t cite food as a problem. The leftover meat of Kal is being salted now; the kill has released the hunting urge for dekadays to come. And you can’t claim that the waters here are unsafe because we are beyond the Face of God. We met the worst demon imaginable, a monster from the darkest nightmares, and we beat it. We—” Afsan almost said, We don’t need God to look out for us, but he knew that would be pressing his luck. He closed his mouth and looked intently up at the captain.
Keenir’s own gaze had wandered off to the water, spreading out in all directions to all horizons. The Dasheter’s great red sails snapped in the breeze. Afsan felt his heart racing, felt an itching at the base of his claws, as he waited for the answer. Suddenly Keenir’s eyes went wide. He turned to Afsan and lifted his left hand with claws out on the two fingers closest to his thumb, the remaining two fingers spread but with claws sheathed, the thumb across his palm.
Afsan recognized the gesture. He’d seen it every day on his cabin door in the carvings of the Original Five Hunters and had even practiced it a bit, wondering what it meant. With a shrug, he raised his own left hand and duplicated the hand sign.
And then the inexplicable happened. Var-Keenir, Master Mariner, Captain of the Dasheter, bent low from the waist, balancing his bulk with his stubby tail and his walking stick, and nodded total concession to Afsan. “I’ll order the course change,” he said, and left.
*19*
“We’ll all die!” shouted priest Det-Bleen, the ship’s identifying bells and drums a peal of thunder beneath his words. Every day, he tried some variation on the same argument with Keenir.
“No doubt,” said the captain, lowering his bulk onto his dayslab, angled above his worktable. His tail had grown enough to just touch the deck now. “Eventually.”
“But this is madness,” said Bleen. “Absolute madness. No ship has ever sailed this far past the Face of God. Soon the Face will set completely—then we really will be without God’s protection.”
“How do you know that?”
Bleen’s mouth dropped open in surprise at the audacity of the question. After a moment, he spluttered, “Why, it is written!”
Keenir rearranged some sheets of leather on his worktable. “Young Afsan tells me that just because something is written doesn’t mean it’s so.”
“Afsan? Who’s that?”
“The boy who led the killing of Kal-ta-goot. The apprentice astrologer.”
“A boy? Who cares what a boy thinks? I am a priest; I carry the authority of Det-Yenalb.”
“And Det-Yenalb told you we shouldn’t continue to the east?”
“No one told me that. I read it in the scriptures; you’d know it, too, if you’d read the holy words.”
Keenir decided lying down wasn’t the right posture for this debate. Waiting for the ship now rolling on a wave to steady, he brought himself back to his feet and groped for his walking stick. “Oh, I know the holy words, Bleen. ‘the water of the River is like unto a path; yea, it is the path to God. But go ye not beyond God’s purview, for there lies only God knows what.’ Doesn’t say anything about danger; just that what’s there is unknown.”
“The unknown is always to be feared.”
“Well, why not ask your God?”
Bleen’s tail swished left and right. “What?”
“Ask your God. That’s Her, isn’t it? Mostly submerged below the horizon?” Keenir gestured at the aft bulkhead. “Go up on deck and ask for a sign that we should not continue.”
“Surely the arrival of the sea-serpent was a sign. Two Quintaglios are dead because of it.”
“But I’d encountered Kal-ta-goot once before, back on the other side of this line you draw, back when the Face of God was still rising in the sky. What was that monster a sign of then?”
“How should I know?” said Bleen.
“How should you know? Portents and omens are your stock-in-trade. How can the serpent be a warning not to enter these waters if when I first encountered it, when it did this"—Keenir gestured at his tail—"it was in waters you consider safe, waters your whole religion insists that we travel?”
“My God, Keenir? My religion? It’s your religion, too, I believe. Unless—you’re not a disciple of the Five Hunters, are you?”
“There’s much to admire in that ancient system.”
“It was a false system, one that didn’t acknowledge the true God.”
Keenir shook his head. “The Lubalite religion puts personal excellence foremost. Skill at the hunt, purging violence through killing one’s own food, the camaraderie of the pack. Even your religion makes much of that camaraderie. Isn’t it what we’re all waiting to get into heaven for? Well, the Lubalites had it every day, here in this life.”
“How dare you compare the one true religion to that ancient cult!”
Keenir walked across the room, cane ticking. “I meant no disrespect.”
Bleen shook his head. “This Afsan is a powerful force, it seems. I’ve never heard you talk like this before.”
“We all change with the passing of the days.”
Bleen narrowed his eyes, and sought some insight in the dark orbs of the captain. “But, Keenir, what if you’re wrong?”
“Then I’m wrong.”
“And we’re dead.”
“A ship is a dangerous place. I make life-and-death decisions every day.”
“But never one so foolhardy as this.”
They were interrupted by the clicking of claws against copper sheeting. “Permission to enter your territory?” asked a voice muffled by thick wood.
“Hahat dan,” barked Keenir.
The door swung open and in came Nor-Gampar, commander of the current deck watch. He glanced nervously at the priest, then said to Keenir: “You wanted to be told… just before it was going to happen.”
Keenir bowed in gratitude. “Come along, Bleen.” The captain shouldered through the doorway, following Gampar up the ramp and onto the deck.
It was early night, the breeze cool and steady, the sky illuminated by six bright moons, ranging from thick crescents to almost full. Keenir looked to the rear, across the wide aft deck of the Dasheter. The trailing edge of the Face of God, an anilluminated dome, sat on the western horizon, far, far away.