There was not a more happy person on deck the next morning than Quentin himself. The hideous events of the day before had been wiped away with a solid night’s sleep and now, in the clear light of a crystalline day, seemed remote and unreal-shadows only. Dreams of a tired mind, he thought. And yet he knew it had happened.
The most surprising revelation, and the one that cheered him most, took place the moment he climbed on deck. He could not believe his eyes when, as he scanned the blue horizon, noting the few frothy white clouds puffing their way across the sun-washed dome of the sky, he fastened on a most remarkable sight: two ships trailing out behind them. King Selric’s ships.
For an explanation of this miracle he ran to Durwin, whom he found at the taffrail over the stern, placidly meditating as he gazed out to sea.
“So it is! As you see, no ships were lost last night,” he replied to Quentin’s inquiry.
“But I heard it. The wreck, the pleas for help, the breaking timbers. I heard it all. Everyone did.”
“Yes, I should say we did. But, as the fog itself and the absurd screams, the shipwreck was sorcery. No doubt ‘twas meant to draw us away from our course to confuse us and bring about a real collision. If we had turned aside we would have struck one of the other ships.”
“There was no wreck, and no rocks either.”
“Does that surprise you? Why were you so ready to believe the fog a work of magic, and the voices, but not the shipwreck?”
“That was different somehow-more subtle. It seemed so real.”
“And so did the dragon on the beach seem to the soldiers.” Durwin smiled mysteriously. “Much lies in the willingness to believe.”
“I am sorry,” said Quentin abruptly, after considering the sorcery at length.
“Sorry? Why should you be sorry?”
“I thought you were…” Quentin couldn’t make himself say it.
“You thought I was hard-hearted-not turning back after the drowning men. For a moment you thought me as loathsome as Nimrood ever was. So?”
Quentin nodded, avoiding Durwin’s eyes.
“Bah! Think nothing of it. You were right to want to help.”
“How did you know? How did you know it was sorcery?”
“I had a presentiment-a wizard can tell wizardry. It would be like Nimrood to throw something like that in our path. I trusted my heart to tell me the rest.”
“Then you did not know, not for certain.”
“No, not for certain. There is very little certain in this world. But, Quentin, you must learn to trust that small voice inside you, to stop and listen. The god leads by such hunches and nudges. Very rarely by direct command.”
Quentin went away pondering Durwin’s words. So much to learn. This god was very different from those he knew well, who spoke in riddles, surely, but they at least spoke in understandable words-and in signs, omens, and tokens. Not in nudges and vague hunches. At least when you received an oracle, there was something to point to.
But even as he held this thought he remembered all the times in the temple when he had seen a priest give a hopeful pilgrim a false oracle, having fabricated it only moments before. Yes, he thought ruefully, very little was certain. Then he remembered Alinea’s words of comfort. “We did, we trusted…” Trust then was something one could do, no matter how one felt.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully. As did the next and the next, and the one after. More and more, Quentin felt that all that had happened to him since leaving the temple had been a dream, or had happened to someone else. But he knew, from the firm feel of the deck beneath his feet, that it was all very real.
As time wore on and the ship plowed a wide furrow through many leagues of the sea, Quentin drifted into a moody humor. He alternated on a shifting course, rising to lofty light-hearted heights for the moment, and plunging into dark troughs of contemplation where he imagined a host of horrors yet to face. Too soon the flights of gladness dwindled.
Though he did not know what to expect when they reached Askelon, Quentin guessed it would be unpleasant and, more than likely, deadly as well. Nimrood’s power had been defied thus far. Soon they would have to face him; the very thought filled him with an ominous foreboding.
Toli followed him around deck, a mute companion; the devoted Jher had given up trying to interest his master in any activity which might soothe his troubled spirit. For, as soon as they would contrive a moment’s respite, Quentin would lapse again into melancholy.
At last a faint reddish-brown smudge on the horizon let them know that Mensandor lay ahead. Despite the fog, where direction became meaningless, they were right on course and had made remarkable time. The close navigation of the Seven Mystic Islands had proved again the truth of the proverb: “The men of Drin are born of the sea.”
In the council of war that followed the sighting of land, it was decided that, rather than landing and making the journey from Lindalia to Askelon afoot, or continuing on around the peninsula and striking in from Hinsenby, the best and most daring plan, and therefore the most unsuspected, would be not to land at all. They would come inland by ship up the wide sluggish west branch of the lazy Wilst.
“Can such a thing be done?” wondered Theido. They sat in the King’s quarters, staring at a large map painted upon a parchment. Each face was blank under the pressure of heavy thought.
“By ordinary seamen, no. But with my sailors it is possible. My ships, though large and wide of hull, are shallow-keeled. They are warships, after all. One never knows in war what will be required; there are times when river travel becomes necessary.”
“I will vouch for the skill of his sailors and the craft of his shipwrights,” said Ronsard. “I have seen much in the wars against Gorr to recommend them. There are none better.”
“So it is! We shall head inland along the river from Lindalia. But can we make the fork where the Wilst joins the Herwydd? If not it would be better, though it would take time, to sail around and come up from Hinsenby.”
“I am confident it can be accomplished,” assured Selric.
“Yes,” offered Theido. “I know that region well. The Herwydd is old and deep. Where it joins the Wilst the waters have carved out a broad cleft. High cliffs rise up on either side. The waters mingle here,” he traced the route on the map, “stirred by deep currents. If we have no trouble reaching the fork we will have no trouble after.”
Quentin, curled in a corner, said nothing, though it pleased him that at last something was being done, if only more talk and planning.
With every hour the coast of Mensandor became clearer and more distinct. The approach of land lifted his spirits, as did the council, but he still experienced great shudders of dread as he contemplated what lay ahead. In his mind’s eye he could see nothing but blood and doom, the clash of sword against sword, fire, pain, and death.
“Stop your whining! You are king-act like it!” Nimrood waved a long, bony finger in Jaspin’s face. Jaspin cringed and fell back once more into his throne.
Jaspin whimpered sullenly, “This would not have happened if…”
“You do not sit in judgment over me! It was that blasted holy man-that Durwin. He ruined my spell. And he shall pay for it; you will see how he squirms. They will all squirm. They will wish they had gone to their graves at the bottom of the sea.”
Nimrood, his wild hair streaming, flew about Jaspin’s throne room in a maddened frenzy. He seethed and boiled, his temper finding imperfect vent in Jaspin’s spineless blubbering.
All at once he stopped and glowered at Jaspin, who returned the wilting glare with fearful, hooded eyes, not daring to look the angry wizard full in the face.
“What? Why do you look at me so? Stop it! I don’t like it!” bawled Jaspin. He shifted uneasily in his seat, hands gripping the arms of his golden throne.