There was eight feet of water between the barge and the dock when the old man reached it, but he didn’t even slow. He hurled himself across the gap with far more energy than prudence, then cried out in dismay as he came up short. His hands caught the bulwark, but his feet plunged into the river, and his dismayed cry became an outraged squawk as water splashed about his waist.
“Here, granther!” Bahzell leaned over the side. His hands closed on shoulders that felt surprisingly solid, and he plucked the man from the river as if he were a child. “I’m thinking that was a mite hasty of you, friend,” he said as he set his dripping burden on deck.
“I had no choice!” the man snapped. He bent to glare at his soaked, garish garments, plucking at the wet cloth, and Bahzell raised a hand to hide a smile as he muttered, “My best robe. Ruined-just ruined!”
“Oh, now, it’s not so bad as all that,” Bahzell reassured him.
“And what do you know about it?” The old man-who wasn’t so old as all that, Bahzell realized, despite his white beard-gave his soggy splendor a last twitch and turned to glower over his shoulder at the gales of laughter rising from the dock workers who’d watched his exploit. “Cretins!” he snarled.
Bahzell and Brandark exchanged glances, ears twitching in amusement, and then the barge master arrived.
“And just what the Phrobus d’you think you’re doing?” he snarled.
“I told you to wait!”
“And I told you it was too late! This is a chartered vessel, not a damned excursion boat for senile idiots!”
“Senile? Senile!? Do you know who you’re talking to, my good man?!”
“No, and I’m not your ‘good man,’ either. I’m the master of this vessel, and you’re a damned stowaway!”
“I,” the newcomer said with dreadful dignity, “am a messenger of the gods, you dolt.”
“Aye, and I’m Korthrala’s long lost uncle,” the captain grunted, and spat derisively over the side.
“Imbecile! Ass!” The bearded man fairly danced on deck. “I’ll have you know I’m Jothan Tarlnasa!”
“What’s a Jothan Tarlnasa and why should I give a flying damn about one?” the captain demanded.
“I’m chairman of the philosophy department at Baron’s College, you bungling incompetent! Do you think I’d have come down here in full ceremonials and set foot aboard this rat-infested scow if it weren’t important?!”
“Ceremonials?” The captain eyed Tarlnasa’s water-soaked splendor and barked a laugh. “Is that what you call ’em?”
“I’ll have your papers revoked!” Tarlnasa ranted. “I’ll have you barred from Derm! I’ll-”
“You’ll go for another swim if you don’t shut your mouth,” the captain told him, and Tarlnasa’s jaw snapped shut. Not in fear, Bahzell thought, but in shock, judging by his apoplectic complexion. “Better,” the captain grunted. “Now, I’ve no time for you-no, and no patience with you, either. You’re on my vessel, and how you got here is your own affair. If you think the dockmaster will fault me, you’re an even bigger fool than I think, and that’d take some doing! You stay out of my way if you want me to put you aboard a boat headed back up this way.” Tarlnasa started to open his mouth again, but the captain shot him a dangerous look and added, “Or you can just swim back ashore right now. It’s all the same to me.”
Silence hovered, and then Tarlnasa sniffed. He turned his back upon the captain, and the riverman rolled his eyes at Bahzell and Brandark before he stumped back to his helmsman.
“Moron!” Tarlnasa muttered resentfully. He ran his fingers through his beard, then gave his long hair a settling tug, squared his shoulders, drew a deep breath, and looked up at Bahzell.
“Well, now that he’s out of the way, I suppose I should get down to the reason for my visit.”
“Aye, well, don’t let us be stopping you,” Bahzell rumbled. He started to step out of the man’s way, but Tarlnasa shook his head irritably.
“No, no, no! ” he snapped. “Gods give me patience, you’re all idiots!”
“Idiot I may be,” Bahzell said less cheerfully, “but it’s in my mind you’d do better not to be calling it to my attention, friend.”
“Then just listen to me, will you? You’re the reason I’m here!”
“I am?” Bahzell’s eyebrows rose, and Tarlnasa snorted.
“You are, gods help us all. Why they had to pick me, and get me out of bed at this ungodly hour and send me down here to endure that loudmouthed dolt of a captain and now this -!” He broke off and shook his head, then folded his arms. “Attend me, Bahzell Bahnakson,” he said imperiously, “for I bring you word from the gods themselves.”
He raised his chin to strike a dramatic pose, and Bahzell leaned back, ears flattened, and planted his hands on his hips. Bahzell glanced at Brandark and saw the same stiffness in his friend’s spine, but then the Bloody Sword made himself relax, shrugged eloquently and stepped to the side. He leaned on the bulwark, gazing back at the receding docks, and Bahzell looked back down. Tarlnasa had abandoned his theatrical pose to glare up at him in self-important impatience, as if the Horse Stealer were a none-too-bright student who ought to have sense enough to beg his mentor to illumine his ignorance. The man was an ass and a lunatic, Bahzell told himself . . . unless the gods truly had sent him, in which case he was something far worse. The Horse Stealer remembered his dreams, and a spike of panic stabbed him. If it was some god sending them, had they left him in peace last night because they knew this madman was coming?
“And what if I’m not so very interested in hearing what ‘the gods’ have to say?” he demanded at last.
“What?” Tarlnasa gaped at him, and the hradani shrugged.
“I don’t meddle with gods,” he rumbled, “and I’ll thank them not to be meddling with me.”
“Don’t be an ass!” Tarlnasa snapped, then shook himself, recrossed his arms, and fell back into rolling periods. “You’ve been chosen by the gods for great deeds, Bahzell Bahnakson. A great destiny awaits you, and-”
“ ‘Destiny,’ is it?” Bahzell grunted. “You can be keeping your ‘destinies’-aye, and tell whatever god sent you I said so!”
“Stop interrupting!” Tarlnasa stamped a foot and rolled his eyes heavenward, pleading for strength. “Why the gods should choose a blockhead like you is beyond me, but they have. Now be still and listen to their commands!”
“No,” Bahzell said flatly. Tarlnasa goggled up at the towering Horse Stealer, and elemental hradani stubbornness glared back down at him.
“But you have to! I mean- That is-”
“That I don’t.” Bahzell glanced at the docks, beginning to dwindle in the distance, then back down at Tarlnasa. “We’re a mite far out from shore,” he said. “I’m hoping you can swim if it’s needful.”
“Of course I can! I was born in Derm, though what that has to do with anything is more than I can see. The point is that the gods have chosen me to reveal to you their plans for you. You are commanded to- Stop! What are you doing?! Put me down , you-!”
The high-pitched, nasal voice cut off in a tremendous splash as Bahzell dropped Tarlnasa overboard. The hradani leaned out across the bulwark, gazing down into the water, and watched a head of streaming brown hair break the surface in a seaweed cloud of white beard and a furious splutter.
“The shore’s that way,” he said genially, pointing at the riverbank while the riverboat’s crew howled with laughter.