Vaddi’s eyes met those of Cellester as the latter looked up, and for a moment the youth felt himself scrutinized inwardly, as though his mind were being sifted, but the moment passed and Cellester turned away, calling to Nyam.
“How far is Scaacrag?”
“There are freakish winds about this day. I steer a few points south of east, but the wind and the cursed currents drive me a few points north of east. That is not my desired course!”
Vaddi grimaced, thinking of Menneath’s skills.
Cellester said nothing but joined Nyam, now at the prow of the craft. They were both puzzling over something.
“What is it?” said Vaddi.
“This current reeks of sorcery. Mind you, that’s hardly surprising. We’re in the Stammerrak, a narrow gut between a dozen or so islands that bore the brunt of some hellish sorcery gone wrong in the days of the Last War. More than a touch of the Mournland about it.”
Vaddi shuddered at mention of the blasted lands, where nature itself was said to have turned inside out.
Cellester scowled. “Stammerrak! Are you mad, peddler? You should have diverted us around this.”
“Short cut, I’ve been across it before. Doesn’t usually get a hold like this. Not unless it wants something.”
“You idiot!” Cellester snapped. “Get back to the tiller. Did it not occur to you that it probably does want something? Us, you fool. The agents of the Claw would make good use of this demented power. They would have no qualms about dirtying their hands or souls with it. The damned are damned. Just pray to whatever gods you believe in that we aren’t!”
Nyam nodded, going back to the tiller. As he passed Vaddi he grinned. “Fat lot of good that would do. My gods are notably obese and slothful.”
Vaddi smiled thinly, but Cellester’s grim demeanour sobered him. “Is it serious?”
The cleric nodded. “Probably. It may not be the Claw, but we must assume that it will use every device available to snare you.” Again his voice dropped to the merest whisper. “And what you carry.”
Vaddi felt a sudden heat in his chest and his fingers probed his shirt, touching the chain of the object that Anzar had given him. “You know of it?” he said softly.
Cellester drew back, his unease apparent. “My fear is that our enemies know of it. It will draw them like moths to a flame.”
“The sea has power,” Nyam called. “We must free ourselves of the current.”
Vaddi felt a pulse of energy within the horn. He whispered to it, as if coaxing aid from a spirit, though he had no more than his instinct to go on.
“A strong spell works against us!” the peddler called above the wind, which had again freshened, like the voice of the current that had taken a hold of the craft. “The Stammerrak won’t be thwarted, not one bit!”
Vaddi concentrated, as a strong gust from behind them seemed to break in half, like a wave split by a rock. Nyam was trying to ease the craft away from a course that was veering them more and more to the north. Now the contest between the craft and the elements was in full evidence, as though wind and sea were powered by an invisible host, elementals that sought to drag, push and buffet the craft to the dark islands north of them. Nyam’s skill was no mean thing—a fact that Vaddi found intriguing. The man was no ordinary peddler.
The hidden talisman pulsed more hotly, as if it spoke to the soul of the deep oceans, its own puissance able to wrench the prow of the craft away from the sea’s grasp.
A grim struggle ensued, the Stammerrak focusing all its supernatural energies into controlling the craft, but its occupants pouring their own efforts into subverting its purpose.
“We’re passing the worst!” Nyam shouted above the thunder of the seas and the crashing of breakers on nearby rocks. “If we must be tossed ashore, we make for one of the last isles of the chain.”
Gradually the craft edged away from the main islands, ploughing through huge waves toward clearer sea beyond. With a last rush, the craft slid through a narrow rock passage and buried her prow in a wedge of sand on a solitary island beyond.
“You know this place?” Cellester asked the peddler.
Nyam nodded uncertainly. “Right at the very rim of the Stammerrak’s influence. We can freshen up here overnight. Tomorrow we’ll land at Scaacrag. Shall we find a spring? Bound to be one up near the summit of the island.”
Beyond the rim of the cliffs, they found a beaten path that indicated tome sort of habitation or at least recent use of the island. The sun had fallen low into the skies, daubing the landscape in ominous deep red hues, casting long shadows like claws across its upper reaches. The island was little more than two miles across and devoid of trees, its exposed rock blasted by the cold storms from the north, like the bones of a gigantic skeleton that had been weathered away to dust.
Nyam pointed to the crest of the hill. “Standing stones. This place is sacred to somebody. Ideal haven for the night.”
Cellester glared at him as if he had lost his senses. “Haven? What sort of gods do you think would bless this place?”
“My guess would be those worshiped by the freebooters. I have heard of such places. Just as Rookstack has its honor among thieves, so such an island protects the needy traveller.”
As they came closer to the ring of standing stones that circled the level area at the island’s crown, Vaddi could make out numerous other stones down among the bracken and wind-blasted gorse. “Those stones have a familiar look to them,” he said to Cellester.
The cleric drew in a sharp breath. “Indeed. They are tombs. This is a graveyard.”
“Of course!” Nyam beamed. “You’re right. So it is as I said, a haven. We have fetched up on the one place where we are safe from conflict. Listen! Even the wind has died. Come into the standing stones. I’ll get a fire going.” He produced a tinderbox from his voluminous garb.
Vaddi shook his head in wonder, smiling in spite of his unease.
The sun slipped deep into its cloud bed, barely above the horizon; the light dimmed with it.
Cellester grimaced. “Don’t put your dirk away. I don’t share the peddler’s confidence.”
They came before the stone circle—fifteen-foot monoliths that ringed the hill, the space between them beaten flat, free of any growth as though tended regularly. Each monolith had been deeply etched with runes from a language long since lost to the world, as though the stones themselves were from another time, a time that pre-dated the War itself by millennia. But there was an abiding calmness about the place, a unique tranquillity that bathed the travellers in a kind of radiance, almost hypnotic in its quality.
“Be on your guard,” whispered Cellester, as though his voice would snap the fabric of this enchantment.
Nyam busied himself with a fire. He had found enough dry wood and bracken to light it and spent a few moments outside the stone circle gathering armfuls of shrub-like plants to feed it. Vaddi could see nothing more than a curtain of darkness beyond the stones. Their runes danced and wavered in the fire-glow, and the stones appeared to lean inward. Overhead, the night sky was obscured, neither the moons nor a single star visible.
They ate and drank more of Nyam’s frugal fare.
“Who’s first watch?” said the peddler. “I suggest someone other than me. I can hardly stay awake, but I only need an hour or two.”
“I doubt I’ll sleep at all,” said Vaddi. “I’ll do it.”