"He's full of drink and seeing things," added Egil.
The sailors looked down at the cowering old man, and one of the men turned to the first mate and said, "Aye, Guntar, he was brought aboard unconscious drunk."
Arin turned to Aiko and Egil. "I don't understand why he's on the ship at all."
Aiko and Egil glanced at one another, as if sharing a secret, and Egil said, "After a week of searching, I finally found him last night… while you were packing provisions aboard the Brise, love. I knew there wouldn't be time to convince him to come with us, and so instead I took him to the Cove and bought him two flagons of Tryg's best brandy, and then I asked Olar and Yngli to lade him aboard the Gyllen Flyndre when he passed out."
Arin's eyes widened. "Dost thou mean thou spirited him here against his will?"
Aiko sighed. "Dara, you said that perhaps we needed him, that he might know the way to the holt of Ordrune."
Arin turned to Aiko. "Dost thou approve what Egil has done?"
Aiko lowered her head and peered at the deck. "Dara, I aided Egil, for I paid coin to Captain Holdar for Alos's passage to Jute."
Arin shook her head, and looked at Alos, the old man's mouth now stretched wide in a soundless scream as he clawed at invisible foe. Then she turned to the first mate and gestured at Alos. "Canst thou and some of thy men bear him to his cabin? I will fetch some balms to lay these phantoms to rest."
The mate nodded and signaled to two of the men, but it took six of them to carry the shrieking, wrenching, flailing, drunken old man to his tiny quarters.
CHAPTER 36
The sailors wrestled Alos into his bunk, the old man shrieking and flailing, and moments later Arin appeared, carrying a small satchel filled with packets of herbs and powders. She mixed a white medick in a cup of water, and as two of the men held the oldster down, Arin pinched his nose shut, and when Alos drew in a breath to scream, she poured the mixture down his throat. Hacking and coughing, Alos screeched, "Eeee, poison, poison," and then fell unconscious.
Arin nodded to the sailors. "Ye can leave, now. His phantoms are temporarily at bay." The men trooped out, and Arin began mixing another drink, this time crumbling a dried petal of a yellow flower into water and stirring, bits of the petal swirling 'round and 'round, changing the color of the liquid.
As the Dylvana treated Alos with her medicks and bathed the old man's brow, the Gyllen Flyndre fared southwesterly, riding upon the sapphire tides of the great Boreal Sea. Her sails were filled flush by favoring winds, and her hull shsshed through the water, bearing her crew toward faraway Gelen, across the wide channel from Jute. It was in this channel, if all went right, where Arin and Egil and Aiko, and even perhaps Alos, would leave the ship to pursue their own destinies. But that would be three or four weeks in the future on a journey just begun… for the Flyndre was but a half-day out of Morkfjord and sailing along the coast, the high cliffs passing a mile or so to larboard. She would keep to the seaboard lanes throughout the following days, for she was a coastal trader and seldom ventured far out upon the wide deep waters of the world; for the most, her captain and crew sailed within sight of land, especially when on the waters of the stormy Boreal Sea.
And while Arin ministered to Alos, Aiko and Egil spent time walking the deck, getting their sea legs under them, for it had been weeks since Egil had been upon a ship, and Aiko had only fared at sea a sparse number of times- when she crossed from Ryodo to the mainland, and a few trips to islands south. After a while Aiko stopped her pacing and sat in the sun and began treating her weapons and armor 'gainst the spray, oiling the steel and bronze and leather to ward off the brine. Egil, though, remained filled with a restless energy and he paced the length of the ship, striding back and forth, threading his way through sailors, asking any and all if they knew the way to the holt of Ordrune the Mage. Yet the men shook their heads, for none held the answer, and so Egil continued his prowling. He stopped now and again to watch the Rianians bring the carrack to a new tack, the helmsman haling the wheel hard over, the deck crew setting the yards such that the sails made the most of the wind. Too, he would stand long moments in the bow, as if willing his sight to fly o'er the darkling waves and spy out the distant goal, for he was now eager to be in Jutland, where there might be someone who could lead him to the lair of the sought-after Mage. At other times he would stand in the stern near the tiller, speaking quietly to Captain Holdar, master of the ship.
"Nay, Egil, I have not heard of this Mage you seek." Holdar stroked his ruddy jaw. Clean-shaven was the captain of the Flyndre, a short, stocky man in his mid-forties, dressed in dark blue jerkin and breeks, and he wore black boots and a black leather vest. His hair was close-cropped and ruddy red as well. His eyes were blue and set within the plump features of a well-fed merchant, though a hint of ruggedness lay deep in his gaze. "I've no business with Mages and such. Instead, I deal with trappers and traders, and the fur merchants of Gelen." Holdar paused as Aiko climbed up the ladder to the poop deck to join them. And after nodding to the yellow warrior, the captain turned to Egil and said, "Besides, laddie buck, what would I do with a Mage, eh? Ask him to charm the Flyndre, har?"
"Not this Mage, Captain. With him you'd be lucky to escape with your life."
"Oh? One of the black ones, aye?"
Glumly, Egil nodded
"Then it be just as well I don't know this, this-"
"Ordrune," supplied Egil.
"Aye, Ordrune. I'll give him wide berth, if you don't mind. But, hoy, why do you seek him, him a black one and all?"
"I have a score to settle with him," said Egil, his look grim.
Holdar's eyes widened, and he said, "Well now, my friend, him being a Mage, take care you don't bite off more than you can chew."
"I do not plan on going alone, Captain, unless there is no other choice. Instead, there are the bloodkith of forty Fjordsmen eager to take off his head."
Aiko pursed her lips and frowned… and then intoned, "Take these with thee, no more, no less, else thee will fail…"
Egil looked down at her.
She caught his gaze and said, "There is more at stake here than blood-vengeance, Egil One-Eye."
Egil sighed and nodded and gestured toward the quarters where Arin tended Alos, then said, "We know not whether Ordrune holds that which she seeks. Yet I will stay my revenge until her-until our quest is complete."
Aiko nodded, and in that same moment, Arin stepped forth from the cabins below. Egil and Aiko climbed down the ladder to the main deck and joined her.
"He has finally fallen into a natural sleep," said the Dylvana, glancing back at the aft cabin quarters. She reached out and took Egil's hand, as if seeking comfort, then said, "Whatever happened to him apast, it must have been terrible."
On the second day out from Morkfjord, Alos stumbled from his cabin and to the main deck of the Gyllen Flyndre. Shielding his one good eye from the bright morning sun, he peered 'round the deck, stunned. "Eh, where in
Garlon's name am I?" he muttered, then shouted to any and all, "I asked, where in Garlon's name am I?"
Sailors turned and stared at this filthy oldster, his clothes stained and rumpled, one eye watery brown, the other blind and white, teeth missing here and there, the remainder coated with an ocherous film. Then the old man seemed to suddenly realize that he was on a ship, and he collapsed to the deck weeping.
The first mate shook his head and growled, "Jan, go get th' Elf. Her ward has got loose."
But it was the yellow woman who came to the deck. She tried to get the old man to his feet, but he was as slack as a sail in irons, and so she slung him over her shoulder and headed for the aft quarters, snarling at the cabin boy to fetch a tub and hot water and soap, as well as chewing sticks and mint leaves, if he had them.