"Fifty, sixty, eighty miles in either direction," replied the oldster.
Aiko looked across at Egil. "For the moment, let us presuppose that we have won past the fangs. If so, then I would think we next find the tower."
Egil nodded. "And reach the chamber atop and get the scroll. That will not be easy, for the walls are well warded." Egil turned the parchment over and sketched as much as he knew of the layout of Ordrune's fortress.
As he drew, Ferret asked, "What if we don't find the tower? It might not be in Serpent Cove, you know."
Before Egil could answer, Aiko said, "Then one by one we take prisoners from the town until we discover someone who knows its whereabouts."
"But, Aiko," protested Arin, "we may collect many prisoners ere we find one who knows. What will we do with the captives till then?"
Aiko looked impassively at Arin, and finally said, "We cannot leave anyone alive who might warn the Mage."
"But that would be cold-blooded murder of innocents," said Arin.
"Pah!" snorted Alos. "There are no innocent Kistanians."
Arin looked at Alos and shook her head in rue. "In that, my friend, thou art mistaken. All races, no matter how corrupt, have innocents among them."
Again Alos snorted, then asked, "Even the Foul Folk?"
Arin's eyes widened in sudden shock, and she did not know how to respond.
Egil, finishing his sketch, said, "Let us just hope the need to take prisoners doesn't come." He slid the draft to table center, saying, "Much will depend upon what we find when we get there, yet this is what I know about Ordrune's stronghold."
Delon studied the drawing, then tapped his finger on the parchment. "Are there any windows atop this tower?"
"Four. Unbarred," said Egil. "One aligned with each of the cardinals."
"Well then, look at this," said Delon, pointing. "The tower is at a corner in the fortress walls. The banquette doesn't seem to go around the outer curve, but only about the inner instead. If that's true, then perhaps we can scale undetected this outer wall and go in through a window, if they are large enough, that is."
"Though it might be a squeeze for Burel," said Egil, "I think we can all get through."
"Not me," said Alos. "I told you I ain't going to fight no Mage. I'll just wait on the boat. There'll be plenty of places to conceal the Brise … it is a jungle, you know- the whole island-with streams pouring into the cove. We'll just find one of them and slip the Brise into hiding."
Egil grunted an assent, then he looked 'round the table. "Who here has experience in scaling tower walls?"
Delon said, "It should be no different from rock climbing, and I for one have clambered many a sheer rock."
Aiko's gaze was impassive as she said, "I have scaled tower walls in war."
Burel looked at her in surprise, then said, "In the basin of the temple, I often climbed the face of the cliffs."
"I've not climbed rocks in particular," said Ferret, "but I've scaled many a sheer building. Climbing a tower should not be that different in kind. Yet if it is, then if someone will set a rope, I'll be up in a flash."
"As will I," said Arin.
Delon turned to Ferret. "You've climbed buildings? Part of your cirque training?"
Ferret looked at him, something unreadable in her eyes, but she remained silent.
"All right," said Egil, "then here is but one plan of many: some will climb ahead and set ropes for the rest of us to swarm up. When we get ready to enter the chamber, those who fight best will go first: Aiko, me, Burel, Delon. Should Ordrune or some of his lackeys be inside, we kill them. When it is safe, Ferret will open the chest and Arin will find the scroll; the rest of us will stand ward."
"Then we get the Hel out, eh?" asked Delon.
"Back the way we came," said Egil, nodding. He looked 'round the table and received like nods from all.
"Well and good," said Aiko. "Now let us conceive another plan. One, say, where we go over the wall instead of climbing the tower…"
For the next two days they fumed and fretted about how to get into the cove unseen, alternatives as to how to covertly and overtly assault the tower, what to do should the tower not be found, what to do should the scroll not be found, what to do with any prisoners they might take, how to get back out of the tower and cove, and what to do if detected during the execution of any of their plans.
During those same two days, Egil and Alos reprovisioned the Brise with food and water. In addition, they purchased whatever gear they deemed was needed to carry out any one of their many alternative plans to obtain the scrolclass="underline" climbing gear, ropes, additional weaponry, lanterns, oil, and so on. Ferret made rounds of several locksmiths and tinkers and jewelers and even a blacksmith or two, and added to her already extensive set of fine lockpicking tools. Aiko and Burel continued to practice at blades, though they rented camels and rode away to the headland to do so beyond sight and sound of any would-be observers. Arin visited herbalists and healers and acquired tisanes and poultices and herbs and roots and other such, should a range of healing be necessary. And on the third night in port Alos slipped away to a wine merchant; just after dawn, as Aiko hefted him over her shoulder and took him aboard the Brise and below, Egil said, "Seems as if the only time he'll get on a ship is when he's dead drunk or running in fear."
Some nine days after the turn of the year, the day they sailed from Sabra, the winter rains began sweeping across the Avagon Sea, like long grey brooms driving white-capped waves over the darkling deeps, with blowing, scudding foam flying in the wind before them. But in between the frequent storms the sun shone down upon the little sloop, her prow shouldering into the rolling brine as she beat toward a far distant isle, bearing her rede-driven crew closer to fateful but unknown ends.
Yet the Isle of Kistan was many days away, and the sloop a confining rig, and because there was little room to do aught else, they spoke of many things…
"Look, Burel," said Delon, at the change of shift, "I asked this of the others, back when we had not yet come to the Temple of the Labyrinth. Then we were talking about whether or no there is an afterlife, but it seems just as valid to ask it of you against the light of your philosophy."
Burel at the tiller looked through the twilight and across at the bard. "Say on."
"Well, it's just this: what good does it do to try to be fair and just if our paths are already fixed? And if paths are immutable, determined, then nothing we do will change things one whit: evil will be evil, good will be good, and nought anyone does will move us away from our preordained track. And if, for example, I must be good to obtain the reward of a pleasant afterlife, but if my predetermined path is to be evil, well then, how can I possibly be held accountable for the evil I will have done?" Delon flung his arms wide, taking in all that could be seen. "I mean, isn't it the fault of those who set the planes in motion? Aren't they the ones to be held accountable since they determined my path at the moment of creation? And another thing: why are we even here if everything is already determined? Why play out a story which, as you say, is one completely told?"
Burel shrugged. "I know not the minds of those who let slip the leash of existence, but if they are indeed all powerful, all knowing, then how can they not know down to the finest detail how each of us will react as we are acted upon and as we act upon one another? If they are all knowing, then they must apprehend the outcomes of each and every last thing."
"Perhaps," said Delon, "they deliberately created something with ambiguity in its nature. Perhaps it is as Ferret says, and they gave us free will. If so, then they may not know that which is to come."
Burel shrugged. "You may be right, my friend, but then again you may be wrong. Yet right or wrong, I know not how to answer your questions with any certainty."