Was it his imagination, or had the Smoker been working harder at earning its name lately? He knew that spells cast outside common laws and customs governing magic could have unpredictable effects on nature. He also hoped that somebody with the fleet, even a minotaur, was making it their business to predict what the Smoker might do.
The boat was grinding its way past the jutting teeth of a reef before Torvik was aware of it. He jerked his mind from a pleasant image of Mirraleen standing waist deep in the water, with flowers in her hair-white ones would go best with that auburn, he thought-and started to back water. Then he realized that, barely thirty paces away, phosphorescence glowed a dim green around a rock shaped like the head of a goat with one horn. That was the last mark. Stand on the rock, Mirraleen had said, then wade in the direction the horn points until you reach a beach of black gravel.
Torvik swung his boat around and found a place where for now it would be hard to see from either landward or seaward. The tide was at the ebb, of course, so in time it might rise out of its hiding place. So he gave the boat a good long mooring line, to keep it at least from drifting away.
The water was almost milk warm. When Torvik stepped off the rock and began wading, it was barely up to his chest. He tried to move silently, but was sure that he was making more noise wading than he had in the boat. He saw the phosphorescence glimmer about his torso, and reached down for his dagger.
With the knife unsheathed and in his hand, he felt better. It seemed a long way to the land, and a little rust on the blade seemed a small price for an easy mind as he pushed through the water.
Zeskuk was drowsing when he heard the knock. Wrapping his kilt hastily about him, he opened the door.
It was Juiksum, Thenvor's son. Fortunately, he did not look as if he was bearing a challenge. He might be sober, even grim, but he was not showing the ritual anger of a challenge-bearer.
"Message from Sir Darin," Juiksum growled. "Is sunset tomorrow acceptable for your match?"
Zeskuk nodded.
Juiksum coughed. "It must be written," he said.
"Then bring me pen and paper-no, wait, I keep some here."
With sleep-slowed hands, Zeskuk laid out paper, pen, and ink on the folding table beside his bed. With sleep-blurred eyes, he wrote his acceptance and handed it to his visitor.
Juiksum read it, then asked, "You did not mention torches."
"We can decide that at the time," Zeskuk said. If he was going to end a busy day tomorrow by fighting a human warrior fully equal to a minotaur, he did not want to spend any more of tonight chattering like a squirrel over trivial matters.
"You have faith in Darin's honor," Juiksum said. It did not come out like a question.
"Yes," Zeskuk said. "Do you?" He almost added, "If you have no more wits than your father…"
Juiksum smiled. "I do. Neither of you need fear treachery, and Darin's night vision must be equal to yours or he would not be a warrior of the Solamnic Orders."
Having night vision equal to Zeskuk's was no great achievement. If they fought without torches, the minotaur chief knew he might end with a few aches and bruises he would otherwise have escaped. But honor was worth more than a few broken bones, let alone aches and bruises.
"Lujimar is sacrificing tonight, that this fight bring justice and honor," Juiksum said. "He did not say to whom."
With ears ready to carry tales to Thenvor, that was probably wise.
"I hope we can also have peace with the humans, for here, for now," Juiksum added.
"How so?" Zeskuk said. "Is that not arguing from fear?"
By instinct, Juiksum's nostrils flared and his fists clenched. Then he shook his head. "It is arguing from a desire to win the great victory rather than the small one," he said. "Cleansing Suivinari needs human and minotaur both. It is a coward who runs from a fight or counts the odds, when another forces it upon him. But it is not a coward who refuses to fight one weaker than he, who has not challenged him, and may even help him."
Zeskuk pushed the desk in and lay down. "Juiksum," he said, "I wish you prowess in the arena equal to your wisdom. Surely then you will become Emperor."
"Do you not fear that my father will then try to rule through me," Juiksum asked, "or at least gain my ear?"
"No. I think you are more likely to have his ear-in a gold frame, hanging on the wall of the throne room. To warn those who offer unwelcome advice. Good night, wise young warrior."
"Good night, sagacious war chief," Juiksum replied.
It was pleasant, Zeskuk reflected as the door closed behind Juiksum, to deal from time to time with those who presented no mysteries.
Mirraleen crouched behind a boulder as Torvik stepped out of the water. It seemed as if the night was holding its breath. Even her acute hearing could make out no sound louder than the water dripping from the young man.
He looked like a pirate, with his well-crafted dagger in his hand. The only way he could have looked more like one, indeed, was to have the dagger clenched in his teeth. In spite of what it did for his appearance, the dagger spoke of his good sense. No one could have followed her underwater, at least not without detection, or crossed the magic-haunted island to come up on her from landward. Torvik was not so fortunate.
She must have made a sound, or Torvik had hearing like an orca, because he suddenly stiffened and went into a fighter's crouch. The dagger gleamed dully, reflecting the last of the phosphorescence. His movements, she could not help noticing, were sure, graceful, and spoke of his being both strong and dangerous in spite of his lack of height.
Also, in spite of his lack of years. By human measurement he was young, by elven measurement a child, but by what Mirraleen saw he was a man in strength, skill, and wisdom. She could safely trust him with much, beginning with the secret of the underwater way into the heart of the Smoker.
She stepped out from behind her boulder. His dagger darted up, and she realized that he had the skill and the dagger had the balance for throwing. She raised both hands, palms outward, then touched a finger to her lips.
He said nothing until they were well inside the boulder-strewn approach to the beach. Even then, he first kissed the finger she had held to her lips, with a smile that made him look much younger or much older-perhaps both at once.
Then she put both hands on his temples. She realized she wanted to play with his dark hair, now damp, soon to be stiff with salt. She furiously mastered an impulse that she knew arose from too many years of celibacy, and would keep more important work from being done tonight.
Torvik was a gentleman. He did not reply to her touch by more than a smile that told her that touch was not unwelcome.
"We cannot be here long, or talk much aloud," she whispered. "If I touch you like this, I can put into your memory the way to enter the caves below the Smoker, where Wilthur's Creation lives. Once it is slain, the back door to the mage's stronghold is open, and no spells he can cast in front of it can save him."
"He has worn three robes, so can he not cast spells in three ways?" Torvik said, sensibly. "Moreover, killing the Creation will not be easy work."
"You will have help," she said. "I hope."
"Best if you can do more than hope," he told her. "Mirraleen, should you not come out to the fleet, and speak to at least a few others? There are some whose silence I would swear to, and who would hide your coming and going. Then whether the help you hope for comes or not, you and I will not be alone."
"I thought young men always wished to be alone with fine women," she teased.
"Yes, and the finer, the more alone. Much more alone than we could ever be on Suivinari Island, where only a few thousand humans and minotaurs, the odd wizard and his pet monsters, and the gods know what else disturb our peace.