"But jesting aside, what do you say?" he said. "I know it will be even more dangerous than the common waterfront tavern, but-"
She laughed in spite of herself, trying to muffle it with her hands. When she could speak plainly again, she shook her head and said, "Not until after the way is in your memory. There have to be two of us who know the way from the sea to deep in the rock. Two of us able to speak to the friends I hope will come to help. This is knowledge that cannot die with me."
"Then what we are doing is much more dangerous than a tavern," Torvik said. "I always thought there was a reason I stayed out of them." He raised one hand and twined the fingers in her hair with the touch of one who would gladly let his hand linger, or even wander.
She warmed to that touch, but took his hand and pushed it down into his lap. "Be still," she whispered. "This will not take long, and when it is done…"
She herself did not know what would come after. For now it was enough to press her hands to his temples again, and feel his memory ready to listen to her message and hold it.
The Dimernesti known as Medlessarn the Silent flopped ungracefully on the rock. As swiftly as he could, he flowed upward and outward into his elven form.
He sometimes wished the gods had made the Dimernesti's animal form something other than a sea otter. The creatures were splendid in the water, hardly less so than the porpoise-form of the Dargonesti, but they were only a trifle less awkward than a porpoise on land as well.
With his head some six feet above a rock already that far clear of the water, Medlessarn could hear, smell, and if necessary see much farther. He also had less natural senses at his command but only moderately, and these might be too dangerous to use until he learned what the enemy here could sense with his own magic.
The breeze was toward the land, so scent and hearing both failed him. In his home waters perhaps he could have picked out a fellow Dimernesti against wind and water alike. Amid this riot of new sensations (for Suivinari was long unvisited by his clan), he could hardly have smelled a rotten fish.
At least he had come this far unmolested. It would be as well to wait until at least a few more of those who heard the call swam up. Then if they met danger farther inshore, someone would surely escape, to warn the rest of the shallows-dwellers. Certainly the sea otters here had not of late been hunted nearly as much as one would have expected, from a fleet of this size. That gave them the right to any assistance the shallows-dwellers could give, without danger to themselves.
As for more-well, that was why Medlessarn had swum so far in so little time, to answer a warning so full of mystery and menace. To whom, he had yet to learn.
Torvik had just put into words for the third time the way into the beast's lair. He was now ready for the next test of his memory-drawing a map.
He wondered what else he might be ready for, afterward.
If he was not back aboard Red Elf by dawn there would be uproar, confusion, and a search for him that might undo all his night's work. Reluctantly, he concluded that there would most likely be no "afterward."
He hoped that Mirraleen would not be offended.
He reached for his pouch, to see if the paper and charcoal in their fishskin wrappers had survived the journey. As his hands undid the straps, his ears caught the faint click of pebbles. It came from inland, not the way other Dimernesti would come to help, if they came at all. Inland swarmed with Wilthur's creations, likely enough to bar any human or minotaur passage, so it could not be a friend who made that noise.
Torvik put a finger to Mirraleen's lips, then to his own. She nodded. He stood up-and the night was shot with raw fire in half a score of hideous shades, as something tried to tear his skull open.
He reeled back against the rock, clutching at Mirraleen's arm to draw her with him to safety, as he imagined. Instead she was down on her knees, clawing at her temples, as if the same pain was tearing at her skull. He thought he heard her cry out.
Then the pain ebbed as the darkness around them turned into a wall of human forms. Most were garbed like sailors. All were armed. Two stepped forward, and what these wore was no garb an honest sailor ever had.
They wore short, sleeveless black tunics and boots that even now Torvik thought must have been hideously awkward and uncomfortable on rough ground. Over their faces they wore masks, with prominent eyes and noses, but no mouths. The masks were white, in startling contrast to the black tunics.
The masks and tunics together had been the ritual garb of the Servants of Silence, the bloody-handed terrormongers of the kingpriests. The order had been formally abolished; no one had ever said that all who had served it were dead, though. Now even its abolition seemed doubtful.
Torvik endured, as if it were happening to someone else, the sailors binding him and Mirraleen. They were skilled. He knew he could not break out of his bonds and doubted that Mirraleen could do so swiftly enough to escape notice.
Two sailors jerked Torvik to his feet and held him, as one of the mask-wearers stepped forward and stood above Mirraleen. He held a tapered piece of hardwood in one hand.
"Now," an unfamiliar voice echoed from behind the mask, "you who call yourself captain, yet consort with abominations-do you know her secrets?"
"No," Torvik lied. "She keeps them close-"
The mask-wearer backhanded Torvik across the face. "Your light punishment for what I think is a lie," the masked man said. "Now, witness hers."
The wood-the club-came down across Mirraleen's shoulders.
Presently she was screaming. Long before that, Torvik had wished he could close his eyes, then his ears. Now he wished he could knock himself senseless or force these-their own word "abominations" was good enough-to do it for him.
At last he realized that easy escape would be a dangerous course. It would assure the enemy that he was weak, or lying, or worst of all, both. Then Mirraleen's torment would go on until one of them broke and confessed, or until she died.
He stared straight ahead and tried doing navigational calculations in his head, to keep his mind busy. He succeeded well enough that he only heard the reply to something a sailor muttered.
"No, we came here to punish consorting with abominations. Not to do it ourselves."
From that answer, Torvik knew what the question must have been. Mirraleen was spared that particular horror, at least. But his vengeance for what she was suffering would be just as bloody. He suspected hers would be, too, if she was fit to take it.
"Pirvan, Pirvan! Wake up!"
The knight realized that Haimya was no longer in bed beside him, but standing over him and shaking him. She was not yet dressed, but fully awake.
She also looked as if her wakefulness at this hour-it would hardly be dawn yet-came from no good news. Her face was grim enough for an image of Takhisis.
"Wilthur the Brown has fled to the fleet, asking us to save him from his own pet?" Pirvan asked. He had to say something.
Haimya looked ready to slap him. "Torvik is gone," she said.
"Gone? How? Where?"
"If I knew that, I would have said that he is dead or abducted or sprouted wings and flown away like a pegasus," Haimya grumbled. "No one knows. What is certain is that trouble is coming because of it."
Haimya told her husband the crisis the fleet faced, briefly but still so completely that Pirvan only had to interrupt her twice with questions. Torvik had not slept aboard Red Elf last night. His sister Chuina had admitted seeing him, but not seeing him depart, nor would she say what they had talked about.