Sunset Warrior - Shallows Of Night Part 5

"You have written your last line."

The stylus dipped to the surface of the tablet, scrabbled there. Ronin left him, went aft, and threw open the cabin's hatch. Down the companionway and into the cabin. No one.Across the deck and leapt for the gunwale and, crouching there momentarily, turned. Below him, blurred ice like marble. Freidal was where he had fallen. The scribe had not moved. Ronin scanned for the last time his impa.s.sive face, then with one long stride he was aboard his own felucca. With a mighty sweeping stroke, he severed the cables holding the s.h.i.+ps as one. They parted and, helmless, the sister felucca gradually swept away to port, into the east, growing smaller and smaller, a memory now to some.

Borros did not believe him of course, but that was to be expected; it did not concern him.

"He is dead," said Ronin as he moved about the cabin. "Believe it or no, as you will."

The sun was setting dully behind curtains of blank cloud, colorless, featureless; a deflating end to another day. Just before he went below, Ronin had peered into the west, thought he had seen the outlines of land, but he could not be certain. As it turned out, it did not much matter.

"We still have far to go," Borros said somewhat brusquely when Ronin gave him the news. "And I do not believe that he is dead."

"Perhaps you would have us turn around and make sure," Ronin said acidly.

"If we but had the time, I would insist on it," the Magic Man replied obstinately, "so that I could kick his head in."

"Of course you would. Now."

"I do not regret," he said with a trace of self-righteousness, "that I lack your zeal for Combat."

Ronin sat on his berth and, having found a piece of material, began to clean the blade of his sword.

"My zeal for Combat, as you put it, is all the protection you presently have."

"From the vengeance of the Freehold. Their power is severely limited now that we are on the Surface."

One edge at a time, upward from the thick middle to the tapered tip.

"You would not have said that this morning."

"Ronin, you do not yet comprehend. We have been locked away for generations, progress checked, choking on our own detritus." A nerve in Borros' face began to spasm. "You are as much a product of that as is Freidal. You are proud to be a Bladesman," the voice dry and pedantic, "an artificial life style created by the Freehold." His hand described a sweeping gesture. "It is totally useless here."

"It has not been so far.""Yes, by all means mock me. What I mean is that we shall soon reach the continent of man. It will be a civilized society. Man has already learned the bitter lessons of the sorcerous wars-"

Ronin stood up.

"What is it you fear, old man?"

"I?" The gray eyes blazed momentarily. "I fear that sword you wield and the arm which wields it. I must speak plainly. I fear that your presence may jeopardize our contact with civilization. I am a man of science and knowledge; I have studied much.

They will listen to me but you-you are a barbarian to them. The blood instinct runs strong in you and the chances are quite good that you will misinterpret a movement or a gesture and someone will die."

"You know me not at all, then."

"I know only that you are a Bladesman and that is sufficient. You are all alike; you know how to do only one thing."

"Tell me," said Ronin, mounting the companionway, "how you would have fared on the Surface without me." And went up into the night.

Its tremulous light spilled like wan petals onto the ice sea, over the flying s.h.i.+p's deck, across Ronin's hunched shoulders. He opened his eyes-lashes, brows, stubble of beard rimed with frost-to the pinks and saffron yellows dimly streaking the south. Still sleep-fogged, still feeling the dream-warmth of K'reen's smooth, supple-muscled body sleekly trembling beneath him, still inhaling the perfume of her hair, tumbling, the last parting of a forest dark before him, he turned his head to behold the ripening spray of red-orange-gold in the east as the sun rose behind low lacquered clouds on the horizon. Above him the vault was cloudless, immense, cerulean and translucent, for the first time open to him.

For long moments he sat transfixed. Then he rose and stretched his knotted muscles, warming them with motion. He crossed to the starboard sheer-strake and watched the land unravel itself perhaps four kilometers away. He withdrew a poignard from his belt and thoughtfully sc.r.a.ped at his whiskers while contemplating the view; it was good to see land again after so much time in the center of nothingness. He breathed deeply. The air was fresh and bright, sparkling with a chill brittleness that was not unpleasant, all the more enjoyable after the oppressiveness of the storm.

"Land at last," Borros said from behind him.

Ronin turned.

"Here."

He sheathed the poignard, took the food the Magic Man offered him. The old man appeared to be somehow smaller in the light of the new day, as if his ordeal onthe surface had actually shriveled him. Ronin thought he could see new lines scored in the taut, yellow-tinged face, under the slender almond eyes, at the corners of the downturned mouth. He was peering at the oblate sun which, having quit its low cloud cover, was rising with the la.s.situde of age.

"We are farther south than I could have hoped."

"But we still have ice," said Ronin, pointing to the low humped sh.o.r.e, covered completely with ice and snow.

"Yes, well, that is to be expected for a while. But the storm propelled us far beyond what would have been possible otherwise. Can you feel that the temperature rises? It does so exceedingly slowly yet there is already a difference. And the ice too, I believe, has been affected. See there, the difference in color; its thickness diminishes."

The wind had slackened somewhat and they ran gently across the ice sea, an occasional gust billowing the sail. Ronin sat against the port sheer-strake, honing the double edges of his sword, feeling the heady beat of the strengthening suns.h.i.+ne.

Borros was near mids.h.i.+p, checking the spare mast and yard and clearing the last residue of ice and frozen snow from the deck.

A calmness had crept over them both during the day, a liquid la.s.situde, dreamy in its warm stillness, which they both welcomed as respite from the kineticism of their journey since descending the ice plateau. Now they were content to drift through the long afternoon without speaking or even thinking.

They ate a cold supper below and then returned to the deck just before sunset.

To starboard the cliffs of ice and snow had given way grudgingly to less forbidding rock faces of scarlet and gray. Snow was still plentiful, but for the first time the land appeared to be able to lift itself from beneath the white carpet Farther off, seeming flat in the dusky haze of evening, a strong line of mountains marched across the horizon, deep violet, snow-capped, jagged and indomitable, wreathed in mists of mauve and lavender. Abruptly the sun broke onto their summits, light like shards across their peaks, and they lapsed all at once into black paper silhouette with a backdrop of crimson.

Ronin heard it just as the top edge of the swollen sun disappeared behind the mountains. He was near mids.h.i.+p and immediately ran to the port gunwale. Borros was at the bow, searching for a spare block to replace one that had cracked during the gale. It was a sound that Ronin did not comprehend, for it had no a.n.a.logue in his life. It was a dream-sound, as if the world was being split.

It came again. Louder. Longer. Two sounds simultaneously: a deep rumbling roar that vibrated the s.h.i.+p; a high screaming that set the teeth on edge. Bonos' head came up.

Then Ronin saw in the lowering light a dark jagged line growing in the ice off the port quarter in front of them. The ice lifted and, in a sledge-hammer blast, flew apart.

Chunks of ice were hurled into the air, raining over them. The craft lurched and Ronin reached for the gunwale, hanging on.He stared awe-struck as, through the widening rent in the sea, a black shape was rising, monstrous and swaying. It rose over them now, blotting out the sapphire twilight, and in a sudden flash of movement Ronin glimpsed a huge eye, baleful and alien, beneath it a narrow ugly jaw. And then it was past him, swooping onto the high stem of the felucca. s.h.i.+vers ran through the frame and Ronin was hurled into the mast. The runners screeched as the vessel was thrown obliquely across the ice, then shuddered to a halt with an enormous squeal of protest The deck splintered as the thing lashed itself against the bow for a second time. Fabric tore and Borros screamed. Ronin staggered to his feet and, drawing his sword, scrambled forward, its tip stained crimson in the last of the light.

He heard a violent hissing and inhaled a fetid stench, rotting flesh, slime, and salt and other odors he could not define. It was above him and he felt the chill of the sea depths and the drip of stinking water. Thickets of slimed weed dropped against his face and shoulders. He was in total darkness. Felt rather than saw its presence close to him off the port side and he swung the sword in a vicious two-handed blow. The keen edge cut into scaly hide, into strange flesh. A high keening sound came to his ears as he swung again and again into the thing's side.

It heaved itself away and he caught another glimpse of that terrifying eye, double-lidded, green with black-rimmed iris. He turned and nearly vomited as he confronted the gaping maw of the creature; the stench was overpowering. The jaws were all teeth, enormous and triangular, green with sc.u.m and bits of decayed flesh.

The head lunged forward and he leaped away, hearing the horrendous snap of the closing mouth.

The head came up and he saw its visage, nightmarish, a great saurian face with a long narrow snout and underslung jaw, blazing filmy eyes on either side of the swaying head and, farther back, rows of crescent slits fluttering along the glistening hide. Then the sight was blotted out as the snout came for him, propelled by a sinuous neck that was the beginning of its great body. Salt spray and seaweed flew at him and he was forced to duck behind the insecure protection of the mast and flapping sail. Too late he realized his mistake. The thing threw itself after him with complete abandon, slicing into the mast and, with a snap and a splintering sound, it collapsed among a forest of shroud and rigging.

The s.h.i.+p rocked under him as he fought his way clear of the clinging tangle to see the dripping jaws hovering over the cowering form of the Magic Man. Ronin raced forward, knowing that he was too far away. His right hand was a blur in the night air as the poignard flew at the thing's head, burying itself just behind the right eye. The terrible head shot forward with incredible acceleration, jaws agape. They snapped shut with a hideous metallic popping. Borros screamed and a geyser of blood and torn viscera showered the air, misting over Ronin as he drove his blade point first into the unblinking eye.

Had he not been as strong, the creature would have jerked the heavy hilt from his hands; but it was his sword and he would not let it go. He was whipped about as the thing writhed in agony. He tried to pull the sword free of the bone into which it hadbeen thrust-an outcropping of skull beneath the destroyed eye. With a grinding sound, he at last pulled it free and dropped to the deck. The saurian head, green viscous blood oozing from the gaping eye socket, quested vainly for its tormentor.

Ronin, crawling along the deck, barely missed a blind swipe of the jaws; human blood spattered over him in the thing's wake. Then it reared up and crashed into the s.h.i.+p. The port gunwale near the bow splintered and flew into the air.

It was imperative now that he get to the creature before it tore the s.h.i.+p apart. He had to get it to see him and he moved around so that its good eye stared directly at him. He stood and the head ceased its writhing. It shot at him with alarming speed and he swung at the snout. The blow glanced off the thick scaly hide and he was nearly decapitated by the snapping jaws. He would not attempt that again. But there must be a way.

He turned, searching, and spied the lower half of the mast, the top splintered and sharp. He sheathed his sword and ran aft, the great head following. He ducked another swipe and heaved at the mast. Slowly it pulled up from its mounting. A searing pain scoured his back and he was flung to the deck. Nausea a.s.sailed him and his hack was on fire. He shook his head and his nostrils dilated at the stench; the head was returning to finish him. Now, he thought through the red haze threatening to engulf him in unconsciousness.

He regained his feet and hauled again on the mast, feeling the thing closing again.

Agony shot through him and then he had it and turned to see the glistening jaws. He rammed the broken mast into the gaping maw at an almost vertical angle. The jaws snapped shut and the mast, braced against the lower jaw, slammed its upper end through the roof of the creature's mouth, through the soft palate and into the brain.

The head rose into the night, spurting upward, a scaly fountain, crying.

And then it was gone, slithering back beneath the ice, dying or already dead, drifting languorously down and down with only the cracked surface of the ice sea, the blood and slime coating the deck of the felucca to mark its pa.s.sage.

Ronin, on his knees, fell forward to the deck, forehead against the coldness. He panted, gulping at the air, clearing now after the creature's descent, then crawled painfully forward.

Borros lay in a pool of blood and rent flesh. His legs were gone and the lower half of his torso was a pulpy ma.s.s without recognizable form. Ronin stared blankly.

Dead.

Onward, he thought. Onward.

But they were motionless on the ice sea. He tried to stand. A wave of dizziness and pain caught him and his knees buckled. He clung to the port gunwale and waited. Moments later, he was able to stand and, putting the pain into the back of his mind, he went carefully over the side and along the ice until he came to the leading edge of the runners. Chunks of ice, thrown up by the ascent of the creature, blocked the s.h.i.+p's way. He moved off cautiously to port, to the gaping rent in the ice, went down on hands and knees. Too dark to see anything but he listened. A gentlelapping came to him, echoing and distant. Water! The ice was thinning. He raised his head, peering southward. Out there. An end to the ice sea? The beginnings at last of civilization? Men.

And then what? he asked himself. He shook his head like a wounded animal. First things first.

He climbed painfully aboard the stalled s.h.i.+p, went forward and lifted the ruined body of the Magic Man. Down to the black ice, to the slippery edge of the obsidian pit. Home at last, thought Ronin. It slid easily from his arms, a pale, smeary flash in the starlight before it disappeared. Just for a moment the splash broke the rhythmic wash of the subcutaneous waves.

He worked for what seemed an interminable time, clearing the rubble from in front of the runners. His back burned and he was sweating and trembling by the time he had finished.

He went aboard and sat on the deck trying to regain his breath. Moments pa.s.sed like centuries and he crawled along the length of the s.h.i.+p beneath the cold carpet of stars and in the platinum luminescence broke out the spare mast, fitting it carefully into its mounting, then attached the yard. Ran the rigging through block and tackle while the breeze sighed about him. He attached the sail and went down to his knees, a blackness in his brain, a buzzing in his ears. He pushed himself up and, sitting, raised the sail, lashed the ropes to. It was almost dead calm and the canvas flapped uselessly. He did not care; tried to make it to the warmth of the cabin but fell in a stupor of shock and exhaustion before he could take two staggering steps.

The pain inside him grew and he weakened. Sometime during the long night a strong wind sprang up and the boat lurched uncertainly, then slithered forward, picking up speed. He awoke toward dawn but the movement of the vessel lulled him back to a feverish sleep.

It was night again when he next opened his eyes. He lay unmoving for long moments, his mind attempting to retrace the events of the journey. It was too much.

At length his hands went to the pockets of his foil suit but the last of his food was gone. His teeth rattled as a dull ba.s.sy booming broke upon him. It took some time for the sound to penetrate, then he flopped over and crawled slowly across the deck.

There was a fitful glow to starboard, flickering smears of reds and oranges lighting the sky. It appeared to him that in the distance a mountain was on fire, belching ruby smoke, casting burning effluvia into the obsidian night. He squinted, fascinated, convinced that he was dreaming. A dense pressure came to his ears.

Great chunks of dark soapy stone were hurled high into the air and liquid fire, saffron, pale green, violet, shot from the summit of the mountain, igniting the air as it rose, then cascading downward to the earth. Blue flame, ghostly and luminescent, wrote itself inscrutably upon the tumultuous darkness while the land seemed tos.h.i.+ver and s.h.i.+ft in a great upheaval. A roaring vibrated his body, filling him with the incandescence of energy. The entire world was kinetic. He imagined that he heard a mournful wail and the mountain seemed to bleed as rock, white and yellow and crimson, poured steaming and thick down its side, and forests of vapor rolled ponderously into the dulled sky. Then the night and all it held was obscured by a blackness darker even than sleep and Ronin began to choke on the soft dust.

The s.h.i.+p sped southward away, away from the trembling land, the red and onyx sky, over the thinning ice and, when once more the oblate sun cracked the horizon, still steeped in clouds glowing amber from its light, the morning was less chill, promising a day cool, not cold.

Still Ronin lay upon the maimed deck, delirious, the tatters of his foil suit fluttering over his gouged back Perhaps it was better thus: that he did not see the vast chunks of ice shearing off with great cracks like barks of thunder, floating now out onto the dark green water.

The s.h.i.+p hit the last thin sheet of ice with a noise that was part groan, part splinter.

The crust disintegrated under the weight, and at last the s.h.i.+p was afloat. The bow dipped precariously, then righted itself, the stem coming up in a shower. The cascade streamed over the gunwale running aft, eddying around the p.r.o.ne form lying on the deck.

He awoke briefly, snorting salt water from his nostrils, lifting himself weakly, grasping the gunwale, peered over the side. Water! his numbed brain screamed.

Water! But he could not think why that was so important. He lifted his head and the sun blinded him. He looked again at the water, blue-green, sun-dazzled golden, and then beneath the surface at-what?

A shadow? Its immense bulk flickered deep beneath the waves without outline or contour. He stared at it for what seemed a long time. Then all that winked back at him were the green waves, tipped with reflected light, chopped into ten thousand minute crescents bobbing and dancing. What? Then he pa.s.sed out, his body falling limply to the salt-slick deck.

The day turned chill as billowing clouds, dark and gravid, pa.s.sed before the face of the sun, blotting out its warmth. The sea changed color, becoming slate gray; and now here and there whitecaps appeared. A heavy, gusty wind sprang up from the northeast and tore at the sail. Moments later, in the gathering gloom, the squall hit with full fury. The seas rose and the s.h.i.+p, unmanned, began to founder. She was turned beam on by the wind, into the troughs of the oncoming waves whose high crests now swept incessantly over the felucca. She began to take on water as she lay heavily in the cras.h.i.+ng seas. Rain came in sheets and the day turned gray-green, dark and featureless, filled with the hiss and drum of the downpour. The s.h.i.+p was sinking and nothing could save her. The wind hit her just as a wave crested broadside and she began to break up. The rain slackened but the wind intensified, as if it knew thatthe vessel was in the throes of going under.

The deck beneath Ronin's body buckled and collapsed and he was washed unceremoniously into the turbulent sea. He awoke in the water, gasping and choking for air as the sea filled his mouth and throat. He rose to the surface, hearing the grinding roar of the splitting s.h.i.+p all around him. Disoriented, heavy with the weight of his sword, he went under, clutched for a floating piece of the mast, missed, regained the surface, lungs bursting, back a glyph of agony as the salt drenched his wounds, reached again for the mast, felt its slippery length for only an instant before it rolled away from him. He tried to go after it but he had no strength and he knew with a peculiar calmness that he was drowning and there was nothing he could do about it. He went down into the cold green depths, watching the light recede from him, taking with him in his lungs a fast-diminis.h.i.+ng piece of the sky.

THREE

*Sha'angh'sei*

Even when Rikkagin T'ien looked him full in the face, he was never sure what the stubby man was thinking.

"Tea?"

As now.

"Please."

What rules him? Ronin wondered not for the first time. Rikkagin T'ien was solid, built low to the ground. His wide shoulders, muscular arms, and short legs made him seem almost other-worldly. Then there was the fact that he was hairless.

"So pleasant to relax every now and then, so?" He lifted the small pot, lacquered in a multicolored wheel pattern. "You must excuse the lack of a lady," he continued as he delicately turned the small cups. "It is most unseemly for a rikkagin to perform this function." He poured the honey-colored liquid. It steamed the air. He tilted his head. "However war causes us to make do with so many things that we would normally find abhorrent." He shrugged as if talking to an old friend. His yellowish skin gleamed in the low lamplight, his wide oval head with its small ears, black almond eyes, and smiling mouth seemed almost regal in this atmosphere. The distant sounds of the s.h.i.+p wafted around them like a fragrance, dominated by the rhythmic singing. Rikkagin T'ien ceremoniously presented Ronin with a filled cup. He smiled dazzlingly and sipped at his own cup. He sighed broadly.

"Tea," he said, "is truly the gift of the G.o.ds." Then his face fell. This made him appear oddly childlike. "How strange that your people are ignorant of its existence."

He sipped once more from his cup. "How tragic."

They sat cross-legged on opposite sides of a low wooden table lacquered in squares of green and gray.

"You are comfortable in your new clothes?"

Ronin put a hand to his loose s.h.i.+rt, looked at his light pants.

"Yes," he said. "Very. But this material is new to me."

"Ah, it is silk. Cool in the heat, warm when it is cold." Rikkagin T'ien sipped again at his tea. "Some things are changeless, so?" He placed his cup precisely in the center of a green square. "Now that you are at your ease, please tell me again where you are from and why you are here."