Gherrit was looking down at the sea far below, unable to twitch a finger, as he towed behind the flying magician. The rope tugged at his chest, taut and then slack as the wind played with his form. Out of the corner of his eye he saw other bundles jerking along in the dark, pulled by another line. On and on they flew, the cold air rushing past at a speed never before experienced. The sea was a long way below, a black expanse throwing back occasional glimmers as starlight reflected off a wave. Gherrit knew the magician was just ahead of him. It was not a comfort; he felt alone in the midst of the night and very much afraid.
Gherrit had lingered on deck clad only in shirt and loose trousers. In these upper airs he was chill, his skin dimpled with goose-bumps even if his limbs were immobile. His thoughts whirred around, veering from justified unreasoning terror to speculation on what the magician might want from him. Why had he been snatched? Revenge for his part in the loss of the underman? Replacement in some horrid magical experiment? At least it distracted from the discomforting cold. When at last Gherrit was able to focus on his surroundings he was first conscious that he was less cold. He scrutinised the sea below, as black as ever. Was it closer? He could not be sure. He made the same effort to move his fingers as he had before and was rewarded with a slight twitch.
As they glided on he worked his parts as surreptitiously as he might, feeling sensation return bit by bit. What, however, was he to do with this? He was in the presence of a powerful magician, who could doubtless eviscerate him with a few words. Best to lie low. Perhaps he could cast off the rope and drop into the sea not too far off shore. He could swim, even dive under the water for a minute at a time. It was not much of a hope but all he had. He studied the water below. There was no doubt – it was closer, although they were still far too high for his comfort. From ahead came a discontented muttering, too blurred by the wind to make out. The mutters grew more frequent, then blossomed into full-throated cursing. The Mage made an abrupt change of course, causing the bundles to swing about and hit Gherrit in the side. They were now lower yet, perhaps no higher than the mast-top of the long-vanished vessel. Gherrit could hear the swish of waves and then, after a time, the soft rhythmic thud of surf against the land. A line of white over to his right marked a shore, the land rising steep and dark behind.
The Mage flew along the coast, veering out around small headlands and dipping into bays, then slowed, came lower, lower yet, to land on a rock shelf pocked with tide pools. The baggage scraped over the rock and the Mage cursed again. Gherrit’s bruising landing went unremarked. They both stared around in the faint starlight, the one openly, the other surreptitiously snatching glances from where he lay with shells digging into his back. The only sounds were the suck and swish of the sea and the faintest whisper of wind through the fringing bushes. The hills rose unrelieved by lights or any other sign of human habitation.
The Mage gave up his peering and came over to kick Gherrit in the ribs. “Wretched boy! Do you see where your meddling has brought us?” Gherrit lay mute and was kicked again. A rogue wave splashed into the pools, showering them with spray, its last edges close to where Gherrit and the baggage lay. The Mage cursed and dragged both further from the water’s edge. The weightlessness he had commanded still operated enough that Gherrit bounced a little and his scrapes were superficial, smart though they did. The Mage evidently did not care. He pulled an instrument from a pocket and twirled it this way and that, then stroked it with a careful finger and held it to his ear. The result was evidently not to his liking, for he cursed again, taking short steps this way and that, pulling his beard in indecision. At last he stamped over to Gherrit.
“What a waste. You were going to replace my underman. I would have learned so much. Now, well, I can’t afford to use access on you.” He pulled out a long knife and bent forward.
Gherrit had lain quiet, partly from calculation, much more from indecision. Should he bolt into the dark? If so, which way? Grapple the Mage? He was not a fighter. Cooperate and hope for clemency? Where were they? What had gone awry that the Mage had landed here? The gleaming knife made his mind up for him. He jack-knifed his body and lashed out with both feet, catching the bending Mage in the stomach, then leapt up and ran in great floating bounds. The last took him off the shelf into the darkling sea, half fall, half clumsy dive. To his own surprise he bobbed back to the surface, buoyed by the residual spell. Gherrit sculled frantically away into the dark after the manner of a frantic and over-weight water-spider.
Gherrit was well offshore before he considered his plight. He was bobbing about somewhere in the Reghen Gulf, at night, kept afloat by a decaying spell, with a vengeful magician prowling the land. He choked back a cry of despair, aided by a wavelet that filled his mouth with salt water. He lay there, rocked by the waves, cold, wet and miserable, wracked by self-pity. The stars wheeled above and no horrible ether-bolt came streaking out of the night. He grew colder and heavier. Gherrit roused himself. If he stayed here he would drown, or be carried out to sea to find himself in a limitless circle of water come the dawn.
Gherrit spun about slowly, seeking the pilot stars. That way was north so land lay that way. He took up a slow paddle, trying to make as little noise as possible. Time passed, and yet more time, and his arms ached. He paddled on, now lying on his stomach and making a weary and cautious breast-stroke. At last the sound of waves on shore reached his ears. He grew more cautious yet, stroking with infinite patience. A trail of weed across his hand nearly made him scream, then a wave threw him against a rock. He fended off, groped along with head down, hauled himself gasping and shivering on to a patch of shingle no wider than he was tall. There he lay, too tired to move further, curled into a sodden, shivering heap.
The sun rising out of the gulf found him asleep on the stony strand, a piece of flotsam cast up in the night. Gherrit dragged himself awake and took stock. He was alive. That was, in the circumstances, a real and unexpected bonus. He had his clothes, his money-belt, the light shoes he had gone into the water with. On the negative side, he had no food, no water and was desperately thirsty. Also hungry. He pulled himself to his feet and looked around.
The shingle was a shallow crescent below a high bank, tangled with vegetation. To one side the bank gave on to a steeper section of coast, a rough slope of black rock falling to deep water. To the other side the going looked a little easier, the shore a jumble of boulders crusted with shellfish, waves fingering the crannies with small slurping sounds. At least that way is south, thought Gherrit – the direction of my errand. He clambered over the rocks, stepping with care. A fall or a twisted ankle in this lonely place would be fatal. His thirst and hunger grew, and his clothes itched as the sun dried them, leaving flakes of salt on his skin.
Around a small headland, along another stretch of shingle, a clamber over a heap of rocks stretching like some child’s try at a jetty out into the gulf, a splash through a shallows in preference to attempting the thorns and a wide area of flat rock lay before him. Gherrit was wary, for the land lay open to every searching eye. It looked peaceful enough; gulls and oyster-catchers strutted about, foraging in the tide-pools. Terns wheeled over the waves and a diving cormorant sent up a splash. What if the Mage cast his eyes hither? Gherrit looked about for cover, and saw a shaded gully. Just within water trickled down over a rock face to merge soundlessly with the salt sea. He stepped over and pressed his face to the meagre flow, sucking down the sweet liquid. It had an earthy flavour that Gherrit disregarded. Never had he tasted anything better.
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His thirst slaked, Gherrit felt bolder. He set out over the rocks, sending the gulls screeching into the air and the waders striding away. The sun rose higher, his itches kept itching, his feet grew sore, his stomach hungered. On he went, until a scrap of bright colour and a crowd of squabbling gulls drew his eye. The shelf grew narrower here. As Gherrit came close the gulls reluctantly took to the air, revealing a bloody mess. The Mage lay there, weeping sockets where his eyes had been, flesh pecked away on one cheek exposing teeth, a barbed vine wrapped around his neck and another digging into his thigh, robes torn, one hand clenching the strangling vine so hard a thorn had pierced through the palm. Gherrit was grateful that his stomach was empty. He turned away for a time, sickened. The man had been his enemy, had tried to murder him, but it was still disturbing to see his mutilated corpse and know he had died a painful death.
When Gherrit felt able to he turned back. He was still on this wild coast. Perhaps he could salvage something that could help from the body? One of the Mage’s magical trinkets lay close to his leg and his pouch was still on his belt. Gherrit lent forward slowly, reached out a hand. The vines stirred and one struck. Gherrit snatched his hand back and leapt away. The vine hit the rock, recoiled, lifted into the erect posture of a poised snake. Gherrit backed even further away to the edge of the shelf and sat there. After a time the vine relaxed, draping itself across the body. Small crabs came out from their holes to pincer morsels of flesh. The gulls circled overhead, screeching their frustration. Gherrit looked at the body and sighed. He had spoken the last words over the bodies of his grandfather and his parents and felt that the right thing to do was to ask Saore’s soul to rest. Yet he could not approach close enough to sprinkle a handful of earth over the corpse. For that matter, he could not gather earth without risk. Would Saore haunt this stretch of shore until the last fragment of his body was no more? Or, worse, follow Gherrit seeking vengeance? He could not know, and he was still hungry.
Gherrit recalled eating oysters shucked by his grandfather and peered over the edge of the rock shelf. The few shellfish clinging there were small and unfamiliar. He eyed the green strands of weed – some kinds were nutritious, he knew. But which kinds? And how prepared? He did not know. What did he have? His small knife, useful if he came across an oyster. His belt, itching against his skin. He took it off and rubbed the reddened area. The coins for his journey were useless. He pulled out the small bag containing the seals. Messer Pranik would not be happy if they had suffered in the water. He fumbled at the knot and tipped out the contents into his palm. Two small cylinders, intricately engraved and another smaller bag, of fine yellow silk. This was sewn closed and held some small rectangular object. Gherrit considered his situation, sighed, and picked the threads apart with the point of his knife. Out slid a glass tablet with characters etched on one side. The pouch also held a slip of paper with a single word on it.
Gherrit examined the tablet. The characters were not of any script known to him, the glass clear. He took up the paper, where the ink had run in the water and the writing was hard to make out. This at least was in a familiar alphabet. Gherrit tested possibilities aloud, the tablet in one hand.
“Thiroth? Sthoroth? Sthiroth? Sthirothh? What an odd word. Not Pallo, not Merllan and I don’t think it’s Haghar. Who puts two breath marks together?”
“It is a name. My name to be exact.” The voice was next to his ear. Gherrit gave a short scream and very nearly fell into the sea. When the trembling had subsided he turned to find a long curving beak at the end of his nose and a pair of black eyes staring into his. He leaned back. The creature had the head and neck of an ibis and the body of some long-footed animal. Its arms ended in four-fingered hands, now folded across a plump stomach. White feathers blended into cream fur in an elaborate collar. Its head was level with his, so it might come to his waist if he stood.
“Did you speak?” The creature nodded gravely, beak dipping low.
“Er, Sthiroth is your name?”
“Sthirothh,” the creature corrected. Gherrit saw the beak open and the tongue move. How did the creature make those sounds with no lips or palate? Yet make them it did.
“Can I ask of what kind you are?’
“I am of my own kind. That is three questions. Now you must answer me three.”
Gherrit knew enough folk tales to be wary. He could ask what would happen if he could not answer, but that would be another question.
“What is your name?”
An easy question in one way. In another way, not so easy. Would his name give the creature power over him?
“I am called Jirri,” he finally replied cautiously. It was a common diminutive; his mother and his few friends called him that.
“Where do you go?”
“To Mer Ammery, if I can.”
“What is the square root of two hundred and eighty-nine?”
“Seventeen,” replied Gherrit unhesitatingly.
Sthirothh stood there. Gherrit took his time, thinking this through. He needed information, but not at any price and still less at an undisclosed price. The first exchange had been easy but did that last question signal that the creature knew of Gherrit’s facility with numbers, or was it an attempt to trip him up?
His next question was “What happens if I or you cannot answer, or answer wrongly?”
“If it is I, I give you a feather. If you, I give you a peck.”
Gherrit eyed the vicious beak with misgiving. A peck from that would hurt.
His next question was practical. “How can I retrieve the dead Mage’s gear without hurt to myself?”
Sthirothh bobbed its head up and down, shifted from foot to foot. “Ask me to bring it here,” it finally answered.
Gherrit promptly said “Please bring me the Mage’s gear.” Sthirothh sniffed and hopped over to the corpse, disturbing several bold gulls and a large crab. The vines lay quiescent while it foraged and it hopped back with an armful: a blood-stained belt with two pouches, a flask, several instruments, a book, the long knife that had so nearly ended Gherrit’s life, a pair of boots. Gherrit gingerly sorted through the pile. One pouch on the belt yielded a substantial sum in coins and notes, together with what Gherrit recognised as a bank seal. If he died, at least he would die richer, Gherrit thought. A nut-sized metal sphere on a fine chain proved to be a glow-stone in a shuttered case. Gherrit looped it over his neck and kept on checking his loot. It and the knife might be useful. He had no idea what the gadgets did, and could not read the book. He could ask Sthirothh, but that would be the third question. A gurgle from his protesting stomach decided him that there were more urgent issues.
Gherrit picked his words carefully. “How may I feed myself quickly and safely?”
“There is a bank of oysters at the southern end of this rock shelf. The flat sea-weed is nutritious if dried.” After a long moment it added “The green silk bag in the second pouch contains three All-Day Suckers. Each will nourish you for one day.”
Before Gherrit could reach for the pouch Sthirothh asked “How many days have you lived?”
Gherrit ran the numbers in his head. “Seven thousand four hundred and eighteen days.”
Sthirothh accepted this and went on. “Do you like garlic?”
“Yes.” Gherrit did like it, which was fortunate. The cheap soups that were his main meal were heavy on garlic and onion, very light on meat.
“Where does the Sacred King reside?”
“In the Cloud Palace at Had-Kote,” Gherrit answered. His grandfather’s tales of foreign parts were coming in handy. He cleaned off the belt, re-set the pouches, slide the knife into its sheath and set the flask in a loop, tied on the boots and slung the whole over his shoulder. After a moment’s thought the book went into a pouch but he left the instruments. Then, All-Day Sucker in his mouth, he set off over the rocks. Sthirothh bounded along beside.