Hour after endless hour, day after endless day, the Windrunner glided lazily across the sparkling glassy surface of the South Mirianic. The sun became the enemy; the air grew uncomfortably hot. All the time.
Avelyn thought his very skin would slip off his body, a great rag, and fall rumpled to the deck. He burned and blistered, then browned, darker and darker, taking on the leathery appearance of those seasoned sailors around him. He tried to keep clean shaven, as did his monk companions, but there was no blade fine enough, and soon all three had scraggly beards.
The worst of it was the boredom. All they could see in any direction was the flat bluish-gray line of the horizon. Moments of excitement -- a whale spout, the flight of a dolphin beside the prow, a run of bluefish churning white the water -- came all too rarely and lasted barely seconds, to be inevitably replaced by the emptiness of the open sea. All romantic notions Avelyn had held concerning sea voyages were long gone, washed away by the slow, creaking, rolling reality.
He visited Dansally often, and for hours at a time. She was forbidden to come out of her cabin and preferred it that way, both she and the captain fearing what might happen if the common sailors, men who had been away from women for great lengths of time, caught her sweet scent. Thus she kept her cabin door securely locked.
Avelyn also noted that his three monk companions, apparently tiring of Dansally, visited her far less often. He was glad of that, though he wasn't certain why. Dansally didn't seem to mind at all the duties of her profession, and Avelyn had come to accept her work as a part of who she was. As he had said to her on his initial visit, it was not his place to judge her.
He believed that with all his heart, and yet he couldn't deny he was glad to see that the others, including Captain Adjonas, were spending less time with her. He came to know aspects of Dansally that his companions would never think to look former witty sense of humor, tenderness, and her regrettable resignation for her station in life. Avelyn came to hear her dreams and ambitions, uttered rarely and never to anyone else, and he, alone among all the men the woman had known, tried to encourage those dreams, to give the woman some respect for herself. The issue of physical intimacy did not come up between them during those weeks, for both of them had found a more special intimacy, far more satisfying.
And so the days went, the sun, the stars, the endless swells and sparkles. The one relief for the monks and crewmen alike came on cloudless nights, for the colors of the Halo were much clearer here than in the northern zones. Soft blues and purples, vivid oranges and sometimes a deep crimson lined the night sky, lifting hearts and spirits.
Even prosaic and gruff Quintall appreciated the beauty, saw the Halo as a sign of God, and took faith whenever those colors appeared.
"Starboard ho!" came the cry one bright morning the second week out of Jacintha.
Quintall peered at the horizon, hopeful, though he knew from his discussions with Adjonas that they were not near to halfway to Pimaninicuit, and any other land they might sight would only tell them that they were far off course.
"Whale to starboard!" the lookout cried a moment later. "Must be a dead one, 'cause he's not moving."
Farther back along the deck, Avelyn was close enough to hear Captain Adjonas mutter, "Damnation."
"Is it bad fortune to spot a dead whale?" the innocent monk asked.
"No whale," Adjonas answered grimly. "No whale." He headed forward, Avelyn in his wake, and Bunkus Smealy, Pellimar, and Thagraine falling in line. Quintall was already at the rail, pointing far out and down.
Adjonas took up his spyglass and peered in the direction. He shook his head almost immediately and handed the instrument to Quintall -- a move that Bunkus Smealy apparently did not like.
"No whale," Adjonas said again. "Powrie." "Powrie?" Avelyn said, confused. Powries were skinny dwarfs, barely four feet in height.
"Powrie vessel," Adjonas explained. "Barrelboats, they're called."
"That is a boat out there?" Pellimar asked in amazement.
Quintall nodded, bringing down the glass. "And keeping fair time with us," he added.
"They've no sail," argued Pellimar, as if logic alone should dismiss the possibility that this was a powrie craft.
"Powries need no sail," Adjonas answered. "They pedal, turning a shaft to a great fan aft of the ship."
"Pedal?" Pellimar scoffed, thinking the notion ridiculous in so vast a sea, where distance was measured in hundreds of miles.
Adjonas' voice was grim and unrelenting. "Powries do not tire.
Avelyn had heard as much. Powries were not often seen, except in times of war when they were dealt with all too often. Their battle prowess was the stuff of legend, of terrifying fireside tales. Though diminutive in stature, they were said to be stronger than an average man and with incredible stamina. They could suffer brutal hits with club or sword and keep on fighting, and they could wage battle for hours at a stretch, even after a forced march of many miles.
"So far out," Quintall remarked. "Surely there's no land within ten days sail."
"Who can know the minds of powries," Adjonas replied. "They have been quite active of late, so my friends in Jacintha informed me. They slip into the shipping routes and take their fill, then move back to deep water, following the blues or the cod or other favored fish. A hardy and stoic type, do not doubt; powries have been said to be out on the open water for a year and a half at a stretch."
"But what would they do with their booty?" Avelyn reasoned innocently, drawing looks from the other five. "If they waylay ships, what goods do they extract and where, then, do they drop off their newfound cargo?"
Adjonas and Bunkus Smealy exchanged grim glances, telling the four monks that they simply did not understand this enemy.
"They take lives," Adjonas answered calmly. "They waylay ships simply to kill. They attack only to pillage enough stores to get them to the next ship and for the simple thrill of the hunt and torture."
Avelyn blanched, so did Thagraine and Pellimar, but Quintall only let out a low growl and tarried his gaze back in the direction of the distant powrie ship.
"But for us to pass so close to one of them," Pellimar offered nervously. "What dumb luck is that? We'd not even have seen the craft if we were but a hundred more yards to port."
"But they would have seen us," Adjonas replied. "Our sails break the horizon for miles, and powries have magic of their own, do not doubt. It is said that they have friends that swim under the sea, returning to them with whispers of passing ships. This is not dumb luck, my good brother Pellimar."
"What could they know of us?" Quintall demanded, not turning back to face the others.
"Only that we are a lone ship far from home," Adjonas was quick to answer.
"Of our mission?" Quintall pressed.
"Nothing," Adjonas assured him. "It is doubtful that any aboard the powrie craft would even recognize your abbey robes."
Quintall nodded. "Then run away from them," he instructed.
Avelyn and the others held their breath as they watched Captain Adjonas' face tighten. Avelyn feared that Quintall, in issuing such a clear order, might have overstepped his bounds this time.
"Hard to port!" Adjonas screamed out, then he calmed and turned to his first hand. "Fill our sails, Mister Smealy," he instructed. "I've no desire to do battle with powries."
Smealy ran off. Adjonas let his dagger-throwing gaze linger on Quintall's back for a long while, then calmly turned and, with a quick nod to the other three monks, walked away.
Avelyn moved to the rail and shaded his eyes with his hand, peering hard into the vast gray-blue expanse: He thought he caught sight of the barrelboat but couldn't be sure -- it might have been no more than the shadow of a wave.
The Windrunner veered hard to port, sails filling and pushing the square- rigged caravel on with tremendous speed. But the powries tailed her; the lookout called down repeatedly, his tone growing thick with frustration and fear, that the barrelboat was keeping pace, was even beginning to close a bit.
Now at the taffrail the four monks and Captain Adjonas watched the powries' progress. Avelyn could see the craft clearly now; no longer did he confuse the strange barrelboat with any wave shadows.
Adjonas looked up at his sails, then at his crew, tacking frantically to keep them as full of wind as possible.
"An amazing design," Quintall remarked of the closing craft. "Why is it that we humans have not copied it?"
"There is a human barrelboat in Freeport," Adjonas replied, "and several were constructed in Ursal for use on the river. But men are not powries. The quarters within such a boat are tight -- far tighter than even your small cabin on the Windrunner. And men have not the powrie endurance. The dwarves can pedal all day, while most men tire within the hour -- or after a couple of hours, at most."
Quintall nodded, his respect for the stoic, tireless enemy redoubled. "If the powries will not tire, then we cannot simply keep up the run," he remarked.
"I will set bowmen firing flaming arrows upon the vessel when it closes a bit more," Adjonas answered, his tone far from hopeful. "But most of the craft is underwater, with little above to aim at, and none of that critical. Hopefully we will be able to keep our pace swift enough so that the powries' initial ram causes little damage. Then we will fight them -- what choice do we have? -- as they try to board us."
Quintall was shaking his head before Adjonas even finished. "We cannot allow them to ram," he argued. "Any damage would slow us, at the least, and that we cannot afford. We have less than a week of extra time -- and that if our calculations to our destination are correct and the winds hold."
"I see few options," Adjonas remarked.
The other three monks were looking grimly at the distant barrelboat or at each other, shaking their heads, but Quintall had turned his thoughts in a different direction, digesting all the information that Adjonas had given him of the enemy.
"Tell me," he said at length, "how swift will a barrelboat run if its great fan becomes entangled?"
Adjonas looked at him curiously.
"We have extra netting," Quintall added.
"The fan is not so exposed," Adjonas said. "Even if we placed the netting perfectly in the barrelboat's path, it would not likely snag on anything except the catch hooks protecting the fan."
"Suppose that we did not simply place the net but rather took it to its destination?" Quintall asked slyly, drawing a confused look from all but Thagraine, who had caught on and was more than eager.
"That would be foolhardy," Adjonas began, but he stopped as the hatch of the barrelboat flipped open and a red-capped head popped into sight. Up came a skinny arm, holding a funnel-shaped tube.
"Humans!" the powrie shouted through the funnel. "Yach, trader, give her up! You cannot outrun us, yach you cannot, nor can you hope to give a, fight. Give her up, I say, and some of you might be spared."
Adjonas looked all around at his now-stationary crew. He saw the expressions there, the sudden faint hope in the powrie's promise.
Bunkus Smealy spoke for many of them by Adjonas' estimation. "Might that we should harken to his words, Captain," the first hand said. "If we offer them no fight --'
Adjonas pushed him aside and walked in from the rail so that all on deck could see him. "They shall kill us, every one!" he shouted. "These are powries, bloody caps, looking to wet their berets in human blood. They'll not let a ship sail from them, nor do they have room for prisoners! If we stop, or even slow, they'll only ram us all the harder."
Even as Adjonas spoke, a flaming quarrel arched over the taffrail of the Windrunner, slashing into the rear sail. Three crewmen ran to. the small fire immediately, minimizing the damage.
"Yach, how long can you keep up the run, trader?" the powrie howled, and then he disappeared, closing the hatch behind him.
"Who are your best swimmers?" Quintall asked, moving up to the captain. Adjonas looked at him curiously.
"The Windrunner is a ship of cold northern waters," he replied. "As a habit, we do not swim."
Quintall nodded grimly and turned to his three brothers. He hated risking them all but realized the success of the mission hinged on their actions right now. Before he ever finished his motion, Avelyn, Pellimar, and Thagraine dropped their robes to the deck and began stretching their muscles and swinging their arms.
"We are swimmers," Quintall explained. "Even in the cold northern waters. Fetch me a net."
Adjonas motioned to Bunkus Smealy; this was Quintall's operation now, and the Windrunner captain, with no other apparent options, was more than willing to give the sturdy monk his chance.
The four were at the port rail out of sight of the barrelboat soon after. Quintall tossed the net into the water, and Thagraine went in right behind it, taking hold.
Adjonas grabbed Quintall by the shoulder. He pulled a stone from his baldric, a small red ruby, and handed it over. "Only if you see a need," he explained. "That stone is, more valuable than all my ship."
Quintall looked it over curiously. He could feel the magic within it, a faint pulsing of energy. He nodded to Adjonas, then unexpectedly handed the stone to Avelyn. "Not a man alive knows the power of the stones better," he said to his companion. "Use it well if we find the need."
Avelyn took it and fingered it for a few moments, feeling the energy clearly, understanding the purpose of the stone as surely as if it had spoken to him. He moved to put it in his loincloth but didn't feel secure with, that, so he popped it into his mouth instead, rolling it behind his teeth.
Then they went in, swimming fast to join Thagraine, who was still bobbing with the net, many yards behind the swift-running Windrunner.
They split into two groups, with Thagraine and Quintall holding the net between them while swimming out to the side, trying to find an angle to the closing barrelboat, and Pellimar and Avelyn putting themselves right in line with the craft, keeping low in the water in case that hatch should open again or in case the powries had some other method of looking out.
Adjonas watched nervously from the taffrail. He knew things about powries and about the sea that the four monks apparently did not. If the barrelboat got by the net holders, for example, they would never catch up and Adjonas couldn't turn about for them. They would be stranded in open water, and thus, surely doomed. Even more dangerous, powries were said to have waterborne friends, often ones with a distinctive dorsal fin.
The captain nodded, confident that even if brave Quintall knew all of this, he still would have gone into the South Mirianic with the net.
"Swim hard!" Quintall gurgled to his companion, moving fast to close the remaining distance. The barrelboat was moving much more swiftly than it appeared, for it cut no prow wake, as did the Windrunner. Thagraine worked as furiously as he could, flailing arms and legs, but he would not have gotten to the mark had not Quintall, the other end of the netting hooked about his broad shoulders, tugged him along.
Exhausted, the two men dove under for the last expanse, swimming so the craft would pass right over them. Fortunately, the water was crystal clear.
Up ahead, Avelyn and Pellimar waited anxiously. They would have to get aboard the barrelboat, whatever the outcome of Quintall's attempt. If the net failed, then these two would have to find some way to stop the powries. Avelyn rolled his tongue over the ruby. The stone wouldn't be nearly strong enough, he realized, to take out the wet barrelboat's sturdy hull.
The barrelboat closed -- fifty yards, forty, twenty -- cutting the water smoothly.
Then it jerked suddenly and its straight run shifted to the diagonal. Avelyn and Pellimar swam with all speed. Pellimar reached the drifting boat first, pulling himself cautiously up its slick, rounded side. He shuffled for the hatch and got there just after it opened.
The first powrie out was truly stunned. The fan had snagged on some seaweed or on something the caravel had dropped, so the dwarves thought, and it was not so uncommon an occurrence. But to see a human standing on the deck!
The sight was no less amazing to Pellimar, who had never seen a powrie up close: The dwarf stood just over four feet, with gangly arms and legs that seemed too skinny to support its barrel-like torso.
The dwarf's expression did not change, its pale, wrinkled face staring openmouthed as Pellimar hit it with a solid right cross.
The monk stared at his wounded hand, and at his opponent, so much more solid than it appeared! The hard-headed powrie shook its head vigorously, lips flapping.
Pellimar hit it again, a series of three quick left jabs, then brought his right leg up hard, snapping out his foot to connect right under the powrie's jaw. The dwarf's head snapped back, and it fell to the deck and rolled over the side of the barrelboat.
But another was in its place, this one not surprised. Pellimar, quick as a cat, hit it, too, with three solid punches -- a left, right, left combination -- but the monk's impetus was lost when his right hand, still pained from the first hit, connected that second time.
Avelyn, rushing in behind his brother, saw Pellimar jerk suddenly and then fall to the side, a bright red line across his chest. There before Avelyn stood the powrie, its short sword dripping Pellimar's blood. The dwarf squealed in rage, seeing its victim falling off the side, seeing a chance to heighten the color of its already bright crimson beret tumbling into the Mirianic. That moment of distraction gave Avelyn his chance.
He could have bent low and barreled into the dwarf, but he sensed its solidity and saw another powrie coming through the hatch behind it. Putting his personal safety aside, Avelyn had to consider the greater good.
He ran forward and slid down to the deck, scrambling fast and taking the ruby from his mouth. He rubbed it in his hand, calling forth its magic, finding its center of energy and bringing that to a volatile level.
The powrie came across with a backhand slash, but Avelyn managed to duck beneath it. He reached between the powrie's legs and tossed the stone upward, toward the hatch. Then, guided purely by his survival instinct, Avelyn curled his legs under him and came up fast.
The ruby, shining with power, arced lazily over the open hatch. The next powrie coming out saw its sparkle and, mesmerized, reached for it. The dwarf caught the gem securely, but surrendered his hold on the ladder. Thus, when Avelyn and the other powrie came up suddenly, rising over the stone holder, the surprised dwarf fell back down into the barrelboat, glowing ruby in hand.
Avelyn clung to the powrie's sword arm, for all his life. He had one hand below him and managed to push the hatch back as they descended, Avelyn rolling right over the hatchway, the deceivingly agile powrie hopping to its feet atop the now-closed portal. The dwarf lifted its sword, grinning evilly, and let out a wail that shook Avelyn to the marrow of his bones :as he lay prone not far away.
But then the dwarf was flying, the hatch spinning through the air behind it, and a stream of thick black smoke poured from the open hole.
The jolt sent Avelyn tumbling, and he didn't fight the motion. The blast had not likely killed half the powries -- the barrelboat was nearly as large as the Windrunner! -- and they would be up on deck soon enough.
And Avelyn had no desire to face another.
Quintall and Thagraine came up breathless after setting the net in place. By the time Quintall got near the barrelboat a powrie was in the water, and Brother Pellimar was tumbling close behind.
With their heavy bodies and spindly limbs, powries were not strong swimmers, and Quintall easily overtook the dazed creature, pushing it under the water and gaining a seat atop its shoulders. The powrie struggled desperately, but the powerful man locked his legs tight and fought to keep his balance.
The dwarf would not find the surface ever again.
Once in the water, Avelyn found Quintall treading high not so far away, half his body clear of the sea. The sight surprised Avelyn at first until he noted the "seat" his companion had found. Thagraine, some distance to the side, had Pellimar under one arm, swimming as hard as he could for the turning caravel.
As soon as his grim business was finished, Quintall, easily the strongest swimmer, relieved Thagraine of his burden and nearly kept up with his two companions, despite the added weight of an unconscious Pellimar.
Adjonas watched it all anxiously, moving along the rail as his ship executed a turn. The barrelboat was disabled temporarily, but the fight was hardly over. The captain ordered archers into place and told them to take whatever shots presented themselves if the powries came out through that smoke, which was already diminishing.
Then he watched, because there was nothing else he could do. The Windrunner came right about, bearing down on the four monks, and on the barrelboat. There were indeed powries on her deck now, some with heavy crossbows; taking potshots at the swimming monks.
Even worse for the monks, Adjonas knew, was the trail of blood the wounded Pellimar was leaving in the water.
Thagraine was first to the Windrunner, grabbing frantically at a line thrown from the deck. He had barely taken hold, Avelyn twenty yards away, and Quintall and Pellimar that distance again, when the lookout gave a not unexpected cry.
"Dorsal fin!" he shouted. "Shark, white shark!"
"Get them up quickly!" Adjonas howled, moving to the rope to lend a hand. "More ropes into the water!"
One thrown rope splashed right near Avelyn, but understanding the frantic lookout and the newest danger, he refused it, turning about for Quintall and Pellimar.
"Brother Avelyn!" Thagraine shouted from his perch on the Windrunner's rail. "You and I are the Preparers! They are expendable!"
The words assaulted Avelyn with the force of a cold slap. Expendable? These were monks of St.-Mere-Abelle! These were human beings!
With a growl, Avelyn pushed on, finally reaching the tiring Quintall. To Avelyn's surprise, Pellimar bobbed in the water behind the stocky man.
Avelyn asked no questions, nor did Quintall, who was swimming hard for the rope. Avelyn finally reached Pellimar and hooked his arm around the bobbing man's shoulder.
A crossbow quarrel skipped across the water right beside Avelyn's face as he turned. He saw it, then -- a dorsal fin sticking fully two feet out of the water -- and though he had never seen or heard of sharks before, he could well imagine the horrors that lay beneath the telltale fin.
The shark closed, as did the Windrunner. A dozen men -- Quintall, Thagraine, and Adjonas among them -- had the rope in hand and were pulling it taut even as Avelyn desperately grabbed its other end.
He couldn't lift himself even a bit, had all that he could handle and more in simply keeping his grasp on the rope and on limp Pellimar.
But they got him up to the rail, Quintall grabbing Pellimar and hauling the man onto the deck, Avelyn dangling dangerously low. He heard the screams of the crewmen and looked down, one foot still in the water, as the great dark shape, fully twenty-five feet in length, glided under the Windrunner, under Avelyn.
A split second later, the terrified monk was standing on the deck.
"Big one," Adjonas remarked, noting the shark.
Bunkus Smealy turned his greasy grin on Avelyn, holding one hand up, his thumb and index finger about five inches apart. "With teeth this long," he said cruelly.
There were a dozen powries on the deck of the barrelboat,
Adjonas noted, but none would go into the water with the great shark so close and so obviously agitated. Powries and sharks worked in concert, so it was said, but apparently there were limits to such friendship.
A wicked grin widened on the captain's face; he decided to test that unlikely truce.
"Give them a bump," he told Bunkus Smealy, and the first hand shrieked with glee and ran to the wheel.
It wasn't a full ram -- no sensible captain would pit his ship against the strong hull of a powrie barrelboat -- but enough of a nudge certainly to send all but one of the powries on deck rolling into the water. The Windrunner's archers opened up hard as the ship crossed beside the powrie craft, leaving three more dwarves dead in the water.
A second, smaller dorsal fin joined the first in its tightening ring.
How the dwarves scrambled!
"Get us away," Adjonas called to his crew. The sharks would feed on the dead, and the frantic actions of those still alive combined with the widening blood spill would likely bring more in, he knew. No powrie would dare go into the water to try and untangle the netted fan with frenzied sharks so close.
Even worse for the powries, though neither Adjonas nor any other aboard the Windrunner could have foreseen it, the drifting barrelboat appeared remarkably like a wounded whale to the crazed sharks.
The barrelboat, rolling from the contact with the Windrunner, with water rushing in the open hatchway, soon disappeared under the waves.
The excitement on the Windrunner did not dissipate until the powries were left far behind. The monks had been the heroes of the fight, but Avelyn heard crewmen muttering "foolhardy" as often as "brave." The sailors were a tough bunch, proud and cynical, and if he or Quintall or any of the others expected a congratulatory pat on the back, they were disappointed.
Avelyn and Thagraine took the severely wounded Pellimar into Dansally's quarters, and found the woman was versed in more skills than the sensual. Soon after, the man was resting as comfortably as possible, and Avelyn left the room.
He found Quintall standing with Adjonas, the captain, looking weary, leaning against the mainmast.
"Powries," he was muttering when Avelyn walked up. "More bloody caps than ever on the Mirianic, north and south. They. have multiplied on their isles, the Julianthes, it would seem, bursting from their shores. Their attacks will only increase in number and in purpose."
Quintall shrugged away the grim words. "How fares Pellimar?" he asked Avelyn.
Avelyn sighed helplessly. "He may live," he replied, "or he may not."
Quintall nodded, then suddenly exploded into action, his roundhouse punch catching Avelyn square on the jaw, dropping the man in a heap to the deck. "How dare you?" Quintall yelled.
Sailors looked up from every corner of the deck; Adjonas eyed the stocky man with disbelief.
Avelyn pulled himself up, wary of another blow, thoroughly confused by Quintall's actions.
"You are the chosen Preparer," Quintall scolded. "Yet you risked your life to save Pellimar."
"We all risked our lives by going out," Avelyn argued.
"We had no choice in the matter," Quintall retorted, so angry that his spittle sprayed forth with every word. "But when the danger to the Windrunner was ended, when the powries were stopped and the way was clear, you went back into the dangerous waters."
"Pellimar would have been eaten!"
"A pity, but not important!"
Avelyn swallowed his next retort, knowing that it would be a useless argument. He had never imagined such a level of fanaticism, even from stern Quintall. "I could not leave him, and you."
Quintall spat on the deck at Avelyn's feet. "I asked you not for help, and would have -- refused it if offered. The way to our destination was cleared, the threat to the Windrunner ended. You should have gone aboard and stayed aboard. What a waste Pellimar's life, and my own, would have been had Avelyn, too, died in the water!"
Avelyn had no response. The argument was indisputable. He pulled himself up, nodding in agreement, though in his heart he knew if the situation arose again he would again go back to the pair.
"We do not know that the way to Pimaninicuit is now clear," Adjonas whispered, protecting the sacred name.
"Pellimar is no good to us in any case," Quintall was fast to respond. "Even if he lives, he'll not likely crawl out of bed for many days."
Avelyn studied the stocky man intently. The mission was all important -- Avelyn agreed and he would sacrifice his own life for the good of the voyage. But to ask him to let another die?
Avelyn shook his head, though fortunately Quintall and Adjonas missed the movement. No, the young monk decided, that he could not, would not, do.
"Remember," Quintall said to him gravely.
"I will go to Pellimar," Avelyn replied, taking comfort in the subtle vow the words implied, one that Quintall could not comprehend. "Dansally tends his wounds."
"Who?" Quintall asked as Avelyn walked away.
Avelyn smiled, not surprised.
Pellimar's condition did not much improve as the days slipped past. The weather remained hot and clear, and no more barrelboats came into view.
Perhaps it was the boredom, the heat, or the tasteless provisions, but the crew grew increasingly uneasy, even hostile. More than once, Avelyn heard Bunkus Smealy and Adjonas in a shouting match, and every time. the monk walked the open deck now, he felt burning gazes of hatred on his back. The crew were blaming the monks for their discomfort, for this whole journey. Quintall had warned Avelyn and Thagraine of this, as Adjonas had warned Quintall. The Windrunner was usually a coast hugger. Journeys into the wide, vast ocean were extremely rare, and rumors told of a madness that often grabbed at a crew. Ships had been found, so the stories went, intact and seaworthy, but with not a crewman aboard. Some said it was, the work of ghosts, or evil monsters of the deeper waters, but most rational, experienced sailors attributed it to fear and suspicion, to the long days of emptiness and the undeniable feeling that the sea would never end, that the ship would sail and sail until there was no more to eat and no more to drink.
It got so bad by the sixth week out of Jacintha that Adjonas, to Avelyn's utter dismay, opened privileges of Dansally to other members of the crew. It had to be done in a calm fashion, so the captain ordered, and every time Avelyn saw another of the filthy sailors going to Dansally's door, his heart sank a bit lower, and he chewed a bit more of his skin from his lip.
Dansally took it in stride, accepting her lot in life, but her expanded duties left her little time for her talks with Avelyn, something the monk, and now the woman, dearly needed.
Even the extra privileges did little to improve the mood of the increasingly surly crew. The situation came to a frightening head one especially hot humid morning. Quintall spent the better part of an hour in a sometimes heated discussion with Captain Adjonas. Finally, Adjonas seemed to nod his assent, and then he called Bunkus Smealy to his side.
More yelling ensued, mostly by Quintall, and when Smealy at last tried to counter, the stocky monk snapped his hand under Smealy's chin and lifted the man from the deck by the throat.
Avelyn and Thagraine rushed to Quintall's side, Thagraine pointing out that all the crew was watching with more than passing interest.
"It proves my point, Captain Adjonas," Quintall remarked, giving Smealy a little shake. "He is the leader of the unrest, a man to be thrown over as food for the sharks."
Adjonas calmly put his hand over Quintall's arm, easing it and his first hand down. Smealy pulled away, coughing and, predictably, turned to the crew for help.
"Utter one word of encouragement to them," Quintall threatened, "and all my attacks, and those of my companions, will be directed at you. Both your arms and both your legs will be broken and useless when you hit the water, Bunkus Smealy. How long could you stay afloat, waiting for the Windrunner to turn about and find you?"
The greasy man blanched. "We're too far out," he said to his captain, his plea sounding as a whine. "Too far!"
"The island --" Adjonas started to say.
Smealy stopped him with a snarl. "There ain't no island!" he yelled, and the murmurs of the crewmen, seeming closer now than a moment before, were in agreement.
Adjonas turned a worried glance at Quintall. They had another month of sailing, at the least, and the captain honestly wondered if his crew would show that much patience. They had been carefully picked, most had sailed with Adjonas for nearly a decade, but weeks on end out of sight of land were unnerving.
"Three months!" the captain yelled suddenly. "Before ever we started from Jacintha, I told you that we would find three months of travel before our destination was reached. Yet, we've not yet marked the end of our second month out of St.-Mere-Abelle. Are you cowards, then? Are you not men of your honor?"
That backed them off, though they continued grumbling.
"Know by my word," Quintall said to Smealy as the first hand, too, retreated, "that I hold you personally responsible for the actions of the crew."
Smealy never blinked and didn't dare look away from the dangerous monk until he was halfway across the deck.
"It will only worsen if Pimaninicuit is not easily found," Adjonas quietly warned the three.
Quintall fixed him with an icy stare.
"We are on course, and on time," Adjonas assured him, feeling the need to calm the man, "according to the maps I was given."
"They are accurate to the league," Quintall growled in response.
Indeed they were, for four and a half uneasy weeks later, the lookout cried out, "Land to forward!"
All the crew rushed to the forward rails, and soon enough the gray haze became more substantial, became the undeniable outline of an island, conical in shape. Gray became green as they closed, lush vegetation thick on the slopes.
"By my estimation we have nearly a week to spare," Adjonas remarked to the four monks -- for Pellimar, though still very weak, was up on the deck again. "Should we go ashore and scout --"
"No!" Quintall snapped to everyone's amazement. The captain's recommendation seemed perfectly logical.
"None but the Preparers may go ashore," Quintall explained. "Any others who touch the shores of Pimaninicuit will find their lives forfeit."
It was a strange decree, one that caught Avelyn so much by surprise that he hardly noticed Quintall had openly proclaimed the name of the island.
The words caught Captain Adjonas off his guard as well, an unexpected proclamation and one that was hardly welcomed by Adjonas. His crew had been aboard ship for so long, with only the short break in Entel. To keep them out now, with land so close and inviting -- land likely covered with fruit trees and other luxuries they had not known on the open sea -- was foolhardy indeed.
But Quintall would not relent. "Circle the island close once that we might discern where best to put the Preparers ashore, then sail out to deeper water out of sight of the island," he instructed the captain. "Then sail back in five days."
Adjonas knew he was at a critical point here. He didn't agree with Quintall, not at all, but now with Pimaninicuit in sight, he had, by agreement with the Father Abbot, to let the monk take command. This was the purpose of the voyage, after all, and Father Abbot Markwart had made. no secret of Adjonas' place in all this. On the open seas, he was the captain; at Pimaninicuit, he would do as told, or all payment, and the sum was considerable, would be forfeit.
And worse.
So they circled, spotting one promising lagoon, and then sailed out to deeper waters for the longest five days of the trip, particularly for Avelyn and Thagraine.
Avelyn spent all the. list day in prayer and meditation, mentally preparing himself for the task ahead. He wanted to go to Dansally and tell her of his fears, of his inadequacy for such a task, but he resisted the urge. This was his battle alone.
Finally, he and Thagraine, carrying their supplies, slipped down the rope off the side of the Windrunner into the boat, Pimaninicuit looming large before them.
"We need be far out when the showers begin," Quintall explained to them, "for the stones have been known to cause great damage. When it is ended, we will sail back here."
A cry from the stern stole the conversation, and the monks and Adjonas turned as one to see one of the crew, a boy of no more than seventeen who had been especially sea-crazed, dive off the ship into the water, then begin swimming hard for the shore.
"Mister Smealy!" Adjonas roared; turning a stern eye on all the crew. "Archers to the rail!"
"Let him go," Quintall said, surprising Adjonas. Quintall realized that shooting the desperate man in front of the crew would likely cause a mutiny. "Let him go!" Quintall yelled louder. "But since he has chosen the island, he will find his work doubled." He bent low and whispered something to Thagraine then, and Avelyn doubted that it had anything to do with putting the fleeing man to work.
Avelyn and Thagraine rowed away from the Windrunner moments later and the ship raised sail immediately, fleeing for the safety of the deeper waters far from Pimaninicuit. On board Quintall launched right away into lies about the dangers to the foolish seaman, about how the monks, and the monks alone, were trained to withstand the fury of the showers. "He will not likely live to return to the Windrunner," Quintall explained, trying to prepare the volatile crew for the blow that would surely come.
Thagraine was out and running as soon as the small boat brushed its bottom on the black sands of the island beach. They had passed the mutineer on the water, far to the side, and Thagraine had made a mental note of his direction and speed.
Avelyn called out to his companion, but Thagraine only ordered him to secure the boat, and did not look back.
Avelyn felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He hauled the boat to a sheltered point in the lagoon and tipped it low, filling it with water and securing it on the shallow bottom.
Thagraine returned to him soon after.
Avelyn winced, seeing the man alone. He knew what instructions Quintall had offered.
"There is much to eat," Thagraine said happily, trembling with excitement. "And we must seek out a cave."
Avelyn said nothing, just followed quietly, praying for the young sailor's soul.
The next two days, mostly spent huddled in a small cave on the side of the single mountain, overlooking the beach and the wide water, were perfectly unbearable. Thagraine was most ill at ease, pacing, stalking, and muttering to himself.
Avelyn understood the man's distress and knew that Thagraine's agitation could cost them both much when the showers came. "You killed him," the younger monk remarked quietly, taking care so that his statement did not sound as an accusation.
Thagraine stopped his pacing. "Any who step on Pimaninicuit forfeit their lives," he replied, straining hard to keep his tone even.
Avelyn didn't believe a word of it; in his mind, Thagraine had acted as a tool for the murderous Quintall.
"How will they know when we are finished?" Thagraine asked suddenly, wildly. "How will they even know when the showers occur if they sail so far from the island?"
Avelyn eyed him carefully. He had hoped to draw the man into a discussion of his action against the sailor, to ease the man's mind, at least for now, that they might concentrate on their most important mission. But his words hardly seemed to calm Thagraine; quite the opposite, the man, obviously racked with guilt paced all the more furiously, slapping his hands together repeatedly.
The showers, by their calculations, were now overdue. Still the pair huddled near the edge of the cave, looking for some sign.
"Is it even true?" Thagraine protested every few minutes. "Is there a man alive who can bear witness to such a thing?"
"The old tomes do not lie," Avelyn said faithfully.
"How do you know?" Thagraine exploded. "Where are the stones, then? Where is the precious day?" He stopped, gasping for breath. "Seven generations," he shouted, "and we are to get here within the week of the showers? What folly is this? Why, if the abbey's calculations are off by only a month, or a year perhaps . . . are we to stay huddled in a hole all that time?"
"Calm, Thagraine," Avelyn murmured. "Hold fast your faith in Father Abbot Markwart and in God."
"To the pit of Hell with Father Abbot Markwart!" the other monk howled. "God?". He spat contemptuously. "What does God know when he calls for the death of a frightened boy?"
So that was it, Avelyn realized: guilt, pure and simple. Avelyn moved to take Thagraine's hand, to try and offer comfort, but the older monk shoved him away and scrambled out the narrow mouth of the cave, running off into the brush.
"Do not!" Avelyn cried, and he paused only a moment before following. He lost sight of Thagraine immediately, the monk disappearing into the thick underbrush but headed, predictably, for the open beach. Avelyn moved to follow, but as soon as he got out of sight of the cave, something, some inner voice, called to him to stop. He looked back in the direction of the cave, then out over the hillside to the water. He noted that the sky had turned a funny color, a purplish, rosy hue the likes of which Avelyn had only seen at sunrise or sunset, and then only on the appropriate horizon. Yet the sun, in this region of long days, was still hours from the western rim and should have been shining bright and yellow in the cloudless sky.
"Damnation," Avelyn sputtered, and he scrambled with all speed back to the shelter of the cave. Inside, from that higher perch, he spotted Thagraine, running wildly along the beach, and he saw, too, a gentle rustling on the water far out from the shore.
Avelyn closed his eyes and prayed.
"Where are you, damned God?" Thagraine cried, stumbling along the black sands of Pimaninicuit. "What cost do you exact from your faithful? What lies do you tell?"
He stopped then, suddenly, hearing the splashing.
He grabbed at his arm a moment later, felt a line of blood there, and noticed a small stone, a smoky crystal, lying on the black sand before him.
Thagraine's eyes widened as surely as if God himself had answered his questions. He looked back and turned and ran with all speed for the cave, crying for Avelyn every step.
Avelyn couldn't bear to watch, nor could he bear to look away. Fiery rocks streaked down before the cave entrance, slicing holes in the wide leaves of trees and bushes. The rocky hail was light for some time, gradually increasing to the point where it punished the very ground of Pimaninicuit.
And through the deluge, Avelyn heard his name. He peered out, stunned, as a torn and battered Thagraine came into view beyond the thinned foliage, the man bleeding in so many places that he seemed one great wound. He stumbled forward pitifully, holding out his arms toward the cave.
Avelyn set his feet under him. He knew that it was foolhardy for him to go out, but how could he not? He could make it, he told himself grimly. He could get to Thagraine and shelter the man back to the cave. He tried not to think of the choice that would then befall him, of tending to either Thagraine or to the sacred stones, for his period of opportunity for sealing the enchantment of the stones was narrow indeed.
But Avelyn would have to worry about that when the time came. Thagraine was barely twenty strides away, stumbling forward, when Avelyn started out.
He saw it at once, a dark blot high above, and he knew, somehow he knew, its deadly path.
Thagraine spotted him then, a hopeful, pitiful, smile widening on his bloody face.
The stone streaked down like an aimed arrow, smashing into the back of Thagraine's head, laying him out flat on the ground.
Avelyn fell back into the cave, into his prayers.
The storm intensified over the next hour, wind and rocky rain pounding the island, battering the ground above Avelyn's hole so forcefully that the monk feared it would collapse upon him.
But then, as abruptly as it began, it ended, and the skies cleared quickly to deep blue.
Avelyn came out, frightened but determined. He went right to Thagraine, a torn and bloody pulp. Avelyn meant to turn him over, but he could not find his breath when he looked at the fatal wound, a gaping hole smashed right through Thagraine's skull, brain matter splattered all about.
The object of Thagraine's death, a huge purple amethyst, held Avelyn's attention. Gently, reverently, Avelyn reached into the back of his dead companion's head and pulled forth the stone. He could feel the power thrumming within it, the likes of which he had never before imagined. Surely this was greater than any stone at St.-Mere-Abelle! And the size of it! Avelyn's hands were large indeed, yet even with his fingers fully extended he could not touch all edges of the stone.
He went to work, put all thoughts of Thagraine and of the boy Thagraine had killed far out of his mind, and went with furor to the task he had trained to do for all these years. He prepared the amethyst first, coating it with special oils, giving it some of his own energy through intense prayer and handling.
Then he went on, letting his instincts guide him to which stones were the most full of heavenly energy. Many showed no magical power at all, and Avelyn soon realized that these were the remnants of previous showers, brought up to the surface by the battering of the storm. He selected an egg-sized hematite next, and then a ruby, small but flawless to his trained eye.
On and on he went. Only those stones he selected and treated would hold their power; the others would become the waste of Pimaninicuit, buried by the black sands and the resurgent foliage over the next seven generations.
Late that night, the monk fell; thoroughly exhausted, upon the beach bordering the lagoon. He did not wake up until long after the dawn, his precious cargo intact in his pack. Only then did Avelyn take the time to note that dramatic change that had come over Pimaninicuit. No longer did the island seem so plush and inviting. Where trees and thick brush had grown was now only battered pulp and blasted stone.
It took great effort for the monk to get the sunken boat raised and floating, but he somehow managed. He thought that he should fill it with fruits or some other delicacy, but in looking around at the near total devastation, Avelyn realized that opportunity was lost. On another note, Avelyn could not help but laugh at the absurd, useless treasure that lay strewn all about him. In an hour's time, he could collect enough precious -- though non-magical -- gemstones to finance the building of a palace finer than that in Ursal. In a day, he could have more wealth than any man in all Honce-the-Bear, in all the world, perhaps, including the fabulously rich tribal chieftains of Behren. But his orders concerning Pimaninicuit had been explicit and unyielding: only those stones treated to retain their magic could be brought from the island. Any other gems taken would be considered an insult to God himself. The gift of the showers was given to two monks only, and whatever they might prepare, they might take. Not a ruby, not a smoky quartz, more.
Thus, Avelyn simply sat staring outward, too overwhelmed even to eat, and waited for the Windrunner.
The sails came into sight late the next day. Like a robot, beyond feeling, Brother Avelyn got into the boat and pushed away. Only then did he think that perhaps he should retrieve the body of Thagraine, but he decided against that course.
What better fate and final resting place for an Abellican monk?