6 Eleasias
Swimming through black water.
Slap.
"Hey! Wake up! Wake up already, slack-stick-muckler!"
Slap.
Cheeks stinging; there was a squirrel beside me and a red-haired girl. Salt and sand coated the inside of my mouth. I leaned to the side and spit it out; and noticed that my shirt hung loose and opened.
"Good," Imoen said sharply. "Haven't found the others. Just Lorancs and Nowell. But it was Faldorn who did something."
I remembered struggling; trying to swim across the surface of the waves until the sanded shore. It was vague and all but incomprehensible. Perhaps something pushing. I reached to my side, and there was evidence that something had indeed aided us. That meant we could dare to hope that the others were alive.
"Water," I croaked. She guided me to a muddy stream, braken-grown, and it was as sweet and fresh as anything from a Grand Duke's fountain. I wiped a hand across my chin, and then touched the hilt of the sword at my side. We weren't defenceless, in this strange place...
"The boy's alive," Aquerna spoke up, scratching at her sand-stained fur. "Go... West, I believe. Further along the beach." An unmistakable relief was bound to her tone. At least there were that many of us who had escaped. The horizon was clearer on this dawn than the darkness of the storm, and I saw some scattered planks still floating on the waves.
On an island; on Balduran's island. Castaways. The sand was coarse; the coast was marked by a hundred small hollows and frilled inland banks. If we couldn't find all of them... Imoen looked as exhausted as I felt; we trudged in the direction Aquerna told us.
There was Ajantis at last; he stood upright, stumbling along the sands, supporting Davroan by his side. Aquerna raced along the ground to him, nuzzling her head against his legs.
"That's four of us," I said, nervous. "And Lorancs and Nowell, Imoen?"
"They went east to search," she said. "We...should keep going, I guess..."
Captain Halderwin, Tellarian, Aatto, Faldorn, Shar-Teel, Viconia. If they lived. We stumbled along the tides and hollows, meeting none. Faldorn at least, surely, had come to shore; she'd spoken of swimming past rivers in her groves, even through icy waters of a northern winter. Exhausted, Imoen finally gave the order to turn back to find Lorancs and Nowell once more; given to search on the eastern coastline.
We saw Shar-Teel at a distance; rising tall and strong and making her way slowly toward us. She'd made it with her sword still on her back; as if she'd ever abandon a weapon.
Then we heard a voice from the foliage of the island:
"You...smell different! Hello, you."
Shar-Teel and I had placed hand to sword, but then we saw no need for it. The speaker was a little girl, carrying a ball roughly carved out of wood, dressed in a simple pinafore of brown flax, her bright red hair separated into three pigtails. As if from her side she felt no reason to fear us in turn, she skipped out of the cover of the woods.
"You swim in?" she said. I couldn't quite put my finger on what her accent meant, drowsy and weary. "Fishies out there have big teeth, and the rocks hurt ship-homes. But if you nice, village will let you stay."
Imoen knelt down to bring herself to the child's height, and patted her on the head. "Hello, little one. Are you here all by yourself?"
The girl shook her head strongly. "Nope, silly! I live with Mommay, Poppay, my smelly little brother too. And we got three neighbours on one side and two neighbours on the other. The village is nice but I want to be alone to play."
An entire village; people, succour and sustenance... "I know some neat magic tricks that you might like," Imoen said. She closed her eyes, and even though she seemed exhausted, she moved her hands and said a few words. A glittering butterfly in pink and purple appeared between her hands, one of Garrick's cantrip tricks that he sometimes used to illustrate his songs, and it fluttered halfway around the child's head before blinking out into thin air. Imoen shuddered in her place; I rested an arm on her shoulder to try to hold her upright.
"You funny people." The girl giggled. "Strangers don't often want to make friends, Mommay says, but you not scary like the beasties."
"My name's Imoen," Imoen said, "and these are all friends just like me."
"I'm Solianna!" The girl laughed again, showing two missing baby-teeth in her mouth. Then suddenly she looked down at the sands, and scuffed a foot on the ground. "You gotta go to the village first, I not allowed to talk with strangers. Mommay's friend Kaishas Gan will help, she chieftain now."
"Can you show us?" Imoen said desperately; and with digressions into interesting parts of the trees and caterpillars that crawled over the undergrowth, we came to the settlement of people.
"We were shipwrecked," Imoen got out, "some of our friends are still...They've gotta be somewhere..."
Kaishas reminded me of Branwen in build, muscled but not as tall as Shar-Teel. She was brown-haired, her complexion a few shades darker than Eldoth's saturnine features. She saw us to a large wooden shed, and gave us waterskins; it was a relief to sit down in the shade and drink fresh water.
"I will send salvage party to search for your friends," she said. "I am chieftain here, for my mate Selaad is away. You come in a ship-home, so you are welcomed here; for our beginning was as yours." Her lilting accent seemed gentle and peaceful. A man by her side called Tailas said nothing. "If you behave in belonging, we help each other. We talk more when you rested, yes?"
"We talk now." Shar-Teel stood, above her height; and Kaishas, unintimidated—of course unintimidated, she'd an entire village and we, nothing—agreed.
"You sail from mainland-home. Two carry metal and four have smell of fighters," the chieftain said. "This village is peaceful but the island is wild. The beasts do not belong. It is favour we ask, but beasts kill all on sight and though you are not their enemy they would be enemy to you. We ask for your help and in return take you to mainland-home by our side. We had start to build a ship-home in northeast where reefs and cliffs are calm, but beasts live there. If you kill beasts all free to leave. If you know of way home..." Kaishas' words trailed off; I felt inside my clothing and found that Mendas' oilcloth packet was still there, one copy of his sea-charts. I said nothing, though; in merchantry one doesn't reveal everything at the start of a negotiation, even if the people seem very nice.
"What are the beasts?" Shar-Teel said.
Kaishas shook her head. "Beasts," she repeated. "That is all tongue we use to say it. They are wolf-like but not wolves. Man-like but not men. Strong, like this." She raised an arm, and patted around it in a large circle to show huge muscles. "Claws on four paws. Long teeth and fever eyes."
"—Werewolves," I said, remembering tales, shocked; Mister Lorancs looked pale.
Kaishas gave a slow nod. "Wolf some on outside, man some on outside, beast in whole. Wolfweres more correct. Wolves have peace and belong, beasts have slaughter only. No beast welcome here."
"And Balduran's ship?" I said, remembering why we had come in the first place. "The ship that was wrecked here, by the famous explorer Balduran. The Wandering Eye, a four-masted carrack. It had four decks, and a figurehead of a red-haired dwarven lady, and was made from Tethyrian fir for the masts, Calimshite cedar at the hull and between the decks, and Cormyrian oak on the fittings, almost a hundred and twenty feet long..." I remembered the legends I'd heard.
Shar-Teel laid a hand roughly on my arm.
"It sounds to be a wreck I last saw many years ago, when beasts numbered less," Kaishas said. "The ship-home that brought our great-great-grandmothers to the village. Now beasts hold it. It lies to north of island."
So—the beasts for the ship, I thought. Of course, that's only if the missing are...
"You may rest now. It is best after ship-home wreck," Kaishas said. "If friends are to be found, we find them for you."
When she left, Shar-Teel promptly tested the door to the shed; it was unlocked. I'd no doubt that she would have broken through otherwise. She sat and raised the water given to her mouth.
"What have we got?" she said. She drew her sword. "I have this. Skie?" I raised the Burning Earth a little from its scabbard on my belt; it still shone with fire, mostly undamaged by the waters and the sand. More importantly, I had the charts. Nowell and Mister Lorancs drew belt-knives, Davroan a hammer; Imoen produced her spellbook in its covering, shaking sand off it, though she had lost all of her components. Ajantis had nothing but the clothing he wore and his dulled symbol of Helm. Captain Halderwin, Tellarian, Aatto, Faldorn, Viconia.
Another of the villagers came to us; a man this time. He carried a cauldron of a whitish food, looking like porridge or gruel to us.
"You seem...interesting," he said, and Imoen shook her head.
"So do you lot of castaways. Who're you?"
"Forgive me. I never...I never seen your like before." He opened wide brown eyes to gaze at all of us with open, honest curiosity. For a man of his tall broad size, he moved and spoke with unusual hesitancy. "You are quite the novelty. I am Durlyle, and I am history. I mean, I am historian in your language."
"A—historian?" I said. Slowly, he served the meal he brought in crude wooden bowls, using a ladle and setting out no implements for us.
Durlyle nodded, a broad smile spreading slowly across his face like the gradual opening of a leaf in spring. "I wished to come to you and see you. Not even eldest have seen your like before, but I keep stories of the elders and the few relics we have. I learn the old tongue well, yes? I try to keep the speech, but we have been on our own for some time. What of you? What do you do?"
"Humble sailors," Nowell said acidly.
"Slayers of mankind," Shar-Teel said ominously.
"So...what is it?" Imoen poked at the bowl before her. "I've never seen this stuff before."
"Our word is daywhites. It grows in the ground and it is good, you see?" Durlyle took some with a finger from the ladle himself, eating it from his hand. So they had not invented cutlery; I did the same, and recognised the taste.
"I think it's Maztican potato. With goats' milk." I'd tasted them before as fruits of seagoing expeditions; vegetables, rather, I thought they were.
"Yes, that is close to the word of the great-grandmothers," Durlyle said. "Batata."
"—Do you know other words in that tongue?" I said, interested despite myself. "It's difficult to study the Anchorome and Maztican languages because there are still so few explorers and no standard grammar published, with all the troubles—"
That would definitely have to wait. I stopped."Thank you," I said. "We need to join the search parties for our friends."
"We know lines of the beach more than you, so you would do little," Durlyle said, "but I know what it feels to do nothing while pack is in danger." Misery passed over his face; perhaps he referred to the monsters against the village. "I will show you the ways and paths myself if you eat this and recover, as a promise."
Down to the shore again we walked. We were bruised and torn from the wreck, which had started to make itself felt once more after the relief of finding water; Nowell limped, and Ajantis' bad arm did not move. Durlyle led us to where he knew tides came in, where the village fishers spread their nets over some grey rocks. We saw the search party from the village: and with them were Faldorn and Viconia, leaning on each other.
"—should have mentioned that you did not know how to swim, Viconia," Faldorn lectured her, smugly; Viconia muttered something aside on useless slaves who did not know when to keep their mouths closed and drow noblewomen not having to engage in anything so plebeian. They were both comparatively clean and unbruised; from their powers, most likely. Viconia's symbol of Shar was openly around her neck. Durlyle looked at her features curiously, but made no comment as an ordinary human would have.
"I am sorry," Faldorn said, looking at the three sailors; "I called for all the aid I could from the ocean to bring us to shore. Captain Halderwin is dead. A spar pierced through the back of his head, and there was nothing I could have done to heal him. I saw his body fall into the waters."
Dead. We walked further, to try to seek signs of the others. Tellarian was found by the villagers unconscious at the very edge of the rocks; Faldorn stepped to him to heal him, and they seemed surprised at her gifts. Aatto had managed to stumble to the village by himself.
There was a shout, and a fisher called Evalt dragged up a body from the sea. Halderwin, dead for hours. The sailors slowly, laboriously, dug a grave upon the shore, their custom and needing no aid from landfolk; Imoen and I remained to watch him sent to his rest.
He was... He seemed good at what he did, and he... There was little I knew of the man, taciturn and quite harsh in authority. He died for doing this...
"Valkur guide his soul to safe waters," Nowell recited. "In exploration, on the sea, he did his duty for ship and crew. As the waters still, let them bear him to rest. May the Captain of the Waves send strong waves and a hearty breeze to the ship he rides now. Let the deep find him; may he rest long in the seas he conquered in life..."
It was brief enough, and the grave-marking a scratch on driftwood. Slowly we trudged back to the village once more. Durlyle had remained, watching at a respectable distance as we. The historian's interest in quaint mainland burial customs, I thought uncharitably; but he did not show no sympathy in his quiet words.
"He signed up for this job," Mister Lorancs said gruffly in reply. "Didn't even know him."
"But is...hard thing, when pack dies," Durlyle said. "While you in this village we welcome you, for we are no beasts." He emphasised the last two words fiercely, in a way that seemed uncharacteristic for his hesitant voice. Perhaps he spoke as he did from past shyness, or from a concern for linguistic precision.
"We've fought battles," I said to Lorancs. "You should stay in the village; we'll help against the monsters so that we can go home." The werewolves.
Nowell grunted. "Expected no less, for all the two of ye have the look of twigs. You'd be the adventurers."
"I've fought before but I was never any good at it," Tellarian said. "But I..."
"We're used to fighting as a group," Imoen said. "Believe it or not, a powerful almost-archmagely wizardess—and a halfway capable swordswoman," she added, ruffling my hair.
Durlyle's brown eyes suddenly widened. "You mean that you are magic?" he said. "I thought was myth for pups. The stories speak of it, but none have witnessed. I believed it was tales only from the ancestors."
Imoen grinned, and started to lecture. Lorancs, who was Amnian by birth, looked stone-faced across at her, but made no comment. "Yeah, and the Weave's still on this place, whatever you want to believe about it," she said. "Like threads in the air, all glittery if you look at it right, and you reach inside them for the spells you want and hold the runes rightway up in your head. Once I get a little sleep I'll be able to do more cantrips, but without proper components I won't have anything but the instantlike Agannazar's..."
What she spoke must have seemed practically Old Chessentan to Durlyle, I thought, but he looked back at her. "Components," he said with his careful precision, "there is part of one page from old book that says it is of alchemy. It speaks that it has recipes to transform humans to moonbirds and water to ambrosia milk, but it is cut off and what it claims has failed when tested. It begins to ask for...strange objects for the making of its magic. Tale only I thought it."
"Well, I'll take a glance-over," Imoen said. "I mean, I had lessons in alchemy back in Candlekeep and all...and just because they might have kicked me out just for blowing up the lab once or twice or maybe twice-twice or so doesn't mean I'm too bad at it..."
"Don't blow up anything here, Imoen," I said, by some automatic instinct.
"She's gettin' to be a bit of a sceptic sometimes, y'see," Imoen said, linking elbows with me, "not all the time, but I tell her she's got to wise up sometime about things and what does she do, start blaming me for everything!" She snapped her fingers and whispered the words to a spell; very briefly, pink light glittered around her hand. "See? That's magic. Now my confuse-everyone spell, that's got nut shells in it, so if you could fetch me those that'd be good, and the make-vulnerable spell, I could do it with wax and gum arabic—wax from bees, gum arabic, they make that out of tree sap. And fireballs, I need bat droppings and sulphur? You know, the...yellow combustible nonmetal occurring uncombined in volcanic and sedimentary deposits? Um... Yellow and stinky? Or I guess I could just go with a rotten egg, I could get a stinking cloud out from that according to the spell recipes..."
"Jorin is better finder of lost than I, so he may help better," Durlyle said; amusement had begun to creep into his voice at Imoen's monologue. "I am interested to see more of mainland magic. I wonder," he said, suddenly changing subject. "Lights sometimes by night in the north in beast homes. Red, yellow, faint. The elders say signals from ship-homes can do that, but with you..."
Imoen brought her eyebrows together. "Gee. Thanks for mentionin' they had a spellcaster. It's not like it's important to let adventurers know about that sort of thing in advance when you want them to go half-armed after werewolves." But she'd beaten a demon; as long as she was able to prepare some of the components she needed...
"I am sorry," Durlyle said. "Many things we know not of the lands of our great-grandmother, as little as you know of our ways. We may have many questions of each other..."
"Yep, I guess you got that right," Imoen said. "So where's that Jorin bloke? Point me to him and I'll see what I can do..."
"To the east of the village his home is," Durlyle said; and looked to me. "You spoke of potato of Maztica, where I know of the word batata," he said. "Would it interest you to see the relics, and to tell more of your language?"
In horror, I had slowly begun to think:
The accent of Kaishas and Durlyle and Solianna and all upon this island is almost the exact accent of Mendas without the few western veneers that he placed upon his. Undeniable vowel accentuation, digraph pronunciation, shortened sibilant fricatives...
—
He had never realised the harbour was so extensive, so modernised in aggression and defence; Edwin wondered if someday he would report it to his homeland.
—