Lord of the Isles 05 - Goddess of the Ice Realm by Drake David

Author:Drake, David [Drake, David]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780812575415
Amazon: 1559279508
Publisher: Tor Fantasy
Published: 2004-06-29T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

The Bird of the Tide moved with the same heavy ease as the rolling sea. Ilna didn’t like boats, but the Bird was a part of the sea in the same fashion that her shuttle became part of the fabric it wove. The oarsmen kept up a deliberate pace that nonetheless drove them toward Terness with surprising speed. The Queen of Heaven and the barges looting it were already out of sight.

“Captain Ohert had doubled the watch,” said Pointin, sitting with his back to the deckhouse. He’d sipped from the sack of wine Chalcus offered him as soon as they got aboard, but now he was cradling the sewn goatskin like it was all that kept him from sinking into the deeps.

“The regular sailors, I mean,” he went on; mumbling, exhausted from fatigue and fear. “Half the guards were awake too, and the other half were sleeping armed and with their boots on.”

“Land in sight, sir,” called Kulit from the bow. Hutena stood near enough to Ilna, Chalcus, and the supercargo that he could have helped if called to, but not so close that he had to overhear.

Ilna smiled faintly. The crewmen had conducted themselves all this night with skill and quiet courage, but they were deathly afraid of wizardry. Hutena didn’t want to hear the details of what had struck the Queen of Heaven, and the oarsmen let their eyes rest anywhere but on Pointin's face.

Chalcus had chosen his men well. Of course.

“I was asleep,” Pointin said. “Why shouldn’t I be? I didn’t think that thieving rogue Lusius would dare anything since he knew we were on our guard, and anyway I wouldn’t have known what to look for.”

He lifted the wineskin, then stared at it as if he wasn’t sure what it was or what its purpose might me. He lowered it again, frowning and silent. His eyes had gone unfocused.

“What awakened you, Master Pointin?” Chalcus asked in a mild voice. He hadn’t spoken much, letting the supercargo tell his story in bits and pieces as they came to the surface of his mind. Imposing a form on the telling might have thrown the man into shock and locked his tongue.

Ilna could see that Pointin was on the verge of collapse, even with delicate handling. She’d said nothing at all, but the patterns which her fingers knotted in the light of the now-risen moon were as soothing as the glow of embers to an awakened sleeper.

“It was the light,” Pointin said, frowning now with concentration. “It came through the walls of my cabin. It was blue; I guess I’d call it blue, but I’ve never seen anything like it.”

He looked up with a desperate expression. "I don't know how to describe it!" he said.

"We know the sort of light you mean," said Ilna quietly. She spread a pattern, then folded it between her palms and began to unpick the fabric as quickly as her touch had formed it. "We know why it would awaken you."

"I heard people shouting on deck," Pointin went on.

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