Cloak of the Two Winds (2 page)

The helmsman hesitated, then answered through his megaphone. "Cease your attack! We surrender."

He turned his prow into the wind and ordered his men to trim sail. The crewmen moved quickly, but their efficiency was gone. They eyed the dojuk fearfully as they worked. The booms came about haltingly, and the coaster slowed with a violent flapping of sails.

Lonn roared with the exultant shouts of his mates as he pointed the dojuk upwind. In the past he had taken part in the capture of several large ships, on both water and ice. But for a single klarn to net a vessel of the coaster's size—that was an almost unheard of feat of piracy.

The dojuk had raced ahead of the two-master, but being lighter it slowed more quickly against the wind. The two vessels glided close together as their speed dwindled. Then the coaster dropped its ice-brakes—heavy serrated blades—and ground to a halt with a tremendous screech.

The Iruks lowered their sail, then leapt overboard. They dragged the dojuk to a stop and fixed one set of stakes and lines. Eben remained atop the mast, spear in hand, watching the nearby decks of the coaster. Lonn and the rest of his band took their weapons and charged across the shining ice. They climbed aboard using an accommodation ladder, which the Larthangans, on Eben's command, had hastily lowered over the side.

Stepping onto the wide main deck, Lonn counted eighteen men in the crew. Two of them lay dead and a third writhed in pain, a wound in his shoulder. The helmsman stood alone at the edge of the quarterdeck, observing the pirates with a grim expression.

The Iruks used their spears to herd the unresisting crewmen to an aft corner of the deck. The Larthangans were short and scrawny, warmly but raggedly dressed. Their light-skinned, bearded faces, reddened by cold and exertion, showed a mixture of fear and frustrated rage.

"Your lives are safe," Lonn assured them. "Just don't make trouble."

Karrol and Brinda took charge of the crew. Eben came aboard, and he and Draven went below to search. Lonn and Glyssa climbed the ornate stairs to the rear deck. Scowling, the helmsman stepped aside to give them way.

Near the iron tiller mechanism five windbringers stood in their buckets, five impassive green eyes fixed on the Iruks. No—it seemed to Lonn that one of the bostulls looked intent, strangely concerned.

"I am Troneck." The helmsman was a brawny man, with a weathered seaman's face and flecks of gray in his hair and drooping mustache. "I am captain and owner of this ship, the
Plover
. We are honest traders, seeking only to make our way back to Larthang in peace."

"I am Lonn of the Truzar clan of the Isle of Ilga. We are Iruks, and we take a part of the cargo that passes this way whenever we can. What are you carrying, captain?"

"Not much," Troneck answered. "Surely nothing worth the lives of two of my men."

"You should have stopped on our first warning," Glyssa said. "We are fighters, you are not. We don't relish killing defenseless men, but you left us no choice."

"What are you carrying?" Lonn repeated.

"Some silks and lamp-oil from Nyssan. A few kegs of brandy. Also one passenger. If not for her insistence, we'd not be sailing home alone, with our holds half empty, and surely not on this forsaken course."

"Who is this passenger who gives orders on your ship?" Glyssa asked.

"A deepshaper, a witch of Larthang. But that's not the only reason we do her bidding. She saved our lives in Tallyba the Terrible. She delivered us out of the chains of the Archimage of the East. But to insure our obedience once we were free, she required each man to give her a hair from his head. Now she holds those hairs woven in a magic design. If we disobey her, she may destroy the hairs, and our very breathing will cease. So much, at least, she has told us. If I were you, I would leave this ship before the witch takes hairs from you, or does something worse."

Glyssa frowned at this, but Lonn laughed scornfully.

"You cannot frighten us with stories," he said. "Where is this witch? We would see her for ourselves."

"Her cabin is below us."

Troneck pointed to one of two embellished hatches on the quarterdeck, with translucent covers designed to serve as skylights for the chambers below. Lonn and Glyssa drew their swords and crept toward the hatch.

"She must not be disturbed," cried the faint, sibilant voice of a windbringer.

Lonn started and pointed his blade at this bostull who, unlike the others, stood in a fine pail of carved ivory. "What is this windbringer?"

"A friend of the witch," Troneck said. "He came aboard with her luggage."

"She lies in
deep trance
," the windbringer said. "I implore you, leave her in peace."

"We won't harm her," Glyssa said.

"But you must not—"

The hatch at Lonn's feet was sliding open. He leaped back, sword raised to strike. But it was Draven's head and shoulders that rose into view.

"Lonn, Glyssa," he grinned. "You must see this."

Lonn lay down on the deck and lowered his head through the hatchway. Draven stood on a low table in the middle of a spacious cabin. The cabin was lit by numerous tiny lamps. And there were sparks of colored glass, prisms suspended about the cabin on lengths of thread. The air held a perfumed fragrance, smoky and sweet. An eerie feeling wafted up from the chamber, an aura of power both thrilling and frightening to Lonn.

"Let me look." Glyssa stretched to peer over his shoulder.

Lonn put his sword in his teeth and swung down into the cabin. He landed nimbly on the table, which Draven had vacated, then hopped to the floor.

Standing beside him, Draven pointed past sheer silk tapestries and peculiar dangling objects, to a broad bunk at the rear of the cabin. There, in daylight filtered through stained glass windows, lay a pale-haired woman garbed in blue silk and white fur.

"Is she awake?" Glyssa called from above.

"No," Lonn said. "Watch the quarterdeck. Find out what you can from the windbringer."

"Is this like the treasure you dreamed?" Draven asked, scrutinizing one of the prisms.

"I don't know." There had been gold and gemstones in the dream, not these tapestries and strange hanging baubles with their mirrors and feathers.

"What about the lady?" Draven asked.

"She's a witch of Larthang," Lonn answered. "Has she stirred?"

"Not once," Draven whispered, as they stepped noiselessly toward the bunk. "Not when I forced the door, not even when I touched my sword point to her nose. I'm not sure we could wake her if we wanted to."

"She lies in a trance," Lonn affirmed.

Pale and slender, the witch seemed hardly to be breathing. A fillet set with moonstones confined her blond hair, and rings of beaten silver adorned her long, slim fingers. Her hands held a silken cloak, of silver and black, clutched tightly under her chin.

"Pretty, in a frail sort of way," Draven remarked.

Lonn grunted. He felt vaguely menaced by the witch, even in her seemingly helpless condition.

Glyssa dropped down through the hatchway. She crouched on the table and gazed about, eyes brightening, then climbed to the floor and moved next to Lonn.

"Who's watching the quarterdeck?" Lonn demanded.

"Karrol. And Eben is helping Brinda guard the crew." Her voice grew solemn as she indicated the witch. "The windbringer says it would be very hard to wake her. He also claims her powers are enormous. And the captain insists she can control the Two Winds, that the freezewind blew before them all the way across the ocean."

"Hah! He takes us for ignorant savages," Lonn said.

"She doesn't look so mighty to me," Draven agreed.

"I'm not sure," Glyssa said. "Do we really want one of her kind for an enemy?"

"Hers is the only treasure on board," Draven answered. "Unless Eben found something?"

Glyssa shook her head. "Only some oil and inferior silks."

"Then we must rob this witch." Draven looked at Lonn. "Right?"

Lonn twisted his mouth, uncertain. In his dream there had been no witch, and no need for such a dire decision. But to back down now would mean that chasing the dream had been for nothing. He would lose face with the klarn, be mocked by the whole village when the story was told. (And Karrol would make sure the story was told.) Surely this girlish witch could not really pose such a threat.

Lonn set his jaw and nodded.

Seeing this, Glyssa lifted her shoulders in a fatalistic gesture. Draven gave a short laugh and stepped to the bedside. His hand moved toward the witch's throat.

"Careful," Glyssa whispered.

Lonn raised his sword, heart pounding. Draven put his hand on the black and silver cloak and deftly yanked it away.

The witch cried out—a sharp withering sound. Glyssa stiffened, and Lonn steadied his sword arm from shaking. The witch's long fingers writhed in the air. She moaned, like one pained by the loss of something precious, then again lay still.

"I'm almost sorry for her," Draven said, his voice subdued.

He tossed the cloak to Lonn who held it up, a heavy garment with a strange, slippery texture. One of the full sleeves was black with an intricate design embroidered in silver threads. The other sleeve exactly mirrored the design, but with silver and black reversed.

"What's keeping you?" Eben's voice sounded from the corridor outside. "Brinda and Karrol are getting restless."

He swung open the door and strode in, then paused as he looked about the chamber. "Now here's some loot worth taking."

"It's the treasure I dreamed of," Lonn affirmed, thinking:
It must be. "
You three start packing it up. I'll keep an eye on the witch."

Draven sheathed his sword and started blowing out the lamps. He and Glyssa cleared the tables, collecting lamps, vials and small books, and dumping them into a large basket and an open, half-empty chest. Eben yanked down the tapestries, first testing the weave of each with his fingers. The prisms and dangling things were pulled down, strung together and stowed away.

While her cabin was being looted the witch of Larthang breathed fretfully in her trance. She stirred once, shifting her position and groaning. The Iruks quickened their efforts, and soon Draven and Glyssa were carrying the last of the booty away. Lonn followed them, backing out of the cabin, the sword still level in his grasp.

Eben put the crewmen to work transferring the witch's treasure, along with a few kegs of oil and brandy, across the ice to the dojuk. On the main deck Brinda stood watching the other Larthangans—including an old man and a boy Lonn had not seen before—as they tended the wounded man and prepared the two corpses for burning, wrapping them in oil-soaked blankets.

"I'm surprised more of you weren't killed," Brinda said. "Maybe next time your captain will stop when he's hailed by Iruks."

"Where did the old one and the child come from?" Lonn asked her.

"Eben ferreted them out. They were hiding below. One is the ship's cook, the other a cabin boy. It didn't look to me that your dream treasure amounted to much, Lonn. A basket and two small chests that can't be very heavy."

"They are witch's things, magical," Lonn insisted. "They will fetch a high price."

"That's not what I hear from this windbringer," Karrol shouted from the quarterdeck.

Mumbling an oath, Lonn scrambled up the steps to the quarterdeck, followed closely by Glyssa and Draven. Karrol and Captain Troneck stood beside the windbringer who had spoken earlier.

"His name is Kizier," Glyssa said.

Lonn bent over and squinted into the round green eye. "Is this witch friend of yours not wealthy?"

"What you steal will not bring you wealth," he answered. "They are mostly ritual objects made by Amlina herself. They are supremely important, but only to her."

"Then we shall give her a chance to ransom them," Lonn said. "Nine days hence, we will be in Fleevanport. Can you find Fleevanport, captain?"

"It is on the charts."

"Good. You can ask for us at the Sea Lion Hostelry."

"And tell the witch to bring plenty of gold," Draven added.

"And no tricks," Karrol said. "We are no fools, and our weapons and our tempers both are quick."

"Amlina will not ransom her possessions with gold," Kizier said. "But with trouble, more than you can guess."

Lonn grinned. "We are not afraid of girl-child witches. Nor of bostulls, no matter how cleverly they talk. We are Iruks, known to be fearless!"

"Ignorance prevents you being afraid." The windbringer made a sighing sound. "Take my warning: there are terrible powers involved here, powers that can sweep over you as a wave does a grain of sand."

"Let's take the windbringer with us," Draven suggested. "His yammering amuses, and he may know something of use."

The other Iruks agreed. A second windbringer was always an asset to a dojuk, especially in the changeful seasons.

"Tell the witch he can be ransomed with the rest," Lonn told Troneck. "And tell her that if she doesn't show up in Fleevanport after three days we'll sell to the highest bidder. I'm sure we'll get a nicer price than this bostull claims."