Taseen nodded absently. ‘I’ll give you a banker’s order.’

  ‘You will give me coin.’

  The mage shrugged. ‘Worth a try. Very well, you shall have coin tomorrow. Can you get us out of port without coastal defenders sinking us?’

  ‘The moon is dark tomorrow and the next night. There are rumours that Chevra will probably lift the restriction tomorrow anyway. So. I think it best to leave on a night tide in case your scholar has friends watching. I will consult my Sister of the Wind and we’ll sail on her advice.’ He grinned down at the old man. ‘Is it east or west then?’

  The mage tugged at his beard. ‘East,’ he said decisively.

  ‘I don’t like Hariko, and I hated his house and his friends.’

  Taseen chuckled. ‘Come child. Come and meet our shipmaster.’

  Leaf hopped from her stool and would have fallen over the edge of her cloak if Sket hadn’t grabbed her. She tugged at the fastening and pushed the cloak away with irritation. Ren pushed back his hood. Kasmi stared, first into Ren’s silvered eyes then at the tiny gijan stepping daintily towards him. The colour drained from the shipmaster’s face and he could speak not a word.

  At first light Maressa, sitting quietly beside Taseen, sent her mind high into the air. She saw the immense sprawl that was Harbour City, a huge crescent against which grey, blue and green water surged and battered. Higher, and she saw an island to the south west. She turned away and sped towards the rising sun. Maressa saw islands below: some merely a few rocks, others large enough to bear several towns and many small villages.

  Then there was water. Maressa felt as though barely a moment had passed but knew from tremors in her far distant physical body that she was nearly at her limit. Finally she saw a long line of cliffs rising from the water ahead and with a shuddering gasp, snapped back into her body. She found Sket had put a blanket around her shoulders and she blinked at the faces staring at her with concern. Ren chafed her cold hands.

  ‘You were gone much too long my dear. You must be more careful when none of us can follow you so far.’

  Pallin thrust a bowl of hot tea under her nose and she let the steam warm her face.

  ‘The longest stretch over water is about thirteen leagues, perhaps a little more but not much. The weather systems are very erratic over that part; I don’t know if the Dragons could fly over them – they would have too much difficulty flying through them.’

  ‘Are you sure they are safe now?’ Taseen asked anxiously. ‘If they are seen there will be pandemonium in the City. Everyone will rush to have a look at such mythical creatures from the past.’

  Ren smiled. ‘They are safe. They are to the north east of the City and they are taking it in turns to shield against prying eyes. They say they have found a small cove where no one so far seems to come.’

  ‘Will thirteen or fourteen leagues be too far for them to fly without rest?’ asked the mage.

  Sket chuckled. ‘Brin at least could do twice that without too much bother.’

  ‘That is one problem resolved. The next is how do we all get to Kasmi’s ship unobserved?’ Olam looked round the group. ‘I’m sure this place is being watched after Hariko’s comments last night. And Taza is well known as the head priest of this temple. I couldn’t find my way to the docks without a guide.’

  ‘Karn.’ Gan exclaimed.

  Navan followed his thought at once. ‘You can’t go and ask him though – your height gives you away every time. If Taza or Zada would guide me, I’ll go and ask him to do us another favour. If the boy is his, perhaps we could go in three groups with Taza taking one lot. We would be less noticeable than all nine together.’

  ‘And if I leave off the white cloak and wear one of those odd hats a lot of men seem to wear here,’ Ren began.

  ‘Exactly,’ Taseen nodded approval then frowned. ‘But little Leaf cannot go uncloaked.’

  Leaf trilled a laugh from the window. ‘Funny old mage. I have wings. I will join my siblings. No one will see me in the darkness.’

  Taza came into the room. ‘A boy from the docks came with a message. You must make your way to the ship by twilight tonight. The shipmaster will send a boy to guide you.’

  Gan laughed. ‘No need to bother Karn then. I’m glad – I would not like to think we might land him in trouble.’

  ‘I will not be able to hurry through the streets,’ Taseen warned.

  ‘I will hire a chair for you, mage. Many chairmen are followers of the Way. I know who can be trusted.’

  Taseen looked much relieved at Taza’s proposal. Zada and Salma arrived, loaded with neatly folded clothes. The company found all their old garments washed and mended, and extra shirts and trousers for all. Finally Salma held up three wrapped bundles, one smaller than the other two. She went to where Leaf still stood by the window. Shyly she offered the gijan the parcels.

  ‘Maressa told me the names of your brother and sister. See, I’ve written the names on the outside? The smallest one is for you. I didn’t have time to do more, but you have had two new trousers already.’

  Leaf clutched the bundles to her bare dappled chest. ‘Oh I will repay you Salma, truly I will.’ Then her head tilted to one side and she lowered her voice. ‘Have you something I can take for Tika?’

  Salma laughed aloud. ‘That’s why I had no more time – I made something for her too. Maressa has it in her pack.’

  Leaf’s wings furled and unfurled in excitement but as she opened her mouth Salma forestalled her. ‘No. You must not open them now.’

  She looked shocked at her own temerity in speaking thus to the gijan and blushed furiously. But Leaf nodded.

  ‘It will be fun to undo the parcels all together.’

  Her wings fanned suddenly and Salma found herself completely enfolded in the gijan’s embrace. Leaf murmured softly to her and then folded her wings again. Salma stared at the gijan, a stunned expression on her face. She nodded once and bowed deeply.

  Zada left the room and returned with various pouches and packets, which she gave to Sket. They removed themselves to a quiet corner where Zada explained what herbs and remedies each pouch contained and their application. Taseen was busy writing: letters to Tavri and Sheoma he told them, which Taza would deliver in the morning. Time flew past in the bustle of packing their gear and thanking the three priests for their great generosity.

  Riff helped Taseen down the stairs to await a chair and to watch for the boy Kasmi’d promised to send. Leaf embraced everyone as they filed out of the apartment. Then she climbed the narrow stairs to the roof, accompanied by Taza, Zada and Salma. They waited a short while until twilight had deepened to dusk. With a final embrace and still clutching her bundles all tied in her white cloak, Leaf’s wings extended and she leapt out over the garden. For a moment, the priests saw her hover above them. Then she rose higher and was lost to their sight.

  Olam had had a firm talk with Pallin, telling him he must keep his opinions to himself. Which was just as well. Pallin had been aghast to discover that not only men comprised a ship’s crew but women as well. And they wore the same as the men – a scrap of cloth around their hips. Pallin’s shocked horror was so great that Olam managed to get him down a vertical ladder to a tiny room before Pallin recovered the power of speech.

  Riff perched on a bunk and kept a straight face while Olam repeated his warnings to Pallin. Pallin glared round the tiny room: two bunks, one above the other, were fixed to one wall, two more to another. The space between was just wide enough for a man to turn round in. The floor lurched and Pallin grabbed hold of the nearest bunk in alarm. ‘Is it sinking?’ he asked.

  Riff craned to look out of a small circular window. ‘I think we’re moving away from the docks,’ he said. ‘I’m going back up to watch.’

  The floor shuddered then began to dip and sway in a more regular motion.

  ‘I’m going up too. If you’re coming, remember what I’ve said.’

  Olam turned in the doorway and saw Pallin sink onto a bunk.

  ‘I’ll stay here. I feel a bit strange,’ said Pallin.

  They stood by a rail, keeping out of the way of the crew, who raced round in a practised routine.

  ‘Are you all right Ren?’ Gan asked beneath the shouts of Kasmi and various members of his crew.

  ‘I can’t say I find it pleasant but I’ll be fine. I don’t know what Gremara did but neither heights nor water fill me with terror anymore.’ He nodded along the rail. ‘I don’t think Maressa or Sket feel too good,’ he murmured.

  Sket forced himself to chew some herbs Zada had packed and made Maressa eat some as well. No one could persuade Pallin to eat or drink anything: he said he only wished to die, quickly.

  On learning that three of his passengers were sea sick, one apparently terminally, Kasmi suggested they get out into the fresh air and try to eat at least something. At dawn the company, less three, went on deck to find they were surrounded by water; no land in sight in any direction. Taseen sat on a hatch cover, his back against the main mast. His beard was flattened over his chest and his eyes gleamed. Gan gave him a quizzical look.

  ‘I was stupid enough to forget how wonderful life at sea is,’ Taseen told him. ‘I should have done this centuries ago!’

  Thick rope was coiled neatly near the mage’s feet and Khosa’s head popped out of the centre of the coil.

  ‘How are Maressa and Sket, poor dears?’ she enquired. ‘They really should come up here.’

  A stronger gust of wind sent her ducking below the level of the rope, her ears pressed to her head.

  ‘I’ll go and find them. Have you met Kasmi’s ship’s cat?’ Gan asked curiously.

  Khosa gave him one of her regal stares. ‘We met last night. He is below deck at the moment.’

  Gan caught Taseen’s wink and took himself off to find Sket and Maressa. Sket was pale but upright but Maressa’s complexion was still faintly tinged with green.

  ‘Come on.’ Gan was ruthless, grabbing Maressa’s hand. ‘That was an order armsman.’

  He hauled Maressa up to the deck where the first blast of wind knocked her back against his chest. He held her firmly against the rail with Sket jammed at his other side. Maressa stared up rather than down, watching the great sheets of bright yellow canvas snap and fill with air. She clutched Gan’s arm.

  ‘Someone’s in the air!’

  Gan and Sket automatically looked up until Gan realised Maressa meant another mind rather than a solid body was aloft.

  ‘Grek?’ he suggested.

  She shook her head, her hair whipping across her face. A woman stood before them, silhouetted against the early sunlight. She moved to the rail beside them and Gan’s hands tightened involuntarily on both Sket and Maressa. The woman was smaller than Maressa, wearing a cloth about her hips. She had black hair which appeared to be shoulder length. Rings sparkled in her uptilted ears and her skin was lightly dappled.

  The hand resting on the rail beside Maressa’s had three fingers and a thumb, the nails short and pale. She also had three paired sets of nipples close beneath the more normal type of topmost breasts. This woman appraised Maressa as openly as Maressa, Gan and Sket studied her.

  ‘I am Culinth, Sister of the Wind to the Spiral Star.’

  ‘I am Maressa. I am an air mage.’

  They saw the dark eyes widen, the head tilted to one side.

  ‘I felt you in the sky Maressa. Air mage must be very like a Sister of the Wind. Come with me. I must watch for the ship now – we approach reefs which lie near the surface and I must direct the wind to guide us true.’

  Maressa, her sea sickness quite forgotten, followed the woman towards the front of the ship, Gan and Sket watching them every step of the way.

  ‘Is she gijan?’ asked Sket.

  Gan shook his head, his eyes still on the two women who now sat high in the bows.

  ‘Not like Leaf, or Willow, or Piper. She is a grown woman yet she has no wings. Remember our three were genderless until their wings emerged.’ He shrugged. ‘Or the other way about. But most definitely they come from the same ancestral line. I’ll ask Taseen.’

  A shout from above caused them to look up. Olam and Riff grinned down at them from a precarious looking position overhead. Their bare feet rested on ropes and they seemed to balance by holding other ropes about chest high.

  Sket grunted. ‘If Pallin could see Olam now, he’d kill him.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Culinth introduced Maressa into the life of shipwomen in general and of a Wind Sister in particular. Maressa was caught up in the fascination of Culinth’s ability to interact with the weather systems. She spent most of her days and much of her nights in Culinth’s company. Her sea sickness disappeared from the time Culinth first spoke to her. Sket also rapidly recovered, although he took the precaution of adding a pinch of Zada’s ginger herbs to a bowl of tea once each day. He explored the ship with caution, always careful not to get in anyone’s way. The crew spoke a quick language, quite unlike any Sket had heard before. They seemed friendly and communicated with Sket in a mixture of gestures and an odd word or two in the common tongue.

  The first time he discovered the kitchen he was convinced the cook was insane. He was met with shrieks and screams and a large cleaver was brandished beneath his nose. Then a shipwoman behind him yelled something and the cook lowered the cleaver. A broad smile replaced the distorted scowl and Sket found himself dragged inside and subjected to a lengthy and totally incomprehensible explanation of every single thing in the kitchen. He was then offered a bowl of what he believed was tea but discovered was actually something that made Lorak’s restorative seem like water. He leaned against a wall of cupboards, nodding and smiling, and praying his legs would continue to support him.

  On their third dawn at sea, Kasmi was informed that one of his passengers was still ill and languishing below decks. The shipmaster, who dressed the same as his crew once at sea, shouted with laughter. He strode from the pilot house and slid down the ladder to the passenger cabins. Ignoring Pallin’s weak moans of protest, he parted the old man from his bucket, put him over his shoulder and swung back up on deck. He yelled orders as he emerged and propped Pallin against a rail.

  Two shipmen pounced, divesting Pallin of his by now unsavoury clothes, and stood back. Two other shipmen hurled buckets of sea water over the trembling Pallin who gasped in shock. Blinking against the sting of salt and the brightness of the light after two days in the gloom below decks, Pallin roared his outrage. Kasmi stood, hands on hips and a grin on his face. Another shipman tossed a dark green robe over Pallin’s head, tugging it down over his wet nakedness. Yet another arrived with a bowl. Sket felt a twinge of apprehension when he realised it was the lunatic cook who offered Pallin the drink.

  Kasmi moved closer. ‘Drink, landsman, and then you will eat and sit here on deck.’

  Pallin’s mouth opened but Kasmi roared at him: ‘I am shipmaster. So. My words are law here – now drink!’

  Olam had arrived with Gan and Riff, Navan was leaning on the rail fronting the pilot’s house. Pallin took the bowl from the cook and drank the contents in one draught. Sket winced. Pallin’s white face suffused with colour and he wheezed for breath. Kasmi nodded in approval and tugged the old man over to Taseen’s hatch cover by the main mast.

  ‘Good day to you,’ said Taseen politely, blue eyes sparkling under the thicket of his brows.

  Pallin didn’t reply: he was still shocked by the treatment he’d just received. Kasmi chuckled, turning to Gan and Olam.

  ‘He’ll be all right. So. I will do the same thing again if necessary, but it won’t be I’m sure.’

  ‘How long until we see land?’ asked Gan.

  ‘Two more days. We reach a small island that has no name. So. It has fresh water and most ships stop there to resupply their barrels.’ He barked an order and a shipwoman sprang aloft, shortening a rope on a sail.

  Gan glanced down to find Ren leaning over the rail.

  ‘Look at that Gan. I wish Storm was here. I don’t know whether I should try to mind speak them or not.’

  Gan watched the now familiar sight of dolphins racing between their ship and one of the others. As they rose from the water their outlines reminded both Ren and Gan of Star Singer’s shape.

  ‘It wouldn’t hurt to try.’

  Ren touched Gan’s mind lightly, enabling him to hear what Ren heard.

  ‘Greetings, land worms!’

  The mind tone was clear, high pitched and thrumming with amusement.

  ‘Land worms!’ Khosa’s voice was suddenly in their heads. ‘I am a Kephi queen, and more.’

  Whistles and grunts were audible as the party of dolphins turned their heads towards the ship. ‘We know not Kephis, but you are trapped in the box which floats while we have the freedom of the great waters!’

  Gan glanced towards the main mast and saw Taseen struggling with laughter. Only Khosa’s ears were visible above the coils of rope, but her ears were enough to convey her annoyance. The dolphins dived and didn’t resurface. Ren sighed.

  ‘This sailing has its points you know Gan. No one to bother us, nothing for us to worry about.’

  ‘How long will it last though? I’ve enjoyed these two days but I’m beginning to wonder what we will be faced with next.’

  Ren grimaced. ‘Always so cheerful Gan! At least Pallin looks to be improving.’

  In the cabin where meals were taken, Navan pushed away his empty plate and got to his feet. ‘Kasmi says we should sight land around midday,’ he said.

  ‘You like looking at those maps in the pilot’s house Navan?’ asked Olam.

  Navan eyed him. ‘Maps of the sea are called charts, but yes, I find it fascinating how Kasmi can find his way over all this water. As fascinating as you and Riff seem to find scrambling about in the rigging!’

  It was approaching midday when a shipboy crouched high at the top of the mast, shouted down to the deck. The cry was taken up and the crew lined the rails to peer ahead. Kasmi stood outside the pilot’s house. He called to Gan and his companions.

 

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