At last the lookout called down, "There's our signal, Captain!"

"That's it, men!" Talrien shouted. "Break out the oars and stand to your locks."

While the anchor was being raised, several of the sailors set up torches fore and aft. Others pulled back a section of the deck and brought out the long oars stored there. Each oar was passed through a round, rope-padded lock in the ship's rail, twenty to a side. At the captain's signal, the mate climbed up on a hatch and began to sing.

Picking up the rhythm he set, the oarsmen pulled in practiced unison and the ship slid smoothly forward over the calm face of the bay. Captain Talrien stood at the tiller, steering her into the echoing dimness beyond the pillars.

The sun had already passed noon, and little sunlight penetrated far into the chasm. It was colder inside and smelled of salt-drenched stone. Alec was standing with Sedrish when he happened to look up.

"Are those stars?" he asked in amazement. The narrow strip of sky was pricked with faint points of light.

"It's the high walls, shutting out the sun. I fell down a well when I was a lad and it was just the same. About the only time there's much light in here is at high noon."

Rough stone towered overhead on either side, seeming to bear down over the vessel. Small freshets of water flowed down here and there, tumbling off the uneven rock face. In places, the surface of it gave back a glassy reflection that puzzled Alec.

"That's from the magicking," Sedrish explained. "In places it's shiny smooth like that; others, like over there, the rock just dripped and ran like wax down the side of a candle. I wouldn't have liked to been in here when them wizards was blasting away, I can tell you!"

Their passage was a quiet affair. The narrow space around them gave back every whisper and splash and the effect seemed to subdue even Biny. When the lookout at last shouted, "Half way sighted, Captain," his voice reverberated in a succession of ghostly echoes up and down the canal.

Alec was wondering how on earth anyone could tell distance in such a place when he caught sight of something white against the right wall up ahead. As they drew nearer, he could see that it was a huge statue of polished marble standing in a shallow niche carved into the wall. The figure glowed like a pale lantern in the dimness.

"Who's that?" Alec asked.

"Queen Tamir the Second." Sedrich touched a hand respectfully to his forelock as they passed.

"Skala's had good queens and bad, but old Tamir was one of the best. Even the balladeers can't improve much on the life she led."

Alec squinted through the gloom as they passed the statue. The sculptor had visualized his subject striding into the wind; her long hair streamed behind her, and the robes she wore were molded to the gracious curves of her form. Much of her left side was covered by an oval shield and in her right hand she raised a sword as if saluting the passing vessels. Her face was neither exceedingly beautiful nor terribly plain, but her proud stance and fierce expression spoke across the centuries.

"After the Plenimarans destroyed the old eastern capital of Ero, she just up and moved the survivors across to the other side and had this Canal cut through," Sedrish went on, lighting his pipe from a lantern. "That must be better than six hundred years ago now. Aye, there was no stopping her, they say. She was raised as a boy up in the mountains because her uncle had seized the throne. No good come of that, of course; that's what got Ero destroyed. When he was killed in battle, this nephew of his steps forward and says, "By your leave, I'm a girl."

Her uncle had murdered just about everyone else of the blood, so they crowned her on the spot.

During her reign she beat back the Plenimarans, was lost at sea during a battle, then turned up a year later and took back the throne and ruled 'til she was an old woman. Quite a character, she was. Queen Idrilain's said to be a good deal like her."

As they sailed out into Osiat waters at the western end of the Canal, Alec craned his neck to see the carved tops of the pillars flanking this entrance. He recognized the representation of Dalna; a sheaf of grain bound with a serpent. The other, a coiled dragon crowned with a crescent moon, must be that of Illior.

The Grampus turned south down the coast with a good following wind.

The winter sea shone like polished steel in the late-afternoon sunlight.

Rocky, steep-sided islands of all sizes punctuated the coastline, rising out of the water like ruined fortresses. Some were overgrown with copses of dark fir or oak; those with any sort of harbor were inhabited by colonies of fishermen. A few trading ships were still plying this route and Talrien hailed back and forth with them using a speaking trumpet.

The Osiat was alive with more than sea traders.

Alec soon spotted his first school of porpoise.

Leaning over the rail, he watched dozens of them leap and sport alongside the ship, their dark backs arching through the waves as they escorted the ship for several miles. Soon after, he saw another school leaping in flight before the dire form of the ship's namesake, a grampus. Though not large as whales go, it looked positively enormous to Alec. The thought of such monsters swimming about under their very keel left him with a decidedly uneasy feeling.

The western shore of Skala presented a rugged face. The harsh granite bones of the country lay exposed at the coastline and again in the peaks of its mountainous spine. Between these two stony extremes lay fertile terraces and valleys, the forests and harbors where the Skalan people had found purchase

centuries before. Above the surf-scoured ledges of the shore, the higher ground sloped back from the sea in a series of ascending undulations to meet the inland mountains.

Looking shoreward, Alec could make out wagons and riders moving along a coastal highroad.

A company of horsemen gave off glints of metal through the cloud of dust that half obscured their numbers.

"That there's the Queen's Highroad," Biny informed him. "It runs all 'round the peninsula, then up the isthmus and clear to Wyvern Dug."

That evening they put in at a little harbor to unload a shipment of wine and some of the poultry crates, taking on a consignment of copper bars in exchange.

When the hold was quiet again, Alec settled down next to Seregil, hoping to get a little more broth into him. But after a few spoonfuls he choked and Alec gave up. Seregil's breathing was harsher now, rattling in his throat as his chest slowly rose and fell. As he listened, Alec felt despair crystallizing into a hard lump in his throat. Unable to bear it any longer, he dug down into Seregil's battered pack and found the knotted scarf containing the jewelry. Stuffing it into his tunic, he hurried above in search of the captain and Sedrish.

"You've got to look at him," he told them, trying to keep his voice from wavering. "I don't think he'll make it at this rate."

In the hold Sedrish bent over Seregil's still form, then shook his head. "The boy's right, Captain. The man's sinking."

Talrien felt Seregil's pulse, then sat down on a barrel frowning. "Even if we make straight for the city, passing all ports of call, I don't know that it will be soon enough."

"But you could do that?" Alec asked.

Meeting Alec's bleak, determined gaze, Talrien nodded. "I'm master of this ship. I say when she sails and where. It won't do my business any good to come in a week late—"

"If it's money, then maybe this will help." Alec pulled the handkerchief from his tunic and handed it to him.

Opening it, Talrien found the heavy gold chain, earrings, and the gold half sester Klia had given Alec.

"I wasn't supposed to sell those things—he didn't want me to." Alec gestured anxiously in Seregil's direction. "If it's not enough, I think he can more than repay you once we reach the city."