“Courage, men!” The shout was strong and true. “Courage!” King Selric, who had been in consultation with Durwin when Quentin had joined them, had climbed up in the rigging of the mast and was rallying his men to the sound of his voice as he would in battle.

“These cries are but the augury of a magician. They are not spirits of the dead; they are illusion, nothing more. Courage!”

King Selric’s strong words seemed to help. Quentin noticed the fear subside in the eyes of those around him. Selric climbed down and resumed his place. Quentin and Toli, who had both stood stiff as stone, now inched forward to join the group.

“How long can this torment persist?” The questioner was Ronsard, though Quentin could barely see him through the filmy fog.

“Endlessly,” replied Durwin closer to hand. “Until its purpose is accomplished. Though what that is I cannot say.”

“To slow us down? Put us off course?” asked Theido.

“Perhaps, though I am more of a mind that there is another reason behind it.”

Quentin felt a shift in the fog and a cold wind stirring the waves.

“Partro!” cried Toli. Quentin interpreted.

“Enchanted voices all around, and he says ‘listen,’” mocked Trenn.

“No! He is right,” shouted Durwin. “Listen! What do you hear?-beyond the voices?”

Quentin listened and heard a thrashing sound, the wash of water upon rocks. The rocks!

“We are heading for the rocks!” cried Theido.

“We’ll crash!” shouted Selric, dashing forward. “Helmsman! Steer away hard to starboard!”

“No, stay!” shouted Durwin. “Selric, tell your helmsman to keep his course. Do not turn aside.”

The king spun towards the hermit, his protest ready. “We will be smashed upon the rocks! There is no time to-”

“It is a trick! Hold your course.”

For an instant King Selric hesitated and then announced, “Helmsman, hold your course.”

The company stood huddled, waiting for the awful sound of their wooden beams splintering upon the treacherous rocks of one of the Mystic Islands they seemed to be drifting so near. They waited for the grinding halt and the rapidly tilting deck as they grazed by, then struck and were pitched into the sea.

But though the sound of waves driven upon unseen rocks encompassed them round about, the anticipated wreck did not occur. The ship held steady, feeling its way through the oppressive vapor with the crash of waves breaking all around.

Several long hours dragged away. The group on deck sat now in a tense circle of worried faces. Periodically, someone would leave and another take his place, but throughout the evening the vigil continued.

As night took hold-adjudging by the darkness creeping rapidly through the mists, a general deepening of the darkness already present-King Selric ordered torches to be placed along the rails lest anyone fall overboard. Squatting upon the deck in the quivering light of the sulky torches, the miserable Company waited.

Quentin, dozing fitfully as he slumped upon the damp planks of the deck, was suddenly aware of a great confusion. Nearby, the slap of running feet on the deck, shouts of alarm. And, more distant, the terrible sound of shipwreck.

He jumped to his feet, shaking his head to clear it, and followed the others to the stern.

“One of our ships has struck a rock!” cried a sailor. “It is sinking!”

Peering into the fog, as peering into mud, revealed nothing. But the anguished cries of men and the horrible tearing of the ship as it hung on the rock and battered itself to pieces filled the dank air. Quentin could hear the mast crashing to the deck and the screams of the men it crushed beneath its weight-cut short as it fell. He heard men in the water, drowning. A sickening, helpless feeling spread through Quentin’s frame as he stood gripping the aft rail with whitened knuckles. Someone do something-save them!

King Selric called for the ship to turn about, to lower boats to save the crew of the distressed ship and pick up survivors. But Durwin, standing close beside him, a warning hand on his arm, said, “No, withdraw your orders. There is nothing out there. Hold firm to your course.”

The king looked around in the swirling fog, appealing to the others for opinions. Theido said nothing and Ronsard turned away. Selric had his answer; he pounded his fists into the rail and cancelled his order for rescue.

“If you like, have your trumpeter sound a call to the other ships-if they are close they will hear that we proceed unaverted.”

Selric did as Durwin suggested and the trumpeter, aloft in the rigging, blew a long, strong call on his horn. He repeated it as if to say, “Hold steady. All is well. Hold steady.”

The ship continued on as before, and the cries of the men from the wreck were gradually lost in the muffling mist.

FORTY-FOUR

“WE SHOULD have done something,” insisted Quentin. “It was not right to let them die; we could have helped. We should have done something.”

“We did,” said Alinea gently. “We trusted Durwin.”

“But you did not hear it! Horrible! The cries of the men…”

Quentin had found the Queen emerging from the cabin below deck. Though her voice was strong and soothing, he could see by her red-rimmed eyes that she had been as much affected by the ordeal as anyone, though she had chosen to endure it alone in her quarters.

“Durwin had a reason for what he did; I doubt it not. Come, would you like to rest for a while?” Alinea had turned, about to usher Quentin to her own quarters where he might rest and relieve his troubled mind of its burden. “You need sleep.”

Quentin nodded as one in a trance. His limbs wore leaden weights and his eyes burned in his head. Sleep. The word sounded so peaceful. Still, he wondered if any of them would find peace again. It had been so long since he had had any real rest, and sleep had become a torment of dreams and half-real horrors.

But as he stepped across the threshold and started down to the cabin below he heard the helmsman call out. “Clear way ahead! Clear way!”

He turned and saw the fog straggling in tatters, driven before a fresh wind. Stepping back on deck he raised his eyes toward the heavens and could see the thinning vapors receding as if some giant hand were drawing aside a veil.

Overhead the stars shimmered merrily, and Quentin thought he had never seen them burn more brightly. Now the ship plowed through the last bank of trailing mist and suddenly they were free.

Quentin filled his lungs with sweet fresh air. He could not stop himself from grasping the Queen’s hand and squeezing it hard as he fairly danced with joy. “The fog is gone!” he cried. “We are free!”

There was not a more happy person on deck the next morning than Quentin himself. The hideous events of the day before had been wiped away with a solid night’s sleep and now, in the clear light of a crystalline day, seemed remote and unreal-shadows only. Dreams of a tired mind, he thought. And yet he knew it had happened.

The most surprising revelation, and the one that cheered him most, took place the moment he climbed on deck. He could not believe his eyes when, as he scanned the blue horizon, noting the few frothy white clouds puffing their way across the sun-washed dome of the sky, he fastened on a most remarkable sight: two ships trailing out behind them. King Selric’s ships.

For an explanation of this miracle he ran to Durwin, whom he found at the taffrail over the stern, placidly meditating as he gazed out to sea.

“So it is! As you see, no ships were lost last night,” he replied to Quentin’s inquiry.

“But I heard it. The wreck, the pleas for help, the breaking timbers. I heard it all. Everyone did.”

“Yes, I should say we did. But, as the fog itself and the absurd screams, the shipwreck was sorcery. No doubt ‘twas meant to draw us away from our course to confuse us and bring about a real collision. If we had turned aside we would have struck one of the other ships.”