He looked at Kta’s face, peaceful and composed, and felt an irrational terror of him and his outraged Ancestors, as if whatever watched Elas was still alive and still powerful, beyond the power of men to control.
But Kta slept with the face of innocence.
Kurt braced himself as Lun heaved a bucket of seawater over him—cold, stinging with salt in his wounds, but a comfort to the soul. He was clean again, shaved, civilized. The man handed him a blanket and Kurt wrapped in it gratefully, not minding its rough texture next to his abused skin. Kta, leaning with his back against the rail, gave him a pitying look, his own bronze skin able to absorb Phan’s burning rays without apparent harm, even the bruises he had suffered at the hands of the Tamurlin muted by his dusky complexion, his straight black hair drying in the wind to fall into its customary order, while Kurt’s—lighter, sun-bleached now, was entirely unruly. Kta looked godlike and serenely undamaged, renewed by the morning’s light, like a snake newly molted.
“It looks terribly sensitive,” Kta said, grimacing at the sunburn that bled at Kurt’s knees and wrists and ankles. “Oil would help.”
“I will try some in a little while,” Kurt said. He took his clothing and dressed, an offense to his fevered skin: he went clad this day only in the ctan.When there were no women present it was enough.
“How long will it take us to reach the Isles?” Kurt asked of Kta, for Kta had given that as their first destination.
Kta shrugged. “Another day, granted the favor of heaven and the ladies of the winds. There are dangers in these waters besides Edrif; Indresul has a colony to the west—Sidur Mel; with a fleet based there,—a danger I do not care to wake. And even in the Isles, the great colony of Smethisan is dominated by the house of Lur, trade-rivals of Elas, and I would not trust them. But the Isle of Acturi is ruled by house-friends: I hope for port there.”
The canvas snapped overhead and Kta cast a look up at the sail, waved a signal back to Val. Tavi’s crew hurried into action.
“The gray ladies,” said Kta, meaning the sky-sprites, “may not favor us for long. Sailors should speak respectfully of heaven and never take it for granted.”
“A change in the weather?”
“For the worse.” Kta wore a worried look, indicated a faint grayness at the very edge of the northern sky. “I had hoped to reach the Isles before that. Spring winds are uncertain, and that one blows right off the ice of the Yvorst Ome. We may feel the edge of it before the day is done.”
By midmorning Tavi’s sail filled and hung slack by turns, Kta’s ethereal ladies turning fickle. By noon the ship had taken on a queasy motion, almost without wind to stir her sail. Canvas snapped. Val bellowed orders to the deck crew, while Kta stood near the bow and looked balefully at the advancing bank of cloud.
“You had better find heavier clothing,” said Kta. “When the wind shifts, you will feel it in your bones.”
The clouds took on an ominous look now that they were closer. They came like a veil over the heavens, black-bottomed.
“It will drive us back,” Kurt observed.
“We will gain what distance we can and fight to hold our position. You are not experienced in this; you have seen no storms such as the spring winds bring. You ought not to be on deck when it hits.”
By afternoon the northwest sky was utterly black, showing flashes of lightning out of it, and the wind was picking up in little puffs, uncertain at first, from this quarter and that.
Kta looked at it and swore with feeling. “I think,” he said, “that the demons of old Chteftikan sent it down on us for spite. Sufak is to leeward, with its hidden rocks. The only comfort is that Shan t’Tefur is nearer them, and if we go aground, he will have gone before us.— Hya,you, man! Tkel! Take another hitch in that! Wish you to climb after it in the storm? I shall send you up after it.”
Tkel grinned, waved his understanding and caught quickly at the line to which he was clinging, for Taviwas suddenly beginning to experience heavy seas.
“Kurt,” said Kta, “be careful. This deck will be awash soon, and a wave could carry you overboard.”
“How do your men keep their footing?”
“They do not move without need. You are no seaman, my friend. I wish you would go below. I would not have you entertaining Kalyt’s green-eyed daughters tonight. I know not what their feelings may be about humans.”
Kurt knew the legend. Drowned sailors were held in the domain of Kalyt the sea father until proper rites could release their souls from bondage to the lustful seasprites and send them to their ancestral hearths.
He took Kta’s warning, but it was advice, not order, and he was not willing to go below. He walked off aft and suddenly a great swell made him lose his balance. He caught at the mast in time to save himself from pitching headlong into the rowers’ pit. He refused to look back at Kta, humiliated enough. He found his balance again and walked carefully toward the low prominence of the cabin, taking refuge against its wall.
Taviwas soon hard-put to maintain her course against the seas. Her bow rose on the swells and her deck pitched alarmingly as she rode them down. Overhead the sky turned to premature twilight, and the wind carried the scent of rain.
Then a great gust of wind scoured the sea and hit the ship. The spray kicked up, the bow awash as water broke over the ship’s bronze-shod ram. Kurt wiped the stinging water from his eyes as sea and sky tilted insanely. He kept a tight grip on the safety line. Tavibecame a fragile wooden shell shrunk to miniature proportions against the waves that this morning had run so smoothly under her bow.
Wood and rigging groaned as if the vessel was straining to hold together, and a torrent of water nearly swept Kurt off his feet. Rain and salt water mixed in a ceaseless, blinding mist. In the shadowy sky lightning flashed and thunder boomed directly after, and Kurt flinched against the cabin wall, constantly expecting the ship not to surface after the next pitch downward or the breaking of spray across her deck. Thunder ripped overhead—lightning seemed close enough to take the very mast. His heart was in his throat already; at every crash of thunder he simply shut his eyes and expected to die. He had ridden out combat a dozen times. The fury of this little landbound sea was more awesome. He clung, half drowned, and shivered in the howling wind, and Kta’s green-eyed seasprites seemed real and malevolently threatening, the depths yawning open and deadly, alternated with the sky beyond the rail. He could almost hear them singing in the wind.
It was a measureless time before the rain ceased, but at last the clouds broke and the winds abated. To starboard through the haze of rain land appeared, the land they so much wanted to leave behind,—a dim gray line, the stark cliffs and headlands of Sufak. Kta turned the helm over to Tkel and stood looking toward the east, wiping the rain from his face. The water streamed from his hair.
“How much have we lost?” Kurt asked.
Kta shrugged. “Considerable. Considerable. We must fight contrary winds, at least for the present. Spring is a constant struggle between southwind and north, and eventually south must win. It is a question of time and heaven’s good favor.”
“Heaven’s good favor would have prevented that storm,” said Kurt. Cold limbs and exhaustion made him more acid than he was lately wont to be with Kta, but Kta was well-armored this day: he merely shrugged off the human cynicism.
“How are we to know? Maybe we were going toward trouble and the wind blew us back to safety. Maybe the storm had nothing to do with us. A man should not be too conceited.”
Kurt gave him a peculiar look, and caught his balance as the sea’s ebbing violence lifted Tavi’s bow and lowered it again. It pleased him, even so, to find Kta straight-facedly laughing at him: so it had been in Elas, on evenings when they talked together, making light of their serious differences. It was good to know they could still do that.