City of Jade

39

ELVENSHIP

LATE SPRING TO EARLY SUMMER, 6E9

Aravan and Aylis and Lissa spent days upon days going through the ancient archives in the libraries of Caer Pendwyr, those that had survived the burning and destruction of the Winter War, when Caer Pendwyr had fallen to the Southerlings-Hyrinians, Kistanians, Chabbains, and the Fists of Rakka, all under the sway of Gyphon’s surrogate Modru. But that was just over a millennium past, and the libraries had recovered some of the knowledge lost, though many ancient scrolls and tomes were gone forever.

The librarians had looked askance at Aylis leading a tethered fox into the buildings, yet the High King had sent word that whatever Aravan and Aylis did was under his personal aegis. And so the librarians had grumbled at this vermin being in their domain; still they had said nought. It wasn’t until Vex had slaughtered a goodly number of rats and mice that the staff began considering getting a fox of their own, for after all there were vermin and there were vermin, and rats and mice shredded documents to build their nests, while foxes did not. Then again, there were those cats in the cities of Khem that were said to deal death to vermin as well, so perhaps. .

Deep in one of the subbasements of the central library, where they had been directed by an ancient archivist, “Look here,” said Aylis, whispering so as to not waken Lissa, the Pysk asleep in a pigeonhole of a nearby escritoire, Vex dozing ’neath. “It mentions the City of Jade.”

She and Aravan stood at a waist-high scroll-scattered table, a lantern sitting thereon.

By the cast of yellow light, Aravan peered at the ancient broken clay tablet Aylis held. “What language is that?”

“I’m not certain,” she replied. “But it is similar to the one scribed ’round the base of the statuette.”

Aravan frowned. “Now that I think on it, the script looks somewhat like the runes of Jung. That language I speak and read, for several times I rode through in my search for the yellow-eyed man. Yet, from those runes I know, these seem to be a much older form. . ancient, I deem. What does it say?”

“ ‘In the near west lies the City of Jade, a place rich in spoils, but with a dreadful-” Aylis looked up and said, “There is no more. Whatever else it might say is gone, broken away.”

“Something dreadful there, neh?”

“That’s what it says.”

“Then it seems to correspond to the warning on the statuette. I deem this tablet might have told why the city was abandoned, what might have been so dreadful.”

Aylis nodded and said:

“Thrice I dreamt the dream

From the City of Jade I fled

Nought but shades now dwell.”

Long had they speculated on the last line of the haiku, yet they had nought but conjecture as to why someone had fled from something in the lost city-be it disease, drought, invaders, madness, or other such.

Aravan glanced at the shard and asked, “Canst thou do a ‹seeing›?”

“I was just about to suggest that,” said Aylis, smiling.

Aravan looked deep into her gold-flecked eyes. “I would not have it tax thee, Chier.”

“I think it will not, though this tablet seems to be quite ancient and might take a while.”

Aravan gently held her hand. “I would not have thee swoon, my love.”

“Swoon I might,” said Aylis, returning his concerned gaze, “yet how else can we discover what we might?”

Aravan looked about the shelves jammed with dusty clutter, and he turned up a hand of surrender.

Saying that the closer to the floor the less distance to fall, Aylis sat upon the tiles. Aravan knelt at her side. She pressed the shard between her palms and then spoke a word. After long moments she muttered an utterance in the tongue of Jung, though an archaic form of that language.

[In the near west lies the City of Jade, a place rich in spoils, but with a dreadful past. Only shades and shadows now dwell therein. Citizens of Jung, beware.]

Aylis took a deep breath and seemed to come to herself. “There is no more, my love. Yet I deem this a clear warning.”

Aravan frowned. “We know little more than we did ere now.”

Aylis nodded and then said, “Perhaps it is nothing more than a legend to keep looters away,” said Aylis.

“Mayhap,” said Aravan. Then he fell into thought and finally said, “So from somewhere in Jung, the City of Jade lies nearby to the west.”

Aravan suddenly stood and looked at marks on the bottom of the statuette. “I ween I know where this is.” He turned and held an aiding hand out to Aylis and said, “Up, Chier. The maps on the Eroean will say yea or nay.”

On her feet, Aylis wakened Lissa and Vex, and within moments they exited the library and headed for the switchback road down to the docks, where they would row out to where the Elvenship was moored.

It took several days to round up the crew, Long Tom and Brekk and several Dwarves scouring the taverns and bordellos and other such low places for those who had not answered the recall flag on the Eroean . But at last, all came aboard, some carried over the shoulders of others.

They sailed on the evening tide of an early summer day, and as the ship hauled out from Hile Bay, the second bosun, Noddy, asked, “Where be we bound, Cap’n? What be th’ set o’ th’ silks?”

Aravan glanced at Noddy and then at Helmsman Tarley. “With this northerly wind, I would have ye keep the shore of Pellar a league or so off our starboard. When we pass the point of Thell Cove, we’ll run straight for Port Arbalin. There we might make a short layover, no more than a candlemark or two; then we’ll head for our next destination.”

“And what might that be, Cap’n?” asked Tarly.

“We’ll talk about that as we approach Arbalin,” replied Aravan, “for I would propose the mission to the entire crew, one with an unknown danger, mayhap. And those who would forgo such a venture will be let ashore, while the remainder will go on.”

Just after mid of night on the second day out, the wind slowly shifted ’round from the north to finally flow out of the west and toward the east, directly against the Eroean . Noddy and Tarley, again on duty, looked to Nikolai, who said, “Tack nor’west, by damn. We run that way to dawn, then back sou’west. In all, ship take four tack to Arbalin.”

“What about th’ Argon, Nick?” asked Tarley. “Th’ flow be against us.”

“Aye,” replied Nikolai, “but flow with us when make next tack.”

And so Noddy piped the sails to the night crew, and Tarley spun the wheel over.

Dawn arrived, and Fat Jim took the helm, and Long Tom the watch. First Bosun James appeared and assumed his duty, as did the day crew. Aravan came adeck as they piped the sails about to run southwesterly, and the Eroean tacked across the wind to take up the next leg.

In the second candlemark after making the turn, the foremast lookout cried, “Somethin’ in the water, Cap’n, nigh dead ahead.”

As Aravan and Long Tom strode to the base of the stem, the lookout added, “A bit starboard, sir. Oh, cor blimy, it looks to be a swimmer. . no, wait a moment, it be two children!”

Aravan, with his keen Elven sight, peered ahead and slightly to the right to catch sight of the pair.

“Cap’n, they’re sinking.”

Of a sudden, from a bright flash of light, a falcon sprang, and hurtled ahead of the ship. O’er the water it sped to where the two had just gone down, and then in another flash of light, Aravan appeared and plummeted into the sea.

“Lower a boat,” shouted Long Tom, racing to the starboard davits. “Now, by damn! Now!”

As sailors sprang to obey, Long Tom grabbed three crewmen and shoved them into the boat, leaping in after. “Faster, by damn, faster!”

Even as the dinghy dropped ten feet to the water, Long Tom yelled up, “Have Fat Jim and James heave to nearby.” Then he grabbed an oar and turned to the crewmen in the boat with him. “Row, you sea dogs, row!”

Aravan arrowed down into the depths, stroking deeper into the water, all clarity clouded by the Argon outflow. There! Two forms, one clinging to the other, came into hazy view, and down Aravan plunged.

He caught both of them, and kicking and with one arm thrusting, the other holding the pair, he turned upward.

Moments later, he burst through the surface and took a great gulp of air, and then he looked at these children-Nay! Not children, but two buccen Waerlinga instead. And neither of them were breathing.

Long Tom and the crewmen pulled alongside, and Aravan let the big man take the two aboard, and then he clambered over the wale after.

With Tom working on one Warrow, and Aravan on the other, they turned them facedown to press water out from their lungs and then faceup and began breathing into them.

One of the buccen, the one with dark hair, the one with Long Tom, began hacking immediately, while the fair-haired one with Aravan exhaled a long sigh and gave a slight cough and began breathing on his own; but he did not come to. The Elf measured the Waerling’s pulse beat, and gauged his breathing, and then, cradling the wee one’s head in his lap, Aravan sat back and relaxed.

The other Warrow broke free of Long Tom and scrambled forward and cried, “Pip. . Pip. . Pipper. . are you. . all right?” the words ejected between wheezes and hacks.

But Pipper said nought, slack and unconscious as he was.

“He is safe, my small friend,” said Aravan, “as art thou.”

At these words, the dark-haired Warrow began coughing again and fell back against Long Tom. Moments passed ere the buccan got control of his breathing, and then he closed his emeraldine eyes and slumped wearily, as if on the verge of a swoon.

Even as Tom held the Warrow, the big man frowned and looked at Aravan and asked, “What’n th’ w’rld was these two doin’ way out here?” With a free hand he gestured ’round and said, “Oi mean, there be no land nowhere near, and there be no flotsam from no sunk ship ’round about, neither. How did they get here? ’N’ why ain’t that one awake?”

Aravan looked down at the fair-haired Waerling. “I detected a faint trace of Nightlady on his breath.”

“Noightliady? ’E wos drugged?”

Aravan nodded. “It would seem so.”

“ ’N’ j’st who moight’ve did that, eh?”

The dark-haired Warrow, without opening his viridian eyes, murmured, “Ruck-loving, rat-eating thieves did it, that’s who. Ruck-loving. . rat-eating. .” His voice dwindled to a whisper, and he fell into exhausted sleep.

And there was nought to wake him or the other buccan but the quiet plash and pull and plash and pull of the oars as the crewmen rowed back to the ship.