The Clocks of Iraz

Chapter Two THE FLYING FISH

He must hoist the sails instanter," said jorian.

Zerlik asked: "How do we that? I have never sailed."

"First, we heave to in the eye of the wind." With powerful strokes of his oar, Jorian turned the bow of the Flying Fish westward. The little ship pitched wildly as she took the waves bow-on. Jorian shipped his oar.

"Now," he said, "keep her in this position whilst I raise the sails. Oh, dip me in dung!"

"What is the matter?"

"I forgot that these sails had their covers on."

"I thought you were a nautical expert?"

"Do be quiet and let me think!" Jorian quickly unhooked the lashing of the mizzen cover.

"It is my skin, too," said Zerlik plaintively.

"Fear not for your precious skin. Tis I whom they're after."

"But if a fight develop, they will not draw subtle distinctions…"

Jorian, heaving on the mizzen halyard, forbore to answer. The mizzen yard went up by jerks. The yellow sail flapped and boomed as it luffed. Jorian shouted:

"Keep her head into the wind!"

"Why not sail on this sail alone?"

'Too far aft; she'd give us too much weather helm."

"I know not your nautical terms. Here come our pursuers!"

The black-hulled barge, rowed by eight men, had covered half the distance from the quay to the Flying Fish. Zerlik asked:

"Then why did you not put up that big front sail first?"

"One must hoist sail from stern forward. If one hoists the foremost sail first, the wind takes charge and sweeps one downwind—which in this case is upriver, whither we are fain not to go. There!"

Jorian belayed the halyard and worked his way forward to the mainmast. An instant later, Zerlik heard a wild yell. He called:

"What is the matter now?"

"May fiends torment, for a million eternities, the bastard who lashed this sail cover! He tied it in a hard knot, around to the front where I can't see it."

"Hasten, or the Xylarians will be upon us." The pursuers were now close enough for their faces to be discerned.

"I do my utmost. Shut up and hold her bow steady!"

The mainsail yard, swathed in the canvas sail cover, extended out for several feet beyond the bow. The knot that secured the lashing was at the forward end of this yard. To reach it, Jorian had to sprawl out lizardlike on the yard, gripping for dear life with his left arm, with his feet on the anchor, while he felt around the butt end of the yard with his free hand. To untie a hard knot with one hand takes doing even when one can see the knot, let alone when one has to work solely by touch.

The freshening wind drove larger and larger waves up the estuary. The Flying Fish leaped to each impact like a horse at a fence. Smash! smash! went the little ship's bow as she came down from each pitch.

Tossed up and down, eight or ten feet to each toss, Jorian had much ado to keep his grip on the yard. The sun, near to setting, turned the seaward waves to gold, which glared in Jorian's eyes like the glow from a furnace.

The barge drew closer. The Xylarians were within easy bowshot, but Jorian was sure they would not try archery. For one thing, the wind would carry their shafts awry; for another, they wanted him alive.

"Zevatas damn it!" he screamed as his hat blew off, alighted gently on a wave, and went sailing up the estuary on its own.

"Jorian!" called Zerlik. "A man is readying a lariat."

When it seemed hopeless, Jorian felt the knot yield to his straining fingers. The black pursuing barge was almost within spitting distance. The knot came loose at last. Feverishly, Jorian unhooked the sail cover, bundled it up, and tossed it aft. It came down on Zerlik and wrapped itself pythonlike about him. In trying to free himself from the canvas, he let go his oar.

"Keep her head into the wind!" bellowed Jorian, heaving on the main halyard.

Zerlik bundled up the sail cover and returned his attention to his oar. "Here comes the noose!" he called.

One Xylarian cast his lariat, but the cast fell short, into the heaving blue water. The yellow mainsail went up. Its luffing in the strong wind shook the ship. Jorian shouted:

"Point her to starboard!"

"Which is that?"

"Oh, my gods! Back water, stupid!"

Zerlik caught a crab with his oar but at last did as commanded. As the bow fell off to starboard, the wind, with sharp cracks, filled the sails on the port tack. The Flying Fish heeled to starboard and began to pick up speed.

As Jorian scrambled aft, he saw that the Xylarian with the lariat was again whirling his noose. The man's black hood had fallen back, exposing a head of long, wheat-colored hair. The man, Jorian thought, was probably a nomad from the steppes of Shven. Xylar often hired these Northerners for the Royal Guard because of their skill with the lariat, since the principal duty of the Guard was, not to protect the king, but to keep him from escaping and to catch him alive if he tried.

This time, Jorian was within easy casting distance. He scuttled into the cockpit.

"Ship your oar," he said, "and catch hold of my belt in back."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

The oar clattered inboard. Jorian stood up in the cockpit, with one hand on the mizzen backstay, and thumbed his nose at the Xylarians. Zerlik caught his belt from behind. The Xylarian put one foot on his gunwale to make his cast.

Helped by the wind, the noose whirled through the air and settled around Jorian's shoulders. Jorian seized the rope in both hands and gave a mighty heave. Zerlik pulled at the same time. The Xylarian was jerked clear out of the barge, splash!

With cries of rage and alarm, the pursuers stopped rowing. Those on the near side of the barge rose and stretched out their oars to the man in the water. One, in his zeal, hit the swimmer over the head. The head vanished but soon bobbed up again.

The Flying Fish gained speed. Jorian crouched in the cockpit, holding the tiller with one hand and with the other, reeling in the rope. He grinned at Zerlik.

"One can never have too much good rope on shipboard," he said.

The barge fell astern, while the Xy larians hauled their dripping comrade aboard. Zerlik asked:

"Are we safe, now?"

"I know not. She seems to point pretty well on this tack; but we have yet to learn how featly she comes about and how well she points with the sails taken aback."

"What means that?"

Jorian explained the features of lateen sails and the good and bad points of shifting the yards to the leeward of the masts with each tack. He cast a worried glance ahead, where the far side of the estuary was opening out as they neared it: a long, low green line of marshes and woods, interspersed with croplands and villages.

"Get forward, Zerlik," he said, "and watch for shoal water. All we need now is to run aground."

"How shall I do that?"

"Look straight down and yell when you think you see bottom."

After a while, Jorian called a warning, put the helm sharply down, and brought the Flying Fish about on the starboard tack. The little ship responded well and pointed almost as high on this tack as on the other. Zerlik called:

"The Xylarians have not yet given up, O Jorian. They seek to cut us off."

Jorian shaded his eyes. Laboring into the teeth of the wind, the pursuers were forging seaward. Although the Flying Fish moved much faster than the barge, the angle at which the lateener was forced to sail by the direction of the wind brought the two vessels on converging courses.

"Should we not tack again, ere we come close?" asked Zerlik.

"Mayhap; but they'd still be south of us. They'd run farther out to sea and intercept us on the next tack. I have a better idea."

With a dangerous glint in his eye, Jorian held his course. Closer came the barge.

"Now,""said Jorian, "take the trumpet, go forward, and shout a warning, that we mean to exercise our right of way. Let them stand off if they would not be run down."

"Jorian! The collision would smash both ships!"

"Do as I say!"

Shaking his head, Zerlik went forward and shouted his warning. The Xylarians turned faces towards the Flying Fish, swiftly bearing down upon them. There was motion aboard the craft as some of the pursuers readied their nets and lariats. The Flying Fish kept on.

"Can you swim, Zerlik?" asked Jorian.

"A little, but not from here to shore! My gods, Jorian, would you really ram them?"

"You shall see. Repeat your warning."

At the last minute, the barge burst into action. The rowers backed water, the sea foaming over their oars. The Flying Fish raced past so close to windward that the barge rocked in her wake. One Xylarian stood up to shake a fist until his comrades pulled him down again.

"Whew!" breathed Zerlik. "Would you have truly run them down?"

Jorian grinned. "You'll never know. But, with that much way on, 'twould not have been hard to dodge them. Anyway, we can now devote ourselves to the sea road to Iraz—if storms, calms, sea monsters, and pirates interfere not. Now excuse me whilst I pray to Psaan to avert these perils."

Night fell, but the brisk wind held. Having lost his lunch and being unable to eat any dinner, Zerlik sat moaning with his head in his hands.

"How do you stand it?" he asked, watching with revulsion as Jorian, one hand on the tiller, put away a hearty supper. "You eat enough for two."

Jorian bit a piece out of an apple, swallowed, and replied: "Oh, I used to get seasick, too. On my first cruise against pirates, as king of Xylar, I was sick as a dying dog. I was like that fellow in the operetta, The Good Ship Petticoat, by Galliben and Silfero—you know, the one who sings about being a pirate captain bold."

"I know it not. Could you give it to me?"

"I can try, albeit vocal training is one skill for which I've not had time." In a heavy bass voice, slightly off key, Jorian sang:

"That is good!" said Zerlik. "I would learn it; for I know no Novarian songs." He started off in a high but well-controlled tenor.

"You sing better than I ever shall," said Jorian after he had helped his comrade through the lyrics.

"Ah, but amongst us, to carry a tune well is deemed one of the accomplishments of a gentleman! How got you over your seasickness?"

"Well, thanks to Psaan—"

"Thanks to whom?"

"Psaan, the Novarian sea god. Anyway, my system adjusted, and I've never been seasick since. Perhaps you will adapt likewise. That reminds me: Is my—ah—colorful past known in Iraz?"

"Nay, at least so far as I know."

"Then how did you learn of it?"

"Doctor Karadur told me about your having been king of Xylar and accompanying him to Mulvan and Shven, to make it easier for me to find you. He swore me to secrecy, howsomever."

"Good for him! Karadur is a wise old man, if sometimes absent-minded. Now, when we reach your homeland, I want no word of my former kingship or aught else breathed abroad. To the Irazis I shall be merely a respectable technician. Do you understand?"

"Aye, sir."

"Then come hither and take the tiller. It must be the hour of the owl already, and I needs must get some sleep."

"May I run her closer to shore? I can barely see the coast, and so much water around me makes me nervous."

Zerlik gestured to eastward, where the Xylarian coast formed a black strip between sky and sea, both illuminated by the rising moon. The moon cast a million silvery spangles on the waves between the Flying Fish and the shore.

"Gods, no!" said Jorian. "Off a lee shore like this, the more water around us the better. Keep her as far from shore as we are now, and wake me if aught happens."

Next day, the west wind continued, blowing little cotton-wool clouds across the deep-blue sky. Zerlik still complained of headache but summoned enough strength to eat. Jorian, with a scarf tied around his head in piratical fashion in place of his lost hat, took the tiller. As he guided the Flying Fish, he quizzed Zerlik about the language of Penembei. After an hour of explanation, he clapped a hand to his forehead.

"Gods and goddesses!" he cried. "How do little Penembians ever master so complicated a tongue? I can understand having indicative, interrogative, imperative, conditional, and subjunctive moods; but when you add to those the optative, causative, dubitative, reportative, accelerative, narrative, continuative, and—"

"But of course, my good Jorian! That is why we deem our speech superior to all others, for one can say exactly what one means. Now, to go over the aorist perfect reportative of the verb 'to sleep' again. In Novarian you would say: 'They say that I used to sleep' but in Penembic we do all that with a single word—"

"A single word with fifty-three suffixes," growled Jorian. Later he said: "Perhaps you'd better merely teach me common expressions, like 'Good morning' and 'How much?' I used to think myself a fair linguist; but your grammar baffles me."

"Ah, but once you learn the rules, you have but to follow them to speak correctly. There is none of those irregularities and exceptions that make your Novarian tongue so maddening."

By mid-afternoon, the wind and the sea had moderated. Feeling better, Zerlik moved about, learning the spars, the lines, and the other parts of the ship.

"I shall be a true mariner yet!" he exclaimed in a rush of enthusiasm. Standing on the gunwale abeam of the mizzenmast, he burst into the song from The Good Ship Petticoat As he reached the final "oh!" he let go the mizzen stay to make a dramatic gesture. At that instant, the Flying Fish lurched to a large wave. With a yell of dismay, Zerlik fell into the sea.

"By Vaisus' brazen arse!" cried Jorian as he put the helm down. The Flying Fish turned into the wind, lost way, and luffed. Jorian gathered up the rope he had taken from the Xylarians, belayed one end to a cleat, and hurled the rest of it to Zerlik, whose head bobbed into sight and out again with the rise and fall of the waves.

With the third cast, Zerlik got his hands on the rope. Jorian hauled him by the slack of his fisherman's blouse up over the counter. While Zerlik, bent into a knot of misery, retched, coughed, spat, and sneezed,

Jorian said: "That'll teach you to keep a grip on something all the time you're out of the cockpit! Remember the rule: one hand for yourself, one for the ship."

"Ghrlp," said Zerlik.

The wind fell. The sun set behind a bank of fog, which rolled in from the sea. Jorian said:

"We shall be becalmed in that fog. We'd better head into shore and anchor."

An hour later, as the first tendrils of fog drifted past the Flying Fish, Jorian dropped anchor and furled sail. The wind died. The waves became smooth little oily swells, just big enough to rock the Flying Fish gently. Jorian and Zerlik bailed out the bilge water with sponge and bucket.

When daylight vanished, utter darkness settled down, since the moon did not rise until hours after sunset. Jorian lit a small lanthorn. When he and his companion tired of language lessons, they played skillet by the feeble light. Jorian won several marks.

"Never bluff more than once at a sitting," he said. "Would you like me to take first watch?"

"Nay; I could not sleep, with all the salt water I have swallowed."

Later, Jorian was awakened. Zerlik whispered: "I hear something!" Yawning and rubbing his eyes, Jorian ducked out of the cabin. A pearly opalescence in the fog showed that the moon had risen. The ocean was still as a pond, so that Jorian could not tell direction.

The sound was a rhythmic thump. Jorian, listening, said: "Galley oars."

"Whose galley?"

Jorian shrugged. "Belike Ir; belike Xylar; belike Algarthian pirates."

"What were the galleys of Ir or Xylar doing out in this murk?"

"I know not. The sea power of both states is at ebb—Ir because their pinchpenny Syndicate won't keep up their fleet; Xylar because they don't have me to keep 'em on their toes. Hence I surmise that all the ships of both are snug in harbor, and that the oars we hear are piratical."

"I should think the Algarthians would fear running aground as much as we do."

"They have wizards whose second sight enables them to warn their ships away from rocks and shoals. They can also see storms and fogs approaching from afar. Now let's be quiet, lest they hear us."

"A Penembic gentleman," muttered Zerlik, "would scorn to let such scum frighten him into silence."

"Be as knightly as you please, when you're on your own. Just now, 'tis my skin, too—as you remarked the other day. Since I am neither a Penembian nor a gentleman, I prefer saving my hide to parading my courage. Now shut up."

"You ought not to speak to me like that—" began Zerlik indignantly, but Jorian shot him so fierce a look that he subsided.

The sound of the oars grew louder. Mingled with them was the splash of the oar blades, the tap of the coxswain's drum, and an occasional snatch of speech. Jorian cocked an ear.

"I cannot quite make out their language," he breathed.

The sounds receded and died. Zerlik said: "May we speak, now?"

"I think so."

"Well, if these Algarthian wizards can foresee the weather, why cannot they control it?"

"Seeing is one thing; doing, quite another. There have been but few wizards who could control the winds and the waves, and their efforts have gone awry as often as not. Take the case of King Fusinian and the tides."

"What story is this?"

Jorian settled himself. "Fusinian was a former king of my native Kortoli. A son of Filoman the Well-Meaning, he was called Fusinian the Fox on account of his small stature, agility, and quickness of wit.

"Once, King Fusinian invited the leading members of his court to a picnic on the beach of Sigrum, a few leagues from Kortoli City, where the waves of the Inner Sea break on the silvery sands. A fine beach for picnicking, swimming, and like amusements it is. The beach lies in a long curve at the foot of a low bluff. Thither went Fusinian, with his lovely queen Thanuda and the royal children, and his high officers of state with their wives and children, too.

"Now, one of the guests was Fusinian's distant cousin Forvil, then enjoying a sinecure as curator of the royal art gallery. Being fat and lazy, Forvil impressed those who knew him—including the king—as a harmless nonentity. But the fact was that Forvil cherished royal ambitions of his own and, at the time of the picnic, had already begun to put forth tendrils of intrigue.

"In Fusinian's presence, however, the Honorable Forvil was full of unctuous flattery. This time he outdid himself, for he said: 'Your Majesty, your servants have placed the picnic chairs and tables where the rising tide will inundate us all'

" 'Really?' said Fusinian, staring. 'By Zevatas, I do believe you're right! I shall order all this gear moved to higher ground forthwith.'

" 'Oh, sire, that will not be needed,' quoth Fbrvil. "So great are Your Serene Majesty's powers that you have but to command the tides, and they will obey you.' For the tides in the Inner Sea, while smaller than those along this coast, are still big enough to drench a crew of picnickers who carelessly site their feast below the high-water mark.

" 'Don't talk nonsense,' said Fusinian, and turned to give the command to move the chairs and tables.

" 'Oh, but sire! Tis a simple fact!' persisted Forvil. 'An you believe me not, command the sea, and you shall see!'

" 'Damn it, I will!' said Fusinian, no little annoyed, for he suspected that Forvil essayed to make a fool of him. 'And you, dear cousin, shall see what nugacities you are uttering.' So Fusinian stood up and waved his hands in mystic passes and cried:

"Then he sat down and resumed eating, saying: 'If we get wet, O Forvil, you shall pay for the damage to our raiment.'

"The guests likewise remained seated and ate, albeit nervously, since they did not wish on one hand to wet their finery, nor on the other to entreat their king discourteously by fleeing the tide whilst he faced it unflinching. And so things went for a time, whilst the picnic was consumed and the sweet wines were poured.

"But, strangely, the tide failed to rise at the appointed time. People looked surreptitiously at pocket sundials and at one another and—with deepening awe—at their lively little king, who ate and drank unconcerned. At last there was no doubt about it, that the tide had been halted in its wonted rise. Forvil stared at his king with his fat face the color of gypsum plaster.

"Fusinian was perturbed by this phenomenon, for he knew well enough that he had uttered no real magical spell, nor summoned a horde of demons to hold back the tide. And, whilst he pondered— keeping a straight face the whiles—one of his children approached him, saying: 'Daddy, a lady up on the hill asked us to give this to you.'

"Fusinian saw that the note was from the witch Gloe, who dwelt in the hills of southern Kortoli and had long coveted the post of chief magician of the kingdom. The fact was that she was not even a licensed wizardess, because of a long-standing feud betwixt her and Fusinian's Bureau of Commerce and Licenses. She had come uninvited to the picnic in hope of persuading King Fusinian to intervene with his bureaucrats. When, by her super-normal powers, she overheard the colloquy between Fusinian and Forvil, she seized the opportunity and, concealed in the woods above the bluff, cast her mightiest spell, to hold back the tide.

"Glow's powers were, however, limited, as are those of all sentient beings. For most of an hour she held back the tide but then felt her authority weakening. She therefore scribbled this note and called to her the young prince, who was playing tag with the other children on the slope of the bluff. The note said: 'Gloe to His Majesty: Sire, my spell has slipped, and the waters are returning. Get you to higher ground.'

"Fusinian divined what had happened. But, if he confessed the truth, all the effect of retarding the tide would be lost, and Forvil would win this round. So he stood up and cried:

" 'My friends, we have sat here gorging and swilling longer than is good for us. To settle our stomachs, I ordain a race to the top of yonder bluff. There shall be three classes: first, the children below the age of thirteen; the winner shall have a pony from the royal stables. Second: the ladies, for whom the prize shall be a silver tiara from the royal coffers. Third: the men, the swiftest of whom shall receive a crossbow from the royal armory. I warn you that I shall take part in the third race. Since, howsomever, 'twere ridiculous to award a prize to myself, I will, if I win, bestow it upon him who comes in second. Line up, children! Ready, set, go!' And the children were off like the wind in a yelling mob. Then he said: 'Line up, girls! You'd better hike those gowns up to the knee, if you would make any speed. Ready, set, go! And now, gentlemen…' And he repeated the performance with the men."

Zerlik put in: "If the king were competing, would not all the courtiers make a point of losing?"

"With some kings, aye; but not with Fusinian, whom they knew to be a true sportsman. They knew that he would resent it if he caught anyone patronizing him by deliberately holding back. So they all ran their best. Being very wiry and active, Fusinian did in sooth reach the top of the bluff the first of the men. But poor Forvil, being fat, was puffing and waddling along at the base of the bluff when the tide came in with a rush, knocked him down, rolled him over, and half drowned him before a pair of servants pulled him out of the water.

"Fusinian always disclaimed any hand in the phenomenon of the tides, saying that it must have been the libration of the moon or some such thing. But his folk believed not these disclaimers and looked upon him with more awe than ever."

"Did he reward the witch?"

"Nay; for he said that she'd acted without authorization and, moreover, had given him a very uncomfortable time whilst trying to think his way out of the predicament into which she had plunged him. When he came down with a persistent itch on the soles of his feet, he suspected that Gloe in revenge had sent it upon him by goe'tic magic. But nought could be proven; and his chief wizard, Doctor Aichos, managed to cure it."

"And the Honorable Forvil?"

"In consequence of these events, Fusinian entertained a lively suspicion of his cousin. Being Fusinian, he thought of an original way to discourage Forvil from hanging about the court and intriguing for power. Pretending that Forvil was a connoisseur of all the arts, he invited him down to the dungeon beneath his palace to listen to Fusinian practicing on his bagpipes. Forvil's perceptive criticisms of his playing, he said, would soon make him the finest piper in Novaria. After three days of this, Forvil 'got religion,' as they say, and became a priest of Astis. Thereafter his sacerdotal duties furnished him with a legitimate excuse for not listening to the howls of the royal instrument. In any case, he gave up his intrigues lest worse befall him."

An hour after sunrise, the fog thinned. A land breeze sprang up. The fog dissolved into patches and dwindled away; the sun blazed forth. Jorian hoisted the anchor and broke out the yellow sails. When they were well out to sea, Zerlik said:

"How convenient, that the wind should take us out to sea again when we wish to go thither! Did you pray to your Psaan?"

Jorian shook his head. "I like it not. A regular land breeze springs up at night and takes coasters and fishermen out to sea ere dawn. This feels like the kind of easter that heralds a storm… Murrain! Do I see ships off our starboard bow?"

Zerlik ducked around the mizzen. "Aye, that you do! One is a sailing ship; the other looks like some sort of galley but is also under sail."

'Take the tiller." Through the spyglass, Jorian examined the ships, which were bearing briskly down upon the Flying Fish. "Fry my balls, but I'm a dolt for not keeping a sharper watch! I ought to have seen them as soon as their mastheads showed. Now they've seen us."

"Pirates?"

"Indubitably. That blue thing they fly is the Algarthian flag."

"Can we flee?"

"No chance, curse it. If I knew the rocks and shoals hereabouts, I might seek refuge in water too shallow for them to follow; but I don't. If we had Karadur, belike he could cast a glamor on us to make us invisible, or at least to make us look like a rock in the sea. But we have him not."

"Why do the Twelve Cities not get together to extirpate this nuisance?"

"Because they're too busy quarreling amongst themselves, and one is ever hiring the pirates to plague another. Some years ago, in the reign of Tonio of Xylar, the Syndicate of Ir did hire the Zolonian navy to root the rascals out. But then the Novarians lapsed into their old ways, and the pirates sprang up in the archipelago again."

"You need an all-powerful emperor, like our king. What shall we do if they stop us?"

"We're humble fishermen, remember? Get a line over the side and troll."

The approaching ships were now near enough for details to be made out. One was a carack, converted from merchant service. The other had been a bireme, which now had her lower oar ports blocked to make her more serviceable in rough weather. Her oars had been shipped, but now several were thrust out through the upper ports on each side to add to her speed.

"I will not!" said Zerlik.

Jorian turned a puzzled frown. "Will not what?"

"Pretend to be a humble fisherman! I have been running and hiding ever since I met you, and I am sick of it. I will defy these scoundrels to do their worst!"

"Calm down, you idiot! You can't fight a whole shipload of freebooters."

"I care not!" cried Zerlik, becoming ever more excited. "At least, I shall take a few of these wretches with me!"

He ducked into the cabin and reappeared with his scimitar, which he unwrapped from its oilskin covering and drew from its sheath. He waved it at the approaching ships, forcing Jorian to duck to avoid getting slashed.

"Come on!" shrilled Zerlik. "I defy you! Come, and you shall taste the steel of a gentleman of—"

A heavy thump cut off his words, and he slumped to the floor of the cockpit, his sword clanging beside him. Jorian had struck him on the head with the heavy leaden ball forming the pommel of his dagger. He lashed the tiller, sheathed and put away the scimitar, got out the fishing tackle, and let a line trail a stern.

"Heave to!" came a shout through a speaking trumpet from the forecastle of the galley.

A sharp tug on Jorian's fishing pole told of a strike. He jerked the pole and felt a solid, quivering pull.

"Heave to, I said!" came the cry from the galley. "Are you fain to be run down?"

"Can ye na see that I've got a fish?" yelled Jorian, struggling with line and pole.

There was a buzz of talk on the galley. Some sportsman among the Algarthians was arguing that Jorian should be given a chance to land his catch before being pirated. The galley swung to starboard, backing water with her starboard oars. She furled her sail and rowed parallel to the Flying Fish, twenty paces away. The carack trimmed sail to follow more distantly.

Jorian landed a mackerel. Leaving the fish to flop in the bottom of the cockpit beside the unconscious Zerlik, he brought the Flying Fish into the wind and luffed.

"God den, me buckos, and what would ye with me?" he said in down-west Xylarian dialect. "Would ye buy some of me fish? There be this bonny fresh one ye seen me catch, and a dozen or three more salted in the hold. What would ye?"

More muttering on the galley. The man with the trumpet called: "We'll take your fish, Master Fisherman." As the galley maneuvered close to the Flying Fish, the man said: "What ails the other fellow, lying in the bilge?"

"Ah, the poor spalpeen—me nephew, he be—had no better sense than to try to drink the port dry, afore we cast off. So now he be as ye see him. He'll be jimp in an hour."

Someone on the galley lowered a basket on a line over the side. While several pirates with boathooks held the two vessels apart, Jorian tossed his fresh mackerel into the basket and followed it with salted fish from the hold. When the basket had been hoisted back aboard the galley, Jorian said:

"Now about me price…"

The pirate with the trumpet grinned over his rail. "Oh, we'll give you something vastly more precious than money."

"Eh? And what might that be?"

"Namely, your life. Farewell, Master Fisherman. Shove off!"

Jorian sat scowling up and moving his mouth in silent curses as the galley rowed away and broke out its sails. Then his scowl changed to a smile as he put his tiller to starboard, so that the little ship, as she backed before the shore wind, swung clockwise. The sails filled, and the Flying Fish resumed her southward course. Zerlik stirred, groaned, and pulled himself up on the thwart. He asked:

"What did you hit me with?"

Jorian unhooked his dagger from his belt. "See this? The blade won't come out unless you press this button. Hence I can use it as a bludgeon, holding the sheath and striking with this leaden pommel. I had one a couple of years ago, when I was adventuring with Karadur. I lost it later, but I liked the design so well that I had another made. It comes in handy when I wish, not to slay a man, but merely to stop him from doing something foolish—like getting my throat cut so that he can show what a fearless, gallant gentleman he is."

"I will get even with you for that blow, you insolent bully!"

"You'd better save your revenge until after we reach Iraz. I doubt if I could handle this craft alone; and if I could not, I'm sure you couldn't."

"Are you always so invincibly practical? Have you no human emotions? Are you a man or a machine of cogs and wires?"

Jorian chuckled. "Oh, I daresay I could make as big a fool of myself as the next, did I let myself go. When I was a young lad like you—"

"You are no doddering graybeard!"

"Forsooth, I'm not yet thirty; but the vicissitudes of an irregulous life have forced maturity upon me. If you're lucky, you will grow up fast, too, ere some childish blunder puts you into your next incarnation—as has almost happened thrice on this little voyage."

"Humph!" Zerlik ducked into the cabin, where he sat, holding his head and sulking, for the rest of the day.

Next day, however, he was cheerful again. He obeyed orders and performed his duties on the ship as if nothing had happened.