2

When Rap awoke to a chill gray dawn, he found Allena still hove to in an unrelenting gale. As he set off in search of breakfast, his farsight was detecting sharp edges to the south, decorated with foam and spray. He concluded that he would have to do something about those.

An hour or two later, Gathmor went reeling aft in search of his companions. He had spent the entire night with the officers, joyfully swapping yarns and summing up potential partners for recreational mayhem at a later date. He threw open the door and lurched into Rap’s cabin.

Jalon was stretched out on the bed, idly tuning a lute he’d borrowed from an unconscious elf. Since eating a hearty dinner the previous night, Jalon had shown no impatience to call back Sagorn, or Andor. Although he was unassertive toward people, he had treated wind and waves with total contempt. Either the fury of the storm left him unmoved, or he had not really noticed it.

Rap was sitting in one of the two well-padded chairs, with his feet up on the other. He removed those feet and waved for Gathmor to sit down.

“You know what that crazy skipper’s doing?” Gathmor snarled.

“Hoisting more sail?”

“How’d you know?”

“Oh, I suggested it to him,” Rap said, smirking. Not yet knowing how effective his mastery was, he had not been sure how long the compulsion would hold after he parted from the captain, but apparently it had held long enough. Andor’s range was about an hour, he recalled.

Gathmor collapsed on the chair. “God of Storms! Why? We’ll be dismasted or laid on our beam ends.”

Rap waved a thumb. “Rocks thataway.”

The sailor scowled. “I mean, why would he listen to you, a prissy landlubber elf?”

Rap shrugged. “We were having breakfast, and Captain Prakker happened to remark he’d never seen an elf on his feet in anything other than dead calm. One thing led to another.”

“More canvas in this weather?”

“I persuaded him it was worth a try.”

The sailor scowled blackly, recognizing that he was in the presence of the occult.

“She’ll make good time in this, won’t she?” Rap said. “If she stays afloat, that is. Skipper says Malfin’s straight upwind, but we can tack. And if you’d care for a wager, Cap’n, I’ll lay odds we won’t see Malfin on this trip.”

Gathmor scowled. “I don’t bet against you, not ever. But Prakker’ll just heave to again as soon as he’s clear of Noom Bay.”

“Sure you don’t want to bet?” Rap said cheerfully.

He glanced over at the minstrel, who was quietly fingering out a tune and frowning.

“You’ve been to Ilrane, haven’t you?”

Jalon shrugged without looking up. “Andor mostly. I was just there a few hours.”

“Tell me about the sky trees.”

“Andor told you once,” Jalon said, still twanging quietly. 

“But you’ve got the artist’s eye and the poet’s tongue.” Even Darad might have seen through such thick-buttered flat tery, but Jalon didn’t. He laid the lute beside him, put his hands under his flaxen head, and stared up at the beams. For a long minute he was silent, then he sighed. “They’re glorious, utterly breathtaking. Like crystal artichokes.”

Gathmor rolled his eyes at Rap and made a scornful noise. Jalon had once admitted to Rap that he was part elf, and this seemed a logical time to mention the fact again, but he didn’t. He might have forgotten having done so already, or he might be reluctant to inform Gathmor. “No, truly. They’re not really trees, they’re some sort of mineral growth.”

“How big?” Rap asked.

“Huge. Lots are a league high, some of them more than that, with their tops all covered in snow. Valdobyt Prime was said to be so high there wasn’t enough air at the top of it to breathe. It got knocked down by some sorcerer or other thousands of years ago. I’d give you a ballad or two about it if I could fix this E string.”

“Artichokes?” Rap said. “A league high? Come on, be serious! ”

“Should have been able to see ‘em from Kith,” Gathmor snorted, equally disbelieving. But Jalon was lost in remembered bliss.

“Oftentimes the clouds hide them. It can take days to climb up from the ground to where you want to be.. That’s how I got called—Andor was exhausted. I would never’ve left, I think, except that his hosts knew him and not me; never mind that tale . . . Each leaf is sort of like a hand. Think of hundreds of crystalline hands all sprouting from a common trunk, except you can’t see much of the trunk itself. There’s usually a little lake in the palm, and the fingers feather ‘way out and up, into branches of crystals, and they branch more, and finally make petals like a mist of stained glass and butterfly wings in the distance. All day the sun strikes through them in all the colors you can imagine and a few you can’t, and the clouds float by in pearly fires.”

“Where do the people live?” Gathmor said, always practical. ”They build houses around the lakes, or higher on the slopes, in among the trees. There’s real trees and grass, and flowers of course. Can’t have elves without flowers around! Little fields. Each leaf is a separate village. You go from one to the other up long ladders or in tunnels winding up through the rock. The sky trees are the most beautiful thing in the world,” Jalon said with unusual firmness. “No wonder elves love beauty so much.”

Gathmor rubbed his eyes. “I think I’ll catch some sleep.” Rap hid a smile. “Good idea. Any chance you could borrow a cape and a hat for me, Cap’n?” He would have to spend time up on deck to hold the skipper on course. Already he thought he could detect the wind being altered to react to the ship’s new course.

If all else failed, he would just have to explain to the master that the warlock of the south wanted him, Rap, delivered to Ilrane as soon as possible; but he thought Lith’rain might regard that as cheating. Presumably he was not going to all this trouble just to steal Rap’s word of power, so Rap must have some interest or value, and just maybe that meant he was a pawn in the Krasnegar struggle, and in that case the game was still on, and Inos was still alive.

This rationalization was a tapestry of moonbeams, but it was enough to keep him from brooding, except when he remembered he was trying to outguess a man who had married his daughter to a gnome.

Or when he wondered if the unseen hand belonged to Bright Water, needing Rap in order to fulfill Little Chicken’s destiny. Lith’rian was the witch’s ally.

Nevertheless, Rap would guide the ship to Vislawn as best he could. The rest of the time he would lounge in his wonderful cabin. He had eaten a very fine breakfast. Never before in his life had he lived in luxury like this.

And he had a whole new pastime to savor. With his new eidetic memory, he could call up detailed pictures of Inos from their childhood together—Inos riding, Inos running, dancing, laughing, playing, running. Next to actually having her there, it was the best thing he could imagine.