Hiero's Journey

9. THE SEA ROVERS

You look about you, children, came the message from brother Aldo’s mind, and you see, in the world, green forest and glade, blue sea and river, yellow prairie and marsh. In them today lurk evil things, yet they also hold uncounted sorts of beauty and wonder. The singing birds, the breathing plants, the shy animals, the savage hunters, all have a place. Alone and unhindered, they change slowly, one kind yielding place to another over the centuries and millennia. This is the ordered course of nature, the plan as the Creator designed it.

But before The Death, things most rapidly were changing, yes, and for the worst. The entire world, as well as simply here in what was once called North America, was dying. It was being choked, strangled in artificially made filth and its own sickly refuse. He pointed a lean hand at the ring of ruined towers glaring across the lagoon.

See there! The whole planet, the good round Earth, was being covered by those things! Giant buildings blotted out the sun. The ground was overlain with stone and other hard substances, so that it could not breathe. Vast man-made structures were built everywhere, to make yet more vast structures, and the smoke and stench of the engines and devices used fouled the worlds air in great clouds of poison. He paused for a moment and looked sad.

This was not all. The Earth itself trembled. Monstrous vessels, to which that Unclean ship of yesterday would be a skiff, fouled the very seas. Overhead, the air vibrated with the rush of great flying machines, whose speed alone, by its vibration, could shatter stone. Along countless stone roads, myriad wheeled machines, carrying ever more goods and people, charged madly along, their poisonous wastes still further fouling the already wearied air.

And then, there were the world’s people. The warring, breeding, struggling, senseless people! The peoples of the planet could not, or rather would not, be brought to reason. Not only did they refuse to see how they were killing the life of the world, they could not even see how they were killing themselves! For they bred. Despite vast poverty, great ignorance, disease, and endless wars, humans were still tough! Every year there were more. And more and more, until the cataclysm was inevitable. Wise men warned them, scientists and humanists pleaded with them. God and nature are one, they said, and hence neither is mocked and defied with impunity.

A few listened, indeed more than a few. But not enough. Certain leaders of religion, men ignorant of any science and any learning but their own outdated hagiography, refused to heed. Other men, who controlled the world’s wealth and soldiery, wished more power. They wished yet more men both to make and to consume what they sold and still more men to wage the wars which they fomented in the name of one political creed or another. Races warred against races of other colors, white against yellow, black against white.

The end was quite inevitable. It had to come! Men of science who had studied many species of mammals in laboratories of the ancient world had long predicted it. When overpopulation and crowding, dirt and noise, reach a peak, madness remorselessly follows. We today call that madness The Death. Across the whole world, by land, water, and air, total war raged unchecked. Radiation, hideous chemical weapons, and artificially spawned disease slew most of the humans then in existence, and much of the remaining animal life, too.

Nevertheless, a few had taken forethought. When the poisons had partly dissipated (they are not all so yet, even now), a few remnants of our Brotherhood emerged. Most were scientists of the day, specialists in a science called “ecology,” which is the interaction of all living things. The Eleventh Commandment, as we call it, not in mockery of the Immemorial Ten, but in succession rather, was formally promulgated. It is simple: Thou shalt not despoil the Earth and the life thereon.

For five thousand years and more, we have watched as humanity climbed upward again, trying our best to aid and guide a natural, decent reascent, one this time in harmony with nature and all life.

We have seen much that was good and much that was not. Many of the pre-Death beasts now have become wise, as wise as humans (if that is wisdom). He sent a thought at Gorm alone, and Hiero could “feel” the bear’s mind shift nervously. Brother Aldo’s tale continued.

But long ago, a certain few survivors of other ancient sciences, principally psychology, biochemistry, and physics, also banded together. They sought nothing less than to regain the ancient human domination of the world, which The Death had finally ended. All the machine-made horrors of life which had passed away, to them were beautiful. They took many of the more dangerous, non-lethal mutations (although you call them Leemutes, Per Desteen, that is an error of language corrupted by usage) and bred them to their service and to a hatred of normal humanity, any, that is, not yet under their own evil sway. And these other groups from the past, we call, collectively, the Unclean. A fitting name.

It is the main business of these foul remnants of the past to destroy any rising groups of humanity which they do not themselves control. If they cannot easily do so, they strive to pierce their ranks, to become hidden councilors or secret allies of any who desire to rule over their fellows. Per Desteen, you no doubt guessed as much. But you, princess, have you ever thought why our people, for I am indeed one of you by birth, continually war against one another to no end but evil?

For a long while, our Brotherhood watched these evil groups, unseen and unknown to them. There is a basic weakness to most wicked people of this sort. No matter how clever and determined they are, each wishes absolute rule of all the others. Hence, cooperation is always difficult for them, a fact to bear in mind. We hoped, I say, that this flaw, this lack of cohesion, would rot them from within and cause them to destroy themselves. They were few, as were we, and it seemed possible, nay, probable.

Regrets are vain. We were mistaken. A twisted genius appeared in their ranks a thousand years or so ago and managed to forge a political device which allows them to cooperate without rending one another.

Now they form a dozen or so groups, each independent within its own geographic area. Promotion within each group lies in that group. But the Grand Masters of each group are also a permanent council, which can override any one group or minority in the interests of the whole. A sort of vicious but permanent oligarchy, well suited to evil, is the result.

It sounds like the Abbeys’ organization, Hiero could not help interjecting.

It is. A good idea can usually be perverted to evil, you know. But let me go on. The old lose their patterns of concentration easily. His humor flashed at the thought.

There are several rising groups of humanity on this continent, he went on. The Kandan Confederacy, including the Metz Republic of the West and their confederates in the East, the Otwah League, is the most advanced, in both politics and science. The city-states of the Southeast, such as D’alwah, are strong in human, potential, but crippled by social archaisms and rotted from within by agents of the Unclean. They must be purged before they can be of use in the struggle.

In the far West and South and elsewhere, too, are others. With them we are not here concerned, though I can tell you that Eleventh Commandment Brothers try to watch over them.

So then, we come to the here and now. In the last fifty years, a concerted attack on the Kandan Confederacy has been steadily building. We had hoped it could be warded off unaided, without our direct help.

For I must make one thing very plain. The Brotherhood I speak for seeks to guard the whole biosphere! We are concerned with LIFE primarily and humanity only secondarily, indeed mainly as it affects all other life. I trust this is clear.

Now then, we come next to minds, minds and their powers, their powers and their abilities and even structures! Minds!

We of the Brotherhood have developed mental powers over several millennia which have aided our purposes, indeed made them possible. We grew overconfident, feeling that we alone had these secrets. As we here all know, this was folly! For the Unclean developed them too, although not in the same way, and they made curious machines and devices in their secret laboratories, devices which expanded their mental powers. And thus they became aware of us for the first time and were filled with fear and rage as a result, knowing very little but guessing a good deal of our long scrutiny of them. Ever since, they have sought to destroy us wherever they could. A number of good men and women have died to protect our secrets.

“Brother Jone,” Luchare breathed aloud.

Yes, Brother Jone. But he died swiftly and in silence, as we Eleveners know how to do. And he told us of you first, princess, so that we have sought you ever since. A new factor to consider, for you, that is, since we have long studied it in fascination, is that of the radiation-spawned growth of higher intelligence in non-humans. Our friend here (he indicated Gorm with a mental dart) belongs to a new civilization. They are still observing humanity, we think. We have extended a welcome to their rulers or wise elders, but they distrust us as well as all other humans. So we wait, hoping that they will decide to aid us, eh, Gorm? l am young, was the quick answer. I go on my journey of youth, where I will, as I will. The bear folk, the new bear folk, are hidden and wish to remain so. Yet much of what I have seen will make them think. I cannot speak for the Old Ones.

Good. I hoped, we all hope, for no more than a fair look. I cannot think that the Unclean have won, or will win, your people over to their side. And there are the Dam People, too, of the northern lakes, neither friendly nor unfriendly as yet. The Unclean have their Howlers, and their Man-rats and others still. Then there are things stranger yet, if that is possible. These frog creatures you have just routed obey a different master again, something I cannot reach, which lairs in the depths of this sunken city. What it actually is I don’t know, but it is both old and malignant, at least an ally of the enemy, if no more.

Stranger things yet, offspring of the atom and genetic frightfulness, alien and mysterious, lurk in the forests and marshes. Perhaps you have met some? Hiero thought of the Dweller in the Mist and shuddered.

I see you have. But not all are malignant. Some are merely indifferent to humanity, others even benign. The world is full of pulsing, seething life, and many wonders still remain, undiscovered.

At last, I am coming to my presence here. We knew you were being hunted down the coast. I have an idea by the way, Per Desteen, what it is you look for in the South. But of that, more later. He went on quickly before Hiero could even react in surprise.

At any rate, it was decided to aid you if we could. We have come, we Eleveners, to the conclusion that the Unclean are gaining great power, mental and physical, too fast for us Brothers of the Eleventh to hope we can stop them alone. Our powers primarily are of the mind and spirit. We need physical strength, mechanical strength if you will, though we dislike yielding to the necessity. I can tell you, Man of the Metz, that even as we sit here, Elevener emissaries are seeking to join formally with your Abbey Council and offer our help for the first time in battling the common enemy. This is a great concession for us, the greatest in our whole history.

I myself volunteered to come and try and help you. We did not know of the Lady Luchare, though, as I said, we have long sought her elsewhere. We feared she was dead. As such things go, I have a good deal of authority in our councils. I ask you to let me join your party and go with you from now on. Two nights past, I sensed a converging of mental forces in this place as I came up from the distant South. I struggled to reach you and was barely in time. Now we have a brief, a very brief, respite until the Unclean rally. They are terribly shaken by your mind, Per Desteen. You hardly understand your new powers as yet, but I can tell you that the ether was disturbed by you, half a continent away! The Unclean guess you seek something important. They are determined you shall not have it and that they, in turn, shall.

What does the group say? I do not ask the good deer, for, though his heart is great, his mind is not on a level with ours as yet; though that too may come in time. Thank you for enduring the rambling of the aged. His thought ceased abruptly and he sat back, looking from one to the other of the three with his sparkling black eyes.

All this tale had taken no more than a few moments. The mental pictures and concepts succeeded one another so rapidly and so clearly that no ambiguity was possible. The bear understood quite as well as the man and woman. Despite his asides about age and accompanying decrepitude, Brother Aldo’s mind messages were as lucid and sharp as any Hiero had ever encountered.

Luchare spoke aloud, looking directly into the old man’s eyes. “I go wherever Hiero goes, now and always. But if my word means anything, I think we are very lucky.”

I agree. I am grateful for our rescue, too, but more, I think we have a great source of strength in our new friend. The future may prove worse than the past. Hiero smiled at the Elevener and met an answering smile.

My own Old Ones told me that the Brotherhood were men we might seek help from if necessary. Also, I can “feel” that this man is a friend. This cannot be a lie. Gorn stared at Brother Aldo with his weak eyes. Yes, he is a friend, this human Old One. And he is very powerful. Let us not anger him.

The priest could not tell whether this last thought was simply a sample of bearish humor or not, but Brother Aldo apparently could, for he suddenly reached out and tweaked Gorm’s nose. Gorm promptly fell over on his back, paws over his muzzle, and gave a superb imitation of a mortally wounded bear, complete with gasps, tongue hangings, and pitiful moans.

The three humans laughed in unison, and only when his sides ached did Hiero suddenly remember where they were and what had recently happened here. His laughter ceased abruptly.

“Yes, humor and death make odd companions,” Brother Aldo said. “Nevertheless, the chemistry of life itself is compounded of both.” He stared out over the sunlit water.

Really Hiero thought (behind a shield), too much empathy can be unsettling!

“If I may suggest a change of air,” the old man’s deep voice went on, “I think we ought to eat and leave this area. I have a ship a few leagues down the coast, waiting for me, and us, if I were lucky enough to find any of you. The enemy will be wondering at the sudden cessation of signals from their party. They may be in communication with that which rules the frog creatures over there in the drowned city too. And I can sense very little of its purposes, save hate alone.”

I can sense nothing at all of it, nor can Gorm. I marvel that you can. The priest’s thought was envious.

Remember, both, or rather all three, of you are very young children compared to me. Even a stupid man can learn a lot if he has enough time granted him. This time, all three minds “smiled.”

In no time they had eaten and set off again, on the far side of the island, their faces to the east once more. They took the little canoe and the old Elevener’s small supply of provisions, mostly dried fruit, aboard the raft as well, and he lent a hand with the clumsy paddles. Not surprisingly, he was both strong and agile.

The sunken city came to an abrupt end not far ahead, he now told them. Another half day’s travel would have brought them to it and to dry land. The Palood curved away back to the north at this point and no longer strayed down to the Inland Sea. Instead, wide lands opened out, prairie and great forest, sweeping to the far distance and eventually the great salt ocean, the Lantik.

But they were not to go east for a long while yet; rather, their route lay south, across the eastern arm of the Inland Sea itself. Somewhere to the east of Neeyana, the trading port from which Luchare’s captors had sailed, Brother Aldo hoped to strike a certain forest trail, without alerting the enemy.

That evening, on dry land, around a hidden campfire, buried deep in some brush, they again sought to plan for the future.

“If you have no objection, I should like to try the Forty Symbols,” Hiero said to Brother Aldo. Gorm had vanished on some private errand, and they were using speech.

“Why should I object? Precognition is an art, if that is the right word, of which we Eleveners know little. Our teaching lies in other areas of the mind and spirit. But I cannot for the life of me see why it is wrong to use such a talent in a good cause. Save for the fear of becoming skilled enough to read one’s own death. That might deter some people.”

“You may watch if you wish,” the priest said as he drew forth the box and the alb of his office. “There is nothing secret about any of this. We don’t regard it as being hidden, although we do think of it as a service.”

When Hiero eventually came out of the brief trance, he saw Aldo watching him closely, and next to the old man, Luchare, her eyes gleaming with suppressed excitement.

“There is some danger to your method, some that I had not quite foreseen,” Aldo said. “Your mind was quite open and the power of the thought more than enough to reveal you to a mental listener close by. I cast over you a net of surface thought, a sort of mental screen, simulating the local small thoughts of animal and plant—oh, yes, plants have thoughts, though perhaps not the kind you are aware of—to deceive any spy who might be about.”

“Thanks,” Hiero grunted. He opened his hand and peered at the symbols now exposed on his palm.

The Fish lay uppermost. Water again! “That’s no surprise,” he said, after explaining it to the Elevener.

Next, there were the familiar little Boots. “Half my life has been a journey. Now we have a journey involving water. Well, we knew that too.” The hawk nose lowered over the small, third symbol. It was the House.

“What’s that one?” the girl asked eagerly. “Is it good or bad?”

“Neither,” was the answer. “It’s the House. The sign itself is a peaked roof. Its meanings are various and unfriendly. You know, or I guess perhaps you don’t, that the signs are very, very old. Many of the instructions and meanings of their first makers are obscure, open to several interpretations. This is one of them. It can mean simply ‘danger indoors.’ Or it can mean ‘get under cover!’ Or it can mean an enemy building, or even a town or city, is near. Not much help, really.”

Hiero looked at the fourth symbol. It was a minute Sword and Shield interlocked. “That means personal combat for the one who casts the symbols.” He looked at Luchare and smiled at the worry in her eyes. “I’ve drawn it three times in my life so far. I’m still here.” There was no more to say. He put the signs away and called to Klootz to come and be rubbed down.

All three of them had been riding the morse, albeit at a slow pace. It was no great strain on him, and he had been feeding fairly well. Even at his deceptive amble, he covered the ground faster than a man could walk, and went straight through things a man would have had to walk around.

Two hours’ jog the next morning along the shore brought them to a small cove set deep in one side of a towering headland. As they appeared on the beach, Brother Aldo cupped his hands and let out a ringing shout, startling both the humans and the bear, who had been sniffing some tracks beside the path. Klootz twitched an ear.

To the surprise of Hiero and Luchare, a section of low woodland on the far side of the cove began to move. Out from a shallow indentation in the shore pushed a stout little, two-masted ship. Tree branches had been lashed to her lateen-rigged masts and more branches and bushes woven into a great net which covered most of the hull.

Perhaps a hundred feet long over all, she was painted brown and rose high at both bow and stern. There was a tiny deck cabin amidships between the masts and various bales and bundles lying about here and there. Men moved briskly on deck about various tasks, and a small rowing boat now pushed off and came shooting in to meet them as they came down to the water.

They dismounted, and the two sailors who were rowing splashed out and pulled the boat up on the beach. This allowed the man in the stem to step out dry-shod. He did so and came swaggering up to them. Luchare put her hand to her mouth to suppress a giggle.

“This is Captain Gimp,” Brother Aldo said. “He has waited for me patiently and has been of great service, both in the past and recently as well. No more-renowned captain of merchants sails the Inland Sea. Captain, let me introduce friends and your new passengers.”

Captain Gimp bowed profoundly. He was extremely short and very wide, a washtub of a man Luchare thought. His original, color was hard to make out, for he was so brown and weathered it might have been anything. He was bald, or perhaps shaved, for a short, smoke-blackened pigtail thrust straight back like a bow, or rather, stern sprit. He wore a kilt of dirty, greased leather, boots of undressed hide, and a green coat of wool, much stained and worn. He limped a little, hence his name, Hiero guessed, and his black eyes were beady with impudent humor. His hands, at the end of long arms, were surprising, being as dirty as the rest of him, but with long, delicate fingers. He carried no visible weapon.

“Glad to make yer acquaintance, all,” he said in understandable but accented batwah when the introductions were complete. “The Brother’s word is good enough for me. Now turn your dear pets loose and let’s get aboard. Wind’s fair for the southward and it may shift.” He spat something he was chewing in Gorm’s direction even as he spoke and started to turn away.

The bear, who had been sitting up on his haunches sniffing the warm morning breeze, moved like lightning. One broad paw shot out and intercepted the wad of spittle. Next, the young bear rose on his hind legs and advanced on the dumbfounded sailor, who stood only a few feet away. Reaching him, Gorm peered solicitously into his face from an inch away, snorted loudly, and then wiped his paw down the dirty green coat. The coat now bore a new stain, as well as several leaves. Gorm sat down again and looked up at Captain Gimp.

The captain finally emerged from his trance, his face now a shade paler under the accumulation of smoke, dirt, and weather. Surprisingly, to Hiero at any rate, he crossed himself.

“Well, ride me under,” he exploded. “I never see the half of that. That animal can talk! Who’s he belong to?” he asked, swiveling on the others, who were all smiling. “I’ll buy him! Just name your own price! I’m as fair as any master afloat; ask the Brother here, now, if you don’t believe me!”

It was some time before it could be brought home to the little sailor that Gorm was not for sale and that he could think as well as a man. The captain was still muttering to himself when Brother Aldo asked him to warp his ship in near the beach so that a plank could be run and the bull morse taken aboard also. This, however, seemed to be altogether too much.

“Look now, Brother,” he said to the old man, “I’ve carried those kaws on occasion, back when I had an old storeship, on local journeys, mind you, a day here or there. But I can’t take that great ox of a thing. What would people think? My ship, Foam Girl, the finest thing in the trade, a dung barge? I ask you, now? It’s not considerate of you, Brother. Talking bears, women who ain’t proper slaves or wives, that funny-looking northerner—no offense, mister—and now this animal mountain. No, it’s too much; I won’t do it; my mind’s made up.”

By the time they were aboard, it was almost noon. Once his arguments had been beaten down, the squat little captain proved both helpful and extremely efficient. A log pen was quickly built next to the deck cabin, and Klootz was secured by broad straps so that he could not slip.

The crew, Hiero noticed as the ship eased out of the cove, were a wildly varied lot. There were dark men who, with their curly hair, could have been Luchare’s or Brother Aldo’s cousins. But there were men in appearance like himself, though he heard no Metz spoken, and also there were others. He saw two, half-naked men with pale skins and high cheekbones, whose eyes were an icy blue and whose hair was fiery red. He had read of red-haired men in the ancient past, but had no idea that they still existed.

“They come from an island in the far North, from what used long ago to be called the Green Land, I believe,” said Brother Aldo, who had followed his glance. “They were probably outlawed, to be so far from home.”

“Do your Eleveners reach so far?” Hiero asked. He clutched the rail as the Foam Girl emerged from the cove and a strong wind in the great triangular sails made her heel sharply.

“We do reach there, though we are called something else, a habit of ours in many lands,” Aldo said. “One of the assistant witch doctors of the white savages who were trying to kill Luchare was an Elevener. That’s how I got on your track, my boy.” He smiled sadly at Hiero. “Yes, he would have let the birds kill her. He had no choice, and he was next in line to be chief wizard, or shaman. You see that then he could have influenced the whole tribe, to who knows what good end. The enemy works on such primitive people, too, and we cannot neglect such chances. I am sorry, but that’s the situation.”

“In other words,” Hiero said bitterly, “you’d turn on me if you had a change of mind about how much good it would do you. Not a very inviting thought when we’re so dependent on you.”

“I’m sorry,” Brother Aldo said. “I was trying to be honest with you, Hiero. I openly allied myself to you and gave my word. Now, the man I just spoke of made a calculated decision to remain silent in pursuit of a long-held purpose. Can you see no difference at all?”

“Possibly,” the Metz priest said in a curt tone. “I am not trained as a casuist or debater of legalisms. It sounds a bit cold-blooded.

Now I think I’ll rest. I haven’t slept in anything like a bed since Manoon.” He nodded and walked off to the little cabin, whence Luchare had already retired, taking the bear with her, for Gorm, surprisingly, was seasick and wanted to be shut up, away from the sight of the wind-tossed whitecaps.

As Hiero moved away, he missed the pain in Brother Aldo’s eyes, which followed him until the cabin door closed.

The following day and for several more, the weather held fair. The travelers, even Gorm, grew accustomed to the wave motion and enjoyed roaming the little ship. Klootz fretted, but Hiero spent a lot of time grooming him and keeping him soothed. Also, the old Brother seemed able to calm him at will, and Hiero actually felt a bit of jealousy at the morse’s fondness for Aldo.

The bear became a prime favorite with the polyglot crew, who considered him merely a very clever, trained beast and fed him sweet things such as tree-sap candy and honeycakes until his furry sides bulged.

Luchare and Hiero had a marvelous time. The small cabin at last gave them some privacy and they made love constantly, with the fire and passion of superb health and no complexes. Hiero was worried at first, since the Metz Republic had a universally known drug used to prevent childbirth and he had none with him. But a quiet word to Brother Aldo about his fears produced some of it, or a workable substitute. In fact, the old Elevener had quite an extensive pharmacopeia stowed away in a small sea chest, and Hiero and he discussed various medicines by the hour.

Captain Gimp also proved an entertaining companion. Despite his funny face and bow legs, the little freshwater mariner ran a taut ship. Foam Girl was as clean as her captain was soiled, and her strange mixture of a crew, though noisy and ragged, were also well disciplined. Most of them carried long sheath knives, and stores of boarding pikes and swords were racked in lockers around the cabin. A portable arrow engine, a device like a huge bow firing across a grooved table, could be mounted on the little poop abaft the wheel. It shot six long arrows at once and looked to the priest-warrior like a useful weapon.

“Never know what you’ll need, not in these waters,” Gimp said, while discussing his ship’s armament. “There’s giant fish—and sometimes we go after ’em with harpoons—and great beasts and pirates out for loot. There’s slavers as’ll turn pirate in a trice if given a chance. And then there’s the Unclean. Been more of them about in the last few years. And some of their boats go by magic.

No sails, nothing. You can’t outfight or outrun them, not if what I hear is true.” Reflecting on the lightning gun and his stay on the Dead Isle, Hiero silently agreed.

Life abounded in the sun-flecked waters of the Inland Sea. Schools of fish leaped from the surface, driven by larger predators surging up from the deeps. Once, as the Foam Girl passed a small, rocky islet, a half-dozen sleek, giant, flippered forms, great, toothed jaws snapping at the end of long necks, roared at them from the shingle on which they lay basking. Gimp’s name for them was Ot’r, and he kept a wary eye on them until the island was out of sight.

“They have good fur and meat too,” he said, “but it takes a whole proper flotilla and trained harpooners to go hunting that gentry.”

It was the fifth morning, a gray one, windy and full of scudding cloud, since leaving the northern coast. Hiero lay sleeping, his tousled head pillowed on Luchare’s dark, gleaming breast, when a sailor’s horny hand beating at the cabin door aroused them both.

Hurrying on deck, they found Brother Aldo and the little captain standing near the wheel, staring back beyond the wake. The reason was obvious. A great, dark, three-masted ship, all her square, brown sails set, was coming up behind them with the calm inevitability of Fate. Even Hiero, no trained mariner, could see that the newcomer was eating up the distance between the two vessels. Her decks were black with men, and an ominous twinkle showed among them. She bore a huge black banner at the main truck, and gaudy red and white animals, monsters, and human skulls were painted on her sails.

Hiero looked at the nearest streamers on the mizzen ratline. These showed the wind to be dead astern and growing stronger. The day was an overcast one, with a promise of coming rain, but visibility was at least a good mile. They were seemingly trapped.

Next, he stared at Aldo, their minds meshing as he did so, but on a “closed circuit,” limited to the two of them alone.

Unclean?

No, I think not, was the answer, at least not directly. But a pirate, evil, yes, and cruel. And I think also, searching this part of the Inland Sea, perhaps on orders. The Unclean net is wide. When their own ship did not come back, they must have sent out new instructions, some to those they totally rule, others to those whom they merely influence and lead as yet. Their pawns rather than their servants, it appears to me. Try your own mind. Some of them seem not unprotected, which makes me even more suspicious.

Hiero closed his eyes, gripped the taffrail, and concentrated. Captain Gimp peered through a battered telescope, mumbling oaths through his quid. On the deck below, the first mate, a saturnine, black-skinned man with one eye, served out weapons in silence to the little ship’s crew. The team of three men who manned the arrow engine were setting up their contrivance only a yard away.

Brother Aldo was right, Hiero realized at once. The crew of the strange ship, a large one, were indeed evil through and through. But it was the human evil of wicked men, the scum which has always infested unguarded seas since the first pirate robbed the first trader, five thousand years before the corning of Christ.

Yet their leaders’ minds were guarded! All the Metz could get was an individual aura radiating from each one, an aura of power and evil. But the thoughts themselves were warded, even against attacks on the new band he had taught himself to use on Manoon. The Unclean truly learned quickly! For only they could have provided the devices and training which made his mental weapons useless. But not quite useless, he reflected. Only four of the minds on the ship were shielded from him, and the crew’s were totally open.

He felt for the steersman of the pirate, for such he now knew it to be without any question. The man’s name, he learned, was Horg, and his life had been evil, his mind a reeking cesspool. Turn the wheel, Horg, my boy; edge off now, that’s it, away a few points, now quick! Yaw; the ship’s in great danger! Hurry!

An exclamation from Captain Gimp made him open his eyes. Astern of them, the square-rigger had come up into the wind, her sails all flapping, the ship in irons. Hiero shut his eyes and simultaneously felt Horg’s mind die, as the life went out of the man. The enemy wasted no time, though they had lost a quarter of a mile.

But as the big ship came around and back on course, a groan went up from the Foam Girl’s idle sailors, who had been watching in fascination. A torrent of oaths from the square little skipper drove them back to their work and cleared the poop again, save for the helmsman, the arrow engine crew, Aldo, Luchare, and Hiero.

Once again, the priest probed for the helmsman. But whoever was the master of the great ship was a quick thinker. One of the four shielded minds now steered the ship. Undaunted, Hiero found a nearby sailor. His name was Gimmer, and his mind, if possible, was more repellent than that of the dead Horg.

The helmsman is your deadly enemy. He hates you. He is taking you into danger. He will kill you. You must kill him first! Quickly! Now! Coldly and ruthlessly, Hiero drove the craven will to the assault. Ordinarily a sensitive and kindly man, he had no compunction about slaying creatures such as these sealice. Wasting false sentiment over the truly wicked was no part of an Abbey warrior-priest’s training. The world was harsh enough on decent folk without coddling vermin.

But this time he was frustrated. The mind he had overpowered was not allowed to consummate its fell purpose. As (watching through Gimmer’s eyes) he crept upon the helmsman, a sudden pain in the captive chest, a blazing weakness of the controlled limbs, halted him in his, or rather Gimmer’s, tracks. Then, as Gimmer, too, died. Hiero saw the arrow protruding from the sailor’s chest.

Again he opened his eyes to the world as seen from his own body. He felt drained of energy. “It’s no good,” he shouted to Brother Aldo over the noise of the rising rain, “They had good archers stationed about the ship in key positions. Unless I can get one of them under control, I’m licked. They must have orders to shoot down anyone who even looks suspicious. And it’s tiring me out. I can’t keep taking these people over in this rough and ready way, forcing totally unknown minds to do whatever I want. It’s drawing too much nervous energy out of my own body. I’ll try again, but it really doesn’t get easier, just the reverse.”

Actually, although he didn’t want to admit the fact, Hiero was a bit ashamed. He had been sure he could do a lot more than he was able to do in fact. He had felt that taking over a whole ship all at once would be easy. And now, in mere moments, he was half-exhausted and seemingly frustrated as well.

Captain Gimp chose this moment to try a maneuver of his own. He bawled an order, and the two big lateen sails slatted as the wheel spun and Foam Girl came up into the wind, pointing as high as she was able to. Instantly the ship’s motion changed into a steep up-and-down chop as she began to attack the waves instead of riding with them, as she had done on the previous reach. She now was heading almost due west, seeming to charge the gray clouds racing down from the northwest.

“Square-rigger’s no good at pointing,” Gimp shouted to his passengers as they clung to the heaving rail. “Maybe we can get above him.” He was seeking the protection of the wind itself, trying to move Foam Girl closer to the wind than the enemy vessel. The wind would provide an invisible barrier if the trick could be worked.

It could not. The great, lean hull of their pursuer came around beautifully in line with their stern. The square yards, tiny figures scrambling along the yardarms, lay almost fiat, and the trysails and stunsails set fore and aft between the mast now showed as they took the weight of the wind. With the help of these sails and a huge gaff spanker on the mizzenmast, the big stranger began to overtake them even more easily than before, for her hull’s length and height out of the water made far less of the steep wave action than the little Foam Girl.

“She’s really unprintably lovely,” Captain Gimp shouted in admiration. The squat sailor instinctively responded to the beauty of the other vessel’s design, even though it might mean his own destruction. He bawled another order and Foam Girl paid off, back on her old course to the southeast, with the wind in her quarter. At least this way she did not have to fight the seas as well, but could ride them. Behind her, close enough to see her black hull lift and the white bow wave, the pursuer came back too. She was less than half a mile away. A white figurehead, looking like a woman’s body, glistened with wetness.

Can you do anything? the Metz asked Brother Aldo, once again mind-to-mind.

I am seeking what large water creatures are found here, was the old man’s answer. So far, I have found nothing. But I sense motion not far away. However, it is uncertain, and I need a little time. Can you reach one of the archers you spoke of, or are you too tired? Any delay will help.

“I thought so!” Gimp shouted. His one-eyed mate had come and whispered something to him before slinking back to his control of the lower deck.

“Bald Roke is the man we have to deal with,” the captain continued. “We can’t be taken alive. His crew are cannibals and worse.” Luchare wondered to herself how you got “worse” but said nothing. “That ship’s The Ravished Bride, and she’s manned by men, and other things, worse than any afloat. Bald Roke would skin his own sister alive for two coppers and a belly laugh. A good sailor, though, rot his dirty bowels, and that ship’s a bloody marvel.”

Hiero only half-heard him. Once again he was seeking the unguarded minds of the enemy. He passed two non-human minds, one a Howler’s, the other something new to him, and then found what he was seeking. In a lower crosstree crouched an archer armed with a crossbow, his gaze sweeping the deck as he watched for any sign of mutiny or other dangerous behavior. Hiero did not seek his name or anything else. With the utmost of mental strength he had left, he simply went after the man’s own nerve endings, using the captive forebrain like a pair of pliers. The archer screamed in horror as his weapon rose to aim at the Bride’s helmsman despite his passionate attempt to force it down.

Once again, Hiero failed, though not by much. The bow went off and the quarrel sped on its way to bury itself in human flesh. But not the helmsman’s. Instead, the bolt drove into the brain of a man standing nearby. At the same time, the archer himself died as three arrows and a thrown spear struck him in turn. Hiero clearly saw the captain of the enemy, who gave the order, through the archer’s fading sight, even as the man pitched from his lofty seat into the heaving sea. Tall, gaunt to emaciation, dressed in fantastic orange velvet, covered with jewels, his brown skull gleaming in the half-light, Bald Roke was a strange and repellent figure. His thin, clean-shaven face was disfigured by a scar running across it at the bridge of his nose, a crooked weal marking some past scuffle. Hiero felt him staring even as the priest withdrew from the dying body of his unwilling ally. Something else he saw too. Around the enemy leader’s neck was a heavy chain of familiar bluish metal, and from it hung a massive, square pendant of the same, almost a shallow box. This was the source of the other’s protection, the priest knew, a mechanical mind shield. He felt even wearier as he opened his own eyes again. Was there no weapon he could command against the hidden skills of the Unclean adepts?

But he was, mercifully, given no time to waste on self-pity.

“In the name of Blessed Saint Francis the Ecologist, they come!” Brother Aldo shouted. “Behold the children of the great waters!”

As he spoke, Captain Gimp ordered Foam Girl again into the wind and simultaneously had the sails lowered. They came down with a crash, and ail ran to the starboard rail to gaze at the new arrivals.

Protruding from the water between the two vessels, for The Ravished Bride now also came up into the wind and brailed her sails also, were two great heads. For a moment Hiero did not realize what he was seeing, and then he gasped, for they were birds, although of monstrous size. The sleek, giant bodies were almost invisible under the tossing waters, but each was at least two-thirds the length of the Foam Girl herself. The beautiful heads and thick necks were not, apparently, feathered, but almost scaled and a lovely, soft green. The titanic beaks were straight, rounded javelins, each at least twelve feet long. The great, bright eyes darted nervously about from one ship to the other, but the enormous invisible paddles kept the two avian monsters in place, responsive to the old Elevener’s will.

“I won’t have them attack if we can scare the other ship off,” Brother Aido said to the priest. “Even the Lowan are not invulnerable, and that ship is full of weapons,”

For a moment the two vessels hung, bowsprits to the wind, while the crews simply stared at one another and the birds, each seeming to wait for the other to take some action. Then a human voice, speaking batwah, rose above the wind and carried easily over the two hundred feet of foaming water.

“Ahoy, there, is that you, Gimp, you little tub of rat puke? Speak up, lardguts, if you’re not afraid to.”

Bald Roke, his orange suit glittering even in the gray light of the cloudy sky, hung rakishly from one of his ratlines, leering across at the Foam Girl. As he shouted, his crew exploded in a storm of laughter and obscene jeers, glad to have a relief from the strain of watching the great birds, whose appearance seemed sheer magic to them.

“I’m here, Roke, you dirty corpse-eater!” Gimp yelled in reply. “Better get your carrion barge out of here before we turn our little friends loose on it!”

“Will you indeed?” Roke said, smiling” gently. He seemed to ignore the giant birds, and Hiero silently gave him credit for possessing his share of nerve, Roke went on.

“Tell you what, fatty, I think whoever runs these two pretty chickens would have turned ’em loose already, that is, if he dared. What do you think of that, now?” Again his crew screamed in delight, and a sea of edged weapons was brandished as they did. Moke waved one skinny hand and they quieted instantly.

“We could take you, birdies and all, you little blubber bag, but it might cost me some paint,” the pirate continued, staring hard at the silent group on the poop of Foam Girl. “So, being inclined for fun, I’ll make you an offer, a generous one. Give us the dirty-looking rat with the paint on his nose and the whiskers, and the girl. In return, you’re free to depart. What say you, short pizzie?”

Gimp answered instantly, but not before spitting into the sea. “Go fry your crew of man-eaters in human grease, Roke. You’ll get nought from us. But you brag, don’t you, about how tough you are, skinhead? I dare you to fight me for a free passage, under Inland Seas Truce, man against man, hand weapons of choice. What do you say to that, you bony bag of slave girl’s gauds?” This time it was the Foam Girl’s crew who shouted and brandished weapons, while the Bride’s crew were silenced. The wonderful birds still held their place, as if they were mere ducks on some farm pond, Hiero thought absently.

After a brief colloquy with two of his subordinates, Roke swung back into the rigging, a vicious look on his face, the smile gone.

“All right, you little blot of slime weed, I take you. Anchor, and so will I. But not us two alone, see. Me and one of my mates will meet you and that brown-skinned savage with the painted face. Otherwise no go, and I gives the order to attack. What do you say now, turdhead?”

“They’re determined on you, Master Desteen,” Captain Gimp said in a low voice. “They want you somehow, and what’s more, Roke’ll risk his whole ship and crew to get you. Can you fight? Are you game?”

“Try me,” Hiero said, slapping him on the back. In truth, he was tired, but he saw no way out of this. “Will these dirty rogues keep such a bargain if they lose?”

“Oh, yes!” Gimp was shocked. “Even the worst sea scum will honor a Seas Truce for single combat. Oh, yes, have no fear. But Roke is a notable fighter. And who knows whom he’ll bring with him? We’d better get ready.” Captain Gimp turned and waved assent to Roke, who left the rigging at once.

Hiero now saw a ship’s boat launched from The Ravished Bride; and while Gimp armed himself, he explained that the challenging vessel was always the scene of the combat.

“We have nought to lose,” he went on. “All of the others will be slaves if we two are killed. But at least not killed and eaten. And if we win, we get their cargo or a good part of it; all we can carry, at any rate.”

Luchare helped Hiero strip to his pants and soft boots. Daughter of soldier-kings, she said nothing and did not need to, but he could feel her body trembling through her hands. He knew she would not survive him by a minute, should he fall. Brother Aldo simply patted his hand and then turned away, back to his control of the birds.

Hiero weighed his short sword. He then turned and, from a pile on deck, selected a heavy, square brass shield, curved from side to side, for his left arm. His poniard was thrust, unsheathed, into his belt. With his bronze helmet on, he was ready. Gimp was now stripped to his kilt and was barefoot as well. He bore no shield, but a long, gently curved sword, rather slender, something on the order of an immense saber, save that the point was slightly angled. It was designed, obviously, for both hands. His arms were very long and rippled with muscle as he waved the big sword delicately about. He no longer appeared comic, and his square jaw was set.

The boat of the enemy grated alongside. Over the rail first came the bald head of the pirate captain, and behind him came his partner. Hiero shuddered inwardly. A Leemute, and one of unknown type! And it also wore a mind shield about its neck.

The creature was as tall as a man and, Hiero realized, might really be descended from men. It wore only a short leather jerkin, but its natural skin was a mass of tiny, dull gray scales. It had no visible nose or ears, only holes in both places, and its dull eyes were lashless under massive, bony brows. In one powerful arm it carried a single-edged, heavy axe; in the other, a small shield. The crew shrank away from it.

Bald Roke still wore his orange finery, and numerous rings glittered on his hands. Brooches and necklaces spangled his stained jacket, which had slashed sleeves for easy movement. He carried a slender, straight sword with a basket hilt and, in the other hand, a long, two-edged dagger.

The men of Foam Girl now scattered to the extremes of bow and stern, with a good few hanging on to the ratlines, but all well out of sword stroke.

“We fight around the ship, Skinny,” Gimp said, “up to the fore-peak line and back to these steps. No holds barred, no survivors. You get forward now, we’ll stay here. At my word we’ll start for each other, you and Corpseface there against me and my friend.”

The creature with Roke snarled, displaying a mouthful of sharp, yellow fangs, but Roke laughed jeeringly.

“Suits me, Low-pockets. But you and your mind-twisting magician here ain’t met a Glith before. Loaned to me, he was, by good friends up north and west of here. We’ll see how funny you think he is in a minute.”

Hiero spoke for the first time, in a calm voice which nevertheless carried easily. “I know your fine friends, Captain Roke. They are among the living dead. The grave yawns for all of them and for this creature and for you as well.” His vibrant tone seemed to carry flat certainty.

For a second, Roke appeared to pale. If the horrid thing with him, the Glith, was new to the company of Foam Girl, the Metz priest was equally so to him; and despite his new amulet’s protection, Roke was unsure of himself. But he was a hardy scoundrel and rallied.

“Glad you found a voice, Whiskers. We’ll mark your pretty paint in a few seconds. Come on, Daleeth, let’s get forr-ard.”

In a moment all was ready. The ship fell silent, save for the creak of timbers and straining cordage as her anchor line sawed the hawsehole. The two rogues who had rowed Roke and the Glith over clung to shrouds above the rail by their boat’s painter, eyes glittering with excitement. A sea bird called, far off, a faint, piercing cry.

From his place to Hiero’s right, Gimp shouted, “Go!” and marched forward. The four, two and two, one to each bulwark, advanced cautiously toward one another. This care alone would have told anyone of experience that trained warriors were meeting. There would be no headlong rushes and novice blunderings here. All four of them knew their business.

Hiero faced the Glith, and the two captains, tall and short, each other. They met on either side of the little cabin, almost exactly amidships. A vagrant gleam of sunshine momentarily pierced the racing clouds and illumined the foul creature’s axehead as it advanced, but aside from that, it was a thing of dead hues, gray-scaled skin, gray garment, and lustreless eyes. Yet it was alert, and every rippling muscle revealed power and agility. Nevertheless, it advanced slowly, very slowly. As it came cautiously on, Hiero heard the clash of metal to his left, where the other two had commenced. As any trained swordsman does, he watched fixedly his foe’s eyes for a sign of its intentions.

Those eyes! Great, somber, empty pools, seeming to have no bottom. Even as he watched, they grew larger. Larger! The Glith was no more than a few yards away, its axe poised on its shoulder, shield lowered. And all Hiero could see were the eyes, the round, lightless caverns of emptiness, which seemed to swell and grow until all else faded. Far off, he heard a woman scream. Luchare! The eyes vanished, shrunk to normal size, and the consciousness of where he was returned. Almost too late!

Reflex and training saved Hiero. The old, retired Ranger Sergeant who had first trained him had always stressed one point in the Abbey school of arms. Close in! “Look,” the old veteran had insisted, “always try to close in quick, particularly if your opponent looks better than you. There’s no monkey tricks with sword or spear at someone’s throat from two inches away, boys. Give luck and plain meanness a chance!”

Hiero felt the wind of the heavy axe as he dived under it, not trying a blow, but simply shoving with his shield’s boss at the Glith’s body. Until he was ready and again unshaken, he wanted no more of those eyes!

Hypnotism! No mind shield guarded against that! Roke, or perhaps the creature itself, had been very clever. Almost, Hiero had been lured into the axe, like a calf to the slaughter, helpless to avert the death stroke. Had not Luchare screamed, he would now be dead.

He wrestled now with the scaled thing, his shield arm holding off its axe above him, its own shield keeping his sword arm locked in turn. It gave off a mephitic foulness, and its skin seemed to radiate a chill. Its hissing breath was a charnel stench, but he kept his head lowered to avoid the eyes. God, but it was strong!

Hiero summoned all his own strength and simply shoved, at the same time springing backward. The axe fell again, but he was beyond its reach. For a second, he faced his enemy, panting slightly, watching the pointed chin and the shoulders, but never seeking the eyes. He crossed his shield over so that it hid his body and lowered his short sword so that it hung at the end of his arm. Dimly, he was conscious of the clash of arms continuing on the other side of the cabin, but he kept his attention riveted on his foe. He heard Klootz bellow hideously, knowing his master was in peril, but he paid no heed.

It advanced again, axe held high. Was it inviting a low thrust? he wondered. He had trouble breaking the habit of years and never looking at the enemy’s eyes, but somehow he managed it.

Then the Glith charged. As it came, the axe came down in a sweeping stroke and Hiero sprang back, ready to spring in again as the axe struck the deck. He had fought few axemen, and it was almost the death of him for the second time. The Glith’s powerful arms straightened and the blade of the axe swung, cutting a sideways arc with all its speed undiminished, straight at Hiero’s knees.

This time, instinct took over and the priest leaped straight up in the air. Even so, the follow-through of the Glith’s shield arm struck his thigh, a second after the axe itself hissed by under his feet. The impact sent him reeling backward. The downward heave of the deck now caught him dead wrong as he went, and he stumbled away, fighting for his feet, fetching up with a ringing crash against the mizzenmast. With a grating cry as hideous to the ears as its appearance was to the eyes, the Glith charged again, axe on high, clawed toes raking the planks of the deck.

But Hiero had never quite left his feet, though now he was crouching. And this was the chance he had been waiting for. As the Glith leaped forward, the edge of the square brass shield, like some strange quoit, came spinning at its legs with all the force the Metz could put behind it. When he had crossed the shield over his torso moments before, Hiero had also freed the arm straps which held it, in preparation for just this maneuver.

The skimming shield now took the brawny legs out from under the alien creature as neatly as if it had been tripped. The Glith crashed to the deck, prostrate, arms outfiung, its noseless visage striking the wood with an audible thud. Even as it struggled to rise, the heavy, short sword came down on its scaled head, splitting it as a crow splits a cobnut. There was a rush of dark matter, the great limbs twitched once, and then the foul life departed.

The priest managed to recover his shield and he ran clumsily forward past Klootz’s pen, ignoring the morse’s bleating as he went to where he could still hear the clash of steel. The strained silence of the crew and their eyes glued to the scene up there told him that the issue was still in doubt.

It was indeed. As Hiero arrived, winded but with shield up, he saw Captain Gimp block a high thrust of the pirate’s sword and barely miss being skewered by the long dagger held in the other’s left hand.

“I’m coming,” Hiero yelled. “Hold him a second, and I’ll help take care of him.” This was no matter of chivalry. In a stark, four-handed duel of this sort, it was expected that the survivors should have won by any means possible, save only illegal weapons such as bows. No quarter!

But Hiero’s voice breathed new life into the little merchant skipper. Although his hairy torso was covered with blood from a dozen minor slashes, he still possessed plenty of energy. He stood, eyeing his equally bloody foe for an instant, and then ran in with a great whoop, the long, two-handed sword held high over his head. Nothing loath, Roke came to meet him, his eyes mad with rage and disappointment.

As they both charged, Gimp proved what his long, curved blade could do. Amazingly, he seemed to fall forward on his face, but his left hand caught the deck and held him off it. At the same time his long right arm, clenched fist now holding the long hilt by itself, swept out in a flashing backhand arc, like some monstrous scythe.

It was too late for Bald Roke, seasoned battler though he was, to check himself. He tried with his own sword to deflect the terrible blow, but all the force in Gimp’s squat frame was in its onward rush. The razor-edge of the great sword cut in below the pirate’s elbow and severed his sword arm in turn as neatly as a scissor cuts a thread. Passing on through, it drove deep into his orange finery until checked with an audible sound by some bone. A shower of blood sprayed out as Roke strove to keep to his feet, even while life faded from his glazing eyes, He took two tottering steps toward his enemy, who never moved, spread out like a four-legged beast on the pitching deck. One arm still gripped the bloody sword, which had now slipped from the now scarlet tatter of Roke’s dress.

Then, with a choked sigh, all ended, One instant Roke towered up, his poniard raised in a last defiance; the next, he lay a crumpled heap of blood-soaked rags, his severed forearm lying near him, still clutching his basket-hilt sword in its death grip. There was silence again.

Then the crew exploded. The shouting almost deafened Hiero, but he managed to lurch over and help the captain to his feet before embracing him. Then a dozen pair of hands tore them apart and carried them in triumph to Foam Girl’s poop; there Luchare, her eyes blazing in triumph, waited for her lover.

Even as he hugged her in turn, forgetting Gimp’s blood and the dark ichor of the Glith, Hiero suddenly began to laugh. For out of the ship’s cabin, unbidden, had come a peevish thought.

What’s all this noise? Why can’t I get some sleep?

The lazy bear had slept through the whole night and the entire chase and subsequent battle. Now he was demanding to know what on earth was happening!

Still holding Luchare, Hiero watched in silence as the two bird giants, the Lowans, dived suddenly into the curling seas and disappeared, their vast bodies as easily handled as if they were dabchicks. He saw that Brother Aldo looked very weary, as weary as he himself felt, and he realized that the old man must have greatly exerted himself to have held the two bird-things obedient to his will for so long.

Gimp was now everywhere, personally looting Roke’s corpse, bellowing orders, and calmly warping the Foam Girl alongside the Bride as if the latter were some peaceful barge he dealt with for hides every week in the year.

But his confidence seemed quite justified. Aside from some haggling over the worth of the Bride’s cargo, there was no apparent animosity between, the crews. The pirates were as villainous a crew of unhung ruffians as Hiero had ever imagined, but not even the single, dirty-looking Howler offered so much as an insult. Indeed, various scurvy wretches bawled coarse praise of Hiero’s skill with weapons along with sundry odious compliments to Luchare’s appearance and probable amatory skills. These latter drove that young lady quickly into the cabin, her ears burning.

While Gimp checked The Ravished Bride’s cargo along with a burly thug who was now her temporary new master, Hiero sat on a bench and expressed surprise to Brother Aldo that such utter scoundrels would honor anything at all, let alone freely give up valuable goods.

“A pirate ship did violate the Inland Seas Truce in my lifetime, Hiero, long ago, long, long ago, but I can still remember. Everyone, pirate, raider, and armed merchant, sought her for a season, and eventually she was found and trapped. The crew, such as were not killed outright in the battle, were first impaled, then flayed alive. The captain, who had caused it to happen, lost a joint on each finger and toe, arm and leg, every day until he died. The same severed joints, broiled, I believe, were his sole sustenance until then,” the old man added thoughtfully. “If a captain even suggested such a thing now, I suspect his crew would kill him before he succeeded in drawing his weapons.”

“But how about the Unclean? Surely they honor nothing? And where are those other two men with the mechanical mind blocks? I can’t detect them any more. Have they somehow escaped?”

“That’s interesting,” Brother Aldo said, his eyes brightening. “Only one answer I can see. They’re in the drink, my boy, put there by their own fellows for some foolery or other, such as suggesting a truce violation. Or maybe just simple fear of the Unclean devices by their shipmates. No, they haven’t escaped.”

“We’d better get the two mind locks that Roke and my friend, the Glith, had, in fact right now, while I think of it,” the priest said, starting up with a groan. His side bore a great blackened bruise where he had struck the mast, and he ached all over.

Brother Aldo chuckled. He patted the leather pouch which hung over one shoulder, and something within clinked musically. “I had Gimp take care of that right away. None of the common sailors wanted to touch them anyway. We’ll have a look at them, you and I, when a little leisure presents itself.” As he spoke, something stirred in the depths of Hiero’s memory. Whatever it was could not rise to the surface, however, and he dismissed it with a sigh. Other matters came more easily to his attention.

“Would those birds really have attacked the pirates?” he asked.

“I’d have hated to do it, but yes, I think so. I think I could have made them.” The chocolate skin of his face had lost its usual glow, and Hiero saw that Brother Aldo was a very old man indeed. How old? he wondered. Now, as they watched the two crews transshipping boxes and bales of goods from the large ship down a gangway to the Foam Girl, the Elevener went on. “Who knows how it would have ended? Six tons or so of squawking, flapping Lowans would make even that big ship look smaller, especially if they were trying to come aboard! They’re not at all common, you know. I’ve seen them only three or four times in my life.”

“It was a great feat, both to summon and to control such vast things,” Hiero said in honest admiration.

The old man shrugged off the praise. “My business, Hiero, and I think you have learned more in a few months about such things than I did in a great many years. But something else is troubling you.”

“Yes,” the Metz said, his voice lowered so that no one nearby could hear him. “That thing I killed, the Glith, Hoke called it. It was a mighty hypnotist, you know, and damned near got me under a spell. Only Luchare’s shriek brought me out. What was it? The crew threw its body overboard quickly, and I never got much of a look. Surely it belongs to the Unclean.”

“I got little more of a look than you, but I did try to examine it when I took the mind lock from its neck. Gimp got the other one for me.” Aldo paused. “We have heard rumors of new mutations, what you’d call Leemutes, new and more dreadful ones, which did not grow by accident from ancient genetic damage. No—these new creatures have been bred and trained from birth in the Unclean laboratories and fortresses. This Glith thing could be one such. Certainly I never saw anything like it before.”

“It was like a loathsome reptile crossed with an even more wicked and repellent human,” Hiero said.

“A very typical, concept of the Unclean it sounds, doesn’t it?” Brother Aldo asked. He seemed to expect no answer and simply continued to stare blankly away over the gray and tossing seas.