Mercadian Masques

Chapter 1

Years later, Atalla could remember every moment of the night he saw the ship that flew.

It was early, at least two hours before morningsinging. The sky still held the pale yellow of dawn, though darker streaks showed where the deeper orange of full daylight was beginning to break through. Atalla had risen before sunrise because Father had promised he might ride his first jhovall, and the ten-year-old boy had been far too excited to sleep. All through the dark hours, he lay on his pallet, staring into the blackness, listening to the soft breathing of Mother and Father asleep in the adjoining bed. In the stillness of the country night, he could hear the mournful cries of mating qomallen to the south, and when the hour was latest he heard the distant booming vibrations of nightsinging from the city.

As the walls of the cottage slowly lightened, Atalla rose. Carefully, to avoid waking his parents, he slipped out the door.

Before him the plains of the west stretched to a horizon that was still only a dim line between sky and earth. Atalla stood still, drinking in the rich, heady smells of the air; the faint odor of human habitation mixed with the scents of farm animals and the wild creatures of the plains. Breezes tousled his black hair and riffled through his nightshirt. His heart thumped in his chest, and he felt deeply, warmly alive.

He passed along the side of the house to the Jhovall stable. The six-legged tiger-creatures patiently purred in their stalls. Father had said Atalla might ride the smallest one, Skotcha. The boy stood by her head, gently stroking her wet nose for several minutes. Even a small Jhovall could tear across the plain like a dust devil, could kill a red wolf, could carry a farm boy on plenty of adventures. Atalla fondly patted her shaggy gray flank and left the stables.

The air felt dry, even for this early in the day. It would be at least two more turnings of the moon before the rains came, filling the riverbed and pond with water. Now, as the boy watched, distant eddies and clouds of brown dust moved across the endless plain under the brightening sky. The air to the south seemed to shimmer. Predawn light bent and played about the boy, caressing him.

Atalla felt a sudden pressure in the air. Something invisible violently struck his chest. The world before him exploded in a silent sound.

Atalla staggered backward, tripped, and fell. He rolled to his feet in time to see the air divide and slip away from the sides of a ship, which burst across the screaming sky. A flying ship? Atalla had seen oceangoing galleys last year in Rishada, but a flying ship? It hurtled through the air as if shot from one of the great cannons that guarded the city. A flying warship-more than that, a comet, a sign from the heavens…

What was that old myth Father spoke of? The Uniter?

A sudden gale threw Atalla down. Rocks dug into his knees. The grass thrashed like flames. The barn's thatch was ripped free. Jhovalls shrieked in their stalls. Every window in the house shattered. The ship screamed so low overhead that lines trailing from its side slapped the roof. For one frozen moment, a bull's head stared at him over the rail. With a great whoosh, the ship disappeared behind the house.

There was a heart-stopping crash. Wood rent and splintered. Screams came with the sound. Earth flew outward in a pelting hail. The ground shook. There was a loud crack, a thud of some heavy body, and then silence.

The ship had crashed in the plowed field to the north of Atalla's home.

He sprinted around the cottage, meeting his mother and father. A confused babble of voices rose ahead. Charging out to the brow of the low rise, they gazed down. Atalla's jaw dropped as the scene opened before him.

Two deep furrows had been dug right through the heart of the simsass plants. Broken stalks drooped forlornly, sap oozing from their sides. At the end of the furrows was the strange ship. One sail-were they sails? Atalla wondered- had caught against the tartoo tree, the only tree for miles around, and had snapped clean off. So had the top of the tree. The ship lay below, near the dry riverbed.

In unison, Mother and Father muttered, "I'll be damned."

Gerrard Capashen wiped a trickle of blood from his closecropped beard. The once-healed cut on his left cheek had opened again, but if that was his worst injury, he was lucky. Ribs ached beneath his red waistcoat. He would have fallen if not for the helm, but it had paid him back with a blow that drove the air from his lungs. Clutching the wheel in strong hands, he managed a shuddering sigh.

"I shouldn't have taken the wheel from Hanna." Gerrard released the helm and staggered across the bridge of Weatherlight. "Hanna!" he gasped out, approaching the navigator. She slumped across the cartographer's desk. Gerrard tenderly embraced her. "Are you all right?"

Hanna lifted her head, breathing in short, panting gasps. She raked blonde hair back from her face and said breathlessly, "Yes… but what of the ship?"

"Ship be damned. What of the crew?" Gerrard said gravely.

The only other crew member on the bridge had been the cabin boy. The goblin had been hurled against the wall and was now a mere bundle of whimpering limbs.

"Are you hurt, Squee?" Gerrard asked, moving toward him.

The green-skinned creature struggled to his feet. There was no sign of serious injury. "Squee's head got cutted off!"

Gerrard smiled. "Not cut off, but I'm not sure it's on straight." As Squee cracked his neck and every other joint, Gerrard strode to the bridge window.

Beyond, the minotaur first mate helped injured crew members. Strong and surehoofed, Tahngarth himself had escaped the crash relatively unscathed.

Hanna was already heading out onto the upper deck. She gave a faint yelp of dismay and ran aft along the slanting planks to view the damage done to the ship's sails.

Gerrard joined the minotaur. "How bad is he?" he asked, gesturing at a young sailor who gingerly cradled his arm.

Tahngarth's eyes blazed yellow beneath twisted horns. There was blood in the minotaur's flaring nostrils. "This one's not bad. Some broken bones, cuts, bruises. Orim's sickbay will be overflowing." He motioned to two crewmen, who helped the injured sailor to his feet and conducted him toward a hatch.

Gerrard nodded gravely. "At least we got out of Rath-" "Most of us," Tahngarth said. Gerrard had only recently gained the minotaur's trust, and now there was unspoken accusation in his eyes. "There are at least two dead-thrown from the prow. They can't be alive, twisted like that. And, of course, there's Mirri, and Crovax, and Ertai-"

"Ertai?" Gerrard asked, scanning the deck with anxious eyes.

"Not here. He must not have made it." Gerrard slapped a hand against the railing. "You're saying he's still in Rath? Damn it, how could he not have made it onto the ship? All he had to do was jump as Weatherlight passed under him."

"He did manage to close the portal behind us." The minotaur pointed behind Gerrard to the empty sky. "The opening is gone."

Taking in the news, Gerrard said solemnly, "Even if it weren't, we'd have to fix the spar before we could fly back to get him."

"It's worse than that," came a new voice, rumbling behind them. The two turned to see a massive man of silver haul himself up from the engine room hatch. Smoke wreathed the metal golem and coiled into the early morning sky. Karn was a living part of Weatherlight's engine, and no one but Hanna knew the ship better than he. "Systems throughout the ship are burned out. Hull integrity in the bow is compromised. The left landing spine is jammed. A split has opened in the subreactor manifold. And, of course, the Thran Crystal is still damaged. Everything else will have to be fixed before we can fly, and the Thran Crystal before we can planeshift-"

Gerrard licked his lips and tasted the coppery sweetness of blood. Impatiently, he wiped his sleeve across his face. "Well, wherever we are, we're stuck for a while."

"Hoy! You up there!" a man shouted below.

The minotaur glanced thoughtfully over the rail. "Someone wants to talk to us."

"Hoy! Who are you, and what in the name of the Nine Spheres are you doing crashing into my farm?"

Gerrard took a deep breath and shrugged to the minotaur. "Now for a bit of diplomacy." He secured a coil of rope to a bulkhead and dropped one end over the side of the ship. With practiced ease, he slid down the line and stood facing the fanner. Gerrard extended a hand in greeting. "My name's Gerrard Capashen. This is my ship, Weatherlight."

The farmer, whose smock and bare feet indicated that the crash had awakened him, looked at Gerrard stolidly. His arms dangled at his sides. Beyond him, huddled in the doorway of the house, Gerrard could see a woman and the head and shoulders of a small boy.

"Weatherlight?" the farmer repeated at last.

Gerrard slowly lowered his proffered hand. "Yes."

"What… what is it? What are you doing here?"

Gerrard smiled humorlessly. "We crashed. That was what all that noise was."

"How in hell does a ship fly? I once heard of a Rishadan dirigible but this ain't got an air sack…" the farmer continued, staring incredulously at Weatherlight. He looked at Gerrard, fear flaring behind his coal-black eyes. "Where in all the worlds did you come from?" he whispered. Although the air around them was cool, the farmer was perspiring nervously. "Are… you gods?"

Gerrard's voice rose. "We're not any sort of gods. But you wouldn't understand where we came from if I told you.

Suffice it to say, we want to get our ship out of your field as much as you do. That means repairs-"

There was a loud thump as another figure, sliding down the line, landed on the ground beside him. Sisay's ebony skin gleamed in the bright light of early morning. She turned a winsome smile on the farmer. "I'm Sisay, captain of his shipand from now on the one at her helm." Gerrard nodded a little sheepishly at that. "We apologize for any damage we've done. May I know your name, good sir?"

The farmer looked at her a moment more, then cleared his throat. "I am Tavoot."

Sisay repeated the name several times, as if digesting a fact of great importance. "Tavoot. Tavoot. And do I see behind you your wife and son?"

Tavoot gave a grunt. "Sesharral-my wife-and my son Atalla." His eyes remained on Sisay's face.

For her part, Sisay continued to beam cheerfully at the woman and boy. "I hope we didn't frighten you too much. I'm sure-"

Tavoot interrupted. "Who sent you? Are you Mercadians? You don't look Mercadian."

"No one sent us. We were fleeing from a being called Volrath," Sisay replied. "His ship was chasing ours, and we went through a portal to elude him." She looked around, taking in the cottage, the orderly garden, and the neat rows of crops surrounded by dust-covered flats, which stretched in every direction. "We need to repair our ship. Can you advise us as to where we might get some mechanical assistance?"

Tavoot turned to look east. Against the lemon-colored sky, beyond the graceful lines of the cottage, loomed a great, gray shape. Its contours were softened by the dust that blew like a fine sand through the morning air. It was a dark triangle, its tip embedded in the ground and its long, flat edge hovering above the horizon. "Maybe you ain't from Mercadia, but that's where you'll end up. Everybody in trouble ends up in Mercadia."

Staring at the strange sight, Sisay said, "The Mercadians could help us?"

"They could." A rueful smile crossed Tavoot's face. "But Mercadians only ever help themselves."

Atalla was a bright lad-bright and a little enterprising. He and Gerrard stood in an empty pen in the Jhovall stables. The space had been shoveled and swept, and new grasses lay in a bed across the floor.

"I imagine Father would rent this space to you as cheaply as he would rent our Jhovalls," the boy said, eyes ingenuous beneath his tousled black hair. "Even with the hole in the roof."

Gerrard set hands on his hips and stared up at the rafters where a large section of thatch had been torn loose. The lemon-colored sky showed beyond-dust kept this world's sky from ever looking blue. Sunlight streamed down through the hole in the roof to splash against one wall of the stables. "It won't keep out the rain."

"Oh, there won't be rain for another few moonturnings. It will keep out most of the sun. Besides, you were the ones who ripped that hole in the roof."

"Just so," Gerrard admitted. "And we do need the space to get the more severely wounded out of the sun. But as I told you-we have no Mercadian currency and little in the way of precious metals or gems to pay."

"The issue of payment needn't come up," Atalla assured him. "There is always a trade to be made."

Blinking, Gerrard said, "What do we have that you could possibly want?"

"Take me with you to Mercadia."

"Out of the question."

"I've always wanted to see the city."

"Your father wouldn't allow it."

"He needn't know. I'll leave him a note. It would only be a few days."

Gerrard turned and set a hand on the shoulder of the boy. Atalla was in fact on the verge of being a young man, he thought. He was a bright lad and knew the languages and customs of the people. A local guide and interpreter could be helpful, but there was one flaw in him. Atalla craved adventure, and young men craving adventure tend to find it. He was, all in all, a little too much like a young Gerrard. "I'm sorry, Atalla. I wouldn't want to risk it. Where I go, trouble follows. We'll find something from the ship- an old sextant or something-that you'd like in exchange for the stall-"

Atalla's young eyes grew very hard in the dim space. "Don't bother," he said, stomping out the stable door.

Just as he left, another figure entered-two figures, in fact: Takara and her blinded father, Starke. The woman's red hair was flame bright in the sun, and her muscular figure was bent to aid the shuffling man beside her. Starke was not an old man, but he seemed one now. Blinded in Rath, he wore a white bandage about his eyes. He had not shaved since the incident and had eaten little. Starke was withering daily-the wages of guilt-and now, atop his craggy head, there was a bright sheen of sunburn.

"It's in here, Father," Takara said gently. "Gerrard has found a place out of the sun, in here."

"Gerrard!" Starke growled. "He wants me dead. They all want me dead, after what I did to Sisay."

"You cannot blame them. Treachery on any ship is a capital crime," Takara replied quietly.

"I did it only to save you, my dear," Starke pleaded, miserable.

"Yes, Father, I know," Takara replied. "But the rest of the crew does not know me. They would never have sold out Sisay to rescue a complete stranger."

Starke let out an exhausted hiss. "Then get them to know you, Takara. They hate me, and if they start to hate you, they'll kill us both."

As he shuffled along, a Jhovall stretched in a catnap within one stall. It rolled massively to one side, released a rumbling purr, and licked its dagger teeth.

"What is that sound!" Starke gasped. "What sort of animals are in this stable?"

"You'll be perfectly safe," Takara said.

"I'm surrounded by monsters, vicious monsters. You say I'll be safe, but every last one is after me. If you don't protect me, Takara, you're as much a monster as the rest."

Gerrard at last stepped from the empty stall, motioning Takara toward it. "You are safe, Starke. No one is out to harm you. The wrongs you committed toward Sisay have been undone, and I think even she would agree that your blinding is punishment enough for everything."

Starke visibly trembled. He seemed more terrified of Gerrard than he had been of the Jhovall. Sullenly, he said, "Yes, Commander."

"I know you don't trust me," Gerrard replied easily, laying out a saddle blanket on the grassy floor, "but trust your own daughter." He glanced at the lithe and muscular woman. "Takara was imprisoned in hell, but she emerged stronger than she had been before. She was annealed by Rath, not destroyed by it."

As she helped her father sit on the saddle blanket, Takara locked eyes with Gerrard. She mouthed a silent thanks.

Gerrard nodded. He felt a sudden strong connection to this woman. It was not the heady wine of desire-though Takara had a fiery beauty, to be sure. Instead, this was the wordless understanding that comes between folk who have faced down the same foes. It was the strange, sudden camaraderie of strangers.

"Sleep now, Father. You are exhausted. Others will rest here too-those with the worst injuries. You won't be alone. You needn't fear monsters."

Petulant to the last, Starke rolled away from her. Tears emerged from beneath his bandage and bore in them red flecks of dried blood.

Takara patted his shoulder once more and then stood to leave.

Gerrard joined her. As they walked away, past stalls of six-legged tigers, he whispered quietly, "You are showing a great deal of grace under pressure."

She continued a few more paces before responding. "My father-the father I loved and grew up with-is a different man than this husk. My father is dead. That doesn't mean I shouldn't honor him by caring for this… poor creature."

Shaking his head in wonder, Gerrard felt again the sense of connection. "You have lost so much, and still you fight on."

"What else is there for heroes to do?"

It had taken all day to empty the wounded vessel. Five crew members had been killed in the crash. Four others were wounded badly enough to need bed rest in the stables. Two had such severe head and neck injuries that Orim had refused to let them be moved from the ship. She tended them throughout the long day in Weatherlight's own sickbay.

The rest of the crew had to make themselves at home in the open air. They had off-loaded the stores of food and drink that would see them through and had rigged makeshift shelters with torn sections of sailcloth. All the while, Gerrard moved among them, planning the next day's expedition to Mercadia.

When the sun set on the dust flats, the air quickly grew uncomfortably cold. The crew huddled around a bonfire built from shattered hunks of Weatherlight's hull and simsass stalks rained in the crash. The fire lit five graves dug that afternoon on the hillside. Already, the bodies lay within, and three sailors, sweaty and stripped to the waist despite the cold night, waited with shovels to fill in the spots.

Atalla watched it all from a shattered window.

The crew of the vessel stood to attention as Gerrard, Hanna, and Sisay passed in front of them, followed by Karn and Tahngarth. The bridge crew of Weatherlight stood to one side of Hanna as she spoke solemnly.

"We lost dear friends this morning-Danis, Groud, Steepen Willm, Erkika, and Bevela. We lost dear friends on Rath-Ertai, Crovax, and Mirri. We have spoken their names to each other in grief, and all have mourned according to our own traditions. I want now to speak the name of my grief, the name of my dear friend and companion Mirri." Her eyes glistened in the firelight.

Sisay put out a hand to gently touch hers.

"Mirri gave her life that we might live," Hanna continued. "She did this without thought. That was the way she lived her beliefs. It was during this last journey that I came to know her best. We became friends when she and I traveled through the Skyshroud Forest on Rath. It was a friendship born of mutual respect. She passed through the dangers of the Stronghold," she continued, "was wounded defending Crovax, and slain defending the rest of us…"

Karn spoke into the choked silence. "I join in mourning Mirri, for I remember her life and the brave deeds she did, but now she is gone."

Sisay said, "Mirri is dead, but we, her friends, her comrades, will always remember her. In our memories, she will live."

Tahngarth said simply, "I salute you, Mirri, a warrior worthy of Talruaa."

Last, all eyes turned to Gerrard. He had been standing in the shadows behind Hanna, shaking his head quietly. As the silence stretched, he looked up, caught unaware, and blurted the first thing that came to his mind. "So many lost. We have lost so many friends…" Uncertain what else to say, Gerrard peered numbly out at the crew. Orange light illuminated Takara's hair, and her face shone white in the firelight. The fine bones beneath her skin were lit as though from within. Her green eyes returned his gaze. He said at last, "We have lost so much, but we must keep fighting. What else is there for heroes to do?"

The ranks of the sailors bent and rose, tossing handfuls of dust into the air where it briefly formed a black cloud before falling back to earth. They also scooped dirt into each of the five graves. Their voices murmured together an orison for their fallen comrades.

A sudden, loud rumble broke the quiet. A fine spray hissed above the fire.

"That sound came from the ship," Gerrard said.

Cries rose in the distance.

Sisay seized a burning branch from the fire and rushed into the night. Gerrard and Hanna followed, Tahngarth and Karn bringing up the rear.

From the direction of the dry riverbed, perhaps fifty yards to the north of the farm, they saw a strange, ghostly light. Clouds of fine mist sparkled, turning blue and green. Figures moved in that mist. They were the size of men but had wings of skin like dragons. The advancing cloud cast a dark and sinuous shadow on the ground beneath it. Within that shadow more figures darted.

But it wasn't a shadow. The river was running That was impossible. Hours ago the bed had been dry and cracked. The blazing sun had evaporated every drop of moisture from the soil, leaving it baked and gritty. Yet now, a torrent of water flooded down the center of it, splashing over the banks and washing in puddles out over the field- the field where Weatherlight lay.

"All hands to the ship!" Gerrard shouted even as they ran.

"What is it?" Hanna gasped as she clambered over a brake of simsass and climbed down toward the field.

"Water," Gerrard answered.

"I've never seen water like this," Hanna replied.

The flood swirled and lapped as if it were alive, driven by conscious purpose. It was limned with light, each wavelet shining with a glow that seemed to amplify the light of the twin moons overhead in the starry sky. Through the flood, figures moved like darting merfolk. Atop it came dark shapescraft of some sort propelled rapidly over the waves. In the mists above, winged, semi-human figures soared and dove.

Gerrard and Hanna reached the field, near the Weatherlight. Something long and heavy thudded into the ground next to Hanna's feet. With a kind of slow-motion detachment, she saw that it was a spear, a slender stone head bound tightly to a wooden shaft. She looked up. The riverbank, deserted a moment before, was filling with dark figures.

They rose from the deep, descended from the mists, and shot across the crests of the waves in canoes. The force of the waters propelled them forward, and they steered with slim paddles, wielded by oarsmen in the rear of the craft. Those in the front of the boats were clearly warriors, who wore headdresses made of woven grass, colored by dyes in brilliant reds and oranges. They were bare-chested, clad in loincloths, and armed with spears, bows, and arrows. Some stood in the prows of their canoes, and others leaped to the shore, hurling missiles. There seemed to be hundreds of the dark figures.

With bare fists, Gerrard attacked one of the warriors. With a quick punch to the temple, he sent the man to the ground. The warrior rolled, groaning. Gerrard smashed him in the jaw, knocking him out. He yanked up the warrior's spear and tossed it back toward Hanna. "You think you can make use of this?"

"Sure," she said, grasping the haft of the weapon. "I've wielded slightly more sophisticated artifacts in my time."

"Good," Gerrard said, grinning. "I'll go get me one."

As he dashed off, Hanna advanced on another warrior. His back was to her. Oddly, he was kneeling next to the ship's hull, placing his palms flat against the ground. In the distance, Hanna glimpsed several of the other attackers making the same mysterious gesture.

"That's my ship!" she growled, and rushed at the man.

The ground rocked. Hanna was thrown from her feet. Dirt and pebbles stung her face. The soil sank. Cold wetness rushed in around her. Water rose, lapping at Weatherlight's hull. Hanna splashed, struggling to keep her face above water.

Figures teemed through the sudden flood. In moments they grasped and bore away the man Gerrard had knocked unconscious. The pool widened and deepened.

Hanna cried out as a hand grasped her leg and pulled her under. Lashing out with the spear, she bashed her attacker and swam to the surface, spluttering and coughing. The edge of the widening pool was twenty feet away. She struck out, swimming vigorously, kicking off her sandals and fighting the weight of her sodden clothing. Nearby, she could see the bobbing heads of several fellow crewmen.

Hanna swam harder, but the shore receded continuously. For some moments, all was shouting blackness and cold struggle. Then she threw both arms over the edge of the pool and pulled herself onto the bank. Staggering up the slope, she turned to look behind her.

Weatherlight was floating on the small pond that had somehow been created by the attackers. Its damage made it list heavily to one side. The repair crews had done a partial job of patching the rent in the ship's side, but Hanna suspected the vessel was taking on water. She wondered how long it would be before the water reached the engine room.

All around Weatherlight surged canoes and swimmers and gliders. They cast lines about the hapless craft and began hauling it toward the river. The waters boiled with the struggles of crewmen caught in the sudden collapse of solid ground. Hanna reached out to help her companions to shore.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Sisay's dark face, almost invisible against the backdrop of night.

"Who are they? What are they after?" shouted the young woman. Her voice was trembling.

Frantically, Hanna scanned the scene for some sign of Gerrard. At last she saw him. He was wrestling with one of the attackers, whom he had evidently captured and pinned to the ground. Just as she spotted him, he reared back and, with a great blow, laid his opponent senseless.

"They're taking the ship!" she shouted to him.

Looking up, his eyes gleaming in the darkness, Gerrard rose and rushed toward her.

Already, Weatherlight was in the clutch of the river, which had reversed its course. It flowed away from the cottage, almost due west into the blackness of the plains. The ship was drawn along with the current.

"Run," Gerrard said. "It's speeding up!"

"We'll never catch it now," Hanna said as she fell into step beside him.

"We might! Look!"

The massive ship seemed to hang up on something, as if caught on a sandbar. Streaming water piled up behind it, but Weatherlight stalled for a moment in the flood. Something glimmered in the moonlit waters at the prow-a shiny boulder? No. It had eyes. Its mouth opened, and an almighty roar of exertion bellowed across the waves.

"Bless you, Karn," Hanna said, darting across the dark grasses toward the spot.

It was too much for the silver golem. The weight of the ship drove him down into the muck. His fingers scraped uselessly along the keel. Weatherlight won free and shivered away atop the receding flood.

"No!" Gerrard shouted. He ran futilely onward. "No!"

Panting, Hanna stomped to a halt. She gazed hopelessly toward the disappearing vessel. Her heart stood still as she spotted a small, turbaned figure clutching the rail and shouting.

It was Orim. She had remained on the ship with her two charges.

Gerrard had seen her as well. With a shout that rose to the skies, he pursued the ship. It moved all the faster now, swiftly vanishing from him. The river dried up as swiftly as it had swelled. Pools and rivulets of water splashed beneath his feet, and his face was stained with mud. All was in vain.

Weatherlight was gone.