The Crystal Seas

Chapter TWELVE

Blade realized that there was no easy way to influence a woman as intelligent, able, and strong-willed as Alanyra. Certainly just making love to her wasn't going to be enough. Of course she would be far more ready to listen to him on almost anything than she might have been otherwise. But he was still going to have to be able to talk to her seriously if he wanted to get her help.

He wanted and needed her help more badly than he dared tell her. She seemed to have some vague glimmering of an idea similar to his own-finding some way to peace between the Sea Cities and the Fishmen-the Sea Masters. Some way to peace, and an end to the preposterous and futile bloodshed of their three-centuries' old war. It was more than Blade had expected, to find someone like that among the Sea Masters. If Autocrat Krodrus felt the same way, as Blade suspected he did well, something might be arranged.

Blade would have done his best to enlist Alanyra in his cause even if she hadn't already been more than half in sympathy with it. She was intelligent, strong-minded, and a leader among the High Clans of the Sea Masters-an invaluable ally. If he couldn't make peace in the crystal seas with her aid, he could at least try to get out of the Sea Masters' Reefs and back to the Sea Cities with a whole skin. Blade had been prepared to risk that skin any number of times in good causes, but he generally preferred to keep it as intact as possible, if he had a reasonable chance to do so. The suicidally inclined do not make very good secret agents, or very long-lived ones.

All this meant that Blade's work was only just nicely begun after he finished making love to Alanyra for the first time. He knew that if he could get proof of his guess that someone in Nurn was playing games with the two sea peoples, he would have Alanyra firmly on his side. More important, he would be able to convince others in both Talgar and the Reefs, and so create a faction among each people working for peace. Neither of Nurn's customers had much love for the Empire; that was obvious. If the Empire stood revealed as an open enemy in all but name-well, things might happen. Blade didn't know how many of them might happen before he was snatched away from the crystal seas, back to Home Dimension. But he was determined to get as much done as possible.

Unfortunately he couldn't do nearly as much as he had hoped to do among the Sea Masters. He could not move freely, for one thing. Alanyra said this was for his own safety, and Blade believed her. After three hundred years of war, the Fishmen didn't look on the Talgarans any more kindly than the Talgarans looked on them. Nor could he even talk freely with the warriors and scribes of Clan Gnyr.

«Most of them would not talk to you at all,» Alanyra told him. «Those few who talked to you would most likely not be able to answer most of your questions, even were they willing. You might find one who could understand your questions and answer them. And it would be even odds that he would simply be laying a trap for you, to discover your plans and betray you.»

«It would be worth the risk,» said Blade wearily. «Otherwise there doesn't seem to be anything for me to do except sit here like a barnacle on a ship's hull.»

«Why throw your life away?» said Alanyra. «And why risk mine and perhaps Oknyr's as well? It would mean that, I know.»

«Why?» asked Blade. He suspected he knew most of the answer already. But he wanted to hear from Alanyra's own lips confirmation of his educated guesswork. It was always better to avoid acting on your own guesses, if there was any alternative.

«You think I am strong among the Sea Masters, because I am Lady of a High Clan and my warriors are loyal to me? Well, perhaps I am. But I am not strong enough to survive being suspected of this-of spying for the Sea Cities.

«Oknyr would believe me, probably. And others would believe Okynr and follow him. But the greater part of the men and women of Clan Gnyr would recoil in horror, and cast me down from my place. I would go to join my brother, and without even the chance of knowing I had died well. He died in a battle against the Sea Cities. I would be tortured with sea-snake venom and then staked out for rock eels to tear the flesh from my bones, piece by piece. And your own fate would be even harder. We would die, the Clan would be disgraced and divided, and nothing would be done.»

«If that is so,» said Blade, «then there is only one thing for me to do. There is no answer to be found here in the Reefs of the Sea Masters. There is none to be found in the Sea Cities. But there may be one in Nurn itself.»

Alanyra's eyes widened. «How-how will you find it, if you must pluck it out of the heart of the Empire itself?»

«I won't find it easily, in any case,» replied Blade coolly. «But I will have a better chance of finding it with your help.»

«What-what can I do for you?» said Alanyra. Her tone left no doubt in Blade's mind that she would do her best to help him-if she thought his plan made any sense.

That was the problem. It took him three days of arguing in the intervals between their lovemaking before he could get her to start taking him seriously. Years ago when Blade had been senior field man for MI6, he had occasionally argued with J over the conduct of a particular mission. He thought then that J was the world's most stubborn and tenacious arguer. Now he knew that Lady Alanyra could out-argue J any day of the week.

Eventually he got her to the point where she didn't burst out laughing and try to kiss him when he explained what he had in mind. After a few more days, she was agreeing that his plan made sense. And a few days after that, she was making suggestions for improving the scheme, based on what she knew of the situation in Nurn.

But then there was Oknyr to be convinced.

«You and he are both mad,» said Oknyr. Alanyra knew that thirty years' faithful service to four successive heads of Clan Gnyr gave him the right to speak thus. It was to his credit that he seldom abused that right.

«Perhaps we are,» said Alanyra. She met his gaze without flinching or turning color. «But if we are, perhaps it is a madness sent by the Goddess in the Foam, to clear our vision instead of cloud it. With this newly cleared vision, we are seeing a way to peace between the Sea Cities and the Sea Masters.»

«You are seeing a dream, Lady,» said Oknyr with a sigh. «A beautiful dream, but still a dream. If there were any substance to it, do you think the war would still be going on?»

«I do not know, Oknyr. I think that perhaps Blade is right when he says there has been a terrible blindness on both sides. So terrible that we could not see a chance of peace if one came up in front of us. He says that perhaps there are those in the Sea Cities, among our people, and in Nurn, who do not want the war to end.»

The Orderer of Battles pulled at one elongated earlobe. «Does he say who might be these-deceivers?»

«Stipors the Black, the Autocrat for War among the Sea Cities. He does not know enough of our people or of Nurn to be able to name any. That is why he wished to travel among us, and why he wishes to go to Nurn. He has hopes of finding a man who knows some of Nurn's secrets, and who can be given Truth Finder and so be made to reveal them to us.»

«Will even that be enough to convince the Sea Cities to leave us alone?»

«Blade says he believes it will. He says that the Sea Cities would gladly be free of Nurn for all time to come if they had a chance. They have not had that chance only because of the war.»

Oknyr nodded slowly. «There I have reason to believe Blade speaks the truth. I have heard the same from certain prisoners before they died or were sent to the Slave Reefs. If the Talgarans really hate Nurn so much, perhaps-«His face twisted, as though he felt inside him a pain that he was desperately trying to hide.

Alanyra watched him in silence with great compassion. The old warrior had fought in the war too long to be able to easily conceive of its end.

Finally he shrugged. «Lady, I still say you are mad. But you say that it is a madness sent by the Goddess, and this I am willing to believe. But there remains one thing. How are we to conceal this from the other Clans? You said you told Blade of the danger if word got about. Have you considered the danger enough yourself?»

«Why should any suspect us? We are only setting free some of our own Clan's prisoners, and not that many, either. A mere twenty or so.»

«That will still look strange to the other Clans. Is there need to send any at all?»

Alanyra nodded. «Blade made it clear to me that there is. If he were to return to the Sea Cities alone, it would be suspicious. After their defeat, the Talgarans will be trusting no one, not even a returned prisoner. And if he is suspected of evildoing, not even Autocrat Krodrus will help him make the voyage to Nurn. Besides, why should it look strange that we release certain prisoners as a gesture of contempt for the Sea Cities? Take them back, we can seem to say. Take them, and let them not come again to our Reefs, or this time they may remain forever!»

Oknyr laughed at Alanyra's fiery phrases. «Lady, are you sure that you are less wedded to the war than I am?» Seeing that she did not laugh, he sobered, then said, «What about afterward? When he-and you-sail for Nurn? What then?»

Alanyra shrugged. «The Clan will not be involved, either way. If we succeed, we will bring back a victory so great for both peoples that no one will ask stupid questions.»

Oknyr was silent, but his eyes expressed the question he did not want to put into words.

Alanyra licked her lips before replying to that questioning stare. «If something goes wrong, it will go wrong far out of the sight of either Sea Cities or Sea Masters. We will vanish like a stone dropped into the Great South Deep, and none will ever see us again to chide us for our failure.»