The Fire's Stone

Five

"Chandra? Chandra!" The piercing call echoed up the tower stairs, followed by a rustle of fabric and a heavy wheezing that suggested the person climbing could call or climb but not both.

The slim bronze figure sitting at the exact center of the tower roof gave no indication that she'd heard anything at all. Her long dark hair streaming out behind her like a pennant, she sat motionless, staring into the setting sun.

"Chandra!" The cry rose in volume; closer now, less muffled by stone and distance. "Chandra!" A head, wrapped in yards of purple veiling, popped up through the open trapdoor. The small black eyes, all that were visible of the face, widened as they saw the girl. "So there you are, Chandra. I might have known you'd be up here."

The sun having finally dropped below the horizon, Chandra turned from her contemplation of the rapidly purpling sky. "Yes, you might have," she said, "as I'm always up here at sunset."

"But not tonight!" Two plump hands beginning to show the marks of age, waved in the air like hysterical pigeons. "The messenger has come from King Jaffar."

"I know, Aba. I saw the arrival from my window. What with the banners and the horns and all it was hard to miss." She began to smoothly braid the heavy fall of chestnut hair. "The message has little relevance, however, as regardless of King Jaffar's answer I will continue to refuse to marry anyone."

"Oh-ho, big words." The older woman clucked her tongue at Chandra's glare. The young became outraged so easily. "You may say that now, poppet..."

"I have been saying it all along, Aba, so it's hardly my fault if my father doesn't listen." Chandra's father, to her disgust, had made a long habit of only hearing what he wanted to. "And you needn't put it down to maidenly modesty," she added emphatically, "for I haven't any."

"Modesty indeed!" The black currant eyes widened, suddenly aware of her poppet's state of undress. "For pity's sake, Chandra, put a robe on before someone sees you!"

"How?" Chandra waved a graceful hand around. The tower was the tallest building on their country estate and from where she sat all she could see was sky and the cradling circle of mountains that made up the horizon.

"You know what nasty boys are like!"

Actually, she didn't—she never associated with people her own age, they were so young—but as her old nurse seemed to be working herself into a foaming fit, Chandra unfolded from the full lotus she'd been in for the last two hours, touching her forehead briefly against each knee as she straightened the leg. "My robe is in my rooms," she pointed out when she was standing, her tone just bordering on smugness, "and you're blocking the stairs."

Chandra watched her father paring an apple and wondered if she should speak first. Her position was, after all, a simple one; she was not going to marry Prince Darvish. Or anyone else for that matter. Ever. But so far marriage had not been mentioned—although the weather, trade, the olive crop, and the new bay stallion had all been trivialized—and Chandra was hesitant about bringing the subject up herself. "When battle can no longer be avoided," Rajeet, her teacher, had told her, "it is always wisest to discover your enemy's strengths and weaknesses and use those against him." fOf course, her father's only strength was weakness and that made it more difficult. Rajeet, being a Wizard of the First, and the First the god of war, never seemed to take that into account.

She watched the peel spiral to the table in one long strand and remembered how much that had impressed her when she'd been small, how whenever a crate of the imported fruit had arrived she'd begged him to peel one for her immediately. Many things had impressed her about her father then; he'd been a giant among men, everything a lord should be. They'd ridden together, walked together, read together. He'd shown her how to treat the people she would one day rule with wisdom and compassion. And then her mother had died, leaving an aching void where there had once been gentle laughter and warm arms, a void made larger because something in her father had died as well. Chandra had been ten. She'd tried to comfort him, but he would not be comforted, alternately raging and weeping, calling for the One Below to take him, too. Chandra, the child, couldn't understand what she'd done wrong. Her mother's death had not been her fault, she knew that even then, but somehow she had failed her father.

Even now, six years later, Chandra could not think back on that time without shuddering. Her potential as a wizard only just recognized, she had thrown herself into her studies, hiding from what her father had become and from her inability to help, piling up texts and tracts and her new knowledge between them. If he had no room in his heart for her, then she would make no room in her heart for him. Her power replaced her father's love and all the attention she'd given to him, she now gave to it.

Eventually, her father had found enough of himself to be a competent administrator, nothing more.

He reached for the scented linen napkin by his plate and rubbed at the apple juice on his fingers. Chandra resisted the urge to drum her own fingers against the lacquer table-top. Would he never get to the point? Finally, he set the napkin carefully aside and the server moved forward to remove the low tables and bring in the cups of sweet coffee. Chandra let the first sip roll slowly across her tongue. A passion for the thick, rich drink was the only remaining activity she shared with her father and, although she knew it was foolish—a wizard should remain aloof from such ties—she could not bring herself to break that last link.

Lord Atman Balin settled back against the cushions and gazed at his daughter over the edge of the thin porcelain cup. He watched her swallow, saw the expression of pleasure spread across her face, and wondered if it was too late to find the little girl he had lost. Things had been so simple before the One Below had taken his beloved Matrika. When the three of them had lived in that perfect world, Chandra had been a laughing, happy child, open and accepting; he didn't recognize the silent, closed young woman she had become who seemed to watch everything he did with distant disapproval. She hadn't understood how he'd felt when his Matrika had been torn from him. And when he finally was able to explain, she hadn't wanted to hear. He sighed, his breath sending mahogany ripples across the surface of the coffee. It hurt that his daughter refused to understand him.

He could only hope that she understood what was expected of her as the only daughter of the ruling house; he feared, however, she did not. Thus tonight they dined alone.

"The messenger has returned from King Jaffar."

Chandra remained silent, waiting.

"He approves of the marriage alliance between you and his third son, Darvish."

Chandra had expected as much. The island her father ruled, while not large, was in a strategic trade position between the mainland and Cisali, King Jaffar's much larger island. Since her great-grandfather's time, they had been loosely allied with Cisali and it made sense that her father had sought a husband for her among Jaffar's sons, strengthening the alliance. There was only one problem.

"I am not going to marry this Darvish, Father. I told you that when you sent the proposal. It would have been better for all concerned had you believed me then."

"It's a good match."

"I know that, Father." Chandra had never argued that point. The facts were undeniable; the alliance held benefits for both countries and on a personal level the prince was by all reports, even allowing for the bias of marriage brokers, neither unattractive nor halfway to the One Below. "I am a Wizard of the Nine and I am not going to marry at all. Ever." She'd seen what marriage had done for her father: a few years of happiness, then almost total destruction. That wasn't going to happen to her.

"Then you wish your cousin Kesin to inherit..."

"No, I do not wish my cousin Kesin to inherit." She hated it when her father's voice picked up that self-pitying whine. "Kesin is an ignorant lout without the brains the Nine gave pigs." And you only bring him up to manipulate me into this marriage. Well, it's a dirty trick and it won't work!

"Kesin inherits if my line does not continue," her father pointed out, smugly, she thought, sure he had outmaneuvered her. "As he has issue already, you must have a husband and an heir before I die." He spread his hands triumphantly, the red and yellow sleeves of the mourning robes he still wore fluttering ominously. "You are my only child."

"That's not my fault," Chandra snapped, setting her cup aside and rising to her feet. "You're not an old man. You are fully capable of siring more children."

"More children..."

The pain on his face drove a knife into Chandra's heart, but she ignored it. He had to learn to face reality. He had to become strong, as she had.

"You don't understand," he said softly.

Chandra matched this man against the memories of her father and wondered how he could have become so weak. She didn't understand his pain nor why he insisted in wallowing in it. Her ears grew hot. It was embarrassing to see him like this.

"Chandra," his voice turned suddenly pleading, "you are all I have left of your mother. I want all this to be yours. You mustn't let Kesin destroy everything."

"I mustn't let Kesin destroy everything?" The rest of what she wanted to say caught in her throat and threatened to choke her. I am not the one who spent years weeping and wailing! I am not the one doing just barely enough to get by! But there was no point in saying it; her father never listened to facts, he just got emotional and started wringing his hands.

She bowed, her own emotions under rigid control, tossed her braid back over her shoulder, and left the room.

And the worst of it is, she thought as she returned to her tower, I can't let Kesin inherit because he will destroy everything. The thought of Kesin living in her house, riding her horses, attempting to rule her people made her feel almost physically ill. It wasn't that her cousin was a bad man, but he hadn't been raised to rule. Chandra knew her father had taken her final silence as assent rather than the denial of his emotions it actually was. He hadn't actually seen her for years. Ignoring her wishes, he would go ahead with the marriage plans. She would have to find another solution.

"... always a solution, Chandra." Rajeet's image in the basin of water wavered and shook, her voice fading in and out. To actually communicate in this way took the combined concentration of both wizards involved and Rajeet's mind was obviously not on the conversation. "... don't wish your cousin to inherit and your father refuses to have more children... duty to the land, however, as... barely sixteen, ask your father... can be postponed a few years."

"Rajeet, you don't understand." Rajeet's brother had certainly picked a fine time to demand Rajeet come home and help him win a war—right when Chandra needed her most. She drew herself up as well as she was able, given her position over the bowl, and declared, "I am a Wizard of the Nine. I will never marry."

The image stopped wavering for a moment as the older woman smiled. "Never is a very long time at your age."

"You don't believe me?"

"... believe in this instance it does not matter, Chandra. I assume... told your father?"

"Yes. But he doesn't listen." Chandra had long since given up believing there was a way to make him listen.

"Then... your intended."

"How?"

Rajeet's nostrils flared, a sure sign she had reached the end of her somewhat limited patience. "... a Wizard of the Nine; think of something!"

The image flickered and once again the bowl held nothing more than clear water.

"Very well," Chandra told her reflection now mirrored on the water's surface, "I shall. I don't need her any more than I need Father."

A sound in the courtyard drew her to the window and she peered down at King Jaffar's messenger, horns and banners and all, riding out. Her father had given him an answer. Well, she would give the whole lot of them another.

He can't even run his own life, she thought, pulling her head in, I don't know what makes him think he can run mine.

She flipped at the multifaceted crystal hanging down from the mobile in the window and, brow furrowed, watched the tiny rainbows that danced around the room. Rajeet had hung the mobile the day she'd arrived at the estate.

"Most people," she'd said, holding up a clay disk, "are opaque to power, like this clay, but every now and then a child is born with the ability to act as a focus. Most of these children," here she started to hang nine curved ovals of colored glass from the disk, "can focus only a small amount of the power available. They become Wizards of the First to Ninth, concentrating that small ability to focus on the single disciplines of the Nine Above." She'd lifted the disk into the sunlight and each piece of dangling glass threw its signature into the room.

"Every once in a great while," she'd continued, "a child is born who can focus more than just a part of the power." Then she'd hung up the crystal. It caught the sunlight and divided it and its signature held not one but all colors. "These children are very rare and they become Wizards of the Nine."

"You have the potential to be a Wizard of the Nine," she'd said. "If you study hard, there is very little you will not be able to do."

Rajeet, Chandra decided, for all she'd been only a Wizard of the First trained in the discipline of the god of the sword, had been right. She stilled the wildly swinging crystal. "I am a Wizard of the Nine and I will not marry Prince Darvish."

"I know he's supposed to be handsome and young, Aba, that's all anyone will tell me about him. There must be more."

"Well..." The old nurse drew the word out as she drew the ivory comb through her charge's damp hair, pleased the girl was taking an interest at last. "He's a third son and that can't have been easy on him." A fair woman, she was willing to make excuses for some of the things she'd heard. "The heir has a place and a role to play, and a second son is always welcome in case, the Nine and One forbid, something should happen to the heir. But a third son," she sighed gustily, "a third son can never be certain of where he belongs. Don't wrinkle your forehead like that, poppet, you'll make lines. I feel quite sorry for your Prince Darvish."

"He's not my Prince Darvish." Chandra frowned.

Aba smiled, her eyes almost disappearing behind the curves of her cheeks. "As you wish, poppet." She continued to work the comb through the heavy mass of hair.

"What about his family? His brothers?" Rajeet had taught her an object could often be defined by its surroundings.

"Shahin, the heir, is much like his father. Kinder, they say, and less proud but as alike in appearance as if he'd been crafted out of wizardry. He made a treaty marriage last year, with a princess of Ytaili yet. Everyone hopes their marriage will stop the fighting..."

"They aren't exactly fighting, Aba," Chandra protested.

"And they aren't exactly at peace either," Aba told her firmly. "Now, Ramdan, the second son, lives in the country. The heir and heir apparent are often separated thus, so that if some disaster befalls one, the other is safe. He married very young and has six, no, seven children. His marriage is his chief happiness, they say."

"You needn't keep dwelling on marriage, Aba."

"Not if you don't wish it, poppet." She paused while she worked out a tangle. "Then there's your Prince Darvish."

Chandra gritted her teeth but decided to let the possessive stand. It just wasn't worth the effort.

"They say he's an excellent swordsman." Most of the other things they said about Prince Darvish, Aba was not going to repeat. "They say his father never looked favorably on him from the moment of his birth."

"Why not?"

"He has blue eyes, poppet, and reminds King Jaffar that his own mother was not of Ischia."

"So?"

"The king is fiercely proud."

"Well, it was hardly the baby's fault he got blue eyes." For the first time Chandra felt something other than distaste for the prince.

Aba, sensing sympathy, intoned mournfully, "No, but it's been the burden he has to bear."

Chandra snorted, refusing to be manipulated by her nurse's tone. "Is he the youngest, then?"

"No. When Prince Darvish was nine, the twins were born."

Aba's voice sounded so peculiar that Chandra swiveled around to face her. "You're afraid of them? Why? You've never even met them. You've never even been to Ischia."

One plump hand made the sign of the Nine and One. "Their Royal Highnesses were cursed at birth."

"Cursed?"

Aba nodded. "Both were born with their faces covered, hiding from the gods even in the womb. The midwives wished to have them put to death immediately, bad enough to be a twin with only half a soul but to be cursed as well... but the king did not give his permission. They say he was too proud to acknowledge his seed could be cursed. He ignored them completely."

"Their mother..."

"She agreed with the midwives, and never saw them from the moment of their birth. Servants raised them as royal children are raised."

"Do they know that everyone wanted them dead?"

"They were cursed..."

"Cursed?" Chandra leapt to her feet and paced an agitated length of her room. "I am a Wizard of the Nine, I don't believe in curses. What happened to them?"

"They were given intense religious instruction in the hope that the curse could be lifted."

"And," Chandra prodded.

Aba sighed. "They found a place with one of the Nine."

"Which one?"

"The Fourth."

"Hah!" Chandra slapped her fist into her palm. "I just bet they did, it gave them a chance to get their own back. I can't believe their mother wanted them dead. I don't like her, I don't like King Jaffar, and I'm glad I'm not marrying their stupid son." She took a deep breath. "What happened to the queen? No one ever mentions her."

Aba's eyes filled with tears. "She died in the last wave of fevers. The fevers that killed your blessed mother."

Chandra threw herself down on a pile of cushions and began picking at a silk fringe. Aba was almost as bad as her father about it. "At least King Jaffar didn't fall to pieces."

"Chandra!"

"Well, he didn't!"

Aba drew herself up to her full height, looking like an indignant purple pigeon. "Queen Cizard was a cold woman. They say she placed her duty to the realm above all else, above her husband, above her children. They say her death caused barely a ripple in her family. Your father loved your mother..."

"More than he loved anything else. I know, Aba. More than he loved himself. More than he loved his country. More than he loved me."

Tears trickling down her face, Aba took a tentative step forward, and then stopped as Chandra's gaze pinned her where she was.

"I didn't put my father up on that pedestal, Aba. He climbed up by himself. He had no right to fall." She would have helped him, but he wouldn't let her so he had only himself to blame for the distance between them. He chose to be weak. She never would.

"When you're married yourself, perhaps you'll understand," Aba offered. An unresponsive child could be held until the hurting eased. But a wizard—the old nurse sighed—she had no idea of how to deal with a wizard.

"I will never marry."

"They say Prince Darvish has an—How to phrase it?—independent outlook. He will surely not expect you to give up yours."

Chandra's eyes narrowed. "He won't get the chance."

Aba shook her head in surrender, veils fluttering. She didn't understand. For a short while things had been going so well. Leaving Chandra on the cushions, she went to turn down the bed.

"Aba? Who do you refer to when you say, they say?"

"Why the servants, of course, poppet." She turned and waggled a finger wisely. "If you wish to find out about someone, question the servants. They're always around, but people seem to forget they have eyes and ears and tongues. I've been questioning every servant that has arrived from Ischia since this marriage was first proposed. I wouldn't let my poppet marry a stranger."

Chandra nodded thoughtfully. "Thank you, Aba."

The old nurse preened.

Shoulder muscles protesting, Chandra dumped the basket of earth out onto the roof of her tower and gave thanks that the oblong pile was finally large enough. She wanted nothing more at the moment than to take a long rest—she was a wizard not a laborer—but the stars of the Nine were too far along in their dance for her to risk losing the time. Tucking her sleeveless robe up between her knees and murmuring words of power as she worked, she began to shape the damp soil, following the instructions on the ancient scroll exactly and trying not to think of all the ways it had listed that things could go wrong.

It was harder than she'd anticipated. Theoretically, it was nothing she couldn't manage, but over the last few years, as her reach had at times exceeded her grasp, she'd learned that the distance between theory and practice was often greater than it appeared. This night's work, she felt, would be worth the risk although it didn't help that she had to work by starlight alone. Expending power to create any illumination would change the configuration of what she built. It hadn't occurred to her to bring a lamp.

Finally, although the murmured words became muttered at the end, a rough but definitely female form lay staring sightlessly up at the night. Chandra sat back on her heels and studied it critically. It didn't look much like her, she had to admit. It looked, well, ominous.

Don't be ridiculous. She turned aside to retrieve the rest of her supplies. You're a Wizard of the Nine. That's a pile of dirt. It's nothing unless you choose to make it.

Out of the corner of one eye, she saw movement and her mouth went suddenly dry. It wasn't supposed to move. It couldn't move.

It can't be going wrong already!

How do you know? asked a little voice in the back of her mind. You've never done this before.

Biting her lip to contain the unwizardly whimper that tried to escape, Chandra slowly looked down at her golem, straining to see details in the darkness. Maybe this wasn't the great idea she'd originally thought it. A night wind, heavy with the scent of damp earth, crossed the tower and dislodged a small ball of dirt, rolling it down off the stubby fingers to break into nothing against the stone.

Chandra remembered how to breathe. "Idiot," she said softly.

Hurrying now, having wasted enough time on stupid fears, she pushed two oval agates into the dark on dark indentations left for eyes and, moistening the dirt with a bit of saliva, stuck nine of her own hairs to the top of the head.

Keeping a close watch on the dance of the Nine, she readied the vellum strip and her ivory dagger, checking once more the words she'd inscribed on both. As little as she looked forward to marriage, she looked forward to being ripped to pieces by her own creation even less. Drawing the cool night air slowly in through her nose and out through her mouth, she sought the calm that was going to be very necessary in a few short seconds.

She couldn't find it. Her heart began to pound painfully hard. She needed the calm to guide the power down the paths she'd chosen. It wasn't there. In its place was the knowledge of what the golem would do to her if she failed. Of what the power would do to her without the calm to guide it. She wasn't ready for this. She should never have tried it without Rajeet, who, while not a Wizard of the Nine, was still a very powerful Wizard of the First.

She should stop. Now. Before things went that one step too far. Give up. Let the ship with the first installment of her dowry sail tomorrow without her. Think of something else.

Or marry the prince. Anything was better than what could happen here if things went wrong.

No! This is ridiculous. I know what I'm doing. She grabbed at the rising panic and held it, breathing deeply.

You're acting like your father, she berated herself, beads of sweat chilling the skin between her breasts. Emotional. Hysterical. Stupid. If something goes wrong, it's those emotions that will have destroyed you just like they destroyed him. You are not like your father! No, she wasn't. Not any more. Familiar anger took the place of fear and as the stars wheeled into position, Chandra slid into the calm and drove the point of the knife into the heel of her thumb.

Nine drops of blood struck the hollow in the center of the sculpted breast. When the ninth drop hit the earth, glistening almost black in the starlight, Chandra placed the rolled vellum in the lipless slash that was the golem's mouth.

Then she closed her teeth on a scream as the power of the Nine—more power than she'd ever channeled before—roared through the focus she had created.

"All on board?" The second mate's cry cut easily through the noise at the docks to the sailor at the head of the gangway.

"Aye, sir. Two nobles, six servants and a whole heap o' geegads finally loaded."

"Six? They told me five."

The sailor looked confused. Wasn't that what she'd said? "Aye, sir. Two nobles, five servants."

"Five?"

"Aye, sir."

The mate drew breath to bellow, then abruptly changed his mind. Five, six, what did one landsman more or less matter.

So it went the whole three days of the voyage. Five servants. Six. And no one seemed to think it mattered.

Chandra enjoyed herself hugely. She ate with the servants—themselves unsure if they were five or six—and slept hardly at all. She had worried, at first, about the nobles her father would send to accompany the dowry—if they knew her well, she doubted she'd be able to hold the spell—but the two lords had seen her at court maybe twice in the last five years and so wouldn't be a problem. Unnoticed, or at least unremarked, she spent her days investigating this new world of wood and water and hemp and tar and her nights marking the subtle variations in the dance of the stars.

This is not an adventure, she told herself sternly as the ship plunged over a wave and the salt spray beaded her hair. If I can get the prince to back out, then I've gained the time I need to deal with Kesin and the inheritance. Given time, she was confident that she'd come up with a final solution. A seabird skimmed past the sail and Chandra grinned, feeling a momentary pang of sympathy for her poor golem stuck supposedly sulking back in her tower; and thank the One she never went to court at this season, for the intricacies of that would have been far beyond the golem's limited abilities. At the thought of the golem, she sobered briefly, rubbing her hands over the sudden gooseflesh on her arms. She hadn't realized that focusing the necessary power to animate her double would hurt so much. So I might as well enjoy any new experience that comes my way. Even now, she could feel a faint echo of the pain sizzling through channels still raw and abraded. I've paid for it.

Late the third evening, when there were only clouds to be seen hanging dark and brooding over the ship and the waves were nothing more than rolling black shadows, Chandra settled in a sheltered cranny, the small silver bowl she scryed with between her knees. From under her plain, brown servant's tunic, she pulled out the locket that had arrived with the messenger from King Jaffar.

"My prince begs you to accept this," had said the letter, a letter because she'd refused to see him. "It moves directly from his hand to yours."

Chandra doubted that very much, but the portrait and lock of black hair the locket contained would be enough for her needs if, of course, the hair came from the prince. She rolled the soft strand between her fingers. If it had come from Prince Darvish, they were very careless about wizardry in Ischia. Perhaps she'd set them straight on that as well, while she was there.

With the locket propped to use for reference, she cast a hair down on the water in the bowl, drew the focus tight and fed power through it. Tensing a little at remembered pain, she was relieved to feel only the old familiar tingle. Rajeet disapproved of this sort of wizardly eavesdropping, but she also said that knowledge was strength. At this point Chandra figured forewarned was forearmed and anything new she could learn about her unintended betrothed could only help.

The water grew dark, then light, then a face began to form. It seemed to be the face in the portrait, at least as far as Chandra could tell through the contortions.

At first she thought the twists and grimaces meant torture, for her line of sight was limited to the face alone, but as she carefully pulled back, stretching the bounds of the focus, she understood.

Then the hair dissolved and the bowl was empty of vision and water both.

And for that, they want me to give up the power of the Nine? Chandra asked herself, putting the remaining hair safely back in the locket. She grabbed for her bowl as the ship rolled and it slid toward the rail. If the prince was as independent as Aba had said, it shouldn't be too hard to talk him out of the proposed marriage. Forehead creased, she reviewed what she'd been able to see of the prince's partner. It could only help her arguments that he obviously preferred his women more... fat.

Early the next morning, Chandra leaned her arms on the smooth wood of the railing and mourned the end of the voyage. They'd been at sea just long enough to show her a whole new world to learn, new lines of power, new focuses, new ways of thought. And now she had to leave it all to convince a prince that he didn't want to marry her. Life, she decided after a careful weighing of the facts, was on occasion most unfair.

She watched dawn brush the white terraces of Ischia with delicate highlights but was not impressed, her gaze drawn instead to the thin line of smoke rising above the top of the city. She assumed it came from the volcano, although she couldn't be certain as from her angle the crater was completely surrounded by buildings. That impressed her. That wizardry could protect an entire city built right to the edge of an active volcano.

The Stone of Ischia had taken nine Wizards of the Nine nine years to create. Chandra sighed. After she had dealt with Prince Darvish, she'd spend some time with it before she started for home. She focused a tendril of power toward the heights, then quickly snatched it back; something felt very wrong. Frowning, she wondered if she had breached one of the city's defenses. Surely The Stone would not repulse a Wizard of the Nine?

"Here now." The second mate dropped a weatherworn hand onto her shoulder and turned her about, pushing her gently toward the cabins where the five actual servents were readying their noble charges for disembarking. "You'd best get back with your own lot, then. We'll need the rails clear for lines."

Chandra shot one last, puzzled glance at the drifting plume of smoke, then walked slowly inside to join the others. She would have preferred to remain at the rail and watch the pilot ship guide them into Ischia's harbor, but now was not the time to toss off the carefully built layers of deception. And anyway, with the dual forts at the harbor mouth sliding by on either side, it was time she worked out her next step.

Quiet kid, thought the mate. But I reckon that's part of being someone what serves. All six of them were quiet types. He ran his fingers along a taut length of rope and lost the thought in the twists and turns of hemp. Yep. Five of the quietest landsmen we ever carried. Though it beats the Eighth out of me why two fancy-asses need a half dozen people to take care of them.