The Prisoner of Limnos

XV

As the sun climbed, Penric and Ikos descended, negotiating the narrowest passages of the pilgrim stairs, scarcely wider than Pen’s aching shoulders, to where they widened out. The drop was much reduced by this point. Desdemona had calmed somewhat. So Pen finally asked her, Grant you the machine was strange, and I know you’ve never liked heights, but why the extreme fear, Des?

It was an extreme drop.

You couldn’t have died no matter what went wrong.

A reluctant hesitation. Sugane died from a fall.

Des’s very first human rider had been a Cedonian mountain woman of the northern peninsula. Pen still had to work to keep her broad country accent from leaking into his Cedonian, although he’d smoothed it out quite a bit through listening to Nikys’s and Adelis’s Thasalon-trained voices.

A day or so after, Des went on. She was brought to Litikone’s house, which was how I came to jump to her. It’s not a memory I’ve shared with you. It wouldn’t help you.

Des tended to keep that final part of all her riders’ histories not secret, Pen thought, so much as private. Do you think your chaos might have contributed to the accident? You wouldn’t have had it under such good control back then.

A shifty pause. Might have. It was almost two centuries ago. Even demons forget.

Not much, in Pen’s observation. But even demons mourned, and had a long time to do so. Grief, guilt, regret… not everything they learned how to do from their human riders was a boon. He did not press.

Ikos called a halt where the stairs twisted back to become more of a trail through scree, zig-zagging down leftward toward what Pen thought might be a boat landing. He could glimpse a timber dock, but no boats, set in a ragged bite of shoreline that could barely be called a cove.

“I’ll have my pack, now,” said Ikos, holding out a hand.

Pen’s legs were quivering custard and his mouth was dry, but he offered gamely, “I could haul it a bit farther. Where are we going?”

“I’m going to my boat.” Ikos gestured right to where a faint path led away to some hidden track above the water.

Yes, of course Ikos, with his meticulous planning, would have a boat waiting to take his mother off the island. Unlike Pen, whose plans had been more nebulous at this point, involving blending with departing pilgrims.

“You can go anywhere else you please.” Standing a couple of steps above Pen, Ikos could frown down at him. “Sorcerer.”

“Ah, hm. When did you figure that out?”

“Candles don’t light themselves. Seagulls don’t burst in midair, no matter what crap they’ve been eating. And I still don’t know what kind of spell you cast on that poor acolyte, but I want no parts of it. I know sorcerers leak bad luck, and I don’t want yours anywhere near a boat I’m on.”

“I didn’t put any kind of a geas on Acolyte Hekat!” Pen protested. Not that he had a way of proving it to Ikos. There were good reasons sorcerers learned to be discreet. “And I’m not a hedge sorcerer. I’m Temple-trained. Learned Penric kin Jurald, formerly of Martensbridge, sworn divine of the Bastard’s Order.” And of the white god in Person, but that was another story. He left off his younger-brother courtesy title of Lord, as he usually did, since Ikos seemed a man who would not be impressed by such empty baubles. Pen had come far from Jurald Court, tucked in its valley in the distant cantons.

In so many ways, murmured Des.

“Formerly of Martensbridge? Wherever that is,” said Ikos skeptically. “Where’re you from now?”

“That’s unsettled at present. I’m waiting for Nikys to decide. If she says yes, probably Orbas, for the time being. If no… I don’t know.”

Ikos’s face screwed up. “Why hasn’t she said yes? Widow ’n all.”

“I wish I knew,” Pen sighed, ignoring Des’s Do you want a list? “I’m working on her. And not with magic, I might point out. Self-evidently.”

“Hm…”

“The point is, I promise I can keep my demon’s chaos off your boat. It might be hard on a passing seagull. Or a shark, or whatever. But I’m certainly not going to befoul or sink a ship I’m sailing in!” He added, prudentially, “Though neither sorcerers nor gods have any control over the weather.”

Ikos folded his arms. “I’ve got no reason to trust anything you’ve said is true.”

“I trust you.” More or less. “I rode in your evil device. Isn’t that proof enough?”

“It was perfectly safe!” snapped Ikos. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

“So is my magic. You’re here, aren’t you?”

Ikos’s head went back and his lips tightened, but he did not at once reply.

“Look.” Pen scratched his hot and sticky scalp. His fingers came away darkened. “How do you decide anything is sound? You test it, don’t you?”

“If I’m trying out new gear,” said Ikos, “I usually test it to destruction. To be sure.”

“Ah. If you had two sorcerers, you could try that, I suppose. You see the problem.”

Ikos snorted.

“I was thinking more along the lines of a question.” Ask me anything seemed a dangerously open-ended invitation, so Pen left it at that.

“Doesn’t work too well if I’m trying to decide whether you’re telling the truth in the first place,” Ikos pointed out. “But, I don’t know… What’s Nikys’s objection to you? You being a learned divine and all. Seems to me the sort of thing women ought to like.” His lips tweaked up. “No complaining you come home from work all smelly, eh?”

Pen suspected that had not been a compliment. “I can’t say,” he replied, if not with truth then with precision. “But when Nikys received the letter reporting her mother had been arrested and taken to Limnos, I was the first person she came to for help. If you don’t trust me, could you trust her?”

Ikos considered. Or wavered. Or at any rate, thought about it. “I like the girl,” he said at last. “Pretty solid.”

“I know.”

“Huh.”

“You have a boat, and I urgently need to get to Akylaxio. I could pay for your time and trouble.” Pen did not suggest a price; no need for anyone to know how much of Duke Jurgo’s purse he was still carrying.

“Not my boat. It belongs to some friends.”

“All right, I could pay them.”

Ikos pursed his lips. “Doubt they’ll like to have a sorcerer aboard, either.”

“You don’t have to mention my calling. Or anything else about me, really.”

“You want me to lie to my friends?”

“You want to listen to this same argument all over again, at length? If you think you’re tired of it, imagine how I feel. You don’t have to lie. Just… leave it out.”

“Which tells me something about you, I suppose.” Nothing that Ikos approved of, by the sardonic expression on his sweaty copper face.

Pen waved his hands in frustration. “I’m supposed to meet your mother and Nikys in Akylaxio, to escort them on to Orbas. It could be a chance for you to see them. Your last for a while.”

“Oh.” A pause. “Why didn’t you say so first?”

While Pen was still mentally flailing for a reply, Ikos led off down the side path. “Come on, then,” he said over his shoulder. A tight smile. “You can carry the machine.”

Pen scrambled after his guide for about two miles on the scrubby trail following the shoreline. In a tiny cove, they found the boat attended by three men as sunbaked and tough-looking as Ikos. The crew waved and exchanged laconic greetings with him, but stared at Pen.

“That your mother, is it?” said one. “There’s things you haven’t told us about your family, Ikos, my lad.”

Ikos shrugged. “Change of plans. It seems my mother’s gone to Akylaxio. We need to get there.”

“What, after all your trouble?”

“Aye. I’m not best pleased about it either.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “This one says he’ll pay for the ride.”

The dickering was short, since Pen, wildly anxious to be gone, closed the deal at the first suggested price. The fellows, who could have been brothers to the hardy fishermen Pen had observed putting out from Guza, presumably had been told by Ikos what risks they ran, or if not, it wasn’t for Pen to apprise them.

Riding in the clear water as if floating on air, the boat might well be just such a day-fishing vessel, smelling of sun-warmed tar and timber, salt and fish-scales. It would have been substantial for the cold lakes of the cantons, but seemed disturbingly undersized for this vast blue sea. When they cast off and raised its one sail, Pen hunkered up in the shifting shade and left its management to the men who, he hoped, knew what they were doing. Ikos doubtless thought it was perfectly safe, because he curled up on a folded sack and fell into a doze. Either that or he was just too exhausted to care.

Had Nikys and Idrene reached Akylaxio unharmed? Or had they run afoul of some trouble or delay in that long night-ride they’d planned up the coast road? Lamed horse, cart-wheel come off, a tumble into a ditch? Or bandits? Pen expected Bosha could speedily dispose of one bandit, or two, but what if there’d been, say, six, or a dozen?

Two ex-army widows are not going to make for easy victims, Des pointed out. I doubt Bosha would end up doing all the work himself.

That was not quite reassuring. Although Pen was subtly impressed with what little he’d seen of Idrene’s cool head so far. And Ikos, who knew her better, had plainly believed she’d handle his vile machine without panicking. Or puking. (Des growled.) If it was true that women turned into their mothers as they aged, Pen’s future with Nikys might prove even better than he’d hoped.

If they both lived to see it. Or even start it.

The women couldn’t yet have been overtaken by official pursuit, more dangerous than bandits, he persuaded himself. At this hour, Idrene’s gaolers should still be searching Limnos. As the boat tacked southward to parallel the coast, he leaned up to watch as the island fell behind them.

And so he was the first to spot the slim, speedy patrol galley, ten oars on a side and sail set as well, as it rounded Limnos’s rocky, surf-splashed curve. No fishing or cargo vessel, that. It reeked of military purpose. A distant figure in its prow pointed an arm at them and shouted something, and the galley began to angle in their direction.

Pen crept over and shook Ikos by the shoulder. “We seem to have company. Might be trouble.”

Ikos stood up on his knees by the thwart, scowled, and swore.

I could take care of them if you wanted, Des suggested. Just like pirates. An unsettling sense of the chaos demon licking her nonexistent lips. Ripped sails. Snapped stays. Fouled oars. Popped pegs. Opened seams in the hull. Fires in the galley. So many amusing things to be done…

No wonder captains didn’t want sorcerers aboard.

Ruchia was the only part of Des to protest. Stay calm. If they’ve anything to do with us, they are looking for an escaped woman. No women on this boat. Let them search, and then go away.

Yes, Pen agreed with Ruchia. He offered a sop. And should things go badly, there might be an opportunity later for even more chaos.

Not at all fooled, Des gave way, grumbling.

Ikos’s crewmates didn’t look any happier than he did at this visitor. Pen had heard that Cedonian islanders sometimes supplemented fishing with less benign sources of income. Smuggling. Or even piracy. But—he glanced around their lightly laden vessel—they didn’t seem to be carrying any obvious contraband today.

And no escaped prisoners, either.

“Where did that thing come from?” Pen asked Ikos. The galley looked all-business, and they clearly stood no chance of outrunning it in this mild weather.

“Imperial navy keeps a station around the other side of the island,” Ikos replied. “Not a full garrison. Couriers, mainly, and vessels to carry the alarm to the mainland if a threat should heave over the horizon.” He added after a moment, “I checked. Didn’t you?”

Pen let that poke pass.

When the galley drew close enough for shouts of Heave-to! to carry across the water, Ikos’s crew reluctantly did so. Oars were raised, and some officers clustered at the rail, looking down into their open boat. A young sailor in an imperial uniform climbed along a rope net and made a daring leap aboard.

“We’re searching for a woman.” He gave a brief, tolerably accurate description of Idrene. His first close look around verified there was no one of that sex aboard, although he stared hard at Pen, distracted for a moment by his foreign eyes. Which were not the brown of his quarry, so he went on, “She might be drowned by this time. If you find her body, bring it to the officers at the Limnos cove. There’s a reward. Pass the word.”

Ikos’s crew mumbled some interest in that last, and the sailor caught the rope tossed from his galley and managed the harder trick of returning upward, without even dipping himself in the waves. Ikos pushed off with one of their own oars, and, as soon as they were clear, the galley’s oar bank came down and bit the water once more. Going who-knew-where, but, as Ruchia had predicted, away.

And not ahead of them toward Akylaxio, or at least, not yet.

Penric exhaled and sat, bonelessly.

Ikos sank down beside him. Judging by his wheezing, Pen was not the only one with his heart thumping in his ears.

“Word will reach the mainland by nightfall, then,” said Ikos.

“Yes. Although word of what is an open question. It looks as though they bit on my suicide lure, at least in part.” But not conclusively. Still, the pursuers would have to search everywhere, and Idrene and Nikys were in just one place. Would they imagine Idrene had fled inland, or realize that she sought a ship?

“If m’mother had been aboard with me just now,” Ikos observed after a distant minute, “that would not have gone well.”

“Quite,” agreed Pen. “I plan to dedicate a hymn to the white god, when I get a chance to breathe.”

Ikos cocked his head. “The Bastard your god, too?” And answered his own question, “Yes, of course, must be. If you’re His divine. So, having His ear, so to speak, can you ask Him to bless this voyage?”

Pen gestured the tally of the gods, and tapped his lips twice with this thumb. “By every sign,” he said, “He already has.”

“…Aye.”

They sat together in reflective silence as the boat tacked south.