Читать книгу The Elder Gods - David Eddings - Страница 14

‘Did he have any weapons aside from that bow, Cap’n?’ Ox asked when Sorgan returned to the Seagull.

‘He had a bundle of arrows, and a spear in the bottom of the canoe,’ Sorgan replied. ‘He didn’t touch it, but it was right out in the open where I could see it. I’m pretty sure he wanted me to know it was there. The funny thing about it was that the spear-point wasn’t iron. It’d been made from stone instead.’

‘The people who eat other people in the Land of Shaan make their tools and weapons out of stone, too,’ Ox said. ‘That don’t make me feel none too comfortable, Cap’n. Just the idea of getting et makes me go cold all over.’

‘I don’t think these people are that kind, Ox,’ Sorgan said. ‘The fellow in the canoe seemed to be almost friendly. He knew my name, and he wanted to be sure we had enough food and water on board. There’s a place called Lattash about three days south of here, and there’s a woman named Zelana there who wants to talk with us. Longbow told me that there might be gold involved in the discussion. That sort of suggests that the Zelana woman wants to hire people who know how to fight, and she’ll pay good gold to get them.’

‘I ain’t about to start taking no orders from no woman, Cap’n,’ Ham-Hand protested.

‘Don’t worry about it, Ham-Hand,’ Sorgan told him. ‘You’ll take your orders from me, just like always. I’ll be the one who deals with this Zelana woman. Hoist up the sail, and let’s go south. There’s a lady down there who wants to talk to me about gold, so let’s not dawdle.’

Once the Seagull was clear of the inlet, a good following breeze came up, and Sorgan’s ship was soon skimming lightly over the waves a league or so out from the coast of Dhrall. By evening the Seagull was a goodly distance south of Longbow’s village, and Sorgan prudently hauled in on the leeward side of a small islet and dropped anchor. Nobody in his right mind sails through strange waters after dark.

Sorgan rose at first light and went up on deck to have a look at the weather. He found Ham-Hand and Rabbit leaning over the rail on the starboard side. ‘What’s afoot?’ he asked them.

‘There’s some real strange critters in these here waters, Cap’n,’ Rabbit replied. ‘I’ve seen dolphins and porpoises afore, but I ain’t never seen any of them as was pink.’

‘You’re not serious!’ Sorgan said.

‘Strike me dead iff’n I ain’t,’ Rabbit said. ‘I heered them splashin’ an’ gigglin’ out there afore it got light, an’ I couldn’t believe my eyes once it got light enough for me to take a good look.’

‘He’s right, Cap’n,’ Ham-Hand said. ‘The little rascals is as pink as a new sunrise and they’re skipping around out there on the water like little children having a good time.’

‘There’s one right now, Cap’n,’ Rabbit said, pointing off to starboard.

Sorgan stared. The creature was definitely a dolphin, and it really was pink.

Then there were others swarming around the Seagull, leaping and splashing and giggling as they frolicked about. ‘This is the strangest place,’ Sorgan muttered, half to himself. ‘The next thing we know, we might come across purple sharks or bright green whales. Rouse the crew, Ham-Hand. The weather looks good, so let’s get under way.’

‘Aye, Cap’n,’ Ham-Hand replied.

The Seagull continued south, but she was no longer alone. The pink dolphins accompanied her, racing along ahead of her bow and chattering to the crew on both the starboard and port side. ‘It’s almost like we got an escort, ain’t it, Cap’n?’ Ox suggested. Then he squinted speculatively at the creatures playfully leaping out of the water on all sides. ‘I wonder what dolphin meat tastes like,’ he said.

‘No!’ Sorgan said sharply. ‘Our luck’s running good, Ox. Don’t tamper with anything. You might bring down a squall or even a water-spout, and it’s a long swim back to Maag.’

‘Those things splashing around out there don’t have anything to do with the weather, Cap’n,’ Ox scoffed.

‘Maybe not, but I’m not about to take any chances. Don’t fool around with things, Ox. Just leave them exactly the way they are.’

And so the Seagull proceeded south at a goodly rate with dolphins leaping along in front of her bow as rosy dawn tinted the eastern sky.

‘There’s a fire on the beach, Cap’n,’ Tree-Top called down from the top-mast.

‘Keep your eyes peeled,’ Hook-Beak called up to him. ‘There’ll be two more farther on south. After we pass the third one, we’ll need to keep a sharp eye out. There’ll be an inlet that leads into a fair-sized bay. That’s the place we’re looking for.’

‘Aye, Cap’n,’ Tree-Top called back.

The Seagull passed the third bonfire in the early afternoon of the third day after Sorgan’s meeting with Longbow, and Hook-Beak ordered the crew to keep a sharp eye off to port.

They rounded a headland, and just beyond there was what appeared to be a narrow channel stretching back between two rocky promontories.

‘I’ll take her, Ox,’ Sorgan said, laying one hand on the tiller. ‘Get the oarsmen in place, and drop the sail. Let’s not run her aground this close to the rich lady’s home village.’

‘Aye, Cap’n,’ Ox agreed.

Hook-Beak considered his options as he steered the Seagull through the channel and into the sizeable bay lying beyond. He was fairly sure that Longbow hadn’t been trying to deceive him, but it might be better to take things a little slow and steady here. He didn’t know these people, and they didn’t know him. He glanced at the sky. It was mid-afternoon now, and it’d probably take some time to locate the village and row up the bay to wherever it was. That could possibly bring them to this Lattash place at sundown or even later. It might be safer to drop anchor a ways out from shore and wait until morning. That way they’d arrive in broad daylight, and everybody could see what everybody else was doing.

‘Shinny up the mast, Ham-Hand,’ he told his second mate. ‘See if you can spot that village, and then find us a place to anchor for the night. We’ll sit tight until morning, and then we’ll go talk with the rich lady.’

‘Aye, Cap’n,’ Ham-Hand agreed. ‘Let’s not rile up the natives if we don’t have to.’

They anchored the Seagull off a rocky shore where there was no discernable beach. Hook-Beak didn’t want anybody to come creeping up to his ship in the dark. He stationed look-outs aloft and others in the bow and on the stern, just to be on the safe side.

The night passed quietly, and everything seemed to be all right the next morning. The look-outs had seen several fires near the broad, sandy beach at the head of the bay during the night, and Sorgan called the crew of the Seagull to the aft deck for a little conference. ‘I want you men to mind your manners when we go into that village,’ he told them. ‘Don’t start getting any ideas about their women-folk or trying to grab any trinkets from the men. We’re probably going to be outnumbered by about ten to one, so let’s all be real polite. These people seem to need some help from us, and there’s been talk of gold as payment, so behave yourselves. Don’t start waving your swords and spears around, and don’t snarl or shake your fists at anybody. We could be talking about a lot of gold here, and I’ll be very unhappy with anybody who does anything to upset the apple-cart. Have I made myself clear?’ He looked around at his crew with bleak eyes and an even more grim expression.

They all seemed to get his point almost immediately.

They raised anchor as the sun was just coming up, and the oarsmen slowly rowed the Seagull up to the head of the bay where the nighttime lookouts had seen the fires.

‘Take her in until we’re about a hundred yards from shore, Ox,’ Sorgan instructed. ‘We’ll drop anchor and wait to see how the natives behave. If they seem peaceful, fine. If they act belligerent, we’ll turn the Seagull around and go someplace else.’

‘I get your drift, Cap’n,’ Ox agreed.

Sorgan noted that the village of Lattash was quite a bit larger than the one where he’d met Longbow, and there were many canoes on the sandy beach, and fish-nets drying on poles near the canoes. It appeared that the natives of Lattash were primarily fishermen. The houses, if they could be called that, were made for the most part of tree-branches tightly woven about dome-shaped frames, and though they appeared to be a bit crude, Hook-Beak was fairly sure that they kept the weather at bay. There was nothing in the village that could really be called a street, since the individual huts appeared to have been randomly placed.

There was also a well-packed ridge – or berm – between the village and the river which came down out of the mountains just there, and that strongly hinted at the possibility that the river sometimes overflowed its banks.

It wasn’t long before a dozen or so canoes were paddled out from the beach by leather-clad natives. Sorgan noted that they were all fairly well-armed. Their arrows and spears had stone points, but a well-sharpened stone point could probably find a man’s vitals almost as well as an iron one could.

The canoes drew up in a half-circle between the Seagull and the beach, but a single one was paddled up to within a few yards of Sorgan’s ship. There were only two natives in the canoe. The one who was doing the paddling appeared almost as burly as Ox, and he had a flaming red beard that reached half-way to his waist. The other native was much older, and he had snowy hair that he wore in braids.

The red-bearded native skillfully brought the canoe to a stop, and his older companion rose to his feet. ‘Welcome to Lattash, Sorgan Hook-Beak,’ he said in a deep, rolling voice. ‘Long have we awaited your coming.’

‘I am honored by your greeting,’ Sorgan replied. A certain formality seemed to be in order here.

‘I am White-Braid of Lattash,’ the man in the canoe introduced himself, ‘and the younger men of this village even heed my advice – every so often.’ The old man smiled faintly.

Sorgan had noticed that Longbow had also seemed to have a similarly dry sense of humor. He straightened. ‘I have been told that the Lady Zelana would have words with me, Chief White-Braid,’ he said.

‘I have heard so myself,’ White-Braid replied. ‘This is my nephew, Red-Beard,’ he said, gesturing toward the native who’d paddled the canoe. ‘He will escort you to the cave where she dwells. I shall remain here so that your men need have no concern about your continued well-being. In time, these precautions may no longer be necessary, but we are strangers still, so let there be no possibility of deception.’

‘You are wise, Chief White-Braid,’ Sorgan said, ‘and I shall be guided by you in this matter.’ If White-Braid wanted formality, Sorgan was ready to pile formality on him until he was hip-deep in it.

The two of them rather carefully changed places. White-Braid came on board the Seagull, and Hook-Beak climbed down into the canoe. ‘Treat our friend well, Ox,’ Sorgan called up to his first mate.

‘Aye, Cap’n,’ Ox replied respectfully, as the canoe moved away from the Seagull.

‘Why does the lady called Zelana live in a cave instead of in the village with the rest of the tribe?’ Sorgan asked the red-bearded native who was paddling smoothly toward the beach.

‘She doesn’t really belong here, Sorgan Hook-Beak,’ Red-Beard replied, ‘and she isn’t very fond of us.’

‘I thought that she was the queen of this part of Dhrall,’ Sorgan said.

‘Not exactly,’ Red-Beard replied. ‘Our legends say that she’s lived forever, but that she doesn’t care for people very much. She went away a long, long time ago. She came back just recently, and now she’s staying in that cave at the edge of the village. My uncle tells us that she’s very powerful, and that if she wants something to happen, it will happen. Uncle White-Braid gets a little strange when he talks about her. I think he’s afraid of her, which is strange, because he’s not really afraid of anything. She never comes out of that cave, and the only servant she has is a little girl. The child comes out of the cave to tell us what Zelana wants us to do.’

‘What does she look like?’ Sorgan asked.

Red-Beard shrugged. ‘I’ve only seen her twice, and she keeps her face covered. I overheard my uncle once when he was talking with some of the other old men of the village, and he was telling them that she changes every so often.’

‘Changes?’

‘She doesn’t always look the same,’ Red-Beard stopped paddling. ‘When we get to the beach, I’m supposed to lead you along at the edge of the water. Uncle White-Braid told me to be careful to keep you in plain sight all the way to the cave of Zelana so that your men won’t have any cause for concern.’

‘Your people seem to be very cautious, Red-Beard,’ Sorgan observed.

‘Uncle White-Braid seems to prefer it that way. Old men are like that sometimes.’

‘That might explain how they lived long enough to get old.’

‘You’re probably right,’ Red-Beard conceded, taking up his paddle again. ‘We’ll have to go ashore just ahead. There’s some sharp rocks just below the surface of the water farther down the beach, and I’d rather not rip the bottom out of my canoe.’

‘How far is it to this cave?’ Sorgan asked.

Red-Beard pointed with his paddle. ‘It’s in the side of that hill near the end of the beach.’

‘It’s quite a ways from the village,’ Sorgan observed, noting that the hill was oddly dome-shaped, and its sides were mostly bare rock with scant vegetation.

‘The one called Zelana doesn’t seem to like the way we smell.’

‘Am I supposed to bow down to her or anything like that?’ Sorgan asked.

‘I don’t think so. Uncle White-Braid would have mentioned it. Just tell her who you are. She’ll probably know already, since she’s been describing you ever since she first got here.’ Red-Beard drove the prow of his canoe up onto the beach, and then he and Sorgan pulled it clear of the water. Then they walked down the beach, being careful to stay in plain sight of the Seagull.

‘Have you heard anything about some kind of trouble that might be coming this way?’ Sorgan asked.

‘There’s always trouble in this part of the world, Sorgan Hook-Beak,’ Red-Beard replied. ‘The tribes can go to war about almost anything. Here lately, though, we’ve heard some stories about the creatures of the Wasteland.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Off beyond the mountains,’ Red-Beard replied vaguely.

‘I don’t know much about it, because the old men don’t like to talk about the Wasteland. The creatures who live there are supposed to look sort of like people, but I don’t think they are people. Zelana can probably tell you more about them. I think that’s why she wants to talk to you. There’s the mouth of her cave right over there.’ He pointed at an irregular opening in the rocky hillside. ‘My uncle told me to make some noise before we go on inside. He said that we don’t want to startle Zelana.’

They approached the cave-mouth with a certain caution. ‘Zelana of the West,’ Red-Beard called into the echoing cave, ‘I am Red-Beard of the line of White-Braid the Chief, and I have brought an outlander named Sorgan Hook-Beak to speak with you.’

They waited for a few moments, and then a beautiful little girl with fair hair came out of the dark cave. ‘What kept you so long, Hook-Beak?’ she asked Sorgan. ‘The Beloved was starting to worry about you. Come along, but wipe your feet before you come inside. She gets peevish when anybody tracks mud into her cave.’

Sorgan and Red-Beard followed the little girl through the irregularly shaped opening and on through a twisting, narrow passageway into a large chamber where a small fire burned some distance back from the cave mouth. A woman with dark hair and wearing a filmy gauze garment was seated near the fire with her back to them. ‘It’s about time you got here, Hook-Beak,’ the woman said. ‘Has the Seagull gone lame?’

‘It is a fair distance from Longbow’s village,’ Sorgan replied, feeling more than a little offended.

‘That didn’t bother her very much when she was chasing down that Trogite treasure ship a little while back.’

‘How did you know about that?’ he demanded.

‘The Beloved knows everything, Hook-Beak,’ the little girl told him. ‘Everybody knows that.’

‘That’ll do, Eleria,’ the woman in gauze said. Then she turned to look at Sorgan.

Sorgan’s knees went weak at that point. She was by far the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

‘Don’t stare, Sorgan,’ she said primly. ‘It isn’t polite.’

‘Forgive me,’ he said, flushing slightly. ‘Your appearance startled me. You must be used to that by now, though.’

‘It does happen every so often,’ she admitted. ‘At least you’re strong enough not to swoon at the sight of me. That can be so irritating. I see you’ve brought Red-Beard with you.’

‘Actually, he’s the one who brought me,’ Sorgan replied, his voice still trembling a bit. ‘He showed me the way.’

‘Then you know each other. Good. He’ll be going with us when we return to Maag. We’ll have to stop and pick up Longbow as well, but we can go into the details later. Let’s get down to business here. I need warriors, and I pay in gold. Are you interested?’

‘The word “gold” is very interesting,’ he replied. ‘Who do you want me to kill, and how much gold will you give me after he’s dead?’

‘You’re a blunt man, Sorgan,’ she said.

‘It saves time,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Are we talking about some kind of war here?’

‘Well, sort of. How much do you know about the Land of Dhrall?’

‘I’d never even heard of it until I met Longbow about three days ago. Red-Beard here was telling me something about some people that live over beyond the mountains. I gather that they’re the ones you’d like to have me kill. Is this some sort of tribal squabble? That sort of thing happens in Maag all the time.’

‘It goes a long way past “squabble”, Hook-Beak,’ she said. ‘The people of Dhrall dwell mostly along the coastline where the fishing’s good, but there are other creatures who dwell in the Wastelands of the interior. They’re starting to grow restless, and we want you and your warriors to persuade them to go back home where they belong. That’s why I sent for you. I want you to enlist your fellow Maags to come here and help us drive the creatures of the Wasteland back across the mountains. We’ll tell the Maags that I’ll give them gold if they come here and help us.’

‘It’s easy to say gold, Lady Zelana,’ Sorgan said, ‘but I think I’ll need to see gold before I’ll be very convincing when I talk with the other Maags.’

‘That sounds reasonable.’ Zelana turned to the little girl. ‘Take him back to where the gold is, Eleria,’ she said. ‘Let him see how much there is.’

‘Of course, Beloved,’ the little girl replied. ‘It’s back in the cave a ways, Hook-Big,’ she told Sorgan.

‘That’s “Hook-Beak”,’ he corrected her.

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘That does make a little more sense, doesn’t it? I must have misunderstood the Beloved when she told me your name. It seemed to me that it was backward, but ‘Big-Hook’ wouldn’t make sense either, would it? How much of this gold did you want to look at?’

‘As much as possible,’ Sorgan replied eagerly.

‘I don’t think we have that much time,’ Eleria said. ‘The Beloved’s in sort of a hurry.’

Then the gauze-draped Zelana made a kind of squeaking sound, and Eleria responded in the same fashion. Sorgan gathered that it must have been some sort of foreign language.

Then Zelana reached out and took a glowing lump of fire out of the empty air and handed it to Eleria. ‘It’s dark back in the cave,’ Eleria told Sorgan. ‘This little sun will light our way. You should feel honored, Hook-Beak. The Beloved was going to have this for lunch.’ She held out the glowing lump of fire. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘You can carry it, if you like.’

Sorgan put his hands behind his back. ‘No, that’s all right,’ he said, perhaps a bit too quickly. ‘You can carry it.’ So far as Sorgan was able to determine, the lump was not enclosed in glass – or anything else, for that matter. It appeared to be raw fire, but the little girl seemed very casual about the whole thing.

‘All right. Come along, then.’ She led him back into the cave, holding up the fire to light the way.

‘Doesn’t that burn your hand?’ Sorgan asked Eleria as they went back into the rocky passageway.

‘No,’ she replied. ‘The Beloved asked it not to.’

‘Why do you keep calling her “the Beloved”?’ he asked curiously.

‘That’s what the pink dolphins call her,’ Eleria replied. ‘I used to play with the pink dolphins when I was younger.’

‘We saw some of those when we were coming here from Longbow’s village,’ he said.

‘I know. The Beloved asked them to show you the way. She didn’t want you to get lost. The gold you want to look at is right around this corner.’

Sorgan followed her, but then he stopped suddenly, his eyes almost starting out of their sockets. The rocky passageway he and Eleria had been following was blocked by a solid wall of what appeared to be gold bricks.

‘Will this much do for now?’ Eleria asked him. ‘The Beloved can send for more, but it might take Red-Beard and the rest of the villagers a while to carry it here.’

‘How far back does this passage go?’ Sorgan asked in a trembling voice.

‘I’m not sure,’ Eleria replied. ‘Quite a long way, I think. Hold me up in the air and I’ll take a look.’

Sorgan picked her up and sat her on his shoulder. She held out her ball of fire and peered back into the cave. ‘The light doesn’t reach all the way back,’ she reported, ‘but there’s gold back as far as I can see. It’s nice enough, I suppose, but it’d be prettier if it was pink instead of yellow. Yellow’s sort of tiresome, don’t you think?’

‘It doesn’t tire me out much,’ Sorgan disagreed.

‘Let’s go back,’ Eleria suggested. ‘The Beloved’s sort of impatient.’

‘Would it be all right if I took a couple of these bricks to show my men?’ Hook-Beak asked her.

‘I’m sure it would,’ she said with a sunny smile. ‘There are lots of them here, aren’t there?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Sorgan said fervently.

They went back to the front of the cave.

‘Was there enough gold there to suit you, Hook-Beak?’ Zelana asked.

‘It looks about right to me,’ he replied. ‘I could probably buy the whole Land of Maag with that much. I’ll have to take some of it with me to show to the other Maags, though. They probably won’t believe me when I tell them about it.’

‘Not too much, Sorgan,’ Zelana told him. ‘The Seagull isn’t built to carry a lot of weight, and we don’t want her to sink out from under us when we sail back to Maag, do we?’

‘We?’ Sorgan asked sharply.

‘Eleria and I’ll be going with you, and so will Red-Beard and Longbow.’

‘You don’t really have to come along, Lady Zelana,’ Sorgan protested.

‘I think I do, Hook-Beak,’ she disagreed. ‘We need to hurry, and I can persuade the Seagull to go faster – and make sure that you don’t forget about your obligation to return.’

‘But –’ he started weakly.

‘No “buts”, Sorgan,’ she cut him off. ‘We sail on the afternoon tide. Go back to the Seagull and get her ready. I’ll have Red-Beard make the arrangements to put some gold on board before we leave. Take Eleria with you. I’ll have to talk with my brother before we leave.’

‘I haven’t agreed to any of this yet,’ Sorgan protested.

‘Were you going to say no?’

‘Well…’ His objection dribbled off as he remembered that solid wall of gold bricks.

‘I didn’t think so,’ Zelana said smugly. ‘Now go.’

He looked longingly toward the back of the cave.

‘Quickly, quickly, Sorgan,’ she said, snapping her fingers at him. ‘The day runs on, and we want to be well on our way before the sun goes to bed.’