<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
<p>Waves flung themselves at the blue evening. Low light burned on the wet
hulks of ships that slipped by mossy pilings into the docks as water
sloshed at the rotten stone embankment of the city.</p>
<p>Gangplanks, chained from wooden pullies, scraped into place on concrete
blocks, and the crew, after the slow captain and the tall mate,
descended raffishly along the wooden boards which sagged with the
pounding of bare feet. In bawling groups, pairs, or singly they howled
into the narrow waterfront streets, into the yellow light from open inn
doors, the purple shadowed portals leading to dim rooms full of blue
smoke and stench of burnt poppies.</p>
<p>The captain, with eyes the color of sea under fog, touched his sword
hilt with his fist and said quietly to the mate, "Well, they're gone. We
better start collecting new sailors for the ten we lost at Aptor. Ten
good men, Jordde. I'm sick when I think of the bone and broken meat they
became."</p>
<p>"Ten for the dead," sneered the mate, "and twenty for the living we'll
never see again. Any sailor that would want to continue this trip with
us is insane. We'll do well if we only lose that many." He was a tall,
wire bound man, which made the green tunic he wore look baggy.</p>
<p>"I'll never forgive her for ordering us to that monstrous island," said
the captain.</p>
<p>"I wouldn't speak too loudly," mumbled the mate. "Yours isn't to forgive
her. Besides, she went with them, and was in as much danger as they
were. It's only luck she came back."</p>
<p>Suddenly the captain asked, "Do you believe the sailor's stories of
magic they tell of her?"</p>
<p>"Why, sir?" asked the mate. "Do you?"</p>
<p>"No, I don't," said the captain with a certainty that came too quickly.
"Still, with three survivors out of thirteen, that she should be among
them, with hardly a robe torn."</p>
<p>"Perhaps they wouldn't touch a woman," suggested the mate, Jordde.</p>
<p>"Perhaps," said the captain.</p>
<p>"And she's been strange," continued Jordde, "ever since then. She walks
at night. I've seen her going by the rails, looking from the sea-fire to
the stars, and then back."</p>
<p>"Ten good men," mused the captain. "Hacked up, torn in bits. I wouldn't
have believed that much barbarity in the world, if I hadn't seen that
arm, floating on the water. It gives me chills now, the way the men ran
to the rail to see, pointed at it. And it just raised itself up, like a
beckoning, a signal, and then sank in a wash of foam and green water."</p>
<p>"Well," said the mate, "we have men to get."</p>
<p>"I wonder if she'll come ashore?"</p>
<p>"She'll come if she wants, Captain. Her doing is no concern of yours.
Your job is the ship and to do what she says."</p>
<p>"I have more of a job than that," and he looked back at his still craft.</p>
<p>The mate touched the captain's shoulder. "If you're going to speak
things like that, speak them softly, and only to me."</p>
<p>"I have more of a job than that," the captain repeated. Then, suddenly,
he started away, and the mate was following him down the darkening
dockside street.</p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>The dock was still for a moment. Then a barrel toppled from a pile of
barrels, and a figure moved like a bird's shadow across the opening
between mounds of cargo set about the pier.</p>
<p>At the same time two men approached down a narrow street filled with the
day's last light. The bigger one threw a great shadow that aped his
gesticulating arms behind him on the greenish faces of the buildings.
Bare feet like halved hams, shins bound with thongs and pelts, he waved
one hand in explanation, while he rubbed the back of the other on his
short, mahogany beard.</p>
<p>"You're going to ship out, eh friend? You think they'll take your rhymes
and jingles instead of muscles and rope pulling?"</p>
<p>The smaller, in a white tunic looped with a thick leather belt, laughed
beneath his friend's rantings. "Fifteen minutes ago you thought it was a
fine idea; said it would make me a man."</p>
<p>"Oh, it's a life to make," his hand went up, "and it's a life to break
men," and it fell.</p>
<p>The slighter one pushed back black hair from his forehead, stopped, and
looked at the ships. "You still haven't told me why no ship has taken
you on in the past three months," he said absently, following the rope
rigging against the sky like black knife slashes on blue silk. "A year
ago I'd never see you in for more than three days at once."</p>
<p>The gesticulating arm suddenly encircled the smaller man's waist and
lifted a leather pouch from the wide belt. "Are you sure, friend Geo,"
began the giant, "that we couldn't use up some of this silver on wine
before we go. If you want to do this right, then right is how it should
be done. When you sign up on a ship you're supposed to be broke and a
little tight. It shows that you're capable of getting along without the
inconvenience of money and can hold your liquor, too."</p>
<p>"Urson, get your paw off that." Geo snatched the purse away.</p>
<p>"Now here," countered Urson, reaching for it once more, "you don't have
to grab."</p>
<p>"Look, I've kept you drunk five nights now, and it's time to sober up.
And suppose they don't take us, who's going—" But Urson, the idea
having taken the glow of a game, made another swipe with his big hand.</p>
<p>Geo leapt back with the purse. "Now cut that out," he began; but in
leaping, his feet struck the fallen barrel, and he fell backwards to the
wet cobbles. The pouch splattered away, jingling.</p>
<p>Both of them scrambled.</p>
<p>Then the bird's shadow moved in the opening between the cargo piles, a
slight figure bounded forward, swept the purse up with one hand, pushed
himself away from the pile of cargo with another, and there were two
more fists pumping at his side as he ran.</p>
<p>"What the devil," began Urson, and then, "What the <i>devil</i>!"</p>
<p>"Hey you," called Geo, lurching to his feet. "Come back!" And Urson had
already loped a couple of steps after the fleeting mutant, now halfway
down the block.</p>
<p>Suddenly, from behind them, like a wine-glass stem snapping, only twenty
times as loud, a voice called, "Stop, little thief. Stop."</p>
<p>The running form stopped as though it had hit a wall.</p>
<p>"Come back, now! Come back!"</p>
<p>The figure turned, and docilely started back, the movements so lithe and
swift a moment ago, now mechanical.</p>
<p>"It's just a kid," Urson said.</p>
<p>He was a dark-haired boy, naked except for a ragged breech. He
approached staring fixedly beyond them toward the boats. And he had four
arms.</p>
<p>Now they turned and looked also.</p>
<p>She stood at the base of the ship's gangplank, against what sun still
washed the horizon. One hand held something close at her throat, and
wind, caught in a veil, held the purple gauze against the red swath at
the world's edge, and then dropped it.</p>
<p>The boy, like an automaton, approached her.</p>
<p>"Give that to me, little thief," she said.</p>
<p>He handed her the purse. She took it, and then suddenly dropped her
other hand from her neck. The moment she did so, the boy staggered
backwards, turned, and ran straight into Urson, who said, "Ooof," and
then, "God damn little spider."</p>
<p>The boy struggled to get away like a hydra in furious silence. But Urson
held. "You stick around ... Owww!... to get yourself thrashed....
There." The boy got turned, his back to the giant; one arm locked across
his neck, and the other hand, holding all four wrists, lifted up hard
enough so that the body shook like wires jerked taut, but he was still
silent.</p>
<p>Now the woman came across the dock. "This belongs to you, gentlemen?"
she asked, extending the purse.</p>
<p>"Thank you, ma'am," grunted Urson, reaching forward.</p>
<p>"I'll take it, ma'am," said Geo, intercepting. Then he recited:</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"<i>Shadows melt in light of sacred laughter.</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Hands and houses shall be one hereafter.</i><br/></span></div>
</div>
<p>"Many thanks," he added.</p>
<p>Beneath the veil, on her shadowed face, her eyebrows raised. "You have
been schooled in courtly rites?" She observed him. "Are you perhaps a
student at the university?"</p>
<p>Geo smiled. "I was, until a short time ago. But funds are low and I have
to get through the summer somehow. I'm going to sea."</p>
<p>"Honorable, but perhaps foolish."</p>
<p>"I am a poet, ma'am; they say poets are fools. Besides, my friend here
says the sea will make a man of me. To be a good poet, one must be a
good man."</p>
<p>"More honorable, less foolish. What sort of a man is your friend?"</p>
<p>"My name is Urson," said the giant, stepping up. "I've been the best
hand on any ship I've sailed on."</p>
<p>"Urson?" said the woman, musing. "The Bear? I thought bears did not like
water. Except polar bears. It makes them mad. I believe there was an old
spell, in antiquity, for taming angry bears...."</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"<i>Calmly brother bear,</i>" Geo began to recite.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">"<i>calm the winter sleep.</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Fire shall not harm,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>water not alarm.</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>While the current grows,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>amber honey flaws,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>golden salmon leap.</i>"<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p>"Hey," said Urson. "I'm not a bear."</p>
<p>"Your name means bear," Geo said. Then to the lady, "You see, I have
been well trained."</p>
<p>"I'm afraid I have not," she replied. "Poetry and rituals were a hobby
of a year's passing interest when I was younger. But that was all." Now
she looked down at the boy whom Urson still held. "You two look alike.
Dark eyes, dark hair." She laughed. "Are there other things in common
between poets and thieves?"</p>
<p>"Well," complained Urson with a jerk of his chin, "this one here won't
spare a few silvers for a drink of good wine to wet his best friend's
throat, and that's a sort of thievery, if you ask me."</p>
<p>"I did not ask," said the woman, quietly.</p>
<p>Urson huffed.</p>
<p>"Little thief," the woman said. "Little four arms. What is your name?"</p>
<p>Silence, and the dark eyes narrowed.</p>
<p>"I can make you tell me," and she raised her hand to her throat again.</p>
<p>Now the eyes opened wide, and the boy pushed back against Urson's belly.</p>
<p>Geo reached toward the boy's neck where a ceramic disk hung from a
leather thong. Glazed on the white enamel was a wriggle of black with a
small dot of green for an eye at one end. "This will do for a name," Geo
said. "No need to harm him. Snake is his symbol; Snake shall be his
name."</p>
<p>"Little Snake," she said, dropping her threatening hand, "how good a
thief are you?" She looked at Urson. "Let him go."</p>
<p>"And miss thrashing his backside?" objected Urson.</p>
<p>"He will not run away."</p>
<p>Urson released him, and four hands came from behind the boy's back and
began massaging one another's wrists. But the dark eyes watched her
until she repeated, "How good a thief are you?"</p>
<p>With only a second's indecision, he reached into his clout and drew out
what seemed another leather thong similar to the one around his neck. He
held up the fist from which it dangled, and the fingers opened slowly to
a cage.</p>
<p>"What is it?" Urson asked, peering over Snake's shoulder.</p>
<p>The woman gazed forward, then suddenly stood straight. "You ..." she
began.</p>
<p>Snake's fist closed like a sea-polyp.</p>
<p>"You are a fine thief, indeed."</p>
<p>"What is it?" Urson asked. "I didn't see anything."</p>
<p>"Show them," she said.</p>
<p>Snake opened his hand, and on the dirty palm, in coiled leather, held by
a clumsy wire cage, was a milky sphere the size of a man's eye, lucent
through the shadow.</p>
<p>"A very fine thief indeed," repeated the woman in a low voice tautened
strangely from its previous brittle clarity. She had pulled her veil
aside now, and Geo saw, where her hand had again raised to her throat,
the tips of her slim fingers held an identical jewel, only this one in a
platinum claw, hung from a wrought gold chain.</p>
<p>Her eyes, unveiled, black as obsidian, raised to meet Geo's. A slight
smile lifted her pale mouth and then fell again. "No," she said. "Not
quite so clever as I thought. At first I believed he had taken mine. But
clever enough. Clever enough. You, schooled in the antiquity of Leptar's
rituals, are you clever enough to tell me what these baubles mean?"</p>
<p>Geo shook his head.</p>
<p>A breath passed her pale mouth now, and though her eyes still fixed his,
she seemed to draw away, blown into some past shadow by her own sigh.
"No," she said. "It has all been lost, or destroyed by the old priests
and priestesses, the old poets.</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"<i>Freeze the drop in the hand</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>and break the earth with singing.</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Hail the height of a man</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>and also the height of a woman.</i><br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0"><i>The eyes have imprisoned a vision</i> ..."<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p>She spoke the lines almost reverently. "Do you recognize any of this?
Can you tell me where they are from?"</p>
<p>"Only one stanza of it," said Geo. "And that in a slightly different
form." He recited:</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"<i>Burn the grain speck in the hand</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>and batter the stars with singing.</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Hail the height of a man,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>and also the height of a woman.</i>"<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p>"Well," said the woman. "You have done better than all the priests and
priestesses of Leptar. What about this fragment? Where is it from?"</p>
<p>"It is a stanza of the discarded rituals of the Goddess Argo, the ones
banned and destroyed five hundred years ago. The rest of the poem is
completely lost," explained Geo. "I found that stanza when I peeled away
the binding paper of an ancient tome that I found in the Antiquity
Collection in the Temple Library at Acedia. Apparently a page from an
even older book had been used in the binding of this one. I assume these
are fragments of the rituals before Leptar purged her litanies. I know
at least my variant stanza belongs to that period. Perhaps you have
received a misquoted rendition; for I will vouch for the authenticity of
mine."</p>
<p>"No," she said, almost regretfully. "Mine is the authentic version. So,
you too, are not that clever." She turned back to the boy. "But I have
need of a good thief. Will you come with me? And you, poet, I have need
of one who thinks so meticulously and who delves into places where even
my priests and priestesses do not go. Will you come with me?"</p>
<p>"Where are we going?"</p>
<p>"Aboard that ship," she said, smiling toward the vessel.</p>
<p>"That's a good boat," said Urson. "I'd be proud to sail on her, Geo."</p>
<p>"The captain is in my service," the woman told Geo. "He will take you
on. Perhaps you will get a chance to see the world, and become the man
you wish to be."</p>
<p>Geo saw that Urson was beginning to look uneasy, and said, "My friend
goes on whatever ship I do. This we've promised each other. Besides, he
is a good sailor, while I have no knowledge of the sea."</p>
<p>"On our last journey," the woman explained, "we lost men. I do not think
your friend will have trouble getting a berth."</p>
<p>"Then we'll be honored to come," said Geo. "Under whose service shall we
be, then, for we still don't know who you are?"</p>
<p>Now the veil fell across her face again. "I am a high priestess of the
Goddess Argo. Now, who are you?"</p>
<p>"My name is Geo," Geo told her.</p>
<p>"Of the Earth, then, your name," she said. "And you, Urson, the bear.
And Lamio, the little Snake. I welcome you aboard our ship."</p>
<p>Just then, from down the street, came the captain and the mate, Jordde.
They emerged from the diagonal of shadow that lanced over the cobbles,
slowly, heavily. The captain squinted out across the ships toward the
horizon, the copper light filling his deepening wrinkles and burnishing
the planes of flesh around his gray eyes. As they approached, the
priestess turned to them. "Captain, I have three men as a token
replacement at least for the ones my folly helped lose."</p>
<p>Urson, Geo, and Snake looked at each other, and then toward the captain.</p>
<p>Jordde looked at all three.</p>
<p>"You seem strong," the captain said to Urson, "a sea-bred man. But this
one," and he looked at Snake now, "one of the Strange Ones...."</p>
<p>"They're bad luck on a ship," interrupted the mate. "Most ships won't
take them at all, ma'am. This one's just a boy, and for all his spindles
there, couldn't haul rope or reef sails. Ma'am, he'd be no good to us at
all. And we've had too much bad luck already."</p>
<p>"He's not for rope pulling," laughed the priestess. "The little Snake is
my guest. The others you can put to ship's work. I know you are short of
men. But I have my own plans for this one."</p>
<p>"As you say, ma'am," said the captain.</p>
<p>"But Priestess," began Jordde.</p>
<p>"As you say," repeated the captain, and the mate stepped back, quieted.
The captain turned to Geo now. "And who are you?" he asked.</p>
<p>"I'm Geo, before and still a poet. But I'll do what work you set me,
sir."</p>
<p>"And you?" Jordde asked Urson.</p>
<p>"I'm a good sea-son of the waves, can stand triple watch without
flagging, and I believe I'm already hired." He looked to the captain.</p>
<p>"But what do they call you?" Jordde asked. "You have a familiar look,
like one I've had under me before."</p>
<p>"They call me the handsome sailor, the fastest rope reeler, the quickest
line hauler, the speediest sheaf reefer...."</p>
<p>"Your name, man, your name," Jordde demanded.</p>
<p>"Some call me Urson."</p>
<p>"That's the name I knew you by before! Do you think I'd sail with you
again, when I myself put it in black and white and sent it to every
captain and mate in the dock? For three months now you've had no berth,
and if you had none for three hundred years it would be too soon."</p>
<p>Jordde turned to the captain now. "He's a troublemaker, sir, a
fight-starter. Though he's as wild as waves and with the strength of
mizzen spars, spirit in a man is one thing, and a fight or two the same;
but good sailor though he be, I've sworn not to have him on ship with
me, sir. He's nearly murdered half a dozen men and probably has murdered
half a dozen more. No mate who knows the men of this harbor will take
him on."</p>
<p>The Priestess of Argo laughed. "Captain, take him." Now she looked at
Geo. "The words for calming the angry bear have been recited before him.
Now, Geo, we will see how good a poet you are, and if the spell works."
At last she turned toward Urson. "Have you ever killed a man."</p>
<p>Urson was silent a moment. "I have."</p>
<p>"Had you told me that," said the Priestess, "I would have chosen you
first. I have need of you also. Captain, you must take him. If he is a
good sailor, then we cannot spare him. I will channel what special
talents he may have. Geo, since you said the spell, and are his friend,
I charge you with his control. Also, I wish to talk with you, poet,
student of rituals. Come, you all may stay on board ship tonight."</p>
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