Voyage of the Fox Rider Read online

  “They seem happy, Jatu,” said the Pysk.

  “Yes, Lady Jinnarin,” responded Jatu. “They are happy. You see. Captain Aravan spoke to them last night. He cheered them up and reminded them of the mission we are on.”

  “Oh, I wish he had spoken to Alamar, cheered him up, too.”

  Jatu looked down at the Pysk and raised his eyebrows.

  “He’s become nearly impossible, Jatu, picking fights at every turn.”

  “Fights?”

  “Arguments. Niggling arguments over picayune things.”

  “Perhaps, Lady Jinnarin, it is his only ‘entertainment.’”

  “No, Jatu. Instead he is frustrated. He has nothing else to occupy him, nothing but arguments, debates.”

  Thoughtfully, Jatu scratched his jaw. “Perhaps we should set him a riddle to solve. It would occupy his mind.”

  “Oh, he has already set me a riddle.”

  “And it is…?”

  “First it was to define the nature of evil. This I finally did to my satisfaction as well as his—at least as concerns the greater evils. Then he set me a task to think of some smaller evils. Well, Jatu, I do not know if there can be such a thing as a small evil.”

  “What did he consider to be the greater evils?”

  “The quenching of free will for gratification. Using force, dominance, intimidation, or other means to slake one’s own need to control others. Torture, pillage, slavery, and the like. Those are examples of the greater evils.”

  “What of things such as lying, cheating, stealing, breaking promises, and—”

  “Oh, Jatu, lying, cheating, stealing, and the like, perhaps at times are small. Here, I am on shaky ground, for is a lie, even a small one, ever anything but evil? Can a lie be virtuous? And if so, where is the line between a virtuous lie and an evil one? Perhaps it is in the intent. If they are done only to gratify the doer, well then, I think they are evil, large or small. If there are so-called small evils, I do believe that they can become greater evils, too, depending upon the purpose behind them. But I do not believe that the greater evils can ever become small.”

  Jatu sat in silence for a moment, then said, “So this is the problem Mage Alamar set before you, eh? No little task, I say. Even so, if you would surprise him, would shake him from his querulous ways, why not try to anticipate the next problem he will ask you to consider and skip ahead—answer his question before it is asked?”

  Jinnarin smiled. “Oh my, but that would surprise him, indeed.”

  Jatu grinned down at the Pysk and nodded. “And perhaps delight him as well, breaking the foul mood he is in.”

  “Well,” said Jinnarin, “since he’s asked me to define the nature of evil, perhaps he will next ask me to define the nature of good.”

  Jatu shook his head. “I think not, Lady Jinnarin. Defining the nature of good would seem to be the opposite of evil…or perhaps a bit more. I think instead he will ask you how a person should live in order to avoid doing evil to others.”

  “That’s too easy, Jatu.”

  “It is? Then tell me, tiny one, what is the answer?”

  “Do no harm to others, and let them do no harm to you.”

  Jatu laughed and, seeing the puzzled look Jinnarin gave him, said, “I’ve never heard it put quite that way before.”

  “What?”

  “Well, among the wise Men of the far lands to the east, they say, ‘Do not do to someone what you would not have done to you,’ or, ‘Do no harm to others.’”

  “Isn’t that what I just said?”

  “Oh no, Lady Jinnarin, what you said is altogether different. Your rule is quite a bit more—shall we say—active?”

  “How so, Jatu?”

  “Well, your rule begins the same as theirs—‘Do no harm to others’—but then you part company—wildly, I might add—for your rule says, ‘…and let them do no harm to you.’ To me, that implies should someone try to harm you, then it is all right for you to prevent them from doing so.”

  “So…?”

  Jatu laughed again. “I like your rule, Lady Jinnarin. The wise Men in the east could learn from you. You see, their rule implies that if you do no harm to others, then they will do no harm to you…and we all know that is not so at times. By their rule, should someone attempt to harm them, they either accept it or they run away. But your rule seems to say, ‘I won’t harm you unless you try to harm me first, in which case I will stop you.’”

  A look of enlightenment came over Jinnarin’s face. “Oh. Now I see what you mean. —But wait, Jatu. Their rule doesn’t prohibit someone from taking steps to prevent harm.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Yet it implies that it would be evil for you to harm someone to stop him from doing harm, no matter how evil he is. Hence, you may not cause harm to prevent harm. —I do not happen to agree, by the way, for at times the only way to stop evil is to destroy the evildoer.”

  They sat quietly for long moments watching the chanting crew clamber along the icy rigging, hammering on pulleys and lines, breaking loose the ice, glittering shards twinkling down to shatter upon the deck.

  Jinnarin stood. With a sigh she said, “I’m going to go talk to Alamar about this. He’ll want to argue, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  Jatu held up a hand to keep her from going just yet. “Why don’t you disarm him before he gets a chance?”

  “Disarm him? How?”

  “Change your rule slightly. Instead of focusing on harm, try to focus on doing good. Ask him if he believes that people should treat others as they themselves would wish to be treated. When he says yes, then you have him: he cannot then treat you shabbily unless he himself wishes to be treated the same.”

  Jinnarin smiled and clapped her hands. “Good, Jatu. Very good.” The Pysk turned on her heel and began hopping down the steps. When she reached the bottom, she stopped, as if in deep thought. Facing Jatu once more, she called up, “But what if he doesn’t agree that each person should treat others as he himself wishes to be treated?”

  Jatu laughed deeply. “Then, my Lady, you are on your own.”

  Sighing, Jinnarin turned and trudged onward.

  Alamar blearily gazed at Jinnarin. “Ha, Pysk, sought to trap me, eh?” The Mage reclined on his bunk, his back against the wall, a glass of brandy in his grasp, a nearly empty bottle at hand. “Well, this wily old fox is up to your tricks, Pish…tish, Prix…tricks, Pysk.”

  “Alamar, you’re drun—”

  “But you know, you have hit on three of the great thoughts of civiliza-civiliz-civilization. One, do no harm; two, do only good; three, treat me like I treat you. Not the same things, you know. Different. And do you know why?”

  “Well—” began Jinnarin.

  “I’ll tell you why,” interrupted Alamar, speaking now to the air instead of Jinnarin. “As far as good is concerned, one is more active than the other. And as far as evil is concerned, one is more active than the other.…Did I just say that? Well I meant it. Anyway, as far as getting along is concerned, one is more active than the other. You see, one is for good, one is against evil, and one is some of each.” Alamar paused to swill from his glass of brandy.

  Jinnarin took the opportunity to get in a word edgewise. “Isn’t being for good the same as being against evil, Alamar?”

  The Mage peered back down at the Pysk. “Oh, are you still here, Pish?”

  “Answer my question, Alamar. Aren’t they the same?”

  Alamar looked around, his eyes searching. “What?”

  “Being for good is the same as being against evil, isn’t it?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “No one. I just—”

  “There. You see?” said Alamar triumphantly. “I told you so.”

  “You told me what?” Jinnarin was ready to scream in frustration.

  “Doing good, preventing harm: of course they’re not the same. One tells you what to do; the other tells you what not to do: one would have you aid the victim, do only good; the other would have you fo
rgo badness, do no harm. Of course, there’s an extension to doing no harm—and that’s to prevent others from doing harm to others.”

  “But wait, Alamar, preventing harm is not the same as doing no harm.”

  “Right again, Picks. Doing no harm applies to yourself; preventing harm applies to others. In the one case, you leave others be; in the other case, you can kill whatever evil bastards you run across.”

  “They don’t have to be evil, Alamar. I mean, Farrix prevented harm to you by killing the boar, though it was not an evil creature.”

  “The Hèl it wasn’t!” cried Alamar. “Tried to kill me.”

  Jinnarin threw up her hands in exasperation. “Never mind. But say, what about the third way?”

  “What third way?”

  Jinnarin ground her teeth. “The some-of-each, as-you-would-be-treated way.”

  Alamar peered through his empty glass at the distorted image of Jinnarin. “It’s the best of all. Pick and choose, I say. If you only do good, you’ll do a lot of volunteering to help, such as aiding someone to harvest his grain. If you do no harm, you do nothing to hinder his harvest—leave him alone…let him get his grain by himself. If you prevent harm, you’ll spend a lot of time in dreadful danger, working in causes that you might not even understand, except that they prevent harm. But if you live and let live, if you treat others as you would be treated, well then, you can pick and choose when to help, when to leave ’em alone, and when to fight. —Best of all, I tell you; best of all.”

  “Hmm.” Jinnarin fell into thought. After a while a snore interrupted her musings. Alamar had passed out.

  Mid December came, the aurora flaming above, but no plumes were seen in the moonless dark. But on the night of the seventeenth—“There it is! There it is!” cried Jinnarin, pointing northwesterly, the Pysk dancing in excitement. “A plume! A streamer! Look! Look! Oh, don’t you see it?”

  Alamar whirled about, peering intently, muttering, “Visus.”

  Then the Mage called out, “Frizian! Frizian! To me!”

  The second officer came running forward, bo’s’n Reydeau at his side. “Mage Alamar?”

  Alamar pointed, his arm at a low, upward angle, west and north. “There is the plume. Get Aravan, get the crew, and get this ship moving.”

  Both Men stared where Alamar pointed, and Frizian said, “But I don’t see a thing.”

  “You don’t have the vision, lad. We do! Now hop to! We’ve spotted the quarry at last!”

  “But sir, it looks to me as if you are pointing inland. And if it’s landed on Rwn, well, sir, we cannot sail through rocks and soil.”

  “Damnation, Frizian, I’ve studied the stars all my life, and I know, y’ hear me, I know, where that plume came from and where it is like to land, and it’s well beyond the island. Now delay no longer. Either give the orders or get out of the way!”

  Frizian turned to Reydeau. “Pipe the captain and crew, bo’s’n. Ring the bell. ‘Tis time for the Eroean to cut the waves.”

  Moments later, as some of the Men scrambled up the ratlines and others haled on the halyards lifting the spars, Aravan and Jatu strode to the foredeck. “Where away?” asked the Elven captain.

  “There, Aravan, there!” said Jinnarin, pointing, her voice effervescent. “It’s gone now. But it was there. Oh, Aravan, a plume at last!”

  Aravan glanced at Alamar, the eld Mage saying, “My guess, Aravan, is that it came down a hundred miles or so beyond the far coast. Look. See the Serpent’s Tail, just now setting? Third star up? That’s the direction.”

  Aravan peered at the constellation. “I’ll mark the chart, Jatu, then thou wilt know where we sail.”

  Jatu nodded. “Aye, Captain, but that comes later. At the moment, Rwn stands in the way. We can’t sail across the land, but we can go around the isle. Widdershins or deosil, which do you choose?”

  Aravan glanced up at the pennons flying in the wind. “Deosil, Jatu, given the air.”

  As Jatu strode away, Aylis arrived. “Where?” she asked Jinnarin, gazing in the direction the Pysk pointed. “Did you see it, Father?”

  “Not without magesight.”

  Aylis glanced at the elder. “Well, Father, at least that’s something.”

  “Come,” said Aravan. “I will strike a line on the charts and show ye all where we are bound.”

  They followed the Elf to the captain’s lounge and gathered about the table, Jinnarin standing atop. Aravan selected a chart and rolled it out flat, holding down the corners with paper weights. “Here is Rwn, and here we are, in this cove on the southeastern quarter. Given Alamar’s estimate”—Aravan laid a straight edge from the cove across the center of Rwn and beyond, marking a point some hundred miles northwest of the isle—“and given that we can run twelve to thirteen knots in this wind”—with a pair of dividers, Aravan gauged the distance along the southern route they would sail—“we are some a day to a day and a quarter away.”

  Jinnarin, now standing on the map, looked up fretfully. “A full day?”

  Aravan nodded. “Or a bit more.”

  Alamar growled. “Nothing we can do about it, Pysk. It would take too much to call up the wind.”

  Aylis studied the chart. “We sail past Darda Glain, neh?”

  A glance at Aravan confirmed her words. “Seven or so hours from now.”

  Aylis looked back at the map. “Kairn, too, I see.”

  “You can put that right out of your mind, Daughter,” growled Alamar. “I won’t do it.”

  “Do what?” asked Jinnarin.

  “Be put off at Kairn, that’s what!” snapped Alamar.

  “But, Father—”

  “I said no, Daughter! Just when the quarry has been sighted, you want me to run away. Well, I said it before and I say it again: I won’t do it! I’m in this to the end, and that’s that!”

  Jinnarin stood in map center, her arms crossed, her jaw jutted out. “And I won’t be put off in Darda Glain! And that’s that, too!”

  “Oh, Jinnarin, I wasn’t thinking of putting you off,” protested Aylis.

  “Just me, eh?” barked Alamar.

  Jinnarin turned to Aylis. “Well, if you weren’t going to put me off, why did you ask about Darda Glain?” The Pysk pointed at the woodland marked on the southern marge of Rwn.

  “Just this, Jinnarin: it occurred to me that Farrix might be back home by now. And if so, then this mission takes on new meaning.”

  “Oh, if he were back home, then that would be wonderful,” exclaimed Jinnarin. “But he isn’t there, I’m certain, not as long as I’m having the dream.”

  Aylis held her hands palm up. “You assume, Jinnarin, that Farrix is the sender, and I agree most likely he is. Yet if we are wrong and Farrix is indeed in Darda Glain, then we would have to ask, if not Farrix, then who is sending you the nightmare…and why?”

  Leaning on his hands, Aravan looked across the table at Aylis. “What dost thou propose, chieran? If we would find the secret behind the plumes, we cannot delay at Darda Glain.”

  Aylis gestured negatively. “I was not thinking of stopping there, Aravan. Instead, when we are closest, I will use ebon water in a silver basin to search for him.”

  Jinnarin mouthed a silent O, then a frown came over her features. “But, Aylis, how will you know when you’ve found him? I mean, you don’t even know what he looks like.”

  Aylis smiled. “Oh, but I do, Jinnarin. After all, I saw him swimming naked in the pool of your dreams.”

  In the spectral auroral glow and by the light of the stars, in less than a mark they weighed anchor, bringing the Elvenship about, running southerly and then southwesterly and then swinging to the west as they sailed along the southern marge of Rwn. Yet the isle was roughly circular and one hundred and fifty miles across, or thereabouts, depending on where one measured, and so the trip to the waters beyond would cover in all some three hundred miles by sea. And so it would be a day or more before the Eroean would come into the region where Alamar gauged had fallen the pl
ume from the distant high heavens above.

  In the hours before dawn, Aravan awakened Aylis. “We sail nigh Darda Glain, chieran.”

  Aylis rummaged about, finding her small silver basin along with its bottle of jet ink and the candle in the silver holder. Lighting the candle, she stepped into the salon, where she discovered Jinnarin and Alamar awaiting her, the two of them yet awake having watched for additional plumes—none had been seen. Aylis set the silver bowl on the table and filled it with water, dropping four droplets of jet within, the water turning ebony. Aylis sat at the table and concentrated, peering deep in the surface, murmuring, “Patefac Farricem.”

  Jinnarin stood on the table next to the candle, her eyes wide and watching. Alamar stood across from Aylis, the eld Mage staring at the black water. Aravan stood behind Aylis, ready to support her should she faint again.

  “Patefac Farricem,” she repeated, gazing into the ebon mirror of the darkling water.

  Though she did not expect to, Jinnarin could see no change in the surface; even so, a sense of disappointment crept into her heart.

  A third time did Aylis call, “Patefac Farricem.” At last she looked up and shook her head, No.

  Jinnarin’s shoulders slumped, but before she could say aught, “Come, Pysk,” muttered Alamar. “Back on watch. There’s yet some aurora left, and we would not miss a plume…though we may have missed one already.”

  Dawn came and onward they sailed, beyond the town of Kairn, the City of Bells, eastward over the horizon from the course where they fared. Onward they went, the low chill Sun arcing its track across the cold winter sky, the Elvenship moving at a good clip through the grey waves, driven by a stiff winter wind. Darkness fell, yet on they ran, and just ere the mid of the moonless night they came at last into the waters one hundred miles northwest of Rwn.

  With a winter wind blowing, the crew stood upon the decks, sailors and warriors alike dressed in quilted, down-filled parkas and pants, the clothing proof against the brumal blow, the warriors armed and armored as well, for none knew what they might find. At the stern stood Jinnarin and Aylis and Alamar, father and daughter dressed like the crew in parkas and pants. To a lesser extent was Aravan affected by the chill and so the clothing he wore, though warm, was lighter. But Jinnarin was dressed in her usual garb, the Pysk seemingly untouched by the winter blast, as if being Feyan was somehow proof against the cold.