"Gods, no!" said Jorian. "Off a lee shore like this, the more water around us the better. Keep her as far from shore as we are now, and wake me if aught happens."
Next day, the west wind continued, blowing little cotton-wool clouds across the deep-blue sky. Zerlik still complained of headache but summoned enough strength to eat. Jorian, with a scarf tied around his head in piratical fashion in place of his lost hat, took the tiller. As he guided the Flying Fish, he quizzed Zerlik about the language of Penembei. After an hour of explanation, he clapped a hand to his forehead.
"Gods and goddesses!" he cried. "How do little Penembians ever master so complicated a tongue? I can understand having indicative, interrogative, imperative, conditional, and subjunctive moods; but when you add to those the optative, causative, dubitative, reportative, accelerative, narrative, continuative, and—"
"But of course, my good Jorian! That is why we deem our speech superior to all others, for one can say exactly what one means. Now, to go over the aorist perfect reportative of the verb 'to sleep' again. In Novarian you would say: 'They say that I used to sleep' but in Penembic we do all that with a single word—"
"A single word with fifty-three suffixes," growled Jorian. Later he said: "Perhaps you'd better merely teach me common expressions, like 'Good morning' and 'How much?' I used to think myself a fair linguist; but your grammar baffles me."
"Ah, but once you learn the rules, you have but to follow them to speak correctly. There is none of those irregularities and exceptions that make your Novarian tongue so maddening."
By mid-afternoon, the wind and the sea had moderated. Feeling better, Zerlik moved about, learning the spars, the lines, and the other parts of the ship.
"I shall be a true mariner yet!" he exclaimed in a rush of enthusiasm. Standing on the gunwale abeam of the mizzenmast, he burst into the song from The Good Ship Petticoat As he reached the final "oh!" he let go the mizzen stay to make a dramatic gesture. At that instant, the Flying Fish lurched to a large wave. With a yell of dismay, Zerlik fell into the sea.
"By Vaisus' brazen arse!" cried Jorian as he put the helm down. The Flying Fish turned into the wind, lost way, and luffed. Jorian gathered up the rope he had taken from the Xylarians, belayed one end to a cleat, and hurled the rest of it to Zerlik, whose head bobbed into sight and out again with the rise and fall of the waves.
With the third cast, Zerlik got his hands on the rope. Jorian hauled him by the slack of his fisherman's blouse up over the counter. While Zerlik, bent into a knot of misery, retched, coughed, spat, and sneezed,
Jorian said: "That'll teach you to keep a grip on something all the time you're out of the cockpit! Remember the rule: one hand for yourself, one for the ship."
"Ghrlp," said Zerlik.
The wind fell. The sun set behind a bank of fog, which rolled in from the sea. Jorian said:
"We shall be becalmed in that fog. We'd better head into shore and anchor."
An hour later, as the first tendrils of fog drifted past the Flying Fish, Jorian dropped anchor and furled sail. The wind died. The waves became smooth little oily swells, just big enough to rock the Flying Fish gently. Jorian and Zerlik bailed out the bilge water with sponge and bucket.
When daylight vanished, utter darkness settled down, since the moon did not rise until hours after sunset. Jorian lit a small lanthorn. When he and his companion tired of language lessons, they played skillet by the feeble light. Jorian won several marks.
"Never bluff more than once at a sitting," he said. "Would you like me to take first watch?"
"Nay; I could not sleep, with all the salt water I have swallowed."
Later, Jorian was awakened. Zerlik whispered: "I hear something!" Yawning and rubbing his eyes, Jorian ducked out of the cabin. A pearly opalescence in the fog showed that the moon had risen. The ocean was still as a pond, so that Jorian could not tell direction.
The sound was a rhythmic thump. Jorian, listening, said: "Galley oars."
"Whose galley?"
Jorian shrugged. "Belike Ir; belike Xylar; belike Algarthian pirates."
"What were the galleys of Ir or Xylar doing out in this murk?"
"I know not. The sea power of both states is at ebb—Ir because their pinchpenny Syndicate won't keep up their fleet; Xylar because they don't have me to keep 'em on their toes. Hence I surmise that all the ships of both are snug in harbor, and that the oars we hear are piratical."
"I should think the Algarthians would fear running aground as much as we do."
"They have wizards whose second sight enables them to warn their ships away from rocks and shoals. They can also see storms and fogs approaching from afar. Now let's be quiet, lest they hear us."
"A Penembic gentleman," muttered Zerlik, "would scorn to let such scum frighten him into silence."
"Be as knightly as you please, when you're on your own. Just now, 'tis my skin, too—as you remarked the other day. Since I am neither a Penembian nor a gentleman, I prefer saving my hide to parading my courage. Now shut up."
"You ought not to speak to me like that—" began Zerlik indignantly, but Jorian shot him so fierce a look that he subsided.
The sound of the oars grew louder. Mingled with them was the splash of the oar blades, the tap of the coxswain's drum, and an occasional snatch of speech. Jorian cocked an ear.
"I cannot quite make out their language," he breathed.
The sounds receded and died. Zerlik said: "May we speak, now?"
"I think so."
"Well, if these Algarthian wizards can foresee the weather, why cannot they control it?"
"Seeing is one thing; doing, quite another. There have been but few wizards who could control the winds and the waves, and their efforts have gone awry as often as not. Take the case of King Fusinian and the tides."
"What story is this?"
Jorian settled himself. "Fusinian was a former king of my native Kortoli. A son of Filoman the Well-Meaning, he was called Fusinian the Fox on account of his small stature, agility, and quickness of wit.
"Once, King Fusinian invited the leading members of his court to a picnic on the beach of Sigrum, a few leagues from Kortoli City, where the waves of the Inner Sea break on the silvery sands. A fine beach for picnicking, swimming, and like amusements it is. The beach lies in a long curve at the foot of a low bluff. Thither went Fusinian, with his lovely queen Thanuda and the royal children, and his high officers of state with their wives and children, too.
"Now, one of the guests was Fusinian's distant cousin Forvil, then enjoying a sinecure as curator of the royal art gallery. Being fat and lazy, Forvil impressed those who knew him—including the king—as a harmless nonentity. But the fact was that Forvil cherished royal ambitions of his own and, at the time of the picnic, had already begun to put forth tendrils of intrigue.
"In Fusinian's presence, however, the Honorable Forvil was full of unctuous flattery. This time he outdid himself, for he said: 'Your Majesty, your servants have placed the picnic chairs and tables where the rising tide will inundate us all'
" 'Really?' said Fusinian, staring. 'By Zevatas, I do believe you're right! I shall order all this gear moved to higher ground forthwith.'
" 'Oh, sire, that will not be needed,' quoth Fbrvil. "So great are Your Serene Majesty's powers that you have but to command the tides, and they will obey you.' For the tides in the Inner Sea, while smaller than those along this coast, are still big enough to drench a crew of picnickers who carelessly site their feast below the high-water mark.