Ta-hoding employed his fanciest maneuvering to turn the ship to starboard once her stern had cleared the wall. As the icerigger began to edge slowly around the sharp rightward bend in the abyss, a cry of dismay sounded from the bowsprit lookout. Other cries sounded from the bow.
Intending to discuss the difficulties of negotiating the slim channel with Ta-hoding, Ethan heard the shouts, stopped, and reversed his course. By the time he readied the bow, the Slanderscree had come to a halt. A glance showed the cause of the crew’s consternation.
Around the canyon headland and before them lay a second wall. It looked just as impregnable and well-tranned as the one behind them. There was a double gate in it, and the gate was closed.
A creaking noise turned his attention to the stern. Working frantically, the guards on the first wall had succeeded in closing the portal they’d just passed through, after having oiled the stone slides to keep the ponderous gates from screeching and warning the icerigger’s crew. Now they were draping thick green-red cables across the gate and securing them to the bracketing towers. Spears, lances, and bows formed a threatening fringe along the wall top. Expectant yellow eyes gleamed behind them, shining brightly in the dim canyon light of afternoon.
“So much for local hospitality.” September studied a furious Sir Hunnar. The knight was showing clenched teeth, examining the armed walls, instinctively gauging an opponent’s strength. “Much as it pains me to admit it, friend Hunnar, I’m tempted to come ’round to your way of thinking. First Poyolavomaar and now here. Doesn’t look like Tran folk even like to speculate on cooperatin’.”
“Raft coming!” called the mizzen lookout, stimulating a rush toward the stern. Everyone clustered at the icerigger’s widest point, over the starboard stern runner.
A very small icecraft was fluttering toward the Slanderscree from behind, having emerged from a dock attached to the inside of the first wall. It looked like a brown leaf scudding uncertainly across the hard whiteness. Three Tran manned it: one steering, one handling the single sail, the last standing at the bow-point gazing curiously at the icerigger which towered above him.
One of the sailors peering over the railing growled. “They carry no weapons.”
“And fly no pennant,” said Hunnar, adding admiringly: “They said they would let us past this gate, and that we would talk. Talk we will, though ’tis not the setting for a parley I would prefer.” He glanced over at one of the assistant mates. “Vasen, what are our chances of backing sail and breaking through that gate?”
The mate replied as if he’d already considered the question carefully, “As thick as the wall is,” Sir Hunnar, I would care not to try. We might crack the wooden gates despite lack of room to build up proper speed. But the pika-pina cables appear well secured to the stone towers. They would not snap, and I would not care to chance pulling their moorings free from the wall.” He thought a moment before speaking further.
“With the aid of our crossbows and the light weapons of our human friends, we could perchance overpower the guards on the wall. But we would still have to unkey and drop the cables barring our retreat.” He gestured toward the bow and the second wall up canyon. “I cannot judge how many soldiers might be waiting out of sight behind that wall. They could attack us from behind and overwhelm us with numbers.” He executed a Tran gesture of disappointed negativity. “’Twould be prudent to talk first. We can then always slit the envoy’s throat before attempting to escape.”
Hunnar responded with a snarl. He disliked having to wait. Patience was not a Tran trait. The humans had chided him about that before. Well, he could be as patient as any hairless human, and would chat pleasantly and politely with this envoy.
As Vasen said, they could always cut his throat later.
Someone finally thought to throw over a boarding ladder. It clattered against the side of the icerigger. The tiny raft pulled up alongside. Clasping the ladder cables in both hands, the Tran in the bow climbed toward them, moving smoothly for a biped balancing awkwardly on three sharp chiv instead of a flat foot.
Then the Tran was standing on the deck, confronting half a hundred hostile stares with an aplomb and air of assurance Ethan could only admire.
He was skinny to the point of emaciation, being no broader than Ethan himself, though he appeared healthy enough. After surveying his audience with a rigorous half-smile, his gaze settled on the three humans. Double eyelids blinked against winddriven particles of ice.
“’Tis true? You are truly from a world other than this?”
“It’s so,” Ethan shot back. “We prefer not to be thought of as strangers, however. We’d much rather be thought of as friends, though appearances suggest you feel otherwise.”
“Contraryso, offworlder. We would wish it similarly. I hight Polos Mirmib, Royal Advisor and Guardian of the Gate.”
“Which gate?” Hunnar’s tone made his response sound like much more than a question. “The one we were invited to pass safely through, or the one that has been used to entrap us?”
“The gate to Moulokin, of course,” replied Polos, appearing unaffected by Hunnar’s hostility and avoiding his insinuations diplomatically. “That is a gate made not of stone or wood, but a gate mostly of the mind.”
A belligerent voice sounded from close by Hunnar: Suaxus-dal-Jagger. “I’d heard that the Moulokinese were famed as shipbuilders, not philosophers.”
Mirmib executed a smile. “Recreational metaphors are a personal affectation. Do not ascribe such wordplay to my people as a whole. They are for the most part stolid, honest, not especially imaginative folk, who wish nothing more of life than to enjoy a good day’s work, a hearty meal and warm fire at day’s end, and the love of their mates between days.”
His voice took on a slight sharpness as he continued. “To outsiders, Tran and otherwise, these things may seem a peasant’s way of life, simple and uninspiring. We enjoy being uncomplicated.” The sharpness disappeared. “Enjoy we also guests, visitors who bring to us news of the strange places to which we of Moulokin rarely venture.”
“Because you’re afraid to?” challenged a voice from up in the rigging. A mate shushed the sailor.
Mirmib had the control as well as the diction of a diplomat. He did not grow angry, as he would have been justified in doing. “We do not travel because we find in the stories travelers tell to us all we wish to know of far regions. As none we are told of sound superior to fair Moulokin, we see no reason to leave it. Better to remain and let others perform the arduous task of travel for us.”
His gaze focused on Ethan. “As travelers from a place so far distant I cannot comprehend it, you must have still more exciting tales to tell us.” Ethan started to reply, but Mirmib raised a paw to forestall him.
“Before that can be done, before we can greet you freely as guests and friends, that simple way of life I have described to you must be insured against violent disruption. So that the second gate may be opened to admit you to our home, to my home, I would ask that you pile your weapons here before me where they can be collected and stored safe for you by the gate patrol, to await your departure.”
He added a few additional words, but they were drowned out by the angry and uncertain outcry this request produced among the sailors who had gathered about.
XII