‘A mouse!’ Milla shrieked excitedly, ‘yes, let’s be a mouse if you want to!’
‘I do, Pepperweed.’ Alen clapped his hands. ‘Now, how do I know if Mark is sleeping?’
‘I’ll show you,’ Milla said, ‘but can we get a drink first?’
‘Of course, a drink.’ He took her hand and led her from the cabin, saying, ‘We’ll see if Hoyt or Kellin have something nice to drink.’
When they were gone, Steven asked, ‘Have you ever heard of any of this?’
‘It wasn’t my bailiwick,’ Gilmour said. ‘I’m sure Nerak and Pikan would have been involved in this sort of work, but my department was more concerned with education than magic. I had access to Lessek’s scroll library, as did Kantu, but last night was the first time either of us had ever read through these writings.’ He flipped absently through the spell book. ‘There’s so much more here than just the ash dream, but there must be a reason why Lessek organised this book around this particular spell.’
‘I can’t make most of it out,’ Steven admitted, ‘but if you think about how textbooks are organised, there’s generally a key theme around which the rest of the chapter is written and every time you learn something new, a bit of extra information is added, like building a wall.’
‘And they all relate to the main topic, the cornerstone idea.’
‘So do you think the ash dream was the key concept around which Lessek organised his work? Did his research spring from this one place, from the ability to see inside the minds of others as they slept?’ Steven was disappointed. He had developed a feeling about the Larion founder, and this theory didn’t live up to his idea of Lessek as a powerful yet compassionate magician and teacher.
‘I don’t know,’ Gilmour said, ‘but from what I know of Lessek and his work, if he did see the ash dream as a cornerstone construct of Larion magic, we have only seen it from the most narrow of perspectives.’
‘This dirty, wrong-feeling perspective that an otherwise intrusive and voyeuristic spell could be so important?’
‘Unless it was used for teaching, like you suggested last night,’ Gilmour said.
‘Unless that, I guess.’ Steven wasn’t convinced. They hadn’t delved deeply enough; something was missing; it was seventeen minutes past two in New York and he prayed they would decipher it all in time.
THE RUN SOUTH
‘Cast off that mooring line,’ shouted Captain Ford. It was ten past eight by Mark’s old watch and the Morning Star was still lashed to the two-aven buoy in Pellia Harbour. They had overstayed their welcome by an hour – he credited his generous bribe for that – but now time was running out. ‘Pel!’ he cried again, ‘don’t you see him coming? Cast it off now! I don’t want to be answering any more questions.’
In the fading twilight they could see the harbourmaster’s ketch approaching, slowly but inexorably making its way through the maze of boats moored off the wharf.
‘Aye aye, Captain,’ Pel shouted as he hurried to untie the brig-sloop. He waved a cheery thanks to the harbourmaster and called, ‘See you next time through!’
The Malakasian official gave a half-hearted salute and watched as the incoming tide carried the Morning Star upriver a ways. He considered something, then dug in his tunic for a tempine. ‘Come about, Jon,’ he finally ordered, peeling the fruit. ‘One more time around and then it’s home for both of us.’
‘Yes, sir,’ the boy replied, still looking at the brig-sloop. ‘Funny the way they’re just drifting, isn’t it?’
The harbourmaster chewed contentedly; another day was over. ‘They saw us coming, Jon, that’s all; he didn’t want to pay extra for going overtime. They’re drifting because they probably weren’t ready to get under way just yet.’
‘Yes, sir. Strange that he’s already setting topsails, though.’
‘What’s that?’ The harbourmaster turned to watch the brig-sloop set her tops and topmains. The ship was running upriver, showing no sign of tacking beyond the headlands. ‘But he said he had a long journey ahead of him.’
‘I heard him, too,’ the boy said, ‘but I don’t know how long a journey a boat that big can make along this river, maybe just up beyond the palace and back, and what’s that? A couple of days for them? Rutters! Look at them go! That’s a fast ship!’
The harbourmaster wasn’t listening. The captain, if he even was their captain, had been lying. ‘Jon, run us in to the wharf, now – hurry on with you!’
By one twenty-five the navy ship had tacked east and was running up on the Morning Star. She was visible only by her watchlights; probably a schooner with enough sheets on her to overtake a typhoon. The tide had run in, carrying the brig-sloop upriver for the past two avens, but as slack water approached, the winds slowed and the current pushed back against Captain Ford’s best efforts to run a beeline south from Pellia.
‘What time is it?’ he called from the quarterdeck.
‘It’s about one-thirty,’ Steven shouted back, ‘less than two avens before we can disappear.’
‘That’s too much time,’ he replied, checking their stern. The schooner was bearing down on them and within an aven, it would be within hailing distance, and at that point, there would be nothing he could do. For now, he could play dumb, claim that he had no idea the navy was after him – why would they be? He paged through viable excuses in his head: just running with the tide while he made repairs, testing a new rudder, breaking in a new crew; just about any excuse would free them, because they were doing nothing wrong, nor hauling anything illegal – apart from partisan sorcerers, a Welstar Palace fugitive and an outlaw text from Prince Malagon’s personal library, of course. With Steven and the others gone, however, it would be a different story: they could board him, search his ship, interrogate the crew and all he need to do was tell them, come on, make yourselves at home; we’re just testing this new rudder before we head for Orindale.
‘Two avens,’ he muttered to himself. ‘How, by all the gods of the Northern Forest, do we avoid being boarded for two avens?’
Pel climbed to the quarterdeck and reported, ‘That’s all the sheet we can get on her, Captain.’
‘Nice job, Pel,’ he said generously. ‘How long until slack tide?’
‘Half an aven, maybe less,’ the young sailor said, looking cold and weak with exhaustion. None of them had slept much over the past two days, but while the others were huddled together below, devising a plan to seal the Fold for ever, Pel had been up on deck, out in the wind and weather, keeping the Morning Star on course.
‘Half an aven,’ Captain Ford echoed, ‘good. That’s what I was thinking.’
‘We’re going to lose this tailwind, though,’ he added. ‘When the tide turns, the wind’ll change. This is no front blowing us south.’
‘I know, I know, but he’ll lose the wind, too.’
Less than half an aven later, the southern tidal flow slowed to a trickle, and with it went the Morning Star’s tailwind. Slack tide: on the coast it would have meant half an aven of dead water, but here, the Welstar River took over. Captain Ford was talking to himself as he considered the limp sheets and the following naval patrol. ‘One chance. That’s it. We have to turn east and run back north beyond the city, but we can’t look like we’re running, son of a raving whore!’
Still at the helm, he was glad to see Steven appear on deck. ‘Our list of excuses remains good,’ Captain Ford said. ‘We’re putting her through her paces before heading for the Northeast Channel. Why’d we turn and run downriver? Why not? We needed a bit of time and the tide was coming in, right? When we hit slack water, we turned and headed for the open sea. Simple, believable… and yet still likely to have me hanged and my boat pressed into the Malakasian navy.’
Now that it was the middle of the night, Steven could safely be on deck. ‘You’re fine,’ he said. ‘With us gone, you’ve got nothing to hide; just don’t do anything that looks suspicious.’
‘Easier said than done, my friend,’ Captain Ford replied. He felt the brig-sloop turning slowly beneath his boots. He checked the schooner, cursed the river and shouted, ‘Pel! Kellin! Garec! We’re coming about, let’s go! Let’s go! I want to make a hard left.’