Velindre shivered involuntarily and startled them all by inadvertently pulling so hard on one steering oar that the Zaise lurched sideways. 'There's a river mouth,' she explained. 'An eddy where the salt water meets the sweet surprised me.'
Scant moments later, the coastline took a sharp turn away from them, subsiding into mud flats and sandbanks. A silt-laden river oozed sluggishly into the sea through countless channels. Sere grasses clung insecurely to
patches of dry ground on the larger hummocks, sown by seeds blown from the parched scrub lining the true river banks far away in the distance. Further inland, a line of darker green promised more substantial vegetation. Beyond that, the land rose in a sweep of dun rock streaked with countless mossy, leafy hues, finally dissolving into a blur ultimately topped with the clouds that clung to awesome mountainous heights deep inland.
'Is this navigable?' Kheda asked.
'Just about.' Velindre's hazel eyes were bright with anticipation.
'If we can get even a little way inland, I can try to understand the rocks and the fires underlying this place.' Naldeth's equally unnerving eagerness made him look more boyish than ever.
'Any people living here will be near the river.' Risala didn't share the wizards' enthusiasm.
'Where there's water and food and fuel,' agreed Kheda, unwelcome tension crawling up his spine.
'Velindre, what can you do to hide us?' Risala asked. 'Without alerting any wild wizard hereabouts,' she added tersely.
Kheda didn't speak, straining his eyes as he searched for any sign of movement ashore beyond the wind stirring the vegetation.
If we do run into something we dare not tackle, the wizards' magic can carry us all the way back to the Archipelago. That's what they 've promised time and again. Which would mean this whole voyage and all my lies and contrivances to make it will have been utterly in vain. Would that be best, just to go home and put all this behind me?
Velindre glanced at Naldeth. 'Can you draw the haze rising off the land out across the water?'
'I'll make us no more than a reflection of mudflats distorted by the light,' the youthful mage promised.
Velindre gestured at the masts and the white canvas flapped and cracked and furled itself to leave only the aft-mast rigged with half its sail. The steady wind coming off the ocean pushed the Zaise steadily up the river, scorning the feeble current.
Leaving the braided rivulets and sand bars to the white-crested waves rushing in from the open water, the river gradually collected itself into a broad, curling channel. Mudflats sprawled on either side between the red-stained water and the grass-topped sandy banks some way in the distance. Low islands broke through the flow in the bends on either side, crowned with tangled greenery and crowded with ungainly brown birds chattering peaceably among themselves and preening their ragged feathers with heavy black bills.
If there's nothing to disturb them, does that mean there's nothing to threaten us? But if we scare the birds up, who or what will see them take flight?
'Kheda, over there!' Risala was keeping a lookout on the other side of the stern platform.
Naldeth leaned over the rail, intent on whatever it was. 'I see it.'
'What is it?' Kheda staggered as the Zaise scraped on a hidden sand bar and the deck rocked violently.
The wash from the Zaise's hull slopped over the slick mud. The brown birds closest at hand erupted into the air in a raucous cacophony of hoarse squawking and rattling wings.
Does that serve me right, for tempting the future?
Kheda dismissed such foolishness. 'Risala, what is it?'
She pointed. 'Over there, by that dead tree.'
A mighty bole was half-buried in the mud where some flood had wedged it into the inadequate gap between two sandbanks. Velindre eased the Zaise closer with a deft ' hand on the intricate ropes governing the half-sail. The '
enormous trunk was damp and split, a twisted tangle of dry, grey roots reaching back upstream.
Naldeth studied the indistinct grey-green cloaking the distant heights inland. 'There must be sizeable forests somewhere.'
'Where the savages fell trees for their boats,' Kheda said grimly.
They could all see two hollowed-out, pointed logs wedged in among the splintered roots, half-hidden in a wash of mud. Some of the brown birds settled on the sandbank again, rattling their black bills as they jostled each other.
'They used fire to char out the middle.' Naldeth was leaning over the rail to look more closely at the log boats.
'Magical or natural?' Velindre asked instantly.
'Natural.' Naldeth sounded a trifle disappointed.
Kheda could see black burn marks that had obstinately resisted the river's scouring. 'Was there any trace of fire on that log boat we found on the drowned isle?'
'None.' Naldeth was certain.
Kheda looked inland as the Zaise drifted past a broad curve of bank and a new vista opened up. 'If they were made differently, were they made by different people?'
'Naldeth, is that smoke?' Risala asked abruptly.
Kheda located the faint grey smear crossing the darkness of the distant trees as the young wizard straightened up and looked inland.
'You've got good eyes.' Naldeth frowned. 'Yes, it's fire, natural fire. The grass is burning.'
'What starts a grass fire under a blue sky without a cloud to be seen?' Risala wondered aloud. 'It has to be wild men.'
Kheda took a resolute breath. 'I had better go ashore and see what I can find out.'
'Let me scry—' Velindre hesitated.
'If there's anyone mageborn out there, they'll be on us in a trice,' Naldeth objected. He turned to Kheda. 'I'll come with you.'
'No.' Kheda pulled his tunic over his head before stripping off his trousers. He wound them deftly into a loincloth, leaving his long legs bare, his skin dark against the pale cotton. 'I can look like them, from a distance at least. You can't.'
Not with your pale barbarian skin, even if you had both of your legs intact.
'I can.' Risala pulled her red tunic off over her head, blue gaze defiant as she emerged, her black hair tousled.
'Four eyes are better than two,' Velindre agreed. 'We'll sit tight and feel for any tremors in the elements that might betray some mage ashore to us, won't we, Naldeth?'
'Yes, of course.' The young wizard swallowed and looked away from Risala's bared breasts.
Velindre was scanning the unhelpfully low-lying mudflats and sandbanks. 'We'll go just a little further upstream.' She pointed towards a sizeable sandbank huddled in the crook of a sharp meander. 'If you can't see us, you can see that.'
Dragging his gaze from Risala again as she wound her own trousers round her hips, the young mage addressed Kheda. 'What do you intend doing if you trip over some wild wizard and he throws a handful of fire at you?'
'I don't intend getting close enough to trip over anyone.' Kheda slid down the ladder to the main deck and laid his hand on the door to the stern cabin. 'And their mages have always worn paint or feathers or some such. As soon as we catch sight of anything like that, we'll be on our way back.'
'Do you have your star circle?' Velindre pulled a small brass sun column from her pocket, flicked up the ivory vane and turned it to the brilliant sun. The shadow fell
just short of one of the incised curves swooping down around the stem of the instrument. 'If you're not back by the next arc, I'll scry for you and if necessary I'll fetch you back here with magic' She grinned at Kheda. 'If that brings some wild wizard or dragon down on us, then we'll just have to scurry back to Chazen or Hadrumal.'
'Are you taking a sword?' Risala was tucking her sheathed dagger securely into her improvised loincloth. 'And I'll want a hacking blade for anything we might trip over in that grass.'