Slow Turns The World (14 page)

Torrin went ashore briefly and found that every stone and block was hot to his touch.  The city had passed through the burning lands and only now had men returned to claim their property.  It was, as Trabbir had said, a time of much disagreement as recently arrived citizens argued with others, furiously waving faded deeds of ownership.  There were robed officials, agents of the city, who were busy trying to settle such disputes and ever present were the troops of the empire, clad in leather and silver.

Before they left Iranthrir there was a curious incident.  Torrin had returned to the ship and the last few water barrels were being hauled onboard.  He walked with Valhad on the deck, telling him of what he had seen in the city when they heard a shout from the water.  Looking down they saw an open boat had pulled alongside.  Within were a man and a younger boy, and at their feet, many crabs and shellfish, freshly caught.   

“Hey,” the man shouted up, “do you want some good eating?  Here is a fine crab.”

Torrin, threw a small coin into the boat, then caught and juggled the snapping crab that was thrown up in exchange.  Some more of the crew gathered round and shouted down.

“Have you another crab for us?”

“Only one, but we will catch more!”

The boy tied a length of cord to his ankle and plunged from the boat.  He swam down into the deep clear water, a shimmering shrinking shape.  He did not reappear for some time; much longer than Torrin could have held his breath.  Then he popped up beaming, waving a wriggling crab above his head and the crew cheered for more.
 
He dived again, returned with another crab, then plunged once more into the water.  Time passed and the man on the boat grew anxious.  He pulled on the length of cord, the inert shape of the boy rose up through the water and he was dragged, lifeless, upon the boat.  The crew mumbled sadly and shook their heads.  The boy was dead, he had tried too hard to impress them and had dived too deep too long.  But the man on the boat did something strange.  He tilted back the head of the drowned boy and placed his mouth over the lifeless blue lips.  Then he blew air into the boy's lungs.  The chest rose and fell several times.

“What's he doing?” said one of the crew.

“I've heard of this,” said another, “it's an art these divers learn, to breathe life back into the drowned.”

The boy convulsed.  He began to cough and retch. Within a short while he sat up and managed a weak smile at the row of faces above. The crew cheered, and hurried off to enjoy their crabmeat before the order to sail came.

They sailed northwest.  The crew became uneasy as rumour passed from man to man.  There was talk of the rim of storms, and the burning lands.   The sun rose higher in the sky as the ragged coastline they were following changed its hue to become the colour of old parchment.   The distant hills shimmered in rising plumes of heat, but the wind was kind and blew them swiftly onwards.  They passed through a narrow strait where they could see more closely the land around them.    It was scorched, barren, devoid of all living things except for the scattered rianna trees.     Torrin had never seen them in this form, standing black and naked like the dead remnants of a forest fire.   But there were buds on the tips of the bare twigs that reached towards the cruel sun and soon there would be life, as the land cooled and burst into green abundance.  There were people too.  Torrin, disbelieving, saw a small group, robed in white, riding astride strange animals.  Even here in these parched lands men found a way to survive.  Torrin wondered if they were travelling to cooler lands, or if they spent all their lives in this burning realm, walking as all tribes must, and keeping the sun high in the sky.

On the horizon ahead of them, distant anvil clouds grew upon the air, became dark and brooding, and then flickered brightly from within.  His Lordship emerged from his cabin and looked out from the bows at these storms that constantly grew, erupted and died.  Torrin came beside him.

“What is this rim of storms, Lord?” he asked.

“The air of the world is drawn into the centre, into the burning lands.   That is why we are carried so well by the wind.  Coming from all sides it can only then rise upwards, and as it does so the storms develop.   That is the way of it Vasagi, according to the wise man I told you of.”

“The wise man who was killed, Lord, for saying that the world circles the sun?”

“The same man.  He explained many of the things we see around us; a great thinker, but still a fool.  All his wisdom is condemned, his writings burnt.”

“Are you so afraid that a single crack in the stones that your world is built upon will bring all down in ruin? Is that how it should be then, Lord, all that threatens must be destroyed, be it worthy or true?”

“Not all destroyed, Vasagi, I am permitted copies of his work.  We need to know our enemies better than our friends.”

“Yes Lord, and also which is which.”

The storms grew nearer and the bass rumble of thunder grumbled through the ship.  The wind became squally, turbulent, and rocked the vessel upon a swelling sea.  All the crew were busy, trimming sail and lashing down every item that might break loose.  Immense plumes of cloud bubbled into the sky and formed a roof above them, blotting out the sun.  It became cooler, which was a blessing, but darker too; a gloom filled with menace.  The wind died, the gusts subsiding, the sea flattening.  The Captain sent men aloft to gather in the sail while others filed down to the waiting treadmills.  The paddle wheel began its circling, pushing them noisily onwards on the flat calm water.  All were waiting, glancing with troubled sombre eyes at the ever-blackening pall of cloud that stretched above them, and then the lightning flashed.

The storm lasted for two turns.  Orders bellowed out over the roar of wind but were lost amongst the titanic and almost continuous crashes of thunder.  The ship rolled and pitched, water surging across the decks in waist deep waves, while timbers creaked and groaned as if under torture.  Men hurried from task to task, sealing hatches, lashing down cargo, hammering and wedging balks of wood where the timber of the ship was threatening to split or crack.  On the treadmills the men swayed and stumbled with every lurching, but they laboured on and drove the ship through the storm.  Then, quite suddenly, it was passed.  The storm clouds were behind them and the sun burned so high in the sky that men cast no shadow around them.  There was a coastline to the south that they followed.  They could see parched and sun bleached land stretching away into a shimmering haze.  The wind was gone.  A new torment began.

They were in the burning lands at the centre of the world, where the sun blazed constantly, where no man or beast could live.    The crew did not venture often onto the deck now.  To stand in the sun's glare was to be slowly roasted like some spitted joint of meat.  There were short dreaded shifts aloft, on lookout, or at the ships wheel, made only possible by the sunshades of canvas that were strung above the deck.  In the treadmill chamber the heat was stifling and men could only work a short while.  As each shift changed they tumbled out and lay wet with sweat upon the floor.  A ration of water was gulped down; a single ladle for each man was permitted, and no more.   There was more than one fight when an exhausted man stumbling from the treadmill knocked the ladle from another's hand.  Then there was the first death from heat, thirst and exhaustion.   Others followed.

They rounded a headland and followed the coast south towards new storms that flickered on the horizon.  Their course had taken them through a tiny corner of the burning lands, still far from the centre where the heat was greatest.  They passed at last under a roof of cloud and the cruel sun became hidden and cooled.  Their second passage through the rim of storms was less severe, but still hard enough, and another man was lost when a wave broke over the ship and carried him away.  Finally, the storms were passed and an open sea lay before them.

For two moons they sailed on.  They passed land, chains of islands, where dark-skinned people paddled canoes to meet them and supplied fish, fresh fruits and water.  West and north they sailed until they came at last to the Straits of Nencuz.  There were many ships crossing the straits in both directions and all were of the same type; low, sleek and driven by twenty pairs of long oars.  As they drew closer other things became visible.  There were bodies floating in the water spiked with arrows and slashed by blades.  Ship's timbers and other flotsam bobbed upon the waves, and close to the shore a beached hulk blazed and smoked.  They could see now many tents and canopies upon both shores and a great mass of black-skinned people.  The swift open ships that crossed from east to west were packed full of dark bodies, the ships returning were empty, except for the rowers, who they could see now were fair skinned and blond.  His Lordship came upon the deck as the ships drew close and hailed a passing vessel.

“I beg an audience with the King of the Qualzes.”

“His ship is there,” was the reply from a tall man standing at the prow, his long fair hair billowing in the breeze.  They looked and saw a ship greater than the others with double the number of oars and a high raised deck in the centre.  They crossed its path and it slowed, drawing alongside.  Upon the high deck, seated upon a throne was a fierce looking man who eyed them suspiciously.  

“Your Highness, I beg an audience,” His Lordship called out.  “I have some cargo which may be of interest to you.”

“Have you now?” the king called back.  “Then perhaps I shall take it before we burn your ship.  Only our ships sail these straits until the work is done; all others are forbidden.  Did you not see what became of those who defied this order?”

“Forgive us, Highness.  We do not come here to steal any trade from you.  The cargo we carry is but a token of what might become yours.  Sink our ship and you shall never know what might have been.”

His Lordship threw a pouch, which landed near the king's feet and spilled glittering coins upon the deck.

“You may come aboard,” said the king.

His Lordship ordered several cases to be taken from the hold.  They were lowered into a small boat in which he and Torrin crossed to the king's ship.  Even as they stepped aboard, and the cargo was hauled on deck, the ranks of oarsman began to move as one.  They were conducted to the king; their own ship growing distant.

“You will forgive me if we continue in our work,” said the king.  Behind him stood a tall, powerful bodyguard who stared relentlessly at Torrin with a hungry smile.

“Of course, Highness.  May the cargo from my ship be brought to you?”

The cases were carried forward in front of the king.

“I will speak now of a work that could bring you great wealth,” said His Lordship.  “But I would ask that we talk alone.”

The king nodded and dispatched his bodyguard from the raised deck.  Torrin went too, past the rows of labouring oarsman, towards the bows.  They were fast approaching a harbour where the many black-skinned people, men and women, young and old, waited upon the quay.  Anther ship was already berthed and the black tribe was filing onboard.  Amongst the crowd were the blonde warriors who shouted and bullied, driving the people like frightened animals.  In the water another mutilated body floated past.  The king's bodyguard stood close by and smiled his smile.

“We don't like too much competition when we trade,” he sneered.  “These fools you see floating in the water offered these people cheaper passage than ours; very unwise, very bad business.  They pay us well for the crossing; not that they have much choice.  The sun is rising and this land will burn.  They'll burn with it if they can't cross.  We are the ferrymen now.  We set the price.”

“And can they all pay it?” asked Torrin.

“Those that can't stay where they are.  They get quite desperate, especially the mothers with children.  What they won’t do for a passage…”  

Torrin looked back at the raised deck.  The king and His Lordship had been looking at maps but now some of the boxes were opened to reveal crossbows and suits of mail.  When another much heavier chest was opened the king looked within and smiled greedily.  More discussion followed; more maps were spread before them.  They seemed to have struck a bargain when His Lordship made some new and unexpected proposition.  The King looked over his shoulder to where their own ship drifted in the channel.  He seemed surprised, but nodded in agreement.  Torrin did not know what bargains had been made between them but he was left with a cold feeling that some evil scheme was made.   The audience ended, Torrin and His Lordship left the cargo with the king and crossed back to their own waiting ship.

“Did your audience with the king go well, my Lord?” asked Torrin.

“I had no audience with any King, Vasagi.  We were never here.  Do you understand?”

“I understand very well, Lord.”

They rowed on silently for a while.

“Can you say where we will go now, Lord?”

“Yes, Vasagi, I can.  To the summit of the world; the centre of all things.  To Etoradom.”

They sailed north for two moons towards the crown of the world and the sun lowered in the sky until it shone cool and red once more.  Nearly at the journey’s end they docked briefly at the ship’s homeport which was the city called Hirege.  A great castle with cliff-high walls brooded over the harbour and from the highest tower fluttered the emblem of Etoradom.  There were many ships berthed at the quay, several like their own with man-powered paddle wheels.  There were shouts of greeting from the decks of those vessels, and soon after several women ran onto the harbour wall, waving emotionally at husbands and lovers onboard.  As the ship docked and men leapt ashore to embrace their loved ones, Torrin looked up at the castle which seemed to fill the sky.

“So are we in the realm of Etoradom?” he asked Trabbir.

“Opinion is divided,” his friend replied with a smile.  “Etoradom would say not; that they are here only under a treaty of protection and that this land is governed by its own King.  They are most skilled at saying what you see is not what you see, and always have a verse of the Text to prove themselves right.”