Most of Malthus' Company spent their time belowdecks, closeted in close council. For the nonce, Carfax was forgotten, reckoned harmless. Only Malthus' binding held him, circumferencing his mind even as it loosened his tongue.
Fat Thulu stood in the prow, holding his digging-stick and keening exuberant songs. It got on Carfax's nerves.
"What does he do?" he snapped at Dani.
"He charts the ways." The young Yarru was surprised. "The ways of water, fresh water, as it flows beneath the sea's floor. Do your people not do the same?"
"No, they don't." Carfax thought of home, of Staccia, where the leaping rivers of Neheris ran silver-bright and a thousand blue lakes reflected the summer sky. No need, there, to chart abundance. "Dani, why are you here?"
"To save the world." Gravely, Dani touched the flask at his throat. "It is necessary. Malthus said so."
"He said so." Carfax regarded him. "Then why does he not invite you belowdecks, to take part in his counsel? Why does he withhold his plan from you?"
There was doubt in the boy's eyes, a faint shadow of it. "He says there are things it is better I do not know. That a choice comes I must make untainted. Malthus is one of the Wise, Carfax. Even my elders said so. He would not lie to me. I must trust him."
"Oh, Dani!" He laughed; he couldn't help it. Bitter laughter, bitter tears. Carfax wiped his stinging eyes. "Oh, Dani, do you think so? Malthus uses you, boy; uses you unwitting. This water—" Reaching out, he grasped the flask threaded around the boy's neck and found it heavy, impossibly heavy, wrenching his wrist and driving him to his knees on the planked deck. "Dani!"
"Let it go!" Hobard of Malumdoorn strode across the deck to strike his hand away, lip curling. "Have you learned nothing, Staccian?"
"Oh, but I have." Cradling his aching hand, Carfax looked from one to the other. "It's the Water of Life the boy bears, isn't it? And no one else can carry it." Laughing and hiccoughing, he fought to catch his breath. "Why else would you bring him?" he gasped. "What virtues does it have, I wonder? No, no, let me guess!"
A dark shadow loomed over the deck.
"Staccian," a deep, accented voice rumbled.
Craning his neck, Carfax saw fat Thulu's face blotting out the sun, his broad belly casting shade. One large hand clasped his digging-stick, and sweat glistened oily on his wide nose. "You." Carfax pointed at him. "You're just here on sufferance, aren't you? A package deal, your presence endured for the boy's cooperation. You're a laughingstock, fat one! The Wise would sooner invite a donkey into their counsels than you!"
"It may be," Thulu said calmly, squatting on his massive hams.
Carfax stared at him. Throwing up his hands in disgust, Hobard of Malumdoorn stalked away. The Dwarf crew whispered and shrugged among themselves, going about their business with disinterested competence. Dani hovered behind his uncle's shoulder, a frown of concentration on his brow. "And you don't care?" Carfax said at last. "You don't care that they disdain you? You don't care, in all their wisdom, that they may be wrong?"
"Does it matter?" Propping chin on fist, Thulu regarded him. "There is wisdom, and there is wisdom. Dani is the Bearer, and his choice is his own. I am here to safeguard it. That is all."
Sunlight glinted dully on the clay flask that hung about the boy's neck.
Water.
It was the Water of Life, and it could make a dead branch burst into green leaf like a sapling. What else could it do?
When the unknown is made known, when the lost weapon is found, when the marrow-fire is quenched…
Ushahin! Dreamspinner! Alone and untutored in the ways of magic, Carfax flung his desperate thoughts out onto the wind. Encountering the circumference of Malthus' will, his call rebounded, echoing in his aching skull like thunder in an empty gorge, only the seagulls answering with raucous, hollow cries.
Huddled on the deck, he clutched his head and wept.
SORCERESS.
A whisper of thought along the ancient Ways of the Marasoumië.
Lilias waited in the cavern, composed and steady, watching the node-light surge, fitful and red, answering pulses traveling eastward along the branching Ways. One was coming, one of the Branded.
This time, she was ready.
Beshtanag was ready.
A wall of stone encompassed the mountain's base; granite, seamless and polished. And though she was exhausted in limb and spirit, the wall stood. Only the narrowest gap remained, and the raw stone was heaped in piles, awaiting her mind's touch to close the gap. The cisterns were full, the storerooms stocked.
There came a figure, blurred—lurching, uneven, an impression of limbs frozen in motion, too swift across Time to register; of pale, shining hair and mismatched eyes. A crooked grimace, caught redly in the node-light's sudden flare.