Part 10 (1/2)

It was the tidal race, the great bore, driven by the moon and sun, that swept s.h.i.+ps up like wood chips and dashed them on the rocks. It was the tidal bore, even more than the great seawall, that had girded ancient Ys, for only the Phoenicians had learned the tides' secrets, and knew how to use the deadly rush to propel their s.h.i.+ps in and out of the Bay of Sins, instead of onto the rocks.

Pierrette looked further, straining her eyes. There, beyond the furthest rock, the last white riffle, was a low, gray shape: Sena, the Isle of the Dead, the last solid ground, beyond which Oceanos went on . . . forever? Sena, where the nineGallicenae , priestesses or G.o.ddesses, ruled over the graveyards all of all the generations of druid dead.

”Do you see them?” Ibn Saul's voice startled Pierrette.

”See what, Master ibn Saul?”

”The Fortunate Isles, of course. Young eyes see further than old ones. If there is land out there, beyond Sena . . .”

I see nothing, master.” And would I tell you, if I did? Not likely. She resented his intrusion. Alone, might her ”young eyes” have penetrated the mists on the far horizon, and seen the tops of crags whose bases were below the curving edge of the world, which were the rim of the immense caldera that enclosedMinho's kingdom?

She sighed. ”I see no way across that maelstrom, master, and I fear the Phoenicians' secret ways are lost.”

”You're probably right. At any rate, the village at the head of the bay has no boats drawn up on sh.o.r.e, and may be deserted. I fear we have a long hike ahead of us, to Gesocribate, where we may be able to hire a vessel-if the Vikings have not burned the town.”

Gesocribate was easily a week's walk away, north across the spine of Armorica, and Pierrette did not easily contemplate that. As luck would have it, she did not have to, for long. Soon after the four of them had turned their steps eastward, they began to hear a faint, high, shrill sound, as if many voices were crying out. It was an eerie, atonal ululation that grated on ears attuned to meter and melody.

”Fantomes,” gasped Lovi, gripping his horseshoe tightly.

”Bah!” growled ibn Saul. ”It is merely a funeral dirge. Look over there-the procession.” Pierrette followed the line of his outstretched arm. There, indeed, was a line of people whose path would intersect their own shortly.

”I don't see a casket or a body,” said Lovi.

”Use what powers of observation you can muster,” replied the scholar. ”Observe, for example, the big man at the rear, who is carrying two long poles. Observe also that two women lead the procession.

Further note that their skirts are darker below the knee. Perhaps you will conclude, as I have, that the wrapped corpse of a man, not a woman, already has been disposed of in a cave or crypt at water's edge.”

”How can you tell, master?”

”The women's skirts are wet, dolt, because they have waded into the water. The sling-poles are not carried for the pleasure of it. They once supported a body-but no longer. One woman is old, the other young, and they lead the procession, thus they are mother and wife, or wife and daughter, to the deceased. All that should be obvious. Now let us step lively, or you'll have to run to catch up with them.”

The villagers, from the settlement at the head of the bay where had stood ancient Ys, had indeed rid themselves of the body of the women's husband and son, but they had not interred it. In a rough Gaulish dialect that only Pierrette could understand at all, they told her of a sea cave at tide's edge, of the ”magus ” who carried the bodies of Old Believers to their final rest on the Isle of the Dead.

”Was your husband a druid?” Pierrette asked the old woman, after noting that there was no Christian priest with the funeral party.

”He was the last of his lineage. Henceforth, the boatman will have no more pa.s.sengers.”

When Pierrette asked-prompted by ibn Saul in Greek, which none of the others could understand-she was told that the trail to the old mage's cave was easy to follow, and with only one body in his boat, he might be willing to take them all to the island as well. ”Don't climb down there tonight. Make your camp here, where there is wood for a fire, and trees to shelter you from the wind. He will not depart until tomorrow, on the making tide.” * * *

That night Yan Oors took Pierrette aside. ”I am not going with you, tomorrow,” he said. ”I am going to search for my bear cubs.”

”Oh, Yan-be careful. Remember the last time.”

”I will. But it is not yet the season for cubs. They're not born until late, when the weather turns cold. I'll just hunt for a likely sow, whose belly is getting big, and follow her when she seeks her winter nest. Then, when you return . . .”

”I don't think we'll be gone that long. Cubs won't be weaned until summer, will they?”

”The sea is unpredictable. And this island you're going to-what if it's the one you seek? Who can tell how long you'll want to linger there?”

”Ibn Saul thinks it might be the place, but I doubt it. It is flat, and Minho's kingdom is craggy. Besides, theGallicenae of Sena are druid priestesses, not Minoan. I think we'll be back in a day or so.”

She would have been wise to have heeded Yan Oors's doubts. The sea is indeed unpredictable, as are the many lands whose sh.o.r.es it laps.

That night she dreamed of Minho of the Isles. It was not (she reflected later) a true vision, because she had spoken no spell, and it had none of the immediacy, the tactile reality, that she had come to expect in a genuine seeing.

”Wake up, Pierrette,” she heard. The voice was m.u.f.fled and indistinct. ”Wake up! Where are you?”

Where was she? How ridiculous. If someone was telling her to awaken, then he knew she was asleep, and if he knew that, he must be able to see her. She opened her eyes. There were Lovi and Gregorius, a single shapeless shadow under a cloak, and there, near the smoldering fire, ibn Saul. She heard his snores. ”Yan Oors?” she whispered. ”Have you come back?”

”Look up,” the voice soughed like a wind through pine trees-but there was no wind, and no pines. The moon was quite bright, for all the veil of haze that drifted across its face, and she saw nothing out of the ordinary.

”There! Didn't you see me? Look again.”

Again? At what? She could feel eyes upon her, but all she had seen when she looked up had been . . . the moon.

”Yes! The moon! Can't you see my face?”

There was always a face in the full moon, but it was a G.o.ddess's face, and the voice she heard was not womanly at all. ”Who are you?” she whispered.

”I can't say my name aloud. I have purloined the G.o.ddess's eyes for this glimpse of you. It's not as easy as it once was. The world changes, and I do not. We move apart . . .” ”Minho?”

”Hus.h.!.+ No names. Are you coming? I sense you aren't far away.”

”I don't know where you are, or where your kingdom is. Not exactly. How will I find it?”

”I will give you a map.”

”How? When?”

”Follow the stars. Come soon, before I drift beyond all mortals' ken. Leave your companions behind.

There must be no Christian priests and no scholarly wizards with you, or I'll give you no map to show you the way-and bring no iron, either! Send your ugly bodyguard with his metal staff away to find his bears. Do you understand?”

”Yan Oors is already gone, and I have no intention of bringing the others with me. Where is the map?

You said you'd give me one.”

There was no answer. A cloud drifted across the moon, and everything became quite dark. It didn't make sense. She had no map and the stars only told where she was, not where another place might be.

Pierrette laid her head on her arm, and slept again.

Wishful thinking, she decided, by the gray light of morning. I wish I did have a map. I wish I were close to my destination, but though Sena is reputed to be a mystical place, it will not turn out to be the Fortunate Isles.

”I'm not sure this is wise,” Lovi muttered as they scrambled downward over sharp, black crags. Already, the morning sun was high, and they had not yet reached the bottom of the cliff. ”Even if the oldmagus really exists, and has a boat that can weather the tidal race, and knows its currents, how do they get the bodies down to him? They can't carry them down this so-called trail. Even your fractious donkey is having a hard time of it.”