The Veil Of Years - Isle Beyond Time Part 10

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."

"Are you cultivating your master's skepticism, Lovi?" said Pierrette, softly, so only he could hear.

"Somehow yours does not sound properly academic-more as though you're afraid. And didn't you notice the pile of timbers and the ropes atop the last promontory we pa.s.sed? I suspect they rig some kind of hoist. After all, unlike us, most people have no reason totalk with the boatman."

"I don't think there is a boatman. I think they just dump the dead people for the tides to carry away. I think I already smell them."

Pierrette laughed aloud. "That's seaweed. I can tell you never lived by the sh.o.r.e. I think it smells nice, like home."

Lovi opened his mouth to reply, but the sight that met his eyes just then, as his feet touched the slippery rock beach, took his words away. There in the side of the cliff was the dark mouth of a wave-cut cave, its entrance awash, and from it jutted the gray, salt-bleached prow of a boat. Standing next to it, with his bare legs knee-deep in swirling water, was the boatman.

He was old, his skin white and blotchy as if it had been soaked for years in salt.w.a.ter. Pierrette, for whom the phrase "old mage" or "magus" evoked an image of Anselm, or at worst, Moridunnon, wa.s.shocked and repelled. He stank of fish long dead. His hair and beard were not really white or gray, or even yellow from the smoke of peat fires, but slightly greenish, like sun-bleached seaweed.

Ibn Saul addressed him as he if he met people just as revolting every day. The s.h.i.+ny Byzantine solidus that gleamed between the scholar's thumb and forefinger was surely as heavy as any dozen lesser gold coins people might ordinarily leave in the mouths of their dead loved ones. The old boatman never took his eyes off the coin while ibn Saul explained what they wanted.

"The Isle of the Dead, eh? Oh, yes, I can get you there. Hee hee hee." His voice was rough and raspy, like ballast-stones being dragged over a cobble pavement. "But you don't look very dead to me. Are you going to die soon? That would make it easier, you know. The witches frown upon live people arriving on their doorstep. Lately, they haven't been happy to see anyone at all."

"Witches, old man? Surely you can't mean theGallicenae ? The druidesses? I'm sure those are just an old tale."

"Some of them are old, all right. They were old when I was just a sprout, and that was no few years ago.

They haven't changed a bit since then, either."

"That's some kind of trick. One old hag looks much like another, anyway."

"That may be so, but don't you think I recognize my own granny? She's the one got me this job, collecting the stiffs for them."

"What do they do with them?"

"I never asked. I don't want to know."

The scholar shrugged. "When can we leave? It took half the morning to get here, and the island must be ten miles away . . ."

"Tide's coming in. When my boat floats free . . . don't worry. The sea is smoother after dark, and I'll have you there by midnight."

"Midnight? You mean we'll be sailing at night? In that treacherous channel?"

The old fellow laughed raucously. "Don't worry. You'll be safe with me. n.o.body's ever died on my boat."

"How many live people have you transported?" snapped the scholar.

"Why . . . now that you mention that . . ."

"Don't tell me! We're the first!"

"Not exactly. Last fellow was a Hibernian priest, like that husky one over there." His thumb jabbed in Gregorius's direction.

"I'm not Hibernian!" Gregorius protested. Hibernians were mostly hairy savages, and those who were not, were churchmen. Gregorius remembered a monastery outside Lutetia Parisiorum run by an Irishman.

The cagey fellow had seen through his pious masquerade almost immediately, and he had not been ableto get away without a fortnight of heavy toil, far too much prayer, and not a sip of wine the whole time.

"Never said so," the boatman replied. "Said he was a priest, like you are, judging by your haircut. Was going to say, he was almost dead when he arrived here, but I kept him alive, and when he went overboard, he was still kicking."

"You threw him overboard? You murdered him!" said Ibn Saul.

"Did not. Said hewent overboard. Can't beach a boat on the Isle of the Dead. Have to wade ash.o.r.e, because the old hags don't want black wigglers on their island."

"Snakes?" queried ibn Saul. Pierrette glanced at Gregorius, who raised an eyebrow. They both knew what the "black wigglers" were.

"Call them what you will. The hags don't like them. They pile up on the sh.o.r.e, until the next storm blows them away, but they won't cross water. Had you descended to the sea at the end of the point, you would have had to wade through them, so thick they are there."

"I'm no naturalist. Snakes don't interest me-unless they force me to get my feet wet." Ibn Saul glanced at the boat, still resting aslant on keel and strake. "Why can't we drag your boat farther into the water, and leave sooner?"

"Why, I suppose you can. Never thought of it. Most of my pa.s.sengers wouldn't dream of helping out."

Again, he laughed. It was, thought Pierrette, going to be a long trip, if he had a store of such witticisms.

"Tie your beast up there in the bow," he said. "You can't leave him here, because he'll drown if the tide's especially high-and besides, I don't like donkey meat." His laugh was already wearing on Pierrette.

The five of them got the boat into the rising water. The old man tossed a hefty sack aboard, next to the linen-wrapped corpse. He then ordered Lovi and Gregorius to take up the oars, and indicated where ibn Saul and Pierrette should sit, to maintain the craft's trim. Pierrette's critical eye found nothing in his preparations to be concerned with. He laid out the short mast and sprit neatly. The sail was tied to them using cloth grommets, with knots that would release with a quick tug, even if the strips got wet. He waited until just the right moment, a rising swell that lifted the keel free of the cave floor, then shouted, "Row, now!" The boat slid out of the cave, into the sunlit water of the Bay of Sins.

Chapter 19 - The Isle of the.

Dead Pierrette had not realized how much she had missed the sea, how much a part of her it was-even this rough, dark water, with no trace of Mediterranean azure. It felt wonderful. She wanted to sing, as she and her father had always done when the wind was fair and the rigging hummed, when the boat's prow cleaved the salty waves like a sharp knife. The crisp breeze blew away the malaise she had felt ever since leaving Rhoda.n.u.s Flumen and embarking on the Liger. She had, she realized, become so enured to the malevolent aura of the land that she had ceased to notice it, just as she ceased to notice the aroma of ripe fish that clung to her father's boat, after an hour or so asea. She scanned the horizon. Somewhere out there was Minho's land. She had gotten this far. Now she had to figure out how she could separate herself from the others. Ibn Saul wanted to hire a s.h.i.+p to find the Isles, but all she would need was a boat like this one, rigged for single-handed sailing, a keg of drinking water, and . . .

"Out oars!" cawed the boat's master. "Wind won't help us now, until we're past those rocks." A quick tug, and the sail and sprit rattled down. Without being told, Pierrette gathered the crumpled cloth, keeping it clear of the water slos.h.i.+ng beneath the sole planks. The old man nodded thoughtfully, appreciatively, but said nothing.

By the time they had pulled clear of the looming rocks, where the water now heaped in its rush to follow the unseen moon, the wind had died. "No matter," the boatman said cheerily. "From now until dusk, the tide is our friend." And just as he said, the swift waters swept them along, entirely without sense of motion, around the south end of the distant island. The sea became still. Again, the boatman ordered the oars into the water, and the creak and clunk of leather-m.u.f.fled wood accompanied the last leg of their journey.

Sena. The beach was low and flat, the water now smooth. The sun was just setting. "Midnight?"

grumbled ibn Saul, realizing that the boatman had been toying with him. "What else was he lying about?

Getting thrown overboard?"

"Not exactly that, master," said Pierrette. "See how flat the island is-no hills, nothing taller than those scruffy trees. The beach slopes so slightly that we'll be aground on it before we're within forty paces of the sh.o.r.e. You . . . all of us . . . are going to have wet feet soon."

She was wrong, through no fault of her own. The sounds a boat makes, rowing through quiet water, can be heard at a distance, and soon the flicker of a torch could be seen in the gathering dusk ash.o.r.e. Its bearer was heavily robed and cowled, face concealed in shadow. "Boatman, anchor your craft," said a woman's voice, smooth and mature, not a hag's croak at all. "You"-she pointed right at Pierrette-"come with me. The rest of you must remain between high storm tide and low. Someone will come for the body of our brother Kermat."

"How did she know the corpse's name?" Lovi's whispered question went unanswered. "And why did she pick Piers to go ash.o.r.e, and not us?"

"They have their ways," said the boatman.