The Fourth Book Of Lost Swords : Farslayer's Story (Saberhagen's Lost Swords 4) by Fred Saberhagen (ereader iphone .TXT) 📕

Shortly after dawn the expedition was ready, and took to the river in two boats. Ben, Lady Yambu, and the magician Gesner accompanied Mark, Zoltan, and Bonar, while Violet and Rose were left in charge of the manor.

      Today’s boats were larger than yesterday’s, and rowed by four men each. These were all armed, so that in all thirteen armed men were taking to the river today, a force everyone agreed was probably substantial enough to face any that the Senones were likely to put in the field.

      The sun was still low above the eastern stretch of river, and dew still glittered on the vegetation of Mermaids’ Island, when the two boats landed there.

      Exploring this scrap of land was the work of a very few minutes. None of the mermaids were to be seen, though their shore living facilities, fireplaces and simple shelters lining one of the convoluted inlets, were available for inspection. The shelters were tiny caves very close to water level, all of them now empty. The inlet was lined with steplike terraces where a mermaid could sit comfortably just in or just out of the water, and have access to the fireplaces on the next level up. Coals glowed brightly in one or two of the small, sheltered fireplaces, and someone had recently been cleaning fish. Near the fireplaces, driftwood had been piled up to dry.

      Bonar and Zoltan called, but none of the fishgirls, who had presumably taken to the water nearby, responded. Bonar told his companions that the mermaids who might have been on the island moments ago had doubtless taken alarm at the size and unusual character of this invading force. They would probably be watching from somewhere in the river nearby.

      Stubbornly Zoltan roamed the perimeter of the island, calling Black Pearl’s name repeatedly, and waving his arms, hoping to draw the attention of underwater watchers. But he drew no response.

      It was also possible to see, on the island, the places of barter where food and other necessities were sometimes left by people coming out from the mainland, in exchange for pearls and other occasional items of value left by the mermaids. Zoltan could see no reason why a direct face-to-face trade could not be conducted—perhaps, he thought, in the early years of the curse mermaids had been considered taboo, or dangerous, and this indirect method had developed.

* * *

      Whatever had caused the usual inhabitants of Mermaids’ Island to absent themselves today, they remained absent, which struck Zoltan as somehow ominous. After pacing from one end of the island to the other, and fruitlessly calling Black Pearl’s name a dozen times more, he agreed with the prince his uncle that they had better move on and try to reach the hermit on the south shore. If fishgirls were not to be found, Gelimer seemed to represent the next most likely source of information about the Sword.

      Just as they were about to embark again, Mark paused, squinting across the water. “What about Magicians’ Island?”

      Bonar protested that it was unsafe to visit that place, that mermaids never went there, no one ever did. Gesner, consulted for his professional opinion, admitted that wizards, himself included, visited Magicians’ Island from time to time, and that the real danger to anyone had to be considered minimal.

      “Then I think we ought to take a look.”

      The prince as usual had his way. Magicians’ Island was not much more than a hundred meters from the shore base of the mermaids. But before the rowers had moved the two boats halfway there, the attention of the entire party was distracted by the sight of someone or something swimming on an interception course toward them, straight from the south.

      It was a mermaid, it could be nothing else. A mermaid, just below the surface, coming toward them faster than the boats were moving, approaching at a speed that only a true fish could have matched.

      She burst to the surface almost within reach of Zoltan as he crouched in the prow of one of the boats.

      “Soft Ripple!” He thought he had recognized the tawny hair even before the mermaid surfaced.

      Clinging to the boat, breathless with the speed of her race and with some underlying excitement, Soft Ripple babbled out an incoherent story about Black Pearl’s being dead. She added something to the effect that the treacherous Cosmo was to blame.

      Gesner and Bonar sat up straight in their boat at the mention of that last name. But Zoltan had frozen in horror at what he heard. With the clarity of dazed detachment, he saw that Soft Ripple was holding up something she now wore on a fine chain about her neck. And he could recognize the amulet that Black Pearl had been wearing the last time he saw her.

      The mermaid quieted a little when she saw the unfamiliar face of Prince Mark looking over the prow at her.

      Lady Yambu, coming up into the prow of the other boat, was sharply soothing, and helped the girl to get herself under control.

      “Are you certain Black Pearl is dead? Have you seen her body?” It was Yambu who asked the questions.

      “I am certain, lady. I have seen.”

      “Then show us.”

      Presently Soft Ripple was swimming again, more slowly this time, leading both boats in the direction of a marshy area along the south bank of the river. This marsh was not far from the outlet of the stream that Black Pearl had ascended, with such difficulty, to visit the hermit.

      Before long both boats were sliding and crunching in among the tall green reeds, their rowers swearing at the difficulty, and Bonar muttering his fears of ambush to anyone who would pay attention. No one was paying attention to him for very long.

      The mermaid, slithering rapidly through the reedy shallows, and calling back frequently for the boats to follow, remained always a little ahead.

      Soon Zoltan saw something floating in the almost stagnant backwater ahead. With a choked cry he leaped from the boat into the waist-deep water, and went thrashing after the pale-skinned,