Fire Dragon - Katharine Kerr [191]
Often Meranaldar would come sit with him. At those times, particularly if the loremaster was asking him questions, Salamander would remember that he was awake, that this ship was taking him back to the Westlands, and that Marka had refused to come with him. He would burst into tears and sob until in a flurry of apologies Meranaldar would get up and leave him alone. The rhythm of the waves would seduce him again, and once more he would believe that he slept and dreamt.
He could not keep track of days. Since the sailors often mentioned their good luck in the weather, he could assume that they were travelling fast. They put in at Myleton, on the north Bardekian coast, to reprovision, then headed out due north, sailing mostly by the positions of the stars, or so Salamander heard them say. The days merged into one long stretch of sunlight with his son's laughter for music. The nights melded into a long torment of black sea and the splash of waves, a funeral dirge for his lost love. I will go back, he would tell himself. I'll find the book behind the wood door, and then I'll be able to go back to my family. Yet out of the waves would rise silver monsters, all gleaming teeth and red eyes, to mock him and tell him that he'd never see Bardek again.
At last, when the food was nearly gone and the water was running short, in a bright morning seagulls wheeled around the ship and cried out greetings. As he leaned over the bow, Salamander could see an occasional long trail of seaweed in the murky water or the bobbing wood of sea wrack. Humming under his breath, a smiling Meranaldar joined him.
“Almost there,” Meranaldar said. “The homeland! Ah ye gods, never did I dream that I'd actually make this voyage, no matter how much I longed for it.”
“Are we going to the cities, then?” Salamander said.
“No, we're landing in Elditiña, or whatever it's called now.”
“Eldidd.”
“Eldidd.” Meranaldar rolled the name around his mouth as if he were tasting wine. “Evandar gave our captain a map, you see. There's a cove with a wooden pier, he said, and a town called Cannobaen. Nearby is an island called Wmmglaedd.”
“I know them both. You'll like Wmmglaedd. The priests there have books, a veritable treasure-house of lore.”
“I'll look forward to going there, then, after we make landfall at Cannobaen.” All at once Meranaldar frowned. “I was hoping that Evandar would come to us and perhaps guide us in. But oh well, there's no accounting for the Guardians. They do what they please.”
“If we find ourselves off course, all we have to do is follow the coast.”
Yet that night, as they stood in the prow and looked forward to a dark line of land on the horizon, they saw a light burning to the north of them, a tiny spark from this distance.
“There's Cannobaen,” Salamander said. “I remember now. The Cannobaen light. It marks a treacherous shoal just west of the town.”
When morning came Salamander could see the white chalk cliffs and the stone dun perched on top, about the size of his thumb from this distance. The sight of the sandy beach and the pale cliff rising beyond overcame Meranaldar. He stood next to Salamander and let tears run down his face while he muttered an ancient prayer. At Salamander's direction, the helmsman steered toward the east, and soon they saw the harbor, a notch in the coastline, and its long wooden pier. Behind