The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [154]
“If you will be.” He tries to leer at her.
Megaera shakes her head. Beast . . .
Not quite certain of the tone of that thought, Creslin shrugs, but she has gone inside. He heads for the washhouse.
Before long he is on the beach where the Hamorian ship rests; he is accompanied by a stocky man in shorts and a sleeveless tunic.
“She’s wedged pretty tight, ser.”
Creslin walks up from the water’s edge, his eyes traveling the schooner’s hull planks, until he reaches the bow, half-buried in the soft white sand. “How deep is the keel, or whatever it’s called?”
Byrem frowns. “Maybe four, five cubits.”
Creslin shakes his head.
“That’s the easy part, ser. Stem’s narrow, and she’s not weighted fore. Most of the weight’s midships.” The Hamorian wipes his forehead. “Couldn’t you call a storm, get her off the same way . . . same way she got here?”
“If I call a storm, the waves will just push the ship farther onto the beach, no matter which way the winds blow, unless . . .” Creslin walks back down toward the water’s edge, using the back of his forearm to blot away the sweat that threatens to run into his eyes.
The stern remains in the water, although the depth around the rudder is less than two cubits. He looks at the rudder, then pulls off his boots and wades into the warm, gently lapping water. After a time of tracing the hull lines, he splashes from the water toward the small bronzed man.
“Byrem . . . are there any usable sails?”
“There’s an old mainsail in the locker, and some topsails. The mainsail probably won’t last long in a blow. The others probably wouldn’t—you can’t sail her off sand, can you?”
Creslin shakes his head. “No. But I have an idea. When is the tide going to be at high?”
“That’s only a half a cubit difference.”
Creslin waits.
“Around midday. That’s if the storms don’t change things. Tides don’t matter as much as the high storms.”
“Do we want storms or not?”
Byrem frowns, then looks at Creslin. “I don’t think so. You’d get too much chop coming onshore. Quiet noon would be the best time to pull her off. There’s no place to anchor a pulley or a pivot. That’d make it easier to pull her.”
“We’ll work out something.” Creslin steps into the narrow shadow cast by the ship and begins to brush the sand off his bare feet. “Something . . .”
CI
THE HEAVYSET WHITE Wizard fingers the chain and amulet around his neck, then releases them and studies the mirror on the table, which shows browning meadows, dusty, drooping trees, and an empty road leading to a black keep.
“Jenred was too pessimistic. He forgot about the summer.”
“Perhaps, Hartor. Perhaps. But Creslin is a Storm Wizard. What if he brings rain to Recluce?” The white-haired but young-faced man sitting in the second chair watches as the mirror blanks.
“He probably could,” admits the High Wizard. “But one rainstorm will buy only a few eight-days and will just make things worse. The one that destroyed the Hamorian raiders encouraged Recluce’s fields and orchards to leaf out too much for the hot weather that followed. Now look at them.”
“What if he decides to do more than that?”
“Gyretis, do you think he could actually change the world’s weather? That’s a bit much even for Creslin.”
“With Klerris and Lydya advising him, and by drawing on . . . his mate . . .”
“I see that her conversion doesn’t set well with you, either.”
“I didn’t think it was possible,” Gyretis responds, “but that’s not the question. He’s continually done more than we thought possible. What happens if he does it again?”
Hartor frowns. “If he sends rain to Recluce, it’s going to be hotter and drier elsewhere in Candar.”
Gyretis stands. “You’ve inherited this mess, but you’d better not make the same mistakes Jenred did. The council won’t be nearly so understanding.”
“I know, I know. I just have to figure out how to isolate them on Recluce, even if he does get his rain.”
Gyretis pauses by the tower door. “You don’t want to try a direct attack?”
“Would you?”
“Hardly, unless things change. But that’s your job . . . to figure out how to change