The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [155]
The latest of the High Wizards walks toward the window, noting absently that the walls again show the stress of the forces swirling within the tower. Time for the Blacks, one of those left, to reorder the stones once again.
That will be simple enough compared to his problem: How can he remove Creslin’s ties to Westwind and Sarronnyn, and to Montgren as well? Without the support of those lands, Creslin will have a hard time just to survive. Hartor frowns again, his fingers stroking the amulet all the while.
CII
“THE MAIN TIMBERS are as strong as I can make them. So is the sail, but there’s only so much I can do there.”
“That’s all I can ask.” Creslin walks down the powdery sand in the mid-morning glare. Not for the first time, he wishes for the chill of the Westhorns, or even for the temperate clime of Montgren.
Klerris matches him stride for stride.
The beached schooner now rests in a small lake surrounded by piles of sand. Nearly two-score men, most of them Hamorian prisoners, stand on the sand. Two hawsers are connected midships, one on each side of the ship, and stretch across the water in which the schooner rests.
Byrem, still wearing ragged shorts and tunic, steps forward. “She’s wobbly on the sand but still hard aground. It’d be dangerous to dig more.”
“We’ll just have to try.” Creslin lets his senses enfold the schooner. Can he and the winds even nudge that solidity?
“Let us know.” Byrem glances from the two wizards to the men standing by the hawsers.
“How tough is that sail?” Creslin asks.
“She’ll take a strong, steady blow. Shifting winds, gusts—things like that will rip her pretty quick.”
Creslin reaches for the skies, trying to bring down the trade winds, not the ice winds of winter, which lurk even higher in blue-green depths overhead.
“Get your men ready. He’s starting to call the winds.” Klerris gestures toward Creslin.
“Take up the lines. The lines!” Byrem’s tenor voice rises over the soft sounds of the low surf.
Before long, the gray canvas is billowing seaward, but the schooner does not move.
“Heave now . . . heave now . . .”
The ship remains mired in the sand-circled water.
Creslin takes a deep breath and draws in more of the higher winds, twisting them into a directed force that is becoming a small storm. He tries to focus them on the single square of canvas.
“Heave . . . heave . . .” Byrem leads the chant.
Backs bend, muscles tighten, and the wind rises.
“. . . heave . . . heave . . .”
The ship wobbles in the sand, leaning to the left as the patched mainsail’s taut curve strains seaward.
Whhupppp . . . creaakkkk . . .
“. . . heave . . . heave . . .”
Another shiver grips the hull, and the water around the schooner rises into a chop.
Standing beside Creslin, Klerris concentrates, and a darkness wells from him.
“. . . heave . . .” Byrem’s voice is a lash across the men on the ropes.
Whuuppp. . . cracckkk. Even as the large sail splits with a thunderclap, the schooner gives a last shudder and slides seaward, seemingly gaining speed as she enters the Eastern Ocean.
A cheer rises from the Hamorians and the keep troopers.
Klerris staggers. Creslin puts out an arm. “What did you do?”
“Just added a little slipperiness to the sand.”
“I should have thought of that.”
“You can’t think of everything, young Creslin,” snaps the Black mage. “Leave me some pride.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.” Creslin wipes his forehead, although the wind has dried most of the sweat there and the dry clouds block the worst of the heat. The thundercaps are already beginning to break, and there is no rain.
Both wizards turn and watch as Byrem continues to bark orders from the helm of the schooner wallowing seaward on her two remaining small sails.
CIII
CRESLIN LOOKS OUT from the terrace across the flatness of the Eastern Ocean, dull in the gray light before dawn. In the motionless air, he can smell his own sweat from the restless, hot night.
Megaera sleeps, for now; the gray sky turns pink, and Creslin thinks about the dried-up and drying springs, and about what Klerris