The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [192]
“How will that help those whose lives are ruined?”
. . . how . . . how on earth . . .
Creslin shakes his head, feeling her pain and her helplessness. “What am I supposed to do? My mother was assassinated; my father and sister have been killed by the Whites. Montgren has been conquered, and your sister rejects both of us. And you tell me what I plan is wrong. I know it’s wrong. But what else is there? Give me another answer.
“More than five hundred people have fled to Recluce in the past year. The rains saved a lot of crops and the pearapples, but how do we build a town with a few tools? Despite the new buildings, we still have people living in huts and in caves in the sand. We’re even getting beggars. How can we build enough ships enabling us to trade so that we don’t get fleeced on every item? How?”
This time Megaera winces and holds her head. “There aren’t any answers, except—”
“I refuse to die honorably,” he snaps. “And it’s not fair to Hyel, Shierra . . . or Fiera.”
The sun has dropped behind the western hills, and the whitecaps have faded to gray before he speaks again, his words a mere whisper above the evening breeze. “You think this is easy? No matter what happens—”
. . . best beloved . . .
Their hands and tears touch.
CXXXIV
“YOU’RE A STORM Wizard. Why did you have to wait for the fog? Why not just create fog or a storm?”
Heavy clouds loom in the sky to the west of the Dawnstar. Both the schooner and the Griffin seem ghostlike as they make their way southward through the light fog. Creslin continues to concentrate as he stands on the Dawnstar’s deck, his consciousness but half-present. “We waited until they didn’t have any ships nearby, and so they wouldn’t have any advance notice.”
Freigr looks from the helmsman to Creslin.
Creslin dries his forehead. Not all of the moisture is from the fog. “I could create a storm, but if I do, it’s like writing my name in fire across the sky for any wizard who’s watching to see, and the White Wizards are certainly watching. If we wait for the right kind of winds—and I can see when they’re developing—then I can change them into what I need at the last moment and no one will have any warning.”
“But you called a waterspout when those ships came after us.”
“I did.” Creslin nods. “I barely managed to hang on to it long enough, and how many days was it before I could even walk again?”
The Dawnstar’s captain glances from the choppy water ahead back to Creslin. “I think I see that. Why won’t the White Wizards just burn our troops once they land?”
“They’ll try to. But it’s hard to manage fire in the middle of a really violent storm, and you can’t do it from a distance. So we only have to worry about the Whites who are in Lydiar right now.” Creslin frowns. “I just hope there aren’t too many of them.”
The two ships ease southward through the thinning fog until the outline of the harbor appears.
Creslin concentrates, and to the south, the clouds billow, darkening into a blackness that turns midday into late twilight.
“How long?” whispers Thoirkel.
“Steady . . .” murmurs Freigr to the helmsman of the Dawnstar.
“. . . can’t see a thing . . .” The words drift from the forecastle, where the makeshift crew waits behind the armed squads.
Creslin pushes, twists, and pulls at the winds.
“Steady as she goes . . .”
Cracckkk! Thurrumm . . .
The hammers of the lightnings crashed against the wall keep above the harbor, each forked blast of energy echoing down the gentle slope to the harbor. Within the fog that shrouds them, the Recluce ships ease toward the trading piers as all eyes in Lydiar focus on the storms.
Creslin counts, once more, the hulls tied to the piers. Five, and he has barely enough bodies to crew them. He shakes his head.
“You all right, ser?” Thoirkel looks from his squad to Creslin. The black-haired soldier radiates disappointment at being held in reserve.
“Well enough.” Well enough, considering that he is essentially