An Epistrophe of Ships - Chapter Three

[Kaiser B'caw I]

Chapter Three: A Grand Assembly

The Assembly Hall was the largest building on Callamen's Eye, a great round building with its white dome gleaming in the sun. The young foursome found that they were not the only ones making their way there; the buzz of conversation was heightening to a dull roar, and many of those who heard it began to gravitate toward the Hall. Hinda and her friends, realizing that they wouldn't get a seat if they didn't hurry, quickened their pace.

The Hall's interior was a vast open space supported by columns. Row after circular row of seats descended to a stage in the center, where the Count of Sunderspray was seated, along with the captain and quartermaster of Callamen's Eye, the representative of the Duke, and other notables; immediately around them, the inner ring of seats were reserved for the ships' officers of the People. The four took a seat in the outermost ring, the viewing gallery; although Hinda and Onar might have been able to claim a right to sit closer, as children of their ship's captain, it looked like attempting to do so would involve bulldozing a path through the various officers standing on their feet and shouting at the stage. It wasn't clear what had been said, but it was causing a lot of comment.

The captain of Callamen's Eye, who by unenviable tradition kept what little order there was at Assemblies, stood at his podium, ineffectually banging a gavel. After several minutes, an aide brought him a microphone. "THAT IS ENOUGH! WE MUST HAVE ORDER HERE, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. PLEASE SIT DOWN." Slowly, the noise subsided, and the officers began to return to their seats. "Thank you! Now, there is no need to get excited. The request of the Duke will be fully explained. As you know, we have here the Ducal Legate today as a witness to our Grand Assembly, and it is my understanding that the Duke has disclosed his intentions to him. So that this matter can be cleared away quickly, I invite him to take the floor. Mr. Kalisa, if you would?"

The elderly legate stepped up to the podium to moderate applause. The captains and quartermasters in the audience did not always take the Peoples' relationship with House Mortis seriously, but the more belligerent ones were bright enough to be quiet and not throw catcalls at the Duke's own representative. The legate, for his part, wore the bright, brittle smile that landwalker officials often did when facing a crowd of Sundersprites.

"Captains and quartermasters of the People of the Sea, thank you for your welcome. Your Duke, the head of House Mortis, sends you greetings and expresses his hopes for another successful Grand Assembly. Obviously, you will have much work to do here, especially the choosing of a new Count, as is your custom, but I must ask for some of your time to pass on His Grace's request-"

"One that we won't be able to ignore, I'll wager!" someone shouted in the crowd.

"One to your benefit, sir!" replied the legate. He was Lakhesian, but he had spent enough time at Assemblies, as a trade representative for Thanatos and then as Ducal Legate to Sunderspray, to know how to direct their attention. "And to the benefit of everyone involved. The word 'invasion', in this context, is a harsh one; though some military action is to be expected, the fighting is not expected to be fierce, and the resulting benefits will be worth the effort. As one of the major shipping hubs on the Benacian continent, Musica's continued policy on high trade tariffs is a barrier to economic development, as all of you are aware."

"He has a point, Vannu," another voice called out, addressing the author of the first interruption. "The matter of Musican tariffs has come up in Assembly before. Some of the smaller ships can hardly turn a profit in that city!"

"Then there's no reason for them to go through," the speaker identified as Vannu yelled back. "There are other ports along the coast, and with no tariffs at all to worry about!"

"Which, I should point out," the legate said, "is due to the membership of the People in House Mortis. Our control of Kralizec, Modan-Lach and Lakhesis means that most of the major ports of the Brookshire coast are in our hands, and the Duke's policy that ships under the House's jurisdiction should be immune to the modest tariffs levied on other ships has been of great economic benefit to you in particular." He refrained from reminding them that the promise of this, in combination with some historical associations with the Mortis name, had been one of the incentives for Sunderspray to join the House in the first place. "And as the House's influence grows, more ports shall be opened to you in the same manner.

"But all of you know that Musica is an entirely different matter. Its position on the trade routes is unrivaled, the traffic passing through its port is immense. The tariffs and fees on that traffic are lining the pockets of the county's imperial governor, at the expense of all other comers. The economic health of the House and of Shireroth remain at risk so long as this situation persists."

Vannu stood up. "And a military intervention is the remedy? Is the county not under the jurisdiction of the Kaiser?"

"His Niftiness has many demands on his time. No doubt he is aware of the situation, but grinding out corruption will be an unwelcome distraction. The Duke believes that House Mortis is better equipped to bring a swift close to the matter."

"The altruism of the Duke is exemplary!" Vannu's voice dripped sarcasm. "He saves the economy, destroys a hotbed of corruption, relieves the Kaiser of his responsibilities, and the fact that House Mortis gains a new county with a valuable port hardly has anything to do with it, does it? And you expect us to die for this-"

But his voice started to be drowned out by the rising babble of an audience engaged in discussion. Opinions were mixed; some thought the proposal impinged on the Peoples' freedom, some thought that it was meddling in others' affairs, some thought it truly would do good, whether it benefited the House or not; and some were mindful of a sudden opening of trading opportunities not a stone's throw from Callamen's Eye. Variations on these opinions bounced around the chamber for several minutes, until the sanct's captain once again stepped briefly up to the podium to bang his gavel.

As the noise subsided again, Legate Kalisa spoke up. "I remind you, friends, that the Duke is not demanding a full military commitment. The lifestyle of your People would make that quite impossible in any case. But those who are willing to participate in a blockade of the port may do so easily; this sanct is near enough that ships can take turns on patrol duty to ward traffic or potential reinforcements away from the city, and resupply here with minimal effort. His Grace is willing to reward those participating in such an effort. And for those with more heavily armed ships, and willing to accept some higher risk, we would not discourage any attempts to... redistribute some of the wealth the imperial governor has accumulated there, especially since much of it will be sitting in warehouses near the docks-"

Voices rose again, but this time the tide of opinion seemed to have turned against Vannu's protestations. Participating in an invasion to conquer a city because the Duke said so was one thing; doing it for fun and profit was entirely another.

"Therefore," the legate shouted over the din, "we would like your efforts to take effect in a few days' time, on La Fiesta de la B0O0O0/\/\!" The audience quieted again. "The city will be distracted by the pyrotechnics displays and the resulting fire, and an attack during the blaze should take them by surprise. Forces from Monty Crisco and Kralizec will be taking part on landside; they will signal when they are beginning their advance. With them on one side and Sunderspray on the other, taking the city should present no diffculties."

There was a storm of applause as the legate returned to his seat. The Count of Sunderspray stood and went before the podium. "It is ruled that this action, being the will of our Duke, cannot be considered piracy, and is not in violation of the Pact of Abjuration. Any ship of the People that wishes to take part may do so at will."

Hinda, her arms and chin resting on the railing in front of her, nodded. The approval of the Count was a formality, but an major one; it was important, in the eyes of tradition, that something like this did not violate the Pact, and judging such things was the responsibility of the Count. Of course, he might've just wanted to be generous. If all went well, they'd be choosing a new Count today, and it wasn't a position anyone ever really wanted to stay in after they'd been at it a few years; this one probably just wanted to make a smooth exit from his term and get back to traveling the sea.

Speaking of which...

"And now, we must proceed to the business at hand," the Count declared. "The time has come for the Accounting. If any captain believes that the exploits of zir ship since the past Grand Assembly are worthy of telling,zie may come forth to speak of them. When the time of Choosing comes, the assembled officers here shall determine which ship is most worthy of renown, and that ship will hold the position of Count of Sunderspray. Let the accounts begin!"

The crowds of spectators had thinned out by this time. The Accounting was interesting, in its way, but not as enthralling as discussions of invasion. Nonetheless, the four youths relaxed in their seats, listening idly to the proceedings. Onar asked, after a while, "So, whichever ship's the most impressive wins?"

Pendura nodded. "More or less. And the captain becomes Count till the next Grand Assembly."

"And whoever it is has to stay here? For nineteen years?"

"The whole ship does, usually, yes."

"Why'd someone want to do that?"

Hinda privately thought that it wouldn't be a bad life, living in the sanct. It was certainly a clean, sophisticated place. Mind you, it'd probably be boring as anything...

Atuna said, "Well, it impresses everybody. The ship gets fame, and power. It's not till after they win that they start regretting it, probably."

Hinda's attention drifted to the stories. The problem, she reflected, was that most ships didn't do anything really exciting except as a result of blunders. For the most part, the achievements being boasted of below involved making obscene amounts of money, or visiting more ports than anyone else... record-breaking, basically, but not what you'd call adventures or heroics. She'd heard that in the past some captains had resorted to making up stories to win, although these days communications technology made it harder for that kind of thing to go without being verified.

There seemed to be a blurring at the edge of her vision. She blinked a few times to clear her eyes, but it was still there. She looked at the edge of the stage, where a door led down into the lower levels of the building; no doubt it was an entrance to the stage from the building's lower levels. The blur was immediately in front of the door, a sort of wavering in the air, but no one else seemed to see it...

She dimly realized that her father had taken the stage and was rambling on about the ship's voyages around the Euran continent. It wouldn't get Osprey Striking the Countship, or at least her father probably hoped not, but it made for interesting telling. And yes, a chance to bring family history into it...

"...gave our ship an opportunity to revisit the trading opportunities first explored by my ancestor, Shyriath-Bukolos Longwalker, after he bought the title of Duke of Kildare from the landwalkers-"

One of the other captains, grinning, shouted, "Did he really? We had no idea!"

Balco replied cheerfully, "Good, it means I can tell the story again!" There was an assortment of laughter and groans from the audience.

Hinda, however, had not taken her eyes off the blur. At the mention of her ancestor's name, the blur had resolved itself briefly into... a figure, dressed in rags?... "Atuna, did you see that?"

"Your father boasting about the old Duke again? He never gives up on that, does he?"

"No, I meant-" she squinted hard. The blur was moving away from the door and onto the stage. "There's someone down there..."

"What? You mean, besides the people who are supposed to be down there?"

"Yes, I think so, but he's hard to see..."

Atuna peered down. "He'd have to be a gullplucking wizard, then." Then she blinked. "No, wait, I think... some kind of... bending of the air?"

Hinda stood up in alarm. It was heading for the podium where her father was standing. Before she could shout, however, the blur resolved itself into solidity. The Hall erupted in confusion as the scaly thing approached the podium; the legate fled to the edge of the stage; the Count was glued to his chair, trembling in terror; her father was backing away; the officers were in an uproar and any minute they'd start stampeding one another-

The creature gripped the sides of the podium, as if supporting itself on it, leaned toward the microphone, and hissed, "Be. STILL."

Silence fell with amazing suddenness. Most of the audience simply stared, transfixed by the sight of the thing. Hinda, meanwhile, had shuffled along the row of seats, and then bounded down the steps toward the stage, determined to make sure her father was all right. She was vaguely aware of her brother and friends following her. Vaulting over the parapet around the stage, she ran to Balco's side. "Father, are you-"

She stopped. The creature had aimed its stare at her. It should have been even odds whether it could even see her with eyes that clouded, but somehow she felt that the mere physical state of its eyes had nothing to do with what it saw.

The creature swung its head back around, glaring at the audience. Speaking into the microphone again, it croaked, "You... you, my people. Do you know me? Do you remember? Will you hear what I say?"

Many people in the audience were simply confused and scared, but most of them, seeing the creature before them, were doing at least some amount of thinking. Hinda could see it in their eyes; the faraway look of those recalling old tales, the legends they'd been told when they were young, the painting and other items among the Antiquities. They saw a thing weighted down by age, they heard a voice cracked by the centuries, an accent belonging to to a different time. They felt they should know this thing, strange though it was. Some were bowing their heads, as if in prayer...

Hinda realized, hearing muttered words beside her, that her father was one of them.

The thing spoke again; the harsh edge had worn off its voice. "You have changed, my people. As have I, no doubt. But do you not remember?"

Balco Longwalker looked up, and hesitantly stepped forward. Hinda stared at him, and then hurried to stay beside him, keeping one eye on the creature. "Father," she hissed, "what are you doing?"

Balco shook his head. He stopped a few feet from the podium, and then slowly lowered himself onto one knee. "You... were our Count. You were the lord of the Isle."

The creature regarded him somberly, and then nodded. "I was... I am Shyriath Bukolos." He looked up at the audience, as a great whispering spread through the seats. Spectators were crowding back into the upper rows of the Hall, and cries of alarm and shock rang out across the room. Some just stared, some shook their heads, some were even weeping...

Shyriath Bukolos, once Count of Benacia, looked back at Balco. "And what is remembered of me?"

Hinda's father looked at a loss to answer the question. "My lord? ...You were the ruler of the Isle. You fought the rebels, you were with Mors IV when he died, you saw the Devastation..."

Shyriath closed his eyes and opened them again, in a slow blink. "Yes. But what is remembered of the last time I was seen?"

There was silence for some time. At last, the Count of Sunderspray shuffled forward. Shyriath stepped aside, and motioned him to the podium; the man spoke in a trembling voice. "And so it was that the People fled their Isle; they saw the fires burning from afar, and ash rained around them, and they wept. They caught fish to eat, and they took what they could from the ruins of the Port, but they knew not where to go. Then the Count came to them, who they had thought lost, and they rejoiced; but he stilled their mirth, for he said to them, 'O People, I cannot stay with you. I have led you to ruin, and to ruin greater will I take you if I am your lord.' The People asked him, 'Who then shall be Count of Benacia? Who shall lead us in making the Isle whole?' And he said to them, 'The Isle is burned. Time may make it whole, if the Gods are merciful, but there is nothing for you there. The air is poison, and the land is barren, and the cities are empty shells. There will be no Count there. You must take your ships, and find another place to dwell, and another lord to protect you.'"

The Count paused, and took in a shuddering breath, as if coming to a realization. With faltering voice, he continued, "And the People asked of him, 'Our Isle is the root of our being. How can we remain apart from it?' And the Count said, 'It is your fate that you will come to dwell there again. When that time has come, it will be made known to you; and in this you must trust to the Gods.' And he gave up to them his holy staff, blessed by B'caw, which was to him the sign of his stewardship of the Isle; and he dove into the Sea, and was not seen again."

He fell silent, and stood aside as Shyriath stood before the podium again. "It has been a long time," he said. "Your wanderings have brought you freedom, and livelihood, but you have no land of your own except the one you have left behind. My People, your Isle remains still, and now it calls to you. The time has come at last when you may return home."

There was another long pause. Hinda realized that tears had filled her eyes, and she heard quiet sobs among the whispers of the audience. It was one thing to be told, from the earliest age, of the fabled Isle and the destiny that would one day return its People to it; it was utterly another, even for the most devout believer, to find that the day had finally come. The mind reeled under the enormity of it, knowing that suddenly nothing would be the same, and all were at a loss to find a way to deal with it...

At last, the ancient creature brought his mouth close to ear of the Count of Sunderspray and murmur briefly. The man cleared his throat, and spoke into the microphone. "This... this will be discussed. We have... obviously, the day of our return has been long awaited... but we will finish our business first. Our laws demand the choosing of a new Count, and we have the Musica affair to deal with, but when those are done..." he trailed off briefly, and then added, "The Co- ...that is, Lord Shyriath has indicated that he will take a seat in the spectators' gallery to witness the proceedings. Those who have accounts still to give, may give them. Please continue."

Hinda watched her father wordlessly stand up and return to his seat, with a wooden expression on his face. Feeling numb inside, she turned and left the stage; she was painfully aware that the former Count was hobbling painfully up the stairs after her. She rejoined her brother and friends at their seats, but they kept glancing nervously at Shyriath, who, with apparent discomfort, wedged himself onto a seat only a short distance away and rested his head on the back of the seat in front of him. No one else in the audience seemed inclined to approach him closer than the four were already sitting, though the half-dragon appeared not to notice.

Atuna stared at him, shaking. "It's true... it's all true... look at him, that's him, sitting there, and the legends are all true..."

"And we can go back to the Isle," Hinda murmured. Through the shock, she realized the very thought made her heart skip. To go there, and see it, and rebuild...

"No wonder he needs such odd furniture," Onar mused. "Look, he's shaped all wrong."

She felt a sudden urge to smack him in the head. A comment like that, at a time like this? Still... "And he's so old... I wonder how he got here. Nobody could swim that..."

She trailed off. She had the thought at the same time it occurred to the others: He can hide himself. And that big splash back at the waterfront...

The Accounting, meanwhile, did not seem to be going well. Her father hadn't even bothered to continue his story; many of the other would-be contenders had obviously felt unable to follow up on the sudden return of a cultural legend. Those who still participated, by and large, were subdued in their accounts. At last, a short, burly man with dark hair stepped up to the podium to begin his account. "I am Vannu Waverider, of the Wreaker of Havoc. I come before you to tell you of sights man was not meant to witness, of a city of dark stone in the far north, in the place called Leng..."

Hinda's attention drifted off. Stories about the Leng Anomaly, by those who had claimed to find something there, tended toward the same routine: a lost continent of the northern wastes that somehow escaped detection by most observers, an eerie city of basalt, populated by unfriendly people and haunted by creatures beyond the imaginings of humanity. Good for entertainment, but impossible to take seriously, especially when you had a speaker like this who seemed so full of himself; she dimly recalled that he'd been heckling the ducal legate earlier.

She realized, as the speaker launched into his tale, that Shyriath had stood up. He was staring straight at the stage, with a look of something like horror. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise as the half-dragon suddenly turned and hobbled over to them. "Girl," he said to her, "what is that..." He struggled. "...that that, down there? What is at the podium?"

Hinda gulped. "Er. My lord, I don't know what you mean. I only see the person speaking."

Shyriath stared at her, for much longer than was comfortable. Behind her, Pendura quietly shifted position; legend or not, the old creature seemed crazy enough to do something... unpleasant. But at last, the half-dragon glanced at the stage, blinked, and then said quietly, "Forgive me. At a certain age, the mind wanders; I meant to ask who it was."

Hinda remembered to start breathing again, and thought, He doesn't sound like he was confused. But aloud she said, "I don't know. I've heard the name once or twice. I gather he thinks himself a big man."

The creature turned to look at the stage, nodding thoughtfully. "I see. Thank you."

Slowly, painfully, he returned to his seat. Hinda stared at him for a while, and then squinted at the podium. There was no one there but Vannu, and elsewhere on the stage were the others who had been there before; other than many of them looking like they needed a stiff drink to help deal with events, she saw nothing particularly wrong, and she could only assume no one else did either.

Shaking her head, she wondered what else the day would bring.