Masks of Scorpio Read Free

any number of worlds — and I am not that one — can get a knock on the head and drop into the sea with a splash that ends all...
    And, I admit to a fascination in finding out just how good Dayra was. That she was very good indeed was obvious from her training with the Sisters of the Rose, from her exploits, and from the simple fact that she was still alive.
    Tuscurs Maiden ran on in her lumpy wallowing fashion and Captain Linson kept casting black looks aloft to match the gathering sky. He was reluctant to take in any canvas. If he did so the pursuers would race up to us; if he did not and the breeze increased with sudden ferocity he could lose a sail or two, perhaps a spar. The situation was tricky.
    Down in the Shrouded Sea in the great continent of Havilfar, south of the equator, sailors have to deal with volcanic disturbances almost as often as gales. Down there they call on Father Shoshash the Stormbrow, imploring him through Mother Shoshash of the Seaweed Hair not to destroy them. Up in Vallia the seamen of the superb Vallian galleons call less on the gods and spirits of the sea in terms of supplication, demanding a live and let live policy. Vallian sailors trust to their ships and their nautical skills.
    They apostrophize Corg from time to time; but he and they rub along.
    Had we been in a galleon of Vallia now, I would not have been so concerned. As it was, I owned to a lively feeling of imminent disaster. And this, as you will perceive, was because I sailed with my daughter as shipmate.
    So it was that when the blue-glimmering apparition appeared on the forecastle of the ship I was among the first to leap eagerly for the help promised.
    “Mindi the Mad!” yelled those who knew her. She had helped us before and now she was going to help us again...
    We crowded up. She stood on the castle which, in an argenter was a real castle-like construction containing varters and not the low lean fo’c’sle of a galleon.
    “Mindi! Mindi the Mad!”
    She stood there in her usual pose, head downbent and her auburn hair shining from a light that never came from the suns above us. Her pale blue gown reached in its straight folds to a circle about her feet.
    Her arms were folded in the gown.
    Yet her figure wavered. She shimmered. We all knew the witch was not really standing on our forecastle; but her apparition presented far less of the solid reality it had shown before. A dark blur of the bowsprit showed through her, until her blueness coalesced and she was fully fleshed before us; then the image flickered and wavered erratically.
    Naghan the Pellendur who ran our guards with admirable correctness in the absence of the cadade, said:
    “She is having great difficulty. And there is no wonder at that!” He spoke with a crisp disdain which embraced the sea and all things to do with the ocean.
    The blue-gowned apparition lifted an arm. A pale hand pointed landward.
    We all craned over the bulwarks to look.
    A shadow raced across the sea. Clouds massed above and the radiance of jade and crimson lay low across the water beyond the shadow. Rimming the horizon the coast of Bormark lifted jagged peaks.
    Captain Linson said: “If we sail inshore I will not answer for the shoals—”
    “Yet she clearly intends us to do just that.” Pompino tugged at his whiskers.
    “She must know a way of safety.” Naghan the Pellendur looked decidedly unhappy. He was a Fristle, and it is notorious that that race of catlike diffs are not enamored of the sea. They make atrocious sailors, and are generally not employed aboard ship. Naghan, for one, would dearly love to set foot safely on dry land once more.
    Cap’n Murkizon let rip a bellow.
    “Put good men in the chains, Captain Linson! Go craftily. If this witch leads us, we can find a safe passage. By the unwholesome armpit of the Divine Lady of Belschutz! For an expert captain such as yourself the risk is not so great!”
    The mockery with which Linson habitually treated Murkizon was now