"So what's the harm in doing what I suggest? It'll keep the gunners angry at me, and keep them from stiffening up."

"I'll do it," Tehidy said with a sigh. "I hope you're going to do something equally stupid."

"Probably," Gareth said. "I'm going for a swim. As soon as it's dark."

a a a Armed men brought food to the island a and a miserable-looking man who, a guard told Gareth, was their food taster. "So you will know we do not seek underhanded ways of destroying our enemies."

"I take that to mean," Cosyra said, "that they seek underhanded ways of destroying their enemies."

"Most likely," Gareth agreed. "But that poor man looks as if he could use a good meal."

The foods were dressed fowls, corn, eggs, spiced peppers, a rather sour beer, and fruit.

"Makes you wonder," Tehidy said. "If these cheerful fellers aren't in the habit of entertaining, where'd they rustle up the rations so quickly?"

"That ain't hard," Froln said. "They did a house-to-house and yanked everybody's dinner out from the table."

"Makes sense," Tehidy said. "You notice the men with the bows didn't vanish after making their delivery, but are manning posts on the other end of the causeway?"

"I noticed," Froln said. "I noticed."

One end of a barracks was a cookhouse, and the sea-cooks set to work while the rest cleaned up in shifts, weapons at hand.

a a a Cosyra splashed about happily.

"I think," she said, "if I soak for, oh, another week and a half, I might get most of the jungle muck off my skin."

"Don't work too hard," Gareth advised. "Remember, we jump back in it in a few days a" assuming these rockpilers we're guesting with do something civilized, like replenish our supplies."

"You know," Cosyra said, pointedly looking away from Gareth, "to change the subject away from people who I'm pretty sure want us dead, I've been thinking about this marriage idea, and am not sure I like it all that much."

"You've gone back to the way you used to think."

"Think, I think, is the correct word, I think," she said. "This damned love business muddies your mind.

"However, pretending I'm a rational adult, I did decide to do something when we get back to Ticao.

"I was never keen on finding out who my father is, I guess for fear he'd turn out to be some piece of noble slime like our friend Quindolphin.

"But I'm going to be a big girl, and put inquiry agents to work when we get back."

"What'll you do if you find him?" Gareth asked.

"That I'm not sure of. Probably, after I finish crying my eyes out, slap the old bastard silly for hiding from me all these years."

a a a Gareth moved through the water slowly, smoothly, keeping his legs and arms below the water, as he'd learned as a boy, hand-spearing sharks lazing near the surface of the ocean, never splashing, never alarming.

A light rain drizzled the lake, making it harder for him to be seen.

He knew the corsairs were being watched, most likely by watchers in the shadows and magic, and had taken precautions before setting out. Ten men had jumped into the lake, splashing noisily, but only nine had surfaced close to the island.

Gareth swam to the mucky bottom, about ten feet down, then as far as he could underwater. He surfaced, took a breath, went on toward the far side of the lake. It turned out to be larger than he'd thought, curving around in a large C.

On the far side of the lake, just beyond sight of Gareth's island, was another causeway, this one floating.

He saw nothing on the shore worth investigating and was about to swim back, then he swam to the causeway and examined it carefully. It was a series of lashed-together rafts of heavy wood, each raft about fifteen feet by twenty feet.

Gareth floated on his back, thinking, planning. Interesting, he thought, as he began the slow, careful swim back. Very interesting.

a a a Gareth and Cosyra had been given a corner to themselves, and someone had hung blankets on a rope for privacy.

They lay close together, listening to the rain as it drummed harder on the tile roof.

"Very strange," Cosyra whispered, "sleeping indoors and all."

"Mmm-hmm. Do you think it'll become popular?" Gareth asked.

"Probably not," Cosyra said. "Ouch a" I'd gotten used to my nice soft mud and all. This floor magnifies all my corners."

Gareth whispered a suggestion in her ear, and she giggled and rolled on her back.

"I do love you, you know," he said, as his hands moved over her body.

"Nice to have something to depend on," she murmured.

a a a Gareth dreamt that night, and his dream was terrible, for he knew it was truth.

He hung over dense, uncleared jungle, seeing nothing but the furtiveness of the forest creatures as they came and went. In the distance was the sea. Slowly, tribes of hunters, slash-and-burn farmers moved into the region.

A fierce tribe of warriors came from the south, fleeing some strange demons. They cleared and planted the jungle, warred on the tribes around them, subjugated them.

These slaves labored, building great pyramids, while the warriors went out, again and again, bringing back captives from afar.

Some of these were made slaves, others were sacrificed in larger and larger lots. The wizards of this people grew stronger with the deaths.

They became creative in their killings, slowly dismembering their prisoners, slicing them slowly to ribbons, or, worse yet, closing them in intricately wrought iron scorpions over fires. When the screams stopped, the magicians fed on the scorched human flesh, and pronounced this good, that they were gaining the strength of these defeated soldiers.

Then came a time when there were no more enemies to fight or raid, and so the wizards turned on their own people.

The sacrifices grew ever more elaborate, more brutal, and the magicians seemed not to care that the jungle was slowly regaining its ground as the population shrank and seemed to lose their spirit.

The evil of these people hung over them and their lands like a dark, dirty fog, and then Gareth woke up in the dimness just before dawn.

Cosyra woke at the same time, looked at him, started to say something, then got up and hastily went out and threw up into the lake. He followed her out.

She rinsed her mouth, asked, "Did you dream? About these bastards?"

Gareth nodded.

"That wasn't a dream," she said. It was not a question.

"No," Gareth said.

"Did they a their magicians a send it?"

"I don't know," Gareth said. He saw Labala coming out of another door. "If they did, why'd they send the last part a" the part about their decadence a" if they're trying to frighten us."

He noticed Labala was shaken.

"You, too, dreamed of these around us?"

"I did," Labala said. "And more. I saw something, some sort of vision, after I'd seen these people's slow dying.

"I don't think it was intended. Maybe I was riding on the spirit of one of these wizards here, like you can launch a canoe through the surf more easily in the backwash of a great wave.

"I hung over this island and saw us sleeping, some of us moaning in our sleep, for many of us were dreaming the dream.

"Then I was outside the city, a day's travel, beyond any of the buildings. I saw the Linyati in their camp, and two Runners were talking to a man who looked like that Baryatin and another dressed like him.

"Then I woke up."

Gareth considered. "Not good," he said. "Assuming you dreamt true, and there's no reason you didn't, that means they're negotiating with the Slavers.

"Their enemies."

"The enemy of my enemy could be my friend," Cosyra reminded him.

Gareth nodded. "Maybe they're thinking they could buy the Slavers off from their raiding by delivering us, all trussed up for the slaughter."

"I think," Labala said, "I'd best be preparing some spells, and we had better start packing for a very sudden journey."

"What about that dinner tonight?" Cosyra said.

"I don't think we'll have any choice," Gareth said. "We'll just have to go well armed, and hope if they start something we can fight our way back here."

"And then what?"

"I don't know," Gareth said. "We'll have to find a" and seize a" the opportunity when it comes."

"If it comes," Cosyra corrected.

a a a Gareth was looking for Iset, and found Knoll N'b'ry, Froln, and Nomios in deep concentration. N'b'ry had drawn some sketches on the rock wall of the barracks with a stone.

It was various views of a ship.

"Now that'll give these Hertis something to puzzle over once we leave," Gareth said, amused.

"Here," N'b'ry said, "just the man we need. I've been thinking about the way we go a-pirating, and there's things wrong with it."

"No fooling," Gareth said. "The way we got euchred out of that treasure fleet still rankles."

"The first thing we're doing wrong," N'b'ry went on, "is we're using the wrong kind of ships."

"He's tellin' us we ought not just grab the first merchantman we see, or, we build one like it, but with guns, like the old Steadfast," Froln said. "Look at this."

The drawing was of a long, slender, two-masted ship, with a bow like a knife-blade. But what caught the eye was the amount of sail it carried a" two huge gaffsails on each mast, plus triangular sails between the foremast and the jib boom. Also, small squaresails reached above the angled gaffsails.

"Enough sail there to drive her under," Gareth said.

"Not with that shape," N'b'ry said. "She'll cut through the water, not push her way like a fat-butted marketwoman. Also, see the rake on the masts, to take the strain."

Gareth considered the design.

"Looks like it ought to sail close to the wind."

"Just so," N'b'ry agreed.

"We kin flash our arses in front of any escort," Nomios said, "run downwind, then tack back, not wearin' ship, and be on the merchantmen like the wolf."

He stared out the door, and Gareth knew he was seeing open ocean and clean sky, instead of gray, evil stone.

a a a The air that day was still and humid, as if waiting for a storm.

A runner came, just before the midday meal, to tell Gareth that Baryatin wished the woman to attend the feast as well as his officers.

"I wonder why the change?" Cosyra wondered.

"The wand-waver wants a little beauty a" besides mine, I mean a" to liven up the affair," Tehidy suggested.

Cosyra looked at him and snorted. "I think I'd best go sharpen my dagger."

Twenty-one.

No, Cosyra," Gareth said slowly. "Sharpen your dagger if you wish, but you'll not be using it to slice a roast. We'll not be attending this feast."

Froln grimaced. " *Twould be a declaration of war, with us trapped on this damned rock."

"Better that than dividing our forces," Gareth said. "Kill the officers at the feast, hit this island at the same time a" that would make things just too easy."

He sent for Labala.