"Find something to eat. Drink as much water as you can, and . . ." Secca paused, then spoke each word clearly, "Go back to sleep."

"But . . . if you need me."

"You're keeping the rest of us safe. If you get too tired to hold those ward spells, we'll all suffer.

Please get some food and take care of yourself," Secca concluded warmly.

"Are you . . .?"

"I am most certain," Secca said firmly. "You are taking care of us as surely as you can."

"Thank you, lady." With a nod, Richina turned, easing her way forward, and then down the ladder.

"Hadn't 'a seen what sorcery does, not sure I'd believe it." Denyst shook her head. "Rather be a ship mistress."

Secca smiled. "If you'll excuse me, I need to warm up."

Denyst nodded.

Secca walked to the port railing and began a vocalise, trying to warm up slowly and evenly.

Behind her, she heard Alcaren trying his voice, although his vocalises were still rough. Secca found herself coughing halfway through the first vocalise.

Alcaren appeared with a water bottle, tendering it silently. She took a swallow, handed it back, and continued with the vocalise. After the second vocalise, Secca slipped back toward the helm platform, beside which Denyst and Alcaren stood.

Denyst pointed off the starboard bow. "Closest ones are there. Just two of them, you see. Still a good three deks from the Wellereiterin."

Secca watched. So did Alcaren.

"They're swinging south," Denyst announced after a time, long before Secca could see any change in heading from the Sturinnese vessels.

"They're trying to get you to use sorcery without hazarding many of their ships," Alcaren suggested.

"Can you have the others-our ships-close up a little more?" asked Alcaren.

"Not be a good idea to be closer than half a dek." Denyst pointed out.

"Half a dek would help," Alcaren said. "It will also keep them out of the first lashing of the storms."

"Alcaren did tell you---that there could be storms after the sorcery?" Secca asked.

"He did. We passed that on to the others. Just to rig for heavy weather once the Sturinnese closed. Didn't tell 'em why. The less said the better. Flag signals aren't always secret, even in code."

Secca glanced forward, in the direction of the main deck, still empty of players, then out to the south, where the sails of the Sturinnese vessels seemed fractionally closer. "I think we should get the players tuning."

Alcaren nodded, and started down the ladder.

"I didn't mean you had to-"

"Might as well," he called back. "It's easier on me than standing and watching, and we can't do any sorcery-or I can't---without players."

"Some ways, he hasn't changed much," Denyst said dryly. "Hated to wait for anything as a boy.

Hid it well, but those of us who knew him could see that."

"And in other ways?"

"He was always polite, but never has he been so attentive to anyone as he is to you, Lady Sorceress."

Never have you been so attentive . . . except you take him too much for granted at times such as these. Secca looked out to the south. Perhaps at all too many times.

"Sorceress?" asked Denyst.

"I was just thinking. He is very special."

"Special he is and may be, but---"

"Sails to stern! Closing!" The warning came from somewhere in the yards above.

Secca glanced up, but she could not tell which lookout had voiced the call.

Denyst glanced aft, quickly, then nodded. "They'll not catch us quickly, but best your players be soon ready."

Secca nodded. Alcaren had already gone to summon them, and there was little enough she could do for the moment-or should.

Alcaren's head had no sooner reappeared as he climbed up the ladder than players began streaming out onto the main deck.

"Palian already had them up. They'd already finished eating," he explained.

Almost immediately, Secca could hear the tuning. "Quick tune!" ordered Palian. "We need the warm-up song! Places!"

"Second players in places!" Delvor's voice-almost as high as Palian's---rose over the hubbub of the tuning.

Secca glanced aft, but the sails that had appeared to be closing had drifted back.

"Worry more about those forward," Denyst suggested. "They turn into us, and they'll be closing twice as fast."

"They likely to turn so that we'll change course," asked Alcaren, "and then get caught between them and the ships trailing?"

"Weren't for the fact that they worry about your sorcery, I'd wager they'd already have tried that," replied the captain. "Signs are that they will soon. The ships to the west are trimming sail, just a touch, so little that they hope we won't notice."

Secca turned to her consort. "I'm going to have the players play through the first building song.

We should listen and mark it silently."

"That would help me," he said. "I've far less experience than you with such."

Secca walked to the forward part of the poop deck and called down to Palian. "It may not be long now!"

"Quiet!" ordered the chief player.

The warm-up song halted.

"Say that again, Lady Secca, if you will."

"It won't be long. Could you run through the first building song right now?"

"First building song. At my mark!" Palian ordered. "Mark!"

As the players offered the spellsong, there was enough raggedness that Secca was more than glad she had ordered the run-through.

"You must do better," Palian said. "Rowal, you are a half beat behind everyone. Pick it up."

Palian glanced to Secca. "Do we have time for another?"

Secca looked to the captain.

"Your call, sorceress. They've not swung their helms yet"

Secca turned. "Go ahead."

Secca noted that Alcaren's eyes almost closed as he followed the accompaniment.

The players finished the second run-through, and, so far as Secca could see, none of the Sturinnese ships was any closer.

For perhaps a quarter of a glass, Secca watched the Sturinnese sails, watched Denyst, and watched Palian.

Abruptly, Denyst turned and gestured. 'There's a wedge forming, be coming from the south on the starboard. You want any different course?

"No," Secca replied. "How long before they're two deks away?"

"Less 'n quarter glass," replied the captain.

"We'll be doing the spells before that," Secca said.

"You tell me when to tell Palian," Alcaren said, stepping to the railing over the main deck.

"Stand ready for the first building song!"

"Players standing ready," Palian returned.

Secca had her eyes on the white-hulled ships that seemed to swell up off the starboard bow.

"Almost . . ." She kept watching, absently running through part of a vocalise, looking at the wedge of Sturinnese vessels, perhaps a half-score, and the more distant sails of the ships that held back, hoping that she would cast spell after spell until she could cast no more.

"Now." She didn't raise her voice. Alcaren could do that.

"The first building song!" Alcaren called.

"The first building song on my mark. . . Mark!"

With Palian's direction to the players, Secca pushed the worries out of her mind, the concerns that the Sturinnese fleet was spread too far and across too many deks.

Alcaren stood beside her, just aft of the railing that separated the forward edge of the poop deck from the main deck below.

The Sturinnese ships appeared far closer than the two deks that Denyst had estimated, but, as the accompaniment rose from the first and second players on the main deck, Secca concentrated totally on the spell to come, on the words, on the image of the water and the spouts, spouts that would range for ten deks or more from the Silberwelle, and on meshing with the melody that rose from the players below, trusting that Alcaren would support the spellsong in his own way. She made a special effort to visualize the spouts striking the ships, but visualized no more than spouts and ships and winds and rain, just spouts and ships . . . spouts and ships.

From the first words, she and Alcaren and the spellsong were one, and from somewhere behind and underneath all that was Erde came an answering sense of harmony.

"Water boil and water bubble like a caldron of sorcerers' trouble.

build a storm with winds swirling through in spouts that break Sturinn 's ships in two . . ."

With another full breath between the stanzas, Secca continued strongly into the second, knowing that she needed to keep the images, and the intensity, through two full stanzas.

"Ocean boil and ocean bubble crush to broken sticks of floating rubble ships crewed by those in Sea-Priest white and let none escape the water's might . . ."

In the stillness following the last notes, a stillness so absolute that the wind died away and the sails hung limply from the yardarms above, the swells subsided into an unnatural shimmering flatness. The high once-white clouds grayed, and then darkened, and the dark blue expanse of the Western Sea turned almost jet-black under the shimmering surface of the water.

A low and growling rumble, followed by a high-pitched whistling whine, rose, seemingly from everywhere, and the two sounds merged into a rushing and roaring torrent In the distance, dark gray funnel spouts appeared, funnel spouts that turned jet-black, funnel spouts that also rushed and roared, as they swelled and moved toward the white-sailed and white- hulled Sturinnese vessels.

Another set of spouts appeared, less than three deks from the Silberwelle, one on each side of the wedge of Sturinnese vessels. Around theSilberwelle, the ocean remained flat, but the sails of the ships in the Sturinnese wedge pitched forward, and then back. The first spout slid into and over the ship on the right edge of the wedge, and white fragments flew upward, streaking the dark water of the spout but momentarily before the water turned even blacker.

Two more Sturinnese ships vanished into the dark spouts, and the ocean around the Silberwelle was no longer calm, as a swell nearly three yards high surged toward the Ranuan vessel. Another higher swell loomed ahead.

The wind continued to rise, tearing at Secca.

"Get below!" Alcaren's voice rose over the roaring of the wind. "Get below!"

"To your quarters! Now!" Palian's higher voice followed Alcaren's.

A gust of wind, more like a wall, swept across the poop deck. Secca locked one arm around the railing, then the other as the combined rush of wind and water buffeted her.

"Keep her steady!" That was Denyst's order.

In what Secca knew had to be a momentary lull, Alcaren helped her down the ladder. They both held tight to the bottom of the ladder as another blast of water and wind lashed them. Then Alcaren thrust Secca inside and closed the hatch door. They staggered along the passageway to the captain's cabin. Secca felt that water gushed from her clothing and her body, and with every step she lurched against one bulkhead or the other.

She had to fumble with the hatch, then was through the open hatchway into the cabin, ramming into the nearest chair. She managed to hold to the chair back and the table and lever herself into one of the chairs. Alcaren staggered, closing the cabin door, and struggled into the chair beside Secca, putting a hand on the table to brace himself.

Secca found herself gripping the wooden arms of the chair so tightly that her hands were aching.

As the cabin and the ship-tilted once again, she had to force herself to relax her grip somewhat.

"You . . . were . . . right . . . about . . . storms . . ."

"I . . . wish . . . I had not been," replied Alcaren.

Secca could hear the unhappiness in her consort's voice, could sense the physical discomfort. He hates being at sea, and yet he has said nothing. A second thought struck her. You feel tired, as with heavy roadbuilding, but only with a headache, and without double vision. Was Alcaren right about concentrating on the spell and not on the results of the spell?