5.Death of Chaos
LXXXIX
DAYALA STOOD FOR a long time at the single pier at Diehl, just a step away from the plank leading up onto the Eidolon. A thin wisp of smoke trailed from the single green-striped black stack of the old Nordlan half-steamer, though the paddles were stilled.
The silver-haired and youthful-looking woman turned for a last look toward the valley of the Great Forest of Naclos. She turned back, took a deep breath, picked up her pack, and walked up the plank to where the mate with the short blond beard and muscled arms waited.
“My name is Dayala.”
“Yes. You are the druid. Captain Heroulk said you should have the second cabin to yourself, Lady.” He bowed.
She waited, not knowing where the second cabin might be.
The mate smiled, then gestured to the sailor behind him. “Jelker, show the lady to the second cabin.”
A blond-haired and slender youth stopped coiling a line and stepped up with a bow.
“Thank you.” Dayala inclined her head to the mate.
“Our pleasure, Lady. Druids bring good luck, or at least, keep away ill fate, and that's the same for any sailor.”
“Steam up! Plank up! Cast off!” ordered the mate, after turning from Dayala.
She followed Jelker down the ladder and into the small cabin, where she set the pack on the lower bunk. Her toes wiggled on the hardwood, and she repressed a shiver.
“Are you really a druid?”
“lam.”
The ship swayed, and a dull thumping sound reverberated through the hull.
“I mean, do you talk to trees... ?”
She shook her head.“Trees don't listen. Sometimes, we listen to them, or to the rest of life...”
“Do you... I mean... is it... just trees?”
With a laugh, she answered. “No. I have a man. A mage who is also a druid.”
“Oh...”
“Don't sound so disappointed that an old woman like me-”
“Old? You can't be more than eighteen.”
“If you knew how old I really was...” She gestured toward the cabin door. “I'd like to go up on deck.”
He stared down at her boldly.
Dayala sighed and looked back at the young man for a long moment, feeling the darkness well from her, feeling the age and the power of the Great Forest surge forth.
The youngster paled. “I'm sorry, Lady.”
She touched his shoulder lightly. “I did warn you. Let's go.”
Jelker hurried the three steps to the ladder and scrambled up, leaving Dayala to make her way topside alone. After shaking her head, she took her time.
Later, standing by the port rail, she watched the shore fall away, her eyes focused beyond Diehl toward the Great Forest.
Once the Eidolon cleared the bay, the dull thumping stopped, and the ship shivered into full sail before the wind.
Dayala kept one hand on the poop railing as the Eidolon gently eased over a low wave, and a small spray of white outlined the bow. In the late afternoon light, the ship steadied, quieter than ever.
The paddles still, the great ancient steam engine cooled. While the wind held, and it would, the captain needed to burn no coal.
“Always get a good wind coming out of Diehl,” observed the second mate, pausing beside Dayala for a moment, his short brown hair disheveled by the wind. “Most times, anyway.” He glanced at the browns Dayala wore and then at her bare feet. “You a druid and traveling? That doesn't happen much.”
“Only when it is necessary. Very necessary.”
“And this is very necessary?” A smile played around his lips.
“If you do not want the world to belong to Hamor and for chaos to perch on every hilltop.” Her tone was light.
The man's eyes flicked to hers. Then he looked down at the planks. “I guess it must be important. Druids don't lie.”
“Sometimes it would be easier.”
He shivered, and then bowed. “Need to be getting on, Lady.”
A faint and bitter smile crossed the druid's lips, and she turned her eyes to the northeast, toward Kyphros and Ruzor. Toward where she would meet Justen.