Free The Navigator of Rhada by Robert Cham Gilman Page B

the cliffs.”
    Gonlan’s seas were without tides, for the planet had no satellites. But the howling equinoctial storms often piled the waters against tie sheer cliffs of the Stoneland Peninsula, covering the narrow strands of beach at the base of the palisades.
    “We might be trapped here?” Janessa asked.
    It could be far worse than that, Kynan knew. Rhadan mares were strong swimmers; even they could brave the fury of this storm for only short distances. But he said with a confidence he did not feel, “We’ll stay on the beach only a short time. I know these cliffs. There’s a trail we can use to get to the plateau about two kilometers from here.”
    The mare tossed her head and said warningly, “Ky-nan. Go. Go now.”
    Kynan rubbed the soft, storm-wet nuzzle and said, “Yes,now.” He turned to help Janessa mount and saw the other shapes in the darkness. The silver mare was moving toward him across the strand, but behind her came still another animal, this one carrying a man whose cape, wind-driven, stood out like a black banner. Kynan drew his pistol, aimed, and fired.
    The flint spark sputtered across the priming pan and died. The pistol was useless in this drenching rain. Kynan dropped it and drew his sword from the scabbard across his back.
    The mounted man pulled up short and raised his open hands. He said, “Kynan.”
    The Navigator knew that voice: his bond-father’s warlock, Baltus.
    “Get down,” Kynan shouted, his words whipped away into the night by the storm.
    The warlock slipped from his charger and came near. Kynan kept the point of his sword against the old man’s chest. “I heard you instruct the mare in the stable court,” the warlock said.
    “You can’t stop us, Baltus,” Kynan said. “Why did you come here?”
    The warlock inclined his head toward Janessa: a touch of courtliness that seemed to Kynan wildly out of place on this rain-lashed, dark stretch of ocean beach.
    “He is unarmed, Kynan,” Janessa said.
    “Why have you come here?” Kynan demanded again. “Are you alone?”
    “Yes, Nav Kynan. But we had better leave this place quickly.”
    Kynan frowned in a fury of indecision. But the warlock was right. Even as they spoke, he could feel the force of the wind increasing. Soon they could be overwhelmed by the piling of the sea against the cliffs. Kynan made his choice. He had known from the moment the pistol misfired that he could not kill his bond-father’s warlock in cold blood.
    “All right,” he said tightly. “Mount up. But you’ll explain, Baltus. And keep your hands where I can see them.”
    “I will explain willingly, Nav Kynan,” the warlock said, “when we’ve put Melissande well behind us.”
    Kynan called the silver mare and told Janessa to ride Skua. The warlock swung back onto his animal. Kynan looked back along the steep path to the place where the massive bulk of Melissande lay hidden in the wild darkness. There were no signs of pursuit yet.
    He reversed his sword and handed it to Janessa. “Ride behind him,” he said. “If he tries to leave us, use this.” The girl’s fingers closed over the hilt, but Kynan could not see the expression on her face. He felt harried and not in control of the situation. He knew that the girl would be no more willing to strike down the old warlock than he was. Yet there was nothing else he could do but chance the dangers of the developing situation. The silver mare danced under him and rolled her eyes at the encroaching sea.
    “Follow me now,” Kynan shouted, and guided the procession along the narrowing strand of beach at a gallop. The waves were crashing against the scattered boulders at the cliff base, and he hoped desperately that he had not waited too long.
     
     

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    Though I wear a crown of stars and comets and my word is law on worlds I have never seen; and though I command great fleets and armies and men fear me and obey--yet my truest pleasure is to know that men everywhere sing my songs. What greater