Free Gods of the Greataway by Michael G. Coney Page A

but he couldn’t see them any more, and after a while he turned and stumbled back to his dwelling.
    He is never mentioned again in the legends of Polysitia.

S AGA OF THE G REAT B LUE
    I
nPolysitia the minstrels tell of the Great Blue, the huge whale that, over the centuries, has appeared in times of need. They say the whale is over two hundred meters long, and that he sings a song more beautiful than any minstrel’s as he cruises the oceans of Earth. Stories of the Great Blue are uplifting stories — of islands saved from destruction during hurricanes, of children saved from drowning while at play, of fish herded to desolate shores during times of starvation. All the islands have stories that tell of the Great Blue, and students of later years have remarked often on the one common factor: that the Whale seemed to have the power of sensing human distress from afar. Where he came from nobody ever knew; but he came, and he helped people in need, and he went away.
    *
    Kelina was back. In his mysterious way — so the minstrels say — the Great Blue had found Kelina, where the emissaries of King Awamia had failed, and had delivered her to the island of Malaloa. Now, the Great Blue was good and acted only in the interests of man, and could not have known that Malaloa had recently declared war on King Awamia’s island of Uami. War was unthinkable to the Great Blue.
    Sothe soldiers of King Usalo of Malaloa took Kelina, and held her in a small coastal village that was the nearest point to Uami at that time. And they sent word to King Awamia, telling him that they held his daughter captive and that he must surrender his lands if he wanted to see her again.
    Now, King Awamia had enlisted the help of four strangers in the war against Malaloa, and these strangers had shown him how to build huge sails to propel his island farther away from his foe. If they had but known it, this practice would eventually have wrecked the island upon the barren shores of Dry Land, but at the time King Awamia was interested only in flight. The strangers were evil, so the minstrels tell, and of peculiar shape. One of them had a chest as big as an orca but with normal legs, and another, a female, had breasts like two huge puffer fish. The third stranger was incredibly old and wrinkled, and the fourth was like a giant baby.
    The soldiers of Malaloa stood at the shore, waiting for King Awamia’s response, and in due course they saw a Rider approaching. He pulled up and stepped ashore, while his mount cruised away to join fifty other orcas, all ready to carry soldiers against King Awamia if his reply was not satisfactory.
    The Rider’s name was Or Kala and he bowed before the king. “I took the message,” he said, “and King Awamia gave me audience. When I told him we had his daughter, he cried and embraced me. He had his servants prepare a vast meal, and we celebrated long into the night.”
    “Wait a moment.” King Usalo frowned. “We are at war with these people, in the name of the Code. We don’t celebrate with them. The girl Kelina is a hostage. Did Awamia understand that?”
    “He couldn’t think about war. All he could think of was his daughter. If we’d asked him to surrender the whole world, he’d have done it gladly. So far as he’s concerned, the war’s over.”
    “Oh.” King Usalo was somewhat disappointed. “So what happens next? You gave him the full message — that his daughter would not be returned to him until the gap between our two islands was narrow enough for her to step across?” His voice was a little pompous. He was rather proud of this stipulation, which killed two fish, as it were, with one spear.
    “Itold him. It didn’t bother him. He sent his Riders to round up the guidewhales, and he set his villagers to tearing down the sails that the strangers had built.”
    “The strangers … Are they as ugly as we hear?”
    “Yes, although the older woman has a certain charm.”
    “How did they react when Awamia