Foster, Alan Dean Catechist 03 A Triumph of Souls

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rage, but now the bulk of it, aligned by blows from Ehomba s blade, raged from directly behind the ship,
driving it across the wild Semordria in the direction it had originally been traveling.
Steer the winds as he might, Ehomba could not subdue them, not even with the wondrous sword. Priget
once more gained control of the helm, and managed to keep the ship on course, but before the herdsman
had been able to get the winds organized and under control theGr�msketter had taken a terrible beating.
We need a respite. Stanager had taken one half of the wheel, opposite her helmswoman. A blow
from the blow. She flung her head to one side and slightly back, flipping sodden red hair out of her face.
An island in whose protected lee we could shelter would be best, but none lie close on our chosen
heading. Tilting back her head, she examined the storm-swept sky. Of course, we are no longer sailing
on our original heading. I think we have been blown many leagues northward.
Put me down, Hunkapa. As the hulking biped obediently complied, Ehomba smiled up at him. You
did well, my hairy friend. Are you all right?
Through the rain and darkness the bulky figure beamed at him. Hunkapa like to help. Hunkapa strong!
Long, powerful arms reached up and out, as if to encompass all ocean and sky.
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Strong enough. The herdsman blinked away rain, staring forward. Simna was at his side, trying to
follow his friend s line of sight.
What is it, bruther? What do you see? An island? His tone was hopeful. Not that he cared overmuch
for the condition of theGr�msketter, so long as she continued to float, but as a landsman raised on open
plains and prairies, he felt himself overdue to stand on something that did not precipitously and
unpredictably drop away from beneath his feet.
No, not an island, Ehomba replied as softly as he could, given the need to be heard above the wind.
Something else. Turning, he addressed the stalwart redhead. Captain, I think if you head your ship
fifteen degrees to port you may find the respite you are looking for!
Squinting into the squall, she tried to descry what her singular passenger was pointing out. I don t see
anything, Mr. Ehomba.
Please, call me Etjole. If you do not see anything, then youare seeing it.
Her expression contorted and she barked at the tall southerner s companion. Simna! What nonsense is
he talking?
The swordsman could only shrug. Sorcerers speak a language unto themselves, but I ve learned these
past many weeks to heed his advice. If he says to sail toward nothing, I d be the first man to set my helm
for it.
Stanager mulled over this second suggested absurdity in succession. I see no harm in sailing toward
nothing. Her gaze drifted upward. The storm holds steady behind us. A little to port or starboard will
not strain the stays any more than they already are. Helm to port! she ordered Priget. Working in
concert, the two women forced the wheel over.
It was late afternoon before they arrived at the place Ehomba had espied through the depths of the
tempest. It was not, as he had told Simna, an island. Nor was it land of any kind. But it was a place of
calm, and rest, in the midst of raging windblown chaos. That did not mean it was a haven for the
exhausted crew of theGr�msketter and their battered ship. What the herdsman had seen and what they
were about to enter into proffered an entirely unnatural and potentially perilous tranquillity. It was a
valley.
A valley in the sea.
III
The bowl-shaped depression in the ocean s otherwise unbroken expanse was large enough to hold most
of Hamacassar. Through the fulminating winds they could see that the ocean sloped gently down into the
glassy green basin on all four sides. Attempting to analyze the impossibility, Stanager would have ordered
theGr�msketter hard to starboard to avoid it, but there was no time. One moment the ship was
thundering westward, driven by gales whipped into line by Ehomba s parrying blade. Then its bow was
tilting downward into a trough the likes of which no sailor aboard had ever seen.
The concavity lay not between the crests of two waves, but between four uniquely stable oceanic slopes.
Several women and not a few of the men held their breath as the ship s keel began to slide downward at
a perilously sharp angle. As she descended she picked up speed, though not a great deal. It was not so
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