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Five: Veporligh Dawning

The clear, pre-dawn sky over Boendal glowed a muted amber, the early morning twilight making the city's winding network of streets shimmer in dim golden shades. Already those streets hosted a healthy stream of early risen traffic, tradesmen and craftsmen hurrying from their homes to their shops, sailors and fishermen making their way back to the harbor, and the city's mounted peacekeepers patrolling to make certain everyone reached their destinations safely. It was a quiet, subdued beginning to what was bound to be a remarkable day, neither the cloudless sky nor the waking populace offering any indications of the celebration which years of planning and anticipation would finally bring to fruition that afternoon.

Rialla watched it all wearily from the balcony of her too-expensive inn room. Given that the city had seen an influx of more tourists over the past few days than ever before in its history, she'd had to spend all of what was left of her life savings, already greatly diminished by the long trip from Vosenfal to Boendal, to spend a single night in the room, but its balcony had an uninterrupted view of a long stretch of one of the city's busiest boulevards. However great, the expense had been necessary.

Necessary, yet pointless. Rialla hadn't left the balcony since she'd arrived the previous evening, and had rarely allowed herself to blink through the night, but if her husband had ventured up or down the lantern-strewn street, he'd managed to avoid her attention. Of course, she didn't really expect Jiam to be strolling around Boendal in the middle of the night, and she knew how unlikely he was to walk past her inn, no matter how convenient the street was, but she couldn't waste any chance to find him, no matter how remote that chance might be. She knew he was in the city, at least, and that he would likely be somewhere along the harbor that afternoon; the heart of the Veporligh hour was centered over Liberation Bay, and Jiam would want to be as close to that center as possible to harvest his "moon filtered sunlight."

With a deep sigh, she raised her eyes from the early risen traffic below her balcony to the calm sea visible beyond the rooftops across the wide street, focusing for a moment on the distant horizon to relax her eyes. She shouldn't have needed to spend a sleepless night in the expensive inn in the first place. Once she'd reached Vosenfal after the night of Jiam's attack, she'd received confirmation from one of the town's watchmen that her husband had passed through the village shortly before dawn, heading southwest. She'd bought an energetic young chestnut mare from one of the villagers--the first half of her life savings--and left on the same road that Jiam had followed without taking the time to offer an explanation. In every town on her way to Boendal, it was the same. An old man had driven a small, covered mule-drawn cart through the town a day before her, stopping occasionally to offer congenial gossip and buy a head of lettuce, or a pouch of almonds or some such, before going on his way. No one thought he looked to be in much of a hurry, but even though Rialla rode from village to village as swiftly as her mare could carry her, even taking the dangerous risk of magically bolstering both the horse's energy and her own to keep them awake and moving longer than would otherwise be possible, she always remained a full day behind her husband. Every evening she would ride the exhausted mare into the stables of the same inn in which Jiam had slept the night before, the sun having set on her way into town, and even though both he and his cart were being pulled by a stubborn mule several years past his prime, Rialla would always fall asleep knowing she would have to push even harder the next day just to keep the gap between them from growing wider.

The first two nights on the road, she had tried to read a page or two of Jiam's bizarre instruction manual before collapsing into slumber, in the hopes that she might find another clue as to his intentions, but by her third day away from home, she barely had the energy to stumble into her inn room, and was always asleep the moment she fell onto the bed.

She had only been able to stay awake through the night in Boendal by drawing dormant energy from her surroundings into herself, which was a useful enough trick in the short term, but had crippling effects if used too often. Just as with a drug, the body developed a tolerance to the magical assistance, but where a drug addict might suffer severe headaches or nausea after being separated from their addiction, there were records in Eyrasabi's archives of energy withdrawal being fatal to Imperial wizards who had grown too dependent on it. Rialla had been forced to draw on the dormant energy around her far more often than she felt comfortable with over the last two weeks to keep both her horse and herself moving.

All the more reason to find Jiam quickly.

The hedge witch broke out of her reverie when the dark speck of a large bird in the distance disrupted the serene predawn skyscape, and she lowered her eyes back to the bustle in the street below her. Once the day's festivities began, finding Jiam in the crowds that were bound to fill the city's warren of haphazard roads would be a hopeless endeavor. If she didn't spot him by the time the sun was an hour's length above the eastern horizon, she decided, she would make her way to the harbor and pray for something to guide her to him. Surely, whatever means Jiam had of collecting moon filtered sunlight would cause a stir in the celebration around him. At least, that was Rialla's hope, that when her husband collected the light, the throngs would part around him, pointing in astonishment or some such, and she would be completely unable to miss him. As foolish a hope as staying awake through the night, she knew, perched on her balcony like a watchful gargoyle waiting to strike.

She glanced up again at the shape of the distant bird, close enough now that she thought she could see its wings flapping slowly in the sky. There were sea gulls and pelicans aplenty in the areas around Boendal and along the coast, most of which seemed to have joined the many tourists within the city to take part in the Veporligh hour, but aside from that single shape, the skies remained empty. No birds sang their morning praises, either, she noticed. That was odd. She'd never been to a place where birds didn't try to wake every living creature for miles around as soon as their eyes opened in the morning. Even in a city, by this hour there should have been a chorus of avian voices to greet the new day. Instead, the only noises were the many footsteps and quiet greetings of the city folk passing beneath her balcony.

She looked at a rooftop across the street, where three gulls perched in a line along the center beam of a clothier's peaked roof. None of the gulls had their heads tucked under their wings. They were all watching the same dark flyer that had caught Rialla's attention.

None of the gulls made a sound.

Two roofs over, another pair of sea gulls stood in the same silent manner, not so much as stirring a feather as they watched the single bird in the distant sky, and there, on a clothes line strung over a narrow alley, perched a row of black birds, silent as the dead. Looking up, Rialla could now see the dark shape clearly, flapping its wings more slowly than any bird she'd ever seen in flight.

For an instant, she wondered if the local birds might have good reason not to take to the skies this morning. Then she recalled the last ingredient Jiam needed to collect for his bypass. She'd cast it from her mind until now, as it hadn't offered any hint of his destination, but now...

Rialla squinted at the dark silhouette flapping against its violet and amber backdrop. It seemed to be heading someplace to the left of her balcony, east of the city.

Without a second thought, she ran out of her inn room, leaving the door swinging open to race down two flights of stairs and dash out the building's back door to its stables. She found Ness, her horse, still saddled, as she'd asked, and woke the poor mare with a jolt of energy that made her stumble against the sides and back of her stall in startled confusion, tossing her head back and forth until she saw Rialla approaching.

"Hmm? Whozat?" murmured the young stable hand from where he was dozing in a chair beside the building's wide doorway. He started awake when he realized someone was opening a stall gate and pulling a horse outside. "Hey, wait just a second. You can't--"

"Taking Ness out to stretch her legs," Rialla said, but was in too much of a hurry to offer any more explanation.

"Oh, that's all right, then. But I don't know that her legs need stretching. She looked ridden half way to her next life when you came in last night."

She was already in the saddle and urging Ness out onto the cobblestone street, leaving the stable boy to complain about abusive owners not taking proper care of their animals as he returned to his chair inside the stables. Rialla turned the horse toward the sunrise and spurred her into a trot, clutching uncertainly at the pommel in front of her with one hand while trying to loosen her grip on the reigns. She'd never been a skilled rider, and while she'd made good time from Vosenfal to the coast, she had never ridden Ness at anything faster than a brisk walk. Now she leaned forward in the saddle, her heart racing for many reasons, and urged the mare faster yet, relying on Ness more than she probably should to avoid the boulevard's foot traffic while keeping the horse moving at just short of a gallop. She didn't need Boendal's peacekeepers to stop her for endangering the other early risers.

Rialla looked up over her right shoulder as often as she dared, but the buildings lining the street blocked her view of the sky. It wasn't until she reached the city's last shops and homes, where they had been built more sparsely, that she spotted the dark flyer again, close and large enough that she could see the rising sun reflecting off its black body. It couldn't be more than a mile beyond the coast, flying in a straight line toward something in the grassy hills and rocky plateaus in front of her.

Now in the city's outskirts, the hedge witch made herself forget her lack of skill in the saddle and let her mare break into a bone jarring sprint, guiding the horse toward a creature that scared Boendal's birds speechless.

* * *

"Four licups! You just sold one to that girl for two and a half." Tolinom stopped fishing around in his coin pouch. No need to show this merchant how much money he had until the haggling was done.

"I did," the skinny, middle-aged man said, and he hefted one of the colorful glass globes Tolinom was trying to buy in his palm, "and I'm beginning to realize just how quickly I'm going to run out of these. Blowing spheres isn't like baking tarts, you know. Each one of them takes hours to craft; I don't have a batch waiting in an oven at home. Four licups a piece, so a chacup and three lis for the two you want."

Tolinom scoffed. "I'll give you a cha and one for two globes, no more than that, and that's still more than what the girl paid. I shouldn't give you a naf above the price you gave her."

"The day's still young," the glass blower said. "These'll be selling for a quil a piece once the Veporligh's started. Four licups each is a bargain, and you know it."

"So is two and a half," Tolinom said, but another customer shouldered his way in front of the Oncan, impatient with the haggling.

"I'll take one for four licups," he said, and pointed to a pale rose colored globe in the middle of the counter when the shopkeeper offered the one in his hand. "Nah, I'll have that one. My daughter loves pink."

"Hey," Tolinom protested, but the shopkeeper was already fishing the pink globe out for the other human.

"I'd pay it, Oncan," the other customer said politely. "Four licups is better than any other price I've seen this morning, and I've been about since daybreak."

"A jolly Veporligh to you," the merchant said as he traded the sphere for the man's four silver coins. "You have a good day, sir."

Tolinom just sighed. "Fine. Four a piece, then." He opened his coin pouch again and rummaged around in it until he felt the right coins.

"Actually, it's a full cha each now, so that'll be a quil for two."

"A quil! Are you going to raise your price after every sphere you sell, then?"

"Until I find the highest price folks are willing to pay, absolutely," the man said, but Tolinom had already spun around to stalk out of the shop on the other customer's heels, returning his pouch to his tunic's inner pocket.

Dola was waiting for him outside the glass blower's shop, a honey cake in each black furred hand. "They run out or something?"

Tolinom shook his head no while taking the offered honey cake. "If we spend too much on souvenirs, we won't have enough to reach Eyrasabi before heading home. It's too bad we didn't make better time. A day or two ago, that swindler would've been lucky to get a quarter of what he's asking for those globes now. The price doubled between two customers." Taking a bite of the pastry, he muttered, "A chacup a piece," through the sticky dough clinging to his teeth.

"Wow, that is pretty expensive." Dola turned to lead the way into the narrow street's heavy traffic. If she was disappointed that he'd been unable to get a good deal on the glass spheres, her brisk pace and perpetual grin did a good job of hiding it. Tolinom's own irritation quickly washed away, as well. This was why they'd left Bandarethe, to see a human city in its prime, and what a prime it was. Neither of them had ever seen so many people in one place, human or otherwise. The port city's warren of diverse streets and alleys were so filled with revelers and merchants, children and horse or mule drawn carriages, that it took the two Oncans nearly ten minutes to cross the hundred or so feet from the glass blower's shop to a small, open square made by the intersection of several roads.

A weathered granite statue stood in the center of the square, carved in the likeness of a young human boy leaning out from his stone crow's nest to peer down one of the five streets that stretched away from the square like the spokes of a wheel. The statue's gray hand shielded its eyes from the sun, which was, coincidentally, at just the right position in the eastern sky that the young sailor's carved hand seemed to be performing its desired purpose.

Humans of every description filled the square so completely that Tolinom couldn't see the statue's base, giving the impression that the petrified ship had sunk beneath the sea of Boendal's populace. There were even two or three Oncans in the crowd, though he avoided looking directly at them lest they make eye contact. He wasn't really concerned about being recognized--even his close friends would have difficulty picking him out of such a gathering with his fur as white as it was--but it was best not to tempt fate.

"Oh, is that a crier?" Dola said, her voice raised above the racket of dozens of conversations and the cries of peddlers calling out their wares from the square's edges.

On the other side of the sailor statue, a thin man stood head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd, his back to the two Oncans, wearing a dark green, triangular cap with colorful feathers and beads draped from its back edge. "I think you're right." Tolinom grabbed Dola's elbow and led her excitedly around the square, sparing distracted apologies for the townsfolk they occasionally jostled, until they stood at the back edge of the crowd gathered in front of the crier.

"And so," the man with the triangular hat was proclaiming, "based on the pattern of the tides, and knowing that it orbits at a greater distance than its pale twin, many scholars argue that the painted moon is not composed of glass, as is the conventional belief, but of various forms of air and water." It was surprising to hear such a strong, deep voice coming from a man as small as the crier; by the narrow width of his shoulders, Tolinom could tell the man had to be standing on some sort of platform to be seen over the heads of the gathered celebrants. "Some even claim that although it appears smaller than the pale moon, it is in fact quite larger, and its apparent size is merely diminished by its greater distance." A few chuckles rose from the crier's listeners at such a notion. Tolinom just shared a grin with Dola. They'd both heard countless Oncan astronomers in Bandarethe explain the exact nature of the heavens, one account rarely agreeing with any other on even the smallest detail, save for the certainty that all other theories were based more on fancy than on fact.

"The Royal Right," the crier continued after giving his audience ample time to share its amusement, "Xacar Yavic Taurus, is a strong supporter of this theory, and has cited numerous records of imperial astronomers who were in agreement with it, several rumored to have been advisors to King Eyral himself in the days of the Great War." The crowd sobered at that, taking the crier more seriously now. Besides being the King of Eyralia's head ambassador, and rumors that he practiced sorcery, it was common knowledge that the Royal Right was an expert in the sciences. Many other scholars, even among the Oncans, would take Taurus's scientific opinions as inarguable fact. "Whatever its true size and composition, historical reports of previous Veporligh hours are consistent in their descriptions of the effects of Parol passing between the sun and Gotrala. When the sun's golden rays pass through the globe of the painted moon, the light is separated into a spectrum of colors, bathing our planet in a moving rainbow. There has been some scholarly speculation on the possibility of different effects occurring in Sarutia, as this will be the first Veporligh observed since the great exodus of the Neutral Party from the Empire centuries ago, but most academia agree...that..."

The crier's speech faltered to a stop mid-sentence, and he stood staring with his mouth agape at something down the street beyond his audience's heads. By the time Tolinom thought to turn and see what had so captured the crier's attention, though, a flood of crimson light enveloped the city square. A raucous cry rose from the crowd, the celebrants' many exclamations, startled screams, cheers, and laughter blending into a single shouting voice. While Tolinom looked in awe at the red-washed faces around Dola and him, he heard the crier regain his composure, his deep voice bellowing above the sudden excitement in the square. "But most academia agree that the atmosphere above the continent of Eyralia is too similar to that above the old Empire to change Parol's effects."

Tolinom could hear the crier laughing along with everyone else. Clearly, the Veporligh was as vibrant on one continent as it was on the next; already the ruby light was shifting to amber, and bright, thick bands of azure, wide as many of Boendal's streets, began flashing through the assembly, switching to emerald one moment only to vanish the next. With Dola laughing and spinning in circles beside him, trying to take in the entire colorful scene at once, Tolinom looked up at the sun in the central eastern sky. Immediately, his eyes flinched away from the Veporligh's glare, and he had to reach out and grab Dola's shoulder to steady himself while his sight recovered, blinking back tears.

"You looked up, didn't you?" Dola asked, and laughed when he nodded and rubbed at his eyes with his knuckles. "I thought you knew better than that."

"So did I." His ears tilted in embarrassment. The city peacekeepers had been warning everyone who crossed their paths since he and Dola had arrived in Boendal the previous evening not to look at the sun once the Veporligh hour had begun. While most of the sun was still glowing a bright yellow within the blue sky, the sliver covered by Parol shone a white so blindingly bright, it looked like a tear through the fabric of the universe. By the time Tolinom's vision was back to normal, the city square was bathed in a sea green glow with bursts of fiery orange blooming and dissolving over the awestruck crowd's heads.

Turning to look at the square's statue again in the brightening emerald light, Dola almost tripped on a flock of human children dashing past her, each pulling a vibrantly colored paper streamer behind them, the long paper bands floating weightlessly through the air and shifting their apparent colors along with the ever changing light.

Tolinom smiled broadly, watching his friend while she flicked the streamers passing in front of them. In all the commotion around them, she was the only thing that didn't look different in the Veporligh, her fur remaining a constant black through every shade the painted moon cast down over Boendal. He held the back of his own hand in front of his face and grinned; his white fur made up for Dola's consistency by reflecting every ray of tinted light that touched him.

Dola giggled when she saw him examining his own fur with such fascination, a sound he hadn't heard her make since they were small children. "Come on, you walking canvas," she said, grabbing his raised hand and pulling him toward a cart selling the colorful paper streamers beneath the awning of a small brick building a short distance down the square's southern street. "These can't be too expensive." She steered them through a swarm of young humans to the front of the cart, behind which a frail looking old woman was handing the banners out to every hand that reached for one, the corners of her eyes crinkled in a kind smile. She barely even glanced at the copper chanafs and silver cups her customers dropped into a big clay jar sitting on one corner of her cart.

As soon as a roll of yellow-dyed--or was it orange?--paper was held out toward her, Dola plucked it from the old woman's hand and spun into the street to dance with the human children, unraveling the banner as she went and leaving Tolinom to pay for it. The saleswoman held another roll in his direction while ruffling the auburn hair of a young boy on the other side of her cart with her free hand.

"How much?" Tolinom asked, reaching for his coin pouch in his tunic's inner pocket after taking the red roll from her offering hand.

"Oh," the merchant began, but when she looked up at Tolinom in the momentarily dark violet light, her kindly face underwent such a sudden change that he couldn't keep his ears from lying flat against his skull in a brief moment of panic. The woman was staring at him with a frown of suspicion and barely veiled contempt that he had seen more and more often the farther from Bandarethe he and Dola had traveled, but this was the first time anyone had scowled at him so openly, when they knew he could see them.

Tolinom swallowed back his indignation, forced his ears to right themselves, and pulled his hand and coin pouch from where they'd frozen behind the fold of his tunic. "How much do I owe you, madam?" he repeated stiffly.

Instead of answering, something beyond Tolinom's shoulder caught the merchant's attention, and she inhaled sharply, coughed in a violent fit, then shrilled out, "Thieves!" with her next breath.

"What?" Tolinom followed the woman's glare to where Dola was letting a girl no taller than her waist tease her, laughing and running her banner in circles around the Oncan fast enough to form a nearly unbroken, wavy ring, while Dola spun in place and waved patterns around herself with her own banner.

Tolinom tried to protest, but the merchant was already waving frantically at a mounted peacekeeper patrolling the street a few houses away. "Help! Thieves!"

"We're not thieves!" he shouted at her, the fur on the back of his neck tickling as it always did just before it tried to rise. "I'm paying for hers, too."

"Of course you are, now that you're caught," she sneered.

He took a deep breath to reign in his temper and untied his coin pouch's strings. "Just tell me how much I owe you," he said, trying to keep the growl out of his voice, but already the peacekeeper's dappled chestnut mare was clopping to a stop beside him.

"Is everything all right?" the peacekeeper asked.

"Everything's fine." Tolinom fished a licup from his pouch without looking up at the mounted officer. Worth ten cups, the square silver coin was easily enough to buy five of the merchant's banners, even with the Veporligh's exorbitant prices. "It was just a misunderstanding." He held the coin out to the old woman.

"Oh, I understand perfectly," she said, leaning away from the money as though it were a viper coiled around his hand. "This Oncan and his friend tried to cheat me out of one of my streamers, and now he's bribing me so I'll look the other way."

"That doesn't make any sense." The woman couldn't really believe someone with a licup to spare would bother to steal something as cheap as one of her banners. When she continued to ignore the coin, he shrugged and dropped it in her money jar.

The woman's eyes bulged as though he'd slapped her, but he was already walking away from the cart with the roll of ribbon clutched in his fist when she plunged her arm into the jar to remove the offending licup. He stopped mid-stride, however, when he heard the merchant shout, "He's stolen my money!"

"If this is some kind of joke, it's in really bad taste," he growled, turning back to the banner cart.

A crowd had gathered to watch the spectacle, and only after the girl dancing with Dola turned her attention to Tolinom and the hostile merchant did Dola notice that anything was amiss. "Something wrong?" she asked, her banner floating loosely in the ocean breeze as she stepped beside him.

"Yes," was all he said, waiting for the merchant to finish explaining to the peacekeeper exactly how full her money jar had been before "those Oncans" showed up, and how full it was now. Her accusation was so flawed, Tolinom should have been able to come up with a dozen reasonable defenses against it, but between his rising anger and the Veporligh's distracting light show, he was having trouble ordering his thoughts.

The woman finished her tirade by demanding, "What are you going to do about it?" of the mounted officer, who sighed and turned in his saddle to grimace at the Oncans, as at a mess he didn't look forward to cleaning up.

"You're not taking her seriously?"

The peacekeeper ignored Tolinom's outburst. "Did anyone else see you and your friend take the streamers?"

"Buy the streamers," Tolinom corrected, but Dola hushed him and took a step toward the officer.

"I think this is my fault, sir; I should have waited for my friend to pay before walking away. I'm sorry if I caused any confusion."

"You did nothing to apologize for," Tolinom said.

"Be that as it may, it doesn't tell me what happened to Madam Enorai's missing money," the peacekeeper went on. "Now, surely someone can vouch for you one way or another. Another customer, maybe?" He scanned the crowded street, but nobody stepped forward in the Oncans' defense.

Tolinom shook his head. "They were only children."

"Then, lacking witnesses, could you show me what's in your coin pouch?"

"I'd rather not." Whatever amount Madam Enorai had claimed to have lost, Tolinom doubted it would be more than he was carrying. The way things were going, the peacekeeper would likely assume he'd robbed other shops to have collected so much coin.

"Tolinom," Dola warned, too quietly for anyone else to hear. She placed a hand on his shoulder and shook him slightly.

The officer dismounted and closed the short distance between himself and the two Oncans, his hand resting casually on the pommel of the sheathed short sword resting against his hip. "Sir, please be reasonable."

"I am being reasonable. However much money I have on me, it won't prove anything." Even though he could hear his own voice rising, Tolinom could do nothing to stop it. He'd been warned time and again about the humans' persistent bias against his species, and had known before he and Dola had left their home what to expect once they were in human territory, but however prepared he had been, he'd had no idea how much it would _hurt_when someone's expression flashed from affection to loathing the instant they saw the fur on his face. Every time he looked at the merchant's scowl, his mood grew a little bit darker. He couldn't believe the woman had seemed in such high spirits but a moment ago.

"If you've done nothing wrong, sir," the peacekeeper was saying, "then you have nothing to be afraid of."

"I'm not afr--"

"Tolinom, we need to--" Dola interrupted him, only to have the peacekeeper cut her off in her turn.

"Tolinom? As in the heir of Bandarethe?"

"I share his name, yes." Tolinom nodded irritably. He and Dola really should have come up with aliases after running off; ever since word had spread of the heir's disappearance, Dola hadn't been able to call him by name without drawing unwanted attention. "If only I were a Haleiral," he said, using his family's royal surname, "we wouldn't be having this conversation."

Dola gripped his shoulder more tightly through his tunic. "Tolinom, we really have to go now." When he finally looked at his friend, he saw that she had been staring for some time back toward the square they'd come from. "Herschal's here," she said, nodding toward the statue of the boy in the crow's nest. "He's coming this way."

"Herschal!" He scanned the ebb and flow of revelry between himself and the square, but it wasn't until a brief flash of yellow, almost natural sunlight washed over the street that he spotted a gray robed, grizzled Oncan making his way toward them through the swarm of humanity, his fur a slightly darker shade of gray than the noble robe he wore. It was Herschal, just as Dola had said, impossible as his presence was. Tolinom's tutor and one of his father's most senior advisors, the old Oncan had never left Bandarethe for as long as Tolinom had known him, but the discolored stripe of pale fur running down his face made him unmistakable, aligning as it did with the slit pupil of his green eye.

Herschal was one of the only people in Sarutia who would recognize Tolinom no matter what color the younger Oncan's fur was.

The yellow light blended through a vibrant marigold to settle for a moment into a deep ruby, and in that moment Herschal's eyes landed on Tolinom. For a brief instant the old Oncan froze in his tracks, his mouth agape in disbelief. Then he was pushing his way through a cluster of dancers, his advance toward Tolinom and Dola purposeful now where it had been a leisurely and aimless stroll before.

"Oh, great," was the only thing Tolinom could think of to say. He glanced at Dola, but she just stared back at him expectantly, waiting for him to decide what to do. No choice he could see was a good one at this point. He looked back at Herschal, who had already crossed half the distance between them, and was calling Tolinom's name. "And now we run," he said, the statement's calm simplicity surprising him almost as much as it did Dola and the peacekeeper.

"What?" they exclaimed in unison, and the angry merchant, unable to hear him over the celebration around them, echoed, "What did he say?"

Grabbing Dola by the arm, he steered her away from the streamer cart and his advancing tutor before the peacekeeper had time to react. Herschal had almost reached them. "Yes," he repeated, a hysterical laugh making his voice crack, "now we run." Shouldering past the closest onlookers, almost tripping over a gaping human child, he pulled his bewildered friend into a near sprint, leaving the peacekeeper to mount his horse behind them, shouting demands that they stop. A glance back over Tolinom's shoulder showed the officer struggling to navigate his mare through the crowd displaced in the Oncans' wake, bright green and blue swathes of light flashing rapidly across the orange-lit street. Herschal passed the peacekeeper, but between his age and the ground length robe snagging his feet, he was unable to keep up with the two younger Oncans.

"We didn't steal anything!" Tolinom shouted back at the merchant for good measure, then pulled Dola into a side alley after making sure it let out into another street instead of backing up into a dead end.

"I can't believe we're doing this," Dola said as they reached the next street, raising her voice to be heard over a small group of street musicians who were adding a racket that couldn't quite be called music to the blend of shouting and laughing voices around them.

"Neither can I." Tolinom had to pause briefly to gather his bearings, then led Dola at a brisk walk toward another intersection of streets to their right. His heart was pounding, but more from excitement than exertion. He was still angry with the streamer seller, but the farther they walked, the better he felt about his decision to simply turn his back on the racist woman, and somehow knowing that both Herschal and the peacekeeper couldn't be far behind them just made him want to laugh. Maybe it was the influence of the Veporligh's light show, or the children in the crossroads ahead of them who were trying to dodge ovals of indigo that bloomed over the cobblestones and vanished almost before the eye could catch them. He and Dola were in serious trouble, he knew, but it had been a long time since he'd had this much fun.

He let his red streamer trail loosely behind him, joining Dola's golden one in their wake, blending into the gathered revelers. "This way," he said, turning left at the intersection. When he glanced back the way they'd come, he saw Herschal emerge from the alley he and Dola had cut through. The gray robed Oncan scanned the crowd for them, but the corner of a whitewashed building came between them before Herschal's head turned their way. Tolinom didn't think his tutor had spotted them, but Dola and he hurried down the new street at a brisk pace, just to be certain.

This avenue was broader than those they'd walked before, so much so that a row of stalls and carts had been set up along its center, the merchants dividing the street into two lanes. Cloaked by the ever changing rays of light, they continued as swiftly as they could along one of the lanes while weaving around one group of humans after another, until Dola caught his forearm to get his attention and gestured toward a cluster of mounted peacekeepers two or three blocks ahead of them.

Tolinom nodded without a word and led Dola into the nearest side street, little more than another alley. The buildings lining both sides of this latest street were close enough to one another that clotheslines were strung between several of their upper stories, crossing overhead every so often like festive banners. They had to skirt around a few refuse piles, and Tolinom's heart tried to jump into his throat when a stray dog began barking furiously at them from a smaller side alley, but they passed the dog without incident, and the garbage's reek was a small price to pay for the respite from the celebration's cacophony. All the same, isolated as they were in the narrow lane, they would be easy to spot from the street behind them, so they turned again as soon as their lane crossed another road, this one lined by vast warehouses and hosting a slightly quieter celebration of sailors and dockworkers, most of whom were sipping at ale or mead despite the early hour, sitting on long benches outside the warehouses and laughing at those brave or drunk enough to dance in the street like the city's children.

The Oncans continued onward, ignoring the suspicious glances and occasional whispered insult, and Tolinom's mood sobered to a tired resignation as another alley and two more streets led them to Boendal's docks. He couldn't single-handedly change the opinions of an entire nation.

"Wow." Dola's simple murmur shook him out of his thoughts, and he noticed where they were for the first time. They hadn't visited the pier since arriving in Boendal, and had only caught glimpses of the bay from a few fortunate vantage points in the city, but the sheer number of docked sail boats and anchored ships was almost as breathtaking as the Veporligh's spectrum being broken and reflected by the sea's angry waves. The fleet of fishing vessels lined up along the many docks looked like a city unto itself, tall masts bobbing and tilting above the tide's rough waves, hulls thumping and banging against each other and the docks until Tolinom was certain that the next crash would be joined by the sound of splintering beams. He could see no damage to the boats, though, no matter how violently they jostled against each other.

"What now?" Dola asked after they'd both taken in the view and caught their breath.

"I don't know." Tolinom laughed at himself. "'Now we run' was pretty much as far as my plan went. I don't think the peacekeeper will bother to hunt us down, at least, as much trouble as he was having getting his horse through those crowds."

"You know Herschal, though. He won't give up until he's pulled us both by our ears back to Bandarethe."

"You're right." Tolinom nodded glumly. "He couldn't have come here alone. Now that he's seen our disguises, he'll have word to every Oncan in Boendal of our dyed fur within a few hours." He scanned over the broad stretch of rocky ground between buildings and docks but didn't see any other Oncans nearby, nor any peacekeepers. "We need to leave the city," he said at last. "Unless you don't mind finding Herschal and heading home now. Seeing Eyrasabi might not be worth all this trouble."

Dola punched his shoulder playfully. "We've come too far to turn back now. Come on, it's not fitting for a king to give up so easily." She took the lead, then, pulling him down the pier hand in hand with the docks on their right and the strong ocean wind whipping their streamers behind their backs toward Boendal's last row of buildings.

"I'm not giving up," Tolinom protested. "I just can't see how we can get out of the city without Herschal noticing us. He's bound to set a watch over the roads leaving Boendal, and he might even ask the peacekeepers for help."

"I see one big road out of the city that Herschal will have a hard time covering," Dola said. As they walked, her eyes flicked from one docked boat to another. "All we have to do is find the right carriage."

"You mean hire a fisherman? Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"Well..." Tolinom tried to think of a way to put it delicately. "It's just, you're not exactly the strongest swimmer, Dola."

Smirking, his friend glanced at him from the corner of her eye. "I'll just have to stay in the boat, then, won't I?" With that, she pulled him onto a narrow wooden dock and led the way toward a wiry and shirtless middle aged man. Dola showed less concern than Tolinom felt for the waves whose spray drenched the dock's surface and chilled their feet.

"Excuse me," she said once they reached the man, who was kneeling next to one of many stout posts lining the dock, running his fingers over the rope wrapped around the post and joining it to the crescent shaped sail boat beside them. "You wouldn't happen to be getting ready to depart, would you?"

"Depart?" he repeated in a scratchy voice, looking up at them from his crouch with a wind lined face. "In Fortune here? No, girl, I'm stuck ashore until I get a tear in Fortune's sail mended. Just out here checking her ties, is all, and a good thing, too. Worn and frayed as they are, they won't last the season. Have to replace them soon, I suppose."

"Oh," Dola said. Tolinom wondered if she was having any better luck than he was understanding the man, whose dry voice was quiet enough to be nearly drowned out by the sounds of wind and surf, and carried a strong, clipped accent, besides. "Well then, do you know of anyone else who might be leaving soon?"

"Leaving?" The sailor stood, brushing his hands on his knee length trousers. "I wouldn't count on anyone leaving the docks until tomorrow, I'm afraid. Besides the Veporligh, it's nearly a dead man's tide until evening, and you'll find few enough fools dumb enough to sail after dusk, thank the sea for that."

"What's a dead man's tide?" Tolinom asked as the man stepped around them with surprising ease on the narrow deck.

"Haven't ever been on the ocean before have you? No, I don't suppose you have." The sailor kept walking back to the rocky shore, letting the Oncans follow as he went on. "A dead man's tide is what you get at midnight or high noon when the sun and moons all align with Gotrala. We've got the Veporligh eclipse right now, you see, with noon not far off, and the pale moon is, oh, thereabouts, I'd say,"--he pointed down at a slight angle toward the waves lapping at the deck--"on the other side of the planet, of course. Water's calm enough here, but go out a ways and nothing smaller than a tri-mast will stay afloat. Suppose you could look for a tri-mast crew, if you want a trip into the bay badly enough, but you won't be getting very far. Waves'll bash any ship to toothpicks against the reefs when they're as choppy as they are now." Having returned to the mainland, the man strode away from them in his rolling gait without so much as a glance for farewell.

Tolinom shrugged. "It was worth a try, I guess."

"Let's keep looking," Dola said, continuing on down the pier and scanning the docked boats as before with her usual stubborn tenacity. "Maybe he was just being overly cautious."

Tenacious or not, Dola couldn't conjure any more sailors onto the docks by sheer force of will, but after walking another five or six blocks along the city's coast, a vaguely ambient, persistent shouting ahead of them resolved itself into the dissonant chorus of hundreds of tuneless, singing voices. It seemed like every sailor in Boendal had gathered inside and around a vast, three story tavern to celebrate the Veporligh, and Tolinom could count at least three songs battling for prominence at the same time within the jovial throngs.

"I think we just found our crew," he yelled at Dola over the racket, grinning.

Once the nearest group of broad shouldered men finished butchering their song and applauded themselves with an uproar of clapped hands, slapped thighs, and stomped feet, Dola approached one and asked if he knew of any sailors planning to depart before dusk, which caused a quieter uproar of raucous laughter from anyone close enough to hear her.

"If you find any," he answered, his deep voice carrying easily over the din around them, "you come back and let me know, Oncan, so I can avoid working with the reckless fools in the future. Any ship that leaves the pier today won't be coming back."

"You'll be wanting to keep your distance from that Lebram girl, then," another sailor cautioned loudly, his voice only slightly slurred. "Saw her and her boys making their ship ready on my way over."

"You mean her little bi-mast, that Chicken Feather, or some such?" asked a third man.

He hadn't closed his mouth before a collective shout arose from everyone within earshot, surprisingly in unison after their recent attempt at singing: "Falcon Wing!"

"And it's a bi-and-a-half-mast, lest you forget in Pirna's hearing and get romantic with her knuckles," the first sailor said, and the men around them burst again into good natured laughter.

"Where can we find this Lebram?" Tolinom asked as soon as the commotion died down to a few inebriated chuckles.

"Oh, she docks at the end of a stone finger a little ways down the pier, that way," another man said, nodding in the direction the Oncans had been walking before reaching the sailor's tavern.

"Do you think she's still there?" Tolinom turned to the man who first mentioned her. "How long ago was it that you saw her?"

"Couldn't've been more than thirty, forty minutes ago. She might still be there, if you're lucky."

"Or unlucky," the first sailor added. "Listen, Oncan, there's a reason we're all taking the day off, and it's not because the Veporligh's making the bay look like every flavor of wine you can find. Pirna Lebram's crazier than I realized if she thinks to sail in this tide. Even the birds know to stay on solid ground today."

"You noticed that, too, did you?" yet another man said. "Veporligh's got them all befuddled. I haven't seen a single gull in the sky since it's started."

"Oh, it's not just the Veporligh. There was a flock perching on my roof, near a hundred gulls, before the eclipse even started, all staring at nothing in particular. It was just plain eerie to see."

"Yeah, I saw a bunch of birds like that earlier, too..." Dola and Tolinom had been making their way away from the gathering since the sailors' talk turned to birds, and the conversation quickly blended into the general babble rising from the tavern.

Just as they'd been told, they found a man-made stone peninsula interrupting the rows of wooden docks not far from the sailors' gathering. The broad aisle of rock jutted into the bay twice the distance of the longest dock they'd come across, and just beyond its tip a small ship rocked in the waves, with a long, wide plank joining it to the peninsula. The ship was larger than any of the fishing boats in the pier, but not as big as most of the vessels anchored in deeper water. Tolinom could see why the sailors had called it a "bi-and-a-half-mast." Two wooden pillars rose from the ship's deck, the taller of the two in its center and the other, nearly as large, near its prow. On the platform made by the roof of the ship's cabin, close behind its wheel, was a third, smaller mast, reaching no more than twice the height of the men carrying out various tasks around it. From each mast a wide, triangular sail flapped loosely in the wind, the cross beams supporting them swinging freely toward the coast by the ocean wind's push.

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather wait until tomorrow?" Tolinom asked, and was relieved to see that Dola looked as unnerved as he felt by the waves crashing against the straight peninsula's rocky sides. Every now and again a gush of salty spray would leap into the air higher than their heads, keeping the stone finger's surface perpetually drenched.

Dola didn't openly show her anxiety for long. Shaking herself and lashing her tail in defiance of the water's turmoil, she led the way onto the peninsula. "Herschal will be watching the inns, too," was all she said.

Tolinom shook his head and followed, trying to hide the butterflies in his stomach with a grin. The closest either of them had ever come to sailing was a short ferry ride across a branch of the River Eyral in a human town called Dentos Crossing. It didn't look like their first experience on the sea would be a gentle one. He regretted leaving their packs behind in their inn room, but he had enough coin with him to buy new bags and restock their rations, if he haggled well enough.

At the peninsula's end, the Oncans approached the only other person near the ship wearing anything above the waist. With her back to them, the woman was shouting orders at her crew, who obeyed as though her commands were their own thoughts. Her multitude of long, black braids swung against the back of her short leather vest as she yelled first at a young man wrapping a rope around the base of the foremost mast, then at a gnarled old sailor lashing the short aft mast's cross beam to the upper deck's railing, the woman evidently unsatisfied with both men's work.

Tolinom cleared his throat, trying to get her attention, but she either didn't hear him or chose to ignore him.

"Captain Lebram?" Dola asked, and though she was loud enough that the woman had to have heard her, the human didn't turn away from the ship.

"And someone triple check that the cargo's lashed securely, then check it again!" she was shouting. "If any of it comes loose, it's liable to bash a hole in the hull. What can I do for you?" She asked the question with the same, loud tone of command with which she gave her orders to the crew, and since she still kept her eyes glued to the ship, Tolinom didn't realize at first that she had addressed Dola and him. "I said, 'What can I do for you?'" she repeated. "What business have you with Falcon Wing? Herald! Rias! If you two louts can't find a better use for yourselves than gossiping like a pair of hens, then the deck could use another good scrubbing. I mean it!"

"We're here to buy passage on your ship," Tolinom said when she took another breath, sounding less certain than he'd have liked.

"No, Larse, leave the crow's nest as it is. We won't have time to collect anyone who gets catapulted halfway to the old empire. Falcon's already spoken for today. You'll have to find someone else to give you a pleasure cruise."

Tolinom blinked, again having trouble telling when she was addressing the Oncans rather than her crew. Fortunately, Dola must have caught some nuance in the woman's voice that he'd missed, because she didn't hesitate to respond. "There isn't anyone else. You're the first person we've seen willing to sail today."

The captain smirked over her shoulder at them. "They're all at Neutral Landing, then, drowning their lazy arses in ale." She turned to face them, then, her wind blasted face showing the subtle lines of a woman in her middle years, though she held herself with youthful vitality. Rather than regarding the Oncans, though, her eyes caught on something moving up the coast behind them. "Be that as it may, I doubt you can match the price already paid for Falcon's services. If you can afford it, you may be able to tag along, provided you keep out from under the crew's feet, but I'm charging more than I expect you'd like to spend. You'll have to convince my client, as well."

"Who's your client?" Tolinom asked, uneager to discuss payment. He'd had more than enough haggling already for one day.

For an answer, Lebram just nodded toward whatever her eyes were tracking behind the Oncans. A moment later Tolinom heard the rapid clopping of hooves on wet stone, and when he and Dola turned, saw an old man on the back of a mule charging toward them down the stone peninsula more swiftly than Tolinom thought should be possible for the animal. Both Oncans stepped back hastily when the mule skidded to a stop in front of them, though Falcon Wing's captain stood her ground.

"Master Meruvian," the woman said by way of greeting as the old man swung off of his mule, the ocean wind blowing his unruly white hair back away from his face in the shifting sapphire light to show the most focused gray eyes Tolinom had ever seen. "You've paid enough to keep Falcon here awake. Have you brought enough for her to take wing?"

"Captain Lebram," the old man returned her greeting, and tossed the captain a leather sack so full of coins Tolinom could see their square and circular outlines bulging against the bag's sides. "'Jiam' will do." Though the man didn't turn his steel gray eyes from the captain, who was already tying the sack to her belt, Tolinom felt like what Jiam said next was somehow intended for Dola and him as well.

"I hope you're prepared."