Safe, he thought. Quiet. No one needed him to do anything heroically stupid. All he had to do was rest.
Jamison sat by the bed when he woke the next time. He looked haggard, and the ship moved with little jumps and turns. Rory wanted to go back to sleep. He knew it would not happen.
"Where?" he finally asked and drew his friend's attention.
"Almost to Tember Port."
"Sciwhen," Rory said. He hoped he might be wrong. This was not where they had supposed to be heading. It seemed as if at every turn, he got farther from home.
"Why?"
"I am not privy to those decisions," he said, and with just enough of a tone that Rory knew it annoyed Jamison.
And why not? They'd been deciding on their own before this. Important decisions to save lives and bring out information. He turned his head and saw the bag with the coded papers. Good.
Rory forced himself to sit up. The room moved in ways that had nothing to do with the ocean.
"Why are we here?"
"Mostly because we needed allies," Jamison admitted. "And I think because it was the least likely direction for us to head. The Atrians turned aside early on and headed back toward their own lands. Apparently, they couldn't decide on which enemy to attack and left it for all of us to sort out."
"Or the New Order of Man and the Atrians are allies," Rory said, and slipped his legs off the bed. He sat there, waiting for the dizziness to ease.
"I would hope for that alliance," Jamison replied and looked in a happier mood. "Just think of two such fanatical groups working together. Neither would survive."
"You probably have that right," Rory agreed. "Where are we? We must have gone a long way from the last battle from the amount of rest I've had to recover this much."
"This is recovered?"
"Relatively speaking. I pray to the gods I never have to go that far again. Do you know where we are?"
"At the edge of a tidal river, the Mendin," Jamison replied. "I don't know this area --"
"It leads straight to the Schiwen capital, Schi. Well defended, and no one goes there without an invitation. The tide helps."
"What are we going to do here?"
"What we've done since the start: try to figure out what is going on. Well, you can't say it hasn't been interesting, at least."
"Exciting, but that doesn't always mean good. Nor does interesting. Wouldn't you rather have a quiet life?"
Rory stood and stumbled over to the table, grabbing at the chair and sitting down with Jamison's help. He thought about what Jamison had said as he waited for the world to stop moving.
"I am a priest," Rory reminded his companion. "I spent the last few years of my life mostly in quiet contemplation. I liked it. Just the same, I do feel needed now. Those years of quiet taught me my magic. I don't want the rest of my life to be this way, but I can't go back, either. That's not a matter of want, but of trust."
" I have never seen you as a priest," Jamison reminded him. The ship took a curve to the right while the crew shouted orders above them. "I have seen you as a mage, but not in a temple."
"You are saying I should give up that part of my life?"
"I would never tell you what you should do, only that I agree -- given the circumstances with Pyrida -- that the matter of trust is real."
Rory nodded. Jamison got them food and water and sat down to eat with him, all in silence.
"Kaltrina?"
"Sleeping. She was on watch last night. I fear I am going to lose her to the Schiwen army if this keeps up."
"The only way she would go is if you went as well."
"That would be a different future," he agreed with a bright smile. "I suspect Prince Palkin has other plans for me."
"Probably for all of us," Rory agreed, ignoring the fact that he served his own Queen. "This is a mess, and I still don't know if we are siding with the proper people. Not that I think the people we are with are wrong, only that I can't be certain of their reasoning and plans."
"I trust them. I've spent time in their conferences on the Springer, and so far they tend to caution. Going to Schiwen for help was safer than trying to cut north and fight our way back to where we began."
Rory couldn't argue with that idea. He was glad not to be heading back into the heart of the trouble. Not that he expected there to be peace in Schiwen. Too many things were going wrong just now.
"We'll be to Schi soon," Jami said. They'd ate mostly in silence. "Andora says she'll see us through what we need to do and continue to be our guide while we're here. That should help."
Rory trusted Andora, so he didn't argue. Part of him wanted to, just to show that he had some say in what was happening around him. It seemed as if everything had been spiraling out of his control from the moment he ran into Jamison and Katrina.
This was all madness. They both knew it.
Rory could tell they must be coming into port by the sounds on the ship and the clank of noises beyond the Springer. Rory spent some time trying to straighten his clothes and hair.
And then he heard fighting on the shore.
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