I descended to the maindeck and strolled aft. Dragon was in the best shape I had ever seen. She had been renewed...

I walked stiffly. The others moved jerkily, like marionettes manipulated by a novice. I reached the ladder to the poop as vanguard of a committee. Our First Officer and Boatswain, Toke and Lank Tor, had joined me. Old Barley tagged along, hoping the Old Man would order a ration of rum.

Barley was one of the alcoholic in group. Priest was another. He was watching Barley closely. Barley always did the doling.

Rum! My mouth watered. Only Priest could outdrink me.

Colgrave shooed his deck watch down the starboard ladder.

Why hadn't our mysterious benefactors done a full repair job on the Captain? I looked round. Several men had not been restored completely. We were as we had been the day we had stumbled into the Itaskian sorcerer's trap.

Colgrave was first to speak. He said, "Something's happened." Not an ingenious deduction.

My response was no more brilliant. "We've been called back."

Colgrave's voice had a remote, sephulcral timbre. It seemed to reach us after a journey up a long, cold, furniture-crowded hallway. There was no force in it. It had no volume, and very little inflection.

"Tell me something I don't know,

Bowman," Colgrave growled.

The lack of love between us was not unique. This crew had shipped together, and fought together, by condemnation of the gods. We cooperated only because survival demanded it.

"Who did? Why?" I demanded. Again I scanned the horizons.

I was not a lone watcher. We had powerful enemies along these coasts. Dread enemies, they had at their disposal the aid of men like the one who had banished us to that enchanted sea.

"We don't have time to worry about it." Colgrave threw a spidery hand at the coast. "That's Itaskia, gentlemen. We're only eight leagues south of the Silverbind Estuary."