Luck in the Shadows

calm face of the bay. Captain Talrien stood at the tiller, steering her into the echoing dimness beyond the pillars.
    The sun had already passed noon, and little sunlight penetrated far into the chasm. It was colder inside and smelled of salt-drenched stone. Alec was standing with Sedrish when he happened to look up.
    "Are those stars?" he asked in amazement. The narrow strip of sky was pricked with faint points of light.
    "It's the high walls, shutting out the sun. I fell down a well when I was a lad and it was just the same. About the only time there's much light in here is at high noon."
    Rough stone towered overhead on either side, seeming to bear down over the vessel. Small freshets of water flowed down here and there, tumbling off the uneven rock face. In places, the surface of it gave back a glassy reflection that puzzled Alec.
    "That's from the magicking," Sedrish explained. "In places it's shiny smooth like that; others, like over there, the rock just dripped and ran like wax down the side of a candle. I wouldn't have liked to been in here when them wizards was blasting away, I can tell you!"
    Their passage was a quiet affair. The narrow space around them gave back every whisper and splash and the effect seemed to subdue even Biny. When the lookout at last shouted, "Half way sighted, Captain," his voice reverberated in a succession of ghostly echoes up and down the canal.
    Alec was wondering how on earth anyone could tell distance in such a place when he caught sight of something white against the right wall up ahead. As they drew nearer, he could see that it was a huge statue of polished marble standing in a shallow niche carved into the wall. The figure glowed like a pale lantern in the dimness.
    "Who's that?" Alec asked.
    "Queen Tamir the Second." Sedrich touched a hand respectfully to his forelock as they passed.
    "Skala's had good queens and bad, but old Tamir was one of the best. Even the balladeers can't improve much on the life she led."
    Alec squinted through the gloom as they passed the statue. The sculptor had visualized his subject striding into the wind; her long hair streamed behind her, and the robes she wore were molded to the gracious curves of her form. Much of her left side was covered by an oval shield and in her right hand she raised a sword as if saluting the passing vessels. Her face was neither exceedingly beautiful nor terribly plain, but her proud stance and fierce expression spoke across the centuries.
    "After the Plenimarans destroyed the old eastern capital of Ero, she just up and moved the survivors across to the other side and had this Canal cut through," Sedrish went on, lighting his pipe from a lantern. "That must be better than six hundred years ago now. Aye, there was no stopping her, they say. She was raised as a boy up in the mountains because her uncle had seized the throne. No good come of that, of course; that's what got Ero destroyed. When he was killed in battle, this nephew of his steps forward and says, "By your leave, I'm a girl."
    Her uncle had murdered just about everyone else of the blood, so they crowned her on the spot.
    During her reign she beat back the Plenimarans, was lost at sea during a battle, then turned up a year later and took back the throne and ruled 'til she was an old woman. Quite a character, she was. Queen Idrilain's said to be a good deal like her."
    As they sailed out into Osiat waters at the western end of the Canal, Alec craned his neck to see the carved tops of the pillars flanking this entrance. He recognized the representation of Dalna; a sheaf of grain bound with a serpent. The other, a coiled dragon crowned with a crescent moon, must be that of Illior.
    The Grampus turned south down the coast with a good following wind.
    The winter sea shone like polished steel in the late-afternoon sunlight.
    Rocky, steep-sided islands of all sizes punctuated the coastline, rising out of the water like ruined fortresses. Some were overgrown with copses of dark fir or oak; those with any sort of harbor were inhabited by colonies of fishermen. A few trading ships were still plying this route and Talrien hailed back and forth with them using a speaking trumpet.
    The Osiat was alive with more than sea traders.
    Alec soon spotted his first school of porpoise.
    Leaning over the rail, he watched dozens of them leap and sport alongside the ship, their dark backs arching through the waves as they escorted the ship for several miles. Soon after, he saw another