I could legitimately notice we were sailing along to the southwest, not eastward as a lot of ships heading for Shqiperi from Lakedaimon would have done. “You care not for the canal?” I asked.

The Trans-Peninsular Canal is one of those places that almost have an ancient history behind them. The ancient Lokrians, not being blind, noticed that the secondary peninsula where a lot of them lived was connected to the rest of the much bigger Nekemte Peninsula only by a skinny little neck of land-a neck rather like that belonging to the present Hassockian Atabeg, as a matter of fact. They also noticed they would have themselves a demon of a shortcut if they cut through it.

One small problem: they couldn’t. That was partly because the project needed cooperation, and the Lokrians gave the world examples of how not to cooperate, as they did of so many other important things. And it was partly because the ancient Lokrians, while brilliant in any number of ways, were, when you get right down to it, pretty lousy wizards.

And so were the Aeneans. When it came to sorcery, as with most things, the Aeneans learned everything they didn’t know from the Lokrians. Even so, Emperor Otho had a crack at it. He assembled half the wizards in the Empire and about a quarter of the men who could carry a shovel, and they all converged on the little neck that separated the small peninsula from the bigger one. And they got started, and they went along for a couple of furlongs…

And Otho got bored.

Otho was good at getting bored. He was better at that than at most other things, though he did love his mother (which is another story, one you can look up for yourself). And so he went off and decided he was going to be a sprinter or a boxer or a god or whatever he felt like being instead of a fellow in charge of a canal. Or rather, part of a canal. A small part of a canal. The money stopped coming in. So did the food. The wizards went home. Some of the diggers did, too. Quite a few of them starved. Nobody knows just how many, because Otho was too bored to count them.

For almost the next two thousand years, nobody bothered with the canal. The Aeneans had tried and failed, so other people said it couldn’t be done. Then, about thirty years ago, a Narbonese company had a go of it with modern magery. They got about halfway and ran out of money. A Lokrian firm bought them out and finished the job. It took two modern companies twelve years to dig that canal, with proper wizardry to placate the local earth elementals and stabilize the bedrock elementals (the Aeneans had never even heard of, or from, them). No wonder Otho couldn’t hack it…through.

Tasos, I’m sure, cared as much for the history of the Trans-Peninsular Canal as he did for the history of the rutabaga. Whether he went through it or not was the only thing that mattered to him. “No, we will round Lokris instead,” he told me. “We have certain…stops to make along the way.”

“Uh-huh. I see,” I said. And I did. I wondered what he’d be loading and unloading at those stops. Spirits flavored with anise? Tobacco flavored with anise? Hemp flavored with anise? Wanted criminals? Criminals looking to do something wicked enough to make them wanted? A black wizard or two? Crossbow quarrels? Copies of the Scriptures done into modern Lokrian? Anything that was expensive but didn’t take up much room fit his bill just fine.

Like Max and me, for instance. Considering what he’d gouged us for a cabin to Fushe-Kuqe, we had to be at least as valuable as a few jugs of dragon spit. That was about how Tasos treated us, too-as cargo, I mean. As long as we didn’t rattle around and cause him extra work, we were fine. If we did…Well, that might not be so much fun.

I just stood by the rail and watched the land and sea flash by. Fishing boats that worked by the world’s wind bobbed in the water. Men with bushy eyebrows under short-brimmed black wool caps stared at us as we shot past. They were almost no sooner seen than gone. Stagiros really was amazing. Did he know how much he was worth? Could a shabby smuggler like Tasos possibly pay him that much? I found it hard to believe, but here he was.

The Gamemeno’s skipper posted a man at the bow to sing out warnings when we neared other vessels. Those fishing boats couldn’t move fast enough to get out of our way. Some of them, with their sails furled and with nets in the water, couldn’t move at all. We had to do the dodging.

As for Tasos himself, he kept a weather eye-I think that’s the proper seagoing phrase, isn’t it?-on the coast to our left. To port, I should say, shouldn’t I? “What are you looking for?” I asked innocently. “Pirates?”

He jerked. He twitched. He grabbed my arm. “Where?” he demanded. “What do you know? What have you heard?”

I didn’t know anything, not about pirates. I didn’t even suspect anything, and I certainly hadn’t heard anything. Well, no-all that wasn’t quite true. Now I knew one thing about pirates, anyway: our magnificent captain was scared green of them. “Why are you worrying?” I asked him. “With your wonderful weatherworker there, you can outrun any pirate ship ever hatched.”

“Would that Zibeon and Eliphalet gave me a pile of stones, of conformation like unto thy brainpan, that I might build me of them a rock garden in the courtyard of my home,” he sneered.

“Go to kennel, thou who wast born betwixt two stockfishes,” I replied. “Why revilest me so?”

“Should a fool not be reproved for his folly?” Tasos said. “We may outfly any pirate ship, aye. But catapult darts or stones? Fireballs? Arrows? Should one smite the weatherworker-” His hand twisted in a gesture designed to turn aside the evil omen.

“Oh.” I did feel the fool. If any of those misfortunes befell Stagiros, the Gamemeno was, well, gamemeno’d. I rallied as best I could: “Surely you will have another man aboard who can call the wind.”

“Surely I will. Surely I do,” Tasos said. “But, while many men can work the weather, how many can work it like Stagiros?” He spread his hands, waiting for my answer. I had no answer to give, and I knew it. Tasos’ second-best weatherworker wouldn’t match some pirate’s best. And so…he watched the jagged coast. Every time we darted past a headland or the valley where some stream came down to the sea, he muttered and played with worry beads while sweat ran down his face.

So much for honor among thieves. I wondered what a Lokrian Navy cutter would do if it came across the Gamemeno’s crew battling it out with cutlasses and crossbows and cantrips and counterspells against pirates. I know what I would have done if I were the skipper of a Lokrian Navy cutter. I would have laughed and closed my eyes and sailed away, hoping they slaughtered each other till not a man survived on either side. The more who fell, the better off the kingdom would be.

But I wasn’t a Lokrian Navy cutter captain. I was, Eliphalet help me, a passenger on this miserable Lokrian smuggler. And so, whenever we passed a headland or a little valley, I muttered while sweat ran down my face, too. I had no worry beads, but found I was able to worry quite well without them.

We put in for the night at a village called Skilitsi. I’ve looked for it since on a map. I’ve looked for it on several maps, as a matter of fact. As far as mapmakers know, it isn’t there. I wonder if the King of Lokris knows anybody lives in Skilitsi, or even that there is such a place. What you don’t know about, you can’t tax. The folk of Skilitsi struck me as being less than enthusiastic about contributing to their kingdom’s general welfare.

If you blink while you’re going by, you’ll miss the place. That’s what the people who live there have in mind. A big rock in the sea and groves of olives and almonds screen it off from the casual eye. If you don’t already know where it is, you won’t find it. And if you don’t, nobody in Skilitsi will care.