Aquamancer (mancer series Book 2) (23 page)

It was well after dark when Caspar awoke and called for food.

“Tell Master Wong I’d like to see him when he would care to come,” Caspar said to the cabin boy who brought his dinner.

A captain’s “when you care to come” usually meant “right away,” and so the Sage interpreted Caspar’s summons. He appeared at the cabin door as the Captain was tucking into a plum duff.

“Ah, Master Wong,” Caspar greeted him, cheerily. “Come in! I trust the little storm we ran through didn’t bother you overly much?”

Wong, although he may have looked a bit pale and pinched—what landsman wouldn’t after such a first-rate blow?—smiled and took a proffered seat under the cabin’s stern windows but refused any of the dinner Caspar devoured so enthusiastically.

“If that was a ‘little’ storm,” said he, “I hope we can avoid anything greater.”

“We sailors prefer to avoid any kind of storm at Sea, if possible,” chuckled Caspar. “Have some pudding?”

“No, no,” declined Wong. “I have had a cup of excellent soup and a stoup of very good bread, thanks to your excellent ship’s cook. We spent the stormy hours yesterday comparing notes and exchanging recipes.”

“You cook?” asked Caspar, much surprised. It had never occurred to him that a man might cook for pleasure. Next to the ship’s boy, the ship’s cook was usually the lowest-ranking man aboard a modern ship.

“
There is as much to enjoy in preparing food as in eating it,” claimed the Choinese. “Recall, please, that without good, sustaining food, your ships could never sail as far as they do, nor the crew arrive as healthy.”

“I suppose ye’re right,” admitted the Seaman. “You managed to keep well, then, despite the turmoil?”

“It would be foolish to deny that I was uncomfortable,” said Wong. “There was little I could do, of course, save talk to the cook, who is a man devoted to his craft. He was the only member of the crew who had time, all day long.”

“I suppose that’s true,” said the other.

“And now that the storm has passed?”

Caspar pushed away his dessert plate and reached for his pipe, using the time it took to fill the bowl and get it fired up to think hard about their mutual problem.

“You still feel that you should go directly to Brightglade’s aid? Not to Flarman and Augurian?” asked Wong.

“Yes, I do.”

“I have decided you are correct,” said the Choinese gentleman.  “Flarman  is  with  Augurian  on  his  island in Warm Seas—considerably farther from us than Old Kingdom.”

“Of course, of course,” said Caspar. “In best conditions we are fifteen or twenty days’ sail from the southeast Kingdom coast. Longer, unless the wind swings more to south. Who knows how far it is from there to wherever Douglas is being held!”

“I intend to attempt another means of travel,” said Wong, carefully.

“What other way is there?”

“A most useful spell, learned in my studies over the years,” said Wong. “Properly cast, it would carry us quite near to Douglas Brightglade.”

“Hoy!” cried the Seaman. “Why didn’t you say so at once? Of course, a spelling is to be preferred in our circumstances ... if it’s reliable.”

Wong nodded several times before he replied.

“You must remember, Captain Marlin, that I have lived for several hundred years in a nation where it is a major crime to practice magic, punishable by instant execution.”

“I had no idea!” cried Caspar. “Yet you studied it, at danger to your life?”

“In fact, I was a Sage long before that Imperial decree was sent down. To avoid trouble with the misguided Imperial Bureaucracy, I have posed as a lesser scholar, a mere Mage. Magedom was never officially banned—everyone, even Bureaucrats, depend on common Mages for curing loathsome diseases and casting horoscopes, important things like that.”

He smiled broadly at Caspar, who grinned back.

“I remember the old spells very well, although I have not used many of them in recent years. I thought seriously of using this one two days ago, when I wished to avoid the Governor’s soldiers. There wasn’t time then. Fortunately, you had a better solution.”

He paused, as if reluctant to recommend his new course of action. At last he shrugged at his inner misgivings.

“If you’re willing to chance it, I’ll attempt to move the two of us to the last place Brightglade is said to have reached, a town named Pfantas, on the river known as Bloody Brook.”

It was Caspar Martin’s turn carefully to consider his options.

“I don’t wish to send ye alone into a dangerous situation, even if ye are a Wizard,” he said at last. “Besides, I wish to take a hand in this meself, out of duty to Douglas and Flarman. We’ll go together to this Pfantas.”

Wong merely nodded his acceptance and prepared at once to perform the requisite spell.

Caspar shouted for the ship’s boy and, when he had come running, sent his respects to the Mate. Would he please come to the cabin for a moment?

Pride, who had also been catching up on lost sleep after a long, stormy day and night, came to the Captain’s cabin as soon as he heard the call.

“Aye, Captain?”

“Pride, Master Wong and I must leave the ship. Ye’ll take her home to Westongue.”

It was the work of a spare quarter hour to officially turn the command of
Donation
over to the younger man. The ship’s log was brought up to the minute with the whole story, so that Thornwood would know why Caspar had left his command at Sea.

“Now, Wizard Wong, what have we to do to fly to help me old friend?”

“It’s good to hear my humble self entitled ‘Wizard’ once more,” sighed the Choinese Magician. “A few minutes of thought, a few verses of incantation, and we will be on our way, Captain.”

Caspar armed himself with a short, sharp sailor’s cutlass and a dirk to balance it on the other side of his wide belt and proclaimed himself rested, ready, and impatient to begin.

Wong sat on the bare deck in the middle of the saloon, cross-legged, in a flowing robe of black silk marked with embroidered symbols: horses’ heads and roosters, seven-pointed stars and quarter-full moons, and others no one recognized. He placed before himself a clear, crystal pyramid about the size of a man’s fists together, which he had produced from his deepest inside pocket.

He motioned Caspar to sit on the deck opposite him and began to chant a strange, variably pitched tongue. Caspar knew it was neither Common Tongue nor the usual Choinese way of speaking. Some much more ancient language? Shivers coursed down his spine.

The air about them seemed to tingle, as with storm electricity on a bad night at Sea. The crystal pyramid glowed from within and the light seemed to pulse, although that might have been an illusion of the golden light. It shot upward on the faces bent close over it. Acting-Captain Pride and the ship’s boy stood in the shadows to one side, watching in fascination and no little awe.

The forms of the sturdy Captain from Westongue and the delicate-seeming, willowy Choinese flickered in time to the changes in light intensity. After a while the bodies of the two men, and the crystal itself, blurred and wavered, then flashed once brightly and disappeared with a solid
carrump
of displaced air.

Pride and the boy let out long-held breaths. They turned as one to go on deck to explain the strange events to the crew, their estimate of Caspar Martin’s grit, always high, increased manyfold.

Chapter Fifteen

Flight of the Feather Pin

“WAIT half a moment,” said Marbleheart, in a whisper. “Something...”

He leaned forward, his sleek body making a straight line, nose lifted to sniff the morning air, like a bird dog at the point. Douglas stood perfectly still, his own Wizard-sharpened senses detecting nothing out of the ordinary.

They had followed a faint trace north from Pfantas in another dense morning fog the day before, climbing through the pine-forested hills by way of a narrow cart path. There they’d picked up signs of the Witchservers’ wagon bearing Cribblon to Coventown.

They followed the uneven track as swiftly as Wizard and Otter could go... much faster than a heavy cart and the overconfident Witchservers, it seemed to Marbleheart.

“They stopped here for the night,” he declared, sniffing softly. “See? They made no fire but ate cold food. Ugh! It’s nothing I’d care to put in my mouth!”

“Poor Cribblon, if they made him dine on
that!”
agreed Douglas, kicking at the remains of the Witchservers’ meal. “I hope they starved him, instead.”

“Let me see, how far ahead
of us are they?” pondered
the Otter. He was using a talent for tracking that he never realized he had. He calculated aloud, “It’s midmorning and they left here no later than an hour after dawn, I’d guess. We’re going so much faster than they ... I would think they are only two or three hours ahead of us now.”

“I’m torn between rescuing Cribblon right away or letting him stay in their clutches until they reach Coventown, showing us the way,” said Douglas.

“The latter course will save us time and trouble,” said the Sea Otter, turning to follow the trail again. It was plain to read, softened as the ground had been by a day of drizzly mist. “Besides, Douglas, he’s the lucky one in at least one way—he doesn’t have to walk. They’re carrying him in that cart of theirs.”

“I suspect Cribblon wouldn’t agree, right now. Well, it seems better to allow these Witch’s creatures to lead us to their Coven. Without their guide, I suspect we’d never find it. I sense ... a Hiding Spell of some sort. Probably Emaldar’s work. They won’t dare to harm Cribblon seriously before they deliver him to her, especially if they believe he’s a Wizard.”

He followed the low-slung form of the Sea Otter along the rough path, trotting to keep up with Marbleheart’s
gallumping
gait.

****

Myrn arrived at Westongue in the middle of a busy morning. Seven square-rigged ships lay at anchor in the roads, and the waterfront swarmed with stevedores and roustabouts manhandling cargoes, outbound and inbound. The three stone moles were crowded and several ships were unloading their cargoes by lighters, unable to find space to tie up directly to the docks.

Few of the longshoremen glanced up as they worked, and those who happened to see her just as she arrived doubted their eyes and said nothing to anyone, for fear of being teased about the ale they’d tossed off so thirstily the night before.

She made no commotion, therefore, until she confronted a burly young man who seemed to be in charge of work on the longest pier.

“Sir, could I ask you where I can find someone in authority here?” she asked, ignoring his startled look. A very pretty young woman in a place where almost everyone was rough, sweaty, and male!

“I... ah, er ... well, ma’am, that is ...!”

“What’s the matter, sir? Haven’t you seen a lady since you left home?” Myrn teased.

“Well, ma’am, to tell the truth ... never, at least not here! Most respectable ladies keep to the landward side of town, ye see. This be mostly a roughneck’s world.”

“I must tell you I’ve sailed with tough Seamen since I was a sprat myself, and had never a fear.”

“Oh, no fear, ma’am! Thornwood Duke puts up with no bad acting in a lady’s presence. No, ma’am! He’s up there, at his new house, I believe.”

“That’s where I can find my old war comrade, then?” asked Myrn, enjoying herself greatly. “I’ve urgent Wizard’s business with him.”

These words so topped the foreman’s surprised confusion—a lady
and
a Wizard!—that he simply pointed out to her high-roofed Sea House a short way down the shore.

“On better thought,” he said with an embarrassed grin, running to catch up with her, “I’d better just go along with you, just in case.”

He said his name was Simon. He’d worked at a counting house in Westongue ever since it was discovered, when he was just a lad, that he had a talent for counting and doing sums and such.

“I like my work,” he told the Apprentice earnestly, “but I wish I could go to Sea. So many of my mates’ve done. I’m going to petition Thornwood Duke one day to appoint me Supercargo on one of these new merchantmen.”

“Do it today,” advised Myrn. They were mounting the wide steps to the front porch of Sea House when she saw Thornwood coming through the double doors, calling out to her and waving his arms in greeting.

“Do what?” he cried, taking Myrn’s hand and squeezing it before he kissed it, gallantly. “Welcome to Westongue, Lady!”

“You know your foreman Simon, Thornwood? He tells me he’s good at figures and
counting but wants most to go to
Sea on one of your new ships.”

Simon turned several shades of red deeper than his normal tan, especially when Thornwood threw back his head to laugh.

“Why did you never apply?” cried the Duke to Simon. “I need Supercargoes ever so much more than I need Able-bodied Seamen! There are half a dozen berths begging to be filled. When you are finished with your day’s tasks, come see me here. I’ll tell you what must be done and where.”

Simon thanked both Myrn and the Duke as gracefully as he knew how and ran back to counting bales and checking crates. He looked like a man with a glad song in his heart.

“He was very nice,” said Myrn. “Reminded me a bit of our Douglas.”

At the mention of Douglas’s name Thornwood turned somber.

“You know of the shipwreck? We have no idea—”

“Shipwreck? No, no one mentioned a shipwreck, certainly not Douglas in his letter from Pfantas.” She was immediately concerned, and confused.

“If you had a letter from him from somewhere in Old Kingdom,” said the young ruler of Dukedom, much relieved, “then he survived the wreck of
Pitchfork.
She went down in a sudden storm near the coast of Old Kay. I sent a report by Seagull to Flarman and Augurian a week or more ago, as soon as I heard report of it.”

“It hadn’t come before I left Waterand,” Myrn told him. “It would have caused some concern, except that, as I say, we have had word from Douglas since he reached Pfantas, and also a nasty blackmail note from a Witch calling herself Emaldar. She claims she holds Douglas prisoner...”