IGMS Issue 11 (18 page)

"Suggestions?" the captain asked, raising one eyebrow. 

"Give them their property back," I said, all pretense falling away.  Dwarf began to sputter like a leaky bilge.

"You stole that Urn from the Marfrasian Magery.  Don't bother to deny it."

"Why should I deny it?" Dwarf said. "The Marfrasians had no more right to the Urn then we do. By displaying it openly for any fool to steal they put us all at risk."

"From?"

"The men on that ship," Hawk said, grabbing at my arm.  "You're one of us. Don't you bother to deny
that
! Look at that ship. 
Look
at it!"

I knew he meant for me to look with more than just my physical eyes, so I stretched out, listening within for the familiar voices of my order.  I heard nothing but chaos, jumbled confusion. Noise. They were not my people. 

"They will use it for the worst possible end," Hawk said.  "If they get the Urn, they'll take it to the heart of the Five Lands and raise the army.  Not one man, woman or child will be left alive when they are done."

"How do you know that?" Captain Teilos asked, but I already knew. Hawk's betrayal weighed on him like a sodden cloak.

"Because he's one of them."

"No longer." Hawk glanced up at the oncoming ship. "Captain, you must fight.  If you cannot run, it is our only option."

"Can't you do some weather magic of your own? I don't like our chances in a fight."  Teilos stroked the hilt of his sword, and I knew what he was thinking.  They were larger, would have a bigger crew complement.  More weapons.

Dwarf shook his head. "No. Even if your man here helps, it would take twice our number.  Don't worry about the cannons.  They won't risk sinking this ship.  They'll grapple and board."

The other ship, a huge three-masted square rigger, was making for our starboard side.  A massive grey-green wall of water reared up behind the enemy ship like a cliff. She was coming on under the force of the storm's momentum and would be on us in moments.

"We fight, then," Teilos said, and drew his sword.  "Prepare for battle!"  He wheeled away from us, heading downship.  "Prepare for battle! Move like your lives depend on it!"

My first battle, and no time to prepare my soul for Return, and neither priest nor priestess to shrive me in any case. We lined up before Geberich who passed us each a weapon; cudgels and long knives for the common sailor, cutlasses and pistols for the more experienced. The rounded hilt of my knife dug into my hand as I stood trembling, waiting for the other ship to close.

"Stick with me, Aeduin, and you'll be fine," Davin said, grinning. Whatever fear the Urn had ripened in him had fallen away with the promise of action.

"Why don't we fire the guns? I know why they don't fire at us, but surely we don't care if
they
sink?" The sky was turning a horrible charcoal grey as the force of the magical storm covered us.

"Guns are on the port side, they're approaching to starboard. We could try to turn, but with no wind, it's a chancy thing."

The shouts of the enemy became audible over the roar of the sea. They lined their deck, clothed in the colors of the Red Clans, shaking their weapons and howling curses to their blood-stained gods. Mercenaries.

Davin aimed his pistol and fired. Across the water, a man fell. "Got him! Listen, stay low, plunge that knife into bellies and legs, whatever you can reach. Don't --"

A hiss of arrows rained down on us. Davin fell, a long shaft sticking from his throat. For the space it took to take a man to breath, the ship stood frozen in the unnatural calm. Then harsh iron smashed onto wood -- grappling hooks, heavy chains clattered onto our deck and the
Fox
lurched sideways. They had us. The ship shuddered as the enemy vessel slammed against it. The mercenaries, like a flood, poured over the side. Our men moved forward to intercept. The clash of steel, the sound of shots and the screams of men hung heavy on the trembling air.

I fled. Boys of noble birth are trained to arms from childhood; the common lot fight as easily as they breathe. But mages may not strike a man in anger; the magical orders ascribe, officially at least, to peace. To stab a man, to feel the force of the blade slicing through his body as his life drained away? I couldn't do that. So I dropped the knife, thrust poor Davin's pistol into my belt and fled down into the upper hold.

There it was. The cursed Urn lay half out of its crate as though Hawk and Dwarf had made an abortive attempt to remove it to safety. It was safer here in the security of the hold, out of sight of the enemy. Out of sight of everyone but me. Footsteps echoed on the decks above me. They'd be searching the hold soon. No time to think. I grabbed up the Urn and ran, thinking only to take it as far from the water as I could. Up, then, up to the deck, I darted through the thicket of swords, protected by some god or fortune. Men were dying around me, pierced by arrow and sword, shot through by pistol, but I remained untouched. I would have said it was magic, but I was no mage. I was a pirate, and I carried my booty tucked close to my chest.

To the crow's nest, away from the battle and the stench of blood and powder. Fear sped my passage and strengthened my arms and legs for the unfamiliar climb. From so high, looking down on the fighting, it seemed like a child's game, like the tin soldiers boys would push around a table, pretending to be Javitz at Melanolia or some other famous general defeating their nation's foes.

But never did tin soldiers bleed so nor cry out for their mothers. I looked away, away from the
Fox,
which had become a death ship, and studied the enemy ship from this higher vantage. Its sails now hung as limp as our own. Beyond it the wall of water waited. All the power of the storm held in check in by the mages on that ship -- seven in all, I saw, standing in a circle with heads bent in fierce concentration. If they released their hold, the water would overwhelm us all. And they would have to release it. That much power had to be grounded eventually.

That must have been what they intended. Once they had the Urn, they would disengage, allow themselves to drift to a safe distance, and then let loose the storm, trusting in their larger and more capable vessel to safeguard them while we would founder and die. I glanced down; Captain Teilos's sword flickered furiously against a man half a head taller with arms as thick as the
Fox's
mast. The battle was not going our way. I'd been a fool to think I was safe in the crow's nest. Their mages would scry the Urn's location and they'd have it from me as easy as having the skirts off a thrupenny whore. The Urn would be taken, and I would be twice forsworn; once as a mage for failing to guard it, once for running from battle.

I raised my hand to shade my eyes from the blinding sun and looked east. At the very limit of my sight, I saw a haze of green. Land. We were so close -- if the Urn could be got safely to land, it could be buried, hidden. The wall of water was to our west. When it came crashing down, it would drive us towards the land. All I had to do was break the concentration of that circle of mages. And protect the Urn from the sea.

I exploded with hysterical harsh laughter that sent a gull perched atop the mast wheeling into the sky. How could I do all that? A failed mage, a carpenter's apprentice? But I had to. The spell to repel water was one of the first they'd taught us; it was useful in protecting our scrolls and books from rain. But half the time on rainy days, the ink ran down my scrolls in black rivulets. Half the time, I'd come to class drenched and dripping to the derisive taunts of my peers. This would have to be one of the other times. I couldn't fail, not now. A man screamed, and, smelling smoke, I looked down to see the mainsail ablaze. There was no more time.

I set the Urn down at my feet then drew magic around me like a cloak -- a thin cloak barely fit for a beggar, but it would have to do. I pushed with my mind and sent the shimmering veil of protection around the ancient jar.
Hold, hold, hold.
I drew the pistol. It held but one shot, and I had never fired before. But I knew the theory.

Trying to ignore the
Fox
trembling around me like a dying man gasping out his last breath, I steadied my hand and took aim at the tallest of the enemy mages. The cloak of power still burned around me, the force of the magic gripped me like a fist thrust through my gut. Guide my shot, I thought, praying to my power, to the gods of magic, to the open sky and the waiting storm. From far below, I heard Captain Teilos call my name.

The force of the pistol's retort knocked me back into the rough boards of the crow's nest. As I struggled to rise, I heard a roar like thunder, saw the wall of water rushing towards us, a black mountain of salt-stink. The joined ships lurched and bucked as the wave hammered down on us. Then I felt nothing more.

I came to myself with my head resting on a hard cushion of sand, my legs half-submerged in lapping waves. Every inch of my body ached as though I'd been beaten. Debris and wreckage floated around me, pieces of ship and bodies. I staggered to my feet and turned away from them, not wanting to see if they were friends of mine. A little way up the beach, I saw the slender figure of Captain Teilos sitting with his back to a spindly tree, staring down at something in the sand. I approached.

Blood streaked his clothes and he bore a purpling bruise on his left cheek, but was otherwise unscathed by the both the fight and his journey through the waves. If I'd not known better, I'd say he had magical protection to survive when so many had died. He showed no surprise at my presence.

"I should have known you weren't dead, lad. It would take more than a storm to kill you." He continued to stare down into the sand. I followed the direction of his gaze.

The Urn. It had survived, but some force had broken the seals. The lid had come off; the contents spilled onto the beach. But what spilled out of it looked like sand. Just plain beach sand, yellow-white and gritty, interspersed with the occasional flash of white shell. Or was it bone? Was this what the remains of a hundred thousand dead men became with the intervention of time and magic?

"Is it sand?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I don't know. But I wouldn't want to be on this beach when the tide comes in, just in case."

I knelt beside the Urn and let the contents sift through my fingers. I felt nothing. No hint of power, no thrum of magic. It was dead as rock. As sand. Had it always been sand? Or had Hawk and Dwarf somehow managed to secret the contents away?

"You know, Aeduin," Capain Teilos said. "It occurs to me that you have an opportunity here. You could take the Urn back to your magery in triumph. They'd probably welcome you with open arms."

"The seals are broken. They'll know it's not intact." They'd know I failed as I had always failed. I suspected the masters had been secretly relieved when I'd been taken."

"So fix them. They're just magic, aren't they?"

"I don't have that kind of power."

Teilos laughed. "I saw what you did to those foreign mages. Don't tell me you haven't got the power."

"I don't know what you mean. I shot the leader with Davin's pistol which distracted the others."

Teilos rose to his feet and stretched, brushed the sand from the back of his trousers. "Davin fired his pistol at the start of the battle. I saw that too. You don't know much about guns, do you? That was a single-shot flintlock. Did you reload?"

Numbly, I shook my head.

"Thought not. It wasn't a bullet killed that man. It was magic. Your magic."

"I can't . . . I didn't . . ." But I had. The pistol had been the focus, but what had burst through that barrel hadn't been lead and powder. It had been raw power. If I could do that, I
could
remake the seals. I could fill the Urn with sand, remake the seals and none would be the wiser. I closed my eyes, thinking of how my former tormentors would have to pay me homage, how the masters would embrace me as one of them. I could walk with kings. If I went back.

"By my reckoning we're about two days' walk from the Port of Bees. If any of the rest of the crew survived, they'll head that way. The
Fox
is gone, but I've got funds enough in reserve to get myself a new ship." Captain Teilos smiled. "I'll need good men. If the life of a mage doesn't appeal, you might consider the life of a pirate."

"Can't I be both?"

I'd only just discovered my power, to give it up without exploring it, without seeing how good a mage I could be? I couldn't do that.

"Mages belong in mageries. That's how the world works, isn't it? The gift of magic must benefit king and country, not be used for private gain. That's the tradition." He spoke bare truth, but his tone was full of mockery. "The choice is yours, lad."

I watched him start up the beach. A strong breeze, a remnant of the false storm, came off the sea, bringing the smell of salt with it. I remembered the feel of a ship beneath my feet, how I'd struggled to learn to walk like a sailor. But now the land felt wrong, foreign. I hadn't chosen to be a sailor any more than I'd chosen to be a mage. I'd been shoved down those paths against my will and had done my best to walk them, and to keep my two worlds separate as the world said they must be.