The Reluctant Mage

by Karen Miller

  “No, it ain’t! Charis, either you trust me or you don’t!”

  “Sorry, sorry,” she muttered, and hunched low over her oar. Closed her eyes so she wouldn’t see the towering waterspout.

  It collapsed in a distant gouting spume with an echoing whoosh. The breeze-driven spray splattered over her face.

  “Charis,” said Deenie, staring. “I mean it. You’ve got to trust me.”

  “I do. I swear I do.”

  “Then trust me—and row!”

  Teeth gritted, chest heaving, the blood scalding through her veins, Charis rowed in time with Deenie and the skiff with great reluctance drew further and further away from the pier.

  Whipped almost to shreds on the rising wind, a shout. Then another. Their theft had been seen.

  “Don’t look back,” said Deenie, grimly. “They’ll not come after us. They’re all frighted of the harbour now.”

  “With good reason,” she retorted. “Deenie, we’re mad.”

  “Never mind about that,” said Deenie. She was breathing hard too, even though she knew what she was doing. “Scoot over a bit and take my oar, Charis. Do your best to keep us steady while I set the sail.”

  Charis stared at her, aghast. “Deenie, I can’t!”

  “Take it!” Deenie snapped, nothing mouseish about her now. “We’ve got to use this wind while we can. There’s no saying how long it’ll last or if we’ll end up becalmed.”

  More shouting, even fainter. She stifled a yelp. “Are you sure they’ll not chase us down?”

  Deenie glanced behind them. “It’s one man and a boy and they’re waving their arms at the end of the pier. They might as well be windmills. Or scarecrows. Charis, please—”

  She scrunched herself to the middle of the bench and took Deenie’s oar. The weight and drag of both lengths of timber caught her scalded blood on fire. Deenie scrambled about doing mysterious things with the mast and the sail, muttering under her breath. Not daring to look at the harbour, Charis kept her head down and struggled to keep hold of both oars, to keep their little boat steady. Sweaty inside her gloves, her hands ached and stung abominably, up her wrists, into her elbows and then to her shoulders.

  “Nearly done—nearly done—” Deenie gasped. “Hold on, Charis. Nearly—there!”

  With a snap and a flap the hoisted sail bellied with wind. Yelping, Deenie leapt aft, right over the rower’s bench, and reached for the tiller as the skiff bounced and swung about like a fractious horse. Charis felt her belly heave, bile rushing up her throat.

  “Hold the oars!” Deenie shouted. “Hold ’em tight, Charis!”

  “I’m holding, I’m holding!” she shouted back. “But I can’t hold ’em for long.”

  Cursing with words no nice young lady ought to know, Deenie wrestled with the dancing skiff.

  “Right,” she said, after a moment. Her breath was coming in short, harsh rasps. “I’ve lashed the tiller. It’ll hold course on its own while we get sorted. Give me an oar.”

  Charis gave her one, gladly. “Now what?”

  “Now we ship the oars,” said Deenie, sounding more cheerful than she had any right to be. “And we let the wind do the work for a while. How does that sound?”

  It sounded wonderful. With Deenie’s help she shipped her oar then collapsed over her knees on the rower’s bench while Deenie shipped her own. There wasn’t a muscle or bone in her whole body that wasn’t hurting.

  “Poor Charis,” said Deenie, returning aft to unlash the tiller. “I’m sorry I shouted.”

  Groaning, she sat up and cracked open her salt-stung eyes. “You should be. My arms feel like chewed string, Deenie.”

  “You could make yourself comfy on the floorboards, if you like,” said Deenie, her eyes apologetic. She was sat on a box with the tiller’s long handle in her hand, nudging it this way then that, a little bit each time. “I’ll sail us for a while. You could even sleep a bit, maybe.”

  “Sleep?” She stared at her mad friend, Rafel’s sister, then pointed over the side of the skiff at the three waterspouts writhing altogether too close to them. “How can I sleep with those horrible things right there?”

  Deenie closed her eyes. Breathed in slowly, and out again. “No, we’re safe from them,” she murmured. “They’ll not trouble us.”

  And a moment later two of the three waterspouts collapsed into spume, slapping the harbour’s surface like big wet hands. The third one spun tighter and faster, growing thin, then thinner still, until it snapped like an overspun spindle of wool.

  “See?” said Deenie, opening her eyes. She was trying to sound jaunty, but she couldn’t quite mask her pain. “Charis, really, you should rest a bit. I need to think about what I’m doing.”

  In other words: Charis, hold your tongue.

  So she did as she was told and made herself a little nest between the canvas and the rower’s bench, using their haversacks as pillows to save her from the worst of the bumps. Westwailing’s pier was a shadowy stroke on the water, the township dwindled to silence and roofs, falling fast behind them as Deenie swung their stolen skiff in a wide arc to the right, following along Lur’s wriggly, southernmost coastline. Not so close to land that they’d be driven accidentally to ground, but making sure to keep them far away from the magic-poisoned reef.

  The wind began to pick up strength. Uneasy, Charis realised there wasn’t a real sunrise, just a murkish brightening. She glanced at the pewtery sky, where a bank of dark clouds was ominously growing. Deenie was right. There was going to be a storm. And they were so exposed out here. If it rained hard, or the storm threw down hail, there was nowhere to hide. Four new writhing waterspouts flailed across the harbour’s choppy, foam-flecked surface. Filled with fresh fear she looked at Deenie, but her friend’s milky-pale face was oddly serene. Even though, there was a pinch-line between her straight dark eyebrows and the corners of her mouth were turned down and tucked in tight. The pain of the harbour’s blighted magic was growing stronger in her the longer they stayed on the water.

  And there’s nothing I can do about that.

  Nothing except sit quietly, and not distract her, and let her be who she was, the Innocent Mage’s strange daughter. Only…

  “Deenie,” she said. “I’ve seen waterspouts, but no whirlpools. Where—”

  “Up ahead,” said Deenie, her voice tight. “A clutch of ’em. We’ll—”

  “A clutch?” Lurching onto her knees, she grabbed at the skiff’s side, waking her own aches and pains from all that rowing. “How many is a clutch?”

  “Too many. Five. Six, maybe. They’re running in a ragged line out to the reef.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “Since we swung aside from the harbour.”

  “And you didn’t say?”

  “I was going to.”

  Of course she was. “Well—well—sail around them, Deenie! Get us closer to the coast!”

  “Oh, yes, Captain Orrick? Like a turn at the tiller, would you?”

  “No,” she said, scowling. “But—”

  “Charis, here’s the thing,” said Deenie, nudging their skiff a whisker rightwards. “There’s a waterspout wanting to roar up ’tween us and the shoreline. If I shift us too far over then it might whip us to splinters. I’ve got to hold this course a while longer.”

  “Towards the whirlpools? Deenie—”

  “Yes, towards the whirlpools,” said Deenie. “And then I’ll jink a dogleg and hopefully that waterspout won’t rise. Charis, please. You’re not helping.”

  “And neither are you,” she snapped, leaning as far over the skiff’s side as she dared, straining to see ahead. The boat bounced and splashed beneath her, spray flying. The salt was stinging and acrid on her lips. “Deenie, if we’ve got whirlpools ahead I’ve a right to know it! Don’t you treat me like a noddyhead.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Deenie, contrite. “I just didn’t want you to worry.”

  If there were whirlpools she couldn’t see them. She couldn’t hear
them, either, but sailing was a lot noisier than she’d expected: the canvas crack of the sail, the creaking mast, the rushing water and the wooden sounds of the skiff.

  She flicked Deenie a look. “I’m going to worry regardless, so I might as well worry on what’s really there instead of what I’m imagining is there.”

  “All right. Then what’s there is—there. You see?”

  She looked ahead where Deenie was pointing and felt her throat close. “I—I thought that was just more frothy waves.”

  Deenie snorted. “I s’pose that’s one way of seeing it.”

  What she’d thought was harmless spume and spray was the edge of the first whirlpool. And now that she knew, and looked again, of course she could see there was something different in the way the harbour’s water was surging. And if she listened more closely she could hear a throaty growl.

  “Deenie—”

  “Don’t fratch yourself,” said Deenie. “So long as we’re not sideswoggled by waterspouts I can get us past them.”

  “And will we be sideswoggled?” Her voice was squeaking, but she couldn’t help it. Whirlpools. Those are whirlpools. They swallow people and boats alive. “Deenie, what if a waterspout does whip up? What if there’s more than one? What if—”

  “Then I’ll get us past them, too,” said Deenie. “It just won’t be as easy.”

  She could feel a whimper trying to escape.

  This wasn’t supposed to be my life. I was supposed to find a good man and fall in love and wed him and bed him and have his babes. I did find a good man and I did fall in love and nothing after that has ever gone right. Oh, Papa—I’m frighted—

  The water around and beneath them was growing choppier. The distant growling of the whirlpools was getting louder. Coming close. And then a sudden freezing squall of wind shook them, slapping and snapping the sail against the skiff’s spindly mast. Charis looked up and saw the pewter sky swiftly tarnishing black.

  The storm.

  “Stay down, Charis,” said Deenie. “Get under the canvas if you can. Things are going to be tricky for a bit and you don’t want to be playing pea on a hot frypan.”

  “Can’t I help?” she said, as her skin goosebumped with cold and fright. “Deenie—”

  “You can help by keeping out of the way! And not making me fratch!”

  In the murky stormlight Deenie’s face was whiter than milk. All boyish in her leathers, with her braided hair salt-soaked, she didn’t look like Deenie at all. There was a fierceness about her that Lur had never seen. Staring at her, shocked, Charis felt oddly comforted. This was Asher’s daughter.

  I’m not going to die.

  Then the first peals of thunder sounded, and as their echoes faded the wind shifted, sharply twisting their skiff to the left. Flung sideways, she hit the floorboards so hard she thought all her teeth were rattled loose in their sockets.

  Head spinning, she sat up. Maybe she should crawl under the canvas, but she couldn’t. That would be cowardly, with Deenie fighting to save them. Instead she pressed against the skiff’s curved side, tugged as much canvas over her as she could manage—and remembered at the last moment to shove their haversacks under it too, to keep their clothes dry.

  With another rolling crash of thunder it started to rain—fat, heavy drops that stung and soaked.

  “Hold on!” Deenie shouted. “Charis, stay down and hold on!”

  The harbour wasn’t choppy now, there were truly proper waves, foam-tipped and rising, taking the skiff up with them, dropping it back to the water’s surface with a stomach-lurching crash. And even though the rain was loud and thunder constantly rumbled, she could hear the whirlpools’ deep, hungry roar. Looking to Deenie, because in this madness Deenie was her only source of solace, she saw pain shudder through her friend, the blighted magic’s claws sinking deep. Then Deenie startled and looked over to the right. Not even the rain running down her face could mask the shock.

  Charis turned, following her horrified stare.

  And saw the beginnings of a waterspout rising out of the whipping waves.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Don’t be sick, Deenie. Don’t be sick. You can’t be sick. Charis needs you.

  “It’s all right, Charis! That ’spout’s not going to hold. It won’t hold. We’re all right!”

  And how her mage-sense knew that, she could never explain. But it was true. The blight-spawned waterspout wasn’t strong enough to last.

  “Look!” Charis shouted, pointing. “You’re right, Deenie. Look!”

  With a splash and a splatter and an abrupt release of magic, the threatening waterspout collapsed. Dragging a wet leather-clad forearm over her rain-slicked face, holding tight to the tiller, Deenie nodded. “Stay down, Charis. This ain’t over yet.”

  And it wasn’t. She could feel the aching build-up in her blood and her bones, more waterspouts stirring beneath the harbour’s rain-pocked surface. Her mage-sense surged and she swung around, seeking. Where? Where? Where?

  There.

  She was right. This time the ’spout whipped up beyond the ragged line of whirlpools. Small and feeble, it was, trapped between maelstroms. Trying to whip itself free, instead it whipped itself to pieces.

  “Charis, please, you have to—”

  Gasping, she couldn’t finish. A doubled pain shot through her, a sour twist in the harbour’s blight and a bolt of rotten magic in the air as thunder boomed directly overhead. The storm in her blood dimmed her vision and loosened her desperate hold on the tiller. She heard Charis scream as the embattled skiff lurched wildly sideways, succumbing to the suck and tug of the nearest whirlpool.

  No—no—no, please, no!

  She grabbed the tiller with both hands and hauled, putting all her meagre strength behind wrenching the skiff back onto the course she’d charted, the course her mage-sense demanded, that would see them thread their way safely between the whirlpools and the struggling-to-be-born waterspouts.

  Surly and sluggish, the skiff responded. The cold wind whipped hard, flogging rain into their faces, turning the waves to flying, stinging foam and cracking in the sail. Would it stay constant enough to power them? And if it did, would the canvas sail hold? And the spindly mast? Had she chosen the right skiff to steal? Had she chosen the right course? She was relying on her mage-sense as much as Da’s lessons from her childhood. A born sailor, he’d called her, but what if he’d been wrong?

  Most of the morning’s light was storm-stolen now. The skiff battled through a dreary dusk, slapped and slopped by rain and spray. She felt so sick with the harbour’s raging blight, by the reef, she could hardly remember what it felt like not to hurt. It wasn’t only rain and salt spray on her cheeks. She was weeping, frighted almost beyond breathing.

  I’m a mouse. I’m a mouse. What was I thinking?

  Thunder rumbled again, and beneath it she heard the ravenous growling of the whirlpools. Felt the skiff skew sideways again, answering their hungry pull. Then came another spiralling surge in her mage-sense as the reef’s blight spawned a new waterspout. This one was stronger, roaring loudly before it collapsed. Straightaway another formed, and one more beside it. But they smashed into each other, murderous siblings, and fell apart in more foam and spray.

  The skiff lurched again, heeling over to kiss the waves. Huddled half-under the canvas sheeting, Charis screamed.

  What was I thinking? I should’ve made her stay at home.

  And then she didn’t have time to even think that much, because three more waterspouts were whipping into life to starboard and the closest of the whirlpools, feeding off the storm, was picking up momentum. She’d never hold the skiff against them without help.

  “Charis!” she shouted, above the battering noise of wind and water. “Charis, I need you!”

  Tossed and bruised, Charis crawled her way to the stern. Uncle Pellen’s uniform tunic and his ugly wool hose were soaked through, dragging heavy on Charis’s limbs. Her hair, half unbraided, was plastered to her cheeks. She looked awful,
chalky-white and terrified.

  “Is this it, Deenie?” she said, her eyes wide. “Are we done for?”

  “No,” she said, pouring every skerrick of anger into her voice. “Grab the tiller with me, Charis, quick. It’ll take both of us to hold our course.”

  With a choked cry Charis took hold of the tiller. Shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip and knee to knee, they hauled and they hauled against the drag of the whirlpools.

  “Deenie—those waterspouts—”

  “I know, Charis, I know,” she panted. “Don’t look at ’em. Just close your eyes and hold on.”

  ’Cause either they’ll kill us or they won’t. Either way there’s nothing we can do.

  The wind still blew strongly, keeping the sail bellied fat and pushing the skiff through and over the storm-thrashed waves. Deafened, drowning in the noise and the pain, battered by rain and the magic in the whirlpools and the waterspouts, Deenie sank her teeth into her lip and held on.

  I might not be Rafel but I can do this. I can.

  Rafel, lost and needing her. Rafel, their only hope.

  Beside her Charis was choking, terrible shudders racking her head to toe.

  “Hold on, Charis,” she said, almost pleading. “It’s nearly over. Just hold on.”

  But she didn’t know that for certain. Shocked, she felt the fury of the whirlpools and the wildness of the ’spouts. She felt her blood start to twist and whirl and spin. They were drawing level with the maelstroms now, the whirlpools calling to her with furious longing, and even as they called she heard more shrieking to their left. The triple ’spouts whipped and thrashed, struggling to spiral higher, to catch the skiff up and rip it apart. To destroy her and Charis and any hope of saving Rafe, and Lur after him. And Da.

  Her strength was fading. Beside her, Charis was fading. She could feel everything but it wasn’t enough. Feeling wasn’t acting. It didn’t change a thing.

  I’m Asher’s daughter. I can do better than this.

  What was it Da always said, when it came to getting his own way? If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, then lead ’em where they need to go. Which meant she had to stop fighting.