Explorer of the Endless Sea

by Jack Campbell

  More mysteries, more questions with no answers she could ever hope to learn.

  The bird that had come around the bow had angled to sweep along the port side. Its wings and chest protected its Mage from being hit by any of the crossbow bolts fired at it, but from where Jules was high on the mainmast she had a clean shot at the Mage.

  She’d never tried using the Mechanic weapon to hit a target moving past her so quickly. Her Imperial training on the crossbow had included shooting at targets racing by at the speeds horses could achieve, so she knew she had to lead her target. But the rate at which a horse could gallop was nothing compared to the pace with which the immense birds flew past.

  Still, the revolver hadn’t done enough damage to the birds. She’d have to risk a shot at the Mage.

  Jules’ thoughts had taken only a moment of time. She raised the Mechanic revolver, her hand swinging through the air to try to match the movement of the bird as she tried to aim at the right place ahead of the bird despite having no good idea how far ahead that might be.

  Her finger tightened on the trigger, the boom of the weapon filling the air.

  The bird and the Mage riding it flew on past the stern.

  She’d missed. Maybe she hadn’t led the target enough. Maybe her aim had been off and the shot had gone over the Mage’s head. Jules had no way of knowing.

  She had three shots left.

  Realizing that she hadn’t kept track of where the first bird was, Jules spun about, seeing it stooping in for another strike at her. She jerked herself around the mast again to put it between her and the attack, raising the weapon and shooting just before the bird reached her.

  The boom of the weapon and the deafening screech of the huge bird and the crunch of wood as the bird’s claws dug into the maintop all seemed to happen at the same time. Instead of striking and flying off, the massive bird clung to its perch, one set of claws digging into and through the wood of the maintop, the other wrapped about the mainmast higher up. Its beak, looking sharp enough and hard enough to shear through the side of one of the metal Mechanic ships, stabbed around the mast at Jules, while its flapping wings buffeted her with the strength of a powerful storm.

  The beak closed with a snap so close to her arm that Jules thought she felt the force of it. Terrified as she shifted her grip on the mast, she missed a hold as the wind from the wings tore at her. Grabbing on with both hands to keep from being knocked off the maintop, her grip on the Mechanic revolver slipped. A frantic effort to snag it failed, the weapon dropping from her grasp. Sick inside, Jules watched the weapon fall all the way to the deck, where it landed with a loud thump on the wooden planks.

  Despite her fears, the weapon didn’t shatter and the two remaining cartridges didn’t both shoot at once. Perhaps it still worked, and one of her crew could use it.

  She had no time to rejoice in that slim chance though. The huge bird still clung to the mainmast, its wings beating at her, its deadly beak coming around the mast to make another try at her. With nowhere to dodge that beak this time, Jules had no choice but to swing off the maintop, holding onto the shrouds nearest it.

  Under the weight and force of the Mage bird perched on the mainmast, the Sun Queen heeled far over, the main deck almost awash on the port side as the entire ship tilted. The mainmast groaned under the strain, and shouts of alarm from the sailors on deck came to Jules as they slid to the port rail and clung to it to keep from going overboard.

  Jules at the top of the mainmast found herself dangling not over the deck, but way out over the water. The grasp of her boots on the ratlines failed, her feet going out from under her, so that she hung by both hands from the shrouds, the sea far beneath her.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted something, turning to look.

  The second enormous Mage bird was already stooping for another strike, its claws extended, aiming straight for her to pluck Jules from her precarious hold the way a hawk might yank a squirrel from a tree.

  She looked despairingly from one Mage bird to the other, realizing she had only one chance to avoid being caught and killed by one or the other of the huge raptors.

  Jules let go her grip on the rigging.

  She fell, the second bird uttering an ear-splitting, disappointed squawk as its strike missed.

  Jules saw a blur of masts and sails and rigging fly by her gaze, then a momentary view of the side of the Sun Queen before her booted feet hit the water hard enough to partly stun her. She went deep from the force of the fall, seeing the water darken around her as a rush of bubbles fled upward. Jules stroked her arms and kicked her legs frantically, trying to follow the bubbles back toward the surface.

  She burst back out into the sunlight and air, gasping for breath.

  Blinking salt water from her eyes, Jules looked around for the Sun Queen, seeing the ship already hundreds of lances from her and moving farther away by the moment. She’d stopped being moved along with the ship as soon as she let go of the rigging, but with all sails set the Sun Queen was still moving at the best speed she could manage.

  Had the crew seen her fall? Why hadn’t they come about already to pick her up? The bird perched on the top of the mainmast had let go, but both creatures were still flying around the ship, making stabs at the rigging and the masts, as if they thought she was still aboard.

  How could the birds have missed her fall?

  The Mages riding those birds might’ve missed it, though. Both had been unable to see Jules, their views blocked because of the bulks of their flying mounts. If the birds were responding to orders from the Mages, they might be getting told to keep attacking the ship.

  Jules, her thoughts running fast, had just started to think about how to signal the Sun Queen when the rush of water behind her and a small wave that lifted her warned of nearer company. She twisted in the water, staring at the looming wooden hull of the sloop they had sighted earlier and forgotten until now. A look up at the deck gave Jules a view of sailors and legionaries in Imperial uniforms looking down at her. Twisting back to swim away, Jules was suddenly surrounded by splashes as men and women with ropes tied around their waists dropped into the water around her.

  She groped for her dagger, finding the sheath empty. She’d lost that weapon, too, while fighting the Mages and their birds. Jules struck out with her bare hands at the men and women swarming her in the water, using every skill and dirty trick she knew, including clawing faces, tearing at nostrils, and thumbing eyes. But for every attacker who fell back, another surged forward, grabbing her arms and body until several of them had her tightly pinioned.

  Those still on the sloop began hauling in the ropes tied to the swimmers. They rose out of the water in an entwined mass, sliding upward along the side of the ship, Jules struggling vainly to get an arm free and break their grips.

  The heap of Jules and her captors tumbled over the railing and onto the deck, giving her a momentary chance to break free, but several of those waiting on deck piled on Jules, pinning her down, their weight driving the breath from her.

  “Get her below before those things see her!” a voice ordered.

  A voice that sounded a bit familiar.

  Despite Jules’s struggles, she was hauled to a ladder, the whole group more falling down to the next deck than taking the ladder. Once there, Jules was held tightly by a half dozen burly sailors, unable to move.

  “Get us into the cover of one of those storms!” Jules heard a woman order.

  Oh, blazes. It was her.

  A moment later Captain Kathrin of Law came down the ladder. She paused before Jules, smiling, the scar made by Jules’ dagger at Western Port a clear line down the side of her face. “The shoe is on the other foot, isn’t it?”

  Jules, exhausted from her struggles, just looked back at the Imperial officer.

  “I’d love to stay around here and capture that ship of yours,” Kathrin said. “But I can’t risk any damage to the Hawk’s Mantle. My orders are very clear, that as soon as anyone gains contro
l of you, they are to proceed as quickly as possible to an Imperial port and hand you over.”

  Jules finally got enough breath back to speak. “The Mages will know you have me. They’ll come through you and your ship and your crew to get at me.”

  Captain Kathrin shook her head. “You’ll have to do better than that. Those Mages didn’t see us bringing you aboard, and I got you below decks fast. The Mages have no idea that we have you.”

  “Fool!” Jules spat. “Do you think Mages are normal people? They don’t need to see me to know where I am or where I’m going! If you keep me, they will find this ship and they will destroy it.”

  “You’re unexpectedly boring,” Kathrin said, crossing her arms as she looked at Jules. “The Mages will never know the Emperor has you. Let me give you something else to think about. Once we’ve turned you over to the proper people at Landfall, I’m going to come back out here. I’m going to find that ship of yours, make it my prize, and see every one of your crew hanged. They’ll dangle from their nooses along the waterfront at Landfall like ornaments to delight the Emperor.”

  Jules glared at her. “You’re worse than a Mage.”

  “Why, thank you. A good professional reputation takes a lot of work to maintain, right? Oh, you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” The captain gestured to those holding Jules. “Get her down to the brig.”

  The grips on her were so tight that Jules couldn’t even try to break free as she was hauled along the deck and down another ladder, then brought aft to where a flickering storm lantern was mounted to a strong bulkhead. Next to the storm lantern a sturdy door held closed by a stout beam marked the entrance to the ship’s brig. The door’s heavy hinges were on this side, a clear sign that the door was meant not to keep people out, but to keep people in. About eye level on the door was a small window, a grid of iron bars letting through a little light and air but not anything else.

  The door was opened and Jules was yanked inside the small compartment, her arms held as manacles fastened to the rear bulkhead were clamped on her wrists.

  “Careful there,” Captain Kathrin warned her legionaries. “The Emperor doesn’t want her damaged. Make them tight enough to hold her but not so tight they cause her harm.”

  “I was wrong,” Jules told her, having to sit on the deck because of where the manacles were chained to the after bulkhead. “You’re a humanitarian.”

  “That hurts.” Kathrin inspected the manacles after her crew was done, nodding in approval. “Nice tattoo,” she said sarcastically, seeing part of Jules’ burn mark visible on her wrist and lower arm.

  “That’s not a tattoo,” Jules said. “It’s a scar, from Mage lightning. You should be hoping that you’ll be as good at surviving Mage lightning as I am, because you’ll be facing that when they come to get me.”

  That set even Captain Kathrin back for a moment. Finally, she shrugged. “I can deal with anything the likes of you could survive. I’ll see you at Landfall.”

  Jules glared at the captain’s back as she left, then paused outside the brig as someone wearing boots approached.

  “We’re under concealment of the storm?” Kathrin said. “Good. Did those Mages come after us before we lost sight of them? No? You seem to have done acceptable work, Lieutenant. You know we have a visitor. You’ll be in charge of her guards. Keep a minimum of two guards on duty at this door at all times. They’re not to interact with the prisoner at all, not even a yes or a no. If she gets free, harms herself, or harms anyone else, you will be held accountable. Understood?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Jules felt her heart stutter as she heard that second voice. It couldn’t be him.

  But a moment later the lieutenant stepped into view, looking at Jules with a face that might have been carved from stone. He said nothing before turning away.

  Captain Kathrin must have told him how his father had died, fighting Jules.

  “Ian! Listen to me, please! Ian!”

  The door slammed shut, the beam dropped into place, and she was alone.

  Jules gazed in despair at the door to her prison. Captured by the Emperor’s minions, no way to escape her potential fate at his hands, her crew possibly not even knowing what had happened to her during the fight with the Mages, herself a sitting duck chained here if the Mages came for her again, and Ian not only one of her captors but believing she’d killed his father on purpose.

  As far as worst nightmares went, this had to be about as bad as it got.

  * * *

  The only means she had of passing the time inside the brig was by noting when the guards outside her door changed. But even that was an uncertain measure, because as time went on sometimes she dozed or lapsed into a daze, unaware of whether the guards had changed. The two meals she was fed might mark the passing of days, but Jules knew that one Imperial technique for disorienting prisoners was to alter the schedule of meals, leaving the prisoner uncertain of how many days had gone by.

  The tiny brig remained unchanged, the lantern light ever providing feeble illumination through the bars of the small window in the door. The movement of the ship changed as the sea altered or as the ship tacked, but even that had a relentless monotony to it.

  As the captain had ordered, no one spoke to her. During her meals, the door would open and two extra guards would give her bread and a wooden flask of water. They’d watch until she finished, apparently worried that she might try to choke herself to death on the bread. The chamber pot that was the cell’s only fixture would be emptied, the extra guards would take back the wooden flask and leave. The door would shut and Jules would be alone again.

  She could hear noises on the ship, sometimes the thump of especially loud feet somewhere or shouts, but not enough to learn anything.

  Alone in the dark with her thoughts, Jules fought against despair. At least a thousand times the words I’m sorry, Mak went through her mind. How could she get out of this? Fate wouldn’t care how her line was established, whether it was by a man of her choice or by an Emperor forcing himself on her while she was chained to a bed. Maybe that daughter of her line would wear Imperial dark red and lead the legions against the Great Guilds. But how could that be? The prophecy had said that daughter would free the world. A world controlled by the Empire wouldn’t be free. And so she sought consolation in the feeble hope that the prophecy might still point to her escaping what now seemed an inevitable fate.

  But maybe she’d done everything the prophecy needed except have a child. And she knew she’d deliberately avoided any encounters that might have produced a child. Not that there should have been any rush—she was still young—but Jules admitted to herself that the prophecy had made it doubly hard to decide on having a child because it was no longer a choice but an obligation.

  What if that meant she’d avoid ever having a child if left to herself? What if because of that the prophecy demanded she be forced into having a child to ensure her line was established? The ugly thought kept surfacing, laying responsibility for her current woes on herself.

  Jules knew she was blaming herself for something that wasn’t her fault, blaming herself for being faced with this, but she couldn’t entirely banish the self-accusations that gnawed at her. She knew that Mak had always felt guilty that his daughter had been taken by the Mechanics and that his wife had died, even though nothing he could have done would’ve prevented either event. This was the same thing, wasn’t it? Thinking something bad happening to her was her fault.

  It wasn’t true. She didn’t deserve this. No one deserved this. She’d fight it.

  But in the dark, alone, it was hard to come up with ways of fighting that were anything but fantasies at this point.

  Jules tried to imagine ways of killing herself even if chained and unable to reach any weapon. Or ways of killing the Emperor, perhaps locking her teeth in his throat as he lay on her. Those thoughts would bring momentary satisfaction, but after a very short time were both dark and uncomforting, because her odds of succ
ess seemed so small.

  She’d long since vowed to herself, while enduring life in the Imperial orphanage, that if she ever had children she would love them and protect them no matter what it took. But could she love them if the children were forced on her by the Emperor? Jules sat in the dark, tormented not just by what might happen to her but also by what might happen to the children she didn’t yet have.

  There finally came a time when the motion of the ship changed from rolling across swells to the mild, gentle rocking of a craft sailing across smooth waters. They must have reached the grand harbor at Landfall. What would they do? Sail the ship up the mighty Ospren river all the way to Marandur? No, that was unlikely. The winds might stall such a journey, and the ship would have to fight the current of the Ospren the whole way, slowing it even if the winds were good. The Emperor wouldn’t want to risk any delay in getting her into his hands. The fastest way to Marandur from Landfall would be riding on the Mechanic “train” that ran between the two cities, but there was no way the Imperials would try bundling her unnoticed onto that. They’d be too worried about the Mechanics discovering her and taking her. No, she’d probably be hauled into an armored wagon pulled by teams of strong horses that could bring her to Marandur as quickly as possible.

  The thoughts of how she’d reach an awful fate distracted her briefly from the agony of waiting for the ship to come alongside a pier.

  She felt the ship slowing. Or was that her imagination? No, the sloop must be taking in sail. After a long wait, she felt a jar and heard the groan of wood from the ship as it settled against a pier. The faint sound of shouted orders carried to her as lines were put across and the sloop securely tied to the bollards on the pier.

  Jules gazed at the door to her cell, wishing for a moment that the Mages would still somehow come to kill her and end everything.

  She waited for the guards to open the door, wondering what time of day it was. Would she have a chance to see the sunlight before she was confined again? Or was it night?

  Shouts came to her, probably on the sloop’s deck but loud enough to carry into the brig.