by CW Thomas
A sailor thumped down the steps next to Lia and shouted up toward the captain. “Caught us in the port side,” he said. “She’s taking on water.”
A new fear flooded into Lia’s gut. “Are we going to sink?” she asked.
Khile’s reply was honest. “Maybe.”
The violent waves continued to push the ship around while the ferocious winds pelted the sails and whipped the decks with rain.
They were sailing the Gulf of Black Rock, also known as The Shallow Sea. Living in Aberdour, a city that relied on the nearby fish supply for food, Lia had heard her share of stories about the shallow waters of the gulf. The voyage from Edhen to the neighboring continent of Efferous wasn’t a long one, a couple of days tops, but travelers had to carefully plan the trip before setting out lest they get caught in hard winds and bashed against the rocks. For the refugees of Aberdour there had been no time for such planning.
“Stay close to me,” Khile said, but he didn’t need to tell her. When the ship pitched again Lia’s fists clenched onto his shirt.
The howling winds grew in intensity. More ropes snapped, sending heavy blocks of rigging whipping over the heads of the huddling crowd. A sail tore in half, and when the ship struck its second rock one of the masts snapped at its halfway point. The massive beam crashed to the deck, crushing a man at the pelvis and striking several others.
Lia’s entire body cringed as a rush of cold water swept over her.
“Stay down!” Khile shouted above the chaos. “Don’t move until I say.”
His hands grabbed at her calves, searching for her feet where he tore her shoes off. In one terrifying moment it occurred to Lia that he was preparing her for the water. The ship was going down.
Lia remembered that Khile still had broken shackles around his ankles. She wondered how much they would weigh him down.
“Abandon ship!” the captain yelled. “Abandon—”
Lia looked at him just as a swirling mess of rigging caught him in the face and flung him over the edge of the starboard bow.
The ship bellowed again. Wooden beams split. The railing on the port side broke in half and two children, a boy and a girl, tumbled overboard with their father, their screams lost in the savage wind.
Lia trembled with panic, but then came the low voice of Khile in her ear, calm and reassuring. “Steady.” He sounded unfazed, almost serene, as if he knew exactly what was going to happen next. She could feel his strong arm around her torso, holding her in place on the deck of the ship. She felt safe with him, which was ironic, she thought, considering she knew next to nothing about him.
“When you hit the water, don’t struggle,” Khile said.
A few more tumultuous moments passed as the ship took a beating in a forest of jagged rocks and relentless ocean waves. The hull split in half with a sonorous crack. The bow and masts capsized. The aft section broke apart and was swallowed by the sea.
Lia felt her body shifting upside down before she fell free from the floorboards.
“Don’t struggle,” Khile said. “Deep breath now!”
And then she went under. Cold and silence enveloped her. At first Lia flailed, trying to right herself, but it was impossible to tell which way was up. Then she remembered what Khile had said, and when she felt his strong arm still clutching her around the waist she forced herself to relax.
A moment passed and Lia wondered why she had such faith in this man, this prisoner of somewhere. What awful deeds had he done? What more awful things had he done to escape? Right now, in this moment, she didn’t care. This man, whoever he was or whoever he used to be, was her best chance of survival.
Lia broke through the surface of the water and gasped. The salt and wind stung her eyes. Through blurry lashes she caught glimpses of the stormy evening sky, flashes of lightning, wild waves spewing white foam, and pieces of the shattered vessel being tossed about on the sea.
She noticed Khile clinging to the lip of a broken section of flooring.
“Come here,” he said.
She paddled her way to the wood where he helped her climb on top.
“Hang on tight!” he said.
Wind and rain lashed at them from all sides.
There were screams in the distance from those who couldn’t swim, those who had suffered injuries, and those who had been separated from their loved ones. Lia wished she could shut her ears as easily as she could her eyes, but with her knuckles going white on the corners of the wood she had no choice but to listen to every unanswered plea for help.
Lia looked at Khile floating in the water next to her when she saw a huge wooden beam rush up from the ocean’s depths and surge toward them.
“Khile look out!” she yelled.
He looked back and ducked just in time to avoid the worst of the blow, but the massive limb still struck them both, tipping Lia off the floor section and plunging her into the dark black depths.
Under the water Lia tossed and turned, her arms and legs knocking against pieces of the ship as she were thrashed about. When she resurfaced again she took a strike to the forehead from something large and heavy. It plunged her back down again.
Her head seemed to drain, throbbing unpleasantly. The world didn’t quite go dark, but patterned shadows swarmed around her, and she was dimly aware of movement to her right. A strong hand, cold and wet and firm, latched onto her and lifted her up out of the nothingness below.
“Up you get!” Khile said.
Her fingers brushed something to her left—wooden boards—and she grabbed onto it and pulled herself up, her lungs heaving for air.
“T–thank y–you,” she muttered, her lips shivering.
There was no response.
Lia glanced over her shoulder to find Khile. He was gone. Frantic, she looked around, calling, “Khile?” She saw nothing on the water’s surface except large splinters of wood.
“Khile!” She paddled along the water, calling his name.
Feeling as though she had lost her one last friend, Lia screamed in anger and terror. She gripped the wooden board, riding the waves up and down and floating off to nowhere. Her scream, so loud it hurt her throat, could barely be heard above the rush of waves pounding down upon her.
Khile popped up behind her, shouting in agony to the sky above. He pounded the water with his open hands and fell under again.
“No!” Lia cried.
She paddled toward him, hands fishing around in the waves for something of his to grab onto. He surfaced again right in front of her and she latched onto the back of his shirt. For some reason he couldn’t keep himself up and when he went under again he almost pulled her off the wood. Lia held on, not willing to let go of her best chance of surviving the storm. Mustering strength from deep within her already tired muscles, she pulled Khile up above the surface. He gasped, flailed, and grabbed onto the wood. His teeth were clenched and his eyes squeezed shut in an unmistakable mask of pain.
“What happened?” she asked, struggling to get her voice above the chaos.
“Leg’s broke,” he said. He gripped the wide wooden plank as he rested his head against the wood and spent a few moments catching his breath.
Not knowing what else to do, Lia simply held on. The rain pelted her. The winds brought down wave upon wave that buried her in cold again and again, chilling her skin and filling her ears. She tried pulling the back of her tunic up over her head, but every time she let go of the door the waves threatened to knock her off.
The red sunset was gone. They were alone now in the relentless darkness that abated only when the clouds lit up with lightning.
“Just hang on,” came Khile’s feeble voice through the darkness. “Talk. It will help keep us awake.”
“Talk about w–what?”
“I don’t know. Just… talk.”
“Um. Well, it’s really hard to chop someone’s head off,” she said. “Even if you cut between the pieces of the spine it–it takes a lot of p–power.”
Her words were met with sil
ence at first. Then he said, “How the bloody hells do you even know something like that?”
“I know lots of w–weird stuff. Basically if my mother ever told me not to read it, I’d read it. She always w–wanted me to be more like D–Dana, act like a good princess. But that’s not for me.” She paused to take a few breaths. “Your turn. You talk. You’re a fighter aren’t you?”
“W–what makes you s–say that?”
“I can tell by the way you move. And your hands, they’re calloused like a soldier’s. Did you fight in any of the wars against the Black King?”
“Some.”
“P–papa always said it d–didn’t matter how many times you l–lost, just that you kept fighting for what was right.”
She waited for Khile to speak, but he never did.
Lia looked in his direction, searching for some sign of him in the darkness. When the next bolt of lightning cracked through the sky she saw his hand slipping under the surface.
She reached out and grabbed his limp fingers. She pulled and pulled until finally his hand came alive. He jolted to the surface once again, coughing.
“Don’t do that!” she said. “Don’t give up.”
Khile was fading out of consciousness.
“Wake up!” she yelled, slapping him across the jaw.
He stirred and looked at her with half-open eyes. “I can’t,” he wheezed.
“Yes, you can.”
Lia grabbed onto Khile’s shoulders with both hands and pulled as hard as she could.
“What… what are you doing?” he asked.
“Get up here!” she said, trying to make her small girlish voice sound strong.
“It’s not big enough to hold us both.”
And he was right. By the time she had his torso onto the wood it sunk below the surface and they both toppled off. The waves roughed them up some more, but Lia managed to keep a hand on her life raft.
“Leave me,” Khile said. “Ride out the storm. Keep your eyes open f–for land. You can make it.”
“To all the hells with that,” Lia said.
She swam around behind him. She pushed and shoved with all her might until most of his body was on the board. Lia floated in the water next to his head. She could practically feel her lips turning blue from the cold water that now embraced her.
“What are you doing?” he said.
She leaned into his ear. “I’m not leaving y–you. So don’t–don’t you leave me, t-too.”
In the darkness, she couldn’t tell whether Khile was looking at her or not, but a moment later she felt his hand stroking the back of her sopping wet head.
He conceded. “I’m here, kid.” His voice was feeble and pained.
“I’m not a k–kid.”
“Right. Forgot. Sorry.”
Lia sucked up her courage, willing her muscles to move despite the cold.
“I’ll get us to shore,” she said. “You just don’t leave me. All right?”
“Deal.”
MEREK
The boy entered the wizard’s loft in almost total silence, carrying a tray containing an evening meal of two fish, grapes, and a piece of white bread all neatly arranged on a pale plate next to a goblet of wine.
In the doorway, he paused and cast a curious glance down the way he had come. He remained there for a moment, still as a tree on a calm night, his ear inclined toward the stairs. After a moment he shrugged his shoulders and nudged the door closed with his heel.
The door didn’t latch, however. With a gloved hand, Merek Viator reached out and stopped it. He pushed the door open an inch or so and peered inside. He glimpsed the boy disappearing with the tray of food into an adjoining room.
Merek slipped inside. He wore an assassin’s killing outfit—a tunic and slacks of mottled dark gray cotton, thin, and cut for easy movement. Under his dark cloak was a leather harness with a score of throwing weapons.
He crouched low in the shadows and let the door latch behind him.
The room was little more than an antechamber of sorts containing only a table full of candles and a massive painting of a nude woman who resembled the widely disliked governess of Malium. Most thought the painting had been destroyed years ago to protect the woman’s dignity.
Merek smirked, knowing Romola would be furious if she knew this was here.
Looking through a doorway on his right Merek saw the makings of a library illuminated by cold white light drifting through dingy windows. To his left sat a small office that held a writing desk, a few books, papers, and other small practical items. Not that he cared. He was far more interested in the tray of food the boy was carrying, particularly the goblet of wine.
Merek stepped through the office in total silence until he could peek through a second doorway leading into the middle room of the tower. Flickering orange torchlight illuminated the circular chamber, staving off the chill presented by the gray stone of the suffocating walls. There he saw the wizard, Versch Leiern, in his long green and gold robe, pacing along creaky old floorboards. His gaze was affixed to the mirror-like surface of a black table upon which sat the six shards of the regenstern.
The wizard patted the sweat from his forehead, looking pale and nervous. He’d been up all night, locked in his tower, muttering various incantations and cursing when they didn’t work. Merek had spent the night in the woods north of his tower, hearing the echoes of his trial and error. Nothing the wizard had tried so far could repair the shattered gem. He was getting desperate and angry.
“Over there!” Versch said to the boy with a voice of contempt. He waved a sinewy hand toward a small brown table against the wall. “And fetch my chair.”
Merek slipped back into the anteroom as the boy retraced his steps to the office and grabbed the wooden chair in front of the desk. He placed it next to the tray of food in the central chamber.
Versch hurled a book across the room that slammed into the wall then fell to the floor with a heavy thud.
“Si dorum morientom!” Versch said. He threw himself down in his chair with a heavy breath and wiped the sweat from his shiny dome.
“Master, are you—”
Versch slapped the boy with such quickness that not even Merek saw it coming.
“How many times have I told you not to speak when I am thinking?” Versch said.
“Apologies, sir,” the boy said, coloring up.
Versch ripped off a piece of the bread and popped it in his mouth. He glared at the pieces of the regenstern. “At one point this stone was made. Surely it can be remade.” The room fell silent as Versch chewed, lost in thought. “Damn the Black King and all his demands.”
He pivoted in his seat and took the cup of wine.
Merek tensed as the wizard brought it toward his lips.
“Go to the library and find a book called Atenbrous Lapdiem,” Versch said to the boy. “Darkness and Stones. It will be small.”
The boy scurried out of the room.
Versch lifted the goblet and drank. Merek watched, his muscles rigid, as he waited for the poison in the wine to take its toll. It started slowly, with Versch attempting to clear his throat as though a piece of bread had lodged in his windpipe. He coughed, trying to get a gulp of air, and Merek saw panic creeping over his face. The wizard stood up, eyes going wide with fear, while his hands clutched at his neck.
“Damn… you, boy,” Versch wheezed.
His panic boiled over into rage. He started toward the library to visit vengeance upon his young attendant when the second phase of the poison kicked in. Versch’s hands went limp, followed by his arms. He managed to take one more step before his legs gave way and he toppled to the floor, paralyzed.
Merek sighed in furtive relief and entered the room.
Versch’s pallor was reddening from lack of oxygen as he lay prone on the floor. When he saw Merek, his eyes widened in rage and with the understanding that it had not been his young apprentice who had poisoned him.
Merek strode up to the black table and pocket
ed the six pieces of the regenstern.
A bloody splotch appeared through the fabric around the wizard’s stomach. The third and final stage of the poison had begun. Versch trembled and his eyes watered as his mouth opened for a final gasp of air that never came. His face grew redder from the asphyxiation while his belly emptied out onto the floor through a hole that had burned through his flesh. A moment later, Versch Leiern was dead.
Merek started to leave when the slave boy returned holding a dusty old book. His frightened eyes went from Merek to the dead body of his master. He gasped, tears of sorrow forming in his eyes. This confused Merek. In the days he had spent spying on Versch he had seen him give nothing but abuse to the young lad. If anything, he thought the boy would be delighted to be out from under the wizard’s cruelty. Instead, he looked genuinely horrified.
The boy dodged back into the library and circled around to the antechamber. Merek hurried through the office, hoping to cut him off, but the boy had already reached his prize: a gold tassel looped over a hook that went down through a hole in the floor to an alarm bell far below. Merek couldn’t hear the sound from this high up in the tower, but he knew who would be meeting him on the stairs if he didn’t hurry.
Ignoring the boy tugging away on the cord, Merek ripped open the door and took the descending steps three at time. Unless he wished to find himself cornered in the tower he had to reach the lowest window and slip out onto the roof of the adjoining building.
Ustus Rapere had sent half a dozen black vipers to monitor and protect the wizard as he did his work in Efferous. Merek had spent the last six months traveling from Edhen, watching them, avoiding them, and learning how they worked. He knew the soldiers by name.
In all that time, however, he had not been able to figure out why he had been hired to steal from and kill a wizard under the protection of the Black King. The soldiers had been sent by Ustus to protect Versch. Merek had been sent to kill him by the same man. The puzzle had stumped him from day one. There was a conspiracy brewing, and he was landing ass first in the middle of it.
Merek saw the light in the circular stairway growing brighter. The window was near. The sounds of raised voices and the clattering of steel drew closer. Merek quickened his pace, knowing his best defense at this moment was the element of surprise.