Aquamancer (mancer series Book 2)

by Don Callander

  Her sailors were sent below, watch on watch, to change into clean, freshly pressed uniforms, blue-striped open shirts, and dark blue trousers. They returned to fall in by divisions, toeing cracks between deck boards to form perfectly straight ranks. They tried manfully not to grin and caper in their boylike anticipation of new things to see and do in a strange port.

  “Junk approaching, sir!” reported the Officer of the Deck, in a loud, carrying voice.

  “Very well!” responded Captain Caspar Marlin.

  He ran an approving eye over the ship and crew. Even the Emperor of Choin could not help but be impressed by this show and substance, he thought. And the Imperial Governor, now preparing to climb aboard Thomwood Duke’s flagship from his smaller vessel, was said to be a nephew of the distant Emperor.

  He took the chance afforded by the wait to study the Imperial Governor’s junk, now hove to a cable’s length off on the mirror-smooth surface of the beautiful but empty harbor. The Choinese were famed around World for their silks, yet the sails of the junk were of poor-quality canvas, ragged, patched, and stitched together. They were patched with lighter, cleaner pieces ranging in size from a few square inches to square yards. They hung untidily from their steep-slanting yards, looking like Monday morning’s wash hung out to dry.

  “Mustn’t judge without information,” Caspar said aloud to the Officer of the Deck, a tough young Waynessman named Pride. He, too, had been studying the Imperial Governor’s high-sterned ship.

  Just as the Imperial Governor’s head appeared above the level of the deck, a bo’sun’s pipe shrilled and six sideboys snapped to salute.

  “Welcome aboard Donation, Excellency!” said Caspar, bowing from the waist. Wouldn’t do to be too subservient, no matter what this Governor expected.

  “And most welcome to the Great, Endless Empire of Choin, the Land Most Ancient and Wise, Cradle of All Civilizations^ and so on and so on,” said the chubby, middle-aged Imperial Governor, puffing from the climb over Donation’s tumble home. “A most interesting construct, your Donation,” he continued, looking about with evident curiosity.

  “May I offer the Imperial Governor a cup of a poor imitation of Choin’s wonderful fungwahl” asked Captain Marlin, standing very straight but smiling warmly. He beckoned to the ship’s steward to come forward with a decanter of Dukedom’s best brandy.

  “Ah, you know of our local customs!” cried the Imperial Governor, reaching eagerly for a cup. He tossed the contents into his throat at one gulp and appreciatively smacked his lips.

  “I’ve had the honor to be a guest of Choin and Choin’s Divine Emperor previously,” explained Caspar, bowing again, as required at the mere mention of the Emperor.

  The visiting dignitary also bowed as did all his attendants, rather perfunctorily, and chose another glass from the steward’s silver tray. He waited until Caspar had selected another, also.

  “To your own Emperor!” the Governor cried.

  “Thank you! You are most courteous,” responded Caspar. “But let us drink first to His Heavenly Majesty, the Emperor of Choin.”

  “If you wish,” said the I.G. offhandedly, bowing a second time. He tossed off the new dram of brandy as if it were water. Caspar took a sip of his own, feeling the strong liquor burn toward his stomach. Good stuff, but he’d rather have jungwah—the very potent yet tasty liquor of this strange and exotic land.

  The Imperial Governor reached for a third glass without being asked and drank it only a bit more slowly. Caspar neglected to match him cup for cup, pretending ignorance of the Choin custom.

  Courtesy or not, he thought, I’m not going to deal with this August Person while tipsy.

  Lunch was a cautiously pleasant affair. Afterward, the Governor, fortified by the rest of the decanter of brandy, followed Captain Marlin on an inspection of the ship, then into the Main Saloon to discuss matters of trade.

  “All shall be as you wish it,” he assured the Westongueman. “Choin is eager to reestablish trade and cultural relations with the Duke Thornwood. I understand he only recently came to his ducal seat after much unpleasantness. Something about an evil Wizard?”

  “News travels amazingly fast to Choin,” Marlin observed dryly. “Yes, we were fortunate enough to nip his plots against us. All’s quiet and peaceful now. Dukedom and her neighbors are ready to resume World trading.”

  “I am interested in timber mostly myself,” said the Governor. “Choin lacks forests, as well as the skill to manage and harvest trees.”

  “Lumber, timber, and fine furniture woods are all available at the other end of my shipping lanes,” Caspar assured him. “Only tell me your needs, and when we agree on prices, I can have your first shipments here in less than six months, weather permitting.”

  Their discussion went on until soft dusk, when the I.G. apologized for breaking off to return to the shore in his junk, which he said was named Bird of Paradise.

  “We shall continue our discussions in the morning, brave Seacaptain,” the I.G. promised, rather unsteadily. By then he was pleasantly buzzed on seven more brandies and considered himself Caspar’s closest friend.

  The bo’sun’s whistle shrieked again, stopping abruptly as the local potentate’s head disappeared from view over the side. Caspar stood at the taffrail to watch the sampan row the tipsy I.G. back to his rather tacky-looking ship.

  “Well, that takes care of the formalities,” he said briskly to his First Mate. “Send the men to supper, Pride, and set the first Dog Watch, please, Mister. Give the men the left-over foodstuffs, if any. The Imperial Governor and his crew ate like they were starved and drank like sailors back from a seven-year voyage! The starboard watch will go ashore first.”

  “Our business is concluded, then,” said the pudgy, slightly hung-over Imperial Governor.

  They had met in the splendid, luxuriously furnished Audience Chamber in the gilt-sheathed Governor’s Palace just before noon the day following. “You may give orders to have your ship moved to the Imperial Warehouse Pier on the riverfront, at your convenience.”

  “If it’s possible, sir,” said Caspar. “Is the water deep enough for her, do you think?”

  “The water is deep enough for Donation. I so order,” said the I.G., glancing significantly at his third secretary.

  “Now, Honored Captain Marlin, I am most pleased with our transactions and wish to offer you a gift of personal esteem. What can I give you to show my goodwill and deep gratitude?”

  “There’s nothing you have denied me,” protested Caspar. “But I do have a small personal request.”

  “If it is in my poor, limited power to grant... of course!”

  “As you know, I visited Choin once before, years ago.”

  “I am aware of your former visit, yes.”

  “At that time the Captain of our ship . ..”

  “The ... er ... Sally?” asked the Governor with a smile.

  “Yes, Sally Brigantine, she were, of Westongue in Dukedom. Ye’re correct, Excellency.”

  “What, then?”

  “Our good Captain became ill and was cared for by a physician of your city, one Wong, I believe.”

  The Governor frowned but nodded for him to go on.

  “After he recovered, so taken was he with your ways and life that he decided to stay behind and become a citizen of Choin...”

  “A subject of the Emperor,” corrected the Governor, frowning still. “But no matter ...”

  “I’d like very much to greet my old Captain before I leave your...uh, fair city...if he is still alive and well.”

  “Oh, most alive and most well, I assure you!” cried the Governor. “I think. When you’ve unloaded your cargo, tomorrow, I will have located him and arranged for him to see you the next day, if that suits you, dear Captain Marlin. See to it at once!” he hissed sharply to his second secretary.

  One of the five other secretaries leaned forward to whisper in the Governor’s left ear.

  “Ah! I am informed that your good Captain Fogg
ery resides in a town not distant. I will send for him.”

  “If I could,” said Caspar, “it would be more proper, rather, that I travel to visit him. In respect to his position and age, you understand.”

  “We will arrange it, then,” agreed the Governor, although it was evidently not fully as he would have liked it. “The day after tomorrow.”

  Caspar and Pride left the spacious but wildly overdecorated Governor’s Palace after much required bowing and scraping.

  They were escorted back through the scrupulously clean but run-down city by a squad of twelve fiercely scowling guards in red-lacquered leather body armor, bearing twelve-foot pikes tipped with ominously gleaming, razor-sharp blades.

  “Very good of ye to look me up, Caspar!” cried the elderly Foggery, once a Westongue Seacaptain himself. “I thought I’d never miss the old people, places, and ways, but I do, quite often. This is a strange land, although I have never seen a more beautiful one, nor a more friendly and gracious people as a whole.”

  “I’ve had some doubts about that,” said Caspar, shaking his old captain’s hand heartily. “That Imperial Governor—”

  “Is a damned fool!” concluded Foggery, softly. “Just between you, me, and this garden wall here. He’s dealt well with you, Caspar?”

  “Very profitably and cordially, too,” said Caspar, nodding. They walked together in a small but immaculately manicured, walled garden under carefully placed willows and lace-leafed maples, amid thick beds of bright yellow and crimson iris. “But I have the strong feeling that he is, perhaps, trying to keep the news of our arrival and the value of our cargo a secret from everyone else.”

  “Undoubtedly true! He runs some risk of displeasing the Imperial Court if they hear of it. His uncle, the Emperor, is very ancient, however, and never was terribly bright to begin with. Let me tell you a little about Choin, Caspar Marlin. Things not immediately evident to a visitor. I’ve watched and listened for some years now.”

  “I’d be happy to know all you can tell me, Foggery.”

  “This is a truly vast Empire. Peopled by several races of Men, in numbers almost too large to comprehend. I once asked, and was told that there are more than a hundred of millions of souls supposedly under the sway of the Divine Emperor on his Dragon Throne.”

  “Supposedly?”

  “A population that size is as difficult to rule as it is to count, of course. Once, I understand, the Emperors of Choin were masters of public administration and of military control. But over the four centuries of this present dynasty, things have slowly gone to pot, you might say.”

  If Caspar was disturbed by this news, he didn’t show it.

  “The Emperor is but a gilded ivory figurehead. A powerful symbol, but still... a vast bureaucracy of ministers, governors, judges, generals, and clerks rules in his Celestial Name. Without a strong leader at their head, they’ve divided into factions, combining and recombining with each other to gain private ends and political advantage. The Empire of Choin is on the verge of crumbling! A pack of playing cards stacked on edge. The slightest breath might bring it crashing down.”

  Caspar nodded understanding.

  “Which, in a way, is a shame, because these are delightful and intelligent people, as I said.”

  Foggery paused to shake his head sadly.

  “I don’t regret retiring here but it’s easy for me only because I am now quite old... oh, yes, I am, Caspar! I passed a hundred summers ages ago. Age is venerated here. I’m respected and loved and happily served by the young, who gain great merit by being kind and useful to one of so many summers.

  “Sages and scholars from all over the Empire come to consult with me on this and that, mainly on trade and technical innovations I can tell them about. Progress is extremely slow and quite frustrating. Did you know that they have never figured out how to sail against the wind? I’ve explained it to them in great detail, and a few of their more adventurous sailors have tried it. Yet when word got out about it, the Emperor’s advisers forbade them using the technique, on pain of long imprisonment!”

  “Good for us, however,” Caspar observed.

  “But more and more our young and intelligent are questioning such unreasonable constraints, wishing to explore far lands, earn vast fortunes in trade directly with other nations.”

  They rested on an intricately carved wooden bench beside the garden pool.

  “It is not to be allowed! Captains who have merely speculated aloud too often are severely punished. Celestial navigation is, the Bureaucrats insist, the sole province of the Celestial Emperor himself. I’m not supposed to know this, but I have friends who tell me the truth in private.”

  “They fear it might be the breath that brings down the house of cards?” asked Caspar.

  The retired Seacaptain nodded but fell silent as serving maids appeared with lunch and spread the repast on a polished jade tabletop under a twisted, ancient cherry tree beside the peaceful pool full of flashing golden fish.

  “We should be careful how we tread here in Choin, then?” asked Marlin. “If we want to continue trade, that is.”

  “Trade will be very profitable, as long as you follow the rules,” agreed Foggery. “Try some of these fried noodles with the tiny prawns. It’s my favorite dish!”

  They ate and talked companionably, remembering mutual friends and recalling ports of call they’d visited, long ago. For the first time Foggery heard the tragic history of Sally Brigantine and the finding of the Great Gray Pearl, of Eunicet’s usurpation of Thorowood’s Dukedom and his ill-advised invasion of Highlandorm—and of the great Battle of Sea and the victory over Frigeon, the Ice King.

  “I managed to keep life and body together through it all. In the long run it was the making of me, of course.”

  “I see it was! Ye’ve grown in wisdom as well as craft, young Caspar. I never doubted but ye’d command a capital ship one day.”

  As the visit ended with twilight darkening the sky, the retired captain drew Caspar aside by the garden’s delicate moon gate.

  “I promised a good friend of mine that ye’d meet with him. He can’t be seen talking to ye, for his safety’s sake, and yours, too. If ye agree, however, he’ll come aboard Donation in disguise, shortly before ye sail. I trust this man. He may be the salvation of Choin, my adopted land.”

  “If it won’t harm me ship, crew, or cargo.”

  “Nothing is certain, but I believe Wong Tscha San is important enough to risk listening to. It’s an urgent matter, he tells me, but that’s all I can say. Will ye, for my sake, receive him? Give him assistance, if he asks for it?”

  “Of course I will, Captain! Ye needn’t ask. Will I see ye again before we sail?”

  “I... I don’t think so. The Emperor’s jumped-up clerks and palanquin generals are quite suspicious of me, as it is. They see me as disturbing their rigid calm. Perhaps we’ll see each other again on your next voyage. They can hardly refuse ye, as long as your trade is so profitable to them.”

  Donation’s departure was set for the last day of that moon. Caspar, caught up in the feverish activity of loading a highly valuable cargo, forgot all about Foggery’s request.

  The day before, Donation had been moved into the open roadstead, fully laden and low in the water. Caspar was trying minor discipline cases and meting out shipboard justice at a Captain’s Mast when his cabin boy came to say a ragged fisherman had hooked his fish-reeking sampan onto Donation’s chains, asking for an interview with her captain.

  “What’s he want, I wonder?” asked Caspar. “Doesn’t he know it’s dangerous for his kind to bespeak us?”

  “He would but say you and he had a mutual friend,” said the boy. “Shall I warn him off?”

  “Of course not!” exclaimed Marlin. “It would at the very least be discourteous. Allow him to board and bring him to me here.”

  The boy returned leading a small, frail-looking Choinese wearing a musty woven-reed cloak and a broad, downward-spreading hat of the same reeds, looking
much like a farmer’s haystack and smelling strongly of fish.

  “I am Wong Tscha San,” he announced with a deep bow. “We have a mutual acquaintance, Captain Foggery.”

  Caspar bowed to his visitor in return. He had become entirely accustomed to the Choin custom of bowing, rattier than shaking hands.

  “Let me take your...er, cloak and hat,” offered Caspar, moving around his desk. “And I’ll send for some tea.”

  “If you would, a cup of your coffee would be even more pleasant,” said the little Choinese. “I have only tasted it once or twice, in the home of Foggery. I find it most invigorating. I am in dire need of invigorating, having just rowed all the way from Wing Ting on the far shore of our bay.”

  Caspar had no idea how far that was but ordered the cabin boy to find some hot coffee and cakes for them to share as they talked.

  “I come in this guise,” explained Wong Tscha San, “because I am watched constantly by our Imperial Guards. I have, I’m afraid, made myself distrusted, even feared, by our Divine Bureaucrats.”

  “Why, I’m wondering.”

  “Because I have been saying aloud what many Choinese have long thought in silence. Our Empire is sweeping toward economic and political mayhap even social ruin. Despite some relatively minor inequities and stupid or malicious practices, Captain Marlin, my people are worth saving from the suffering that will follow collapse.”

  “I’m a stranger here meself,” said Caspar, pouring coffee for them both, “but from what little I’ve seen, I see ye’re right.”

  Said Wong, lifting his cup to savor the brew, “And that is not the only problem.”

  “Tell me, if you please. Captain Foggery seemed to think I could be some help.”

  “So I hope, too. Listen, then! I am a Sage, what you would call a Wizard—although in these clothes I don’t suppose I look like one—and for many years I have been seeking a way to ease the imminent fall of Choin.