by Rob Scott
‘And restart his heart, Steven.’ Mark had read his mind. ‘You’ll have to restart his heart.’
Tentatively, Steven reached out to touch Garec’s chest. Nothing. No signs of life. How did the old man know my name? He called me Steven Taylor. How did he know that? Concentrate. He knew my name. He knew I had magic at my disposal. Focus. Focus on the problem at hand. Steven drew a blank. Take your time. Slowly. Take your time. He is already dead. Catch your breath.
Steven felt the magic that had been raging inside him inch its way slowly through his wrists and out into his fingertips. Dr Smithson. Dr Smithson taught Anatomy and Physiology. Classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with a Tuesday afternoon lab. Steven had hated that lab. One o’clock to four o’clock every week, every Tuesday. He was a business major. What in all hell was he doing in a lab class? The heart, the lungs. Get them started. They would know what to do. Garec’s lung had an arrow piercing it. That was where to start. Gentle bursts of magic sprang from Steven’s fingertips, lancing their way through the dead man’s tunic and into his flesh. Remove the arrow. His heart has stopped; his lung will not flood with any more blood than is there already. So remove the arrow.
Steven started to pull the black shaft gently from Garec’s chest, but it was embedded firmly, several inches deep. ‘Mark, you’ll have to help me,’ he whispered.
As gently as they could manage, they tugged the arrow from Garec’s ribcage. Mark winced as it scraped bone, but with a final hard pull it was out, and Steven tossed it down the beach and turned his attention back to the injury.
Garec’s heart had not started beating. How long had it been? How did that old man know me? Damnit. Focus on the task at hand. How long could he go without brain damage? Three minutes? There is no word for minutes in Ronan. He savoured the English: minutes, seconds. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi. Three minutes was a long time. You’ll be fine, Garec. I just have to figure this out.
Steven sent the staff’s magic into the injury. The power leaped from his fingers and he and Mark felt the Ronan’s inanimate form twitch in response.
‘Sorry,’ he spat, ‘sorry, Garec, sorry.’
Steven pulled the magic back and focused his thoughts. How far were they now? Maybe thirty-five Mississippi? He had until one hundred and eighty Mississippi. There was still plenty of time.
‘Plenty of time,’ he whispered aloud. From somewhere far, far away he heard Brynne pleading with him to do something. Plenty of time. Steven closed his eyes and remembered Dr Smithson’s class. The heart and the lungs. Involuntary tissue. Get them started and they would work day and night for a hundred years. Get them started. Steven imagined Garec’s lung, the torn tissue free from injury, empty of the pool of blood that saturated it now. He kept the image alive in his mind as he allowed the magic to gently enter his friend’s body, a soft caress like a trickle of warm water rather than a burst of ancient power.
It was working. Slowly, he felt Garec’s lung tissue begin to heal. He felt the blood drain out through the wound and seep into the cloak beneath him. Garec’s diaphragm was alive now, and willing to expand and contract. He must get some blood to the brain. Where were they? One hundred and thirty Mississippi? No. It had been too long; he couldn’t guess. Any guesses now would be feeble attempts to make himself feel better. Blood to the brain, that was his next chore.
Employing the same strategy, Steven placed his hand over Garec’s heart and, breathing deeply, he imagined the heart of a young man, a vibrant and powerful muscle imbued with compassion and love and a sturdy constitution that would keep it beating for many years – Twinmoons – whatever. Again, he released the staff’s power.
Mark had two fingers pressed along Garec’s carotid artery. When he felt the first thump, he bellowed wildly, ‘You did it, Steven! He’s alive!’
Brynne jumped to her feet and threw her arms around Steven’s neck. Weeping openly, a breathless Steven returned her embrace. He had done it.
Steven fell back into the sand, exhausted, overwhelmed. He lay for a moment catching his breath and gazing up at the Eldarni stars: a jumble of incoherent constellations. He had done it. He had saved Garec’s life. The power was exhilarating and Steven had to fight the urge to spring to his feet and send a forty-foot tidal wave raging across the sea to crash against the Pragan coast.
Then abruptly he stopped. ‘How did he know my name?’ Rolling onto his side, Steven gazed up the beach to where the grizzled fisherman sat comfortably in the sand, smoking a pipe and watching the scene unfold.
‘No,’ Steven mouthed the word more than articulated it. A moment later he was on his feet and striding quickly towards the weather-beaten old seaman.
‘Well done, young man,’ the fisherman said. ‘It appears you have learned a great deal.’
‘I thought you were dead—’ Steven hovered over him, mouth agape.
The seaman placed one finger over his lips in an effort to silence Steven’s forthcoming accusation. ‘Don’t say that name; don’t even think it here. Simply uttering it could bring Nerak’s full wrath down on you. He may be at the far end of the city, but he could be here in a matter of moments.’
Steven was not sure he could withstand another emotional blow. His vision blurred and for a moment he felt as though he might faint. ‘You don’t— you don’t look like yourself.’
‘Well of course not!’ The old man was suddenly indignant. ‘Garec, the bloody fool, burned my body to ash there in the Blackstones. I liked that body. That one suited me well.’ He grimaced. ‘I am glad he’s going to be all right, but did he have to burn me on a bloody pyre?’
Steven was speechless.
‘And what a fire. You missed it. He nearly took down the whole side of the mountain. Flames were leaping from treetop to treetop—’ He took a long draw on his pipe and the ashes glowed a warm red, like an old man’s last memory.
‘So you’re like him?’ Steven gestured over his shoulder in the general direction of the former royal residence.
‘There are aspects of my skills that are similar to Nerak’s, but he can live without a physical form, a host, if you will. I cannot.’
‘This body? Did you—?’
‘Absolutely not.’ He looked stern. ‘Never do that. Natural causes. I was on hand when this gentleman died. That’s why there’s no wound on my … his wrist, no forced entry.’
‘Has this happened before?’
He lowered his voice to a barely audible whisper. ‘Just once, long ago when I became—’ He paused. ‘When I became the man you met in Rona and abandoned my old body. Lessek helped me then, and thankfully, he made the decision to assist me in the Blackstones. One of these days, he won’t be there to patch me back together.’
‘What will happen then?’
‘Then I imagine my work here will be finished.’ He smirked.
‘So Lessek keeps you alive?’
‘Lessek – with some help from the spell table, I suppose.’
‘But I thought the table wouldn’t work without the key.’
‘It won’t, but that doesn’t preclude its power from continuing to affect us.’ He tapped his pipe ashes into the sand. ‘The spells keeping me alive – me and Kantu – were cast so long ago, I don’t even remember who chanted them. He chortled ironically. ‘It was probably Nerak.’
Steven forced a smirk himself, but he still felt as though he might be sick.
‘Anyway, I’m glad you’ve been working so diligently with the staff’s magic. When you return from Idaho Springs, I would be happy to help you hone your skills.’
‘You know I plan to come back?’
‘I know many things.’
‘I have to sit down.’ Steven slumped heavily in the sand beside the old sorcerer. ‘Well, it is good to see you.’
‘It’s good to be here – but come now, we have a great deal to do tonight.’
THE PRINCE MAREK
Brynne reached out to take hold of the stern line hooked fast to a deepwater moorin
g; it kept the great ship from turning with the tides and crushing unsuspecting smaller vessels in the harbour.
‘Tie it to this,’ Steven whispered, handing her a length of rope affixed to their bow, short enough to keep them in place; they just had to hope the gentle rise and fall of the waves would not run the skiff into the Prince Marek.
Steven, Brynne and the old fisherman prepared to climb up the line and ease themselves over the stern rail and onto the quarterdeck. Mark positioned himself against the narrow transom, a borrowed longbow and full quiver at his feet.
The trip through the harbour had been marked by several disagreements, the worst of which was between Mark and Brynne.
‘I don’t want you going aboard,’ he said firmly.
‘Garec can’t make it. I have to go.’ Brynne was equally adamant. ‘I’m much better at hand-to-hand fighting than you, Mark. Steven might need my help.’
Brynne bristled with knives, daggers, even Mark’s battle-axe. The light of the Twinmoon glinted on the arsenal of razor-sharp edges. Mark, still unhappy about her decision, insisted he accompany them in the skiff to offer covering fire should a Malakasian sentry approach while they were boarding.
Brynne stifled a laugh. ‘I’ve seen you shoot, Mark, remember? Trying to kill fish, you missed the river three times.’
Mark was not amused. ‘Funny haha. And you’re right; maybe I’m not a great shot, but their soldiers don’t know that.’ He wished he’d paid more attention to Versen’s lessons, but it was too late now.
The old fisherman came along as well – neither Mark nor Brynne knew why, but Steven insisted, and when the seaman offered the use of his skiff, they were happy to accept.
They couldn’t bear to leave Garec alone on the beach, in case whoever had shot him came back to finish the job, so he slept in the bow of the sailboat, wrapped comfortably in their collective blankets. He was definitely alive: his heart thumped, strong and steady, and his breathing, though slow, was deep.
Mark’s stolen vessel made the trip without incident, coursing across the harbour on a swirling southern breeze, the skiff skipping along in their wake. The raiders dropped anchor and reefed sail some thousand paces west of the sleeping giant. Darkness surrounded them, and with the old fisherman at the oars, their approach to the Prince Marek was as silent as a piece of buoyant flotsam on an incoming tide.
‘So far, so good,’ Mark whispered as he watched Brynne reach for the stern rail. She had gone up first, insisting – and even he had to agree – that if anyone saw her come over the transom, no one would be able to silence them as quickly and efficiently as she. Mark held his breath. It was a long climb, thirty feet of hand-over-hand ascent, but it was just a few moments later that she was there, draping one arm over the rail and drawing a slender hunting knife from her tunic belt with the other.
‘Damn, damn, damn,’ Mark cursed: in his concern for Brynne he had forgotten the bow. He quickly nocked an arrow and pointed it aloft, waiting for someone to appear. ‘Please God, don’t let me pierce one of my friends,’ he prayed quietly, but thankfully, none of the Prince Marek’s crew seemed to have heard them. Brynne motioned for Steven and the fisherman to join her. Mark watched intently as she peered around, then hefted her lithe form over the aft rail and disappeared from sight.
Steven went up next, with the staff tied in a makeshift harness, nimbly pulling himself hand-over-hand until he reached the stern cabin. Mark and the fisherman exchanged a worried glance as Steven slowed his climb to a stop, dangling precariously above the water.
He had paused to look through the cabin window, into an enormous chamber, so opulently decorated that it must be Prince Malagon’s. Tapers burned around the main room, and through the dim, shimmering light he could see gilded artwork on the bulkheads, delicately woven rugs in a thousand hues on the floor, ornate tapestries hanging above a huge bed draped in rich brocaded silk and velvet, and a bookshelf lined with several hundred silver-embossed books – the first books he’d seen in Eldarn.
‘Silver,’ Steven muttered, ‘you bastard. I wonder where you developed a love for silver.’ The staff responded to his anger and flickered to life, its energy lancing though Steven’s jacket. He forced himself to continue climbing.
On the water, the fisherman grabbed the rope and prepared to follow.
‘You need a hand, my friend?’ Mark asked, dubious that the old man would make it all the way up.
‘No, thank you,’ he replied. ‘I learned to climb long ago, in another life. My history teacher was quite a mountaineer.’ He flashed Mark a boyish smile and scrambled up the stern line with the agility of someone less than half his age.
Mark allowed the bowstring to relax slowly and stared after the old man in wonder. ‘It can’t be,’ he whispered, and sat down clumsily on one of the skiff’s wooden benches.
Brynne couldn’t see any crew from where she crouched behind a stack of tarpaulin-covered crates. As Steven and the fisherman joined her, she motioned for them to get down. The raised deck stretched out in front of them: a barren expanse of oak planking. Several watch fires burned in large sconces mounted above the gunwales and a warm golden light cast dull, flickering shadows across the ship’s broad beam. Their most difficult move would be from their current position down the starboard stairs to the main deck, and then through the cabin door to get to Prince Malagon’s chambers below. Wisps of Brynne’s flaxen hair blew lazily in the cold evening wind. Thankfully, it had not yet begun to rain.
She drew a second blade from her belt. ‘I will go first—’ it was not a request, ‘and you two come on quickly behind me. I’ll position myself behind the aft mast there on the main deck while Steven makes his way inside. You—’ she gestured towards the fisherman, ‘stay with me.’ She sounded fiercely determined. Reaching into her belt, she withdrew a thin-bladed knife and a small axe. ‘Do you know how to use these?’
The seaman shook his head. ‘I never use such weapons, my dear.’
Angry, she snapped, ‘Well, what in all Eldarn did you come—’ She paused and pushed the unruly strands from her face. Hidden behind the relative protection of the crates, her stoicism suddenly vanished. ‘Is it you?’ Her voice broke. ‘Is it?’
He grinned and kissed her on the temple. ‘It is. No names, mind.’
Unable to contain herself, Brynne dropped the weapons and threw her arms around the old man’s neck, squeezing him to her as if to never lose him again. ‘You don’t— you don’t look like—’
‘No names,’ the old sorcerer repeated. ‘Our plan, my dear?’
Brynne was suddenly serious. ‘Right,’ she said as she wiped away an errant tear with a tunic sleeve. ‘No one’s appeared yet, but this ship is huge and the watch might take their time getting from one end to the other.’
‘Should we wait one cycle to see?’ Steven whispered.
‘No,’ the fisherman answered, ‘if there is a watch, and on a ship this size there must be, even if just to remain vigilant for other vessels, he probably isn’t patrolling.’ He retrieved Brynne’s weapons and handed them back to her. ‘If he does come aft, Brynne can take care of him.’
‘You sound confident.’
‘Only because I’m certain the critical chambers of this vessel are magically warded. No ship is going to run into this one, so there is no real need for an attentive watch.’
‘Magically warded?’ Steven felt a lump develop in his throat.
‘Of course,’ the fisherman said, as if magical traps were commonplace, ‘if you were he, would you leave the far portal in your cabin unprotected?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Then how do I get in?’
‘Delicately, if you don’t wish to be detected.’
‘Or?’ Brynne said.
‘Or crudely, if you don’t care about Nerak hurrying back to destroy us.’
For the first time all evening, Steven laughed. ‘Okay. I opt for delicately.’
Overcome once again, Br
ynne reached over and squeezed the old man affectionately. ‘It is nice to have you back, even if you are a bit thin. I’ve missed your skill at pinpointing situational danger!’
The old man smiled back at her and went on, ‘So if Brynne is on hand to dispatch any wandering sentries, and you can use the staff to open the door to Nerak’s cabin, we ought to be able to get in and get out before he arrives.’
‘I thought you said if I were delicate, he wouldn’t know.’
‘Perhaps – that’s the one real risk we have to take. I am confident that he has no notion of the true power in that staff.’
‘So how will he know I’m here? As long as you don’t employ any magic, he’ll have no idea we’ve broken in, right? That’s why I had to be the one to save Garec and not you?’ Steven’s voice started to rise in anxiety, and he forced himself to speak softly.
‘True to a point, Steven. He cannot detect the staff’s magic, but I worry he will know when his safeguards have been breached.’
‘Well, hell, why should I be delicate if he’s coming regardless?’
‘That’s a great question, my boy.’ The old man pondered the idea for a moment, then shook his head. ‘You’re right. Let’s go for crude and fast.’
‘So there really is no way we’ll get out of here without a fight?’ Brynne was afraid she knew the answer to that one.
‘We – Steven and I – will probably find ourselves in a fight to the death with Nerak tonight.’ The old man rubbed a finger beneath his crooked nose.
Brynne tossed her head. ‘Then why didn’t you say so in the first place?’
His voice darkened and his face lost any hint of boyish charm as he said slowly, ‘If Steven can get through the portal quickly, I will face the dark prince alone.’
No one spoke. Brynne set her jaw and moved silently along the quarterdeck towards the starboard steps. A moment later, she disappeared.