The Ravens of Death (Tsun-Tsun TzimTzum Book 4)

by Mike Truk

  Excitement began to stir in my chest. “Imogen? Valeria? Let’s meet in my sanctum. Brielle and Emma can join us when they return.”

  “What are you thinking?” asked Valeria, staring down at the harbor in confusion. “Are you…?”

  I raised a finger to my lips and smiled. “Just meet me within. I think I’ve figured out an explosively ridiculous way to take control of this whole shitshow.”

  Chapter 11

  I sauntered out onto the docks. If my drawstring pants had pockets, I’d have used them. Practically whistling as I paused to inspect some drying nets, I turned to the old men who watched me with raised eyebrows, as if thinking, Now these are some fucking nets.

  The sun was high overhead. The docks were bustling. I clearly didn’t get how old-school docks were supposed to work, because to my eye, sailors were constantly loading and unloading crates without ever achieving anything. Like a Sisyphean struggle - this ship unloaded, that ship loaded. Nobody ever went anywhere.

  Perhaps I just needed to hang out on the docks more.

  Looking offensively casual, I mosied along, stepping over piles of fish guts here, out of the way of stevedores hauling crates there. I winked at a barmaid leaning out a window above me, and scowled at an urchin who fancied himself a pickpocket, drawing too near.

  It was a beautiful day. The ocean a vibrant, heaving blanket of the deepest blue, the spray bashing itself up into the air off at the far end against some wharves where the water was deeper. Somewhere, someone was grilling meat. Laughter emanated from a knot of young men, crouching around a pair of dice in the shadow of a pitted bronze monument.

  If I’d been a tourist, I’d have been taking photographs left and right, planning where to get hammered over lunch.

  Instead, I turned and pretended to find myself surprised to be on the Druach pier. A couple of serious-looking guards stood just a few paces before the ship, blocking any approach. Hands rested on the pommels of their short, stabbing blades. Faces looked like slabs of meat that didn’t approve of being carved from the side of the cow.

  The ship itself was beautiful. It looked just like a speedboat, so incongruous against the other traditional ships as to almost be offensive. It rested lightly on the waters, with no obvious room for cargo, only a massive foredeck, like a toucan’s beak, with a tiny cabin in the back. Perhaps four people could cram inside the cabin to drink champagne and live the lives of the impossibly wealthy as they skipped around Aegeria.

  The crew was gone; only the guards were left behind to keep the curious away.

  “That’s a strange-looking ship,” I said, sauntering up.

  “Fuck off,” said one of the men, his face scrunched up as if he were fighting heartburn.

  “Where’s the sail? Don’t see how it could get around without one.”

  “This here’s a private pier,” said the second, voice little more than a bulldog’s growl. “Get your filthy feet off it or we’ll do the getting off it ourselves.”

  We all paused.

  “I don’t think that came out right,” I said.

  “You know what I mean,” said the man, doubling down on the growl.

  “Sure, sure, I’m picking up what you’re putting down.” I raised my hands in the universal gesture of raising the roof. Or surrender, I guess. “It’s just that I’ve a message for you both from the ladies at the Iron Snake, you know? They’ve been watching you standing out here in the sun and feel so bad. They’re offering free drinks and a hand job to whichever of you visits them first.”

  In the exact moment, their frowns turned from expressions of aggression to confusion, I hit each with a levenbolt.

  It was nothing fancy. Just a bolt from each palm, thick as my wrist, which lifted both off the pier and hurled them onto their backs four or five yards further down.

  I followed and crouched before them. I could dimly sense my companions streaming forth from the alley in which they’d been waiting. “Either of you know how to work this hopper?”

  Both men groaned. One managed to roll on his side before giving up and returning to his back.

  “Guess I’ll have to figure it out myself.”

  I stepped onto the gray craft. The cabin was as luxurious as I’d expected, paneled with walnut; the seats were upholstered with a gray suede that seemed impervious to saltwater. I inspected the controls as my friends hurried down the pier to bunch up just above me.

  “And?” asked Brielle.

  “Looks good,” I said. “Uncle Marty used to take me out on his boat on Lake Erie in the summers in high school. He’d let me pilot it a little. I’m sure this is just the same.”

  The wheel, at least, looked similar. Biting my lower lip, I stared at the gauges, then laid my hand on what had to be the throttles. They were two levers, not marked in red as I was used to, but pulled back toward me regardless. On the other side of the wheel was a large lever that I hoped was the clutch. It was up in the neutral position, which was good enough for me.

  Brielle hopped down lightly to peer over my shoulder. “You sure about this?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. There was no GPS, obviously – no VHF radio. A prominent little icon of the ship was embedded in the dash, gleaming silver. A black obsidian cube with the words Crookstone written across its surface, while an angled secondary panel along the right side of the cabin that looked like it should be covered in instruments but was instead completely blank.

  “We’re running out of time,” said Imogen, delicately climbing down into the cabin. “I suggest we execute your plan now, Noah.”

  “First we need everyone on board. And, ah, I don’t see any personal floating devices, so we can skip that part -”

  Emma helped Little Meow down, then climbed in herself. With the five of us, the cabin was already tight. Khandros grimaced worriedly down the length of the pier toward the docks, where a large crowd was gathering, watching us with avid curiosity. “Room for one more?”

  “Always room for one more,” I said absentmindedly, searching for a way to turn the ship on. There was no depth finder that I could see. The gauges were all blank and without any needles. What the fuck?

  Khandros huffed and lowered himself down, squeezing in.

  “I don’t mean to pressure you,” said Brielle, “but you absolutely need to get this boat moving right now, Noah Kilmartin.”

  “No pressure, got it,” I said. There was no keyhole, either. How to move astern? I pushed through my friends to the rear of the boat and stared down the back, trying to figure out what kind of propulsion system it had. One motor? Two?

  The rear of the boat was a massive slate panel a foot thick, without any other features.

  “No motors?” I asked in despair. “What the fuck?”

  “Magic, obviously,” said Imogen, reaching out her hand to the panel. “It requires a practitioner to activate and control.”

  “We need to go grab the pilot?” asked Valeria, who remained by the mooring ropes on the pier itself, carefully watching the crowd.

  “No,” said Imogen. “Pass your hand over the panels. You can sense a flow, a pull, that indicates…”

  She moved her gloved hand over the Crookstone cube, then followed it along the blank slate panel on the cabin’s right wall. “It flows through this, where it grows complicated, and then on to the rear…”

  People moved aside for her so she could join me at the stern. “To this engine.”

  “That’s a huge chunk of rock,” I said.

  “No, it’s an incredibly potent engine,” she said. “It’s dormant. We need to wake it up.”

  “Okay, fine. Let’s wake it up,” I said.

  I heard shouts from the crowd, which parted to reveal an armed company of men in the same armor as the duo I’d knocked out.

  “Incoming,” said Valeria, tone tense.

  Imogen moved back, hands outstretched, hands closed, frowning as she inspected the long slate panel. “Here, somewhere. No. Here.” She paused, hand over the Crookstone. “H
ere, I believe. It feels like a well. Perhaps…” She gave her head a sharp shake, setting her braids to dancing. “No time for analysis, I suppose. Let’s just start throwing magic at it.”

  Her hand glowed with bluish light, which streaked from her fingertips into the Crookstone.

  The ship rumbled to life.

  Ghostly needles of purple flame appeared in the gauges as panels manifested in wraithly fire along the right-hand block, indicating all kinds of information I couldn’t begin to guess at. From the rear of the boat came a low hum.

  I shoved my way to the wheel, hesitated, and searched for a gear selector to move to reverse. There was nothing obvious.

  “Here,” said Emma, leaning in and taking hold of the little ship icon. “Does this - yes!” She turned it about so that the prow was pointing behind us.

  I moved the throttle to what I hoped was low power, and shouted to Valeria, “Cast us off!”

  The company of armed guards were rushing up the pier, blades held before them. Valeria slashed through the mooring rope, ran down to the next one and cut it apart, then leaped onto the prow of the ship as it backed away from the pier into the bay.

  The guards shouted their imprecations but lacked bows with which to make good their threats. A few men in robes turned and ran back to the docks, obviously intent on commandeering other vessels; a ragged cheer went up from the gathered crowd.

  The rear engine was throbbing with power, pulling us back into the choppy waters of the bay; we were light enough to bob as we pushed through the waves. I tentatively pushed the throttle a little more and the engine gurgled happily, picking up speed.

  “All right, Imogen,” I said. “Time to work a miracle. Figure out the hopping mechanism.”

  “This is absurd!” She moved to the side panel where five displays had appeared in ghostly fire, studying each with fierce attention. “It’s a limited portal mechanism, which means the engine - does the engine open the portal, or simply power us through it?”

  “I’d wager there’s a separate mechanism for that,” said Little Meow, squirming through the press of bodies to stand beside her. “See here? Conduits - almost like ley-lines - going from that little cube through the panel to the rear. But not quite the engine -” She hurried to the back to study the rear stone panel. “No, it doesn’t go to the engine itself. It goes into something locked within the back of the ship.”

  “Under here?” asked Brielle, and with the pommel of her blade, she smashed a lock, pulling up a walnut inlaid lid that ran along the back just before the engine.

  “Yes… will you look at that,” said Little Meow, her wonder nearly lost under the growl of the ship’s engine.

  “Look at what?” I shouted back at them.

  “An artifact of some kind. Imogen?”

  “It’s definitely an artifact,” said Imogen, joining her and bending over the hidden wonder. “Puts me in mind of the manifold. See here? Half-solid, half-mystical conduits. It looks like… perhaps it charges the artifact up? Builds a potential for… but if so, then where does the charge… the Crookstone?”

  Several small crafts were putting out from various piers and wharves, loaded with soldiers armed with bows. A half-dozen were casting off, the hands expert, oars spearing out to sink into the waters and churning at the waves with furious energy.

  “We’re still tight on time,” I called out. “We’ve got ships coming our way.”

  Imogen pushed her way to my side and crouched down to study the Crookstone intently. “A magic sink. Interlacing coils, so that it drains ambient… but that’s too slow a process. It must have been exhausted coming in. Limitations on how often it can be used. Unless we can charge it ourselves. Little Meow, watch the panels, see what changes when I do… this.”

  She extended her hand again to pour blue magic into the Crookstone, which drank it up, sucking the light down into its black heart like a vortex.

  “Here,” said Little Meow, shouldering Khandros aside to position herself before a panel. “This one is changing. Slowly. I can see levels rising. This line here might be a minimum required? If so, we’re at one-fifth of what we need.”

  Imogen placed both hands before the Crookstone and increased the amount of power she was dumping into it.

  “Better!” called out Little Meow. “But still slow! It will take too long at this rate!”

  The ships were maneuvering; some turned, others arced out to show us their broadsides. I pushed the throttle and we picked up even more speed, reversing powerfully through the waves.

  “Levels are going down!” shouted Little Meow.

  I eased up on the throttle with a curse.

  “Here,” I said, moving my hand down to Little Meow’s own. “Tell me what to do so I can help.”

  Imogen’s words were terse. “Just bond with Muladhara, but instead of pouring your magic into its sacred heart, focus on the Crookstone instead.”

  I’d never have been able to do this before. I closed my eyes for a moment, sinking deep into my reservoir, and bonded with the great fleshy flower so its petals spread wide. Opening my eyes, I saw the ocean, Argossy spread out before me; with one hand above the Crookstone, I poured my magic into its alien heart as I guided the ship back through the waves.

  The ship needed raw power to operate? I had raw power aplenty. Golden light streamed from my palm, and I felt the filament that ran through the center of my reservoir resonate as if plucked.

  “Better!” Little Meow’s shout was tight with excitement. “Much better! I’d say - five minutes?”

  “We don’t have five minutes,” said Valeria, raising her crossbow, bolt laid down in the groove. “Those captains know what they’re doing. Unless we get out of the bay, we’re going to be flanked.”

  The ships were paddling with oiled intensity, the oars dipping into the waves in perfect unity, drawing the boats out on both our sides faster than I’d have thought possible. Each had a dozen archers at the ready, short bows raised, arrows nocked at the strings.

  “Emma,” I called out. “Ward up!”

  Our cabin was immediately encased within an emerald bubble. Brielle’s crimson one reinforced it, capturing the far side of the cabin where Emma’s failed to reach – and just in time. A cry rang out, and a storm of shafts sped through the air to slam into the glowing curvatures.

  The wards held. The arrows rebounded, splintering as if they’d hit stone.

  “A third of the way there!” called out Little Meow.

  “Time to start making our way to the ramp,” I said, killing the throttle just before turning the icon around to face forward once more. Upon this, I eased the throttle up again.

  We slowed, wallowed, then lurched forward, leaving a wake of spume coiling behind us in the artificially becalmed waters.

  More arrows hailed down upon the cabin, a few sticking into the body of the boat before us.

  “Holding up?” I yelled out.

  “I can do this all day,” Emma shouted back.

  My arm felt like it was melting into honey, the power coursing through me at a terrible rate.

  We nosed forward, and I turned the wheel to angle us toward the stone ramp I’d selected earlier. Mossy green timbers were bolted down its length, and an empty berth of some kind rested at the top, where, perhaps, ships could be suspended to have their hulls tended to. Honestly, I didn’t know what the complex cradle of timbers and ropes were really for and didn’t give a fuck.

  All I needed was that ramp.

  The air was riven by a thunderous crack, and a bolt of lightning shattered the sunlight, flaring out over the waters to impact Emma’s ward.

  She screamed and her ward went down.

  Immediately a score of arrows fell upon us, only to be rebuffed as Valeria raised her arm and pushed her ward out with a cry of effort.

  It was a meager construct compared to Emma’s glorious sphere, but it was enough; between hers and Brielle’s, the deluge of arrows was repelled.

  “Emma?” I shouted, turn
ing back to see where she’d fallen into Khandros’s arms.

  “All right,” she said, blinking dazedly. “Just… what the fuck was that?”

  “Magus,” said Brielle. “That ship there. Valeria?”

  “On it,” said the golden-haired warrior, raising her crossbow as beads of sweat ran down her brow.

  “Halfway there!” shouted Little Meow.

  More arrows hailed down upon us, then Valeria squeezed off her shot, the crack of the bolt explosive as it flew through her ward to speed over the waves. Skimming over their peaks, it slammed into a robed figure on the closest ship, his hand raised and scintillating with electricity.

  The force of the bolt sent him flying off the far side of his ship into the bay.

  “Fuck yeah!” I yelled, fighting the urge to slam the boat into full throttle. Instead, frustration rising within me, I teased it up just a little so we began to lightly skim forward back toward the docks.

  “Here,” said Emma, moving forward to place her hand beside mine and Imogen’s. “Valeria’s got the wards – right, Valeria?”

  “Working on it,” said the blond warrior grimly.

  “We’ve got it,” said Brielle, placing a hand on her shoulder.

  Emma closed her eyes, and a moment later her magic flowed through to join our streams, reinforcing them with surprising vigor.

  “They’re going to ram us!” shouted Khandros.

  I looked around wildly. Four of the boats were slowly turning to face us directly.

  “What? They’ll be too late!”

  “No - they are good at this! We must move!”

  Sure enough, the ships turned with surprising agility, and the rowers went to eleven as they bent over their oars, sending their vessels shooting toward us.

  “Fuck!” I pushed the throttle forward, giving the ship more juice, and she complied with a purr, smooth as milk; we began to ease forward and out of the trap.

  “Three-quarters!” shouted Little Meow.

  “More wizards!” Brielle pointed at a bald woman in the same gray robes as the other, standing like an avenging Valkyrie on the prow of one vessel. Black clouds were swirling around her fist.