Wyvern

by A. A. Attanasio

Almeida swept his arm toward the exit, and Jaki stalked off without glancing at Pym or Blackheart.

  "He's a dead man," Pym mumbled, and pulled Blackheart to him. "We must not waste his death. Back to Silenos with you. Prepare to weigh anchor. We sail at once."

  Blackheart's face pulled closer, taut with desperation.

  "No," Pym insisted, "there is nothing we can do for him. He's given his death freely. Go!"

  Quarles sidled up to Pym. "That foolish boy hasn't bought your escape, traitor. My ship has orders to watch Silenos. If she sails, I will blow her out of the harbor." He barged through the crowd that hurried to attend the duel.

  *

  Pym arrived in the torchlit courtyard in time to see Jaki kick away his shoes. Laughter twitched through the encircling crowd. Almeida was not amused. A professional soldier, he stood upright at the center of the cobbled yard, rapier drawn and pointing down, gold thread of death reflecting flame light. The governor and Hsi Hang stood together in a lantern's radiant circle. Quarles had departed, and Pym knew he hurried back to The Fateful Sisters to restrain Silenos. Quarles' daughter stood in his stead and watched boldly, with a worried maid at her side.

  Jaki raised his rapier in salute. Almeida returned the salute with a sardonic grin, and they crossed blades. The Portuguese looked relaxed and poised and Jaki hunched and evidently untrained. Almeida stamped forward swiftly, thrusting to skewer Jaki even before he could move. The boy danced sidewise with a swiftness that elicited a collective sigh from the crowd. His rapier flashed and scored air. Almeida had pivoted and come up under Jaki's extended swordarm, and only Jaki's great speed saved him again. Their rapiers spanged, and Jaki jumped away.

  Fear coursing through Jaki gleamed brighter. His enemy seemed made of liquid in the firelight, sliding sinuously through the shadows. Jaki wanted to trust in animal instinct, yet he knew that if he did, he would lose the delicate control necessary to win a formal duel. He dare not move now as an animal would. He had to fight as a man, a man of his father's ilk. And this man in him trembled, naked with terror.

  Almeida pursued, lashing in a feint and jabbing. The deceptive shadows lured Jaki into his enemy's slide. Pym marked the miscalculation and cried out as Almeida's blade pierced Jaki's left shoulder.

  Jaki wobbled quickly away, blood squirting from his gouged flesh. In midstride backward, he hurled forward, fluid as the pure release of an arrow, though ill timed, which gave Almeida the margin to dodge. The swordmaster closed in at once, and Jaki parried downward. Their swords clacked, and for an instant they stood facing each other in a scuffling lock.

  Almeida grinned disdainfully, shifted his weight, and sent Jaki flying past him. The Portuguese whipped his rapier and spanked Jaki as he flew by.

  The crowd keened with laughter. Jaki spun about, stung and angry, and glimpsed Pym in the swarm of faces, holding him with an iron stare. Jaki reined in his rage. Ignoring the sting across his buttocks, he stepped to the attack slowly, watching his opponent's inky eyes.

  Almeida attacked, a blur in the torchlight, determined to kill Jaki quickly now while the lad still smarted with humiliation. Jaki had dropped that pain. With blinding defensive speed, he caught his opponent's cutover, lifted his rapier, and delved sharply, scoring Almeida's cheek and sending him skidding backward, hand to face.

  The mocking grin had vanished from the swordmaster when he closed again, and he assaulted remorselessly. Jaki met each of his blows, sliding backward and to his left — and then he disappeared. He pounced to his right, crouched, and thrust upward, scoring Almeida again, this time in the hip.

  The officer backed off, awareness dawning that though this Dutchman lacked formal skills, he had speed and sufficient accuracy to make him a deadly fighter.

  The man swung his rapier in a tight circle, focusing all his lethal intent on each movement. The swords touched with a rattle, and Jaki sprang to the side and slashed.

  "Foul!" Almeida called out, and the crowd murmured agreement. "Stand and fight, Dutchman!"

  "Engage!" the governor commanded.

  Jaki crept closer, suppressing his shouting instincts, and touched metal. "You cannot flee your death, pirate," Almeida said, and jumped, both feet flying forward, sword snaking out and up.

  Jaki stood fast, managing to bring his sword up just before the enemy's point reached his heart. Metal sang, and with frantic clashing Jaki pressed the fight. "Death is no secret!" he shouted. Shooting stars of sweat flicked from his face. In his desperation, he had shouted in his native tongue, and the sound barbed him with all the hopelessness of his lost life in the forest. Abandoning all mental intent, he surrendered to this emotion, and the release of power propelled him mightily through the shadows. Only Almeida's expertise with the rapier kept him upright before Jaki's stunningly swift blows.

  Almeida scrambled backward, forgetting his footwork, desperately seeking a fatal chink — and when it appeared, he thrust for it. His blade split Jaki's rib and would have skewered his heart had Jaki not already disoriented his opponent with the fury of his attack. The sword-tip slipped off his nicked rib and gouged the air beside him. Enduring his wound and heaving himself into it, believing, as he had with the Spider, that death had taken him, Jaki surprised Almeida, caught him unready to parry, and thrust his rapier through the man's chest.

  Almeida shrieked and collapsed, gasping blood. The crowd roared and surged forward.

  Pym shoved through the throng to Jaki's side and swept him away. The boy, badly shaken, had soaked through his blouse and leaked blood from his shoulder wound and split rib. Pym yelled for the crowd to make way. The governor pressed to Pym's side and spoke bitterly to the wounded duelist, "You are a sloppy swordsman. You won by rage alone."

  "Yet he won! And fairly!" Pym countered with hot admiration. "Now stand aside. My crewman is wounded and needs our ship’s surgeon." Pym sheathed the bloody rapier, threw Jaki's arm over his neck, and walked him through the appalled crowd to the tall open doors of the yard.

  Lucinda Quarles stood under the red mane of a torch, face aglow with excitement and relief. Her maid gripped her shoulders from behind, trying to move her away. She stood fast, and when Jaki passed, she held out her hand.

  Jaki stopped before her, his wild gaze softening at once. "Time is blood now, lad," Pym whispered in his ear.

  "Your journey continues," Lucinda said, holding her hand higher so he could see the amber brooch she offered. "Take this! An emblem of your victory tonight — and hope! That we may meet again."

  Jaki accepted the brooch, and before he could speak, Pym hauled him away.

  *

  Pym ran with Jaki in his arms through the rainwet boulevards to the harbor. Each jolt rang pain through the sorcerer, the lonesome singing of Jaki's life against the vaulting silence of death. The sky of fire behind his eyelids shadowed with the souls of the men he had killed. Almeida's mortal surprise veered closest. His deathly face receded with each belt of pain that seared Jaki. Other eyes watched from the shadowy flames behind Almeida's deathmask — the faceless souls of the Mongols he had slaughtered on Hsi Hang's junk. And behind them the merest glints in the nightrock of eternity, dim ghosts of the Lanun he had slain and the Tree Haunter warriors he had trampled and brained. Batuh rose up, a shadow in the face of night, and behind him the vague shades of the first men he had killed, the Tree Haunters he had speared to save himself and Ferang. These deaths carried his life, his pain. His life continued as the manifest spirit of these dead. And all this was so, he believed, because he had abandoned the Life to find his place in the tribe, to be a man as other men.

  The harbor air hung heavy, dewy with redolence of the sea. "Blackheart's ready for us," Pym said, guiding Jaki onto the pier and into a waiting skiff.

  Pym rowed, and Jaki lay back. "We'd not be here without your risk," Pym said as he bent to the oars. "That dago governor is determined to board Silenos. In the hubbub you left behind, he'll not gather his guard till we hoist anchor. Well done, lad. You handled that rapier like a bor
n swordsman. I'll not call you son again. From now, Jaki Gefjon, you are brother."

  At Silenos the pirates hoisted Jaki aboard in a sling. Saja examined him and determined that the wounds had cut no organs.

  "Release the floaters, Mister Blackheart," Pym ordered. "The tide's coming in, and it will do most of our fighting for us." He trained his spyglass on The Fateful Sisters and counted the cannon, fifty big guns aimed at them. With this starless night and Silenos a black target, even the best gunner would have trouble marking the range. Then he eyed Quarles in blazing lanternlight, watching them through his telescope. Certainly he would spot the floaters that even now splashed overboard. Would he guess their lethal intent?

  "Blackheart, throw over the bales of spice we collected in Manila. Let him think we're lightening for a run. And let's pray he holds his fire till we show canvas."

  Minutes later when the first of the floating powder kegs reached The Fateful Sisters, Quarles ordered one retrieved to see what Pym dumped. A grapnel line thrown to it sprung the matchlock triggers, and the keg of corned powder exploded, sweeping several of the other mines into the hull of the big ship. A string of blasts ripped the night in rapid succession.

  "Anchor aweigh!" Pym shouted with the first explosion. "Canvas!"

  Silenos rose against the tide, caught wind with her black sails, and cruised toward the night sea. Behind her, the tide had carried the rest of the mines into the harbor and among the other ships. Fiery bursts tore apart wharves and sundered the smaller ships clustered alongside Quarles' pirate hunter. The Fateful Sisters fired twelve rounds. With her broadsides ripped, the ship’s lower decks took on water, spoiling the cannons' ordinance. The fifty-pound balls splashed wildly in the bay.

  Pym spied Quarles through his glass, flailing across his quarterdeck, shouting commands with frustrated ardor. The pirate captain howled his pleasure and ordered cannon to fire a salute. Silenos spat fire and thunder, and Pym grinned at Quarles leaning on the rail in an anguish of rage, watching his prey flee into darkness and stormsmoke.

  *

  Blind with fury, Quarles stalked the busy main deck, and frightened sailors flitted out of his way, disappearing down holds and into companionways. The captain steadied himself on the starboard gunnel and glanced down at the scorched and shattered timbers along the hull.

  The damage to The Fateful Sisters though slight prevented pursuit. The pirate had eluded him. Escape! The thought branded his soul. At least the floating mines had substantiated Quarles' suspicion that Trevor Pym plundered under the wyvern. And now trade ports everywhere would close to Iduna — and Quarles could stalk Pym freely.

  "I will hang him from my own ship's yardarm," he swore aloud. "Pym has not escaped. There is no escape in this round world. I will run him down. And I will have him dancing on the wind."

  Quarles' words burned with lifelong anguish. Determined to avenge his family's suffering by regaining all that had been lost, he had become a model seaman and earned a navigator's rank by his twentieth birthday. In 1607, royal friends of his fallen uncle had arranged for him to sail as a master mariner with King James' flotilla to supervise a truce between Denmark and Sweden. In Copenhagen, he met and married a wealthy merchant's daughter, and with his new fortune and the esteem he had won from his service to the king, he had attained the captaincy of his first vessel and sailed profitable trade routes from the North Sea to the Mediterranean.

  For several years, Quarles' spite seemed wholly used up, leaving him an affluent and content man. He purchased back the estate in Devon where he had been born, the ancestral lands that had been lost early in his childhood, and he gloated that he had reclaimed his past without benefit of college or inheritance.

  Then in 1610, the year of his daughter’s birth, plague killed his wife in La Spezia. He had been at fault — he believed that to this day — because he had let her stay by his side when trade had brought him to the stricken port long after all other ships had fled. What success he had gained for himself in La Spezia had cost him his wife, the quiet, patient Dane who had taught him true felicity.

  The next sixteen years had been a furor of withheld wrath at the injustice of creation. Committed to wresting order — his personal order — out of the emotional and spiritual confusion of his loss, Quarles refused to relinquish his daughter to his wife's parents in Denmark and took her and her maid with him on all his voyages. He was determined to make her worthy of the fortune he had devoted his life to creating, and he spent his mounting wealth freely on her. The finest clothing and jewels adorned her from infancy. Yet as soon as she could walk, she wanted nothing more than to be everywhere that he was. He indulged her even in that, and the toddler witnessed his brilliantly stern command of ship and learned early the exigencies of will.

  In her seventh year, Lucinda's nanny had been replaced by a maid her own age. Maud Rufoote, a peasant girl from Quarles’ Devon estate, had been reared and skillfully trained by her Aunt Timotha, a woman wise in herbal medicines. As for his daughter’s education, Quarles personally assumed responsibility. His resolution to imprint her with his jaded wisdom clashed with the romance of illusion that is every child's gift, and he forbade her any dreams but the most pragmatic and tactical. Lucinda, a willful intelligence, who mastered her father's lessons in languages, mathematics, and cynicism, would not however relinquish her faith in inspiration, the heart's revelation — love.

  As Lucinda grew to womanhood, she shamelessly opposed all the advantageous marriages with merchants' sons and noble-blooded officers that Quarles plotted for her happiness and security. She insisted that she would choose her own husband.

  Remembering the dreamy look on Lucinda's face as she conversed with the blond pirate at the governor's ball, Quarles headed for her cabin to curtail that fantasy. At the companionway, he lifted his face into the stiffening wind and thought he could taste the heat of a typhoon. Time enough to discipline Lucinda, he reasoned, sensing threat in the hot wind. A new irony occurred to him: perhaps Pym's flight into the jaws of the big storm had been heaven seizing revenge from Quarles. He did not want Pym killed that way. He had to learn something from the pirate first.

  Years before, shortly after Quarles had been awarded his first captaincy, several well-dressed men approached him aboard his docked vessel. These fastidious gentlemen claimed warrant as secretaries for a secret society to which his uncle, Samuel Quarles, had belonged. They referred to their private circle as the Church of the Two Thieves, an interkingdom organization of affluent and influential nobles with papal connections. The Quarles family had been Roman Catholic from Norman times, but William, early in adulthood, had converted to the Church of England to gain favor at court. He wanted no contact with the papists. Before they left, the men prevailed on him to examine correspondence between the Spanish governor of Cartagena and his Uncle Samuel that disclosed the betrayal by his uncle of Drake's war fleet during its 1585 raid of the Spanish Main.

  Quarles refused to believe the documents. The letters never appeared again, and the papists made no effort to blackmail him. Any such effort would have failed as his fortune had been secured entirely by his own hand, and no one could expect him to account for the honor of an uncle he barely knew. Yet from that day, the passion for revenge that had driven him cooled to mere cunning.

  Pym had hotly declared his own innocence in the governor's palace, and his protest hinted at a dark truth. The one-eyed pirate remained a scoundrel in any case, still responsible for the murder of Drake in 1596 and for decades of piracy. Quarles keenly wanted to know what had actually transpired.

  Then, three years ago, the secret society had divulged Trevor Pym's presence in Asia. A juvenile excitement gripped Quarles when he had heard this, and he had used all his accumulated favor and prestige to arrange a diplomatic mission to Asia. No longer certain that Pym had been responsible for his uncle's misfortune and his own indigent youth, he determined to find out. The very idea of advancing his career at Pym's expense inspired him in his plea to the Admir
alty for an Asian assignment.

  Not a day of The Fateful Sisters’ yearlong trading voyage around Africa, Arabia, and India to Siam and Malaysia had passed without Quarles anticipating his confrontation with the snakebranded pirate. And now fate threatened to cheat him once again.

  He clomped down the narrow stairway, and bustling sailors hauling pails of sand to the smoldering hull fell away from him as from a lion. He did not see them. His mind already occupied the map room, intent on learning the precise location of the kingdom of Iduna.

  *

  Monsoon rains battered Silenos, shredded sails, cracked timber, swept men overboard, and would have sunk her had not her captain's will been as dark as the storm's. Pym had weathered gales at sea before, and he knew when to let the windy angels command his ship and when to defy them. Silenos, battered but whole, arrived safely in Panay, and after Hsi Hang's gold had been melted, coined, and distributed, the branded captain itched to sail again, to plunder the spice vessels in the Moluccas. The crew, harrowed by the stormy crossing and the terrible apparition of The Fateful Sisters, refused. Few of the ablest seamen reenlisted with Pym. Most believed he had outlived his pirating days, and they disbanded and took their wealth with them, some to Europe and others to the small kingdoms of Asia where they invested in new lives as merchants, estate owners, and shipping potentates. Unable to find enough skilled sailors, Pym moped in the grand manse of Iduna, drinking himself into a stupor, usually before noon.

  Though Pym loved Perdita, she could not fill his heart, nor make him forget his shame and fury. He raged inwardly against the arbitrary authority of those who had stripped him of his dignity. And now that most of his pirate crew had abandoned him, he drifted, bereft. He would need massive sums of money to induce seaworthy men to sail with him — and he did not have those sums, unless he took back what he had already given Perdita, the very thought of which sickened him more than entrusting his beloved Silenos to an inept crew. Stymied, he sulked and stewed, made even more restless by the fact that Quarles knew Iduna for Pym’s homeport. Months passed, and the sentries posted at the promontories of Panay never sighted the fierce British destroyer.