Servant of a Dark God

by John Brown

  Argoth felt a light wave of desire wash over him. “Of course, Great One,” he said. And for the first time he meant it. The Skir Master was great. A fine man. No, not just a man. A master.

  Moments later the desire ebbed and left him standing in shock. He’d always imagined it would be more like a battle, a contest of wills. But this thrall did not batter him down; it simply turned his will traitor.

  “Well?” said the Skir Master.

  Argoth brought himself back to the task at hand. “Let us begin with the firewater, but may we open the windows first? The vapors are not good to breathe.”

  The Skir Master opened the windows, letting in a small but ineffective breeze. Then Argoth began. He told them how one gathered the firewater from black springs and distilled it. When Leaf had captured every detail on the vellum, Argoth poured a small measure into an empty bowl and lit it on fire.

  “Such is good for firepots, but you want something that will burn on water and cleave together like tar. For that we must add pitch from pines and terebinth trees and a fine sulfur powder. Such a mixture can be extinguished only with great quantities of vinegar, urine, or earth.”

  He told them how to make the pitch, how to find sulfur of the right color and grind it to powder. Leaf wrote everything up, and was as graceful with the pen as he was fighting or walking. But he did not write quickly and made Argoth repeat his instructions numerous times.

  An hour passed, maybe more. They moved to the process of mixing. He showed the Skir Master how he had to mix the firewater and sulfur first and wait. He showed him how he could tell this preliminary mixture was correct by the color of the flame, and the quantity of smoke. Then the Skir Master demanded to do it himself.

  Argoth walked the Skir Master through each step and admired his quick mind, the way he said aloud what he was doing as he did it.

  At one point, the Skir Master stretched as if to relieve his back, and Argoth found himself standing next to him holding a chair.

  “Perhaps you’d like to sit, Great One.”

  “No,” the Skir Master said and waved him off.

  Argoth was crestfallen. “Forgive me,” he said and replaced the chair. How could he have been so stupid as to offer a chair? Who needed chairs? Certainly not someone as strong and capable as the Skir Master.

  Argoth resolved to be silent until spoken to. He stood aside, watching the Skir Master continue with the preparations.

  A thought came to him: how many had the opportunity to stand in the presence of such a man? How many people had the opportunity to share their talent with him?

  Argoth was among a fortunate few, and he beamed at his fortune.

  In the back of his mind a resentment, an anger, twisted upon itself. How dare this man take on such honors with lies? But Argoth began to admire the fine lines of the Skir Master’s hands and the thought passed.

  The Skir Master arrived at the step where he needed to measure in the pitch. He had too much. Suddenly the Skir Master stopped.

  “No, I don’t,” said the Skir Master. “One measure. That is what you said.”

  Argoth was disoriented for a moment, had he actually spoken those words unbidden? But Leaf looked as confused as he. Then he realized the Skir Master had heard his thoughts.

  And in that moment he knew he did not have two days. He didn’t have one. The thrall was changing him, bending his desires and forming a link between their minds. It might take two days for his admiration to bloom into full worship, for his thoughts to roll open like a scroll before his master. But long before that the Skir Master-

  He cut himself off. He needed to move them down to the lower deck next; he needed to get to the barrels of seafire.

  The Skir Master looked up. “What did you say?”

  “A semiliquid is what we want,” Argoth said. “Too thick and you’ll plug the pumps and lances.”

  Argoth felt light-headed. He needed to think and not think. He walked to the window to breathe in fresh air. The sun had sunk low in the west. Over the horizon lay the New Lands and his wife. Nettle. Shim. Thinking of them brought clarity. “Great One,” he said. “We’ve been using bowls. If we want to produce a great quantity, I fear we must move to a larger, more ventilated place.”

  “There are too many eyes and ears on the main deck,” said Leaf.

  “Then, Great One, let us work on the lower deck, where the materials are.”

  The Skir Master looked at the bowls and nodded. He turned to Leaf. “Have this moved to the lower deck. And I want something to eat.”

  Half an hour later Argoth stood on the lower deck, the barrels of seafire half a dozen paces aft of where they were set to work. The cook’s boy brought three bowls of food to them. Both the Skir Master and Leaf were given beef, pickled radishes, and rice. Argoth was given a foul-looking stew full of knuckles, the hard cartilage between bones. He dipped his spoon in and saw a white hair poking out. He plucked it up. It wasn’t a hair, but a whisker still attached to the severed muzzle of a rat. Argoth dropped it back. He turned the stew with his spoon. There was an ear and a foot, and who knew what else.

  He set the stew aside.

  “Eat,” said Leaf with a grin.

  “I’m fasting,” said Argoth.

  “Eat,” said the Skir Master. “We have a long night ahead of us.”

  The Master was right. Of course, he should eat. The food may be filthy, but he needed his strength to teach. Argoth dipped his spoon into the stew, filled it with a hearty helping, and brought it to his mouth. It stank, and when he put it in his mouth, he convulsed, but the Master needed him, so he crunched the knuckles and other bits and swallowed the mess down.

  The Skir Master scooped the last clumps of rice from his bowl and set it aside. “It is too quiet. We need more privacy. Order pipes and dancing.”

  Leaf nodded. He took the stairs above. Soon the sound of pipes and pounding feet came from above. Leaf rejoined them, this time with grog. Argoth was sure someone had pissed in his cup, but the Master had said he’d need his strength.

  He brought it to his lips and thought of Nettle. The boy had pissed in his cup once as a child when they’d weaned him from diapers. He’d cleverly, if mistakenly, used it as a chamber pot.

  Argoth put the mug down.

  Upon the table two open-flame lamps burned. They were there for light, but also to test the mixtures. They were too large to fit through a bunghole.

  The Skir Master looked at Argoth with puzzlement on his face.

  Argoth cursed himself and quickly shifted his focus. It was good the bungholes were so small, he thought. Very safe. Very much like keeping the lamps away from the bed when he and Serah made love. However, the crew should be banned from this area. No telling what careless men might do. “Let us compare your mixture, Great One, with the finished product.”

  “Leaf,” said the Skir Master and gestured at the barrels with his chin.

  Leaf walked over to one of the barrels, easily worked its lid off and set it aside. Then he dipped a cup and brought it back to the table.

  The open flame of the lamps on the table, the bowl of dark seafire, the barrels just paces behind-this was his opportunity.

  “Now the consistency,” said Argoth.

  The Skir Master reached out and grasped both lamps and pulled them back slightly.

  Argoth dipped the thumb and two fingers of his good arm into the bowl of seafire and rubbed them against each other. He held them out for the Skir Master to see. “That is what you want, Great One. Mark it.”

  “What are you hiding?” asked the Skir Master.

  He should not hide things from the Master. He should tell him all.

  “This,” said Argoth. Then he stuck his fingers in the flame of one of the lamps. They flashed blue, then spat into flame. Argoth brought them up.

  The Skir Master raised an eyebrow in alarm.

  Then Argoth mustered all his will, turned, and dashed for the open barrel.

  “Stop him!” shouted the Skir Master.
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  Argoth raced to the barrel, his fingers aflame.

  One pace from the open barrel, Leaf grabbed his splinted arm and jerked back.

  The pain screamed up his arm. But he’d fought through worse. He turned and shoved his flaming fingers into Leaf’s eye, wiping seafire along the socket and nose and up the tattoo.

  Leaf cried out, raising one hand to his face. But he did not fully release Argoth.

  Argoth twisted and chopped down with his good hand. Then he was free. He turned, lunged for the barrel.

  “Stop!” the Skir Master commanded.

  Argoth froze, the sea fire inches away, his fingers blackening and blistering in the flame. The pain was immense.

  The Skir Master strode toward Argoth, and horror overtook him: what had he done? How could he have betrayed his master? He almost fell to his knees. But there was one small part of him that wanted something else.

  “Nettle,” he said.

  “Down!” ordered the Skir Master.

  Argoth faltered. Then he mustered all his strength. “Nettle,” he said. His son’s sacrifice would not be wasted. And suddenly the Skir Master’s command seemed less important than it had before.

  “For Nettle,” he said more forcefully. This was for him and for Grace, Serentity, and Joy. For Serah. A battle cry rose within him, and he shouted his son’s name. “Nettle! For Nettle and light!”

  His mind cleared momentarily and he thrust his burning fingers into the black liquid.

  A blue-green fire raced over the surface.

  Argoth almost faltered from the pain, but he snatched his hand back and wrapped it in his tunic, wiping off both flame and skin.

  The seafire in the barrel spit, flashed, then, with a cracking thunder, flames exploded upward. Thick smoke poured forth and rolled along the ceiling.

  The Skir Master took a step back.

  Argoth retrieved the hatchet he’d stowed between the barrels earlier. He brought it up and swung it against the rope binding the barrel. It split cleanly.

  Leaf had fallen to his knees, violently trying to wipe the seafire from his face with his tunic. The Skir Master leapt over Leaf.

  Argoth grabbed the lip of the burning barrel with the head of the hatchet and pulled with all his weight.

  The barrel tipped, fell over, and spilled the burning seafire over the deck, over the Master’s boots. It circled the man.

  The blue flame raced over the surface of the widening pool.

  Argoth backed away.

  The Skir Master looked down at the spreading fire. Then the pool of seafire burst into flame and choked the passageway with smoke. And Argoth felt the Skir Master recede from his mind.

  Clasping the hatchet, Argoth turned and ran. Men shouted from the stern. The cook stepped out holding a long knife and looked up the passageway. Argoth swung the flat of the hatchet and struck him in the face.

  Argoth raced up the stairs to the main deck. Thick brown and yellow smoke billowed out of the hatches, the skir wind carrying it forward over the deck into the sailors who had recently been dancing. An officer shouted for a team to descend with barrels of sand.

  Argoth leapt up the stairs to the aftercastle and raced to the stern. A dread-man stood by the helmsman. “The Skir Master!” Argoth shouted. “Help me get the ship’s boat in the water!”

  The dreadman hesitated, then joined Argoth. He ran to the rope and pulleys of one of the davits, Argoth to the other. But Argoth had no time for an easy lowering. He hacked through the ropes and his end of the boat swung down and out.

  The unexpected weight caught the dreadman off guard. The rope raced through his hands, burning them. He stumbled forward, cursed, and looked at Argoth with anger.

  The boat had fallen, but not all the way. It dragged behind the ship, half of it still out of the water.

  Argoth raced to the dreadman’s side. He acted as if he were going to hack through the tangle. Instead, he buried his hatchet in the man’s leg.

  The dreadman yelled out.

  Argoth pulled the hatchet out and kicked him overboard.

  Men raced up the stairs to the aftercastle.

  Then an explosion rocked the ship and the men racing up the stairs fell from the stairs or sprawled forward.

  Argoth brought the hatchet down with all his might, cutting the rope, and the boat fell to rest of the distance to the water.

  A man shouted blood-curdling intent behind him.

  Argoth turned and saw a dreadman charging him, sword held high. A large eye had been tattooed on his bare chest.

  Argoth brought up his hatchet and parried the blow, but the force of it knocked the hatchet out of Argoth’s hand.

  The dreadman brought his sword back.

  Argoth was no match for him, so he scuttled backward and over the edge of the stern. Then he was falling, watching the Ardent pull away and the dreadman looking on.

  Argoth pulled his broken arm to his chest to protect it, bracing himself, thinking he was going to land on the boat.

  But he did not land on the boat. He crashed heels over head into a shock of cold water and pain. He gasped in a lungful of water, rolled, then came to the surface choking.

  Argoth turned, looking for the boat. A wave lifted him. He spotted it, and began to sidestroke with all his might, holding his useless arm at his chest.

  The dreadman flashed down in the corner of his eye and splashed into the water.

  At the crest of the next swell, he looked back. The dreadman was swimming after him, gaining on him.

  Argoth swam with all his might. Two, four, eight strokes.

  He looked back. The dreadman was only a few yards behind.

  Another stroke and he touched the boat. Argoth reached up with his good hand, grasped the top wale, and swung his leg up.

  Then it was over the wale and onto one of the thwarts.

  He looked frantically about for a weapon. There was nothing but the length of rope that had attached the boat to the davit.

  The dreadman’s hand grasped the wale behind him.

  Argoth lunged for the rope where it lay under one of the thwarts.

  The dreadman pulled himself up.

  Argoth spun around, lunged at the man, and slipped a makeshift noose over his neck. He looped the rope about his body and heaved back.

  The rope tightened about the dreadman’s neck and pulled him into the boat.

  But Argoth knew that wouldn’t be enough. He turned, and before the dreadman could gain leverage to pull Argoth to him, Argoth took one bounding step and jumped off the side of the boat opposite the dreadman and into the water.

  He attempted to swim under the boat, but he came to the end of the rope.

  It wasn’t going to work. The dreadman would pull him back in. But no tug came, and Argoth burst to the surface. He tread water, fearing what would come, but nothing moved on the boat.

  The dreadman could be waiting in the boat, waiting for him to swing over.

  Men cried over the waves. They would see this boat and those that knew how to swim would soon reach it.

  Argoth steeled himself, then he reached up and pulled himself in.

  The dreadman lay across the thwarts, his neck broken, the water from his clothing dripping into the bilge.

  A good soldier, thought Argoth. A good soldier gone to waste.

  He unlooped the rope, pushed the body aside, then began to tie the tiller. He would not have enough time to erect the ship’s small mast and rig the sail. If he tied the tiller, he might, with one oar, row in a straight line away from the burning Ardent and her men.

  With the tiller tied, he looked back at the ship. The sails had caught fire-yards and yards of fire billowing in the evening sky.

  Then an enormous explosion cracked like thunder, shuddering the ship, throwing men, wood, and great gouts of fire up into the rigging and out to sea. One of the thrown men, his entire body aflame, snagged in the rigging and writhed there.

  Moments later a rain of fire began to fall to the sea, great infe
rnos and small drops, all of it streaking through the sky to burn atop the darkening sea.

  Another explosion tore the air. The force of the blast, even from this distance, almost knocked Argoth into the thwarts. It rent the ship, and she began to list.

  Argoth retrieved an oar, fitted it, and sat on the thwart. He was about to turn the boat to row directly away from the Ardent when a fierce wind kicked up about him. Sea spray stung his eyes.

  The skir wind.

  He crouched low in the boat, the wind whipping about him. Moments later a violent gust kicked the boat, knocking him into the wale. And then, as quickly as it had come, it departed with one final line, a spray that receded away toward the Ardent.

  Argoth’s fingers throbbed with pain. They were black, and where the outer charred skin had sloughed off, a bright pink. They didn’t hurt as much as he would have suspected, but that only meant the fire had burned all of his nerves. He might never feel in those fingers again.

  The splint about his broken arm hung loosely. He tightened it up as best he could with his burned hand. Then he set one oar in a lock, sat upon a thwart, and began to row, the red and green eye of the paddle dipping in and out of the water.

  He hadn’t gone very far when he heard the Master’s command in his mind. Come to me.

  “Nettle,” he said. “Serah. Serenity. Grace. Joy.” He began to repeat the names of his family members again like some murmured prayer, and the Skir Master’s compulsion eased.

  The Skir Master shouted in the back of his mind.

  But Argoth rowed on, the names covering that voice like a blanket.

  The ship burned brightly. Any ship within miles would be able to see it. His only hope was that they were nowhere near the other ships the Master had brought. His only hope was that the Master would die before they came.

  When he did, Argoth would feel it. For the thrall only had power when the Master was alive. When he died, so would the bond. Of course, he had read that the bond worked through a man like roots in the soil. So although the bond might die, the roots would remain, and it would take some time before all traces of the thrall were gone.

  Argoth wondered how many thralls the Master had. Dozens? A hundred? Surely, the inlay by the pulpit was some thrall. And how many of his slaves were skir? Certainly Shegom was one of them.