25
SMALL BATTLES
No war was ever won by those who stood guard. They were won by those who leapt into a fray, regardless of how slim the chances.
—Sir Borenson
Back on the open sea, one evening while Myrrima and the children were all in the galley eating dinner, Fallion sought out Smoker. He found the old fellow sitting at the forecastle, nursing the flames in his pipe.
Fallion bowed to him and said, “Sometimes, when a candle is sputtering, or Cook’s fire is guttering, I hear Fire whisper my name.”
Smoker nodded. He seemed to understand what Fallion was going through. “Fire will whisper, beg you surrender, give self to it. The big fire talk with loud voice, and strong pull.”
“What happens when you give yourself to it?” Fallion asked.
Smoker hesitated. “It share power with you. It fill you. But in time, it consume you. Must be care.”
Fallion considered this. It was said that anyone who gave himself to one of the greater powers eventually lost his humanity. Fallion’s father had done it, had traded his humanity in order to save mankind.
Fallion stared out to the open sea. Night was falling, but the sea was lit from beneath. Millions of luminous jellyfish stretched across the still water, making it look as if the sea were on fire.
“I understand,” Fallion said. “Will you teach me?”
Smoker hesitated, inhaled deeply from his pipe, and Fallion added, “Myrrima will be mad. I know. She’ll be mad at both of us. But I’m willing to take the risk.”
Smoker smiled. “I not fear her,” he said in his thick pidgin. His eyes suddenly blazed as if with an inner light. “But is danger if I teach you. And greater danger if I not teach … .”
And so it was understood, Fallion would become his pupil.
Smoker inhaled deeply, blew some smoke, sending it into the air, and said, “Little fire, easier to control. Smoke sometimes easier than fire. You try make shape.”
So Fallion began his lessons in stolen moments. Fallion tried turning the puffs of smoke into the forms of fish or seagulls. He tried envisioning shapes while whispering incantations; he tried to force the smoke with his mind. He tried to surrender his will. But hour after hour, Fallion found that he had no knack for it.
“It will come,” Smoker assured him. “Must make sacrifice to fire. Must burn something. But not enough wood on ship. We wait. Maybe make huge fire on island. We wait.”
So they just talked. Sometimes they talked about how to serve Fire, and Smoker told Fallion some of the secret powers that he had heard about. Some flameweavers became so adept at sensing heat that they learned to see it, as if their eyes suddenly became aware of new colors in the spectrum. “We all flaming creatures,” Smoker assured Fallion, “if we had eyes to see.”
Fallion learned much in these conversations, but just as often he found that the lessons came as a complete surprise during the course of normal conversations. So it was that he came to what he thought was rather esoteric. “Why are children born now different from those born before the war?”
Fallion hadn’t expected an answer, but Smoker leaned back, pulling a long drag on his pipe. “The world was no balance,” he said at last, the smoke issuing from his mouth. “Now, great harmony coming.”
“How did it get out of balance?” Fallion wondered aloud.
“One True Master of Evil sought make it her own. That problem. The One World, the Great Tree, even One True Master of Evil—all shattered. All broken and twisted.”
Fallion knew the legends. He’d learned them from Waggit and others. But he’d never considered that he was living in a time of legends. “But why is our world changing now?”
Smoker shook his head, as if to say, “Some things even wizards didn’t know.” But then he drew long on his pipe, and eventually, when the coals were burning hot, it seemed that his eyes glowed with inspiration and he said, “Someone fixing world.”
“Right now?” Fallion asked. “Someone is fixing it? How do you know?” Everyone knew that the world had changed when his father defeated the reavers. But few seemed to notice that it was changing still.
“Many powers found in Fire. Not all destroy.” Smoker exhaled, and Fallion struggled to make something from the smoke that had formed. Smoker continued. “Light. Is great power in light …” Smoker took some puffs on his pipe, until the bowl glowed brightly. “All world is shadow, is illusion. Land, trees, grass, sky. But light pierces shadow, shows us the real.”
“So can it teach us new things?”
“Sometimes,” Smoker admitted, “like now. Fire whisper, ‘There is wizard at heart of world.’ That how I know someone changes it. Sometimes, light shows things far away, future. But mostly … it make sense of things. It pierce illusion. Watch.”
This is what Fallion wanted most right now in his life—understanding. He felt as if everything around him was hidden. There were loci on the ship. Smoker had told him so. But neither of them knew where. Was one in Captain Stalker? Fallion liked the man, but he didn’t trust him completely. Maybe that’s what a locus would want—for Fallion to like it. But Fallion wanted to pierce through the illusions, to see into men’s hearts, and so he eagerly drew near.
Smoker stoked the fire in his pipe, and together they peered into the bowl for a long time, watched the embers grow yellow, then orange, then develop a black crust while worms of fire seemed to eat through them.
“In light is understanding. You, you creature of light, so you drawn to Fire. But why you not touch Fire, use Fire, let it touch you?”
Fallion shook his head, wondering, wishing to know how he could unlock the powers that lay within him.
I’m afraid, he admitted to himself. I’m afraid that I’ll get hurt.
Suddenly the bowl of the pipe blazed all on its own.
“You keep light hidden,” Smoker said, “deep inside. You not let it out. But when fear is gone, when desire blaze like this bowl, you become one with fire.”
“How do you blaze?” Fallion asked.
“Many ways,” Smoker said. “Passion. Love, despair, hope. All desires can lead you to power. Rage. Rage is easiest. Let rage build. Must rage like inferno. That release fire in you.”
Fallion considered. A seagull cried out on the sea.
He must be lost, Fallion thought.
They were days out from port.
“Is that how immolators do it?” Fallion asked. “They let the rage in them burn?” Fallion imagined himself at the height of power, saw himself drawing light from the heavens, channeling it down into fiery ropes, until he too burst into flame, clothing himself in an inferno and walking unscathed, like the flameweavers of legend.
Smoker gave him a sidelong glance, as if he had asked the wrong question. “Yes,” he said. “But you not want be immolator.”
“Why?”
“Because, Fallion, is easy throw life away. Living, that hard.”
“But immolators don’t die.”
“Not live, either. When fire take them, when burst to flame, flameweaver’s flesh remains, but soul does not. His humanity turn to ashes. His heart goes to other.
“Must take care,” Smoker urged. “Fire whisper to you, beg you to give self. But once is done, cannot undo. You be dead, and Fire will walk in your flesh.”
“Have you ever immolated?” Fallion asked.
Smoker shook his head. “No.”
“Then how do you know that you can?”
“Power is there, always whisper. I know I can do. Fallion, immolation is easy. When rage take you, is not become fire that is hard.”
For long hours, Fallion had struggled to find any vestige of power. He’d tried shaping the smoke with his mind, imagining fish swimming through the air. He’d even tried pleading with Fire, seeking acceptance.
Now he peered over his shoulder, as if Myrrima might come walking the deck any moment.
And Fallion surrendered to rage. He thought about the past weeks, about how the strengi-sa
ats had attacked Rhianna, about the fresh loss he’d felt over the death of a father that he hardly knew, about his terrifying flight from Asgaroth, his mother lying cold beside the fire, and last of all he imagined Humfrey the ferrin, broken and twisted like a rag.
The rage built as he considered the unfairness of it all. It became a hot coal in his chest, fierce and wild, tightening his jaw.
“Now shine,” Smoker said, exhaling, sending tenuous threads of blue smoke issuing from his nostrils. Fallion did not try to shape it, didn’t try to imagine anything.
He just let his rage release, like a light that burst from his chest.
A strengi-saat took shape in the smoke and floated up into the air, soaring, its visage cruel as its jaws gaped.
Smoker looked at Fallion with pride and gave a satisfied grunt.
Just then, at the back of the ship, Myrrima called.
Fallion whirled, caught a partial glimpse of her between the ropes and pulleys on deck.
Immediately he ducked, crawled over the forecastle, and went walking down the far side of the ship.
That night as Fallion slept, Myrrima told her husband, “We’ve got to put a stop to this. Fallion’s running with the crew, thick as a pack of wolves. And tonight I saw him with Smoker.”
Borenson lay beside her on blankets that had been washed in seawater earlier that day, and so smelled of salt. “Fallion’s a good boy,” he said with a sigh.
“He’s being drawn to evil,” Myrrima argued. “The Fire is pulling at him.”
“We can’t hold him back,” Borenson said. “We can’t keep him from gaining his powers.”
“He’s not old enough to choose wisely,” Myrrima objected. “Fire draws to its adherents more than any other power. It seeks to consume them. I think we should talk to him.”
“If we try to hold him back,” Borenson said, “he’ll think that what he’s doing is shameful.”
“Maybe it is,” Myrrima said.
From the cabin door came a soft clapping. It was late, and Borenson lay there for a moment wondering who could be calling when everyone else was asleep. Finally, he pulled on his tunic and opened the door.
Smoker stood outside in the shadows, a single candle in his hand, his eyes reflecting the light from it with unnatural intensity.
“Must speak with you and wife,” he said.
Myrrima was already throwing a blanket over her, wrapping it around her like a cape. She crept up behind Borenson, put a hand on his shoulder, and peered over.
Smoker said one word, “Asgaroth.”
“What?” Myrrima asked.
“Shadow hunts Fallion. Asgaroth is name of shadow. Fire told me. Is near.”
“On the ship?” Myrrima asked. She looked out the door. The other refugees in the hold were all abed. The animals slept. No one seemed interested in eavesdropping.
Smoker nodded. “Yes.”
“Where? In whom?”
“Not sure. More than one shadow on ship. Two, maybe three. I feel them. Not know where. They hide.”
Myrrima peered at the pale old man, the wrinkles of his face, and wondered. More than one locus was on the ship?
Myrrima had worried about this for days. Her water magic was strong in healing power and in protection; each morning she had been washing the children, drawing runes of warding upon them, just in case.
“Your magic help protect boy,” Smoker said. “But Fallion need more. He must fight. You know, I know. Day will come when must fight. My magic strong in battle, but is also danger. You know. You feel urge to surrender to your master. Fallion feel, too, thousand times stronger.”
Instinctively Myrrima had distrusted this man, but now he was proposing a truce. They had something in common; they both cared about Fallion.
“I don’t want him to lose himself,” she said. “He needs to understand the dangers.”
Smoker closed his eyes and bowed slightly, a sign of agreement. “Power seductive; come with price.”
“We both know that it doesn’t just come with a price,” Myrrima said. “Fire consumes those who serve it—just as it is eating at you. You cannot bear to be away from it. You smoke your pipe and take your dying slow. But you’re like a fly caught in a spider’s net, and there is no escape for you. You will be consumed.”
Smoker nodded, closing his eyes in resignation. “Still, is power he will need. Fallion very strong. You know: he very good, but dangerous. We both must watch him.”
26
ROUGH WATERS
Hope is the father of all virtues. Crush a man’s hope, and you will sever him from the source of all decency.
—Shadoath
At eight weeks, the coasts could not be spotted and Fallion was informed by the far-seer in the crow’s nest that they were in the realm “Beyond Inkarra.”
Inkarra had always been the edge of the world to Fallion. It was a loose conglomeration of kingdoms all inhabited by folks with white skin, who worked and hunted by night. It was a forbidden realm, and no one who ventured beyond its borders came back alive.
Fallion and Jaz were ecstatic. They were sailing into the realms of legend, through the Atolls, following a string of volcanic islands to the Mariners, and then on to the far side of the world.
Stalker bent over his charts one morning, considering his course, when Fallion saw the worry in his face and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“This is our course,” Stalker said, “right here through the Mariners. We’re supposed to stop at Talamok. I’ve got goods to unload.”
“Is there some danger?”
Stalker was slow to answer. He’d been trying to reach a decision. He looked at Fallion evenly. “Pirates,” Stalker said. “I think I’ll sail around it, strike for open sea. We’ve got enough food and water to get us ’ere, I think, if the wind ’olds.” He pointed at a small island on the charts, a place called Byteen. “It’s an unin’abited island. The crew can scurry out and gather fruit, maybe even ’unt pigs. How would you like that, eh? ’Unt some wild pigs?”
Ever since his childhood incident with the boar, Fallion had been terrified of pigs. But these island pigs wouldn’t be near as large as the ones in Heredon.
Stalker muttered, “Course, we might ’ave to fight some sea apes for the food.”
Sea apes often lived among the Mariners, swimming from island to island to gather fish and fruit. Sometimes, whole rafts of them would swim together, hundreds of them with locked arms, forming floating islands.
“Why not go to one of the other islands?” Fallion asked. There were dozens to choose from, maybe even hundreds, including at least one called Syndyllian that was two hundred miles across and showed three ports.
“Shadoath controls them islands.”
Fallion stood for a moment, unnerved. He’d heard that name before. “Shadoath is a pirate?” Fallion probed.
“You ’eard of ’er?” Stalker asked.
“I heard her name, once or twice,” Fallion admitted. “Who is she?”
Stalker wondered. The boy didn’t even seem to know that she had put a price on his head, much less that Stalker had just been worrying about whether he should accept her price. To do anything else was foolish.
“She’s a pirate lord,” Stalker said. “A bad one, a powerful Runelord. A man that’s taken endowments out ’ere is rarer than a two-’eaded goat. Blood metal is ’ard to come by, and we got this saying: ‘’Im what’s got a handful of endowments can rule the sea.’ She’s got more than a ’andful, she ’as.
“She came out of nowhere just a few years back, ’bout the time you were born, and built a fortress down ’ere in Derrabee.” He pointed to a large island. “It wasn’t long a’fore she got a few ships, took control of the Mariners.” He waved, indicating the entire chain of islands.
“Can’t anyone stop her?” Fallion asked.
“The only folks that care is them that lives in Landesfallen, and there aren’t many of us. Maybe a dozen traders ply the waters these days. Landesfallen ’asn’t go
t a real navy.”
There was a look of such hurt on Stalker’s face that Fallion dared not ask about the battles he’d fought. Fallion could see that Shadoath had beaten him.
“I pay protection money to ’er now. She lets the Leviathan pass. But sometimes she boards us. That black ship that’s been followin’ us? That’s one of ’ers.”
For the first time in weeks Fallion felt truly unnerved. Shadoath was Asgaroth’s master. They hunted together. Like wolves, his mother had said. Like wolves.
Shadoath is ahead of us, Fallion realized. And Asgaroth came out of the west, chasing me toward the edge of the world—into Shadoath’s path.
Stalker was right to mistrust the course ahead. His plan sounded good—sail around the islands, keep as much distance as he could.
For his part, Stalker looked at Fallion and realized that he could not turn the boy over, no matter what the reward. Stalker had grown too close to Fallion in the past few weeks. He was a good lad—smart, capable. He had become like one of the sons that he should have had.
I’ll die before I let her have him, Stalker told himself. Besides, the crew sees him as one of us, now. They’d probably mutiny if I sold him off.
Fallion peered at the map, eyeing it distrustfully. Stalker’s plan gave him some comfort. Yet Fallion felt a strange certainty in his gut. It was his destiny to meet Shadoath.
The ends of the Earth are not far enough.
Fallion went to his cabin and spent the morning honing his blade.
The winds didn’t hold. Stalker sailed north, trying to bypass the Mariners, but for the next two weeks the sails were slack, and it would take a good storm to drive the ship past the islands.
It was late in the hurricane season, and Stalker had dared hope that he’d not see one this year.
But the sails went slack altogether one morning, and the sea ape Unkannunk began to roar and slam his huge club against the deck, pounding and pounding in a fit of madness. Stalker came out of his cabin and found himself staring at a sunrise that struck fear into his belly.
Sons of the Oak Page 23