by J. S. Morin
Please let us be at sea, and not over a port. Please Tansha, this is the last thing I'll ask, just please let us be over water!
They hit with a splash and an impact that drove Juliana against the deck. As soon as the worst of the subsequent bobbing stopped, she unbuckled the captain's harness and dove over the side.
She plunged into what she could only guess was the Katamic Sea. She could fathom no reason why Kyrus would not have brought them straight to Brannis and Soria, other than him being unable to. The surface of the water marked the border crossing into a world of darkness. Juliana switched to aether and spotted Kyrus immediately. She was a passable swimmer, not prone to frequent diving rescues, but neither was Kyrus particularly difficult to tow to the surface once he was found. Even a small tug of aether went a long way to achieving buoyancy.
They broke the surface, Juliana gasping for air, Kyrus sputtering and coughing out water. Either the plunge or the impact with the water had awakened him.
"Kyrus!" Juliana shouted. "We made it!" She hugged him, still treading water.
"Wonderful," Kyrus replied. He coughed and tried to point. "Now let's ... stop the ... sinking!"
Juliana turned. The Starlit Marauder was never built to float. Fashioned in the shape of a ship's hull, it had arrow slits and landing ramps that were not quite sealed to shipwrights' standards. It was filling with water, and the Katamic was threatening to take it from them.
The ship listed to one side, dipping a railing into the water. Juliana swam to it and climbed aboard.
"Come on, hurry," she shouted back to Kyrus, who was either the worst swimmer a fishing town had ever produced, or was just too exhausted to move more quickly.
"... right there," Kyrus muttered, just loudly enough that Juliana could make out the last bit.
She helped drag the weary sorcerer aboard, and boosted him onto a deck that was nearer to being a wall than a floor as they sank. Kyrus grabbed the edge of the stairway to the hold and climbed into the bowels of the ship.
Juliana balanced on the ship's rail as it drifted below the water's surface, and leapt to catch the ship's wheel. Unlike on most ships, the Starlit Marauder's wheel was fixed in place. She used it to climb up, and struggled into the harness.
The ship hummed and throbbed, but slowly began to obey her commands. The Starlit Marauder lifted out of the Katamic, pouring water like a decorative fountain better suited to palace courtyards than to the sea.
"Kyrus! We made it!" Juliana cheered.
There was no response from below.
"Kyrus?" she called down. "Kyrus!" she shouted into the runes that bellowed her voice into the hold.
* * * * * * * *
Brannis stirred. "He's fine. Just let him rest ... bring him here."
Soria nodded her head in reply, though Brannis's eyes remained closed.
* * * * * * * *
Kyrus awakened to a kiss. He put his arms around Juliana before even fully waking, pulling her close.
"Time enough for that later, lay-abed," Juliana said, pushing free of him. "We're here."
Kyrus looked around. He was lying in the corridor of the Starlit Marauder, soaking in nearly a hand's depth of water. He sat up, sopping wet clothes clinging to him, along with the overpowering scent of saltwater musk. He took Juliana's offered hand, and she helped him to his feet.
"How long—"
"It's nearly daybreak," Juliana answered before he could finish. "Move!"
Kyrus hurried as best he could. It was a strange feeling, like traveling in time. With Brannis asleep, his mind had gone blank. It had seemed just a moment ago that he had—
Wait, is Brannis asleep? A cold fear settled within Kyrus, unrelated to the wind or his wet clothing. He tried to relax and see through Brannis's eyes, but either the relaxation or Brannis's mind eluded him. He closed his eyes, but Tellurak had too much ambient aether for him to see the thread that tied him to Brannis.
Kyrus's foot caught something his aether-vision did not see, and he stumbled. Juliana's arm around him was the only thing that kept him from falling face first onto floor.
"Watch where you're going," Juliana scolded.
Kyrus followed her down the ramp, and onto the rocky bank of a stream. His eyes seemed to have been cast afar. He saw himself lying on his back, eyes closed, draped under Soria's tunic. Soria he recognized, but with Juliana's arm wrapped about his shoulders, it was hard to reconcile her presence. Soria was wearing just her chest wrap, despite the coolness of the lingering night air. She stared at them with disbelieving eyes.
"How am I ... is he?" Kyrus asked.
"Not good. He's barely breathing," Soria replied.
"This is weird," Juliana whispered.
"I know," Soria replied, though she could not possibly have overheard. "Just do this, quickly.”
Kyrus stumbled along the rocks, trying to make it on his own, but having to rely on Juliana instead. When they finally reached Brannis and Soria, Kyrus collapsed to his knees next to his twin.
"No, not much of a Source at all, is it?" Soria asked, watching him look Brannis over.
"No, maybe not, but it's all the Source we need."
Kyrus took Brannis's hand in both of his. It was crusted with dried blood, and a bit larger than his own, calloused and thickened by rigorous use. Is this murder? Is this suicide? Is it something completely unique? Kyrus contemplated his charted course. If it works, what then? He had not stopped to think about tomorrow—or aftermorrow—the quest so consumed his 'today' that it seemed presumptuous to consider beyond it. He turned to look at Soria and Juliana, eyeing one another with childlike perplexity, as if seeing a mirror or their reflections in the water for the first time.
Two of them? Kyrus shook his head ever so slightly, lest they notice it. It will be worse than Tippu and Kahli vying for my attentions. And yet, in forty or fifty years, they will be old ladies, and I'll still be as young as ever.
Brannis winced in pain, and gasped for breath. Kyrus felt a sympathetic pang of his own. I did not come all this way to let Brannis die.
He placed a hand on Brannis's chest.
He drew.
Brannis cried out, a brief, strangled yelp, and convulsed. After that, he was still.
Kyrus felt the weakened whiff of a Source wrap around among his like a cloak. It fitted in, tucked around, and blended together, as if it was always meant to be there.
"Brannis!" Soria and Juliana cried out in unison. They each turned to look at the other at the same moment, crinkling their noses in the same little frown.
"I'm fine," Kyrus said. Am I?
"What about Brannis though?" Soria and Juliana demanded. They exchanged a mirrored glare.
"I said I'm ... fine," Kyrus replied.
A quick exchange of looks and glares passed between Juliana and her twin.
Juliana was the one who spoke. "Then what about Kyrus?"
"I'm right ... here," Kyrus said. Brannis said? Perhaps both said.
"I see," Juliana and Soria replied.
"I guess you were more right than you even realized, Soria, when you said you and Juliana were one in the same," Kyrus said.
"How do you feel?" Soria asked.
"You don't look tired any longer," Juliana added. The two looked at one another and gave identical, satisfied nods.
"I feel fresh, new, reborn. I think I need a new age-day. Can you see my Source in the aether?"
"No," they both replied.
"You two need to figure out a system," Kyrus said. "That's going to get annoying."
Soria and Juliana got wicked gleams in their eyes. They turned toward one another. Kyrus felt the aether snap toward them, two points of attraction, vying for supremacy.
"A draw, really? Is that any way to settle the whole talking privilege thing?" Kyrus asked, exasperated at the juvenile display.
The two sorceresses, Tezuan Sun and Sixth Circle, ignored him. Kyrus stepped back, waiting for them to play out their foolishness, and resisted the urge to stop them
. He watched the contest. Their draws were more evenly matched than their Sources would have suggested. It seemed a matter they were determined to settle for themselves, but Kyrus began to wonder if perhaps he ought to be acting as judge.
"Hold," Kyrus called, since force of draw seemed not decisive enough to end the contest. Both of them ignored him. "Hold, I said." They continued to draw. "Blast it, hold, both of you."
Soria collapsed. Kyrus caught her with magic before she fell onto the rocks and smashed her skull. But then he noticed: Juliana's Source sealed itself closed with the stolen aether from Soria's.
"What did you do?" Kyrus shouted, aghast. "You murdered Soria!"
"You just murdered Brannis, then," Juliana replied.
"No, I saved him. He was dying. Soria was—"
"Dying too. Just a lot slower. You think I was going to let you wander off into eternity alone? You'd get bored."
"But—"
"You had your plan. I had mine," Juliana said. "I didn't want you trying to become an immortal because I thought it meant I'd lose you. As soon as I realized I could join you, I knew I had to try."
Kyrus turned away from the bodies. "I can't even look at them."
"Us," Juliana corrected.
"I remember everything, right up until I tugged my own Source loose," Kyrus said. "Then I stopped feeling the pain in my gut, the little aches and hurts from combat. I can't tell where Brannis ends and Kyrus begins."
"I never used to worry about the difference, and I'm not going to start now."
Kyrus looked down to where Brannis lay. "I know what you mean. I wish I could have ended up in that body instead. It's a fair sight more useful than this one."
"So what? We're immortals. Do you think Illiardra or Rashan kept the bodies they were born with?"
"This doesn't mean I'm going to turn out like Rashan."
"I never believed that you would."
"Tallax either," Kyrus said. "I'm done meddling in kingdoms. I'm not going to be the constable, judge, and jailor for the world. I don't even know that I could find my way back to Veydrus."
"Why not?"
"I followed the link between Kyrus and Brannis," Kyrus said, still unsure which would have been 'I,' had he used just one of the names.
"You could find it an easy thing to rule Tellurak," Juliana teased, but Kyrus shook his head.
"No. There's no rush to decide. We need time to think, time to sort out our affairs. So many things awry left to put right—" Kyrus's eyes widened. "Abbiley and Tomas ..."
"They probably saw the ship," Juliana mused. "No point in making us all walk to a port now."
"We can't possibly show them—"
"Why not?" Juliana asked. "What are you afraid of? That no one will believe them? Another witch trial? I think we're pretty well done with worrying about things."
* * * * * * * *
Abbiley gawked up at the Starlit Marauder, walking in a dream. Tomas was only slightly less overwhelmed. They concocted a convenient lie to cover Rakashi's betrayal and death, which Tomas and Abbiley swallowed whole, along with hook and line, in light of the wonders before them. That Kyrus looked thinner in his armor than Brannis looked without it passed without comment. Juliana's daggers might well have been broadswords instead of dragon teeth for all the notice the Acardian took.
"I knew magic was real," Tomas said in a breathless whisper, "but not this real."
"This is wonderful," Abbiley said. "We're going flying on a ship?"
"Indeed," Kyrus confirmed. "Come on. Time to take you home."
Chapter 36 - To Whom It May Concern
A breeze lazed over a sheltered cove, bragging of the places it had been; it held the scent of spices from Feru Maru, and the silks and gold of Khesh. Traces of Acardian ale and Takalish black powder mixed in among even subtler aromas of wheat fields and wildflowers. A bloodhound might have picked out such nuance, but to the sailors of the Fair Trader, it stank of nothing but fish and salt.
The cove was little more than a divot in a misshapen piece of rock that jutted into the Katamic. It was unnamed and marked on maps only as a hazard. Its barren crags were too steep even to land a boat on. Its only redeeming features were shelter from view on three sides, and a draft deep enough to anchor safely.
Denrik Zayne stood on the quarterdeck, hands clasped behind his back, staring out over the Katamic. It was their third—and last—day of waiting. Before the sun set and made the leaving treacherous, they would be on their way once more, to stalk the trade lanes and take their plunder where they found it. Come the first of Hearthwatch they would take respite in another hideaway, enact repairs, and wait once more for the Merciful to find them.
Denrik's days passed slowly of late, but his nights were gone in the closing of his eyes and the opening of them again. Sleep took him, and it seemed morning came instantly. He had not been aware of Jinzan for a long while, neither seeing his exploits nor remembering them after the fact. Last he remembered, he was sitting in a dank, moldy crypt, reading volumes on necromancy left by Loramar. After that, things grew hazy, then non-existent.
"Ship on the horizon!" the lookout called down from the crow's nest. Denrik's eyes had grown old. Though he stared out at that same horizon, he saw nothing, nor did he acknowledge the lookout.
The sky was like an overfilled tankard, a tarnished pewter grey, likely to spill at any moment. Denrik wondered which would arrive first—the ship or the storm.
"Mr. Holyoake, prepare one of the guns. Fire a shot," Denrik ordered.
"Aye, Cap'n," Holyoake replied smartly. Denrik heard his mate disappear belowdecks, and start bellowing orders of his own.
Kthooom.
Denrik felt the familiar old jolt through the decks as the cannon fired. On even the best of days, only the sharpest and luckiest of eyes catch sight of a cannonball in flight. Denrik saw nothing of their shot until it splashed in the water, well clear of the approaching vessel.
Denrik waited.
Kthooom. Kthooom. Kthooom. Kthooom.
By the sound, every gun on the approaching ship had fired at once. Denrik smiled, the first genuine smile he could recall since ... he could not recall that either. He shook his head at his friend Stalyart's wasteful and dramatic style.
When the Merciful finally pulled alongside the Fair Trader, Stalyart was the first across, leaping the gap between ships even before the gangplanks had been laid across.
"Captain Zayne!" Stalyart exclaimed, loud enough that the crews of both ships could hear. "We have the best of newses for you!" He swept his arm to the deck of his ship, and Denrik saw a slip of a boy standing among the ruffians. He was the very image of Anzik, allowing for a shorter cut of hair and a gallon or so less meat on him.
"His name?" Denrik muttered through closed lips.
"Jadon, Captain," Stalyart replied, leaning close.
"Welcome aboard, Jadon," Denrik called across to his son.
The boy said nothing, which gave Denrik not the least cause for surprise. Jadon seemed to understand, at least, what was expected of him. He stood at the end of the gangplank, peering down into the dark waters below.
"Come on," a grating voice interjected. "I've got ya."
Tanner scooped the boy up and set him on a shoulder. He crossed the gangplank with Jadon riding a hero's salute. Crews from both ships cheered. Tanner slid the boy down from his shoulder right in front of Denrik.
"Hullo, Father," Jadon said, looking up at him with a neutral expression. It was an improvement over the utterly blank one he was accustomed to seeing on Anzik's face.
"You know who I am, then?" Denrik asked. He gave the boy a shrewd look. A child twinborn was an iffy thing. He needed to know how well the boy understood what the worlds really were.
"Of course, Councilor," Jadon said. "Sorry. Captain, I mean." The boy gave him a wink that looked like he had caught a fly in his eye.
"Let us adjourn to my cabin," Denrik said quietly. To the rest of the crew he shouted: "Break out the rum!" A cheer went
up from both ships, and the four of them slipped quietly to the captain's quarters.
The door closed behind them. "Mr. Tanner," Denrik said, "you have far exceeded my dismal expectations of you."
"This mean you're gonna make good?" Tanner asked.
"Of course. A pirate's word needs to carry weight. Then again, we never agreed on a price ..."
"Tanner was most helpful," Stalyart vouched. "We could not have been successful without his clever plans."
"How clever were they?" Denrik asked. He pulled a chair out and got Jadon to sit in it.
"I had Anzik help us out," Tanner replied. "He was a spy right with 'em. My folk, the rotter of a magican and my best lad, weren't talking about it Veydrus side. I went sideways 'round 'em." Tanner leaned his chair back against the wall and smirked.
"What became of the kidnappers?"
Tanners smirk dissolved. "Ain't no more, at least on this side."
"We had intended to spare the life of Tanner's friend, but our rescue became a test of swords in the dark," Stalyart said, hands spread wide. "I prevailed. The magician used real magic to disappear, but Tanner saw his footprints in the snow and shot him as he ran."
"Snow? How far north had you gone?" Denrik asked.
"Hey, time for tales later," Tanner interrupted. "I know what I want for payment."
Denrik set his jaw, prepared to hear whatever outrageous demand the coinblade made before deciding to gut him and toss him overboard.
"I want a ship," Tanner said, "and a crew."
Denrik burst out laughing. "After all your bellyaching, you have decided to go into piracy after all?"
"Nah, I don't want a fancy ship like this. I want something built for cargo," Tanner explained. "And I want that ship off limits to you and any pirate who pays his tributes to you. I think I've about worn out the coinblade path; the grass is gone and the ruts are about knee deep. I've got coin enough now, I think, that it's cheaper buying more coin than it is working for it."
"Hah," Denrik replied. "You, a merchant!"
Tanner nodded.