Souldrifter

by Garrett Calcaterra

  A bowl of food had been prepared for her, she saw. It sat in a recess in the table carved especially for keeping the bowl from sliding around, and next to it, in a similar recess, was a tin cup filled with water. Just seeing the simple plate of hard bread, cheese, and pickled anchovies made Makarria realize how hungry she was. Cleaning her wounds could wait, she decided.

  She sat in the chair, also secured fastly in place to the floor, and began devouring the food, oblivious to the floor beneath her swaying with the ocean swells. She didn’t normally care for anchovies, but she found she couldn’t get enough of them now. It was Lorentz’s body that craved the fish, she realized, and gave it no more thought. When the food was all gone, she gulped down the entire mug of water.

  Feeling more alive, she pushed herself to her feet and found the floor beneath her was rocking more violently than before. Ambassador Mahalath mentioned she would be sailing into a storm, she recalled, taking stock of the sick bay. The cabin was sparsely furnished, with only the small round table and two chairs, four hammocks—two along the back wall, and two along the side wall—and a large chest and wooden bench along the other side wall. Makarria went to the chest and opened the lid. It was dim in the room, but she could make out inside the chest a collection of operating knives and bone saws, a pile of clean bandages and ties, and a corked bottle. She grabbed the bottle and a wad of clean bandages and sat herself onto the bench. The cabin was rocking more wildly now, and through the walls she could hear the shouts of sailors, whistling wind, and the prow crashing through waves.

  She uncorked the bottle and gave it a sniff, instantly regretting sticking her nose in too close. It was no herbal elixir, but distilled alcohol, pungent and vaporous. With a grimace, she recorked the bottle and began unwinding the bandage from her head. The alcohol would burn like fire in her wounds, but she had little choice if she wanted to stay the infection. The last several windings of her bandage were stuck to her scalp, and broke free of the scabbing wounds begrudgingly. Makarria felt the first twinges of nausea returning, but forced herself to breathe deeply and relax.

  Again, she uncorked the bottle, this time keeping it well away from her face while she soaked one of the clean bandages. She took a deep breath again and then wiped the mess away from the first wound on her head. The pain was excruciating, but she refused to let herself waver. By the time she scraped away all the gunk from the first of the wounds, her body was shaking and covered in rivulets of sweat. Undeterred, she grabbed a new rag, soaked it in the alcohol and went to work on the second hole. Meanwhile, she could feel fresh blood trickling down her scalp from the first wound. Good, she consoled herself. The bleeding will flush out the infection.

  When she finished cleaning the second wound, she moved onto the third, her hands shaking so much now she no longer noticed the ship careening beneath her. The fourth wound was the worst of them all, the one at the back of her head above her right ear. When she touched it with the alcohol-soaked cloth, she could feel something squish out and was assaulted by a rotten odor that made her gag. I have to get the infection out, she thought, and willed herself to press harder on the wound, yet when she did so she blacked out and collapsed onto the bench.

  She came to a few moments later, lying on the floor in a puddle of her own vomit and the residue of the broken alcohol bottle she had inadvertently knocked over. I knew I shouldn’t have eaten all those anchovies, she reflected, but found little humor in the thought. Her head was throbbing even worse than before and she was overcome with the sudden realization she was going to die. The bone saws and knives might work well enough for an arm or leg with gangrene, but there was no salvation in amputating her head. Oddly, the thought of dying didn’t disturb her as much as she thought it might. I died the moment the body thief took my body away. I just didn’t want to believe it.

  Resigned to this thought, she pushed herself to her feet and exited the sick bay into a narrow passage, her legs weak and wobbling beneath her. The entire ship was creaking now under the strain of the ocean swells, and Makarria had to keep her hands on the passage walls to keep herself upright. It was dark, but she felt her way to the wooden stepladder that led up out of the hold. The hatch at the top was closed, but seawater was trickling down the ladder nonetheless. If I’m going to die, at least it will be in the ocean air, she told herself. That’s the way my grampy wanted to go. She climbed the steps and turned the lever lock on the hatch above her, only to have the lever ripped out of her hands as the howling wind wrenched the hatch open to slam on the deck above her. A gout of water rained down through the opening and the roar of the wind and waves outside was nearly deafening.

  The violence of the wind sent a rush of energy through her, and Makarria scrambled the rest of the way out of the hold only to be thrown to the deck as the ship careened suddenly to the portside.

  “Batten down that hatch!” a sailor yelled, and Makarria realized the man was yelling at her.

  Makarria snapped to order, and grabbed the edge of the hatch. She lifted it easily enough, but a sudden gust of wind slammed it back into her legs and sent her sprawling again. What little energy she’d had a moment before drained out of her, and she was overcome by the pain in her head.

  “Hurry,” the sailor yelled at her again. “You’ll sink us, you damn fool.”

  Makarria willed herself to her feet, got her legs firmly beneath her this time, and used what little strength she had left to pick up the hatch and drive it through the face of the wind into its resting place. She collapsed on top of it and turned the lever tight not a second too soon, for another wave washed over the deck. Only her handhold on the lever kept her from getting washed overboard.

  “Here!” a sailor near her shouted, and a length of rope hit her on the face.

  She grabbed the rope and lurched to her feet to see the sailor had given her a lifeline that was tied off to the mainmast. Makarria wrapped it three times around her waist, then knotted it, just the way Siegbjorn had shown her on his airship. Now secure, she clamored up the steeply sloped deck to the starboard rail and grabbed hold as best she could alongside the sailor who had thrown her the rope.

  “You’re no sailor, are you?” the man asked. He was staring at the open wounds on her head, probably at her missing teeth too, but he was polite enough to say nothing.

  “Not exactly,” she said, taking a moment to finally take in her surroundings. She was on a massive carrack, she saw. The main sail had been furled, but the square sail of the foremast still billowed in the wind, as well as the lateen sail of the mizzenmast. They were tacking, she saw, which was why they were heeling so much to the portside. All around the ship, sailors were clinging onto rails or ropes to keep from getting blown or washed overboard. The sea was turbulent, with waves nearing twenty feet high, and above them the sky was near black. Makarria’s first thought was it was night still, but in the far distance to their stern—to the west—she could see a lighter patch of gray clouds indicating the sun. It was evening, she realized, which meant she’d slept the entire day through. Or two days, which would explain why she’d been so ravenous and how her wounds had become so infected. Even more disconcerting than the time she had lost was the storm before them, a shroud of clouds dark as night, with the very real darkness of night looming no more than an hour away.

  Makarria caught a glimpse to their portside of what she thought was a whitecap at first, but when she looked again she realized it was a ship sail in the distance. And the more she looked, the more ships she saw, bobbing up and down on the waves, coming in and out of view, looking to be little more than toys among the massive waves.

  “How many ships are out there?” Makarria hollered at the sailor beside her.

  The man shrugged. “We started with forty, but I saw Windrunner lose her mainmast as soon as the storm hit. If we lost her, we’ve no doubt lost more.”

  Anger welled up in Makarria. These sailors had no business being trapped in this storm. Had Senator Emil sent them off to aid the Old World ar
mada or to die in this storm? Either way, he wins, she realized, and that made her even angrier.

  “We have to turn around,” Makarria yelled. “This is suicide.”

  The man laughed, a short, humorless snort. “Too late for that, land lubber. Even if we didn’t have Old World sorcerers in command, we couldn’t turn back now. We’re in the thick of the storm. We come about and we’ll be going against the current and the wind. All we can do is call upon the Five to save us. We get past Pyr Point and could be we ride it out.” The sailor shrugged. “If not, we drown.”

  Makarria glanced from the man back out over the stormy sea. The Five are all dead and gone, and they were nothing more than sorcerers. Not even Vala herself, mightiest stormbringer the world has ever seen, could help us in this storm. This is the work of their goddess, Tel Mathir. The earth is showing us how insignificant we are against her might.

  It had been a long time since Makarria had thought about Tel Mathir. The Five had been followers. Talitha was also a follower, and she had taught Makarria a little about the link between magic and nature, and how the both of them were an outgrowth of Tel Mathir. But that had been more than a year ago, and their time together had been brief. Talitha told me I had a unique gift to see the true nature of things as a dreamwielder, that my magic was a gift from Tel Mathir meant to give life and create, not destroy. If only I had my own body back, maybe I could save these men from the storm. She imagined a giant wave around the ships, shielding them from the wind like a massive wall. With such a wave, she could push the ships back to the safety of the harbor in Sol Valaróz. She remembered watching dolphins ride the waves into the shallows around Spearpoint Rock when she was younger, and how much fun it looked. If only I was myself, I could make a big slow wave for us to ride all the way into Sol Valaróz.

  The sudden shouts and cursing of the crew around her snapped Makarria out of her daydream. Her eyes had been closed, she realized. She blinked them open and followed the terrified stares of the ship crew off to their starboard side. In the far distance, a giant wave had begun to form, towering up into the sky higher even than the storm swells, but as Makarria watched, it began to dissolve now into the smaller waves around it. That was my wave! she realized. A surge of triumph coursed through her. She still had her power, even trapped in another’s body, and it was as strong as ever. It was no wonder the body thief had put the mind cage on her. She had just been too caught up in her own misery to give it any thought.

  My body or not, I’m still a dreamwielder. How could I have ever doubted it? My grandfather was dying once and I made him young and whole again. I remade his flesh in the image of his ideal self. That’s how Talitha had explained it, at least. However it had worked, Makarria was confident she could make her wave now, but she wasn’t foolish enough to forget the cost of her magic. When she had made her grandfather young again on the shore near her farm, she had inadvertently killed thousands of sea creatures swimming in the nearby surf. The wave Makarria needed now would have to be massive, and even with the enormous power of the storm raging around her, if she tried to create the wave from where she stood on the deck of the ship, she’d draw the life right out of the sailors.

  She knew what she had to do.

  “Here,” she said, untying the lifeline from around her waist and handing it to the sailor beside her.

  “What are you doing?” the man started to ask, but before he could finish his question, Makarria sprinted down the sloping deck and dove over the portside rail into the sea.

  23

  The Heir Apparent

  Natarios Rhodas yawned and shook his head, trying to shake off his weariness. Around him, the candidates and council members were trickling into the room to take their seats at the table. It was Lord Kobel’s day to present his claim—the last day of presentations—and Natarios needed to be sharp, but instead he was bleary eyed and addled thanks to the infernal scent-hound. When he’d returned to his tower after the previous day’s council session, the hound had been howling like mad. Natarios couldn’t begin to imagine how it had awoken from its magical slumber, but the fact remained, it was awake and it smelled something.

  He had never seen this particular hound in action before, but he knew well enough what its crying and baying meant: the dreamwielder was up to something. Only a dreamwielder’s magic prompted it to cry so. Perhaps Queen Makarria has changed her mind and decided to resist the Old World Republic after all, he thought initially, but then he checked the coordinates of where the scent-hound was pointing on its compass wheel. Once he marked them out on his map, he discovered the dreamwielder was not in Sol Valaróz at all, but somewhere farther to the east. Without coordinates from the other scent-hounds he couldn’t triangulate the exact location, though. The dreamwielder could have been as close as the Forrest Weorcan or as far away as the southern reaches of the Esterian Ocean well beyond the Old World. He had no way of knowing, and with problems of his own to worry about, he had retired to bed.

  And yet the scent-hound had continued baying and whining throughout the entire night. Even two floors below, he could hear it. He tried piling pillows over his head, stuffing the ends of old socks in his ears, but nothing would block the piercing cry of the scent-hound. Twice, Natarios had strode upstairs with a dagger in hand, intent on killing the hound, and twice he chickened out and returned to his room to toss and turn in his bed. Come morning, the hound was still fussing, although not as loudly, and when Natarios glanced at its coordinates, he saw they had shifted. Wherever she was, the dreamwielder was moving westward.

  But none of that helped Natarios. Here he was, a day off from the election—a day away from getting burned alive by the sorcerer’s guild—and he and Lady Hildreth were no closer to finding the true heir to the throne. Lady Hildreth’s illegitimate son, Thon, had returned to Col Sargoth from a secret prison only to up and disappear before she had gotten a chance to tell him who he was. The poor fool didn’t even know she was his mother, and now he had either run away or was dead, probably the latter. Ambassador Rives had no idea who this Thon lad was, but that didn’t mean he would hesitate to kill him.

  And that damn Prince Caile, Natarios swore inwardly. I convinced Lady Hildreth to set him free so he could search for the heir, and now he’s disappeared too. Likely, he’s run away. That’s what I would do if I were him. That’s what I’ll be doing come morning if this illegitimate prince doesn’t turn up.

  The last of the council members had entered, and all of them were sitting, waiting for Natarios to begin, including Lady Hildreth. Natarios glanced her way, but if she had any pressing news for him, she made no indication. Seeing nothing else for it, Natarios squinted his eyes one last time and called the meeting to order.

  “I see that we still have no Prince Caile Delios present,” he remarked. “I don’t suppose anyone has heard word from him?”

  He received only blank stares in return. It was a dangerous game he was playing. He couldn’t let on that he had eavesdropped on Ambassador Rives, but at the same time he couldn’t play at being too accommodating toward Rives’s cause or else Rives would know something was awry.

  “Very well,” Natarios said at last. “We shall proceed, and if Queen Makarria ever inquires, at least it can’t be said we didn’t ask about him. Unless there is any new business, we shall give the floor to Lord Kobel.”

  “We have no business but to hear Kobel today,” Rives said. “Let’s be on with it.”

  “Indeed. Lord Kobel, the floor is yours.”

  Lord Kobel stood and bowed. “Lords, gentlemen, and lady, I mean to show you why I am the one and only true choice to become the next King of Sargoth.”

  Natarios rolled his eyes. You could show us the black forest of hair between your arse cheeks and you’d still get elected. It’s Old World money that buys your throne, not your qualifications. But, of course, Natarios said nothing and merely smiled as Lord Kobel continued on.

  • • •

  If only Thon and I had known who he reall
y was, none of this would be happening, Caile thought miserably. I would have disbanded the council, Thon would be sitting on the throne, and the war-machine factories would be sealed up forever. But it hadn’t happened that way, of course. Lady Hildreth, paralyzed by pride, had waited too long to tell Caile she had birthed a son with Guderian, and now Thon was missing, oblivious to who he really was. Lady Hildreth had her servants asking about Thon among the household staff in the keep; Commander Buell had his cavalrymen keeping an eye out in the city; and Caile, with the unlikely support of the houndkeeper, had convinced Lady Hildreth to release him so he could search as well, but all of it was too late, he feared. Only one day left. And what if Ambassador Rives’s men had found Thon and killed him? They didn’t know who he was, but simply being Caile’s companion might have been enough to warrant his death in their eyes. Or what if Thon had seen the cavalrymen coming after Caile in the keep and simply ran away? Even if he was alive and safe, Thon had no way of knowing he was the true king. And without Thon, all was lost. Caile would fail Makarria utterly and completely.

  With a dissatisfied grunt, Caile pushed his black-dyed hair from his face, and squinted at the assault of the sun in the crisp, clear sky. It was mid-morning, and the streets of Col Sargoth were bustling with activity: people running errands, vendors hawking their wares, wagons carrying loads to the harbor, and rickshaw drivers hustling up customers. Caile, dressed as a commoner in a gray tunic and armed only with a simple dagger at his belt, fell into line with the flow of pedestrians making their way south, trying not to draw attention to himself, but keeping his eyes on everyone who passed by. Come on, give me a turnip lady or a lost-looking heir to the Sargothian throne. But, of course, he saw neither Talitha nor Thon. He stopped several minutes later when he got to the street where he’d first encountered Talitha more than a year before, when she’d been posing as a vendor and had offered him her produce. She was nowhere to be seen now, though, and Caile wasn’t even sure why he bothered to keep looking. He had been at it for three days, combing the city in places where he hoped to find Talitha by day, and then lurking through the tunnels beneath Lightbringer’s Keep by night to spy on Ambassador Rives. Not that his eavesdropping had done him any good in finding Thon. Rives had met each night with a few of the guildmasters to discuss bribes and votes, but they made no mention of Caile or Thon, and the Old World sorcerer with the speaking relic that the houndkeeper spoke of failed to ever appear. Caile had serious doubts about the houndkeeper’s story, but it mattered not. Whether Rives had intended to capture Caile or not—whether the sorcerer’s guild meant to burn the council assembly alive after the vote tomorrow or not—the fact remained that Lord Kobel was on the cusp of becoming king, and once he did he would unleash the war-wagons and all would be lost. The only way Caile could stop him was to find Thon, and he only had one day left to do it.