by Pam Uphoff
The Cove Islander was contemptuous of the Auralian's ships in general and Navy ships particularly. He claimed the Islands were the most beautiful place on the World, and attempted to kidnap her.
"I left him with a memory of a fight with a man. So he wouldn't suspect me of being a trained fighter, and thus an agent. Was that bad?"
Xen and Easterly exchanged glances and shrugged. "A false memory is tough, but with the physical reinforcement of bruises and so forth may stick. I wouldn't recommend it in general."
"I, umm, hit him over the head first thing, so he was pretty much unconscious. I screamed and well, had a bit of fun and then reinforced with the memory of a nightmare, you know, the sudden looming figure . . . " She squirmed as Xen laughed.
"Yellow, you are evil. Poor fellow will probably have nightmares for a month."
"Oh, I do hope so. He had bad breath."
More snickers. Xen read over Easterly's shoulder. "So, they think the rebels have a shipyard on the Fashir coast. We'll have to do something about that."
Chapter Five
Cove Islands
Winter 1397
Kara had close in guard duty, in plain clothes, with Ann and Samah in uniform hanging around the queen and her two daughters.
Kara was not sure her clothing was an improvement. It was meant to help her blend into the mob of governesses (one each) and maids (2 each) and friends (6 total). The "friends" were women five to ten years older than the princesses—hoping to gain a position of influence. Kara's split skirts would allow freedom of movement in an emergency, but they marked her as a guard. Her corset was strictly for show, so she could breath. The shoulder straps unfashionable, and not nearly enough jewelry on her otherwise fashionably bare arms. For these brief few winter months, Mount Du Mer sported a crown of snow, and the wind sweeping down and through the open windows was as close to chilly as the Islands ever got. I've got it backwards. I need to spend the winter in uniform, and the summer with bare arms.
Princess Carmen was ignoring the chattering women and staring up at the throne, where her stepfather was hungover instead of the more usual drunk. Her father, Admiral T'Windrover, had been a master strategist. He'd married in his dotage and died happy, leaving a young wife and two daughters. I'm beginning to think Carmen might be a very good queen. If only she's allowed a good and responsible consort. One worthy of the title Sea King.
Princess Amelia was eleven, and already squirming. She's uncomfortable, and too young to consciously know why all these grasping, power seeking women make her uneasy. She needs friends her own age. Real friends. I'll have to give this some thought. There are children underfoot in the married officer's quarters. Not the richest families, obviously, but that means they aren't obsessively power seekers, either. Crewer wives, in a "casual marriage" for the most part. If their husbands gain promotion, or they come into family money, those wives will be divorced and they'll marry an Officer's daughter. And of course any children of the casual marriage have their mother's family name—couldn't possibly be allowed to claim to be descended from an officer, after all . . . As I should know. The colonel rarely mentions his half sister, my mother. And I pretend that I got to where I am on raw talent, not because my uncle sees me as a useful—beautiful—tool.
When Carmen edged closer to the throne, Kara tossed a glance to check that Amelia was covered—Samah caught her eye and nodded—then she moved closer to the older princess.
"Interesting group of men trying to influence the king today." She kept her voice down to a faint murmur.
"I don't recognize the Admiral." Carmine kept her voice down as well.
"Admiral Chris T'Sanjac. He's done a lot of exploring to the west. Three months ago he was reassigned to headquarters here."
"Ah. So that's him. Everyone says he's wasted on shore, and will be reassigned again soon." Carmine edged further up the room.
Kara sauntered after her, turning her back on the men who were glancing their way. She gestured at the tapestry. "And this is my favorite of them all. The Kraken, in full sail."
The men turned back, indifferent.
"The colors are brilliant." A corner of Carmen's mouth was tucked in hard to suppress a grin.
They admired the ancient weaving, speaking very little.
"We do need to investigate these sightings." The admiral sounded a bit irritated.
The hovering bureaucrats sneered. But spoke politely.
"The fancies of a Western Prince, and his experts on that training ship are hardly a reason to stir up trouble so far from home." one man shrugged and turned a should to the admiral as he spoke to the King. "Especially since we've had reports of a record crop of oranges, ripe and ready to be shipped north to the Kingdom. The merchants are starting to adjust their ship schedules already. Shall we alienate their so-called Amma and let foreign merchants reap the profits?"
"And taxes." Another bureaucrat waved his notepad. "We should increase our take to nearly . . . "
Carmine turned away. "Money. I know it's important, but . . . "
Kara nodded. "Ignoring something this potentially dangerous is none-the-less not wise. However the King knows what his intelligence people are doing, and the admiral does not."
Carmine's eyes slid toward Kara, even as her face turned up as if to admire another tapestry. "But you know."
"A bit. And no, even that little I cannot tell you." Nor can I tell you that the admiral may be neck deep in it.
"Can you tell me about the Sea Wolves?"
"Umm. Well, I doubt I know much more than you. Some down chain dregs, workers in the fishing fleet claim to have the power of the Sea Kings."
"Oooo, yes. And have they lain with the Sea Hag?"
Kara gave the girl a repressive glower. "First they wanted the right to join the navy, and work to earn the same status as Crewers. When their petition was refused, and the few who had somehow acquired boats had been punished, they vowed to overthrow King Milo, and, in their words, return a Sea King to the throne. Of course they avowed this from a safe distance. And most of them haven't been seen since."
"Hmm. I wonder where they went. Those northern islands they were lurking about seem unlikely."
Kara raised an eyebrow.
"I looked up the detailed map. There's only a very small and exposed anchorage. Uninhabited, unfarmable. The islands in the southwest seem more likely. Where else could they seek refuge?"
"With a foreign government. Organtes . . . would be far enough away if they wished to also keep close contact with the Islands. If they truly wished to be done with us, they'd have been better served to have hazarded the passage to the East and taken up with Demonia, Discordia or Fascia."
Kara eyed the girl. Clever, going to be close to the throne, whether our next king is her husband or a brother. "The cost of equipping a sizable campaign against pirates is high. Especially since we don't have a piracy problem."
The girl nodded. "But the Kingdom of the West does? What will we do if they raise a huge fleet purportedly to fight pirates?"
"Indeed. No one will be allowed to build up a navy large enough to threaten us. They know that."
Carmine frowned. "So . . . if not a fleet, what can they do?"
Chapter Six
Organtes coast
Southern Hemisphere Summer 1397
The Organtes coast in Fashir and Allantro states was composed of parallel ridges of rock thrusting out to sea in a west-southwest direction. There were huge fjords with hundreds of little inlets between the ridges.
Deena hadn't realized how big of a chore it was going to be. Nor that she'd suffer from something resembling seasickness. A witch sourced from Gravity not some mythical "Earth" element. A mile of water between herself and solid rock shouldn't matter. But it did. However infuriating it was, halfway to Organtes she'd given up and asked Xen for help. What ever he'd done, worked, and he'd promised to reverse it as soon as she asked, which she figured would probably be after they returned to Karista.
But the main problem was
the sheer improbability of finding a shipyard based on a man's memory of a map of unknown provenance, picked up by Yellow. Xen didn't think his lady spy could have ridden more than a day, and he'd gotten a clear impression that she had been the only woman there, the visiting Important Person's concubine . . .
The first two fjords were spangled with normal fishing villages, but the third was smaller and had an aura not of a settled home . . .
They found it up the eighteenth inlet. Deena was using her magically enhanced night vision, while Xen tried to influence the waves and sounds to hide them from any observers. Jenet was handling the approach; he'd been perfectly happy to let an intelligence agent exercise his muscles with a bit on rowing on the open ocean, but now they were too close for an amateur to be in control. So Easterly was chewing his fingernails.
One glimpse of the large rakish hulls, and they'd turned to retreat from the large anchorage beyond this narrow, half hidden inlet.
"So, Jenet, where can you drop us off? We need to check this out." Easterly looked eager, and Deena suppressed a smile. Poor man was going to get stuck in an office too damn soon. He was grabbing field work while he could.
"That snitch of beach north around the headland." Jenet kept his voice low. "I can lay up in the rocks at the southern end, away from the fishermen. Wait for you there. It's nearly high tide, and nearly dawn."
"No problem with the fishermen spotting you? Or women out collecting clams or anything?" Easterly's hands twitched as if he wanted to row again, get them there faster.
"Red tide month, they won't be collecting any shellfish at all. This month will be deep sea fishing. More likely they'll spot the Petrel than us."
Xen stirred slightly. "I told Jeff we were going ashore and they could move offshore for the day, if not longer."
Deena sighed and wished she had a longer range . . . she could damn near yell further than she could mind speak. Even Easterly could speak over a dozen miles.
The waves kept flattening out in front of them so they never climbed up where they were more likely to be seen by watchers, and there was something going on with the light as well. Xen was just sitting comfortably, breathing in a slow cadence. He looked, in fact, as if he were asleep, but when the boat hit the sand, he was out ahead of even Easterly, and heaved the boat back afloat as soon as Deena was out. He backed away from the surf line, and a large wave curled up and washed all traces of the boat and their footsteps away. In the fine dry sand, a little whirlwind danced over the indentations left by their feet and filled them. Easterly led them to the left along the rocky bluffs. The first break in the cliffs was a small streambed, ending in a ten foot waterfall to the beach. The second break was a trail. Not quite wide enough for a wagon, but a bit more than an occasional footpath. Deena closed her eyes and looked with her inner eye. Something warm up the path a ways.
Easterly touched her shoulder, and they all retreated to the waterfall. Easterly boosted Xen halfway to the top. He got a secure handhold, and reached back to help first Deena and then Easterly up, before rolling over the lip himself. "Get all the beach sand off, now, so we don't leave traces." Xen's voice was barely aspirated, and he stroked his hands over his pants' legs, then sat and dumped sand from his low boots into the water to be carried away. City girl through and through, Deena followed suit, as Easterly was doing.
They followed the little water course until it intersected the path, and felt for warm spots again. Two, strolling toward them from inland.
They lay low in shadows of rocks and watched the pair of men in Organtes uniforms—the red and blue of the former Auralian Empire with the addition of a large golden O in the center of the tabards they both wore over white shirts and blue pants. They strolled obliviously past, and Xen led them quickly and quietly into a narrow canyon and up a steep rocky path beside the water. Fifty yards along—and nearly that higher, they topped out onto a flat shelf. Xen trotted down the path and back into jagged piles of rock fallen from the steep hills and kept moving, and climbing, long after Deena was ready to take a break.
He stopped at a fork, a smaller path leading up to the left, the larger path to the right and downwards.
"Shall we lay up where we can get an eyeful?" He looked back at Easterly, who looked at the brightening sky and nodded.
Xen found them a slight overhang sheltered from eyes above, full of big angular rocks to both allow a view below and conceal them from the quite large number of people below.
The bulge of the hill below them hid most of the ships they'd glimpsed from the sea, but the activity across the inlet was plain. Two hulls under construction. One nearly done, one mostly bare ribs. A space and activity that might be preparations for a third keel. People everywhere. Organtes uniforms and a bunch of people in gray shirts and white bell bottom pants. Not a uniform she'd seen before, but far too consistent to be anything else.
Four large buildings in a neat row well up out of the range of storm waves, and a clutter of smaller sheds that had sprung up around them. The people with rolled paper in their hands were coming and going from the large building closest to the hulls. "Offices, engineers and designers in the building to the right," she murmured.
"Don't do anything magical, tuck down tight." Xen said. "Those gray people are magicians. A couple hundred, easily. Damn, maybe Yellow's right."
"Hard to believe, but I haven't heard about any large groups of magic users down here. Discordia, on the other hand, we've had reports about. Their embassy staff has been reading up on magic in the King's College library and so forth." Deena tapped her fingers uncertainly. "We've been trying to, umm, not let their attention drift toward Ash. They've kept a pretty close eye on Lord Hell, and gotten young men in to charm the Sisters."
"So maybe the two pieces of Auralia are getting back together. Or maybe One World?" Xen made a face.
"Let's hope this is strictly our World, this time." Easterly shook his head. "If Yellow's boy is correct, they're Cove Islanders betraying the Sea King and about to get used by the Organtes' Amma to take the Islands. We'll watch in shifts today and see about sneaking in tonight. I'd like a peek at their paperwork, and the number of hulls afloat right now. I suppose something telling us what they plan for these ships would be a bit too easy, but maybe we can at least identify the gray guys for sure."
"I really do need to touch one of them." Xen eyed the shipyard below. "If I could slip into the barracks at night, I could get a good sample."
Easterly gave him a jaundiced look. "Without raising the alarm? Somehow, that impresses me as the sort of thing we might consider on the way out of there."
Deena took first watch, and made notes of the times for shift changes and meals, and the number of people with rolls of paper plans versus the number of people doing the actual work.
When the grays formed up, she nudged Xen awake. "Your magicians are doing something."
He promptly sat down and closed his eyes, meditating, and no doubt feeling a hell of a lot more than she did. She watched as their officers talked to them. When he was done, instead of a cheer they threw back their heads and howled. Lovely. They saw themselves as wolves, eh?
One of the other officers advanced and spoke to them, and Deena felt her scalp crawling as they all stood silent for a minute. Then they howled again.
"I don't think they were looking for us, specifically." Xen muttered. "But they were looking anyway. All male too. So they're either mages or badly prejudiced."
Two of them entered the second building, and emerged with a bound man.
His bindings were cut and the magicians spread out in a circle as a sword was tossed at the prisoner's feet.
He snatched it and charged the circle. His sword strokes were beaten aside, and he was shoved back into the center bleeding from two small cuts.
Deena reached and shook Easterly awake, and the three of them watched as the magicians played with their prisoner, even stopping to bind up any cuts that bled excessively, threatening to shorten their fun. The damage got
worse, the man was having trouble getting back up, and finally the circle howled and a dozen blades skewered the man.
"Nasty." Easterly remarked.
"Blood Mages. Pulled quite a bit of magic, but almost at an instinctive level, rather than organized and efficient. I think they just did it because it made them feel good, without understanding why." Xen took over the watch and she slept fitfully until nudged awake. They ate and drank while the watch changed, then headed down hill in the dusk and shadows.
The other path took them inland and over a series of small seeps and trickles that headed down hill and added their efforts to a stream with enough volume to keep the inlet open. A bare, open, foot bridge crossed the stream a mile upstream of the shipyard, opposite the last building. It was full dark and they crossed quickly.
The fat crescent moon threw faint shadows, and the lantern on the first building ruined any night sight that glanced that way. They slipped to the far side of the last building, found the privy, the kitchen, the water well and finally crept up to the first building. Several offices on the shipyard side were still in use, movement seen in silhouette on drawn draperies.
Deena slipped along the other side of the building, checking windows, and found one to a dark room that was ajar. Easterly boosted her in and she checked that it was an office, no one sleeping there, before she signaled Easterly and Xen to enter.
Easterly settled down with his night sight to scan the available papers. Xen eased the door open a hair and peeked out, then turned his head and put his ear to the door. Deena rifled through the files, but nothing seemed terribly important. Easterly put down his last paper, and they both slipped up behind Xen.
"There are two people talking in the first office on the left. The second left door is open and lit. Everything else is dark. Why don't we slide down a bit closer, eh?"
"Light warps?" Easterly breathed.
Xen shook his head. "Use as little magic as possible, and shield it if you can. There's a pretty dense pool of listeners out there, it feels a bit like being in Ash."