The Voyage to Magical North

by Claire Fayers

  She sat wreathed in silver mist, rising and falling with the movement of the water, changing as she moved. In one blink, Brine saw a vessel made of wood, so scorched and scarred it looked like it had been in a fight with a dragon. With the next breath, she was looking at a ship out of a legend. A great, golden hull rose in a proud curve, four times the size of the Onion. Sails of pure copper stood stiffly on silver masts, the whole thing blazing like the setting sun. But whichever ship Brine saw, the same word curled around the hull. They all knew what it said—even Rob and Bill who couldn’t read. The pirates had seen almost the same word every day for years. Only one letter was different.

  ORION.

  The back of Brine’s throat ached, and she didn’t think it had anything to do with her allergy to magic. This was Boswell’s ship and Orion’s, both at the same time. A century of magic had fused the real ship with the story until you couldn’t tell them apart. She turned to see what Peter thought of it and remembered he wasn’t there.

  Cassie climbed the mooring rope and landed on the deck. “Come on up.”

  Bill and Rob followed, Bill limping from where he’d stabbed his foot back in the cavern. Brine stayed on the bank. All she could think about was how Peter was missing this, and it was all her fault. She’d yelled at Peter to do something, and he had.

  “Peter will be all right,” said Tom, seeming to guess what she was thinking. “Marfak West wouldn’t have jumped into the lake without a plan. If Peter’s with him, he’ll be alive.”

  Brine shook her head. “Cassie told me to look out for him. If I’d been nicer—”

  “Then things might be different, or they might not be,” said Tom. “Does it change them now to stand here feeling guilty?”

  Brine turned to look at him. He was so eager to explore the ship he couldn’t keep his feet still. She sighed. “After you, then.”

  * * *

  Everything on board had the same dual quality they’d seen from the shore, as if the ship were still trying to decide whether to be ancient or merely old. The ropes thrummed when Brine touched them. A small rowing boat tied up under a tarpaulin was called the Celestial Shallot.

  Bill opened the hatch that led belowdecks, and they climbed down into darkness. Brine put her hands out and felt wooden panels on either side. A corridor, she guessed, then her eyes started to adjust and she guessed again. They were in the ship’s hold, and she was standing between two rows of crates. Rob climbed up and pried the lid off one. “Empty,” he announced.

  “So’s this one,” said Bill. “These people must have sailed from the other side of the world to use up this many supplies.”

  “Or the crates were empty to start with,” said Brine. “They were expecting to find treasure, remember.”

  Fire flared behind her and Cassie appeared holding a lantern. “I think I’ve found the captain’s cabin.”

  A narrow door stood half-open. The room, like the rest of the ship, kept changing. In one view, it was cramped and dark, with cracked floorboards and a table and chairs made out of old crates. In the other, Brine saw an airy chamber with furs on the floor, tall windows, and delicate furniture made of white wood. But in both views, the table held a book with an old ink pot and quill next to it, and a pair of glasses.

  Brine’s heart thumped. She felt like she was tramping through somebody’s grave. Cassie, who didn’t care where she tramped, picked up the glasses and gave them to Tom. They all watched as he slid them onto his nose and blinked uncertainly. A broad grin spread across his face.

  “I can see!” He adjusted the lenses with trembling fingers. “They’re almost perfect—no, they are perfect.” He turned full circle, then his newly perfect gaze fell on the book and he let out a shriek like a seagull.

  Cassie yelled, too, and whipped out her sword. Bill attacked the nearest object, which happened to be the table.

  “Stop!” bellowed Tom. The shout rattled the inkpot.

  Bill gave a low chuckle. “Who’d have thought it? The librarian’s got a voice inside him after all.”

  Tom glared at him over the top of his spectacles. It seemed to be a special, librarian sort of glare, because Bill shut up at once.

  Brine picked up the book and blew the dust off the cover. “Aldebran Boswell’s Journal of Strange Adventures in the Year of Discovery,” she read. “Tom, is this…”

  Reverently, as if he was handling something infinitely more precious than mere paper, Tom took his copy of Boswell’s journal out of his pocket and laid the two books side by side. He didn’t even look at Brine as he began turning pages. He seemed to have forgotten anyone else was there.

  He came to a place where his copy of the journal was blank. The original continued.

  The twenty-seventh of Balistes. The first mate is dead, killed by a bear. Only ten members of the crew remain. They wish to leave, but the sun has not yet set.

  The twenty-eighth of Balistes. Another man dead.

  The thirtieth of Balistes. I am the only one left.

  The thirty-first of Balistes. Orion’s Day. Today, at last, the sun set. The stories are true. I stood at Magical North and I saw the world. Was it worth it? Who can say? All my supplies are gone, and I cannot sail this ship alone. Tomorrow I will leave this ship and walk into the snow. Maybe I will rise into the stars like Orion.

  That was the last entry. Brine sat down shakily. Boswell had done it. He’d stood at Magical North. She wished he’d written down some of what he’d seen. “Why did he do it?” she asked.

  Cassie picked up the lamp, sending shadows flapping up the wall. “Who knows why scientists do anything. Tom, did Boswell bother to mention where exactly Magical North is?”

  Tom nodded. “That’s the best bit. The ship is anchored right on it.”

  * * *

  They gathered back on the foredeck. The Stella Borealis flickered around them, turning the sunlight that flooded the tunnel an eerie green.

  “I can’t see anything,” said Cassie.

  Of course she couldn’t. Brine pushed a hand through her hair, gazing about. “It’s no use. You can only see Magical North on Orion’s Day when the sun sets.”

  “What’s the date today?” asked Rob.

  Tom rubbed his nose. “It’s hard to tell because it’s been light for so long. We crossed the Sea of Sighs on the twenty-eighth, and the sun hasn’t set yet, so…” His voice trailed away.

  Slowly, disbelievingly, Brine raised her face to the patch of visible sky. Sky that was turning orange. Her thoughts spun to a halt, and her chest tightened with a growing hope that felt painful. So much had gone wrong, but finally luck had turned in her direction.

  Sunset.

  The last shred of daylight faded from the tunnel. The only light came from the Stella Borealis. It coiled around the ship, flashing through every color in the rainbow. A silver circle appeared on the deck. It was just big enough for one person to stand in, and the air inside shimmered with the soft amber light of pure magic.

  “It’s Orion’s Day,” said Brine. “We did it.” It didn’t seem possible. She caught Cassie looking at her, and she smiled. “Luck’s a funny thing.”

  Cassie nodded, but she frowned at the circle of magic as if she was thinking of something else. “We don’t know how long this will last. Brine, you’d better get on with it.”

  Brine’s mouth fell open. “Me? But you’re the captain.”

  “And I, as captain, order you to stand on Magical North,” said Cassie. Her eyes were hard and bright. Brine wondered what it was that she was afraid of seeing. It didn’t seem right to go first, though, when they’d all waited so long.

  “Tom, you wanted to see the world,” said Brine. “Why don’t you do it?”

  He shook his head. “I’d only want to see my mum, and I already know where she is.”

  “Bill? Rob?” asked Cassie. “Either of you want to try it?”

  They both stepped back. “I’ve already seen more than most men alive,” said Bill. “I don’t want to push my luck
.”

  “Off you go, then, Brine,” said Cassie. “Quickly, before I decide to throw you in.”

  Brine shut her mouth hard. There were plenty of things she didn’t want to see, either. Peter drowned, for one, and Marfak West gloating. Or Peter and Marfak West laughing together about how they’d tricked her. She ground her nails into her palms then let out a breath and forced her fingers to uncurl.

  Cassie gave her a push from behind. Feeling as if she were walking a plank to her death, Brine stumbled forward and put both feet onto the exact point of Magical North.

  CHAPTER 27

  Stories deal in superlatives. No one wants to hear about the second greatest hero or the second most evil magician in the world.

  (From ALDEBRAN BOSWELL’S SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF STORIES)

  The ship vanished. Brine’s eyes streamed, her ears filled with a high-pitched buzzing, and the pain in her nose grew until she was sure her face would explode. Then, as if her allergy had reached some sort of critical point where it couldn’t possibly get any worse, the desire to sneeze vanished.

  And she saw the world.

  Marfak West had said it would appear as a map spread out before her. He was wrong. Brine saw everything in a stream of moving images: the whole story of the world, from the birth of the first ocean until the time far into the future when the last drop of water would dry up under the dying sun.

  The knowledge was like a weight crushing her until she couldn’t breathe. Now she knew who she was—she was nobody. An accidental scrap of life on a world that was already doomed.

  She shut her eyes, not that it mattered, because she couldn’t see for tears. No wonder nobody wanted to stand on Magical North. No wonder Boswell had doubted whether the journey had been worth it.

  And yet, some other voice inside her wouldn’t accept it. Boswell had been dead for a century, but he’d created a story that had stretched all the way back to the legend of Orion and forward to Brine’s own time. Would Boswell say that didn’t matter? Or what about the Book Sisters of Barnard’s Reach, held captive by another story? Or Baron Kaitos and his fallen tower—a story to make you laugh every time you heard it?

  The people who’d lived, the stories they’d created with their lives, the way they’d shaped the world, they all mattered.

  Brine opened her eyes with a gasp. Straightaway, she saw her own story. A rowing boat, tossed this way and that on rough seas. Then the Onion, tiny against the oceans, old and tired but bright with dreams, and with the memory of something proud riding in the hull.

  The images around her kept changing. Brine found that, if she thought about something, it would come into view. For a moment her thoughts flew to home and an island took shape before her, but she turned her back on it. Home could wait: They needed a way out of here. She concentrated on the present moment instead. The air shimmered and she found herself looking past the ship and along the tunnel, all the way to the frozen ocean. The ice there appeared impenetrable, but Brine saw where the river flowed and where the warmth of magic had weakened the ice so that it would crack if something as heavy as a ship should force its way through.

  She almost called out to the others …

  But then she saw Peter.

  * * *

  There are many horrible ways to wake up. Regaining consciousness face-first in a pile of half-digested fish while an angry magician punches you between the shoulder blades was a new one for Peter.

  He spluttered and spat out seawater. “Where am I?”

  Marfak West stopped hitting him. “Take a guess.”

  Peter sat up unsteadily. His gaze took in piles of dead fish and pools of murky water that bobbed with unidentifiable lumps of stuff—stuff he was quite glad to leave unidentified. Domed walls made him think they were in a cave, except that they flexed slowly in and out and smelled even worse than the fish. The only light was a faint, silvery glow that came from the starshell tucked inside Marfak West’s shirt.

  “We’re…,” began Peter. He couldn’t say it. It was entirely too terrifying.

  “In a whale of a belly,” said Marfak West. “And the other way round as well.” He sat back on what looked like the hump of an old rowing boat. He appeared perfectly at ease, as if being swallowed by a giant fish was all part of a normal day for him. He spread his hands out over the egg-shaped bump in his shirt. “Have you any idea how much magic this starshell contains?”

  Peter shook his head, trying not to breathe in too hard because every time he did, it clogged his lungs with the stink of semidigested fish.

  “Neither do I,” said Marfak West, “but I’m guessing it’s too much for even me to handle alone. Now that I have you, the task will be much easier.”

  “What task?” Every breath made Peter feel ill.

  Marfak West stroked the starshell through his shirt. “I don’t blame Cassie, you know. When she sank the Antares and left me for dead, I could respect that. She almost beat me. She should have tried a bit harder, but the Cassies of the world are like that—they never see a job through to the end. They know what needs to be done, but they don’t quite have the courage to do it. Fortunately, I don’t suffer from that problem.” His face was a mask, hard and cold—or maybe everything up to this point had been a mask and Peter was finally seeing the magician for who he really was. His throat was so dry it hurt to swallow. Brine had known. She’d never been taken in by Marfak West, not for a second. Peter wished she were there. He didn’t have the faintest idea what to do. A feeling like homesickness swept over him, and he had to blink away tears.

  “You’ve beaten Cassie now,” he said. “You’ve beaten them all. You’ve won. What do you want me for?”

  Marfak West grinned at him. “You were the one who followed me, remember? You’re wrong, though: I haven’t won, not yet. Not until Cassie’s story is erased and everything she did is undone. You’re going to help me with that. To tell you the truth, I’ve gotten used to having you around. I’m going to give you something I never had—proper teaching. I’m going to make you my apprentice, and you will repay me by obeying me, learning well, and carrying my work on into the future.”

  Peter turned colder than the inside of a fish. A lifetime with Marfak West. It would be a million times worse than Tallis Magus. “You can’t do this,” he said. His voice shook.

  “Who’s going to stop me? Cassie? She’s dead. All your friends are—I persuaded this lovely whale to make a slight detour and sink the Onion. It’s just you and me now.”

  The words fell like a hammer, and Peter believed them. Marfak West didn’t lie—not when he knew the truth would hurt you. Peter already knew there was no hope. Even if the others had escaped from the cavern, there was still the long walk back to the boats, and without the Onion, they’d be trapped. Cassie, Tom, Brine—all dead. Peter wanted to curl up into a ball and cry, but he didn’t want Marfak West to think he was weak. He stared straight ahead. “You might as well kill me, too, then, because I’ll never be your apprentice. Never.”

  Marfak West’s eyes narrowed. “That’s what you think. We’ll start your first lesson now. You’re going to thank me for saving your life.”

  No—no way was he going to thank him, not for anything. He bit his lip and shook his head. That was when the itching began. It started at Peter’s feet and crawled up his legs to his spine. By the time it had reached his head, he was scratching frantically.

  “Lesson one,” said Marfak West, watching him suffer. “Disobedience has consequences. If there’s one thing I hate most, it’s ingratitude. Is it so hard to say two small words to me?”

  Peter ground his teeth. The itching continued—he wasn’t sure how long, but it felt like an eternity. His skin burned. He dug his fingernails into his flesh until he bled, but that only made it worse. Itching piled upon itching, stretching out with no end in sight, until he knew he’d do anything, say anything, to make it stop.

  “Thank you.” The words were forced out on a gasp and felt like a betrayal of everything.

&n
bsp; The itching stopped at once. “No, thank you,” said Marfak West. He gave a little bow.

  Peter collapsed back into a puddle. And then, not caring whether Marfak West was watching, or what he thought, he curled into a ball and cried.

  CHAPTER 28

  I wandered lonely as a ghost

  That floats on oceans green and blue,

  When all at once I saw a host

  A crowd of onions in my view.

  Beneath the trees, across the shore

  Fluttering and dancing evermore.

  And just as when I see the stars

  That twinkle endless overhead,

  My silly eyes filled up with tears

  For my own Onion is dead.

  Beneath the waves, beneath the sea

  Forever gone and lost to me.

  And now I will return to land,

  Back to the home where first I came,

  For nevermore will I command

  A ship with any other name.

  But when I die, please bury me

  Beside my Onion at sea.

  (LAMENT ON THE DEATH OF THE ONION, by Cassie O’Pia)

  Brine saw Peter collapse, crying, and her own throat burned. She tried to call out to him that Marfak West was lying, that they were all alive, and they were going to escape and rescue him, but she couldn’t make a sound. Then Peter’s face faded and another image sprang into view. This time Brine did shout out loud, because she saw the Onion.

  The ship—or what was left of her—listed low in the sea, with water slopping over the shattered edges of the deck. The sails were gone, and the masts. The crew scurried this way and that, tying together pieces of wood into a raft while, around them, fish-birds gathered in increasing numbers, waiting quietly while the sky slowly turned black. A few stars appeared overhead—the constellation of Orion, burning bright, and a last sliver of red sunlight sank slowly into the sea.

  The sun vanished, and as night rushed in, the magical light around Brine went out. She stumbled backward, groping blindly in the sudden darkness.