by Angus Wells
“That’s their captain?” Bracht asked. And when ek’Jemm grunted an affirmative: “Give me a bow and I’ll kill him.”
The Kand studied him speculatively, as if considering the possibility, then shook his head.
“A wounded animal’s worse than a healthy beast.”
‘Two shafts at most,” Bracht said confidently, “and he’s dead.”
“The deck of a ship’s no steady platform,” ek’Jemm returned.
“Nor’s the back of a running horse,” said Bracht. “I can do it.”
Ek’Jemm smiled briefly and shook his head again. “No,” he said firmly, “I’d not anger them. If you’re all they want, I escape easy.”
Bracht’s eyes blazed contempt; the Kand ignored him, turning to stare at the warboat.
The dark craft swung dramatically to port, cutting close under the merchantman’s stern. Calandryll stared at the armored figure commanding the archers, wondering if he looked on Azumandias; wondering then why a mage should employ so physical a means of attack when surely magic must serve him better than arrows. Something about the stance, the drape of the hauberk, was wrong and he gasped as realization dawned.
“That’s a woman!” he cried. “The captain’s a woman!”
“No woman commands a Kand warboat,” ek’Jemm grunted.
“No corsair vessel sails out of Lysse,” Calandryll snapped. “But this one did, and that’s a woman.”
The figure raised gloved hands then, removing the helmet, and his point was proven: a thick spill of flaxen hair tumbled loose, framing a strong face from which eyes grey as storm-tossed waves studied the Sea Dancer, a wide, full-lipped mouth issuing a command that slowed the warboat.
“Burash take me!” ek’Jemm muttered. “You’re right.”
“And she’s lovely,” Bracht softly. “Ahrd, but she’s a beauty!”
The woman seemed oblivious of their stares and the arbalest alike, contemptuous of the danger, although ek’Jemm might then have hit her square, or bowmen picked her off. Her order brought her craft almost to a stop, drifting close under the merchantman’s stem, protected there from the great crossbow. She tossed her helm to the deck and cupped her hands about her mouth.
“You carry two passengers, Captain—I’d have them.”
Her voice was melodious, carrying clear across the gap between the vessels.
“You’ll leave my ship be?” ek’Jemm shouted.
“I have no quarrel with you,” the woman called. “It’s your passengers I want. Hand them over and you’re free to go your way.”
“I’ve a man wounded,” the Kand returned.
The woman’s face clouded for an instant, then she cried, “I regret that, but you fired on us.”
Calandryll could not help staring at her. Would likely have done so even had she not represented such a threat: her beauty compelled attention. He started when he felt Bracht’s hand grip his arm.
“Be ready,” warned the Kern.
He nodded, instinctively reaching for the stone at his throat, mouth opening to utter the spell. Then gaping as he felt the smooth surface burn his fingers, looking down to see the dull red transformed to flame, as if he clutched fire.
Abruptly, the air about him shimmered, filled with the heady scent of almonds, stronger than he had ever smelled it, cloying in his nostrils. The air seemed brilliant, as though the risen sun fell from the sky to hang between the two vessels. He heard Bracht shout; ek’Jemm cry out. Then he, too, shouted as he saw the sea boil, a great surge of turbulent water rising from the gap between warboat and merchantman, as if some vast, unseen beast rose from the depths, angry. Water seethed, rising to hang in a swirling, glittering pillar that joined sea and sky. A sheet of liquid drenched the poop, draping a rainbow across the Sea Dancer’s stern, and he felt his hair torn back by a wind that sprang from nowhere. Dimly through the spray he saw the warboat engulfed by the spout, tossed like a cork, spun round and round, the archers tumbling like stricken pins to the deck, falling into the scuppers. He saw the woman thrown against the prow, embracing the dragon’s heck, pressing herself hard against the wooden effigy as her long legs flung over the side. For an instant he thought she must lose her grip and topple into the maelstrom, but then the very spinning of her craft hurled her back onto the deck and she rolled inelegantly across the planking to crash down among the terrified oarsmen.
The warboat was lifted by the wave, the sweeps in disarray, the furled sail ripped loose to flap uselessly, a torn rag in the grip of elemental fury. Then the air reverberated with an ear-splitting blast and the spout was gone. The warboat fell seaward, taking on water as it crashed against the waves. The wind grew stronger and he saw the impossible happen: saw nature divided against itself. The Sea Dancer’s sails filled, drumming with the rhythm of the wind, the merchantman gaining headway, surging away from the warboat. Which was driven in the opposite direction by a gusting no less fierce than the gale that propelled the cargo vessel. Waves crashed over the ducking prow, the black sail, tattered now, driven out straight, the oars helpless. He heard ek’Jemm shout again, and saw the portly Kand stagger to the wheel, lending his bulk to aid the helmsman, holding the Sea Dancer stern-on to the ferocious wind.
Within moments the warboat was a dwindling speck, then it was a blur on the skyline, then gone. Calandryll realized that he still clutched the red stone. He released his grip and the wind dropped. He looked about. Bracht clung soaked to the arbalest, a wide-eyed seaman on the weapon’s other side. The four armed sailors sprawled gaping against the taffrail. Ek’Jemm and the helmsman clutched the wheel as if fearing they might be torn loose and swept overboard. The wounded sailor lay at their feet mumbling a prayer to Burash, and all along the deck men hung from sheets, or held the rails, not quite believing in the calm that fell. Calandryll alone had sought no support: he stood brace-legged on the poop, dazed by the magic that had saved them.
“Burash protect us,” ek’Jemm said slowly, his voice hushed as he stared at Calandryll. “What are you?”
Calandryll shook his head. The wave, the wind—neither had been things of his conscious making: he had no better idea than the captain what had happened. He opened his mouth to speak, but Bracht intervened.
“You had done better to have listened to him, Captain,” the freesword said quickly, casting a warning glance in Calandryll’s direction.
Ek’Jemm nodded dumbly, eyeing them with a newfound respect that bordered on open fear. Calandryll looked at Bracht with eyes widened by amazement; the Kern winked. The wind still blew, no longer a gale, but strong enough. Ek’Jemm asked wonderingly, “Are you a mage?”
Calandryll caught Bracht’s eye and shrugged.
“Would you have him demonstrate again?” asked the mercenary.
The Kand swallowed and shook his head.
“That was sufficient. Why did you not tell me?”
“I prefer to travel incognito,” Calandryll extemporized: it was not, entirely, a lie.
“Had I known, I would not have … Forgive me … Lord Varent made no mention of it … I could not know.”
Calandryll found that he enjoyed the man’s discomfort: it was some small recompense for his imprisonment. “I would not have it published abroad,” he said. “And I trust you will hold your tongue—see that your men keep it to themselves, too.”
It was a slender hope: to ask a crew that had just witnessed so miraculous an event to remain silent was … as unlikely as the maelstrom or the gale, he decided. Nonetheless, ek’Jemm nodded enthusiastically.
“As you command.”
“We are merely two passengers traveling to Kandahar on private business,” Calandryll said. “No more than that—you understand?”
“Aye. Indeed, aye!” Ek’Jemm’s head bobbed vigorously, threatening to dislodge his headdress. “Two passengers. Quite.”
“Good. And now we shall leave you.”
He grinned at Bracht and led the way down to the deck. The sailors still avoided them, but now it was o
ut of respect, as if they feared the unleashing of further magicks, and they found a place amidships where they might speak privately. Calandryll was surprised to see anger and suspicion in the Kern’s eyes. His amusement at ek’Jemm’s newfound humility evaporated, replaced by confusion.
“How did you do that?” Bracht demanded harshly. “Are you a mage? Have you hidden that talent from me?”
“Dera, no!” he answered. “I have no more idea than you how it happened. I touched the stone and the sea boiled—I know no more than that.”
Bracht stared at him for a while. “Your word on it?” he asked at last.
“My word,” Calandryll promised. “I am no wizard, if that’s what you fear.”
“Then how?” Bracht frowned, his innate distrust of sorcery writ clear.
Calandryll shrugged helplessly.
“I was about to speak the incantation—as you suggested!—and I saw the sea boil. Dera, Bracht! If I was a wizard I’d have used magic to persuade ek’Jemm against handing us over. Or sunk that warboat before it reached us. I’d have used my own magic to flee Secca! I understand this no better than you.”
“But you touched the stone,” the Kern persisted.
“To hide,” Calandryll answered, “only that.”
“Then how was the magic worked?” The freesword’s anger was diminished somewhat, but suspicion still grated in his voice. He fixed Calandryll with a hard blue stare.
Calandryll thought for a moment, then said, tentatively, “Lord Varent spoke of my possessing the ability to work magic—do you not remember when he first gave me the stone?—so perhaps, in moments of danger, some power is released. But how, I cannot say. I sought only to become invisible as we agreed.”
“Varent taught you how to become invisible,” Bracht said, “Nothing more.”
“And the only spell I know is the one he taught us,” Calandryll said earnestly, “I swear it. Perhaps the magic of the stone reacted with Azumandias’s magic. I swear I know not how it happened.”
“Was Azumandias on that warboat?” Bracht’s eyes narrowed. “Who was that woman?”
“Lord Varent said Azumandias is a man. Who the woman might be, I have no idea.”
Calandryll spread his hands, indicating incomprehension. Bracht stared at him thoughtfully.
“If Varent uses us, perhaps Azumandias uses the woman.”
“Perhaps,” Calandryll agreed, “and if so, she’s far behind us now. Or sunk.”
Bracht nodded. Then: “But why use the woman? Varent’s excuse for our employment was the fear of discovery, that Azumandias might uncover his plan. Azumandias heeds no such delicacy.”
“Dera!” Calandryll shook his head. “I’ve no better notion than you why he should. But surely he must—she was no ordinary corsair: she knew we were on board; asked ek’Jemm to hand us over. Who else would send her? She must be the agent of Azumandias.”
“Likely she is,” Bracht agreed, “and followed us out of Aldarin. But still I do not understand why Azumandias himself does not pursue us.”
“Nor I,” said Calandryll. “Save that Lord Varent holds him in Lysse by some means.”
Bracht’s fingers drummed briefly on the falchion’s hilt as he ducked his head. “Perhaps,” he allowed.
“At least we escaped her,” said Calandryll.
“Through use of sorcery.” The Kern’s face grew dark again. “I’ve no love of magic.”
“You were the one suggested I employ such means!” Calandryll protested.
Bracht shrugged, and grinned as he recognized his own inconsistency. “As a last resort,” he said. “To save you from a watery death.”
“Whatever the reason, it saved us all.”
“Aye, there’s that,” the Kern admitted, his grin becoming a full-fledged smile. “And ek’Jemm accords us more respect now. But still I wonder who the woman was.”
“Likely we’ll never know,” Calandryll said.
He was wrong, but then, basking in the relief of their escape, he could not know that both their destinies were inextricably linked with the mysterious woman.
TWILIGHT hung a curtain of soft, velvet blue over the coastline of Kandahar as the Sea Dancer entered the harbor at Mherut’yi. The sun was dropped behind the barrier of the central mountains, the rimrock marked by a swath of fiery orange, and the sky to the east darkened with the advancement of night. The town huddled low along the flat shore, obscure save for random pinpricks of brilliance that cut through the drapery of the dusk where lanterns burned in scattered windows. Calandryll, accustomed to the walled cities of Lysse, was surprised to see no fortifications other than a fortalice illuminated by the beacons that flared along the mole protecting the anchorage, no ramparts or watchtowers, or any other sign of defensive construction. He had known that Mherut’yi was no metropolis, but the settlement he saw as they drifted past the mole was tiny by the standards of Secca or Aldarin, little more than an outpost on the edge of the Shann Desert. He heard Rahamman ek’Jemm shout orders and anchors splashed at bow and stern, the merchantman easing leisurely to a halt and swaying gently at her moorings. The favorable wind that had carried them steadily across the Narrow Sea since the encounter with the warboat struggled briefly with the breeze off the desert and gave up, the masthead pennants hanging listless, the ship creaking softly. With that cessation of movement the air grew hot and dry, redolent of the sand that spread wide to the north. Calandryll paid the captain and, Bracht close behind, followed him down a ladder to the boat that came out to meet them.
“You have lodgings?” the Kand inquired as they were rowed to the dock. “I can recommend a decent inn—the Sailor’s Rest has clean beds and sets a fair table.”
“Thank you.”
Calandryll glanced at Bracht, who frowned a silent negative and stared ashore as if entranced with the prospect of once again finding himself on dry land.
“I stay there myself when I’m in Mherut’yi,” said ek’Jemm, affable to the point of deference since witnessing Calandryll’s apparent display of magical talent. “I can promise you the finest quarters available.”
Calandryll nodded absently. He had no intention of using the inn: better, he and Bracht had decided, to conceal their tracks from the start. Ek’Jemm went ashore alone only to clear his vessel with the harbor authorities; once that formality was dispensed, his crew would come off, and within the hour they would be talking about their adventures. Before long, word of the two mysterious travelers would be out on the waterfront, and soon spread through the town. They would find some discreet hostelry to spend the night and in the morning purchase horses and take the Tyrant’s road inland to Nhur-jabal.
“Thank you,” he repeated, “but we have … plans.”
Ek’Jemm shrugged, plump features torn between the desire to please and curiosity.
“As you wish. Your business is in Mherut’yi? Or elsewhere? I sail for Ghombalar with the morning tide should that be convenient.”
Bracht spoke from the bow without turning his head. “Our business is private, Captain. And we’d have it remain so.”
The Kand’s face stiffened at the rebuke, then reformed an obsequious smile.
“Of course. You can rely on me.”
Bracht grunted. Calandryll said, “The contracts we negotiate on Lord Varent’s behalf are delicate, Captain. The fewer who know of our arrival, the better.”
“Yes, of course.” Ek’Jemm nodded eagerly. “I understand.”
Calandryll suppressed a smile and watched the dock-side loom from the shadows.
The boatman sprang to the wharf, mooring the dinghy, and they climbed stone steps to the quayside. Bracht sighed as he trod solid ground again, turning as a squad of soldiers in leathery armor marched from the nearby fortalice.
“Allow me,” murmured ek’Jemm, pushing past to present himself to the officer in command. “They know me here.”
“I am Rahamman ek’Jemm, master of the merchant ship Sea Dancer,” he declared formally, “en route to Ghombalar w
ith a cargo of Aldan wine. These gentlemen took passage with me. They come to negotiate trade agreements on behalf of Lord Varent den Tarl of Aldarin.”
The officer took the papers ek’Jemm offered and gave them a cursory glance before turning his gaze on Calandryll and Bracht. He was tall and thin, his face dark beneath a scarlet puggaree wound about a conical helm. He wore a breastplate and greaves of hard red leather, and a curved sword was sheathed at his side. His men carried hooked pikes.
“You are?”
Calandryll recalled the protocol demanded when greeting a minor functionary: he ducked his head briefly, hands spread, asuming a businesslike manner.
“I am Calandryll, factor to Lord Varent. This is my bodyguard.”
The officer glanced at Bracht, then returned his attention to ek’Jemm.
“You vouch for them?”
“Most certainly,” said the captain.
The officer eyed them with bored disinterest and nodded. “Very well, you may go.”
“Thank you.” Calandryll bowed again, and smiled in ek’Jemm’s direction. “Our thanks, Captain. I’ll recommend Lord Varent use you again.”
“Thank you,” beamed the Kand, bowing deeply. “And remember—should you decide to favor the Sailor’s Rest you heed only mention my name.”
Calandryll nodded and led the way past the soldiers, mildly confused by a footing that no longer rolled and shifted beneath him. Ahead lay a barrier of pale stone warehouses. Indeed, it seemed that Mherut’yi was built exclusively of the same yellowish stone, save for the docks and the mole and the fortalice, which were of harder-looking grey stone. The buildings were low, with shallow, shingled roofs, their windows shuttered against the oppressive wind, set square on to a geometric pattern of right-angled dirt streets. The lights they had seen as they approached were hidden now and they wandered for a little while among the warehouses before emerging on a plaza where stunted trees stood dusty at the center, their arrival greeted by a desultory yapping from five lean-flanked dogs stretched beneath the trees. The lanterns and the sounds of music coming from the surrounding buildings suggested they had found Mherut’yi’s taverns, and the few folk they saw were mostly sailors or fishermen from their dress, studying the travelers incuriously, as though foreigners were no strangers here. There was no sign that the town mounted any watch patrols and the streets were lampless: they decided to inquire in a tavern about hostelries.