Voyage of the Shadowmoon

by Sean McMullen

  “Raptor auton,” commented Roval. “Someone tried to send a messenger auton west, and Warsovran’s sorcerers were ready.”

  “Who?” asked Norrieav.

  “There are other observers on Helion beside us,” admitted Terikel.

  “Who?” asked Roval.

  “None of your business. All right, then, we shall not wait. We swim out now, while they are watching the skies and searching the island.”

  By triangulating Miral against the beacon pyre, they reached the area where the Shadowmoon had been sunk. Tied to the schooner was buoyed netting, and a grapple towed by Roval soon snared it. All six swimmers dived for the vessel, and they presently had the weights released. The Shadowmoon rose to the surface.

  “The current will take us west; leave the masts down,” said Roval as they began to pump and bail.

  “What? Are you mad?” Terikel demanded. “There’s a fair wind.”

  “Just keep bailing,” cried Roval.

  “Worthy Elder!” called her deacon from the quarterdeck. “There’s a galley turning for us.”

  Roval cursed, then began to bail all the harder.

  “We must sink again!” said Norrieav.

  “No! Drop the anchor stones.”

  “What? We’re dead unless we sink. The galley will—”

  “No. Keep bailing and pumping, and have everyone drink as much wine as possible. Terikel.”

  “Wine?” shouted Norrieav. “Why add a breach of the Navigation Act to espionage? We’re already facing the death penalty.”

  “Terikel, open the sealed locker and put dry bedding in the master cabin,” ordered Roval. “Then strip.”

  “Strip?” echoed Terikel, as did everyone else within hearing.

  “Strip. You and I are about to simulate an exceedingly hasty affair.”

  When the galley Seafire reached the Shadowmoon, the schooner was anchored and with its masts tied down. As they approached, the galley’s crew could hear the sound of singing. The galley drew alongside. Three crewmen lay sprawled on the maindeck, while another was throwing up over the side. A man who seemed to be a dark-skinned Acreman stirred, got to his feet, and waved a jar at the galleymaster.

  “So where’s this bloody fire-circle, then?” bawled the Acreman.

  The galleymaster and his captain of marines stared at each other for a moment, then raised their eyes to the stars.

  A boarding walkway was lowered to the Shadowmoon’s deck and a dozen marines hurried aboard. Moments later Roval and Terikel were dragged out of the master cabin. They were naked, and no more sober than the four crewmen. Presently the officer in charge of the boarding party returned to the galley and reported to the galleymaster.

  “The schooner is the Arrowflight, sir. It has a cargo of lamp oil and olive oil, but was diverted by a merchant named Garretten to convey himself and a lady of, well, no particular virtue, to Helion to see the fire-circle. It cost him seven hundred and fifty Scalticarian … I couldn’t quite catch the name of the currency, but anyway, he spent them to hire that pile of firewood and its crew—and I use the word loosely—to sail here.”

  “Have you told them that the fire-circle detonated this morning?”

  “Yes sir. They refuse to believe it.”

  The galleymaster closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

  “Take them in tow. They are to be kept at Port Wayside until word comes from Diomeda that all captive vessels are to be freed.”

  Aboard the renamed Shadowmoon, Roval was doing a casting while Terikel wrestled with a medium-sized fish. It had two extremely long fins.

  “Are you sure this will work?” Terikel muttered with revulsion.

  “No, but unless you can provide a fully grown hunting hawk for my carrier auton’s host, then we have no choice. Now, hold it up.”

  The fish featured wide wing-fins and a lung sac that enabled it to fly for hours at a stretch. It needed to return to the water more often than that, to moisten its skin, but it could still match the speed of a seagull. Roval set the auton to swim west for three hours, then take to the air. He spread his hands, stretching the lattice of blue tendrils, then cast it over the fish. The tendrils covered its body and spread a faint glow over its wings. It ceased to struggle. Terikel dropped it into the water through the stern window of the master cabin.

  “It should be out of sight by the time it is in the air,” said Roval.

  “What a relief,” said Terikel, wiping her hands. “Now what?”

  “Now you must cast another lure, we need to catch one more finwing.”

  Warsovran’s sorcerers were casting their hunter autons in a huge arc around his squadron, and one was lucky enough to sense Roval’s first carrier as it flew unerringly for Diomeda. It dove. The finwing’s auton sensed its approach, swerved, and escaped with a gash from the hunter’s talons. The raptor auton pulled out of its dive and beat its wings as it climbed again. On its second approach the englamored hawk came in slower, its talons spread, but this time the finwing went into a steep dive. The hawk followed. The finwing pressed its wings against its body and dropped like a stone. The hawk dropped, too.

  The autons that sorcerers cast to control animals were often amazingly complex, but they were quite deficient in both common sense and instinct. The hawk’s auton assumed that anything in the air was either a bird or leatherwing. The idea that a fish might be able to fly as well was quite beyond it. The finwing hit the dark waves and vanished. The raptor auton pulled the hawk out of its dive and began to circle, confident that its prey could stay submerged for no longer than a few moments. The longer the carrier took to surface, the harder the hawk looked for a floating bird, cowering amid the waves. After ten minutes of swimming west, the finwing launched itself into the air again and flew off, this time staying low, near the wavetops. So intent was the auton hawk on its vigil, that it missed a second finwing passing high overhead, also flying west.

  Warsovran had sent his own auton west, and it arrived in Diomeda a little ahead of Roval’s. It also arrived half a day after the Alliance army had appeared on the desert horizon, to the east of the city. A detachment of cavalry had immediately left the main force and attacked the outskirts of Diomeda, causing every marine and militiaman who could hold a spear or fire an arrow to be rushed to the earthwork ramparts that passed for the city’s walls. A short, savage battle had seen the intruders repelled, but there was still the matter of the main army. The commander of marines had every available fighter stationed on the ramparts to impress the enemy nobles, and the tactic had the desired effect. They stopped, made camp, and began planning the next attack with somewhat more care.

  Admiral Forteron ordered four hunter autons into the air, to stop any messengers—friendly or otherwise—from entering the city. He then had a flying squad of dash galleys put out to patrol the approaches to the harbor and enforce a total blockade. All other warships were emptied, and their crews were rushed to the walls.

  Aboard the dash galley Watersprite, the captured Sargolan navigator was in the only cabin, sketching the suit of leather he had seen Druskarl wearing during Feran’s tests. In particular he was trying to recall details of the air-cooling jar that had been strapped to the suit’s back. Warsovran and Einsel were on deck at the bow, away from the crew and rowers, and talking quietly about their new master.

  “Feran Woodbar is as unstable as my former wife,” muttered Warsovran, tapping his own head with a large scroll.

  “Legally speaking, my lord, she is still your current wife,” Einsel reminded him.

  “Your are right, Einsel. Should I divorce her before I kill her? Now, that is an issue to ponder. For the present, however, Feran Woodbar is my problem. He is unstable, impulsive, and that is good. Goaded sufficiently, he could do something stupid.”

  “Then we had best treat him carefully.”

  “Oh no, we should make his life hell until he snaps.”

  “And sets off a fire-circle?” asked Einsel glumly.

  “Yes, precisely,
and after that … The Sargolan navigator has betrayed Woodbar’s secret. He used a heavily insulated suit of armor with some sort of device to cool the air. Why, I could have the leather armor run up within a day of returning to Diomeda.”

  “But how to breathe? The cooling machine’s secret is still just that.”

  “Hah! A large jar strapped to the back may hold just enough cool air for the trip.”

  “May. Large pottery jars are very heavy.”

  “And I am quite strong. We shall ply this Feran Woodbar with insults said to be from those in Dawnlight palace. Before long he shall turn Silverdeath loose upon the place. Then we shall kill him, and I shall be first to Silverdeath this time.”

  “My lord, he used a submersible boat. Suppose that he just slips away in that boat one night with Silverdeath, annihilates Dawnlight before we realize that he has even launched it, then gets it back again. Besides, there is an army on the way, to besiege Diomeda and return it to … Well, the former king is dead, but there is an heir. Suppose Woodbar decides that all Acrema hates him as much as those on Dawnlight, and he casts Silverdeath on land?”

  “So? We can have a channel dug around it and filled with water in sixty four days.”

  “No, this is madness! Suppose the ground is rocky, or on a hillside? All Acrema, Vindic, Racital, North Scalticar, and even part of Torea would burn before the thing is stopped—and that is on the assumption the maps are accurate and the ice and snow in Scalticar and Lemtas are the same as water for stopping fire-circles.”

  “It is worth the gamble—”

  “What? No!” Einsel protested.

  “Keep your voice down and have faith in my calculations. We certainly shall be trying to provoke the little turd into casting Silverdeath. Where he does it, I don’t care. Torea meant more to me than Acrema ever could. Besides, getting Silverdeath back is the key to immortality as well as infinite power. Einsel, Einsel, I know what a fearful man you are, but remember that you will be by my side, and safe. If Silverdeath gets out of control on the plains behind Diomeda, I shall build an underwater shelter in the harbor and endure the last of the fire-circles in there. Inverted and submerged ships’ hulls will do it. Two thousand men, fifty Diomedan women for each of them, provisions and tools … Yes, I could build a new world. Perhaps it would even be the most sensible course.”

  When Warsovran went aft to check on the progress of the Sargolan’s drawings, Einsel stayed at the bow, looking west. The sky was overcast and rain was threatening, but all he could see was fire.

  High in the air and some miles out to sea from Diomeda, the finwing that was Roval’s carrier auton was beginning to descend. One of the patrolling raptors sensed it, assessed its speed and direction, then went into a long, curving dive. Roval’s finwing was carrying gashes from the earlier attack, and was dying in the air as it approached Diomeda. It folded its wings and dived. The hawk followed. A second hunter broke off its patrol to fly cover. The finwing plunged into the sea, but this time it was daylight and the hawk could see the outline of the fish still making for Diomeda. Slowing almost to a stall, it followed. With a speed of over ninety miles per hour the second finwing smashed into the hawk, annihilating them both in a brilliant flash and a cloud of sparks and charred feathers.

  The second hunter auton descended, aware the other had been killed, but not that whatever it had been hunting was a fish, capable of staying submerged for a long time and swimming long distances. It began to circle the charred remains of its dead companion, waiting for what it thought was the first carrier bird to surface again.

  The first finwing surfaced in Diomeda’s harbor, so far into the patrol boundary that the hunter autons were not aware of it. It was weak now, barely able to leap above the rainswept waves, and it was not until its third attempt that it was flying again. Trailing intestines, the auton beat its wings and struggled to gain height. It passed over the battle fleet, barely clearing the masts, flew over the muddy streets, took its bearings on several of the large villas, then registered its target in the distance. The effort to gain that last three dozen feet of altitude killed the finwing, but the auton held the wings rigid in a glide, selected an upper level tower window as a target, and banked slightly.

  It smashed through thin cedarwood shutters and a rushweave curtain, landing on the bed where the naked Wensomer was enjoying a morning free of dance practice. Her shriek roused her entire household, and a good part of the neighborhood besides.

  “ … and I would strongly advise you to make sure that Laron is packed onto the first neutral trader going south. Do it this very hour. Feran may decide to send his own autons ahead of the squadron. Good fortune be with you, my lady.”

  The speaker was a small, translucent orange image of Roval, standing between Wensomer’s outstretched hands.

  “Would you like to see it again?” Wensomer asked Yvendel.

  “I heard it the first time,” replied the rector Yvendel.

  Wensomer brought her hands together, and the auton’s energies dissolved into her skin.

  “There is a lot to think about,” she said.

  “Starting with Laron. We must get him aboard a ship.”

  “A ship? The harbor has been blockaded.”

  “Oh. Yes. Well, if any ship tries to leave and gets sunk, we can have a forgery done to list Laron on the passenger board.”

  “And meantime, where will Laron really be, most devious Mother?”

  “I hate to say it, but probably in your villa, and replacing that dead fish as your bedmate, most peculiar daughter.”

  Unfortunately, no ship’s master was sufficiently obliging as to try to run the blockade. Laron and Wensomer had a late breakfast in the upper sunroom of her villa, except that the sun was hidden behind unseasonal cloud, and rain was again threatening. The matter of getting to a foreign state was discussed at length. Although the nearest border was a day’s sailing down the coast, there was quite a large foreign presence camped about three miles west of the city ramparts, and that made travel difficult. On the other hand, there was a fortified palace technically under foreign control on an island in Diomeda’s harbor.

  “All you would have to do would be pay five gold pagols to Jarrem the Bald at the Tin Flute,” suggested Wensomer.

  “And then?”

  “He will send you to Chok-Tas, the shipwright, in the riverside yards.”

  “And then?”

  “You will buy a small, fast rowing corrak for thirty gold pagols.”

  “Thirty!”

  “You will then climb aboard this corrak with a knife and a packroll containing your weight in stones.”

  “Stones?”

  “You will then wait under the Royal Esplanade Bridge until Miral sets.”

  “And then row out to the island palace and deliver the stones to the crown prince with your compliments?”

  “No, you will slice a small hole in the leather that covers the corrak’s frame, slip overboard, and let the current carry it into the harbor. As it leaves the river mouth, the guards stationed there will fire arrows at it while it is within the range of torchlight. By the time they launch a pursuit gigboat, the corrak will have sunk.”

  “Leaving me cold, wet, up to my armpits in water, and thirty-five gold pagols poorer.”

  “Precisely. You will then cover yourself with mud, climb out of the river, and complain to the guards at the river mouth that you have been beaten, robbed, and thrown into the Leir. They will say, ‘Piss off, horrid, smelly little boy,’ or words to that effect. You will do just that, and return here. You will then be bathed and hidden within this villa, and when Feran arrives in Diomeda and Chok-Tas the shipwright is eventually betrayed by Jarrem the Bald, he will confess that he hired a corrak to you for five silvers, that you rowed away with an exceedingly heavy pack sometime after midnight, and that you never returned the corrak.”

  “Feran will conclude that I have taken refuge in the island palace.”

  “Yes.”

  “Feran will
reduce the palace and its eight hundred defenders to ash with a single fire-circle.”

  “No.”

  “The palace is a quarter mile across and surrounded by water—it would be an easy and tempting target.”

  “Feran would lose all Silverdeath’s protection the instant that he gave the order. Warsovran would then have Feran diced into pieces no larger than an apricot, and recover Silverdeath at his leisure. Feran is unlikely to relish that prospect, so I imagine that he will use Silverdeath to intimidate the besieging army into leaving, then order Warsovran to take the palace by direct assault. Warsovran will take about ten weeks to build the requisite number of floating catapults, and after that—”

  “They crack the place open, discover I’m not there, and post a reward so large on the public boards, that even you will be tempted to convert me into a pile of gold pagols.”

  “Laron, Laron, much of life is merely surviving for a day or two longer in the face of starvation, disease, war, or boring relatives dropping in unannounced for lunch. Trust that something will turn up. Trust me, Laron: Something will turn up.”

  “In the meantime, the auton girl is also walking about in the body of the late Velander, and Feran has some less-than-wholesome designs on that body, regardless of who is at the reins. Ninth must be brought here and kept hidden.”

  “Ninth? The auton girl? Here? Not likely!”

  “Why not?”

  “As soon as the sun is down and Miral is up, you will take her straight out onto the roof and give her one. I saw you at the Academy with that, that … woman!”

  “Lavenci.”

  “Ninth can stay at Madame Sairet’s.”

  “Madame Sairet takes her out to the markets, where she can be seen. If we asked that she be hidden, Sairet would become suspicious.”

  “Laron, you just want to get her in here and do what you ought to be doing with me.”