by Will Wight
He was cut off when the severed tail and spine of the Stormwing landed on the deck, leaking glowing yellow-white fluid. It was big enough that it crossed The Testament from stem to stern, and bright enough to drown out the illumination of the thunderlights.
Calder heaved a sigh and let his whole weight rest against the wheel. “Foster, get Petal and Urzaia up here. We need to preserve as much as possible.”
Foster marched down the ladder. “Petal! Woodsman! Get your buckets and get on deck before I make you bleed!”
Shuffles chuckled in Calder’s ear, tentacles waving. “BLEEEED.”
Calder ignored it. The Bellowing Horror liked to imitate the most disturbing words it heard, but the creature was entirely harmless. He’d begun to treat the thing like a parrot. Ship captains were supposed to have parrots.
It didn’t look like they’d get the full payoff they’d hoped for, but they could probably retain sixty or seventy percent of the Stormwing’s luminescent liquid. Two-thirds of a fortune was still a fortune; the Alchemist’s Guild would pay in hundreds of goldmarks for vials of this fluid.
He grinned, settling his hat back on his head, and bowed in the Lyathatan’s direction.
The giant was slowly settling beneath the waves, hissing as it disappeared under the water.
Disconcerting and reassuring at the same time. As Sadesthenes said, “The worst enemies make the best allies.”
Calder wasn’t sure he could count the Lyathatan as an ally, exactly, but certainly as an asset. It had agreed to serve him for a short time, but ‘a short time’ to the ancient Elderspawn could extend into the lives of Calder’s grandchildren.
He turned the wheel, sending his Intent down, and the Lyathatan obediently dragged the ship along. Away from the flashes of lightning. After weeks of chasing this Kameira, they could finally leave storms behind them, and Calder had never before looked so forward to sunshine.
Boots pounded back up the ladder, and Urzaia Woodsman appeared, a bucket dangling from each of his huge hands. He gave his gap-toothed smile when he emerged, staring up into the rain with his one remaining eye. “I never get tired of the rain. No matter how often I feel it, you hear me?”
“Well, I’ve felt it too often,” Calder called down. “We’re heading out to smoother seas.”
“That is a shame. The monsters here are much bigger.”
Petal slid out behind Urzaia without a word, her frizzy hair hiding her face. She sank onto the deck beside the severed Stormwing spine, crooning as she milked glowing liquid into her bucket.
Calder didn’t bother saying anything. When the ship’s alchemist was lost in her own world, nothing so mundane as human speech would get her attention.
The next person onto the deck was a surprise: his wife, Jyrine Tessella Marten.
Jerri wore a bright green raincoat that matched her emerald earrings. Bracelets flashed on her wrists as she hurriedly pulled her hair back, tucking it under her waterproof hood. She wore a wide, eager smile that instantly worried him.
It had taken him days of pleading to get her to stay below during the confrontation with the Kameira. There was nothing she could do to help, and the more people they had on deck, the greater the risk. She had finally agreed, but she wasn’t happy about it.
If she thought there was something in the hold more interesting than two giant monsters fighting, he needed to see it.
She rushed up to him, pecking him on the cheek and wrapping him in tanned arms.
Alarm bells sounded in his head.
“You would not believe what I found down in the hold!” Her eyes sparkled as though she had heard wonderful news.
Calder leaned back, examining her expression from arm’s length. “What did you find?”
She pulled on his wrist, tugging him away from the wheel. “You’ll have to come see!”
The last time she’d had a surprise for him, it had ended up being a clawed Elderspawn that he’d been forced to nail to the inside of the hull. “Should I bring my pistol?”
“Only if you plan on shooting Andel, which I would wholeheartedly support. It’s not a monster this time, but I would have sworn it was impossible. Maybe a Reader could tell me how they did it.”
That was entirely too intriguing to pass up, so he let her guide him down into the belly of the ship.
The hold had been packed with barrels, crates, and packets of gear, though most of the space was unoccupied. They had planned to return with a new load of cargo, after all. Now, raindrops and thin rivers of luminescence flowed in from the fractured deck above, through the hole that the Stormwing had blasted. Some of the crates had cracked open, leaking salt or wine, and a loose barrel rolled around on the wood.
Calder stopped the wild barrel with one foot, looking around for anything unusual.
Jyrine picked up a quicklamp, shook it, and raised it to one side.
In the splash of yellow light, Calder saw a message burned into the inside of the hull, as though someone had scorched a letter onto his ship. Thin wisps of smoke still rose from the charred wood.
Calder kicked the barrel aside, walking up to examine the lettering. “Petal didn’t do this?”
“I came in here after the explosion to survey the damage, and I saw it being written. It burned itself into the wood as though someone was writing with an invisible pen.” She clapped her hands eagerly, like a child at a show. “Now read it!”
He did, his own excitement growing by the word.
Calder,
Hope this mysterious message finds you well! I just learned how to do this, and it’s going to blow the pants off certain people back in the Capital. If you see it first, show it to Jyrine. She appreciates a good touch of theater.
The Guild has a new client. A pair of Witnesses wants to hire you to take them to a certain island, and withdraw a certain relic.
This could be huge, Calder. Not just for you, but for the Empire. And for the Emperor.
Calder stopped reading for a moment, shooting a glance at his wife. “The Emperor?”
Jerri’s smile widened. “Keep reading. It gets better.”
Whatever else this letter said, the Emperor had been dead for over five years. What did the Witnesses hope to find on the island? A way to bring him back from the dead?
With the Emperor, they might even be able to do it. That was a disturbing thought.
And by the way, this will be big for you. This was the Chronicler in charge of finance in the Imperial Palace. He wants me to tell you that if you’re successful, you will “sleep under sheets of golden silk in the cabin of your flagship. At the head of your brand-new fleet.” His words.
So I suggest you get your leaky tub and your flea-bitten crew back to port before he comes to his senses and hires somebody else.
-Cheska
Captain Cheska Bennett, Head of the Navigator’s Guild, was prone to exaggeration. But if she’d taken the effort to burn an entire letter onto the wood of his ship to get his attention, then this must be big. And if the reward was half as generous as promised...
He felt his mouth go dry. Sadesthenes once said, “The wise man is not blinded by gold, but only a fool turns it down.”
Calder rushed back up to the deck, Jerri following close behind him. “Andel! I’m raising the sails! I find myself suddenly homesick.”
CHAPTER TWO
Everyone has Intent. Even you!
You use your Intent every day: when you use a pillow to sleep, a brush to straighten your hair, or a coat to protect you from the wind, you are lending some of your Intent to an object.
Over time, your Intent builds and builds, helping that item get even better at doing its job! You will fall asleep faster on your pillow, your brush will never snag, and your coat will stay warm year-round!
What an amazing world we live in!
-From Chapter 1 of the best-selling children’s guide, Reading About Readers!
Thirteen years ago
Calder walked through the wood-paneled halls, over
carpets soft as an owl’s whisper, and tried to look bored. When he passed an urn with delicate gold filigree worked into the edges, he moved his eyes over it, as though he took in such sights every day.
One hundred silvermarks, he guessed. Then he spotted a collection of pocketwatches, hung on the wall and arranged in a tasteful display. At least fifty silvermarks apiece. Maybe a goldmark for the frame. The snarling head of a Kameira, something like a lion with a head of sterling silver, mounted over the coat-rack.
A hundred goldmarks? More? Who could you hire to stuff a Kameira, anyway? Is that legal?
Altogether, the house positively reeked of money. Walking beside him, Calder’s father adjusted his fake glasses and blew out a fake moustache. He was trying to appear nonchalant, but Calder could all but feel his excitement.
Their host, Mister Karls Dunwood, led them to a spacious office walled in polished logs to make it resemble something like a hunting lodge. A stonework hearth against one wall enhanced the effect, and an array of more stuffed heads—black bears, twelve-point bucks, and even what seemed to be a young Nightwyrm—completed the impression.
Mister Dunwood had a seat at his desk and gestured for his two guests to do the same. He had to use his left hand, as his right had been replaced by a blunt silver hook. An accident at sea, they’d been told.
“Before we begin, can I offer you anything by way of refreshment?” Mister Dunwood asked, his smile revealing several gold teeth. “I received six bottles of the Shiftapple Ninety-six from Nathanael Bareius himself. You’ll never taste another like it, I assure you.”
Calder’s father, Rojric, chuckled politely. “Perhaps if my son weren’t with me, then I would accept, but he’s a bit too young. It would be rude of me to exclude him so.”
Their host gave Calder a gold-speckled grimace. “He is more than welcome to wait outside. Business meetings are no place for children, I’ve found.”
This was all part of the plan, and Calder had rehearsed his part. He drew himself up, indignant. “Excuse me! I am twelve years old, and I have been attending such meetings with my father since I was nine and a half. We are partners in this endeavor, sir!”
Mister Dunwood laughed, trying to appear amused, but he rubbed the base of his silver hook with his one remaining hand. His eyes shifted between the two of them.
They had selected their appearance carefully: two matching blue suits, immaculately tailored. Their red hair was slicked back with grease in precisely the same manner, and they even sat with the same affected posture.
After trying once to get the child out of the room, Mister Dunwood would realize that he could not separate the pair, and continue while ignoring Calder as much as possible. That was the plan.
And, indeed, matters proceeded as they expected.
“Of course, sirs,” he said. “I would not hope to separate the noble family of Fairstreet.”
‘Fairstreet’ was the name of an alley through which they had happened to pass a few weeks earlier.
“It’s unusual, I know,” Rojric allowed. “But where else would I send him? His mother, may her soul fly free, was taken by drink. I did what I could to save her from her fate, but when one is set on the road to self-destruction...alas, her liver failed her only two winters past. If he does not learn the family business, then where is he to go?”
Calder’s mother lived not an hour’s walk from this very building. He could barely remember her face.
Mister Dunwood bowed his head solemnly. “Fate can be cruel. But let us not linger too long on the past. It is the future that concerns us today, is it not?”
Rojric smiled beneath his orange mustache. “It is indeed, Mister Dunwood. I have a buyer who is willing to secure the future for all of us if you can produce what you claim. Pending the verification of a Reader, of course.”
“I have taken the liberty of securing such verification myself, in fact. The document will be provided along with the object itself.”
Calder shifted in his seat, letting his posture slacken, resuming his facade of boredom. In fact, he was scanning the decorative firearms mounted on racks behind Mister Dunwood’s head. Fifty silvermarks, sixty silvermarks, thirty-five silvermarks...
Rojric cleared his throat and glanced from side to side, as though checking for observers in this windowless room. “Regarding the object, sir, would you be so kind...?”
Dipping his hook into his jacket pocket, Mister Dunwood withdrew a ring of keys. After fumbling one-handed at the metal for a moment, he found what he was looking for and leaned under his desk.
Surreptitiously, Calder brushed his hand against the heavy wood of the desk.
The tree is a little girl’s favorite hiding place. She tucks her favorite toys into its roots, where her brothers will never find them.
The lumber is solid, sturdy. The laborer thinks it will go to a fortress wall, maybe, or a vault door.
The carpenter places his hands on the desk, feeling the wood. He’s finished bolting metal plates to the inside of the wood; it has enough armor to stop a pistol-shot, and stands more than sturdy enough to hold a safe.
It took longer to sort through the impressions left in the desk than it had to Read them. This desk was not terribly significant—it hadn’t been through any momentous events, at least none that had made their mark in its wood—but it was invested with enough Intent to reinforce the grain, keeping it sturdy and solid. It would be hard to saw through and steal the safe; much easier to take the key.
Good thing that’s the plan, then.
From somewhere beneath the desk, a safe door squeaked open, and Mister Dunwood withdrew a polished wooden box. He set it carefully on the surface of the desk, as though it contained an explosive that would be set off by the slightest wrong movement.
“Gentlemen,” Mister Dunwood said, in a reverent whisper. “I give you the oldest Imperial artifact not currently in the Emperor’s possession.”
With the tips of his fingers, he levered open the lid of the box, revealing...a worn, and somewhat ragged, quill pen.
The feather itself must once have been beautiful, as a lustrous rainbow sheen still clung to the pen like a thin slick of oil. But the intervening years had worn it down until the feather looked sickly, bedraggled. More like a relic of a strangled chicken than a Kameira-quill pen wielded by the Emperor himself.
Rojric gave a low whistle. “I can practically see the aging. Five hundred years, you say?”
“You have a good eye, Mister Fairstreet. Yes, I had my Reader date it back at least that far. The Emperor used it to pen the documents that led to the end of the Scullery Wars.”
“Truly a shameful moment in our history.” Calder’s father rubbed his hands eagerly. “Well, whatever the provenance of this item, I can tell that you have some impressive contacts, Mister Dunwood. Where, for instance, did you manage to procure the head of a Nightwyrm?”
Mister Dunwood shifted to look behind him, at the black-scaled draconic head baring its teeth from the wall. He grew a proud smile as he started to launch into his story.
Calder’s moment had come.
He hopped up, snatching the pen from its case as soon as Dunwood’s attention was distracted. “It doesn’t look like much,” he said loudly.
The Windwatcher glides through the air, eyeing the currents that shift like rivers of blue smoke through the sky. It nudges an updraft of hot air closer, and the wind obeys, bending the warm column toward the Kameira. The Windwatcher catches the draft in its wings, letting the wind lift it higher. It needs all the help it can get, for its passengers are heavy and want nothing more than speed.
The craftsman works at the end of the feather with his penknife, desperate not to make a mistake. This quill should never spill ink, never smudge or break. It has to write flawlessly, smoothly. For all he knows, his life might depend on it.
The Emperor sighs, holding his quill over the inkwell. A servant-girl rushes forward, rubbing his shoulders, and he leaves her to it. Tonight, he needs anything th
at will help him relax. With one letter, he could condemn a group of merchants to poverty and probable starvation. With another, he might damn his loyal servants to execution. He needs to be eloquent now, to phrase the perfect message that will save them both.
Or else he might be tempted to kill them all, and let Kelarac sort out their souls...
The visions faded as Mister Dunwood grabbed the pen back, red-faced. “This is priceless! What do you think you are doing?”
“How do we know it’s even real?” Calder replied automatically, his mind still swirling in a spiral of Intent.
“I’m so sorry, Mister Dunwood,” Rojric apologized. “He’s been an Elder-spawned nightmare since his mother passed, that I can tell you.”
Mister Dunwood replaced the pen in its case as though lowering an infant into its cradle. “Then why don’t we let him be someone else’s nightmare for a time, hmm?”
Rojric sighed. “Would you wait outside for me for a while, son?”
Calder huffed and marched outside, slamming the door for good measure.
It was hard staying in character while still in the grip of a Reader’s trance, but he kept it up until he was safely outside the office. Then he slumped into a chair, gasping for breath, trying to separate his own thoughts from his alias, from an ancient craftsman, from the Emperor.
At least they had their answer: the artifact was real.
Rojric followed his son out only a few minutes later, wearing a broad smile. “We’ve finalized the sale. A bit more than I was hoping for, but he negotiates like Kelarac himself!”
The second reference to Kelarac, the Collector of Souls, almost sent Calder spiraling back into the trance. He shook off the visions, following his father out of the building.
Only when they were outside did Rojric mutter, “It was real, then?”
Calder grinned.