The Perilous Sea

by Thomas,Sherry

  But Titus was not there.

  From the laboratory, Titus returned to his room to grab an overcoat. He had told Fairfax that he would come and take West’s measures at the cricket practice, and he intended to be warm and comfortable while fulfilling his promise—or at least as warm and comfortable as possible, on yet another dreary, chilly day.

  As he buttoned his overcoat, he poked his head into Wintervale’s room, to see how the latter was getting on. Wintervale’s room was empty. But a quick look out of Wintervale’s window showed Wintervale and Cooper not far down the street, moving in the direction of the playing fields.

  He left the house and caught up with them.

  “Come to watch the cricket practice with us, prince?” said Wintervale.

  “That is my intention.”

  “Excellent,” said Wintervale. “Then you can be my crutch. Sorry, Cooper, but His Highness is a better height for me.”

  Cooper yielded his place and gave a full recital on how grandly West’s visit to Wintervale had gone off. And Titus was stuck listening to the detail-laden account, as Wintervale proceeded at the pace of a sleepy snail. It took them a ridiculous amount of time to arrive at the playing fields, where half of the boys from Mrs. Dawlish’s house—plus Mrs. Hancock—were on hand as spectators.

  On the pitch, at the position of the wicketkeeper, crouched behind Fairfax, was a boy whose face was instantly familiar.

  West.

  Even if one had very little interest in the school’s sporting elite, one still ended up knowing who they were. But that was not the reason for the recognition that reverberated in Titus, producing ripples of what he could only label as fear.

  Fairfax struck the ball and took two runs, returning to her original position. West left his spot, approached her, and spoke to her briefly.

  As he took his place again, he glanced in Titus’s direction, studying him, almost, before returning his attention to the game.

  Titus felt as if he’d fallen through thin ice.

  When he had had his brief glimpse of the Bane on night of the Fourth of June, he remembered thinking the Bane looked vaguely familiar. Now he knew why. There was an eerie resemblance between West and the Bane.

  They were at least thirty years apart in age, and the Bane had sported a perfectly groomed beard. But there could be no doubt about it, their features were of a remarkable similarity.

  If the Bane could resurrect, who was to say he wouldn’t be able to look a few decades younger? And come to Eton to hunt for Fairfax himself, where his lieutenants had failed?

  Fairfax scored another two runs and was once again talking to West—to the Bane himself, possibly. Titus had to sit down for a minute so he could try for a measure of calm.

  What if West simply reached out and grabbed Fairfax? How fast could she react? How fast could Titus react? And how fast could he make Wintervale, also seated on the ground and avidly enjoying the game, by the expression on his face, understand that he was to unleash all the power at his disposal to keep Fairfax away from harm?

  Yes, he was willing to expose Wintervale’s elemental powers for her. Yes, he was even willing to risk Wintervale’s life for her. He ought to be ashamed, but he didn’t care.

  But the match went on quietly, placidly. As the sun touched the western horizon, West signaled that they would disperse for the day. And Fairfax walked off the pitch with no idea that for two hours straight she had been within touching distance of the Lord High Commander of the Great Realm of New Atlantis.

  The prince was capable of enormous sangfroid—sitting with apparent nonchalance atop the back of a chair at his own Inquisition, holding completely still and acting bored when he must have believed that Iolanthe was on the cusp of being hauled away—but for the duration of the practice he sat down and stood up again at least three times.

  It was the equivalent of someone like Cooper running down the road, screaming, and tearing off his clothes.

  He did not approach her immediately after the end of practice. In fact, he was nowhere to be seen.

  “So His Highness does come to watch a practice from time to time,” said West to Iolanthe as he gathered up his things.

  “His Highness, as always, does as he pleases.”

  Wintervale was disappointed that Titus had slipped away without a word to anyone. Kashkari offered himself as Wintervale’s crutch on the way back, an offer Wintervale accepted with tepid gratitude.

  Normally, when Iolanthe found herself sharing a sidewalk with Wintervale, she would slow down enough to walk beside him. But today she needed to speak to Titus to find out what had unsettled him so.

  Using her thirst as an excuse, she passed Kashkari and Wintervale, striding so fast that poor Cooper could barely keep up.

  At Titus’s door, before she could raise her hand to knock, a hand settled on her shoulder. She jumped before she realized it was Titus.

  “I have been behind you all this time,” he said quietly.

  He ushered her inside. And once the door was closed behind them, he set a sound circle and applied the sort of anti-intrusion spells to the door that would kill a charging rhinoceros, making Iolanthe’s brows rise almost to her hairline.

  Clutching her to him, he kissed her cheek, her ear, and her lips. “Take a dose of vaulting aid. I am taking you to Paris right now. No need to pack anything. Whatever you need you can buy new there.”

  “What?” she cried. “What is going on? You are shaking like a leaf in the wind.”

  An exaggeration on her part, but his fingertips did tremble.

  “West could be the Bane.”

  She stared at him. “You are not making any sense. Did you say that West could be the Bane?”

  “I saw the Bane up close, remember? Believe me when I tell you that West resembles the Bane almost exactly, if you subtract the effects of aging.”

  “But West didn’t come out of nowhere. He’s been at Eton for as long as you have. You can’t expect me to believe that for four years the Bane has been walking among the students of a nonmage school.”

  “I do not know how to account for that. All I know is that you cannot stay here a moment longer.”

  “But I stood next to him for two hours and nothing happened to me.”

  “Yet. Anything could happen any minute.”

  That she didn’t doubt, though she remained unconvinced that he was right about West. “I’m not opposed to erring on the side of caution. But for me to disappear without a word to anyone, leaving all my belongings behind, would appear suspicious, wouldn’t it?”

  He frowned but didn’t reply.

  “Besides, if it has become too dangerous for me to remain at school, then it is also too dangerous for you and Wintervale. And probably Kashkari too.”

  He rubbed his temples. “What do you suggest we do?”

  “We should speak to Kashkari and Wintervale both.”

  “No, not Wintervale, not yet.”

  “Don’t you think you are being overcautious?”

  “No more than his mother is.”

  Iolanthe couldn’t argue with that. “All right, then. We talk to Kashkari. He excels at keeping secrets. And a quid says he already has plans for leaving school in a hurry, in case of emergency.”

  Kashkari, however, was nowhere to be found. He didn’t even show up at supper—it was Sutherland who helped Wintervale down to the dining room.

  “Where’s Kashkari?” Iolanthe asked Sutherland.

  “He is fasting. And there are some rituals he must follow while he’s fasting. He has permission to stay in his room tonight.”

  Iolanthe exchanged a look with Titus. Kashkari’s native realm was not one that fell under the banners of the Angelic Host. But still, rare was the mage belief that looked to fasting as a means of becoming closer to the divine.

  Mrs. Hancock also did not come to supper, which caused a bigger stir than Kashkari’s absence—Mrs. Hancock was never not at supper.

  “I know it is unusual, but Mrs. Hancock
is feeling a bit under the weather this evening,” explained Mrs. Dawlish.

  Iolanthe had not been particularly nervous earlier, when Titus had been nearly undone by his belief that West was the Bane. But the unexpected and simultaneous absence of the two mages made her tense. She spoke little, and listened with only half an ear to Cooper.

  After supper, as he often did, Cooper walked back with Iolanthe to her room, for a bit of help on his schoolwork. He opened a notebook and flipped through the pages. “Ah, here it is. Is this the word that means swift in Greek?”

  Iolanthe took a look. “Okeia? Yes.”

  “But when has Aphrodite ever been described as swift?”

  It took Iolanthe two seconds to understand what he was talking about—most of her attention was on the footsteps outside her door, listening for Titus’s return. He had gone to look for Kashkari again and she was beginning to worry about the latter.

  “Wait a minute. Let me look at my notes.” She opened one of her own notebooks. “I think you copied it wrong. The word is actually okeanis, from the ocean, which Aphrodite is.”

  The two looked similar enough in Greek that it was an understandable mistake.

  “Ah, that’s much better.” Cooper closed his notebook. “Are you sure you have to go to the Wyoming Territory?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. And sooner rather than later, I’m afraid.”

  The prince walked in then. He took one look at Cooper and said, “Leave us.”

  As always, Cooper was delighted to be sent packing by His Highness, who looked at the door a moment after it had closed. “Someday I might actually miss that idiot.”

  “Did you find Kashkari?”

  “No. I could n—”

  There came knocks—not at her door, but the prince’s—followed by, “Are you there, prince?”

  Kashkari.

  Titus was instantly at the door. “Yes?”

  “A word with you, Your Highness?”

  “Come in here.”

  Kashkari entered Iolanthe’s room. Titus closed the door.

  “My apologies to Fairfax,” said Kashkari, glancing at Titus. “But may I speak to you in private?”

  “I am His Highness’s personal bodyguard,” said Iolanthe. From the moment she knew that Kashkari had long realized there was something not quite right about Archer Fairfax, she had been thinking of what to tell him that would explain everything but still keep her secret intact. “There are others at this house and around this school dedicated to his protection, but it was decided earlier this year, due to increased danger to His Highness, that I would step into the identity that had been created long ago, in case someone was needed to defend him from even closer quarters.”

  “I see,” said Kashkari slowly. “I see now.”

  Titus played along. “I would not still be alive today, if it were not for Fairfax. Whatever you would like to say, you may say it before him. He already knows who you are and what your ambitions are, by the way.”

  Kashkari studied Iolanthe for a moment, a took out a notebook from his pocket, and scribbled something inside. Barely a second later, Mrs. Hancock materialized in the room. Iolanthe was startled enough to take a step backward, bumping into the edge of her desk.

  Titus stepped before Iolanthe. “What is the meaning of this, Kashkari?”

  “Let me set a sound circle,” answered Kashkari. When he was done, he turned to Mrs. Hancock. “Fairfax is His Highness’s personal bodyguard. We may speak freely before him.”

  “Ah, that makes sense,” said Mrs. Hancock. “I always thought there was something inexplicable about you, Fairfax.”

  “What are you doing, Kashkari,” demanded Titus, “with the special envoy from Atlantis’s Department of Overseas Administration?”

  “I come tonight as who I truly am: a sworn enemy of the Bane,” said Mrs. Hancock.

  Titus snorted. “I have my doubts that this residence, which contains mostly nonmages who have never heard of Atlantis, except as ancient hearsay, could house that many sworn enemies of the Bane. It is statistically unlikely.”

  “But we are none of us here by chance,” said Mrs. Hancock. “Kashkari saw his own future. Wintervale’s mother sent him because of you, Your Highness. And you and I, Your Highness, are both here because of a man named Icarus Khalkedon.”

  Iolanthe had never heard that name before, but Titus apparently had. “The Bane’s old seer, you mean?”

  “The Bane’s old oracle,” answered Mrs. Hancock.

  Titus and Iolanthe exchanged a look of astonishment. Seers were considered to possess a rare talent, but seers were receivers, limited by what the universe saw fit to reveal to them. Oracles on the other hand were able to answer specific questions. Most oracles in the mage world were inanimate objects, jealously guarded by devotees, and pilgrims could travel thousands of miles and still be denied a chance to ask their one burning question.

  It was almost unheard of for a person to be an oracle.

  “Where did the Bane find him?” Iolanthe asked.

  “I don’t know and neither did Icarus—though my guess was the Kalahari Realm. Mages from all over the world had settled there and intermarried. That sometimes produces a startling beauty in the children, different from anything else one is used to seeing.”

  Mrs. Hancock sighed. “I met him when I was honored with a summer apprenticeship at Royalis. Nowadays the Bane rarely leaves the Commander’s Palace in the uplands, but that summer he happened to stay in the capital. And of course, wherever the Bane was, Icarus was never far away.

  “The Bane asked him one question a month. It took Icarus two weeks to recover from a question and the Bane usually let him have two more weeks of—normalcy, I suppose. Of not being so exhausted he could scarcely move an eyelid.

  “On days he was strong enough to get up and walk around, he would come into the library, where I worked. We became friends—very good friends. And that was all we were allowed to become. He could not do more than speak to a girl, for it was believed fleshly contacts would tarnish his gift.

  “Part of me wishes that our story is only that of a pair of star-crossed lovers—my life would have been simpler. But no, we both happened to be in the midst of a crisis of faith, concerning our devotion to the Bane. And in that sense, I was the best and worst possible friend he could have made—and vice versa.

  “It rather horrified me to learn that the Bane did not ask questions about the best direction for the realm, or the most qualified person to lead a given initiative. Instead, many of his questions ran along the lines of Who will be my greatest threat in the next year?

  “But my dismay was only beginning. When Icarus had been a child, he often become unconscious at the end of an oracular session, and would have no recollection of either the question or the answer he gave. When he grew older and gained greater control over his gift, however, he was able remember the questions the Bane asked and the answers he gave.

  “At night, on his bed, he would silently say those names that he had given as answers over the years. He repeated the string of names to me, those hard weights on his conscience. And when he came to one particular name, I—”

  Mrs. Hancock closed her eyes momentarily. “I heard my sister’s name. My sister was seventeen when she disappeared on a camping trip with her friends. She was seen getting into her tent at night, but in the morning she was not there. Her friends searched and searched. My parents and I—and everyone we ever knew, plus a great many people we never knew—we combed the entire place top to bottom, but there was no trace of her. The area had been known to have giant serpents in the past and no one in the family could bear to mention it, but we had each become convinced that my beautiful sister had become some terrible beast’s supper, for there could be no other explanations.

  “But now her name came up. I asked Icarus if he remembered the question. He did. The question was, Who is the most potent elemental mage who has yet to attain adulthood?

  “My sister was an elemental mage. And
my mother used to say that my sister was the most powerful elemental mage she had ever come across. She ought to know—she had been a headmistress for many years.

  “Icarus and I stared at each other, stunned, paralyzed almost, by the possible implications of our discovery. But how could we know whether it was a coincidence, her name passing his lips followed by her disappearance a week later, or whether there had been sinister forces at work?

  “The idea was Icarus’s. He was near the end of his month and the Bane would soon be making use of him. But in two weeks, when he had recovered his strength, he wanted me to ask him a question: The next time the Bane asks about the most potent elemental mage who has yet to attain adulthood, what would happen to that elemental mage?”

  “We did as we planned. I asked the question, trembling all over, and he sank into a deep trance. After almost a quarter of an hour, he spoke in a deep, eerie voice: ‘That elemental mage will be used in sacrificial magic.’”

  Iolanthe felt as if she had been skewered through the chest. “But sacrificial magic—that is taboo.”

  “No,” Kashkari muttered, as if to himself. “No. No. No.”

  “You already think the worst of the Bane,” said Mrs. Hancock. “Can you imagine the force of the blow, upon two young people who had not yet become entirely disillusioned? It felt like an earthquake, the foundation of an entire life breaking apart.”

  “The next month I asked Icarus what the Bane would hope to achieve, the next time he performed sacrificial magic. To prolong his life was the answer we received. That made no sense. If the Bane were at the end of his life, perhaps one could understand the sordid desperation that drove him to sacrificial magic. But he was a man in his prime. So the next month we asked how old he would be on his next birthday. One hundred sixty-seven was the answer.

  “I remember the two of us staring at each other. The very idea of it was repugnant and horrifying—that he had given himself this unnaturally long life by sacrificing young elemental mages like my sister.

  “It was the last question I were able to ask Icarus, before he was whisked back to the Commander’s Palace at the end of summer. But I had been offered a permanent position at the library and we made a pact to each find out as much as we could and meet again the next summer.