by Guy Antibes
“Ship ahead,” a voice shouted from above.
Pol looked forward to see a ship slip out of the fog. He tweaked his vision to look more clearly at the craft. “Those are odd sails.”
“Can you see them?” Fadden said.
Pol nodded. “Four dark gray triangles in a row.”
“Shardian pirate!” Fadden yelled.
The captain rushed towards them. “You can see the sails?”
“The boy has excellent sight,” Fadden said. “What kind of defenses do you have?”
The captain shook his head. “We’re fully loaded. We don’t have a hope.”
“What does that mean, no hope? Will they kill us?” Pol asked.
“Perhaps. Sometimes they take slaves. If we are lucky they will have us sail the ship to their base and let us go.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Kell said.
“No money, no ship, and they will maroon us on one of the myriad islands of The Shards,” the captain said.
“And if we fight?” Pol said.
“Then we die. My sailors aren’t fighters. Even with four swordsmen, we don’t stand a chance.”
Pol sat down on a hatch. So much for a safer trip, he thought. He worried about Shira. What would pirates do to a woman?
Someone flicked him on the shoulder. “How does Shro look?”
Pol looked up into the eyes of Shira’s male disguise. “Your magic is back.”
“It came back a few days before we left Botarra. I heard the shouting about pirates. I’m not going to be a captured woman again. Where are my arms?”
“In my cabin,” Fadden said. “A sword will help convince the pirates that you are no lady in distress.”
“I’ve already done enough ‘lady in distress’ duty,” Shira said. “Show me to my arms. I’ll even put on my chainmail shirt.”
“As will we all.” Fadden led them down to their cabins, where they made sure they had arms and money hidden on their bodies. The pirates probably would take the rest.
Pol hoped they wouldn’t make them strip.
By the time they reached the deck, the pirate ship had closed to four or five hundred paces. Pol wondered if he had the power to sink the vessel, but he didn’t think he could break down the pattern of wood from anywhere near the distance to the ship. He looked at Fadden for some sign, but the man looked resigned to surrender.
Pol pulled out his sword. He wouldn’t meekly give up. He checked his magical shields for compulsion and mind control and placed similar shields on his group. Shira bumped him.
“I’m afraid,” she said.
“That makes two of us,” Pol said. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded and rubbed up against him. “We’ll fight to the end.”
“No. We’ll show them that we can fight, but the captain said the pirates sometimes maroon their captives on an island. We both have the tools to escape from anywhere. Fadden is not without capability. He’s a gray, although I think he barely made it.” He looked over at her.
She nodded and kissed him on the cheek. “We will survive.”
Pol’s heart skipped with the kiss. Perhaps she had truly survived only to face these Shardian pirates.
“We can fight as a unit,” Fadden said. “Or appear to be able to. The Shardians are the scum of the sea, but they aren’t heartless murderers. The Pastor and the Pontifer are worse…I hope.” He tightened his grip on the sword as the pirate ship slipped alongside.
As the ship came closer Pol noted that the sails were taller than he had thought. They were dark gray, and that hid all the patches. The ship was painted black or made out of black wood. A massive carving of some sea monster with an open jaw filled with long teeth decorated the prow.
Pol located many more men on the pirate ship than on the small merchantman. Putting up a fight would be useless.
“They have fifty or more men aboard,” Pol said.
Fadden loosened his grip. “Even two pattern masters have no hope.”
The sailors that brought them from Briazza stood with empty hands. All of them showed slumped shoulders and expressions of fear.
“Don’t defy the pirates, but don’t dissemble,” Pol said. “I’ll not be cowed by these men.”
“Easy for you to say,” Paki said.
Pol glared at his friend.
“Okay.” Paki straightened his shoulders as the first pirate climbed over the railing.
The pirate was big-boned with tanned or darkish skin. Pol could see the similarities with Akonai Haleaku, the Shardian lecturer he met at Deftnis, but the pirate was a larger person.. A red patterned bandanna was wrapped around his head. He wore a hodgepodge of styles, likely all booty from previous victims.
“Are you the captain?” the Shardian said, looking over at Fadden. The pirate gripped a short thick blade and spoke in an accented Botarran.
“Over there,” Fadden pointed with his chin.
The captain looked even more afraid. “I am the captain.”
The pirate laughed as others of his ilk joined him on the deck. Twenty pirates stood, holding a wide assortment of weapons. The variety reminded Pol of the weapons table at Tesnan Monastery where he found the Shinkyan sword that he currently held in his hand.
A smaller pirate without a weapon walked up to the captain and tweaked a pattern. So, the ship carried a Shardian magician. Pol’s slim hope to defeat the Shardians just became more remote.
“What do you carry?” the magician said. The man must have cast a truth spell on the Fistyran captain.
“Botarran hides.”
“Your entire cargo?”
“And those passengers.” The captain raised his arm and pointed at Pol’s group.
“Bound for?” The magician’s words were short and curt, and Pol could understand them.
“Bastiz.”
The first pirate laughed. “Smuggling them in? They are going to be very, very disappointed.” He walked over to Fadden.
“You are Bottaran, but they aren’t.” He looked over at Shira and Kell. He walked up to Pol and peered at his face. “You aren’t either. Terilander?” He plucked at Pol’s dark brown hair.
“We are headed for Fassin,” Pol said. He stood straighter and looked the pirate in the eye.
The pirate put his hand on Pol’s sword hand. “You aren’t planning on using this are you?”
“I am ready to, but that depends on what you and your men do.” Pol kept his voice as steady as he could, maintaining eye contact with the pirate.
“Koakai, see if this one is telling the truth.”
The magician tweaked the truth spell, but Pol’s shield held.
“It won’t work,” Pol said. “I am a, a…” He shook his head. “Fadden, tell them that I am a resister to truth spells. It’s true, and I have also put shields on all of you,” he said in Eastrilian.
“That’s what I felt,” Fadden said before he translated Pol’s words in Botarran. Pol understood most of what the ex-Seeker said, but not all.
“You will kneel,” the magician said.
“No, we won’t,” Fadden said. “The boy is right,” Then he spoke words Pol didn’t quite understand.
The pirate captain rubbed his chin, and then thought for a moment before he spoke. “My chief has need of an extraordinarily brave and powerful magician. We will see if you are powerful enough. Sheath your swords and come aboard my ship. I will talk to you further if you promise not to try to escape.”
“He is too young. They are bluffing,” the magician said, he obviously didn’t agree with his master.
Fadden translated the words.
“Has anyone defeated your truth spell before, Koakai?”
The magician shook his head.
“If we escaped, where would we go?” Kell said after hearing the pirate’s words from Fadden.
Pol looked out at the ocean. Half of it was swallowed up with fog, and the rest was open sea. He put his sword away. “Talking is better than fighting right now,” he said in Eastrilian.
The others followed his example. Pol acted to save Shira more than anything. If the pirate chief needed a brave magician, that might mean further peril, but on another day.
The pirates moved forward and bound their hands. They were helped to the pirate ship, as additional pirates moved onto the merchantman. They were told to sit on the deck while the pirates went to work getting the merchantman and the pirate ship underway. Just before they left the spot of capture, the pirates lugged the captain and plopped him with their group.
“At least they haven’t slaughtered my men,” the captain said when he struggled to a sitting position. He looked at the sky and at the ship as it began to plow through the water. “South, southeast. They are taking us to The Shards.”
~~~
The Shards
Chapter Twelve
~
Pol leaned back against the pirate ship’s railing. A tarp had been strung over them to shed the rain that pelted the deck. The covering was meant to keep them dry from the rain, but the ship bucked over the waves whipped up by the storm, drenching the deck where they sat.
Pol thought he could get everyone dry tweaking the water out of their clothes, but the weather would have to improve to do that.
Paki lay sprawled out, miserable from the seasickness that hit him worse than any of the others. Pol wished that he knew how to heal such things, but he only knew how to treat injuries and reduce fevers and inflammation.
The monk, Searl Hogton, had told him he needed to learn more about how the body worked to use magic on illnesses. Searl had always emphasized that illnesses were better treated by other means rather than mis-applied tweaking of an illness pattern.
Pol had to push Shira from him. She seemed to want to snuggle in her sleep while they were tied up. She still posed as a youth, and it wouldn’t do to give the pirates any kind of the wrong idea. At least they were alive, and as long as Pol’s heart beat and he could breathe, he had a chance of saving his friends and himself.
A pirate stuck his head under the tarp. “Food?”
Kell and Fadden sat more upright.
“None for our friend,” Fadden said pointing a finger from his bound hands at Paki. “I’ll take something.”
Pol shoved his shoulder against Shira. “Hungry?”
She nodded and blinked her eyes, struggling to wake up from her nap.
The captain looked miserable, but he took an offered piece of the tough fruit the pirates offered. They hadn’t had a cooked meal since they were captured, but the fruit seemed to stave off hunger. Pol didn’t feel weak, although it was difficult to stretch and exercise his limbs tied up under the low tarp.
“How much longer?” Kell asked in his broken Botarran. Fadden had everyone practice the language during their captivity. The captain knew a smattering of Eastrilian and helped Fadden correct pronunciation and offer vocabulary.
The pirates had Pol’s language book stowed somewhere, perhaps on the other ship, which sailed into view behind them, from time to time. He listened to the Shardians talk to each other. Their language seemed to mix Botarran with some other language that was very fluid-sounding, like their names.
“Where do the Shardians come from?” Pol asked Fadden. “They don’t seem like the same people on the mainland of Volia.”
“Daera, originally,” the captain answered. “I’ve been to Daera a few times. Not much to trade in that backward place. It’s like they live in an ancient era. The port wasn’t too primitive, but I visited a village a few hours from the port, and it was mud walls and thatched roofs. My guide said the entire continent is the same, although the desert people live a bit differently.”
Pol hadn’t studied much about the Daeran continent. As the captain said, civilization hadn’t taken root, and there was little trade with Eastril, anyway.
“Are the Shardians backward, too?” Pol remembered that Akonai Haleaku was as sharp as a person could be.
“In between,” Fadden said. “I’ve never been to Daera, but I spent a summer in The Shards once. It took more time sailing to the capital of Wailua and back. We had a pass that we presented to the pirates that continually ran us down. The Shardians are an unpredictable lot. I think some of it is their culture.”
“So that’s why some get captured and some get killed when caught?” Kell said.
The captain nodded. “Fighting them will get you killed, unless you outnumber them. You yielded and are bound and fed rather than feeding the fish.”
Pol now had a better understanding of his early pattern of the Shardians. They had a code of conduct, but he still didn’t know what it was. He wondered about Daera, but speculation would be pointless.
“Do the Shinkyans trade with Daera?” Fadden asked Shira.
She shrugged. “I guess so. We had some Daeran figurines where I lived. Their artwork is different than ours.” She looked at the others and smiled. “Different than Shinkyan artwork and Baccusolian, which is actually closer to Volian, I think.”
“That’s because Volians settled Eastril. Legend has it that life began on Volia and Daera,” the captain said. “There was a race of gods, but they left us. Fassin, where you were headed has the last of that race in repose. It is said that some of their blood remains in those who live in Teriland.”
Pol had never learned about the race of gods in his studies, other than the Sleeping God. Pol’s mother called them aliens, not gods. Teriland didn’t amount to much in his textbooks, but his readings came up with contradictory legends all the time.
The pirate captain came out on the deck and began to shout.
“Land is near,” Fadden said. “We will stand in judgement soon enough.”
“Judgement?” Kell said. “What have we done wrong?”
The captain shrugged. “I suppose we sailed on the sea that the pirates dominate. Trespassing.”
Shira snorted. “The sea isn’t theirs.”
“It is if they have the fastest boats and the most men,” the captain said.
“They are the owners this time.” Pol struggled to get from under the tarp and looked out at the sea. The rain had let up, and he could see a dark smudge on the horizon, lingering under the dark clouds. He had arrived in the southernmost kingdom of Volia. How would he ever make it all the way to Fassin at the northern edge? At this point, Fassin seemed like an impossibility.
~
By the time they reached the inlet that led to the Shardian pirate stronghold, the clouds had mostly gone, and the yellow light of a late afternoon sun painted the ramshackle buildings and huts lining the river.
“Is this like Daera?” Pol asked. They now all stood at the rail gazing at the shoreline.
The captain spat in the river. “The town you see is probably called Fauali. This has a feel of civilization. Daera doesn’t.”
“A feel, barely a feel,” Paki said. His sickness retreated now that they were off the ocean.
The pirate captain walked up to them, accompanied by Koakai, the magician. “Prepare yourselves for testing. My chief won’t accept your words as easily as I did.”
The magician jeered at them behind the pirate’s back.
“What is the testing?” Fadden asked.
“The chief has a problem that needs to be solved, and our own magicians are too weak to help. He may look kindly on your situation if you can help him.”
“Strength?” Koakai pinched Pol’s neck. “This boy has no strength.”
Pol tweaked the man six feet back along the deck. Koakai fought to remain standing. “I have a measure of strength.”
“Volian tricks,” the magician said.
“I’m from the Baccusol Empire,” Pol said. “No tricks.”
Pol glared at the pirate captain who grinned, and then broke into laughter. “At least your death will be entertaining.”
The magician and the pirate walked away. Koakai turned back once and sneered at Pol.
“I don’t think you made a friend,” Shira said.
Pol scowled. �
��None of these Shardian pirates are our friends.”
“You may find otherwise,” Shira said. “Give yourself some time to understand them.”
“I’m afraid I will have more of an opportunity than I’d like,” Pol said.
~
The two ships docked side by side at docks that looked newer than Pol would have imagined. He had to take the anger that he felt out of his pattern of the Shardians. Vactor, his Deftnis magic instructor, had told him that emotions would distort the perception of patterns. He had to agree.
The pirate captain cut their bonds. “You may retrieve your personal possessions on board the merchantman for now.”
The captain turned towards his ship. “No valuables, captain.”
Pol fingered the amulet that he wore under his shirt. He didn’t know if it was valuable or not to the pirates, but it was one of his most treasured possessions. He hoped they would let him keep his weapons.
“Is this some kind of trick?” Paki said.
“I don’t know, but we’re not in much of a position to quibble. I’d rather have my things than not,” Kell said.
Pol agreed but said nothing. He found his weapons in a box that had just been lifted up from the hold. The long knife and sword were damp from the trip, but the steel had resisted the rust he saw on other weapons.
Their packs were in their cabins where they had left them, but Pol had lost all of the Lions that he had left loose. His box of Shinkyan knives were still in his pack, and it looked like the false bottom hadn’t been violated. Pol didn’t know what kind of coinage they used in The Shards, but once they reached Fistyra, they would have means again.
Pol took the time to change his clothes, with a tiny shred of hope rekindled. Shira wore the same riding outfit in the small corridor between rooms. Her other clothes were too feminine.