Wren Journeymage

by Sherwood Smith

  Journeymage . . .

  Who am I trying to fool?

  A calm and clear mind.

  She could almost heard Mistress Leila’s precise, unemotional voice. All right, so you made a lot of mistakes. What did you learn, besides the reminder that you need to get back into practicing every day?

  I need to . . . Wren’s exhausted mind drifted into a jumble of images and what-ifs. Her eyes closed gratefully for what seemed like just a few breaths, but flew open when she heard thumping and then a distant wail.

  She sat up. Her mouth was dry, her body sticky with sweat. She must have slept, though it didn’t feel like very long. Something was going on topside. Probably nothing good, and here she was with—

  She ran her hand over the canvas shrouding one of the silk trunks. An idea made her forget the noises above. During her second year as a magic student, she and her classmates had learned how to make these seals, as many magic students went on to work for guilds and scribes. It was boring, exacting sort of magic, but necessary. Wren frowned, wishing she could pull out her book and review the lesson.

  Step by step, Mistress Leila had said from the first lesson. The most difficult spells were accomplished the same way as the simple ones, step by step. You just had more steps for this sort of work, but if you knew your Basics, and thought about how each must lead to the next, you could usually remember the right way.

  She dug under the layers of canvas, feeling about until her fingers encountered the false seal. With the edge of one nail she pried just a bit of the waxen seal away from the wood. Working it with her fingers to make it pliable, she started whispering the spells: the identification spell, the encapsulation of words, then planting the spell into the wax . . . After that, the spell that would release the word-spell . . .The transfer spell. All easy because she was working with such a tiny corner of the seal. Isolate, encapsulate, press the wax down—and seal it all together into an enchantment—

  “Nafat!” she whispered, and felt that inward flash, like sunlight on water, that indicated the enchantment had held.

  The fake seal was now real—but the magic when the seal broke would send the trunks right back to their makers. And wouldn’t the Sandskeet’s captain be surprised!

  Wren worked her way to the back of the pile and uncovered another trunk. This time the process was much faster. She did a third, just to test her speed, but at the end felt that warning buzz again, the lightheaded tiredness that meant too much magic done.

  She sank down with her back to the trunk, then stiffened when she heard more stamping, and a high wail that sounded a lot like someone young.

  Someone like Danal, in fact.

  Ten

  Wren fumbled her way forward, barking her shins, sides, and forearms against more corners then it seemed possible the entire world could contain, much less one small cargo area. She climbed up to the next deck. In the light of a single swaying lamp, a great many crew-members stood on the ladder, faces lit by slivers of golden lamplight, all straining upward. Listening. Their shadows rippled back and forth against the bulkheads.

  “She is not!” Danal’s voice carried down into the hot, stuffy deck. “We hate mages!”

  Uh oh. Wren ducked back down, and held onto the ladder as she envisioned her hammock. There it hung on the crew deck. She kept its image firmly in mind and then leaned sideways, one leg outstretched. Whatever posture you transferred in you appeared in, and she didn’t want to transfer into a hammock standing upright.

  Hold the image—and transfer! Thump. Right onto the hammock, but half in and half out. She felt herself swinging dangerously. She flattened herself hastily, and when the hammock stopped its swing, she peeped over the edge. Another crowd of crew members pressed up against the ladder, listening.

  Danal’s voice was louder now. “She isn’t! I tell you. No one in our family—no one in our village knows any mage. If we did, would we be here? No! We’d be livin’ like princes—” The voice abruptly stopped, and was followed by an enraged, “Ow! It’s the truth!”

  “That’s right,” someone muttered. “Beat it out of the brat. We all oughta be livin’ like princes.”

  Wren had heard enough. No one suspected her. It was Patka! Why her?

  The pepper. Wren grimaced. Once again, she hadn’t thought ahead to the results of her actions. The cook probably found the jug empty, and everyone must have smelled the pepper on the air when Wren used it against the pirates. Patka was the Cook’s mate. Wren was only the stupid helper who couldn’t speak Dock Talk. They thought Patka was a secret mage.

  Wren sighed. Now what?

  Think ahead. With a calm, clear mind.

  Wren checked her tunic. The magic book lay securely there. She hefted her pack onto her hammock, which made a kind of rough Destination, just in case. Then she flipped out and joined the crowd at the ladder. “Let me by.”

  The sailors laughed, and one waved Wren back.

  Wren’s heart began to race. “If you don’t, I’ll turn you all into tree stumps.”

  One or two sailors reacted as if she’d stuck pins into them, but the rest scoffed, or pretended to be afraid. She whispered, snapped her fingers—and a cold bit of mage-light appeared.

  They jumped away as if a snake had bit them. She pushed past, leaving the mage-light to burn there in midair, and climbed up the ladder. Whispering broke out behind her.

  “The cook’s helper?”

  “I thought she was smart as a rock!”

  “Maybe a wizard in disguise?”

  She ignored them and walked down the companionway, where she heard the captain clearly. “Well, then, boy, we’ll just have to hang her from the main yard by her heels, and see if she suddenly finds magic and will do the simple things I asked for. If she don’t, well, guess we were wrong, eh?”

  Wren paused. Think! Clear mind—

  Two spells. Get them ready, yes. That’s right. Two good spells, ready to use.

  She shut her eyes and concentrated, whispering steadily, and entered the cabin, interrupting the cruel laughter and taunts of the mates. In the middle of the crowded cabin, Patka sat on a stool with her hands tied behind her, a dirty rag binding her mouth, and a knife held at her neck by the first mate. He was a big, strong, grizzled man who strongly resembled the captain.

  Two others held Danal, one at each arm. His face was red, and tears of helpless rage dripped down his face.

  “Let him go,” Wren said.

  Attention snapped her way.

  The first mate snorted. “It’s the land-clod.”

  The captain said, “You make up some story to cover your pal here?” She jerked a thumb toward Patka.

  Wren said, “I’m the mage. You have two heartbeats to free Patka. Or you’re all . . .” She sorted desperately for a good word in Dock Talk, then grinned. “Barnacles.”

  One of the mates holding Danal dropped his arm and lunged at her, but she’d prepared for that. She pointed at him, finishing the illusion spell she’d set up, and as fake green fire whooshed out of her finger, she muttered the heat spell. It only lasted the space of a breath—heat was very hard to sustain—but the quick sense of burn and the bright, poison green illusion of fire were enough to send the captain and mates backing away in haste, leaving Danal to drop to the deck, and Patka sitting alone on her stool, her eyes wide with incredulity.

  “I got rid of those pirates. Then went to take a nap,” Wren said, knowing that she had to sound really, really strong, or they would rush her again. “What’s all this noise?”

  The captain said, slow and wary, “If you’re a mage, why’d you let yourself get boomed?”

  Why indeed? Wren could tell the truth, but she sensed that she only had a little time before they would act. Above all she wanted Patka to understand what magery really was.

  So she said, “None of your nosing. Got my own cruise.” Cruise being the closest she could come to affairs. “Needed to learn to hand, reef, steer. Learned it.” She pointed at Patka. “If you thought she
got you safe from pirates, why treat her bad?”

  “Didn’t kill her outright, did I?” the captain retorted, her face sullen, but her eyes afraid. A vein beat in her temple.

  Wren said, “Can you get a new sail by wishing it?”

  They stared, looking confused, until the first mate said, “Of course not. But you can.”

  “No,” Wren said. “Magic makes things same way as hands do. Gather the flax, work it, spin it. One thread, two threads, three. Weave it. It’s the same work. Just a different way.”

  They all showed various expressions of disbelief.

  “Magic is like . . . like food. You eat food, you can work. If you work and don’t eat, you get weak and can’t work. If you eat too much and don’t work, you get sick. Magic has . . .” She turned to Danal. “How do you say balance in Dock Talk?”

  He whispered it, his expression so unhappy, so betrayed, she felt her insides wring.

  “Balance,” she repeated the new word. “Use too much magic, and the entire world gets sick. Good mages don’t have silk. No palaces. No gold. They make bridges. They make spells to keep the streets clean.” She was going to add something about guild seals, but remembered her surprise down in the hold, and hastily said, “Water cleaning spells. Protections. Things making life for everyone better. Not just kings. Unless you are a bad sorcerer. Like Sveran Djur. And they aren’t as safe as they think. They make the world sick, and the Mage Council will come after them.”

  The captain and first mate stirred impatiently, and Wren realized they were getting over their fear. She knew if they acted, it would not be to her benefit.

  So she finished the second spell she’d prepared, a partial stone spell, just enough to keep them all in place. She made mysterious signs while whispering the last two words, and felt the heavy pull of magic within her that meant the spells held. But the cost was a return of that lightheaded buzzing.

  The captain and the mates stilled, their eyes looking wide and scared. The knife clattered to the deck.

  Wren knew the spell would not last long, so she had to be quick. She could rest later.

  Because the spell was only partial they were able to talk, though with difficulty. “Why. Do. That.” The captain spoke as though under water, slurry and slow.

  “Because I know what was coming next,” Wren said, picking up the knife. “From the threats you made to Danal, you were going to force Patka to do bad spells, weren’t you? You’d like to do that to me.”

  The captain’s eyes flickered and her mouth opened as if to deny, then shut. Once again Wren felt that inward prickle of alarm, just like the night they got boomed, and she remembered that whisper in the alleyway, “That’s the one.”

  Wren stared at the captain, sensing that there was some other plan here, but she decided not to waste time and effort trying to find it out. The captain would just lie. Better to get away, then any nasty plans wouldn’t matter.

  Meanwhile, Patka finally got the gag loose. “Not you,” she cried.

  Wren sighed. “It’s true. Come on. Outside.”

  Danal had picked himself up from the deck. He and Patka followed Wren outside into bleak morning light under a gray-streaked sky. Faces peered from the rim of the main hatchway, and once again Wren sent out her fake green fire. The faces dropped hastily away, and she ran forward and kicked the hatch cover over, then sat on it.

  Other than the lookout up on the mainmast and the young crew man at the wheel, everyone had gone below to nose out what was going on in the cabin. Only one sail had been set, just enough to keep the ship from wallowing. The mate of the watch had been one of the ones holding Danal.

  Wren looked at the boy at the helm, who stayed where he was, his mouth round with shock.

  “I have to leave,” Wren said to Danal and Patka, in their home language. “Otherwise she’ll be trying to make me do bad magic, or whatever else she’s got planned.”

  They just stood side by side, staring at her.

  Wren tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. “I just don’t know what to do about you. If you don’t want to come with me, I don’t know how I can make sure she won’t do anything bad to you.”

  Patka muttered, “You can make one of your spells to really turn her into a barnacle.”

  Wren said, “Didn’t you listen? I can’t do that. It wastes magic, and it isn’t right.”

  “Leaving a pirate is right?” Patka asked, crossing her arms.

  “That’s for harbor masters to decide, or governors. It’s a matter of law, see? We don’t go around turning people into things.”

  Danal gave her a wistful smile. “You could just pretend to. Tell her if she hurts us, she’ll turn into a barnacle overnight.”

  Wren sighed. “You don’t want to come with me, do you.” It wasn’t quite a question.

  “You could turn me into a princess,” Patka replied. “But you won’t.”

  Wren’s eyes stung. “There’s so much wrong in that, I guess I could talk for a year but you’d never listen.”

  But they were listening. So stop feeling sorry for yourself, and talk. “Magic doesn’t change the world. Not magic in balance. Magic only makes the world a little easier to live in, for all living things. Not just people. I can’t turn you into a princess. I can’t turn myself into a princess.” Wren thought of Teressa, and the responsibilities that had come too soon, too many, and far too hard. “Besides, being a princess isn’t as fun as you think.”

  Patka said rudely, “You would know, of course.”

  Wren shook her head, her throat tightening. She’d lost a friend over magic, of all things.

  It was time to go.

  She turned to Danal. “Will you help me boom down the gig? I think I can sail it myself.” Wren pointed at the cabin. “They’ll come out of that stone spell soon, and I want to be gone. She won’t threaten you anymore. I’m the target, now that they know what I am.”

  Danal moved aft, to where the captain’s gig was suspended on davits over the stern. Two could control the ropes to lower the little boat to the water.

  Patka suddenly joined them, and without a word the three worked, until the gig splashed safely in the water. Wren climbed down one of the ropes and dropped into the stern sheets next to the tiller, then peered back up at the two at the rail, sad, frustrated, and angry all at once.

  “The real reason we never tell anyone we are mages,” she called, “is because the first thing people do is think of themselves. It’s their greed, not our power, that keeps us silent. Just think of that next time Cook raps your skull, Patka. Remember he rapped mine, too.”

  Danal cut in, after one last anguished glance at his sister, “I’m coming with you. And I think we ought to let Thaddy have a choice. And Lambin, seeing he came on board with us.”

  “Where is he, anyway?” Wren asked.

  “Cook is holding him in the pantry,” Patka spoke, less angrily now. “Lamb is probably stuck at the back of the crowd below decks. I’m sure nobody would let him by.”

  Danal peered over the stern rail at Wren. “How long are we safe?”

  “Not much longer. That spell is very hard, even a partial one, and once it starts to fade off, it’ll fade fast. But tell the others if they touch you, they’ll turn into barnacles. It’s not true, but it might keep them off you for a little bit.”

  Both heads vanished. Wren closed her eyes, pictured her knapsack, and transferred it, though the cost was a worsening of the headache throb. She had done far too much magic, after too long without practice. She needed rest, and soon. But if she remained alone, she would have to find the strength to step the mast on this gig, and then handle both sail and tiller.

  A clatter at the stern rail above—one, two, three, then four heads popped over the rail above—the last one being red-haired Lambin.

  “I ain’t stayin’ with no pirate.” Lambin slung his tiranthe over his back, next to his gear. “Even if she calls herself a free trader.”

  The four scrambled down the ropes,
each holding bundles and rolled items. Patka had hooked over her elbow one of the water-cleaning buckets from the galley. Thad struggled with an enormous basket that Wren recognized from having to carry special food to the captain’s cabin.

  “They believed that bit about barnacles.” Danal flicked a grin Wren’s way. “So we got us some stores.” He pointed to the neatly packed trunk along the bottom of the gig.

  “Good.” Wren sighed. “Listen, there’s something you should know before you go with me. You remember when we were first boomed, in Hroth Harbor?”

  Four heads nodded.

  “Well, when those people attacked, I heard one of them say something about my stripey hair.” Wren flicked one of her streaky braids. “It means they were looking for me. I, um, I do have enemies. Though I can’t imagine who knew about my trip, or would be after me. But I thought you should know.”

  They looked at one another.

  Lambin was the first to speak. “So some enemy paid to have you boomed. That’s no reason to stay with someone next thing to a pirate.”

  Danal nodded violently, and Thad sighed with relief, then crouched down at the bottom of the gig to grip the mast stored next to the trunk. Patka just stood, scowling down at the water, arms crossed.

  Wren said, “My last question is, will they chase us once we sail away?”

  “Not with all that pirate damage still to be fixed,” Thad said, as he, Lambin, and Danal pulled up the mast, and worked to step it.

  Patka opened the trunk and pulled out the two sails that were laid atop a rolled tent. Wren joined her, now so used to bending sail that she didn’t have to think about it. As they unfolded the main sail, Patka looked across at Wren, cheeks flushed. “Danal says I’m being a snob. Not about princesses and like that. About magic. That so?”

  “Snobs are never willing to listen.” Wren smiled, not hiding her relief. “You were.”

  Eleven

  Teressa paused on the landing above the ballroom and looked down.