The Maiden in the Mirror

by Scott Hamerton

  Unfortunately, her plan hadn't gone much further than this. There was no way to scrub the sails and fly the ship at the same time. Several minutes passed as she crouched under cover, waiting for the hail to stop, but it never did. The rain of arrows only slowed until she moved, at which time the assault renewed full force once again.

  Then a single arrow, straight and true, landed right between her unprotected toes. Her foot jerked back beneath the sail as pain shot through her limb and blood began to stream out.

  "What do I do? What do I do?" she begged, coddling her foot in both hands.

  A quiet clank redirected Minerva's attention to something behind her, and she scanned the deck, trying to isolate the source. A small golden coin had landed amid the hail of arrows. Then another landed near it, and she turned to see Nezzen in the crow's nest. Her whole body erupted in fear and anger at his inability to find shelter.

  Nezzen smiled when their eyes met, and then he disappeared into the crow's nest. He soon reappeared holding something in his hand, glanced around to see if he was clear, and then hurled the object towards her.

  A separate attack on the crow's nest drove the elderly man back into his hiding place. Minerva spotted his projectile as it landed a short distance away. It was a simple golden necklace with an anchor on it, and she looked back up at Nezzen in search of guidance, but he simply could not reappear without risking his life.

  A necklace, Minerva thought, beginning a conversation with her own mind. Not just a necklace, Nezzen owned plenty of necklaces. He chose this one for a reason. An anchor? What do I do with an anchor? It will fall into the forest. Then what? It hits a tree. Don't be stupid. Of course, it hits the trees. Is that the point? What's in the trees? Spiders.

  Minerva jumped to her feet and hauled on the lever that she pulled on their wild descent towards Reshampur. The familiar sound of a heavy cord unwinding with abandon came back to her. Then she heard a soft crash as metal hit foliage, followed in moments by the unforgettable sound of a thousand tiny bolts of lightning crackling into existence. She suddenly had all the riggers she would ever need.

  Chapter 72

  Anchors Aweigh

  In the belly of the Skyraker, the men heard the anchor fall, and the sound of the enraged spider swarm that it awakened. The captain looked at Olbus, who looked at the twins.

  "Secure the injured!" Olbus commanded.

  They men had barely entered the galley when the Skyraker bucked so hard that tables jumped, lanterns overturned, and every man aboard her fell to the floor in a heap.

  Up on deck, Minerva pushed herself to her feet and took hold of the main wheel. The muted green leaves of the forest instantly burst with vibrant color, and all the far-off corners of her vision fell away. Everything close grew tenfold in importance, and the power of every sound became as resounding as the words of a king to his people.

  As the swarm vaulted the Skyraker towards the canopy, it caught the Arbalest and the Ballistae within its outward edge, and they shot up together. While they ascended, Minerva could find no escape to either side, so she cranked the wheel, flying sideways into the Arbalest. Keel met hull, mast and siding shattered and broke, and all the sailors aboard the deck of the broad vessel flew into the far rail, or over it. Minerva heard them scream as they plummeted to their deaths, and she screamed in triumph, responding to their horror with a fury detached from her own mind.

  Below the deck of the Skyraker, every uninjured hand did what they could to fasten down the contents of the ship.

  "What is she doing?" Captain Glass shouted, as he bound an injured crewmember to a heavy table.

  The higher the ships climbed, the stronger the winds grew, pushing them faster and faster through the forest. The Ballistae moved in swiftly to aid its ally. Minerva veered back to meet its approach, and the satisfying sound of splintered wood erupted where they met.

  Up above the Skyraker, the swarm waned. The wrath of the spiders didn't persist unless they were young, and so Minerva let her second anchor smash down, renewing the flock of riggers that would sail her to freedom.

  Still surrounded, Minerva lunged into the Arbalest for a second time, but they were prepared. Metal hooks flew from the deck of the green-hulled ship, tethering themselves to her by way of rope and grapple. If they couldn't drive her from the helm, they were going to tie her down with their own weight.

  Minerva hauled on the wheel, hurling the Skyraker wickedly from side to side, far worse than even the greatest hurricane winds. The smaller ship twisted and dangled on the end of its lines, unwilling and unable to break free.

  "Tie down the cannon! Plug the powder!" Gunner called to his men, but a sudden lurch in the deck sent him tumbling off balance. His head struck a beam, causing blood to leak from a fresh wound above his eye.

  On the starboard side, the Ballistae resumed its efforts to assist, throwing grapples of their own to tie down their thrashing prey.

  Minerva responded by pushing the lever for the anchors back into place, readying them for another descent. The sound of machinery and metal, spinning and clanking, issued from the home of the anchors below the helm.

  Several of the crew looked about in confusion.

  "What's that sound?" Jim asked, wholly alarmed in a way that exceeded the connotations of his question.

  "It's the anchors – winding up," replied Luff and Leech. "All on – their own."

  The conversation that followed contained no words, and yet it held more meaning than anything the group of them had ever said to each other. Their faces and eyes wordlessly agreed on a profound truth that now stood resolutely broken.

  That's impossible.

  Thousands of spiders swarmed the decks, sails, and helms of all three ships. They crawled across Minerva's cloak, wandering inside and landing on her shiny golden clothing before flying off. They attacked the two sloops with abandon, lifting and dragging their fragile frames through the trees.

  "Get off me," Minerva snarled, searching for a way to dislodge the ships from her rails. She spun the wheels and pulled her levers, and her whole frame shuddered and shook, flying wild and unbroken between the two smaller vessels, hammering back and forth like the ringer in a bell. Then she lifted her anchors and dropped them again, pulling ever more assistance from the forest. A powerful wind filled her sails and she pushed onward, straining on her bindings.

  On the port side of the Skyraker, where the Arbalest hung by its tethers, a massive tree emerged from the darkness of the forest. Minerva pushed over with all her might and smashed the annoying pest that clung to her flesh into the huge slab of timber. Wood slivers and paint blew skyward and outward from the impact, and several of the grapple lines snapped.

  "Get off me!" she repeated in anger, crushing the insignificant thing that hung weakly to her sides.

  "Lintumen!" Captain Glass cried, clinging desperately to the wall and screaming into the brass cone on the gun deck. "Lint! Answer me!"

  Minerva heard the voice bounce its way out of the tiny tube. "Fire the cannon!" she commanded in response, as she threw herself into the hull of the Ballistae; its crew screamed and fell from the deck with the impact. "Fire!"

  The tiny, terrifying voice of Minerva bounced into the bewildered ears of the men on the gun deck.

  "Gunner! Sir!"

  Gunner spun to face his crewmate, who stared dumbfounded at the cannon in front of him. The bloody, shirtless gunner immediately recognized the scent of a burning wick. "These guns are not to be loaded!"

  The man turned a blank stare to his superior, and shrugged. "They aren't."

  Forty-five cannons, unloaded and unlit, unleashed the full wrath of a broadside payload into the siding of the Arbalest, still strapped to the side of the Skyraker. The shattered skeletal form of a once glorious ship fell away beneath Minerva's keel, drifting silently into the darkness until the forest floor claimed its corpse.

  Minerva spun herself against the currents, and against the heading of her sails. Like a top in the wind, she lifte
d the Ballistae into the air beside her. She writhed and twisted in the sky, dropping the whole of her side into her assailant, and still, the lines refused to break. Her attention bent full fury on the thing beside her as she threw herself into the fight. Below her deck, her people cried out in fear.

  "Lintumen! Help us!"

  Chapter 73

  Rogue

  "Get! Off! Me!"

  A young girl's voice, shrill and wild, careened through the cabin that smelled like cinnamon. Lintumen sat in his usual seat with a series of strings woven between his fingers. When the ship shook, it shook only lightly in this room, while the bindings on his fingers jumped and snapped.

  The voice of Captain Glass summoned Lintumen over to stand near the brass cone on the wall. "Yes, Captain?" he asked nonchalantly.

  "Lint! What's happening? How is she doing this?"

  Lintumen pursed his lips thoughtfully for a moment, while the sound of crashing metal echoed through the tube and into the room.

  "Lint! She's going to tear the ship apart!"

  "Is Big Jim with you, Captain?"

  "Yes. Why?"

  "Jim, when Minerva attacked you in the galley, what was that like?"

  The captain looked over at Jim as the fat man fought desperately to keep his girth upright.

  "Like fightin' a rabid weasel," Jim shouted.

  "Vicious, then?" asked the calm voice in the tube.

  "I think she'd fight to the death, if she had to."

  "Olbus, are you present?"

  "Yes, he is!" Captain Glass replied on behalf of his boatswain, as the large officer was doing his best to prevent a cannon from flying around and crushing someone.

  "Tell us about Roker and the night he met Minerva. What state was he in when you found him?"

  Olbus didn't reply. Theoretically, he had saved Minerva, but there remained significant doubt as to whether she even needed saving. Considering Roker's broken nose, broken knee, broken ribs, broken jaw, and his badly wounded arm, Olbus was reasonably certain that Minerva was winning.

  "Minerva didn't need your assistance, did she?"

  "No."

  "What would have happened if you hadn't arrived?"

  "I think she would have killed him."

  The crew stared in awe at Olbus. It was a part of the story known only to him. Everyone else assumed that Olbus had inflicted the damage.

  In the middle on the conversation, the ship rocked with a fresh impact. Dust erupted from between the floorboards and light spilled in through a widening crack in the hull. If Minerva could hear the conversation, she wasn't replying.

  "Captain, how much of this ship is controlled by cloth or rope?" Lintumen asked casually.

  "I don't know. Why does it matter?"

  "Captain, it matters."

  "Everything!" Gunner yelled from the gun deck, as he joined the conversation with his own brass cone. "The sails, the hammers, the rigging, the anchors. The ropes that pull the rudder. Even the sacks of powder in the cannons. Everything!"

  "Exactly. Everything."

  The ceiling suddenly cracked in response to a particularly violent collision, and an unattended battery of cannons fired again. The eruption hurled the sailors that restrained them to the side, leaving the men sprawled across the floor.

  "What you are facing, Captain, is the precise reason that magicians are feared for their power. This is what happens when you unlock the shackles on reality. Minerva has taken control of this entire ship purely by the power of her imagination, but she's not letting go."

  "What do we do, Lint?"

  "A young mind is a fragile and beautiful thing. Like steel in the hands of a blacksmith, it can be reshaped or strengthened, and it can be broken. In place of the smith's hammer, a magician needs only words. This is the result of a mind that refuses to believe in its own limitations."

  "Lintumen, please!" Captain Glass screamed into the cone, dragging the name long and shrill to interrupt the navigator. He was begging for an answer that would end everything.

  "You are losing her, Captain. Minerva stands alone and afraid at the helm of your ship. She seeks to win at any cost, but she is losing the ability to distinguish imagination from reality. She needs someone to stop her. Someone she trusts. If you do not, she will be lost forever. You will lose the little girl that needs you to protect her, to guide her, and to love her. Right now, she needs you more than ever. All of you."

  The men glanced at each other, and then pushed, pulled, and dragged their way to the stairs leading topside. As they climbed to the deck, they found the Skyraker spinning on its side with the Ballistae bound to her starboard.

  "Free that ship!" Gunner called, pointing at the tethers.

  In rapid succession, the men slipped down the slanted deck to the rail lined with grapples, and hacked at the bindings that held the coast runner in place until it slipped free into the darkness. From there they found Minerva at the helm, swaddled tightly in a white sail with her hands on the wheels.

  "Minerva!" the twins called out as they rushed forward.

  Luff and Leech placed their hands on the shoulders of their friend, to draw her attention, but Minerva wacked at the arms of the twins, knocking them aside. Her gaze whipped to face them, revealing an expression contorted with fury and hatred.

  "Get off me!" she snapped.

  It was a command so powerful and raw that the Skyraker bucked with each syllable, and Minerva spun the wheel wildly, sending the ship spiraling sideways. All but one of the men collapsed to the deck as their legs swept out from under them, as if they stood on a shifting carpet. Only Luff remained upright, as instead of falling, a length of rope from the rigging had snaked down and coiled itself around his leg, hauling him upward.

  Gunner shouted for Olbus to intervene, as he himself was clinging to the railing, doing his best to avoid an unwanted ejection from the spinning Skyraker. Olbus hurled himself towards Minerva, but halted abruptly, as a wooden spar twisted down like a young branch in the wind and knocked him flying.

  "Minnie! Let him go!" Jim bellowed as he fought to free Luff from the constricting vine around his foot.

  Minerva turned her attention to Jim. Every plank between Minerva and the chef warped, jumped, and tore itself free of its nails, sending her friends tumbling. At the same time, the rigging exploded to life and grabbed the crew, lifting them up or tying them down, constricting their hands and arms and throats. Up in the sails, the lines of rope twisted themselves into expansive nets and fell over the deck.

  Olbus forced himself to his feet against the onslaught, and focused on Minerva. A mound of debris on deck flew towards the defiant boatswain as a sail calmly reached down to pick it up, like the gloved hand of an invisible giant. Metal strapping cracked and folded as Olbus caught the largest piece, and the boards beneath his feet creaked and buckled when he raised his arms to interrupt a boom that descended from overhead. Large bruises formed immediately on his elbows and chest, and nets followed the attack, but he escaped their grasp using the remnants of the barrel as a shield.

  Then he surged forward. Every binding between him and his quarry did its best to slow his approach, and failed. The Skyraker kicked and rolled while Gunner and the twins writhed in the rigging, choking to death. Cords snapped, boards broke, and still, Olbus pushed forward.

  Minerva screamed her command one last time, but the voice that resounded through the wilds was not her own. It was deep and terrible. The voice of a ship that rattled its planks and beams across each other to form a terrible bellow in the hollows of its hull.

  "No," Olbus replied with a sneer. "You give her back." With a final thrust, the barrier broke and he plunged into Minerva, tackling her in a tight embrace. "Take the helm!" he shouted at Captain Glass, who cowered on the stairs.

  Minerva thrashed under the weight of the man that pinned her down, throwing barrels and beams and ropes at him from all directions. Wide and wicked bruises appeared all over his body, but he refused to let go. His face pressed up next to M
inerva, hugging her tightly. Captain Glass struggled to hold the rudder in position as the wheel fought for control against him.

  Unable to break free, Minerva cried out in pain. She screamed until her scream became a wail, and her wail became a sob, and she sobbed until all that remained of her fury was a young girl crying with all her heart.

  Olbus held Minerva close until she was finally quiet and he felt her wrap her arms around him for comfort. He wreathed her in her cloak, dried her tears, and waited until she returned to him at last.

  In a dim room that smelled of cinnamon and candle wax, Lintumen sat back in his seat and dropped his strings to the table. He looked down at an open book displaying the portrait of a beautiful frigate, crowned in brass trim and painted a striking blue and white.

  "And so, the hand of courage has lifted the veil of doubt, and the road becomes clear. I am forced to wonder, however. Did you choose the Skyraker, or did she choose you?"

  Chapter 74

  Bruised Apples

  "You want to talk about it?"

  A badly bruised and injured Captain Apples looked over at his partner and employer, Captain Black. Bandages lined his arms, one ear was missing, and both his legs were in splints.

  "We just did what we always do. Some cover fire to drive them below deck. If they don't stay down, we weigh them down."

  Captain Black surveyed the wreckage of the Arbalest. Not a single board of it remained intact. "But this, Captain. How did this happen?"

  "I don't know. They had someone at the helm and they swiped us once. Not too bad, I say, and we got the lines on it after that. Fletch caught the flank, and then it was as if the ship came alive. We couldn't get it under control, and we couldn't break free. It thrashed as hard as a gull in a net. I've never seen a ship move like that."

  The nefarious captain stroked his beard thoughtfully, appraising the state of his friend. "Get some rest. I'll go after them."

  "Go after them?" Captain Apples moved to stand, but his injured legs wouldn't allow it. "Cloudscorch went up like a flare when you set it against them. The Arbalest and the Ballistae are in ruins. Ruins! When is it enough, Black? When is it time to give up?" Apples lost his focus and his voice wandered. "The Ballistae is gone. Fletch is—gone."