Key to Magic 02 Magician

by H. Jonas Rhynedahll

  “Are you saying that the apostate can chase us down and sink all of the restored?”

  “Yes, Preeminence,” Lhevatr replied evenly. “I believe he has that capability.”

  Suspicion and calculation replaced anger on the Archdeacon’s face. “Why has he not done so?”

  “I can only speculate. Perhaps for the same reason that we do not reduce the Citadel. He may have no more of the enchanted vessels to drop on us. If, as we suspect, he has discovered some ancient armory in the hinterlands, he may have already depleted the surviving reserves.”

  The Archdeacon considered. “What is the disposition of the Holy Trio?”

  “All crews are on alert and are ready to jettison their anchor chains and maneuver if it appears the apostate is preparing to attack. The Work has no close range weapons in operational order. Brother Whorlyr believes that he can use the enervated bolt throwers against the apostate and has transferred his K’hilbii to that ship.”

  Traeleon fixed his eyes on the Martial Director. “I expect the apostate to be destroyed if he attempts an attack on our ships.”

  Lhevatr kept his face expressionless. “Yes, Preeminence.”

  Traeleon waved a vague blessing in dismissal and retrieved the reports he had set aside. “I approve your orders, Martial Director. You may proceed with the Work.”

  Lhevatr bowed deeply and turned to leave.

  Suddenly, the Archdeacon raised a hand to detain the Martial Director. “Wait! The initiates are on Restoration, are they not, including those most recently converted?”

  “As you say, Preeminence. Have you a concern?”

  Traeleon’s brow wrinkled in concentration then relaxed. “No, nothing firm,” he said finally. “However, order that the initiates are to be watched closely.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  NINE

  Exactly how he had known that one of the cowled figures on the gray ship’s catwalk had been the girl, Mar was not quite certain. It could have been more involuntary magic conveying information to him through the ether, but it could simply have been her particular manner of standing – a roll of shoulder or cast of hip -- that triggered his recognition. Nevertheless, he was fully convinced that she was there and he intended to rescue her.

  “Your wife is on the Monk’s ship?” Lord Ghorn asked again, somewhat dubiously.

  The raft shuddered. Mar had stabilized the spells, but he knew that his craft would not last much longer. He nudged it gently, weaving new convolutions in the ether to encourage it to continue its high orbit above the Phaelle’n ships.

  “She’s not my wife. Hand me the crossbow.”

  The prince looked at Mar strangely, but refrained from comment as he handed the heavy weapon forward, stock first. Mar took the crossbow and spelled it with a drumbeat adulterated yellow-orange so that it hovered before him.

  Lord Ghorn cocked his head at the floating crossbow. “Interesting.”

  After only a moment, however, the Mhajhkaeirii’s curiosity evidently got the best of him. “Now, if I understand this correctly – and I am not sure that I do -- there is a young woman who may or may not be your wife whom you intend to pluck from the ship?”

  “Yes,” Mar replied absently, taking the water jug -- which had miraculously survived intact -- from its place and affixing it with a strong keening blue spell just above the latch of the crossbow. The jug was still nearly full. Its pottery shell had intriguing properties.

  “What are you constructing, may I ask?”

  “A weapon. Can you swim?”

  Lord Ghorn frowned. “Not well with a bad leg.” The prince thumped a plate on the shoulder of his cuirass. “And not at all in armor.”

  Mar examined the prince. Concentrating, he attempted a spell.

  “Ah, interesting indeed,” Lord Ghorn opined evenly. “Now, would you set me back down please?” His voice had a slight edge.

  “You won’t have to swim and neither will I,” Mar told him. “Our clothing will carry us. I think.” He raised the prince a bit higher then let him back down.

  “Well,” Mar clarified, “perhaps not well. It’s something of a strain for me because the magic leaks away constantly from the cloth, but I think I can manage the three of us.”

  The Prince-Commander regarded Mar blandly. “Set on this course, are you?”

  “Yes.” As Lord Ghorn opened his mouth to respond, Mar sent the raft into a drive. “Hang on!”

  The damaged craft side-slipped and vibrated as it descended, rebelling against his control, and the chaotic motion compelled him to choke back its speed. Even so, the descent was precipitous and he coerced the raft back to level flight but a scant manheight above the water.

  “Get ready to jump!” he yelled.

  Lord Ghorn climbed to his feet with difficulty, holding tightly to the gunnels.

  Mar aimed the raft amidships of his target, nudging its bow up at a slight angle so that it would clear the highest point on the central structure. Coaxing the raft to as great a speed as it could withstand, he got to his feet, the wind buffeting his clothes and the salt spray stinging his eyes, and aligned the crossbow and its enchanted burden on the ship’s stern. The raft dipped suddenly, tilting him off balance and causing him to lose the line of his mark. He glanced toward the warship and saw that he had but a moment before the raft was within range of its side bulwarks. Muttering a particularly pithy curse against Nhal-bhy-chu, Goddess Mother of Chance Events, he braced his feet against the raft’s unpredictable motion and sighted down the stock once more. With a last adjustment, he broke a snowy curlicue in the intricate ethereal pattern he had spelled and his mobile missile streaked away, accelerating toward the Phaelle’n ship at better than five times the speed of the raft.

  As soon as the crossbow launched, Mar leapt upward to clear the sides of the raft, simultaneously spelling both his and the prince’s clothing. Warned by squealing bursts of ethereal sound-color, he rolled in the air, focusing on Lord Ghorn and the unexpectedly heavy drag of the other man’s armor. The steel would not accept the mumbling chartreuse that lofted the cotton and wool and he was unable to raise the prince swiftly enough to miss the aft gunnel. Its upper edge clipped the prince’s heels as the raft sped along its fixed arrow-straight path, rushing from beneath them. With an angry yelp, Lord Ghorn’s legs were knocked askew and he rotated at an awkward angle.

  Deriding himself for not thinking of it earlier, Mar rotated the prince about to face him and yelled, “Get rid of the armor! I can’t enchant it!”

  Lips clamped into a thin line, Lord Ghorn pulled a small knife from a sheath on his belt and began slashing leather straps and catches. Despite Mar’s best efforts, the prince began to sink slowly toward the water below.

  Mar closed with Lord Ghorn as metal plates and sections of mail began to tumble free into the bay.

  “Quickly!” he encouraged, fighting his uncooperative spells.

  Lord Ghorn’s eyes flared but he did not respond as he continued to work feverishly. The prince let out a harsh curse as his feet stuck the water, plowing across the surface for several armlengths, but then the Mhajhkaeirii managed to saw through a last strap at his shoulder and shrug out of his hauberk, which struck the choppy surface and vanished instantly.

  Mar watched, mollified, as the prince, with a grin of success, bobbed upward away from the swells. The young magician immediately swept them toward the Phaelle’n ship, staying low to the water. Satisfied that Lord Ghorn’s clothing would now bear him along, Mar whipped about to search for the raft and his mobile missile.

  The raft was already taking fire and disintegrating under the onslaught of all the portside bulwarks, large splinters and shreds of metal trailing down behind it. Though the raft was only a decoy, Mar felt somewhat saddened as he saw the largest remaining piece slow and burst apart, its scattering remains arcing down into the water still fifty armlengths short of the ship. Though difficult to see, the speeding crossbow appeared undetected and undeterred. Watching anxiously, he held
his breath as his missile neared the Phaelle’n ship. The bulwarks, still spewing slugs, began to depress and pivot, chopping the water along the trail of the crossbow. For a heart-stopping moment, the lines of splashes seemed to gain on it. Then, somewhat anticlimactically, the missile struck the hull just above the waterline, twenty armlengths from the stern.

  A geyser of water erupted as a massive blast of fire and smoke shook the warship. The ship heeled over to starboard from the force of the blow and then rocked back violently. Mar watched hopefully even as he increased the speed of their flight and thought he detected the ship beginning to settle toward the stern. He was now close enough to see the rivets in the plates of the bulwarks and the armored central structure. Cowled crewmen stared at him wild-eyed from metal-railed catwalks. Others ran along the wooden planked deck of the ship toward the smoke that had begun to rise at the stern. The bulwarks swung back around, vomiting black lines of deadly steel as they tried to track Mar and Lord Ghorn, but the pair was now safely inside the weapons’ angles of attack.

  He sought his unease, found it, and let it direct him once again. They jinked sideways as a bowman appeared from a hatchway, drawing and loosing repeatedly, the arrows whizzing by, then Mar swooped them upwards toward the highest railing on the central structure.

  Only a single person occupied the narrow observation post. Hood thrown back, her brown hair fluttering in the wind, Telriy stared at Mar, her mouth open in surprise. A terrified scream pealed from her throat as his spells snatched her up into the air and brought her to his side. Face clenched in fear, she clutched at him, feet dangling and kicking, caught his arm and then his shoulder, and forcefully wrenched herself to his side. As he drove himself and his charges directly upwards to avoid the starboard bulwarks of the warship, she clamped her arms about his neck and her legs about his waist. Shaking, she silenced her screams by burying her face in his shoulder.

  Mar felt Lord Ghorn lagging, the seams in his arming doublet ripping, and reached back a hand.

  “Hold tight!”

  The prince gripped his arm strongly with both hands and yelled something that the wind pulled away from Mar’s ears.

  As soon as they were above the reach of the Phaelle’n ship, Mar turned them northward, knowing that his spells would soon fail. The porous ethereal nature of the cloth could not contain the flying sound-colors longer than a breath or two and these failures forced him to constantly replenish the modulations. He found himself unable to deal with all three sets of clothing at one time, having to enchant each separately in rotation. This mental strain leached the energy from his body and his breath began to labor as if he had run a league.

  When they had crossed above the docks and were over the city, he began searching ahead for a place to land. As his reserve of ethereal strength neared its end, he sighted a bare level rooftop some dozen blocks short of the Citadel.

  Lord Ghorn stumbled as they lighted, released Mar’s arm, staggered a few steps, and then sat down heavily, a victorious grin plastered on his face. Telriy flung herself from Mar as soon as their feet touched and stood silently shaking, arms wrapped around herself, several steps away.

  The prince’s grin became an exuberant laugh. “Well done, magician!”

  Mar kept his feet, breathing heavily and allowing a crooked grin in return.

  Telriy shook herself and straightened. Abruptly, she spun and advanced toward Mar, her face tight.

  Mar had scarcely a moment to think, but his success filled him with intense satisfaction. He had rescued the girl as he had vowed he would. He had triumphed over the Brotherhood for perhaps the first time in a murderous day of difficult battles. Thinking that Telriy meant to express gratitude, he was unsure of how he should react.

  The girl’s roundhouse swing caught him totally off guard, snapping his head sideways and flashing stars across this vision.

  “You idiot!” she blasted into his face.

  Mar danced back out of range. “What in the name of the Forty-nine is wrong with you?” he snarled. “I just rescued you from the Brotherhood!”

  “What gives you the right to do anything with me?” Telriy shouted, taking a raging step toward him. “I don’t belong to you and I didn’t want to be rescued from the Phaelle’n!”

  Mar backed up again, mouth agape.

  The girl grabbed the edges of her hood with both hands and shook it at him. It was the typical brown wool, but had blue piping woven along the edge. “I am Phaelle’n!”

  Lord Ghorn leapt suddenly between them, knife drawn. He staggered as his weight fell on his injured leg, but quickly caught his balance. “Back up girl. Now.”

  Telriy did not move. Mar jumped to the prince’s side and grabbed his arm. Lord Ghorn scanned Mar’s face, examined Telriy closely and then looked back at the young man. The Mhajhkaeirii relaxed marginally but did not sheath the knife.

  Mar stepped around and in front of the prince and eyed Telriy challengingly, his anger building. His words came out as brittle as ice. He spat them one at a time. “You – joined -- the – Phaelle’n?”

  The girl spat her answer back at him with equal venom. “Yes!”

  The blow she struck with this admission was a thousand times more damaging than her physical one. His previous hatred for the Brotherhood of Phaelle was nothing beside the intensity of the emotion that seized him at that instant. For almost a full moment, he was unable to speak. Finally, his rage hardened into something cold, dead and eternal.

  “What of the old man?” he asked, his voice gone flat. “What did they do with Waleck?”

  Telriy laughed, but there was no amusement in the sound.

  “Tell me!”

  It was only then that the girl’s expression clouded, reflecting anger not only at him but perhaps at herself as well. In an accusing tone, she demanded, “Why do you think I became one of them?”

  Mar slowly began shaking his head.

  “Yes,” she confirmed, her voice breaking unaccountably. The anger and outrage drained from her face, collapsing into bitter tears. Her voice quavered as she announced, “Your master has taken vows to Phaelle.”

  TEN

  Secondday, Waxing, First Wintermoon, 1642 After the Founding of the Empire

  Telriy was not fool enough to have taken the ring from her finger. She showed it to the ship factor on her closed fist.

  The factor, a Master Czheaic, scratched his beard and bent forward to peer at the small blue stone. This proximity pressed anew the brutal frontal assault of his dank breath and unwashed odor. Telriy tried not to breath. Finally, he rolled his upper lip and shook his head. “Not worth anything. Looks like gold plate and cut glass.”

  The man was fat, slovenly, and more than twice her age. He gave her a suggestive look, letting his eyes rove. “What else have you that might be worth trading?”

  Large-paned windows in rough casements ringed the merchant’s small quayside office. She stepped left to the nearest and lightly traced an arc with the stone of her ring. It left a clear mark and the glass pinged as a slight twist in the frame broke it along the line.

  Master Czheaic cursed. “A’ight, I’ll grant that it’s genuine. It’ll buy you passage to Mhevyr, but there’ll be an extra fee for my glass, so it’ll cost you the whole thing.”

  Telriy hesitated. Though whatever magic it may once have held had long since faded, it was one of Gran’s most prized possessions. She thought it might be worth fifty or more silver; the ticket cost twenty. Still, most of her coin was gone; reaching the port city of Zhijj here on Plydyre had taken longer and much cost more than she had hoped.

  “Stop wasting my time, girl. Either take the deal or not.”

  Telriy knew she must reach the mainland before the impending foul weather of winter disrupted the northern trade winds and curtailed shipping. She pulled the ring from her finger.

  “Well,” Czheaic barked. “Hand it over.”

  “Write out the ticket first.”

  The merchant shrugged and settled heavily in
to his chair. He slid a thick paper card onto his blotter, dragged a large ornate brass inkwell close, and began to print laboriously on the card with a stylus tipped with an iron nib.

  “Name.”

  “Telriy.”

  The girl watched bemusedly as Czheaic printed T-H-A-L-R-H-E-E.

  “Patronymic? Metronymic?”

  “None.”

  Czheaic blew air messily out of the side of his mouth in place of a comment. He continued to jot careful characters, lettering the date in one corner, the name of the ship in another, and finally “Off Zhijj ta Mheffarr” in the center. He sprinkled a bit of fine white sand from a box onto the card and let it sit to dry.

  “Wind of the South sails with the tide this evening, just after eight bells. If you’re not aboard, you’ll be left and the ticket is void. They’ll be no refunds.” He dusted the ticket and offered it across the desk, thrusting out his other hand for the ring.

  Telriy pressed her lips into a thin line. “The ticket still needs a stamp.”

  Czheaic smirked snidely, laid the ticket back on his blotter, and took a wood-handled brass stamp from a drawer. He pressed it firmly into the ticket, leaving a square symbol of intricate lines embossed into the paper. Wordlessly, he offered the ticket again and gestured for the ring.

  Telriy grabbed the end of the ticket and tossed the ring at the merchant, who had to release the ticket to catch his fee with both hands. The girl pivoted about immediately, ticket in one hand and staff in the other, kicked open the thin half-door with the toe of her boot and marched out onto the dock. Czheaic’s coarse laughter followed her, but she let this minor annoyance fade from her thoughts as she had a thousand similar annoyances.

  The clouds that had burdened the sky much of the previous day had cleared off and the sun beamed down warmly on her face. The gentle caress of it lightened her mood, relaxed the intent crease from her forehead, and the frown from her lips. Pleased with a necessary task accomplished, she paused only to secure the ticket within the coin pouch hidden at the bottom of her pouch and then strolled with an eager bounce in her step along the harbor-side street.