Sword of Fire and Sea tck-1

by Erin Hoffman

  The door exploded inward, and his heart leapt to face another attack, but it was Ruby, her face a storm of fury, Galon and another crewman close behind. Her own sword was drawn, the longsword that had belonged to her mother, and it too incandesced in the light of Ariadel's life flame. She spared a glance for it, surprised, but returned her attention to the attacker. Vidarian expected confusion, but when she saw that the room was empty, she only snarled again.

  Another blow, this one to his calf, and he fell to the side. Ruby leapt over him like a cat, a glittering chain and pendant in her left hand. She threw it forward, around nothingness, and suddenly a man was there, gasping as she yanked the chain taut around his neck. In the swing of her right arm came the longsword, its blade a flash of cold metal across his exposed throat, cutting clear through half his neck, withdrawn only after the sickening thud of its impact with bone.

  The Sea Queen, taut as a belled sail, straightened with a snarl of disgust, wiping the blade on the man's tattered shirt. His limbs spasmed with death, but an equal measure of her raised lip was for the blood spilling across the expensive carpet, not his suffering.

  Vidarian lifted himself to his knees, and regretted it. Ariadel rushed to him as he swayed, the fire wreathing her hands dimming to a warm glow. The book she'd been clutching, a treatise on Sea Kingdom culture, thudded softly to the carpet. As adrenaline faded from his veins, the full extent of the attack's force was beginning to register, and Vidarian blinked against a pounding in his skull that brought waves of darkness with each pulse.

  Beside them, Ruby was turning the head of the dead assassin with the flat of her blade. “A null,” she said, deftly moving the tip of the blade under her pendant and twisting it free. She turned to Galon, her voice promising a soon-arriving storm. “Find out how he snuck aboard.” And then to the crewman, “And clean up this mess.” Both saluted and rushed from the room, grim and intent, leaving Ruby to smolder.

  “Will you put him on your skin?” Ariadel asked, and if there was nervousness in her voice, she worked well to mask it.

  Ruby lifted an eyebrow at Ariadel's acknowledgment of their custom, and the fingers of her right hand, marked with an old tattoo-left for the death of her first enemy-flexed around the sword. Her answer was a spit of disgust. “A man who never existed deserves no honor mark when he dies. He'll not touch me.” She turned away from the body to face them in full. “You'll sleep in my quarters tonight.” Ariadel started to object, but Ruby lifted a hand. “Someone was intent enough on killing you to sneak aboard the most dangerous ship in these waters. It would dishonor the West Sea Kingdom if you were to arrive at your destination dead.”

  The ship's doctor, after a thorough examination that brought Vidarian into full awareness of the extent of his bruises, declared him unlikely to die. Night now was under way in full, and they'd wrapped his head in bandages before burying him in the thick featherbeds and embroidered coverlets of Ruby's bed. The sheets smelled faintly of cedar and cinnamon, and though there was easily room enough for two, Ariadel insisted on sleeping in a hammock strung in front of the door. Vidarian found it all rather ridiculous but was in no condition to complain, and, with the assistance of a bitter draught administered by the ship's doctor, fell into a deep sleep as soon as the lights were out.

  Ah, here we are again. A voice. Soothing, almost. Familiar, almost.

  The soft rush of the sea against strong ship-beam was a deep comfort after their days on land. But the sound was distant, because he was floating, reaching out into the sea itself. It should have been cold, but it wasn't-the fire of life that lived within it sang through him, from the tiniest creatures too small for the eye to see, all the way to the ship-sized whales who fed upon them. Their warmth was his warmth, and the sea was filled with bright consciousness, here between water and fire.

  So curious. It's refreshing after all this time. I enjoy your mind.

  The voice pulled at him, stopping him from reaching further. Annoyance, mild-he wanted to find the boundaries of this place. Ariadel? he thought, and her name filled him with sudden confusion. Who was he? They were on a ship. Where was the ship? Where was Ariadel?

  Oh, that? That's very inconvenient. Let me fix it.

  And the soft, warm presence that had-ever since the Vkorthan island-seemed just beyond his reach, but comfortingly near, was abruptly gone.

  You're too good for her, you know.

  He woke in a cold sweat, throwing back the opulent bedclothes with a wrench that set his head pounding. A sense of dread threaded with panic crept through him unlike any he'd experienced in his adult life. Strange nightmare…

  A rustle from across the cabin. “Ariadel?” he whispered. She was a deep sleeper, but something had awakened both of them; there was more rustling of sheets, and then her feet thudding against the carpeted deck. Her hand was cool against his forehead, and she bent over him, concerned eyes meeting his.

  It was just a nightmare. But-Can you hear me? he thought.

  Ariadel's eyes continued to search his, looking for further sign of his injury. No thought came back to him.

  Hoarsely, he whispered again, “Think something at me,” and her eyes sharpened with worry. A wrinkle between her eyebrows, for a moment-then her eyes widened.

  “You couldn't…hear that?” her voice trembled, ever so slightly.

  He shook his head.

  In the dim light, her eyes glistened with water, and her hand clenched beside his head. Then she blinked them clear. “The blow to your head,” she said, and then coughed, grief closing her throat. “The nulls are a scourge,” she choked, anger burning through her pain. “They have no magic of their own, so they attack those of us who do.”

  “Why couldn't we see him?” He knew he was asking a simple question to avoid telling her about the dream-that someone, another woman, had spoken in his mind and taken away their bond. Guilt welled up inside him, and he shivered involuntarily.

  She took his shiver for a chill, and crept under the covers with him, sliding an arm carefully around his shoulders. He sighed at her warmth, coiling an arm around her waist, even as his bruises and head twinged. “They have no elemental nature,” she said, and pulled the covers higher around them. “It's an aberration-all sentient creatures, save them, have some elemental nature, even if it is faint. Most people have a balance of the elements-it's an imbalance that allows us to wield magic. But nulls have none at all. We don't consciously see elemental nature, but our subconscious mind processes it, and without it, a person becomes all but invisible to us.”

  “That pendant Ruby had-”

  “Fire magic,” she said, and without their link he couldn't quite tell whether there was a touch of anger beneath the words or not. “It imbues the wearer with a small amount of fire energy. She's dealt with nulls before.”

  Like a child, he didn't want to sleep, fearing a return to the strange dreams, but fatigue, pain, and warmth conspired against him, pulling him down into unconsciousness again. Ariadel shifted, gently settling her arms more tightly around him, and he closed his eyes, surrendering-for now-to sleep.

  Stepping onto the main deck the next morning was like staggering out of a tavern with a roaring hangover. The light assaulted his eyes, pounding the back of his head like an iron anchor, and Vidarian staggered half a step. Ariadel's arm, linked around his as if he were an old man, tightened, keeping him upright.

  The journey to the bow, where several sailors told them Ruby kept an eye on their course, was a long one at such a slow pace. The busy bustle of the ship-brass being polished, sail repaired, rope knotted-was a homey comfort, even as it was a reminder that this was not Vidarian's ship and these were not his crew. He knew that Marielle would steer them steady, but the sense of wrongness at being away from his ship was a constant companion, and some primitive, superstitious part of his mind blamed all their recent misfortunes upon it.

  Just as they caught sight of Ruby, perched like a gull on the tip of the bow, Ariadel gasped. At first, Vidarian thought
it was at the young girl standing next to the captain, her arms full of a glass bowl with a writhing sea witch inside, but then he felt the coil of elemental energy-water, of course-wreathed around Ruby's body and outstretched arm. Below, the sea was a frothing, joyous tumult, propelling the Viere forward with unnatural speed.

  Ariadel's frustration radiated out at him even without a telepathic link, and her mouth was twisted with disgust. “She's a rogue,” she muttered, aghast. “That magic is raw and untrained! She should be remanded to the Nistrans!”

  “The Sea Kingdoms do not answer to land authority,” Vidarian said quietly, turning his head to make sure none of the crew had heard her. “Not even the priestesshoods.”

  His words only enflamed her ire, but she caught his pointed glances and kept it silent.

  As they closed on Ruby and the dark-haired girl Vidarian took to be her windreader, Vidarian noted with a sinking feeling the familiar dried-blood color of the sea witch inside the glass bowl. The girl bowed herself away without a word, arms wrapped protectively around glass, water, and octopus.

  “I see you keep to the old rites,” Vidarian said, not quite keeping the weary resignation out of his voice.

  Ruby snorted, still looking out over the waves, her first acknowledgment of their arrival. “You know full well a wise captain keeps the rites of her crew, and no more. Galon called for the sea witch after the attempt on your life.” She turned, then, and leapt down onto the deck, her boots thudding hollowly on the damp wood. In liquid coils the sea energy wrapped itself back into her body and disappeared, and with it, their unnatural speed dropped away.

  Ariadel seethed beside him, and Vidarian spoke to stay ahead of her. “What's your decision, then?”

  “I will call a Conclave. Not in a decade has there been an assassination attempt aboard this ship.” The tightness with which she emphasized ‘decade’ had Vidarian calculating backward. Rhiannon had been killed just over a decade ago. Surely she hadn't been assassinated? He searched Ruby's face for a hint of the answer, but she gave none.

  “And turn us away from the Selturians, and my father? I must object,” Ariadel said, and Vidarian hoped Ruby hadn't noticed her clenched fists.

  “I'm sorry, Priestess,” Ruby said, “but I'm quite resolved.”

  “By Sea Kingdom law, you owe me the right of resolution by individual combat,” Ariadel said.

  “Ariadel-“ Vidarian began, his head managing to swim and pound simultaneously, but Ruby took no notice.

  “I would,” Ruby said, unruffled, “if landers were due the rights of sailors, which they are not.”

  “I am the mate of one of your allies, and so due his rights.” Now Vidarian choked-wondering if Ariadel knew what she was claiming (the lander equivalent of marriage!), and then wondering if he wanted to know. The coughing fit that seized him brought blinding bouts of head pain with it.

  Ruby, for her part, raised an eyebrow, smiling laconically at Vidarian's discomfort, and conceded with a genteel nod of her head. “Terms?”

  “Staves.”

  “Swords.”

  Ariadel glared. “Magic.”

  “Enough,” Vidarian managed, and their heads snapped toward him like unruly vipers. He glared back through a pounding head. “You both know full well you can't engage in public battle on these decks.” He turned to Ruby. “However you fought, it would come to magic, and she could burn down this ship-I've seen it.” And to Ariadel, “And even if you won without killing us all, you'd have an even bigger problem, because the crew would either kill you or declare you captain.”

  Thwarted wrath emanated from each, either of which would have been intimidating alone. Only the pulsing of his head gave him impatience enough to hold his ground. Ruby was quicker on the uptake, visibly smoothing.

  “He's correct, of course,” she said, all royal diplomacy again. “But I assume that you play Archtower?”

  Ariadel stiffened, feeling for an insult. “Gevalle,” she said, not quite a question.

  “The Velinese name,” Ruby agreed. It was a war game played with pieces of carved stone on a kind of grid. Vidarian had never once in their many games managed to defeat Ruby when they were children, a fact that she doubtless needled him with now. “I have a board in my quarters.”

  “Very well,” Ariadel said. “One game.”

  They crossed the ship in silence. There was no diplomatic way to search either woman for weapons before they entered Ruby's quarters together, more was the pity. Vidarian opened the door for them, expressing his disapproval with an abrupt wave of mock gentility, but Ariadel did not acknowledge it, and Ruby replied with an exaggerated curtsy that was no doubt perfect Alturian Imperial form.

  After she stepped across the threshold, Ruby raised an eyebrow, then shut the door in his face. He squawked an objection, but Ruby's muffled reply was command-voiced: “You are dismissed, sir!”

  He gritted his teeth, then regretted it as pain flashed in front of his eyes. And you are enjoying this far too much, he thought at the door.

  I like her, came the foreign thought, its voice growing more familiar, and his vision swam. Knives of anxiety swept up his spine in successive cold chills, and he looked around wildly.

  Who are you? he thought, reaching out with his mind. But the voice, if it did have a presence at all, danced outside his reach. For a moment, before it left entirely, he sensed a giddy amusement, as of a malevolent child who torments an animal. Sudden rage flooded through him, beating back the pounding in his head, and only the sound of Galon moving in the adjacent quarters reminded him to contain himself.

  Was he going mad? Had the initial link to Ariadel, forged by the fire goddess, cracked open his mind like an oyster shell, and now other thoughts leaked in? Were such things even possible?

  There was no sound from behind the captain's door, and so he retreated up the passageway and exited into the sunlight. The aftcastle was largely untended this hour of the morning, though men and women moved in the rigging, scurrying to answer the commands called out by the second mate from the wheel ahead. Vidarian climbed the narrow ladder and ascended the top deck to look out over the stern, the blue waves, and the wake left behind from their swift passage.

  Watching the rushing water, he was aware as he had never before been of the tremendous energy that surged around the ship. It seemed such a small and inconsequential thing, this creation of wood and tar and sail, to have the audacity to brave the ocean. Down, down went the water, deeper than his ability to perceive with eye or Sense. Not for the first time in his life, but for the first time in a great many years, he was in awe of Nistra, lady of the waters.

  One little element, a voice whispered, who plays with her little ship toys, and loves that you love her. You're too good for her, too.

  The chill seized him again, and he forced himself not to turn, knowing he would find no one. But this time, he wasn't alone in hearing it: around the ship, the waves crept higher, and the ocean sang dissonance to his senses, and anger. Inside his mind, the voice laughed, again with the strange edge that lifted the hairs on the back of his neck-but it mercifully retreated, and the waves calmed again.

  Two hours later, Ariadel and Ruby emerged from the aftcastle, and to the sinking of his stomach, both looked entirely too satisfied for his well-being. Vidarian had no desire to witness a pirate Conclave, even though it might be, as Ruby claimed, the safest place in the sea.

  Ruby walked to capstan and placed one booted foot upon it, calling out to the crew. “We remain on course,” she said, and a chorus of “Aye, Captain” answered from the deck.

  Ariadel's victory was short-lived. She might have won a game of Archtower, but now there was Maladar's Horn to contend with. Vidarian had passed around the horn twice, and only twice. The Quest was shallow-drafted enough to manage the great winding Karlis River, if ever he had need to access the eastern sea, now that the Imperial locks were in operation. Most ships used it to bypass the horn if they could, and the reasons why were looming on the horiz
on: anvil-headed clouds, dark as a betrayer's heart, and a cold wind that drove them toward the knife-reefed coast.

  A good speed would carry them around the arm of the perpetual storm. From the wheel, Ruby was calling out the trimming of the mainsail, and the Viere made crisp progress through waters just beginning to turn dark. As Vidarian and Ariadel watched the sunset-stained water from the bow, the wind fell out from under them. After a rattle of rigging settling back against the poles, all was silent, save the distant boom of thunder that echoed across the wave-plain from dim flashes in the bellies of the thunderheads.

  The Viere continued to make slow progress through the waves, tacking against a nonexistent wind. Ariadel looked askance at Vidarian. “A silence before the storm,” he said. “You'd better go below. Make sure everything-and I mean everything-is tied down securely.” She nodded, then moved toward him. He wrapped his arms around her tightly for a moment, chin resting on her hair, and then she turned for the forecastle, moving quickly while the deck was still steady.

  As she crossed, she exchanged nods with Ruby, who advanced toward the bow, having turned the wheel over to Galon. He still had not figured out what had so securely settled their feud.

  She lifted a brass telescope and looked out at the distant storm, answering his unasked question. “We'll go in with the storm jib as far as we can,” Ruby said, all levity for once gone from her demeanor. “I may require your assistance, at the worst.” She gestured down at the water, and a chill stole over Vidarian as he took her meaning. It was one thing to play at magicking a handful of riverwater, and quite another to attempt taming a storm. Ruby seized his shoulder and smiled. “Just follow my lead.”

  He managed half a smile. “Aye, Captain.”

  The wind picked them up then, cold and ominous. The sails snapped taut against their trim restraint, and the ship lurched forward into newly agitated waves. “Reef main and hoist storm jib!” Ruby shouted, turning away from the bow and striding for the wheel. “All hands check harness to jackline! Look sharp!”