by Ted Neill
So it was with utter horror that Sade looked up from turning a row of earth one morning to see a feral dog that usually slunk around the village garbage pit, carrying what was unmistakably a human arm in its jaws. His legs weak and his heart thrashing in his ears, he ran at the mutt but it did not give up its prize. It raced off into the woods before Sade could catch up with it.
Once it was gone, he rushed to the grave where he and his brother had buried their uncle. Even before Sade reached the clearing in the woods he knew by the sickly smell, a cloying scent of rot that burned his eyes and throat, that the body had been exhumed. He knew they should have buried it deeper. He cursed himself, holding his sleeve to his nose as he entered the clearing. It was worse than he thought. The entire grave had been disturbed by all matter of animals. A buzzard flapped up into the air, startled by his appearance. Rats scurried away from where they had been feeding on what was left of the torso. The limbs were all gone, gnawed loose and carried away. The head was a swollen ghastly melon with a covering of maggots shiny with the puss of decomposition.
Where the rest of the body had gone Sade had no way of knowing, but he knew it was prudent to assume the worst: that the dogs would carry the limbs to the neighbor’s property, the midden, or even the village itself. It was only a matter of time before their crime was uncovered. Sade ran back to the cabin, black spots dancing before his eyes. He packed a satchel with the three spell books, a waterskin, bread, and salted dog meat—what was left of the hound—then rushed to saddle Crystal. Under their care, the mare had become stronger, her ribs less exposed and the luster returned to her coat. Sade adjusted the bridle, his throat caught with the loss of everything they would have to leave behind, including Crystal.
When Vondales appeared on the road carrying a basket of eggs from the market, Sade rode out to meet him, explained what had happened, and told his brother to mount behind him. Always deferential to his older brother, he climbed up onto Crystal. The regular meals, the rest and work had helped his brother to fill out even more. He looked bigger than he did just weeks before. When he wrapped his arms around Sade’s waist, Sade coughed with the strength of his embrace. He could feel his brother turning back to look at the cabin. After the initial crime and the nightmares that followed had faded, the cottage had become a place of peace and comfort to them. A home like they had not known for a long time.
Sade somehow knew that to survive, they could afford no sentiment, only hate. He tried to rekindle the fire in him he had felt that day they had murdered Micael. “Don’t look back Vondales,” he said. “Only forward.”
“Right,” his brother said, but Sade could hear the emotion making his voice thick in his throat.
He kicked Crystal and they galloped down the road.
Sade wished to keep as low a profile as possible, but that was a challenge on the road where they passed wagons full of feed, mead barrels, or field workers. He tried not to push Crystal too hard, as he did not want to appear conspicuous, but still he knew the sight of two boys on a pie-bald mare riding at a trot did not go unnoticed. The pace between the villages was a slow one, especially with the roads still damp from summer thunderstorms. But Sade knew that delay may cost them their lives. His plan was to reach Linusport on the west of the island, find a ship, and flee. Either they would sell Crystal for passage, volunteer on a cargo vessel, or even steal a skiff. Sade was not yet completely confident in his abilities as a weather worker, but with the three books he had and what he and his brother already knew of sailing, they might survive.
Necessity is the best teacher.
They slept on the edge of a field that first night, watering Crystal at a stream and eating a dinner of dog meat and raw eggs. They lit no fire and when cold woke them in the hours before sunrise they mounted Crystal and started as the first roosters were crowing. They reached the village of Crastor, the halfway point to Linusport, when Sade knew they were spotted. It was a bearded man, hauling feed that tipped them off. It was not the way he looked at them, but rather the way he didn’t look at them, did not make the eye contact and greeting that were customary along the road. Sade rode around the town and kept low, hiding in a thicket the rest of the day. Vondales thought him too cautious but when they saw a half dozen of the sheriff’s men riding out of the town eastward, Sade knew caution had been wise.
They stole a horse that night, a chestnut that was not as conspicuous as a piebald and set Crystal free in a field. Under cover of darkness they rode to the next village. They did not slow, but rather galloped right through. Linusport was the next town and Sade knew time was running short. They were back in the western side of Illicaine Island, the side most familiar to them, and worse, full of familiar people. Sade wanted to get off the road as soon as possible and so he took them through a fallow field to woods they knew well and made their way along a creek. It was slower going and they left obvious tracks in the mud, but they moved mostly unseen, only a few girls gathering water and beating laundry spied them. So close to their destination, so close to freedom, Sade thought it a reasonable risk.
He was wrong. Word traveled faster than he anticipated and that afternoon, with the spires and masts of ships in view over the treetops, the six sheriff’s men crested a hill and rode at a gallop to intercept them. Vondales had begun to doze behind him and the long march and rhythm of trotting had been getting the better of Sade as well, making his own eyelids heavy and his head thick with drowsiness. But when the six men spotted them, there was no mistaking their intent. They kicked their horses, snapped their reins, and stood up in their stirrups. Sade elbowed Vondales before spurring on their own horse. Sade rode towards a farm with a number of horses grazing in a corral. He calculated their advantages which were few: their horse carried a lighter burden; they had some distance on their pursuers already; and they were close to the city, where they might be able to dismount and disappear in the crowds.
They were also desperate and willing to take foolhardy risks. Sade yanked the reins and forced their horse down a precarious slope where the animal nearly slipped and tossed them both. But he knew the route would buy them time as their pursuers would not want to risk falling themselves or injuring their mounts. At the bottom of the hill, with Vondales’ arms wrapped tightly around him, Sade took them over a split rail fence and they raced into a corral of horses. Vondales slipped onto the nearest bareback, took up its mane in his fists, and followed Sade. The theft was worth it, for with two horses, each with only the burden of a small rider, they gained even more ground on the sheriff’s men.
There was no longer any point in concealment. They galloped along the main road, one which they had taken with their mother many times before on happier days. By the time they reached Linusport they had opened up a sizable lead on their pursuers. The streets were busy with the market traffic and the chaos of a port town. Fishmongers competed with one another to sell the day’s catch. Taverns were opening their doors for evening revelers. Children played in the streets before they were called home for chores.
Sade and Vondales galloped faster than they should have through the crowds, sending citizens scurrying for cover, their horses’ hooves ringing out loudly on the cobblestone street that was littered with corncobs, fish bones, and other rubbish that tended to collect in the city lanes. The noises of the crowds, even the smell of them was an assault on their already heightened senses.
Sade had the feeling of things slipping out of his control, the same way he had felt when he had first tried to murder his uncle and failed. Just as he had scrambled for cover like a panicked animal, so too now they rode with desperate abandon and without a plan except to reach the shore.
A girl carrying a basket of fish on her head froze in the middle of Sade’s path. He only saw her for an instance but her features were seared in his mind. Green eyes, open wide with terror, russet hair, and although they were streaked with dirt, she had plump cheeks with smooth skin. One of the shoulder straps to her coveralls had broken and she had tied the ends i
nto a knot instead of mending it. The skin of her hands looked tough and calloused and her knuckles were cracked and dry. She was small, but she loomed larger than any obstacle in their path so far. What family did she have—a mother, a father—who had sent her to gather fish and carry them to market? Siblings whom she loved and hated, as Sade loved and hated his own brother by turns? In that moment, when the cries of the sheriff’s men could be heard at their backs, Sade decided none of it mattered. They had chosen the path of life, of freedom, and others would pay the price before they did.
The horse stumbled as it rode the girl down. The basket tumbled. Fish went spinning into the air and a woman off to the side screamed. Sade chanced a glance backwards only to see his brother and his pony leap over her twisted body. Sade’s hands, already shaking from the madness of the chase, trembled as if he were suffering from a great fever. He squeezed them into fists to steady himself. The docks were within sight, Sade felt nearly free, and yet somehow burdened and heavy at once. He shook his shoulders and head as if to shed the feelings clouding his mind and focused on their goal.
Only survival matters.
The world had taught him it cared not for them and so he would care not for it, or its morals. It was pure selfish desperation that drove them now. They were seagulls on the cliffs, panthers in the wood, sharks in the sea, doing what they had to do, according to nature, in order to live one more day. Sade tried to steel himself with the knowledge that to be so free of compunction was liberating.
They dismounted when they reached the water and ran for the dock where smaller boats were moored. They passed skiffs, board boats, and catamarans. Without speaking, they both understood that they had to steal a boat from the very end of the pier if they were to escape. Vondales picked up a hatchet that a sailor had set on the planks beside him. When the sailor got up to pursue them, Vondales swung the hatchet at his head, and he tottered back and fell into the water. Sade looked behind them to see that the sheriff’s men had reached the pier, their horses foaming at the mouth and streaked with sweat. They dismounted and brandished spears, weighted nets, and clubs, closing in on them. Other men from the town had joined the pursuit, eager for a fight, for punishment, to avenge the chaos and injuries Sade and his brother had wrought. Sade fumbled with his satchel and began to flip through the pages of one of the spell books.
“Come on!” Vondales called to him from beside a cleat where he was unmooring a skiff. The open sea beckoned just over his shoulder. Sade leapt into the boat and Vondales shoved them off into the water, the initial momentum carrying them a few feet into the harbor before they slowed and began to bounce idly in the chopping water. Sade slapped pages aside as he searched for the enchantment to call down a breeze. The end of the dock was soon full of menacing looking men. It took only an instant for two of the sheriff’s men to make the decision to swim after them. The crowd cheered as the sheriff’s men kicked off their boots and dove into the water.
“Hurry, Sade!”
An arrow flew overhead and stuck in the sail as Vondales raised it. Sade found the page he wanted and scanned down through the text to the incantation he needed, then chanted the words. His concentration was broken when the boat rocked violently. The first swimmer had reached them and was clawing his way up over the stern. Vondales brought the hatchet down on the man’s bending wrist. Sade saw a flash of blood and the severed hand fall onto the thwart. The bloody stump retreated quickly as the man fell back into the water, screaming a second time as the salt water struck his open wound. Sade turned back to his book, aware that another arrow had just lodged itself in the gunwale beside him. A third whistled by his brother’s head as he ducked down in the stern.
“Sade, read!” he cried.
Sade read the words out again. He flexed his fists and forearms, pressed them to his head and repeated the incantation over and over. He concentrated on the sensation of power in his fingertips and the thought of a breeze—no, a gale—in his mind. For a moment his heart sank with regret that his mother had not sent him to apprentice with his uncle, even as cruel as he was.
More splashes, more arrows in the shrouds. He repeated the incantation again. Archmages could think the words and will the spell into existence but Sade was no archmage. His brother’s eyes met his own for a moment before Vondales turned back to the water where the second swimmer was nearing. Sade tried the words again. The power was tingling in the tips of his fingers to the point of pain. He had tried every variation of pronunciation he could imagine. The sail only fluttered gently in the world’s wind. Yet he could feel the soft rush of air, the beginning of a stiffer breeze on the back of his neck each time he said the words.
He called out the final word to bind the spell in place just as the second swimmer reached the boat. He clumsily swung a studded mace at Vondales, who smashed the swimmer’s fingers with the flat end of the hatchet. He slid back into the water but began to hammer the side of the boat with the mace. Sade pictured water gushing in through the hull and filling the space at their feet. They would be lost. He closed his eyes once more, trying his best to shut out the images that flashed through his mind: the blood-thirsty crowd, the girl he had run down, his mother’s sunken and wasted face.
A seagull on the wind.
He heard a gull cry from overhead and looked up. The bird floated there just as gulls had off of Skull Point when he had felt resolution in his heart and head to live, to survive. It felt like an omen, a lucky sign. It flapped its wings and moved towards the sea, towards safety, freedom. Sade was breathing rapidly, his chest puffing in and out. He took a deep breath, steading himself on the gunwale, and repeated the words. He had no need to read them now. Desperation had made for quick memorization. He said them once more, slowly, deliberately.
“Magzeen morphus luum. Albreith trulet . . .”
“Sade, more are coming.”
“. . . nyne.”
The sail suddenly snapped tight, the rigging groaned as it stretched, and a wave formed at the bow. Water sluiced down the sides of the craft. The skiff surged forward, such a roaring wind pushing them that Sade laughed and shouted out his own cry of relief and triumph. When it had mattered he had called the wind.
Vondales stepped into the stern where he picked up the severed hand and flung it into the sea like some strange starfish, cursing at those back on the dock. Sade didn’t need to hear the words his brother spoke—he couldn’t over the wind—but he could read Vondales’ lips and even better, read the relief and pride in his face. “You did good,” he was saying. “You did good.”
Chapter 9
The Elawn
Omanuju and Adamantus were already freed from whatever spell they had been put under when Ghede came running into the chamber, Gabriella bouncing on his back.
“Ghede, there you are,” Omanuju said.
“Test passed. We have a bigger problem,” Ghede said, not breaking stride as he passed Omanuju and the elk and headed towards the largest ship, the Elawn.
“What is it?” Omanuju asked but before Ghede could answer, a startled Adamantus reared on his hind legs as the vapor Gabriella had released flooded up the stairwell and spilled out onto the chamber floor.
“By the stars!” Omanuju cried, and followed Ghede.
Gabriella was not sure what was going on. Was Ghede their ally or no? Omanuju showed no fear of him. But both were terrified of the substance that was now spreading across the floor, leading with long tentacles of shadow that whipped and twisted in the air. Ghede set Gabriella down in order to pull on the mooring line of the Elawn. The ship moved ponderously, like an ocean-going ship tied up at dock, but floating on air rather than water. Ghede’s muscles rippled, his tendons cording in his limbs. The Elawn came in low enough that its hull just scraped the floor. Adamantus leapt the gunwale while Omanuju climbed a rope ladder dangling over the side. Gabriella looked left and right, up and down. She still didn’t know what to do. Ghede provided an answer by tossing her up in an abrupt swing over the rail and onto the dec
k. He followed quickly after climbing up the tow rope and leaping onto the deck at a full run.
“The poles, the poles!” he shouted.
The Elawn was just like any other sailing ship Gabriella had been on before. It had a wide main deck with promenades to the port and starboard, a raised mid-deck covered in hatches, and a wheel well for steering. A set of double doors aft led to the cabins below. The poles Ghede spoke of hung just beneath the railings to port and starboard. Omanuju snapped one free, Ghede the other, and levering each against the cave walls, they began to shift the Elawn forward. It was painfully slow, however, and the inky substance had already overtaken more than half the room.
“Push!” Ghede cried.
The paneled sail scraped against the ceiling, and Ghede raised his pole to push the Elawn downward. The black vapor curled over the side, slithering across the boards until Adamantus leapt down from the main deck to the port walkway and slashed at the tendrils with his antlers, his branching crown glowing silver from within the cloud. The dark miasma parted.
The cave mouth opened around them, and Gabriella saw to her horror that they were hundreds of feet up the cliff side. She reeled and stumbled away from the rail, her stomach uncontrollable, her head spinning, and her body drenched with sweat. She could not scramble away from the edge quickly enough. She was so intent that she failed to notice the withered plank in the deck. It gave way under her in an explosion of soft, rotten wood. Her chin struck the deck hard, rocking back her head as she slipped through the planking and fell into the ship’s hold. She rolled down the sloping walls onto the keel. The Elawn was anything but a sealed and watertight ship, and Gabriella could make out the rocky shore and the frothy surf through the gaps in the boards of the hull.
She felt as if she would wretch when something pulled at her belt. She wondered if she had snagged a nail or if Omanuju or Ghede had reached in to grab her, but the two of them were still topside. In the dim interior of the ship she discerned an incongruous sight: a great black stone, its sides jagged and shiny and covered by metal objects–buttons, nails, fishhooks, and even a dagger, each stuck to the stone as if glued to it. Gabriella wondered how the objects defied gravity in such a way when she realized her own belt buckle had swung around and was being tugged towards the stone as if pulled by an irresistible force. She felt her hips sliding across the boards. She struggled to escape the force, her thrashing knocking a second and then a third board free from beneath her. Fresh sea winds whipped through the gap, tousling her hair.