Pirate of the Prophecy

by Jack Campbell

  Loka also spoke directly to Jules. “As I told the captain and the other two, I escaped from the estates of Prince Ostin north of Centin last year. A good-sized group of others recently went on the run from those estates. I was supposed to meet them along the coast and take them to safety in the west. But late yesterday the smuggler who was supposed to help us got a message to me that the others had been captured by Imperial police.”

  “How can we help with that?” Jules asked. She knew why Loka and the others had fled the prince’s estates. Such agricultural laborers were worked hard, and what private lives they had were closely controlled by whichever noble owned the land. They couldn’t move, marry, or have families without permission. Everyone in the Empire gave up some freedom for the security the Emperor promised them, but laborers on the estates of nobles gave up more than most.

  “They’re being held in the detention building near the harbor in Sandurin,” Loka said. “Awaiting a ship to take them back south. I wondered if this ship could pretend to be the one intended for them. Impersonate an Imperial chartered ship and rescue my friends.”

  Jules looked at Mak. “What are you thinking, sir?”

  Mak had his fingers interlaced as he watched Loka. “It’s not impossible, but it’s also not easy. I want to know what you think, because you’re the person on this ship most familiar with what problems we might encounter trying to pick up those people and get back out of Sandurin.”

  “You’re confident we can get in to Sandurin?”

  Ang spoke up. “You’ve seen the weather. There’s a storm coming from the east. By tonight we’re going to be seeing a lot of rain, with clouds to block the light of the stars and the moon, and winds strong enough to make anyone outside regret that they’re not inside.”

  “A dark and stormy night?”

  “Just so. Perfect weather for arriving in Sandurin pretending to be another ship. No one will be able to view us clearly. I came out of the legion orphan home here, so I know a little about the city, but not much. I do know the weather.”

  “Can we do it, Jeri?” Mak asked. “Will we be able to fool the Imperials well enough to get out again with those prisoners? The only way I think it’s plausible is if we go in with the evening tide and sail with the dawn tide so we don’t have to bluff our way through daylight, but can we do that?”

  Jules grimaced, thinking. “We were told in officer training that sentries always slack off in bad weather. I saw that myself when I was supervising guards. We might be able to do it if we can forge a good set of release orders. But the jailers won’t surrender those people to a bunch of sailors. They’ll expect legionaries assigned to guard the prisoners on the way home.”

  “We have a dozen sets of legionary uniforms, swords, and armor that we took off the Storm Queen about a month ago when we captured her,” Liv said. “We can find sailors of the right size.”

  “Who’s going to be in command of them?” Jules asked. “You need an officer.”

  “Why wouldn’t it work to have one of the sailors pose as a legionary?” Mak asked.

  “Because the Empire doesn’t trust legionaries to do things like that without supervision,” Jules said. She knew what that implied, and felt her guts tightening at the thought.

  “Then we can’t do it,” Mak said, shaking his head at Loka.

  Loka’s face fell.

  “Cap’n?” Ang said. “Couldn’t Jeri pull that off? Like she did at Saraston?”

  Mak shook his head again. “Jeri came very close to being caught at Saraston. The Imperials know that she went back on Imperial territory using that uniform to fool people. They’ll be looking for that.”

  Jules made a face, her common sense agreeing with Mak but her heart urging otherwise. “I’d hate to abandon those people, Captain.”

  “I’m sure you’d hate being caught by the Emperor a lot more. Sandurin also is home to a good number of Mages.”

  Liv shook her head. “The only good number of Mages is none.”

  “Sir,” Jules said, “the Imperials will not expect me to try that again in Sandurin because no one with any sense would do that.”

  Mak raised an eyebrow at her. “You do realize what you just said, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s my point. They’ll think I have too much sense to try it again.”

  “Until this moment, I thought the same thing,” Mak said. “Jeri, you’re the only one aboard who could carry off pretending to be an Imperial officer. You’re the only one with an Imperial officer’s uniform. But the level of risk is simply too high.”

  “Captain, would you say that if I was anyone else?”

  Before Mak could answer, Loka did. “If she’s really…um…if she’s…”

  “Jeri,” Jules said, hearing the coldness entering her voice.

  “I can’t ask you to risk her,” Loka said to Mak. “She’s far too vital to the future of-”

  “My future is my business,” Jules interrupted. “The captain doesn’t make decisions for me. Neither do you.”

  “But if…have you already-?”

  “Don’t. Ask. Me. That.” The temperature in the cabin seemed to have dropped enough to put a chill in the air. She felt a strong temptation to walk out and leave Loka and his friends to the hands of Imperial fate. But that would mean giving up, acting as if she was also too concerned about her prophesized future to risk herself no matter how important the reason. She wouldn’t give anyone that.

  Jules shifted her gaze to Ang. “The storm that’s supposed to hit tonight—how long will it last?”

  “At this time of year,” Ang said, “it could easily take days to pass over.”

  “So we’ll have bad weather as a cover for our actions and for each of us personally,” Jules said. “And bad weather to cover our escape. I’ll do it.”

  Mak gave Loka an angry glance before answering her. “You don’t get to decide whether we do this,” he said. “The crew has to vote.”

  “Then call the vote,” Jules said.

  “You don’t give me orders,” Mak reminded her. “Ang, Liv, could you and Loka wait outside while Jeri and I discuss things?” He waited until the other three had left the cabin and Liv had closed the door behind them. “Jules, what the blazes do you think you’re doing?”

  Jules shrugged off his anger, standing at attention as she spoke. “Deciding my own destiny, sir. I thought we’d agreed I had the right to do that, sir.”

  “Rushing into extreme danger just because some man says the wrong thing is not deciding your own destiny! It’s letting someone else drive those decisions for you with careless words.”

  “Sir, you know I was already considering the action before that man spoke.”

  Mak rubbed his face with one hand. “Why do you want to do this, Jules?”

  “Because I don’t want to abandon those people, sir.”

  “That’s the only reason?”

  “Yes, sir.” Jules paused. “No, sir. If we pull this off…I mean when we pull this off, the Emperor will be furious and order more security at major cities, which will limit how many forces he has to threaten new settlements in the west, sir. And it’ll have the same impact on the Mages, sir, who’ll realize they need to keep enough Mages inside the Empire to watch for me there.”

  “That’s true.” Mak looked at her. “Have you ever noticed that when we’re arguing you call me ‘sir’ at least once in every sentence?”

  “I don’t think that’s true, sir.”

  “I must be mistaken.” Mak closed his eyes as he rubbed his forehead. “Jules, if you were me, what would you be asking you?”

  She hesitated, thinking through the question. “Whether I understood the risks. Whether I was making the decision for the right reasons. Whether…”

  “Yes?”

  “Whether the potential gain was worth the risks involved.”

  “And what would you answer to that last?” Mak asked, his eyes on hers.

  Pausing again, Jules chose her words with car
e. “That only I could decide the answer to that.”

  He blew out a breath that carried exasperation with it. “I know you hate your role in that prophecy, but you do have a role. And it does vastly increase the personal risks to you, and the potential consequences for everyone if the worst happens.”

  “Sir, can I sit down?”

  “Of course, Jules.”

  She sat in the chair facing him, trying to get her argument stated just right. “Captain, you told me, and I believe you, that my life is more than that prophecy. Please let me finish. You also told me that I could have an important role to play in preparing things for when that daughter of my line arrived. It took me a while, but I realized something, because of something Liv told me.”

  “Something Liv told you? When she learned the truth about you, you mean?”

  “Yes, sir. She said that when that daughter of my line came, people would all believe in her because they’d look back at me and tell themselves that a daughter of Jules’ line could do it because of what I did with my life. And at first I just laughed at that idea. But it’s true, isn’t it? The commons of that time, whenever it comes, have to believe in her. Not just because of the Mage prophecy, but because of what they think of me. What did I do? And this is part of that. Doing something that will be remembered. Doing something that no one else would dare to do, and succeeding at it. Because that’s exactly what she’ll have to do, and the people then will have to believe that she can.”

  Mak gazed at her, his expression slowly going from challenging to a frown. “Blazes,” he finally said. “I was really hoping you’d make an argument that I could easily knock down.”

  “I’m right, aren’t I?” Jules said.

  “Ummm…”

  “I’m right. Admit it.”

  He nodded. “Good captains admit when they’re wrong, and when someone else is right.” Mak looked out the stern windows at the stormy sea.

  “Sir?” she prompted, worried by how distressed he looked.

  “I’d be very…sad…if anything happened to you,” Mak said.

  “It won’t,” Jules said. “I’ll come back from this. And whenever that daughter of my line shows up, she’ll know, everyone will know, that I didn’t spend my life hiding in fear.”

  “I’ll call the crew together for a vote,” Mak said, keeping his gaze fixed out the stern windows. “I imagine it’ll be an easy sell despite the risks. Everyone on this ship had to escape from the Empire at some point. They’ll want to help others.”

  “Sir, are you unhappy with me?” Jules said as she studied his expression.

  “Why would you ask that?”

  “Because when you’re unhappy with me you don’t say my name.”

  One corner of Mak’s mouth twisted upward in a reluctant half-smile. “I don’t think that’s true, Jules.”

  * * *

  The great harbor at Sandurin on the northern coast of the Empire was the result of human ingenuity as much as the work of nature. A hook-shaped barrier of sand on the southern side had been reinforced and built up with soil dredged from the harbor until it formed a wide, towering wall on which a legion fort had been built. On the northern side, a breakwater extending out into the Sea of Bakre and angling over to enclose the sheltered water had been created mighty stone by mighty stone, though rumors persisted of some strange Mechanic building means that had helped anchor and support those stones. Inside the harbor itself, dredging had both deepened and extended the port inland, creating sheltered waters well protected from any weather.

  Which made the harbor at Sandurin particularly attractive on a day such as this, when a late fall storm was passing over the northeastern Empire and that portion of the Sea of Bakre. With the prevailing winds shifting from summer and spring’s easterlies to south-westerlies, storms born over the northernmost stretches of the great Umbari Ocean on the Empire’s east coast brought cold, wind, and rain to the usually temperate lands here.

  Jules stood on the quarterdeck of the Sun Queen, wearing a long oilskin cloak with a hood to protect her head, as the skies poured down an unceasing torrent of rain that pattered on the sails above her, ran along the yardarms and rigging, and formed streams of falling water that added to the misery of the cold and the wet on the deck of the ship. Ang’s prediction of the weather appeared to be uncomfortably accurate.

  For all that, she was lucky, as well as nervous, and feeling out of sorts because of both things. A good portion of the crew were up in the rigging, bringing in most of the sails as the Sun Queen beat her way toward one of the long, wide piers that offered places to tie up along the landward side of the harbor. The sailors on the masts faced not only the usual hazards of climbing in the rigging and moving out along the yardarms, but the added slickness of wet ropes and wood, and the buffeting of the winds.

  They hadn’t been challenged at the harbor entrance as the Sun Queen rode in on the evening tide. The Empire had never had external enemies, so the defenses of ports like Sandurin were aimed against weather, not attackers. After all, which smuggler or pirate would be so crazy as to sail into an Imperial harbor? Such criminals needed to be chased, which was the task of Imperial galleys and other warships. In this weather, with the sun already close to setting, it was impossible to see whether any Imperial warships were in the harbor, but that worked both ways. Any warships wouldn’t be able to see the Sun Queen, either. Jules wondered how long it would be before the growing threat from ships operating out of the settlements to the west led to ballistae being mounted near the harbor entrances.

  But still, she was down here on the quarterdeck and others ran risks in the rigging. “I should be up there,” Jules grumbled for perhaps the twentieth time that day.

  “Aren’t you miserable enough down here?” Captain Mak asked. Despite the hood of his own oilskin, his face was streaked with water that ran down to fall off the ends of his mustache.

  “I’m getting too many privileges,” she said, letting her anger sound in her voice. “This is a free ship. The crew has every right to resent that.”

  “They don’t,” Mak said. “Because they know what you’ve done to help earn those privileges, and they know you’re going to have the privilege of running the greatest risks while we’re in Sandurin.” He paused, squinting through the gloom and the sheets of rain in search of landmarks around the harbor. “There’s a buoy. Good. We’re still in the channel.”

  The Sun Queen heeled over as a gust of wind hit her on the beam, momentarily suspending the crew in the rigging over the water as the masts swung out to starboard. Jules grabbed the rail to keep herself from sliding, bracing herself against the wind and blinking away wind-driven rain. “We’re close to the starboard side of the channel!”

  “Bring her a point to port,” Mak ordered the helm, who braced his legs and strained both arms to move the ship’s wheel enough to bring the Sun Queen a ways to the left.

  A harbor patrol boat appeared out of the murk, sliding along the water close to the quarterdeck, the legionaries on the boat huddled against the storm but still doing their job as legionaries always did. The Sun Queen wasn’t the largest sailing ship on the sea, but her quarterdeck was a good two lances higher than the deck of the patrol boat. “What ship?” one legionary called up to Jules and Mak.

  “Gentle Dancer,” Mak called back. “Out of Landfall. In port to drop off cargo and pick up passengers. And to ride out this storm!”

  “This isn’t a storm!” the legionary called back. “Up here in the fall this is a gentle evening rain! Proceed to pier three, straight ahead along this channel!”

  Jules breathed a sigh of relief as the patrol boat moved off. The patrols were primarily charged with enforcing safety regulations and other rules, but they did carry legionaries and they could sound alarms.

  Mak came close enough to her to speak at more or less normal volume despite the storm. “Have you ever thought about how much harder this would be if so many ships weren’t nearly identical? There are three-masters like
us, two-masted ships of various kinds, and a few types with four masts. And the galleys with one mast. But all of a type tend to be the same, built to one plan.”

  “That’s the way it is,” Jules said. “Isn’t that the way it’s always been?”

  “I suppose. Buildings aren’t like that, though. Official buildings are, of course, but others can be built using lots of plans. How did it happen that ship types are as uniform as they are?”

  “You’re asking the wrong person. I’m only supposed to give birth to a line of daughters who will someday change the world,” Jules said.

  “You’re doing a bit more than that,” Mak said. “I’m asking you one more time: Are you certain you want to do this? This is going to be a lot riskier than Saraston was. There are a lot of Mages in Sandurin, plus the number of Imperial troops here.”

  Jules winced as another gust tossed cold rain into her face. “Captain, we’ve been over this. I haven’t changed my mind and I won’t change it. Besides, I think even Mages won’t be moving around too much in this weather!”

  “Don’t bet on it. I’ve never seen Mages act as if weather bothered them in the slightest. Cold, hot, wet, or dry, they never seem to notice it.”

  As the Sun Queen proceeded toward her pier, Jules caught glimpses through the pouring rain of the indistinct shapes of ships already riding at anchor. Sometimes she could also faintly make out the feeble glimmer of storm lanterns hung as anchor lights on those ships. The sound of the bells hung on the buoys they passed was muffled by the drumming of rain on wood and canvas and on the waters of the harbor. With the sun setting somewhere beyond the clouds parading over Sandurin, the already murky atmosphere grew darker and darker, until Jules worried about their being able to safely find the pier they’d been assigned by the harbor patrol.

  The only lights clearly piercing the gloom were those of one of the huge, metal Mechanic ships, glowing with that eerie steadiness and more strength than oil lanterns could manage. Jules took note of where the ship lay, since those lights could serve as a reference later on in the night. She also wondered if it was the same Mechanic ship that she’d once been taken aboard.