Senrid

by Sherwood Smith

  “You can call me that, if you like,” the girl replied with a smile. Her voice was clear, as clear as the golden afternoon sunlight on her face and form. She appeared to be an ordinary girl, wearing an old-fashioned gown of unbleached cotton. But they could see through her, and she cast no shadow. “What matters most is not who I am, but what I can do for you.”

  “Not delivering gloomy portents or the like?” Puddlenose asked suspiciously, remembering some of Christoph’s more gruesome tales from his Earth history, and similar tales that had woven their way into Sartorias-deles legends from other Earth travelers.

  She grinned. “No. You make your own future, you know that. But sometimes the way you are going is fraught with more peril than you are aware. And sometimes someone like me can see consequences of your actions that you cannot see.”

  Senrid said, “Speak your piece.”

  The flat, almost hostile tone of his voice, and his stance—arms crossed, head slightly back—startled both Puddlenose and Christoph.

  The girl’s blue eyes turned his way, and seemed to gather light and focus it, like gemstones in the noonday sun.

  “When you want my help, Senrid Indevan Montredaun-An, ask for it. Once, only, you may call upon me and I will aid you.”

  Senrid’s lip curled. “Really? What kind of help might that be?”

  “You will decide what, and when.”

  “And if. Unless you’ll waft me back home now and annihilate my uncle and all his adherents in one bloody strike.”

  The girl did not react, except the blue of her eyes seemed to intensify so that it almost hurt to look at them. “For that, you must go to Norsunder,” she said. “As you know. And you know the cost. There would be no more freedom of choice, ever. Ever, before death, or after.”

  The mention of Norsunder silenced all three boys.

  “You can call me Erdrael. I will be waiting.” And she vanished in a flash of light that made the boys’ eyes water.

  “Well,” Christoph said after another protracted pause, “that was sufficiently weird.”

  Senrid stared at the ground where the manifestation had stood. The grass was unbent, the flowers nodding gently in the afternoon breeze.

  “It was a damned taunt,” Senrid said. “And she was probably just an illusion.”

  Puddlenose whistled softly, sensing that he’d managed to trip over one of those moments that make vast and radical changes in history.

  Those changes weren’t going to be initiated by him.

  “Illusions have to be cast, and little I know of magic, I don’t think that kind is easy. Either way, someone has quite the interest in you,” he said to Senrid.

  Senrid cursed, with such venom both the others were taken aback. But as suddenly as he began he stopped, and shrugged, though they saw the effort it took.

  “Someone,” Senrid said, “has been messing with me for the past couple of weeks, and I wish whoever it was would step right up and we could discuss it my way.”

  Christoph glanced from Senrid’s hands to his eyes, then said casually—it being clear to him as well as Puddlenose that whatever Erdrael really represented, it was definitely not the damnation of Norsunder’s soul-eaters and timeless darkness—”Puddlenose, only you could manage to trip over a ghost.”

  “I didn’t,” Puddlenose said. “It was the sudden light. Made me dizzy. I tripped over my trusty blade.” He slapped the sword at his side.

  Christoph snickered. “No, protest all you want, but I am going to believe, no, more importantly, I am going to inform everyone you know, that you managed to trip over a ghost and take a header.” He bent, gasping with laughter. Then he stopped, snorted, and exclaimed, “I smell the sea! And it ain’t Senrid!”

  “I smell it too,” Puddlenose said slowly, as he felt that distinct inner ‘pull’. “Hoo! You got it?”

  Christoph nodded. “First felt it in my dream last night. My, what a day so far!”

  “Got what?” Senrid asked, eying them askance.

  “My cousin Clair put magic on us—and on Captain Heraford, who constitutes our navy—”

  “Navy? I thought Mearsies Heili is landlocked,” Senrid interrupted.

  “Not on the east, though there’s no real harbor. And then we also have the Tornado Islands. Anyway, he’s a one-ship navy. Two, now, if he has that Chwahir transport we took a while back. So if he passes us or we pass him, we know it. What’s weirder is, he also seems to know it if we’re in landing range and in trouble, and many times the Tzasilia appears on the skyline.”

  Senrid’s brows quirked up. “I didn’t know Clair Sherwood had access to that kind of magic.”

  “I didn’t either,” Puddlenose said, “but she does. Who knows, it may be not her magic, but the reason she’s got white hair—we figure there’s gotta be some morvende way back in our obscure ancestry—anyway, it works fine for us. C’mon, ready for a little sea voyage?”

  Senrid turned his palm up.

  They ran northeast, and soon found themselves on the palisade overlooking a small bay. A few ships were anchored off the shore; to the east lay a small town, but the boys did not head that way.

  “There he is,” Puddlenose said, pointing to a pair of three masters floating in the middle of the bay.

  The closer one was elegant in line, masts raked for speed—evocative of pirate vessels, which are designed to be fast. The farther one was round-hulled and high at forecastle and stern, meant for transport and not speed. Both were rigged for square sail. “And he’s got the Lheit out there as well!”

  They butt-slid, whooping and tumbling, down to the beach; someone had spied them with a glass from the ship, and had sent a rowboat to fetch them.

  The boys ran across the sand. Christoph kicked it up at Senrid, who laughed and kicked it back. Then they waded into the gentle breakers, swimming when the shoreline dropped off, and once again Senrid got his clothes briny.

  The rowboat that met them had at the oars a skinny, mahogany-faced man. “Fradrici,” Puddlenose called happily, climbing on board the rowboat with the ease of long practice. Then he asked, “Why are you doing boat duty?”

  “Because I had to see your fascinating selves,” the man replied, winking as he pulled Senrid up. “Because it’s also my Name Day, and the ruses to get me off of Lheit and onto Tzasilia were mighty lame. Same when the Captain asked for volunteers just now, they almost threw me over the side, so I’m guessin’ cook’s got the last o’ the eats fixin’.”

  “A party,” Christoph breathed, splashing, and to Puddlenose, “Are we good, or what?”

  Puddlenose laughed as he helped Fradrici pull Christoph over the side, and then the crewman squinted at Puddlenose. “What’s that around yer neck?”

  Puddlenose fingered the open neck of his shirt, and Pulled out the chain. “Y’mean this?”

  Fradrici squinted at the strange shell on the end. “Now what kind o’ adventure you gotten yourself into this time?”

  “Listen,” Puddlenose said, and raised the shell to his lips. He blew, and a low, strange note sounded across the water. The hairs on the back of his neck lifted, and he saw the others listen with the stillness that indicated a similar reaction.

  Fradrici said, “Wheeee-euw! What’s the story behind that one?”

  “Disappointing. Some old peddler we met outside some town, I don’t even remember its name. No warnings, sinister or otherwise, no mysterious offers, no news that we’d been picked as heirs to four empires. Just stopped us, gave it to us, and that was that. You know how it is with us,” he said, not meaning anything, but he felt Senrid’s attention on him. “Things happen, and we stumble into adventure. Or around it. Anyhow, I’m going to give the whistle to Clair. She likes this kind of thing.”

  Fradrici grunted, then nudged the second set of oars with his foot. “We gotta pull against the tide, so it’s either two, or I take all night. So who’s gonna match me?”

  Puddlenose, being biggest, rubbed his hands dry on a cloth Fradrici had brought, then
put some back into oarwork—the rhythm set by Christoph’s cheerful insults about his weakness, interspersed with his own artistic groans and wheezes.

  When they reached the side of the Tzasilia, Puddlenose watched Senrid watching as the rope-ladder was let down over the side, and Christoph started up. Senrid obviously knew nothing about ships. He climbed up behind Christoph, copying his every movement, and Puddlenose helped Fradrici help get the rowboat hooked to be boomed up to the waist.

  Up on deck, Captain Heraford waited, looking much as he usually did—a tallish man with the weathered look of the sailor, and the sharp eye of the privateer who might have turned his hand to piracy at one time or another, though he did not do that any more.

  “Welcome,” he was saying to Senrid. “You’ve never been aboard a ship before?”

  “No,” Senrid said.

  “You have to sign the ship’s log,” Christoph said. “We all do!”

  And he led the way down to the captain’s cabin, puddlenose watched as Senrid wrote in block Mearsiean script his name, Senrid, and nothing else, but he did not comment. Neither did the captain.

  “Get him settled in,” Captain Heraford said to Puddlenose. “We’re going to split off from Lheit—it’s time Fradrici took his own command,” he added, looking up toward the doorway, where the other man stood grinning. “But after the, ah, surprise party tonight!”

  Puddlenose nodded. “C’mon. Ordinarily the first stop is the most important spot on the ship—the galley! But I think we’re about to get plenty of eats. So we’ll go below to storage. You’ll want some swimming cutoffs while you’re on board, and there’s lots of extra duds.” He indicated Senrid’s heavy linen shirt, cotton-wool trousers, and riding boots.

  Senrid flicked his hand up, and followed. Puddlenose suspected he was queasy, but Senrid clearly was not going to give in to it. In fact, after he found a hammock he liked, and changed into better clothes for summer weather on shipboard, he climbed up to the foretop to sit on a yard with Christoph.

  When Puddlenose lounged over to the rail he was joined by Captain Heraford. “Your friend,” he said. “Where’d you find him?”

  “We woke up in a barn with him next to us.” Puddlenose shrugged.

  “Where’s he from?”

  “Said it’s called Marloven Hess. No place I’ve ever heard of.”

  “Mmm,” the captain said, but then he moved off to consult with the red-haired sailor at the wheel. She was someone new, Puddlenose noted, but as she was grown up, he lost interest. Sometimes Heraford hired on kids as crew, but so tar they always seemed to be working their way from one land to another, and they didn’t stay on crew long.

  Instead, he spent some time asking old friends among the crew about the Tzasilia’s latest adventures, until he saw Christoph and Senrid come down. The latter’s complexion had lost that greenish tinge.

  He was still pale, though. Very pale—like he’d not been out in the sun much in his life.

  A few days of sailing changed that. He turned pink from the balmy sunshine, and accepted the salve that the captain offered him, which caused the pink to go brown without the intervening pain caused by sunburn.

  The journey was thoroughly enjoyable, starting off with Fradrici’s Name Day party that first night. Ale flowed freely among the older crewmembers. Puddlenose had some—he liked the taste—but stopped when he couldn’t remember the verses to songs; he noted that Senrid, like Christoph, didn’t touch liquor.

  The weather stayed balmy during the day, though the nights were cold, promising that winter would eventually find its way here, too. But Puddlenose did not worry about the future. He enjoyed the succession of warm days of steady wind, tacking eastward along a familiar route. Captain Heraford’s few requirements of passengers allowed plenty of time for storytelling, music, and observation.

  Puddlenose amused himself watching Senrid’s fascination with the maze-work of ropes that controlled masts and sails, and the constant attention required to make the most of the subtle changes in wind. Senrid also watched the defense drills, when selected crew raced aloft with their bows, and the torch bearers waited below with cloth-wrapped arrows, fire, and oil, ready to light the arrows for shooting at enemy ships while the boarding parties practiced lowering their boats and clambering up the sides, weapons ready.

  Senrid never said anything, though, or even asked questions. When asked to haul on a rope or even help reef or loosen one of the lower courses, he did what he was told without making any comment.

  There was only one incident to mar the uneventful cruise.

  The third morning or so, Puddlenose woke up before the others, a rarity. Usually Senrid was up before dawn, but he’d been poring over the captain’s charts the night before when Puddlenose climbed down to his hammock, a study that apparently had kept him up most of the night.

  Puddlenose and Christoph were used to waking each other with a pillow in the face, or an armlock, or some other form of clowning. Delighted at having caught Senrid asleep, he grabbed his arm to tip him out of his hammock.

  Christoph laughed, expecting to see Senrid flail into wakefulness, but then he choked on his hot chocolate.

  Puddlenose was only aware of a whirl and a thump that knocked his breath out; when the haze cleared he was flat on the deck, knees pinning down his arms, and thumbs pressing his windpipe as cold blue-gray eyes stared down at him.

  Only for a moment. Puddlenose’s breath whooshed back in as Senrid leaped up, hesitated, then extended a hand to Puddlenose. Puddlenose took it, and found himself pulled to his feet with no visible effort.

  “Don’t. Do that,” Senrid said, his cheeks red, but his mouth white and thin.

  Questions cartwheeled through Puddlenose’s mind, but he banished them all, having learned one thing: Senrid did not like to be touched, or at least not taken by surprise. Whatever kind of background produced that kind of reaction raised nothing but sympathy in Puddlenose. “Right,” he said cheerily. “So let’s go see what’s for breakfast, eh?”

  When they came in sight of land again, Puddlenose watched the uneven line for a day or two as they sailed northwards, feeling the restless pull of a new environment.

  “Let’s land,” he said the next morning to Christoph, who was swinging in a hammock after having done a turn at deck-scrubbing.

  Christoph shrugged.

  Puddlenose looked over at Senrid, who sat on a barrel with the captain’s telescope, surveying the shore. Senrid swung about, and smacked the scope closed.

  “If you’re inviting me along, I’m ready to land when you are,” he said. “I’ll put these through the cleaning frame and get my clothes.” He indicated his borrowed shirt and cutoffs, then vanished down the hatch.

  A little later Puddlenose found the captain standing behind him. “That’s Everon,” he said, nodding westward toward the coast.

  Puddlenose shrugged.

  “You haven’t been up this way much, have you?” Captain Heraford commented.

  “Something wrong with it, then?” Christoph asked.

  “Something wrong indeed. Everon’s been under enchantment for years. Rumor has mentioned Detlev, from Norsunder.”

  Two sinister names seldom spoken out loud.

  Senrid had reappeared; Puddlenose saw his eyes flicker to the captain’s face and westward again. His expression didn’t change, but the names seemed to linger, rendering the sunlight dim, the air cold.

  Puddlenose pursed his lips, feeling that draw again. “Years, huh?”

  “He hasn’t been seen for a long time,” the captain said. “Just local bully-boys, half-enchanted. The land lies under a drought, and it’s reputed to be impossible to travel through.”

  “Well, we wouldn’t have to travel through it. But maybe we could have fun with those bullies,” Puddlenose said, and scratched his head. “I don’t know why, but I’ve got the urge to get over there and mess about.”

  The Captain nodded, used to Puddlenose’s trouble magnet, which he (privately) thoug
ht was akin to Clair Sherwood’s abilities. There was some kind of powerful magic buried back in that family’s history—though the present generation did not know how it had gotten there.

  But he knew how to keep his peace, and indeed it was some time before he discussed his feelings with Clair, who by then had learned some of what he’d surmised.

  But that was much later.

  Instead, Captain Heraford measured wind (coming out of the southwest, mild) against tide (flooding), and glanced up at the sails. “If you want to go ashore, we’ll stand in a little closer,” he said only.

  “Must be the border,” Christoph said shortly afterward, squinting around as the boys waded toward the beach. “Didn’t he say something about drought?”

  “Those shrubs and trees look all right to me,” Puddlenose commented.

  Senrid didn’t say anything as he waded steadily, his boots and socks held up in the air so he wouldn’t have soggy feet. Since neither Christoph nor Puddlenose had shoes, they didn’t have that particular worry.

  Puddlenose held his sword above the water, moving as quickly as he could. The breakers were greenish; he looked down, seeing plants waving back and forth, and tiny silver fish swimming about.

  “Euk.” Christoph was first ashore. He flapped his arms and kicked sand about, trying to dry off.

  Senrid was out next. He ran his feet through the sand, and when they were dry, he sat down and reshod himself, then pulled his soggy black trousers down over the boots. Puddlenose noticed for the first time the tan piping down the outer seams of the trousers: some kind of uniform? His white shirt was plain but very well made of heavy linen, fastened by costly carved buttons instead of laces.

  Christoph gave a squawk as the bushes up ahead thrashed like a herd of horses was coming.

  He was nearest the edge of the shrubbery. Before Puddlenose could speak Senrid said sharply, “Cut along.”

  Christoph nodded, ducking toward the nearest bush.

  A troop of armed men in rough country wear came boiling down a pathway in the shrubbery. Puddlenose groaned and whipped his sword free of its scabbard. A moment later he saw Senrid holding his knife, his stance a half-crouch. Senrid sent the knife spinning directly at the gut of a foe about to try closing with him. Only a quick twist kept the man from being killed outright, but the dagger caught him in the side.