IGMS - Issue 11 Page 11

  "Two mages in the captain's cabin." Geberich stomped off towards the rigging, but not before I saw the fear in his eyes.

  Mages. Five hundred miles and two years gone, and still I couldn't escape my past. With deliberation, as an act of faith that I would return to finish what I had started, I set aside my knife and the almost-finished plug, brushed the wood debris from my trousers and tried, best as I could without mirror or water, to tame my wiry hair, to wipe the smudges from my face. I had spoken with Captain Teilos just once before, when I was brought on board. Our paths did not cross, and I was content to have it so. There is a certain peace that comes from being nobody. Unnoticed. Anonymous.

  That peace, I felt certain, was about to be shattered.

  I made my way aft. The ship was largely deserted, with most of the crew either taking liberty or replenishing the last of the supplies. Or hiding from the Watch. Whether the Fox was a privateer or a pirate ship depended largely on your point of view. Not exactly pirates, not exactly traders, not exactly smugglers. Captain Teilos took whatever jobs he could manage to get, and in these times, that sometimes meant looking down the wrong side of Justice's sword.

  I tapped lightly on the captain's door.

  "Come," he said. I swung the door open. Captain Teilos, a slender man with pockmarked skin and sleek hair the color of a bull seal's, sat at his battered mahogany desk staring out the open porthole. It was early spring, and the northern breezes were strong and bracing and carried a hint of the steel scent of rain. The mages were nowhere in sight, but I could feel their presence, like a distant itch in my mind.

  "Aeduin. Yes. Thank you for coming so promptly. You were once a mage, I understand?"

  "A journeyman only, Captain, and not a very good one, I'm afraid."

  "But you can work magic?"

  You don't work magic. If anything, magic works you. But I'd never be able to make him see that. "Of a sort. I have the Talent, certainly, or I'd never been taken into the magery, but my training and experience are minimal at best. May I ask what prompted this question, sir?"

  He scowled, looking down at a stack of papers tacked to the surface of his desk with pins and weights made of sand in cloth. Nothing on a ship stays still unless it's forced to it. "An educated man shouldn't be wasted carving plugs and patching holes."

  I said nothing. I was quite content with my plugs and holes.

  "And you know how to keep quiet too. Good." Captain Teilos ran his hand through his hair and gave a half-smile, then looked back down at the papers. "So here's the thing, Aeduin. Two mages, and I don't trust mages any further than I can heave them, no offense." He glanced up at me.

  "None taken." In truth, I agreed with him. When the press-gang had dragged me out of the coracle, after my initial panic at being in the hands of pirates, I had felt relief. I had been forced into the life of a mage, as was every boy whose Talent bloomed, but it had never been for me. Every moment of that life had been like walking a tightrope over a pit of tigers.

  "Well, these two mages have offered me five hundred royals to secure passage for themselves and their cargo to Konodaro. I asked to see said cargo. They got belligerent, so I pressed the matter. They've brought it to be inspected and I want you here. They say mages can't lie. Not sure I believe that, but even if it's true, sometimes the truth is bad enough. With you here, I've got an advantage. Will they know you?"

  "My magery was in Marfras. It's unlikely."

  "Yes, not many travel so far." Teilos gestured for me to take a position beside him. He crossed the tiny cabin in three steps and called up to the quarterdeck. "Gentlemen, I'm ready."

  Footsteps, slow and measured, and two men in dark crimson robes suddenly filled the tiny cabin. They kept their hoods up, which was a mark of subtle disrespect. One hides one's true face from the unworthy and inferior. The leader was so tall that his head brushed the ceiling. His companion was small, about my height, but round and squat, making him appear much shorter. He clutched a wooden crate about the size of a large lapdog to his chest. At a nod from the taller man, he set it down upon the captain's desk with great deliberation, as a mother relinquishing her only babe. The crate was covered with the faded remnants of painted sigils, closed with a slender silver lock.

  "Captain." The taller man pushed back his hood revealing hawk-like features and smiled so that his teeth gleamed in the lantern light. "Here is the cargo in question. As you can see, it is nothing. A trifle. One of hundreds of similar boxes from the treasure room of Beladon, utterly harmless."

  Now that troubled me. It was said that the great treasure room of ancient Beladon had contained a thousand thousand magical objects, carefully collected by twenty generations of emperors. Half of them were undoubtedly frauds. Half of the rest were harmless trinkets -- spells to change the color of hair or eyes, spyglasses that would show the viewer a loved one or an enemy. Child's toys. Of the rest, some were malignant, but of limited scope. A bow that would send an arrow through the soul of an enemy, enslaving his essence to the bow's master. Scrolls that would, when read aloud, cause the reader to wander forever in a fog of confusion. Weapons to be used against one opponent only, no more than the magical equivalent of sword or pistol.

  A few, an infinitesimal few, were something else entirely.

  I bent down so the mages could not hear me without use of their Talents. "Ask him to open it." Even if I couldn't identify the contents, their reaction to his request would tell me what I needed to know.

  Captain Teilos gave the two shrouded mages a measured look. "Nothing rides on this ship that I don't see. Open it."

  "For what we are paying, we are entitled to privacy." The taller man loomed across the desk casting shadows over Teilos's papers and pins.

  "For what you're paying, you're entitled to precisely what I give you," Teilos said calmly. "If you don't care for my terms, then I suggest you take a walk down the docks. There should be two or three merchant ships under Kolhrani flag and at least one galley of the line. I'm sure one of them would be delighted to assist you in your . . . errand."

  Any ship under a flag would ask questions, keep records. The two men looked at each other, and I could see their gloved fingers flying in the secret speech of mages, but at the angle, could not make out their words. Silence extended like a long rope letting out an anchor. Outside the captain's window, a gull called and the ship danced lightly against the anchor as the seconds passed by with excruciating slowness.

  At last, the taller man, who I decided to call Hawk as it was unlikely he'd ever give me his true name anyway, clenched his fists. Their silent conversation was done. The shorter, Dwarf, I named him, worked the lock, lifted the box's latch and reached inside. He took out a simple gold-painted ceramic urn, gently rounded in an arc as graceful as the wings of a swan in flight. The lid was carved with an ancient and achingly familiar keyhole pattern and sealed on two sides with hoary wax. I did not need to look further. If the urn were turned upside down, the maker's mark on the base would be three triangles. I knew this urn. Knew it well.

  Captain Teilos reached his hand forward to touch the lid.

  "Don't!" Hawk's hand shot out of his robe and grasped the captain's wrist. "It is not for you."

  I stared at the thing, and the thing stared back. It sang in my blood, touched the heart of my magic and twisted it into white-hot agony. "It's the Urn of Ravalos," I whispered.

  "How do you --" Dwarf began, but Hawk swiftly cut him off.

  "This urn holds the remains of one of my ancestors, and I am moving it to my cousin's home."

  "And for that you're willing to pay five hundred gold royals?" Captain Teilos leaned back, arms folded across his chest. I watched the mages carefully. This was the Urn of Ravalos, without doubt. They could not lie -- they were geas-bound to honesty. But like all of their kind, they would have been trained to bend the truth to the breaking point. I ran their words again through my mind, analyzing each syllable for nuance and shade of meaning. Sometimes what was not said was as revealing
as what was. His ancestor's remains might well lie within the Urn, but they weren't alone.

  "Other members of my family do not wish my ancestor's remains to be moved. They may try to stop it. By force," Hawk said.

  "By magic?" Teilos glanced up at me. I shook my head slightly. They wouldn't use magic, for any magic powerful enough to retrieve the Urn would put it at risk of being destroyed.

  "No, no. Just ordinary force," Hawk assured. "Swords, cannon. And even that, I assure you, is highly unlikely. What I predict, Captain," and I could hear the false smile in his voice, "is a dull and uneventful journey. Easy money. Do we have a deal?"

  "I need to consult with my . . . er . . . advisor."

  I stifled a laugh. He could hardly have said, 'I need to consult with my carpenter's apprentice.' As the two mages stepped outside, I went to the door to seal it against eavesdropping. A simple spell, one even I should be able to manage. But my stomach lurched with nausea at the unfamiliar expenditure of energy, and I collapsed against the door, sweat pooling on my forehead.

  "Don't take the money."

  "It's a lot of money. You're going to have to give me a reason, Aeduin."

  I studied the Urn, which, surprisingly, they'd left uncrated and unattended on Teilos's desk. Though I had seen drawings, I had never been allowed so close before. It both repelled and attracted me.

  "It's the Urn of Ravalos." That ought to have been reason enough.

  Captain Teilos shrugged.

  "The Battle of Ravalos. Have you heard of that?"

  "Something vague, half-remembered. From the schoolroom or a song."

  I turned away from the Urn, towards the open porthole, gulping in blessed stinking salt air. "Captain, a thousand years ago, give or take a century, the Beladonian empire was besieged on all sides by barbarians who had been whittling away at their territory for several generations. The emperor at the time was Osirius --"

  "Osirius Magnus? Him I've heard of. We took a chest of his coins off a Marfrasian merchant galley three summers back."

  "No, his great-grandson, Osirius the Cursed."

  "I'm guessing he didn't end well." Captain Teilos poured a shot of whiskey from a silver flask he kept in his boot. Surprisingly, he handed it to me. Just as surprisingly, I took it and tossed it down.

  I shook my head, letting the burning liquor settle. "No, sir, he really didn't. He decided to put an end to the barbarian threat once and for all, and led the entire Beladonian army, a hundred fifty thousand men or so, out to the Plains of Ravalos in Stohl. As Osirius didn't bother to expend any energy on intelligence he didn't know that the barbarian horde numbered at least twice that. Of course, considering his arrogance, he wouldn't have cared."

  "One of us is worth ten of them," Teilos observed. "Hardly an original thought, that."

  "Yes. Except they weren't. The barbarians were superb warriors. The armies fought three days on the Plains. The bards say the blood ran in rivers, and men's legs tangled in the viscera of the dying as they walked."

  "War, my mage-turned-carpenter friend, is not pretty. That's why I am not in any form of military service. I like being a privateer. I fight, I run away, I live to fight again. No damn fool general can order me to sacrifice myself for his lost cause."

  Outside the window, the sun was setting. Dusk came early this far to the north. My silence spell would not hold for much longer, especially if those mages were working against it. They were masters. I was a failed journeyman. "Anyway, to make it short, at the end of the three days, the entire contingent of imperial troops lay slaughtered. The emperor was taken and executed in a rather disgusting manner that I won't share with you --"

  "Thank you," Teilos said dryly, and poured himself another whiskey.

  "The barbarians took their dead and wounded off the field to attend to in their own way, piled the imperial corpses around a pyre and incinerated them. Burned them to ash." I turned and stared at the Urn.

  "You can't seriously expect me to believe that the remains of a hundred thousand men are in that thing? Even cremated, a human body takes up a good bit of space. The damn thing would have to be as big as the Fox!"

  "Magic," I reminded him. "The inside of the Urn is larger than the outside. It will hold whatever it is designed to hold."

  Teilos's eyes narrowed. "Can you put a charm like that on our hold?" I could see stacks of gold royals dancing in his head.

  "That technique is lost."

  "Perhaps by study of this urn, you could regain it?"

  "You have a great deal of faith in me, captain. Every mage in the Five Lands has been trying to work that one out since we began to rebuild the mageries."

  A small bell tolled the hour. "As unpleasant as this little story is, Aeduin, it's quite literally ancient history. I see nothing in it that should prevent us from making an easy five hundred royals."

  I picked up a linen towel from the floor and keeping the cloth carefully between my hands and the Urn, lifted it back into its box and latched the cover. "The Beladonian mage who created the Urn put a curse upon it. If the contents of the Urn mix with the Tears of Mhear, the warriors within will arise, undead and undying, to seek vengeance on the barbarians who destroyed their empire."

  "Seems a bit stupid to me. Why didn't the fellow just reconstitute them right then and there and send them after the barbarians?"

  "I've no idea. So much of that time is lost to us."

  Teilos stood, adjusting his worn leather jerkin. "So the whole thing might well just be a myth. That could be a jar full of sand."

  I felt my eyes drawn inexorably back to the Urn and shuddered. "I don't think so."

  "Well, as long as we keep the thing away from these Tears of Mhear, we should be fine."

  "Mhear was the Beladonian goddess of the sea, Captain. The phrase 'Tears of Mhear' is generally held to mean salt water."

  I could see that set him back, but five hundred royals is a mighty enticement. "Look, lad, even if, by some off chance, the Urn takes a dunk, and assuming this spell or charm or whatever it is actually works, there's nobody for the dead men to fight. Those barbarians are long gone."

  I stared at him. "Captain, those barbarian tribes went on to establish the Five Lands. Those barbarians are us."

  We took the job anyway, as I knew we would.

  Five days out, we'd just rounded the Knob, headed for open sea, and my dreams were troubled. Skeletal armies and hulking, rotting bodies wielding verdigris swords strung with seaweed carved my flesh away by inches. Sun-rotted corpses littered a valley floor while the dark shadows of ravens rippled over them. I could hear the Urn of Ravalos all the time. It throbbed like a dirty cut, whistled around my head like wind howling off the northern ice plains. And I was hardly the only one affected. The entire crew seemed set on the edge of a precipice. Tempers flared, small slights turned into great gaping wounds, and every man was ready to make port and be done with this voyage.

  Davin, who slung his hammock next to mine and was the nearest I had to a friend, was the first to approach me.

  I'd come off watch and was gnawing on a leathery piece of hardtack, trying to blot out the thrum of the Urn and wishing I had a larger rum ration. Davin slumped down next to me, covered in tar and stinking of sweat and fear. "Aeduin, the men asked me to come talk to you. They want you to go to the captain for them."

  There is no privacy on board ship. I sensed the presence of the others, lounging around the hold carefully looking away, pretending to eat or carve or count their small treasures. "The quartermaster's the one to take your troubles to, or the bos'un. Not me. I'm nobody."

  "Quartermaster's not a mage --"

  "Neither am I," I said, but I set my hardtack down, half finished. Let the rats have it. I had no appetite left.

  "You're the closest we got." He glanced around, uneasy, as if the foreign mages might somehow be listening. Which, of course, they might have been. "There's something off about that damn crate, something wrong with this whole voyage. And now there's an uncanny st
orm behind us. Chasing after us, and I say it's because of those mages."

  Davin's weather sense was well known -- he could sense storms coming days away, and I trusted him now. The mages of Marfras would be coming for their stolen Urn. They would never have sold it or abandoned the trust they had held for centuries to strangers. They would come with all the force of their magic behind them, riding a storm they'd craft out of air and water and blood. They'd come, skimming the waves like a flock of gulls, and I would have to decide whether I was mage or sailor. Which oath bound me, which life compelled me. I could not help Davin. I could not even help myself.

  But he was waiting for an answer, so I put my hand on his shoulder, trying to be comforting. "I think --"

  "Sail ho! Sail! Off the starboard stern!"

  We froze for the barest second, then, as if a spell had been broken, scrambled and shoved our way up the ladder to the main deck.

  "Sail!" Cupper, in the crow's nest, pointed frantically behind us. We rushed to the stern, men straining to see what he, with his spyglass, had clearly made out. Sails, far distant, but growing. White and full, being driven by a wind that somehow did not touch us. I could feel, more than see, the wall of water behind it. Weather magic, old and powerful.

  They had come for the Urn.

  The two mages must have felt it too, for they'd come out of their cabin, Hawk looking up at the gathering clouds, Dwarf behind him wringing his hands in a parody of the finger speech. They pushed their way through the crowd of sailors.

  "We must outrun them," Hawk said. "I will instruct the captain to put on all speed."

  "Speed? Speed from where? We got hardly any wind!" Geberich hurried from the forecastle, shoving us every which way. "And you, you lazy dogs, get to your posts!"

  We jumped to our places, scrambling up the rigging, heading below to man the Fox's two paltry cannons. My job at times of crisis was to man the ropes that controlled the jib and generally do what I was ordered to do. The Fox didn't fight -- she ran. She was a sloop, built for speed, not strength. But there was no wind and the sails lay slack and limp against the masts. No wind, and yet the other ship was still coming on.