A Jewel Bright Sea Page 14
“Steady,” Koszenmarc said. “Nearly there.”
The boat rode over the next gigantic swell and came up beside the Mathilde. The launch swung around and pitched to one side as Koszenmarc stood and seized a rope ladder. “Send down a rig,” he shouted, as several of the crew scrambled up and aboard the ship. “Hurry!”
A mass of ropes connected to a square of canvas came tumbling over the side. Koszenmarc untangled them and bundled Anna into the chair. “Hold steady,” he said. “The enemy’s in sight, but they haven’t caught us yet.”
The fog of magic cleared, and she gripped the chair’s ropes in sudden terror. “Maszny?”
“Never mind who.” Koszenmarc whistled sharply, and the chair jerked upward.
Old Hahn waited by the railing and hauled Anna over the side. In the storm’s strange, flickering light, his face looked older and grimmer than ever. Then his gaze jerked up and he stared intently at some point in the distance. Anna turned to see the ocean veiled in foam, the horizon little more than smudges of black and grey. And there, driving toward them, the pale red sails of another ship. Then a second and a third materialized from the gloom.
Daria seized her by the arm. “Get below,” she roared. “Now!”
She spun Anna around toward the nearest hatch. Anna scrambled down the ladder as fast as she could, past the region occupied by the officers, down to the deck where the sailors slung their hammocks, where she landed in a wobbly heap.
From far overhead came the echo of many feet pounding over the deck. The ship gave a twitch, like a nervous horse, before it went racing forward, the waves hissing on either side. Anna’s stomach lurched against her ribs, and she clamped her lips together.
Once, twice more, the ship jerked. Once, twice more, Anna swallowed hard. Dimly she became aware that the berth was empty of any sailors. The faint grey light from above had vanished with the last crack of thunder. The darkness in the berth was thick and heavy, as if day had been dipped into night. Panic washed over her, and she cried out a summons to the magic current.
Ei rûf ane gôtter. Ei rûf ane strôm. Komen mir de leiht…
A pale white globe coalesced in the air. Anna cupped her hands around the light and brought it close, breathing in the sharp, strong scent of magic. Whatever came next, capture or death or the unimaginable, at least she had a light in the darkness.
A clattering—someone hurrying down the ladder—roused her. “Anna. Elise?”
“Maté!” Anna gave a cry of relief. She had not known how much she feared that Koszenmarc had left him behind for Maszny’s soldiers. “Where have you been?”
Maté swung off the ladder, only to stumble and collapse onto the deck. In a moment, Anna knelt beside him, her magical light hovering above them. Dark wet blotches stained his shirt.
“You idiot,” she whispered fiercely. “What happened? Did you think you could take on the world by yourself?”
He gave a breathless laugh. “Hardly. Here, help me. Let’s see the damage. The left arm.”
Anna slung his arm around her shoulders and helped him onto a coil of ropes. He immediately collapsed, breathing in gulps. Oh, she was no surgeon, but surely that wasn’t a good sign. Her hands shaking, she undid the ties of his shirt and tugged his left arm free. Then she summoned her magical light to hover over them while she examined the wound.
Something had left a deep furrow on his upper arm. It bled freely, which was good. She thought. Maybe. But his eyes were too bright, his skin felt hot to her touch, and if that weren’t convincing enough, he was slick with a fever sweat.
“Not good, not bad,” she murmured. “Tell me what happened.”
“Arrow,” he breathed. “I stopped to help carry a few wounded below.”
“They didn’t bother to send you to the surgeon?”
“They did. Wanted to find you first,” he said, as easily as though they’d merely lost sight of one another in the marketplace. Then in a softer voice, he said, “Our cat was nearly trapped by an even bigger cat.”
“Maszny?” she whispered.
“No, Isana Druss.”
Thunder cracked the air. Anna flinched, then stumbled as the ship lurched to one side. Her grip upon magic faltered and the light vanished. She was about to recall it when Thea’s voice distinctly said, “No, no. We can’t have that. We’re running dark, my friends. Captain’s orders.”
A thump sounded next to Anna as the other woman landed in the hold. Then there came a second, softer thump, and the faintest clink of glass against glass. Thea set a shaded lantern on a nearby shelf and directed its narrow beam onto Maté’s face. “Daria sent you below for good reason,” she said. “Never mind how easy a wound festers. Druss and her people are using poison on their arrows.”
Anna choked back a cry of horror. “But that’s—”
“That is Isana Druss,” Thea said. “What did you think? That we’re playing a harmless game of hide-and-seek?”
“Of course not! Can you save him?”
There was the barest hesitation before Thea replied. “Yes. But we don’t have much longer before the answer changes to no. Let me get to work.”
Thea washed Maté’s wound with a clean rag and a sharp-smelling liquid that made Maté swear and try to wrench himself free of her grip. “None of that,” she said calmly. “You should know better, my pretty soldier boy.”
Maté gasped out a laugh. “I should. Sensible, though. Hah. Never claimed I was.”
“Then you are at least honest, if foolish. Now hold still and do not fight me.”
She hummed a low, wavering tune. No words, but Anna thought she recognized the same rise and fall of the invocation she used to summon the magical current. Ei rûf ane gôtter, she thought. Ei rûf ane strôm…
The air shuddered and turned unnaturally cold for the space of a heartbeat. Then Maté gave a gasp, and the heat seemed to evaporate, as though the fever were running out free like a tide. Anna brushed a hand over his face. The sweat was lifting away, and his skin felt cool to the touch.
“All he needs is sleep,” Thea said. “Help me get him into the nearest hammock. Then I can give him a proper dose.”
Even without the dose, Maté was nearly asleep, but together they shifted him from the coil of rope into a hammock. “Your turn, my young friend,” Thea said to Anna. “Sit, please.” She pointed to a trunk.
She redirected the lantern’s beam to Anna’s face. With a light touch, she examined each eye in turn, then counted Anna’s pulse. The air drew tight around them and a sharp green scent invaded the berth. Warmth spread through Anna’s veins, and within moments she no longer felt hollowed out inside.
“That was a dangerous trick,” Thea murmured. “Cutting the bond between flesh and spirit. Even if you did know what you were doing. Which I doubt. However, you seem to have escaped any lasting harm. Even so, I want you to take a dose as well. It will help you sleep, and you’ll need your strength once the captain decides to question you.”
“I would like to question her now.”
Koszenmarc crouched on the ladder, just a few steps above them. His eyes glittered in the lamplight, and he held himself still and tense, as though he might spring upon them any moment.
“It’s not like you to leave the deck at such a time,” Thea said in a mild voice. “Or have we given our enemy the slip?”
“We have. Now I want to ask our new companion how our enemy discovered us so easily.”
Anna closed her eyes. Oh. Yes. That explained so much.
“Do you have an explanation?” he asked, finally.
He thinks me a gods-be-damned mouse. Perhaps I am, but this mouse will bite.
“I do not,” she said crisply. “My friend, however, took an arrow serving you, Captain. And I did exactly as you asked and more. If you cannot bring yourself to trust me, even now, hand me over to Commander Maszny and have don
e with it. But if you wish to learn what I’ve discovered, I suggest you let me deliver my report to you and your officers. Then we can have a reasonable discussion about what we do next.”
“My ship is not a council of equals,” Koszenmarc snapped back.
“Neither am I your bonded slave.” Her voice shook with all the rage and terror from the past few days. “But oh, you have made me into one, my lord. You took me prisoner, you chained me with threats, and now you beat me with accusations. I want nothing more than my freedom and my reward, Lord Koszenmarc. Let me earn it.”
Shadows masked his face, but Anna heard his indrawn breath. She was all too aware how the lamp shone directly on her face, exposing every shift in her own expression. She willed herself to keep her gaze fixed on him, to show as little emotion as he undoubtedly did. But she knew she failed.
“Very well, I shall,” he said at last. He vanished up the ladder.
Anna released a breath she had not realized she was holding.
Thea laid a hand on her shoulder. “You’ll do. You’ll do very well.”
* * * *
Four days later, with the sun slanting toward the horizon, the Mathilde came home at last. The seas were empty in all directions, the water the color of blue silk, and the ship skimmed along at an easy pace. Anna stood by the rail with Maté, newly released from the sick bay. For the first time, she had a chance to see the whole of Koszenmarc’s island domain. Asulos was its name, as Daria told her in passing.
Three islands broke the surface of the ocean. The largest was a massive rock, two hundred feet high, with cliffs plunging in a straight line from peak to waves. That would be the main stronghold, with its many grottos and caves. The other two were hardly more than dark smudges, rising a few dozen feet above the waves. As the ship tacked around toward the harbor entrance, however, Anna could see that one island was at least a mile long, with broad grassy fields edged by a thicket of trees and a stream that emptied into the sea. Goats and sheep and several horses grazed in the fields, tended by children. The second was a bare, flat expanse of sand and stone, where a dozen figures moved about. Anna realized they were members of Koszenmarc’s company, drilling with weapons.
“Like a lord and his manor,” Maté said softly.
“I had the same thought,” Anna replied, just as quietly.
Daria shouted out orders to haul sail and tack, tack, may the gods damn this useless crew for all their lives. Mathilde swung around the main island and with a sigh the sails fell slack as the ship glided into the harbor.
The anchor hit and yanked the ship to a stop. Both boats went over the side, followed by ropes and ladders. As Anna descended to shore, she heard snatches of conversation between the crew and those below.
Six goddamned hours on shore. That Druss, like a shark hunting for blood. A near thing before the storm hit full and hard. Don’t see what good any of it did.
Koszenmarc was the last to disembark. As if summoned by magic, Eleni appeared. “Captain. We’ve had a quiet few days.”
“That, I like to hear. We have not, alas. Pass the word for all my officers. We have a report to hear and plans to make.”
* * * *
Once more they were in that airy chamber high above the seas. The windows were shuttered today, the great lamp overhead burning bright, the echoes and whispers from below more pronounced.
“So,” Koszenmarc said. “Let us have our sensible discussion, with all my officers present, as Elise insists. What makes you believe Sarrész lives?” he asked Anna. “What is this clue you discovered?”
He spoke softly, but there was no mistaking the command, however politely he phrased it. Anna had spent most of the hours on the journey back considering how to describe that strange magical presence and the vision it had shown her.
“I saw Lord Sarrész, the same as before,” she said. “He ran directly from the forest toward the ocean and vanished. This time, however, I tracked the man from our world into Anderswar. And this time, I found traces of his passage.”
Koszenmarc nodded. “What kind of traces?”
This was the most difficult part to describe. “Footprints, you might call them,” she said, “except they were nothing so ordinary. Their shape and direction corresponded exactly to those we found on the shore. It was as though he made that leap, still running from his enemies, then made a second leap from Anderswar back into the ordinary world. And while I had only one clear glimpse, I swear those prints led directly back to Eddalyon.”
“Is that possible?” Eleni asked.
“I’ve read any number of accounts that say it is,” Thea said slowly. “But not likely for this particular man, unless we’ve been misled. You spoke about a bought spell before. Is that what he used?”
“That was the only explanation,” Anna said. “Or so I believed. Now…” She paused, uncertain how to describe that otherworldly presence. “I believe another agency was present.”
“Another mage?” Daria asked.
“Another agency,” Anna repeated. “I can’t tell you more because I don’t know myself.” How to explain that eerie chorus? Already the memory of that voice, that moment when she perched on the edge of the void between lives, was fading. “Whatever or whoever came to Sarrész’s aid,” she said slowly, “they plucked him from that gods-be-damned shore and away from Druss’s ambush. And then, they set him down, still running, somewhere else among these islands.”
A long moment of silence followed.
Koszenmarc leaned back from the table. “There are twelve chief islands in Eddalyon. A hundred or more smaller ones, with only enough sand and fresh water for a fishing village here, or a temporary port there. Those are the islands the mapmakers know. There might be a thousand more scattered over the southern seas.”
“In other words, you’ve set us an impossible task,” Eleni said.
At the same time, Maté said, “We never did explore those ruins.”
“Too dangerous,” Eleni replied at once. “Besides, knowing Druss, she and her people have undoubtedly pillaged that temple for every clue it held. Or are you merely being hopeful again?”
He shrugged. “It’s my nature.”
Eleni snorted. But Koszenmarc was shaking his head. “Eleni is right. We can’t risk going ashore on Vyros. Besides, I don’t like how Druss happened upon us. It was too convenient.”
Anna gave an involuntary shiver. She had not forgotten that tense moment when Koszenmarc accused her of betrayal. He was right. I will betray him—but not to Isana Druss.
Her glance crossed Koszenmarc’s. He too was remembering that moment, because he gave a brief shake of the head. And Eleni was watching them both with an odd expression.
To her relief, Hahn spoke next. “I wouldn’t be so surprised about Druss,” he said. “After all, she’s hunting Sarrész herself. Most likely she came back to see if the fool reappeared exactly where he vanished.”
“Still too dangerous.” Koszenmarc rested his face in his hands for several moments, then abruptly stood and walked over to his desk to stare at the largest map on the wall. “He could be anywhere, anywhere at all.” Without looking around, he said, “Are you certain about what you saw, Elise? You were in the void between worlds, after all. How do you know those islands belonged to Eddalyon? And not an entirely different world altogether?”
She wanted to answer back as sharply as he’d spoken, but she heard the note of anxiety in his voice. “Yes, I am certain.”
He continued to stare at the map in silence. Then, “We would be years visiting every island. So. We make a two-pronged attack. Joszua, Daria, I want you both to play spy for me. Each of you take a ship and a small crew. Listen to the gossip in the ports. Vyros and Idonia, obviously, but you might have some luck with Kyra or Yskopi. Ask questions, but discreetly. I can’t believe a stranger could appear suddenly from the air and no one has heard of it.”
The same thought must have occurred to Thea as well, judging from her grave expression. The others seemed equally uncertain. Old Hahn was frowning. Daria Ioannou played with her knife, slowly turning it over from hand to hand, her gaze turned inward, as though she contemplated their impossible task. Even Joszua had lost his cheerful air.
Koszenmarc gave up studying the map and returned to the table. “We are not a council of equals, as I’ve said, but this isn’t one of our usual missions. I want to hear what you think, every one of you. Do you disagree with my plan? Do you have other suggestions?”
Hahn shook his head. Joszua gave a wry smile and murmured, “As if I ever had a better suggestion.”
Eleni frowned, but she said nothing.
After a moment’s hesitation, Maté said, “You said a two-pronged attack. What is the second one?”
“Magic,” Koszenmarc said. “Elise, I want you to teach Thea the spells you used to examine the past. Thea…” He hesitated. “This is the most dangerous task of all. I want you and Elise to map a more exact trajectory for Sarrész’s flight into the islands.”
Thea drew a sharp breath. “That means walking Anderswar itself.”
Anderswar, the void between worlds, between lives. Anna had to suppress a shiver. She’d nearly lost herself the last time, as Thea had pointed out.
To be fair, Koszenmarc seemed to understand the danger. “I know. Do not…don’t take any unnecessary risks.”
“Only the necessary ones,” Thea murmured. “But, no. You’re right. We’ve reached the tipping point in our search. A few weeks or months later, and Druss will find the man before we do.” To Anna she said, “We shall both have to hone our magic before we make the attempt.”