Guild Wars: Sea of Sorrows (18 page)

Isaye’s mad elementalist, Verahd, hissed in menace. Keeping his bright eyes fixed on the djinn, he lifted a clawed hand from his staff and whispered an invocation of air. More lightning crackled about Verahd’s outstretched fingers, playing hide-and-seek through the strips of black bandage woven around each of the mage’s arms. At his call, whirling gusts of wind swirled through the mist, attempting to force it either to dissipate or to coalesce and be tangled in Macha’s writhing chains.

In response, light flowed through the djinn’s ethereal form. There was a flash like the sun through clear water. The sea around the
Capricorn
swelled, rising in great waves against the ship’s hull, and with each crashing wave, the boom and toll of chapel bells reverberated through the deck. Cobiah felt them echo deep in his body, shaking his bones with each furious peal. All around him, Isaye’s sailors were knocked into the water as the sound swept the ship’s deck clean. As they screamed, the djinn’s smile grew.

“What is it?” Cobiah howled, grabbing a yardarm rope to keep his balance. The peals continued, so loud he thought he would be deafened. The sail tossed madly above them, torn between Verahd’s gale and the buffeting swell of the djinn’s magic. “Macha! Make it stop!”

“It’s the ship!” Macha shouted, her voice barely carrying through the music and the wind. “The djinn
is
the
Capricorn.
The ship’s alive—and it doesn’t
want
to be stolen!”

The ringing of the mighty bell rose even farther, and
as the sound rippled over the ship, Macha’s chains shattered into thin motes of spinning light. Verahd’s tornado of wind dissolved as well, delicate wisps of smoke collapsing into nothingness. The djinn gestured with a flick of its hand, and as it did, both magic-users were tossed over the side as if they were made of straw.

Isaye held on to the last. Silhouetted by magic, her grip on the mast slipped, and she was flung into the air by the pulse of the djinn’s bells. Without thinking, Cobiah reached to catch her. Their fingers wrapped tightly together, and he clenched his other hand about the yardarm rope. Isaye’s ponytail snapped in the gale-force wind, and Cobiah heard the masts creak and groan with the weight of the
Capricorn
’s ire.

Turning to face the djinn, Cobiah ignored the rope biting savagely into his palm. Blood ran down his wrist, and his pale hair lashed at his eyes, nearly blinding him, but Cobiah stubbornly refused to yield. He raised his voice above the din and yelled, “As captain of this vessel, I
order
you—” In that instant, the mast line snapped.

Cobiah and Isaye tumbled, end over end, into the ocean.

The next few moments were a chaotic jumble. Seawater splashed everywhere, churned white by the forces that whipped it into a frenzy. Terror gripped Cobiah. Old memories stirred in him: another ship, a great wave, and a hundred sailors lost beneath the waves. He hadn’t realized how clearly he remembered that day until it was echoed, and he was once more flung into the sea by a storm-wind. Unable to control his rising panic, Cobiah thrashed wildly, fear choking him as certainly as the ocean could.

A gentle hand gripped Cobiah’s arm. He tried not to struggle as it dragged him upward. As his head broke the surface, there was another grip, this time on his shoulder. With monumental strength, a massive paw hauled him
out of the undertow and dropped him unceremoniously onto the sand. Isaye waded out of the water beside him, managing a smile.

Cobiah pulled himself to his hands and knees, coughing up water through a raw, salt-rough throat. Forcing open his stinging eyes, he looked out at the lagoon and saw the sleek shadow of the
Capricorn
sailing—without wind or crew—back to her harbor in the shipyard. “I couldn’t get to you, Cap’n,” Sykox lamented. “Lucky thing that girl grabbed hold and pulled you up. She’s a real scrapper, isn’t she?”

Isaye lay on the beach beside him, panting in exhaustion. Her sailors were scattered up and down the beach, crawling out of the tide or collapsed on the dunes. Cobiah could hear the two magic-users spluttering and arguing somewhere nearby. It seemed that they’d all survived their humiliating withdrawal from the
Capricorn
.

Sykox slumped down onto the sand. The charr was waterlogged again, his fur sticking out like a half-drowned bilge rat’s. All four ears hung limply, and a long strand of seaweed was tangled about his horns. The expression on his bestial features was somewhere between exasperation and despair. He looked up at the approaching watch guard. “No use running, I suppose.”

“None at all,” Cobiah agreed.

Watch Commander Pierandra marched up to them, sword in hand. From the tip of her jet-black boots to the top of the tabard over her glittering metal armor, Pierandra radiated fury. Her honey-colored hair was damp, and her skin was flushed with anger. Without hesitation, she lowered her sword and pointed the sharp edge into Cobiah’s face.

“Good morning, Watch Commander Pierandra.” Cobiah tried not to move, lest her sword waver and cut off his nose.

“You’re all under arrest for grand larceny, piracy, and illegal commandeering. Surrender yourself to the guard for immediate execution of justice.” She bit off the words angrily, her breath heaving from the effort of the run. Ten more guards moved to surround them, and more were headed toward them from the town. Cobiah held up his hands in surrender and watched the others do the same.

“I . . . aaah . . . eeeerk . . . can’t stop . . . have . . . to . . .” Sykox shuddered. Before anyone could move, he started to shake violently, unable to control his instincts any longer. Water flew off the charr in thick splatters, drenching Cobiah, Isaye, the watch commander, and most of the others. When the urge finally left him, Sykox let out an aggrieved sigh.

Cobiah hadn’t thought it was possible for Pierandra to appear less amused, but he’d been wrong. Dripping from head to toe, the watch commander clenched her hand on the hilt of her sword. “
That is enough.
By the authority given to me as watch commander of Port Stalwart, you are all found guilty of piracy. You will be hanged from the gallows until you are dead.”

“N
ot many spellcasters have the intellectual fortitude for a spell of that magnitude. The cosmogony of the sigil matrix has to be incredibly precise. Are you quite sure it works?”

“Extremely. I’ve done it on numerous occasions. You can rely on symmetry to stabilize it so long as the structure is ethericly ideal.”

“Ideal?” The asura blinked. “How do you make that kind of a matrix conform to an ideal? By definition, its points of light are randomized—”

“Not randomized,” Verahd corrected Macha gently. “Not arbitrary or accidental, either. Only inconsistent. Subjective. Once you take into account the factors that misalign the sigil’s plane, you can predict the pattern.”

Macha clamped her palms to her head. “But your theory precludes thousands of potential algorithms!”

“It’s daunting at first, yes, but you get a feel for it.” Verahd shrugged, pushing his reddish hair behind his ears. It didn’t stay there long, fluttering down around his face again the moment his hand fell to the drawing. “If only I had my staff. It’s really quite relaxing to do once you know how. A pity magic can’t be done without
weapon-focuses. This really is much easier to understand if you simply see it done.”

“I’m sure if you ask, Pierandra will gladly give you back your staff so you can teach. Maybe she’ll give me back my pistols, too. I’m in the mood to hand some ‘education’ of my own to those guards,” Cobiah grumped.

Exchanging a wearied look with his friend, Sykox leaned against the cold stone wall and rubbed a paw through the salt-clumped fur at the back of his neck. “Well, at least
someone’s
having a good time.” In another cell, the dark-haired sailor, Henst, sharpened a loose stone against the wall and grunted in bored agreement.

Their prison was underground, beneath the watch commander’s station house. The walls were made of hewn earth reinforced with thick oak beams. Iron bars separated four large cells, with a small central hallway where prisoners were led down from above. There were two wooden cots in each cell, as well as a chamber pot with a lid. Thin windows, only six inches tall, allowed a fillet of morning light to illuminate each cell. The floors were hard-packed earth with a light covering of straw.
Comfortable and humane, really, for a prison,
thought Cobiah. They’d been here only a couple days while the guard readied the gallows. He’d stayed far longer in far worse.

The prisoners from the
Capricorn
debacle had been separated into three cells. Macha, Cobiah, Isaye, and two of her crew were in one of them. Verahd, Henst, and the other sailors were in the second, and Sykox was alone in the third. None of the thin cots could hold the charr, so he sat on the ground amid the hay and mourned his fate.

Two days. They’d been rotting in this cell for two days, with no sign of escape or release. Cobiah stood on the cot in his cell, leaning morosely against the shelf of his narrow, barred window. Yesterday had been sunny, and
he’d been able to glimpse the
Capricorn
under full sail. All hands on board were waving and yelling during the casting-off celebration on the docks. Today, on the other hand, was dawning gray and cold.

“It’s not so bad, Sykox,” Cobiah said, trying to cheer him up. “At least they’re feeding us.”

“Human food.” The charr slumped, and his tail smacked rhythmically against the floor. “What I wouldn’t give to eat something that kicks when I bite it.”

“. . . You could apply the same aspect-ratio ideology to astronomical calculations, too,” Macha was saying excitedly. She and the elementalist Verahd sat at the shared bars between their cells, heads bowed together as they drew in the dirt with bits of hay.

“I suppose you could,” Verahd agreed. “Take the sigil plane and apply it to Tyria’s horizon. Then find two points to triangulate instead of simply measuring the singular aspect of the sun’s verticality . . .” Macha stared, utterly absorbed by the patterns he’d drawn in the earth.

Upstairs, the thick oak door to the dungeon cells creaked on its hinges. Heavy boots lumbered down the stairs. Four burly guardsmen carrying lengths of rope tromped down to stand in the central hallway. Behind them came Watch Commander Pierandra, thin lips twisted into a satisfied smile. “Tie everyone securely before you take them from the cells. As for the charr . . .” She drew a large pair of iron manacles from her belt and tossed them onto the ground in front of Sykox’s cage. “He’s too big to hang. Clap his arms and legs in irons, and throw him into the sea.”

It was a relatively simple task to hold the human crew and Macha at swordpoint and tie their hands—simple, that is, when compared with the effort required to manacle a charr. By the time the guards were finished, their
tabards were torn, their armor dented, and their faces bloodied by swipes of Sykox’s claws. One had a concussion; another’s head was wedged tightly between the cell bars; a third cursed energetically and hobbled on a twisted ankle. Though he fought valiantly, Sykox was finally cuffed and chained.

The prisoners were attached to a long strand of rope and then paraded out of the prison and through the town of Port Stalwart. Cobiah counted ten guards in all, including the two still nursing their wounds back at the watch commander’s headquarters. Eleven, if you counted Pierandra. Taking a moment to size up the watch commander’s graceful step and thickly muscled arms, Cobiah decided to round the number up to twelve.

Twelve. There were almost as many prisoners—if Isaye and her crew were willing to take the risk . . . Cobiah glanced toward the tall woman, admiring how her dark hair shone with a soft reddish undertone in the morning light.

Blinking, he snapped his head down again. Twelve guards. Their numbers were close enough. The guards were carrying weapons. They had armor, and their hands were free. The prisoners, on the other hand . . .
What we have,
Cobiah thought,
is . . . is . . .

Two exhausted magic-users and a very annoyed charr.

Cobiah sighed under his breath. “We’re doomed.”

A rough gallows had been erected at the end of the dock closest to the guardhouse. A dozen tall beams stood like scarecrows at the edge of the jetty, each bearing a short crossbar from which hung a length of rope. A man stood at the gallows, tying the ropes into thirteen-coiled hoop knots that sailors called the devil’s window. Several locals gathered on the docks: fishermen and laborers, fellow sailors and local farmhands, all eager to see
the show. Henst spat on them from his place in line, returning their jeers with taunts of his own. The rest of the prisoners marched quietly and kept their thoughts to themselves.

A knot caught in Cobiah’s throat as they marched ever closer. He scanned the vessels in the harbor as they walked past each one, but the
Pride
was not among them. She must have been still waiting, hidden in their false cove near the harbor mouth.
Good,
Cobiah thought.
My crew won’t have to see this. More, they won’t be fools and risk their lives trying to save us before we hang.