Shadows (19 page)

Chell did not look ashamed. “Of course I want you to use your power for Korellia,” he said. “That's why I came, in hope of finding the fabled wizards of Aygrima and convincing them to wield their magic on our behalf against Stonefell. But whether you agree to that or not, I can take you to Korellia. Once you see what my kingdom is like, how much freer and happier my people are than those trapped in the Masks of the Autarch or terrified into submission by the Tyrant of Stonefell, I am confident you will want to help us. But I will take you whether you agree to help us or not. I owe you my life twice over: first on the beach, then again when the Watchers attacked. I hope you will use your power to aid my people. But I offer you safe haven whether you do or not.”

Mara closed her eyes. Stanik's ruined face began to coalesce out of the darkness behind her lids, and she jerked them open again. “I could be a danger,” she choked out. “This power . . . I don't know if I can control it. You shouldn't risk it. You shouldn't take me back with you, no matter how tempted you are by what you've seen me do already.”

“I am a Prince of the Realm of Korellia,” Chell said simply. “The risk is mine to take, if I judge it acceptable. And I do.” He got to his feet. “You don't have to commit to anything right now. The whole question becomes moot if the Watchers catch us.”

Mara shuddered. “I can't use my magic to kill again. I
can't
.” But even as she said it, she knew she
could
 . . . and that was what really terrified her.

“All the more reason for us to get moving again,” Chell said. He held out his hand. “Can you stand?”

Mara let him pull her to her feet. She staggered, and his hand tightened, but then she straightened. “I'm all right,” she said. Pain lanced her head, and she winced. “Except for my head. Did you have to hit me so hard? You could have killed me!”

“Look who's talking,” Chell said dryly. “You didn't know who I was. What if you'd decided I was a Watcher?”

Mara grimaced. “I see your point.”

With Chell's help, she mounted her own horse again, and gripped the reins tightly. He stood by her left leg, watching her anxiously. “Will you be able to stay on?”

“I . . . think so,” she said, a little faintly. “For a while. But I hope we don't have much farther to ride.”

“I think,” Chell said, “that we should reach the coastline in about two hours. It will still be dark. If we can find a boat . . . we could be out to sea by daylight.”

Mara nodded, and wished she hadn't. “I can manage that long. I think.”

Chell put his hand on her knee. “Call out if you think you might fall. I'll catch you.”

She flashed him a quick smile. He took his hand away.

She rather wished he hadn't.

They rode on. Every hoof fall of the horse jabbed her skull like a hot skewer, but she held on grimly to both her reins and her consciousness, and still had a firm grip on both when, rather sooner than Chell had guessed, they emerged from the trees onto a rocky shoreline and she found herself looking out at the western ocean, waves rolling ashore in long breakers silvered by the setting moon.

Off to their right, where the coast curved out toward the sea, a cluster of lights glimmered. “A village,” Chell said. “And any village on the coast will have boats.” He slid from the saddle. “I think we walk from here.” He began undoing the horse's saddle and the rest of its tack. “We'll set the horses free.”

Mara nodded and slid out of her own saddle. She had to lean against the horse's warm bulk for a moment before she had strength to begin unbuckling the saddle.

A few minutes later Chell clapped his hand to the rump of each horse, and the animals galloped away into the darkness, up the coast in the opposite direction from the cluster of buildings. Chell dragged the tack into the cover of the trees, then came back to where Mara had taken the opportunity to sit on the ground, knees pulled up and head resting on them. He sat beside her. “One more push,” he said softly. “We walk to the village, find a boat, head out to sea.” He paused. “Find a boat, find
provisions
, head out to sea,” he amended. “I don't know about you, but I'm a mite . . . peckish.”

Mara's stomach growled at the thought of food. Chell laughed. “I'll take that as concurrence. Anyway, once we're out at sea, we're safe from Watchers.” He shook his head. “I still don't understand how you can have a kingdom this size with no navy. But so I was told in the Palace.”

Safe from Watchers
, Mara thought.
But it's not Watchers I'm worried about.
As fatigue wrapped itself around her like a thick, suffocating blanket, she sensed within it all the nightmares she had created for herself with her magic. She couldn't stay awake forever. And when she slept again . . .

She shuddered, and heaved herself to her feet. “Then let's go,” she said. “Let's go find food and a boat.”

Chell scrambled up beside her. “Lean on me,” he said. She nodded and clung to his arm, and together they walked slowly over the wet, rounded stones toward the lights of the sleeping village.

Waves

T
HE VILLAGE WAS FARTHER AWAY than it appeared, and by the time they reached it, Mara had little strength left. The community consisted of no more than twenty buildings strung out along a single street bordered on one side by a seawall. They stayed on the beach, ducking behind the wall the moment they reached it. The moon, almost set now, cast a long, shimmering trail of light across the restless waves, silhouetting a half-dozen fishing boats drawn up on the shingle.

“Wait here,” Chell murmured, and Mara gratefully sat down, hardly noticing the pebbles digging into her skin, and leaned her back against the wall as the prince went through a gate into the village. She waited, wondering uneasily what she would do if someone sounded the alarm . . . but the village, it seemed, slept soundly.

Chell returned within minutes. “Luck,” he said, dropping a bag at her side. “Found a smokehouse. Hope you like fish.”

Mara's mouth watered. “I love fish,” she said. Actually she'd never cared for it very much, but right now it sounded wonderful.

“Now for a boat.” The prince left her there, and crept down to the water's edge to examine the craft. He took his time about it, though to Mara's eyes they were all as alike as petals on a starblossom. He climbed into one after the other. She heard soft splashes as he threw something overboard from each boat except the first one, then busied himself around the masts. She took advantage of the delay to marshal what little strength she still possessed . . . and to look this way and that along the dark shore, fearful that her nightmares would once again find their way out of the realm of her dreams and into her waking world.

But the beach remained deserted except for Chell, who finally returned, running, crouched over, up the beach. He took a quick peek over the top of the wall, then plopped onto the rocks beside her. “I've chosen our vessel,” he panted. “But I'll need your help pushing her out into the water. Are you up to it?”

“I guess I have to be, don't I?” Mara said. “Let's go.”

Chell nodded. He got up, picked up the bag of smoked fish with one hand, and held out the other. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet. Her fingers warm in his clasp, he led her across the rocks to the nearest of the boats, a sailing vessel perhaps twenty feet long. Nets were hung to dry on a rack between that boat and the next, glass floats glistening in the last of the moonlight. Inside the boat, the sail was neatly stowed, wrapped around the boom and yard and tied with twine. There were also two long oars, hung on hooks along both gunwales. Chell let go of Mara's hand and gripped the prow. “Push,” he said.

Mara nodded and took hold of the smooth varnished wood. Together they shoved at the boat, which for a moment felt as immovable as a rock of the same size, but then began to slide.

And then came a shout from behind them.

Mara shot a startled glance over her shoulder, and saw a dark figure standing atop the seawall. “Thieves! Thieves! Boat thieves!”

A moment's silence, then more shouts rang out. Doors banged open. Lights appeared.

“Push harder!” Chell shouted. “Hard as you can!”

Gasping, Mara put her back into it. The boat moved faster, grinding across the stones. The stern was afloat, then the amidships. Cold water soaked her feet. “Get in!” Chell shouted, and tumbled into the bow. Mara clambered awkwardly after him. “Grab an oar!”

Mara crawled on her hands and knees to the amidships thwart, and pulled an oar from the gunwale hooks. Following Chell's example, she shoved the blade hard against the bottom. The boat slipped farther away from the shore, and just in time: the villagers had reached the water's edge and were screaming at them, Masks glittering in the moonlight. One man to whom the boat must have belonged waded in after them, cursing, while others started pushing their own boats out to sea. “They'll be after us in a minute,” Mara panted.

“They won't catch us,” Chell said.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I threw their oars overboard and cut their stays once I decided this was the boat we wanted,” he said, and sure enough, confusion reigned on the beach behind them. Chell turned his head and looked up at the mast, and Mara, following his gaze, saw a strip of cloth fluttering in the wind. “She'll sail,” he said. “Ship oars.”

Mara pulled her dripping oar aboard and slipped it back into its hooks. Chell did the same, then scrambled forward. “What should I do?” Mara said, as he busied himself at the mast.

“Stay out of the way,” he said curtly, and so she sat and watched (and at one point ducked) as he hauled up the sail. It shook uselessly in the wind until he scrambled into the stern, picked up a rope attached to the end of the boom, and pulled it toward him. The sail swung out to starboard and stiffened, and they began to move, away from the beach and the cursing villagers, still struggling with their crippled boats.

Far out at sea, the moon sank behind the horizon, and darkness swallowed them up. For a long time Mara could still see the lights of the village, tiny flickers of yellow along the shore, but then they rounded the spit of land to the village's north, and there was nothing but darkness.

“You should rest,” Chell said, a disembodied voice from the stern. “Lie down on the floorboards.”

Mara leaned down and felt the bottom of the boat. “There's water down there,” she said in alarm. “Are we sinking?”

“It's just from the oars,” Chell said. “I checked her over carefully. She's a good stout craft. Take us anywhere.” He sounded different than he had on land; happier, somehow.
He called Korellia a sea kingdom
, she thought.
He's a sailor, the prince of a kingdom of sailors. What must Korellia be like? What are these ships of his like?

She'd never seen anything larger than the fishing boat they were on now; had never seen a boat at all until she'd reached the Secret City. Aygrima, as Chell had discovered to his astonishment, had no navy. Yet Chell spoke of his ships having dozens of men aboard. How large would such a vessel have to be? How could something that big float?

She hoped she'd get to see for herself. Floating out there on the dark waters, cut off from Aygrima, safe from any pursuit by the Watchers, she suddenly longed to see his island kingdom, its giant ships exploring all the world, everyone unMasked, free of Watchers, free of fear . . . free of magic.

Better for everyone in Aygrima if I never return there
, she thought.
Better for the unMasked Army . . .

...if they survive.

And with that thought, she knew that she wasn't done with Aygrima: not yet. She had betrayed the Secret City. Keltan and Edrik would be riding to warn them, but with Watchers hard on their trail, they could be hard-pressed to make it in time . . . hard-pressed to make it all.

“These ships of yours,” Mara said. “They're north of the Secret City?”

“Yes,” Chell said.

“Then we have to sail right past the City?”

A pause. “Yes.”

Mara pressed on. “We're faster than horses in this boat, aren't we?”

Another pause. “Maybe.”

“Then we have to sail to the Secret City,” she said in a low voice. “We have to warn them in case Edrik and Keltan are delayed.”

Another long silence. “Mara, you told Keltan you couldn't face going there.”

Her face flushed with shame at the thought. “I know what I said,” she said. “But I was wrong.”

“Mara—”

“We have to, Chell! I betrayed them. If they are attacked, without warning . . . it will be because of me. And I couldn't live with that.”
Add it to the list of things I may not be able to live with
, she thought. “Before . . . I didn't think I could face them. But now . . . now I don't think I can
not
face them.”

She waited in the dark for Chell's answer. “All right,” he said at last. “We'll try. But I said we
may
be faster than horses. There's no guarantee. I don't know these waters. I've sailed far enough out to sea we should be clear of any shoals and out of sight of any Watchers along the shore at sunup, but we'll have to sail closer to shore to pick our way along the coast. And if we want to be sure of finding the Secret City, we'll have to travel only by day. We may get there to find they have already been warned of what you call your betrayal.” His voice dropped. “And how will they welcome you once they know of it?”

Mara had no answer, and so she made none. “As long as we do our best,” she said. And then she crawled forward, feeling the floorboards as she went. In the bow, they seemed drier, and so it was there that she curled up, wrapped in a spare bit of sail she found in a locker, closed her eyes, and let sleep claim her, her exhaustion carrying her into it even though she feared what might be waiting there.

•  •  •

When she woke, gray, fog-shrouded water surrounded them. She sat up, and winced. The floorboards hadn't gotten any softer while she slept, and her head still ached a little. Flexing her shoulder to work out a kink, she stared out at the sea. The sail was now swung out to port. She craned her head to look around the mast into the stern, where Chell sat at the tiller, wrapped in his cloak. His face looked wan in the pale light. “You've slept for four or five hours,” he said. “Hungry?”

“Very,” she said. She scrambled back to where the bag of dried fish awaited amidships, opened it and took out a fillet of . . . something; her knowledge of fish extended only as far as “they have scales and live in the water” . . . and bit into it.

It tasted salty and smoky and fishy and wonderful. She ate two more fillets in rapid succession, then glanced up at Chell. “Want some?” she said through a full mouth.

He gave her a quick smile. “Had some. Eat what you want.”

After yet another two fillets she'd taken the edge off her hunger and could think of other things . . . like thirst. “Water?” she said hopefully.

“There's a barrel by the mast,” Chell said. “But it's almost empty. We can go a long way with only a little food. We can't manage without water. We'll have to put in to shore.” He looked around at the fog. “If I can find it.”

Mara stared at him. “
If?
”

He shrugged. “No compass. No landmarks. Wind died at dawn, shifted when it came back. Usually you get a land breeze at night, a sea breeze during the day. So I'm assuming with the breeze behind us, we're being pushed toward the shore.” He gave her another quick grin. “But I'm really hoping the fog lifts to confirm that.” The grin faded. “And then there's the question of rocks . . . once you've eaten and drunk, I need you to go forward and keep a lookout.”

Mara nodded and went forward toward the water barrel. A wooden cup dangled from it on a length of rope, swinging back and forth as the boat swayed. She filled the cup from the barrel's brass spigot, sniffed the water, made a face, and drank it anyway. It tasted both terrible and wonderful at the same time, and she would have had a second cup . . . but she got only a dribble out of the spigot the second time, and then only by tilting the barrel. She drank the little bit of liquid that had made it into the cup, then returned the barrel to its upright position and glanced back at Chell again. She'd had food, she'd had water, and now . . .

Feeling terribly embarrassed, she called back to him, “How do I . . . um . . . you know?”

“Over the side,” he said. “Hang on to a shroud.”

“Shroud?”

“Those ropes holding up the mast on either side. The rope going down to the bow is called the forestay.” That quick grin appeared again. “Sorry, I forget not everyone is a sailor.” The grin widened. “Oh, and don't worry, I won't look. The sail will pretty much hide you, anyway, if you keep to port.”

Mara, feeling her face burning despite the cool sea air, nodded and went around the mast again. It was incredibly awkward, embarrassing, and cold, but she managed to do what her body desperately wanted her to do, and felt much better for it.

It was while she was adjusting her clothes that she suddenly froze.

She had slept for several hours, Chell had said. She'd fallen asleep, and waked in the morning light, and she remembered nothing of the time in between. Which meant . . .

She hadn't had any nightmares. Despite everything that had happened in the past two days, the people she had killed with magic, the death of her father, the enormous magical power that had burned through her twice . . .
she hadn't had any nightmares
.

But . . . why?

Her Gift was still there. She could feel the magic in Chell's body. It wasn't like being blocked by the iron half-Mask. So . . . what?

She could think of only one thing that had made the difference, and it was all around her.