Shadows (28 page)

And then she gasped, and her eyes flew open, as she felt magic such as she had never felt before, power she would never have felt possible—
and it wasn't hers
. It was all around her, in the sea, in the ships, in the very air . . .

The storm . . . stopped. One moment the wind was howling, screaming through the tattered ropes of the rigging. The next . . . dead silence.

The sea raged on for one long minute . . . and then, just as suddenly as the wind had dropped, the waves quieted. They sank in a moment from mountains to hills to little more than ripples.

The air warmed. Water began to drip from the ice-coated rigging.

Mara spun and stared to the east, to the shore. She could see nothing, but she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that that astonishing surge of magic had come from there.

“Did you do that?” Keltan asked in an awed voice.

Mara shook her head. “No,” she said, and she knew she should be glad she had not had to risk her soul to save the ships . . . but a part of her wished that she
had
, wished she really had had no choice but to draw on the magic of the men and women in the ships, wished she had had an excuse to once more feel the pain/pleasure of her Gift.

And
another
part of her was furious that someone
else
had had both the nerve, and the power, to use magic to save the ships.

Chell came rushing up the gangway. “Did you—” He began, and Mara cut him off.

“No!” she snapped. She looked off to starboard. “It was magic, all right, but it came from over there.”

“Watchers?” Chell said. “Could they have someone with them Gifted enough to stop a storm in its tracks?”

“Maybe,” Mara said. “But I wouldn't have thought they'd be carrying that much magic.”

“Well, whoever did it saved all our lives,” Chell said. “We would have been ground to sawdust between
Defender
and the rocks. But if it stays as calm as this, we can last the night . . . and ferry everyone ashore in the morning.”

“But . . . the ships,” Mara said. “The unMasked Army. The islands . . .”

“These ships won't be taking anyone anywhere,” Chell said, voice grim. “
Protector
is hung up on the rocks; we'll never be able to get her free and eventually the waves will return and smash her to kindling.
Defender
 . . .” He glanced at the other ship, clearly visible now that the snow had ended, the running lights glowing on the torn, tangled sails. Sailors, already aloft, hacked at the rigging with long knives. “She might be salvageable. But she can't carry all the unMasked Army and all the crew of both ships as well.” Chell's shadowed face looked like that of some ancient statue hewn out of gray stone. “There's nothing to be done. The unMasked Army must take its chances on shore. If
Defender
can be repaired, I will return to Korellia with her and bring aid as soon as may be.”

“Weeks later,” Mara said. She thought of the cabin full of women and children, of that rocky, unforgiving shore. “They'll all be dead by then.”

“We will leave what supplies we can,” Chell said. He turned to face her. “Damn it, Mara, I don't like it any more than you do. But I have a duty to my king . . . my father. We're in a fight for survival as well.
We need the magic from Aygrima
. I must tell him what I've found here. I am certain he will send me back, with a significant force, so that we may gain access to that magic. But I can no longer help the unMasked Army as I had planned. My duty to my own realm must come first.”

Mara turned away from him and stared at
Defender
. Then she turned again and looked inland. “Whoever stopped that storm may have his own ideas about what happens next,” she said slowly.

“That has occurred to me,” Chell said. “Which is why, if
Defender
can be sailed, we will flee these shores in it tomorrow and worry about repairs as we limp away.”

“But what if whoever stopped the storm is the one who started it in the first place?” Keltan put in. “Captain March said it came out of nowhere.”

Chell shook his head. “Then we are all doomed. We have no way to fight such power.” His gaze slid to Mara. “Unless you . . . ?”

Mara remembered how that vast wave of magic had crashed over the ships and sea, negating the immense energy of the storm, and she shook her head. “No,” she said. “Whoever or . . . whatever . . . did that, they're beyond me.”
Maybe not in power
, she thought, remembering flame and smoke spearing the sky above the mining camp as she contained the explosion that would have destroyed it,
but certainly in control.

And then she thought,
What could I learn from someone like that?

“Then all we can do is make our own plans as best we can without regard to what some mysterious super-powerful magic-user may or may not decide to do,” Chell said. He glanced up at the sky. Stars were beginning to prick the darkness in the ragged gaps in the drifting cloud cover. “At first light, we abandon
Protector
.”

The night continued to warm as time passed, as if whoever had stilled the storm wanted to ensure that they did not freeze as they waited for daylight. Keltan and Mara dozed where they were, on the slanted deck, propped up against the railing. The helmsman, arm broken, had been taken below. Captain March and Prince Chell, busy elsewhere on the ship, did not return. Mara thought of the women and children in the cabin below them, surely more comfortable than anyone else on the ship, and took that warm thought with her into . . .

...nightmares.

The ship was on the rocks, and the protection of the sea had deserted her.

They were all there: her father, dead Watchers, Stanik, Grute. In her dream, she stood alone on the poop deck, and they came lumbering across the deck toward her, up the gangway, reaching for her with dead, clawing hands. She tried to scream, but nothing would come out. And then they were on her, grabbing her. She struck out violently with feet and hands, but she couldn't shake them from her, couldn't break their deathlike grip—

“Mara, stop it! Stop! Wake up!”

Mara gasped, eyes snapping open. She was still held in a tight grip, but the hands on her arms belonged to Keltan. She looked wildly around. She wasn't lying down, she was standing up, and her back was pressed against the rail as though she were trying to push through it.

“Keltan?” she said weakly.

“You got up, in your sleep, you were kicking and punching the air, I thought you were going to fall right over the rail . . .” Keltan was panting. He let go of her arms. “You could have killed yourself!”

“Keltan . . .” Mara flung her arms around him and hugged him tight. “The nightmares,” she whispered. “The sea helps, but on land . . . I've killed so many people in the past few days . . . Keltan, hold me. Keep me safe from the nightmares.”

His arms went around her and returned her embrace. “I will, Mara,” he said. He kissed her gently on the cheek. “I will.”

She squeezed him harder. Then they sat down again by the rail, arms around each other, and remained there in silence through the final hour of the long night.

First light revealed they were far closer to shore than any of them had guessed. “If we hadn't hit the rocks we'd have been aground soon after,” Captain March said, as he stood on the poop deck with Prince Chell, surveying the scene. “Look at that.” He pointed north and a little east, where the splash of water showed a long spit of just-submerged land stretching out into the sea. “We'd never have cleared that the way we were being pushed east.”

Chell grunted. “If we'd run onto that, we might have been able to wade ashore. But not from here.” He turned inland again, hands on his hips. “Still, it's close enough, and looks like good landing for the boats. That damnable shore cliff is finally gone, too. Those hills are climbable.” He glanced at Mara. “The unMasked Army will be able to get inland from here,” he said. “There could be game . . . water . . .”

Mara said nothing. She was looking much farther, at distant, snow-covered peaks. There were some, very far away, directly inland, but there were more and closer ones to the south. “I think we're north of the mountains,” she said. “Beyond Aygrima's borders.”

“Then let's hope the Watchers have given up the chase,” Keltan said.

Mara said nothing, but she looked down the shore to the south.

“Let's get everyone except the salvage parties ashore,” Chell said. He nodded at Captain March. “The captain thinks
Defender
can be floated.”

“She'll have to be put up on legs and her hull gone over with a fine-tooth comb,” the captain said. “Weeks of repair work, I'm guessing. And we'll need bits of
Protector
to pull it off. But, yes, I think she can be made seaworthy again, and Captain Gramm agrees.”

“Let's be about it, then,” said Chell.

Captain March nodded, and turned to shout orders to the waiting crew. No boats could be lowered from
Protector
, trapped as she was between
Defender
and the rocks that had ripped apart her hull, so the unMasked Army refugees aboard
Protector
had to first cross gangplanks to
Defender
, then make their way down ratlines to one of the only two boats that were still usable . . . one of which, Mara saw, was the fishing boat in which she and Chell had made their way north from Tamita.

It was a slow, laborious process, and the day had worn away to late afternoon before it was complete. As the hours passed, the broad, flat beach grew cluttered with groups of people and mounds of supplies, some the belongings the unMasked Army had brought with them from the Secret City, some supplies from the two ships.

Mara and Keltan were among the last to leave
Protector
, crossing to the shore with Chell, Captain March remaining aboard to continue supervising the work parties trying to free
Defender
from its tangled embrace with
Protector
. As Mara climbed out of the bow of the fishing boat, she saw Catilla and Edrik talking to other leaders of the Army. Hyram stood nearby. Neither Catilla nor Edrik paid her any attention, but Hyram once more gave her a long, measuring look before turning away.

She whirled about abruptly and blindly, seized Keltan's hand, and began walking south along the beach. “Where are we going?” he said, after trotting a couple of steps to catch up with her.

“Away,” Mara said. “I don't want to be here right now.”

“But—” Keltan looked back over his shoulder.

“They don't need me,” Mara said.

For a few minutes Keltan didn't say anything, just crunched over the stones of the beach alongside her. “When
Defender
is repaired,” he said slowly, “you're going to go aboard, aren't you?”

“I don't know,” Mara said.

“Really? It seems pretty clear to me,” Keltan said. “At sea, the nightmares don't trouble you. At sea, you don't have to face your guilt over what you told Stanik. At sea, you're the treasured guest of Prince Chell. Why
wouldn't
you go to Korellia?”

“Why, indeed?” Mara snapped. She let go of Keltan's hand, spinning to face him. “I didn't ask for any of this,” she cried. “I didn't ask for this Gift . . . this curse. I didn't ask to be rescued by the unMasked Army to try to make counterfeit Masks for Catilla. I wish I were still living in my parents' home in Tamita. I wish I were Masked!”

“You don't mean that,” Keltan said.

“Don't I?” She turned and looked back at the refugees scattered along the beach. “How many have died because of me, directly or indirectly? How many more will die? And that's even without . . .” She choked off what she was about to say. How could she even begin to make Keltan understand the way her Gift burned inside her, urging her always to use it, to taste the magic of others, draw it to herself, experience that mingled pain and ecstasy?
I need to talk to Ethelda
, she thought.
She's the only one who has a clue . . .

“Mara,” Keltan said. “Stop it. You can't go back. You can only go forward. And going forward . . . I . . . I don't think you should go with Chell.”

She snorted. “I'll bet you don't.”

“Not because of me,” Keltan said angrily. “Because it would be running away.” He pointed at the unMasked Army. The sound of a crying baby pierced the cool, still air. “You think it's your fault they're out here, that they're homeless and on the run? Then do something about it. Help them! You have magic. Use it! Use it to keep them alive through the coming weeks and months. Don't run off to sea just because you're feeling guilty. If more people die when you could have helped prevent it, then it
will
be your fault! And you won't be the girl I thought you were, the one who has always tried to
help
people.”

She stared at him. “Keltan . . .” He didn't know what he was offering. An excuse to use her magic. A reason to use it. A
good
reason. She could take just a little, here and there, as she needed it. She wouldn't abuse it. She wouldn't take more than she needed. She wouldn't . . .

She wouldn't become their own little version of the Autarch, stealing magic from others to meet her own needs. She'd never become that.

Except, deep in her heart, she feared she
would
.

“You don't know what you're saying,” she whispered at last. “Keltan. You don't . . .”

She turned from him and ran farther up the beach. She heard him running after her. Ahead, the beach curved back to the west. She dashed up to the bend, rounded it . . .

...and skidded to a stop.

“Mara!” Keltan called. He reached her. “I . . .”