Sword of Fire and Sea (The Chaos Knight Book One) (19 page)

They crossed the ship in silence. There was no diplomatic way to search either woman for weapons before they entered Ruby's quarters together, more was the pity. Vidarian opened the door for them, expressing his disapproval with an abrupt wave of mock gentility, but Ariadel did not acknowledge it, and Ruby replied with an exaggerated curtsy that was no doubt perfect Alturian Imperial form.

After she stepped across the threshold, Ruby raised an eyebrow, then shut the door in his face. He squawked an objection, but Ruby's muffled reply was command-voiced: “You are dismissed, sir!”

He gritted his teeth, then regretted it as pain flashed in front of his eyes.
And you are enjoying this far too much
, he thought at the door.

I like her
, came the foreign thought, its voice growing more familiar, and his vision swam. Knives of anxiety swept up his spine in successive cold chills, and he looked around wildly.

Who are you?
he thought, reaching out with his mind. But the voice, if it did have a presence at all, danced outside his reach. For a moment, before it left entirely, he sensed a giddy amusement, as of a malevolent child who torments an animal. Sudden rage flooded through him, beating back the pounding in his head, and only the sound of Galon moving in the adjacent quarters reminded him to contain himself.

Was he going mad? Had the initial link to Ariadel, forged by the fire goddess, cracked open his mind like an oyster shell, and now other thoughts leaked in? Were such things even possible?

There was no sound from behind the captain's door, and so he retreated up the passageway and exited into the sunlight. The aftcastle was largely untended this hour of the morning, though men and women moved in the rigging, scurrying to answer the commands called out by the second mate from the wheel ahead. Vidarian climbed the narrow ladder and ascended the top deck to look out over the stern, the blue waves, and the wake left behind from their swift passage.

Watching the rushing water, he was aware as he had never before been of the tremendous energy that surged around the ship. It seemed such a small and inconsequential thing, this creation of wood and tar and sail, to have the audacity to brave the ocean. Down, down went the water, deeper than his ability to perceive with eye or Sense. Not for the first time in his life, but for the first time in a great many years, he was in awe of Nistra, lady of the waters.

One little element
, a voice whispered,
who plays with her little ship toys, and loves that you love her. You're too good for
her,
too
.

The chill seized him again, and he forced himself not to turn, knowing he would find no one. But this time, he wasn't alone in hearing it: around the ship, the waves crept higher, and the ocean sang dissonance to his senses, and anger. Inside his mind, the voice laughed, again with the strange edge that lifted the hairs on the back of his neck—but it mercifully retreated, and the waves calmed again.

Two hours later, Ariadel and Ruby emerged from the aftcastle, and to the sinking of his stomach, both looked entirely too satisfied for his well-being. Vidarian had no desire to witness a pirate Conclave, even though it might be, as Ruby claimed, the safest place in the sea.

Ruby walked to capstan and placed one booted foot upon it, calling out to the crew. “We remain on course,” she said, and a chorus of “Aye, Captain” answered from the deck.

A

A good speed would carry them around the arm of the perpetual storm. From the wheel, Ruby was calling out the trimming of the mainsail, and the
Viere
made crisp progress through waters just beginning to turn dark. As Vidarian and Ariadel watched the sunset-stained water from the bow, the wind fell out from under them. After a rattle of rigging settling back against the poles, all was silent, save the distant boom of thunder that echoed across the wave-plain from dim flashes in the bellies of the thunderheads.

The
Viere
continued to make slow progress through the waves, tacking against a nonexistent wind. Ariadel looked askance at Vidarian. “A silence before the storm,” he said. “You'd better go below. Make sure everything—and I mean everything—is tied down securely.” She nodded, then moved toward him. He wrapped his arms around her tightly for a moment, chin resting on her hair, and then she turned for the forecastle, moving quickly while the deck was still steady.

As she crossed, she exchanged nods with Ruby, who advanced toward the bow, having turned the wheel over to Galon. He still had not figured out what had so securely settled their feud.

She lifted a brass telescope and looked out at the distant storm, answering his unasked question. “We'll go in with the storm jib as far as we can,” Ruby said, all levity for once gone from her demeanor. “I may require your assistance, at the worst.” She gestured down at the water, and a chill stole over Vidarian as he took her meaning. It was one thing to play at magicking a handful of riverwater, and quite another to attempt taming a storm. Ruby seized his shoulder and smiled. “Just follow my lead.”

He managed half a smile. “Aye, Captain.”

The wind picked them up then, cold and ominous. The sails snapped taut against their trim restraint, and the ship lurched forward into newly agitated waves. “Reef main and hoist storm jib!” Ruby shouted, turning away from the bow and striding for the wheel. “All hands check harness to jackline! Look sharp!”

Men and women scrambled for their posts. From the bow, Vidarian tested the security of the jackline anchored there and extending back to the stern. A series of metal hooks guided the line over the forecastle, and he checked each as well as he moved down the deck. Below on the gundeck, three young sailors were moving to secure and check the cannon, and Vidarian joined them in hauling and tying rope. Above, rain began to drum the deck.

The thunder was echoing closer as they sailed into the reach of the storm, and the ship pitched to steeper and steeper angles, testing the cannon-lines. Wind lifted the rigging, howling through the sails, and at last on one great pitch to port, the sea broke over the rails, coursing over the spar deck in a rush that sank his stomach before cascading down the ladders and onto their heads.

Vidarian had worked his way to midships at this point, and stood with the ladders and capstan just before him to stern. Ruby's voice came down from overhead: “Heave to! Get me in front of that—!” Vidarian had not heard that word in over a decade: a particularly creative bedroom maneuver unmentionable in polite company.

Despite the pitching of the ship, the cannon were secure, and none too soon with the full wrath of the storm upon them. Vidarian looked with dread at the dripping ladder, then took courage between his teeth and mounted up it.

Abovedeck the world was in chaos. The thunderheads bore down on them from above, blackening the sky. Lanterns had been lit across the ship, bolstering the thin light from beyond the storm at the horizons, where, somewhere, the moon still shone. Vidarian staggered under the assault of rain and wind to fix his harness to the swinging jackline.

The ship tilted down a swell nose-first at a speed and angle that gripped Vidarian's stomach with vertigo. He took hold of his lifeline with both hands as his boots lifted off the deck—only for a split second, but the crash as they bottomed out, the long bowsprit ahead knifing through saltwater, knocked hardened sailors to the deck across the entire ship. The sea came pouring over the gunwales, drenching the decks and everyone on them.

“Cast drogue!” Ruby shouted over the din, and the command was relayed to the quarterdeck, where hands rushed to toss a series of linked heavy buoys overboard to snake across the undulating swells. As the drogue line snapped taut, the ship steadied for a few precious moments. Vidarian fought to join Ruby at the wheel.

“It's driving us into the reef!” he yelled, sputtering as torrential rainwater streamed down his face, and pointed out across the bow. The ship now angled to port, running from the storm but straight into the murderous embrace of the knife-reefs, the glistening tips of which surged into view in the lee of the swells.

“I realize,” Ruby said dryly, an impressive feat, “this is that ‘worst’ I was talking about.” She eyed the bow, and for the first time, Vidarian realized that she was humming. It was a low sea shanty, old and familiar, but her voice imbued it with strange energy, and a great strength poured out from her through the base of the ship. She paused in her humming long enough to shout, “Bare poles! All hands to lifelines! This is it!”

Vidarian saluted, one hand on the jackline, and hauled himself along it toward the bow. It was a long fight, and for every step forward he lost three more to the pitching deck and howling winds. At last he was climbing the ladder to the forecastle deck, clinging to the rail against what seemed the worst of the storm.

From here the black glittering spines of the horn's reef were far too close for comfort. Knowing his duty, though not how it would be accomplished, he thrust his awareness down into the turbulent sea.

The shock of the ocean's cold presence stunned him for several long moments. This was not the peaceful sea of the northern empire, but an angry, wild place that had nothing but hostility for the minds of men. It stalked around him with patient curiosity, and he knew that his death would be but an afterthought in its power.
Beloved Nistra
, he thought,
my life has been yours, and my fathers’ lives before me.

And then, unequivocally, a presence was there. It restrained the angry ocean with the gentle absolution of a woman's touch on the neck of a snarling guard dog. But there was curiosity in the presence, too, and an unfathomable depth unlike any he had ever experienced.
Show me
, came the impression, clear as tropic waters, but wordless, an assault of a thousand images and sensations.

He opened himself fully to the ocean, as he had only in dreams before. It coursed into him, became him, subsumed him. There was no Vidarian, only the current, without constraint or barrier. He was cold and strong, full and relentless. With the slightest movement, he reached to turn the ship away from the reef, and from his distant body felt the deck move beneath his feet.

Deep within him, fighting within that distant body, was dissonance-something not cold and substantive but bright and ephemeral, light but untouchable, electric and hot. And from the heart of this dissonance came a snarling voice:
He isn't yours! He's MINE!

A sensation of distaste, sulfurous, wafted at him from the presence in the sea. It turned from him, and with it, he lost his grip on the ocean currents. They pulled him down into darkness, and it would have been without hope, save that, even as he descended, he saw the bowsprit ahead emerging into early morning sunlight, out of the grasp of the terrible storm. Behind them curved Maladar's Horn, and he collapsed to the deck, exhausted.

The curl of land that encircled the Selturian Islands protected them from the wrath of land or sea. This spur of mainland in the southwest corner of the Alturian Empire was technically held by the emperor, but it was a wild place, full of strange creatures that had no love of humankind. The Selturians were sparsely populated despite their tropical weather—it was simply too much trouble to reach them by any means, save perhaps flight.

Vidarian woke with the warmth of sunlight slowly drying his soaked clothes and hair. Gulls cried overhead, approaching curiously from the islands to inspect the ship for scraps of food. He struggled upright, first to a sitting position and finally pulling himself to his feet. Dizziness hammered at his head, the night and storm and ocean reawakening the ache in his still-battered skull.

When he staggered down the ladder, Ruby was waiting, looking tired but cheerful.

“You did well,” Ruby said, “if a little impetuously. They'll have felt you in the wastes, I'd wager.”

“Better than in the deeps,” he said, and she laughed, with a gesture of concession. He shaded his eyes and looked out over the water. The three green Selturians surrounded them. They were close enough for him to catch sight of the strange furred animals that swung between the trees.

“I've had a pram prepared,” Ruby said. “You and Ariadel may set off when ready. I've given the crew leave to explore the islands if they'd like, but most are interested in sleep.”

When he made his way to the boathook, Ariadel was waiting, looking across to the islands. Her skin was pale and her eyes sunken—she'd likely fared no better than he in the aftcastle. He helped her into the pram, and two men at the winches lowered them down into the water. Vidarian took up the oars himself, pushing them away from the steep sides of the
Viere
and settling in to row. Between strokes, he asked, “How long has it been since you saw your father?”

“Years,” Ariadel said. “The islands are so remote.”

“And his occupation not—encouraged.”

She shook her head, surprising him. “There's little reason for interchange between the priestesshood and the rare elemental monks. Their magics are just so different. Men,” she paused, and smiled gently, “most of them, anyway, cannot wield the greater magics. You'll see.”

In a few minutes he was helping her from the boat and onto the sand, and then pushing the little craft above the tideline. Ariadel had directed him where to land, and by the time he had shipped the oars and set the pram aright, a modestly dressed figure awaited them at the tree line beyond the sand.

Ariadel set off toward the figure, and Vidarian was surprised to find nervous energy swirling in his gut. What was that Ariadel had said about “mates” to Ruby? He realized he had no idea what Velinese wedding or courtship customs were. But confidence, perhaps, could overcome. He advanced up the beach, taking care to keep Ariadel beside him, and approached the figure, which turned out to be an elderly man with age-spotted skin and hair that had most likely once been black, like Ariadel's.

“Lord Windhammer, I presume,” Vidarian extended his hand, and caught Ariadel's flinch out of the corner of his eye.

The older man's smile was sad as he took Vidarian's hand and clasped it briefly. “It's been quite some time since I bore that name,” he said. “It's Aldous Windfell, the name of my birth.” He turned to Ariadel, who embraced him warmly, but gingerly. “How is your mother?”

“It's some years since I saw her,” Ariadel admitted, returning to Vidarian's side. “She's been off on another of her collection trips, and—well, you know how she is about time.”

Aldous smiled, and his eyes disappeared beneath folds of wrinkled skin. “I do indeed.” He made a motion with one hand. “Her goddess, or mine, or yours,” the hint of another smile turned his tone, “protect her. But we can discuss this later. You will be exhausted after your night at sea,” he said. “We have a number of guest cottages. Sleep now. We'll speak again in the evening. I am sure there's much to discuss.”