The Towers Of the Sunset (26 page)

“KORWEIL DID THAT?” muses the
Marshall, her voice calm as she looks up from the supply ledgers she is reviewing.

Llyse nods. “That’s what the message said. It was a private ceremony, but the co-regency arrangement surprised me.”

“What co-regency?”

“He named Creslin and Megaera co-regents of Reduce.”

“He’s a stubborn bastard, but not that devious.” The
Marshall marks the ledger page before closing the book. “Megaera, with those bracelets off, isn’t about to submit to any man. At least that’s what Ryessa indicated. But she never said why she felt Megaera was safe to unbind.”

“Do you trust the Tyrant?” asks Llyse tentatively.

“No. But that kind of lie wouldn’t benefit her. I suspect that somehow she linked her sister to Creslin, used some sort of magic tie. That forces the sub-tyrant to follow and preserve… Creslin.” She shakes her head. “Creslin’s gotten help from somewhere, probably from the eastern Blacks. But the co-regency thing-that has to be Creslin’s doing. I only hope he knows the stakes he’s playing for.”

Llyse says nothing but waits. Outside the
Black
Tower
windows, the winds howl and the snows fall.

The
Marshall raises her eyebrows. “You have questions?”

“Creslin was never meant to go to Sarronnyn.”

Dylyss turns and looks out through the frosted glass.

“Was he?” asks the Marshalle.

“No.”

“I thought not. He was taught everything I was, but he was never told that, was he?”

The
Marshall continues to regard the falling snow outside the
Black
Tower
.

Llyse finally drops her eyes, bows, and leaves the room.

CRESLIN IGNORES THE sniggers from the helmsman as he weaves his way aft. The passageway is dark, but even in his weakened condition, his senses guide him to the cabin doorway, where he fumbles before entering an even darker space. Megaera is breathing rhythmically in the lower bunk.

“Creslin?” Her voice is thick.

“Yes,” he rasps.

“Go to sleep. Let your mind take care of your body.

Good night…“

Creslin struggles out of his sword harness, then slumps into one of the chairs and pulls off his boots. He stands and shrugs off his tunic, shirt, and trousers. He folds them and lays them in the chair, then makes his way slowly to his bunk. Megaera has turned back the coverlet.

“Thank you,” he mumbles.

“Easier that way. Go to sleep.”

He puts one leg up and tries to lever himself over the high edge.

“Please. I’m not a ladder.”

“Sorry.”

Despite the faint mustiness of the cabin, the high-sided bunk is welcome. Creslin does not recall falling asleep, but when he opens his eyes, light is streaming through the portholes. Megaera still sleeps, her breathing regular.

Creslin sits up. Clunk. Rubbing his head, he reflects that the clearance is not much greater than that of a road-crew bunk, although the accoutrements at hand are far better. Easing himself to the deck, he avoids touching or waking the sleeping redhead.

Just as quietly, he begins to dress.

“You do have a nice body, I must admit.”

Creslin blushes, pulls on his trousers, and sits down to retrieve his boots. “I tried not to wake you up.”

Clunk. Creslin grins.

Megaera rubs her head with one hand while the other clutches the quilted coverlet over her shoulders. “It’s not funny. That hurt.”

“I know. I did the same thing.”

“Oh.”

Creslin, noting how fresh she looks despite the straying locks of red hair, fingers the stubble on his cheeks, wondering if he dares shaving on the moving deck. He swallows.

“Please…”

He looks away, concentrates on pulling on his boots.

“Thank you.” She remains cocooned within the coverlet.

He picks up the razor, grabs at a thin green towel that is folded on the chest. “I’m going to find somewhere to shave and clean up.”

Out in the passageway, wearing only trousers and boots, he lurches toward the deck, emerging into a clear and windy day.

Klerris stands at the bow, looking into the southeast.

Creslin finally sees what he seeks on the port side near the fantail. After taking care of the necessities, he looks for a way to shave. There is no fresh water, but two buckets hang from lanyards lashed to the railing. He lowers one of the buckets, raises it to the deck, and wets his face thoroughly. At least twice he cuts himself while shaving, and his face stings all over as he rinses away skin and whiskers.

Frowning, he lowers the bucket again, brings it up and sets it on the rail. Then he concentrates. A small pile of white appears on the railing. He dips his finger into the bucket, tastes it, and grins. Then he strips off trousers and boots and uses the fresh water liberally to wash away as much of the travel grime as he can. The wind raises goose bumps on his damp skin, but they disappear as he dries himself and dresses.

Then he procures the other bucket and again obtains fresh water, letting the wind take the dried salt away before heading back to the cabin with the bucket in hand.

When he steps inside, pleased with his success in separating the salt from the water and displeased with the cuts on his chin, he finds Megaera dressed in faded-blue travel clothes and combing her hair.

Creslin searches for a place to put the bucket. “Fresh water,” he points out. “Thank you.”

As he sets the bucket on the narrow chest, his eyes stray to the chamber pot, which has been moved slightly. “Do we… I need to empty…”

Megaera grins. “I can still manage some destruction. It’s more convenient That way.”

Creslin blushes again, then replaces his razor and finishes dressing. He looks at his sword but leaves it hanging in the harness on the hook by the chest. Then he adjusts his shirt and tunic.

“I removed the dirt and grime.”

“Thank you.”

At times she seems to be so warm, so friendly. He smoothes his clothes in place. “Biscuits and dried fruit for breakfast.”

“Dried?”

“If you’d like some of it fresh, I might manage.”

“Oh?”

“That’s what landed me on the wizards’ road.” A soft laugh greets his rueful statement. “Seems stupid, with everything else I’ve done.” She nods toward the cabin door.

Creslin opens it, and they take the three or so steps to bring them into the mess room. Freigr is not there, but a man with an air of authority half rises from one of the two tables. At the other table sit three sailors.

“Gossel, first mate. Pleased to have you join us.”

They sit down side by side, across from the brown-haired man with bushy hair caught in a pony tail. On the table are dried fruits, some hard yellow-cheese wedges, and even harder white biscuits. Two heavy brown pitchers sit in built-in holders in the middle of the table.

Gossel leans back and grabs two mugs from a railed shelf. “Here you be.”

“Thank you.” They speak together, then look at each other.

Creslin shakes his head. Megaera smiles faintly.

“Your pleasure…” Creslin gestures to the wooden platter of dried fruits.

“Could you actually… a fresh peach, I mean?”

“I can try.”

Gossel’s eyebrows knit as Creslin picks up a dried peach. The silver-haired man tried to recall the wondering sense he had felt about the cider. Suddenly a golden orb replaces the dried husk.

“Oh…”

He hands the peach to her, then wipes his forehead.

Gossel gulps. “Uh… never saw that before. The captain said that all of you are wizards…”

“I’m afraid so.” Creslin fills the two mugs with whatever is in the pitcher and offers one to Megaera.

Two of the sailors rise quietly and slip past the table. One makes a protective gesture as he leaves the mess room. The third sailor shakes his head, grins, and helps himself to another round of cheese and biscuits.

“That’s why the captain’s got so much sail on, then,” muses the mate. “The other wizard, guess he got the spare bunk in the captain’s cabin. That doesn’t happen often.” Creslin slowly chews the heavy biscuit, recalling the state of his stomach the day before. “You ever run into the White Wizards’ ships before?”

The mate grimaces. “Once. That was when I first ran off to sea, crew on a Nordlan brig. The captain wouldn’t pay their tax. They burned off the foremast, and the captain. The mate paid, but the owners had him hung. Claimed he supported piracy. Left Nordlan service soon as I could.”

“How close did the wizards have to get?” Creslin sips the bitter and lukewarm tea.

“They came in right close, less than a cable-”

“Cable?”

“Cable’s a little more than four hundred cubits. Anyways, we could see the White Wizard. He stood right up on the poop, next to the captain, and where he pointed, there was a fireball, the kind that burns.”

“Did water stop the fire?”

“It would have, except that anyone who tried got fried with the next fireball.”

Creslin nods.

“Need to be on deck,” explains the mate as he rises. “Hoping you can help us through. Be nice to see those Whites get a dose of their own.” He nods and ducks under the low doorway.

Creslin takes another biscuit. “I wish there were another way.”

Megaera finishes the peach before answering. “Maybe there is.”

“Such as?”

“Why can’t we just avoid them? Use your power over the winds to speed us past them.”

“I suppose we could…”

“You want to fight? Given your reactions, I don’t think you enjoy destroying, do you?”

“No. But I’m missing something.”

“Are you, or do you just… Never mind.” She takes a sip from the heavy tumbler.

Creslin watches the remaining sailor finish off the cheese and fruit on the other table. Everyone just assumes that he will fight off the White Wizards as if it is the easiest thing in the world-except for Megaera, who insists that he doesn’t have to fight at all. But Megaera believes in the Legend, claiming that all men want to do is to destroy. Is that what he really wants?

What is it that Heldra said so long ago during exercises? “If you lift a blade, you must kill or be killed. Kill cleanly and without regret.”

Are the winds like blades?

Megaera looks up from the half-eaten peach. “Could you think about something else for a while?”

“Sorry. It’s hard to always remember that…”

For a time there is silence as Creslin swallows another mouthful of tea, wondering what he can think about. He cannot think about how lovely she looked with her shoulders bare…

“Do you have to spoil a perfectly good morning?”

“What did I do?”

Megaera rises suddenly and is through the doorway before he has finished his question.

“That one’s as hot as her hair.” The remaining sailor grins at Creslin.

“Hotter, I think,” Creslin mutters as he finishes his second biscuit. “And we’re just beginning.”

HOW WILL HE protect the
Griffin?

A good strong rain, with lightning and thunder, will reduce the effectiveness of the wizards on board the three oncoming
Fairhaven ships, but it will not stop the nearly five-score white-clad soldiers from boarding the
Griffin. And a more violent storm could be nearly as dangerous for the
Griffin as for the wizards.

The green water streams below Creslin’s feet, unseen.

Megaera can counter some chaos with destruction of her own. Creslin shivers, recalling how Megaera’s being is now mixed with Black and White; then he shivers again at her reactions at breakfast on the first morning aboard the
Griffin, and her refusal to even come close to him during the past two days. What does she want? A bloodless solution? When everyone is out for his and her blood?

The ship plows into a long swell, and Creslin’s stomach lurches. Unlike the first day, his guts settle, albeit uneasily.

Ice? Enough ice to make a difference brings the same problem as a violent storm.

“Sail ahoy!”

The lookout’s call reminds Creslin that he has but little time.

For the past two days, Klerris has been poking through the ship, mumbling to himself while strengthening the timbers-their joints and the masts-and even the cables and sails with an infusion of order. That infusion is strong enough that even the crew have comments on how much more solid the ship now seems to be.

“Figured it out yet, young fellow?” The wizard’s voice is tired.

Creslin turns his eyes from the bow, where Megaera watches the faint dot of white on the horizon, to the black-clad man. Klerris’s jet-black hair shows streaks of white, streaks that seem to have appeared overnight.

“You work this hard, and you show your age,” the wizard responds to Creslin’s appraisal.

“What would happen if we just avoided them?”

“The Whites, you mean?” Klerris pulls at his smooth-shaven chin. “Don’t see how that’s possible. We get around them and they’ll head for
Land’s End. They have enough strength to take the town, even with the Duke’s keep. Or they might simply wait and sink the
Griffin if Captain Freigr tries to leave. They won’t just let it drop, you know.”

, “Then the only way we can be safe is to sink all three of their ships. The High Wizard won’t let that drop. How do we ever get out of this?”

Klerris grins. “You don’t. Once you’re a wizard, you’re stuck with decisions like this for the rest of your life.” His face sobers. “Of course, if you don’t want to make decisions, you dither around until you or people around you get killed. That’s been the problem with most of us Blacks. We don’t like violence and killing. We really need a land based on order, somehow separate from the Whites and the conflicts over the Legend.”

“That’s fine,” snorts Creslin, “but the lookouts have sighted the first of the wizard ships’ sails, and I’m still trying to figure out how to get us out of this.”

“You’re a warrior. You’ll find a way. You have an ocean of air and an ocean of water to work with.”

“Thanks.”

“My pleasure.” Klerris turns and heads toward the bow.

Water? Creslin has never tried to deal with water, except to remove the salt from it. He sends down his senses, then recoils. The water is heavy, far too heavy and cold. But the air carries water, and that water has to come from somewhere. The winds pick it up from the rivers and lakes and oceans. He walks to the fantail, where he lowers a bucket, ignoring the curious looks from Gossel, who stands by the helmsman.

Setting the bucket on the railing, Creslin concentrates again. A small vortex appears over the bucket, and the water begins to swirl like a whirlpool. Creslin frowns, loses his concentration, and the vortex collapses. Still, something nags at his memory. He empties the bucket.

“Sail ahoy!” The second White schooner has appeared to the lookouts, and Creslin strides over to the mate.

“Aye, Ser Wizard?”

“What’s the worst thing that could happen to a ship?”

“Fire.”

“I mean something natural, like a storm, or ice, or…”

Gossel pauses. “I’ve heard tell, in southern seas, about waterspouts that could lift a whole ship high enough that she’d fall and break in two.”

“Are there thunderstorms around when that happens?”

“Aye. Never happens without a thunderstorm.”

Creslin nods absently and walks away.

“… darkness help us if he calls a waterspout.”

“… light help us if he don’t do something.”

Freigr appears from below and heads toward Creslin, who stops the man’s question with a cold glance and walks past him toward Klerris, who is conversing with Megaera.

Megaera starts to leave. “Just stay,” Creslin says and feels for the winds. She raises her eyebrows. Klerris nods, and she waits.

“Do you see any way to save this ship and crew without destroying all three White ships?” Creslin asks Klerris.

“I do not know of a way. I do not know of a way to destroy them, either.” His words are as formal as Creslin’s.

“As a Black Wizard, would you judge those on board this ship of greater value than those on the White ships?”

“Wizards closing!” a lookout cries.

“Creslin, I can’t answer that question. That involves the whole lifetimes of scores of people.”

“I’ll put it simply. Is this crew’s survival worth the deaths of those on the White ships?”

“You can’t balance lives that way,” protests the older wizard.

“That’s all I have to go on.” Creslin takes a deep breath and calls forth to the cold upper winds, then begins to tease the warm currents above the water into a rising dance.

Rhhhssttt!

Megaera concentrates, and a small fireball swerves past the foresail. A second fireball follows.

Less than ten cables away, a White ship appears.

“Veiled approach…” mutters Klerris.

“Hard port! Sails!” bellows Freigr.

Creslin grabs the railing as the sloop heels.

Rhhssttt!

Sweat beads on Megaera’s forehead.

Off the starboard bow, a darkness comprised of mist and swirling winds begins to solidify.

The
Griffin shudders as the winds build.

Rhhhsttt! Rhhstt! Rhsssttt!

Fire clings to the foresail for a moment, but Klerris, sweating, murmurs something and the flame winks out.

“Dead ahead!”

Megaera looks up to see a black-green tower whirling, slowly and ponderously, toward the nearest White schooner.

The schooner turns toward the waterspout, as if to knife through it, or past it, but the water engulfs it in a tower now more than three times as broad as the schooner is long.

The second schooner turns south to take advantage of the wind. But the towering black-green spout swings south even more quickly.

Another fireball blazes through a corner of the sloop’s sail. The loose canvas flails, but none of the crew moves, too intent on watching as the spout bears down on the fleeing schooner.

Klerris’s forehead beads with sweat, and the flames on the canvas flicker out, leaving only a charred semicircle.

The schooner rises into the swirling darkness, then falls.

“Mother of darkness…” murmurs Klerris as he sees the white timbers, canvas, and debris strewn across the swells.

Creslin’s eyes remain absent, unfocused, as the sloop eases back onto a southeasterly course.

In time, Klerris and Megaera watch as a distant darkness again turns, this time northwest and toward a fleeing dot of white, a dot that vanishes into that swirling darkness.

Creslin’s eyes focus again. He grips the railing convulsively and pukes over the railing. Then his knees buckle. Klerris manages to catch him before his head cracks against the deck planks.

“Still overdoing it,” says Megaera wearily.

“Did we give him any alternative?” Klerris asks softly as he lifts Creslin over his shoulder.

The crew looks away as the Black Wizard carries his burden to the Duke’s cabin, Megaera following a step behind.

Freigr glances back at the debris, human and otherwise, that litters the swells behind the
Griffin. Then he looks toward the Duke’s cabin. The captain swallows once, twice.