The Voyage to Magical North (7 page)

Cassie stepped back from the table. Her swinging fingers casually brushed her cutlass hilt. “Only a fourth part?”

Kaitos glanced at Boswell—Brine noticed the movement.
Strange
, she thought. The baron owned the whole island and must have been used to ordering everyone around, yet the way he looked at Boswell was as if he was waiting to be told what to do. He looked almost afraid.

“This is no mere treasure hunt, Captain,” snapped Boswell. “You need someone with scientific knowledge. Someone who can steer you safely through the howling oceans and the icy coils of the sea monster. Someone who knows how to survive when the temperature drops low enough to freeze wood. And most of all, someone who has a map.” He picked it up and folded it.

“No,” said Cassie.

Everyone started talking together. Cassie held up her hands for silence. “The answer is no. I'm not risking the
Onion
on a dubious treasure hunt. Baron, thank you for your hospitality, but we have other places to be.”

She started toward the door. The baron pushed in front of her. “You're a fool, Cassie O'Pia.” His face reddened, but then he caught Boswell's gaze and snapped his mouth shut.

“I suggest we all take time to consider the idea,” said Boswell smoothly. “Until tomorrow, at least. The captain may change her mind by then.”

Kaitos nodded. “Until tomorrow. Let my servants know if you need anything.” His gaze found Peter and Brine. “Speaking of servants, you two come with me.”

 

C
HAPTER
7

Magicians are rare. Very few people can see magic, and even fewer can manipulate it into the correct spellshapes. This is a good thing, because magic corrupts. Only the purest metals and gemstones can survive its presence, and we have to wonder what this corrupting power does to the minds of those who control it.

(
From
ALDEBRAN
BOSWELL
'
S
BIG
BOOK
OF
MAGIC)

Once again, Peter and Brine found themselves in a kitchen. A whole pig hung over a fire the size of a rowing boat, its juices running down like sweat into the flames.

Peter couldn't believe this was happening to him. His only consolation was that it was happening to Brine as well.

“This is your fault,” he said.

“Oh, good, that means everything's back to normal, then.” Brine turned her back on him. “I suppose it was my fault that Cassie double-crossed us.”

“You're just mad because the
Onion
's going on an adventure and you're not invited.”

A hand caught him between the shoulder blades. “Work, not talk,” shouted the cook. The man was huge and missing most of his teeth. He thrust a tray of drinks at each of them, slopping liquid over the sides of the goblets. “Take these.”

“Take them where?” asked Peter, earning himself another slap. Brine took her tray and turned away without a word. Peter followed, shaking his head, his ears still ringing. “What are you doing?”

“Being a good servant.”

A guard walked by, his gaze sliding over them as if they'd suddenly become invisible. Brine gave Peter an I-told-you-so grin and stopped the next guard. “Excuse me. We have to take these drinks to Mr. Boswell's room. Can you tell us the way?”

The guard's eyes flicked down at her and glanced away again indifferently. “Top floor,” he said, and walked off.

They looked up at the stairs. The steps spiraled away from them, fading into shadow. Peter felt another of Brine's plans coming on, and his heart sank. “You can't just go up there. What are you going to do—ask Boswell for a job?”

“I don't see you coming up with any better ideas.” Brine started to climb.

Sighing, Peter climbed after her. “Just because he's Aldebran Boswell's great-grandson, it doesn't mean he knows anything about him.”

“He knows about Magical North.”

“Yes, well, that might be the only thing he knows. And he could be making it all up. He looked shifty. The baron, too.”

Brine hesitated.

She'd also seen it, then, Peter thought. He was glad he hadn't imagined it.

“They were probably nervous being around so many pirates,” said Brine.

“I don't think so, and neither do you.” He tried to overtake her, but she only climbed faster, giving Peter the choice of following her or giving up and going back to the kitchen. He followed.

The first ten stories had carpets on the floors and paintings on the walls. After that, the walls were bare and the plain stone floors looked like they could do with a wash. Everything smelled funny. Peter guessed the baron was one of those people who liked to put on a show where it mattered and let everything fall apart behind the scenes. Which made it odd that an important visitor like Boswell should be all the way up on the top floor.

Peter paused. “Brine, I really don't like this. Can we just stop and think for a minute?”

“Since when did you start thinking?”

A guard turned to look at them. “Boswell's room?” asked Brine.

“Top floor, end of the corridor. What do you want with Mr. Boswell?”

“Room service,” said Brine.

Seventeen floors. Twenty. Twenty-five. Forty. Peter's legs burned with the effort. Finally, just when he thought his knees were going to give way altogether, the stairs ended in a narrow corridor. The uneven slant of the tower was obvious here. Gashes of light leaned at odd angles from the narrow windows, and even the floor felt wrong, as if it were trying to throw them down the corridor to the door at the end.

Peter's heart bumped. This was definitely not right. “Remember what happened last time we went somewhere we shouldn't?” he asked.

Brine set her tray down. “We're already servants. What else can they do to us?”

“Do you want a list?”

She threw him a scornful look and started down the corridor. Peter sighed, put his tray down next to hers, and followed. If this turned out like her usual bright ideas, they'd both end up in the dungeon, assuming Baron Kaitos had dungeons. Peter wondered if there would be rats.

Brine stopped outside the end door and raised her hand to knock.

“Wait,” whispered Peter. Something didn't feel right, and he wasn't going to go barging straight in. He nudged Brine aside and peered through a crack in the door.

Boswell was sitting upright in a wooden chair facing him. His eyes were closed. That, in itself, wasn't unusual. As far as Peter knew, scientists often closed their eyes when they were thinking. From what Peter could see, the rest of the room wasn't unusual, either—books open on the floor, a giant map on the far wall.

No, what was unusual was the way that yellow light trickled in a thin line out of Boswell's palms and curled in front of him, forming a shape that Peter recognized because he'd been studying it only days before. A mind control spell. And, judging by the amount of magic Boswell was pouring into the spell, it was going to be a big one.

Peter's skin prickled. The starshell pieces in his pocket buzzed softly. He straightened up from the door and met Brine's gaze.

She rubbed the end of her nose. “What is it?”

Peter put his finger to his lips. Carefully, terrified one of them would make a sound and Boswell would hear, he tiptoed away until his back hit the far wall of the corridor. “He's a magician,” he whispered, motioning for Brine to stay quiet. “Boswell's great-grandson is a magician.” If the man was Boswell's great-grandson at all. Peter spread his hands flat on the wall to keep them from shaking. He remembered the look on Baron Kaitos's face.
You're a fool.
And Boswell's words:
The captain may change her mind.
The baron knew. He knew, and he was afraid.

Brine looked like she was trying to suppress a sneeze. Peter gripped her arm. “We have to warn Cassie.” Even though she was a pirate and a promise breaker and deserved to be mind-controlled.

Brine's face twitched. She pinched her nose and nodded. Together, they began to edge back toward the stairs, which suddenly seemed a thousand miles away.

And then Brine sneezed.

A chaotic starburst of amber light flared out around Boswell's door—the light of a spell being released too early, Peter thought. He let go of Brine's arm. For once, her allergy had done something useful. Now Boswell would have to start his spell all over again, if he had enough magic for it at all.

But then Peter noticed the silence. It was not a good silence. It oozed out through the cracks in the door, filling the corridor with the dark sense that something bad was just about to happen.

“I think we should go,” muttered Brine, but Peter couldn't move. He stood frozen, his gaze fixed on the end of the corridor, where, slowly, as if it were happening in a dream, Boswell's door swung open.

“Can I help you?” asked Boswell, and for a second, everything felt so normal that Peter's knees sagged in relief. But then he saw the gold chain swinging from Boswell's pocket. Gold—the most valuable metal in the world, because it was one of the few metals that survived in the presence of magic.

A lump gathered at the back of Peter's throat. “I don't think you're Boswell's great-grandson at all,” he said.

Boswell's teeth gleamed as he laughed. “Of course I'm not.” His voice slithered unpleasantly in Peter's ears. “Do you know how much preparation that spell requires? How much time and magical power? Now I'm going to have to start again—just as soon as I've dealt with you two.”

He came toward them, and as he walked, he changed. He grew taller, tall enough that his head almost touched the low ceiling. His very ordinary hair vanished like smoke, his eyebrows, too, leaving him completely bald, and his face became long and hollow. His brown eyes turned the color of polished amber, swarming with black flecks.

Not-Boswell raised a hand and sketched a spellshape in the air.

“Get down!” yelled Peter, and he shoved Brine flat as magic flared. In the enclosed corridor, the effect was like a star exploding. Peter shouted and stumbled back, half-blinded by the flash. He grabbed hold of Brine as she scrambled up, and they both ran, screaming, for the stairs.

Voices and clanging metal sounded from below. Peter looked back over his shoulder at the man who wasn't Boswell. He stalked toward them. Three pieces of starshell dangled like charms from the chain in his right hand, and long shadows spread from his feet, slowly swallowing the corridor.

Brine stumbled to a halt, staring. Peter hauled her out of the way a second before the magician raised his right hand and blasted a hole in the ceiling. This was Tallis Magus all over again, except a thousand times worse.

This time, though, Peter didn't leave Brine and run. Even while every thought screamed that this was his stupidest idea ever and he was going to die, he stepped between her and the magician. Magic was his field. Like Cassie had the
Onion
and Brine had her books. He had to do something.

Not-Boswell looked at him, the bare places where his eyebrows should have been rising in surprise. “You're a brave boy,” he said. “Brave and exceptionally stupid.”

Peter clenched his fists, his whole body trembling, and put his hand in his pocket for his starshell.

Then a scrape of steel disturbed the air behind him. He turned his head with difficulty.

Cassie O'Pia strolled up the last few steps to join them. A sword swung idly in each hand, and there was a dark patch on her shirt that might have been blood.

“Kids,” she said quietly, “when I say ‘run,' I want you to run as if Marfak West himself was on your tail.” She looked over Peter's head at the man who stood watching her. “Which,” she added, “isn't as much of an exaggeration as you might think.”

Peter's knees buckled. Marfak West was dead—the sharks had eaten him.

But he didn't look very dead.

Marfak West raised his hands. Cassie raised her swords. “Run!”

 

C
HAPTER
8

Oh, her hair is as red as the sun in its bed,

Her eyes are as blue as the waves.

All girls long to be her, fair Cassie O'Pia.

All men long to live as her slaves.

 

For she's swift and she's strong and, though I may be wrong,

She is all that your heart could desire.

For one chance to see her, fair Cassie O'Pia,

A man would walk naked through fire.

(
From
THE
BALLAD
OF
CASSIE
O
'
PIA,
Verses 14–15, Author Unknown)

The air around Peter sizzled. He stood for one second more, then he grabbed Brine's arm and ran for his life.

Brine tugged back against him. “Peter, wait. That can't be Marfak West—he's dead.”

“Do you want to go up there and tell him?” Peter flattened himself into the wall as Ewan Hughes charged up the stairs past them, pursued by guards. Ewan's hair was on fire, but he didn't seem to have noticed. Peter started down the stairs again. For once, Brine followed without arguing.

Shouts and clashes of weapons rose to greet them. Above them, another explosion rocked the tower. They clattered down the last few flights of stairs and ran headlong into a group of guards who were on their way up. Peter couldn't see anything beyond waving limbs. Panic drove him on, and possibly Brine pushing from behind. He squeezed between armored legs, thankful for once that no one seemed to think he was worth bothering about.

He emerged to see Tim Burre and Trudi fighting a path to the doors. Trudi had a meat cleaver in one hand and what looked like a leg of mutton in the other, and she was using both with equal efficiency. Peter slipped into the gap behind them. His mind was numb. Marfak West. The fact that the magician was alive at all wasn't really a shock—the stories about him were too terrifying to end in defeat and death. But he'd always assumed Marfak West had escaped and was terrorizing some other part of the world far away. Not anywhere near
him
.