The Voyage to Magical North (9 page)

Ewan Hughes gave a disbelieving snort. “You've had four years to come up with a story, and that's the best you can do?” He got up and pulled off the magician's left boot.

The foot, as Marfak West had claimed, was entirely toeless.

“You'll pay for what you did,” Marfak West promised Cassie quietly.

“That seems to be reasonable grounds for tossing you to the sharks,” said Cassie.

“Be my guest.” He made several unsucessful attempts to squash his foot back into his boot. “Kill me, and lose your chance to uncover the greatest treasure in the world. Every word I spoke on Morning is true. Magical North exists. Boswell's real great-grandson told me everything just before he died.”

“He died?” Brine echoed, aghast, and regretted speaking as Marfak West turned his head toward her.

“Of course he died,” he said. “I killed him.” His gaze seemed to go right through her. “Where do
you
come from?” he asked.

Even though he was tied up and helpless, the way he looked at her, with sharp recognition, made Brine shiver. He knew, she thought. Marfak West already knew where she was from, and he just wanted her to confirm it. She wet her lips. “Where do you think?”

“It's none of your business where she's from,” said Cassie, cutting her off. She nodded to Ewan, who stuck his hands between the ropes around the magician's chest.

“If you're looking for the map,” said Marfak West after a moment's fruitless rummaging, “you'll find it in my trouser pocket. The map won't help you, though—it's just a rough guide. The exact location of Magical North exists only inside my head.”

“Want me to cut it off and take a look?” Ewan asked Cassie with a grin. No one else smiled. Ewan found the map and passed it back to Cassie. She opened it across her knees but didn't look at it; her gaze remained fixed on the magician.

Brine suppressed another shiver. Marfak West was playing with them. Anyone with any sense—which excluded most of the people sitting around her—could see it. If he wanted to sail off after Magical North, there were plenty of ships that would be far easier for him to take control of. He was up to something, but what?

Marfak West knows who you are,
a voice said in her mind. Brine tried to ignore it.

Cassie traced a finger across the top of the map. “Once a year on Orion's Day,” she said. “That's less than two months away.”

“If you're saying you can't do it…,” taunted Marfak West.

Everyone swiveled in Cassie's direction. She sat, head bowed, lost in thought over Boswell's map. When she looked up, she was smiling—a bright sword blade of a smile. The same smile Brine had seen when Cassie decided to take them to Morning. It was a smile that said she'd made up her mind and no one was going to change it. Putting the map aside, she got up and crossed the deck to Brine and Peter.

Brine held her breath. Here it came—the harsh telling-off for hiding the fact that Peter was a magician. Brine didn't know what the punishment would be, but she guessed it would involve a lot of deck-scrubbing.

But Cassie just stood for a moment, saying nothing, then she dropped the starshell chain into Peter's hands.

“As of now,” she said, “you're the ship's magician.”

Brine's mouth fell open. Those three pieces of shell were worth more than the
Onion
, and Cassie had handed them over as if they were nothing.

Peter nodded as if he'd been expecting this. He didn't look entirely happy as he folded the chain around the starshell pieces. Something inside Brine sank a little bit, too. If Peter was the ship's magician, where did that leave her?

Cassie turned away from them. “As for him,” she said, pointing at Marfak West, “untie him. Then lock him in the brig.”

 

C
HAPTER
10

BARBECUED
OCTOPUS

Collect up as many giant octopus tentacles as you can find—one per person is usually enough. Rub them well with salt and pepper and leave them to dry in the sun for an hour. Rinse thoroughly. Barbecue over a hot fire until black on the outside and just done and still pink inside.

(
From
COOKING
UP
A
STORME—
THE
RECIPES
OF
A
GOURMET
PIRATE)

Night fell. The
Onion
sailed on at a steady pace. Not toward anywhere in particular yet, but away. Away from Morning and Baron Kaitos, and if that direction happened to take them a little bit north, everyone agreed it was entirely coincidence.

Brine lay in her hammock, wondering how anybody could sleep. Everything felt far too normal, and it was completely wrong. They had Marfak West in the brig.
Marfak West.
Thief and murderer and magician, Cassie's deadliest enemy, and he was chained up in the lower hold. Just a few layers of wood between Brine and him. Marfak West, who seemed to know where she'd come from. Yet here she lay, listening to people snore as if none of the past day had even happened.

Peter's voice drifted out of the darkness just above her. “Brine, are you awake?”

She shook her head. “I'm not talking to you.”

“That's a surprise. What have I done this time?”

Brine didn't answer. It would sound too petty to admit she was annoyed because he was the ship's magician and she was still the ship's nothing. She'd been nothing all her life. Wasn't it time she got a turn at being somebody?

Peter's hammock wobbled as he rolled over to look down at her. “Brine, come on, you've got to help me. You heard what they all said about magicians before, and now everyone's expecting
me
to do magic. I can't. Not the sort Cassie will be wanting.”

“You don't even know what sort that is,” said Brine, but she, too, had the feeling that Cassie wouldn't be content with Peter pushing and pulling things. She sat up. “I don't see what I can do about it. No one listens to me.”

“They should. You're the one who's always coming up with plans.”

“Am I?” She forgot she was supposed to be annoyed for a moment. She slid out of the hammock. Her head was thumping. “I can't sleep. I'm going for a walk.”

“Don't go too far. You'll fall in the sea.”

“Very funny.”

Brine climbed the ladder to the deck. The night sky loomed over her, deep blue and huge with stars. Wood, wind, and sail hummed together. She turned her face northward, easily picking out the bright light of Orion amid the constellations. What if Marfak West was right and she could stand at Magical North and see the whole world? It wouldn't matter what he knew about her then; she could find out for herself. She imagined the whole world spread like a map before her, with her home clearly marked. Wouldn't that be worth the journey?

Turning, she saw Cassie standing at the helm. She was back in her old clothes, and with her hair cloaking her face, she almost merged into the night. Even the emerald around her neck looked more gray than green in the moonlight.

For half a minute, the two of them watched each other across the deck, neither saying a word. Cassie had saved Brine's life twice and tried to sell her once—and Brine had no idea what the pirate was going to do next.

Cassie lifted a hand in greeting. Brine hesitated, then walked over to join her.

“Look,” said Cassie, pointing. “The constellation of Orion. The first set of stars to be born, they say, though I don't know how they can tell. You see the three stars that make up the ship's mast? Did you know the top one is also called the
Onion
? It's not a single star at all, some people say, but hundreds of them, layer after layer, all nestling one within another.”

Brine said nothing. Cassie pointed again. “If you look to the left a bit, you can see my constellation. Cassiopeia—the keeper of secrets.”

There were so many stars Brine wasn't sure which ones Cassie meant, but she nodded anyway.

“Did your father really lose you in a game of cards?” she asked. She thought about all the stories she'd heard about Cassie. They couldn't all be true—there were too many of them.

“It wasn't cards.” Cassie's hand dropped down to the emerald around her neck. “It wasn't my father, either. My brother challenged a man twice his size to a duel. He lost, unsurprisingly, and he offered me to the man in exchange for his life. I wasn't supposed to have any choice in the matter. That's the kind of island I lived on.” Her gaze drifted back to the stars. “I pretended to go along with it and then, on the evening of the wedding when everyone was drinking, I picked up everything I could carry, stole a boat, and rowed away. There were no fights with giant octopuses, no mutant sea monsters—well, not many. All the rest is exaggeration.”

Brine shook her head. “No it's not. All the rest is story.”

Their gazes met, and for a moment, they both smiled.

Cassie O'Pia, the keeper of secrets. It suited her, Brine thought. Stories were just secrets in reverse, really. You hid something important inside a load of words where no one could ever find it. She wondered whether the story Cassie had just told her was any more true than all the other ones. It didn't seem to matter. The story wasn't even about Cassie O'Pia; it was about every boy or girl who'd ever wanted to run away from home and look for adventure. People needed stories, and stories needed people like Cassie. What was it Aldebran Boswell called it? Symbiosis. Two things making each other stronger.

Brine looked down and concentrated on drawing a pattern with her finger on the deck rail. “I have no idea where I come from,” she said. “I was found at sea with a piece of starshell around my neck, and I've never been able to remember how I got there. I became a magician's servant, but I'm allergic to magic—the stuff makes me sneeze. When I tried to change things, Peter and I ended up stranded. If you hadn't come along, we might have died. Even when I thought I'd met a descendant of Boswell, he turned out to be Marfak West. I'm unlucky: That's all I am. If I stay on board the
Onion
, I'll probably end up sinking her.”

She paused, waiting for Cassie to laugh. Either that or believe her and throw her overboard.

Cassie did neither. “Luck's a funny thing,” she agreed seriously. “It changes more often than the sea and never does what you expect. Take the
Onion
's last captain. He survived a fight with a mutant octopus only to die of food poisoning after eating barbecued tentacle. What sort of luck is that?”

Brine rested her chin on her hand.

“I wouldn't worry about it too much,” said Cassie. “Let the future take care of itself. Anything may happen yet.”

It dawned on Brine then, quick as the blink of a star, why Cassie was out here on her own. “You don't know what to do,” she said.

Cassie laughed. “Brine, I never know what to do. That's what floating about on an ocean does to you—you can't plan ahead. The weather changes, and your carefully timetabled fortnight of marauding is put on hold while you make emergency repairs.” Her voice fell away, and a small frown creased the skin between her eyes. “I've got my worst enemy locked in the hold. If our positions were reversed, Marfak West would have killed me without a thought, and I wouldn't have blamed him. We sank his ship. The
Antares
was the only thing he loved in the world. He won't rest until the
Onion
is at the bottom of the ocean.” Her frown deepened.

“But despite all that, you think he's telling the truth,” said Brine.

Cassie turned her emerald round and round on its chain. “Actually, I know he's telling the truth. That's what makes it so complicated. When I thought he was just some scientist's great-grandson, I didn't believe a word of it. But Marfak West doesn't lie—not about the things that matter—and he doesn't make mistakes, either. If he says Magical North exists and only he knows where it is, then I believe him. I don't trust him, of course. He's not telling us everything, and he'll turn on us the first chance he gets.” She paused and smiled. “But imagine the stories if we succeed.”

Brine looked up at the stars. The topmost star of Orion shone with a steady white light. Today was the eighteenth day of the month of Tench. Orion's Day was only six weeks away, when the sun would set over Magical North and their chance would be gone for a whole year.

Cassie's grin flashed in the darkness. “Not many people get to have stories like ours, Brine. We're lucky. Very lucky indeed.” She yawned loudly. “Now, get some sleep. We've got a long voyage ahead.”

Brine felt herself smiling back. She liked the way Cassie said
we
, the unspoken assumption that Brine was part of the crew now. There weren't many people in the world who could kidnap you, try to sell you, then carry on as if nothing had happened—more than that, to sweep you along with them so you were almost glad everything had happened that way.

“One other thing,” said Cassie as Brine turned to go back across the deck. “I need you to do something for me.”

Brine nodded eagerly. This was it: her chance to be useful after all.

“Keep an eye on Peter,” said Cassie. “We're going to need him, and I don't want anything happening to him.”

It felt to Brine as if the deck had just dropped from underneath her. Of course, it was bound to be Peter who really mattered, not her. He was the one with all the talent. All she had was her stupid allergy to magic.

Cassie either didn't notice her change of expression or didn't care. She gave Brine a clap on the shoulder and pushed her in the direction of the hatch.

Brine waited awhile longer, then went back to bed. Peter was asleep, which was annoying because she'd have enjoyed ignoring him if he were awake. She squirmed into the hammock under his and lay there. She wasn't going to worry about it. Magic was boring, anyway, and Peter could look after himself. No way was she going to keep an eye on him.