She's All Thaumaturgy

by A. K. Caggiano

  “You’re loyal to your parents’ memory,” he said, raising the flask. “If I go back there—”

  Elayne put out her hand and nodded. The crew were shouting at one another as they readied the ship to sail, and a stiff breeze blew up the shore. “Goodbye, Sir Walter,” she said, her words carried off by the wind.

  ***

  The Fairy’s Knickers cut through the water with speed. There were advantages to being imaginary, Elayne supposed as she stood at the helm of the ship that didn’t exactly exist. The others had gone below deck when Gramps insisted they be taken on a tour, but Elayne slipped away. She stared out at the horizon, willing for and against land to come into view.

  She felt Rel come up behind her—perhaps he wasn’t as good an elf as she’d suspected. Or he was only half as good. “You’re from Heulux,” she said quietly.

  He leaned on the ship’s railing beside her. “Yes.” The moonlight glimmered off of him though she tried not to notice. He no longer was wearing the coat he had on in the tavern, and had a short bow strapped to his back.

  “But you got out.”

  He nodded, staring out at the water, hard. “Not long after the rebellion, the takeover, whatever you want to call it.”

  “Depends what side you’re on.” Elayne eyed him. She hadn’t known another half-elf in adulthood. It was likely there were at least a few in the city, but none in Yavarid Castle. “Are there still a lot like…us?”

  Rel squinted at her. “I can’t imagine there are many left.”

  Elayne traced her finger along the light yew wood, smooth under her touch as if it were glass. “Elves and humans got along in Heulux. It was different from the other places.”

  “You have the memories of a sheltered child,” he snorted, then shook his head. “But I suppose that’s to be expected.”

  “And you don’t?” Half-elves aged almost identically to humans, and he didn’t look much older than her.

  Rel sighed, turning to lean back against the railing, then pulled up one of his sleeves to expose his forearm. The skin on the inside of his wrist running up to the crook of his elbow was covered in deep, blue veins. Without thinking, she touched them, his skin warm, but the veins icy. “They’re here whether I want to remember them or not.”

  Elayne pulled her hand back. “What happened to you?”

  Rel pushed his sleeve back down. “Shortly after the uprising elven soldiers came through the village. They took my mother and me. She was a mage, it was known, and I was, well, you know. They separated us, and I spent a few years in the bowels of your old homestead just waiting for…death, I thought, but instead our numbers grew. Crossbloods just being saved up.” He rubbed the scruff on his chin and took a breath. In the absence of his voice, the ship creaked, long and low.

  “Eventually they came for me. They brought me to this chasm full of aether. I don’t remember much, but after it was over the other crossbloods told me I slept for three days. I was part of their rituals maybe four or five times, I lost count. Then one day, I woke up after everything and realized it was just all gone. The magic I used to be able to do? Completely sapped, like that.” He snapped. “When that happened to the other ones we never saw them again. I was as good as dead.”

  “But you escaped,” she said, enraptured by his words, breathing heavy and leaning in close. “You crossed the miasma.”

  Rel cocked his head. “There was an elf with lavender eyes. I always thought she was the worst, worse than Alaion even, reading from that bloody book. But she found out I lost my magic before the others did. Lucky, I guess, because she took pity on me.”

  “Lavender eyes?” Elayne’s voice was barely a whisper. Her mother had lavender eyes.

  He nodded. “One night a human servant came to get me and brought me to her. She took me to the coast, broke through the miasma, and set me adrift in a little boat. Told me if I came back, I’d be killed.”

  Elayne gripped the railing tighter. “You’re going back right now.”

  “I doubt even the prettiest duchess in all of Maw could convince me to actually set foot on land there.” He raised a brow. “Probably not, anyway.”

  A wave broke against the helm and the cool, salty spray on her legs and arms woke her from how intensely she’d been staring at his face. She looked out to the water but saw Sir Walter’s image in her mind. “Your decisions are your own.”

  Rel sighed. “Why go in there, beyond the miasma? It’s rotting inside, just let it die.”

  “It will take the rest of us with it,” she said plainly and swallowed. “There are other people there, and I can’t just…abandon them.”

  “I want to tell you I believe in you.” He was almost chuckling. “But that thing, that pit? It ruins everything it touches. It will kill you.”

  There were voices behind them as the others came above board. She swung around to see Frederick staring. Unsure why, she couldn’t look directly at him, and with quick steps, she crossed the deck to pass him and go to Neoma. “I need to borrow Gramps.”

  Taking the pipe, she strode away from everyone and to the stern of the ship. He was saying something to her, but his words were muddled in her mind. When she made it to the back railing, she held the bottle up to her face and with ire in her voice, asked, “How did Idris die?”

  The pipe fell silent, and for a moment she wondered if she had hallucinated the whole thing. Then there was a slight shifting sound like Gramps was trying to hem and haw out the words. “You already know, don’t you? You found yourself a wizard.”

  Elayne shook her head, but her free hand touched the thaumat stone.

  “The Elder Elven Council didn’t like what he could do. And truth be told, Idris didn’t either. He didn’t fight when the wizard they sent came, though I sure did. And his mother gave her life trying to stop them.” Gramps sighed. “Humans were always too brave for their own good.”

  “You knew his mother?”

  “Knew her?” Gramps chuckled. “She wouldn’t have been his mother without me, and I wouldn’t have been his father without her.”

  “Oh.” She fell silent—how had she not realized before?—and she slid down the banister of the ship. The deck was cold beneath her, and she wrapped her arms around her knees, holding the pipe in both hands. “Gramps, I’m really sorry. But did you…did you try to have a crossblooded son? On purpose? Just to see what would happen?”

  “Parents screw up, youngling.” Gramps said simply. “It happens. We don’t usually try for the worst, but sometimes the worst happens anyway.”

  Elayne set the bottle in her lap and rested her head on the railing, looking out between the spindles and into the ocean. “Did my mother know what Alaion was going to do?” she asked, her voice drifting out over the water.

  Gramps made a little, unsure sound. “Don’t know, dear.” He sniffed. “But does it really matter?”

  ***

  The deck of the ship was warm when the sun rose on it, but the whipping wind was cool, the salty spray on exposed skin even moreso. When Elayne returned Gramps to Neoma, the elf asked her what was wrong, but she couldn’t explain. She was reticent to talk to anyone after that, the ship sailing itself ever closer to a place she knew they would all be, well, unwelcome was putting it mildly. Lost in thought, she barely saw Frederick’s boots as he walked up to where she sat against a pile of ropes.

  “A coin for your concerns?”

  “They aren’t worth it,” she mumbled, looking out between the spindles of the railing at the sunset.

  He came to sit beside her to gaze out at the Falholm Expanse. He was close, his body warm as his shoulder brushed hers, but she shivered. She pulled her knees up to her chest blinking over at him. He rested his hands on his knees and worried the fabric there, opening his mouth, but saying nothing.

  “Fred, I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry?” He snapped his head toward her like she was mad. “That’s what I came here to say.”

  She gave him a sidelong glance. “You’
re not the one who talked me into storming Heulux,” she said slowly, “I made you come here. All the way across Yavarid.”

  He shook his head, squinting out at the orange and pinks of the setting sun. “El, no, that’s not…it’s fine.”

  “Fine?” She touched his arm so that he would look back to her. “It’s dangerous and crazy and—”

  “El, please, listen.” He turned to her fully. “I get it, but I…I owe you.”

  She squinted at him. “You owe me?”

  “I, uh, well?” He flicked his eyes back out to the sea then to the deck, anywhere but her face. “I don’t know. That’s not what I mean. It’s just that I messed up for a long time, and I want to…to make it up to you.”

  “You think you owe me, so you’re out here risking your life.” Elayne swallowed at the thought. “Fred, if you die because you think you’re doing me a favor—”

  “No,” he said quickly, shaking his head. “It’s not like that either. I just mean I should have, years ago, been…better.”

  Elayne looked down to where she still had her hand on his arm. She squeezed him lightly and then released him, leaning back. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when you offered to help me with this.” She gestured lazily to her face.

  “Oh.” He squinted back out at the sun, its brightest just as it slipped down under the horizon.

  “I was just so used to the worst.”

  “No, I understand.” He picked at his trousers again and scratched his ear. “You shouldn’t be sorry.”

  She yawned. “But I am. I’ve been mean and suspicious, and you didn’t deserve any of that.”

  Frederick finally looked back to her, his mouth turned to a frown, his eyes glassy. “Elly?”

  She blinked at him slowly. “Yeah?”

  He pursed his lips and took a sharp breath. “You’re tired, aren’t you?”

  Elayne nodded.

  “Get some sleep. We’ll be there in a few hours.”

  She put her head back and closed her eyes.

  CHAPTER 30

  When opportunity sings, you harmonize.

  -from The Sea Scavenger’s Handbook, if there were such a thing, but there certainly is not…probably

  Somewhere between the soft rocking of a dream and the very real bobbing of the ocean, Frederick felt his heart jolt to life. He gasped, sitting straight up and looking out on the blackness before him. The water crested carefully on itself, moonlight illuminating the edges of gentle waves, and far out the horizon was only distinguishable by the solidarity of the black sky and the stars that pricked it. They were moving away from that.

  He picked himself up from the pile of rope he’d fallen asleep against, quiet so as to not disturb Elayne’s sleeping form at his side. The waves lapped harder ahead of them, and a grey cast drifted over the water, blurring what lay ahead. It would be land, he knew, and this was the miasma.

  He hadn’t been a knight for terribly long, but in that time, and his life before squiring, he’d known the miasma was their biggest fear. The elder knights had tried breaching the border to Heulux just after the castle had fallen to elven rebels from Apos’phia, and then again a number of moons later, but it was said the air itself could pull the spirit right out of a man. That wasn’t exactly true, he’d learned later, but there were pockets of chaotic aether floating about, and the things inside the miasma were changed.

  Now he stood at the helm of a ship headed right into it, and he wondered what he was doing, how it had gotten this far, and, in general, what the shit? Frederick glanced down again at Elayne. Doing this went against everything he knew he was meant to do. Fall in line, excel at everything, serve and conquer. It all meant he would keep his position, and he would never have to worry about being cast out.

  He’d broken with the crown only once before, that time with the centaurs, but when he’d overheard how hard she’d pleaded with King Harry to get the Trizians help just for him to ignore the request, he knew he had to scrounge up whoever he could and do it himself. Not for the wild elves in the forest, and not for his own glory, but for her. It was the least he could do when he was being so awful otherwise. And now, again, here he was, trying to make up for lost time. Time he never should have lost in the first place.

  Captain Corin crossed through the shadows of the deck and up to Frederick, looking out into the inky darkness beside him. His voice cut through the rhythmic sloshing of the waves. “You feel it, doncha?”

  Frederick felt a lot of things, but knew the captain was neither insightful nor sober enough to be referring to anything but the miasma. “It’s wrong,” he said, the only words that seemed right.

  “Aye.” Then the captain strode purposefully to the edge of the railing and peered hard out into the water. He cocked his head, then whistled sharply. “Everyone above board?” he called out, rousing the others.

  “What’s going on?” Frederick asked, but got no response, as Corin instead went around and counted the others who were woken by his whistling and calls. Then Corin spoke in the fae’s language, and the ship rocked suddenly. Frederick grabbed the railing to steady himself.

  “Oh, would ya look at that!” Bryllin, the dwarven woman, pointed out into the waters. From the mist, the upturned nose of a ship appeared suddenly. Suspended in the water, low waves crashed solidly against it. “That’s been sandbarred, it has. What ya suppose it was doing here?”

  “Gold.” Kurz finally broke his silence, looming over the dwarf like a massive shadow and pointing to the wrecked ship.

  With a few hurried words in fae-speak, the ship redirected itself toward the wreck.

  “Whoa!” Frederick grabbed the railing again. “What are we doing?”

  “Everything that was on that ship is still there.” Corin clamped him on the shoulder. “We’re less pirates and more scavengers, you see.”

  “Shouldn’t we be concerned with how that ship got that way?” It was in two, distinct pieces.

  “Nah, it barred itself, but the bottom of our boat’s already gone, so nothing to get stuck with!”

  Frederick glanced down and though the boards were still under his feet, felt the hollowness below in his very bones. He tried to remember the last time he’d been swimming.

  As they pulled alongside the wreckage, he could see more plainly how the ship had somehow cracked in two with its middle worn away on a shallow bit of land revealed only with the rockiest of waves. The halves leftover turned in toward themselves as if its crew had made a last-ditch effort to steer away. He took in a breath, salty sea air and a deeper, lingering rot beneath it filling his lungs. The murky mist around them had obscured much of the sea beyond and indeed behind as well, but Frederick could feel something big looming ahead of them, and if he squinted, could just make out land.

  Corin jumped onto the railing, steadying himself with a rope, his eyes twinkling as if he could see the hidden, sparkly things amongst the flotsam and jetsam.

  “This wasn’t part of our deal,” the knight reminded him.

  “It wasn’t not though!” And with that, Corin swung over the water and landed squarely on the deck of the wrecked vessel.

  Frederick swore under his breath, Elayne coming up beside him and matching his aggravation with her own colorful words. Kurz chucked Bryllin over the ship’s edge, and she landed in a rolling ball on the other deck with Kurz just behind her, the planks heaving beneath him.

  Before Rel managed to jump off the railing as well, Elayne stopped him. With narrowed eyes and exasperation, she grunted, “What’s happening?”

  “Gotta work,” he told her swiftly, and with a wink glided over to the wreckage like an absolute, bloody git. Frederick thought his eyes might roll right out of his head.

  With a huff, Elayne threw herself back against the railing and crossed her arms, and that relieved just the tiniest bit of his own annoyance.

  “Maybe pirates weren’t the best way to go,” he prodded at her.

  Her eyes flashed at him as Gramps’s voice fired up from
inside his bottle. “It’s to be expected! This is the life of the free!”

  Rolling her eyes, Neoma pressed the urn into Bix’s small hands. “Can you please hold him for a while?”

  “Great!” Gramps chuffed from inside. “The kobold will surely take me over!”

  Bix wandered between them and hoisted himself up onto the railing. “You think it’s a finders, keepers situation?”

  Frederick and Elayne stared at each other sidelong, and before they could answer, the kobold had hopped over to the other ship.

  The pirates disappeared amongst the mists as they searched the deck. The quiet of their wake was only filled with the crashing waves and the creaking of The Fairy’s Knickers’ deck. Frederick peered over to the latch that led to the hull, wondering what he’d see if he lifted it. Instead, Neoma’s stark figure caught his eye. She was pale, more so than was usual, and her light eyes were wide, her mouth hanging open. She didn’t have to say anything.

  He spun back to the broken ship to see it, a hulking mass crawling up from the center crack of the wrecked ship, pulling itself on human-like arms, though it moved more thickly than that, as if it didn’t expect its own bulk to be so heavy. With a wet slap, a hand hit the deck and it pulled itself up further, and then the mist descended around it and it was gone.

  “What in the godless gorge?” Neoma’s tiny voice was shaking. “That can’t have been…”

  Frederick was craning his neck to see onto the platform, but there were no clear figures from where he stood. Perhaps it had been a trick of the shadow or his own mind playing games in the eerie darkness. The night was already giving him an uneasiness he didn’t expect. He thought to call out to the others and confirm their whereabouts, but a shout from behind stopped him.

  Elayne fell to her knees. She shouted again as her whole body wrenched backward and slammed into the railing. The posts were too close together for her to squeeze through, but she certainly seemed to be trying.