A Jewel Bright Sea

by Claire O'Dell

  He swung around to Anna. “You. Go below at once.”

  Koszenmarc’s order plucked Anna from her daze. She scrambled toward the nearest hatch. Behind her, sparks and smoke and flames exploded through the air. A man screamed. Anna tumbled down the hatch, grabbing for the ladder, and landed two levels down in the cargo hold, her arms nearly wrenched from her body.

  She lay there, bruised and breathless, huddled between the water casks and spare sails. From far overhead came the pounding of feet as sailors raced to obey orders. The ship shuddered to a stop, then plunged forward, the song of the lines rising higher and higher. More shouts, then another explosion, and this time the ship rocked far to one side and she smelled the scent of burning flesh. Her stomach lurched against her ribs and she had to swallow hard.

  Go back, she told herself. Never mind what the captain ordered. You learned those cursed battle spells. But it was incredibly hard to stand and follow through.

  She did, at last. She grabbed hold of the ladder’s rails and hauled herself up to the next deck. Here, the stink of smoke and charred flesh was even stronger, but she gathered her courage and set her next foot upon the ladder.

  “There you are.”

  Thea beckoned to her. “I need your magic,” she said. “Come with me.” When Anna hesitated, she said gently, “You won’t be much help above decks, not with you flinching at every attack. Come with me to the sick bay where you might do some good.”

  Thea’s sick bay was a small corner toward the back of the ship’s berth, with a curtain to mark it off from the sailors’ hammocks. In the middle were two large chests, pushed together. One of the hands, a young man named Berit, lay on his back. He squirmed away from Thea’s touch, making small mewing noises.

  “I thought her poison bad enough,” Thea said. “But now she’s bought some gods-be-damned magic fire. Just give us a few moments,” she said quietly to Berit. “I’ll have you resting easy, my friend.”

  She took Anna’s hand and placed it over Berit’s forehead. “One hand here, the other at his wrist. You know the balance point. Hold him there while I do the rest.”

  Thea hummed softly. The air, so still and thick, awoke to the magic. Anna felt a tickle of warmth against her palms. She looked down. A mistake. The great ugly burn covered half of Berit’s face and throat, the skin bubbled and black. She choked.

  “Close your eyes,” Thea said. “Find the balance.”

  Anna swallowed and did as Thea commanded. Thea continued to hum, and the stink of burnt flesh receded. A fresh sharp scent filled the sick bay, and the tickle of warmth grew stronger—not the stifling heat of belowdecks, but a warmth that reminded Anna of holding snow-chilled hands before a strong fire. She breathed in the scent of magic and let her thoughts drop away from the sight of that terrible wound, into the rhythm of Thea’s humming. The current flowed into her, round and about and back through Berit, growing stronger with each moment.

  “There,” Thea said. “He’ll do for a bit. Now for the next patient.”

  Two more had arrived while they worked over Berit. One sat on a chest, slumped over and cradling her left arm in her lap. “Broken,” Thea said after a quick examination. “You can wait,” she told the woman, inserting a knotted rag into her mouth. “Chew this to help with the pain.”

  “Ginger infusion,” she said to Anna. “Brewed strong.”

  The other was an older man with a broken-off arrow buried in his shoulder. “Barbed and poisoned,” Thea said in a low voice. “I’ll make a potion, but I need you to hold him steady.”

  Together they extracted the arrow, then while Anna held him in the balance point, Thea brewed the necessary potion to draw out the poison. Once they had made him comfortable, Thea splinted the woman’s broken arm, then checked on Berit. More wounded came below. Another poison-arrow wound. A woman with a massive splinter embedded between her ribs.

  A lull followed, during which Thea brewed a pot of fennel tea and ordered Anna to lay out more clean bandages. Their splinter wound rested easily, as did the woman with the broken arm, but Thea shook her head over the sailors hit by the poisoned arrows.

  Meanwhile, Anna could tell by the deep hum that the Konstanze continued its mad flight across the seas, which felt rougher than before. There was a storm coming up, said one sailor, who came below to check on his companions. One of Druss’s ships had fallen off. Its foremast had cracked under too much sail and nearly caused them to founder in the high seas. But the other two kept at them like dogs after a rabbit.

  Vicious dogs, Anna thought as she worked. Under Thea’s direction, she learned how to wrap bandages and extract splinters. Again and again, she helped to direct the magic current to deaden a patient’s agony while Thea worked over them.

  “Well done,” Thea murmured to Anna. “You’ve helped me save more than one tonight.”

  Reports came down with every wounded sailor. From Joszua, Anna learned they had almost been pinned between the enemy and an island, but the captain had taken advantage of how Konstanze steered closer to the wind and slipped between the two remaining ships. Now they were sailing east toward the open sea and hoping for nightfall. Between the new moon and the rising storm, they might be able to lose Druss and circle back west.

  “Another one,” called out Old Hahn, as he carried a limp body into the cabin.

  Nikolas. Anna went cold at the sight of the boy’s grey face. As Hahn maneuvered his burden through the doorway, Nikolas’s head flopped over. His leg hung twisted at an unnatural angle.

  Thea cleared off the trunk and ordered Hahn to lay the boy there. “What happened?” she asked as she examined him.

  “Chains,” Hahn said shortly. “Two of them at once. Caught the boy and flung him against the mast, while t’other…. Well, you can see what happened.”

  Thea nodded. “Head’s got a lump.” She probed gently. The skull gave way under her fingertips. Suddenly queasy, Anna had to turn away.

  “We’ll splint the leg and hope it heals straight,” Thea said. “Elise, look in my chest for a vial of blue liquid. Mix one part with five of water, then soak a rag in the mixture and lay it over the boy’s mouth. Better pinch your nose while you do it.”

  The vial held a fiery blue liquid that burned with magic’s scent. Anna carefully measured out its contents and mixed it with water as Thea had directed, then laid the rag over Nikolas’s mouth. The boy’s nostrils flared, but his eyes remained closed and his skin felt clammy to her touch.

  Eleni appeared at the door. Without speaking, she glided into the cabin and knelt by Nikolas’s side. She brushed the hair from her son’s face, laid a hand on his cheek, her lips moving silently in some prayer or wish or curse, Anna could not tell which, then swiftly departed.

  Thea touched Anna’s shoulder. “Come. We have work to do.”

  CHAPTER 16

  The storm struck at sunset. The ship lurched and froze in place for a heart-stopping moment, then jerked to one side. Thea had been measuring a dose of fennel infusion for Maté’s sprained fingers. The potion splattered. Lightning flashed. A heartbeat later, thunder crashed around them and the ship pitched into darkness. Anna scrambled to the floor, gathering up scattered instruments, while Thea saw to their patients. Maté wound a bandage around his fingers. “Captain needs me,” he said and vanished above decks.

  “Damnable idiot,” Thea muttered. “If only I could dose them with common sense as well as herbs.”

  More lightning blazed, illuminating the sick bay with a strange flickering glow from the hatches above. Every flash and crackle was followed by a roll of thunder, each one faster than the one before. Anna and Thea righted their potions and implements. Thea relit their shaded lanterns with a spark of magic. Several inches of water covered the floor, and more leaked through the planks.

  We are going to die. The thought made Anna furious. She did not deserve to die. Neither did Maté or the rest of Ko
szenmarc’s crew, not for a gods-be-damned Emperor and his jewel.

  “You’re afraid,” Thea said.

  “Of course I’m afraid! Aren’t you? We might all drown tonight. Or worse.”

  “And so? Everyone dies. Everyone lives again. It’s the one promise Blind Toc made that I believe. Sit and let me brew you a cup of tea.”

  Thea brewed tea over a tiny brazier, then added a few drops from another of her mysterious vials. Once Anna had finished a cup, she recovered her sense of proportion. Yes, she was afraid, but panic would do neither of them any good. She set herself to tending the patients in their sick bay, following Thea’s orders to change bandages, or to administer fresh doses. Over the next hour, the trickle of patients slowed, then stopped altogether. Thea used the lull to set her medicine chest in order. To Anna, she gave the task of boiling their needles and surgical blades.

  A dozen patients treated and sent back to duty. Berit would live, with the blessing, Thea said, but another sailor, a young woman, bled to death even as Hahn laid her on the operating table, and a third was close to death by poison. Eight more sailors remained in the sick bay, bandaged and dosed and lying uneasily in their hammocks, but most of these were uncomplicated cases, according to Thea. Nikolas lay in an uneasy doze. His color had improved, but his breathing remained uneven. “I’ll operate tomorrow,” Thea said.

  At long last, no more patients came below, and the roll of the ship eased. Anna and Thea ate their long-neglected dinner of cold meat and flatbread. Thea brewed another pot of tea and stirred in a spoonful of herbs from her medicine chest.

  “Take a watch to sleep,” she said, once they had drunk their fill. “I’ll bunk down here. I’ve done that often enough. If I need you, I’ll send word.”

  It was quiet belowdecks, with only a snuffling here and there, and the whisper from the ship’s wake as it parted the waters. A soft, clean-scented breeze filtered down through the open hatches. But there were no hammocks free, and no spare room in the corners, where more of the crew had made nests of blankets. Koszenmarc must have ordered all the watches below except the bare minimum of crew to steer and sail the ship.

  Anna climbed up on deck, to a world almost forgotten these past ten hours. Clouds stippled the sky, limned with the starlight and the fading brilliance of the moon. She heard rather than saw a few hands moving about the deck. All was quiet, except for the hushing of the seas as the ship skimmed along, sails taut with a steady wind. Off to one side, Koszenmarc stood with a glass to his eye, staring into the darkness.

  Anna made her way to the railing next to him. He acknowledged her presence with a nod, then continued to scan the seas. She drank in the breeze, letting it wash away the remembered stink of burnt flesh and blood and vomit. Slowly, her muscles unknotted.

  “Are we free of her?” she asked after a while.

  “We were. That changed a few moments ago. Here.”

  He handed her the glass. At first, she saw nothing but a murky, surging darkness. Then Koszenmarc stepped close behind her, and with a light touch guided the glass to the right.

  A pale red speck sprang into view.

  She started back. “Druss. How—”

  “She’s a clever captain, especially when she’s on the hunt. We lost her for a time, but she’s guessed every one of my maneuvers. It’s strange. Almost as if—” He broke off and took the glass back from Anna. “How goes it below?”

  Horrible, she thought. But she was able to give a competent report.

  “Three dead. Eight more under watch. Thea says all but two are uncomplicated, but I don’t know what that means. Nikolas is one of them,” she added.

  He sighed. “So I heard.”

  He resumed watching the sea and Druss’s ships. Anna told herself to go below or find a place on deck where she could sleep, but she could not bring herself to abandon deck, not while that pale red speck grew larger and larger. What if Druss overtook them? No storm. Fewer hands, and many of those exhausted.

  “What can we do?” she murmured.

  She had spoken more to herself than the man at her side, but he answered her nevertheless. “We sail directly before the wind, with as much sail as she’ll bear. Once the moon sets and I’m certain we’ve outrun her, we’ll circle around to the south. That she won’t expect.”

  “Do you know where we are?” she asked.

  And what about Aldo Sarrész?

  “Beyond all the charts,” he said, “including yours. As soon as we reach a quiet moment tomorrow, I’ll take bearings.”

  The officer of the watch—Joszua—called out to him, and Koszenmarc left the railing to confer with him. Anna let her head drop into both her hands. She no longer wished to find Sarrész or the jewel. She only wanted a quiet refuge where she could make an independent life for herself.

  One room for me, a second for my books, a door with a lock…

  She drew a deep breath to unlock the ache in her chest. It was then she detected a familiar scent. The clean, cold scent of magic. A whiff of the current that hovered in the air. A signature she knew as well as her own.

  “He’s here,” she said suddenly. Then louder, “Captain! Andreas! I’ve found him!”

  Before she could launch herself over the side, Koszenmarc caught her around the waist. “What is it?” he demanded. “You found him?”

  Anna wanted to smack him. “You gods-be-damned idiot, of course I mean him. Let me go.”

  Instead of letting her go, Koszenmarc barked a string of commands. Chaos broke out on the deck, as Felix and Joszua ran to do his bidding. The watch below went aloft with only a word, with Eleni on deck soon thereafter.

  “Elise and I need to leave the ship,” he told Eleni. “You take command, with Hahn as your second. Make a boat ready. We’ll need water and stores, enough for several days. The moment we’ve parted from the Konstanze, raise more sails—as much as she will bear—and light half a dozen lamps. You know the trick. Be a firebug and lure her away, then douse the lamps one by one and circle around.”

  Eleni ran to carry out her orders. Now Koszenmarc loosed his hold on Anna. “We go to find our man,” he told her. “You and I. Get whatever you need for two, three days. Ask Thea what medicines to bring.”

  Right. No telling what state they would find Sarrész in. “Aye, Captain,” she said. “Orders received.”

  That won her a brilliant smile. Her heart lifted at that smile, and she hurried below.

  Joszua met her outside the cabin she shared with Thea. “Thea’s compliments,” he said, as he handed over a heavily laden bag. “She told me exactly what to pack. Clothing, soaps, bandages, whatever medicine she could spare.”

  Anna slung the bag over her shoulder. “Thank you, Joszua. I—” And it came to her that if their expedition did not go well, or if Druss saw through Koszenmarc’s trick with the lamps, she might never see this young man, or anyone else on the ship, again. She clasped him briefly by the arm, caught his startled look, then scrambled back topside.

  Within those few moments, everything had changed. The moon was just visible above the horizon and sinking fast. All lamps had been extinguished, even the shaded lanterns, and the ship was running dark. Eleni Farakos gave the word, the sails were furled, and the Konstanze glided on in silence.

  The song of the rigging died as the ship slowed. The only sounds were the creak and groan of the boards, the thump of her pulse. Now the crew lowered the Konstanze’s smallest boat over the side. Koszenmarc swung down the ladder and dropped a bag into the boat. He took Anna’s from her and made the leap.

  Anna hesitated. The seas were running high, and the boat made an invisible target in the great darkness below.

  “Jump,” Koszenmarc called out. “I’ll catch you. I promise.”

  With a prayer to the gods, she leapt in the direction of his voice. Koszenmarc caught her in his arms before she tumbled over the side. She ha
d only one moment of terror, convinced their small boat would drown beneath the ship, but Koszenmarc had already cast off the ropes to the ship and was pulling strongly on the oars.

  Slowly, slowly, the distance between ship and boat widened. Eleni’s voice called out orders to make sail. One bright lantern sparked into life high above in the upper crosstrees. At the same time, the ship began a slow and steady turn. Ten, twenty breaths later, a second light bloomed in one of the portholes. Anna found she was holding her breath, while Koszenmarc continued to row and the waves broke over the boat’s prow.

  Soon Anna could no longer make out the ship itself, just two bright specks that rose and fell with the seas. A third appeared, just like the firebugs she remembered chasing through the streets of Duenne as a child. Only here the firebugs were meant to lure Druss away from Anna and Koszenmarc.

  A fourth light appeared, at what had to be the waterline of the ship. Druss must surely have spotted the Konstanze by now. Would she suspect the ruse?

  Koszenmarc paused rowing. He was breathing heavily. “Time…to take…bearings.” He gulped down a breath and spoke more easily. “It would be a terrible thing if we missed the island and went sailing off into the emptiness.”

  He spoke lightly, without a hint of anxiety—as if he trusted her magic to pinpoint an island, at night, in the middle of uncharted seas.

  “Aye, my lord captain,” she said. “One nearly invisible island, just as you wish.”

  She had the satisfaction of hearing his stifled laugh.

  But there was the question of that invisible island. Anna hunkered down in the boat, her knees lodged against the cross planks. Her clothes weighted down, damp and cold. The seas were running crossways, with high, sharp crests that argued with each other. Anna closed her eyes and tried to forget the seas, Isana Druss, and the miles between them and any shore. Magic was for every moment, Thea had said. In the quiet of your chamber, in the midst of grief and war. Well, this will be a test, won’t it?