The Servants of the Storm

by Jack Campbell

  “River traffic has already fallen off,” Banda commented. “That’s normal. Any boat that can’t make its destination by sunset is finding a good spot to stop for the night. Not many risk the river in the dark.”

  “Why not?” Dav asked, looking morosely at the cold, salted meat and cold, hard bread in front of him.

  “Because of junk like what we’re pretending to be,” Banda said, jerking a thumb in the general direction of the driftwood camouflage. “It makes a good disguise for us because that sort of debris is common enough on a river like this. Even in daylight a mostly submerged tree trunk could put a hole in a barge if there was a collision. At night, it’s far too hard to see trouble like that in time to avoid it.”

  “Especially if it’s a kraken,” Mari said, drawing smiles from the other Mechanics.

  “There’s another problem this time of year,” Banda added. “Especially as we go farther up the river, we’re likely to run into mist or fog in the early evening. It will usually dissipate by midnight, but before then the mist could be so light we barely notice it, or heavy enough to make it hard to see. The stretch between Palandur and Marandur is notorious for it. I heard once that Emperor Palan chose the location for Palandur in part because it was far enough down river to avoid the worst of the river fog that had created problems for shipping near Marandur.”

  “How are we doing on getting to Marandur?” Mari asked. “Did we get as far last night as you’d hoped we would?”

  “I think so,” Banda replied. “I’ll know better how we’re doing when I get a look at some of the towns along the way. If we can maintain speed as I hope, it will be about six days to Marandur, running only during night. You and Dav will have to keep a close eye on our fuel level. We had to estimate how much it would take to fuel the boiler for the whole trip. Extra fuel oil isn’t very easy to obtain along the banks of the Ospren.” He paused, looking thoughtful. “There is a place we could get some if we needed it. But it would be a bit risky.”

  Alain saw the tension that Banda hid from the others. “More than a bit risky, is it not?”

  “Very risky,” Banda admitted. “I wouldn’t even consider it if we didn’t have you Mages along. We’ll know when we reach Palandur if we should make a try. Mari, once it gets dark enough and the river traffic has let up, I’m going out to check on the screw for damage. I think it’s all right, but I’d like to be sure.”

  “This one has questions,” Asha called down softly from above. “What is a…screw?”

  “It is something that Mechanics use to hold their illusions in one piece,” Alain said.

  “No,” Mari said. “That’s a different screw, an inclined plane wrapped around a shaft to hold things. Whereas the screw propelling this ship is a rotary device using inclined blades extending from a central hub to move things. Same principle, I guess, but very different. You know, Alain, it is absolutely amazing how blank your expression can get when I’m explaining Mechanic things to you.”

  “This one has questions,” Asha repeated. “I have seen that Mechanics place great importance on using the right word when speaking of things, as Mari just did when…explaining to Alain.”

  “That’s right,” Mari said. “Using exactly the right technical term is very important.”

  “Then why is the same word used for two things you say are very different?” Asha continued.

  Alain saw Mari and Dav exchange glances, then both looked at Banda, who shrugged and shook his head.

  “We have no idea,” Mari said.

  “You know,” Dav commented, “I’ve heard a lot of stories about you, Mari.“

  “Most of them aren’t true.”

  “That’s not what Alli says. The point being, you kept asking questions like that one from Asha when you were an Apprentice. That’s one of the reasons the Senior Mechanics never liked you.”

  “It was one of the reasons,” Mari agreed. “Are you trying to say I should have been a Mage?”

  “You would not have made a good Mage,” Alain said.

  “That’s comforting.”

  “Yeah,” Dav said. “What I meant, though, is that maybe part of you thinks like part of them. And maybe that’s why you were able to get to know Alain the first time you two were together. Your minds weren’t totally different, just mostly different.”

  “Huh,” Mari commented. “What do you think, Alain?”

  Alain brought up his memories of their first meeting. “I remember thinking that I could not understand anything you were doing.”

  “Has that changed?” Banda asked, grinning as Mari threw a glare his way.

  “Yes,” Alain said, “mostly. But there came a time when I realized she was saying things I did understand. That we…shared something. It was disturbing for a Mage to feel like that. Trying to understand Mari caused me to do things and believe things that a Mage should not. After that I could not go back to being what the elders had made me.”

  “You broke him?” Banda asked Mari.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I broke a Mage. But it turned out he still worked, and better than ever. Getting back to business,” Mari said to Banda, “do you think we’ll encounter any more kraken search parties?”

  “Doubtful,” Banda said. “If none of the searches today bore fruit and none of the boats in the river reported seeing anything, the Imperials will probably conclude the beast swam out to sea rather than upstream. I don’t see why they’d stumble around in the dark of the night looking for a kraken they couldn’t find in the daylight.”

  “Asha said they were worried about staying out at night,” Dav said. “That doesn’t sound like what I’ve heard about Imperial legionaries.”

  Mari sighed. “They’re scared of Mara the Undying. The Imperial government has been feeding rumors that the Dark One has returned so they can try to discredit me, but it’s been having a negative effect on their own people.”

  Dav looked puzzled. “No offense, Mari, but from the stories I heard, Asha would fit the description of Mara better than you would.”

  “And it’s right that you think so,” Mari said, “but Asha’s hair is the wrong color, she didn’t come out of Marandur—at least not yet—and she’s not the daughter of Jules who has the Emperor worried.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Dav agreed. “And I guess the name Asha isn’t anything like Mara, but Mari is pretty close.”

  “Thank you.”

  Alain did not understand why Mari had said “thank you” in such a way that it sounded as if she was not thanking Dav. It was one more thing he would have to ask her about someday.

  “Can we use that?” Banda asked. “The Mara thing? If the legionaries are scared of her…”

  “Alain and I have already discussed it. If the right opportunity arises, I’m willing to, even though the idea of being linked to Mara has an even worse effect on my appetite than this salt pork.” She held up the meat from her plate. “I mean, seriously, this looks like some of the wood that’s camouflaging our ship.”

  “The wood probably tastes better,” Banda said, “and is easier to chew. Normally we’d boil that stuff, but we can’t risk having cooking smells reveal our presence.”

  The next few days settled into a pattern of making as much progress up the river at night as possible, followed by spending the daylight hugging one of the riverbanks as the ships and boats that used the Ospren River as a highway steered well clear of what looked like a dangerous mass of driftwood. On the third day, as Alain sat the watch, he saw an official Imperial craft of some kind cruise by, the men and women aboard making particular note of the camouflaged Terror. But Banda expressed no worries when told of it. “That was one of the Imperial river watch boats. They look for hazards and for any boats that need help, so they were tagging our location for someone to come out and get rid of the problem before the mass of driftwood we look like breaks free and hurts someone. By the time the clean-up crew arrives, we’ll be long gone.”

  But Alain did note that Captain Banda’s worries kept
growing over another matter. Every afternoon as they prepared to get underway again, Banda would measure the fuel, growing progressively more gloomy as each day passed.

  Finally, on the afternoon before the Terror would run the gauntlet of the river as it passed through the Imperial capital of Palandur, Banda dropped a piece of paper on the table as they ate. “Mari, Dav, feel free to check my numbers.”

  Mari picked up the paper, studying it. “Fuel consumption, fuel remaining…I knew it wasn’t looking good. I don’t see any errors in your math. It’s this bad?”

  “You already know the answer,” Banda said, frowning unhappily. “We’re burning too much fuel because of having to fight the current. All we had to go on before we started was estimates of how much drag having so much of the ship underwater would create and how much fuel it would take to maintain the speed we need. If we could have tested this ship in a river like the Ospren, we might have discovered how badly off our estimates were, but it was too important to keep the ship and its purpose secret.”

  “We’ll make Marandur,” Mari said.

  “Yes, and then we’ll have to conserve fuel as much as possible on the way back down river, mostly by coasting with the current. It will prolong our trip by a week, at least, and we’ll be running on fumes when we reach Landfall. The Pride will still be waiting, but getting worried and running a risk every extra day they stay near Landfall, and we won't have any means to sail out to sea to meet them. Anything unexpected would doom us.”

  “They told me they were providing enough fuel to give us a margin of error,” Mari said, angrily rapping a fist against the side of the ship.

  “The error has proven to be bigger than the margin,” Banda said.

  “You said there was another place to get fuel,” Dav pointed out.

  “Yes. The only other place on the Ospren short of Landfall. It’s the Mechanics Guild pier at Palandur,” Banda said.

  “The Guild’s pier?” Mari asked, incredulous. “No wonder you said it was risky. Isn’t that inside the Imperial military dockyard?”

  “Yes. When I was last there,” Banda added, “security consisted of alarms on the pier and two Mechanics or Apprentices on watch. The Senior Mechanics worried about the Imperials trying to learn our secrets. And since the pier is inside the Imperial dockyard area, there is also Imperial security to worry about. Boat patrols in the water, roving foot patrols, sentries at the entrance to the dockyard, whatever various Imperial warships and their crews that might be in the dockyard, and a cohort of legionaries on call.”

  “How about the fog?” Dav asked. “Asha says we’ve started seeing it on the river and the river banks in the early evening. Could that provide enough concealment?”

  “No. It’s still fairly light. We might run into a little fog in Palandur, but we can’t count on it to be there at all, let alone to be heavy enough to hide us.”

  “And that’s the only place we can get more fuel?” Mari asked.

  “That’s the only place.”

  Chapter Ten

  “There are two fuel oil tanks there for any Guild ship that needs filled up right away,” Banda explained. “Located near the end of the Guild pier. Not huge tanks, but each would have more than enough fuel to top us off. It’s not that far beyond Palandur to Marandur along the river, so that would leave us a lot of fuel for the trip back.”

  “But how do we get to the oil tanks?” Dav asked. “It sounds impossible.”

  “Are there any Mages helping to guard the area?” Alain asked.

  All of the Mechanics looked at him with dawning hope. “Not that I ever saw,” Banda said. “This isn’t something that Mari, Dav, or I could manage. Do you think that you and Mage Asha could provide the edge we need?”

  “What must we do?” Alain said.

  Banda sketched a rough map in the air. “Sneak in past the Imperial guard towers at the entry, sneak past the picket boats, get past the alarms on the Mechanics Guild pier, either avoid or neutralize the Mechanic guards on the dock, tap into one of the fuel oil tanks, top off our tanks, then get back out without being spotted. Oh, I forgot to mention that the Mechanics Guild pier is brightly lit at night.”

  Mari’s and Mechanic Dav’s expressions had grown steadily more appalled as Banda listed once again all the security measures they would face.

  Alain took his time answering, thinking through what must be done. “Any spells used by Mage Asha or myself would advertise our presence to the other Mages in Palandur, and there will be many.”

  “Even if we could use them, what spells could be used to conceal so large a thing?” Asha asked.

  “I do not know,” Alain said. “I do not know how we can prevent ourselves and you Mechanics and this ship from being noticed.”

  Dav nodded ruefully. “Especially in the case of Asha. She tends to draw a lot of attention.”

  Alain paused, an idea coming to him. “Perhaps that is the answer.”

  “Use Mage Asha to distract people?” Mari asked skeptically.

  “Use Mage Asha and myself.” Alain felt his plan forming. “Mages will go wherever they want to go. They do not acknowledge the rules of others, and the commons fear to stop them. Suppose that two Mages openly enter this place, ignoring the protests of the Imperial sentries who will not dare halt the Mages? Suppose those Mages go to such parts of the place where they will distract anyone from looking at where this ship and its Mechanics are?”

  “Instead of hide our presence,” Banda said, “we’d use you two Mages to make everyone aware you were there? And then slip past while their attention was on you? That just might work.”

  “Who tries to sneak into a place by making a ruckus?” Dav said. “It wouldn’t be something that they’d expect. But even though it might work, wouldn’t it place Asha and Alain in some serious danger?”

  “Commons will not attack Mages,” Asha said.

  “There have been some attacks in the last few years,” Mari said. “Random, crazy stuff that’s a forewarning of the Storm.”

  “These will be Imperials under discipline,” Alain said. ‘They will act as ordered.”

  “All right,” Dav said. “Fine. But they’ll be watching you and following you through the dockyard, right? How do you Mages break contact when it’s time for us all to leave?”

  “Mage Alain and I could leave by another way, along the land beside the river,” Asha said. “Then rejoin you outside the area where the Imperials watch.”

  “They won’t follow you on land?”

  Alain saw Asha’s amusement at the question. “No one follows a Mage, Dav. Not closely enough to be a problem for us. What if the Mage took offense? What if the Mage simply desired to play with a nearby human toy before discarding it?” Her inner humor faded. “I never did such things, but I know those who did. You are shadows, remember? Illusions on an illusion. That is what Mages are taught. Doing harm to you is of less importance to a Mage than swatting a fly would be to a common.”

  Dav stared at her, distraught. “But you don’t believe that.”

  “For years I tried very hard to convince myself that I did believe it, Dav.”

  “So did I,” Alain said. “Dav, you have become more at ease among Mages because of the changes that Mari has wrought, but Mages who have not accepted a different wisdom are dangerous to those around them. To the world beyond Mari’s control, Mages are still objects of fear and loathing.”

  Mari looked away, unhappy. “I’m sorry. I hate hearing you say that.”

  “It is so.”

  “I know. That’s why I hate hearing it, because once I would have looked on you and Asha that way.” She gazed at the others. “Alain’s plan to conceal by distraction seems like it might work, and it will pose a lot less danger than trying to hide from that much security by…is sneakiness a word?”

  “How would we know?” Banda asked. “We’re engineers, not scribes.”

  “You might have had to look it up once,” Mari said. “Are you all right with this pla
n, Asha? Good. Unless someone else comes up with a better idea, let’s run with this one. Captain Banda, if you remember enough about the layout of the dock area, you can plan out with the Mages where they should go to keep attention centered on them while we steal the fuel we need.”

  “What about their transport?” Dav asked. “Asha and Alain need a way to reach the shore before we sneak in after them.”

  “We will find other transport,” Asha said. She gestured lightly toward the river banks outside. “Many boats will be available in Palandur.”

  “What are we going to do to the crew of the boat you pick?”

  “We will do nothing. They will help us,” Asha said.

  “Yes,” Alain agreed. “The crew will do what two Mages demand.”

  * * * *

  The night was distressingly clear, but dark nonetheless since the moon had set early. The boats and barges tied up at the landings bobbed gently in the current, for the most part silent or with only a single small light showing.

  “That one should do for you,” Captain Banda said as he brought the Terror close enough to a landing for Alain and Asha to step onto it. “That barge. You saw the Imperial docks when we cruised past them. Have that barge head down river, and we’ll follow in your wake.”

  The crew of the small barge had settled for the night, but one of them poked his head up when Alain and Asha boarded with loud footsteps on the deck. Looking about with angry suspicion, the sailor’s eyes fell on the two Mages and froze in fear. After a long moment, the sailor ducked below again. Alain heard him frantically waking the rest of the crew.

  But no one else came up on deck. The sailors had apparently decided to hide below in hopes the Mages would leave. Alain walked to the low deck house and, drawing his long knife, slammed the hilt once against the wood planks.

  The silence below was replaced by fearful, muttered conversation as the sailors debated who would go on deck.

  Asha walked up beside Alain. “I grow impatient,” she said, her voice something only a Mage could achieve, so lacking in feeling and human attributes that commons always referred to the sound as “dead.”