THE WIZARD HUNTERS

by Martha Wells

  Gerard lifted his brows. “I think we’re going to have to try a ward.” He turned to the other men, explaining, “It wouldn’t work with one of our ships. The Gardier use their spell that destroys mechanical and electrical devices as a blanket attack, casting it over large areas. Even if the ships are protected by illusion, the spell is still able to destroy their engines.” He smiled faintly. “That spell won’t have any effect on this ship, any more than it did on your catapult.”

  Ander nodded approval. “We could slip right past their patrol.”

  Gyan and Halian looked doubtful. Giliead just stood with arms folded and that blank expression that could mean anything. With a dubious look, Ilias asked, “What’s a ward?”

  “Ah.” Gerard hesitated, suddenly recalling the difficulties. “It’s a type of spell. . .”

  “You want to cast a curse on the ship,” Halian repeated. His tone was not encouraging.

  Arites, sitting on a bundle of ropes nearby, whistled softly in astonishment. He started to dig in his bag for his writing materials.

  “It’s not a curse,” Florian said persuasively. “Really, it’s just a charm, and all it does is keep the Gardier from looking at the ship.”

  None of the Syprians looked convinced and Tremaine wasn’t surprised; the word for charm in Rienish meant curse in Syrnaic, just as spell did.

  “There are wards cast on the ships we still have in port,” Ander elaborated. “The wards make the Gardier think they see empty water, or a wrecked hull.”

  “It’s like what the guls do,” Giliead said finally.

  “Sort of,” Tremaine said, fairly sure that wasn’t the mental association Ander and Gerard had been hoping for. The guls were the shape-changers Giliead had mentioned before, the creatures that drew travelers to their deaths. “Only it’s not a lure, it’s the opposite. It’s a go-away.”

  “Or a look-away, really,” Florian put in, with what she obviously hoped was an innocent smile.

  Giliead looked at Halian, who sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and stared unhappily off at the waves. Halian said finally, “You know a ship that’s been cursed has to be burned.”

  Gerard let out his breath. “I didn’t realize that.” Halian probably loves this boat, Tremaine thought unhappily.

  “That’s just if anybody else finds out about it,” Gyan said suddenly.

  Tremaine saw Ilias’s face go still. Giliead started to speak, then glanced worriedly at Ilias and said nothing. Ilias’s reaction surprised her a little; if anyone had moral objections to the plan, she would have thought it was bound to be Giliead.

  Halian stared at Gyan. “Well, it’s true.” Gyan shifted uneasily and folded his arms, his tone defensive, as he added, “If Gil thinks it’s all right, I don’t see why it’s anybody else’s business but ours.”

  Ilias abruptly turned and walked away, heading over to the far side of the deck. Giliead watched him go, his brows drawn together in concern.

  Halian looked after Ilias too, then fixed a glare on Gyan. “We don’t even know that the rest of the crew will agree to it.”

  Gyan shrugged. He looked guilty but determined to stick to his ground. “You know they’ll go along with you and Gil.”

  Halian let out his breath. “We’ll see.” He threw Gyan a quelling look and added, “And we’ll worry about who we do or don’t tell when we get back to port.”

  Giliead walked over to where Ilias was leaning on the starboard railing. The set of his friend’s shoulders was a clear warning that he wanted to be left alone, but then it was Giliead’s job to go places others didn’t dare. He said, “You don’t think we should do this.”

  Ilias looked at him, his expression carefully neutral. “There’s no choice. It’s stupid not to. Everybody saw what their curses can do to the Gardier wizards.”

  The neutral expression and mild tone were bad signs. Giliead said deliberately, “I meant, you don’t think we should lie about it afterward.” The law that mandated that anyone who had survived a wizard’s curse should be marked forever had been born out of fear. Gods didn’t have eyes to see the marks anyway; Giliead had never talked to one who gave a damn who had been cursed and who hadn’t. The law did nothing but punish innocents for surviving.

  A flicker of emotion crossed Ilias’s face at the thought of the consequences of telling the truth. Giliead knew he didn’t want to see the Swift burned any more than Halian did. But Ilias shrugged and said noncommittally, “Halian will leave it up to you. It’s your choice.”

  Giliead took the last step and leaned on the railing next to Ilias. It had been his choice since the day they had told him he was a Chosen Vessel and he was weary beyond words of it. “But it wasn’t your choice when it happened to you.”

  “The Swift doesn’t have to live with herself afterward.” Ilias shook his head, letting a little of his frustrated anger show. “I’m not arguing, I’m not saying we shouldn’t do it, and I don’t blame Gyan for suggesting it.” Gyan’s wife had died from a curse long ago; he had every reason to oppose the curse law. Ilias turned back to the railing. “I just . . . need some time, all right?”

  There were a lot of things Giliead wanted to say, none of which was the least bit relevant. I never believed in it either; I told you you shouldn‘t do it; it’s not my fault. He still didn’t understand why his friend had allowed himself to be marked. Why he didn’t believe in the law for anybody except himself. He said finally, “I just wish I understood.”

  “I do too,” Ilias said under his breath, but Giliead wasn’t sure which one of them he meant.

  They got under way, most of the crew going below to man the oars. The cloudless sky stretched forever and the sun was bright on the clear blue water. Tremaine hung over the railing with Florian, watching the golden cliffs along the shore, the wind and sea spray in her hair. We’ll be back in Ile-Rien soon, she thought, not happily. It was probably a traitorous thought, that she would rather disappear into this world than go back to the problems of her own. After the ship left the harbor and the purple sails caught the wind, Ilias joined them, leaning on the railing next to her.

  She considered him thoughtfully. She had seen his discussion with Giliead and it had made her uncomfortable. She couldn’t help but feel responsible, even though the ward hadn’t been her idea and she was contributing nothing toward it. Even the sphere wouldn’t be needed. “You don’t think the ward is a good idea?” she asked. She felt as if she was poking a beehive with a stick but couldn’t help herself.

  Ilias glanced up toward the helm where Halian stood holding the tiller. Ander was up there too, probably asking questions, because Halian was pointing off toward the coast as if describing the terrain. Gyan, apparently disagreeing with Halian’s assessment, was shaking his head and pointing in the opposite direction. “It’s not my decision.” Ilias shrugged, refusing to be poked. “And cursing the ship is the only idea we’ve got.”

  Tremaine didn’t think he was as immaterial to the process as he would like to think. It was easy to see Giliead consulted him in one way or another on every important point and most of the unimportant ones too.

  “It’s not a curse, it’s a ward,” Florian corrected gently, using the Rienish word, “And it won’t hurt the ship,”

  “Halian knows that.” Ilias shook his head, turning to look back out to sea again. The cliffs on the far side of the harbor might have been carved out of gold. Banners of cloud trailed overhead. Some children, barely stick figures at this distance, ran along the shore waving wildly at the ship.

  Despite his easy expression, Tremaine scented trouble and couldn’t help pursuing it. “So it’s just the way your people are very uneasy around anything that’s had a spell put on it?”

  Florian looked a little anxious. “Was that why Giliead was so upset when he found out I used that charm to heal your shoulder?” She wet her lips uneasily. “I still feel bad about that. If we’d known how you felt about spells—”

  “No, that was nothing,” Ilias told her,
smiling, but still gazing off toward the cliffs. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Tremaine eyed him a moment. “You’ve been under a curse before,” she said, remembering what Dyani had told them about the mark on his cheek.

  He nodded, giving her a thoughtful sideways glance. “Once or twice.”

  Florian drew breath to ask more and Tremaine, suddenly guilty for prying, kicked her in the ankle.

  When they were out past the headland, Halian ordered the crew to ship oars and come up on deck. There were some uneasy looks and shifting around as he explained the plan, but as Gyan had predicted, everyone seemed to find the fact that Giliead had agreed to it reassuring.

  Creating a simple ward, not meant to last very long, was not a complicated process. They had salt in the supplies on board and some charred coal from a brazier. Before the ship cast off they had sent Dyani and Florian running down the dock, one to the house of an old sailor to borrow some sprigs of rosemary and the other to collect nettle from the scrubby grass patches between boat sheds.

  Gerard prepared the ingredients in the privacy of the small cabin, Giliead sitting on his heels next to the sorcerer to watch and Ilias leaning in the doorway with Tremaine. Florian perched on the bunk so she could learn Gerard’s method.

  Gerard combined the herbs with the charcoal and salt in a pottery cup, using a simple incantation to activate the principles of all the ingredients. With the mixture he drew the operant characters on a piece of parchment, then sat back. “That should do it.”

  Giliead lifted his brows. “Is that all?”

  “It’s only a temporary ward and not a very complicated one.” Gerard wiped sweat from his brow. It was damp and hot in the cabin. Tremaine could see he had written the characters in a square so that they read the same four ways, from top to bottom and left to right, then from bottom to top and right to left backward. “Indeed, a more elaborate ward would hardly serve the purpose, since it would be bound to draw their attention.”

  Ilias frowned, giving Tremaine an uncertain glance. “So when they look for the ship—”

  Gerard carefully folded the paper, glancing up with a smile. “They can look all they want, but it simply won’t occur to them that what they are looking at is anything other than a drift of fog or a trick of the light.”

  “We got away from the Gimora wizard once by setting a rowboat adrift with a lamp in it,” Giliead said thoughtfully.

  “Was that in one of your plays, Tremaine?” Florian asked, glancing up at her.

  Tremaine shook her head. It didn’t sound familiar. “I don’t think so.”

  Gerard glanced up absently. “What?”

  “Some of the things that they told us about, Ixion and the city that didn’t have a god,” Tremaine explained, “they’re very close to things that happened in some of my plays.”

  Gerard stared at her as if she was mad. Perhaps feeling responsible, Florian said hurriedly, “It’s very odd, but it’s true. There’s a part in Varnecia, and then some of the magazine stories ...”

  Gerard listened with an expression of growing incredulity as Florian outlined the similar incidents they had noticed. “Why didn’t you say something?” he demanded finally.

  “We said something to each other about it,” Tremaine protested. “And Ilias.”

  “I told Gil,” Ilias put in helpfully. Giliead, still keeping a thoughtful eye on Gerard’s spell mixture, nodded confirmation.

  Tremaine couldn’t understand Gerard’s dismay. “Why? It’s just a series of coincidences.”

  “It could be highly significant!”

  “Of what?” Ilias asked, listening with interest.

  “I... don’t know.” Gerard shook his head, annoyed, and asked Tremaine, “When did you write that play and the serials? Before or after Nicholas and Arisilde disappeared?”

  Tremaine blinked. She hadn’t thought about that. “After.”

  “There was obviously some sort of connection established between you and this world.” He looked suspiciously at the sphere, sitting next to Florian on the bunk, still in its bag. “Where were you when you wrote them? You were living at Coldcourt, with the sphere?”

  “I wasn’t living with the sphere. It was there in the house, but...” She stared at the device, disturbed. “So you think it had something to do with it? It had a connection with this world, because one like it sent my father and Arisilde here?”

  “That’s the only explanation I can think of,” Gerard said slowly. He shook his head. “I just wish I knew what it meant.”

  Tremaine had to agree.

  “There it is!” Standing atop the aft cabin, Arites was peering through a crude telescope. Tremaine got to her feet, trying to see what he was pointing at. Behind her Ander climbed up from the tiller platform where he had been sitting with Halian. Arites handed him the device.

  Tremaine shaded her eyes. She had been down below where Ilias and Giliead had been taking their turns on the rowing benches with the other men, until the heat had finally driven her back on deck. The late-afternoon sun was bright and the sky cloudless and she couldn’t see a damn thing. She went to the cabin and hauled herself up the rope net that was draped over it to sit on the plank roof. Ander sat on his heels to hand her the telescope, saying, “Take a look.”

  Tremaine peered through the “seeing glass” as it was called in Syrnaic. The tube was intricately carved wood, but the lens was ground very roughly and it was difficult to make out anything. She finally saw what everybody was pointing at. There was a low gray shape out there on the water and she could discern the outlines of a deckhouse and funnel. She lowered the glass, glancing up at Ander uncertainly. “It’s not coming this way. Is it?”

  “No, she hasn’t seen us.” Ander took a sharp breath. “So far.”

  “Your curse must be working,” a wary Halian said from the tiller, squinting toward the Gardier ship.

  Ilias slung himself up beside Tremaine, perching on the roof, and she handed him the glass.

  “You have those ships in your world?” Arites asked eagerly. “Ixion used black ships without sails and they moved by curses too.”

  “His were smaller than that,” Ilias commented, sounding grim as he looked through the telescope.

  Gerard, consulting the compass, waved at them from the deck. “Come on, we’re just within the perimeter of the target area!”

  Tremaine jumped down with Ander as Florian came hurrying up from the bow. Ilias handed the glass back to Arites and followed.

  “Now how are we going to do this?” Ander asked as they gathered around the sorcerer. He checked the pouch at his belt, where the maps Giliead and Ilias had taken from the airship were folded and protected by an oiled silk cloth. “Without taking the whole ship across and scaring the hell out of our new friends, I mean.”

  “I think if we can borrow that small dinghy,” Gerard said to Ilias, eyeing the little boat where it was lashed to the deck, “we could—”

  “Leviathan!” Arites’s voice slid up half an octave on the word.

  Tremaine heard Florian gasp and turned in time to see a huge hump of mottled gray-green break the surface not twenty yards off the side. She gaped. The back was rimmed with spiny fins and the whole thing was at least half the size of the Swift. “And that’s only one hump . . .” she said, not realizing she had spoken aloud until she heard her voice.

  “But it can’t see us, can it?” Ander whispered. The ship had gone oddly quiet. Funny, Tremaine thought, you’d think people would scream. She sure felt like screaming, though her throat couldn’t seem to manage it just at the moment. Gyan and three other men were frantically hauling on ropes, changing the sail’s position, and Halian was leaning on the tiller, throwing his whole weight against it. Giliead was standing up by the bow, staring intently into the water. Ilias had moved to the railing on this end, leaning over so far she was afraid he would overbalance.

  Florian, staring rapt as the hump began to sink below the surface, shook her head. Gerard cursed softly an
d said, “The ward won’t extend below the surface of the water. It can see the underside of the hull.”

  The boat was starting to turn, but with nerve-abrading slowness. The oars had been shipped already and no one was moving for them. It’ll hear the oars, she realized. Dyani was crouched at the base of the mast and the rest of the crew stood frozen, waiting.

  Gerard shrugged off the leather bag with the sphere and shoved it at Tremaine. She clutched it awkwardly as he spoke the words of the reverse adjuration. Brilliant, she thought frantically, take the whole boat across, send the Syprians back later when it’s safe. . . .

  But nothing happened.

  “Dammit, when they turned the ship we moved out of the target area.” Gerard grimaced and shoved the sphere’s bag all the way into her arms. “You and Florian stay with Ander.”

  Tremaine clutched the bag, staring at him blankly. “What?”

  “Gerard, the Gardier will hear any spells,” Florian said desperately as the sorcerer went to the railing.

  “We don’t have a choice,” Ander told her, taking her arm to keep her from following Gerard. “They probably sent that thing after us, the way they used the howlers in the caves.”

  God, he’s right. Tremaine swallowed in a dry throat and hugged the sphere to her chest. Gerard lifted his hands, speaking softly, staring into the water. Tremaine felt the sphere shudder and click and behind Gerard dust stirred on the deck, spiraling up in the invisible current of whatever force he was summoning. Ilias threw him an uneasy glance but didn’t move away.

  “What’s he doing?” Ander asked Florian quietly.

  She shook her head, biting her lip in consternation. “I’m not sure, I’ve never heard . . .” She blinked in understanding. “That was the old speech for ‘to reveal all, to cease enchantment, to pull the veil, to dissipate the energies—’ He must think it’s a construct.”

  “A what?” Ander asked sharply.