Scimitar Sun

by Chris A. Jackson

  “Oh, what now?” she said a bit irritably, her mind leaping ahead to all the things already on her plate.

  “It’s Cammy, Cyn. She asked me to send you up to talk to her.”

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Is she having more problems with Edan?”

  “Don’t know, but she didn’t look so good. Like she hadn’t slept in a coupl’a days.”

  “Great. I’ll go talk to her as soon as I get up the energy to climb these blasted stairs.” She looked up and sighed, but before she could lift her foot to start the climb, she found herself whisked off her feet and lifted up by massive arms. “Feldrin! Stop it! I’m not an invalid!”

  “Oh, I know yer not, lass. Just relax and enjoy the ride.” He strode up the steps without a pause in his stride, as if her weight did not affect him at all — and it probably didn’t. “Besides, I’m not doin’ this fer you. I’m just givin’ me boy his first pony ride, is all.”

  “Bloody jokester,” she said, poking him in the chest but unable to hide her smile. She planted a kiss on his cheek and leaned her head on his shoulder. Yes, she had missed Feldrin Brelak a great deal indeed.

  ≈

  “Leaving?” Cynthia stood shock-still, her eyes wide and disbelieving. It wasn’t just Camilla’s pronouncement that she would move to Southaven permanently; they’d discussed it before, so it wasn’t a huge surprise. What shocked her was the state of Camilla’s rooms…and Camilla herself.

  The wardrobe doors were wide open and the expansive space was empty. Some of the dresses were strewn around the room in crumpled piles, so contrary to the meticulous care Camilla generally took with her clothing. But most of the dresses were draped over the curtain rod above the closed shutters that led onto the balcony, forming a rainbow-hued barrier to the outside world and casting the room in shadow despite the mid-day sun. And Camilla, as Feldrin had said, looked like she had not slept in days. She looked fevered: her hair was a tangled mess about a face the color of white cheese, sharply punctuated by red-rimmed eyes. She wore a thick woolen robe that hung on her like a tent, and her hands shook when they weren’t clenched into white-knuckled fists or thrust into the robe’s pockets.

  “What’s happened, Cammy? What’s going on?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” the distraught woman snapped, pacing through the frothy piles of silk and satin. “I just think it would be best if I left. You were right; I can conduct your business better in Southaven, and if you’d still let me stay in your old house, I wouldn’t have to pay for — ”

  “Cammy, please. Stop for a moment and think about this.” She stepped into the woman’s path and gripped her shoulders, forcing their eyes to meet. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong!” Camilla said through clenched teeth, pulling away and taking two steps back, almost stumbling over a pile of discarded clothes. “If you won’t let me stay there, I can afford a place of my own. I’ve got to go, Cynthia. That’s all there is to it!”

  “Cammy! Of course you can stay in my home. That’s not what I’m saying at all! If you must leave, I’ll have you out on Peggy’s Dream on the next tide. But there’s more to this than you’re saying!” She took a careful step forward, but it only elicited another step back from her friend. She’d never seen Camilla so terrified before. Cynthia had always marveled at her friend’s strength; the only thing that had ever scared Camilla was being coveted by Hydra and Bloodwind. The answer hit Cynthia like a slap in the face, and she clenched her teeth in anger. “It’s Edan, isn’t it? He didn’t — ” She stopped at the horror on her friend’s face.

  “Don’t, Cynthia! Don’t confront him! He hasn’t touched me, if that’s what you’re thinking, but there’s more to him than just the cloistered little boy I thought he was.” She wrung her hands and turned away. “He scares me, Cyn. He’s fixated on me. He wants me.”

  “I’ll have Feldrin tell him to — ”

  “No! Don’t confront him!” Her face had gone totally white, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “He’s too dangerous — he will be, with the power he’s going to gain with his ascension. If I don’t leave, he’ll get what he wants. He’ll get me, Cynthia, or he’ll burn this entire island!”

  ≈

  Under the light of a waning moon, a catboat edged through a gap in the reef of Plume Isle, sails furled, four crewmen straining on the oars to keep the craft off the razor-sharp coral. Once inside the tiny lagoon, just south of the main channel into Scimitar Bay, the little craft surged forward until her prow grounded on the sandy beach. There was almost no surf on the lee shore of the island, so the sound of wood against hard sand was loud over the distant crash of waves on the outer reef.

  Two crewmen jumped over the side to steady the craft as a third slim figure vaulted from the bow onto the damp sand, barely wetting her feet. Sam bore only a small bundle of clothes and her dagger, and she dashed into the cover of trees without looking back. By the time the catboat had turned and passed through the gap in the reef, Sam had made her way up the narrow trail to the ridge that overlooked Scimitar Bay.

  Moonlight illuminated the scene before her, giving her a good view of the shipyard, the native village and the edifice that had once been her lord and master’s lair.

  “Made a few improvements, have we?” she muttered under her breath, noting that the shipyard was now larger and cleaner than it had been, and that not a single wall remained of the shantytown that had been her home during her time here. Then she noticed the two schooners at the pier, and let out a low whistle. She’d only been expecting to find one — the new three-masted ship. That in itself was a wonder, but it was the second ship that held her eye. She would have recognized it anywhere; it was the ship that had led the assault on Blood Bay to overthrow Bloodwind, and she welcomed the sight of it.

  “You’ll be mine or on the bottom of the sea when I’m done with you, Orin’s Pride,” she muttered with a cruel smile as she moved off the trail to a hidden vantage point. She would watch for a day or two, get the lay of the land and memorize the daily routines, then work her way into the little community. Then she would wait and, when the time was right, she would strike.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Confrontations

  “The way I see it,” Cynthia said, surveying the array of charts strewn across the dining table, “Orin’s Pride is the logical choice. The Dream’s just too big to handle in such tight quarters.”

  “I’d say yer right,” Feldrin agreed, squinting at the maze of numbers, contour lines, current arrows and the star symbols of submerged rocks that represented the most recent survey of the waters around Fire Isle. He poked at Mouse, who was curled up atop one of the charts, bored and dozing, to get a better look, and was rewarded with an annoyed “Eep.” The chart’s accuracy was dubious; it had been compiled by Cynthia’s father over twenty years ago. For a coral reef, twenty years was but an instant of its life, and Cynthia found most of his charts to be unerringly correct. But in the area around Fire Isle, the underwater topography changed often and rapidly; magma seeped from the volcano to produce new hillocks and rises, and seismic activity broke the substrate into fissures and ledges. No one anchored there: the jumble of broken rock and smooth, solidified lava offered poor holding at best; a broken anchor and a ship on the rocks at worst.

  “I gotta say, though, even with you aboard, I’m not too keen on bringin’ the Pride in through that.”

  “I’ll ask the mer if they have any suggestions, but I don’t think they’ll be much help.” She sipped her cup of blackbrew and sighed; they’d been poring over the charts for more than an hour, and the worst was yet to come. “They don’t like Fire Isle any more than you do.”

  “Ain’t no wonder. I wouldn’t want to be in the water when one of those hot flows hits it. You can hear it two leagues off shore, the crackin’ and poppin’. I imagine it’d deafen anyone under the surface, to say nothin’ of boilin’ ya to death.”

  “Well, it’ll give me the opportunity to upd
ate Orin’s charts, anyway,” Cynthia said, brightening. “Not that they’ll be accurate for very long, but it’ll give me something to do while we wait.”

  “Other than keepin’ the Pride off the rocks, you mean?” Feldrin said, arching one black eyebrow.

  “Well, yes, but how hard will that be?” She smiled at his deep-throated grumble. “Don’t worry. We can stand off half a mile or so while we wait. Just heave to in fifty fathoms and we’ll be safe enough.”

  “Aye, unless the blasted mountain throws a ball of molten rock down on us,” he said, still frowning. “Sorry, Cyn, but it makes me nervous. Fire and water, you know.” Mouse perked up at the mention of fire, and looked worried.

  “I know, I know,” she said, remembering her conversation with Camilla on the subject. “Love and sorrow…”

  “What?”

  “Oh, nothing. Just an old rhyme that Cammy brought to — ”

  The click of the dining hall’s big double door brought her up short, and she looked up. Edan poked his head into the room, a worried look on his freckled features.

  “Tim said you wanted to see me, Mistress?” he asked, stepping through the doorway with Flicker hovering around his head. The firesprite looked disappointed when she saw the unlit candelabrum on the table, but perked up when she saw Mouse, a mischievous glint in her burning-coal eyes.

  “Yes, Edan. Please come in.” Cynthia gestured to the chart-strewn table and scooped up Mouse before he could dart off to torment the firesprite. “Now you be good, Mouse, and stay put.” She perched him on her shoulder, ignoring his petulant “hrmph” of disgust. “We’re making plans for our trip to Fire Isle, and we wanted you in on it.”

  “Oh! Oh, yes!” He brightened immediately and approached the table and sat in an adjacent chair, his eyes widening at the array of charts. “Wow! I didn’t know you had maps of the island.”

  “We don’t,” Feldrin said, a little edge in his deep voice. “These are charts, not maps. They only show the water, not the land, or not much of it anyway.”

  “Oh. Sorry. Yes, I see.” He squinted at the detailed renderings, pulling Flicker back as she eyed the flammable parchment. “No, Flick! Don’t even think it.” She sat back on his shoulder and sulked, her fun spoiled. “It looks confusing.”

  “It is,” Feldrin said, pointing to a relatively deep channel between two promontories. “This is the only point of approach on the lee shore. These numbers are the depth of the water in fathoms, so you can see how jumbled up the sea floor is. The approach’ll be dangerous. If we make a mistake, we could rip the bottom right out of the Pride.”

  The boy’s eyes widened, his features paling, his fear palpable. “But how will I get ashore through that?”

  “I’ll be aboard, Edan,” Cynthia said with a thin smile. “I can see what lies beneath the surface, so I’ll be able to guide the ship in safely. Then we’ll put you in a launch and take you ashore.”

  “A launch? You mean one of the little boats?” His fear doubled, audible in his tremulous voice. “But won’t there be waves? What if it tips over?”

  “Well, then you’d have to learn to swim,” Feldrin said with a malicious grin. “Quickly.”

  “Oh, stop it, Feldrin!” Cynthia scolded. “Don’t worry, Edan. I’ll be with you, and the water will be as flat as a mill pond, I promise.”

  “Well I suppose that would be — ”

  “But it will still be dangerous,” Feldrin interrupted, his scowl intact. “And this is my ship we’re talkin’ about.”

  “Which brings up something that we need to ask of you, Edan,” Cynthia said, noting the instant flicker of suspicion on the boy’s face. “We’re doing a lot for you; Feldrin is risking his ship and the safety of his crew to help you, and I don’t mind telling you that being that close to an active volcano makes me more than a little nervous. I agreed to do this as a favor to the lightkeeper, but there’s something you need do for us as well.”

  “Of course,” he said, his tone eager but edged with worry. “Whatever you need.”

  “What we need is for ya — ”

  “What we need,” Cynthia broke in, cutting through Feldrin’s usual lack of diplomacy with a calming tone, “is a delicate subject, Edan. It involves Camilla. Specifically, your feelings for Camilla.”

  “I don’t understand,” the boy said, his suddenly guarded expression belying his words. “I don’t have any — ”

  “See, now, there ya go lyin’. Right there is why I’m tempted to just chuck ya into the Fathomless Reaches and have done with it!” Feldrin’s ire made Cynthia cringe, and it struck Edan like a physical blow. The young man blanched even paler and sat back in his chair, eyes wide, while Flicker darted behind his neck. “And I swear by Odea’s hand, if ya lie to us again, that’s exactly what I’ll do!”

  “Feldrin, please,” Cynthia said, placing a hand on his arm and earning a scowl from his dark eyes. They had differed in their opinions of how to approach Edan on this subject, but she hadn’t thought he would threaten the boy. “Edan, we know you have feelings for Camilla, and there’s nothing wrong with that. What you have to understand is that Camilla is very special to us both, and that she has had a very bad experience with unwelcome romantic advances in the past.”

  “I’m sorry,” Edan said, regaining a bit of his composure, though he still watched Feldrin fearfully. “I didn’t mean to lie about it, but I’m just a little…embarrassed. I didn’t think it was anyone’s concern but hers and mine.”

  “You must understand, Edan, that Cammy is more than just a friend to Feldrin and me. We are family. She’s been through trials that would have killed anyone with less fortitude, and we will not have her go through them again. She wants to leave, but I have convinced her to stay, at least for a while, if you agree to do as we ask.”

  “And what do you want me to do?” he asked, his mouth set in a firm line of displeasure.

  “First, you must apologize to her for frightening her as you have. Then — ”

  “Frightening her?” His eyes popped as if he’d been slapped. “Excuse me, Mistress Flaxal, but how have I frightened Camilla?”

  “By telling her that, once you become a firemage, you’ll be powerful and get whatever you want!” Feldrin said, his dark eyes boring into the young man like thumbscrews. “She’s been hurt by power before, and it’ll not happen again.”

  “But I didn’t mean — ”

  “Regardless of what you meant, Edan, you must see this from her perspective.” Cynthia squeezed Feldrin’s arm, but kept her eyes on Edan. “Bloodwind kept her captive for almost as long as you’ve lived. He kept her in chains, a slave, half-starved and paraded before his captains as a prize for fifteen years. It took him that long to wear down her will to the point where, given the choice of being his slave or his wife, she took the latter. They were never married, and in the end it was Camilla who put a dagger in his heart.”

  She let that sink in. In Edan’s eyes she could see his recognition of the hardships that Camilla had endured, as well as the fact that she had killed the pirate-lord Bloodwind with her own hand.

  “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I didn’t mean to…I mean, I…”

  “We know you didn’t mean to hurt her, Edan,” Cynthia said, softening. “What we need now is for you to do what’s right. We want you to apologize and to tell her that you were mistaken, that you don’t have romantic feelings for her anymore. You didn’t know she’d been hurt, and now that you do, I know you won’t make any more advances, either now or after your ascension.”

  “But I do have feelings for her,” he said, his brows knitting in anguish. “I know I’m younger than she is, and now I know that she’s been hurt before, but I won’t hurt her, not like Bloodwind did. I could make her happy!”

  “No, Edan, you couldn’t make her happy,” Cynthia said emphatically. “The only person who can make Camilla happy is Camilla. If you truly have feelings for her, you’ll let her go; you’ll let her be happy on
her own.”

  Uncomfortable silence settled on them like a shroud while Edan thought about what they had said. Cynthia could see the emotions playing through him — the turmoil of desire, fear and determination each vying for purchase, like a man standing in the surf upon weed-slick stones. She knew there was much in his mind that he would not say, that he knew he could not say to them, so it surprised her a little when his eyes finally snapped to focus and his jaw clenched before he spoke.

  “And if I refuse to do as you ask?”

  Cynthia sat back and opened her mouth to speak, but Feldrin’s huge hand encircled her arm and his rough basso voice cut her off.

  “Then there’ll be no ship to take you to Fire Isle,” he said, placing his other hand flat on the chart splayed before them. “You won’t have the chance to do yer little dance in the volcano, and you’ll never be a firemage, ever.”

  Cynthia hated that they had to play this card, but she and Feldrin had agreed that it was their only means of pressuring Edan into leaving Cammy alone. If he refused, he would forego his ascension and have no power, and Camilla would have no reason to fear him. If he agreed…well, right now, Cynthia wasn’t sure she would believe him. The problem with their plan was that once Edan had completed his ascension, their leverage over him vanished. But at least by then, she thought, we can have Camilla out of his reach.

  She could see the anger behind those pale eyes, those knitted crimson brows, and could feel his hatred like the heat from an open oven door. For the first time, the thought of helping this young man — so emotional, so naïve — gain the power to wield fire as she directed the might of wind and wave, frightened her. Cynthia had been fixed on how important her magic was to her and how sad it would be for Edan to never achieve his potential, but now she was not sure; the power of an elementalist in angry and volatile hands could be disastrous. She was considering calling off the whole thing, renouncing her vow to help the lightkeeper, when, once again, Edan’s response surprised her.