Scimitar Sun

by Chris A. Jackson

  “But what happened to Samantha? And my wife?” He looked back into the boy’s eyes. “Timothy, tell me where Samantha and your mother are!”

  “Moma’s gone! I never saw her again, Papa. I don’t know where she is.” He sniffed loudly, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “Sam’s…I don’t know what happened to Sam, Papa. I never saw her after the battle. I think maybe she was on one of the ships that burnt.”

  “One of the what?” The count’s voice cracked at the last, his face flushing. “Burnt?”

  “Many of the pirate lord’s ships were burnt when Captain Brelak attacked Bloodwind’s fortress here,” Ghelfan said, leaning over the table to pass the stunned count a glass of brandy. “They employed an incendiary device that was quite effective. Only three of Bloodwind’s ships escaped the fires; one of those was wrecked on the reef and another foundered in the harbor.”

  Norris took the glass and collapsed into his chair, staring at them one after another, then into the glass. Realizing what was in his hand, he quaffed it in a single swallow, then pulled his son close again. His world had been turned upside-down. He glanced up and slowly remembered where he was, in the stronghold of the seamage. A cold ball of anger formed in his gut.

  “Why was my son not returned to me? Why is he being held here — “

  Ghelfan interceded immediately. “Many children were orphaned here when Bloodwind’s empire collapsed. And some, like Tim, could provide no information on their families or where they were from. Cynthia Flaxal has provided a home for those who wished to stay.”

  “It’s true, Papa!” Tim said, tugging on his sleeve. “She took care of us. I couldn’t remember…I didn’t even know my name, Papa!”

  The count looked at his son, hale and healthy and obviously well-cared for, and his anger melted.

  “Milord Count,” the naval lieutenant said, clearing his throat before trying again. “Milord, it warms my heart to see you have found your long-lost son, but you can’t let this affect our efforts here. We must speak with Mistress Flaxal, and reach an — ”

  “Oh, shut the hell up, Garris!” Norris snapped, glaring daggers at the man. “We can’t very well speak with Cynthia Flaxal until she returns, so just stand down! Send all but one longboat back to the ships. I’m staying here.” His eyes returned to Tim’s and his face broke into a helpless smile. “With my son.”

  “We’d be more than happy to accommodate you here, milord Count,” Camilla said, standing and smiling at the two. “I’ll have some space cleared in the old wing for your troops if…”

  Her voice trailed off as the room began to darken. Then her eyes widened and she said, “By Odea, I’d almost forgotten!”

  “That’s what I came to tell you, Miss Cammy!” Tim said, grasping his father’s hand and dragging him to his feet. “It’s happening just like Mistress Flaxal said it would! Come see!”

  “Come see what?” Norris asked. His wits were very nearly at their end, and he was in no condition for another surprise.

  “The eclipse,” Ghelfan said, joining the group as they moved at Tim’s urging out the great doors and toward the keep’s main entrance. “That is why Mistress Flaxal is not here, milord Count. She’s at Fire Island for the eclipse, to usher a boy through his trials as a pyromage.”

  “A pyromage?” he asked dubiously as they exited onto the keep’s outer steps to gaze into the sky.

  The entire population of natives and all of the emperor’s sailors and marines were standing with their necks craned back to observe the spectacle. Norris looked up, shading his eyes, and his mouth fell open. There was no refuting the evidence his eyes beheld; it looked as if a great bite had been taken out of the sun.

  ≈

  Solidified lava rock warmed Edan’s feet through the soles of his shoes as he scrabbled up the steep incline, pausing only briefly to catch his breath. He’d been climbing since dawn, and the lip of the caldera was now only a few hundred yards up the slope. He looked back and marveled at how high he’d come; the ship looked like a toy floating in a bath, the royal-blue water seeming placid around it from this distance.

  “Eee! Eeek!” Flicker cried, jerking at his collar and pointing upslope. Every time he stopped she had a fit, urging him on.

  “I’m coming, Flick. Don’t worry.” He pulled the cork from the water bottle slung over his shoulder and drank. It was already more than half empty. He shrugged and climbed on, pushing down on his knees with every step. He half-chuckled as he realized how well his incessant climbing of stairs in the lighthouse, fetching this or that for the lightkeeper, had prepared him for this trek. Even so, his thighs ached, and the heat of midday sun, combined with the heat radiating up from the rock beneath his feet, sent trickles of sweat down his ribs.

  He could almost feel the volcano beneath him as a living thing: magma flowing like hot blood in channels throughout the mountain, the heat-induced expansions and contractions of the rock and sulfurous off-gassing like foul breaths from deeply embedded lungs, the little earthquakes like shivers along the mountain’s spine. All this activity had left the slopes riddled with cracks, and footing was treacherous. One misstep would end his trials before they began. He stumbled and caught himself, his hand touching the rock reflexively. He drew it back, inhaling sharply; it was already hot enough to burn. He smiled grimly and pressed on, for the first time in his life thankful for the deep scars on his feet and legs; though he knew that the soles of his feet must already be blistered, he felt little pain. With a final heave and grunt, he mounted the crest of the caldera’s rim and looked down into hell.

  Seething pools of magma glowed starkly orange against the black rock that formed a shallow depression at the mountain’s peak. The surface of the pools ceaselessly churned and bubbled, spewing out tiny showers of molten rock that hit the ground and cooled through the spectrum from yellow-white to orange to red, finally darkening to a searing crimson. Smoke and hot, noxious gasses vented out of the dark rock that surrounded the pools. Flicker chirped excitedly and pointed to the pools, and Edan could see that she longed desperately to go for a swim. Strangely, the scene induced in him no fear, only awe at its magnificence and a desire to go closer.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it, Flick?” He grinned and started to pick his way down the rocks. He had feared that the interior of the caldera would be impassable, but the slope into the bowl was less steep than what he’d already ascended, and it was only another hundred yards or so down to level ground. He’d gone about fifty feet when Flicker let out a shriek so piercing that he reflexively blocked his ears with his hands.

  He looked at her, but her attention was no longer on the smoldering volcano. Instead, she stared at the sun, her eyes flaring yellow-white, her finger pointing at the darkness that had begun to edge across the disc of fire.

  “It’s begun!” Edan studied the distance he had left to go. “We’ve still got time, Flick. It won’t be full eclipse for another quarter hour. Relax.”

  But Flicker would not relax. She grabbed his collar with both hands, the flames of her hair licking at his chin, though he hardly felt the additional heat. She tugged him forward, chirping all the while.

  “Okay! Okay, I’m coming,” Edan said, increasing his pace as the sky darkened overhead.

  ≈

  “Oh, this can’t be good,” Horace said, shading his eyes and staring up at the dimming sun.

  “Aye,” Johansen agreed. “That’s sure enough a bad omen if I ever seen one.”

  “That is not a bad omen!” Cynthia snapped, glaring at the men. “It’s an eclipse; the moon is moving between us and the sun, that’s all.”

  The crew continued to mutter and make warding signs against evil, but Cynthia ignored them, just as she ignored Mouse as he fluttered around her head, chattering a blue streak and pointing at the sun. She watched Feldrin, who trained the ship’s best glass on the peak of the smoldering mountain.

  “He’s at the top,” he finally said, lowering his telescope. “He’s gone into the calder
a.”

  “Odea help him,” Cynthia said, the irony of her plea unintentional. Asking a sea god to help in the creation of a pyromage was only slightly more insane than asking a seamage to do the same. And yet, with that plea, her stomach did a little flip-flop that had nothing to do with her pregnancy. She could no longer ignore the feeling of foreboding that had been building in her since they had put Edan ashore.

  “The sea…” she muttered, her eyes sweeping the gently rolling swells around the ship.

  “The what?” Feldrin asked, attuned to her feelings and premonitions perhaps even more keenly than she was herself. “What about the sea?”

  “Something’s not right. The sea is feeling this convergence, but I’ve never heard of…” her voice trailed off and every crew member within hearing fell silent. Mouse landed on her shoulder, his face set in a mien of surprise; he looked at her, then up at the waning sun, then back at her. All eyes were now on her instead of the growing eclipse. She strode to the starboard side rail and a tendril of water wormed its way up through the scuppers to wet her bare feet. At the sea’s first touch, her eyes widened.

  “Give me the glass, please, Feldrin,” she said, her tone shifting from mild worry to deep concern.

  “Sure, lass, but what in the Nine Hells is goin’ on?” He handed over the glass and she extended it and trained it aloft. “Careful there, Cyn! Ya look at the sun through that and you’ll blind yerself!”

  “I’m not looking at the sun, just near it.” She moved the tube carefully, her feet rock steady on the deck, the sea around the ship suddenly as flat as a mirror. “Damn! It’s still too bright. I can’t see a thing!”

  “Can’t see what, lass?” Feldrin asked with concern. When a seamage began to worry about the sea, a sailor would have to be insane to ignore the warning. “What’s got ya so riled?”

  “I don’t know, but I feel something that I haven’t felt since the day of my ascension.” Mouse emitted a series of high-pitched chirps and eeps and she looked at him, then at the looming mountain to windward, then at Feldrin. “Perhaps it would be best if we stood a bit farther offshore.”

  “But I thought you could calm the seas,” he said, her unease catching up in his own voice.

  “I can, Feldrin, but if Odea chooses to bring a storm down on this island, there’s not a whole hell of a lot I can do about it.” She looked at the sky, at the shrinking sun, and then back to Feldrin. “Set out to leeward…now!” Mouse eeped in agreement and buzzed like a crazed hornet around her head.

  Feldrin needed no more urging than the tone of her voice, and the crew needed no more urging than the words “Helm to leeward!” from his mouth. “Set sail! Get us outta here, Horace!”

  They sprang to with an alacrity born of unbridled, well-founded terror.

  ≈

  *The convergence comes,* Quickfin signed, pointing up at the surface and the darkening sky beyond. *Come! I want to see the moon eat the sun!* He flipped his tail and shot for the surface. Chaser and Tailwalker exchanged a worried glance but followed in his wake. The three mer broke the surface and squinted to focus their vision in air instead of water.

  *Seamage Flaxal’s Heir is moving the ship!* Chaser signed, nodding to the triangles of white cloth that the landwalkers used to harness the power of the wind for their ships. *They’re sailing away from the burning island!*

  *Perhaps she has decided that this is a bad idea after all,* Quickfin signed. He glanced up and saw a blinding white crescent: the moon covered nearly the entire disc of the sun.

  *Wait!* Tailwalker looked around suddenly, as if they were being circled by a school of sharks, but nothing threatened. *Something stirs the sea! Can you feel it?*

  Chaser and Quickfin looked at each other and signified the negative, but they did not doubt Tailwalker’s claim; he was the Trident Holder’s son, and the gift of sea sense was stronger in the blood of leaders. No mer had the power of a seamage, an irony that many mer found insulting and grounds for a lasting hatred of all landwalkers, but those with the gift could sense shifts in the power of the sea. They could feel when the call of the scimitar moon focused Odea’s might, or when an opposing power manipulated the sea against its will, as the pirate lord’s witch, Hydra, had done.

  *What is it, Tailwalker?* Quickfin asked, trying to watch the sky, his friend and the approaching ship all at once.

  *I don’t know. I’ve not felt this before.* He still glanced around as if trying to find the cause of the curious feeling. *The sea’s power is coming together, but there is something else, too.*

  *We should move away from the fire mountain,* Quickfin suggested, nodding toward the approaching schooner, now flying all her sails. *If Seamage Flaxal’s Heir feels this and is fleeing the danger, we should also.*

  *Agreed,” Chaser signed, tugging at his friend’s arm. *Come, Tailwalker. If the sea is going to swallow the mountain of fire, we want to be far away.*

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  From a Flicker to a Flame

  Smoke wisped up from his smoldering shoes with every step as Edan descended into the caldera. His lungs burned with the hot, noxious fumes that seared his throat. The heat beat against him, as impenetrable as a wall of stone. He coughed, drawing in breath too fast, and cried out at the pain in his nose and mouth. And still Flicker tugged him forward, step after burning step. The lava pool was now only a few yards away.

  He grabbed his water flask and poured the contents over his shirt, then clapped the wet fabric over his nose and mouth, breathing in grateful gulps of the slightly less-scalding air. He couldn’t see well through the haze of heat, but he knew he was close. He glanced up and stopped. The moon obscured only about two-thirds of the sun. He had minutes to endure before the eclipse was complete.

  I can’t do this, he thought, glancing back, then forward. He could not stand this heat for minutes more. Flicker had pulled him forward too soon; he would collapse and burn to death before the eclipse! But if he went back, would he ever be able to force himself forward again?

  “EEEK!” Flicker cried, tugging at his smoldering sleeve until it came away in charred swatches in her hands. “Eee Eeek! Skee Neek!”

  He stared at her frantic gesticulations and shook his head. He’d never seen her so wound up, but she was pointing to the sky, to the partially eclipsed sun, as if the convergence was happening right now.

  “No, Flicker! Not yet!” he shouted through the barely damp shirt, screaming at her through the pain. “If I do it now, I’ll just die! I have to wait until it’s a full eclipse!”

  “Neee!” she cried, grasping his chin and tugging it upwards, forcing him to look at the darkening sun. “Seee Teeee Steees!”

  “What?” He stared at her in shock. It was almost as if he could understand her, but no sprite could actually speak. At least, none that he’d ever heard of.

  “Tee Steees!” she cried, pointing up. “Teee heets! Teee Sceeeteee Seeen!”

  “The what?” He looked up, squinting through the heat haze at the shrinking sun. Just a crescent now, but still too much. Then he saw them, and his jaw fell open, the scorching hot air burning his tongue. He coughed and looked again, just to make sure.

  Six tiny stars stood out from the waning horn of the sun: The Hilt constellation, favored by Odea. Together, the stars formed a perfect scimitar, hilt and blade. It was barely visible, but there nonetheless. The seamage had spoken of the Hilt in conjunction with the moon at her ascension; the scimitar moon.

  “Scimitar sun?” he murmured, and he stumbled forward another step. His shoes were almost on fire now, his pants charred to the knee. He could see the skin of his ankles blistering, cooking in the heat. The pain of it was impossible, more than he could take, but he looked at Flicker and he saw such joy in her face, such rapture…“Are you sure, Flick?”

  “Yeees! Yeees!” she shrilled, nodding and tugging him forward again.

  “All of it, then,” he said to himself, staring at the space between him and the pool of lava. “All…or n
othing…”

  He took a step.

  Clouds suddenly formed above the mountain, thick and ominous, swirling around the sun in a halo of burgeoning darkness. In the same moment, the air around Edan came alive, whirling in a cyclone that flung bits of ash and fumes aloft, reaching up to the clouds to pull them down. He took a second step, then another, and he stood at the edge of the pool, close enough that bits of molten rock spattered him, burning holes in his already-charred clothes.

  The blazing heat was killing him, blistering his skin, blinding his eyes…but now he could feel the power. He felt his ascension approach, not only from the fire beneath him, but also from the sky overhead, from the very air around him. The power of the wind fluttered his smoldering clothes in a cyclone of super-heated air. Two powers were coming together, and he was in the middle.

  He stepped forward.

  ≈

  “There!” Cynthia cried, one hand white on the taffrail, the other thrust at the sky, at the thin crescent of the sun remaining. “The Hilt! The stars are there!” Mouse pointed and chirped, dancing a jig on her shoulder.

  “What? What stars? Where?” Feldrin squinted up at the sky, shading his eyes. “I don’t see any…”

  “There! By the lower horn of the crescent! It’s like the scimitar moon, only it’s the sun!” Cynthia swayed on her feet; the feeling she’d experienced a moment before was even more intense, so much that she staggered dizzily. “It’s Odea! She’s doing something!”

  “What would Odea have to do with this?” Feldrin asked as he steadied Cynthia. Then he snapped toward the helmsman, “Watch yer course, Rhaf, not the bloody sky!”

  “But Capt’n, what’s that there?” The man pointed aloft, to the sky above the volcano. “Them clouds weren’t there before, and they’re startin’ to move round in a circle like a — ”