The Larion Senators e-3

by Rob Scott

  ‘That’s a curious thing for a soldier-turned-partisan to say.’ Hoyt pulled his cloak tight around him and turned away from the wind.

  ‘Who knows?’ Brexan said, ‘maybe I’m getting old. But I thank you, Captain, for your offer.’

  ‘So you won’t go looking for this woman, Gita Kamrec?’ Captain Ford asked, still hopeful that the lure of adventure would change Brexan’s mind.

  ‘Maybe, if she arrives in Orindale,’ Brexan said, ‘but to be honest, I spent a Twinmoon looking for Resistance forces in the Eastlands and I couldn’t find anyone.’ She chuckled. ‘Some spy, huh?’

  ‘How about you, Hoyt?’ he asked.

  ‘Me?’ Hoyt sighed. ‘I don’t know. I think if they all come back from Jones Beach, or wherever it is they’re going, I might accompany them to Sandcliff.’

  ‘In Gorsk?’ Brexan hadn’t expected this.

  ‘I have quite a collection of textbooks,’ Hoyt said, ‘medical treatises, most of them old, verging on ancient, but they’re about all we have left in Eldarn – outside the library Alen discovered beneath Welstar Palace, of course.’ He pulled the spent ampoule out of his tunic pocket. A few drops of anti-venom still clung to the glass. ‘Look at it,’ he said. ‘Hannah was able to steal this from a village healer’s shop, a village large enough to require only two guards. That’s a small place – and yet look at the technology.’

  ‘So you’re going to teach? To conduct medical research?’ Brexan asked.

  ‘If Steven and the others succeed in closing the Fold, I’m hoping that perhaps they might find a way to preserve the integrity of the far portals. With those operating, who knows what a healer might bring back? If they’ll have me, I’ll do anything they want – sweep, dig latrines, whatever – if only we can get a medical university started there in Gorsk.’

  ‘So you’re heading for Southport,’ Captain Ford said.

  ‘First stop, yes; I have my things to pick up, and a cache of books stored outside the city.’

  ‘And then?’ Brexan asked.

  ‘If I can, hitch a ride back to Orindale and wait for Alen and Gilmour to return.’

  ‘I know just the place, good food and comfortable beds guaranteed,’ Brexan said with a grin.

  ‘That sounds just right,’ Hoyt said. His face dropped as he thought of Churn and Branag, and all they had sacrificed.

  Captain Ford cursed under his breath and grumbled, ‘All right, I understand… but I rutting hate signing on a new crew. You never know what you’re going to get – drunks, root addicts, shiftless losers…’

  ‘Maybe you’ll get lucky,’ Hoyt said, ‘after all, I guess there’ll be no shortage of out-of-work seamen in Orindale these days.’

  ‘They’re probably all drunk and freezing to death out behind the southern warehouses,’ he muttered.

  ‘You’ll find the right people, I’m sure of it,’ Brexan said firmly, then turned to Hoyt, who was hunched over, his hood pulled over his head, looking like a man two hundred Twinmoons his senior. ‘And you need to get back to bed,’ she said, even more firmly.

  ‘It is mercilessly cold out here,’ he said defensively.

  ‘Go on, back to bed with you, Doctor Navarro – but I do hope when you have your own medical practice or your own classroom you’re not this lazy,’ Captain Ford teased.

  ‘Only when I can get away with it, Captain,’ Hoyt said, smiling himself. ‘And like Brexan, I thank you for your offer, but I-’

  ‘Now, don’t kill my hopes entirely.’ He adjusted their course slightly. ‘It’s still a long way to Orindale; you might change your mind, so I’m leaving the offer open.’

  ‘And now I think I’ll take your suggestion and return to my berth.’ Hoyt held the handrail and shakily negotiated the quarterdeck ladder to get below.

  Brexan looked out across the grey sea. ‘How far to Pellia?’

  ‘About an aven. It’s another half-aven into deep water and then half an aven after that to see us through the blockade.’

  ‘What will you tell them? Why are you running empty?’

  ‘I heard about the destruction of the merchant fleet in Orindale; it’s worth the journey to secure long-term shipping contracts. Any Malakasian captain with a shallow-running ship would be insane not to go. Whether they search us or not will depend on the seas. If it’s blowing, they might wave us through. We’re obviously not hauling anything big, like refugees or troops, or heavy crates of weapons. Fennaroot is well out of season, and I don’t know if they’ll board in heavy seas just to track down an illegal shipment of tobacco or wine. Who cares? It isn’t a very big boat; so how much could we really be running? As it is, we’re practically skipping over the surface, so I’m hoping they’ll wave us right through.’

  ‘And if they don’t?’ Brexan’s face showed her anxiety. ‘We’re a large crew for such a small ship, aren’t we? And Hannah and Alen said the Home Guard are looking for Milla. If the wrong officer gets a look at her, we could be in-’

  ‘Then our friends will just have to disappear through their tapestry portal a few avens early, won’t they.’

  ‘But that could leave them anywhere in their world, many days’ travel from this Jones Beach.’ She sounded increasingly worried.

  Captain Ford frowned. ‘Short of reefing sail and waiting – which is even more dangerous, because then we’d be practically begging them to board us – we have to keep going. We have to look like we’re keeping to a normal routine.’

  Brexan stared aimlessly into the steel-grey clouds, saying nothing.

  After a while, Captain Ford threw up his hands. ‘All right, all right. Were you just going to stand there all morning?’

  Brexan laughed. ‘I just wanted you to see things my way. Sometimes keeping my mouth shut is the best strategy.’

  He reached for her and she backed away a step, then blushed when all he did was turn her wrist to stare at Mark’s watch. ‘How do you read this thing?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Give it to me.’ He stepped back from the helm. ‘Keep us on this course. Don’t make eye contact with any of the schooner crew, but you can wave or smile at the bargemen. We don’t want to look like we’re up to no good, but then again, we are up to no good, so we don’t wantOh, rutters, you know what I mean.’ He jumped to the main deck and disappeared below.

  Captain Ford knocked, then opened Marrin’s cabin door to find Steven, Gilmour and Alen huddled over a thick leatherbound book. There’s another item that will have us all hanged, he thought. I’m glad I didn’t see that before. Milla was sleeping in Steven’s berth and Hannah was gone.

  ‘-like an infection,’ Alen said, finishing a thought.

  ‘For lack of a better term, yes,’ Gilmour said. ‘It was a way to teach the novices, but you’re right too: in its most basic form, it’s like an infection.’

  Steven waved Ford inside and asked, ‘What news, Captain?’

  He held out Mark’s watch. ‘I need to know how to read this.’

  Steven chuckled. ‘We can’t be more than an aven from Pellia, we’ve got a full fleet of Malakasian navy ships and a regiment of Home Guard searching for our little friend here, and there are a myriad other ways for us to die in the next day, and you’d like a lesson in telling time? And pointless time at that, I might add; you know that thing is essentially worthless here in Eldarn?’

  ‘We have a problem.’ He held out the watch.

  ‘Shit,’ Steven said, his smile melting away, ‘I was joking…’

  ‘We’ll make Pellia in an aven,’ he began as Alen closed the ancient book. ‘It’s another half-aven, maybe more if we lose this wind, to the blockade, and once there, we might wait in line for half an aven, and take another half-aven before they wave us through to the Northeast Channel.’

  ‘But…’ Gilmour said.

  ‘But we may get boarded, especially if the wind dies down.’

  ‘Shit and shit and shit,’ Steven said. ‘You’re right: this is a problem. I didn’t think of this l
ast night, Captain. I’m sorry.’

  ‘If they see Milla, we’re sunk – perhaps literally,’ the captain said, ‘and if they get even a whiff of that thing-’ he pointed at the book, ‘then we’re as good as hanged.’

  And we can’t go through the portal early,’ Alen said, ‘because with my bloody luck, we’d step out onto an Irish potato farm.’

  ‘Exactly – whatever an eyerish potato farm is. So I need to know how to read this, and how much time we have to wait until you all can get off my boat.’ He held out the watch.

  ‘What time is it?’ Steven checked his own wrist. ‘Ten fifty-five. Hannah’s been gone four hours; that’s almost two avens.’ He mumbled to himself for a few moments, then said, ‘Eighteen divided by two point five is seven point two – so, to be safe, figure about eight avens.’

  ‘Good rutting lords,’ Captain Ford cried, inadvertently waking Milla, ‘that’s a long time!’

  ‘How can we help?’ Gilmour asked.

  ‘You can stay out of sight,’ he said. ‘We’ll moor in the harbour, not the marina where we were; that’s too dangerous.’

  ‘Right,’ Alen said, ‘you’re right: we left too quickly on the heels of that mess along the waterfront. They’ll be watching for us.’

  ‘I can get a two-aven mooring to resupply. The harbourmaster won’t give us a second glance. But if we wait around too long, or we sail back and forth across the inlet too many times-’

  ‘They’ll alert the navy,’ Gilmour finished for him. ‘Very well, Captain. We’ll remain below.’

  ‘Three avens from now will be just past low tide,’ Captain Ford thought aloud, ‘and we can break off the mooring and pretend we’re making repairs. The incoming tide will haul us back upriver and at the right moment, we’ll put on sail and run for the blockade. You can disappear before we get there.’

  ‘An excellent plan,’ Alen said.

  ‘Until it all falls apart,’ Captain Ford said glumly.

  Steven showed him how to read Mark’s watch. ‘It will have to reach five o’clock – that rune there – twice before we leave. Understand?’

  ‘Got it, I think,’ he said after a few more moments studying the round face. ‘Right now you’re welcome to come up on deck, for about another aven or so, then I’ll need you below.’ He turned to Milla and managed a smile. ‘Especially you, my darling.’

  She rubbed her eyes and yawned.

  ‘Thank you, Captain,’ Gilmour said again as the tired seaman slipped back into the corridor, already shouting for Pel.

  ‘I’ll need it for about two avens,’ Captain Ford told the Pellia harbourmaster. ‘We’re heading in for supplies; we’ll be back before the tide changes. I’m leaving two crewmen on board to mind her.’ Brexan sat in the brig-sloop’s miniature launch, gripping the oars hard to keep her hands from shaking.

  ‘It’s fifteen Mareks for two avens,’ said the harbourmaster, a thin, reedy man with pale, pockmarked skin and a receding hairline. He stood in the bow of a single-masted ketch while his assistant, a boy of perhaps a hundred and twenty Twinmoons, minded the tiller. Both were wrapped in heavy cloaks which had the Whitward family crest embroidered in gold across the back.

  ‘Let’s make it twenty-five Mareks,’ he handed the harbourmaster a fistful of coins, ‘and you keep an eye on her for me, huh?’ He winked. ‘We’ve a long journey ahead of us and I don’t want to see anything scraping her.’

  ‘It is rather busy today, isn’t it?’ The scrawny official sniffed noisily. ‘All on the heels of that disturbance yesterday morning – Lords, but that was trouble.’

  ‘Those frigates involved?’ He nodded towards the bulky Falkan vessels moored side-by-side in the deeper water.

  ‘That’s none of your concern, Captain…’ He fished for the name, but Captain Ford shook his head gently.

  ‘That’s none of your concern, my friend,’ he murmured.

  Unperturbed, the harbourmaster pocketed Captain Ford’s gratuity. ‘We’ll see you off in two avens, Captain.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, winked again and took his seat beside Brexan, who started rowing towards one of the public piers. ‘That wasn’t so bad,’ he whispered. He checked to make sure the harbourmaster was no longer watching them, then asked, ‘What time is it?’

  Brexan glanced at her watch. ‘It’s just before the second rune. So fifteen more revolutions-’

  ‘Hours,’ he said, ‘I think they’re called hours.’

  ‘So fifteen more hours,’ she repeated obediently.

  ‘So, what’s on our shopping list?’

  Brexan took a folded piece of parchment from her tunic and he took over the oars while she read aloud, ‘Pel wants a woman-’

  ‘A likely story,’ the captain snorted. ‘Pel wouldn’t know what to do with one if she fell from the sky.’ He realised what he was saying and blushed.

  Unfazed, Brexan went on, ‘Hoyt wants ten boxes of tecan, fifteen roast gansels, two hundred crates of Falkan wine, a block of mild cheese, a new set of silk leggings and a log large enough to carve a full-sized woman. A naked, full-sized woman, obviously.’

  ‘Oh. So is that all?’

  ‘Oh no,’ Brexan laughed. ‘Kellin would like you to kill the man who invented women’s underclothes. She also requests a side of beef, twelve barrels of Pragan beer, a more comfortable place to sleep, peace in our time, a slightly smaller backside and a way to keep her berth as warm as summer in Estrad Village.’

  ‘All sounds simple enough. And you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine,’ Brexan said. ‘Maybe a couple of flagons of decent wine, but otherwise, I’ll be all right.’

  ‘Good. That’s a lot to track down in two avens, so we’d better cut all this pointless chatter and get rowing.’ With that he redoubled his efforts and they made speedily for the wharf.

  Steven, Alen and Gilmour watched from inside Captain Ford’s cabin. Lessek’s spell book lay closed on the table. Milla, squatting on a small rug, played a game with a bundle of sticks she’d found. One – she had turned it a lustrous shade of pink – scurried here and there around the floor while the others pursued it, their twig arms grasping blindly for the oddly coloured fugitive. Milla squealed with delight every time her bright pink heroine escaped almost certain death at the hands of the woodland posse.

  ‘Mooring here buys us five hours,’ Steven said. ‘It’s almost two o’clock now, so we can sit tight until seven o’clock.’

  ‘And then we need to find some way to linger inconspicuously on the river for another ten hours,’ Alen said. They had been awake for most of the night, an uncommon feat for Alen Jasper, who was looking longingly at the captain’s comfortable berth.

  ‘Where does that put Hannah?’ Gilmour asked, watching the twigs chasing one of their own around the cabin.

  ‘Assuming her mother didn’t offer too much resistance, Hannah should be well on her way to Long Island by now. She has plenty of spare time, in case she runs into anything unforeseen: a flat tyre, a car accident-’

  ‘A tan-bak,’ Alen added.

  ‘I hope not,’ Steven said. ‘I hope that by now Mark is so focused on getting the table ashore, sorting out his officers and getting that army ready to move that he won’t be paying any attention to us opening the portals.’

  ‘Or reading Lessek’s spell book all night,’ Gilmour said.

  ‘But we had to do that,’ Steven said nervously.

  ‘Do you think he’s there yet?’ Gilmour asked.

  Alen shrugged. ‘Even if he is, Steven’s right, he has at least a few avens’ preparation before he opens the table. That place is a terrific mess and no matter how brutal he is, it will still take some time before they’re ready to move.’

  ‘Do you think he can do it?’ Steven asked.

  ‘The ash dream spell?’ Gilmour said. ‘I’m sure he can, else why would Nerak have been putting all these wheels into motion?’

  ‘Because he believed Lessek’s key had come back to Eldarn,’ Alen said. He crossed to the captai
n’s berth and sat on the down-filled mattress.

  ‘True,’ Gilmour conceded the point, ‘but coming to Falkan himself, in that great horrible ship of his, to retrieve the spell table on his own-’

  ‘You’re right,’ Steven said, ‘he was ready; the key was just the final variable in the equation. He had the portal; he could have gone and retrieved the key any time. He either waited for someone to bring it to him – complete with a brain-sized filing cabinet filled with knowledge of Earth – or he would have gone to get it himself, probably right after excavating the table from the river.’

  ‘Prince Nerak could go inside the dreams,’ Milla interrupted them as she watched her twigs race about. ‘He’s the one who showed me how to do it. He said it was a hard spell, but I didn’t have to try too hard. There were other things that were a lot harder. Making ice, that was really hard for me.’

  ‘Ice?’ Alen gave up the fight and lay down on the bed. ‘Ice was one of the first spells we learned as kids. You should have been able to do that one easily, Pepperweed.’

  ‘I don’t know why,’ Milla said, ‘but every time I tried to make ice, the water just bubbled and turned funny colours.’ She turned away from her sticks and they all fell dead in mid-stride.

  Gilmour said, ‘So you know that Nerak was able to go inside the dreams, Pepperweed, because he showed you how to do it with Branag’s dog?’

  ‘I could have gone in other ways,’ the little girl explained carefully, ‘but I liked that puppy and he was so nice when I asked him to follow Hannah.’ She waved at the pile of sticks and cried, ‘Get up! Let’s go again!’ The sticks complied, leaping up straight and dashing wildly about again.

  Steven watched out of the window as Captain Ford and Brexan tied up at one of the piers. He asked, ‘Milla, when I was dreaming, it wasn’t the ash dream. I was sick because the tan-bak’s bug had bitten me, but you still managed to get inside my nightmares. How did you do that?’