by Clare Smith
“It’s the knife King Mazaban the Magnificent used to kill the last dragon and it’s very rare and very valuable.”
“Can I hold it?”
Rabayan shrugged. “If you can get me safely out of Phillos, I will give it to you.”
Now it was Sillyon’s turn to hesitate. This wasn’t quite the way he’d seen things working out, but perhaps if his guards killed Rabayan outright instead of capturing him, he could keep the knife and no one would be the wiser.
Rabayan could almost read his thoughts and didn’t like them one little bit. “Why don’t you try it for size?” he suggested, moving the knife closer to Sillyon’s hand.
Sillyon could hear the blade calling to him and couldn’t resist the temptation to hold it. He reached out and took the hilt in his hand and gave a cry of shock as his world changed to one of chaos, blood and mayhem. He sank to his knees clutching the knife tightly whilst more horrors assaulted his mind than he could have ever imagined.
Rabayan wasn’t too surprised at the man’s reaction. Sillyon had once told him that his ancestors had been at Mazaban’s side the day they had landed on Assimus, so there had always been the possibility that Sillyon had a connection to the knife. The question now was what to do about it. From his time watching Poddorrin use the blade, he knew that Sillyon would hold it until the vision was through, after which he would drop it giving him a minute or two to escape whilst the man was still recovering.
That wasn’t going to be long enough to get across the open area around the tower and become lost in the crowd. To do that he needed to go now, which meant he would have to leave the Moonstone Blade behind. It was a difficult choice, but in the end the decision became obvious. Poddorrin had used the blade and all it had given him were bloody visions and nightmares, whereas the dragon skull would give him everything he wanted.
With his decision made Rabayan blew out the light, stepped over the twitching body and slipped through the towers door to disappear into the darkness.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
PART FOUR
SPIRITS AND SOULS
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
U Turns
The Sea of Stars, Phillos and Pelwin
The last time he’d seen his ship slip from dry land and take to the water was on the day she was launched. At the time he’d stood high above the slipway and watched as the chocks were hauled away and the Golden Bird had glided gracefully down the logs and into the waves. He remembered how her bow had dipped beneath the green sea and, behind him, there had been cries of woe, but then she rose again with white foam running down her sides.
There had never been any doubt in his mind that she would ride the waves like a swan, although others said she was the wrong shape and would capsize. They were wrong though, because the moment she settled in the water, it was clear that she was built to fly across the sea. Then the sail was unfurled and the huge bird, embroidered in gold thread had spread her wings. It had been a breath taking sight which he would never forget.
That had been her first launch, which had been nothing like her second. This time he’d stood on the beach shouting orders, whilst his men dragged her, inch by painful inch, into the sea. She’d been reluctant to go like an old dowager who could remember what it was like to swim, but didn’t want to get her arthritic toes wet.
In the end they had to dig a trench all the way around her hull and it was only then, when the tide was at its highest, did she give in and let the sea lift her and take her back to where she belonged. For a while she’d wallowed at the edge of the water with her keel grating against the sand and if it hadn’t been for the efforts of the men on their hastily built rafts pulling her away, she would probably have never left the shore’s edge. Then the sail was unfurled and the patchwork of shirts, cloaks and blankets caught the wind and she surged forward.
There was nothing graceful about it, but those who had slaved to bring her back to life cheered and cheered until their throats were raw, and he’d had to turn away to wipe the dampness from his eyes before anyone saw his weakness. After that Cobbam had run her up and down the bay a couple of times whilst he’d watched with a critical eye. With having to use roughly sawn wood she’d become heavier at one end, so the ballast had to be moved, and her mast, which still leaked resin, wasn’t quite straight and had to be reset to stop her from listing.
Then he’d gone on board and had walked every inch of her with Cobbam and Stesson by his side. They had discussed what adjustments could be made to make her more seaworthy and could have thought of a hundred things. However, none of them were within the scope of what they could do at sea, so he thanked the two men who had brought her back to life and gave the order to sail north east to Kallisan.
He’d sailed these seas for most of his life, and had returned to the Kallisian chain more times than he could remember, but this was the first time he ever felt as if he was sailing home. His home had always been the sea, but now he had a yearning for dry land and his own patch of earth. Perhaps he felt like this because he’d decided this was going to be his last voyage, and when he reached Pelwin, he would give Cobbam what remained of the Golden Bird and would never captain another ship.
It hadn’t been a difficult decision to make, despite the fact that Collquin would disown him again, and would probably have him arrested for piracy just to keep the Passonians happy. However, after sailing the Sea of Stars in the finest ship ever to cross an ocean, the sea held no attraction for him now. He would go home to Kallisan and when the ice crushed his land he would die there amongst his own people.
For now though, he had to get the Golden Bird home, and that wasn’t going to be easy. The old lady was heavy in the water and instead of flying across the waves she was ploughing through them, so that at times her bow was barely above the tops of the waves. If there was a storm or even just a high wind to stir up the sea she was in danger of dipping her bow into the waves and not coming up again.
Of course if he’d had a more experienced crew he would have felt less unsure of making landfall, but half his crew were dead and those who had taken their place didn’t have a clue what they were doing. It wasn’t a case of the Assimusians not working hard enough, as they put all their efforts into anything they were told to do. No, it wasn’t that at all. It was just that they had never sailed in a ship before and in a storm that would be the difference between life and death.
On top of that there were the women and children and the injured who shivered in the cold, cluttered the decks and were in every ones’ way. They reminded the men of all they had been through, and their presence sapped at their strength and morale. He would have liked to have put them in the hold where they would be out of sight, but there was nothing down there except ballast, bilge and darkness.
Finally there was Collia, who had been all brightness and smiles for the first few days, but had now seated herself in the stern to be as far away from him as possible. She’d tried to persuade him to sail south to Phillos to rescue as many people from the Enclave as his ship could carry, but he was having nothing of that. What happened to the Assimusians had nothing to do with him; all he wanted was to get the Golden Bird home before she sank beneath the waves and drowned them all.
*
Kallawassian picked up the hem of his black robe and paced along the outside of the Enclave’s walls counting each pace as he went. When he reached two hundred and seventy two he stopped and pointed at the wall and a guard hurried forwards with a red flag attached to a wooden stake and hammered it into the ground. He waited impatiently until the man had finished and then tested the firmness of the stake which wobbled in his hand.
With a hiss of annoyance he kicked the stake until it fell over, and then stood back and glared at the guard with his arms folded. The guard glared back and would have like to have told the Pyromaster what he could do with his stake, but the look on the man’s face made him think better of it. Instead he picked up the piece of wood and had another go at pounding it into the hard ground.
>
He’d hardly finished when the Pyromaster’s ugly crow came and sat on top of the pole and eyed him suspiciously. His hand itched to use his hammer on the disgusting thing, but he resisted the temptation. The last time he’d tried to shoo the thing away, the Pyromaster’s lizard had nearly bitten his leg off, and its master had threatened to pour Devil Fire over him and set him on fire.
Peck cawed noisily into the guards face and then turned its back on him in a gesture of derision. Kallawassian could see why, as the idiot had driven the stake into the ground at least a foot away from where he’d pointed which wouldn’t do at all. Measuring out where the barrels of Devil Fire were to be placed was a precise art and a few feet out either way could end in disaster.
The last thing he needed was for the barrels to ignite in a chain instead of simultaneously. That would still do the job all right, but it wouldn’t be quite as spectacular. It would be even worse if one barrel didn’t ignite at all leaving him with the task of disarming it. That had happened once to Pyromaster Sparkers, and afterwards there had been nothing left of him but one carbonised shoe.
To prevent such a thing happening it should have been his apprentice who was putting the flags in place not this imbecile, who could neither read nor write and had no idea how important accuracy was. Plinkassian would have known and would have found a way to put the flag in exactly the right place even if the ground was rock hard. Unfortunately Plinkassian had disappeared, and despite his efforts to find the boy there was no trace of him.
Of course he hadn’t looked for him personally, as chasing after a missing apprentice would have been below the dignity of a Pyromaster. Instead he’d asked Cavanagh to find him, but so far the man had failed to locate the boy. Only that morning he’d asked the councillor how his search was progressing, but Cavanagh had looked blank, so he’d had to remind him that the boy was his apprentice and he couldn’t place the barrels of Devil Fire without him.
Cavanagh had smiled politely, said the boy would turn up when he was hungry and had given him the guard instead. It was no good though, without Plinkassian things were just not going right. The guard didn’t know what he was doing, Snap was off his food and Peck wouldn’t speak to him.
On top of that, there had been the terrible nightmare where someone had tried to steal the dragon spirit from within him. At the time he’d decided to find and destroy the culprit, but after sleeping on it, he’d come to the conclusion that it had simply been a bad dream, but now he wasn’t quite so sure. There was something going on, of that he was certain, and he needed to get to the bottom of it. The problem was he had no idea how to unravel such a strange mystery.
When it came to creating new formulae he was a genius, and in philosophical debates he was the most intelligent man alive, but this was a practical thing like cleaning his robes or cooking dinner, and he’d never been good at doing either of those. It didn’t help that he was in a strange land surrounded by barbarians and imbeciles. The only two people he could call upon for assistance was Mirralet, who was as sly as a snake and Cavanagh who definitely couldn’t be trusted.
That is why he needed Plinkassian. His apprentice didn’t come from Assimus, but he was a boy who had travelled and seen things, so he would know where to start looking for whatever it was that was causing such a disturbance in his life. However, for some inexplicable reason, Plinkassian had gone off in a huff to heaven knows where.
It occurred to him that perhaps he should search for the boy, as Cavanagh clearly wasn’t going to do so. After all it should be a simple matter for a man of his intelligence to look at the evidence in front of him, and deduce where the boy had gone. After that it was a simple case of going there, instructing Plinkassian not to be such a fool and bringing the boy back.
So what did he know? Well, the boy had been upset about something or other and had gone off in a sulk, and after that he hadn’t seen him again. That had been several days ago, but it had only been this morning, when the food had run out and he hadn’t been able to find a clean robe to wear, that he’d really missed him. Then he’d climbed the two hundred and thirty stairs to the top most room just to check that the boy wasn’t sulking about something and was waiting for him to come and apologise.
He didn’t think it was the sort of thing that Plinkassian would do, but as Snap sulked when his dragon couldn’t get its own way, then it was possible that a boy might do something similar. Plinkassian hadn’t been there of course, but he’d found the nest of blankets the boy had made for himself under a table, and the remains of a book which Snap had chewed. The fact that the boy had been practicing his reading in secret just to surprise and please him, made him feel slightly guilty that he hadn’t gone to look for Plinkassian sooner.
He’d also found the second set of new robes he’d given the boy which were carefully folded, and beneath them was the small bag of coins which a Pyromaster traditionally gave to a new apprentice. Normally handing the coins back would be a cause for celebration, as an apprentice only returned the coins on the day he became a full Pyromaster. Clearly that didn’t apply to Plinkassian, so he should have been upset at the rejection of his patronage, but at the time he’d ignored it because something else had distracted him.
He scowled in irritation trying to recall what it was, and then remembered. One of the curios which had sat on the shelf in the corner was missing. It was only an old skull with a long snout and sharp teeth and was probably worthless, but who knows what would take a boy’s fancy. Clearly Plinkassian had stolen it, which would explain why he’d had the nagging feeling that something in the tower had changed. It was a feeling which had stayed with him all day long and still bothered him.
“Pyromaster, sir, is this ‘ere flag in the right place or not?” interrupted the guard.
Kallawassian glared at him for having the temerity to speak when he’d told him to keep silent, but then managed a weak smile as the man had given him an idea. “Where would someone go to sell a valuable artefact?”
The guard looked at him suspiciously, wondering if it was a trick question and the Pyromaster had been put up to it to catch him out. “Don’t rightly know, never done that sort of fing myself, but ‘spose one of the market traders might ‘elp.”
Kallawassian resisted the temptation to set Snap onto the stupid idiot and continued to smile. “If he couldn’t sell it to a market trader and the man who owned the valuable artefact was after him, where would he go?”
That was a far easier question to answer, as it clearly didn’t apply to him or his occasional shady deals. “’E’d go up into the ‘ills and join the rebels.”
“Rebels?” No one had told him about rebels.
“Yeh, there’s a big bunch of ‘em up in the forest ‘round Mazaban Mountain. We’re goin’ ter go get ‘em once you’ve burnt the Enclave down.”
Now that was interesting and sounded just the sort of place Plinkassian would go to. All he had to do now was find someone who knew where the rebels were and send them there to bring his apprentice back, whilst he completed the task the King of Passonia had chosen him to do. Perhaps he could ask Cavanagh to arrange it, although he hadn’t been very helpful so far.
“So where do you want me to put the last flag?” the guard asked.
Kallawassian scowled at the guard for once again interrupting his thoughts. He had a good mind to tell the guard where to put the flag, although the guard was that stupid he might just try. “I don’t want it anywhere. I have more urgent things to do than watch you hammer the post in the wrong place, so you can take it away and burn it for all I care.”
“But Lord Cavanagh said I was ter stay wiv yer until all the flags ‘ave been put in place and ‘e won’t be right pleased if I ‘ave one left over.”
The Pyromaster glared at him and took a step forward so he towered over the guard. “Then you can put the flag up Cavanagh’s arse and tell him I have gone looking for the apprentice he should have been searching for, and I’ll be back to finish the job when I’ve found
him.”
With that he turned on his heel, beckoned to the coach that had been following him close behind and climbed inside. Peck gave a loud squawk and launched itself from the post into the air leaving the guard standing with his mouth open and the last flag in his hand.
*
He’d been a reaver once and had taken more than one ship, which he’d either made his own or had relieved the ship of its cargo before sending it on its way. That had been a long time ago, when he’d been in a fast ship with a crew who knew what they were doing. Now they were in a hulk which wallowed in the sea and the crew were bone weary sailors, forest dwellers and women.
Consequently, if he was going to be a reaver again, which necessity dictated he must, he needed different tactics. That was why the sail hung limply from the mast and the Golden Bird rolled from side to side with buckets of water being bailed from her bilge. In all honesty it hadn’t been difficult to make his ship look like a wreck which had been badly battered by yesterday’s storm, because that was exactly what she was.
The storm had come out of the north and had hit them so suddenly that they had no time to prepare. With waves crashing over her bow and the rain coming down in torrents, it was only by a miracle and every man, woman and child bailing water from her hull which kept her afloat. It had convinced him though that they had very little chance of reaching Pelwin alive, so when they had sighted the ship on the horizon, he’d decided to become a reaver again.
Now the ship, the Island Dream, was approaching at a steady pace, and he could see Captain Dasson standing on the foredeck calling orders. He knew Dasson to be a cautious man who wouldn’t take risks, but like most Kallisians, who were devout followers of Jurro, he wouldn’t let a crew perish if he could save their lives. An added incentive was that Dasson would be able to see that he had women and children on board who were doing the bailing, and Jurro would be particularly pleased with him if he saved the weak and innocent.
