The Voyage to Magical North

by Claire Fayers

  The floor was littered with fish. In the middle, the starshell egg sat on top of a column of shining ice. Peter and Marfak West stood on either side of it, neither of them moving. Icicles hung from Peter’s ears and from Marfak West’s nose. Peter’s face was twisted up, and he was leaning back from the starshell as if he’d been trying to get away when his hands had frozen to it. He looked dazed and bruised, so pale that Brine wondered if he’d died and she was seeing his ghost.

  She threw a fish at him. “Peter, you squid-brained idiot,” she said.

  Peter jumped and turned his head. “Oh, n—” he began. That was as far as he got.

  Marfak West swung round, one hand raised. Brine reacted without thinking, diving flat as the magician released a blast of magic that shattered the wall where she’d been standing. She scrambled up, terror turning her mind blank. All her planning hadn’t prepared her for this.

  Then she heard Cassie shouting her name and Marfak West turned toward the door. Brine found she could think again. “Peter,” she gasped, “the starshell is an egg. It’s trying to hatch.”

  “Of course it’s an egg, you silly girl,” said Marfak West over his shoulder. He waved his hands across the doorway, filling it with thick ice just as Cassie and Ewan appeared outside. As they beat on it, he turned back to face Brine. “I know what it is,” he said softly. “I know more than you can possibly imagine. You want to know who you are? I can tell you that. The Western Island, the floating castle. You don’t remember any of it, but I’ve seen it all.”

  Brine’s mouth turned dry. “You’re lying,” she said, but she knew he wasn’t. Marfak West didn’t lie, not about the things that mattered. She tried to look like she didn’t care. “If you’re going to tell me you’re really my father—”

  “Do I look like your father?” The magician’s voice dripped scorn. He paused and smiled. “I did meet him once—a long time ago, when you were just a baby.”

  Marfak West knew her father? Marfak West had seen her when she was a baby? Brine took a step back. The magician spread his hands wide. The room they were in filled with amber light, and the Antares groaned and shuddered. All the torches in the room went out, then flared back to life brighter than ever.

  “I’m tired of Peter as an apprentice,” said Marfak West. “I’m thinking I might just take on a non-magical assistant instead. Join me and we’ll sail the Antares across the Western Ocean to Orion’s Keep, where you began your life. We’ll find your family together.”

  “Brine, don’t do it,” said Peter.

  Brine had no intention of doing anything Marfak West suggested. She didn’t care what the magician knew about her; she saw the emptiness at his heart, and it terrified her. People feared him, and everyone hated him. He needed somebody like her or Peter, someone he could turn into a copy of himself, just so he wouldn’t be quite so alone.

  Brine pulled herself up straight and released a shuddering breath. “I already know who I am,” she said, and it was true. Whoever she might have been, she was Brine Seaborne: once the magician’s servant, now the friend of pirates. Brine Seaborne, pulled out of the waves to start life over again. She was Brine, and right now there was only one thing she wanted to do.

  “This isn’t about me,” she said. Outside, Ewan was stabbing the ice with his daggers while Cassie fought pirate copies. “That egg contains a … a legend. You can’t kill it.”

  “Legends are stories, and stories are lies,” mocked Marfak West. “We’re better off without them. Magic exists to be used. Used by people like me. Now, how would you like to die?”

  “Of old age?” suggested Peter.

  The ice in the doorway splintered. Ewan Hughes’s arm broke through. “Peter!” he shouted. He tossed something that glittered gold and amber as it fell.

  Peter snatched it up: a gold chain hung with three slender pieces of starshell.

  CHAPTER 35

  How long does it take for something real to become a legend? In my reckoning, the last member of the species Draconus basilicus become extinct over eight hundred years ago. Now they exist only in stories.

  (From ALDEBRAN BOSWELL’S JOURNAL OF STRANGE ADVENTURES IN THE YEAR OF DISCOVERY)

  Tom tore his gaze away from the sea. The great wave hung motionless, but very soon, he thought, it would come crashing down, and when it did, it would crush the Onion to nothing. He needed a plan.

  “We’re too close,” he said. “We need to pull back.” He strode over to Bill Lightning. “Are you listening to me? Turn the Onion around.”

  “The Onion doesn’t retreat,” said Bill.

  Tom’s cheeks stung. “I am Acting Captain of the Onion, and when I am speaking to you, you will do me the courtesy of paying attention.”

  “Do you the what?” Bill was paying attention now, but he looked as if he might be about to start laughing.

  Tom’s blood pounded. He saw the rest of the crew smiling at him with a mixture of kindness and pity, as if everyone knew that Cassie hadn’t really meant it when she made him Acting Captain, and he was just a boy who ought to stay out of the way while the grown-ups sorted everything out.

  A month ago, Tom would have agreed. A month ago, even a week ago, he’d never have dared talk back to anyone, let alone a pirate. Stay out of the way, be quiet, don’t touch anything: that was life on Barnard’s Reach. The Onion was the opposite. You jumped in, did something, anything, and if it went wrong, it didn’t matter, because you could always do better next time.

  Tom took off his glasses and gave Bill the full force of his librarian’s glare. “I am a keeper of books,” he said. “A writer of stories. When I write down the story of this battle, what would you like me to write about you?”

  Bill thought about it. The others all looked at the deck.

  “We’re not going to retreat,” said Tom. “Get ready with ropes. Keep the Onion behind that wave and be ready to start rescuing people. I think they’re going to need it.”

  Bill paused for a few seconds more, then saluted. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  And then the sky filled with birds.

  It was as if every single bird that had ever nested on Barnard’s Reach had chosen the same moment to take flight. They swept overhead: black gulls, white gulls, gulls of every color, screeching and cawing, their beaks open and their feet outstretched. Tom’s heart leaped to see them. All the gulls of Barnard’s Reach, and some of them still had canisters on their legs. Someone on the island must have let them free. He hoped it was his mother.

  “What’s happening?” Bill asked.

  Tom laughed. “The seagulls are coming.” He shouted it: “The seagulls! The seagulls are coming!”

  The flock parted as it reached the Onion and rose up high above the masts, and then, as if the birds somehow sensed an enemy that must be destroyed, they plunged down upon the Antares.

  Trudi Storme was fighting six Ewan Hugheses when a seagull landed on the head of one of them.

  The gull was momentarily surprised to find that the thing that had smelled so much like a fish was in the shape of a man. But on the other hand, nothing reminds you that you’re really a fish like being attacked by a hungry predator. The Ewan reacted as any fish would. It thrashed wildly and tried to dive underwater, but there was no water, only the deck.

  Trudi lowered her sword. The Ewans that had surrounded her a moment ago were gone. In their place, seagulls were pecking at … “Fish!” she shouted. “They’re all fish.” Her eyes gleamed as she snatched up an extra sword. “Right! You lot are casserole.”

  * * *

  Brine barely dared breathe. Peter stood between her and Marfak West, and Brine could see Peter’s hand shaking as he clutched the three pieces of starshell. Outside, Cassie and Ewan were still fighting for their lives against pirate copies.

  Marfak West’s eyes narrowed to slits. “That starshell is mine. Give it to me.”

  Peter shook his head. “You’re not the only magician in this room, you know.”

  “Are you challengi
ng me?”

  His attention was wholly on Peter. Move, Brine told herself. She scraped her feet backward over the icy floor. Outside, Cassie dropped to one knee and barely fended off a blow that came straight at her head.

  Marfak West spread his fingers, and Peter suddenly left the ground and slammed into the ceiling. Peter’s face twisted in pain.

  One more step. Brine felt the wall behind her. She reached up, unhooked a torch from above her head, and threw it.

  As the parent died in fire, Boswell had written, the egg will one day hatch in fire.

  The torch cartwheeled across the room in slow motion, end over end, trailing fire. Marfak West let out an angry cry, but he was too late to stop it. The torch struck the starshell egg and burst into flame so bright that Brine had to close her eyes, and even then, she could still see it.

  Fire and smoke boiled up together, engulfing the egg in a storm of red and black. It rocked back and forth, cracking the ice that held it steady. The ice everywhere started to melt; the room filled with rain and then steam.

  Ewan and Cassie burst through the ice in the doorway. They were both bleeding, and Cassie had a fish in her hair. Peter dropped from the ceiling and landed on them. They all picked themselves up quickly.

  “You’ve lost, Marfak West,” said Cassie. “Surrender.”

  The fire went out.

  They all stared at the egg, which lay still, a few coils of steam rising, but the heat was already fading out of it. Brine’s eyes stung with tears. She’d failed. The knowledge emptied her of feeling. She hadn’t thrown the torch hard enough, or the fire hadn’t been hot enough, or maybe the egg was already dead and no amount of fire would make it hatch.

  Marfak West laughed. “What exactly did you think would happen?”

  Every single torch flared toward the center of the room and then died. Brine blinked in the darkness. What was Marfak West doing now?

  A light appeared in the middle of the room, egg-shaped and scarlet. Brine thought the magician was taking the last of the power out of the egg, but then the egg began to move again. A shrill humming made Brine’s ears ache. The ice began to fall, and it didn’t even have time to melt: It just broke away in chunks and turned to steam before it hit the floor.

  Brine felt like singing. The egg rocked from side to side. Alive. A single egg, sitting alone at Magical North for centuries, patiently waiting—until now.

  “It’s taking the magic back.” Peter’s voice was raw as he staggered to his feet. “All the magic.”

  “The magic is mine!” snapped Marfak West. He seized the egg in both hands and shook it.

  “Is that a good idea?” asked Cassie.

  Apparently, it was not.

  The egg burst back into flame. Marfak West’s shouts turned to screams. He tried to hurl the egg away, but his hands stuck to it once more, and he couldn’t let go. Black smoke poured out of his clothes. The walls trembled. The ceiling creaked, and bits of it started to fall in.

  Peter drew a shape in the air. “Everyone get close to me.”

  Brine squeezed in between Cassie and Ewan. A magical shield sprang up around them. She had half a second to wonder where Peter had learned that spell before the starshell exploded.

  It happened with a crack like thunder, echoed by a deeper tearing right down in the heart of the Antares. White light burst through the room and blew the ceiling apart. Brine ducked as a lump of wood bounced off the shield by her head. Her hands and face stung.

  Slowly, the room settled around them. The magical shield wavered and collapsed, and Peter slumped to the floor, gasping. Brine sat up, blinking in the sudden rush of sunlight from the hole above her. Her hands were speckled with a rash of tiny burn marks.

  Marfak West was gone. Pieces of starshell smoked gently around a wide, charred hole in the floor. Brine crawled over and looked into it. In the deck below was another hole. In the deck below that, another one, and so on all the way down to the sea.

  Peter stirred. “Uh, Brine.”

  Something rustled right next to her. Cassie and Ewan limped across to join them, and all four of them stared openmouthed at the tiny dragon that rustled its silver wings, raised its head, and stared back with a look that suggested it didn’t know what was going on but it didn’t approve of any of it. Who could blame it? It had, after all, been asleep for more than eight hundred years.

  CHAPTER 36

  Running away is sometimes the best thing you can do. Walk into trouble but run out of it.

  (From BRINE SEABORNE’S BOOK OF PLANS)

  Tom saw the whole wall of water tremble. Foam started to slide down from the top. “Get back,” he shouted. “Retreat!”

  This time Bill didn’t argue. The giant wave came tumbling down, and the Onion fled. They bounced over the waves as if they were flying, shooting up into the air, then slamming back down with jolt after jolt that jarred every bone in Tom’s body. He wrapped his arms around the mast and clung on, half-drowned and blinded by seawater. Seagulls still shrieked around him, and fish fell across the deck, dropped by the fleeing birds. Tom felt every meal he’d eaten for the last day clamoring to get out. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold on, or even if he wanted to, because a swift death in the sea might be preferable to this agony of crashing and flying.

  Then it was all over. Tom peeled himself from the mast cautiously and wiped his hair out of his eyes. Looking out to Barnard’s Reach, he saw that it was still in one piece. The giant wave, rather than engulfing the land, had collapsed back in on itself, filling the hole in the sea. All they’d felt on board the Onion was the aftershock.

  Tom stumbled across to join Bill and the others.

  Bill seemed as surprised as Tom to find they were still in one piece. “Well, that was interesting,” he said. He walked unsteadily past Tom to the side of the ship. “With your permission, Captain,” he said, “I think we should start picking up survivors.”

  The Onion might have survived intact, but the Antares hadn’t been so lucky. Dragged unnaturally from the seabed, shaken, prodded, pulled this way and that, the ancient timbers had reached the point where they couldn’t take any more. As Tom watched, they started to come apart. The Antares bobbed helplessly. Water spurted through its deck and showered down on the surviving pirates. Two of the ship’s legs snapped off and slid away into the sea.

  “I can’t see Brine,” said Tom worriedly.

  Bill turned the Onion back toward the sinking wreck. “Don’t worry. She’s with Cassie. They’ll be fine.”

  * * *

  Cassie stood up, one hand pressed to a sword wound in her side. “Well,” she said, “that could have been—” She caught Brine’s gaze and stopped.

  Brine felt a grin break out over her face. “It could have been worse,” she agreed. She bent to pick up the baby dragon. It hopped sideways out of reach and shot a stream of yellow flame at her.

  “I hate to mention it,” said Cassie, “but the ship is on fire.”

  “But that’s all right,” said Ewan, “because we’re sinking.”

  The rest of the ceiling caved in as he spoke. The dragon retreated, hissing steam. Brine squatted down. “It’s all right,” she said softly. “My parents left me, too. We’re both on our own.”

  Any hope she harbored that she might prove to be the world’s first natural dragon tamer died as the dragon snarled and scrabbled back from her.

  Peter dropped to his knees and began gathering up the pieces of broken dragon shell. “Leave it,” ordered Cassie. “There’s no time.”

  A crash and a roar from outside made them all jump. The dragon wailed in fright and flung itself into Brine’s arms. Its scales felt warmer than she’d imagined and perfectly dry. When it burrowed its head into her shoulder, it left little trails of warmth that seemed to sink inward until they filled her completely. She knew at that moment that she wouldn’t let anything happen to this small creature. She’d protect it with her life, if necessary.

  Cassie tried to pick Peter up. He strug
gled and kicked her. “Peter,” she shouted, “we found a magic ship, we crossed the Gemini Seas in three days, and we fought an army of pirate fish to get you back. We’re not leaving you here now.”

  Some of her words seemed to penetrate. Peter went limp, then stood up and nodded, his face set.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Ewan.

  They ran. Peter’s hands were full of dragon shell, and Brine’s hands were full of dragon. The little creature clawed its way up Brine’s front and clung around her neck as they raced along the corridors: a savage, silver necklace with eyes of flame. She scratched it behind the ears with one hand. She was on a sinking, burning ship with a dragon around her neck—she wondered why she wasn’t afraid. The ship was falling apart around them, and yet the whole world felt completely right, as if a final missing piece had been put into place.

  The ladder to the deck was smoking but still intact. Brine pounded up it behind Cassie and Ewan and stopped when they did, gasping in the sunlight. The deck was covered in fish, and seagulls wheeled above in screeching circles. Here and there, people were still fighting, but the last of the pirate copies were turning back to their proper forms and slithering into the sea.

  Rob Grosse hit a Bill Lightning copy in the face with a fish. The copy sprouted tentacles and grew to the size of a house. Grosse groaned, then grinned and attacked. Cassie grabbed him as they ran past.

  The Onion drew alongside them. “Ahoy!” shouted Tom.

  Ropes slapped down on what remained of the deck of the Antares. Peter grabbed one and offered it to Brine. Pausing only to tuck her scaly passenger firmly into her shirt, she launched herself out over empty space.

  CHAPTER 37

  Magic corrodes everything. Wool, leather, iron, and steel all waste away and turn to dust. Only gold and a few precious stones survive. Maybe this explains why dragons are known to collect vast hoards of treasure. They are, in fact, building nests.