The Written

by Ben Galley

  Farden emerged onto a windblown deck and almost immediately regretted his decision. Everything had been tied down, and the deck was slick with spray and salty rain. Heold was at the helm, his beard matted and glistening from the precipitation. The big man laughed at seeing the mage. ‘If ye didn’t like the weather before, ye ain’t goin’ t’ like it now!’ he shouted. As if the ship had heard him, the Sarunn dove into a low trough between two waves and yawed sluggishly. Farden’s stomach rolled with the waves. He stared at the foam on the deck swirling around his boots and tried not to think of the shark stew. The ship was on a roiling carpet of steel-capped waves and overhead thick black clouds crackled with light and thunder. Daylight was slowly fading and in the gloom the sailors clung desperately to rigging and ropes and tried to work through the rain and the wailing wind.

  ‘I got bored of my room!’ he shouted, and shrugged at the Captain, but Heold was too busy fighting the wheel. A stubborn wish to confront the awful weather made Farden want to go and stand at his railing. The mage pulled his hood around his face to ward against the stinging rain and headed up to the bow. From there he peered into the storm and tried to make sense of the grey world. He couldn’t even see the difference between the waves and the granite sky. A wave hit the poor unicorn beneath his feet and the Sarunn buried her nose in the surf. Only one more day to go, Farden thought, remembering Heold’s words. Farden patted is side, and then suddenly realised that he had left the tearbook under his pillow in his room. The mage pivoted on his heel and ran back down the wet steps to the deck. He felt odd, and a weird glow of unrest felt its way into his already queasy stomach. He made his way below and pushed the door to his cabin open with a bang.

  The pillow was lying on the damp floor, and Karga stood hunched over the bed flicking lazily through the pages of the tearbook. The sailor looked up, mildly surprised, and the two men shared an awkward, deadly silence.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ blurted Farden, shocked.

  The sailor stared at the mage with a faint smirk. ‘I knew you wouldn’t leave it for long,’ said Karga, and looked down at the blank pages. ‘He was right, it is empty.’

  ‘Get away from the book,’ the mage stepped further into the room. He thought of his sword leaning against the wall behind the door. It was just out of reach, and so he took another careful step.

  ‘Whatever you say Farden,’ the sailor smiled, held his hands in the air, and stepped backwards. ‘Whatever you say.’

  ‘What are you doing with my book?’ Farden growled. With a quick motion he grabbed his sword from behind the door and pulled it out of the scabbard. He waved it at Karga.

  ‘You have no idea what’s going on, do you?’ He narrowed his eyes and flashed another toothy smile. Farden noticed scars criss-crossing his palms. The ship tilted underneath them.

  ‘Wipe that smile off your face otherwise I’ll throw you overboard!’

  ‘I’d like to see you try.’

  Farden fumed. ’I think we should see what Heold has to say about this,’ the mage motioned the door with his sword. Karga didn’t move a muscle. Farden burned with furious anger. He was confused, thrown off-guard by the sailor’s smug expression. There was something very wrong.

  ‘Move! Get out!’ Farden yelled, but Karga simply reached out towards him with crooked fingers and red magma burst from his fingertips, a searing pyroclastic cloud of fire. The ball of ash hit the mage in the chest and knocked him straight through the wooden wall of his cabin. Splintered wood and flame filled the corridor. Farden coughed and spat and flailed his limbs. He swung his sword blindly in the burning smog, and dragged himself around the corner. He felt his skull throbbing and rubbed burning coals from his charred breastplate. Farden’s mind raced like a falcon as he peered into the smoke.

  ‘Come out here and fight!’ shouted Karga. A screaming bolt of lightning tore through the hole in the wall and it exploded in the corridor with a bang. Somewhere in the darkness between the deck the goat bleated pitifully.

  ‘I’m right here Karga, come and find me!’ Farden could hear the crunch of sea on the deck coming towards him. He waited and slowed his breathing and concentrated on not choking, and listened intently for the right moment to pounce. Another few footsteps, and Farden spied a shape peering through the hole. With a yell he jumped into the corridor and swung his sword at his assailant’s head. But Karga spun around and held his hands up to block the swing. Just before the blade carved through his fingers a pulse of energy exploded from his palms and the sword rebounded with a clang. Farden swung again and thrust deadly steel into the man’s face, but still Karga blocked and the sword whined and bounced away.

  ‘Who are you?!’ barked Farden.

  He dodged another swipe and laughed. ‘The man who was sent to kill you!’ Karga screamed as the blade notched his shoulder. He quickly grabbed the sword with his left hand and lightning scattered along the steel.

  ‘Argh!’ Farden yelped as the magick shook him but he swiftly recovered, and with a strong step forward he slammed his forehead into Karga’s nose. The sailor’s head snapped backwards and blood sprayed from his face. The resilient mage followed up with a fist in his stomach and then a right elbow into the man’s neck. Karga choked and fell backwards against the wall. Some of the sailors had heard the noise and gathered around a nearby hatch.

  ‘Karga!’ One of the men shouted. ‘What’s going on?’

  The dark assailant ignored them. He breathed heavily. ‘You can’t fight me with magick, Farden? What’s wrong? I was told you would be fun! A fair match for a sorcerer of my strength,’ Karga sneered, and his eyes flashed a deep red. This man had dark magick in him, thought Farden, a servant of the forbidden, but before he could react Karga clenched his fist and shouted foreign words. All of a sudden the shadows in the dim underbelly of the ship came alive and grabbed at the mage. Farden cried out as a black hand pulled at his face and hair. Shadow fingers groped at his feet. Swinging his sword left and right he dove behind a tall pile of boxes and scrambled backwards and further into the ship. A ball of hot lava exploded over his head and sparks showered his hood. A dark shadow creature snatched at him but he escaped its grasp and ran for the galley.

  ‘Fight me!’ Karga yelled over the roar of his spells.

  Farden dodged under beams and pans and grabbed the sturdy wooden rail of a ladder. Another burst of fire sent cinders flying across the ship’s kitchen and singed the poor goat. Farden pushed the hatch above him and luckily it came free. Rain instantly hit his face. Quickly he ran up the ladder onto the deck, and stood with his sword low. Sailors shouted out to Heold, who was still at the wheel.

  ‘What’s goin’ on ‘ere?!’ bellowed the big Captain. The sky flashed with white-blue light and thunder boomed. Farden yelled over the howling storm. ‘It’s one of your crew, Karga! He’s been sent to ruin this mission!’ Heold scowled, and turned his attention back to the wheel.

  The mage wiped spray from his face and tried desperately to catch his breath. Gods damn that old man and his nevermar, he cursed inwardly, he needed his magick back. And fast.

  A fireball streaked across the deck and exploded against the mast. The wet sails thankfully didn’t catch fire but the splintered wood creaked and sparked. With fearful cries the crew dove for cover and scuttled into hiding.

  ‘You can’t win Farden!’ a voice shouted over the howling rain. Karga had found his way to the stairs near the forecastle.

  ‘And you should know better than to interfere with the magick of the elves!’

  His opponent poked his head above a crate and grinned lopsidedly. ‘It’s not in my hands, mage, I just do what my masters tell me!’ He shrugged. ‘I’m just here for you.’

  Farden growled. ‘Where’s the manual?’

  Another ball of magma tore over Farden’s head and ploughed into the angry sea with a hiss. Karga spat and laughed. ‘You’ll never find it! He sidled along the opposite side of the deck like a hungry eel. Farden crouched behind a wooden skylight and
watched him. This sorcerer was strong, true, Farden thought to himself, but he was just a man, and a man can be broken. All he needed was his magick.

  Karga called out to him again. ‘You’re wasting your time! Who knows where it could be by now,’ he laughed sadistically. A sailor with an axe jumped down from the forecastle stairs and strode along the deck to face up to the dark mage, waving his weapon high over his head. Karga paused for a second and the storm howled around the two men. Every eye on the ship was upon them, silent and watching.

  With lightning speed Karga pounced on the sailor, knocked the axe from his grip and put a hand around his neck. White-hot ash seared the flesh from his bones, and the man managed a gargling scream before he tumbled into the green-grey waves. The crew dissolved into pandemonium. They scurried over the deck yelling and shouting and trying to get as far away from the two mages as possible. Heold shouted from the wheel, trying to rally his men, keeping one eye on the treacherous sea and the other on the dangerous mages. ‘Man the mast lads! Take those sails down!’

  The Sarunn pitched violently over trough and crest. Farden clanged his sword off the mast and tried to block a searing ball of purple lightning, but the spell knocked Farden against the back railing, inches from the edge of the ship. He moved forward and away from the sea, and took cover behind a crate. Farden put a hand to his back and winced for a moment before the pain abruptly vanished. Something stirred in his spine, a tingling across his broad shoulders that the mage knew very well indeed. Farden smiled, and crouched low, stalking his prey. It was his turn.

  Karga ducked under the railings of some stairs and peered through the pouring rain. Sparks crackled around his fingers as he waited for the mage to show his head. ‘Come out coward!’ he shouted. He wiped blood from his nose and spat on the deck.

  ‘Up here,’ a gruff voice barked, and Karga looked up to see a boot heading rapidly for his face. The vicious kick sent him sprawling on the deck with a flurry of bloody seawater. Farden dropped from the forecastle to the stairs and rested his sword on his shoulder. But Karga was ready. He put his hands together and a ball of magma ripped into the mage’s chest with a huge bang. Farden flew back into the wooden stairs and choked on the burning smoke. The dark sorcerer was already up and striding across the deck. Farden swung his blade up, but the man blocked it again, and again, but on the third swipe the blade sliced across his chest and cut a long gash through his sailor’s tunic. Karga yelled and reeled backwards. Farden was quickly on his feet.

  ‘You want to see some magick?’ He spat salty rain to the side and ripped his hood back in defiance. His eyes blazed with white fire.

  Up by the wheel Heold’s face drained of colour and his shout chilled everyone on board.

  ‘WAVE!’

  And with that Farden’s world seemed to pause.

  His arms lifted through the slowing rain, single droplets sliding over his hands like clear mercury. A lightning bolt tore the sky and froze, paused in an eternal second. The air buzzed with magick and Farden could feel the tattoos burning white with heat and fire on his back. He braced himself on the slippery deck and felt the weight of the spell push him against the wet wood with a slow squelch in his boots. The mage took a deep breath and stared into Karga’s glowing eyes. There was a paralysed look of fear suspended on his face. Farden looked up as flame trickled over his wrists, watching the rogue wave arch in slow-motion over the masthead above them. For the briefest of moments time stopped and the world around him became quiet. But it was short-lived and as the deck began to shake beneath his boots the roaring started, and time caught up with itself.

  With a blinding flash of searing heat a tower of fire erupted from beneath the deck and ripped through the wood as if it were mere paper. Karga flew from the splintered deck screaming, swathed in flames, and disappeared into the sea. Farden reeled backwards as the spell billowed upwards through the mast and the sails and into the face of the wave. Fire met water in an explosion of burning debris and steam, and then the wave hit the deck.

  Heold’s frenzied shouts were drowned out by the noise as the wave tumbled onto the deck with the force of a falling mountain. Farden grabbed the stair rail behind him and clung on desperately while the ship rocked under the watery avalanche. The wave washed the sailors from the deck and tossed them into the sea like broken marbles and they yelled and shrieked in the icy water. The mage was almost torn away by the rogue wave, but the water quickly receded as the Sarunn somehow rode the crest and recovered. Farden was washed sideways across the deck towards a hatch and he grabbed at it. His head pounded, and he felt the sickening dizziness of the spell’s wake. Karga was nowhere to be seen, and the mast sounded like it was about to snap, splintering into matchsticks around the base with whip-like cracking sounds and a terrible groaning.

  ‘Farden what have you done?’ Heold was on his belly on the top deck, wallowing like a manatee in the salty water.

  ‘It was Karga!’ lied Farden. He looked around desperately. The ship was going down fast. Water was now pouring through the gaping hole in the deck and Farden stared wide-eyed and fearful at the seawater gushing into the belly of the ship. The fire spell and the wave had ripped the Sarunn almost in two, and now she was foundering miles and miles from shore in a turbulent sea. Several of the crew still clung to the rigging and screamed for Njord to save them. Farden didn’t expect him to intervene.

  The mage half-ran half-fell down the stairs and his boots splashed in the rising water. It was icy cold, and stabbed like daggers into his waist and chest. He had to get to the tearbook.

  Farden ran down the stairs and corridor and dove over broken wooden planks and floating charcoal. He pushed the door open and strode through the flotsam and jetsam floating in his room. The ship was falling apart quicker than he thought.

  ‘Where are you?’ He shouted. Farden was panicking. The tearbook wasn’t on his bed, but he found it hiding under the mattress in the water. He tore away his cloak and breastplate and kicked off his heavy boots so that they didn’t drown him. Grabbing the sack and the rest of his supplies, he sloshed through the seawater and made his way back up to the deck. Once there he tried to get as far away from the water as possible, and made his way to the wheel. Farden shivered in the lashing rain. The Sarunn was now pitching on her port side and the mast was starting to crack in two. Farden found Heold still lying on his front, shouting to his men and now clinging onto the wheel to keep from being washed away. Farden wondered if he had broken his back, and then he saw his legs. A spar of broken wood had skewered one his legs, and smashed the other to a pulp. His shins were a mass of broken bone and bloody flesh.

  ‘Get off the ship lad! She’s done fer!’ the captain shouted at the mage in a hoarse voice.

  ‘What the hell happened to you?’ Farden watched him grimace in pain. ‘You have to get off the ship!’

  ‘Cap’n goes down with ‘is ship is what I ‘eard! Ain’t no way I’ll try m’ chances in the sea tonight!’ He bellowed, face twisted in agony again.

  ‘Gods damn it!’ Farden cursed at the defeated old man. A few sailors and one of the Arka soldiers, who was furiously shedding his heavy steel armour, clambered over the flooded deck, over rigging and drowning cargo. Farden grabbed a broken hatch cover and futilely threw it into the sea, but just then he spied a huge section of a wooden box tied to the railing. He hacked at it with his sword until it came loose and then stood holding it, waiting for the sea to swallow the ship. With growing alarm Farden watched the hungry waves lick at the deck and climb further and further into the ship with every second. He narrowed his eyes, steeled his reserve, and hauled his box to the opposite railing and threw it into the sea. The wind howled around him and threatened to rip the tearbook from his side but Farden grabbed the strap and yanked it hard to tighten it. The brave mage steadied himself on there railing against the force of the storm and waited for his moment to leap. From somewhere behind him the was a deep rending crack and something struck him heavily on the back of the head. Farden
fell down into the angry sea and into a dark dream.

  Part Two

  Follow the Dragons

  Chapter 7

  “It was at this time that the Scribe came to us, the secret behind a Written’s strength, and a great and powerful wing of the magick council came to exist, charged to watch over the dark forces left behind by the elves. The peers of the Arka factions were now under a great duty; to see that the powers of good were exercised in the wild lands of Emaneska, and that direction and order was brought to the people. This was of course, before the greed of the rich sought to pervert the power of the two thrones, when one by one the members of the council turned their minds from justice and good, and wanted for gold and power instead.”

  Arkmage Olfar, writing in the year 789

  Choke.

  Water flooded his nose and ran down his throat like a runaway avalanche of salty black liquid.

  The sea pulled at his hands and feet and clothes with ice-cold fingers. His world switched between the roar of the storm and the inky deafness of underwater. Up was down, and water replaced air.

  Lightning fizzed in the darkness. Somewhere above or below him the clouds slammed together. Stars swam in his head and invisible gods played with his rag-doll body. He felt like his body was swimming away from him, and blood ran down into his eyes. The carcass of the drowned goat knocked against him, stuck somewhere in the tangling rigging.