Southern Fire ac-1

by Juliet E. McKenna

  'Their leader?' Risala suggested, tense. 'The man Chazen Saril will need to kill?'

  'For a poet you seem very interested in strategy.' Dev didn't take his eye away from the spyglass 'Well now, who's this?'

  'Who?' Frustration brought Risala on to her knees before caution forced her back again.

  'Feathercloak and Lizardskin are on their faces before him, so he must be important. He looks much the same as the rest, tall, skinny, hair all stuck together with coloured paint. But he's wearing an incredible cloak.' Dev leaned forward in an unconscious effort to see more clearly.

  'How so?' Risala tried in vain to see what he meant but they were too far away.

  'It's scales, like our friend in the lizard skin but there's just no comparison,' Dev breathed. 'It's red and polished or lacquered or something, it must be, to shine like that.'

  Risala looked at the unbroken blanket of cloud up above. 'How can it be shining with no sun?'

  Dev realised the ruby sheen on the rippling hide was magelight. The cloak was a full half circle cut from the belly skin of some massive beast, soft carnelian scales a finger's length or so. Dev swallowed the lump of disbelief in his throat. 'I think it's dragon hide.'

  The new mage walked slowly towards Feathercloak and Lizardskin, who were still prostrate, hands outstretched. Rain falling anywhere near vanished into steam suffused with raw elemental fire.

  'It can't be,' Risala objected. 'You only find dragons in poems.'

  'And the frozen mountains of the unbroken lands,' countered Dev. 'I still say it's dragon hide. Hush, he's looking in the chest.'

  'Can you see what they brought him?' Risala edged closer.

  'No.' Dev shook his head in disgust and thrust the spyglass at her. 'You try, if you're so keen to see.'

  A little confused, Risala nevertheless took the spyglass and turned it eagerly on the encampment on the shore. Dev looked for a puddle. All this rain had to be good for something. A hollow in a rock shone with moisture and Dev shuffled unobtrusively over for a clear view of the water's surface.

  'See anything?' he demanded of Risala.

  'No, not yet,' she said slowly.

  'Try harder,' he told her curtly. He concentrated all his elemental affinity on the water, suppressing every hint of magelight in the scrying. An image floated on the surface like an instant of reflection caught in a sloshing cup and vanished. Dev took a deep breath.

  'Fire!' Risala started so violently that she knocked Dev's arm. 'A flash like flames anyway. Some magic, or something.' She cowered as low behind the rock as she could without losing sight of the distant beach.

  Ready to mock Risala for panicking at a newly lit cook fire, Dev's sarcasm died on his tongue with a taste like old ashes. In the mirror of the watery hollow, he saw the mage in the dragon hide raise his arms, the ruby iridescence of the cloak growing ever brighter. Magelight flickered in scarlet flames around his upturned hands. Even at this distance, the untamed power buffeted Dev's wizard senses. He gasped as he felt that power sent questing out over land and sea.

  'Run!' He sprang to his feet and raced for the little boat. He didn't wait to answer Risala's incoherent questions, barely slowing as a stone sliding away beneath his feet wrenched at his ankle and he barked his shin on a vicious outcrop.

  The boulder Dev had rested his elbows on exploded. Gobbets of molten rock shot overhead to fall hissing into the sea or splinter the stones as they landed. The ground shifted and buckled and Dev looked back to see a burning crack gaping where they had crouched on the headland. As he watched, a bright arrowhead of blazing magelight cut rapidly through the ground towards him, a fiery fissure widening behind it.

  Risala whimpered frantically as she hauled at the little boat. Dev seized the nearest handhold. Between them they threw the shallow craft into the water, setting it rocking perilously as they leaped inside.

  'Put your back into it,' rasped Dev. He thrust them off from a rock with his own paddle.

  The magical rift pursuing them reached the water's edge and halted in a cloud of steam. Dev caught his breath on an instant of relief before the sea all around their boat began to seethe and bubble.

  Risala snatched her paddle out of the water. 'We're going to be boiled alive,' she wailed.

  Dev threw his paddle away and thrust his hands forward, emerald magelight swirling around them. Ignoring Risala's horror-struck face, he gripped the sides of the boat. The green radiance crawled outwards to form a lattice over the surface of the wood. As his magic touched the water, Dev realised there wasn't any fire magic beneath their hull. The water wasn't boiling; something was stirring it up. A roiling confusion of earth and water enchantments was rising beneath them.

  Risala screamed as a glaucous grey tentacle slapped across the boat in front of her. Another came up on her other side and the two began twining together. She hammered at the writhing knot with her paddle blade but more tendrils came to join it. 'Dev!' Her panic rose to a tearing shriek as more tentacles poured over the side of the boat and began curling around her legs. Thick slime glistened on her feet, pooling in the bottom of the boat. She wrenched at a slippery grey feeler trying to coil around her wrist, freeing herself with an audible ripping sound. Livid sucker marks marred her skin.

  Dev sat motionless, feeling this enchantment, whatever it was, leeching the magic from his own working, sucking at the elemental power he had summoned from the water. This unknown sorcery wasn't only leaving him powerless, it was using the stolen magic to feed the abomination attacking them. He looked over the side of the boat into the foaming sea where countless pallid, boneless limbs were emerging from the depths. Wherever the blind greedy fingers touched his magic, the green light faded to nothingness. Thrusting his hands to the air he summoned the fire that had always been the foundation of his power, flames dancing on his palms. A moment later, the scarlet light vanished, mercilessly snuffed.

  A cracking sound silenced Risala's frantic screams. The little boat shuddered as the soft tentacles suddenly stuck fast to the solid wood. They pulled and cracks appeared between Dev's feet. Sea water flooded the narrow hull, trails of slime floating free.

  'Give me your hand!' As Dev reached for Risala, the tentacles quivered and ripped the boat to splinters with a mighty convulsion. He fell into the water, struggling to keep his head out of the spume and slime, lashing out at the loathsome touch of the grey tendrils on his arms and legs. Risala's despairing sob ended in a gurgle as something pulled her below the waves.

  Dev kicked out madly at the smooth slipperiness curling around his feet, pushing in all directions to keep from being entangled. Taking a breath as best he could, he dived down, fighting his way through the water. The treacherous tendrils slid away before curling back to try winding around his arms. His fist hit something solid. He grabbed for it. Not wood, nor sea monster, it was firm yet flesh. It had to be Risala. Inheld breath burning in his chest, Dev looked upwards and turned every inborn instinct of magic within him to the sky.

  They hit the deck of the Amigal with a thud that left him gasping. Risala sprawled beside him, her face invisible beneath the clinging mass of her sodden hair. Dev dragged himself to his knees and rolled the girl over on to her front, scraping the hair away.

  'Breathe, curse you,' he rasped. Seizing her around the waist, he raised her hips. A spasm of coughing racked her and she began vomiting water and slime. Dev used one of the mast ropes to haul himself upright. This was no time for subtlety. He scattered the branches that had hidden the little ship with sweeps of sapphire magic, all the while hurrying to rig the sail.

  'Help me,' he snarled at Risala. 'Otherwise we're both dead. Get the anchors aboard.'

  Dragging herself to her feet, she half climbed, half fell over the rail, ashen-faced and her wide eyes bloodshot. She stumbled along the muddy bank, dragging the anchors with the last of her strength. Dev set the sail flapping loosely around the mast. The wind that had brought them to this inlet blew steadily onshore.

  'Take the tiller,' De
v ordered, scooping up the anchors with a flurry of azure light.

  Risala shied away from it with a fearful inarticulate cry.

  'Get aboard and steer the cursed boat.' He glared at her.

  Risala stood, frozen for an endless moment before scrambling over the rail, whimpering with terror as she gripped the tiller as if that alone could save her.

  Dev turned his attention to filling the sail with a breeze strong enough to drive the Amigal out of its hiding place. He reached for the water beneath the hull but it slipped away from him, cold and unresponsive. Water magic was entirely beyond him, antithetical to the elemental fire where his inborn affinity lay.

  The Amigal lurched and shuddered her way out into open water. Risala hauled this way and that on the tiller, staring panic-stricken in all directions.

  Dev sank to the deck, back against the mast, legs outstretched in front of him, face to the prow. He realised with distant surprise that his feet and ankles were ringed with sucker marks. 'I'll get us as far as I can,' he said, not looking back. 'Then it'll be up to you. Try and get us to the Daish domain at very least. I'll have to sleep.' Exhaustion so deep his very bones ached threatened to overwhelm him. He fought it, looking up into the billows of the sail, concentrating on summoning the wind to carry them forward against the natural currents of the air.

  'What did you do?' choked Risala from the stern.

  'Translocation,' he answered hoarsely. A particularly draining spell, granted, but even allowing for the other magic he'd been working, it shouldn't have left him this enfeebled.

  'You're a wizard as well.' Risala's voice shook with loathing.

  'You want me to throw you back to wrestle that monster?' snarled Dev.

  'I won't sail with a wizard.' The girl's voice was harsh with fright.

  'Suit yourself.' Dev knotted his fingers tight together, welcoming the pain as it quelled the trembling in his hands. 'Don't think of betraying me to anyone though. Any warlord looking to skin me will want me to talk first. I'll happily oblige if it means your death along with mine. Enough people have seen you with me this last run of the moons. I'll say you're my apprentice, that you sought me out to learn all the magic you could. You'll be hunted from one end of the Archipelago to the other.' Speaking was such an effort he abandoned it, turning what little vigour remained to him to the enchanted breeze, to carrying them away from that murderous wizard in his dragon-hide cloak.

  'It was all lies, wasn't it? I asked you and you lied to me. The way you claimed to know all the currents, all the wind patterns, all your boasts about the secrets of sailing south into the face of the rains? It was just magic, wasn't it? What else have you done?' Risala's questions came in ragged gasps. 'What other magic have you worked to taint innocent people and places? What are you seeking in these reaches? Are you working for some barbarian king or has some warlord betrayed his birthright to turn your evil to his advantage?'

  Dev ignored her. As the Amigal escaped the windward shore, Risala steered desperately to catch the natural breezes. The full-bellied sail pushed the little ship faster through the water. Dev realised belatedly it had stopped raining.

  'I suppose I should thank you for saving me.' Risala forced the words out eventually.

  'That wasn't about saving you.' There was an edge of hysteria in Dev's mockery. 'That was not letting him win.'

  When he woke, he was lying in darkness on the floor of the aft cabin, the canvas of his hammock loosely draped over him. After a moment of stiff shock, he relaxed, propping himself up one elbow. The ship rocked with the gentle motion of a sheltered anchorage and he realised he could feel the sea streaming slowly along the hull with his usual wizard senses. He had recovered that much magic.

  'Risala?' There was no reply. Reaching out with his inborn talent for fire, he lit the lamp hanging from the beam above him. Tossing the canvas aside, Dev got slowly and painfully to his feet. They were still sore where the obscene tentacles had fastened around them, the marks livid and puffy.

  'Risala?' He realised her pathetic belongings were gone. Taking the lantern from its hook, he hobbled into the main hold and along the fore cabin. Everything was as it should be. At least the bitch hadn't robbed him, though the loss of the sack he'd taken ashore was a heavy blow to bear, he thought sourly.

  Climbing the ladder and throwing open the hatch took more effort than Dev liked, but once on deck he breathed more easily. The Amigal was securely anchored by one of the Daish domain's lesser trading islets, deserted now as it had been on their voyage south.

  Dev nodded with grudging admiration. He wouldn't have thought Risala had it in her to find the way back to the place. He looked at the empty white sand, gilded with the last gleam of sunset, and wondered where the girl had gone.

  Chapter Sixteen

  'Suis, at last, what news?' Kheda looked up as the shipmaster entered the cramped cabin the trireme's carpenter had grudgingly surrendered to him. The only reason Kheda was sitting on his roll of bedding was there was no room to pace. Two strides from his neat leather bag of modest possessions by the sternposts would have brought his nose up against the door.

  'The Daish domain prospers, from all I hear and all I can see.' The tall man's head nearly brushed the boards of the deck above. 'Everyone seems well fed and well clothed, busy about the usual wet-season occupations. The trading beach is deserted but people are staying close to home, to stay out of the rains as much as from fear of savages.'

  'You don't think they'll find our presence here unusual?' asked Kheda bluntly. 'So far from your own waters?'

  'Unusual, yes.' Suis chose his words carefully. 'Still, with such strange tidings on the winds, it's not so remarkable that Shek Kul might send a trusted ship south, a trusted shipmaster to see with his own eyes and carry the truth back to the north.'

  'So the Daish domain prospers. Do the people expect that to last?' Kheda stared at the solid wall of wood as if he could look through it to the seashore beyond. 'Don't they fear assault from the south? What news of the invaders?'

  'Chazen holds the line of the Serpents' Teeth against the savages,' the mariner said in neutral tones. 'Chazen islanders continue to flee whenever they can. From what they say, these villains are making no preparations to come north. Redigal Coron's ships patrol the waters to the west nevertheless while Ritsem and Sarem forces wait in readiness.'

  'To sail south as soon as the rains are over,' concluded Kheda grimly.

  At anchor in Daish waters. I cannot so much as see my people and they most certainly cannot be allowed to see me, but Daish waters all the same. Do you realise I'm so frustrated by all this that I could cheerfully punch a hole through the hull of your ship?

  The shipmaster stood, hands behind his back, wide shoulders hiding the door behind him, easily balanced as the trireme rode contentedly at anchor. 'It may be hoped other domains would send forces to help Chazen Saril whenever he sought to reclaim his rightful domain.'

  'Isn't there word of firm alliances, commitments given and rewards pledged?' Kheda asked sharply. 'Are you telling me people don't read Chazen Saril's intentions thus?'

  'His men are fortifying their positions on the islets of the Serpents' Teeth.' Suis fixed his gaze on a knothole somewhere behind Kheda's head. 'Building defences that face in all directions, in case the invaders might somehow outflank them, so Chazen Saril claims. Redigal Coron is said to have rebuked him for lack of faith in the Daish domain's ships but Chazen Saril says he fears magical treachery carrying enemy forces into their midst.' The shipmaster paused. 'He is said to argue this possibility makes launching a strike south foolhardy at best.'

  Kheda frowned. 'What does he mean by that?'

  Suis's reply was precise and neutral. 'Some of those Chazen men holding the Serpents' Teeth against the invaders have been given leave to visit families sheltered in the Daish domain. It is said that they are doing their best to beget children.'

  Kheda looked suspiciously at the mariner. 'Men in fear of their lives commonly feel an urgency
to plant their seed for a new generation.'

  'It is commonly believed hereabouts that Chazen Saril is encouraging his men to give their wives a stake in the Daish domain, by virtue of a child nourished and born within its bounds.'

  There was a definite edge to Suis's words that grated on Kheda's ear.

  You don't like that, do you? Shek Kul assured me you'd ask no questions and offer no opinions and you've been as unreadable as a blank page, just as he promised, but you don't like that. There's something more, isn't there, if I can ask the right question, to get you to tell me. What wouldn't I give for Atoun at my side, or Telouet, giving me straightforward reports and offering blunt advice?

  'The Daish islanders don't believe Chazen Saril will sail south to reclaim his own lands, do they?'

  The movement of Suis's broad shoulders might have been the suggestion of a shrug. 'Few here have a favourable opinion of his courage or battle hardiness. He is certainly not spending any great deal of time with his own people and there are few signs that he is making ready to sail south. '

  Kheda held his temper in check with some effort.

  It's not fair to blame Suis for the time it took to make the voyage. The days at sea might have seemed endless to you but this trireme made this passage faster than you had any right to expect. These oarsmen don't know who you are or what your concerns may be and have never so much as hinted at a question but they've rowed ceaselessly against the full force of the worst of the rainy season weather without complaint. The sail master and his crew haven't so much as uncoiled their ropes, the winds have been so contrary.

  Suis stood, patient, expressionless. Silence echoed loudly in the confined cabin.

  'Where is Chazen Saril spending his time and what is he doing with it?' Kheda asked brusquely.

  'He is presently a guest in the Daish household.' Suis's gaze flickered to Kheda's face before fixing on the stern planks again. 'In the dry-season residence, that is.'

  'At whose invitation?' snapped Kheda.

  'It is said he is spending a great deal of time with Sain Daish, consoling her over her widowhood and soothing her fears for the fate of her new son,' said Suis carefully. 'She has not travelled with the other wives to their rainy-season residence to the north.'