The girl steered the bucking boat through a maze of white-crested troughs. 'He's entirely without scruple,' she said finally. 'He'll get a man drunk enough to wake up blind, to learn some trifle he's seeking. When he can get a girl to sail with him, he'll offer her up willing or not, if that's the price of a juicy morsel of gossip from some panting brute. He boasts of addling freeborn islanders into stupidity and trading them into slavery just to make friends with a pirate shipmaster.'
'To learn some secret?' Kheda was uncertain of her meaning.
'Just because he can, sometimes,' the girl replied dourly. 'To see if he can get away with such wickedness.'
'The corruption of magic is said to stain bone deep,' commented Kheda with distaste. 'Why doesn't Shek Kul just have him killed and be done?'
'That was his intention, when he'd found out just who Dev sells his information to and what that person might want with the inner dealings of the Archipelago. I imagine he'll see him dead regardless, now it's definite the man is a wizard.' The girl looked thoughtful. 'If he can be killed before he realises his peril.'
Kheda shivered as a spray of foam spattered across his back. 'Tell me about the magic, and about the savages. If the Daish domain is to find any means of fighting them, we have to know more about them.'
'You'll have to trust that I'm telling the truth.' The girl took a deep breath. 'I wouldn't have believed it, if I hadn't seen it myself.'
By the time she had finished her incredible tale, she was having to shout above the clamour of a rising storm. The clouds had darkened to a pitch hue and rain was coming down in torrents. An awkward clash of waves sent a wall of green water crashing over their prow, leaving the little skiff knee deep. Kheda was already bailing out with a battered tin pot that came floating out from beneath the foremost thwart and redoubled his efforts. He was soaked to the skin, clothes clinging to his body, so chilled that he ached from head to toe.
The girl was just as drenched, ragged hair flattened, plastered across her honey-coloured face in black streaks, lips pale with cold. She clung to the tiller and to the rope governing the close-reefed sail, arms brutally wrenched by the wind's callous changes of direction.
When he'd got the water in the skiff's bottom down to a manageable level, Kheda worked his way awkwardly to the stern, every lurch threatening to throw him over the side. There was little point trying to make himself heard over the crash of the seas and the gale that was thrashing ropes and canvas into frenzy. He pointed wordlessly to the tiller. The girl let him take it, wrestling grim-faced with the vicious wind for mastery of the scrap of sail that was all they dared risk. Kheda sat beside her, the tiller gripped in both hands. The boat rocked and danced. Rain and sea alike battered them relentlessly in a tumult reflecting the turmoil of Kheda's own thoughts.
The stakes get higher with every turn of this game. Dealing with a barbarian claiming knowledge of northern wizardry is one thing; how do I deal with a proven user of magic? But what do I do, if I don't? Where else am I going to find any hope for my domain? If we live through this storm, it must surely be an omen. It must surely be a sign that we're following a path for the ultimate good of the Daish people, even if it does take me to a self-confessed wizard.
The girl's painful pinch on his cold arm startled him.
'We have to round that headland,' she yelled. 'I must lower the sail or we'll be driven on to the rocks.'
'Do it.' The boat rocked alarmingly as she crawled forward and brought the circumscribed sail crashing down, dragging the spars hastily out of his way. Kheda held out his hand, pulling her back to take over the tiller as he moved to the middle thwart and retrieved the oars. Rowing was agony, his chilled and strained muscles protesting with every stroke. Several times the rocking of the skiff left him pulling against empty air instead of sea with a sudden jerk that tore at his shoulders. Unable to see where they were headed, he fixed his trust in the girl clinging to the tiller, grim-faced as she looked beyond the little boat's prow. Kheda heard the crash of sea over rocks, the growl of surf on a stony shore. He ducked his head and pulled harder.
'Dev's ship!' The girl's cry, half relief, half apprehension, made Kheda look up.
He realised they had fought past the headland to win the relative calm of the leeward side. The seas were still running fast and furious but the oars no longer fought him so frantically. Twisting to look over his shoulder, he saw a small trading ship riding at anchor in the most sheltered part of the bay, sails furled and hatches tight barred.
Kheda shouted to the girl. 'If he's aboard, we ask for shelter. If he's not, we sit out this storm in the ship and think what to do next in the morning.'
She nodded fervent agreement and Kheda bent over the oars for one last effort. They reached the Amigal with a bump that set the ship rocking but the girl managed to reach up and grab the rail. Before Kheda could stop or help her, she swung herself aboard.
'Throw me a rope,' she yelled.
Kheda hastily tossed the oars into the bottom of the skiff and scrambled to the prow. He threw her the bow rope with numb, awkward hands and she caught it with a clumsy grab. As she wrapped it around the bigger ship's rail, Kheda retrieved their sodden belongings, hurling everything he could find up to the Amigal's deck. Bags landed with dull thuds and Kheda belatedly remembered Shek Kul's sealed box.
That'll be another sign, if that's survived intact.
'Come on.' The girl leaned over the rail, her hand outstretched.
Once aboard, Kheda looked uncertainly at the close-fitted stern hatch. 'Do you think he's here?'
The girl bit her lip. 'Only one way to find out.' She bent to pull the brass ring sunk into the hatch. As she did so, the wood rose up and smacked into her fingers.
'Risala, you ungrateful little bitch, what a surprise to see you here.' It was a genial enough greeting, apart from the actual words. 'You've brought company? Who said you could do that?'
'We're dying of wet and cold out here,' the girl said indistinctly, sucking on her stinging hand. 'Give us some shelter for pity's sake.'
'Plenty of shelter ashore.' But the man climbed up the ladder to open the hatch wider. 'All right, get in before we all drown.'
Kheda took the hatch and the man disappeared. The girl, Risala, gathered up their belongings and half slid, half fell down the ladder. Kheda followed as quickly as he could, pulling the hatch closed behind him. Dev was already back in his hammock, one leg dangling over the side, a horn cup resting on his belly cradled in both hands.
Kheda twisted the ring on the inner face of the hatch, turning a sturdy brass bar to secure it. He turned to Dev, composing his face to suitable gratitude. 'Thank you for taking us aboard.'
'Don't thank me yet,' Dev said cheerfully. 'I'll cut your throat and throw you overboard if you get on my nerves, won't I, Risala?'
'Doubtless,' she said shortly. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering uncontrollably. 'Just let us get warm and dry first.'
'Best get out of those wet things.' He leered at her.
'I'll change through there, thanks.' She jerked her head towards the main hold.
'Let you loose with my stock?' Dev raised his eyebrows. 'I think not.'
'Why don't you and I go through, Master Dev?' suggested Kheda tentatively. 'Risala,' he stumbled over the name and hoped he'd heard it right. 'You can change in here.'
'I don't know why my lady thinks her modesty is worth protecting. All right then, it'll give me a chance to see what you're made of. The curiosity in Dev's face was undisguised. He swung himself out of his hammock and took the lantern from its hook. 'You can work by feel, girl. I want a better look at your friend here.' He unlocked the door and gestured Kheda through.
'Look all you want.' Kheda pulled his saturated tunic over his head with some difficulty, the cloth clinging to his skin. 'There's not much to see.' He tugged at the drawstring of his trousers, the knot swollen and tight.
'I don't imagine that's what the ladies say,' Dev said slyly, raising the lantern.
Kheda registered the man's hairless chin for the first time. 'If you're a man's man, I'm sorry to disappoint you,' he said curtly.
He turned his back on Dev, shed the trousers and dug in his bag for other clothes.
'If there's anything dry in there, I'll eat it,' the other man mocked.
Kheda didn't turn round, wiping water from his body as best he could with his wrung-out tunic. 'If you've anything dry for us to wear, we'd be in your debt,' he said with carefully calculated mildness.
'Why should that interest me?' Dev's words were an unpleasant blend of scorn and amusement.
'I thought you were a trader.' Kheda shook out the pair of non-descript trousers Shek Kul's slave had given him for a change of clothes. They didn't actually drip but that was their only advantage over the garment oozing a puddle on the boards by his feet. 'Don't you trade in obligation?'
'When it suits me,' Dev allowed. 'It doesn't happen to suit me just now,' he added maliciously.
Kheda stepped into trousers that clung unpleasantly to his legs. 'Risala, are you dressed?'
'Yes.' She pushed open the door and the lamplight showed her in a thin dress clinging damply to her skinny body.
'Very fetching,' Dev admired before turning his attention back to Kheda. 'Has she told you what I am?'
'A vice peddler, selling liquor and leaf, dreamsmokes and the like.' Kheda leaned against the barrels he'd dumped his bag on, hands behind his back. 'And a wizard.'
'You came to see if it was true, did you?' challenged Dev. 'Another halfwit of a poet?'
'I'm a soothsayer,' replied Kheda.
'I asked him if he could purify me after being touched by your magic,' Risala said instantly.
'Is that so?' Dev raised a hand and a red haze enveloped Kheda. Enveloped in warmth, he nevertheless froze with shock, his spine a column of ice and dread. Dev snapped his fingers and the mist vanished. 'How will you do that when you're just as tainted?'
Kheda licked his lips and found them dry. In fact, he was entirely dry, clothes, skin, hair and beard, and the bone-deep chill was receding fast. He cleared his throat. 'There's a school of thought that argues an innocent victim of magic is not so deeply mired in it as someone who deliberately seeks out or effects its use.'
'Effects its use?' Dev echoed unpleasantly. 'Do any of these great Archipelagan thinkers know anything about effecting magic's use?'
'I really couldn't say,' Kheda shrugged.
'I really wouldn't think so,' retorted Dev. 'You know nothing, you Aldabreshi with your soothsayers and your stargazers and your books full of lore on what's to be read in a deer's innards.'
'I know I'm chilled half to death.' Risala could barely get the words out, her teeth were chattering so much. 'You can spare some wine to warm me, you bastard.'
'I'll do better than that' With a negligent wave of Dev's hand, the same red glow swirled around her 'A cup of wine isn't a bad notion, mind. Then you can tell me what brings you back to me.' He shot a sideways smirk at Kheda. 'Other than my prowess as a lover.'
Kheda caught the speculative glint in the wizard's eye and kept his face impassive.
I've had better men than you, and worse, try to rile me into indiscretion, you tedious little barbarian.
He smiled at Risala who was shaking out the stiff and crumpled folds of her dry dress. 'I don't suppose this makes your contamination too much worse.'
'Ah, you wouldn't have touched her, not while she was so dirty with magic' Dev turned to choose a bottle from an all but empty basket. 'That's why you're so keen to purify her, so she'll open her thighs out of gratitude? Sorry, friend, she's not worth the bother.'
'Still so keen on the sound of your own voice, Dev.' Risala wasn't rising to the bait either. 'Any chance you'll start speaking sense any time soon?'
'Make yourself useful and find the cups.' Bottle in one hand, lantern in the other, Dev jerked his head towards the miscellaneous storage boxes. 'You, soothsayer, back in there.'
Kheda dutifully returned to the stern cabin, followed by Risala. Dev hung the lantern on its hook and turned to lock the door to the hold. Kheda and Risala shared a glance and he saw his own determination mirrored in her face.
'If you're stained by my magic, I don't suppose the crime of tasting my wine will worry you too much.' Dev grinned genially as he twisted the wax-sealed cork out of the bottle. 'Let's have a drink, girl.' As Risala held out two horn cups, he sloshed dark red wine into them. 'There you go, soothsayer'
Kheda wordlessly accepted a cup.
'Be careful,' Dev warned, sarcastic. 'You can't go back to drinking that goat's piss you people call wine, once you get a taste for this.' With remarkable deftness, he got onto the hammock, found his cup and refilled it, feet swinging.
'Wizard or not, I'd take you for Aldabreshi.' Kheda sat down on the battered chest on the opposite side of the cabin. 'From some northern domain and with barbarian blood, but certainly born in the Archipelago.' He sipped cautiously, blinking rapidly as the powerful perfume of the wine momentarily overwhelmed him. 'Are you one of us?'
'Did you find some way to escape execution once the magic warping you became apparent?' Risala's blue eyes were speculative over the rim of her cup. She sat on the chest beside Kheda, her thigh pressing against his.
'Not me.' Dev took a swig of wine. 'I'm a barbarian, born and bred. None of your soothsayers ever saw that, friend.' He grinned cheerfully.
Kheda studied him. 'What could a barbarian wizard seek in the Archipelago, at the risk of his own hide?'
'That's my business, pal.' Dev scowled as he emptied his cup. 'I'm more interested in yours. This is my ship, so I'll ask the questions. What brings you hunting for a mage? And don't give me any tripe about helping the poor little soiled poet girl. I might believe it if you were looking to lift her skirts but I don't see that.'
'You're an astute man,' observed Kheda.
'I'd be long dead if I wasn't.' Dev saluted him with his cup. 'What really brings you to me? Apart from a glossy trireme all the way from northern waters.' He shook his head at Risala. 'You didn't think I'd let you go, did you, girlie? I've been keeping a wizard's eye on you, just in case you went selling my secret to some bastard who'd come looking to nail my skin to a fortress door.' He refilled his cup as he spoke. 'I was thinking it was a shame I had no one to make a wager with, against you two making it here alive, when I saw you fighting that storm.'
'Would you have done anything about it, if we'd foundered?' Risala stood up and took the bottle from Dev.
'And pollute you further with my filthy magic?' Dev pretended concern.
'There are worse magics than yours abroad in these reaches,' said Kheda curtly. He reached out and took the wine bottle from Risala.
'That interests you, does it?' Dev swung his feet idly but his eyes were alert.
Wizards cloak themselves in lies and twist anything they touch out of true. Can you read my words? Let's see how much truth I can tell you without you seeing the whole.
'Let's get down to business.' Kheda set his empty cup on the floor. 'I've offered counsel to the Daish domain before now and, for reasons I don't propose to share with you, I'm under a great obligation to the lady Janne Daish. I want to repay that debt by finding some means to frustrate this magic that's brought such destruction to the Chazen domain, before it can come north to devastate the Daish islands.' He raised an emphatic finger. 'Not that Janne Daish has any knowledge of my intent. You can't use that against her.'
'You think you can fight back against those savages and their magic? You're an idiot. All you Archipelagans, you're ignorant, magicless fools.' Dev gestured for the wine bottle. 'You cannot fight those with wizardry bred in their very bone.' For the first time, he sounded entirely serious, even without malice.
'You could.' Kheda jerked his head towards Risala beside him. 'She told me as much.'
'I could, true enough.' Dev swung up his feet and lay back in his hammock, tipping the last of the wine into his cup. 'I did, very effecti
vely, I might add. What's that to you, soothsayer? Suborning magic will see you skinned along with me and her head on a spike, just for good measure,' he concluded with happy malice.
Kheda picked up his cup and drank the heady wine slowly before putting into words the furious debate he'd waged with himself, even as he and Risala had fought their way through the storm.
You've come too far, at the cost of too much pain, for you and all those you love to give up now.
'The malice of magic is what stains whatever it touches. These savages, they've proved themselves vicious beyond belief. Would dealing with a wizard to find some way to fight them, if that's the only way to fight them, would that be so very evil?' He looked at Risala, desperate to see some agreement in her eyes.
She looked at him, biting her lip, before shivering suddenly. 'I wouldn't like to stand before any warlord and plead that case for his mercy.'
'I once read an argument where magic was likened to a crystal prism,' Kheda said to her, beseeching. 'Splitting the pure light into broken colours. A second prism can restore the light. Might using a wizard's knowledge to quell magic not be the lesser of the two evils?'
'Pardon me for interrupting your philosophical debate—' Dev tossed the empty wine bottle into the air. 'Your assumption—'
A blue light sparked inside the dark green glass and died at once. The bottle crashed to the floor and shattered.
'Arseholes!' Dev sat up straight, mouth open. He waved a hand at the lamp, which burned on steadily, golden glow unaffected. He half jumped, half fell from his hammock. 'What have you done, you bastards?'
'Mind the glass!' Risala warned, drawing her feet up to the top of the chest, hugging her knees.
Dev ignored the dull green shards scattered across the boards, glaring at Kheda. 'What have you done?'
'Tamed your magic, for the moment.' Kheda hoped he'd dusted the last of the powder he'd taken from Shek Kul's box from his fingers. 'I'd rather have your cooperation willingly but I'll force you if needs be.'
And thank you for that ancient concoction, great lord of Shek, even if you had no idea if it would work, as you were scrupulously honest in explaining.
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