A white ship, sails full to bursting, rose out of the darkness and pounded forward on the ocean, propelled by the fierce winds. Its masts were hung with blue and silver pennants snapping at right angles to the masts; its decks were slick with water. Foam crashed from its bow as it rode the waves toward the shore, rising and falling with stately yet impatient grace. Lightning struck the sea all around it, surrounding it in a cage of white fire. The tips of its straining masts burned with an unearthly light.
It grew perceptibly larger, and Sal feared that it would crash on the beach and tear itself asunder.
The Sky Wardens, the Alders and the Mayor struggled upwind to meet it.
“Os!” Lodo shouted.
“What?”
“That’s its name: Os, the ship of bone.” Lodo seemed stunned. “I’m a fool. They came by sea!”
Somehow, the ship managed to turn. Its crew scurried frantically about on its deck, tying ropes and reeling in sheets as though their lives depended on it. And they probably did, Sal thought. One miscalculation could throw them overboard into the mercy of the storm. A series of them could wreck the entire boat.
Incredibly, it looked as though they were going to risk tying to the end of the jetty. Its sails came down and disappeared below deck; members of the crew jumped overboard, onto the jetty’s rain-dark boards as it came broadside on; ropes followed and were wrapped quickly around poles before snapping taut. Sal could almost imagine the little jetty groaning under the weight of the ship--and all the ocean behind it--as the ship was dragged reluctantly to a halt. Then it was still, somehow, apart from the surging of the waves beneath it.
At that moment, the fury of the storm peaked. A mighty gust of wind roared over the watchers and the beach and into the dunes, knocking them to the ground. The sea rose up and crashed down on the beach, sending spray flying in sheets. There was one last clap of thunder that seemed to go on forever.
Then everything was still.
Sal lay face-down on the sand with his hands over his ears, convinced that he had gone deaf. He rolled over when a hand gripped his arm, and he saw Shilly’s awe-struck face leaning over him. He scrambled to his feet to join Lodo, who stood with his hands on his head, watching the great white ship rocking on the waves.
“Whose is it?” Shilly asked over the easing wind.
“It doesn’t belong to anyone,” the old man replied. “It belongs to the Strand.”
“Who travels in it, then?”
Lodo didn’t answer immediately. With a snort that could have been either despair or defiance, he led them off the beach and out of sight.
“Lodo?” Shilly prompted.
“Os sails for just two people,” he said, “and both their pennants are flying from its mast. I never would have believed it possible, but there’s no point doubting it. They’re here and we have to deal with them if we can.”
Shilly grabbed his arm and tugged him to a halt, tired of his evasiveness. “Who, Lodo? We have a right to know.”
“You’ll find out soon enough.” His voice held a bitter note Sal found disturbing--but nowhere as disturbing as the information Sal had that Shilly lacked.
“The only people Os sails for are the Alcaide and the Syndic,” he said. “It was in a story my father told me years ago. I thought it was just a legend.”
Shilly’s eyes seemed to bulge, and for once she was speechless.
Chapter 15. “On the Point of the Sword”
“So what happens now?”
Shilly sat at the table in Von’s kitchen with her hands lying flat in front of her. Her wet hair hung in a limp ponytail that dribbled water down the back of her clothes. An air of urgent pragmatism had replaced her previous bad mood--and brought her voice back--as though the new development had pushed her through resentment and out the other side. Sal didn’t understand that; he would have predicted precisely the opposite effect, since the threat to her security had just grown exponentially.
“Patience,” said Lodo from the laundry, a square, slate-floored room abutting the kitchen. Sal didn’t know what he was doing in there, exactly. He was using a lump of chalk to draw a complicated design on the floor, but to what end Sal had no idea.
All this went on with Von fussing in the background. She had ten new tenants, all belonging to the contingent accompanying Centofanti and her assistant. The Mayor’s home would house only the Sky Wardens themselves. It wasn’t known yet where the Alcaide and Syndic and their retinue would bunk down for the night.
Sal tried to keep out of everyone’s way. Lodo had whisked them off the beach and into the hostel before anyone had left the white ship, so he had yet to see the new arrivals. The thought that the two most powerful Sky Wardens in all the Strand had come for him and his father seemed unlikely at best. Insane at worst. It just didn’t make sense.
He sat at the table opposite Shilly, concentrating on the Mandala as best he could. Even through the tingling of his skin and the charms--the ones that hadn’t washed off his skin--he could feel a growing pressure from all around him, as though the air itself was trying to crush him. Outside, the main fury of the storm appeared to have abated, although the rain still fell, heavy and damp.
“There must be something I can do.” Shilly got up to look in the laundry. Lodo’s hands appeared, shooing her away.
“Wait until I’m finished,” he said, “then you’ll have plenty to see.”
She stomped back to the table and leaned against it with arms folded. Her gaze wandered the room, then settled on Sal. “Do you know what’s going on?”
He shook his head, startled to realize that Shilly hadn’t participated in any of his conversations with Lodo regarding his parents. She was as much in the dark as he had been a day or two ago.
“I hear they’re looking for someone,” said Von while she chopped vegetables. “And if you really wanted to do something, you’d give me a hand.”
“What sort of someone?” Shilly asked, ignoring the hint.
“Someone important who doesn’t want to be found, I guess.” Von’s sour look matched the younger girl’s. “Why don’t you go ask them yourself?”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Lodo, emerging from the laundry with a satisfied expression and chalk dust on his hands and thighs. “If we could be alone for a while, Von, please. Sal, Shilly, through here.”
Sal followed Shilly into the small room, careful not to smudge the lines Lodo had drawn on the ground. The pattern resembled a compass, with four large points of a cross superimposed over a circle, but there the similarity ended. A tight spiral traced a complicated design around the edge of the circle, while interlocking triangles of many different shapes and sizes formed complex patterns within. In the center was an empty circle, within which Lodo instructed Shilly to stand.
“You’ll be our anchor,” said Lodo to her. “Your lack of natural talent will confuse attempts to trace us--not that they’ll be expecting anything like this out here.”
“Who won’t expect what?” Shilly flapped her hands in frustration, resembling a bird caught in a trap.
Lodo removed Sal’s bracelets and placed him at one of the points.
“Alcaide Braham and Syndic Zanshin.” Lodo seemed to be enjoying her irritation. “Yesterday, remember, I visited the Mayor to discuss Sal’s father’s case. While there, I planted some charms I thought might come in handy--if not now, then another time.” He took a position one point around from Sal and closed his eyes. “A moment, please. I need to concentrate.”
Sal, vulnerable to any movement of the Change by the removal of the bracelets, felt a swirl of energy brush past him, as though a breeze had blown through the open door. He reached behind him to pull the door shut, and Lodo’s eyes snapped open.
“Yes, a good idea,” he said, when he saw what Sal was doing, “but then don’t move from that spot. Don’t even reach out. It’s not safe.”
L
odo closed his eyes again and Sal ignored a What do you think you’re playing at? look from Shilly. Again something invisible brushed by him; it was soon joined by another. The air in the room seemed to be moving in patches in a circle around Shilly.
A burnt-orange light began to glow in the floor beneath Shilly’s feet, casting shadows across the walls and ceiling. It too rotated, but in the opposite direction. Sal was starting to feel dizzy and noted that Shilly had closed her eyes. He did the same--
--and suddenly found himself in another place: a room at least three times as large as Von’s kitchen, containing only a desk and four empty chairs. There was no one in the room. Lodo and Shilly had disappeared and, when he glanced down, he couldn’t see himself either.
Sal looked around in amazement. His eyes were closed but he was still seeing. That wasn’t possible. It couldn’t really be seeing as he was used to seeing. This was something to do with the Change. And Lodo.
“Ah, yes.” The old man’s voice was perfectly clear, although Sal didn’t seem to be hearing with his ears, just as he didn’t seem to be seeing with his eyes. Lodo himself was still nowhere visible. “I thought we might get away with it. This far, at least.”
“Where are we?” asked Shilly from thin air.
“In the Mayor’s office. That’s what we’re seeing, anyway, through the charms I placed. We’re not actually there--and neither is Iphigenia, unfortunately. Hold on.”
The view dissolved into gray. For a dizzying moment Sal heard the deep hum that had filled the spaces between the scourge’s visions--then everything settled down and they were elsewhere.
This time the room was much larger, with curtained windows, carpeted floors, a high ceiling and several tables around the walls. A dozen or so people--Alders and other officials--stood in attitudes of deference around two seated figures. These two were both dressed in white and old enough to be in their sixties: the Alcaide and the Syndic, Sal guessed. They weren’t monsters, just ordinary people. A buzz of voices surrounded them. Sal felt exposed, even though he assumed no one could see him. He was a bodiless spirit, unable to move but at least able to watch.
“We understand perfectly,” said the blue-clad Amele Centofanti. “If you choose to deny the imposition--”
“Nonsense,” said the seated man. His face was rectangular and strong, topped with a thin stubble of gray-black hair, and his features were regular and handsome. No decorations of any kind marked his light-brown skin. Apart from a crystal choker around his throat, he wore no ornament at all. “We are the ranking officials on this expedition and we must follow form. Isn’t that right, Nu?”
The woman beside him inclined her head. She was narrower, darker and older-looking, with pepper-gray hair tied back in a severe bun. She looked uncannily like the Syndic piece in Tom’s Advance set. “Yes, Dragan. Everyone knows we’re here. To not see them would be a slight. We would never sanction such rudeness at home, so we will not be part of it here.”
Sal frowned. He recognized the Syndic’s voice, although he didn’t understand how that could be. Where he had heard it before, he couldn’t imagine.
“If you’re certain--”
“We are.” The Alcaide gestured economically with his right hand. “Bring them in.”
Centofanti nodded once and left the room, closing the door behind her.
“And the other matter?” prompted someone Sal instantly recognized.
“It can wait a moment, Alder Sproule,” said the Alcaide, his expression benign and patient. “There is no need to rush things.”
The door through which Centofanti had vanished opened again, and seven teenagers filed into the room. It was clear from their nervous expressions that they were the candidates for Selection, brought in to meet their examiners. Kemp led the way, followed by five others Sal recognized by face rather than name. Tom, the smallest, brought up the rear. Only he seemed unfazed by the thought of being examined by the Alcaide and Syndic themselves. He just looked tired. Sal imagined that he would be, having been up with the storm the previous night, then welcoming his brother back home.
“Hello, children,” said the Alcaide, leaning forward on his chair as though he was about to stand up, but not doing so. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I hope we’re not too intimidating.”
“We’re honored, sir. I mean, sir and madam,” said Kemp, with a quick glance at his father. Alder Sproule frowned at the slip as though Kemp had uttered a profanity. “We never dreamed you would come to Fundelry.”
The Alcaide glanced at Zanshin beside him. “Neither did we, to be honest, but it’s nice to be here. We wish we could stay longer.”
“Well, there’s not much to see,” Kemp said, seeming to relax slightly, then stiffening when he realized what he had said. His father’s scowl deepened. “That is, for someone like yourself, this must seem a very small town, and--”
The Alcaide laughed good-naturedly and raised a hand to stop Kemp in mid-back-pedal. “I understand what you meant to say, and I disagree. Towns like Fundelry are the backbone of the Strand. Without them, we would have nothing to govern. The Haunted City would be at the center of a terrible void. The first thing we learn when we reach the heights of the Conclave is to treasure the details. Fundelry may be small, but it is none-the-less important--or pleasing--for that.”
“Bah!” snorted Lodo, but Kemp was clearly relieved. The Alcaide had turned a potential slight on Fundelry into a compliment.
“You must be Kemp, the Alder’s son,” said the Syndic. “We’ve heard about you.”
“They comprise a fine group, all of them,” put in Mayor Iphigenia from behind them. “We’re hopeful at least two will return with you.”
“With Centofanti,” the Syndic corrected her. “There is no room aboard our ship.”
“And no need to frighten anyone unnecessarily,” added the Alcaide, rolling his eyes. “Os is an uneasy ride at best. I will never grow accustomed to it.”
The Syndic leaned forward and pointed at Tom. “You. Do you wish to ask a question?”
Sal, like most of the people in the room, hadn’t noticed Tom’s raised hand. The boy had a way of slipping into the background.
“Is my brother staying here?” he asked.
Both the Syndic and Alcaide looked confused for a moment, until Centofanti stepped in.
“He’s referring to Journeyman Tait,” she explained. In response to Tom’s question, she said: “More or less. He’ll act as an apprentice to Euan Holkenhill for a year, so he will be in the area.”
“Then I wish to retract my application for Selection.”
A startled whisper rippled through the room, but Tom seemed oblivious to the reaction his announcement provoked.
“What do you wish to do?” asked the Alcaide.
“Retract my application for Selection, sir,” Tom repeated. “I no longer wish to apply for--”
“I know what it means, boy, but I still don’t understand you. Why would you ask such a thing?”
“My brother is home, so now I don’t need to leave. I want to stay here with him.”
Braham and Zanshin exchanged glances. “Well, this has never happened before, to my knowledge. What do you think, Nu?”
“I think the decision is in our hands, now, Dragan, not the boy’s. He has applied and must see it through. If he is capable or talented, the best place for him is with us. Why would anyone genuinely want it any other way?”
“Agreed.” The Alcaide looked satisfied with the administrator’s ruling. “The application remains open for consideration.”
“We will hear the cases for the applicants in detail later this evening and judge them tomorrow,” the Syndic said. “You will know then which way we have decided.”
Sal caught a fleeting look of alarm cross Tom’s face, but it was quickly buried as Centofanti took the hint. With hurry-up gestures, she gathered the applicants
and led them from the room.
The Alcaide and Syndic conducted a brief, whispered conversation between themselves that Sal couldn’t overhear. More than ever, something about the woman’s voice seemed familiar, but Sal still couldn’t place it.
“How are you doing this?” asked Shilly. “Are we there, or still in Von’s laundry?”
“I’ll explain later,” said Lodo.
“You always say that.”
“Quiet, now.”
Alder Sproule had addressed the seated pair again but the brief exchange between Shilly and Lodo had obscured it.
“Very well,” said the Alcaide to whatever Sproule had said. “Bring him before us.”
Sproule smiled and nodded to a door attendant, who left the room. A moment later she brought back Sal’s father.
Sal gasped at the sight, and wanted to run to him, but he couldn’t move independently. All he could do was watch as his father was led, bound, to the center of the room. He was wearing the same clothes he had been left with in the cell; the bloodstain on his chest was still there. Unshaven and unwashed, his nose broken and eyes bruised, he looked barely civilized.
Sal remembered the beautiful notes he had heard from his father’s fingers and throat and felt like crying.
“And this is...?” prompted the Alcaide.
“My apologies, sir,” said Alder Sproule, stepping forward again to address the pair. “This is the miscreant we discussed earlier, the thief and vagabond calling himself ‘Gershom’ who, with his son, took advantage of the trust and generosity of our people.”
“Give me specifics, Sproule, not rhetoric,” interrupted the Syndic.
Sproule bowed. “They arrived in town ten days ago and took lodgings in a local hostel. Immediately thereafter a number of thefts were reported, occurring solely at night and persisting despite public warnings and offers of clemency if the stolen goods were returned. Two nights ago, acting on information I received in the course of the investigation, I inspected the room in the hostel where the two were staying and found the missing property.”
The Stone Mage & the Sea (Books of the Change Book 1) Page 24
