“It’s not natural,” he said finally. “It’s magic.”
Stile groaned, “Not again. My ship barely made it out of the last magic storm in one piece.”
The wizard opened his eyes, their fierce blue sparkling with determination. “Last time you didn’t have me.”
“Can you stop it?” Tenna asked.
“No, but I can slow it down, though doing so may slow us down as well since we’re relying on an easterly wind.”
“I don’t like that idea,” Stile said. “How far, elf?” he called up to Quist.
“I see no storm, but I can see flocks of birds fleeing our way,” Quist said. “Something drives them.”
Stile gripped the wheel and sorted the information. “Wait until the storm is visible before you act,” he told the wizard. “Let’s run in front of the storm with full sails as long as we can. My hope is we can get far enough west we’ll find safe harbor.”
“The longer we wait, the less impact anything I do will have,” Doulos warned. “Magical storms collect energy and grow in strength every moment.”
“If we don’t find an acceptable port before that thing catches us, we won’t survive,” Stile said. “The risks are acceptable.”
“I pray you’re right.”
The dawn found Tander at the ship’s stern, flying Kel toward the oncoming storm. Tall mushrooming clouds covered the horizon from north to south, obscuring the sun with an eery green. The outflowing winds were already pushing the Sunset’s Trace to her limits.
Kel returned to the ship after less than a quarter hour of flying, refusing to approach the coming storm any closer. Stile looked up at the straining sails with concern and gave a nod to Doulos. It was time to act.
When Y’neth saw the nod, she moved to the quarterdeck’s back railing and drew Mesha, holding the bare blade in front of her. Doulos covered her hands with his own and directed Mesha’s point toward the storm. He closed his eyes and chanted a prayer in a language no one recognized. The words were strange, but seemed to comfort everyone who heard them.
A sudden flutter of sound similar to the flap of a dragon’s wings filled the air then dissolved away. Doulos sighed and his shoulders slumped. He blew out a long, slow breath but kept his hands on Y’neth’s.
The wind disappeared and the sails went slack.
“Becalmed,” Stile said. “Cyril, tell the crew to ready oars.”
“No,” Y’neth said. “Wait.”
A small smile played at the corners of her mouth. She closed her eyes as the wizard picked up his mystical drone again, her smile growing wider. Then her eyes sprang open wide as the wind kicked up, whipping through her hair and filling the sails.
Doulos let his hands fall away and he slumped to the deck.
Stile’s eyes were wild. “What did you do?”
Y’neth’s face was aglow. “It was amazing. He used Mesha and spoke to the storm.”
“Spoke to it?” Stile was skeptical.
“Not exactly like talking,” Y’neth said, “but it’s the best I can think of.”
“It’s an apt explanation,” the wizard’s tired voice floated up from the deck. “I used Mesha as a catalyst and told the storm to be at peace.”
“You told it to calm down?” Stile raised his eyebrows.
“Essentially,” Doulos said, “but it won’t last long. A great deal of hate’s been poured into that monster. I’ve bought us a few hours at best. We might have until sundown, but I’m afraid it will probably reach us sooner than that.”
Stile looked toward the coast, a coast devoid of safe anchorage. “That’s not long enough, not at this speed.”
“It’s all we have.”
73
The Southern Ocean
True to the wizard’s prediction, the outer bands of the hurricane washed over the ship an hour before sundown. A solid squall line of virescent clouds roared overhead, bringing a deluge of water. Every spare bit had been tied down aboard ship, every hatch sealed, and the sails were furled and cinched down tight in anticipation of the savage winds. Those unnecessary to the ship’s operation were relegated belowdecks, which was everyone but Stile, Doulos, and a few deckhands.
Y’neth had refused to go below, citing the fact she could breathe underwater and, if necessary, survive the storm better than anyone by diving deep and not looking back. She stayed by Stile’s side, determined to be his lifeline if he were washed overboard by the coming onslaught.
The Sunset’s Trace was pushed westward with relentless fury despite the lack of sail. Stile struggled with the wheel, trying to pull the ship closer to shore, but not so close as to run aground. The wind had blown them away from the coast and Tander had resorted to sending Kel out in search of land. He found it after several jumps. Though hard to judge the distance, Stile thought they might be able to find a safe place to make landfall before too late.
Hope faded with the sun’s light as no land mass came into sight.
“Why are the sails down?” Y’neth asked Stile. “We could make some headway in this gale.”
“There was no way of knowing when the big blow would hit,” Stile said. “We had to get them down while we could.”
“You’ve got spare masts and sails. What’s the worry?”
“Losing the sails or a mast or two wasn’t my real concern. This kind of wind could have ripped the decking open if I’d left the sails up. The ship would fill with water and we’d go straight to the bottom. The rest of us can’t breathe down there.”
“Run the sails back up,” Doulos said. “I can keep the ship together.”
Stile looked at Doulos as if the wizard had claimed to be an Azur himself. “What? How?”
Doulos walked off the quarterdeck without explanation and made his way to stand before the capstan. He drew Ehrler and held it in a double-handed grip over his head, its tip angled downward. His shoulders bunched, gathering strength. Then he plunged Ehrler into the capstan’s thick wood, the blade disappearing all the way to the hilt.
“How did you…?” Stile yelled. “That’s solid hardwood.”
“This is the sword of truth,” Doulos called back. “Truth is sharper than any blade ever forged by man.”
“What good does carving a hole in my capstan do?”
“Truth is also one of the most powerful things in creation, an aspect of Onúl himself.” Doulos said. “Truth will stand against that false storm and hold this ship together. Now get someone to tie me to the capstan and unfurl your sails.”
Stile turned to the nearest deckhand. “Get below and tell Cyril I want the day crew up here running sail in the next five minutes.”
The deckhand’s face was filled with terror.
“Looks like we’re going to ride the wind.”
The Sunset’s Trace ran before the hurricane like a gazelle fleeing a lion. Lightning flashed across the sky as the last dregs of daylight were swallowed by the night. Two men stood at the center of a struggle against the unnatural twisting of nature. Both fought in their own way to keep forty some odd souls from being claimed by the deep.
Stile labored at the helm to keep their northwestern tack, navigating by intuition once the sun disappeared over the horizon. He passed orders down to Cyril by a runner, the torrential rain and winds loud enough to make shouting futile.
Doulos held on to Ehrler with a white-knuckled grip. His face twisted in pain as he struggled against the unseen forces assaulting the ship through the storm. Unknown to everyone else, the real danger came not from the storm, but from the malevolent spirit behind it.
Men scrambled for cover as hail began to fall. A group of sailors attempted to shield the wizard with a makeshift shelter of canvas, but it proved impossible in the wind. The best they could do was lash a few layers of thick cloth around him and create a barrier between him and the chunks of falling ice.
They knew if he lost his grip on Ehrler, the ship would perish. They would all perish.
The waves grew more turbulent, tossing the crew
across the deck. Stile ordered everyone below with an order to keep the hatches sealed no matter what they heard. Unless the storm abated or they ran aground, no one was to even venture a peek.
The waves towered over the ship as the rain fell in a solid sheet. The prow disappeared from sight and Stile could barely make out Doulos below, wrapped in his canvas sheath. The sails strained against their ropes, filled to overflowing with the stiffest wind Stile had ever allowed. True to his word, the ship held together under the wizard’s effort and there was as yet no sign of strain at the junctures of mast and deck.
Y’neth stood beside her captain, adding her own considerable strength to the wheel. They worked in tandem to keep the ship on a heading they hoped took them back toward the continent. Stile’s concern grew as the hours of struggle wore on and no sign of land was evident. He hoped they were somewhere offshore between the Bay of Sha’ar and Aed Point. The coast there was lined with thousands of soft, narrow sand bars. None of them were substantial enough to beach the ship, especially at their current speed, but they would cause a big enough bump as the Sunset’s Trace passed over them that he would know the beach was close at hand.
“What’s that light?” Y’neth asked. She was looking northwest, where she could just make out a blue glow reflected in the clouds.
“You’ve got better eyes than me,” Stile yelled. “I can’t see anything through this torrent.”
Y’neth pointed into the darkness. “There’s a blue light shining on the clouds over there.”
“Did you say blue?”
“Yes,” Y’neth said, “blue.”
“Shards,” he cursed. “Yashar’s Torch. We’re in trouble.”
“Why?”
“It’s a lighthouse on the tip of Aed Point. It warns ships away from the Great Reef.”
“The Reef,” Y’neth looked west. “We’ve come that far?”
“Looks like the storm’s blown us further than I thought possible,” Stile said. “That storm is pushing us past Aed Point into the Reef. We’re out of options.”
“No, we’re not,” Y’neth said. “Hold on tight.”
She left Stile at the helm and leaped down to the main deck, speeding to the wizard’s side. She peeled aside the canvas to reveal his face, his eyes clenched and jaw set with effort and pain.
“Doulos!” she cried over the storm, “We’re headed for the Great Reef!”
The wizard’s eyes opened a slit and he murmured something unintelligible beneath the roar of the storm.
“I can’t hear you.” Y’neth leaned closer and he repeated himself.
“Nothing,” he groaned. “Hold us together.”
She rocked back on her heels. “I don’t believe you. What about truth?”
Doulos shook his head in defeat. “I’m sorry.”
Y’neth refused to accept his answer. “Does the truth not guide? Cannot truth steer us from a false path. Don’t give in.”
His eyes flew open at her words, shining with their own internal light.
“The truth guides our way,” the wizard said, as if reciting an ancient proverb. “The truth directs our steps from destruction and leads us from despair.”
Y’neth pointed toward the distant blue glow. “Can you get us to the Torch?”
“Yashar’s Torch?”
“Yes.”
Doulos clenched his jaw and Y’neth felt a tremor run through the ship, sending a tingle up her legs through her bare feet as it passed. The wizard’s eyes seemed to glow brighter in the darkness, mirroring the blue light of Yashar’s Torch.
“Tell the captain to let go,” Doulos said.
Y’neth stared at the wizard, measuring his level of awareness. Weary and almost broken moments before, he seemed suffused with energy and vitality. Power exuded from the man and a trick of the light made it look like he was glowing. The rain no longer touched his body. Reading the determination in his eyes, she nodded and ran back to Stile.
“Doulos says to let go of the wheel,” she told the captain.
“Let go?” Stile protested. “Is he mad?”
“He may well be, but has he yet led us astray?” Y’neth slipped her hands over Stile’s. “Let go.”
He stared at her, wondering if she was serious. He muttered something about wizards and women conspiring to sink him, then sighed as he made his decision.
He let go of the wheel.
They were thrown off their feet as the ship listed hard to port. Screams from belowdecks pierced the storm’s roar as waves crashed over the side, threatening to pull the ship under.
The wheel spun with violence as the rudder was left to the whims of the churning water. Stile groaned at the thought of another lost wheel, chagrined that he’d listened to the wizard. Now there was no way he could grab the wheel without breaking an arm.
Then the wheel snapped to a halt. The ship groaned as it began a slow turn to starboard. Invisible hands adjusted the rigging, moving the sails around to best capture the storm’s violent wind and turn it to the ship’s advantage. A final jerk on the wheel pulled the ship hard to starboard until it was headed due north, straight for the Torch.
A roar like a lion split the air, a sound of profound anger and frustration. Wind whipped at the sails in vengeance, the seams in the canvas tearing apart. The ship was carried higher and higher as the waves grew, threatening to overwhelm the ship if it slowed down.
Y’neth and Stile crawled back across the quarterdeck and grabbed the wheel, desperate to hold onto something solid. The wheel stayed steady, as if it had been pinned into place. They drug themselves to their feet and found the blue light of the Torch coming closer by the minute.
Zephyrs clawed at the sails, tearing the mizzen away from the rigging. Stile watched the cloth fly off into the night, strobes of lightning marking its progress. Another bolt shot from the sky to touch the tip of the main mast, blowing the crow’s nest into splinters that swirled away in the storm. The mast caught fire momentarily, but the torrents of rain snuffed it out, leaving blackened cinders behind.
Stile managed a sigh. “There goes another nest.”
Then he looked off to port to see a slim finger of gray reach down from the clouds. His blood turned cold. “Waterspout!” he cried, pointing at the tornado as it formed. Y’neth wasn’t paying attention because she was pointing as well, but in the opposite direction.
Another waterspout was forming off the starboard bow.
“By the deep,” she breathed, “we’re pinned between the two.”
The blue flame of the Torch loomed large, clearly distinguishable through the storm. Stile felt the first soft sandbars bump against the Trace’s keel. The beach was near.
“We’re going to make it,” he breathed like a prayer. “We’re going to make it.”
The roar of the twin waterspouts filled the air and the ship shuddered as the opposing forces tried to rip her apart. One sail after another was torn from the masts until only a bare skeleton remained. Ropes flapped like frayed sinew in the violent winds. On the deck below, Doulos was gritting his teeth and trembling as he gripped Ehrler, as if it were his hands holding the ship together.
In truth, they were.
Thump after thump rocked the ship from below as the frequency of sandbars increased.
Stile wrapped an arm around Y’neth. “Hold on.” She couldn’t help but smirk at his misguided chivalry.
The ship jerked as the hurricane drove it onto the soft beach. She shuddered and groaned against the violence until her keel finally snapped. The Trace slid several yards along the sand before grinding to a halt. She canted over to lay on her port side, wounded and scarred.
Hatches flew open and the crew began pouring out of her belly.
“Grab all the supplies you can carry and run for the Torch,” Doulos yelled. “And somebody cut me loose.”
Quist obliged the wizard, scrambling up the angled deck like a monkey to slash the wizard free of his bindings with a swipe. Ehrler came free with ease, leaving no m
ark on the capstan. The pair slid down the deck, hopped down to the beach, and waited for the others to get free of the injured ship.
After a quick head count, the wizard turned and led the castaways toward the safety of the Torch at a run. The swirling waterspouts drew closer to the beach, and one another. The sea churned, throwing white foam onto the beach as the refugees struggled again the driving rain. They fought until they finally reached the outcropping of bedrock that formed the Torch’s foundation.
Rough-hewn stairs led up from the beach. Doulos took them two or three at a time in his haste. The Torch loomed over them, a massive tower of white stone, well over a hundred paces wide.
“Crowd around the Tower,” he yelled. “Hug the walls as tightly as you can.” He ran his hands along the stone, muttering prayers that sounded like pleading to those who heard them.
The waterspouts made landfall and merged, more than doubling their collective fury. The blue flame of the Torch seemed to brighten in defiance, its flames crackling in a roar that rose to match the tornado’s intensity.
“Door!” a sailor yelled as a segment of the Tower’s solid wall slid away before him. Blue light illuminated the hollow inside, revealing nothing but solid white walls with a single staircase spiraling upward.
“Inside!” Doulos ordered.
The tornado spewed sand into the air as it bypassed the ship and headed straight for the Torch as if guided by an invisible hand. Sand bit at the refugees as they struggled against the wind and panic to enter the Tower. A sailor near the back of the line dropped a bag of bread and it blew away in the maelstrom. He broke file to give chase.
“Leave it!” Stile yelled.
The sailor tried to turn back, but the tornado seemed to reach out and grab him. He was swept from the beach and lost from sight. Stile cursed and dove for the open portal.
Doulos stood in the center of the Tower’s floor and cried out, “Yashar!”
The Foundlings (The Swords of Xigara) Page 40
