Desviatus was fortunate to be served by such loyal men – a mercenary crew might have blanched at flying that standard. Slaving was disreputable but profitable work that no honest mariner wanted a part in. Far too many of their fellows had been taken by such ships and ended their lives in chains, themselves.
But his crew trusted his judgement and wintered back home with coin in their purse because he knew the seas and knew the men who needed that knowledge. Things were not often what they seemed, he’d told them, and such rich men should have the taste not to ask too many questions.
When he was satisfied that the rigging and colors were changed, he gave the mate a few more orders before descending the ladder to the hold of the ship. In that cramped space two hundred seasick Wilderlords were riding out the storm that had only begun to toss the ship. Mercenaries who’d hired on to Prince Tavard’s expedition, the big men might be as brave and fierce as their reputation gave, but the Shipwrecker cared not for a man’s size. Or his valor. All were equally puny in her eyes.
“Is all well, Captain?” Sir Damver, the company’s captain, asked. The man looked green in the gloom of the hold, but Desviatus doubted it would improve much by light of day.
“Storm coming up,” he grunted. “Might be a bad one. How fare you Wilderfolk?”
“We’ll survive, with Duin’s grace,” he grunted, looking miserable.
Duin was the wrong divinity to invoke, Desviatus considered telling him. He didn’t bother – that was a landsman’s affair. He looked at the man critically, then glanced back into the hold, just in time to see a small crowd around the sop bucket, heaving.
He sighed. “By the Maiden’s grace, I’ll spare a double ration of grog for every man,” he decided. “It will soothe their nerves and help pass the night.” The last thing he needed was a hold full of panicky Wilderlords, armed or not. “It’ll do your stomachs good, too. Mixed with sugar and lime.”
“I’d very much appreciate it,” Sir Damver assured him.
He had the mate see to the dispensing personally, witnessing every man in turn get his two-handled cup filled and drank. No more, no less.
When he’d had the mate administer special herbs to a few particularly affected Wilderlords, he retired back to his cabin to review the charts by lamplight. The intensity of the storm was increasing, he could feel, but he’d managed to steer the fragment of the fleet along its southern edge, avoiding the brunt of it that would be thrashing the rest of the Castali-flagged ships.
After an hour’s worth of lamp oil had burned, he returned belowdecks to see to his passengers, taking the mate and the boatswain with him. The light from his lamp shone on the unconscious bodies of two hundred able-bodied Wilderlords.
Desviatus nodded in satisfaction, then opened the lock to a sealed cargo locker. Removing the sailcloth that filled the compartment, he revealed tightly-stacked hinged rings of heavy bronze. Each one had a thick ring brazened to it, as well as a badge: a sea axe encircled by a chain, surmounted by an hourglass.
The device of the Ageless Companions, pirates and smugglers of some repute.
The inter-nation brotherhood had existed for five centuries, both at sea and ashore, never growing too large and never attracting attention they didn’t desire.
Desviatus’ fishing village in Cormeer had been the home to one clandestine port of the Companions, and after he’d spent a year at sea as a novice mariner he’d been inducted into the Ageless Companions by his elder brothers and uncles. He learned the true art of maritime trade – moving the cargoes in highest demand past the most oppressive regulators for the highest possible profits.
He’d learned the series of elaborate codes and ciphers the Companions used to conceal their communications. He’d learned of the secret alliances between the smugglers and a number of unlikely institutions across all five duchies, Farise, and beyond: portmasters, merchant houses, taverners, custom clerks, inland lords, temples, Calrom tinkers, beggar kings, cults, tribal chiefs, slavers, local smugglers, pirates, landborn criminal organizations, thieves of repute and even high nobles and ministers of state. Each had a role in the elaborate ecosystem of international smuggling. Most did not even suspect they were in fact dealing with smugglers in their business.
Every ship of the Companions’ fleet had many names, and the brotherhood had agents in most ports. He’d learned the value of leaving port flying one flag, and entering port flying another. Of having multiple copies of the manifest in multiple languages. Of building ships with concealed compartments. Of passing coin from one hand to another without being seen, hiding serious business in light conversation,
That was the beauty of the Ageless Companions: no one ever acknowledged being a member, to a non-member. They were all just common merchants doing business with the “mysterious organization” who seemed to have a wide range of business interests across the Five Duchies. But they were never to be found.
Cargo they carried bearing its mark was always “recently acquired” from the enigmatic organization’s shadowy agents. Deals they made were always alleged to be with faceless figures who were invariably referred to as “Master Sensedat”, an ancient Cormeeran word for “ageless”. Negotiations were always allegedly held in taverns or brothels of low repute, arranged through disinterested third parties who could never quite recall the circumstances, under a magistrate’s examination.
In the rare instances where the Companions needed to enforce their arrangements, they usually contracted out the distasteful duties to local thugs, professional mercenaries or even nobles, if they could.
The only time the Companions resorted to violence themselves was in the case of betrayal by one of their members – a rare occurrence. The codes and protocols of the company were designed to be able to instantly discredit any such turncloak. Investigations based on testimony would quickly be found to be pointless . . . as no sign of the organization could usually be found.
That was the key to their success: the Ageless Companions were ageless because they didn’t really exist. No member of the clandestine society would ever reveal his own membership to anyone who did not give the proper codes, if he could not vouch for the man himself. That level of loyalty and trust was rare, among the maritime fraternity, but the institution had served the needs of the Companions for five centuries, now.
A man could work the Hourglass, as work for the company was referred, for twenty years and retire with the treasury of a baron. Indeed, that was part of the protocol, too.
The Companions ensured that there was a steady movement out of the organization that rewarded service with wealth and security, and provided additional contacts ashore. That kept the faces of the company ever-changing, and no one ever tried to make a name for anyone but “Master Sensedat”. And no one ever owed favors to anyone else.
This caper was exactly the sort of opportunity the Company excelled at. A desperate client looking to move an unlikely and unusual cargo through contested waters, past agents of the state, into a highly lucrative market . . . considering the share of the profits he and his fellow captains were taking, after their split with the Company, the need must have been incredibly desperate.
But he and his Companions were happy to take the trade. They had contacts in ports on both sides of the armada, and within it. If he flew the right colors in the sight of the right ships, the crew of the Asberthel would have no problems. The amount of coin involved was staggering – he was, in fact, getting paid from three sources to accomplish three different goals. More than enough to ensure smooth sailing, after skimming the tempest.
The next morn, the hold was raucous as the Wilderlords awakened to discover their uncomfortable state and declined status. Desviatus ignored them, apart from ensuring they got plenty of fresh water. They would fetch a higher price at market if they weren’t dehydrated.
They were hailed by a swift corsair flying Alshari colors at mid-morning, and after rowing over to the raider Desviatus – known in Alshari waters as Captain Bastant, of the
Merwyni pirate galleon Ventantic, flagship of the tiny fleet working with the greater Alshari armada. An hour-long conversation with the corsair’s captain convinced him that the ships had purchased the human merchandise on board from a mysterious freighter captained by Master Sensedat, who needed the room in his holds for yet more plunder.
The name and the sign of the Ageless Companions on the slave collar he brought along as proof (as well as a big bottle of fine Cormeeran wine and fifty golden Wheels) were enough to inform the corsair’s captain that no further extortion would be tolerated. The Ageless Companions had a justified reputation for tolerating no interference in their clients’ work by outside forces, be they civil, military, or criminal. The corsair captain approved their combined passage behind the blockade lines and through to the lucrative slave markets of Enultramar.
Desviatus departed the ship with a warm, satisfied feeling that was only partially due to the rich Cormeeran red he’d shared with the captain. He enjoyed fulfilling a client’s order, knowing that he’d helped add to the Companion’s mysterious reputation . . . and to the Company’s treasury.
For his home village had a temple dedicated to the ancient gods his people worshipped, and within the humble crypts of that humble seaside temple, in a section dedicated to his ancient family of mariners, there was a tomb reserved for his bones, after he died. He’d commissioned it the first year he’d joined the Company, as custom dictated. After this assignment, the proceeds would be filtered back through various means to that village, through the fingers of a humble village priest (also a member of the Company) who would tally his share and deposit it into the tomb.
In three years, when his hourglass with the Company finally ran out, if the gods smiled upon him he would join his father . . . not in the village, where he’d grown up, but in a beautiful, richly-appointed manor of his own, perhaps in an estate close to his father and elder brother. Both had retired from the Company to become gentlemen of leisure, quietly investing the Company’s profits in legitimate business ventures to screen them all from official detection, while they enjoyed their grandchildren.
That was a good life, a better than could be expected by those poor bastards in his hold. The new-made slaves would find a bitter, hard road ahead of them. A road of pain and humiliation, torment and indignity.
He knew their chances of survival on the huge plantations of the upper Vale would be slim, no matter how hearty they were. When it was cheaper to force labor from a man until he dropped and purchase a new one than it was to pay a man an honest wage, then any slave north of Falas had little chance of escaping before he was worked to death.
That wasn’t his burden, though he felt sympathy for the brave, ignorant warriors from the northern forests. He was only doing the bidding of Master Sensedat, and his clients, he reflected.
For even when he was dead and buried, and wandering into the afterlife, he would never admit his admission to the Ageless Company, unless the gods themselves knew the codes.
Chapter Sixty-One
The Vespers Of Sevendor
“Baron Minalan, I implore you to act,” Count Moran pleaded as we dined on the roof of the Gatehouse – sorry, the “new castle” – as the sun began to set over the western ridge.
“Bide, Count Moran,” I urged him. “I think you’ll enjoy this. We call it our Vespers.”
This was a fascinating project of my people, a collaboration that could only happen here in Sevendor.
Ulin designed it. Onranion was involved, too. The construct had been enchanted by some of Master Ulin’s apprentices at the bouleuterion over the summer, and had only been installed for a week. The Karshak had placed a construction of crystal mined from within the mountain, there, magically inert save for its inherent optical properties.
When the sunlight came to a certain place in the sky every evening, just before it dove below the ridge, the crystal focused a dazzling display of refracted spectra across the sky.
That’s when the real magic kicked in.
For ten minutes at sunset it created a temporary roof of sparkling lights that ran from the western ridge, across the spire of Lesgaethael and the lesser spires of Sevendor town all the way over to the Elves’ Gap, where it illuminated the entire lake with its lights, making its white bottom shine and its clear waters glow with a beautiful, unearthly light.
More, the enchanters had installed secondary enchantments dependent on the main in the towers that dotted the City of Enchanters. They’d placed snowglass globes on the pinnacles of several of them so that when the lights began to play, the globes below each vibrated a note in response to the type of light flitting overhead, producing a hauntingly beautiful and ever-changing chord. An entire bank of them were situated at the edge of the new lake, producing a crescendo of sound from the southern part of the vale than combined in strangely captivating chords as the light died.
When the last of the sparkles faded with the sun, a third enchantment pushed a big blast of air into the Everfire, causing it to surge and erupt a gout of flame into the air over the dome of the temple, activating the municipal magelights that our enchanters had placed throughout the town, and signaling the temple bells to ring for evening services as twilight overtook the vale.
“Vespers, in the mageland of Sevendor,” I whispered.
I managed to keep Count Moran quiet, as the light and sound finished in the flame and the lights below. He was, indeed, impressed with the sublime spectacle of the thing. The truth was, I couldn’t entirely claim credit for it.
“I got the idea from the Alka Alon city of Carneduin, home to Raer Haruthel, head of the council,” I explained. “I told Ulin about it and he went mad for it. They have a version of lauds which involves every voice in the valley; it begins at one end, and they sing this amazingly beautiful song in waves across the vale until it ends, as the sun rises. I suppose this is the Sevendori version.”
“That was . . . that was beautiful,” the Prime Minister admitted. “I was impressed with how you Sevendori do things in the spring, but this . . . that was magnificent,” he praised.
“So, what can I do for the duchy, Count Moran?” I asked.
The man looked a little guilty, after witnessing such a sublime sight and having to go back to common business.
“As I was saying,” he said, taking a deep breath, “I implore you to act. His Highness and his army are marching north from Maidenspool to lay siege to a nearby fortress called Temor Tower this morning,” he said, calmly. “What is not generally known is that he leads but seven hundred of the two thousand men he landed with – he left behind a small garrison, but hundreds have come down with illness since they made landfall. Worse, bandits have raided his food stores at Maidenspool, leaving his men on short rations. The fishing fleet went to fish, and kept sailing. He makes for Temor largely to capture what stores may be there,” he admitted, troubled.
“I don’t see what I can do,” I pointed out.
“Are you not a wizard?” he asked. “Are you not the Spellmonger of Sevendor? Is there nothing you can do, to support your duke in his time of trial?”
“I will be certain to include him in my evening prayers, and beseech the gods to grant him safe return,” I suggested.
Moran made a face. “That is hardly helpful, my lord. Prince Tavard is in need of support from his loyal vassals in a time of great need,” he insisted. “It is times such as these that we must all strive, as Castali, to advance our goals.”
“Begging your pardon, Count, but I don’t see how the attempted conquest of another duchy exactly qualifies as a national crisis,” I pointed out.
“His Highnesses’ motivations for the expedition are well known,” the minister said, uncomfortably.
“Ah, yes . . . he was laying siege to Enultramar for what purpose, again?”
“To . . . to compel them to release his captive sister,” Moran admitted, with a sigh of resignation.
“Would that be the same sister that I saw in Vorone, a few nights ago?�
� I asked. “With her rescued, it seems to me that there is very little reason for a Castali Duke to attack Enultramar.”
“He is your sovereign,” Moran reminded me. “Prince Tavard determined to invade Enultramar. As his vassal, you are sworn to uphold and support his policies.”
“His lawful policies,” I corrected. “And I have, to this point, done all that a vassal is required to do for his liege: my tribute is up-to-date, I have fulfilled both my military and my arcane service, and I have even contributed to the treasury . . . admittedly in return for certain rights and considerations,” I conceded. “Still, there is nothing in the law that compels me to do more than I am required.”
“Does not the law require you to lend advice to your liege in matters of policy?” Moran pointed out.
“Does His Highness wish my counsel on this expedition?” I asked innocently.
“Let us assume that he does,” Moran agreed, pensively. “What would you tell him?”
“‘Don’t invade Enultramar,’” I said, dryly. “It’s a stupid idea, poorly executed. It places the duchy and the kingdom in peril for no appreciable gain.”
“Alshar is an appreciable gain,” Moran pointed out.
“One that is not his for the taking,” I insisted. “The rebels revolt against their lawful Duke. It is Anguin’s right to determine how he contends with that, not Tavard’s.”
“Anguin does nothing to contend with it,” Moran said, scornfully.
“Yet that does not give Tavard the right, not with Rardine safe.”
“Rardine will never be safe,” Moran said, rolling his eyes. “Her Highness – Armandra, not Rardine – is convinced that her long-suffering sister-in-law is plotting against her.”
“She wasn’t before,” I mentioned. “She might be now. She finds her homecoming lacking in warmth from the court.”
“Regardless,” dismissed Moran, “she is no longer a factor in the Castali court. How the Royal Court chooses to treat her is her affair. And while her rescue does present some challenges to the Prince’s original position, he is nonetheless committed to the course of action.”
Necromancer: Book Ten Of The Spellmonger Series Page 92
