Evil is a Matter of Perspective: An Anthology of Antagonists

by Edited by Adrian Collins

  “Ship to port!” a lookout cried.

  Mazana startled. To port?

  From behind a tree-covered islet on her left, a second pirate galleon surged out on a wave of water-magic. At its starboard rail, a man in a water-mage’s blue robes yelled orders to a dozen warriors holding swords and grappling hooks. As the ship rushed to intercept the Zest, Mazana whistled in admiration. It had been a clever ruse by Revek, she had to concede: put archers on one side of the channel to draw her eye, then hit her with an attack from the other. The manoeuvre had been timed to perfection too, for even if Mazana threw every scrap of her power into the wave beneath the Zest, she wouldn’t be able to prevent the enemy ship from ramming her.

  So instead she surrendered her power over the Zest’s wave and added it to the wave under the pirate vessel. With a thunder of water, that second wave doubled in size, jolting the ship into the air. The warriors on board stumbled and shouted in alarm. The Zest glided to a stop. Mazana sensed the enemy’s water-mage set his will in opposition to hers. He was trying to counter her power, and thus slow his vessel’s rush, but he had left it too late, and he was too weak besides. The pirate ship hurtled past the Zest’s bow and towards the eastern bluff.

  Mazana looked at Beauce. “They seem in a hurry,” she said brightly.

  The dutia nodded. “Late for an appointment, maybe.”

  There’s a reason why people don’t sail headlong into cliffs. The pirates discovered it now as their ship struck the rock face with a splintering crack. The bowsprit and the figurehead disintegrated, the bow crumpled, and the fore yard shattered. An archer in the tops was hurled through the air, and Mazana winced as he struck the bluff with an audible crunch. He dropped into the sea, limbs flopping. Screams came from the rest of the crew as the fore yard crashed down onto the deck.

  “Here comes Revek,” Beauce said.

  Mazana looked north to see that the Firedrifter was indeed returning. Odds were, Revek had expected to find his friends in battle with the Zest. Instead, the second galleon was now sinking, its crew swimming for shore. It was too late for Revek to retreat, though. Pirates on the Firedrifter snatched swords and boarding pikes from the racks about the mainmast, then rushed to take up positions. And every one of them doubtless resolved on spilling Mazana’s blood. She would be so very sorry to disappoint them.

  She advanced the Zest to meet them.

  “Time for you to retire to your cabin, my Lady,” Beauce said.

  “No,” Mazana said. Her sorcery would still be useful in the fight to come, and even if that had not been so, she wouldn’t have sought cover. Better to be at the heart of the action than cowering inside, wondering at every scream and clash of swords. Better to stare the Lord of the Dead down than let him creep up on her from behind.

  The Firedrifter swept closer. Some of the pirates aboard it waved their swords and yelled in an effort to convince Mazana—or maybe themselves—that they meant business. A ragged volley of arrows flitted out from the enemy’s tops, and the pirates on the bluff started shooting too. Beauce had assigned Mazana a bodyguard of six warriors, and two of those soldiers—both women—now stepped forwards to protect her. Mazana flinched as an arrow struck one of their raised shields, setting the steel ringing. Another arrow thudded into the quarterdeck and stuck there, quivering.

  Peering between the shields, Mazana scanned the Firedrifter for Revek. He stood calmly beside the mainmast, while the dandy bellowed orders and gestured about him. The white-haired woman was next to them. Over her leather armour she had donned a surcoat of metallic cloth that shimmered like oil on water.

  Beauce must have noticed it too, for he said, “What does the surcoat signify?”

  “It signifies she’s an idiot,” Mazana replied. Any warrior who wore something that distinguished them to the enemy had more pride than sense.

  The rustle of water grew louder as the two ships closed. Mazana experienced that queasy mix of fear and anticipation she always felt before a fight. Another hail of arrows raked the Zest’s decks. To Mazana’s left, one of her soldiers was hit in the throat, and the force of the impact knocked him back into the arms of a companion. A tragic loss, but Mazana was willing to sacrifice any number of lives in order to complete her mission. Provided those lives didn’t include her own, obviously.

  “Ready grapples!” Beauce bawled in the voice of a man accustomed to making himself heard above a storm. “You know the drill!”

  Mazana’s soldiers mustered at the starboard rail, shieldbearers in front, swordsmen behind. With the swordsmen were men holding grappling hooks, ready to cast. The two ships drew level and halted, thirty armspans apart.

  “Now!” Beauce shouted, and the grapple holders hurled their hooks across the gap to tangle in the Firedrifter’s rigging. At the same time, Mazana’s archers in the tops loosed their arrows at the foe, targeting the grapple holders among the pirates. Not a single enemy hook flew the other way. Mazana summoned up a wave to carry the Zest thudding into the Firedrifter. The warriors on both vessels staggered.

  “Make her secure!” Beauce commanded.

  The lead pirates on the Firedrifter clambered to the ship’s rail, screaming challenges. They gathered themselves and made to jump across the gap to the Zest.

  A mistake.

  For Beauce’s order to secure the vessels had been a ruse. Instead of tying off the lines, the grapple holders held them loose. So when Mazana now conjured up another wave—this time to take the Zest away from the Firedrifter—the ships sprang apart. There was no opportunity for Revek’s mages to counter the move. The lead pirates had already committed to their jump, and they leaped helplessly into the gulf between the two vessels with looks of comical surprise. Or at least Mazana found them amusing. The pirates themselves, probably less so.

  Another of Mazana’s waves brought the ships banging together once more. This time the lines were made fast, and this time it was Mazana’s soldiers who climbed first to the rail. Revek’s crew, momentarily stunned by the loss of their fellows, stood motionless on the Firedrifter’s sodden main deck. That sodden deck would be Mazana’s next weapon against them, for water-mages could not only summon up waves, they could also cool water and heat it as well. As the first of Mazana’s soldiers boarded the Firedrifter, she focused her power on the deck about the pirates. The puddles there vaporised in hissing clouds of steam. From within the haze, shouts rang out.

  Mazana’s soldiers charged in behind their shields.

  Finally the Firedrifter’s mages entered the fray. Beneath the feet of Mazana’s advancing soldiers, the deck glistened suddenly white as the moisture on the boards froze to ice. The charge became a slithering dash that carried the forerunners onto the waiting pikes of the enemy. A woman was folded in half by a handspan of steel in her gut. Another soldier barrelled between two pikemen, only to find Revek waiting for him. The pirate captain cut quite the dashing figure with his sabre in one hand, a cloak in the other. A swish of his cloak spoiled the sword swing of his opponent, then a backhand cut from Revek’s own blade opened the soldier’s throat.

  “We’ve got company,” Beauce said to Mazana, motioning to the Firedrifter.

  It was a moment before Mazana perceived the problem. On the Firedrifter’s forecastle, a group of pirates had assembled, White Hair among them. She carried a grapple that she now heaved across the gap between the two ships. Its rope looped over the Zest’s mizzen topsail yard, and White Hair pulled on the line until the hook bit on the wood. Three of her companions followed suit.

  Beauce caught Mazana’s eye, then cast a meaningful glance at the doors to the captain’s cabin.

  Mazana grinned and drew her sword. “Prepare to repel borders!” she shouted to the soldiers on the quarterdeck.

  A pirate with a knife between his teeth was the first to swing across. Mazana’s soldiers on the starboard rail jabbed their pikes at him as he passed, and a hit to his nether regions brought him shrieking down to the boards. Mazana suc
ked air through her teeth in sympathy. White Hair came next, kicking at the questing pike heads to keep them at bay. Then she released her rope, dropped and rolled, and came to her feet with twin shortswords in her hands. Mazana’s soldiers converged on her.

  White Hair stopped dead.

  And disappeared.

  Mazana blinked. Her soldiers halted, staring open-mouthed. One man looked around as if he expected White Hair to materialise in a different place.

  Mazana was the first to put the pieces together. “Chameleon!” she shouted. White Hair must be a priestess of the Chameleon god, able to make herself invisible by stilling her movements.

  But Mazana’s warning came too late. White Hair had already reappeared in the same spot where she had vanished. She plunged among the soldiers at the port rail, hacking and cutting. More of Mazana’s troops closed in on the priestess from behind, but another pirate swung across and clattered into them. They went down in a tangle.

  The rain was now coming down in sheets. Mazana risked a glance towards the Firedrifter and saw that her soldiers already controlled most of the main deck. Revek stood by the main mast behind a line of pikemen. As his gaze met Mazana’s, he sketched a bow, still enjoying himself evidently. Mazana realised he’d been watching the progress of White Hair’s assault. His fight to hold the Firedrifter was as good as lost, but if he could survive a while longer, the Chameleon might seize Mazana and force her troops to stand down. Thus, White Hair’s first concern would be to capture Mazana, not kill her.

  Which was nice to know.

  A curse brought Mazana’s attention back to her immediate surroundings. The action was drawing a little closer to her than she had hoped. On the Zest’s quarterdeck, a dozen pirates now fought in small groups against Mazana’s more numerous soldiers, Beauce among them. The boards were littered with corpses, and threads of blood ran one way then the other as the ship pitched.

  Mazana’s bodyguards formed a half ring in front of her. A bare-chested pirate tried to shoulder his way through, only for a woman to serve him up a faceful of shield. He sprawled onto his stomach at Mazana’s feet, and she drew back her sword arm. She might not have been a warrior, but she could stab a man in the back as well as the next person. Better, she liked to think.

  She ran the pirate through.

  “Kill them!” a soldier yelled. “Kill them all!” As if anyone might have been confused as to the objective here.

  White Hair silenced the shouter with a thrust to the heart. Fighting with her power engaged, the Chameleon was a blur to Mazana. A whirlwind exchange with one of Mazana’s female bodyguards ended with the soldier’s head rolling on the deck. White Hair stepped past, then dispatched another bodyguard with a jab to the throat.

  She advanced on Mazana.

  Mazana sighed. Did she have to do everything herself?

  A wave of her hand flung rain at the other woman, then another splashed the Chameleon with water from the puddles on deck. White Hair’s look was scornful. She must have thought it a pointless gesture, for what harm could a little more wet do when the priestess was already soaked through?

  Mazana was only too happy to educate her. Bringing her power to bear, she froze the moisture on White Hair’s skin and in her clothing, encasing her in a thin layer of ice. The Chameleon stiffened in midstep. Her skin took on a silvery cast, and the abrupt chill about her left ripples of cold on the air. The priestess strained to break free, her features contorting. Mazana had bought herself only a heartbeat, for the ice about White Hair had already begun to crack.

  But a heartbeat was all Mazana needed. She could have knocked the Chameleon out with a pommel strike to the head, but that would have felt dangerously akin to mercy, and Mazana had more self-respect than that. So instead she buried her sword in White Hair’s gut. The crust of ice across the Chameleon’s mouth muffled her scream of pain. She slipped off Mazana’s blade and fell twitching to the deck.

  Mazana sheathed the weapon. She didn’t understand the fuss people made of this sword-fighting business; it seemed simple enough to her.

  The remaining pirates on the Zest’s quarterdeck were quickly overwhelmed. The battle on the Zest was over. Moments later, another horn call sounded from the Firedrifter. Was Revek ordering his men to surrender now that White Hair was dead?

  Hardly.

  Mazana crossed to the Zest’s rail for a better view of the pirate vessel. The fight on the Firedrifter had ended too. Revek’s forces still held the quarterdeck and the forecastle, but the main deck was under the control of Mazana’s troops. On the quarterdeck, Revek was slumped on the boards, unconscious or dead. The dandy stood over him, a cudgel in his hand. He looked at Mazana and shouted, “Call off your men! This is what you wanted, isn’t it? You get Revek, and the rest of us go free.”

  Mazana did not respond.

  “You gave us your word,” the dandy added, and Mazana made a face. The shamelessness of the man! Here he was, appealing to her sense of honour, while he stood over the body of a betrayed friend. Where was the honour there? Mazana studied the other pirates on the Firedrifter. A few had the decency to look embarrassed, yet none spoke up for their stricken leader. Earlier, Revek had lectured Mazana on the sins of the Storm Lords—as if his crewmates were not pirates but revolutionaries. Apparently his companions didn’t share his high ideals. For too long they had hidden behind a mask of altruism. Now Mazana had torn that mask away to reveal something beneath it that was not so fair.

  Mazana Creed, seeker of truth and justice.

  * * *

  Mazana sat behind her desk in the captain’s cabin on the Zest. The wood had been buffed to such a shine she could see her reflection in it. On the desk was a decanter of Elescorian brandy and a glass. She’d celebrated her victory over Revek with one drink too many, but the warm glow of the spirits was already fading, and in another bell or so she would be fully sober. If she wasn’t careful.

  She looked at a painting on the opposite wall. It was a portrait of her father, half again as tall as Terun himself had been. A man must always seek to appear larger than he is, he had once told her. Full of wise words, he had been, yet they were never the words Mazana had wanted to hear. Long ago, this portrait had hung in their home in Kansar. She remembered seeing it on the day she slipped red solent into his wine. Mazana was seventeen. It had been years since her father had last deigned to speak to her, yet out of nothing he had wanted to meet her, and Mazana had come at his bidding, curious—maybe even hopeful—about why he had chosen to break his silence.

  As it turned out, he had wanted to tell her that he had promised her to a certain fat Rastamiran pasha who had always had his eye on Mazana. The one with the bruised knuckles and the troublesome habit of outliving his wives.

  After careful consideration, Mazana had passed on the match.

  When her father had drunk the wine she had poisoned, his expression had shown shock and panic, along with something more difficult to place. Admiration, she had eventually decided. The irony was not lost on Mazana. All her life she had craved his esteem, yet only in his death had she found it.

  She looked at the portrait again, wondering why she had kept it.

  There was a knock at the door. At Mazana’s call, two soldiers entered, tugging Revek between them. They deposited him in a chair across from Mazana, then withdrew. The pirate’s hands and ankles were shackled. His clothes were spattered with blood, and there was more blood in his hair where the dandy had clubbed him. He stared at Mazana, clearly determined not to appear intimidated. Then he looked through the windows to either side. Off the Zest’s port quarter lay the Benaldian coast, whilst a short distance to starboard bobbed the Firedrifter at anchor. Revek’s expression soured.

  “I recognise that ship,” he said. “So much for you releasing my crew.”

  “I kept my word,” Mazana said. Revek had still been unconscious when he was brought onto the Zest, so he didn’t know what had happened after he was struck. “I said your
crew could go free, and free they went. But I said nothing about your ship.”

  “A present for the emir, is it?”

  “No, a present for me.”

  “Of course. You don’t need to worry any more about keeping Mokinda happy—with your mission complete, you’re a Storm Lord now. I wonder what sort you will be.” Revek pretended to consider. “But no, what am I saying? There only is one sort, isn’t there?” His voice became bitter. “Power is never given freely; it has to be taken. And there are only a few souls with the ambition and the ruthlessness to do the taking. Too bad those people are also the last people you’d ever want in charge.”

  “I can’t say I have a problem with that.”

  The silence stretched out. Mazana reached for the decanter. The Zest bobbed on the sea, and above the desk, a lantern hanging from the crossbeams swung back and forth.

  Revek regarded Mazana shrewdly. “You really let my crew go?” he said at last.

  Mazana nodded.

  “Why?”

  “Because that was our deal.” She poured herself a glass of brandy. “But more importantly, because letting them go served my purpose. As you said earlier, you are merely a stepping stone to my goals. Only the most powerful water-mages are invited to become Storm Lords, and of those who sought to fill the position left by my father, I was unquestionably the strongest. Yet some on the Storm Council thought I needed to learn my place. They thought that by ordering me to capture you, they could send me a message. Well, I intend to send one back. And I will do so by completing my mission to the letter, and not a stroke further.”

  “And catching my crew wasn’t part of the brief? You were telling the truth about that?”

  “Yes.”

  Revek considered this. He looked out of the port window and examined the coastline. Perhaps he was trying to identify it, but there were no landmarks that he could fix on. “Where are we?” he asked.

  “West of Benaldi.”