Act of Will

by A. J. Hartley

  I had crawled my way to the lifeboat unseen. The crew were still wandering around, but while they had been listless before, they were now cautious and alert. On the deck where I had “fought” the captain, two burly men, bronzed by the sun, stood with shouldered pikes, looking about them. In the stern of the ship, rising like a pulpit above the racks of bound cargo, was the castle, and in it, the helmsman. Two floors below the castle were the captain’s quarters. He now shared them with five armed men, two covering the steps down to the door from the deck. I loaded my crossbow and kept as still as I could, the heat prickling on my salt-dried arms and sunburnt neck.

  Lisha emerged from our cabins and fell heavily on the wet stairs. The crew watched, unimpressed. Garnet helped her to her feet, and then she ducked back inside the cabin and emerged with her spear. With this she supported herself conspicuously and hobbled out onto deck, Garnet at her side. He was wearing a dark green cloak over his tunic, and I knew what it concealed. Slowly they edged around the ship until they neared the castle.

  The crew were armed with clubs, boathooks, and whatever else they could lay their hands on, but their demeanor suggested that they thought we hadn’t spotted the change in course.

  So much the better.

  I caught a glimpse of Orgos shinning up the castle ladder only because I was watching for him. He emerged, black against the sky, his swords spinning in his hands. He dodged an advancing guard, who fell heavily onto the massive bundles of timber below, and parried the cutlass of another, turning him promptly out of the wooden turret and down onto the deck.

  A cry went up immediately and the crewmen started to move at random, shielding their eyes from the sun as they looked up to where Orgos was bringing the vessel groaning back towards the coast. Lisha twirled the spear in her hands and threw off the false injury like a cloak. In a second, she stood at the foot of the castle ladder with Garnet at her side, his ax drawn and ready. As they braced themselves for the inevitable assault, Orgos started down the ladder towards them.

  Through the portholes of his cabin I could see the captain shouting as he felt the Cormorant speeding towards mainland Shale.

  Orgos took a position between Lisha and Garnet, his swords whirling about his wrists. The crew hesitated and then began to close in on them. I thought I noticed the deep green of Garnet’s eyes as he flashed a look of concern from Lisha to the growing semicircle of armed men that edged closer to them, but Lisha, spreading her feet apart a little, just raised her dark spear purposefully and nodded to Orgos. As Lisha and Garnet lowered their eyes, he raised his sword, the one in his right hand, the one with the amber stone in the pommel, and there was a flash of light.

  Actually, it was more than a flash. It was as if something had been dropped into a still pool, the ripples coursing out from the pommel of Orgos’s sword, yellow-orange, like tongues of flame. They radiated out in a single pulse that lasted less than a second and traveled no more than a few yards from where they stood, but the crew touched by the light faltered, lowered their weapons as if stunned or unsure what they were doing. And in that second, Garnet and Lisha struck.

  What the hell? . . .

  Three of the enemy fell bleeding to the deck before they knew what was happening. Then Orgos was among them, his swords spinning, and two more collapsed screaming.

  While I was trying to get my brain around what had just happened, Renthrette appeared from our cabin, armed with her broadsword and shield. She stalked unnoticed by the men who continued to close around the castle until she reached the captain’s quarters. Mithos followed and took up a position behind the cabin door as Renthrette opened it. I sat up, crossbow at the ready, and my heart pounding fast.

  Three guards exploded out of the cabin. She stepped back quickly and I had a clear shot. I followed the first one unsteadily with the bow for a split second before pulling the trigger. The weapon bucked slightly in my hands as the bolt left it. It wasn’t a good shot, but it would do. My target crashed to the decking, clutching his hip. Renthrette raised sword and shield to meet the next, and Mithos engaged the third.

  Renthrette’s assailant crashed into her, hewing madly at her raised shield. She stood her ground, then lunged with her broadsword under the rim of her shield. The steel tip of her sword pierced his chest and, with a short-lived scream that turned every head on the ship, he crumpled at her feet. She looked absolutely controlled, even calm.

  Then Mithos’s man went down and he was in, flinging the captain back against the wall.

  I scrambled to my feet. There was a sudden churning sensation in the pit of my stomach, and my hands were shaking like poplars in a high wind. In a few strides I was almost with Renthrette, drawing my rapier as Mithos hissed, “Call them off or you’re a dead man!”

  He bundled the wild-eyed captain onto the deck. I grabbed his cutlass and held on to it as the crew moved to see what was going on. Mithos showed them.

  The captain had sagged against him, too frightened to hold himself vertically. He was babbling to himself and growling. Mithos let him slip to the deck and placed the tip of his sword against the back of his neck.

  “Tell them to steer us into the harbor,” he hissed to the scarlet-jacketed bundle at his ankles.

  The captain hesitated only a moment before following Mithos’s command.

  “Men like him value nothing more than their own necks,” Orgos remarked. In his mouth and in that situation, the words sounded pretty scathing, but it raised an awkward question in my mind. Was I any different?

  An hour and a half later, as we eased between the shipyard buildings of Shale, which rose up on each side of us, I still had no answer to that. I did have another question, though, and the moment I could get Orgos alone, I asked it.

  “You going to tell me what happened there?” I demanded, nodding to where Orgos had held off the sailors. “That light. And don’t bother telling me that little gem in your sword hilt is just for decoration.”

  Orgos frowned, hitching his equipment duffel over his shoulder. “What do you want me to say?”

  “The truth,” I said.

  “Before he died,” said Orgos, “my father used to say ‘Never ask a question unless you know you can handle the answer.’ ”

  “Very touching and profound,” I said. “So. About that sword?”

  “It’s magic,” said Orgos. “Enchanted.”

  “Bollocks,” I said.

  “All right.” He shrugged.

  “What am I? Five years old?” I said. “Magic? There’s no such thing.”

  “I told you, Will. You should have listened to my father.”

  And that was that. He walked away and I stared after him, finally shouting, “Fine! Don’t tell me.”

  He kept walking.

  It was late afternoon by the time we got everything unloaded, and we were too tired to think or move. Finding a tavern, we settled there for the rest of the day and left the procurement of a pair of wagons to the innkeeper. I drank several pints of watery beer in big wooden mugs and followed them with a glass of what was supposed to be whiskey but tasted like paint thinner. By the time I stumbled off to my bed, the ground felt like it was undulating beneath me, coursing in great alcoholic ripples. It was, I had already decided, the closest I would ever get to being at sea again.

  SCENE XVII

  A Kind of Welcome

  At eight o’clock that evening Orgos woke me.

  “Come on, Will,” he said wearily, “we’re moving.”

  “Of course,” I muttered. “After all, I’ve slept several hours already this week.”

  Downstairs, Lisha and Mithos were waiting for us, and with them was a wiry man with a thin neck and grey stubble on his chin. His hair was short, straight, and silver. His eyes were small, which, in conjunction with his thin-lipped, unsmiling mouth, made it hard to tell if he was pleased to see us.

  I had half guessed who he was from the black silk robe with its tiny filigree dragon embroidery, but Mithos introduced him anyway. “This is Dath
el, chancellor to the county of Shale. He and his men will escort us to the town of Adsine, in the north, where the count awaits us.”

  I couldn’t help noticing that as Mithos made this pronouncement, Lisha became one of us, and not even a conspicuous one at that. I wasn’t sure why, but I could see that this Chancellor Dathel was supposed to take Mithos to be the leader. Not that I cared one way or the other. Exhaustion and the beginnings of a slight hangover combined to make me thoroughly apathetic.

  “Good evening,” said our death-suited host. “My lord the count, and, indeed, all the people of Shale have awaited your coming. Your wagons are packed and I have a twenty-man cavalry escort outside. If we leave now, we should reach Adsine by dawn. Hopefully, you will be able to sleep in the wagons.”

  He spoke Thrusian like the rest of us but there was a lilt to it that squared with what I had gleaned from my dusty studies.

  Once more I swung my pack onto my shoulders and followed them, mule-like, outside where the light was fading fast, the sky striped pink and amber.

  There were two large wagons with four horses each, almost exactly like the ones we had driven across the Hrof. I clambered in, leaving whatever I was carrying where it fell. I glanced out of the back as the mounted troopers with their black dragon-pennanted lances and plumed helms drew up their formation around us. Two thoughts crossed my already-dozing mind.

  First, why did anyone who could field soldiers like these need the likes of us?

  Second, and more important: With such an escort, I could sleep soundly. For the first time since I left Cresdon I wouldn’t have to spend an hour or more on guard, and my sleep wouldn’t be scarred by fears of snakes, Empire patrols, or the murderous crew of the Cormorant.

  I rolled myself up in two blankets, wrapped another into a kind of pillow, and, within seconds of feeling the wagon roll off, fell asleep.

  I woke once in the night and lay still for a while until the sense of motion and the rhythmic clop of the horses lulled me back into slumber. When I woke next, light was pouring in through the half-open tailgate, where Mithos and Orgos sat, chatting quietly, absorbing something of this new land.

  I caught the familiar sounds of an early-morning market and realized we were in Adsine.

  “How is it?” I asked.

  “The town?” said Orgos. “Poor,” he answered simply.

  A few minutes later I could hear running water below us, and Mithos, consulting a map, said, “That must be the Wardsfall River. We are nearly there.”

  A couple of minutes after that we stopped and climbed out, stretching and yawning, in the courtyard of Adsine Castle. By Empire standards it was small but solid. A perimeter wall with a single gatehouse dotted with regularly spaced turrets formed a hexagon around the courtyard, in the center of which was a single, three-storied keep. It faced south, its upper stories looking out over the perimeter wall and across the river to the town. Its foundation was cross-shaped so that its front stuck out and loomed over us, its barred windows hard and cold.

  It wasn’t exactly welcoming. For some time we just looked at it and said nothing while the horses were led to stables along the insides of the perimeter wall. The keep was built of a light grey stone, but it was so purposeful, so utterly lacking in whimsy or creative imagination, that it seemed dark and sinister. Even with the guards and the chancellor busying themselves around us it seemed like it might be deserted, like the ghost castles you hear tales of in pubs on winter nights.

  The chancellor ordered a brace of servants to unload our wagons and carry our belongings to our rooms. He led the way and we filed dutifully after him in silence. I had slept well in the wagon, but I couldn’t wait to get into a bed that didn’t move on wheels, waves, or insect legs.

  The doors of the keep were of oak, a good four inches thick and reinforced with huge square-headed nails. On our way upstairs we got a glimpse of the ground floor: soldiers’ and domestics’ quarters, kitchens and storerooms, all plain and purposeful.

  Upstairs was a different tale, of carpets and tapestries and, most strikingly of all after the bustle of breakfast downstairs, silence. But if the castle had once been opulent, those days were long gone, and the place was in need of serious redecorating.

  A pair of guards stood at each corner, staircase, and doorway, dressed in the black-and-silver capes worn by the cavalry who had escorted us, but armed with pikes and shortswords. They clicked their heels together and stood to attention as Chancellor Dathel passed imperiously with the smallest nod of his head.

  Everything felt square and the corridors were laid out like grids. We walked fifty yards down one and came to a perpendicular gallery running from east to west, where heavy teak doors stood under guard.

  “Those chambers belong to the count and his lady wife,” murmured the chancellor. He indicated a line of doors in the north-facing wall.

  “Your rooms,” he said softly. “I expect you would like to rest, wash, and change before you do anything else, as I would.”

  So, whether we did or not, he intended to.

  “The butler has left food and drink in the sitting room for you. I will have hot water for bathing sent along presently. Will you eat first?”

  Mithos said we would, which was fortunate, because I could have eaten the inhabitants of a good-sized stable. The chancellor made a bow small enough to be a nod and glided off down the corridor like a ghost looking for somewhere to haunt. One glance at this dour old ruin said he’d already found it.

  The guest rooms were diplomatically identical: clean, private, and basic. They looked out of the rear wall of the building to the scraggy hills of northern Shale.

  The bar was as functional as the bedrooms. There were various old and cracked leather armchairs and some tables, scratched and discolored with age. A few sorry embroideries hung on the exposed stone of the walls, and the paint was peeling as if the ceiling had some rampant skin complaint.

  “The whole place is like this,” said Garnet to no one in particular. “Old money now gone. I mean, it must have cost a fortune to build, but nothing has been replaced for years.”

  “Cheese and ham,” I announced through a mouthful of sandwich. “Not bad, but not great. Could use some pickle.”

  Garnet’s green eyes rested on mine and narrowed. I gave him a friendly smile and went on chewing. Orgos opened his mouth to speak but changed his mind.

  “Why is Mithos the leader now?” I asked as soon as I had swallowed.

  Renthrette looked over her shoulder hastily as if to ensure that no one had heard my indiscretion. I laughed, and she stared at me, but Lisha spoke in her placid, even tone. “We are unsure of the social climate here. A man tends to buy more respect. That’s all.”

  I had intended to get some satirical mileage out of this, but her frankness disarmed, as usual, and I said nothing.

  Ten minutes later I was in a hot tin bath shaped like an overgrown coal scuttle, its water foaming with carbolic soap. So, here I was: a specialist, brought in at considerable expense (I hoped) to save the nation or county or whatever the hell it was. I grinned to myself and wondered whether I could get free beer at the bar. Maybe if I was really good, they’d give me a magic sword.

  SCENE XVIII

  Harsh Realities

  I dozed for a couple of hours and then ate lunch with the rest of the party: cold pork salad and two slabs of brown, grainy bread. You could tell it was cheap stuff because it had that powdery taste that you get when the flour has been cut with ground chalk as a baker friend had once explained, the sacks weigh in heavier and you get a better price for inferior goods. It was pretty shoddy stuff. There didn’t seem much point in being a count if you couldn’t get decent bread. On top of that, dessert was a wizened apple and my first gulp of the ale told me it had been significantly watered down. I was beginning to get a sinking feeling about this place.

  Then came a tour of the castle, the near-mute Chancellor Dathel steering us round the ground floor’s central block of guards and infantry qua
rters, then into the western and eastern wings, which housed the cavalry. In each of these large white-plastered rooms of bedsteads with regulation blankets and footlockers, the reclining soldiers thundered to their feet and stood erect and silent.

  One time, just to break the monotony, I started to wander around the soldiers, looking over their armor as if I was inspecting them. I picked up a burnished helmet, plumed with black horsehair, from on top of a footlocker and rapped on it with my knuckles as the soldiers stood rigid around me, eyes fixed on nothing.

  “What’s this made of, soldier?” I demanded of one of them.

  “Iron plates riveted to leather, sir!” barked the soldier after a second’s hesitation.

  “And what would be harder than that?” I asked.

  “Sir?” stammered the soldier.

  “What’s tougher than iron and leather?”

  “Steel, sir.”

  “What else?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “What are you made of, Private?”

  There was a flicker of confusion in the soldier’s face, and after a painful pause he said, in the same military shout, “I don’t think I understand the question, sir.”

  “Are not the muscles and bones of a Shale trooper harder than steel, soldier?” I asked with patient dignity.

  “No, sir,” said the soldier.

  “Oh. I mean, isn’t your heart hardened with courage?”

  “Er, well, sir—”

  “Figuratively,” I added hastily, “Private, figuratively. It’s kind of a trope, a sort of poetic allusion, you see. . . .”

  “Yes, sir. I see, sir.”

  The chancellor coughed politely, like a small beetle anxious not to offend but with the unmistakable hint that we didn’t have time for this. I gave one last penetrating gaze to the assembled troops and said “At ease” to the nearest officer.

  As they relaxed with a shifting of feet and a sudden rush of mutterings, Dathel caught my eye and held it. I turned to leave with as much dignity as I could salvage, but found myself face-to-face with an amused and bewildered Orgos, who pulled a what-the-hell-was-that-supposed-to-be? look, while Garnet scowled.