Western Shore ac-3

by Juliet E. McKenna

  'I've salves for that on the ship.' Kheda saw that a narrow passage had been driven through the rock to join

  the irregular stairway Naldeth had made for them when they'd landed.

  It feels as if that was half a lifetime ago.'Let's get the Zaise and see what's upsetting Velindre.' Naldeth went ahead of them into the darkness, a dutiful breeze clearing away the dust for him.

  'Let's hope nothing's gone seriously awry.' Kheda held out a hand to Risala. She took it and they followed the young wizard.

  'Watch your step.' Naldeth's voice echoed eerily up from the depths of the cave. 'I've marked your path.' Amber footprints glowed on the rock, casting just enough light to show them where to tread.

  'So I see.' Kheda moved slowly, waiting for his eyes to grow more accustomed to the gloom. The cool of the cave was welcome after the heat outside, though it did little to relieve his headache and the aftertaste of bile still burned his throat.

  I've herbs in my physic chest to brew a cure for that too. We are returning to some sort of normality.

  He saw a lantern casting a pool of light onto the Zaise's deck. Naldeth was taking the lid off the water cask lashed to the rear mast. The wizard dipped a cupful and the distant splash of the falling drops echoed softly before the sound of his thirsty drinking drowned it out.

  Kheda concentrated on walking safely down the dark stair. Behind them, the gloom deepened as the footsteps Naldeth had left glowing on the rock snuffed out one by one. Looking back, Kheda saw the narrow entrance like a white blade cutting through the darkness.

  'Watch where you're walking,' Risala chided him.

  'You've no cure for a broken neck in your physic chest.'

  Kheda turned obediently to catch up with the fading

  footsteps. He finally reached the lowest ledge and jumped

  down onto the deck of the ship with Risala, still holding

  her hand. The thud of their landing reverberated in the confines of the cave. The deck felt stiff and dead beneath his feet, none of the movement of a living ship stirring.

  Naldeth handed them both cups of water. I'll unpick the anchoring spell as soon as we get the ruby up on deck.'

  Risala drained her cup. 'Are you sure it won't draw the black dragon to us?'

  'Why do you need it on deck?' Kheda drank deep, relishing the cool water cutting through the sour dryness closing his throat!

  'After opening up this cave, I can't work any more magic without it,' Naldeth retorted. 'You've no idea how exhausting magecraft can be.'

  'We do.' Risala lifted the lantern from its hook on the mast.

  Kheda saw that Naldeth's face was more drawn than ever. 'We saw what wizardry cost Dev.'

  Naldeth said nothing, disappearing into the dark stern cabin. Kheda followed, with Risala's lantern throwing soft light and harsh shadows to either side. As they dropped down into the rearmost hold, Kheda tasted a breath of home in the still air. There were the herbs Beyau favoured for keeping the Chazen household's clothing chests free of weevils and an unexpected sweet scent of preserved velvet berries.

  He looked into the blackness where his physic chest lay. 'Let me get you something for that burn on your hand.'

  'Later. We have to get back to Velindre.' Naldeth was opening the door into the middle hold. The penetrating mineral smell of ground oil and sulphur overwhelmed all the other scents.

  Kheda suddenly imagined the whole boat catching fire in the blackness of the cavern. 'Stay here with that lantern.' As Risala waited, he went after the young mage.

  He found Naldeth waiting in the fore hold. The wizard was leaning on a rough-hewn wooden chest, all his weight resting on his hands, his head hanging.

  Kheda looked at the sacking lump behind the chest that was the unnatural ruby. 'Is it still dead?'

  'As dead as Dev,' Naldeth said bleakly.

  What do we do if Naldeth collapses on us? I can't see the two of us getting theZaise out of this cave without magical aid.

  'Are you all right?' As Kheda asked the question, he was struck by its pointlessness.

  The mage heaved a sigh that shook him from his tousled head to his steel toes and dirty sandal and forced himself upright. 'I'll feel better when we can get this gemstone further away from the water and closer to the rocks. Then I can draw on the sympathy between elemental fire and the earth.'

  'If you say so.' Kheda tried to pull the rope-bound bundle out from its hiding place. It was heavier than he had expected and solidly wedged. He heaved and it came free with a jerk. Hefting it in his arms, Kheda returned to the welcome glow of Risala's lantern in the rearmost hold.

  She eyed the awkward bundle with misgiving. 'Let me go up first, and you can pass it up to me.'

  'It's heavier than you think,' Kheda warned her.

  She climbed up and crouched to reach down through the trap door. Hauling himself one-handed half-way up the ladder wasn't easy, nor was swinging the sacking bundle up so that Risala could grab the binding ropes. Kheda gave it a shove to help Risala drag the weight over the edge of the trap and climbed up after it. Naldeth pressed close behind him on the ladder. Kheda saw an unwelcome eagerness on the mage's tired face as he reached for the ropes to help the warlord carry the burden while Risala led the way out onto the deck with her lantern.

  'Let the air touch it.' Naldeth reached for his dagger only to find an empty scabbard.

  'Here.' Reluctantly, Kheda handed over his own belt knife.

  Thumping the dust-caked knee joint of his metal leg to make it bend, Naldeth knelt and slashed at the hemp bindings. The sacking fell away to reveal the crazed glassy surface of the ruby egg. Licking his cracked lips, the wizard rubbed his hands over the dulled jewel, heedless of his burned palm.

  Kheda caught his breath as an infinitesimal scarlet spark stirred in the heart of the gem.

  The lantern light flickered as Risala trembled. 'Are we sure this won't bring a dragon down on us?'

  'There are dragons here whatever we might do.' The wizard leaned forward, sliding his hands down the curved sides of the egg as if he were caressing a naked woman. 'If I'm going to hold them off, I'll need this.' The glow strengthened. Naldeth sank down and laid his face on the egg's upper surface. He closed his bloodshot eyes as the ruby light cast strange shadows, disfiguring his amiable features.

  Kheda's throat closed as his memory irresistibly recalled the horrific fire that had consumed Dev. The scarlet flames had burned the flesh from his face, making a death mask of his skull and boiling his eyes in their sockets, all while the wizard had still been drawing breath. And Dev had relished the embrace of the devouring fires, lost in the ecstasy that was his communion with the element even as it was stealing his life away.

  But then the fire in the egg was alive, with a pulse like the beat of a heart. That spark of life would have become a new dragon. This new flame is steady. It doesn't even flicker like a normal fire.

  Kheda tried to hold on to that frail reassurance as the crimson glow strengthened.

  The deck lurched suddenly and he staggered sideways. Risala's lantern went swinging to throw crazy shadows in all directions. Water slapped against the rocks in the cave and Kheda realised he could hear the sound of surf breaking against the rocks outside for the first time.

  Naldeth knelt upright and grinned, quite his old self. 'That's Velindre's spell over the sea broken. Give me a hand up.'

  Kheda helped the mage to his feet. 'Can you get us out of here?'

  'Not as smoothly as she would have done,' Naldeth said wryly, 'but this ship is solidly built.'

  'What do we do with that?' Risala looked mistrustfully at the ruby egg, though the scarlet glow within it had faded to little more than a pinprick of light.

  'Put it in the stern cabin.' Naldeth headed for the stair to the steering oars platform with a new spring in his step. 'That'll be close enough for me to use it for elemental focus.'

  Kheda bent to take a handful of the sacking that the ruby egg was nested in.

  Risala st
ooped on the other side to do the same. 'It would be easier to toss it in the water if it draws a dragon to us if it's on deck,' she muttered.

  'I don't know if that would save us,' Kheda replied as they dragged the uncanny egg through the doorway into the stern cabin and wedged it as best they could between bundles of bedding.

  'What do we do now?' Risala asked in the shadows. 'Are we staying to see how far and how fast the bloodshed we've started today spreads through these wretched people? We can't just blame Naldeth now. There's blood on all our hands.'

  'I know,' Kheda acknowledged frankly, 'but at least

  fewer died than might have. We can thank their magic for that. As for what happens next—' He shook his head. 'First, we had better find out what's distressing Velindre. Then we can make plans—' He held Risala tight as the Zaise lurched. The ship's wooden sides scraped along the rocky ledge as Naldeth's magic forced the vessel out of the narrow anchorage.

  'Plans to go home?' Risala looked up at him, her face tense.

  He looked down at her. 'How can we leave these people now we've started this? If they go into battle without a wizard, if there's a wizard or a dragon set against them, they'll just be slaughtered.'

  'How can you be any kind of warlord here when you can barely make yourself understood and you don't understand a word of their language?' she protested. 'What about Chazen?'

  'What's best for Chazen, as far as I can see at the moment, is having turmoil spread in this land to keep men and dragons alike occupied here.' He gazed at her helplessly. 'I wish we hadn't got ourselves into this, but we did and I can't see a way out of it, not yet.'

  Risala pulled herself free of his embrace, her expression lost in the gloom. 'Naldeth will need our help rigging the sails.'

  Back out on deck, eerie magelight glowed purple around the masts and side rails as Naldeth's wizardry dragged the Zaise towards the cave entrance. As the daylight strengthened, the colours of the ship emerged from shades of black and grey. The magelight lightened to lavender and then to a clear blue as the ship slid out onto the open ocean. Surf seethed around the hull as Naldeth wove skeins of wizardry around stern and prow to force the vessel around. Seabirds wheeled overhead, their shrill cries rising above the sound of the waves.

  Risala heaved a sigh and looked at her soiled garments. 'At least we can celebrate our victory with some clean clothes.'

  Kheda couldn't recall ever hearing anyone sound less joyful. He followed her into the stern cabin and pulled up the trap door once again as she delved into a bundle of creased cotton. 'I'll tend to that burn of Naldeth's.'

  After the awkwardness of fetching up the dead dragon's egg, carrying his physic chest up the ladder was comparatively simple. As he climbed back up, the coffer under one arm, he averted his eyes from the ruby. He could not ignore it, though. Scarlet brilliance was seeping through the lattice of cracks on its surface to throw a web of mage-light around the wooden walls. Risala followed him back out on deck, her arms full of clothes, kicking the stern cabin door shut to slam behind her.

  Up on the stern platform, Naldeth was smiling broadly, eyes distant as he wove blue magic with an amethyst hint around the Zaise. The ship cut a straight path through the submissive seas, scorning the waves that would have pushed her towards the merciless rocks.

  'You don't need the sails?' Kheda knelt to set his physic chest down and snapped open the latches.

  'Not now.' Naldeth chuckled, his weariness seemingly quite forgotten.

  'That egg was the death of Dev.' Kheda searched for the particular pot of leatherspear salve that he wanted.

  'I know,' the mage acknowledged, somewhat sobered, 'but you don't know how good I feel now, Kheda. It's not just being able to focus my fire affinity through the gemstone. Velindre was right - I've been using more magic in these past few days than I've done all year. The more I exercise my affinity, the stronger my magic becomes.' He smiled wryly. 'Now I understand just why our esteemed Archmage spends so much of his time

  finding unimpeachable reasons for all wizards, himself included, to use the bare minimum of magic required.'

  'Power is always a temptation, whatever its nature, as I believe you've reminded me before.' Kheda stood up with a scrap of cotton and a stoppered vial of feathereye tincture. 'Let me see your hand.'

  Naldeth flinched as the warlord cleansed the burn. 'I had my hands read by a soothsayer when I was sailing the Archipelago with Velindre.' He looked down at the shiny red score obliterating the creases of his palm.

  'Did he foresee any of this?' Risala wondered, looking up from the deck, a clean tunic in one hand.

  Naldeth shrugged. 'He did say my life would be taking an unexpected course.'

  'Show me a seer that doesn't.' Kheda restoppered the vial of astringent lotion. 'All they have is vagueness to swap for their meat and drink on the trading beaches.'

  'How can you say that?' Risala was more puzzled than angry. 'How can you say the beliefs of generations and countless domains mean nothing, just because you have lost your faith in them? Don't you think we might not have got so mired in this mess if you had been reading the right omens?'

  'I did meet one soothsayer who had some very interesting predictions.' Naldeth was ready to explain.

  Kheda found himself disinclined to listen. 'This is hardly the time or the place to debate such things.' He dressed Naldeth's burn with the leatherspear salve and a light bandage of fine gauze.

  'No—' Then Naldeth stammered and blushed, retreating back to the tiller.

  Kheda realised Risala was stripping naked down on the deck. She slung a bucket into the sea and washed herself briskly. He slid down the ladder-like stair and returned his physic chest to the stern cabin. Wordlessly, Risala

  offered him the bucket and he washed in turn, gasping at the bracing chill of the water on his warm body. Still not speaking, she tossed him clean clothes, redolent of different herbs used to ward staleness from stored cottons in some other reach of the Archipelago.

  It would be so easy to tell Naldeth simply to turn this ship's prow to the south, to round that cape and sail away east, leaving this strange and dangerous land. Velindre could find us with her magic, couldn't she? But when we return to the Archipelago, will I arrive to find I've lost Risala?

  Kheda fetched scouring paste, rag and oil and cleaned his sword and his dagger, polishing them till they shone. Risala brought dried meat and fruit from some store, taking a share to Naldeth, still without a word. They ate, all remaining silent, watching the broken cliffs subside and the broad mouth of the river open up before them. The Zaise bucked as Naldeth's magic drove the ship through the turbulent water where the river's muddy flow forced itself out into the surging sea. The wide mudflats stretched away on either side.

  'Watch the skies.' Kheda searched the sandbanks with their tangled tussocks of grasses.

  Risala shaded her eyes with her hand. 'There's nothing to see, not even birds.'

  Kheda noted the same lack of life across the fertile mudbanks. There were no birds, no sign of any animals. He called up to Naldeth. 'Has all the wizardry used in this valley today frightened everything away? How far does magic's influence reach? Does it taint the water, or the air?'

  'Look over there.' Risala pointed at a pillar of smoke that was rising from the far edge of the grasslands on the northern bank, just a little eastwards of their own position.

  'It's an ordinary fire,' Naldeth called, unperturbed.

  Kheda tried to judge the intervening distance. 'And nowhere near the cave dwellers.'

  'Isn't it near where we left Velindre?' Risala stood beside him, tense.

  'She could let us know if she were in trouble, couldn't she?' Kheda tried to swallow his own apprehension as he realised Risala was right. 'Come on, we'll see more from the stern.'

  They climbed up the ladder to join Naldeth.

  'Isn't that the tree-dwellers' valley?' Risala turned to point to a shallow notch in the undulating land where it ran away westwards towards the broke
n shore.

  'I think so.' Still looking inland, Kheda saw that the fire was rather more than half-way between the caves and the tree-dwellers' settlement.

  That's the direction we fled in the night, when we met that old woman and she showed us shelter.

  'Naldeth, if Velindre were in trouble, could she use this magic of yours to find the Zaise ? Or would the spell just carry her to the cave where we left it?'

  'I don't think anyone's ever tried translocating to a boat while it's under sail.' This new idea evidently intrigued Naldeth. 'What—'

  A gang of wild spearmen appeared on the north bank. Shouting and waving their spears, they beckoned to the Zaise and Kheda recognised several faces, even through their covering of grease and filth.

  'I take it those are our friends?' Naldeth wrapped a skein of blue light around his burned hand and hauled the prow around towards the north shore regardless.

  'They don't look too happy to see us,' Risala said slowly.

  'No,' Kheda agreed, 'but they don't look as if they're about to attack us either.'

  'They look more apprehensive than anything.' Naldeth's

  newfound high spirits faltered for the first time. 'Velindre would have found a way to warn us, if there was danger.'

  'There's definitely some kind of trouble.' Kheda studied the faces of the men waiting on the bank.

  A good number of the men offered a studied blankness just short of defiance. Others were more openly nervous, their eyes flickering from Kheda to Naldeth. A few gazes slid to Risala with a hint of guilty appeal.

  'Velindre had better not be hurt.' Naldeth's tone hardened.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Zaise juddered as the keel sliced into the river bed. A ramp of mud reared up to bridge the gap between the ship's rail and the bank.

  Kheda saw some of the spearmen on the bank react with violent surprise while the rest merely took a step back, more concerned with beckoning the three mariners ashore. 'Some of these warriors must be cave or tree dwellers. They haven't seen Naldeth's bridging trick.'