Pirate of the Prophecy

by Jack Campbell

  “What’s your advice?” Mak asked.

  “We need to turn. But we also need to ensure he can’t maneuver swiftly enough to catch us right after our turn when we’re at our slowest,” Jules said. She reached down to touch the revolver. “Sir, I’m going to need to go into the aft rigging.”

  Thunk. Thunk. Rocks passed just ahead of the Sun Queen, sending up fountains as they splashed into the water beyond.

  “What are you going to do, Jules?”

  “Try to make sure they can’t turn, sir.” Jules turned a brief, tight smile his way. “I’ll be all right.”

  “You promise that?” Mak demanded. “This isn’t some insanely risky thing?”

  “No, sir, it’s not an insanely risky thing.”

  “All right,” he said, though she could see that his gaze on her remained worried. “Do you need to call the turn again, or should I?”

  “You call it, sir. We want to pass close alongside them.”

  “Got it.” Jules went to the shrouds farthest aft, climbing them until she was three lances or so above the deck. She put one leg through the rigging to secure her position, then untied the revolver holster.

  She drew the Mechanic weapon, ensuring that the cylinder was set to shoot a cartridge. Four left. This would cost at least one.

  Turning her head, Jules saw the quicker galley coming on fast, the oars sweeping as the rowers put what must be most of their remaining strength into getting just ahead of the Sun Queen. They were off the Queen’s starboard bow, moving closer with every stroke of the oars, aiming to cross just ahead of the Queen’s path.

  Balancing in the rigging, Jules gripped it with one hand, the other holding the revolver.

  Mak was cutting it close, Jules thought, as the Sun Queen neared the point where she wouldn’t be able to turn in time to avoid a collision with the galley.

  She heard Mak shout the order to the helm, felt the Queen turn hard to starboard, her bowsprit coming around to point west. The galley swung, too, the oars on the side facing the ship raised to avoid striking the Sun Queen, passing close to port. Close enough for Jules to look down as the two ships passed going in opposite directions and see the weary rowers and the startled faces of the legionaries and officers looking up at her. Seeing the galley going past, the canted armor meant to protect the rowers during an attack offering no protection to a shot from the rear, hearing the order called to the rowers, the order she knew would come, for the oars to help turn the galley swiftly and catch the Sun Queen before she could accelerate away.

  Jules aimed the revolver. She knew hitting an officer, a legionary, even the sailor at the helm, wouldn’t stop that galley even if she had a chance of striking a target at that distance.

  All she had to hit was one rower in the ranks on the side closest to the Queen, as the stern of the galley went past the stern of the Queen and the raised oars began to sweep down in unison.

  The revolver bucked in her hand as it shot.

  Jules was still wondering if she should shoot a second time when a single oar faltered in its smooth sweep. Other oars hit it, rebounding to strike the oars around them, those oars hitting others in rapid succession. In a moment, the graceful swoop of the oars on the near side of the galley turned into a chaotic tangle, many dragging in the water and slowing the galley instead of helping to turn it.

  Breathing in deeply, Jules put the revolver back into the holster and tied it securely in place before coming down from the rigging.

  Thunk. Thunk.

  The slower galley was launching at them, still a danger, but a rapidly receding one as the Sun Queen picked up speed running with the wind.

  Jules rejoined Mak just as a projectile slammed into the water just aft of the Queen. “You see, sir? That wasn’t so risky, was it?”

  Instead of answering, Mak started laughing.

  She heard cheering and looked around, startled to see sailors on deck looking at her as they shouted and clapped.

  “Well done!” Liv yelled, coming onto the quarterdeck. “That’s showing ’em how it’s done, sister!”

  Jules laughed, too, relieved, as the Sun Queen raced away from the frustrated Imperial galleys.

  It was perhaps only syrup on the cake to see that the second sloop was also making its escape, the galleys having spent so much time and effort chasing the Sun Queen that the sloop had been able to slip past them.

  She turned a broad grin on Mak, feeling embarrassed to see the look of pride on his face. “Where to, Captain?”

  Mak nodded south. “Once we get well clear of the galleys, I want to head down near Caer Lyn. I have an idea, but we need a town where some artisans have already set up business to test it. Blazes, girl, it’s a good thing for us you’re a pirate and not an Imperial officer any more.”

  “I’ve got a good mentor,” Jules said, smiling again.

  * * *

  “Captain, can I ask you something?”

  “Certainly.” Mak smiled at her hesitation. “Is this a personal thing?”

  “Sort of.” They were a day short of Caer Lyn, far enough from Kelsi’s settlement in both time and distance for the sense of euphoria at their escape to have subsided. Jules stood at the starboard corner of the stern rail of the quarterdeck, speaking softly to avoid sharing their conversation with the sailor at the helm. The rush of the water alongside the ship served to keep her voice from carrying too far. “Sir, there’s something that’s been bothering me since Sandurin. Do I look like the sort of girl who’d knife a guy?”

  He looked surprised at the question. “Jules, you have knifed a guy. More than one. How many did you knife in Sandurin?”

  “Only two,” Jules said. “And they both deserved it.”

  Mak nodded, spreading his hands. “There you are. I’ve never known you to knife a guy who didn’t deserve it.”

  “But do I look like that? If a guy saw me, would he think right off, she looks like someone who’d knife me if she got mad at me?”

  Mak shrugged. “I think that would depend on what mood you were in when he saw you.”

  “Sir, I’m serious. This really bothers me. One of those Mechanics I talked to said I was like that, and I don’t want to think that’s me.” She gestured toward the horizon. “I’ve got this hope that despite everything I can still meet a guy and have a nice relationship. But that’s not going to happen if when I walk toward some guy who I think is interesting he thinks I’m going to knife him.”

  “You are serious. I’m sorry.” Mak shook his head. “If that’s your concern, then, no, you do not look like that. Any man you decide to approach should feel lucky and probably will.”

  “So you’ve never thought that?”

  He laughed. “If I thought that you were the sort to knife men without good reason, would I have let you on this ship at Jacksport?”

  “Maybe,” Jules said. “This is a pirate ship. You might have thought that was a valuable job skill.”

  “No, that’s not what I was thinking. Do you want to know what I was really thinking?”

  “Do I?”

  He smiled, also watching the horizon. “I was thinking that you were a young, scatter-brained Imperial officer who’d come from some high-status family in Marandur and would probably crumble under the first pressure, just as you were running from some Imperial superior who’d made it clear his interest in you was not purely professional.”

  “You did not,” Jules said.

  “I did,” Mak said. “And then you ran up to the bowsprit to help get us out of Jacksport and I realized there might be a bit more to you.”

  “You know, I’m almost wishing you’d thought I was going to knife some guy. Scatter-brained?”

  He looked at her. “You’d just heard that prophecy. You were a little rattled.”

  “I hardly remember anything of that night,” Jules admitted. “Except every word of that prophecy engraved into my memory. Stars above. Scatter-brained.” She heard Mak laugh. He went down to his cabin, but she stayed at the r
ail a little longer, gazing to the west.

  * * *

  The Sun Queen rode the waves to the south of Caer Lyn, sails furled, a sea anchor out to keep her drift slow.

  A second ship had joined them, a craft so small that it almost qualified as a boat. Long and lean, with canted masts carrying a lot of canvas, it had smuggler written all over the design. In this case, though, what was being smuggled were people, and they were being brought out of Caer Lyn to this safe rendezvous at sea where neither of the Great Guilds should be able to find them or learn what was being discussed.

  Three people came aboard from the smuggler. One was Kyle, a crew member whose trade before joining the Sun Queen had been that of a pickpocket. That experience made him the best for jobs that involved not being noticed, such as delivering messages to two people Mak knew in Caer Lyn.

  “Did anyone take note of you?” Mak asked as Kyle came aboard.

  “No, Captain!” Kyle said with a grin. “You do owe me for the hike I had to make into town from where you dropped me off on the coast,” he added.

  A man and a woman followed Kyle aboard, nodding in greeting to Mak. “What’s this about?” the woman asked. “Your sailor said you had urgent need of a skilled jeweler.”

  “I do have need of your expertise,” Mak said. “And of yours as a smith,” he added to the man. “There’s something I’d like you to look at.”

  The smith frowned. “Look at something? That’s all you want? It’d better be something special for costing me a day of work.”

  “It is,” Mak said. “Let’s go into my cabin and talk.”

  There were only the two chairs in the stern cabin, so the two guests were given them. The woman wore her hair in long braids held by silver wire, while the man had rough features and reddened, calloused hands. Jules stood alongside the small table along with Captain Mak, facing the two.

  “Jules,” Mak said.

  She brought out the revolver, producing gasps of surprise from the two visitors. Working carefully, Jules opened the cylinder and removed the cartridges, both those that had been shot and those that still held their deadly purpose. She laid the revolver and the cartridges on the table.

  “Can I touch it?” After Jules nodded, the man picked up the revolver hesitantly, running a thumb across the metal. “I never thought I’d get to lay a hand on one of these. Nice. Steel.” He looked it over, shaking his head. “This is better than any steel I’ve ever seen.”

  “How is it better?” Jules asked.

  “Steel is made by combining iron and charcoal, smelting and working and hardening it. Quench it in water or blood and reheat it and it becomes tempered, like the steel in your swords. Do it wrong and the steel becomes brittle rather than strong. It’s an art.” He shook his head as he looked at the revolver. “This…they’ve done something else. I’m sure the parts of this are cast, not beaten into shape. And the steel itself…”

  “Can you make it?” Mak asked.

  “Not even close.” The man examined the revolver from all sides, touching and even tasting the metal with the tip of his tongue. “There’s oil on this.”

  Jules nodded. “It needs it. On the inside. There’s none on the outside.”

  “Yes. It’s where the parts move. The oil helps them move.” The man sighed, putting down the weapon. “Let me tell you a story. I was an apprentice to a metalsmith in Marandur. One of the best metalsmiths in the Empire. He was trying some different things, messing around with metal the way a smith likes doing. I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back he was probably being paid by the Empire to try to make something stronger and better than the steel we use.”

  He sighed again, heavily, in the way of someone recalling painful memories. “One day I was out sick. The next day I went by the workshop and found a smoking ruin. The people who worked nearby told me that the Mechanics had come, killed my teacher, taken all of the metal samples and fragments from his shop, and set fire to the place.”

  The smith spread his hands. “My old teacher wasn’t even close to metal of this quality, but the Mechanics found out what he was doing. Everything that he’d learned was destroyed. Every once in a while I hear a similar story. Some smith tries going beyond what we can do, starts trying new things, and dies. We not only can’t make metal like this, we can’t start trying to understand how to make it.”

  “How are the Mechanics able to know when someone is trying?” Jules asked.

  He smiled sadly at her. “We’ve been able to figure out that to make metal like this requires more heat and different metals or other additions. Furnaces better than what any smith uses. Metals we don’t normally work with. That sort of thing is impossible to hide. The Mechanics know how to do it, so they can tell when we’re trying to do it just by watching what we’re building and what materials we’re looking for. Copper, that’s fine. We can get away with adding that to the steel because copper is used in brass. So a smith acquiring copper doesn’t stand out to the Mechanics—but it’s worth your life to mess with other metals. I haven’t been in Caer Lyn all that long, and I know the Mechanics are already watching me.” He picked up one of the empty cartridges. “This now. This is brass. I can make you brass.”

  The jeweler with the silver braids nodded, an empty cartridge in one of her hands and an unfired one in the other. “Mostly brass. This rounded thing on the end of the whole one seems to be lead. Soft metal. A crossbow bolt is much harder.”

  The smith nodded as well. “Yes. The bolts are hard so they’ll go through armor. This lead projectile wouldn’t do that as well as harder metal would. The softer metal would deform. Spread.” He frowned. “When it hit someone, that would make the damage worse.”

  “It moves so fast it still goes through armor,” Jules said. “At least when you’re very close, and the only times I’ve used it was when I was pretty close to my target.”

  “Why’s that? The close thing?”

  “It aims sort of like a crossbow,” Jules explained. “And when it shoots, it kicks back really hard. So it’s easy to miss anything that isn’t close. If I had all of the cartridges I could carry, I might risk missing so I could learn how to aim better with the revolver, but not when each cartridge is so rare and valuable.”

  The woman made a face. “Each of these is worth more than any piece of jewelry I’ve ever created, precious metals and gems included. Why are they called cartridges?”

  “I have no idea. The Mechanics never explained it. They never explain anything,” Jules added, her voice getting harsher.

  That earned her a sympathetic nod from the jeweler. “Every once in a while a Mechanic will ask me…I mean, tell me, to make a custom piece for them. It’s never pleasant, and I never know if I’ll get paid what the piece is worth, or paid at all.” She looked over the empty cartridge in her hand. “I could make a copy of this. I can get the brass, and it would be like making jewelry. But what’s inside? The whole ones must have something inside between the lead and the brass, don’t they?” She sniffed at an empty cartridge. “Agents. I can’t tell which.”

  “Agents?”

  “Things that change other things,” the jeweler explained. “Agents are used for things like tanning and dying.”

  “There’s a smell when I shoot the revolver. Pungent, I guess you’d call it.” Jules pointed to the flat end of the cartridge. “There’s something different there in the center, I think, where this thing called the hammer hits. I heard a Mechanic call it primer. When the hammer strikes that, there’s the loud noise, the smell, a little smoke, and the lead on the end gets hurled out of the barrel very, very fast.”

  “Some sort of reaction among the agents that is set off by the blow of the hammer,” the jeweler guessed. “Like the smith, I find myself unable to guess how it works. But the Mechanics know what is involved.”

  “Which means,” Mak said, “as with the metal, they would know if someone was gathering what was needed.”

  “Not just that. The loud noise these things m
ake, like thunder. Testing substances to do that would also produce such noise. Where could we do that and not have the Mechanics notice?”

  “What it comes down to,” the smith said, “is that having this…what is it, again?”

  “They call it a revolver,” Jules said.

  “This revolver. Having it doesn’t mean we can copy it. I could over time produce identical-looking pieces of metal, with the help of a jeweler to shape them, but they wouldn’t be the same. Not the same strength or other properties.”

  “Would that matter?” Mak said.

  The smith shrugged. “I could make you a sword out of pure gold that looked like your cutlass. Would you want to use it?”

  “Pure gold? It’d be too heavy and too soft. It couldn’t hold an edge. Useless.”

  “That’s my point. If I make an exact copy of this out of the best steel I can create, and our friend here,” he nodded to Jules, “put one of those cartridges in it, I have no idea what would happen. But I do know that when metal isn’t strong enough for the task it’s given, it fails. And that can be a very bad thing.”

  “Even if we could duplicate the weapon, we can’t begin to know how these cartridges work,” the jeweler said. “Have you noticed this?” she asked, peering down the barrel of the revolver. “Look here, on the inside. You have to get the light right to illuminate it. There are lines carved in there. I think they’re carved. Maybe they’re also cast in. See how they curve around the inside until they reach the end? It looks somewhat like the curves inside a sea shell.”

  “Why would they put decoration like that on the inside?” Captain Mak asked.

  “I have no idea. It must serve some purpose rather than being a decoration.”

  “Everything about this is much more complicated than it appears,” Mak said, unhappy, “and we don’t seem to be able to understand any of it. So much for my idea of making a lot more of these.”