Pirate of the Prophecy

by Jack Campbell

  “The Mechanics are going to be unhappy,” Mak said as Jules rowed them toward the Sun Queen. “But not furious the way they would be if you’d shot one of them. Jules, if you ever openly kill a Mechanic, they’ll come after you with everything they’ve got. Don’t declare war on the Mechanics unless you’re ready to deal with that.”

  “I understand,” Jules said, breathing deeply as she rowed. “I didn’t want to risk hurting any Mechanics here anyway. I might’ve hurt Verona.”

  “Thank you. Jules, it’s possible you can work with the Mechanics again. They don’t take the Mage prophecy seriously, you said. If in the future they decide you can once again be of use to them against the Mages and the Empire, I think they’ll deal again.”

  “As long as I don’t have to come back to Caer Lyn or Jacksport,” Jules said. “They’re too dangerous for me. And Caer Lyn looks like it’s becoming respectable.”

  “I think so,” Mak agreed. He seemed to finally be relaxing as they drew near the Sun Queen. “You don’t like respectable towns?”

  “No. Because respectable towns don’t like me. Somewhere out west, Captain, there’ll be a good harbor. We’ll find it. And I’ll found a city there. A city that’ll never really be respectable, founded by a legion orphan and pirate with a lower-class Landfall accent. The sort of place that daughter of my line will need someday.”

  “Good idea,” Mak said. “What’ll you name that city?”

  “Julesport,” she said. “So that every time the Great Guilds see that name on a chart or hear it, they’ll be reminded of the prophecy. Reminded that their days ruling this world might still have a while to run, but will be limited, and growing a bit less with each day that passes.”

  “Another good idea,” Mak said, laughing for a moment. “And also reminding the world who you are. Not just the woman who founded your bloodline, but someone who challenged the Great Guilds and the Emperor and kept winning.”

  “Yeah,” Jules agreed with a grin. “That prophecy is a curse as far as I’m concerned, isn’t it? But I’m going to turn it into something that makes me mean something. Just like my captain suggested.”

  “I won’t always be here,” Mak said. “That’s why it’s so important that you planned things out tonight. I know you don’t need me any more.”

  “Where are you going?” Jules asked, suddenly worried about that above all other things.

  “People leave, Jules,” Mak said. “You and I know that. We both lost people who were very important to us. Sometimes people leave, even when they don’t want to. But we have to carry on as they would have wanted us to, just as anybody else has to.”

  “But…” Jules paused in her rowing, trying to think. “How will I know what to do? I’m not like anybody else. Not anymore.”

  “You never were like anybody else, Jules,” Mak said. “And I mean that in the best way. You’re going to have a hard course to steer in life. Sometimes it’ll be hard to know which way to go. At times like that, remember what really matters. That’s your guide star when all else fails. Remember that.”

  “Yes, Captain, I will. But how do I know what really matters?”

  “You always know, Jules. People always know. They just have to listen.”

  “I’ll try.”

  The boat came alongside the Sun Queen, anxious faces looking down and breaking into relieved smiles. Jules hooked up the lines to haul the small boat up, then followed Mak up the Jaycob ladder.

  “We’ve got everyone and everything aboard, Cap’n,” she heard Ang reporting to Mak.

  “Any problems?” Mak asked.

  Ang shook his head. “Do you mean aside from you and Jeri? Just nerves, I guess. Everyone’s on edge. Feeling like we’re bumping into people on the boats and on the deck who aren’t there. That kind of thing.”

  “Get the anchor up and the sails set,” Mak ordered. “We need to leave this harbor as quickly as possible.”

  Jules, the cutlass in her hand so she could rack it, stopped as Liv stepped in front of her. “Blazes, girl,” Liv said. “How-”

  Liv jolted aside as if she’d been pushed out of the way by a powerful blow.

  Jules saw the air in front of her flicker, as if something was there and not there and then there. Two figures were suddenly standing before her. Mages. The hoods of their robes were down, revealing the expressionless faces of a male Mage and a female Mage, their gazes fixed on Jules in a way that reminded her of the eyes of the dragon. Both Mages had sweat on their faces, as if they’d been working hard and were tired, but both moved swiftly to thrust their long knives toward Jules while she stood momentarily frozen with shock.

  In that moment, as the blades moved forward, a body slammed into Jules from the side, shoving her out of the way. She managed to keep on her feet as she staggered sideways, horrified to realize in the tiny moment of time before the Mages finished their thrusts that the person who had shoved her away from their knives was Mak. That he was now standing where she had been.

  Jules felt the world stop as the long knives went through Mak from the front and out the back, red blood glistening along the blades. Mak still stood, held up partly by his own resolve and partly by the knives transfixing him.

  “NO!” Jules screamed the word, the cutlass she still held coming up, her mind filled with rage, not caring that a normal weapon shouldn’t be able to harm the two Mages. She swung the cutlass with strength multiplied by her fury, slicing completely through the neck of the female Mage, whose head fell to the side with no expression. The male Mage had yanked his blade free and was just beginning to turn toward Jules when she brought her sword back in a reverse cut through the man’s neck, the blade jarring in her hand as it lodged in the Mage’s spine. A trace of puzzlement appeared briefly in his eyes before the Mage toppled to the deck.

  Jules fell to her knees beside Mak, her tears dropping to mingle with the blood spreading across his chest. “Mak. Mak. Keli! Where’s the healer?”

  Mak shook his head very slightly, his eyes glazed with pain. “Keli can’t help. No healer could. Sorry…Jules.”

  “Mak, don’t die,” Jules sobbed. “Please.”

  “Sorry. My time. You’ll be…all right. Listen…yourself.”

  “No, I won’t be all right! Not without you here.”

  “You will,” Mak said, his eyes searching hers. “Make us strong. Strong enough…for her. For…all of us.”

  “All right,” Jules gasped, almost blinded by her tears. “I will. But for you. I’ll do it for you. You’ll be proud of me. I swear it.”

  He smiled up at her. “That’s…my girl.”

  “Mak?” She shook him slightly, but he didn’t react, the smile still there, but Mak’s eyes looking somewhere beyond this life. “Mak!”

  A hand fell on her shoulder. “He’s gone from us, Jeri,” Ang said.

  She shoved the hand away, getting to her feet. “My name is Jules!” she shouted. “Jules of Landfall!” She went to the fallen male Mage and yanked her cutlass free, blood dripping from the blade. “And I am the woman of the prophecy! I’ll hide that no longer from anyone! A daughter of my line will someday overthrow the Great Guilds! And she will do it so that no one else has to die like Mak! Do you hear me?” Jules ran to the side of the ship facing the piers, yelling at the top of her voice. “Here I am! Come try to stop me! I’ll kill anyone who tries!”

  * * *

  An hour later she still stood there, the cutlass still in her hand. Under the direction of Ang and Liv the crew had followed Mak’s last orders, getting the anchor raised, the sails set, and the ship out of the harbor.

  “Jeri,” Liv said.

  “Jules.” Jules turned her head to look at Liv. “I’m Jules.”

  “All right, Jules. You’ve got to snap out of it.”

  “Where…where’s Mak?”

  “We cleaned him up. Put him in the cabin. He’ll need to be buried right, and we thought you’d want to help say the words.”

  “I do,” Jules said, a great
stillness inside her where feelings should be. “What about the Mages?”

  “We already tossed the bodies overboard. You killed two Mages with a cutlass,” Liv added as if unable to believe what she was saying.

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t know anyone could kill Mages that way. Maybe none of the rest of us could. But you did.”

  Ang walked up next to Liv. “Jules, is it, from now on? Jules, the ship needed a new captain. We’ve held a vote.”

  Jules nodded, not really caring about that. “They elected you, didn’t they, Ang? You or Liv.”

  Ang shook his head. “We voted to make you the captain,” he said. “Everyone in the crew voted for you, Cap’n Jules.”

  She stared at him. “Captain? I’m not experienced enough.”

  “We all want you to be the captain,” Liv said. “Mak would’ve wanted it, too.”

  “Don’t—” Jules felt pain coming, the pain she’d held off with numbness for the last hour. “I’m not Mak.”

  “You heard him at the last, Jules. We all did. You’re his girl. The daughter he lost.”

  She felt tears again, running down her face. Jules blinked at the crew, who she realized were watching her. “What…what the blazes are you all looking at? Don’t you have work that needs doing? Get to it!”

  “What course, Cap’n?” Ang asked.

  “Steer south. We need to lose any pursuers before we head west toward Dor’s.”

  Ang saluted before turning back toward the quarterdeck.

  Jules looked out over the water, nerving herself, before walking quickly to the stern cabin.

  Mak lay there on the bunk, his body wrapped in canvas, but his face left exposed, the canvas that would cover it still open. She stood looking down at him. The smile had remained fixed on his face. The smile he’d given her with his last breath. “I’ll take care of the ship and the crew, sir,” Jules told him, tears spilling out again as she looked at him. “Just like you’d want, Captain.”

  * * *

  The burial service took a while, everyone speaking a few words before the plank that Mak’s body lay on was raised and his remains slid into the sea.

  The canvas over Mak’s face had been sewn shut after Jules and everyone else who wanted to had given Mak’s forehead a farewell kiss. And after Jules had tucked in, next to Mak’s heart, the book about wildflowers. She knew he’d want it with him. She’d also placed the reddish stone in one of his pockets. Whatever it had meant to him, he’d carry it forever now. The ballast stone tied to the canvas would take him down to the bottom, where he could rest without fear of storms to disturb his sleep.

  Just before sunset they’d passed a ship heading for Caer Lyn, a respectable Imperial flagged merchant vessel that had nervously watched their approach. Jules brought the Sun Queen close enough to throw across a dispatch case with a sheet of paper inside, folded over and addressed to Lady Mechanic Verona of Severun. Mak of Severun is dead. I thought you would want to know. He died bravely, still loving you and your mother who died long ago. Please remember him with love. He was a good man.

  She hadn’t signed it. Jules suspected that if Mechanic Verona ever received the letter, she’d know who’d sent it.

  Jules stood alone in the cabin, the captain’s cabin that was now hers, looking aft out the windows, feeling a lack of life in this room where someone else should be. The drawing of Lake Bellad still hung on one bulkhead, a reminder of Mak. She thought he’d have wanted her to keep it, something to hold onto as a memento. At this moment, her fear of the prophecy didn’t matter, the Great Guilds didn’t matter, the Emperor in Marandur didn’t matter, her fear for her children-to-be and that distant-in-time daughter-to-be of hers didn’t matter. All that counted was the person who had filled an emptiness she hadn’t known still haunted her. A person who was now gone but would never be forgotten by her. I’ll find Cap Astra, Mak.. I’ll explore the entire West. I’ll make the common people so strong the Great Guilds will tremble. And I’ll keep the West free no matter what the Emperor tries. When the daughter of my line comes, our people will be ready to follow her.

  Thank you for choosing to be a father to me. Your girl will make you proud.

  No one’s going to stop me.

  ALSO BY JACK CAMPBELL

  THE PILLARS OF REALITY

  The Dragons of Dorcastle*

  The Hidden Masters of Marandur*

  The Assassins of Altis*

  The Pirates of Pacta Servanda*

  The Servants of the Storm*

  The Wrath of the Great Guilds*

  THE LEGACY OF DRAGONS

  Daughter of Dragons*

  Blood of Dragons*

  Destiny of Dragons*

  EMPRESS OF THE ENDLESS SEA

  Pirate of the Prophecy*

  Explorer of the Endless Sea*

  Fate of the Free Lands*

  THE LOST FLEET

  Dauntless

  Fearless

  Courageous

  Valiant

  Relentless

  Victorious

  THE LOST FLEET: BEYOND THE FRONTIER

  Dreadnaught

  Invincible

  Guardian

  Steadfast

  Leviathan

  THE LOST STARS

  Tarnished Knight

  Perilous Shield

  Imperfect Sword

  THE GENESIS FLEET

  Vanguard

  Ascendant

  Triumphant

  SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

  Ad Astra*

  Borrowed Time*

  Swords and Saddles*

  STANDALONE NOVELS

  The Last Full Measure*

  * available as a JABberwocky ebook

  THANK YOU FOR READING

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