Aquamancer (mancer series Book 2) Page 3

  “When you ask me directly, I can only answer just as directly, Mother,” he said at last. “I have no doubts about Myrn or about marriage with her. It feels perfectly right. To both of us. We’ve talked of it many times this past summer.”

  “Good!” said Gloriana. She was knitting as they talked, in yarns of blue and white—a baby’s shawl or sweater. Douglas couldn’t decide which. “No one can be entirely sure in such matters, but I must tell you that I also feel perfectly at ease with your decision. Your father and I are unworried—beyond the normal concerns of parents, of course. And I hope you can live with those worries.”

  “I see them as signs of your love for me and for Myrn, too,” said Douglas, feeling rather humble and yet very happy at his mother’s words.

  Said Gloriana, “Here’s your papa, fresh from the toils of profit-and-loss and engineering drawings! Shipwright, do you think you could make us some popcorn?”

  ****

  Douglas sailed on the newest Perthside ship for Westongue. The splendid square-rigger would be taken into the Ducal service on arrival there. In Westongue Douglas hoped to find a ship that would be going—or could be chartered to take him—across the wide, shallow bight of Sea called the Broad—to some point on the east coast of the land still known as Old Kingdom, although there had been neither king nor kingdom in that place for more than two hundred years.

  Douglas had Sea in his blood from his heritage of shipbuilding, reinforced by his adventures the year before. He loved to sail and was fascinated by everything connected with ships.

  The good ship Ramrod carried him without incident down the long fjord of Farango Waters, around Cape Fioddle, the southwesternmost tip of Dukedom, and up its long, low, sandy west coast to busy Westongue. This port served Capital, the seat of Thornwood’s government and, other than distant and more isolated Wayness Isles on the south coast, was Dukedom’s only deepwater port.

  When they moored Douglas recognized a familiar figure on the dock and waved, gleefully.

  “Ahoy! Ahoy, Thornwood! Here’s a Journeyman Wizard most pleased to see you once more!”

  The young and handsome Duke of Dukedom waved back, grinned broadly, and gave the younger man a strong embrace and a buffet on the shoulder when Douglas stepped ashore.

  “I came down from Capital to look over Ramrod,” he explained. “I hadn’t known that you were aboard her.”

  Douglas asked after Thornwood’s mother, the Duchess Mother Marigold, whom Douglas and Flarman had rescued from Frigeon’s frozen workshop under Eternal Ice. Thornwood urged him to come upriver to Capital to visit her and see how things were going, now that a proper Duke had taken the helm, as he put it. His training as a Seaman showed in many of his mannerisms and phrases.

  But Douglas begged his pardon, explaining his mission was too important to delay, much as he’d like to have seen Capital. He’d never been there.

  “I never interfere with Wizard’s work,” said Thornwood, seriously. He had spent some months hiding from his enemies at Wizard’s High as a boy and had learned a lot about Wizards’ ways and means.

  “But at least spend a few days with me here, while we find you a ship going west. There’re some people here who perhaps can give you good advice on that score. They may be able to tell you something of your destination, too. No one should go to a far land totally unprepared.”

  He would have said more but just then the sailors who were to take over Ramrod from the Perthside builders’ crew arrived in an untidy and laughing marching body. There were things to which Thornwood had to attend.

  “Go up to my brand-new Sea House, just finished,” Thornwood said. “You can walk there from here, when you’re ready. There it is ... there, with the tallest roof and the long captain’s walk.”

  He turned to his business. Douglas shouldered his luggage, a stout leather knapsack, and walked up the sloping shingle beach to the imposing building the Duke had pointed out. Painted a bright white with black trim, it already served as a beacon and landmark for sailors approaching Westongue from open Sea.

  Somehow the Ducal staff at Sea House had already been told he was coming. He was greeted by name, most warmly, and shown to a comfortable suite next to Thornwood’s own. Its windows overlooked the busy roadstead and waterfront, and it had a brass bedstead, a brass-framed mirror, and a brass-bound telescope mounted on a tripod in the bay window to watch the ships come and go.

  He was doing just this later when Thornwood knocked at the door and brought in with him a gnarled, weather-beaten elderly seaman he introduced as Captain Mallet.

  “So, ye’re headed for Old Kingdom, eh?” said Mallet over lunch. “I won’t ask why, for ‘tis none of me business, but I’ve got to say you may be foolhardy, lad! Friend of the Duke or not, I must be honest with ye. There’s a load of wickedness, evil and other bad doings yet in Old Kay. Old Kay is as we call it and not many Men goes there these days!”

  “I must go. I can take care of myself,” said Douglas, a bit miffed at the other’s obvious doubt. “I am a Fire Wizard.”

  “Pupil of Flarman Flowerstalk,” put in Thornwood, with a twinkle in his eye.

  “Old Flarman! Well, why di’n’t ye say so, laddie? If ye’re a mate of that old fire-spitter, you’ll do better over on the other side than any ordinary Man, I ‘spect. But make no mistake! ‘Twill be dangerous, and I be a Man who has rubbed noses with danger all over Sea and much of World, so to speak. I admit I only knows of Old Kay what lies quite near the coast. I never goes far inland meself! When folks I meet ashore asks me what an anchor is, I know I’m too far from salt water.”

  He laughed at his own joke. Thornwood chuckled and Douglas was appeased.

  “I’ve heard tales, however,” Mallet went on, shaking his finger in caution. “Wish I could give ye more details, lad...er, Wizard! But, no, I would just be saying hearsay to ye, and that’d not be much help.”

  “There’s this problem of getting someone to put me ashore somewhere useful,” Douglas prompted.

  “I can help ye there. My poor dead daughter’s husband, a good and brave young ‘un much your own age, is in port and looking for cargo or charter. Mayhap he’ll take ye, as far as Summer Palace.”

  “Summer Palace?” Douglas pricked up his ears at a new name.

  “Aye, ‘tis a town on the east coast of Old Kay, near the mouth of the large river they call Bloody Brook.”

  “That river was scene of terrible fighting in the Last Battle of Kingdom,” put in Thornwood. “I recall my great-grandfather speaking of it, although he was not there.”

  “Me own great-great-grandfather was, and never come home,” said Mallet. “Lucky for me, he left behind a young bride and several stout lads, one of which was me own great-grandfather.”

  “And beyond Summer Palace, what?” asked Douglas, making notes as the older man talked.

  “’Tis a mystery to me, and to most others I know of, this side the Broad. Not many goes deep into Old Kay, as I say. Of them that do go, not many come back. The stories...well, they dwell on Goblin hordes and armies of Unburied Dead! No more o’ that!”

  “From Summer Palace, then, you’re on your own, young Wizard,” said Thornwood. “For the life of me, I wish I were able to go along.”

  “You’ve much to do, rebuilding and repairing your land and rescuing your people after Eunicet’s misrule,” declared Douglas, stoutly. He knew, better than most, the damage Frigeon’s wily, self-serving puppet had done to Thornwood’s Dukedom.

  “Beside that, this journey I must make alone. It’s part of my preparation for professional Mastery,” he explained. “I can’t accept undue assistance in this.”

  They visited the saucy fore-and-aft rigged schooner Pitchfork, belonging to Mallet’s bereaved son-in-law, a youthful Seacaptain named Pargeot. Douglas liked him from the first.

  The Journeyman Wizard knew enough about ships and sailing to see that Pitchfork, despite her unusual name, boasted a tight, streamlined hull, taut rigging, and was served by a wel
l-trained crew. Her sails were clean white and unpatched, of the best Westongue canvas. Her decks were obviously holystoned and washed clean at least once each day, a good sign of a well-mastered vessel.

  “We’ll try our best to get you all the way to Pfantas,” Pargeot said when they met later at Sea House to sign Douglas’s hire charter. “Bloody Brook is wide enough almost all the way, according to the old charts I’ve seen. Is it deep enough, is the question? Can it be an awesome, fearsome opponent in spring flood? And there are said to be mischievous Sprites everywhere and wicked Goblins, never to be taken lightly.”

  “Sounds daunting,” agreed Douglas, “but I must try, and your father-in-law tells me Pfantas is the farthest inland I can hope to get by water, saving me a lot of hiking through rough country.”

  “So ‘tis!” agreed the Captain. “We’ll sail at tide’s turn tomorrow afternoon, young sir. The crossing should be easy at this time of year, and should take no more than four days to sight land on the other side.”

  “I’ll be ready,” said Douglas. “Is there anything I can do to help, once we’re at Sea?”

  “Stand a few watches on deck,” suggested the other, getting up to leave. “I’ve a good crew, but I’m short of experienced officers—due to most of them still being off on Eunicet’s ships at Sea somewhere, and not returned yet.”

  “I can do that,” said Douglas. “I learned a little of Seamanship under Caspar Marlin. Have you heard of him?”

  “I knew Caspar before he first sailed to Choin,” said Pargeot with a pleased grin. “Him and me were better than friends; shipmates! When we’re away, I’ll ask you to tell me of Caspar and where you met him. But for now, tell me if he is well.”

  “Caspar is very well, and in my own service as Captain of Donation, my flagship,” put in Thornwood Duke. “If I’d known you two were friends, I would have told you long since.”

  “Good news to hear at any time, Your Grace! I thank you both and now must see to my ship, if you’ll excuse me.”

  Douglas went to bed early that night. He was tired and had found that unless you were a sailor or a roustabout and enjoyed the noisy pleasures provided behind the Westongue waterfront, there was not much else to do after dark.

  His dreams were uneasy with uncanny visions of Trolls, Goblins, Undead Warriors, and Witches flying, screaming, through dark air over a roiled and roaring river. At last he put them out of his mind with a conscious effort and fell into a deeper, most restful sleep.

  Chapter Three

  Storm on the Broad!

  “I don’t like the looks of that black sky,” said Captain Pargeot to Douglas when they met on Pitchfork’s quarterdeck the morning of the fourth day of the voyage.

  “I’m not much of a weather prophet, but I see what you mean,” said Douglas. “Look at those birds, will you!”

  A huge flock of white Seabirds flashed overhead, speeding downwind for the distant shore of Old Kay, not yet visible from Pitchfork’s deck. The raucous flock flew as fast as Douglas had ever seen birds fly, mewling with urgency and letting nothing turn them aside from their headlong course.

  “If Bronze Owl were here,” thought Douglas aloud, “he’d go question them about why they are fleeing.”

  “No mystery about that! That’s a storm upwind and it’s coming fast! The birds are heading for shelter, probably some bay on Kingdom’s coast,” said the Captain with a wry grimace. “We may wish we could do the same, quite soon!”

  Douglas watched for a while from the deck. Impressive black banks of rolling, lightning-shot clouds fast approached from the northeast. The crewmen, going about their tasks on deck, paused frequently to cast apprehensive glances sternward. Orders were shouted in rapid sequence and sails came down, flapping wildly, to be manhandled to quiet and tightly furled about their yards or brought entirely to the deck and stowed away.

  The very air was heavy with menace, tasting on the young Wizard’s tongue like some of Flarman’s more violent fire spells. When the weather turned dirty and Sea rough, he’d have trouble getting a meal, let alone a hot one, he knew. At last he went below to find himself breakfast. Even while he ate he was aware how Pitchfork pitched, rolled, and tossed about, more each minute that passed. Her timbers groaned, and cordage snapped, screeched, squealed, and twanged as the wind force steadily rose. The waters beyond Pitchfork’s thick bulkheads roared and tumbled, whipped into higher and higher foam-capped peaks by the unceasing gale.

  “If I didn’t know better,” said Douglas to Pargeot when the captain came below to grab a bite of lunch, “I’d guess that this was a storm sent by Frigeon.”

  “No, storms are usual in these latitudes, although not at this time of the year. The Broad is quite shallow, you know, which makes any storm that much worse. However, I’ve been in stronger! We’ve turned into the wind now. We’ll ride it out under stays. It shouldn’t last more than ...”

  A shout from above stopped his words. He spun about to rush back on deck, saying, “Stay below, Douglas Brightglade! It’ll be safer. Until this blow passes.”

  Douglas tried to make himself comfortable on a settle in the saloon, reading a book on spontaneous combustion Flarman had slipped into his pack for just such occasions.

  It became more and more difficult to remain, even stretched out on his back on the settle. The deck sloped first stemward, then sternward, with rolls, twists, and unexpected pitches in between. The motion became so violent the Journeyman finally tucked his book under a cushion in order to devote both hands to hanging on, so as not to end up pitched to the deck.

  Water, forced into the cabin under the usually tight doors and windows, sloshed back and forth alarmingly, even though the Journeyman realized the seepage didn’t mean the ship was floundering.

  “Pity the poor sailor on a day like this,” he misquoted. He had regained his sea legs a few hours after sailing, but this sort of wild gyrating was making him wish he hadn’t eaten so hearty a breakfast.

  Conditions must be, he thought to himself, very rough on deck, judging by the ship’s sounds as well as motions. He could hear, faintly, shouts of her officers through the thick oaken deck, but couldn’t make out what was being said.

  There came a terrible crash, a flurry of louder ones just over his head, the sound of rapid chopping, and another crack, as if a piece of wood had been split in twain under great stress. A yard or perhaps even a whole mast must have been torn from its moorings and dropped over the side, Douglas guessed, and the crew was frantically cutting away the trailing rigging.

  There were powers in World that even a Master Pyromancer could not resist. A full-blowing storm on the Broad was definitely one. The immense strength of the raging waters and the howling wind combined to overwhelm his fire powers, alone. For the first time since his adventure under the ice of Frigeon’s fracturing glacier, he felt real fear.

  Soon there was a moderation of the storm wind, although Sea continued to toss the ship about angrily. Douglas rose carefully and made his unsteady way to the saloon’s door and down the companion way to Pitchfork’s waist. Clinging to a hatch combing for balance, he stuck his head out into driving rain just as Pitchfork’s first mate staggered into sight, head bent and shoulders thrusting into the downpour.

  “Captain went overboard when the mizzen was carried away!” wailed the mate, his eyes wide with apprehension and sorrow. “We couldn’t go about to reach him before he was lost to sight!”

  Douglas gasped in horror. He’d known the young Sea-captain for but four days, but liked and trusted him. Now he was gone—into a Sea no man could long survive. There was nothing the young Wizard could do for him, except...

  “Asrai! Sea Fire! Save a poor sailor overboard!” he shouted into the raging wind. If the Phosphorescence heard... the mate had not stayed to hear Douglas’s call.

  Shivering in wet horror and sorrow, Douglas turned about to retrace his steps down the passageway toward the main cabin.

  A second, even greater crash and a wild shudder ran through
the ship’s length, shaking the vessel as a dog shakes a squirrel. The shock threw the Journeyman to his knees and then onto his face, banging him with great force against a bulkhead.

  Cold, salt-bitter water shattered the companionway door behind him and poured through, pinning him to the deck with its weight. At the last possible moment Douglas instinctively took a great gulp of air.

  In complete darkness he was plucked up bodily by the in-rushing water and hurled toward the aft end of the passageway. He was smashed through the thin partition that separated passageway from saloon.

  “Hang on just a few minutes,” he told himself, unable to tell whether he was moving or still, deep or shallow, or ... what? His lungs began to ache for air.

  I’ve been through this before, he remembered, striking out in an attempt to swim to the surface. I must drop my boots or they’ll drag me…

  Before he could bend to push the heavy seaboots off against the pressure of the water, he surfaced, just in time to feel himself swept by the raging torrent through a gaping, jagged hole in Pitchfork’s high-tossed stern... a hole big enough to drive a coach-and-four through, he thought, foggily. Once again, he gulped a desperate breath of air.

  The water had carried him from the passageway, through the saloon, and out the saloon portholes into open Sea. As he passed through the windows he was dashed against the foot-square timber that supported the sloop’s massive rudder. He spun out and down into thundering darkness, stunned.

  ****

  “What was that!” cried Myrn Manstar. She started from her bed atop the Waterand tower, terror gripping her heart in an iron hand and squeezing out a second scream. “Douglas! Where are you?”

  She listened, shaking with sudden fear, but all she could hear was the soft rustle of the great fountain in the palace forecourt. A gentle, warm breeze came through the seaward windows, and a crescent moon sailed placidly across the Warm Seas sky.