Ship of Spells

Chapter 14 The Gundeck

We made our way swiftly between the decks, and I struggled to keep up with his long strides.

Swabs parted before him as he strode through the companionways like a ship cutting through choppy waves.

He was hot and cold at the same time, breath on a faltering flame.

Singular of purpose yet able to see the patterns in all things.

Not just see them, I realized, but manipulate them, weave them, bind them to his will.

It was incomprehensible to me, the patience required for such skill. Patience had never been one of my stronger traits. Get in, take what you needed, get out, and stay alive. One step ahead, another dawn met. That was my life, or had been, until the Ship of Spells.

Down the steps to the gundeck, where twenty-two nine-pounders waited for me.

The gunner knuckled a salute at the sight of the captain on his deck, and Thanavar slowed by a brass monk filled with shot.

He reached out and snatched one with his left hand.

He held it a long moment and turned to look at me now.

“As you said, Ensign, the chimeric may well kill you sooner than you expect,” he said. “So, while you live, truly live.”

He looked at my hands.

“Your gloves.”

I swallowed, quickly tucked them into my belt, and he handed me the ball. It was only nine pounds, but it was as heavy as the whole world.

He slid his other arm out of the sling, raised his hand over the ball, and flexed his long fingers. He paused, sent me a glance under his brow.

“Do not tell the doctor.”

I grinned. Even the captain was afraid of the recriminations of a faun.

“Shroud spell,” he said, and he began to cast, his lyrical fingers speaking to the air—plucking the Worldrune, as Fahr had said. “Benedictum concellis.”

I repeated the words in my mind. Traditional spell casting, with a Rhi’Ahr accent.

“Translatus sate in chimeris.”

Nothing.

“Again,” he said. “And aloud.”

We repeated the incantation together, our voices an arcane harmony.

Nothing.

“Concentrate,” he said.

Nothing.

“Not shroud, clearly.” He frowned. “Imbue?”

And we repeated the exercise, with different runes and a different incantation.

Nothing.

Three times we ran them, and nothing.

I could see the seamages watching us, and I’m sure I heard the whispers. I felt their scorn. I’m not sure if it was imagined or real, but I felt it nonetheless.

Runechaser.

“Tecton Permeatus,” he said. “I have no recourse if this is not the spell.”

He spoke the incantation aloud, shorter and sharper than the previous two.

His hands flared, shaped patterns across the ball, and this time, my runescars danced in response.

We leaned into the spell, repeating the words over and over in unison, and I had to admit, it was exhilarating to cast magik with this enigmatic Rhi’Ahr captain.

But still, the chimeric did not take and the shot did not crackle, and soon, we stopped to stare at the ball in my hands.

He thought for a long moment and turned away to the gunport.

He pressed his palms into the beams, running his fingers along the wooden frames, and I knew he was talking to the Touchstone.

For a moment, my heart ached. For her or for him, I didn’t know.

Maybe for all of us, in a war that none of us had started.

Unless, of course, he had.

It’s the only way to survive in Thanavar’s game, Smoke had said. But what if I wanted to play?

I looked down at the shot in my hand. It was heavy and rough, a ball of lead crudely fashioned.

Still, it could do serious damage, could shatter a spar or a rail with ease.

Could cave in a seamage’s head or shatter his ribs or bust a thigh clean in two.

Swift and lethal were the long guns, even without chimeric to burn.

Thanavar swung round, his hair falling across his forehead like strands of sea-dark silk. Suns, he made every movement look like theater. His eyes were bright, the gold flecks gleaming.

“Your chimeric is from a Rhi’Ahr ship,” he said. “And was likely created and laced in Nethersea. I must teach you the spell in Rhi’Ahr. Are you willing?”

My heart thudded.

I was going to learn a Rhi’Ahr incant from a Rhi’Ahr captain to incite a Rhi’Ahr chimeric. I would be a very different mage if I survived this ship.

I raised my chin.

“I am,” I said.

He smiled at that, a big, bright smile that hit me like a broadsword, catching the breath in my throat at the sight.

Suns. Moons. Forge fog a faun.

I hoped he didn’t see me swallow that breath as he stepped back to me and raised his hands over the ball once again.

“Thre’Ahr Nethaliim,” he said. “Say it.”

“Thre’Ahr Nethaliim.”

I had no idea what I was saying, but my hands began to glow.

He spoke the incantation aloud in Rhi’Ahr, and my runescars glittered like embers catching a flame, and soon, the ball itself began to gleam.

“Now, you,” he said.

I steadied my nerve and spoke it the way he had taught me, and at the second phrase, the ball began to hiss. Lines danced along the surface almost as if to crack the shell, and light beamed from within, brighter and sharper with every word I spoke.

By the end of it, I was holding a nine-pounder laced with chimeric. Chimeric that had come from me.

“Well done, Ensign,” he said. “You will begin training with Mr. Fahr at first light tomorrow.”

“Aye, sir,” I said.

“And an extra ration for you tonight.”

“Not rum,” I said.

“Oh? What, then?”

“I noticed you had papers and inks and quills in your cabin. I…”

I stopped myself, remembering stones and crab shells and my wayward, wretched life.

“No. Rum is good,” I said quickly.

He clasped his hands behind his back and turned to face me square.

“Tell me,” he said. It was that same tone as the first time I’d heard his voice, soft-spoken but deep, the one that didn’t need to raise itself to be obeyed. It strummed an unfamiliar but heady chord inside me.

“It’s…” I stammered. “I…”

He waited, arched a thick black brow.

Fog it.

“I like to sketch,” I said. “I love to draw. Animals, birds, people, buildings. It doesn’t matter. I think sketching helps me understand how things fit together, maybe how the runes connect them all.”

“Hmm,” he said.

“And…” I clenched my teeth. “I would very much like to draw this ship. If that’s allowed. If that’s not a secret. If she will let me.”

I held my breath as he looked away for a moment, to the port window where he had touched her and to the ocean beyond.

“She is a beautiful ship,” he said finally.

He cocked his head again as if listening, then sighed and turned back.

“She will let you.”

I felt the weight fall from my shoulders. Maybe that meant she wouldn’t try to kill me again.

“I have many journals, some of which are empty,” he said. “Would those work?”

“I’m sure of it,” I said.

“Do you read?”

“Ravenously, when I get the chance.”

He smiled again and turned to the gunner.

“Brass won’t contain the chimeric, Mr. Broom,” he said. “So, you will need to fashion new monks. You have what you need in the hold. I will leave its formulation to you and your men.”

“Aye, sir,” said Broom. The gunner’s name was Broom.

“And have Mr. Buck fit five rafts, no more than a yard square each.”

“Aye, sir.”

Thanavar shifted back to me.

“We have three days at most before Bilgetown,” he said to me. “Endeavor to have them all done by tomorrow, if you please. Mr. Broom and his gunners need the practice. They will need to be marked sharp.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Please. But be mindful of the cost.” His gaze darted to my arms. “If successful, you could save souls, but not at risk of your own.”

My shoulders straightened.

I wasn’t entirely sure that I could do what he was asking, but I knew I’d be damned if I didn’t try. For him, for me, for the Touchstone. And for this half-patched crew.

Forge, I was getting soft.

“And then, you shall have all the quills and inks and journals you desire,” Thanavar said. He paused as though he wanted to say more but turned away, tossing over a shoulder, “Welcome to the Ship of Spells, Honor Aro’el.”

And with that, he was gone, taking the wind from my sails and leaving me luffed.

I looked at the gunner.

Tomorrow.

Twenty-two guns at thirty balls per gun.

Six hundred and sixty balls, not counting the carronades, chases, and swivels. By tomorrow.

What a foggin’ idiot I was.

Broom clapped me on the back and laughed.

I took a deep breath and got to work.

The sea was rough, the clouds dark and rolling with thunder.

We were skimming the Sheets, where water from the Dreadwall turned back across the sky, blanketing the heavens in thick, black cloud and raining itself into the oceans.

Soon, it would be constant thunderstorms if we maintained our present course, and I wondered how we’d have a shot with Bilgetown if the weather was against us as well.

I’d laced all six hundred plus balls in eighteen hours, then slept for perhaps ten more before a boom roused me from my bunk.

I had sketched the woman figure on the masthead and begun an ink wash portrait of Echo before falling asleep reading my first book from Thanavar’s library.

It was called Bending the Runes: Essays in Alchemical Layering, a dry hundred-year-old tome written by Magister Euronius Thibault.

I’d found my eyes hovering over the same sentence until they closed entirely.

I slept fitfully, restlessly, until the boom.

There was a second, and I scrambled topside to find the cannon aimed at a small, jury-rigged raft pitching in the sea perhaps two hundred yards to port. Broom had clearly been busy, and I leaned over the gunwale to watch.

“Gotta use heavy leathers,” Broom said as he grabbed a chimeric-laced shot with thick gloves. “Burns like the nines.”

I grinned. Like the nines, indeed.

The cannon’s name was Jumping Jak. It was scratched into the iron of the barrel, and I watched as Broom rammed the shot into its muzzle, followed by a wad of cloth. Fine powder was poured into the touch, and all hands rushed to the breech.

“Run ’er out,” he barked, and they rolled the cannon up to the bulwark. In a swift motion, he lit the fuse.

Even after so many months at sea between the Dawn Watch and the Touchstone, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be accustomed to the boom of cannons.

The roar shatters all sound and rings your ears for days afterward.

The cannon jerked, billowing smoke and brimstone, and the ball sailed over the waves, splashing into the water just short of the bobbing raft.

“Ten degrees to fore, Mr. Broom!”

“Aye, Cap’n!” cried Broom. “Ten degrees to fore!”

I glanced over my shoulder to see Thanavar standing between Fahr and Smoke, watching the proceedings from the pup. His arms were folded across his chest, and his hair billowed like the dark clouds overhead. Yes, he cut a fine figure, indeed. A blade of steel under a heavy sky.

At his side, Fahr spied me and nodded. Smoke glowered, his eyes daggers under his heavy brow.

The Touchstone is a dangerous post, he’d said. Was he angry that I hadn’t listened, or was he jealous that I’d secured a station behind his back?

I swallowed and turned back to the deck.

Broom’s men laid into the cannon, needing all hands to change her angle of shot.

“Run ’er out!” the gunner barked again.

Ball, wad, powder, fuse, and she boomed again.

I held my breath as the shot sailed directly for the tiny craft, striking her dead center.

A normal ball would have cracked her, but with chimeric, she crackled like lightning.

It arced between all pieces until she exploded across the waves.

A cheer went up from the crew, and I smiled to myself, proud to have played a part.

Pride kills, Thanavar had said. Sometimes, I just had to disagree.

“Launch the second raft,” called Fahr. “Starboard, please. Our aim must be true if we’re to survive Bilgetown, lads!”

A second cheer, and Buck’s men heaved another makeshift raft over the starboard rail.

I looked to the helm. Neale was there, trying desperately not to look at me.

Sometimes, pride didn’t kill. Sometimes, it just filled a seaman’s shoes with chimeric at night and laughed as it ate out the soles.

It was a dangerous game but one I’d played all my life. I reckoned I’d gotten good at it. Still, I knew at some point my luck would run out.

That night, there was a gutted fish in my hammock.