‘Take his word for it.’
She almost flinched. There it was — the lingering ghost of the old chain of command. Was she able to give orders or not? Damn the way the past just wouldn’t go away! She turned on her heel and left the man standing alone.
She returned to the gathered company mages. Her gaze found Petal and rested there. ‘You said it should be you — why?’
The huge man seemed to shrink under her stony regard. ‘Well,’ he began, stammering, ‘Blues’ D’riss is not appropriate to this. Nor is Serc. Nor Shadow.’ He pressed his hands together and touched them to his chin. ‘I believe my insights into the Mockra Warren — the magics of the mind and perception — should guide us best.’
Shimmer nodded. ‘Very well. You have the task.’ The fellow blinked, quite surprised by his success. ‘Blues, Gwynn, give him any aid necessary.’
The mages murmured their assent and the three went off, already arguing and sharing opinions on the coming job.
Shimmer crossed her arms and returned to staring out over the water. Familiar. Hood-blasted familiar. Like Ardata. But not as heavy-handed or powerful. More subtle. More … insinuating.
Days passed. Eleven vessels followed their lead, including the Lether ships of that ruthless merchant general, Luthal Canar. Eleven now, as one morning the sun rose to reveal that one of their number had simply gone missing overnight. No further losses appeared after that. The ship immediately following theirs, the Mare galley, the Lady’s Luck, kept close, and the others followed them.
One day Blues joined her at the rail where she was studying the unchanging heavy cover of fog. ‘How is Petal doing?’ she asked.
‘Holding up.’ He glanced back to where the mage sat cross-legged on the deck, wrapped in blankets. He let out a hard breath. ‘I gather from his muttering that what he’s facing — Omtose Phellack unveiled — is fading even as he wrestles with it. Unravelling like rotten cloth. Probably be impossible to push through, otherwise.’
‘Good. Maybe we’ll make it through this without any further losses.’
They stood together in silence after that. The sun sank to a dim reddish smear close to the horizon. She remarked, ‘The Brethren have been silent of late.’
‘Petal says the Jaghut magic is holding them off.’
Shimmer grunted her acceptance. The night darkened. The unvarying haze of the Sea of Dread thickened to an impenetrable blanket that blinded her.
With the sounding of the mid-night bell, Blues remarked, ‘There were ex-Stormguard on that Mare vessel. The men who used to fight the Riders of the Strait of Storms. They’ll be useful in a dust-up.’
She nodded at this information. Yet she wished to say so much more; to thank the man for his support, for his extraordinary lack of jealousy that would have driven others to undermine her position; for frankly just being him all these years. But something stopped her, something intervened and closed her mouth like a clenching fist, and she wondered: was it the clichéd isolation of command? The weight she’d heard described so often? Ridiculous. Yet there it was. Something had driven itself between her and all the others of the Guard. Something she hadn’t felt before.
But she said nothing of this. She remained silent. She was no longer the one to give explanations; she gave orders now. And a voice within her remarked, scornfully: how like K’azz!
Days later — Shimmer had no idea how many, and felt no impulse to ask — the banks of fog that choked the Sea of Dread parted before their bow, revealing a rugged rocky coast, forested hills beyond, and distant jagged snow-peaked mountains.
Shimmer went to find K’azz. He was at the stern, hands clasped behind his back. ‘We’re through,’ she reported.
For some time he did not answer, then his eyes fluttered, blinking, and his head turned to her. It was as if he was surfacing from some deep dive, such as his undersea walk at the Isle of Pillars. He nodded. ‘Good.’ He gestured to the line of vessels emerging from the fog-banks behind them. ‘Nine now. Lost two more.’
‘When?’
He shrugged. ‘Some time ago.’
‘An attack?’
He shook his head; his iron-grey hair, she noted, was thinning even more. ‘No. No attacks. I understand that here, on the Dread Sea, crews just give up. Or disappear. Vessels lose headway, then coast, and finally lie adrift, empty. Abandoned. A sea of ghost ships.’
‘We made it through.’
He nodded again, the muscles of his jaws bunched in stark contrast beneath his parchment-like skin. ‘How is he?’
She jumped, flinching. Petal! She ran to where the man sat close to the side rudder and knelt before him. His head hung so low she couldn’t see his face. ‘Petal? Hello? Are you with us?’
The blankets heaped about the man stirred. The head shook, as if its owner were waking, then rose. Sweat sheathed the pale rounded cheeks, dripped from the chin. He peered about, puzzled, as if he’d forgotten everything, then his gaze found her face and fixed there and he smiled, rather self-consciously. ‘Thirsty,’ he croaked.
She straightened. ‘Water here! A drink!’
One of Ghelath’s crewmen ran up with a skin of water. Petal just blinked at the thing. Shimmer snatched it away, unstoppered it, and held the spout to his lips, squeezing gently. Water poured down his chin but he managed to swallow some few gulps. He nodded his thanks.
Only now did Shimmer realize how neglectful they had been. Who had taken care of him? Gods, how could they have been so … forgetful? But no, Blues, surely … With Petal awake, Blues was here with her now, along with Gwynn.
‘Did you check on him?’ she demanded.
Blues blinked his surprise. ‘Well … no. I thought …’ and he gestured vaguely, as if to indicate the ship’s company in general.
Shimmer gazed down at the mage as he stirred. He wanted to stand, and so they helped him to his feet. The blankets fell from him and steam rose into the air from his sweat-soaked robes, as if he smouldered with heat. How many days, weeks, had it been, she wondered. Or had it only been a few? In any case, how could he have survived? It was inhuman.
She studied the fellow as he weaved on his feet. He looked to have lost a full two stone.
They passed a number of bare rocky headlands, a few yet sheathed in scabrous ice, then came to where the coast flattened and here they found the shore littered with the broken husks of ships.
Blues pointed a stick ahead, where cliffs rose; there stood a keep, a heap of rock exactly the same slate-grey hue as the surrounding cliffs. The land before it lay checkered in fields in various degrees of care and cultivation. A bedraggled clutch of wooden huts hugged the shore.
A rain that had fallen on and off through the day started in earnest. It pushed down the smoke climbing from holes in the shack roofs. Though Shimmer had longed for land, it was a dour and depressing sight.
‘We should go ashore first,’ said K’azz from beside her and she started, surprised; she hadn’t sensed his presence.
‘Of course.’
The landing party consisted of her, K’azz, Blues, Gwynn, and Keel. She was startled to see K’azz actually carrying a sword — a hand and a half. He caught her gaze and said, explaining, ‘Cole’s.’
The losses still burned in her chest, and she nodded. ‘I’m sorry, K’azz.
‘As am I, Shimmer. As am I.’
A launch took them to shore. They tramped up the wet sand then climbed a ratty set of stairs built of timbers taken from stricken vessels. The huts were likewise constructed from ships’ timbers. But so much wood was in evidence, Shimmer began to suspect deliberate wrecking. The shacks were roofed with sod, bundled grasses, or wooden shakes. What few men and women they met turned away, or stopped in stony silence to watch them pass. One woman, her rags gathered about her, murmured, ‘Run while you can,’ and hurried off herself.
Shimmer looked to K’azz, quite uneasy. He motioned her on to the stone fortress. Blues, she noted, had drawn his sticks. These he tossed and spun as they went, and she knew this was his habit when nervous. Keel walked with his enormous rectangular shield readied on his arm.