As Nerak’s rage destroyed part of his great ship, Brynne felt herself cast away. Terror gripped her for a moment, because she knew she was about to strike the water. It would be cold and dark, and she didn’t have the strength to swim. But she was unconscious before she hit the surface, falling amidst a hail of broken planks.
Steven and the old sorcerer were thrown across the floor as the aft end of the Prince Marek exploded from the main deck, but the table, and the leatherbound book upon it, remained untouched. As he clambered to his feet, the metal box still clutched firmly in one hand, Steven realised the hickory staff had rolled away to the other side of what was left of the cabin and was now balanced precariously on the edge of the deck, some thirty feet above the water – and Nerak was standing in front of the old fisherman.
Steven did a quick check of himself: except for a nasty bulge above his left eye, he did not appear to have been injured. Now to retrieve the hickory staff. He tried to ignore the fact that the two master sorcerers were glaring at each other across the battered plank deck and started inching his way nearer to the staff.
‘Fantus!’ Nerak’s voice was overwhelming, and Steven felt its resonance shiver along his bones in jagged waves. ‘Fantus!’ His voice held a mixture of hatred and joy. ‘We meet again, my dearest, dearest friend – and how glad I am you managed to not stay dead. You have grown more skilled since our last meeting.’ As he spoke, the dark prince threw something at his former colleague; though his hand was empty, Steven watched in terror as the blow hit the old man directly in his chest. A spell. He expected his frail companion to fly back through the air, broken and bloody, or maybe even to disintegrate on the spot, but instead, he crumpled to the deck, folding like a dropped handkerchief.
Steven, struck motionless, watched for interminable moments until Nerak began chuckling.
‘Too easy, Fantus,’ he crowed. ‘You have had nearly a thousand Twinmoons – and still you made it too easy. You should have let me kill you that night at Sandcliff. It would have saved you all that unnecessary worry and work.’
The dark prince didn’t appear to notice Steven at all. His attention remained focused on his lifelong enemy, now lying prostrate at his feet. ‘And there goes your revolution, you hapless fool. You might have done better with that broadsword.’
Steven was unable to move: Nerak must have cast a spell to keep him still. Was the old man – was Gilmour – really dead? It didn’t matter if he thought the name now, or even said it out loud; it was too late. Could it really have been that simple? All those years, and all that power, and raising himself from the dead – and all it took was one spell… surely Gilmour would have been better prepared than that?
So what do I now, Steven thought, faced with a pantomime villain from the blackest of fantasy stories? Should he have tried to share the power of the hickory staff with Gilmour as he faced this most dire of enemies? Well, it was too late – and in any case, he was still fifty feet away from the staff. Nerak would crush him to dust before he took three steps towards it.
But Gilmour was not done yet. As the emaciated frame began to move, he whispered, ‘That was well done, Nerak, very well done.’ His voice started soft and grew to an amused howl, mocking the black magician. The old man sat up and smiled. ‘Did it weaken you? And do you have more of those little spells at the ready, hidden in those absurd pyjamas you insist on wearing?’
Nerak’s cloak flapped in the wind from the harbour, but the dark prince remained silent.
Gilmour prodded him again. ‘That was your best, wasn’t it? Was that the same spell you used to wipe out Port Denis? It would have worked just fine – more than enough to do the job, I would think.’
The former Larion Senator regained his feet. ‘You never were a very good student, Nerak.’ He gestured towards the small wooden table and the leatherbound book. ‘What are those? Lessek’s spells? One thousand Twinmoons and you still don’t have it figured out?’ He shook his head, the teacher disappointed.
Steven started to worry again: the old man’s words were having an effect now and Nerak looked as if he were about to explode with rage.
‘That was naught but the tiniest of tastes, Fantus, a minuscule sample drawn from the very furthest reaches of my power.’ With each breath Nerak seemed to grow in size. ‘I toy with you, to enjoy seeing how little I need to do to crush you beneath my boots.
‘I will dine on your flesh, Fantus, and suck the very marrow from your bones as I replace Lessek’s Key and open the spell table for my master’s arrival.’
For the first time, Nerak acknowledged Steven’s presence. ‘And you,’ he said, looking down at him. ‘Steven Taylor, my little Coloradoan. You have done well, found reserves of resourcefulness you never knew you had. Hurrah for you!’ His voice grew harder as he continued, ‘You have used Gilmour’s little wooden toy well in your own defence, Steven Taylor, but it’s a stick, and no stick is a match for me. And I’m getting bored with this little charade. You will turn Lessek’s Key over to me now, or-’
As the dark prince started his threat, Gilmour struck without warning, throwing open both arms and propelling himself forward suddenly as he cried out a strange, multi-syllabled word that twisted and turned in Steven’s mind. Nerak tumbled backwards with an ear-splitting shriek that cracked the thick oaken mainmast and sent it crashing into the deck in a ponderous tumble of rigging and sails. Several of Nerak’s still-unconscious sailors were crushed before it rolled to a stop. The Malakasian prince lay stunned himself, overwhelmed for a moment.
‘Now, Steven!’ Gilmour cried, ‘open it now!’
Steven snapped out of his reverie and returned his attention to the metal box. ‘One, two, one,’ he whispered, trying to ignore the black sorcerer and focus on his task. The first cone on the front face was still depressed, flush against the smooth metal. ‘Damnit. Which side was next?’ Steven’s hands began to shake. ‘Did we try right or left?’
Nerak drew his legs up beneath him, preparing to stand.
‘Right or left?’ Steven’s mind went blank and in desperation he depressed the twin cones on the adjacent side to the right of the front face of the locked box.
Nerak sat up and looked at him. A low rumble vibrated through Steven’s body and he realised Nerak was laughing.
The twin cones in the centre of the lower edge of the adjacent side refused to stay in place. Steven turned the box over and depressed the centre carving on its opposite side. The silver ornament snapped flat and remained flush. ‘Two,’ he shouted gleefully to Gilmour, then silently berated himself for attracting Nerak’s attention.
‘What is he doing, Fantus?’ Nerak said, and Steven wondered if he had imagined the dark prince’s look of confused hesitation.
Gilmour didn’t reply.
‘You’re not here for the far portal, are you? I would have thought you wanted the spell book; you cannot have any hope of defeating me without it.’ Nerak was standing now and his voice reverberated in Steven’s mind, a great tidal wave of sound crashing in on him from everywhere at once. ‘What good will the far portal do you? Are you hoping to run from me? That’s absurd, little Coloradoan. You should know there is no place you can hide from me.’
Gilmour remained silent, summoning the power to beat the dark prince into submission long enough for Steven to escape. Flecks of coloured light danced from the older man’s fingertips and veins bulged along his anorexically thin forearms.