‘No,’ he cut her off, ‘please, just help me at the capstan. We’ll be through this channel in a moment. It’s going to be a long day.’
‘Of course,’ she said. As she helped to take up the slack in the anchor-line, Brexan was able to see the way the capstan worked. With six wooden levers rigged at right angles from one another, they all pushed and rotated the great spindle, reeling in the hawser Garec and Marrin had dragged through the channel. Once taut, the capstan fought back, grinding to a halt as the full weight of the Morning Star came to bear on the anchor line.
‘Great rutters,’ Kellin said, ‘but this ship didn’t look that heavy!’
‘With your nose buried in the mud, you’d be hard to extract as well,’ Captain Ford said. ‘Keep at it, though. She’ll come loose.’ He grunted encouragement.
‘Use your legs,’ Gilmour instructed, straining as well. ‘Get your backs into it.’
The company pushed and heaved, pressing against the unwieldy capstan with all their might. Even wiry young Pel hurried from the quarterdeck to help break the muddy seal.
‘I want you at the helm, Pel,’ the captain ordered, his face flushed and sweaty.
‘I’m doing no good there, Captain,’ Pel said. It was about the only thing Brexan had heard him say since their departure from Orindale. The quiet young man, when not swabbing the brig-sloop from bow to stern, was generally to be found in the rigging, checking cleats, mending frayed ratlines and keeping a wary eye out for the navy. The last encounter had scared him to within a few breaths of the Northern Forest, and simply watching Steven pith the tan-bak had started the Pragan seaman quaking all over again. Talking only to the captain, and keeping his head down, the shy youngster said, ‘I’ll be back as soon as we get her loose, but let me help.’
The anchor line was taut, as tight as the small group of determined travellers could manage. Brexan waited for something to snap, or for the anchor to pull free from its place in the rocks behind the fog. With only wood, hemp and muscle in the equation, something had to give; the strain was too great.
Finally, groaning in protest, the Morning Star moved, just a slight shift to starboard at first. Brexan felt the capstan spin, taking in a bit of line as the deck righted itself.
‘One more like that should do it,’ the captain encouraged. ‘Pel, get back to the helm, now.’
As quickly as he had arrived, the youngster was gone.
Captain Ford called after him, ‘Bring the keel to starboard, just enough to get our backside clear, but as soon as she breaks off, get her back to port. I don’t want us off the mud and onto those rocks, understand?’
‘Aye aye, Captain,’ Pel shouted over his shoulder.
‘Marrin!’ he cried.
‘Captain?’ The reply came from somewhere over the side.
‘Get ready!’ On his mark, everyone redoubled their efforts. ‘Here we come!’
With that, the hull slipped free, the capstan spun easily, unexpectedly, and both Steven and Kellin fell to their knees, cursing.
The captain was gone, calling, ‘Keep taking up the slack, not too fast now, just keep it coming in steady. Then pawl that and wait for me amidships.’ From the rail, he checked their heading, then ordered, ‘Pel, back to port now, back to port.’
The Morning Star bobbed in the channel, turning to take in her anchor line and waiting for a northerly breeze. With another half-aven of slack water, they would have ample time to get through the narrow passage and reset the anchor before another sudden gust threatened to leave them in the mud or push them onto the rocks.
Taking the helm, Captain Ford watched as his crew of seamen and partisans reeled in the anchor line, then guided the brig-sloop carefully through the channel, beyond the island and into deeper, if still fogbound, water.
When the Morning Star passed the rocks, Marrin called, ‘I didn’t think you could do it, Captain, but she’s clear.’
Smiling, he said, ‘I told you we were thinking thin thoughts!’
Steven said, ‘That’s more work than I expected to do today.’
‘You and me both, cousin,’ Gilmour agreed, ‘but I don’t think we’re finished yet.’
‘Grand.’ Kellin wiped her forehead on her tunic sleeve. ‘Don’t you two know anything that might help us speed this process up a bit?’
‘Nothing we can risk right now,’ Steven said. ‘With any luck, Mark is honed in on the magic keeping that… whatever it was-’
‘Tan-bak,’ Gilmour supplied.
‘Keeping that tan-bak alive out there somewhere. We’re in enough danger simply from the fact that he might stumble across the mystical energy coming from the far portal and the spell book down in the cabin.’
Brexan said, ‘I thought that with Carpello’s shipments running north, Mark wouldn’t notice the difference between a ship loaded with that Ronan tree bark and one with your Larion toys.’
‘We have to hope not,’ Gilmour said, ‘but judging from our trip thus far, we haven’t been very lucky at keeping ourselves invisible. I made a mistake the day we encountered that naval cruiser. I don’t know if that’s why Mark sent the tan-bak, but I’m unwilling to risk using magic again until we are closer to Pellia. Once there, I’m betting we can use a bit of sorcery and Mark won’t be any wiser.’
‘Because it will… what? Mix with the other magic already in Pellia?’
‘Correct,’ Gilmour said, ‘if even one of those shipments is moored in the harbour – and with the tides and the traffic in the Northeast Channel, we have to hope that at least one of them was delayed – my magic shouldn’t make much noise at all.’
‘But he detected enough powerful magic to decide to destroy that other ship and then send the tan-bak for us,’ Brexan said hesitantly. ‘Won’t he do that again?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Gilmour replied. ‘When the Malakasian sorcerer was having at us from his ship, his spells were noisy, like pebbles dropped into a dead-calm mill pond. When I cast the spell protecting Steven, it was a bigger pebble, like a small stone.’
‘And Mark felt the difference,’ Kellin said.
‘He did. But the schooner I discovered from Wellham Ridge was radiating so much energy, I believe I could be hammering away with everything I have and Mark wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.’
Brexan untied her cloak and draped it over the forward hatch. ‘So a shipment is like a big rock in your mill pond.’
‘A boulder,’ Gilmour agreed. ‘Once we get near Pellia, if we’re lucky, Mark will have no idea that we’re still alive, still after him.’
‘And then what?’ Kellin looked at him expectantly.
‘By then, it won’t matter. If we can’t sneak into the city, we’ll have to go in the front door, and that will mean using everything in our arsenal.’
Kellin recalled their battle in Meyers’ Vale, and for the first time all Twinmoon, the idea that she was travelling with two deadly sorcerers was comforting.
Brexan broke the silence. ‘Tell me about that book, Gilmour. What’s it say? What’s in there?’
The familiar look of uncertainty passed across Gilmour’s face. He checked on Garec and Marrin’s progress, then said, A very long time ago in Gorsk, a man named Lessek-’
‘The Lessek?’ Brexan interrupted, ‘as in all the stories we heard when we were young?’
‘That’s him.’ Gilmour rooted in his tunic for a pipe and, unable to find one, looked suddenly like a two-thousand-Twinmoon-old man who didn’t know what to do with his hands. Giving up, he went on, ‘Lessek used an exceedingly small bit of… well, call it magic, coupled with his knowledge to create spells. At first, they were nothing terribly impressive, so I understand – this was Ages and Eras before I was born – but he learned to move air around a room, to wilt a flower, to get water to freeze, carnival tricks, really, but over time, he continued his research and generated a long list of spells. He would investigate the nature of something, study it, interact with it, pick it apart – sometimes even tear it apart, and then use aspects of his previous spellwork to create a bigger and more powerful incantation.’