If the cloud advances, he’ll swamp the skiff, turn it over and hide in the air pocket below, praying the thin boards of the fisherman’s boat will be enough to stave off the deadly fumes. Mark clears his throat and begins shouting again for Brynne.
Gilmour Stow allows himself to be pulled beneath the surface as the colossal ship sinks by the bow, then, opening his eyes, mumbles a quick spell in a cloud of bubbles, and his underwater vision improves. Brighter, nearly in focus now, the Prince Marek floats effortlessly towards the bottom, picking up speed and casting off loose cargo, rigging and more than a few bodies. It’s a beautiful sight; ironic and tragic that such a ship would look most glorious when wrapped jib to spanker in the very water that buoyed her for so many Twinmoons. He watches until it disappears from view.
In one hand, Gilmour clasps Steven Taylor’s hickory staff and in the other, the only existing copy of Lessek’s spells, notes and reflections on the nature of magic and the Larion spell table. He had been so certain the book had been lost a thousand Twinmoons earlier; he curses himself for not realising Nerak had it all along. He is a powerful foe. Thinking back to their battle just moments earlier, Gilmour wonders if the fallen Larion magician had given his best: granted, it had been a titanic blow, and it had required all of Gilmour’s concentration to keep from being pulverised. But had it been Nerak’s best? Had he really felt the sum force of the dark prince’s power? Kicking towards the surface, he wonders if Nerak was telling the truth: That was naught but the tiniest of tastes, Fantus, a minuscule sample drawn from the very furthest reaches of my power.
The only blow Nerak had an opportunity to land: had it been a feint, a flick of the wrist? Would a focused spell, carefully woven over time, tear Gilmour to ribbons or reduce him to dust? He hopes he will be in possession of Lessek’s key and in control of the spell table before he has to discover the full extent of Nerak’s power.
Clutching the staff close, Gilmour emerges from the depths and immediately forgets the dark prince. Fear and regret seize him as he hears Mark Jenkins, nearby but invisible in the darkness, screaming Brynne’s name.
‘Rutters!’ the older man murmurs, realising Brynne is lost.
It’s not the crashing and snapping of beams in the Prince Marek that finally wakes Garec Haile of Estrad, but the faint sound of shouting. His gaze slowly focuses on the heavy weave of a blanket he borrowed from his sister’s room the previous Twinmoon. The archer wriggles to a sitting position, shrugging off layers of wool, draws a few stabilising breaths and feels the gentle undulating rhythm of the harbour tide. ‘I’m on the boat,’ he says out loud.
In a rush, the events of the past avens return; he jerks himself upright. ‘Steven! I’ve been shot. Oh, gods, I’ve been shot!’ He reaches for the arrow, the black Malakasian arrow he knows he will find jutting crookedly from his ribs – but despite the recollection of an intense burning pain as the polished shale pierced his skin, the young freedom fighter can find no sign of injury. ‘Gone,’ he says, feeling nothing but a tear in his tunic and the sticky remnants of blood drying on his clothing. ‘How can this be?’
Wishing for more light to conduct a thorough examination, Garec takes a deep breath. There is no rattle, no telltale vibration of fluid pooling in his lungs. He places a hand over his heart; it, too, seems strong, thrumming beneath his fingers.
Standing, Garec’s legs falter for a moment and he nearly topples headfirst into Orindale Harbour. Balancing, he stretches and cautiously considers his apparent good health. ‘I’m all right,’ he whispers and only then realises he is alone on the catboat. ‘Where is everybody?’
Garec’s question is answered with another cry, faint but urgent. He feels his stomach roil as it comes again: ‘Brynne!’, a sob recognisable in the distant voice. Instinctively, Garec reaches for his bow.
It’s not there.
For a moment, he feels a nearly overwhelming sense of relief. He hoists the vessel’s small sail and almost immediately it is captured by the onshore breeze; the keel turns lazily in a loping circle towards the wharf. ‘Rutting boats,’ he grumbles, picking his way aft to the tiller. ‘I’ll be out here for the next Twinmoon.’
‘Brynne!’ The hopeless cry resonates through his bones; Garec guesses that his friend is dead. What happened? How long had he slept? Had they tried to take the Prince Marek without him? Awkwardly, he pulls the sail taut and gropes for a wooden stanchion along the starboard gunwale; failing to find one, he hangs on to the line in one hand while wresting the tiller with the other to bring the boat about. Navigating as best he can in the moonlit darkness, he sets a course for the sound of the distraught voice.
Carpello Jax shifts three candles closer to the polished looking-glass propped above his fireplace mantel. His beard is coming on nicely: step one in his transformation.
Sweat dampens his face and neck despite the evening breeze. He drags a ruffled linen sleeve across his forehead, a frequent move over the past several days. Not that it has been warm in Orindale; rather, Carpello sweats because he is grossly overweight, and because he anticipates his audience with Prince Malagon. He is sure the dark one knows Carpello’s schooner is moored in the harbour; it won’t be much longer before he’s summoned to the royal residence to present his report. Carpello has prepared a convoluted tangle of lies and remains confident he can sell his story to Prince Malagon: he is a businessman, and he lies for a living.
Through the open windows, Carpello hears the sounds of a cataclysm unfolding in the harbour, but for the moment he doesn’t move to investigate. He is nervous, and that has awakened a handful of sublimated memories. The most tenacious this evening is Versen, the woodsman. Carpello runs a hand across the ample hillock of his abdomen, touching the wound dealt him by the woman just before she went overboard in an effort to free the troublesome Ronan. Carpello had meant to interrogate the girl and then to give her to his crew as a diversion, but things had gone terribly wrong. By the end of that day, he had lost both prisoners and his Seron escort.
Carpello grimaces. It will be a difficult tale to weave for the prince; he reviews his own version once again, to ensure all the details are committed to memory, as if they had actually occurred. The sweaty businessman knows the secret to successful lying is believing one’s own fabrications; Prince Malagon will be Carpello ‘s most challenging audience yet.
Outside, there is another explosion, but Carpello’s thoughts are still with the woodsman. Even facing torture and death, the young man had surprised him: ‘A very good friend of mine looks forward to meeting you,’ he had said. ‘If I were you, I would take my own life rather than ever run into her again.’
‘A woman? I shall be enchanted, I’m sure,’ Carpello had responded.
‘You’ll be dead,’ the Ronan had answered flatly, ‘and she’ll make it last for Twinmoons… a grisly death is on its way to Orindale right now.’
Had Versen been bluffing? Carpello wipes the sweat from around his eyes once more. He doesn’t believe so. Versen had sounded convincing: a specific woman wanted to find and kill him. But why? Carpello feigns ignorance for a moment, trying out his ‘innocent’ face in the candlelit looking-glass. He watches it fall away. He knows why.
Reaching into his belt, he withdraws a thin fillet knife with a tapered point and a polished edge. Wiping it on a chamois, he leans in close to the mirror and, with a steady hand, slices the bulbous mole from the side of his disfigured nose: step two.
Blood blooms from the wound, dripping from Carpello’s sagging jowls to stain the frilly ruffles of his linen shirt. He sways unsteadily, feeling faint. His vision tunnelling, he staggers backwards to sit with a groan in a nearby chair. Carpello Jax begins to cry as Versen’s voice echoes grimly in his head: You’ll be dead… and she will make it last for Twinmoons.