Aquamancer (mancer series Book 2) (21 page)

“I’d be happy to know all you can tell me, Foggery.”

“This is a truly vast Empire. Peopled by several races of Men, in numbers almost too large to comprehend. I once asked, and was told that there are more than a hundred of millions of souls supposedly under the sway of the Divine Emperor on his Dragon Throne.”

“Supposedly?”

“A population that size is as difficult to rule as it is to count, of course. Once, I understand, the Emperors of Choin were masters of public administration and of military control. But over the four centuries of this present dynasty, things have slowly gone to pot, you might say.”

If Caspar was disturbed by this news, he didn’t show it.

“The Emperor is but a gilded ivory figurehead. A powerful symbol, but still... a vast bureaucracy of ministers, governors, judges, generals, and clerks rules in his Celestial Name. Without a strong leader at their head, they’ve divided into factions, combining and recombining with each other to gain private ends and political advantage. The Empire of Choin is on the verge of crumbling! A pack of playing cards stacked on edge. The slightest breath might bring it crashing down.”

Caspar nodded understanding.

“Which, in a way, is a shame, because these are delightful and intelligent people, as I said.”

Foggery paused to shake his head sadly.

“I don’t regret retiring here but it’s easy for me only because I am now quite old... oh, yes, I am, Caspar! I passed a hundred summers ages ago. Age is venerated here. I’m respected and loved and happily served by the young, who gain great merit by being kind and useful to one of so many summers.

“Sages and scholars from all over the Empire come to consult with me on this and that, mainly on trade and technical innovations I can tell them about. Progress is extremely slow and quite frustrating. Did you know that they have never figured out how to sail against the wind? I’ve explained it to them in great detail, and a few of their more adventurous sailors have tried it. Yet when word got out about it, the Emperor’s advisers forbade them using the technique, on pain of long imprisonment!”

“Good for us, however,” Caspar observed.

“But more and more our young and intelligent are questioning such unreasonable constraints, wishing to explore far lands, earn vast fortunes in trade directly with other nations.”

They rested on an intricately carved wooden bench beside the garden pool.

“It is not to be allowed! Captains who have merely speculated aloud too often are severely punished. Celestial navigation is, the Bureaucrats insist, the sole province of the Celestial Emperor himself. I’m not supposed to know this, but I have friends who tell me the truth in private.”

“They fear it might be the breath that brings down the house of cards?” asked Caspar.

The retired Seacaptain nodded but fell silent as serving maids appeared with lunch and spread the repast on a polished jade tabletop under a twisted, ancient cherry tree beside the peaceful pool full of flashing golden fish.

“We should be careful how we tread here in Choin, then?” asked Marlin. “If we want to continue trade, that is.”

“Trade will be very profitable, as long as you follow the rules,” agreed Foggery. “Try some of these fried noodles with the tiny prawns. It’s my favorite dish!”

They ate and talked companionably, remembering mutual friends and recalling ports of call they’d visited, long ago. For the first time Foggery heard the tragic history of
Sally
Brigantine and the finding of the Great Gray Pearl, of Eunicet’s usurpation of Thorowood’s Dukedom and his ill-advised invasion of Highlandorm—and of the great Battle of Sea and the victory over Frigeon, the Ice King.

“I managed to keep life and body together through it all. In the long run it was the making of me, of course.”

“I see it was! Ye’ve grown in wisdom as well as craft, young Caspar. I never doubted but ye’d command a capital ship one day.”

As the visit ended with twilight darkening the sky, the retired captain drew Caspar aside by the garden’s delicate moon gate.

“I promised a good friend of mine that ye’d meet with him. He can’t be seen talking to ye, for his safety’s sake, and yours, too. If ye agree, however, he’ll come aboard
Donation
in disguise, shortly before ye sail. I trust this man. He may be the salvation of Choin, my adopted land.”

“If it won’t harm me ship, crew, or cargo.”

“Nothing is certain, but I believe Wong Tscha San is important enough to risk listening to. It’s an urgent matter, he tells me, but that’s all I can say. Will ye, for my sake, receive him? Give him assistance, if he asks for it?”

“Of course I will, Captain! Ye needn’t ask. Will I see ye again before we sail?”

“I... I don’t think so. The Emperor’s jumped-up clerks and palanquin generals are quite suspicious of me, as it is. They see me as disturbing their rigid calm. Perhaps we’ll see each other again on your next voyage. They can hardly refuse ye, as long as your trade is so profitable to them.”

Donation’s
departure was set for the last day of that moon. Caspar, caught up in the feverish activity of loading a highly valuable cargo, forgot all about Foggery’s request.

The day before,
Donation
had been moved into the open roadstead, fully laden and low in the water. Caspar was trying minor discipline cases and meting out shipboard justice at a Captain’s Mast when his cabin boy came to say a ragged fisherman had hooked his fish-reeking sampan onto
Donation’s
chains, asking for an interview with her captain.

“What’s he want, I wonder?” asked Caspar. “Doesn’t he know it’s dangerous for his kind to bespeak us?”

“He would but say you and he had a mutual friend,” said the boy. “Shall I warn him off?”

“Of course not!” exclaimed Marlin. “It would at the very least be discourteous. Allow him to board and bring him to me here.”

The boy returned leading a small, frail-looking Choinese wearing a musty woven-reed cloak and a broad, downward-spreading hat of the same reeds, looking much like a farmer’s haystack and smelling strongly of fish.

“I am Wong Tscha San,” he announced with a deep bow. “We have a mutual acquaintance, Captain Foggery.”

Caspar bowed to his visitor in return. He had become entirely accustomed to the Choin custom of bowing, rattier than shaking hands.

“Let me take your...er, cloak and hat,” offered Caspar, moving around his desk. “And I’ll send for some tea.”

“If you would, a cup of your coffee would be even more pleasant,” said the little Choinese. “I have only tasted it once or twice, in the home of Foggery. I find it most invigorating. I am in dire need of invigorating, having just rowed all the way from Wing Ting on the far shore of our bay.”

Caspar had no idea how far that was but ordered the cabin boy to find some hot coffee and cakes for them to share as they talked.

“I come in this guise,” explained Wong Tscha San, “because I am watched constantly by our Imperial Guards. I have, I’m afraid, made myself distrusted, even feared, by our Divine Bureaucrats.”

“Why, I’m wondering.”

“Because I have been saying aloud what many Choinese have long thought in silence. Our Empire is sweeping toward economic and political mayhap even social ruin. Despite some relatively minor inequities and stupid or malicious practices, Captain Marlin, my people are worth saving from the suffering that will follow collapse.”

“I’m a stranger here meself,” said Caspar, pouring coffee for them both, “but from what little I’ve seen, I see ye’re right.”

Said Wong, lifting his cup to savor the brew, “And that is not the only problem.”

“Tell me, if you please. Captain Foggery seemed to think I could be some help.”

“So I hope, too. Listen, then! I am a Sage, what you would call a Wizard—although in these clothes I don’t suppose I look like one—and for many years I have been seeking a way to ease the imminent fall of Choin.

“We Sages long ago dedicated ourselves not so much to preventing this downfall, but to guiding it, so as not to lose all that is good of Choinese culture, art, and science. And to minimize the bloodshed and suffering that the transition will bring to all my people.

“Oh, a fond hope! We must make the effort and bear the blows to our fortunes. For this, then, we have worked silently—to avoid the kind of Darkness that destroyed Old Kingdom and precipitated the terrible Chaos after the Last Battle of Kingdom.”

He sipped his coffee, gathering his thoughts, and set the cup carefully in its saucer.

“Among my humble accomplishments is an ability to
See.
While seeming to sleep, I am in reality propelled from my body to wander World.”

“Something like a Wraith?” put in Caspar.

“Very much like a Wraith. Just a few months ago I
saw
—it is very difficult and wearing on one of my years, you understand. I surveyed World, looking for ways to invigorate my country. And, as well, to watch for dangers that might precipitate our collapse.”

“Wickedness is ever with us, never completely banished,” observed the Seaman.

“I discovered a source of very real wickedness in the western mountains of Old Kingdom. A gathering of Black Witches; a Coven.”

“I’d not heard that!” exclaimed Caspar.

“I needed a way to communicate my discovery directly to your Wizards, feeling they could act against this Coven. While trying, I learned that Flarman Flowerstalk is already aware of it and has sent one of their Fellowship to deal with it.”

“Who was sent, do you know?”

“His name? It is obscure. Something like, ‘Well-lit Clearing in a Forest.’ Does that suggest anyone to you, sir?”

Caspar Marlin closed his eyes and repeated the words to himself twice, then snapped his fingers and laughed aloud.

“‘Twas ‘Brightglade,’ I imagine! A good friend and a good man, Douglas Brightglade.”  

“Ah-ha! You have said it! That is the sound I
saw.”

“Douglas, I would venture to say, is capable of handling a whole pack of Black Witches in full cry. He’ll also have the assistance of the two most powerful magickers in our part of World, plus some pretty impressive Near Immortals, even some Immortals, too.”

“Yet the latest news I garnered a few days ago is most disturbing,” said Wong, raising his hand. “I
saw
a frightened black bird bearing a message from the self-titled Queen of these Witches—her name is Emaraar. I
saw
—to one of your Wizards, the Firemaster. She says she holds the young Wizard as hostage against interference with her plans to assume the vacant throne of Kingdom!”

“Great Grumbling Gadzooks!”
gasped Caspar. “Douglas! Captured by a Black Witch?”

“So it
seems.
I could check no further than to confirm the Queen Witch does indeed hold a Wizardly prisoner. Presumably it’s your friend Brightglade.”

“What’s to do?” wondered Caspar, anxiously.

“Sail at once! Get word to Flarman Firemaster that I, Wong Tscha San, will go to Brightglade’s assistance.”

“I wish I could do more than that,” cried Caspar Marlin. “I owe Douglas much more than just to be a messenger!”

“I appreciate your position, Captain, although I don’t see how you can help further,” protested Wong, rising as if to go. “Personally, I can withstand the Black Witches’ power. You, however, would be in considerable danger!”

“Nevertheless,” began Caspar, but his words were drowned by a sharp rapping on the transom set in the deck above them.

“Captain,” called down the First Mate, “a fleet of Choin junks has appeared at the mouth of the river. They bear down on us at speed!”

“Ecksraded
Governor!” swore the Sage. “I am undone! Someone has traced me to your ship. I have put you all in danger!”

“You think they’re coming for you?”

“I am under penalty of instant death if I bespeak any alien person. It was meant to keep me from contacting our friend Foggery, but recently it was expanded to include any of your crew or officers!”

He ran to the stern windows overlooking the harbor.

“There may yet be time. I will take to my sampan and escape,” he decided, regaining his calm. “Good-bye, Captain Marlin. I will try to reach Brightglade, even so.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late to flee,” said Marlin, measuring distances, angles, and wind force with a Seaman’s eye. “Look to the north! A storm is coming in from Sea. The high winds will favor them, not you. You’ll never outrun even those raggedy boats. We’ll make sail at once, and take you with us, Sir Sage!”

“They will impound your ship and cargo and imprison you and your crew for helping me flee,” the Choinese Sage protested. “You’ll lose all to the Imperial Governor if they catch you up!”

Caspar stood a moment, lost in thought. He smacked his fist into his hand.

“They’re after you, eh? Well, we’ll give them something to chase while we slip away to Sea across the storm’s path. Foggery says they don’t yet know how to tack.”

He dashed up on deck, giving orders in rapid fire. Sailors dashed about or scrambled up ratlines. The anchor chain was heaved up short, ready for hoisting. Sails were swiftly unfurled. Men braced, ready to haul handsomely at halyard and stay once the order was given.

“Set that sampan’s sail to run her downwind,” shouted Caspar to his Bo’sun’s Mate. “Lash her helm!”

Two experienced sailors were told off to drop into the wallowing fishing boat alongside. In short order they had hoisted her single sail and lashed her tiller oar in place. Shoving her away from
Donation’s
side to catch the freshening wind, they made sure she was on the proper course before they dived into the choppy harbor waters and swam back to the ship.

The tiny sampan scuttled off before the nor’wester. The Governor’s junks, much too far off to make out details, saw the sampan fleeing across the roadstead, back in the direction she had come.

“If the wind holds, Sir Sage...,” cried Caspar.
“Ah-ha!
They’re altering course to intercept your boat.”

“Take ‘em hours to catch her up,” observed Pride, expertly judging the sampan’s course, the wind, and the distant shoreline.