Despite his easy expression, Tremaine scented trouble and couldn’t help pursuing it. “So it’s just the way your people are very uneasy around anything that’s had a spell put on it?”
Florian looked a little anxious. “Was that why Giliead was so upset when he found out I used that charm to heal your shoulder?” She wet her lips uneasily. “I still feel bad about that. If we’d known how you felt about spells—”
“No, that was nothing,” Ilias told her, smiling, but still gazing off toward the cliffs. “Don’t worry about it.”
Tremaine eyed him a moment. “You’ve been under a curse before,” she said, remembering what Dyani had told them about the mark on his cheek.
He nodded, giving her a thoughtful sideways glance. “Once or twice.”
Florian drew breath to ask more and Tremaine, suddenly guilty for prying, kicked her in the ankle.
When they were out past the headland, Halian ordered the crew to ship oars and come up on deck. There were some uneasy looks and shifting around as he explained the plan, but as Gyan had predicted, everyone seemed to find the fact that Giliead had agreed to it reassuring.
Creating a simple ward, not meant to last very long, was not a complicated process. They had salt in the supplies on board and some charred coal from a brazier. Before the ship cast off they had sent Dyani and Florian running down the dock, one to the house of an old sailor to borrow some sprigs of rosemary and the other to collect nettle from the scrubby grass patches between boat sheds.
Gerard prepared the ingredients in the privacy of the small cabin, Giliead sitting on his heels next to the sorcerer to watch and Ilias leaning in the doorway with Tremaine. Florian perched on the bunk so she could learn Gerard’s method.
Gerard combined the herbs with the charcoal and salt in a pottery cup, using a simple incantation to activate the principles of all the ingredients. With the mixture he drew the operant characters on a piece of parchment, then sat back. “That should do it.”
Giliead lifted his brows. “Is that all?”
“It’s only a temporary ward and not a very complicated one.” Gerard wiped sweat from his brow. It was damp and hot in the cabin. Tremaine could see he had written the characters in a square so that they read the same four ways, from top to bottom and left to right, then from bottom to top and right to left backward. “Indeed, a more elaborate ward would hardly serve the purpose, since it would be bound to draw their attention.”
Ilias frowned, giving Tremaine an uncertain glance. “So when they look for the ship—”
Gerard carefully folded the paper, glancing up with a smile. “They can look all they want, but it simply won’t occur to them that what they are looking at is anything other than a drift of fog or a trick of the light.”
“We got away from the Gimora wizard once by setting a rowboat adrift with a lamp in it,” Giliead said thoughtfully.
“Was that in one of your plays, Tremaine?” Florian asked, glancing up at her.
Tremaine shook her head. It didn’t sound familiar. “I don’t think so.”
Gerard glanced up absently. “What?”
“Some of the things that they told us about, Ixion and the city that didn’t have a god,” Tremaine explained, “they’re very close to things that happened in some of my plays.”
Gerard stared at her as if she was mad. Perhaps feeling responsible, Florian said hurriedly, “It’s very odd, but it’s true. There’s a part in
Varnecia
, and then some of the magazine stories ...”
Gerard listened with an expression of growing incredulity as Florian outlined the similar incidents they had noticed. “Why didn’t you say something?” he demanded finally.
“We said something to each other about it,” Tremaine protested. “And Ilias.”
“I told Gil,” Ilias put in helpfully. Giliead, still keeping a thoughtful eye on Gerard’s spell mixture, nodded confirmation.
Tremaine couldn’t understand Gerard’s dismay. “Why? It’s just a series of coincidences.”
“It could be highly significant!”
“Of what?” Ilias asked, listening with interest.
“I... don’t know.” Gerard shook his head, annoyed, and asked Tremaine, “When did you write that play and the serials? Before or after Nicholas and Arisilde disappeared?”
Tremaine blinked. She hadn’t thought about that. “After.”
“There was obviously some sort of connection established between you and this world.” He looked suspiciously at the sphere, sitting next to Florian on the bunk, still in its bag. “Where were you when you wrote them? You were living at Coldcourt, with the sphere?”
“I wasn’t living
with
the sphere. It was there in the house, but...” She stared at the device, disturbed. “So you think it had something to do with it? It had a connection with this world, because one like it sent my father and Arisilde here?”
“That’s the only explanation I can think of,” Gerard said slowly. He shook his head. “I just wish I knew what it meant.”
Tremaine had to agree.
“
T
here it is!” Standing atop the aft cabin, Arites was peering through a crude telescope. Tremaine got to her feet, trying to see what he was pointing at. Behind her Ander climbed up from the tiller platform where he had been sitting with Halian. Arites handed him the device.
Tremaine shaded her eyes. She had been down below where Ilias and Giliead had been taking their turns on the rowing benches with the other men, until the heat had finally driven her back on deck. The late-afternoon sun was bright and the sky cloudless and she couldn’t see a damn thing. She went to the cabin and hauled herself up the rope net that was draped over it to sit on the plank roof. Ander sat on his heels to hand her the telescope, saying, “Take a look.”
Tremaine peered through the “seeing glass” as it was called in Syrnaic. The tube was intricately carved wood, but the lens was ground very roughly and it was difficult to make out anything. She finally saw what everybody was pointing at. There was a low gray shape out there on the water and she could discern the outlines of a deckhouse and funnel. She lowered the glass, glancing up at Ander uncertainly. “It’s not coming this way. Is it?”
“No, she hasn’t seen us.” Ander took a sharp breath. “So far.”
“Your curse must be working,” a wary Halian said from the tiller, squinting toward the Gardier ship.
Ilias slung himself up beside Tremaine, perching on the roof, and she handed him the glass.
“You have those ships in your world?” Arites asked eagerly. “Ixion used black ships without sails and they moved by curses too.”
“His were smaller than that,” Ilias commented, sounding grim as he looked through the telescope.
Gerard, consulting the compass, waved at them from the deck. “Come on, we’re just within the perimeter of the target area!”
Tremaine jumped down with Ander as Florian came hurrying up from the bow. Ilias handed the glass back to Arites and followed.
“Now how are we going to do this?” Ander asked as they gathered around the sorcerer. He checked the pouch at his belt, where the maps Giliead and Ilias had taken from the airship were folded and protected by an oiled silk cloth. “Without taking the whole ship across and scaring the hell out of our new friends, I mean.”
“I think if we can borrow that small dinghy,” Gerard said to Ilias, eyeing the little boat where it was lashed to the deck, “we could—”
“Leviathan!” Arites’s voice slid up half an octave on the word.
Tremaine heard Florian gasp and turned in time to see a huge hump of mottled gray-green break the surface not twenty yards off the side. She gaped. The back was rimmed with spiny fins and the whole thing was at least half the size of the
Swift
. “And that’s only one hump . . .” she said, not realizing she had spoken aloud until she heard her voice.
“But it can’t see us, can it?” Ander whispered. The ship had gone oddly quiet.
Funny
, Tremaine thought,
you’d think people would scream
. She sure felt like screaming, though her throat couldn’t seem to manage it just at the moment. Gyan and three other men were frantically hauling on ropes, changing the sail’s position, and Halian was leaning on the tiller, throwing his whole weight against it. Giliead was standing up by the bow, staring intently into the water. Ilias had moved to the railing on this end, leaning over so far she was afraid he would overbalance.
Florian, staring rapt as the hump began to sink below the surface, shook her head. Gerard cursed softly and said, “The ward won’t extend below the surface of the water. It can see the underside of the hull.”
The boat was starting to turn, but with nerve-abrading slowness. The oars had been shipped already and no one was moving for them.
It’ll hear the oars
, she realized. Dyani was crouched at the base of the mast and the rest of the crew stood frozen, waiting.
Gerard shrugged off the leather bag with the sphere and shoved it at Tremaine. She clutched it awkwardly as he spoke the words of the reverse adjuration.
Brilliant
, she thought frantically,
take the whole boat across, send the Syprians back later when it’s safe. . .
.
But nothing happened.
“Dammit, when they turned the ship we moved out of the target area.” Gerard grimaced and shoved the sphere’s bag all the way into her arms. “You and Florian stay with Ander.”
Tremaine clutched the bag, staring at him blankly. “What?”
“Gerard, the Gardier will hear any spells,” Florian said desperately as the sorcerer went to the railing.
“We don’t have a choice,” Ander told her, taking her arm to keep her from following Gerard. “They probably sent that thing after us, the way they used the howlers in the caves.”
God, he’s right
. Tremaine swallowed in a dry throat and hugged the sphere to her chest. Gerard lifted his hands, speaking softly, staring into the water. Tremaine felt the sphere shudder and click and behind Gerard dust stirred on the deck, spiraling up in the invisible current of whatever force he was summoning. Ilias threw him an uneasy glance but didn’t move away.
“What’s he doing?” Ander asked Florian quietly.
She shook her head, biting her lip in consternation. “I’m not sure, I’ve never heard . . .” She blinked in understanding. “That was the old speech for ‘to reveal all, to cease enchantment, to pull the veil, to dissipate the energies—’ He must think it’s a construct.”
“A what?” Ander asked sharply.
She explained hurriedly, “Not a natural creature, but something created by a sorcerer. If he can break the spell that created it... but that’s got to be one powerful spell.” She threw them a desperate look. “I don’t think he can do it without the right preparations.”
Giliead suddenly leapt back from the bow, yelling a warning. Before they could move the ship shuddered. Tremaine felt the deck lift under her feet. She grabbed Florian, feeling the other girl’s fingers dig into her arm. People scrambled for handholds, cried out in alarm. Ilias swung back on the railing, clinging to it. Ander cursed, bracing his feet to keep from falling.
It’s surfacing under us
, Tremaine thought, shaken, then she heard wood crunch.
No, it’s got us in its teeth
.
The sphere jerked suddenly inside the leather case. “Uh oh,” she muttered. She could hear it clicking, feel the trembling as it spun itself up into a frenzy. “I think it’s going to—”
A flash like ball lightning flared between the sphere clutched in her arms and Gerard. Tremaine could almost feel it add its power to his.
It didn‘t even have to be in contact with him
, she thought, startled.
It’s getting stronger
.
Gerard’s voice rose to a shout and Tremaine’s stomach lurched as the ship dropped. The sea sprayed up, soaking them, then fountained as if the ship had plowed into a waterfall.
A triangular head crested with spines surfaced suddenly, sending up another drenching spray. Tremaine stumbled back, getting a confused image of white staring eyes and scales the size of platters. It opened its jaw in a soundless screech, revealing huge teeth clotted with splintered wood. Then the eyes grew a gray film and the head wavered back and forth as it sank.
“He got it, Gerard got it!” Florian called excitedly. Then she froze in shock.
As the leviathan’s head submerged they could see the Gardier ship, only a few hundred yards away. It must have come for them at full steam, alerted somehow by the creature. “We’re done for,” Tremaine said under her breath.
She saw a flash near the gray deckhouse and Ander yelled, “Get down!” He dragged Tremaine and Florian to the deck just as a booming crash announced an artillery shell.
Tremaine felt the deck shift under her feet, then suddenly the world turned upside down and planks smashed down on top of her and she slammed into the sea’s surface.
Tremaine flailed underwater. She surfaced, gasping, and caught a wave in the face that almost drove her under again. She kicked and managed to get a breath, looking around in time to see half the bow roll over. A haze of smoke drifted over splintered wood, people clutching floating timbers. Something tugged at her arm and bumped her shoulder. Her mind on monsters and Gardier, Tremaine splashed wildly before realizing it was the leather bag with the sphere, still caught on her arm.
She heard Florian calling her name and twisted around to see the other girl clutching a floating spar, only a few yards away. She saw Ilias surface near it and realized he was holding on to an unconscious Ander. He shook the hair out of his eyes, trying to paddle awkwardly toward the spar, but something was wrong with his free arm.
He’s hurt
, Tremaine thought, swimming toward him.
Her progress was awkward and furious but it got her there. She grabbed Ander’s arm just as Ilias went under again. Without that burden he surfaced, managing to keep himself above water with his good arm. Florian, holding on to the spar and kicking, managed to bring the end of it within reach. Ilias grabbed it and Tremaine managed to push Ander up far enough that Ilias could hold on to him too. Tremaine treaded water, looking around as the sphere, still caught on her arm, bashed her in the head with each wave.
The damn Gardier boat was almost on top of them. Tremaine cursed under her breath. She wasn’t seeing a ready way out of this one. Several people clung to the
Swift’s
largest remaining hull section, about twenty yards away. With relief Tremaine saw Dyani and Arites among them. Then Giliead surfaced, pulling Gerard up so he could get a grip on the wood. “Gerard!” she yelled, waving to catch his attention. The sorcerer was conscious, shaking his head and gasping.