Castle Kidnapped

Twenty-seven Sea

Dawn brought a sky of slate-gray clouds and a snowfall of volcanic ash, huge flakes of it that floated for an instant like dirty water lilies before dissolving. The makeshift cabin on board the raft made for poor shelter, but eventually they passed out of the heavy fallout zone, and the skies cleared.

The volcano brooded on the horizon like an angry god. The wind bore its fumes to them, making them choke and gag. Throats raw, they rigged the sail to catch the full force of the wind; before long they were far enough away to be out of danger of asphyxiation.

“We made it,” Sheila said, gasping.

“Not yet, I’m afraid.”

“Is the wind shifting?”

“No, it’s just that I have a funny feeling.”

“Oh. I don’t like funny feelings when I get them.”

“You wouldn’t like this one, either. Let’s eat. We may not get a chance later.”

They ate a silent meal of raw fish and breadfruit, washing it down with a few swallows of water.

After checking the rigging again, Trent sat back down under the canopy, doing so just in time to escape being splashed as a huge boulder hit water a few yards from the raft. The impact tossed the craft about like a paper boat, and a few coconut-canteens rolled overboard.

“Gods,” Trent breathed when the turbulence abated. “That thing must have traveled ten miles. I’m afraid that’s no ordinary volcano.”

“What is it?”

“Just a damned powerful one. This world must have a very active geology.”

An hour passed, and although the wind died down a bit, they still made progress. The volcano receded over the horizon, the eruption cloud becoming a dark smear against the sky.

Trent stood and searched ahead.

“No land in sight. Maybe I was wrong about a mainland being near. But, then, we’ve only come fifteen miles or so.”

“We’ll make it,” Sheila said.

“We’re doing okay so far, for a maiden voyage.”

“I’m not a maiden.”

“Damn good thing. If you were a virgin, I’d consider tossing you overboard to propitiate the sea gods.”

“Well, pish on them, too.”

He laughed at her silly joke, then they both laughed for laughing, and soon both were giddy.

“Oh, Trent, I thought we were dead.”

“Me, too. Thought we’d finally bought it. We’ve been lucky. Very lucky.”

“Who, Trent? Who did this to us? We avoid discussing it.”

“The castle seems so far away,” he said. “Yeah, I suppose I have avoided it. And the reason is that I can only imagine Incarnadine being responsible.”

Sheila was aghast. “Trent, you don’t think —?”

“I’m sorry to say I do. The thing is, Sheila, no one else has the power to do what’s been done to us. No one in the castle can summon a portal, or detach one end of it and move it. None of those tricks. Incarnadine is the only one.”

“And Ferne.”

“Yes, Ferne, of course. But I think Ferne is dead. Incarnadine said as much himself, and he ought to know.”

“You mean, when he said that he’d dealt with her with cold justice, he was saying he did away with her?”

“He used the superlative. ‘Coldest.’ That could only mean one thing. So, barring anyone in the castle suddenly developing into a magician on the order of Incarnadine himself, Incarnadine is the only suspect.”

“I think it’s Jamin,” Sheila blurted.

Trent eyed her askance. “What makes you say that?”

She frowned. “I don’t know. It just came out.”

“Well, it must have been a powerful impulse. Do you have anything to back it up?”

“Can’t think of a thing. I saw him at the Servants’ Ball. Asked me to dance, in fact. He was as nice as could be. But …” She shrugged. “There was something in his eyes, something behind it all. I don’t know.”

“That’s not much to go on,” Trent said. “Which means that what you said is probably dead right, your intuitive powers being what they are.”

“You think? I’m almost sure he’s up to something.” Sheila ran the memory through her mind. “Well, of course. I sensed his magical power. I can always tell a person’s talent. It’s like an aura, only I don’t quite see it visually.”

Trent was silent while she looked far out to sea.

Then she said, “I’m sure of it. He’s a lot more powerful than people give him credit for. I just didn’t realize it at the time.”

“Well, he does have his gifts. Everyone knows that.”

“More. He has more, and … he didn’t have it until very recently.”

Trent sat up. “That is a piece of information. Raw magical power is something you can’t create for yourself. You can develop it, but basically it’s a gift.”

“So who’s gifting him?”

“Surely not Incarnadine. I was wrong, Sheila.”

“Thank goodness. But who?”

“The Hosts, maybe,” Trent said. “But the problem is how. Incarnadine sealed off their aspect with a spell that no one could break.” Something occurred to him. “But if the Hosts somehow got hold of my sister …”

“Do you think it’s possible?”

Trent shook his head. “Not very. But stranger things have happened. I don’t understand all the motivations yet, but I think —”

“Trent, look.”

He turned toward the volcano. The western sky had turned a bright, eye-blinding yellow, and an expanding ring of vapor was racing across the sea toward them.

“Get down,” Trent said.

“What is it?”

“Down, and hold your hands over your ears. The volcano exploded. The shock wave will be very severe.” Trent wrapped a trailing line around his right wrist and threw himself on top of Sheila.

The sound of the titanic explosion hit, the force of the compression wave turning the sea into froth as it swept by. The raft lifted out of the water and slammed back down, stripped of its mast and sail. Somehow Trent managed to hang on to both Sheila and the raft.

They lay stunned. Trent finally dragged himself off Sheila and helped her sit up. Neither of them could talk for a full minute.

“Sheila,” Trent croaked.

“I’m all right, Trent.”

“The tsunami, the tidal wave … it will kill us, darling.”

“Yes, I know.”

As they spoke, the western horizon rose to form a dark wall of water that rushed toward them.

“Too bad I didn’t build a submarine,” Trent said.

“Darling Trent.”

They embraced. Sheila opened her eyes and watched the wave approach, judging that it would hit in about thirty seconds.

Thirty seconds of her life left. Well, Sheila, you finally find your man, and, skoosh, down comes the big cosmic shoe. It’s funny, really. But I’m still glad I had this time with Trent. It made everything worth it.

Suddenly, quite unbidden, the missing piece of the magical jigsaw of this world made an appearance, and the whole puzzle fell into place. In one instantaneous Gestalt, she sensed the lines of power, the nodes of influence, and it was all perfectly logical. She wondered how she could have been so dense. This was an insanely magical world; the magic was right beneath the surface. You didn’t have to dig, like in other worlds. The trouble was that she had dug too deep, tried too hard. This was an easy universe to work magic in; but that fact was not an easy thing to understand. That’s what had taken all the time.

Too little, too late. But she did have half a minute. In any other world, that would have been more than enough.

Here, though, she still did not know any of the limitations, the parameters of the forces, the feedback mechanisms. She would just have to be quick about it. She would have to learn all that in the next twenty seconds.

“Sheila? What is it?”

“Shh! I have a spell going.”

“You do? Sheila my darling, it’s a little late —”

“Shhh!” She cupped a hand over his mouth. “You gave me the idea.”

Trent’s eyebrows knitted themselves into one perplexed line. He craned his head around. The tidal wave was hundreds of feet high. He decided that Sheila had gone mad.

Sheila stood and raised her arms against the rising water. To Trent she looked like a sea nymph invoking the spirits of the deep, bare of breast and innocent-eyed.

Sheila was thinking: Oh, shit. This better be good.