The Larion Senators

INVISIBLE SENTRIES

At Gilmour’s call, Steven shouted, ‘On my way!’ and left Kellin and Garec chatting amiably. Brexan went off to find Captain Ford on the quarterdeck.

Passage along the Malakasian coast had been tiresome. The captain and crew of the Morning Star had pushed, pulled, dragged and kedged the little brig-sloop over and through all manner of hazards. Miraculously, the ship remained seaworthy, despite her battered appearance, and finally she rode a high tide through the last of the islands to join an armada of small fishing vessels, trawlers and booacore boats, mostly, working the coastline south of the capital. Steven prayed they had shaved enough time off the Northeast Channel to reach Pellia before Mark and the hijacked frigates.

‘What is it?’ he asked, catching his breath.

Gilmour pointed. ‘See that rocky point on the horizon with the pines running almost out to the end? If my memory and Captain Ford’s charts are correct, that’s the last slip of land separating us from the Welstar River inlet-’

‘And Pellia.’

‘And Pellia,’ Gilmour agreed. ‘If you look northeast, about as far out as you can on the horizon…’ He pointed again.

Steven sighted along his forearm but couldn’t see anything. ‘Sorry, but most of us don’t sharpen our eyesight with Larion magic.’

‘Trust me,’ Gilmour said, ‘it’s there.’

‘What’s there? A ship?’

‘Topsails, anyway. If it was a ship, we’d be in trouble. For now, it’s just her sails; she hasn’t come hull-up yet. When she does, her lookouts will spot us.’

Steven understood. ‘So it’s time to get hidden.’ He paused, then admitted, ‘I don’t think that I can hide us well enough to cross the inlet and make way into the harbour unseen. This is an awfully big boat to make disappear. And anyway, you know as well as I do that my cloaking spells don’t really make us invisible; they just help people overlook us.’

‘I understand,’ Gilmour assured him, ‘and I also understand that there are a lot of people in Pellia, and many of them will see us approach. What I want you to concentrate on is keeping us camouflaged while we sail inside the blockade. Once we’ve passed that, anyone on shore will assume we’ve been cleared to moor.’

‘And that’s the closest ship, way out there?’

‘For now, yes, but when we round this point, there will be a number of smaller boats, shallow-drafting boats, working the inlet. Those are my main concern.’

‘Why aren’t they on this side of the point?’

‘Because no one of any threat or consequence could possibly get a large ship through here. No invading army approaches in a skiff.’ Gilmour smiled. ‘We were lucky to find Captain Ford.’

‘Lucky doesn’t cover it! We’ve Brexan to thank for that one.’

‘The blockade captains in the inlet will be working upriver, inspecting barges as they approach from the south. They’ll also be downriver, at least glancing at the barges moving north. Those are the ships we’ll need to be concerned with, because anything coming off the pier or from a mooring line in the harbour will already have cleared customs and so they won’t get more than a cursory look.’

‘So the downriver blockade ships are our biggest threat?’

‘For the next aven or so, yes.’

‘Got it,’ Steven said. ‘All right, give me a moment, and I’ll see if I can get this right.’

‘I can probably help if you need it.’

‘Really?’ Steven was surprised. ‘So there’s a schooner in the harbour?’

‘Full to bursting, unless these old bones are reading the weather wrong.’

‘What is it?’

‘Carpello’s tree bark, I suppose.’

‘How did you live in Estrad Village all those Twinmoons and never feel it, especially if there was an entire forest of it growing just across the river?’

‘It must somehow become active when it’s processed, and I never bothered to check. That forest had been closed for so long; it never crossed my mind it might have been for a reason other than just because he could,’ Gilmour said. ‘Either way, it’s awfully noisy around here, so I can help if you need me.’

‘I might. I’ve been a bit distracted these past few days.’ Steven looked for a place to settle in and call up the cloaking spell that had served them so well outside Traver’s Notch. He sat in the bow, ducked below the gunwales.

‘Distracted by what?’

‘By whatever this is that I have in my pocket, this bug you gave me.’ He withdrew the remains of what looked like the unlikely offspring of a beetle and a poisonous spider.

‘You haven’t felt any of them on board, have you?’

‘No,’ Steven said, ‘but let me remind you that I’m no good at all this feeling and detecting that you and Mark and Nerak and Kantu and just about everyone else, including my old Aunt Ethel, can do. You tell me there’s a schooner filled with mystical tree bark just around the bend, and I can’t feel anything. You tell me to search for a netherworldly insect here to kill us all, and all I want to do is screech like a schoolgirl and climb the rigging to the crow’s nest until the exterminator comes and sprays the whole place down with DDT. So yeah, I’ve been a bit distracted.’

Gilmour checked the horizon, making certain the blockade ship was still hull-down. He crouched beside Steven, and said, ‘I don’t want you to worry about the insects. I haven’t felt any, and it’s been days now, so it must have been just this one. If there are others, they’re dead too – crushed, frozen, whatever. Right now, you need to concentrate on helping us hide. Can you do that?’

Steven shrugged. ‘Sure, just give me a moment.’

‘And remember,’ Gilmour interrupted, ‘you have shown an enormous potential to detect all manner of mystical energy, but for you it doesn’t happen-’

‘Until everything gets blurry,’ Steven said to himself. ‘When the air gets thick, and everything else turns to melted wax, that’s when I can do it.’

Gilmour backed away, whispering, ‘That’s right. Take your time.’

From the bow, Steven had an unencumbered view of the Morning Star. He blinked, let his vision blur and then drew everything back into focus. Concentrating on his mother’s old blanket, the ugly one from the 1970s with the big circular knitting that made the whole thing look as though it had been shot by a 12-gauge, Steven inhaled through his nose, felt the cold bite his sinuses and let himself drift back in time. Winters in Colorado. The cold chilled your sinuses there; they nearly froze shut some mornings. Those were the worst headaches, frozen-from-the-inside-out headaches. Every morning, Steven would amble down the hall, into the living room and curl up on the sofa beneath that old blanket. Most mornings, school mornings, his time there was brief; he had to get dressed, finish homework, catch the bus, sinuses frozen or not. But Saturdays and Sundays were days for lingering beneath the covers, the old wool rubbing against his skin, capturing the heat despite the clumsy, holey stitching. Some mornings he would get lucky and there would be a film on television, some great old epic with John Wayne or Errol Flynn. Stretching out on that couch – not unlike the Morning Star, stretching aft, her rigging taut with northerly wind – Steven could fit his whole body under the blanket; he had to be careful not to push his feet through the hole near the far end. Who had done that? His sister? The dog? He couldn’t remember. But what a place to hide, warm, safe and nearly invisible as Charlton Heston wrestled freakish-looking monkeys or James Mason battled a giant squid with a steak knife.

‘That’s it, Steven,’ he heard someone say. ‘That should do it; excellent work, your best yet, my boy.’

Steven let himself wander, not hurrying, back to the cold foredeck of the Pragan brig-sloop he and his friends had shanghaied into carrying them this far. When he opened his eyes, he wasn’t surprised to find that much of the ship – her masts, cordage, sheets and rigging – were a blurry backdrop of brown and white.

‘Can he keep it going?’ Garec had joined them. His voice sounded as though it was coming from a closed room somewhere down a long hall.

‘He’s never had any trouble before,’ Gilmour, also distant, replied, ‘although this is a bigger spell.’

Then he saw something. A bump. What had Gilmour called them? Ripples on a mill pond? Moving aft, from port to starboard, somewhere below decks, it was there for just a second: a wrinkle in the paraffin. It moved, and then flattened out again.

‘What’s that?’ Steven heard himself ask.

Gilmour answered, ‘I said this is a bigger spell than last time, but you seem to have called it up nicely. Look at those trawlers near the shore, none of them are giving us a second glance.’

‘Not that.’ Steven stood on shaky legs. Stumbling, he let his vision blur again, then brought the waxy backdrop into focus. He watched for the wrinkle.

‘Are you all right?’ Garec asked, grabbing him beneath the arm.

‘I’m fine.’ Steven shrugged him off. ‘What was that, though?’

‘We didn’t see anything,’ Gilmour said. ‘What do you see?’

Steven reached aft. The air, malleable and thick, felt good in his hands, as it had at the landfill. He waited, watching, reaching out with his senses and hoping to find it again.

It didn’t come back.

‘Steven?’

He shook his head to clear it. ‘I’m all right, I’m fine.’ Back amongst them now, he looked around and asked, ‘How’d I do?’

‘Top marks, my boy,’ Gilmour said, ‘seamless.’

‘Good.’ Steven grinned. ‘That one’s getting easier. I mean, I don’t want to hide the Tampa Bay Buccaneers or anything, but that was easier than the first time.’

‘We should tell Captain Ford,’ Garec said suddenly.

‘Right,’ Steven agreed. ‘Regardless of how well this cover is working, he should hug that point, as close in as he dares, so we get a decent view of the northern part of the Welstar inlet while staying relatively hidden ourselves. Once we round the point, if we can tack south into the river, I think we’ll make it across. When we round those rocks, I’ll strengthen the spell a bit, and that’ll hopefully be enough to keep us out of sight.’

‘How is he?’ Alen poked his head through the door. He kept Milla in the corridor, shielding her from whatever bad news Hannah might have this morning.

‘He had a tough night,’ she said. ‘His shoulder’s infected, and it’s spreading. The querlis isn’t worth a scoop of dogshit and I don’t know what else to do for him.’ Hannah’s own shoulders slumped; her lip quivered, and she sniffed hard. She had been crying in frustration on and off throughout the night. Now, knowing Milla was listening, she tried to hold herself together. ‘This voodoo bullshit that passes for medicine isn’t going to save him, Alen. He needs antibiotics; an injection would be best, but pills will work, albeit a bit slower.’

‘I don’t know what any of that means. I’m sorry.’ Alen stepped inside; Milla followed, then crossed to take Hoyt’s hand. She had tiny violets in her hair.

Hoyt woke at her touch. ‘Hi, Pepperweed,’ he whispered. He was pale and wan, damp with cold sweat and too weak to lift his head.

‘You look bad,’ Milla said.

‘I feel like a handful of cold throw-up,’ he murmured, forcing a smile, ‘but you look nice today. Where’d you get such pretty flowers this Twinmoon?’

‘Erynn’s mama gave them to me,’ Milla said proudly. ‘She heard what a great job I did swimming the scramble.’

‘It was great swimming, like a professional.’ Hoyt ran a hand through her curls. ‘Pepperweed, old Hoyt is going to sleep for a while. Will you bring me some lunch later?’

‘What do you want?’

‘Grilled grettan, a whole one.’

The little girl giggled. ‘All right, I’ll try, but I don’t think he’ll fit in here.’

‘We’ll move Hannah’s bed outside.’

Hannah interrupted, ushering Milla into the hall, ‘maybe we’ll just bring him some soup,’ she said. ‘Sleep well, Hoyt.’

Out in the corridor, Hannah whispered, ‘Alen, I need you to tell me how these far portals work.’

‘Hannah, that’s ridiculous. You don’t know-’

‘Alen!’

‘We have no idea when they’re coming; it could be too late.’

‘You have any other suggestions?’ She held Milla’s hand as if it were sculpted from eggshells, but her face was grim, her jaw set.

Alen sighed. ‘No, I don’t. But I reiterate: we don’t have any idea how or when they’ll arrive. They could be-’

‘They’re coming soon,’ Milla said. ‘It won’t be long now.’

Alen was sceptical. ‘Pepperweed, I know you’ve done some remarkable things, but boats just don’t come from that direction. They can’t get through.’

‘Gilmour’s coming,’ Milla said simply. ‘He’ll be here soon.’

Hannah said, ‘Steven and I can go through together. We’ll step across the Fold and be back in an hour and Hoyt will be on his feet in a day, two at the most. But I need to know how the portals work. I want to travel to a specific place, not find myself dumped on some glacier in the Andes.’

‘It’s more complicated than that,’ Alen said. ‘Come on; we need more querlis. We can talk while we go.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ Alen said. ‘I have some ideas about those shipments, the bark and leaves from the forest of ghosts.’

‘Really?’ Hannah checked the corridor again and lowered her voice.

‘I think so,’ he said, ‘but like you, I need Fantus.’

‘Can’t you call him, you know, like you did before?’

Alen shook his head. ‘No, this will take too long; neither of us can keep up the connection that long.’

‘Here’s hoping they arrive soon then,’ she said nervously. ‘We’ve a lot riding on them.’

‘They’ll be here,’ Milla said again, taking hold of a hand each and swinging her feet off the floor.

Hannah smiled and swung her higher. ‘I hope you’re right, Pepperweed.’

Steven crept beneath the main hatch, through the port companionway. The hold, below the quarterdeck and Captain Ford’s cabin, was a dark, musty hollow. He sent up a flare and then another, twin orbs he brightened with a thought.

The hold was noisy with the creaking rudder chain, the slap of the waves against the hull, the incessant sloshing of the bilge somewhere beneath his feet and the groaning of ratlines against pins between braces in the bulkhead, Steven attuned his eyes to the shadows; his ears would do him little good on this hunting trip.

In the aft corner, starboard behind the mainmast, there were several hogsheads, filled, he guessed, with drinking water, capped and lashed to one another and then to the bulkhead to keep them from tipping or rolling about in heavy seas. In the opposite corner there were wooden boxes, likewise stacked and lashed to the beam supports. Finally, beneath the hatch, tucked under the stairs, was a dwindling stack of wood for the galley oven, purchased in Orindale before the Morning Star set sail for the Northern Archipelago.

Apart from these, the main hold was empty.

Halfway to the barrels, the magic crept up on him. Most of the lines, pulleys and braces blurred, but overall, the hold remained in focus, the grain of the planks easy to see. ‘So you’re in here somewhere,’ Steven said, ‘but where?’

Even without the noise, Steven would not have heard the tanbak’s tiny sentry coming for him. He was focusing his attention on the shadowy places, the dark nooks and cracks between and behind the hogsheads; he hadn’t expected the spider-beetle to come from above.

There was a place on the mainmast – where it passed through the upper deck – around which was coiled a length of hawser, maybe where Marrin or Sera had at one time tied off the last bit of line after securing a large cargo. A small ship like the Morning Star often hauled as much as her crew could stuff into the comparatively little storage area; it wasn’t uncommon to use the mast as an extra brace. Here, the forgotten rope had provided an ideal hiding place for the tanbak’s little hunter, which had waited, uncertain which of the crew to take, recognising, after sensing the defeat of its mistress, that there were powerful sorcerers on board.

And one was in the hold with it right now.

As Steven passed the mainmast, actually dragging a hand over its rough surface, the creature dropped, but missed his head. The spider-beetle grasped the material of his cloak and started climbing.

Steven felt more of the hold blur together, but the barrels, the boxes and the firewood remained in focus. ‘This isn’t right,’ he murmured. ‘Something’s different; something’s wrong.’ He thought about shouting for the others. Between them, there were plenty of eyes for watching and especially feet for stomping… but he didn’t. He recalled the wrinkle – the ripple on a mill pond – that had moved down here. It had actually shifted his perspective, like light through a turning prism, and there had been nothing Steven could do about it. Whatever was down here was powerful.

The spider-beetle climbed up Steven’s cloak and over the hillock of the hood and slipped into the space between the coarse fabric and the curiously smooth, unnatural texture of the coat beneath it. The magician’s neck, and especially his ears, were close now.

The barrels blurred, then the boxes and Steven turned on his heel. ‘I was right; it’s in the firewood,’ he said aloud. The glowing orbs floated silently forward to hover over the stack of logs and the tangle of dry branches used for kindling, but a step towards them and even they began to melt. Steven looked at the floor, the mast, the bulkheads, the forward stairs, all of it; everything was blurring into the backdrop. He looked down at the deck beneath his boots… everything – except himself.

He barely had time to shout before the creature struck, biting him on his neck and then scurrying for his left ear. ‘Fuck!’ he screamed, ‘it’s already on me – fuck-!’

When the spider-beetle bit him, Steven’s fireballs flared out and the hold was plunged into darkness.

Gilmour was on the quarterdeck with Captain Ford when they heard Steven shout from below. Gilmour dived towards the main hatch; the captain hesitated just long enough to shout at Marrin, ‘Take the helm; hold her steady!’ Then, drawing the knife he used to fillet fish, he followed Gilmour into the darkness.

*

Steven swatted at the spider-beetle and missed. The insect, almost supernaturally fast and still on the attack, bit him again, this time on the back of his hand. The wound was fiery-hot, like a snakebite, a deep puncture flooded with venom. As a reflex, he threw his hands up, slapping at his neck. He shouted for Gilmour then groaned; his vision was blurring for real now, the mainmast shifting and splitting itself twice and then three times as the poison worked its way through his bloodstream. The deck canted to port, too far – That can’t be a wave; I’m losing it. I’m losing it! – dumping Steven in a heap. Before landing on his shoulder, he made one last flailing attempt to brush the determined insect off his neck. But he didn’t find it tucked inside his hood, where it was waiting for him to lose consciousness. When he fell, the spider-beetle emerged and skittered across the Gore-tex collar of Howard’s old ski jacket. It paused just long enough to send a primitive message to its companion. Then it started for Steven’s ear.

Gilmour leaped down the stairs, slamming into the bulkhead as he heard Steven shout and then fall. Crying out a spell, he cast a handful of brilliant fire orbs into the darkness. Captain Ford slowed to keep from running blind into one of the braces; he blinked to acclimatise his vision, then cursed when he ran into Gilmour at the end of the corridor.

‘Rutting horsecocks,’ he shouted, ‘I do wish you would give a bit of warning before you just ignite all the fires of-’

Gilmour wasn’t listening. ‘No, no, no,’ he muttered, ‘this didn’t happen. This did not happen!’ He shouted something Ford couldn’t understand and a howling blast of wind tore through the main hold, rammed the starboard bulkhead and threatened to roll the Morning Star to the scuppers.

‘What in all Eldarn is-?’ the captain began.

‘There!’ Gilmour cried, ‘do you see it? There, against the wall!’

‘What am I looking for?’ He held his fillet-knife ready to slash at anything that might have sneaked on board or stowed away in his cargo hold.

‘Against the wall. Go! It’s stunned. Kill it, Captain – but don’t get bitten!’ Gilmour knelt beside Steven, mumbling furiously. He looked disconcertingly like a father arriving a moment too late to save his son.

Ford noticed Steven for the first time, but, still blinking, turned his attention back to the starboard bulkhead. ‘What am I-?’

Then he saw it: a tiny long-legged beetle, or maybe a mutant spider, black, with some kind of coloured markings along its chitinous back. ‘That?’ Ford started towards it, saying, ‘This little thing? I was expecting another of those Fold monsters that killed Sera and Tubbs. I get worse than this outside my house.’

Gilmour looked up long enough to say, ‘Rutting whores, Doren, be careful! Crush it quickly, before it recovers or gets away.’

‘All right, all right, I’ll step on the bug – but I don’t think this thing could have knocked Steven so-’

Finding its legs, the tan-bak’s hunter sprang from the dusty floor to grip a seam in Captain Ford’s tunic, just beneath his neck.

‘Motherless dryhumping-!’ He danced like a man on fire, swatting and slapping at himself, tearing at his cloak, whining something incoherent. The spider-beetle lost its grip and, scurrying like spilled quicksilver, it dashed for the pile of firewood, but this time, Captain Ford was too quick and pounced on the nefarious intruder, stamping on it again and again until the bug looked like a bit of spilled tar.

‘Good,’ Gilmour said quietly. ‘You got it.’

Sweating and shaking now, he knelt for a moment, his head in his hands, then tried to stand up. His hands were trembling as adrenalin rushed through his system; he couldn’t stay still. ‘What was that?’ he asked.

Gilmour ignored him and concentrated on his fallen comrade. ‘Come on Steven,’ he begged, rubbing his hands, which glowed a soft red in the harsh glare of the false Larion suns. ‘Come on, my boy.’

‘Did it bite him?’

‘At least twice.’ Gilmour didn’t look up.

‘Is he-?’

‘Not yet.’

‘What can I-?’

‘Nothing yet.’ Gilmour examined Steven’s injured hand. With two fingers, he pinched the bite puncture, then massaged along Steven’s forearm with his free hand until a thin stream of blood flowed from the wound and pooled on the dusty wooden floor.

The bloodletting went on for while, long enough for Ford to calm down a little. ‘How much do you have to flush out?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know.’ Gilmour remained focused on what he was doing.

‘Can you do that to his neck?’

‘I’ll try, but I’m afraid it may be too late for that. I can drain the venom this way, but a bite in the neck-’ Gilmour grimaced, ‘that’s already circulated too deep.’

He let Steven’s arm rest beside the puddle and turned his attention to the swollen, purplish marks in the young man’s throat.

A wave, different from the swells that had been rolling beneath the brig-sloop all day, tossed the Morning Star off her heading. Her bow came down with a splash, noisy in the hold despite the background racket. Ford frowned and muttered, ‘Marrin.’