THE WIZARD HUNTERS

  “Don’t know.” Ilias shrugged. “They have a lot of strange things, like for lighting fires and keeping food good. Maybe that’s just something that. . .”—he gestured vaguely—“... needs to be wet.” He asked Tremaine hopefully, “That should do it?”

  She and Florian talked for a moment, then Florian dug a crystal out of her pocket and handed it over. Tremaine shoved that under the jacket in the bucket too.

  Giliead shook his head, still baffled. “But... what is it?”

  “I don’t know.” Ilias shrugged matter-of-factly. Metal things that needed to be kept in water were a new one on him. “We’re going to have to learn their language so we can ask them.”

  Florian carefully covered the unconscious Gerard with a blanket, then passed the others out to Tremaine and Ander. Tremaine promptly wrapped herself up in hers with an expression of relief, settling on the floor next to the bucket. Ander sat back in the corner, still watching them warily.

  Ilias caught Giliead’s eye and inclined his chin slightly toward the young man. “Maybe he thinks we’re raiders.”

  “Maybe.” Giliead smiled faintly, though he still looked thoughtful. “I wish we knew where they came from.”

  “Do you know how long they were on the island? Their ship could have gone aground in the storm yesterday.” Halian stepped into the cabin, leaning against the doorway. “We were almost swamped. It was definitely wizard-stirred.”

  “Huh. Maybe they knew you were out here.” Giliead tapped his fingers on his belt.

  Halian looked at the travelers, giving the two women a reassuring smile. “We’re taking them home?” he asked Giliead.

  “Where else?”

  “What about the curse?” Halian frowned. “It isn’t right, since we can’t explain the danger and give them a choice.”

  Ilias had been wondering that himself. Giliead hesitated, then shook his head. “They’re only staying until they can travel. It should be all right. And,” he added with a trace of bitterness, “their friend’s been cursed; no one else would take them in.”

  Halian’s mouth twisted ruefully but he didn’t deny it. “Well, your mother will certainly appreciate the company.” He eyed Giliead for a moment. “You said ‘wizards.’ So there was more than one?” He read Giliead’s expression and his face went still. “What did you find?”

  Giliead exchanged an uncomfortable glance with Ilias. “Nothing good,” he said. He nodded out toward the deck where they could see Barias checking the set of the ropes. “Shut the door.”

  “Nothing good” is putting it mildly, Ilias thought as Giliead began to tell Halian all they had seen, the wizards and their flying whales and weapons. He sat on the floor at the foot of the bunk, next to Tremaine and her bucket, resting his aching shoulders against the wall. Halian’s face grew ashen as he heard the story.

  Halian said finally, “They have to be getting ready to attack Cineth, and maybe the whole Syrnai. That’s the only reason to take the island.” He shook his head. “Flying whales. That explains a lot about the ships that have gone missing and the attacks on the villages along the coast. You know, in that storm that nearly swamped us, I thought I saw something in the sky, but I put it down to imagination.” He looked up, his expression drawn in concern. “How many do they have?”

  “One less than they had before. We saw docks for at least three.” Giliead pulled the folded maps out from under his shirt, leaning forward to spread them on the cabin floor.

  Ilias shifted forward to help him. “This paper has wax on it or something. It all went into the river but the ink only smeared a little, see?”

  Exhausted and with nothing to keep them awake but a conversation they couldn’t understand, the three travelers had started to doze off. But as they spread out the maps, Ander made a startled exclamation and scooted forward to look. Florian almost fell off the bunk and Tremaine sat up, half asleep and blinking.

  Brows quirking, Halian pushed one of the maps over to Ander. “Maybe they can make some kind of sense of this. Is that writing?”

  “It has to be.” Giliead leaned forward, tracing a line.

  “Knowing where they mean to attack first would be nice.” Ilias propped his chin in his hand. “At least we know those flying whales burn like oilpaper.” He lifted his brows at Giliead, who nodded, frowning thoughtfully.

  Halian watched them both. “You’re thinking Fireliquid?”

  “We’ve got maybe twenty pots left at home from the last time,” Giliead said, leaning back against the wall. His mouth twisted ruefully. “I hate that stuff.”

  Ilias had to agree. They had used it on the ships Ixion had sent against the Andrien village and Cineth. But those ships had been packed with his curse-spawned creatures, not people. Not even wizards.

  “Everybody hates it, everybody with any feeling,” Halian told him gravely. “But we won’t have a choice.”

  Giliead looked at Ander, who was avidly studying the foreign map while the two women watched with interest. “I know.”

  Tremaine shifted to see the map, feeling her wet clothes squish unpleasantly. Ilias and Giliead were still dripping dirty water onto the deck but they had lost much of their mud covering. The man they called Halian was older, with a weather-beaten face and cropped graying hair. He was big like Giliead and dressed in a dark brown shirt, pants trimmed with braided leather, and stout leather boots. The fabric seemed finely woven and it was interesting to see how the native clothing looked when it hadn’t been burned, drenched and stained with stinking mud.

  “What is it?” Tremaine asked Ander, who was studying the maps as if they held Ile-Rien’s salvation. “You can’t read those, can you?”

  “No, but these are routes, air routes.” Ander was breathing hard from excitement. He twisted the map around, leaning down over it and tracing one of the dotted lines. “This shows . . . Here.” He turned it so Tremaine and Florian could see. “These here, these have got to be Gardier airship bases, like the island. And look at this! It’s much bigger than the others, it’s obviously some kind of main hub.” He frowned, pulling the other map forward. “I don’t understand what these other lines are, not longitude. . . .”

  His eyes widened and he whistled softly. “These lines, superimposed here, that’s the western coastline of Ile-Rien, Chaire, Port Erafin, Port Rel. And this is the island, and the mainland—”

  Florian leaned forward, fascinated. “You mean it’s a map of both worlds, together?”

  “Yes, this one superimposed over Ile-Rien. I just wish I could figure out what these other symbols and lines are.”

  Florian tugged the larger map out of the pile, looking it over intently. “Is the island on this one, in relation to the other Gardier bases?”

  Ander studied it for a long moment, then frowned, shaking his head. He turned the map around again. “No, this doesn’t show any island bases that match this one, or anyplace else I recognize.” He sat back with a grimace. “Damn.”

  Tremaine didn’t know if she was just tired or getting stupid. “Now what?”

  “Our only point of reference for this world is the island and our coastline,” Florian explained, sitting back cross-legged against the wall with a glum expression. “If it’s not on the big map, then we don’t know where those other bases are.”

  Ander nodded, still thoughtfully tracing air routes. “You said that Gervas joker called these people ‘natives,’ as if the Gardier came from somewhere else? This map might show their home continent.”

  “Oh.” Tremaine sighed. She caught Giliead’s eye, who was watching them all intently, and shrugged. “I think I’m going to take a nap,” she told the others.

  Later Tremaine woke with no idea where she was. She lay on a hard surface that swooped and dived with relentless regularity and her nose was full of the odor of wet wool. The Pilot Boat... No, it sank. She pushed herself up, shoving lank hair out of her eyes and looking around. Oh, right. They were in the little cabin on the boat with purple sails. She had fallen asleep on
the deck not long after Ilias, Giliead and Halian had finished their conference. Next to her Florian had curled up around their satchel, sound asleep. Ander was against the wall, an arm flung over his eyes. Gerard still lay unconscious in the bunk.

  Bright sunlight fell through the open hatch. She smoothed out the beautifully woven blanket she had wadded up as a pillow. The wool was dyed with a multitude of shades of blue and green, forming patterns that made her think of sea foam and ocean deeps.

  Tremaine climbed to her feet, one hand on the wall to steady herself, and looked outside. They had left the mist behind and the sky was deep blue, a few fleecy clouds overhead, the wind clean and warm. She took a deep breath and her head didn’t feel quite so foggy anymore. The crew moved around the deck messing with the ropes and doing the other incomprehensible things one did on sailing boats.

  Now that she was awake enough to notice, she saw they were all dressed in pants and loose open shirts, the leather or cloth dyed in soft colors, and many wore their hair long or pulled back into braids. Some of them were shorter and light-haired like Ilias and others were tall with dark complexions like Giliead and Halian, while most seemed to be a combination of both physical types. She saw the girl who had brought the blankets earlier— had Ilias called her Dyani?—climbing the rigging. She was shorter than Tremaine and slight, with dark brown hair tied back in a loose ponytail. Past the railing Tremaine saw land ahead and she stepped outside for a better look.

  The water was incredibly blue and clear. A coastline of low green hills and forest was near and the boat seemed to be heading toward a small town or village spread out on the terraced slopes above a white crescent of beach. There were little houses of wood or stone with tiled roofs. Wooden racks held large fishing nets hung up to dry and smaller boats, some without sailing rigs, were drawn up on the beach. She could see people moving among the houses and on the stone breakwater that extended out into the bay. It was a vast improvement over the island.

  Suddenly, not far away, a huge fish leapt into the air. It was bright yellow with black stripes and easily the size of a cow. Impressed, Tremaine eased back from the railing. I’m glad I didn’t know about those when Gerard and I were treading water.

  She looked around the deck and saw a platform above the cabin, where Halian steered by holding on to a big tiller. Ilias was up there with him, shading his eyes to look toward the coast.

  Tremaine wandered back into the cabin, stepping over Florian for a closer look at Gerard. He lay on the bunk, his face pale and gaunt, his breathing shallow but steady. She had seen the Gardier sorcerer cast the spell. All he did was point. Tremaine’s layman’s education in the magical arts had been mostly from a defensive perspective, but she knew that anyone who cast a spell this powerful with just a gesture was an accomplished sorcerer. But he hadn’t known the healing spells to cure the burns on his own face.

  Wait. He was holding one of those little devices. She remembered taking it out of his hand. Did he point that at Gerard? He must have.

  Gerard made a faint sound, startling her out of her thoughts. Tremaine sat up on her knees to lean over the bunk. “Gerard?” This was the first sign of life he had demonstrated since falling under the spell. Wondering if she had imagined it, she shook his shoulder gently. He murmured and turned his head. “Finally,” she breathed, reaching to thump Florian on the back.

  Florian stirred, shoving hair out of her eyes and looking around sleepily. “What?”

  “I think Gerard’s coming around.” Impatient, Tremaine shook him again, less gently, as Florian struggled to sit up. “Gerard, wake up!”

  “Tremaine, please lower your voice,” Gerard muttered. He lifted one hand to press against his temple. “God, my head’s splitting.”

  “He’s awake!” Florian called happily.

  Ander started, sitting up. “Gerard?”

  Tremaine helped Gerard sit up and he leaned forward, clutching his head. “What— Are we moving?”

  “We’re on a boat,” she told him as Ander came over, standing back against the cabin wall by the bunk.

  “Oh.” Gerard looked up, blinking owlishly. “What happened?”

  “We escaped,” Tremaine said, deciding to stick with the short version for the moment. She remembered his spectacles and hastily dug them out of her coat pocket.

  “Thank you.” Gerard got his spectacles on and looked around at the spare little cabin, the tumbled blankets on the bunk, an uncertain expression on his face. “Where’s the sphere?”

  “It’s right over there,” Florian told him, her tone reassuring. “We put it in a bucket of water so the Gardier wouldn’t be able to follow it.”

  “You put it...” He rubbed his face, then stared, startled, at something past them.

  “Are you all right?” Florian asked anxiously, catching his arm.

  “Yes, yes, I’m fine.” Gerard shook his head slightly, as if he thought he was seeing things. “Tremaine, who is that?”

  Tremaine glanced back to see Ilias standing in the doorway. “Oh, um.” She scratched her head. Ilias grinned at her, gesturing to Gerard. She smiled back, nodding. “Yes, he’s better.”

  Giliead leaned in with a question, then his brows lifted in surprise when he saw Gerard awake. He spoke to Ilias, who replied, jerking his head toward them.

  She turned back to see Gerard staring at her, baffled. “We ah ... made contact with another civilization,” she explained. It had sounded better when Florian said it.

  “I see that.” Gerard rubbed his brow, eyeing both men warily. “They’re . . . natives of this world?”

  “We think so,” Florian admitted as the two men stepped back out. “We’re still having problems talking to them in that we don’t have a clue what language they speak.” She nodded toward the doorway. “That was Ilias and Giliead.”

  “All right, well...” Gerard was obviously having trouble keeping up. “Now that introductions are out of the way, where are we going?”

  “We don’t know,” Ander told him grimly. “Somehow, they’ve got Gardier maps from that base. We have to get those back to the Institute.”

  “Ander thinks they’re kidnapping us,” Florian explained to Gerard.

  “I didn’t say that.” Ander glanced at her impatiently. “I said we don’t seem to have much choice about where we’re going.”

  Tremaine rolled her eyes. “We’re going to that little village.”

  All three of them stared at her this time. “What village?” Florian asked, startled.

  Tremaine gestured vaguely at the cabin door. “The one the boat is pointed at.”

  “Help me up,” Gerard said firmly. Ander and Tremaine helped him stand and they went out on deck.

  The warm sun and fresh air seemed to perk everyone up, Tremaine noticed. She went to lean on the rail again, pointing out the village.

  “Oh.” Florian stood next to her. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Isn’t it?” Tremaine nodded. They were close enough now to see the boats on the beach all had painted designs along the hulls, leaping fish or swirls or eyes. The little collection of houses on the terraced slope had carved and painted eaves and even the tumbledown shacks had colored hangings in the windows. Tall trees shaded the dirt pathways between the houses.

  Ander took a deep breath. “They’re not going to be able to help us.”

  Tremaine looked sharply at him. He sounded grimly resigned. “How do you know?” she asked.

  “That sailing rig, this fishing village. These people are primitives.” Ander shook his head regretfully. “The Gardier are going to sweep right through them.”

  Gerard leaned on the railing and rubbed his eyes. “I’m afraid you’re right. We have to find a way to ask them to take us back to the target area. Or perhaps we could—”

  An alarmed shout made Tremaine turn. The girl Dyani was standing in the bow, pointing up. At first Tremaine saw nothing, then Florian grabbed her arm. Her eyes found the dark familiar shape against the sky then, growing larger as
it dropped toward them. “Oh no,” Tremaine groaned. “Not again.”

  All over the deck the sailors pointed, yelled and scrambled into action. Tremaine saw Giliead tear off in one direction and Ilias in the other.

  “Gardier,” Ander said grimly.

  “They followed us?” Florian asked, dismayed. “How?”

  “Where’s the sphere?” Gerard demanded.

  Tremaine bolted for the cabin, found the bucket and dragged her sodden jacket out. Water sloshed as she pulled out the sphere, disentangling it from the Gardier translator. Remembering the other Gardier devices, she fished for them and pulled out only a handful of broken metal pieces and crystal fragments. There wasn’t a single one left intact.

  Thinking the devices must have been enspelled to destroy themselves if stolen and cursing Gardier ingenuity, she shoved the medallion in her pocket and scooped up the sphere. It hummed eagerly as she hurried back out on deck.

  The boat seemed to leap forward, skimming over the water for the shore. She saw Halian leaning on the tiller up on the steering platform but most of the crew seemed to have vanished, except for two men hauling on the ropes, changing the position of the sails. Realizing the deck was vibrating rhythmically beneath her feet, she held tightly to the sphere and leaned over the rail. Below she saw the oars scooping rapidly at the water, driving the ship straight in toward the beach at a faster pace than she would have believed possible. “What are we doing?”

  “The Gardier chose their moment well,” Gerard told her, watching the approaching airship narrowly. It was much lower already, the dark predator outlined against the brilliant blue sky. “The ship has to go ashore or it will be dead in the water.”

  “Why?”

  “With that sailing rig, it would take them forever to turn this bucket,” Ander clarified. He struck his fist on the railing. “Dammit, if they’d let me bring those firearms—”

  “They won’t work against an airship.” Florian stared at him, uncomprehending. “Even Gardier guns—”

  Ander shook his head. “They’re going to land and take us alive. There’s nothing to stop them.”