Dragon's Bluff

1

Palin once said that if you could avoid pirates, marauding Dark Knights, sea dragons, the Dragon Overlords, the fickle storms, and the general vagaries of a sea voyage, a ship cruise through New Sea could be a restful and relaxing way to travel.

So far, Ulin mused, his father had been right. The weather had stayed calm, the sky had remained clear, and the ship still floated. Ulin felt more rested than he had in days, since all he had to do was loll around the deck in the warm sunshine and stay out of the crew’s way.

He was performing that task well as he leaned back against a bale of fleeces, stretched out his legs, and closed his eyes. Lucy had somehow talked the dour dwarf out of their cabin for a game of cards. The dwarf, who grudgingly admitted they could call her Challie, had been civil but not friendly, and this was the first time she agreed to any social entertainment. They sat on the deck nearby, engrossed in a game of Bounty Hunter that involved a lot of haggling and betting. Ulin paid little attention. He let his mind wander back over the course of their journey so far and decided that their little party had been lucky.

After leaving word for his parents with his aunt and grandfather, Ulin, Lucy, and the magistrate had left Solace and traveled south to New Ports. Chalcedony had already arranged for a berth on an Abanasinian freighter bound east across the New Sea with a load of foodstuffs for Sanction. The price of passage was exorbitant, but Chalcedony had paid it.

The council had sent her off generously funded for this journey, and she seemed determined to get it over as quickly as possible. Berths could be few and far between this time of year.

The freighter pulled out of New Port on a favorable wind and made the haul to the island of Schallsea where several passengers debarked, and Captain Tethlin traded a portion of his winter wheat for several bales of good fleece, a commodity in demand by the weavers in Khur. They left the next day, sailing north past the Citadel of Light and around the northern tip of the island. Once past Schallsea, the freighter sailed east along the coast of Throt to keep as much distance between it and the swampy realm of the great black dragon, Onysablet. Better to risk the unpredictable depredations of the hobgoblins than draw the attention of Sable. So far, they had been unmolested by anything larger than flies.

“Ulin,” Challie’s voice cut through his reverie. “Come play cards with us. I think Lucy’s cheating.”

With a groan and a stretch, Ulin pulled himself out of his musings and moved over to join the two at their card game. “Lucy doesn’t have to cheat,” he told Challie. “She’s too good at the game.”

Lucy looked up from dealing the cards and smiled at him—that spicy, slightly devilish smile that could melt his insides. She was not a beautiful woman, not like his mother or even his auburn-haired sister, Linsha. In fact, she had been given the name Plain Lucy at the Academy, an appellation Ulin detested. While it was true she was stocky, her features were rather large, and her face was too round for conventional beauty, she had gloriously green eyes like sunlight glowing through jade and a smile that radiated humor and joy. Several days in the clear spring sun had brought out bronze highlights in her chestnut hair and intensified the galaxy of freckles across her nose and cheeks. To others she was plain, but to him she was the light that kept back the darkness in his heart.

“Are you going to sit there gawking like a moonstruck calf, or are you going to play?” Challie demanded. The dwarf slapped down two cards, face down.

Her comment startled him out of his thoughts—this seemed to be a good afternoon for daydreaming—and he belatedly looked at his cards. A lousy hand as usual.

They played for several hours, keeping score on the ship’s railing with a piece of chalk.

Challie played with a dwarf’s stubbornness and a careful eye for detail, and she won several important hands. She was organized, neat, quiet, and introverted to the point of coldness. It was little wonder to Ulin that she was a lawyer. Dwarves were known to value law and order, and this one practiced the essence of order from her perfectly packed bags to her simple rugged clothing. She wore no jewelry or bright colors, only a well-made tunic, brown pants and boots, and a thick coat of knobby wool. Her long brown hair fell in a tight braid down her back and the only weapon she carried was a steel axe polished to the sheen of sterling silver.

It was probably a good thing she did not carry the axe all the time, Ulin thought as he watched her toss her cards down after Lucy won a hand and left her stuck with too many cards.

“Where did you learn to play so well?” she asked Lucy.

Lucy shook her head, flipping her ponytail over one shoulder. “My father. It was about the only thing he taught me.” She said nothing more, but simply picked up the cards and dealt another hand.

Ulin tried to concentrate on his game and could not. The air was too pleasant, even for the last days of Rannmont, and the ship’s gentle roll over the waves was too soothing. Lucy and Challie quickly cleaned out his few coppers and smugly suggested he return to his bale of fleeces for a nap. That didn’t seem like a bad idea, so he stretched out his long, lanky frame, crossed his ankles, and closed his eyes.

The sleep that seemed so close didn’t come. The sun still shone clear, the noises of the ship sounded the same, and yet something seemed different, something gently persistent that he had not noticed while sitting upright. He could not explain what it was, only that it set off a small alarm in the back of his mind. His eyes opened, and he sat up. Ulin had not survived numerous journeys across Ansalon by ignoring his intuition.

Wide awake now, he climbed to his feet and went to stand by the bow rail where the wind tugged at his clothes and raised goose bumps on his arms. Salt spray kicked up by the bow splashed across his face. The ship was nearing the narrowest part of New Sea where Sable’s swamp encroached so far into the shallow sea that it created a strait into the northeasternmost end of the body of water. To his left he could see the green, hazy hills of the coast of Throt, while far to his right lay a low, dismal line that marked the beginning of the swamp created by Sable out of what had been New Coast and Blödehelm. Ulin scanned the southern horizon and was very relieved to see no sign of the great black. With luck, she was in her lair, dabbling in her vile experiments or snacking on a few hapless swamp creatures.

Puzzled, Ulin looked around the ship. The crew must have noticed a change, too, for their activity had increased in just a few minutes. More sailors were topside, clearing off the deck and scrambling into the rigging. Captain Tethlin shouted orders from the wheel, and in the crow’s nest, the lookout stared fixedly to the west.

A sudden gust of wind caught the ship, and its lurch to the right threw Ulin off balance. As he braced himself against the rail, it occurred to him what he had felt: a change in the movement of the ship. Instead of a rhythmic rise and fall over the swell, the ship was taking on a decided roll sideways over a changing wave pattern. The wind and waves were swinging around to the northwest.

“What’s the matter, Ulin?” Lucy called.

He studied the western horizon and saw with a twinge of alarm that the sky was no longer clear. “It looks like our good weather is about to end.”

Lucy and Challie joined him at the rail, and together they watched a formidable line of cloud gathering across the sky in an angry gray wall.

“Move it, folks!” a seaman shouted. He and another sailor grabbed a bale of fleece from the pile on the bow and hauled it toward an open hatch.

“Captain says clear the deck,” the second man ordered. “That means you.”

There was nothing to do but obey. Lucy and Challie picked up their cards and cups. Ulin pulled up the blanket they had been sitting on, and the three followed the other passengers down into the small cabins under the raised upper deck at the stern.

As soon as they were in the small cabin he shared with the women, Ulin went to the porthole and threw it open. They were lucky to have one of the few portholes on the passenger deck, even if it was small, hard to open, and showed signs of too much rust. Ulin craned his neck to get a better view of the sky and was not reassured by what he saw. Already the clouds had overtaken the western sun and turned the afternoon light to gray gloaming. The roll of the sea increased noticeably.

“Can’t the captain pull over or something?” Lucy asked. There was a tremor in her voice.

“Pull over?” Ulin repeated, turning around to explain that ships just can’t pull over like a wagon. He saw the look on her face, leaped for the chamber bucket, and shoved it under her chin just in time.

Her greenish look of apology silenced the remark he was about to make about weak stomachs. He had forgotten she’d never traveled on a ship before.

With Challie’s help, Lucy climbed into her bunk and crawled under the blankets. Ulin emptied the bucket out the porthole and tied it securely to the safety rail in easy reach.

Challie looked on with a grim expression then crawled into her own bunk. For a while Ulin sat beside Lucy in silence and listened to the growing fury of the storm. Thunder rumbled like a charging cavalry, and the wind wailed around the ship and through the rigging. They heard thumps and strange bangs, shouts and running footfalls as the crew hauled in the sails and battened down the hatches. As the rolling motion of the ship grew worse, so too did the darkness until their cabin was darker than night. Outside they heard the rain begin to fall in battering torrents.

“We’re so close to Sable’s swamp,” Lucy breathed. “What if we’re blown aground?”

Ulin tried not to think about being at the mercy of the treacherous black dragon. “If Captain Tethlin is as good as I think he is, he’ll use the wind to blow us through the strait.”

“I hope you’re right,” she said weakly.

Ulin pushed his stool closer to her bunk, and they leaned together, grateful for company in the pitching darkness. “Tell me again why we’re doing this?” he asked, trying to keep his voice light.

She made a sound like a strained chuckle. “Because I lacked adventure and excitement in Solace,” she replied. “Attacks by Dark Knights and draconians, the destruction of the Academy, the loss of my magic abilities, the constant strain of dealing with refugees and worrying about Beryl aren’t enough. I wanted more! I need to make a name for myself if I am going to marry a Majere. Why not brave the dangers and travails of a trip to Flotsam?”

Her words took him totally by surprise. He swiveled around and stared at her through the darkness. “You’re joking … right?” he demanded. Most of her tirade had to be a joke! Surely she didn’t mean that part about making a name for herself. A flicker of lightning glinted off her eyes and for an instant he saw she was grinning—or grimacing.

Her hand clasped his arm. “Of course, I’m joking. I’m doing this because … my father. If he is truly dead, then I will bury him with decency. If he’s not, then I am going to find him and kill him myself.” A groan escaped her as the ship took a nasty pitch over a wave. After a moment, Lucy pointed a finger at Ulin. “I know you’re doing this—”

Ulin cut her off. “Because I love you.”

“And because Flotsam is on Blood Bay.” She managed a faint smile at the guilty start she felt jerk though his muscles. “Confess. I know it. There is a trove of ancient magical artifacts to be found on the coast of the Blood Sea of Istar and you are hoping to find some.”

“It’s worth a try. For my father,” he admitted, his voice more bitter than he intended. “I don’t believe even a god-crafted artifact is going to help us any more, but if I could find something that still functioned … maybe it would snap him out of his terrible depression.”

Ulin was cut off by the sound of groaning. Giving his arm an apologetic squeeze, Lucy grabbed for her bucket.

The ship’s pitching movements were miserable now. And dangerous, Ulin decided when a stool crashed into his shins then rolled across the floor. He staggered to his feet and practically fell across the cabin into his bunk. The bunks were more like narrow cupboards built into the wall than real beds, but on a tossing ship they were safer and had straps to help hold in the occupants. Ulin pulled his blankets over his shoulders and wedged himself in. He was too tall to stretch out comfortably on the bunk, but for once his length was an advantage and helped keep him in place.

Sleepy as he had been on the upper deck in the sun, sleep would not come now in this pounding, rolling darkness. He lay on his side for hours watching lightning flash through the small porthole and listening to the cacophony of the ship battle her way through wind and water. Although the gods had departed the world before his birth, Ulin’s parents had made sure he was raised with the knowledge of the gods’ identities, history, and sacred ways. Some day, they hoped, the gods would return. Ulin would often say prayers to the gods in the feeble hope they were still listening, but in his mind a strong core of common sense, or pragmatism, or bullheaded obstinacy refused to believe they listened, let alone cared. He toyed with the idea of saying a prayer now for his companions’ safety and the continued well-being of the ship, then he cast away the thought. The gods were gone and many ships had been lost at sea despite endless streams of prayers and curses. He might as well save his breath.

Lightning and thunder cracked simultaneously outside, and for a second, silvery-green light flared through the porthole. In a blink it was gone, followed by a sudden cessation of any light through the porthole. Abruptly, the ship began to lean to starboard.

Challie cursed as the table and the other stool broke loose and crashed into her bunk.

“It’s just a big wave,” Ulin called to reassure them all. “It’ll pass.”

But it was not passing quickly enough. Groaning like a wounded animal the freighter rolled farther and farther to the right until Ulin feared the ship would never recover. He knew tons of water were pouring over her decks, pulling her deeper into the grip of the sea. If she reached horizontal and her masts hit the water, she would founder and sink in moments.

Frantically he held on to the straps while his bunk tipped toward vertical. Seconds passed like hours. A new sound caught his attention, a rusty creaking noise that came from their porthole. Alarmed, Ulin let his body slide toward the edge of his bunk until he could see the porthole. Just as he peered around the bunk wall, the metal hinges gave way and the portal flew open with an explosive crash. A column of dark water shot through the hole into their small cabin, drenching Lucy and Challie.

Lucy, Challie, and Ulin scrambled out of their bunks. Shouting wordless oaths, they fought their way across the tilting deck toward the porthole. In the intense darkness, Ulin groped for one of the stools. He found one and tried to jam the round seat into the hole. It was a close fit, but the pressure of the water wrenched the stool out of his hands and threw it across the room where it floated in a growing flood of seawater.

“Try magic!” Lucy shouted over the uproar of storm and struggling ship.

“No!” Ulin made a grab for the second stool. His foot slid on the steep wet flooring and he crashed into the water by the wall, sputtering invectives. Challie slipped and fell with him.

“Ulin, please at least try it! We can’t stop the water with just a stool.”

Challie hauled herself up by the bunk. She could see nothing in the black cabin, but she could feel something. “She’s coming back!” she cried.

Her two companions realized she was right. As the wave passed, the ship slowly righted herself. The force of the water pouring into the room abated, and the tilt of their cabin returned to a more normal upright position. The flood of water against the wall spread out to cover the whole floor.

Wind and rain still poured through the hole, soaking what little bit of Lucy was still dry. She tried to close the porthole cover, but the hinges were twisted and useless, and the force of the crash had broken the thick glass. There was nothing they could do with that cover.

Ulin sloshed through the cold water, carrying the stool. He jammed it into the opening as another wave, a smaller one this time, slammed into the ship. Seawater poured into the hole and pushed the stool away.

“We need something to hold this in place,” Ulin gasped.

Lucy helped him shove the stool back in place. “Try magic. A seal of some sort.”

“It won’t work. Spells rarely work for me anymore,” he muttered between his teeth.

She bit back a retort. There was no point arguing with him. The wild magic Palin Majere had “discovered” years ago was failing for them all. For almost two years the followers of Goldmoon’s mystical magic of the heart, the students of the Academy of Sorcery, even the great Dragon Overlords saw their powers weaken and dwindle away. No one, not even Palin, knew why their magic was failing, and that confusion and disappointment ate away at the elder Majere, and in a lesser degree at his son. Both of them had worn themselves to exhaustion traveling across Ansalon in search of answers and in hope of finding magic artifacts that still functioned. For his trouble, Palin had seen his beloved Academy of Sorcery destroyed and had been held prisoner by the Knights of the Thorn. His hands were forever broken and twisted by their questioning. Ulin, while he had not been physically tortured, had lost almost everything that meant something to him. His world had come unraveled. He had virtually given up his studies of magic and only the hope that he could help his father kept him searching for something for which he had lost faith.

But Lucy was an optimist. Despite everything that had happened, she had not quite given up hope that her abilities to wield magic would some day return or that Ulin would somehow find an answer. Until then, she would continue to encourage Ulin, try her spells, and hope for the best.

Ulin knew this, and he recognized the set determination on her face. A groan so soft only he could hear it escaped from his clenched teeth. He didn’t think there was much hope for success. Most of his spells failed utterly, but he would try for her. He had been, after all, a Dragon Mage and the Assistant Master of the Academy of Sorcery. He knew the spells. He was comfortable with the glorious feel of magic coursing through his veins, warming his blood and tingling on his skin. He just could not force the power to work for him as it once had, and the empty, bitter feeling of disappointment was almost more than he could bear.

Steeling himself, he put his hands down on the bottom of the stool seat and pushed it into place over the open port. The spell he decided to try was a simple one, one he had performed countless times with little effort: a basic wizard lock that would seal the wood seat to the wooden frame of the porthole. Ignoring the pitch of the ship and the water that sloshed around his ankles, he took a deep, controlled breath and released it. He willed his body to relax and his mind to focus solely on the wild magic he could feel around him.

The power was still there, in the wood of the ship, in the water around him, in the force of the wind and waves that surged against the struggling ship. It was this continued presence of magic that made Ulin so frustrated. It was there within his grasp, tantalizing and mocking, yet every time he tried to form a spell and bend the magic to his will, something seemed to pull a plug and drain the power away, leaving him weak, empty, and somehow diminished.

This time was no different than countless other times. He formed his spell, focused on his magic, and felt it fade from his grasp like smoke. There was nothing he could do to stop it. He dropped the stool in disgust. Something tickled his neck, and he swatted at what felt like insects brushing by his neck. Probably mosquitoes, or maybe fleas from the bunk. He couldn’t tell in the dark. It seemed odd he hadn’t noticed fleas before.

“I’ll find the carpenter’s store,” he said, his voice terse. “We’ll nail it in place.”

Lucy nodded once and sank back on her soggy bed, too disappointed and seasick to stay upright.

“Maybe this will help,” Challie offered. From under her wet pillow, she handed Ulin her small, perfectly balanced hand axe, beautifully wrought and sharpened to a deadly edge. A leather sheath protected the head of the axe, and finely woven strips of leather covered the handle.

Ulin offered his thanks and hurried to his task. From previous explorations on the freighter, he knew where to find carpenter’s store just off the galley one deck below. The difficulty lay in making his way over the wet deck. Theirs was not the only porthole or hatch that had given way under the weight of the giant wave, and sailors struggled above and below decks to keep the bilge pumps working, to find and repair the damage, and to check the cargo. The ship’s carpenter was already in his small storeroom handing out iron nails, boards, rope, and caulking to the crew.

He listened to Ulin’s tale of the porthole, then thrust a handful of nails in his direction. “Take these. Find something to nail over the hole. I’ll be along soon as I can—if we don’t sink first!”

With the nails, a stool seat, and Challie’s axe, Ulin accomplished what he could not do with magic. The porthole was blocked and the relentless rain and seaspray pouring into their cabin dwindled to mere trickles.

To everyone’s relief, the huge wave that broadsided the ship proved to be a rogue, and the rest of the waves that night were not enough to overwhelm the tough freighter. When dawn came, gray and wet, the storm moved on to the east and blew out its fury over Sable’s vast swamp. The ship was left in its wake, her crew battered, soggy, and thankful to be alive. By noon the sky was a serene sapphire.

Ulin and Challie pried the seat cover off the porthole to let the sunshine and warm breeze pour into their wet cabin. Hours of mopping cleared out the water on the floor. They carried their soggy belongings and bedding outside and, with Captain Tethlin’s permission, spread them out on ropes and the rigging. They carried a weak and shaky Lucy out on deck, too, and propped her in the sun. Her normally healthy complexion was a sickly shade of white, and her thick chestnut hair hung in lank strands, but she smiled at the sun and quickly fell asleep.

With the ship now floating on a calm sea, the ship’s cook prepared hot food. His galley boy brought a tray out to Challie and Ulin on deck where they had settled down for a long-needed rest.

Ulin took one look at the thick, steaming soup and groaned. “Chicken and dumpling,” he groaned. “The gods save me from chicken and dumpling.”

Challie’s brown eyes lit with unexpected humor. “Be thankful, Ulin. They almost did. You nearly became seafood yourself.”

He snorted, but he took the bowls from the puzzled boy and served Challie. With a look of resignation on his lean face, he dipped a spoon into the broth and took a long, suffering sip.