The Fifth Sorceress

Prologue The Sea of Whispers

The once-proud war galleon was named the Resolve, and she listed drunkenly in the nighttime sea, her seams slowly failing while she tried to hold back the brackish ocean that pressed relentlessly against her sides. Her ship’s wheel tied off on each side and her sails belayed, she rolled awkwardly at the mercy of the elements. The crew had tried to keep the ship’s lanterns lit, but the squalls of rain kept extinguishing them, finally forcing a surrender to larger torches both fore and aft. The firelight cast oddly shifting shadows upon her gently rolling hulk, revealing areas of scorched and destroyed deck and railing.

The old wizard in the rain-soaked gray robe was named Wigg, and he looked with tired eyes down the length of the galleon from his stand in the stern as lightning occasionally scratched across the cloudy, starless sky. Three of the galleon’s masts lay broken at impossible angles upon the rain-soaked deck, intertwined with frayed, seared rigging that snaked randomly about in the wind as if it had a life of its own. He watched with sadness as even the saltwater spray coming over the gunwales had no effect upon the blood that had dried there.

The war has been hard on this ship, he reflected. At least the bodies were taken ashore before we were ordered to sail. The urgency of their orders had left no time to make repairs. Strangely, once at sea, those same repairs hadn’t seemed so important.

He turned, the wet, braided wizard’s tail of gray hair falling forward over his shoulder, and glanced toward the restless ocean and to the lines from the galleon, which held in tow a much smaller vessel. The second boat followed behind in jerky, hesitant intervals, like a petulantly dallying child not really wanting to catch up to a scolding parent. Gray, froth-tipped waves occasionally licked up and over the sides of the fragile craft. For the hundredth time he wondered if it would be seaworthy. And for the hundredth time he reminded himself that it probably didn’t matter.

There were thirty-one of them on board, not counting the prisoners in the hold below, and none of them had spoken since the tattered sails had been dropped from the lone remaining mast and the ship’s wheel tied off, leaving them adrift in the stormy sea. The remainder of the ship’s company was evenly divided between seamen and military officers. They now stood before him in two neat lines awaiting their orders, anxious to relieve themselves of their burden.

He beckoned to the captain of the guard, painfully remembering once again that the man had no right arm, another casualty of the war. The old one knew this man to be a loyal officer, but tonight the look in the captain’s eyes told the wizard that this officer, no matter how true, was hesitant to discharge his duties. The same disconcerting look was on the face of each man that stood with him. The old wizard watched as the captain approached slowly, his black cape wet and sticking to the collar of his breastplate.

“Bring them up,” Wigg said simply.

The captain blinked his eyes in the rain. Despite the loss of an arm there was neither man nor blade that he feared, but this was different. All night he had been trying to summon the courage to ask the question. And all night he had been reminding himself that second-guessing the orders of any of those in the gray robes was never wise. Cautiously, he began to put words to his fears. “Forgive me, Lord, but are you sure they have been sufficiently weakened?” he asked. They had been sailing due east for fifteen days, and during that time they had severely limited the prisoners’ rations as per the wizard’s orders. He searched the old man’s eyes with his own, even himself unsure of what he wanted to hear.

“We have no choice,” Wigg said gently. He understood only too well the other man’s apprehension, for it was in his own mind, also. The wizard glanced anxiously upward as another crooked tree branch of lightning tore across the sky, followed by the inevitable rumbling of thunder.

“I have my orders from the Directorate. Besides, you know as well as I that fifteen days into the Sea of Whispers is the farthest we can go. Even if we were to pause here and wait, we could easily drift past the point of safety. This far out, the sea is bottomless. No anchor ever made could hold us here.”

He looked past the captain’s armless shoulder and into the frightened eyes of the seamen and officers. He was not pleased to see that fear was now turning into restlessness. “If we were to go farther into these waters the crew would mutiny,” he added, raising an eyebrow for emphasis as he turned his gaze back to the officer standing nervously before him. “And perhaps rightly so. No, we must finish this now, whatever the outcome.”

The captain bowed shortly and commanded a small company of officers to follow him below. The wizard looked back out to sea, not anxious to face the ones they were to bring up on deck. There had already been so much death and suffering.

May the task I am about to perform produce no more, he thought.

He closed his eyes and ran one hand down his creased, rain-soaked face, deeply inhaling the heavy, salt-laden air, remembering the past that he would much rather forget. The four prisoners belowdecks had been the leaders and the most difficult to capture, their followers protecting them to the very end at the cost of their lives. They had ruthlessly conducted a scorched-earth policy from which it would take generations to recover. Thankfully, as far as he and the recently formed Directorate knew, all the rest of their confederates had perished in the insurrection.

The flat, iron-braced door to the hold suddenly lurched up and over, falling backward noisily onto the shattered, rain-slick deck. One by one, four women emerged, their bare feet shackled in irons, their hands manacled in front of them. Even as powerful as he knew himself to be, he felt a chill go up his spine as the soldiers prodded the prisoners into line before him. Each in turn raised her face. He could feel the hate in their eyes bore its way into his brain, reminding him once again of who and what they were.

Sorceresses of the Coven.

The blond, the redhead, and the two brunettes stood unsteadily but defiantly before him on the slippery, rolling deck. Their once-luxurious gowns were torn and scorched, and their hair was disheveled, matted against shoulders and breasts. He tried not to notice the Pentangle that appeared upon each dress in faded gold embroidery.

The rationing of food and water over the last fifteen days had produced the desired effect. He had hated having to give the order to restrict their nourishment, but it was the only remotely humane way to maintain control over them. They looked thinner and weakened. Weakened, he hoped, to the point that they were now powerless. At the very least, enough so that he could overcome their combined efforts if need be. For unlike his Brothers, the females of endowed blood had found a way to join their power, making them far more dangerous when together. He had petitioned the Directorate for hours to have at least one more wizard accompany him in this madness, but they had declined. Too many from their ranks had already died, they said. Therefore, as he was the most powerful of them, the task had fallen to him alone. He took a deep breath, looking into their malevolent eyes, taking stock of what he saw in them.

Weakened, yes. Humbled, never.

He chose then to glance at the thirty men lined up behind the women, wondering if he would see lust in their eyes, hoping he would not have to waste any of his power trying to control them, too. But the only emotion he saw on their faces was fear. Fear bordering on terror.

He turned his attention to the woman at the end of the line to the right. Tall and still shapely, despite the effects of near starvation, she was exquisitely beautiful. The streaks of premature gray in her black hair only gave her a more dominating demeanor. It had been a decade since he had last seen her, but it seemed she hadn’t aged a single day. Rather nervously, he now noticed that it appeared as if none of the others had, either. This one was the most powerful of the Coven, he knew. The leader of the leaders. He stepped before her, carefully searching her face. When she brought her hazel eyes up to his, they seemed to glow in the dim light of the torches. He had always been drawn to those eyes, no matter how many times he looked at this woman. Hers was a countenance born to give orders, a fact the wizard was all too familiar with.

She bluntly spat into his face.

“Wizard bastard,” she hissed. “I shall live to see you dead.”

Without emotion, he wiped the spittle from his face. It was mixed with blood.

Exhausted, she bent over unsteadily upon the rain-slickened deck, coughing up more blood with the simple exertion of having spoken even so few words. Despite her crimes, part of the old wizard’s heart wanted to go out to her, but he pulled back his emotions. He had his orders, and he knew that it was imperative that he complete his task now, while he still could.

The woman to the leader’s right was also dazzling, despite her current physical condition. The jet-black hair that fell, knotted and filthy, to her waist could have been made of strands of silk, and the almond-shaped eyes dominated the exotic, delicate face. She smirked at him as she seductively raised her manacled hands upward, coyly brushing her breasts, only to throw her hair over one shoulder. He tried not to watch as the wind swayed it enticingly back and forth behind her.

He increasingly wondered how many of the supposedly unbelievable legends about them were actually true. How far had their version of the craft progressed? he asked himself. Sadly, such thoughts only increased his concern for the now-vulnerable men standing behind them.

The exotic one turned toward her leader to help her to stand upright. But the leader roughly pushed her Sister’s help away, preferring to rise on her own. The wizard knew she would refuse to show weakness in any way. Once again holding herself upright, albeit with obvious difficulty, she raised her hazel eyes to his.

The rusty manacles came up between them as she held a broken and dirty fingernail before his face.

“Your Brothers all think you have won,” she breathed hoarsely. She tilted her head ominously as a crooked smile spread across her parched, cracked lips. She narrowed her eyes. “Tell me, Wizard, are you yourself so sure?”

Wigg struggled to remain emotionless. He slowly took two paces back and a step to the left to once again face the center of the row of women. He remained outwardly calm but was left with the hollow, stabbing feeling that she had somehow knowingly tapped into his greatest fear. Had he not known her for almost his entire life, her words would not have affected him so. She never made idle threats; she wouldn’t waste the time.

The lightning was more frequent now and the rain came harder, occasionally flying sideways and stinging his face, the salt of the sea air invading his nostrils and lungs. He must complete his orders now, before the weather worsened and made the galleon’s return impossible. Raising his voice against the wind, he addressed the four manacled women who stood before him, the mangled ship rocking heavily back and forth beneath them.

“You have been collectively tried and found guilty of crimes against humanity,” he began, looking sternly into all four pairs of eyes in turn. “The charges include inciting civil war, revolution, murder, the rape and torture of both sexes, and systematic pogroms of military and civilian citizens alike.” He paused, tears running down his face, the water from his eyes tumbling to join the water from the sky already there. “The physical and psychological damage you have done will take generations to repair. We can see no end to the calamities you have caused.” Each pair of eyes remained defiant and unrepentant.

He paused. So be it.

“Despite the overwhelming demands from the populace that we separate each of you from your heads, the Directorate has chosen to be compassionate.” He steeled his resolve, still not believing what he was about to say. “Therefore, it is the order of the Directorate that you be exiled for the remainder of your lives. Be forewarned that should you ever return, the Directorate claims the right to kill you on sight. Nonetheless, may the Afterlife have mercy on your souls.” The words made him teeter on the edge of being physically ill. Not because the punishment was so severe, but because it was so forgiving.

A cry of protest immediately arose from the ranks of crewmen and officers, and after a gesture from the wizard, the captain had to stand fast to silence them. As the shouting subsided, they stood together in shocked disbelief, their lines now ragged and disorganized. The restlessness in their eyes was beginning to turn to blatant anger.

He glanced toward the Coven’s leader for her reaction. A brief look of shock had passed across her face like a summer storm, only to be replaced a split second later by narrowed eyes, a slight nodding of her head, and a faint smile of understanding.

“Of course,” she said, taking triumphantly dead aim at him with her words. “Your oath. We’re weakened. You must obey your ridiculous vows.” The menacing smile widened. “That oath will one day be your undoing.” Her gaze darted overboard to the tossing waves. “So it is to be done here, in the Sea of Whispers.” She again lowered her head as she shook it back and forth knowingly. “A clever solution, wizard. Hypocritical, but clever. I commend you.”

Ignoring the insults, the wizard commanded that the skiff in tow be hauled alongside and secured to the galleon. A rope ladder was lowered down the length of her rain-soaked hull and into the smaller craft as the storm fought violently to separate the two. Crewmen anxiously scrambled like a small army of busy ants as they readied the skiff, anxious to be done with it. Casks of hardtack, salted meat, potable water, and two lanterns were lowered in. Oars and the components of a rudimentary mast, sail, and rudder were also carefully lowered down, but left unassembled.

At the direction of the wizard, the captain of the guard unlocked the shackles and manacles, freeing the women. The captain dropped the manacles noisily to the deck as the women began to flex and rub their wrists, blinking their eyes in the rain. He then beckoned three of his officers forward, ordering them to draw their swords, as he also did. A sword point to each of their backs, the women began to shuffle stiffly toward the now-open gunwale gate.

The wizard watched as each of the first three turned to look him in the eye before clambering down the crude rope ladder and into the skiff. Their leader was the last. As she turned to face the wizard for the last time she pulled a wet shock of mixed gray—and-black hair away from her face, curling it behind one ear. Being free of her irons seemed to have somehow emboldened and partially energized her, and he found it unsettling to see her confidence beginning to return. Partway down the ladder she paused, continuing to hold his eyes in hers. Once again the damaged fingernail waggled threateningly.

“Your new, so-called Directorate has miscalculated, Wizard,” she gloated. “The food and drink will give us strength. My first order shall be to set sail back to our homeland and plan your death.” She spat again, and a combination of blood and spittle ran slowly down the side of the galleon and into the sea.

Then, to the captain’s puzzlement, the wizard extended the first two fingers of his left hand, pointing them at either side of the rope ladder. Immediately, the ropes on each side began to uncoil and separate, causing her to fall the remaining distance into the skiff. He then pointed to the heavier lines securing the skiff to the galleon. The captain watched in amazement as the heavier lines immediately separated in two and the skiff and the galleon began to drift apart.

The wizard turned quickly to the captain of the guard. “Set sail,” he said. “Due west. Home. Free the ship’s wheel, and be quick about it. We have no desire to travel any farther into the Sea of Whispers than we already are.”

Visibly shaken, Wigg walked once again to his favorite spot at the stern of the ship and leaned against the rail. He looked up at the stern torch. Narrowing his eyes, he caused it to extinguish. The rain was abating, and with the torch out he could see that the clouds were gradually parting and the usual three red moons were rising into view, bathing the calming sea in their customary, rose-colored translucence. Looking at the familiar moons, he took comfort in the fact that despite what he and his countrymen had endured, some things never changed.

He could now easily make out the dark shape of the receding skiff. As he continued to look, a yellow light suddenly winked on from the craft. One corner of the wizard’s mouth turned upward in recognition, his suspicions confirmed. He had purposefully given them no physical means to bring flame to the lanterns. He also knew that light would be their most immediate need in order to prepare their small craft to make way against the storm. Therefore, they must have summoned the remainder of their collective power to conjure forth flame to light the lanterns. That would leave them completely weakened; also, the light would give him a way to identify their position for the last task he was to fulfill. He remained silent and motionless as the captain of the guard came to lean against the rail beside him.

“So you were right,” the soldier said slowly to the old one. “They did have a small reserve of power.” He paused. “But my conscience forces me, Lead Wizard, to tell you that this is a mistake.” The captain’s eyes were neither angry nor resentful, but sadly skeptical. “We had all assumed that they were due for execution. The only thing we couldn’t fathom was why we were risking our own lives to take them out to sea in this barely adequate craft.” He again paused, watching the small yellow light as it slowly grew smaller still. “Now we know.”

He turned his face to the wizard. Young eyes that had already seen too many of the horrors of life hungrily searched the wizards profile for answers. None came. He decided to express his opinion anyway.

“Many of my officers who have lost loved ones in the hostilities feel they have been cheated by not letting their swords take their vengeance. I must admit that I also do not understand. Those women were the last of their kind. Each of those bitches should have been killed, and the pieces thrown to the sharks.”

The old one in the soaked gray robe didn’t answer, but continued to watch the receding light, as if he were temporarily lost in the past. He had no need to verbalize to the captain the unspoken sentiments that each knew he shared with the other, and the wizard’s legendary silence could be deafening. After what seemed an eternity to the young soldier, the wizard named Wigg finally took a deep breath and broke out of his reverie as if he were speaking only to himself.

“We gave them a chance once, long ago,” he mused. He smiled at the look of surprise on the young captain’s face. Sometimes the wizard forgot that he was so old, and the war had lasted so long. The death and the dying had seemed such an interminable part of his life that it was easy to forget he had ever enjoyed a peaceful existence before the outbreak of war. The offer he spoke of had been made before this man was even born. He sighed. “But you wouldn’t know about that. As their numbers and power grew, we offered to share power equally, and in peace. But they refused and chose war. With them it was all or nothing. Wizard against sorceress. Male against female. Light against dark.” He slowly shook his head. “We are very fortunate to have prevailed.” He paused, his index finger rubbing back and forth across his lip as if making a decision.

“With the sorceresses gone I am now at liberty to tell you certain things,” Wigg began. “Once the final four had been captured, we were forced to restrict their sustenance so as to be able to control their joined power and make them stand trial,” he said slowly, the truth of it obviously causing him both pain and frustration. “However, after the trial and the women being so weakened, the Directorate collectively ruled that execution would be tantamount to murder.” He turned his aquamarine eyes once again toward the captain. “And our vows forbid murder. Because of his power, it is forbidden for a wizard to take a life other than in urgent self-defense or without prior warning. Life imprisonment was considered, but posed too many ethical problems. The indefinite imprisonment of the sorceresses would have dictated continuance of their weakened state, resulting in certain death from disease, and therefore would also have constituted murder. A true wizard’s conundrum. Exile was the only choice. And the Sea of Whispers was the only answer. Here there was an outside chance, as far as we knew, for their survival.” He shook his head sadly. “She was right about one thing, you know. It was a clever choice. Hypocritical, but clever.”

“But what stops them from doing as their leader said?” the captain pressed. “You have given them virtual freedom with their own craft, oars and sail, and food and drink. Their power will return, and they’ll set sail for home.” He shook his head in his disbelief of the Directorate’s foolishness, while at the same time trying to control his anger. He couldn’t believe so many had died only to see these women set free upon the ocean. “Fifteen days is not a long time.”

“To them, it will be an eternity,” the old one said. He smiled. In his frequent conversations with the young captain, he was reminded of one of his father’s favorite sayings, which had often been repeated to him in the early days of his training in the craft. If youth only knew how, and if old age only could. And even though it seemed so long ago now, the phrase always proved just as trustworthy as ever.

“The provisions are not as they seem,” Wigg said simply. “I altered them. The number of casks that were lowered into the skiff appeared to be enough food and drink for weeks. But if you were to ask any of your men who did the work, you would be told that each of the containers was suspiciously light. Indeed, even if rationed there is only enough for five days at best. The false appearance of that much sustenance was designed to make them climb into the skiff willingly, and anxious to be off.” He returned his gaze to the yellow light as the Resolve began to gain way slowly, the tattered and scorched rigging now raising her best sails up the lone remaining mast. He again remembered that many of the sails themselves were also badly damaged. It would be a slow trip home. He looked carefully into the face of the captain. “Do you now understand?”

The captain smiled, nodding slowly. “Of course. The first thing they will try to do will be to eat and drink their fill. They will want their power back. But when they discover the shortages, they will have to ration themselves.” He smiled broadly at the image. “Their power will not increase.” Proud of himself, the captain laughed aloud to the ocean, thinking the riddle solved.

His smile faded again as he saw the wizard silently staring at him with those infernally blue eyes of his. There must be more to it. He had often been told that the mental processes and physical actions of wizards were piled upon each other in seamless intricacy, carefully constructed layers of thought and deed. Trying to understand the ones in the gray robes was like trying to peel an onion: A layer was removed, only to reveal another beneath it. It was never easy to fully understand them. Few outside of the craft ever tried.

“And can you imagine what else, Captain?” the wizard asked. The younger man could tell that Wigg expected more from him, but he was unable to give it. The old one again raised an eyebrow. “No? Consider their plight. Their hold belowdecks had barred windows. They knew when it was day or night. Therefore, they also knew that we were fifteen days out.” He laced his fingers and rested his forearms on the rail. “It is common knowledge that no ship has ever survived a journey of greater than that distance into the Sea of Whispers, even when wizards were aboard. And no one knows why. The ships just never returned. The women only have enough food, even if rationed, for five days. In their already-weakened state, an attempt to travel the extra ten days west toward home would result in death from starvation. Or rather, suicide. Their only answer will be to travel east, into the unknown despite the danger, in the hope that they strike landfall in no more than five days.”

Layers of thought and deed, the captain thought to himself. But he still saw anxious concern in the old face as though there was more yet to do. The answer was quick in coming.

“Captain, please go to my quarters and fetch the teak box you will find in my locker. Take care not to drop it.”

Upon returning with the box the young officer watched the wizard remove what appeared at first to be an ordinary velvet bag. From the velvet bag came forth a bowl of blue glass, slightly larger around than the outstretched fingers of the old man’s hand. It looked to be as fragile and ancient as the wizard himself.

Closing his eyes and balancing the bowl upside-down upon his thumb and fingertips, the old one stretched his arm to the sky. For a long silent moment the wizard waited, and something in the captain told him not to move or speak. In the rose-colored light from the trio of moons, the small skiff, with its faint yellow light, was now visible.

The wizard suddenly raised the bowl higher. As he did so the ocean beneath the skiff took the exact shape of the bowl, surrounding the sorceresses’ little boat perfectly in its center, lifting the small craft high over the surface of the ocean at the top of a tall column of seawater. No sooner had the captain’s mouth fallen open than the wizard dropped the leading edge of the bowl forward. The huge, distant bowl of ocean water responded immediately, spilling the skiff down the forward falling rush of water and carrying it east, away from the galleon at least one entire league.

The skiff’s lantern vanished from sight in the distance.

The wizard raised, tipped, and lowered the bowl nineteen more times in a row. Then he unexpectedly cast the bowl to the deck, showering it into pieces. As it flew apart, the captain, his mouth still agape, saw a faint blue light start to glow from the pieces, and an unusual aroma came to his nostrils that reminded him of lily petals and ginger. The broken shards then suddenly combined into a quickly rising, brilliant azure vortex that careened upward, whistling hauntingly through the rigging and sails, eventually fading into nothingness.

The wizard finally opened his eyes, exhausted, leaning against the rail for support.

The captain closed his mouth. His knees were trembling.

“Soon they will be an additional twenty leagues farther to the east,” the old one said, finally satisfied. “The destruction of the bowl ensures that the process cannot be reversed, even by them. Any thought of their return to our shores should now be extinguished.” He silently prayed for all of the future generations of his homeland that what he had just said would come to pass. But secretly, he wondered if it had been enough.

He turned around, looking west once more and down the length of the Resolve’s decks, the braid of wet gray hair turning with him, and he lowered his head in fatigue.

As the galleon limped west, the captain’s mind once again embraced the realization about those with endowed blood that he would not soon forget.

Layers of thought and deed, he said to himself, shaking his head.

Layers of thought and deed.

Dawn broke harshly over the small craft as it bounced freely in the waves, revealing a clear, sun-filled sky. Various casks of food and water lay opened and partially consumed upon the deck of the skiff, gently bumping back and forth.

The first to wake was the leader, her black—and-gray hair spread crazily over her face and breasts. Pushing her hair back, she tried to stand, angrily remembering she was still tied down. They had quickly secured one another to the deck as the wizard had begun to push them to the east. She loosened her bonds and sat up. She had understood his plan when the first of the casks had been opened, even before the giant waves had begun. She fruitlessly searched the barren horizon with her eyes, thinking.

Wizard bastard.

I will live to see you dead. Someday you will pay. You all will pay, including any of the inferior male offspring you may spawn.

She splashed saltwater on the faces of her Sisters, awakening them. Coughing and blinking, they loosened one another’s bonds and sat up. Sullenly, the three other women raised their eyes toward hers in silent concern.

Squinting toward the morning sky, their leader noted the position of the rising sun. Slowly raising her arm, she pointed out over the empty ocean. “Make sail,” she said hoarsely. “We head east.”

Looking nervously among themselves they reluctantly did as she ordered, and the small craft began to make way, each woman aboard knowing instinctively that heading east was the only choice. The only chance.

The exotic one with the long black hair raised her dark, almond eyes to her mistress, silent questions implicit on her sensual face. The leader looked down at her, the food and drink having already begun to restore the gleam in her manic, hazel eyes. She tenderly placed a palm to one of the woman’s cheeks.

“Even if we perish, my Sister,” she said with her crooked smile, “never forget the one of us who sacrificed everything to a lifetime of seclusion in order to stay behind in our homeland.” For the last time she turned her eyes west toward her lost home, searching the endless, invisible line where the turquoise sky met the darker blue of the sea.

“At least one of us still thrives there.”

She bent to pick up an oar.