D. Jackson - Dead Man's reach

He said nothing, but turned back to the last of Ramsey’s conjured barriers.

A simple fire spell, a ring of flame, fireballs raining down upon them. What had Ramsey saved for this final spell?

“The ground,” he whispered. Then louder, so that Mariz and Sephira would hear, he said again, “The ground. It’s going to melt or turn to flame, or something of the sort. That’s what this last conjuring will do.”

“How do you know?” Sephira asked.

“I’m guessing. But I trust my instincts in this.”

“So what should we do?”

“I’m less certain about that.” He raised his hand and held it a hairsbreadth from the barrier. “Be prepared to run.”

He pressed his palm into the shimmering wall and felt the familiar release of power.

The ground beneath him started to give way.

Behind him, several men cried out. Rather than retreating toward them, Ethan leaped forward and crashed into the warehouse door. His teeth rattled with the impact and pain blossomed in his shoulder. But the doorjamb gave way with a rending of wood. He toppled into the building, sprawling onto the dirt floor, which was as solid as the ground outside had been before Ramsey’s last detection spell.

“At last,” came a rasping, uneven voice from the far side of the warehouse. “Now our battle can commence in earnest.”

Ethan jumped up, expecting to be beset by spells and armed sailors. But no attack came, and he was left to stare across the great room, his mouth agape as he struggled to comprehend the scene before him.

Earlier this very day-before sunrise, although it seemed as though weeks had passed-Ethan remarked to Mariz on the appearance of Ramsey’s illusion, and the possibility that, because of the fire at Drake’s Wharf, the captain had made the figure look as he once had, rather than as he did now. But never had he thought to see Ramsey in such a state.

He sat propped up by pillows in a large bed, blankets covering him to above his waist. Even from this end of the warehouse, Ethan could see that his unruly dark hair and unkempt beard were gone. The lone window in the building had been covered, and the only light came from a few candles that had been set on barrels and crates, and from a vast shining aqua dome of power-faint, transparent, but, Ethan was sure, as impermeable as steel-that surrounded the bed and its occupant. Still, Ethan could see that his skin was waxen and pale.

Ten sailors stood around the bed, some armed with knives and lengths of rope, others with pistols. They watched Ethan, like wolves guarding their pack leader.

“Come closer, Kaille,” Ramsey said, his voice barely discernible above the shouts from outside of Sephira and the others. “Come see what you’ve done to me.”

Ethan glanced back at the door, which stood ajar, pieces of the splintered jamb on the floor. He hadn’t noticed before, but Uncle Reg still stood with him, his bright eyes fixed on that aqua shield.

“They can’t help you. I’m not entirely sure that they can help themselves.”

Ethan started toward the bed with deliberate steps, his gaze sweeping over Ramsey’s men. Reg followed him. Ethan held his knife ready, though he had little doubt that the captain had warded the sailors.

“You needn’t fear them. They have strict orders not to touch you. They are here to guard against interference from others. I’ve made it clear to them that you are mine.”

The closer Ethan drew to the bed, the more horrified he grew at what he could see of the man lying in it. Ramsey, who once had been as dashing and vital as he was mad, now was disfigured almost beyond recognition. The flesh on his face and head appeared to have melted like ice in the spring and then solidified again, misshapen and hideous. His lips had been burned away, so that his mouth was a slanting gash across his face. His nose was little more than a flap of skin. He had no eyebrows or eyelashes, and the skin around one of his eyes drooped, so that it was barely open.

It was as if a careless child had begun to mold a face from clay, only to tire of his art and leave the visage unfinished.

The only aspect of the captain’s face that struck him as at all familiar were the eyes themselves. Pale, almost ghostly, they were intelligent and hard and they peered out from the ravaged mien with such hatred Ethan had to resist the urge to flinch away.

“I’m glad you’re here, Kaille. I feared that you might allow some other conjurer to fight this battle for you. I thought you’d bring Miss Windcatcher with you, or Pryce’s pet conjurer. It came as some relief to see you fly through that door.”

Ethan couldn’t bring himself to speak. He stared at the man; the face, the emaciated form, the thin, bony hands, which were as scarred and grotesque as his mien.

Ramsey’s mouth quirked in what might have been intended as a grin. “Hideous, aren’t I? You did this to me.”

“No,” Ethan said, finding his voice. “You started the fire. You started the war. You did this to yourself. I’m no more responsible for your burns than I am for the deaths of Christopher Seider and the men who were shot last night.”

“You left me to burn!” Ramsey said, his voice rising to a rough screech. “You were content to let me die! But I saved myself, and I healed the burns.”

Ethan winced.

“Aye, that’s right! I healed myself. As terrible as this face might seem now, it is better by far than it was in the days and weeks after we sailed from Boston.”

Ethan tore his gaze from Ramsey and considered the shield of power that covered the bed. It was the same hue as the detection spells, and it glimmered similarly, its lustrous surface reflecting the candlelight as might a glass bowl.

“You can’t defeat it,” Ramsey said. “Not without killing me. And yet, you cannot kill me without defeating it. A conundrum, wouldn’t you say?”

“I thought you wanted to fight me, Ramsey. And instead you hide in this conjured cocoon. That hardly seems fair.”

“Fair?” the captain said. “ Fair? I can’t walk, Kaille. I can’t hold a weapon. I have nothing left but magicking. And you dare speak to me of fairness?”

“Ethan!” Sephira’s voice.

He looked back toward the door once more.

“They cannot enter. The building is surrounded by flames and molten stone, as from the great volcanoes of the Mediterranean. Have you seen them?” Ramsey asked, abruptly sounding wistful. “Etna, Vesuvius?”

Ethan shook his head.

“I have. My father took me once, and I have been back since. But no more. Never again shall I captain my vessel past Gibraltar or along the shores of Italy. The life I have known is lost to me, and so I seek to deprive you of your life, as small recompense.”

“How have you used my power for your conjurings, Ramsey? What manner of spell allowed you to do that?”

The captain offered no answer save to lift the corners of his scarred mouth in a ghoulish smile.

“Come now,” Ethan said. “One of us will be dead before this morning ends. Surely no harm can come of revealing your secret now.”

“The harm comes from telling you nothing, from allowing you to die in ignorance, without the satisfaction of knowing how you have been bested again and again and again. How is your woman, by the way? Did that man in her tavern kill her, or did you rescue her in time?”

Ethan’s arm was bleeding and the spell was on his lips before he knew what he had done. “ Discuti ex cruore evocatum! ” Shatter, conjured from blood!

Ethan’s conjuring thrummed, and at the same time, the aqua dome shielding Ramsey seemed to shudder. He had time to realize his mistake, but could do nothing more before the spell rebounded and struck him. His warding held; the shatter spell did not break any of his bones. But once more he was knocked off his feet so that he landed hard on the dirt floor.