D. Jackson - Dead Man's reach

Ramsey’s laugh was dry as brittle wood. But that was of little interest to Ethan, who had noticed something else. At the moment his conjuring touched the aqua shield, Ramsey’s spectral guide appeared beside the captain’s bed. The old, bent figure of a sea captain remained in view for but an instant before vanishing again. But that was enough to tell Ethan that the captain was using a different sort of power to maintain his domed warding. Reg appeared when Ethan cast his own wardings, but not each time another conjurer’s assault tested his defenses.

Ramsey held no knife in his hands; Ethan wasn’t sure he could. And yet he had no doubt that the captain expected this encounter to end with a battle of conjurings. What was Ramsey using as the source of his power? Were some members of his crew conjurers? Was he using them as he had used Ethan this past fortnight?

Ethan brushed himself off and got to his feet. Ramsey cackled.

“Did you believe a simple conjuring would defeat my warding? Or did my mention of your woman banish all reason from your mind? Perhaps she is dead then, and that particular barb found its mark.”

Saying nothing, Ethan edged closer to the bed. Despite Ramsey’s assurances, the sailors guarding him stepped forward, blocking his way.

“I thought we were to fight without interference, Ramsey,” Ethan said.

“You’re close enough, I believe. You could stand with your nose but an inch from my warding and it would do you no good.”

“Then why not allow me to do that?”

He gave the captain no time to reply. Slashing at his arm again, he said, “ Falx ex cruore evocata. ” Blade, conjured from blood.

It was not a spell he would have used under ordinary circumstances. Blade spells were vicious conjurings that could literally carve a man’s body in half. But he assumed that Ramsey’s crew were warded, and would survive the assault. And few spells struck at their victims with such force, which was exactly what Ethan wanted.

The spell pulsed, and the men went down like ninepins. Ethan strode past them, cutting his arm again as he went, only to halt and sway at what he saw on the far side of Ramsey’s bed.

A second spell pulsed-it might have been a blade spell as well. Ethan was tossed backward as if he were no more than a rag doll. He landed in a heap near where he had been standing before he advanced on the bed.

But now he knew.

“Damn you, Kaille!”

He had managed a glimpse, no more. But the image would not soon fade from his mind.

Beyond the large bed that held the captain, but still within the protection of the dome, stood a smaller, lower pallet. And on it lay a man-one of Ramsey’s sailors perhaps, or more likely some hapless innocent brought here for the captain to use and discard.

This poor creature was naked to the waist, his body covered with bloodless gashes. He appeared to be unconscious; Ethan wondered if Ramsey had him under some sort of conjured thrall. And beside him, on a low stool, also hidden from view and also warded, sat another man-definitely a sailor-who held a knife over the one bloody wound on the torso of his victim. Ethan guessed that the sailor cut the man after each of Ramsey’s conjurings, so that the captain would always have blood for his next spell. He wondered how many men Ramsey had bled to death since his arrival in Boston.

Most of Ramsey’s men were back on their feet, tending to the few who had yet to recover from Ethan’s spell. The captain, though, paid them no heed. He stared daggers at Ethan, his disfigured face twisted with rage.

“You’re barbaric,” Ethan said. “You know no shame.”

“What choice do I have? I can’t grip a blade or pluck leaves of mullein from a pouch as you are wont to do. I have only this.”

“How many of them have you killed?”

“Fewer than you think,” Ramsey said, in a tone he might have used to discuss the recent snowstorm. “There is a good deal of blood in the human form, and our spells require surprisingly little.”

“And what of the unfortunate soul who must wield his blade on your behalf? What damage have you done to him?”

“Don’t pretend to care about my men, Kaille. You fool no one. He understands my need, and he was one of several who offered themselves for this particular service.”

Ethan wasn’t sure if he was bothered more by what the captain’s man had to do, or by the fact that he believed Ramsey when he said the sailor had volunteered for such gruesome duty. But he knew this to be Ramsey’s greatest weakness, and he believed that if he could convince the sailor to stop cutting his victim, or if he could incapacitate the sailor even for a short while, he might break through the shield that guarded Ramsey.

Once more he thought of how Ramsey’s spectral guide had appeared when his spell struck the aqua dome. Was it possible that Ramsey had to cast a spell-and thus needed fresh blood-each time the warding was tested?

He had no chance to satisfy his curiosity. Ramsey muttered something that might have been “Enough.” A conjuring hummed in the floor and walls, and Ethan was struck once more by the force of a spell. It seemed to be directed at his bad leg, which was swept out from under him. He dropped to the ground. But if it was a shatter spell intended to break the bone, it failed.

From where he lay on the ground, with blood still on his arm from the last cut he had made, Ethan countered with a conjuring of his own.

“ Aperi hiatum ex cruore evocatum. ” Open chasm, conjured from blood.

He aimed the spell at the ground beneath the dome, hoping the opening would swallow the bed and Ramsey with it. But once more the dome shuddered and the spell turned back on Ethan. The floor opened, seemingly rent by giant unseen hands. The widening split raced toward him. Ethan rolled to the side, tottered on the edge of the crack, and with one last racking effort, threw himself onto solid ground.

Again, though, he had noticed that when his conjuring hit the shield, Ramsey’s ghost appeared, albeit for the blink of an eye. He felt certain that in maintaining the protection of the dome, the captain had taken still more blood from the unconscious man beside him.

“Our wardings serve us well,” Ramsey said, watching Ethan as he climbed to his feet yet again. “You escaped my fire spells out on the street. I might have been too gentle with them.”

This time the pulse of power brought another ring of fire. Like the last, this one began to press in on Ethan, the heat of it making him shield his face with an upraised arm.

“The circle of fire created by the detection spell was meant to cause you pain,” Ramsey said, pitching his voice so that Ethan could hear it above the roar of the blaze. “This one will only contract so far. How long can your endure such agony, Kaille? For how long will your warding against flames work?”

Too long, Ethan knew. His spell would protect him from the flames as long as he remained alive, and so if he could not escape this fiery ring, the agony would go on and on. He assumed that another extinguishing spell would not work, and he could not leap through the fire to safety. But what if he convinced Ramsey to extinguish the flames for him. Ethan ran toward Ramsey’s bed, and as he expected, the circle of fire moved with him, as it had on the street. He veered off just as he reached the domed shield and pressed himself to the warehouse wall.

The flames licked at the wood and then caught. Ethan heard the crack and snap of burning lumber.

“No!” Ramsey said, barking the word. “ Exstingue ignem ex cruore evocatum. ”

The fire sputtered and went out, leaving a small section of the wall charred and smoking.

“You fool!” Ramsey was trembling and breathing hard, a sheen of sweat on his face.