Richard Byers - The Reaver

He grinned at the Red Wizard. “I’ll be honored to assist if I can.” He looked back at Falrinn. “Let’s catch up to the galley.”

“Sail my little boat into the middle of a fight between two warships?” the gnome replied. “Aye, Captain! When ice burns and wolves play the whistlecane.”

“Come on! It’ll be fun.”

“Why don’t you should swim over? That will be even more fun.”

The muscles in Anton’s neck tightened. Falrinn was being entirely sensible, but that didn’t make his recalcitrance any less frustrating. “My old friend-”

Umara touched Anton on the arm. Surprised, he fell silent.

The mage then smiled at Falrinn. “What if we were invisible?” she asked.

The gnome scowled, considering. “Well, no one aboard the Iron Jest would throw spells or shoot crossbow bolts at us. But can you hide the whole boat?”

“I think so. I have a knack for concealment and illusions.”

Falrinn shrugged. “If it works, I suppose I’m game.”

Umara took a long breath. Anton assumed she was clearing her head. She started to speak, and then a notion popped into his head.

“Wait,” he said. “Suppose we do get aboard the galley. Are you certain you’ll then be able to out-spell the weather worker?”

The Red Wizard frowned. “No. How could I be? But I have to try.”

“Maybe not. Not if you can wrap you and me in invisibility that lasts even after we leave the sailboat.” He looked down the length of the vessel. “Not if Falrinn can take us to the Jest instead of your ship.”

“I can ,” said the gnome, “but the idea is stupid.”

Anton grinned. “Probably. But I have a plan.” He turned back to Umara. “Would you like a tour of the proud vessel I once commanded?”

She smiled. “Why not?”

Anton retrieved his saber from under the shelter, and Falrinn hastily trimmed the sails. Eyes closed, Umara raised her hands over her head and recited words that somehow echoed even without any walls to bounce off. A scent like that of lilies suffused the air.

Then the entire sailboat and those aboard it faded from view. Anton laughed.

Falrinn, however, cursed. “You didn’t warn me I wouldn’t be able to see us, either! How am I supposed to pilot the boat?”

“By touch,” Anton answered. “If you can’t do it, you’re not the sailor I always took you to be.”

Still swearing, the gnome stamped around the deck. Ratchets clacked as he made further adjustments to the sails. Meanwhile, Anton took stock of just how hidden they were.

Plainly, the concealment was less than total. The boat’s wake extended behind it, and a keen eye could make out the rain splashing against surfaces that were themselves invisible. But in the feeble light of an overcast dawn, with everyone aboard the Iron Jest intent on the galley ahead of them as opposed to anything astern, it should suffice.

Once Anton determined that, he had nothing to do but wait while the sailboat made its approach. Fortunately, the smaller, lighter vessel was faster than its quarry, and, still growling obscenities from time to time, Falrinn was managing it with a deftness that justified Anton’s faith in him.

When they were racing along beside the caravel’s stern, the smuggler said, “This is as close as I can get.”

“How do we cross over?” Umara asked.

“You’re a mage,” Anton said. “I hoped you’d have a way.”

She laughed. “As planners go, you aren’t as impressive as you could be.” She recited another rhyme, and for a moment, he felt like mites were crawling on his skin.

Then a line trailing from the Jest lifted itself up out of the water and snaked through the air in his direction. He caught it, and then it slumped in his hand, lifeless as any other rope.

“Have you got hold of it, too?” he asked.

“Yes,” Umara answered.

“Then here we go.” He jumped over the side, and she, presumably, did the same.

The caravel dragged him through the cold brine, and he pulled himself hand over hand along the rope until he could haul himself out of the water and swarm up toward the deck. He noted the Jest was about due for scraping and recaulking, then grinned at his outmoded way of thinking. The condition of the ship was no longer his concern. If he had his way, it soon wouldn’t even be Naraxes’s.

Anton swung himself over the rail just below the quarterdeck, where a different helmsman stood in the same spot where One-Ear Grim had breathed his last. This close, Anton had more concerns about the rain spoiling his invisibility, but so far, the helmsman plainly hadn’t noticed him. Nor had the archers in the fighting top or the men clustered at the bow waiting to board the galley.

The hanging line swung and creaked as Umara climbed up behind him. Looking down, he could just make out the ghost her spell and the raindrops made of her. He took hold of her arm and pulled her onto the deck.

“Thanks,” she gasped.

“Are you all right?”

“Just winded. Crawling up a rope half drowned was harder than I expected. What now?”

“I’ll show you.”

As they skulked forward, he peered in an effort to spot the sea mage Naraxes had recruited. He couldn’t, though. The spellcaster was probably all the way forward, where it would be easiest to target the galley, and masts, cordage, and assorted reavers were in the way.

Well, if the fellow was at the far end of the ship, perhaps that was just as well. Anton took a cautious look around, then undogged a hatch. The ladder beneath it descended to a different section of the hold than the one where he and Stedd had been imprisoned.

With the hatch lowered again, the cramped, cluttered compartment was too dark to see anything more than shadows. Then Umara murmured a charm, and a patch of bulkhead glowed silver, revealing a miscellany of casks, crates, and tools.

“I take it,” she said, “you were counting on me to take care of this detail in the master plan as well.”

“Why not? Whoever heard of a wizard who couldn’t make light?”

“Now that I have, what are we looking for?”

“This.” He gestured to a box with cabalistic sigils painted on it, then remembered she couldn’t see him do that or anything. Smiling, he indicated the container by giving it a little shake inside the netting that held it securely on a shelf.

When Umara spoke again, her voice sounded from right in front of the crate. “These are signs of cold and quiescence.”

Anton sawed at the netting with his dagger. “And I paid a wizard plenty to draw them. Many a captain has doomed his own ship by bringing incendiaries aboard. Until this morning, I didn’t intend to be one of them.”

When he finished cutting the netting away, he pried the box open and lifted off the frigid lid. Nestled in straw, the round black catapult projectiles inside had arcane symbols of their own inscribed on them.

“It looks they’re all here,” Umara said.

“They are. A pirate can’t make much profit burning up the very prize he’s chasing. They were only for an emergency, and lucky me, I finally have a suitable one. Can you set them off from up on deck?”

“I can, but will it matter? The sea wizard put out one fire already.”

“Yes, but surely he was expecting Kymas to throw more flame. We can hope a surprise explosion ripping through the guts of the ship will befuddle him. Even if it doesn’t, flooding the hold to put out our blaze ought to pose its own problems.”

Topside once more, the pair of them phantoms in the rain, she whispered, “When I cast fire, I’ll reappear. I’ll veil myself again immediately, but still.”

“I’ll watch your back,” he told her.

She murmured hissing, popping words that had no business issuing from a human throat, then swept one vague, transparent arm down at the open hatch. A red spark shot from fingertips that simultaneously became opaque flesh and gleaming nails once more.