George Martin - The Way of the Wizard

A roar as a shadow passed over his head, and then a heavy weight slammed into his shoulders, knocking him to the ground. He thought that the tiger had found him, pouncing from the balcony above, but then he saw Esek rise beside him.

“The treasure’s mine!” Esek said. “And Every’s whore too.”

Proctor saw the knife in Esek’s hand but he was unprepared for how quickly the smuggler moved to cut his throat. He twisted away just in time to feel the blade slash his cheek. The big sailor’s fist followed a split second later, connecting with his temple and snapping Proctor’s head against the floor.

“Hold still, damn you,” Esek said. “There’s no reason this can’t be quick.”

Proctor had no intention of letting it be quick. His left hand fumbled at his belt for his tomahawk, but it was twisted under him as he tried to roll away from Esek. His right hand grabbed blindly for a weapon, but all his fingers found was a bolt of silk. It was better than nothing, and Proctor whipped it around just as Esek slashed at him again. This time the knife bit into the fabric, which Proctor twisted, knocking the knife out of Esek’s hand; he then shoved the bolt into the smuggler to tangle his arms and knock him down. Esek grabbed a handful of coins and flung them in Proctor’s face, then rose and charged at Proctor again.

The tomahawk came out. Esek warded off the first blow with his forearm. The second split his skull and stuck there like a maul in a piece of wood. Esek toppled to the ground, pulling the weapon out of Proctor’s hand as he fell.

Proctor stood there shaking from the suddenness of the attack, the sharpness of the pain across his face, and the thought of having killed a man he knew so quickly, so easily.

“You had to do it,” the woman said, slipping the cord around her neck and tucking the bag inside her robes.

“We needed him to sail the ship,” he said.

“No we don’t,” she answered. “We only need to cut it loose and go. Follow me.”

“Wait a moment,” he said. He had to put his boot on Esek’s face to pull free his tomahawk, and then he stopped to wipe it on the bolt of silk before slipping it back into his belt. “Now I’m ready.”

They exited the palace in just a few moments and crossed the rocky shore toward the ropelines. Deborah rose eagerly from her seat.

“Are you all right?” she called. “You’ve been gone a long time.”

“I’m fine,” Proctor said. “This is—”

“I am the moghul’s wife,” the woman said softly.

“—a friend,” Proctor called back. To the woman, he said, “Can you make your way across the ropes?”

“I can,” she said, and climbed up on them as one who’d had some practice. Proctor watched her make her way across and then glanced back at the palace, where he thought he saw a face briefly at one of the upper balconies. Every would not let this treasure go lightly. Not if he had sacrificed so much to keep her here. The woman was barely halfway across the ropes when Proctor followed her. He moved more quickly than she did, and was catching up to her in the middle, when he heard Every scream behind him.

“You can’t have her!”

Proctor was twisting around to reply with reason, such as it was, when a pistol cracked and a ball whistled past him. The moghul’s wife gasped and slipped from the rope.

Every stood on the shore with Esek’s pistol in his hand.

“Hurry,” Proctor said. “Before he can reload or follow.”

“I don’t… think… I can,” the woman said. A dark stain spread across her robes. Her hand slipped off the ropes and she fell into water.

Proctor let go and dropped after her. The water was ice cold, worse than he expected, and he swallowed a mouthful. He floundered for a moment, gagging on the salt and trying to catch his breath, when he saw her robes. He swam over and grabbed them, intending to drag her to safety. He went to hook an arm around her, but he found the robes were empty — he had mistaken their waterlogged weight for a body.

“Proctor—”

Deborah’s voice called his attention to shore. Her extended arm carried it back out to the water. In the channel between the islands he saw the tiger.

He looked frantically in either direction for the moghul’s wife and then he swam desperately for the shore. When he looked over his shoulder, the tiger paddled after him. His arms and legs were going numb from the cold when his knee banged against a rock, and he realized he had made it. Slipping and stumbling, he pulled himself up onto the rocks. He was shivering from the cold and his fingers refused to grab hold of anything. Deborah clutched a fistful of his jacket and dragged him to higher ground.

It was not far enough or quick enough. The tiger splashed ashore only yards behind him.

He grabbed Deborah’s arm and choked out words through chattering teeth. “The moghul’s wife is—”

But there was no time for anything more. The tiger surged out of the water and climbed up the rocks behind him. He rolled over onto his back, reaching for his tomahawk. He could grab the beast by the scruff of its neck… maybe blind it… give Deborah a chance to escape…

The tiger was wounded. Blood poured from its side.

It took another step toward Proctor and he reached out to grab it.

His hand missed…

… and the tiger transformed into a naked woman, her body shivering with the cold, her face contorted in pain, and she fell across him, gasping.

“The moghul’s wife is the moghul’s sorcerer,” Deborah said.

Deborah had put on her heavy coat against the fog that morning. Now she pulled it off and quickly wrapped the other woman in it.

Proctor’s brain felt sluggish, as if he were only now putting together the pieces of a puzzle that was obvious to everyone else. The moghul’s wife was also the moghul’s sorcerer. When Every had captured her and tortured her, he had brought her here with him, to his hideaway. She built the palace for herself, a place where she could hide from him. But from time to time she had to come out, and when she did, she took a form that was not so easy for him to abuse.

And now Every came for her again across the ropelines.

The tomahawk was already in Proctor’s hand. He scrambled to his feet and hacked at the lines where they were knotted to a post. The sound of the iron striking wood was answered by a cry of rage. Proctor struck again and again.

The top rope parted and Every fell into the waves.

Proctor hacked at the lower rope and cast it also into the water.

“He cannot swim very well,” the moghul’s wife said. Deborah’s coat was wrapped around her, and Deborah’s arms were wrapped around the coat. “We must hurry and cut loose his ship.”

“I have to treat your wound,” Deborah said.

“Aboard the ship,” the other woman answered. She looked at Proctor. “I was in too much of a hurry. You appeared at my left shoulder, and not my right. It was an evil sign. But I had been here too long already.”

She tried to stand on her own and fell. Proctor scooped her up in his arms and lifted her. She barely weighed anything.

Behind them, Every had floundered back to the far shore. “You can’t have her. Do you hear me? She’s mine.”

The woman shuddered. “Please. Please help me get aboard the ship. I want to see sunshine again… ”

“Can you wrap your arms around my neck and hold on tight?” Proctor asked.

“Yes, I can,” she answered with grim determination.

“Then I will get you aboard. Deborah?”

“I’ll go first,” she said.

“Good. I don’t want you here if he makes it ashore.” Deborah climbed back up to the ship as quickly as she had climbed down. Proctor followed deliberately, holding on tight to the injured woman with one arm as he slid along the ropelines up to the rotting ship. They could see the island of skulls and bones from the deck. It was impossible not to recall the sight of the tiger atop that pile of bones.