Anthology - The Search For Magic

Effram stared at the leather bag in his palm. It had a heavy, rich feel to it. He didn’t even have to jiggle it to know it was full of steel coins-more money, in just the one small moment, than he’d ever made in a month of selling carved bits of wood and old books.

Effram looked up to find Blaies and the bigger man watching him intently, knowingly. As if it was just what they’d expected. As if they’d thought, all along, that behind his facade of craziness had roiled greed and any number of other unsavory motivations.

“I don’t want money,” Effram said, and he handed the small, weighty bag back to the man. He tugged on the tiller until the boat moved in the direction the man had pointed. The man had the grace to look away, to flush and mumble, “Thanks.”

Blaies rolled his eyes, obviously thinking this was just more evidence of craziness. He braced himself against the rail, looking down into the water for more survivors.

The water was already up past the door that had been cut into the side of the small merchant vessel. The man’s wife and a passel of dark-haired children hung out the windows. Effram maneuvered alongside, and the man held up his arms to receive the first child. They came out the window one by one and huddled, wet and miserable, amidst the clutter of people already in the boat.

Effram peered at them through the rain, wondering if any of these were the brats who had yelled into his windows, thrown rocks at his porch, and climbed over his piles of freshly cut wood. All children looked alike to him, save for the differing colors of their hair.

He looked down at one of the children the man had handed into the boat, a little boy who was probably blond but whose hair was so wet and plastered to his skull that it looked as dark as Effram’s own. The child stuck out his tongue at him, than clambered to his feet and jumped up to grab onto the boom. He swung from it like a monkey.

Effram gave it a vicious twitch and jerked the child off. The child thumped in a heap to the deck and sent up a wail to rival the thunder. A woman crawled over, cuddled him, and looked in fear at Effram.

“Hush, now, you’re not hurt,” she said to the child. “You musn’t play on Captain Effram’s boat. Not after he’s saved us.”

Effram turned away, more uncomfortable with the kind words than he had been with the child’s playing. At least the child’s transgression was straightforward devilment. These adult’s words were something else. He’d seen her fear. He’d heard it.

By the time the last child had been dragged onboard, shouts could be heard from the ship-house next door. The man who had offered to pay him pushed the boat away from his house with his hands and pointed at the next one.

The boat was more sluggish, weighed down, and difficult to steer amongst the ships where there was less current.

There was another husband and wife and three soaked children clinging to the next ship. “I can’t believe this damned boat actually floats,” this new addition said, as soon as his feet touched the deck of Effram’s boat. He smiled sheepishly to ease the sting of his words.

Effram knew this face, too, and the grating tone. The man was a merchant in the main market, one of those who smiled nicely to his face then snickered and snorted when he went on his way. Effram’s anger must have shown in his eyes, because the man flushed and turned his head away.

A few feet away was another ship-house, crawling with bodies trying to avoid drowning. Effram directed the boat to them without being told and stood bracing the tiller, fighting the current’s attempt to push them onward, while those who could stand in the rocking boat helped these new ones climb aboard.

“All this time,” a man gasped, “I thought this thing was a waste of trees.”

Someone snickered in response and a woman shushed him, reprimanding him as if he was a naughty child. “Captain Effram saved us. He’s the only one who could.”

That silenced the snickers, but not the other voices. Where before there had been only the lonely, lovely voice of the storm, the crash and crack of thunder and lightning, there was now coughing and crying and gasping and moaning, screams for help and demands to be saved. Watery voices thanked the long-gone gods and the hands that reached over the railing and fished them from the sea to lie like gasping, floundering fish upon his deck. Some even touched the sanded and waxed deck beneath them with reverence and joy. Most of them thanked Effram. A few even took up the woman’s words and praised him as the “only one” who could have saved them.

Effram stared at those collapsed on the deck of his boat at his feet, sodden and pale as fish. They mouthed the right words, the words that should rightfully have come to him from the moment the first rain drop splashed down.

But they were too late. Too little.

“Should have said that to begin with,” he mumbled softly under his breath. “Should have said that all along.” He stiffened his spine and turned his boat towards the docks even though there were more waving, shouting people farther into the clump of prostituted ships. He could not bear to load more of that noise onto his boat.

“Hey!” Blaies waved to larboard as Effram turned the boat. “There’s more over there.”

Effram ignored him. He ignored the scowl of Blaies’s big friend. They would have to kill him to make him let go of the tiller. They would have to break his fingers to uncurl them from around it.

Effram looped his fingers through the rigging that controlled the sail. Ignoring the sharp pain of the lines, cutting into his flesh, he yanked on it. It gave, barely, the blocks squealing in protest as he put his weight on the line and on his hand. The sail edged up. Up the mast, reaching greedily for the wind.

The boat leaped forward, bringing shocked gasps from his passengers. He could almost hear their nails dig into the planks of the deck. His fingers felt as if they might fall off his hand, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care if the passengers all washed off the deck and back into the water from which they’d been fished so long as he got them off his boat. Quickly.

It was difficult steering the boat with one hand wrapped in rope and the other clamped around the tiller. The wind tearing at the sail was as strong and angry as he was. The current inside the harbor was stronger-strange, almost as if a whirlpool was building at its center, the water starting to froth and show little white-capped waves out across its gray, mottled surface.

Two passengers, a man and a woman, joined Blaies, protesting that there were still more people out amongst the wrecks. They all went silent at one glance from Effram. He growled, “If you don’t like it, you can swim.” It felt good to see them shrink back and shiver and clutch at their chests. It felt good to see even the big man stagger as Effram put his considerable muscle on the rigging.

His skin broke under the rough rope, and slick drops of blood dripped down his wrist like warm rain. The sail inched higher, catching even more of the mad wind. The boat rushed inland, toward the waterfront that was visible now through the gray air. Effram could make out the different buildings, the white stone of the main dock, the muted yellow of lanterns trying to shine through the storm.

The dock sped toward them at an alarming rate, approaching even faster as he hauled up more of the sail. A woman squeaked in fear, threw her arm over her eyes, then changed her mind and clutched at the person nearest her. Blaies staggered toward him, fists balled, then stopped. A flush of power ran down Effram’s spine, hot and spangled and sweet as wine. They wanted to stop him. They all wanted to stop him, but none of them knew how to sail his boat. None of them knew how to stop it from smacking into the wall of stone.