Майкл Салливан - Deep Magic. Fourth Collection

“No?”

“To her, if you aren’t of Spanish blood, you’re as good as a heretic. But love transcends all borders. Before I returned to sea, I asked her hand in marriage.”

Capricho tried to batten the hatch against his emotions like he had so many times, but the air tingled, compelling him, and he could not stop the flow. “I thought of nothing else at sea. My bread was the dream of our future. Her wedding gift was to be a hacienda on the Spanish Main.”

His chest tightened, the pain pushing against Silganna’s enchantment. The power of the curse of his broken heart. Even in death it refused to release. And yet, here he was, about to confess to a strange being his greatest shame. He fought against it, but it was no use. Whether by enchantment or by catharsis, he had to speak this.

“When I returned, another hand had claimed her.” He breathed deep, exhaled. “She died of influenza while I was off chasing dreams.”

Silganna’s eyes glistened. The cavern kept time by the plink of water droplets. Finally, she spoke. “You could not have helped this.”

“Qué? How do you know? Had I been by her side, my presence might have given her the strength to survive.”

“You do not know this. You afflict your soul to no purpose, Capricho.”

The pain coiled. “It is my soul to afflict. Not yours. Mine.” The spell broke. He pushed her hand away. “If I am alive, return me to my ship.”

Silganna searched his eyes. “I wonder how sure you’d be if the wound no longer burned.”

“Just as sure. I can love no other.”

The music of falling droplets. The rise and fall of Silganna’s chest became the endless waves of the sea.

“Very well.”

Blackness consumed him.

Within a horseshoe-shaped cove, the gibbous moon illuminated lush hillsides, hunched like weary giants before a white sand beach. Surf spilled into the bay, surging in silvered froth as it rolled across the shallows and broke upon the shoreline. The galleon El Pez Volador rocked with each wave, anchored securely in the center. Her roughly furled sails glowed in the moonlight, ghostly arms of torn canvas lifting forlornly in the breeze.

Flames flickered in the firebox, splashing crimson and amber across the forecastle bulkhead. A few men on the late guardia de modorra watch huddled around the fire—sodden, slumped, and silent. The rest were below, gunners in hammocks strung between cannons, sailors stacked in orlop bunks, officers in berths at the stern. And within the once empty berth of the great cabin, their captain now tossed in fitful sleep.

Capricho moaned and rolled to his side, shivered as mists spilled through his dreams.

He was aloft in enchantment, sailing a skiff across an ensorcelled sea. Off the bow loomed a cracked and weathered monolith, dark as blood, standing fast against the timeless pummel of waves. He sheeted in, drew the sail tight, set course for the crag. As he approached, he caught sight of a jagged snag atop it. Mottled brown and black roots rambled from its stump, draping the rock in gnarled and twisted tendrils. He knew this tree in his heart of hearts.

It had once been a willow.

Capricho doused sail and, coasting alongside, leaped from the skiff. He grabbed hold of a dangling root, climbed it like a rope. Fire lanced his grip—the root burned his palms like acid. He swung a leg over the ledge, released the cursed thing, and stood. The root snaked away, wormed down into the cracks again.

He approached the jagged stump. Its roots constricted in response; rubble tumbled into the water. The thing was tree no more. It clutched and cracked and choked the rock in violation of what once had been a glorious tree with arching green branches that swayed gently to the tempo of the wind. Now, it was as brown and blackened as a bloodthirsty leech refusing to release its hold. Capricho's chest constricted tight. How could the thing of his fondest memories have become so hideous over time? How could he have let it twist and defile itself into such a monstrosity?

Capricho pulled his sword from its scabbard, the sound of steel ringing out. In response, the stump snapped a root at Capricho like a whip. It struck his cheek, drawing blood, and the pain shocked him. The living tree was gone, and yet it had no desire to yield or to die—it just sought to crush and destroy, rooted in its place.

The root lashed again. Capricho dodged, gripped his rapier with with both hands, brought it down with a chop. The air filled with the shriek of red hot steel being quenched; the severed root writhed upon the stone, scoring it with acidic, black-blood sap. Capricho kicked it over the ledge, turned in time to see another root scrabble from a crack and wrap itself around his boot. He jerked his leg, stretched the root tight, and sliced again. The severed root slapped wildly across the rock.

Acrid smoke rose, burning his nostrils. Bitter air entered his lungs. His head ached. Capricho had fought the Caribs, he knew poison. The stump was poisoning the life out of him. Had been for a very long time. And if he didn't fight back now, right now with all his might, it would smother him in brume once again . . . and this time, he would never break free.

The stump snarled, raising blackened oily appendages like a kraken rising from angry depths. Capricho entered the swordsman's detached state of battle, his mind dividing the area into planes of attack. He danced swift among the roots, met each as it lashed out with a deft stroke of his blade. Smoke billowed from the stump; splattered ichor burned his hands. Capricho lunged, slammed a shoulder against the gnarled snag. He lunged again, and again, heard a crack. The taproot snapped. Heartened, he shoved with all his might and the stump broke loose. He pushed the hulk to the ledge, shoved it over. It plummeted to the sea.

It bobbed upon the surface, sprouting a vision of a glorious willow, green branches swaying over two lovers, resting against its smooth trunk. Then it sunk slowly under, ending in a flash of green.

Capricho sighed and whispered a line of verse:

A gurgling surge. Capricho whirled. From the stump’s hole in the rock, a glittering fountain sprang up. Myriads of pear-shaped diamonds hovered midair in the moonlight, then descended, washing down the scored sides of the monolith.

Capricho stepped close to the fountain’s pillar. A woman’s face shimmered in the column, blossomed from the surface. He leaned in.

“Diedre?”

She smiled with lips so inviting. He pressed his to hers. A cool liquid tongue pushed over the white shoals of his teeth. Capricho gulped again and again as her refreshing waters flowed into him.

The Spaniard’s eyes flashed open; the vision evaporated. He gripped a wool blanket, found it dripping with moisture. He jumped to his feet, got a fix on his bearings. Thin beams of moonlight entered through the shutter slats.

His ship. His cabin. His berth.

Capricho raked his hair back. “ Qué? Was I dreaming?”

He stared at his map table, hissed. In the center rested a crystalline statue of a mermaid. She sat atop a stone, waves of hair looped over her shoulders, but it was spilling down her form in streams of silver waters.

“Que diablos?”

As he spoke, the statue’s head turned. Its eyes stared brilliantly into his, radiant as morning stars.

The shutters blasted open. Brisk air rushed in. The breeze moaned, swirling round and round the whorls of Capricho’s ears. Faint liquid chuckles chimed.

“ La sirena! You were real.”