Servant: The Dark God Book 1 (41 page)

Argoth knew if he followed Shim’s advice and usurped power in the New Lands, he’d face the
Ardent
at sea, and she would sink anything he sent against her. She’d shut down all trade. She’d land cohorts of men on any beach she liked. And she wouldn’t be the only one. Others would be built like her. He suspected the only way to fight her would be to harness a Skir himself and blow the fire back in her face. But there were no Skir Masters in the Order. And he saw that the Skir Master was right: such ignorance posed an immense danger to them all.

“Are you finished?”

Argoth turned, expecting to see the Skir Master standing right behind him. But the Skir Master stood almost a ship’s length away at the rear of the aftercastle. It had not been a shout, but a voice right behind him.

“Clansman?”

It was the Skir Master, a whisper almost. He could have counted it as a trick of the wind, but the Skir Master’s lips had not moved. He stood gazing at Argoth across the length of the ship.

“We are finished,” whispered Argoth.

“Meet me in the officer’s mess,” said the Skir Master in his mind.

* * *

Argoth stood with the Skir Master at the table. Leaf sat with quill and vellum. Bowls of firewater, sulfur, and pitch lay between them. A burning candle stood off to the side.

“You will teach me how to make the seafire,” said the Skir Master. “I must be able to replicate it before morning.”

Argoth felt a light wave of desire wash over him. “Of course, Great One,” he said. And for the first time he meant it. The Skir Master
was
great. A fine man. No, not just a man. A master.

Moments later the desire ebbed and left him standing in shock. He’d always imagined it would be more like a battle, a contest of wills. But this thrall did not batter him down; it simply turned his will traitor.

“Well?” said the Skir Master.

Argoth brought himself back to the task at hand. “Let us begin with the firewater, but may we open the windows? The vapors are not good to breathe.”

The Skir Master opened the windows, letting in a small, but ineffective breeze. Then Argoth began. He told them how one gathered the firewater from black springs and distilled it. When Leaf had captured every detail on the vellum, Argoth poured a small measure into an empty bowl. He picked up a cord and held it in the candle’s flame until it ignited. Then he brought the cord over and touched it to the liquid that immediately spat to life.

Argoth said, “Such is good for firepots, but you want something that will burn on water and cleave together like tar. For that we must add pitch from pines and terebinth trees and a fine sulfur powder. Such a mixture can be extinguished only with great quantities of vinegar, urine, or earth.”

He told them how to make the pitch, how to find sulfur of the right color and grind it to powder. Leaf wrote everything up, moving the pen with as much grace as he walked. But he did not write quickly and made Argoth repeat his instructions numerous times.

An hour passed, maybe more. They moved to the process of mixing. He showed the Skir Master how he had to mix the firewater and sulfur first and wait. He showed him how he could tell this preliminary mixture was correct by the color of the flame, and the quantity of smoke. Then the Skir Master demanded to do it himself.

Argoth walked the Skir Master through each step and admired his quick mind, the way he said aloud what he was doing as he did it.

At one point, the Skir Master stretched as if to relieve his back, and Argoth found himself standing next to him holding a chair.

“Perhaps you’d like to sit, Great One.”

“No,” the Skir Master said and waved him off.

Argoth was crestfallen. “Forgive me,” he said and replaced the chair. How could he have been so stupid as to offer a chair? Who needed chairs? Certainly not someone as strong and capable as the Skir Master.

Argoth resolved to be silent until spoken to. He stood aside, watching the Skir Master continue with the preparations.

Argoth suddenly realized he was in a very special position, for how many had the opportunity to stand in the presence of such a great man? How many people had the opportunity to share their talent with him?

Argoth was among a fortunate few, and he beamed at his fortune.

In the back of his mind a resentment and anger twisted upon itself. How dare this man take on such honors with lies? But Argoth began to admire the fine lines of the Skir Master’s hands and the thought passed.

The Skir Master arrived at the step where he needed to measure in the pitch, but he had too much in the cup. Suddenly the Skir Master stopped.

“No, I don’t,” said the Skir Master. “One measure. That is what you said.”

Argoth was disoriented for a moment. Had he actually spoken those words unbidden? But Leaf looked as confused as he. Then he realized the Skir Master had heard his thoughts.

And in that moment Argoth knew he did not have two days. He didn’t have one. The thrall was changing him, bending his desires and forming a link between their minds. It might take two days for his admiration to bloom into full worship, for his thoughts to roll open like a scroll before his Master. But long before that the Skir Master—

He cut himself off. He needed to move them down to the lower deck next; he needed to get to the barrels of seafire.

The Skir Master looked up. “What did you say?”

“A semi-liquid is what we want,” Argoth said. “Too thick and you’ll plug the pumps and lances.”

Argoth felt light-headed. He needed to think and not think. He walked to the window to breathe in fresh air. The sun had sunken low in the west. Over the horizon lay the New Lands and his wife. Nettle. Shim. Their images cleared his mind. “Great One,” he said. “We’ve been using bowls. If we want to produce a great quantity, I fear we must move to a larger, more ventilated place.”

“There are too many eyes and ears on the main deck,” said Leaf.

“Then let us work on the lower deck, where the materials are.”

The Skir Master looked at the bowls and nodded. He turned to Leaf. “Have this moved to the lower deck. And I want something to eat.”

* * *

Half an hour later Argoth stood on the lower deck, the barrels of seafire half-a-dozen paces aft of where they were set to work. The cook’s boy brought three bowls of food to them. Both the Skir Master and Leaf were given beef, pickled radishes, and rice. Argoth was given a foul-looking stew full of knuckles, the hard cartilage between bones. He dipped his spoon in and saw a white hair poking out. He plucked it up. It wasn’t a hair, but a whisker still attached to the severed muzzle of a rat. Argoth dropped it back. He turned the stew with his spoon. There was an ear and a foot, and who knew what else.

He set the stew aside.

“Eat,” said Leaf with a grin.

“I’m fasting,” said Argoth.

“Eat,” said the Skir Master. “We have a long night ahead of us.”

The Master was right. Of course, he should eat. The food may be filthy, but he needed his strength to teach. Argoth dipped his spoon into the stew, filled it with a hearty helping, and brought it to his mouth. It stank, and when he put it in his mouth, he convulsed, but the Skir Master needed him, so he crunched the knuckles and other bits anyway and swallowed the mess down.

The voices of the men above deck carried down. The Skir Master scooped the last clumps of rice from his bowl and set it aside. “It is too quiet. We need more privacy. Order pipes and dancing.”

Leaf nodded and took the stairs above. Soon the pipes started and the men began to pound deck. Leaf returned, this time with grog, which he held out to Argoth.

Argoth was sure someone had pissed in the cup, but the Master had said he’d need his strength, so he brought it to his lips and immediately thought of Nettle. The boy had pissed in his cup once as a child when they’d weaned him from diapers. He’d cleverly, if mistakenly, used it as a chamber pot.

Argoth put the mug down.

Upon the table two open-flame lamps burned. They were there for light, but also to test the mixtures. Unfortunately, they were too large to fit through the bung hole of a seafire barrel.

The Skir Master looked at Argoth with puzzlement on his face.

Argoth cursed himself and quickly shifted his focus. It was good the bung holes were so small, he thought. Very safe. Very much like keeping the lamps away from the bed when he and Serah made love. However, the crew should be banned from this area. No telling what careless men might do. Argoth said, “Let us compare your mixture, Great One, with the finished product.”

“Leaf,” said the Skir Master and gestured at the barrels with his chin.

Leaf walked over to one of the barrels, easily worked its lid off and set it aside. Then he dipped a cup and brought it back to the table.

The open flame of the lamps on the table, the bowl of dark seafire, the opened barrel just paces behind—he doubted he would get a better chance.

The Skir Master narrowed his eyes.

“Observe the consistency,” Argoth said.

The Skir Master reached out and grasped both lamps and pulled them back slightly.

Argoth dipped the thumb and two fingers of his good arm into the bowl of seafire and rubbed them against each other. He held them out for the Skir Master to see. “That is what you want, Great One. Mark it.”

“What are you hiding?” asked the Skir Master.

He should not hide things from the Master. He should tell him all. He looked down at the stomach that contained Nettle’s Fire. Better yet, he would show him.

He dipped his fingers again, making them good and wet with the moisture. “Here is what I hide,” he said, and then he stuck his fingers in the flame of one of the lamps. His fingers flashed blue, then spat into flame. Argoth brought them up between him, Leaf, and the Master.

The Skir Master raised an eyebrow in alarm.

Then Argoth mustered all his will, turned, and dashed for the open barrel.

“Stop him!” shouted the Skir Master.

Argoth raced to the barrel, his fingers burning.

One pace from the open barrel, Leaf grabbed his splinted arm and jerked back.

The pain screamed up his arm, but he’d fought through worse. He turned and shoved his flaming fingers into Leaf’s eye, wiping seafire along the eye socket and nose and up the tattoo.

Leaf cried out, raising one hand to his face, but he did not fully release Argoth.

Argoth twisted and chopped down with his good hand, and then he was free. He turned, lunged for the barrel.

“Stop!” the Skir Master commanded.

Argoth froze, the barrel only inches away, the pain of his blackening and blistering fingers shrieking up his arm.

The Skir Master strode toward Argoth, displeasure on his face.

Horror overtook Argoth: what had he done? How could he have betrayed his Master? He almost fell to his knees. But there was one small part of him that wanted something else.

“Nettle,” he said.

“Down!” ordered the Skir Master.

Argoth faltered, but then he mustered his strength. “Nettle,” he said. And suddenly the Skir Master’s command seemed less important than it had. His son’s sacrifice would not be wasted.

“Nettle,” he said more forcefully. This was for him and for Grace, Serenity, and Joy. For Serah. A battle cry rose within him, and he shouted his son’s name. “Nettle!”

For one brief moment his mind cleared, and he thrust his burning fingers into the black liquid waiting in the barrel.

A blue-green fire raced over the surface.

Argoth almost faltered from the pain, but he snatched his hand back and wrapped it in his tunic, wiping off both flame and skin.

The seafire in the barrel spit, flashed, and then, with a cracking thunder, flames exploded upwards. Thick smoke poured forth and rolled along the ceiling.

The Skir Master took a step back.

Argoth retrieved the hatchet he’d stowed between the barrels earlier. He brought it up and swung it against the rope binding the barrel, splitting it cleanly.

“No!” the Skir Master said.

“Yes,” Argoth replied.

Leaf was on his knees, violently trying to wipe the seafire from his face with his tunic. The Skir Master leapt over him.

But Argoth grabbed the lip of the burning barrel with the head of the hatchet and pulled with all his weight. The barrel toppled over, splashing the burning seafire over the deck. The remaining contents of the barrel spilled forth, washing over and around the Master’s boots, circling the man.

The blue flame raced over the surface of the widening pool.

Argoth backed away.

The Skir Master looked down at the spreading fire. Then the pool of seafire burst into flame and choked the passageway with smoke.

Clasping the hatchet, Argoth turned and ran. Men shouted from the stern. The cook stepped out holding a long knife, probably the very knife that had hacked up the rat that had gone into his soup, and looked up the passageway. Argoth swung the flat of the hatchet and struck the man in the face.

The cook fell back, and Argoth raced past him up the stairs to the main deck. Thick brown and yellow smoke billowed out of the hatches, the Skir wind carrying it forward over the deck into the sailors who had recently been dancing. An officer shouted for a team to descend with barrels of sand.

Argoth leapt up the stairs to the aftercastle and raced to the stern. A dreadman stood by the helmsman. “The Skir Master,” Argoth shouted. “Help me get the ship’s boat in the water!”

The dreadman hesitated, then joined Argoth. He ran to the rope and pulleys of one of the davits, Argoth the other. But Argoth had no time for an easy lowering. He hacked through the ropes and his end of the boat swung down and out.

The unexpected weight caught the dreadman off guard. The rope raced through his hands, burning them. He stumbled forward, cursed, and looked at Argoth with anger.

The boat had fallen, but not all the way. It dragged behind the ship, half of it still out of the water.

Argoth raced to the dreadman’s side. He acted as if he were going to hack through the tangle. Instead, he buried his hatchet in the man’s leg.

The dreadman yelled out.