The Voyage to Magical North (8 page)

A guard loomed, sword raised. Peter ducked, and Trudi took two quick steps back and muttoned the man in the back of the head. Red droplets splashed across Peter's face. He hoped they were from the meat. He wiped them off on his sleeve.

Brine clutched at his shirt from behind. “Peter!”

Light flashed at the top of the stairs. In a daze, Peter saw Cassie O'Pia come tumbling down. Ewan Hughes was on her heels, the back of his head still smoking, and behind Ewan came a shape so dark and twisted it made Peter's eyes ache. He tried to shout a warning, but the sound never came. Or maybe it did, but the noise of the ceiling exploding drowned it.

There followed one of those long, curious pauses that seemed almost peaceful compared to what had gone before. Everyone lay staring at one another while the dust settled in a gray drift. Then they all—pirates, guards, even Baron Kaitos—picked themselves up and ran for the door.

The starshell pieces twitched in Peter's pocket. The air was filled with magic, and they were absorbing it fast, but Peter didn't have time even to think about using them. The fleeing crowd swept him along after Brine, and he burst through the doors into bright sunshine. He kept running until he was across the courtyard and out of the main gates. Pausing, he rested his hands on his knees, gasping in air, his chest and throat on fire.

The baron's tower was swaying. One of the turrets fell off and demolished a nearby tree.

The tower creaked, shuddered, and settled with a noise of rumbling stone. The baron couldn't possibly pretend it wasn't leaning now. The top of it looked as if it were trying to see around a corner.

“I don't think the baron is going to be happy,” said Brine, panting for breath next to him.

Peter straightened up and attempted a grin. “I don't know. The world's first-ever leaning tower. He can charge people to come and look at it.”

Cassie skidded to a halt beside them. “Come on, you two. We're getting out of here.”

Peter and Brine looked at each other. Peter shrugged. Stay here with an angry, ex-dead magician, or go back to the
Onion
with pirates who'd tried to sell him. It showed how bad things were that the pirates were the better option.

*   *   *

Cassie whooped as she slid down the last rocky slope onto the deserted beach. The rowing boats stood together, untouched. The news-scribe was still sitting on his rock. He had plenty to write about now, Peter thought.

“Well, that could have been worse,” said Cassie. “Though I think we may have overstayed our welcome here. Let's go.”

The soft crunch of footsteps on sand stopped her. They all stopped, then turned slowly.

Marfak West wore black, head to foot, and, unlike Baron Kaitos, black suited him. His bald head shone with the gleam of reflected magic. His midnight chain mail glistened, and his sable cloak undulated softly around him. Where he trod, little ripples spread out as if the sand was trying to get away from him.

The news-scribe scooped up his gull and fled. Peter would have followed, but his legs weren't working. He felt like he'd shrunk to the size of a beetle and Marfak West could crush him with one finger. Why had he ever thought he could stand in the magician's way? What could any of them do?

“Die!” shouted Ewan Hughes and leaped at Marfak West. The magician flicked his wrist, and a little ball of light shot from his hand to strike Ewan in midair, flinging him across the beach and into the boats. Ewan lay there, groaning.

Cassie stepped forward. “Your quarrel is with me. Let the others go.”

Marfak West shook his head. “Strangely, Captain, I have no interest in our so-called quarrel, not anymore. I want the
Onion
.”

Cassie's knuckles whitened on her cutlass hilts. “Over my dead body.”

“I always like it when people say that,” said Marfak West. He advanced on them, step by measured step.

Brine tugged Peter's arm. “Do something.”

Peter started to shake his head, then turned, met the full force of her glare, and learned that Marfak West was not the last word in terror after all. His face burned. Nodding, he edged his hand into his pocket and curled his fingers over his two scraps of starshell. Their magic buzzed against his palm. Peter did one of the few things he could do well. He drew an arrow in the air and pulled, trying to jerk the starshell from Marfak West's hand.

It was like trying to drag an island. Peter's muscles strained. A brief flash of surprise crossed Marfak West's lashless eyes, and he laughed. “Do you really think you can use magic against me?”

“Leave him alone,” shouted Trudi. It was enough to deflect the magician's attention for a moment. Peter's thoughts scrambled into another shape. He braced himself, then—instead of trying to pull the weight of magic—he reversed the spellshape, threw all his strength against it, and pushed.

Every action has an opposite reaction, Boswell said, which is why you should never throw magic at magic. Peter remembered that too late. His magic collided with Marfak West's and rebounded. His starshell pieces exploded to nothing in his hand. The force threw him backward, a hot pain skewered his right palm, and he sprawled, gasping, in the sand, seeing everything in flashes. Marfak West stumbled. Cassie crashed into him. Everyone else ran about, their mouths opening and shutting, making no sound.

Peter's ears popped painfully.

“… boats!” shouted Cassie. Tim Burre swept Peter up and dumped him in the nearest one. Ewan Hughes struggled in beside him and grabbed a pair of oars. Brine scrambled in at the back as Ewan began to row.

“All right?” asked Ewan. Peter nodded. The movement didn't make his head fall off after all. He opened his hand and stared at a small, perfectly round, charred spot of skin in the middle of his palm—the only part of him that didn't hurt. A few specks of starshell still clung to his skin—all that remained of the two starshell pieces. Peter picked at the flecks with his fingernails. So much for trying to hide the fact that he was a magician.

Orange fire arched overhead: Marfak West's last attempt to stop them. Ewan rowed faster, taking them out of reach. Then, somehow, they were alongside the
Onion
and ropes were uncoiling into their eager hands. They scrambled up and fell, gasping and bleeding, onto the deck. Ewan Hughes helped Brine to her feet and winked at her. “That was close,” he said.

And then a giant purple tentacle rose out of the sea and grabbed him by the throat.

 

C
HAPTER
9

Starshell provides the magic, but how it is used depends on the skill of the magician. An unskilled magician is wasteful—think of a child drawing shapes with a thick pen. But a great magician is like a skilled artist painting with a fine brush. With the tiniest amount of magic, he can perform wonders.

(
From
ALDEBRAN
BOSWELL
'
S
BIG
BOOK
OF
MAGIC)

Brine yelled as Ewan Hughes flailed frantically, almost chopping off his own head in his attempts to get at the tentacle that was simultaneously throttling him and dragging him off the deck.

“Octopus!” cried Cassie, leaping past Brine to attack. Her blade swung, embedding itself in rubbery flesh. She wrenched it free and struck again, and the tentacle uncurled and sprang back into the sea with the speed of a rope being released.

Ewan Hughes collapsed to his knees, scarlet-faced and coughing.

“What's the plural of octopus?” he croaked.

Cassie calmly wiped slime off her cutlass. “Octopuses, I think. Or octopi. Why?”

Something wet tapped Brine on the shoulder. She spun away, barely in time as a tentacle snatched at her. “Um…,” she began, but no one was listening. They were all too busy staring.

The
Onion
bobbed amid a forest of tentacles. They swarmed in from every side, swollen and shiny, their greasy colors groping in blind hunger at the edge of the deck. The sea between the ship and the shore boiled red, purple, and green with living creatures. And, out in the bay, striding across the backs of them all as calmly as if he were taking a stroll along the beach, Marfak West came walking.

Brine's mouth turned dry. “He's not really doing that, is he?”

“It appears that he is,” replied Cassie, chopping at more tentacles.

A crab landed on Brine's head. She jumped and shook it off. This was impossible. Absolutely, completely, totally impossible.

Marfak West continued walking. The light surrounding him flickered. “He's running out of magic,” said Peter. He turned to Cassie. “We can fight him. Even the most powerful magician in the world is only as good as his starshell. When he runs out of power, he'll be helpless.”

Brine doubted that, but she looked around for a weapon. All she could see was a bucket. She snatched it up and retreated toward the mainmast, trying to stay out of the way of the writhing tentacles. The deck was fast becoming as slippery as one of Trudi's frying pans.

Marfak West rose unsteadily into the air and landed on the edge of the deck. Brine heard herself moan in fear. Peter bumped into her—for once, she was glad he was close by.

Marfak West raised his hands. Magic flickered.

“Get him!” yelled Cassie. The pirates all charged together, apart from Tim Burre, who fell over the cat. Brine took a look at the severed tentacles around her, and an idea formed. It was a mad idea, but no madder than anything else that had happened already. She bent and began stuffing tentacles into her bucket.

“What are you doing?” asked Peter.

“This.”

She threw the bucket at Marfak West.

It stopped before it reached him and fell to the deck along with most of the tentacles, but some of them kept going and hit the magician with wet slaps. He picked a tentacle off his shoulder and flicked it away.

“I know what you're thinking,” he said. “You're wondering how much magic I have left. I've been using it so fast I might have run out already. On the other hand, I might have enough to smear you all over this ship.” He turned and, for a second, his gaze met Brine's. “Well?” he asked. “Are you willing to risk it?”

Brine shrank back against the mast, her heart pounding.

Then Marfak West snapped his fingers. “Come here, magician,” he said, and Brine realized with guilty relief that he wanted Peter, not her.

Peter took a jerky, unwilling step forward. Brine caught his arm and tried to pull him back. Rob and Ewan ran at Marfak West. Rob's clothes suddenly sprouted flames and he went down with a hoarse cry, and Ewan stopped and keeled over as if he'd run headfirst into a wall.

Then a flash of cream fur dashed across the deck. Stray magic sparked from Zen's whiskers. The cat skidded on octopus slime but kept running, and Brine saw what Zen had noticed: a particularly juicy tip of tentacle sticking out from underneath the magician's left boot. Octopus: his favorite. The cat reached it, seized it, and pulled.

Marfak West stumbled, his arms flying up in the air. A bolt of magic took out half the crow's nest. The startled cat snatched the tentacle and fled. The magician stepped back; his heel caught the slime trail, and he skidded, then sat down heavily.

Every pirate within reach jumped on top of him. A blinding flare of magic threw six of them straight off again, but the others kept hold.

Cassie crossed the deck, looked at the dripping cutlass in her hand, and rested the tip between the magician's twitching shoulder blades. “Surrender or die,” she said. “Or both, if you like.”

*   *   *

An hour later, the deck was scrubbed, Zen was asleep in Brine's lap, snoring off the biggest seafood feast of his life, and the crew were gathered around the mainmast watching Marfak West. The magician had been stripped of every last speck of starshell and was bound to the mast from his hips to his shoulders with so many ropes a hurricane wouldn't have shifted him. Brine still didn't want to go near him. Even magicless and bound, Marfak West didn't seem like a prisoner to her, and the way he smiled at the crew suggested that he regarded them not as his captors but as a captive audience.

No one else seemed to notice. Cassie sat on an upturned bucket, her cutlass in one hand and Marfak West's starshell in the other. Empty of magic, the three pieces were dull gray, dangling from their golden chain. Peter kept trying not to look at them and was being rather too obvious about it.

Brine leaned across to him. “I don't think you should be allowed any more starshell. You keep breaking it.”

He rubbed at his hand. “It wasn't my fault. You were the one who told me to do something.”

“You can't do anything without blaming me, can you?” asked Brine. It was a relief to be arguing with Peter again. It reminded her that at least one thing in the world was still the same.

“Do we get to throw the magician overboard now?” asked Ewan Hughes.

Cassie shook her head. “No one's throwing anyone overboard.” Her gaze flicked back to Marfak West. “Yet,” she added. She picked at the edge of her cutlass, flicking reddish scraps onto the deck. “I must say you're looking remarkably healthy, considering that the last time we saw you, you were dead.”

Marfak West's lips curled. “Did you really think I would die so easily?”

“Really? Yes.” Cassie grinned at him and slid her cutlass back into its sheath. “But we can't wait to hear all about the dramatic escape, so do carry on gloating.”

Marfak West leveled his stare at her. “Gloating is for fools who don't feel important enough. And you, Captain, are the biggest fool alive. You didn't see me die. You saw the
Antares
sink, and you sailed away to spread the news that you'd defeated me. But, while the eight oceans celebrated your victory, I clung to the wreckage of my ship. I hung on for days, surviving on rainwater and seaweed. Flesh-eating crabs gnawed all the toes from my left foot, but I held fast. Little by little, my starshell revived, and as my power returned, I drew together the last, smashed timbers of the
Antares
and made a raft.” He paused. “And then I enslaved a thousand squid to tow me across the ocean.”