The Written (18 page)

Heold’s frenzied shouts were
drowned out by the noise as the wave tumbled onto the deck with the
force of a falling mountain. Farden grabbed the stair rail behind
him and clung on desperately while the ship rocked under the watery
avalanche. The wave washed the sailors from the deck and tossed
them into the sea like broken marbles and they yelled and shrieked
in the icy water. The mage was almost torn away by the rogue wave,
but the water quickly receded as the
Sarunn
somehow rode the crest and recovered. Farden
was washed sideways across the deck towards a hatch and he grabbed
at it. His head pounded, and he felt the sickening dizziness of the
spell’s wake. Karga was nowhere to be seen, and the mast sounded
like it was about to snap, splintering into matchsticks around the
base with whip-like cracking sounds and a terrible groaning.

‘Farden what have you done?’
Heold was on his belly on the top deck, wallowing like a manatee in
the salty water.

‘It was Karga!’ lied Farden. He
looked around desperately. The ship was going down fast. Water was
now pouring through the gaping hole in the deck and Farden stared
wide-eyed and fearful at the seawater gushing into the belly of the
ship. The fire spell and the wave had ripped the
Sarunn
almost in two, and now she was foundering miles
and miles from shore in a turbulent sea. Several of the crew still
clung to the rigging and screamed for Njord to save them. Farden
didn’t expect him to intervene.

The mage half-ran half-fell
down the stairs and his boots splashed in the rising water. It was
icy cold, and stabbed like daggers into his waist and chest. He had
to get to the tearbook.

Farden ran down the stairs and
corridor and dove over broken wooden planks and floating charcoal.
He pushed the door open and strode through the flotsam and jetsam
floating in his room. The ship was falling apart quicker than he
thought.

‘Where are you?’ He shouted.
Farden was panicking. The tearbook wasn’t on his bed, but he found
it hiding under the mattress in the water. He tore away his cloak
and breastplate and kicked off his heavy boots so that they didn’t
drown him. Grabbing the sack and the rest of his supplies, he
sloshed through the seawater and made his way back up to the deck.
Once there he tried to get as far away from the water as possible,
and made his way to the wheel. Farden shivered in the lashing rain.
The
Sarunn
was now pitching on her port
side and the mast was starting to crack in two. Farden found Heold
still lying on his front, shouting to his men and now clinging onto
the wheel to keep from being washed away. Farden wondered if he had
broken his back, and then he saw his legs. A spar of broken wood
had skewered one his legs, and smashed the other to a pulp. His
shins were a mass of broken bone and bloody flesh.

‘Get off the ship lad! She’s
done fer!’ the captain shouted at the mage in a hoarse voice.

‘What the hell happened to
you?’ Farden watched him grimace in pain. ‘You have to get off the
ship!’

‘Cap’n goes down with ‘is ship
is what I ‘eard! Ain’t no way I’ll try m’ chances in the sea
tonight!’ He bellowed, face twisted in agony again.

‘Gods damn it!’ Farden cursed
at the defeated old man. A few sailors and one of the Arka
soldiers, who was furiously shedding his heavy steel armour,
clambered over the flooded deck, over rigging and drowning cargo.
Farden grabbed a broken hatch cover and futilely threw it into the
sea, but just then he spied a huge section of a wooden box tied to
the railing. He hacked at it with his sword until it came loose and
then stood holding it, waiting for the sea to swallow the ship.
With growing alarm Farden watched the hungry waves lick at the deck
and climb further and further into the ship with every second. He
narrowed his eyes, steeled his reserve, and hauled his box to the
opposite railing and threw it into the sea. The wind howled around
him and threatened to rip the tearbook from his side but Farden
grabbed the strap and yanked it hard to tighten it. The brave mage
steadied himself on there railing against the force of the storm
and waited for his moment to leap. From somewhere behind him the
was a deep rending crack and something struck him heavily on the
back of the head. Farden fell down into the angry sea and into a
dark dream.

Part
Two

Follow the
Dragons

“
It was at
this time that the Scribe came to us, the secret behind a Written’s
strength, and a great and powerful wing of the magick council came
to exist, charged to watch over the dark forces left behind by the
elves. The peers of the Arka factions were now under a great duty;
to see that the powers of good were exercised in the wild lands of
Emaneska, and that direction and order was brought to the people.
This was of course, before the greed of the rich sought to pervert
the power of the two thrones, when one by one the members of the
council turned their minds from justice and good, and wanted for
gold and power instead.”

Arkmage Olfar, writing in the
year 789

Choke.

Water flooded his nose and ran
down his throat like a runaway avalanche of salty black liquid.

The sea pulled at his hands and
feet and clothes with ice-cold fingers. His world switched between
the roar of the storm and the inky deafness of underwater. Up was
down, and water replaced air.

Lightning fizzed in the
darkness. Somewhere above or below him the clouds slammed together.
Stars swam in his head and invisible gods played with his rag-doll
body. He felt like his body was swimming away from him, and blood
ran down into his eyes. The carcass of the drowned goat knocked
against him, stuck somewhere in the tangling rigging.

Breathe.

Rain-soaked air fought with
bile for room in his throat. He felt something under his swollen
fingers and grabbed it with the last vestiges of strength in his
weary body.

Hold fast.

Ropes dragged at raw cuts and
lashed him to the crate that kept him afloat. His forehead found a
resting place against the salty wood.

Darkness.

Farden shivered in his desert,
and rubbed at his cold arms and legs. He looked down at his pale
naked body, at his skin that looked wrinkly as if from too much
water, at the damp patch in the cracked earth. His vambraces lay
rusty and covered in drying seaweed at his dusty feet.

Breathe
said something, and Farden turned his head to
see a skinny black cat, soaked to the bone, sitting near to him
amongst the stones. Its ragged fur steamed in the hot sun. A dead
rotting bird full of maggots sat at its feet. Beady empty eyes
stared at the sky. Farden looked up, and his pale blue emptiness
bubbled and wavered, as if he were looking at the surface of a
placid sea. He lifted a finger and ripples spread out across the
vast cloudless sky. His fingers felt wet. There was a rumbling, and
the sun flashed.

‘I am breathing,’ he said.

Not for
long
said the voice, and the cat licked its bedraggled
paw.

A man was walking alone on a
rocky beach. Pockmarked volcanic stones mingled amongst grey shale
and pale sand crunched under his slender boots. The spear in his
hand held him steady against the slippery stones and green seaweed.
From under a white hood purple eyes scanned the grey waves rolling
up the beach and a scaly nose sniffed the salt air. The man watched
the first few shafts of new sunlight pierce the rain clouds and
felt the fresh wind coming from the west on his skin. Should be a
calm day, he thought to himself, and he breathed deep to let the
smell of the salt air fill his head. The man pulled his white cloak
about him and swapped his grip on the spear so he could warm his
cold hand in his pocket. He coughed a rattling hiss, and walked on,
still scanning the beach. Then abruptly he stopped and crouched by
a rocky outcrop. Something had caught his keen eye. A shape lay in
the surf.

The man hopped nimbly over the
stones and sand flew from his boots as he ran over the beach
towards the shape. Within moments he reached it, and circled it
warily, feet splashing in the shallow water. It looked like a
crate, or a door, a mass of ropes and rigging lying useless and
tangled in the sand. Using the sharp spearpoint, he peeled away the
matted weed and knotted ropes to reveal the long dead eyes of a
goat, bloated and swollen from seawater. It grinned at him in
death, and its cloudy gaze stared off into space. He grimaced at
the sight of the dead animal and poked at the rest of the sodden
lump. The Siren spied something that looked like a shoe poking out
from under a slimy section of wood, and crouched to investigate
further. It was a boot, with a foot and leg attached to it.

The man tore apart the wooden
crate in a spray of green weed and water to find a bedraggled
corpse lying curled up and half-buried in the sand. Kneeling at its
side, he poked and prodded at the face of a beaten man. He looked
to be in his thirties, probably from the southeast, with matted
dark hair and red-gold vambraces on his arms. He put his spearblade
to his mouth, and a thin mist of breath appeared on the shiny
steel. The Siren slapped the man’s face, feeling his chest where
his heart was with his long fingers. Something stirred there, maybe
a faint hint of life. The Siren brought a fist down on the man’s
chest, at the point where the ribs joined, and the washed-up man
suddenly spluttered and coughed, retching bile and seawater. He
opened his red-rimmed eyes to find a shiny spear blade waving in
his face, and closed them again to find nothing but darkness.

‘Where’d you find him?’

‘On the beach near the
southwest corner. Should have been dead, the poor bastard, but
somehow there’s life in him,’ the soldier shrugged and tried to rub
warmth back into his hands. His white cloak was dripping wet and
covered in sand, and there was brown seaweed tangled in clumps
around his wrists.

‘Arka, by the look of him,’ The
healer had the look of an ageing crow, and the voice of one too. He
was hunched over the wooden table and murmuring thoughtfully
somewhere deep in his throat. His long hair hung in wet strands
over his squinting green eyes. His scales were the colour of tree
moss. He rubbed his chin and examined the man spread out on the
table below him.

Farden looked like death, or
something very close to it. He shivered convulsively and clawed at
the wooden table as if it could give off heat. Like the soldier he
was also covered in sand and seaweed, and his skin was pale like
parchment and as cold as ice. His cloak and tunic were ripped and
torn and snagged with splinters of driftwood. The figure looked
altogether wretched. A little black bundle of something lay by his
side.

‘What’s that?’ asked the
healer, pointing at the thing.

The soldier carefully turned it
over to reveal a dishevelled mess of black fur and whiskers. ‘I
think it’s a cat, it was near to where I found him,’

‘Well what’s it doing here?

‘The thing’s still breathing,
don’t ask me how, but it is. It must belong to him,’ the soldier
pointed to Farden. ‘After all the little thing’s been through...’
He shrugged.

The healer shook his head
despairingly. ‘Fine, leave it with me. I’ll have him taken to my
rooms and I’ll see who he is,
if
he lives
that is.’ The healer spied something colourful under Farden’s torn
sleeve. He shifted his long grey hair from his eyes and peered down
his beak-like nose. He looked up, a confused look plastered in his
face. ‘Scalussen vambraces?’

The soldier nodded. ‘I know.
This isn’t just some washed up sailor,’ he paused, ‘the others
might need to hear about this.’

The healer took a moment to
think, and then waved his hands with a shake of his head. ‘Yes yes,
after I get him back to health. He can’t go far like this. Here,
I’ll send for my guard to take him to my house, and
yes
I’ll take care of that mangy animal,’ The old man
gestured to someone behind him, and a nervous young boy, previously
silent in a corner, ran off to fetch help.

‘I’ll send a messenger to the
Old Dragon,’ the scaly soldier turned to go, but the healer held up
a hand to stop him.

‘I will do that, when he is
ready to be interrogated. At the moment he is too weak to be
questioned. This man is at death’s door.’

The soldier looked as if he
were going to say something but thought better of arguing, and
nodded to the grey man. ‘Fine with me. Good day, sir.’

‘And to you.’ The healer
watched the soldier go, and turned back to Farden. He poked under
the red and gold vambraces and peered down his beak-like nose at
the hidden symbols tattooed onto the mage’s wrists. The man’s
emerald eyes widened. His bony hands scraped at the rotting wet
tunic on his back and pulled the fabric aside to reveal something
that made the breath catch in his throat. But at that moment the
guards knocked on the door, and Farden was taken further into the
city on a cart covered by a blanket. The grey healer had the mage
put in a locked room in his house and had water and food put out
for him.

That night the healer quietly
padded down the corridor leading to Farden’s room, holding nothing
but a tallow candle tightly in his hand, a hand that quivered with
anticipation and a hint of excitement. His bony fingers fiddled
with the key in the lock and the man took a few breaths to calm his
eager heart. The lock clicked, and he shut the door behind him. The
healer lifted the candle high to light the square room. Farden lay
prone and unconscious on a wooden table in the middle of the floor.
Slowly the grey Siren crept forward and ran his fingers across the
mage’s feverish brow. He put his ear to Farden’s mouth and listened
to the shallow ragged breaths sneaking in and out between his
cracked lips. The healer sniffed. He put the candle down on the
edge of the table and pulled a slim knife from under his nightgown.
It took all his strength to turn Farden over and get him onto his
front, but finally he did it, and began to slice through the mage’s
ragged tunic. Cloth parted and betrayed the black lettering hiding
underneath. The old healer grinned to himself and squinted. He
balanced his little glasses on the very edge of his nose and tugged
at the remaining strands of tunic. Shaking hands moved the candle
closer.