The Written Read online

  With a brisk jump Farden mounted the wooden boards and steadied the tearbook at his side. ‘Let’s hope then, that our gods are stronger than our enemy’s.’

  ‘Hope, there will be, Written, for the gods and for you. May Njord protect you,’ Åddren said, in a louder voice and few nearby sailors rumbled in agreement, though they eyed Farden like he carried the plague. The mage sighed inwardly, nodded his thanks to his superior, bowed, and then climbed the ramp up to the ship. His sleepy brain felt like it was tumbling down a well, unable to put a stop to the journey he was about to take. Nausea groped at his gut as he felt the waves swell underneath his boots. Farden had never liked the sea. He said a swift prayer to Evernia and stepped onto the deck.

  The three or four Arka soldiers had found their berths in the under decks, and the mage decided to go do the same. With one last wave to the Arkmages and their entourage he ducked under a hatch and went below. As he descended some stairs into the low humid belly of the stout ship he heard the dirty goat somewhere ahead of him. He decided to head in the other direction and soon found an empty stateroom that looked through small windows out from the back of the ship, probably beneath the captain’s cabin, with the warm fire and comfortable bed, a fine breakfast... He shook his head. Farden paused outside the room, looked around for anyone nearby, and then grabbing a nearby bucket he swept into his room and locked the door.

  Farden quickly went to the corner and threw his guts up in the wooden pail. His head lurched with his stomach and the world burst into sparks and leaps. Farden cursed and slumped back against the bolted-down bed, wiping the mess from his chin. He knew better but had to try a spell on the off chance the nevermar had worn off. If this lasted any longer than five or six days he was in trouble, especially seeing as he felt violently sick. The most pitiful excuse for a spark of flame flashed on his fingertip for a mere second before he doubled up in pain. His head exploded and tears squeezed their way out of clenched eyelids. Slowly, he slumped sideways to the floor to regain his breath. He had never felt this powerless before, and he just lay there breathing.

  After a while Farden felt the ship drift free of the dock and the waves beneath them made the ship rock back and forth. The mage fought back bile and a pounding headache while the sailors above him sent the ship leaning into the growing wind, clearing the boardwalk and out into the mouth of the port. The mage could hear their shouts and calls. He shut his eyes, and then after a brief nauseating moment Farden felt a second wind and got to his feet, suddenly determined to see the ship leave the harbour. He made sure to lock the door behind him and then tried to negotiate the slippery corridors. He prayed he would not throw up in front of the soldiers or the stout men of the ship. At least he could pass it off as seasickness instead of a life-threatening hangover from a banned drug. That would make interesting news to the magick council, Farden thought.

  He made it onto the deck, already slick with spray, and headed to the tall forecastle of the Sarunn and stared weakly at the turbulent seas whirling around the mouth of the huge port. The mage gripped the wood of the railing and felt the rimy spray on his chin and creased forehead. A sailor stood to the right of him, and was staring at Farden with a wary look. He felt the eyes on him and turned to face the man. The sailor turned slowly and made himself busy with coiling ropes. Farden squinted at the man but he didn’t turn around again.

  ‘Sire!’ The mage turned around to find Heold briskly running up the steps, coughing steam into the cold wind. He barked a few orders back down the steps to his men and yelled course directions to the crewman at the wheel. The Captain looked at the mage and shrugged. ‘Busy day fer us, mage. We jus’ got back int’ port last night and were sent a message from the council we ‘ad to take you t’ Nelska this mornin’. Ow are yer accommodations?’ The man grinned, gripping the rails with hands whose skin looked like tanned leather.

  ‘Good thank you captain, I found them at least,’ said Farden. Heold nodded. The ship rose abruptly on a wave, and Farden grabbed at the handrail. The Captain was looking at him.

  ‘I guess I can’t ask why yer off to the land of the dragons? No body’s been up there fer years I ‘ear,’ he appeared to make blithe conversation, but his keen flint eyes roved over Farden with a powerful curiosity.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s a quiet mission,’ Farden said stonily and stared out to sea. The ship was nearing the harbour walls.

  ‘A few degrees to port Thurgen!’ Heold abruptly yelled through cupped hands. ‘Excuse me. New man on t’ wheel today, the other one ‘ad the plague, and one o’ me mates too, ‘ad to replace ‘im as well. Sorry t’ ask ‘bout yer business Farden, ‘just the lads are a bit worried ‘avin’ you aboard. Superstitious lot.’

  ‘I’m not dangerous captain, tell your men that. I will be keeping mostly to myself over the course of the trip, so I’d appreciate being left alone,’ Farden said, trying to make his words sound kind and courteous. The captain nodded with a grunt and watched the mage go, wobbly on his feet.

  ‘Be some good weather comin’ soon mage, you’ll see!’ Heold yelled. He pointed towards the breaking clouds in the distance. Farden squinted and saw the golden sunlight glinting off the waves, but he shrugged and held his hand to his stomach. As he went below decks he could imagine Helyard back on the pier, grumpily agreeing to Åddren’s stern orders. The breakers crashed around the bow of the ship again and she lurched awkwardly. Spray decorated the deck and the Sarunn loitered on the first few big waves before the helmsman got the hand of the winter swell and set her on course again. Heold watched Farden leave, and a disconcerting cloud of doubt filled his old mind. Mages were bad omens.

  The first two days of the trip were uneventful, and on the third, the Sarunn finally rounded the west coast and made for the channel between the beaches of west Midgrir and the cliffs of stunted Albion. The weather remained fine for the first few hundred miles or so, but then as they rounded the coastline to head towards the Jörmunn Sea, past the cliff cities of Halôrn, the clouds started to pile up and darken, bringing squalls and bitter gales to hammer down on the ship. Farden hid in his room, feeling every pitch and roll of the vessel in his uncomfortable wooden bed. Everything in his cabin was nailed to the floor, which made sword practice a little impossible, and made everything creak and groan all the more. The bucket had been filled, and emptied, several times over the first day, and now Farden had finally got rid of his massive headache. His magick however, had not returned in the slightest, and he could feel his tattoo lying dormant on his back like a heavy weight. The mage spent his time meditating and trying to get his power back, or absently mapping the stars when the deck was quiet enough. More than a few times Farden found himself laying awake on the cold nights, thinking about Cheska, and waking up to find nothing and no one beside him but faded dreams. The mage tried to ignore the rolling ship and instead stared at the wooden ceiling, picturing her beautiful eyes in his tired mind and thinking long and hard about things like her body, her laugh, and a hundred other things like their future. He wondered what she was doing and where she was, and whether he would be back before she started the Ritual. The ghosts of fear slowly crept back into his mind.

  On the first day a small black cat found its way into his room. Farden assumed it was the ship’s cat, a little good luck charm against bad weather, and let the creature wander about his room and investigate everything. She sniffed and pawed at his clothes and every corner of the small room for an hour before finally curling into a neat black ball on his pillow. Feeling a little used, the mage consented to let the thing sleep in his room all day, until it finally disappeared at dinner time. Once, when she had looked at him, Farden had felt something scratching in his mind like déjà vu. Her little brown eyes gazed at him placidly for a while before returning to lick her paws. He dismissed it, but always found himself watching her and wondering from then on.

  Once on the second day, out of pure boredom and curiosity, he took the tearbook from its satchel and idly flipped through the blank page
s. They seemed pure and untouched, only yellowed at the very edges, and grey dust filled the cracks in the spine and between the overlapping dragon scales that were a dull metallic yellow. No trace of any script or writing could be found in the entire book, Farden even tried holding up the thin pages to the light streaming through his tiny window to see if anything could be seen. Nothing. He gave up with a bored sigh and slipped the tearbook under his pillow.

  Farden walked along the decks at dawn, accompanied by the lithe black cat, whom he had named Lazy, and tried to cast small spells in the half-light. Much to his dismay the magick still rebounded against his head every time. Still, his study of the stars at night seemed to calm his mind, and his stomach for that matter. He still hated the water. Time felt like treacle in the ship and Farden dreaded the constant wary looks from the superstitious sailors. The previous morning he had found a greying crewman praying to the old sea god Njord outside his room and trying to attach a cheap-looking charm to his door. Farden had slammed it hard and scowled at the noises of the man nervously scuttling away down the corridor. Everyone seemed to be trying to ignore him and stay out of his way. Most of the weathered crew were scared of Farden; they saw him as a powerful sorcerer leading them towards a forbidden land, and that didn’t make them happy. Their passenger was unlucky and unwanted.

  On the first night the Arka soldiers had made an effort to talk to the lonely mage as he sat alone at a table. Farden hadn’t been in the mood to socialise and his clipped answers had slighted the men. They made their excuses and left. What rumours they might have known about Farden seemed to have already circulated around the already superstitious crew, and now everyone seemed to be trying to ignore him and stay out of his way. And to a certain extent that suited him fine. Only Lazy seemed interested in him, and the little thing was happy to curl up beside him at night, purring away quietly like a bubbling pot all night until their morning walk.

  On the third day, dawn found Farden making his way up to the forecastle. For once he had left the little feline fast asleep in his room, and he wandered across the deck alone. Fingers of light crept along the eastern horizon amongst dark clouds and faraway cliffs. The patchwork sea of blue green light and shadow foamed and roiled in deep swells. The mage stood at his usual spot at the railing and wiped rimy spray from his face for the tenth time and looked at the skies. Ahead of them a huge bank of storm clouds lingered, and the shadow of rain covered the sea. Someone coughed nearby. A man stood on watch to his right, and Farden recognised him as the man he had seen staring at him on the first day. He stood stiff and back straight, holding his arms crossed behind him and a spyglass in his left hand.

  ‘Mornin’ mate,’ the man coughed a rough greeting. He had a thick accent, probably from southern Albion.

  ‘Morning,’ Farden replied. He nodded towards the black clouds. ‘Weather looks bad.’

  The man nodded. ‘Looks fairly bad, I agree. Cap’n should ride ‘er well.’ He was a thin wiry man, and looked strong despite his size, with heavily calloused hands. He had a square shaped face that was punctuated by a sharp nose and short black hair slicked flat to his head. The sailor wore the dark green uniform of the ship’s crew. A dark mole sat on his lip. The sailor was a head shorter than the mage, twitchy and energetic in his quick movements. He looked like a hawk waiting for his prey, in Farden’s mind, and he didn’t like the way the man stared at him.

  ‘Good,’ said the mage.

  ‘Take it ye don’t like the water then?’ A smirk painted itself on the man’s face.

  ‘I like it fine,’ Farden thought of the tearbook in the sack by his side.

  The sailor chuckled. ‘Karga’s the name,’ a hand followed the name, and Farden shook it firmly. ‘Farden.’

  Karga nodded. ‘Aye, I know.’

  ‘You have a fine captain it seems,’ Farden made idle conversation. He listened to the splash of the waves beneath the ship.

  The sailor shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t really know. He seems a fine fellow, but I’m jus’ a stand in for this voyage. Other man got sick.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Plague probably. A lot of it goin’ around in the south.’

  ‘Mm.’ Farden began to feel the conversation dwindling. He nodded to the man and made for the steps. As he was walking away the sailor called to him in a gruff voice. ‘Oi mate, look at this.’ The mage turned and followed the direction of his pointing hand. In the clouds up ahead something was happening that Farden has never seen before.

  Between a gap in the immense storm-front wisps of cloud began to form two shapes that towered above the seas. They reared out of the clouds and stood upright to face each other, looking for all the world like two brawny men carved from cloud. And then they began to move. Thunder rumbled, and Farden moved closer to the railing to stare in amazement. One lashed out at the other with a gigantic fist, and lightning crackled from its fingers. Wind whipped the waves into foam, and the deafening burst of lightning made Farden cover his ears.

  ‘Storm giants!’ yelled Karga, and the helmsman wrenched the ship’s wheel away from the stormy duel. Sudden rain lashed the ship, and Farden ran down the steps so he could watch the immense creatures battle each other. The giants lunged at each other and threw punch after punch until the sky shook and the crew cowered under the sails. But as quickly as they had appeared, they went, and after a few more thunder claps the giants melted back into the clouds. The sailor at the wheel calmly resumed course, and Heold bumbled out his cabin sleepily to see what had happened. ‘What in ‘ell is goin’ on?’ he bellowed, still adjusting his wide belt.

  Karga shouted from the forecastle. ‘Storm giants cap’n! They’re gone now though, disappeared into the storm front!’ Heold squinted at the clouds and frowned. Satisfied that he had missed most of the action and wasn’t needed anymore, he headed back to his bed. ‘Good, wake me in an hour,’ he said. By the time he had slammed the door Farden was already back in his cabin.

  Despite the rocking of the ship and the bad weather, the mage fell into a deep sleep until later the next day. He awoke to find the rain still lashing his window. He groaned and tried to pull the blanket further around his head. He had almost had enough of this voyage. The tearbook nudged his hand from its hiding place under his pillow and he pulled it towards him. The big book propped up his head nicely under the thin lump of cloth, and Farden wondered what the council would think of him using the tearbook as a pillow, or even the dragons for that matter. The mage let himself doze for about an hour before rising and heading sleepily to the galley. Lazy was nowhere to be seen.

  He ducked under the door frame of the ship’s kitchen and looked around. The goat was nibbling something grainy in the corner of the tiny room and the cook was cleaning dishes.

  ‘All right there sir?’ asked the cook while he wiped a bowl with a dirty cloth.

  Farden stretched and stifled a yawn. ‘Fine, thanks, I was just wondering if there’s any lunch still left over? I missed it earlier.’ He moved forward and knocked his forehead on a beam.

  The man smiled, and stifled a chuckle. ‘Farska’s in the pan, or there’s some shark ‘ere that the first mate caught,’ He lifted a lid on an earthen bowl, and the smell of the cheap fishy stew filled Farden with ravenous hunger. He dug in with a wooden spoon that didn’t look too clean and filled a bowl that had a splintered edge. The mage was too hungry to care. He had eaten worse.

  ‘There’ll be summin’ new tomorrow as well…’ The cook looked at Farden and gave a faint nod in the direction of the fat goat. The poor animal stopped chewing and looked at the two men. There was an awkward silence.

  ‘Well I’ll see you tomorrow then,’ Farden smiled briefly and swiftly turned to go. He carried his bowl of watery stew to his room and stared at the steel waves roll out behind the ship like angry grey foothills of ice water. The mage sighed and consigned himself to another day of feeling ill and empty from the lack of magick. A strange desire for nevermar had begun to creep into his mind over the last day, a crav
ing to taste that acrid smoke on his tongue again, to feel that familiar numbing in his arms and legs. Farden guiltily pushed the notion from his head and tried to concentrate on his meal. The shark was salty, and the meagre vegetables floating around his bowl were bereft of colour or taste, but it was food, and Farden sipped the hot liquid carefully. The drug was forbidden for a reason, he told himself, nevermar’s magick-numbing power was legendary, and for over a hundred years the council had opposed it with vicious measures. When Farden had been in training at the Spire, a mage had been caught having nevermar in his room. He had swiftly disappeared, and was never even spoken of again. It had been the death penalty for that man, dangling by his entrails from the city gate as an example to all. Farden shuddered.

  But it calmed him, made him think less about the dark things in his mind, the fears, the second-guessing, and even despite its effects Farden had realised that he needed it. Over the years he had been incredibly careful to keep it a secret. The idea of anyone, especially Cheska, finding out was unthinkable, but he was too meticulous, too wary, to be discovered, and so far he hadn’t done any harm to anyone besides himself. All that really mattered now was that his magick returned before they got to Nelska. He focused on getting through his bland stew, and tried to quiet his thoughts.

  On the ship the mage’s mind felt bored and unused. He could feel himself beginning to ramble in his own head, and was slowly going stir-crazy from constantly sitting in his tiny room. With a sigh Farden consigned himself to going outside, raining or not. He finished his shark, sipped the dregs from the bowl, and threw his hood over his head. He looked at his reflection in the dirty window and thumbed the stubble sprouting from his chin; he would have to shave before they reached Nelska. He relieved himself in the bucket in the corner and left the room.