Alchemy's Child (The Mindbender's Rise Book 5) Read online

  Trying to see above the waves, he peered forward. It was useless. He could only see when a wave moved the whole ship up, creating a trough ahead. Which allowed only a few seconds warning.

  He hissed and settled in to watch.

  An icy blade threatened from the right. He waved his flag in its direction and risked a glanced at Lorel. She nodded at him and set her pole against the wall, pushing hard.

  The ship moved around the sharp spur.

  They had this business beat. He grinned and searched ahead.

  Another spur to the right, three on the left. There was nothing else in the world but heaving water and murderous ice.

  A foamy wave swept over the bow.

  Grateful for the slicker, Viper shuddered as icy water poured over him. His foot was getting numb, but he hardly noticed.

  Dim moaning intruded on his awareness, a purely mental sound that whimpered about death and wood and ice.

  Was the ship sinking? It couldn’t be. He hadn’t felt an impact. What was causing the strange sensation?

  Trying to extend his senses, he stretched his awareness. Darksight didn’t help. Was there such a thing as dark-hearing? He searched the tunnel walls with every gift the dragon had forced him to learn.

  Still he found nothing, saw no danger.

  The song of death continued to moan, tugging on his blood. Towing him downward.

  It almost made sense, given he couldn’t find anything above the waterline. He compelled his will into the deep.

  The vague outline of a ship formed in his mind. A tall three-master lay tilted slightly to one side, its hull a shattered wreck.

  Knowing what the danger was didn’t help. He had to find a way around it.

  There wasn’t one. Not that he could see. The wooden corpse lay directly in the center of the channel.

  What could he do? Beg for help, for a start. He waved his flag madly.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Miquel shouted. He stomped to the bow and shook Viper roughly. “Stop it!”

  “Dead ship!” Viper yelled. “In the very middle!”

  “Blessed Tide, don’t desert me!” Miquel knelt beside Viper, but clung the railing as a wave swept over them. “Where’s the mast?”

  The mast? Which one? All three were fairly close together. He pointed his flag to the left.

  “Dead ship to port,” Miquel bellowed. “It’s the main danger. Hold steady.” He thumped Viper’s back and ran aft.

  Viper held his flag steady on the masts, but his mind raced. The ship was closer to the surface than the captain thought.

  They weren’t going to make it. Not a chance. No chance at all. Unless…

  He filled his mind with the image of the sunken ship.

  Bigger than the Wind Song, the dead ship had spun sideways. Its bulk filled the channel. One mast had snapped off right below the surface, and the main cabin lay in the center of the waterway. He sensed the frozen corpses of the crew, trapped inside.

  What could he do?

  Somehow he’d turned his illusion of Izzy into reality. Could he do it with the dead ship?

  He had to try.

  He tightened his mind around the image, envisioning the wreck as soft with rot.

  His thoughts spun into the whirlpool of his will. This wreck was new, the wood was solid. His mind fought the discrepancy he tried to impose on it.

  His concentration slipped away like minnows trying to escape a barracuda.

  No. Thunderer’s dice, no!

  He needed blood magic. Not death magic, please the Thunderer.

  But where would he get blood? He was too trussed up to cut himself.

  He could reach his eyes. He’d gouge one out if that’s what it took to save Kyri’s quest. To save his friends. To save Lorel.

  He bashed the baton into his eye just as the ship jittered over a wave.

  Agony seared his face. Blood streamed down his cheek, along his nose.

  Lavender mist rose around him, hungry, searching, as if it were aware he’d tried to summon it.

  Now he had to use it before it dissipated.

  Immune to the wind and waves, lavender magic swirled around his head, fingered his bloody eye, caressed his face.

  An illusion of the wrecked ship formed in his mind, sturdy and solid. Transforming mental minnows into a school of piranha, he ordered the piranha to attack his image of the dead ship. His imagination ate solid wood and dissolved it into ancient rot.

  He held his illusion of the decayed ship in his mind, squeezed it so tightly no part of him could reject it, and pushed it over the wreck.

  His will fought him anyway. This was no magic he knew, nor any he’d ever heard of. It wasn’t in a single book he’d read. It couldn’t be done.

  It had to be done. He forced his willed-image on the wooden corpse directly below him.

  The manifestation jolted into existence, sapping his magic. Lavender mist vanished.

  The ship grated, shuddered, slowed. Rotten wood swirled in the water all around the Wind Song.

  A fierce wave lifted them beyond the wreck.

  “Third mate!” Miquel bellowed. “Damage report!”

  Viper clung to the rail, feeling limp as wet paper. He forced his gaze forward, sent his flag to the left, to the right. Both ice spurs were easily avoided.

  “No damage at all, captain,” someone shouted. “She must’ve been soft as cheese.”

  The crew cheered, but he was too exhausted to join in.

  Three spurs on the left, five on the right. All the world was ice and water, wave and trough, but he kept his mind open, listening for the dirge of dead wood.

  A small iceberg, fended off by Lorel. A long ridge to the right, two short spurs to the left.

  The channel opened into a wide cavern.

  “Drop anchor,” Miquel ordered.

  Lorel abandoned her pole and knelt beside him. Shiloh hurried to his side. “You all right?” they asked in unison.

  Viper swallowed bile, and cleared his throat. “We’ve stopped?”

  “Aye, this be one of the safer places to weather the night.” Watching him anxiously, Shiloh untied the rope holding him to the bench. “What’s wrong with ye? How’d ye cut yer face?”

  “Tired.” He tried to sit straighter.

  “The kid puts everything into a job.” Lorel patted him on the back. “Wears him to a nubbin, but he does it right.”

  “We be grateful.” Shiloh briskly stripped the leather gloves and slicker off him. “I never once saw the wreck, only bits afterwards. Let’s get ye below.”

  “I’ll take him.” Lorel scooped him into her arms.

  “Well enow, and thanks.” Shiloh hurried aft.

  “Kid, you didn’t go magic that wreck, did you?”

  “Don’t ask questions if you don’t want a true answer,” he mumbled.

  “That’s what I thought.” She carried him across the deck and through the hatch. “But can you do it tomorrow?”

  “If I have to.”

  “Then I ain’t got nothing to worry about. How’d you cut your eyebrow?”

  “Cut my–?” His fingers swept to his wet, frozen face. His eyes seemed to be intact. Must be intact, since he could see out of both. He’d missed gouging his eye out!

  Hmm. Missing might be a good thing. He was too tired to be sure.

  Lorel smiled down at him. “In this place you’re the real brawn.”

  He groaned. “Not likely. No way am I going to touch a pole.” The baton had been bad enough.

  “You don’t need to.” She awkwardly carried him down the ladder, only bumping his head on the wall twice. “You’ll make the whole ship fly above the danger.”

  “Thunderer break the Loom, I can not!” He glared up at her laughing face.

  Lorel nudged Tsai’dona’s limp body aside and sat him on the edge of the mattress. “Someday, kid.” She helped him out of his sodden cloak and clothes, and slid his thickest flannel nightshirt over him before he realized he was naked. “Someday, yo
u’ll have a little ship that flies above the water, and above land, too. I just hope you do it while I’m still around to see it.”

  “I’ll try, Gyrfalcon,” he whispered as sleep closed over him. “I swear I will try.”

  Chapter 7.

  As soon as the ship swung over the seawall, Lorel guessed this new town was gonna be as awful as the last one. A hundred shops, a thousand stone houses, lots of cobblestone streets. No sign of a sword school, or even a practice yard. How was she gonna learn new fighting techniques if she couldn’t find nobody to practice with?

  Cables lowered the ship into the dockyard and she lost sight of the boring little village.

  Tsai and the kid waited at the top of the passenger cabins ladder, out of the crew’s way. A good place for both of them, seeing as they never got their sea legs.

  She needed to cheer them up. “Weren’t that a great voyage?”

  Neither of them even looked at her.

  When the ship settled into its cradle, the kid sighed louder than a wheezy fireplace bellows tossed aside by a grumpy old lady with three hairs on her chin. “I refuse to go near the ocean for another three days. I’d give up all my books before I’d go back to sea before I have to.”

  Tsai laughed, for all she looked paler than he did.

  Couple of crybabies. “What was wrong with it?”

  “It was cold and wet and boring.” The kid leaned against the hatchway wall and tried to look classy. But with his new red coat puffing out his serdil-fur cloak and with wide, dark rings around his eyes, he just looked limp and tired.

  “Boring?” She hadn’t had this much fun since she flirted with the axe-smith in Crayl.

  “You try spending all day tied down.” He stretched. Bunches of his joints popped. “After the second day, the fear wore off. Without the fear, I got bored. After a dozen days, I was bored stiff.”

  “I suppose. I’d hate to be tied down.” Not that she’d ever let nobody tie her down. She shrugged, but couldn’t hide a grin. “But I’d love to run the Split again.”

  Tsai actually shuddered. What a coward. No, wasn’t fair. She’d puked too much to even notice the Split.

  “Next time we do, you’ll be tied to the rail.” The kid stared past the shipyard, toward the little town. “I’m staying below where it’s warm.”

  Lorel laughed. “No way. You worry too much. You’d be topside giving orders. Come on, quit sulking.”

  “Sulking, is it?” He glared at her and pointed down the hatch. “This is a business trip. Go get two Crayl blades. I’ve got the money pouch.”

  Lorel clicked her heels. “Aye aye, sir!”

  Not that she knew where he hid his money, not even after days and days searching the wagon for useful things like matches and fishhooks while he played hide-and-seek with a dragon.

  Tsai shook her head. “You two ought to get married.”

  Laughing, Lorel dashed down the ladder. She swarmed into the wagon, gave her sleepy Baby Bear a couple of pets, and grabbed two Crayl swords off the wall.

  The stupid seahorn had fallen off its hook. She shoved it back onto the wall below the monster broadsword and the club-sized flute. Had to admit she got carried away when she made the thing, but the kid went crazy when he carved the broadsword. Nobody smaller than a mountain was gonna swing that blade.

  Not her problem. Maybe the kid would magic it lighter.

  Clutching the Crayl blades, she ducked out of the wagon and lunged up the ladder. “These work?”

  “They’re fine.” He limped toward the long ramp.

  He didn’t like her choices? He should’ve told her which ones he wanted. She knew them all by name.

  Not worth fighting over. She shrugged and leaned a sword against each shoulder. “What’s the name of this Loom-tangled village?”

  “Moralakarakara.” He limped down the ramp and onto the graveled dockyard.

  “What?” Tsai stood on tiptoe, pried one of the swords out of her hand, and carried it point down.

  Maybe she did look sorta strange wearing two swords and carrying two more, but it was fun to watch the locals’ jaws drop when they noticed her. She stood straighter and lengthened her stride.

  They strolled through the shipyard gate and into the town.

  “Beautiful, beautiful village on the sea. In an ancient Shiin dialect.” The kid grabbed her belt and forced her to tow him along cobbled street. “The story has it they tacked on the extra ‘kara’ to make it sound more important than Aloshmacea.”

  She glanced down at him and slowed her steps. She kept forgetting he only had one foot. Being tiny slowed him down, too. “Did it work?”

  “Nope. Now folk simply call it Kara.” He waved his free hand at the puny town. “It’s well named.”

  “It’s pretty, I guess.” Tsai wrinkled her nose. “But it’s awfully little.”

  He laughed. “Big enough for a three day visit. Let’s find the local weapons dealer and get our business out of the way.”

  “You just wanna go raid the bookshops.” Weaver’s chamberpot, she sounded whiny even to herself.

  The kid laughed and pointed at a squat, smug shop built of green stone. The windowless front was painted with swords and axes and spears, all done in black and red. Its tall, gray slate roof looked like it belonged on a different building. “There’s our target.”

  Lorel stopped across the street and snickered. “I’d never guess what that is. You suppose they could’ve been more obvious?”

  “Be thankful it was easy to find,” the kid said as they crossed the street. “I don’t know much old Shiin, and I read even less. See those marks up there? I’d wager they say ‘Kara Weapons Shop’.”

  She snorted and shifted the sword to her left shoulder. “If you don’t talk it, how you gonna bargain with them?”

  “Easy.” He stopped outside the door and grinned up at her. “Everybody speaks Nashidran these days. Even if they don’t, gold has a language all its own. Now, both of you try and look fierce.”

  Still grinning, she nodded, but she hardened her face into a warrior’s impassive mask. She took the second Crayl sword from Tsai’s hand. “Don’t show your gimpy arm.”

  “I know that, you slime-eating tree lizard.” Tsai opened the thick door and nodded to the kid.

  He straightened his back and marched into the room, closely followed by his bodyguards.

  Behind the counter sat tall blond man with a blacksmith’s shoulders. He stopped polishing a bronze dagger, looked them them over, and sighed. “How may I help you children?”

  Fraying man. Maybe he was eye-candy, but nobody was so pretty she’d let them be rude to her friends. To her, too, for that matter.

  The kid planted his boots and put his hands on his hips. “I have two Crayl swords I’m willing to sell. Do you know where I’ll find a buyer?”

  The merchant’s eyes got big. “Crayl weapons?”

  “High quality Crayl blades,” the kid drawled.

  The shopkeeper studied the kid for a moment before staring at Lorel and the weapons in her arms. He gestured toward her. “Is she part of the deal?”

  She blushed and tried to look fiercer. Honest, he wasn’t that good-looking.

  The kid laughed and shook his head. “Sorry. You can discuss weapons with her after we’ve discussed steel.”

  The big man grinned and held out his hands. “Pleasure comes after sealing the deal. Let me examine the blades.”

  ∞∞∞

  Once Tsai and the kid were safely out of the weapons shop, Lorel slammed the door and leaned against it. “I thought you was gonna leave me there.”

  “Nonsense.” The kid limped deeper into town, leaving her to follow if she wanted to. “I only gave you the option. You seemed quite smitten with him.”

  Tsai snorted. “For a while I thought you were going to jump his bones.”

  Like she’d ever jumped anybody, except in a fight. “He’s pretty.” She’d even kept her hands off the gorgeous smith in Crayl. “I liked looking
at him. But he made me nervous. He watched me strange.”

  “He wasn’t being strange. He was admiring you. There is a difference, you know. Ah-ha!” He careened across the street and ducked into a bookstore.

  How she hated books. She huffed and sat down on the stone walkway.

  Tsai stared at the door, down at Lorel, and inside the shop window. She snorted and settled down on the curb. “We need to blindfold that boy.”

  The longest time later, he strutted out the door, carrying three books. “Look what I found! This one’s a treatise on wulfrun, only one hundred thirty seven years old, and this one–”

  “I ain’t toting them for you.” Lorel turned her shoulder on him and looked down the street. There had to be something interesting in this piddly town.

  “I didn’t ask you to.” He sat down on the edge of the walkway. “Besides, I brought you a present. This one is a pictorial history of all the weapons ever used in Shi and Na, and it’s almost new.”

  She glared at the book. “How old is new?”

  “Three years old.”

  “For you, it’s brand new.” She took the book and opened it awkwardly. Her eyes got bigger than the roan’s hooves. “This is wild, kid! It’s all Loom-woven pictures! There ain’t hardly no words. This is my kinda book.”

  “If you want to know more about any of the weapons, I’ll read the text to you.”

  “I’ll take you up on it.” She closed the book gently and stood. “You find me more books like this, and I’ll carry your junk without hollering once.”

  He grinned and held out a smaller book to Tsai. “This one’s for you.”

  Tsai opened the leather-bound book like she was scared it would bite her. “Hey, it’s in Duremen-Lor.” She turned a couple of pages and laughed. “It’s a cookbook. Watch out, Too Tall. We have new recipes to try out on you.” She tucked the book under her sore arm.

  Lorel groaned theatrically. “Just as long as you don’t pour vinegar on everything. Where to now, kid?”

  He pointed down the street. “Let’s see what else this town has to offer. And keep on looking fierce. I got a great price for those blades. If word gets around, we’re targets.”