"The sea is so beautiful!"
Amoretta Virgine pushed away from the galleon's rail and spun around in her joy, her long, ash-blonde hair streaming out around her head in the sea wind. Lillet Blan had to agree with her; it was a lovely day at sea, with a bright sun in the sky amid scattered fluffy clouds, colors mirrored in slightly darker hues below by the deep sapphire-blue water and the white canvas sails rippling in the steady following wind. To her, though, it was Amoretta herself, with that delighted smile on her face, who was the most beautiful thing in her sight.
"Thank you so much for sharing this with me, Lillet. Did you know that it would be like this?"
"No, I've never been to sea before, so it's my first time seeing it, too. I'd never even visited a port city."
Amoretta wrinkled her nose.
"That, on the other hand, was not beautiful, and ugh, the smell. I think it was worse than the capital at highsummer."
"I don't know; the palace is pretty far from the riverfront and I understand it can be pretty awful, but you're probably right; the sewers even run to the Old City, while the harbor in Mistral is not so clean. Especially when you can't always tell the smell of the fresh fish from that of the rotting fish." Lillet, it will be noted, had grown up on a farm, so the only fish she was familiar with came out of the nearby creek. "But now that we're out here on the ocean, this is amazing."
The merchantman was laden with cargo, but with full sail and a favoring wind she was making excellent speed, the water rushing past and the breeze swirling around them. The wind tugged at Lillet's dress, and would have likely taken her steeple hat from her head had it not been charmed to stay in place. She came up to the rail alongside Amoretta and leaned up against it, folding her arms across the top. Amoretta stood next to her, coming up close enough to press her upper arm against Lillet's, the contact warm even through her sleeves.
"Ah, look there!"
Lillet followed the direction of her pointing finger. It was just a glimmer at first, then grew into a wide-winged seabird, brilliant white like an angel's pinions. It seemed to be drifting on the wind, yet somehow at the same time was soaring boldly, commanding the air beneath it. There was a nobility to the sight, balanced against something delicate, even fragile, like a wisp of cloud that could shatter into a thousand fragments with a puff of air.
"Magnificent," Lillet breathed. "There's something about the ocean, these hundreds of empty miles with no place to light, and yet it crosses them as easily as a fish swims them."
"I wonder what it's called."
"An…albatross, I think? I'm not sure. I'll have to look it up; I think there should be something in the natural sciences section in the Royal House of Magic's library." Lillet chuckled as a thought hit her. "Do you know, I'd almost rather not know. There's just something about it, soaring free like that, that seems as if putting a name to it would be chaining it here to our mundane reality."
Amoretta giggled, a musical ring to the sound.
"Lillet, I really don't understand you sometimes. You're a magician; your reality is anything but mundane—and that's just a pretty bird."
"Some days, little love," Lillet laughed, "I don't think you have a poetic bone in your body."
"I do have trouble with metaphor," Amoretta agreed. She was as honest about her own shortcomings as she was about everything else. "I don't think I'd be a very good poet."
"Well, there's a place for a woman who tells the direct truth instead of using words like a spider's web. Leave the clever deceptions to Mr. Advocat," Lillet said, then reached out and covered Amoretta's hand with her own where it sat on the rail.
"Thank you, Lillet."
They stood for a quiet moment, enjoying each other's company and the crisp sea air, finding companionable silence despite the rush of wind, the flap of the sails, the creak of wood and lines. Then, Amoretta broke that silence, not by speaking, but by raising her voice into song. The tune was new to Lillet; in fact, it was a sea chantey the sailors had been singing while preparing to set sail back in Mistral. As usual, Amoretta had precisely memorized both the tune and the lyrics at a single hearing. Lillet still broke into laughter before the second verse, though, at the incongruity of "The Merry Mary Rose" sung in a voice that could have graced an angelic chorus.
Literally, Lillet thought between chortles at Amoretta's musical idealization of the charms of a pirate wench. After all, in an attempt to build the ultimate homunculus, Dr. Chartreuse had crafted her artificial life around the core of an actual angel, and she could definitely sing like one, even if her choice of music was decidedly more human in its tastes.
She stopped abruptly halfway through the third verse, though, and turned to Lillet, wrinkling her nose in thought.
"Lillet, what did that last line mean?"
"What? Oh, sorry, I was too busy chuckling, so I'm a couple of lines behind."
Amoretta repeated the line, spoken instead of sung, and Lillet felt her cheeks flush. Royal Magician she might be, but she was also still an eighteen-year-old girl and one from a respectable peasant background.
"Um, that is…I'll tell you later, in private."
"All right." Amoretta shrugged. She was all but shameless herself (since she avoided saying or doing things she would feel ashamed of, and she didn't really have a sense of embarrassment), but had come to understand that humans were different in that regard and was adept enough at reading the signs.
For that matter, she'll probably figure out what the line means just because I am so embarrassed, Lillet thought.
Amoretta had just opened her mouth to continue the song when she was cut off by the sound of heavy boots on the deck behind them.
"Well, then, ladies," boomed a hearty voice, "how are you enjoying the voyage? Have your sea legs yet?"
"Quite well, Mr. Limoux," Lillet said. "It's the first time on a ship for either of us, and we were just talking about how much we were enjoying ourselves."
"And the motion is no worse than a carriage," Amoretta added.
"Don't even get me started about how much worse it is on dragonback!" Lillet said. "Though it's such a nice day, I'm sure the ship is at its kindest. I wouldn't want to imagine what sailing through a storm would be like."
Gerard Limoux nodded firmly. "Oh, yes, indeed. When I was a young man I worked the Rouge Island run. One year when I was serving on the Arrow we got a late start on account of half the crew being laid up with the yellow fever and we didn't clear the archipelago before the first good blow of gale season. Don't know how any man-jack of us lived through that, let alone brought the Arrow through safe and sound. St. Elmo must have been smiling on us that day, for sure."
The bluff smile dropped from the merchant's face, as if the recollection of past risks and adventures brought him back around to awareness of his present situation. He popped open a silver snuffbox, took a pinch and inhaled with a loud sniff, then smoothed down his russet moustache with a bent knuckle. Emeralds glittered from rings on Limoux's first and pinky fingers with each movement of his hand.
"But you should come with me, and I can explain to you the reason that I requested for assistance from the Royal House of Magic."
"Thank you; I think that would be a good idea."
He led them across the deck towards the stern of the ship and through a door which led to a luxurious cabin. The aft was fixed with glass windows—not portholes, but actual windows—looking out from the stern of the vessel, and while the size of the room was cramped the bedstead, sideboard, table, and chairs were all of fine craftsmanship, the kind that would have graced a noble's home on land.
Lillet already knew that Limoux was extremely wealthy; the St. Julien was only one of a dozen ships that he owned, and that he had political influence was made plain by the fact that Master Freixenet, director of the Royal House of Magic, had sent Lillet to help Limoux with his problem without even knowing what that problem was—or at least if he did know, he hadn't told Lillet anything beyond the fact that it would involve a sea voyage.
"Please, have a seat," he invited. Lillet held Amoretta's chair for her, then sat down herself. Limoux settled himself at what was clearly the head of the table, and then continued. "I've heard your name, Mistress Blan. Defeating the Archmage set quite the tone, and then there have been plenty of other rumors about the fine work you've been doing." He lifted a letter from a stack of papers and gestured with it. "Master Freixenet speaks quite highly of your abilities. I trust that you'll be able to put paid to my little problem—though it's not so little as that, especially for the people involved."
Lillet thought better of the merchant for that addendum.
"I hope that I can, although it would have been easier to say if anyone had told me what the problem was, so that I could properly prepare. I brought along my traveling grimoire, of course, and I also borrowed 'Neptune,' a Glamour grimoire focused on aquatic familiars, from the Royal House of Magic's library, so I do have some resources on hand." She patted her satchel with the books. "I still would have appreciated specifics."
Limoux nodded at her.
"I wish that I could have been more explicit, but I couldn't risk letting word of my problems get out in the capital or even if you put things right the information delay between problem and resolution would still end up costing me thousands of crowns on the cargo markets. I've already lost one galleon and a coaster on the run, and those losses are substantial enough without adding consequential damages on top of them."
Lillet wasn't sure that she appreciated the point, but she supposed that merchants would almost always consider money to be their primary concern.
"In any case, we're here now," she said, "so go on. You say that two of your ships have been sunk?"
"That's right. I'll start with a little background. In order to ship goods for Vesper in the Illyrian League, it's generally necessary to either travel overland, to sail across the Bay of Drawn Swords from Triamelle to Marsden or Vendrick, or to take the long sea route to Brinton around the Horn. The bay route is shorter, but it risks Lusatian pirates as well as possible Illyrian privateers if tensions are up in the League cities; that's how it got its name, from all the sea battles fought there over the years. But about eight years back, I obtained accurate charts of a route through the Horn Rocks, which lets my ships use Mistral as their home port in Charente instead of Triamelle, avoid most of the Bay, and still reach Vendrick in the same timeframe, or shave whole days of travel off the trip if Brinton is the destination port. That route is probably the single most important reason that my ships have been able to give the fastest, cheapest service to and from Illyria and has made me a fortune.
"Unluckily, during the past month, good fortune has turned its back on me. First it was the sloop Swiftsure. It left Vendrick with a full cargo hold and was found adrift at sea on this side of the Horn five days after it was supposed to arrive in Mistral. Every crew member was missing, vanished off the ship as if they'd been snatched in the middle of whatever task they were doing. There was even food half-cooked in the galley, the stove left for its fire to burn out."
"Could it have been pirates?" Lillet asked. "The crew would naturally drop everything to repel a sudden attack," she added when Limoux's face began to fall.
"Ah, I see. That's true enough, but there was no sign of a battle having taken place: no damage to the ship or the sails, no spilled blood, no signs of violence at all. Then, of course, there was the most telling point of all: the Swiftsure's cargo was entirely intact. Not that it did me any good; the cargo went to the finders by the law of salvage and I had to pay the prize value just to get the ship back. But as for the crew's disappearance, it was a complete mystery."
"You said that you lost two ships, though."
"That's right. A week later, the coaster Molly May was late arriving despite clear skies. She was found by the Gannett, fetched up on the shores of the Lesser Horn, broken in pieces. All of her crew was missing, and from what we could tell, the cargo had been left intact just like the Swiftsure's, though of course a fair amount of it had been lost to the waves in the wreck. It was clear that the Swiftsure's survival had been largely a matter of luck; like the Molly May she'd simply sailed on, crewless, and by some chance of wind and current had happened to find open water. That report we only have because the Gannett's captain sent three crew in her skiff back to Vendrick with the news. The Gannett herself went on…and met the same fate as the Molly May."
"So, something is coming on board your ships, plucking away their crews without any warning or struggle, then just letting the ships drift away as they might, without any mind to the cargo?" Lillet summed up. "I can see why you wanted a magician to investigate. That can't possibly be natural."
"I'm glad that you agree, Mistress Blan. I could imagine it happening once—a heavily armed pirate vessel, perhaps with magic support, might have coerced the crew of a small ship like the Swiftsure or the Molly May to abandon their vessel by a show of force, then by some error of seamanship been forced to let it drift away, but the Gannett was a heavily armed galleon. She even carried a hedge-wizard on board; obviously they'd have nothing like the power of a Royal Magician like yourself, but magic would certainly make a difference."
"And then, there's the question of the cargoes," Lillet said. "No pirate, or even some enemy of yours or a political rival of the cities you deal with, would just leave all that wealth behind, would they? If they were after money, they'd take money, and if they had some other scheme, I'd think they'd take the money anyway just to hide the fact that greed wasn't their aim."
"It doesn't feel human," Amoretta agreed. "It seems much more like it's some kind of monster, that wants the crew as prey and doesn't care about the ships and cargoes at all."
"Right, and that doesn't know or care about human motives that might make it want to hide its actions." Lillet tapped a fingertip against her lips as she thought it over. "That rules out any kind of devil, don't you think? The ones who aren't smart enough to conceal what they're up to are violent brutes, incapable of being subtle in their destruction."
Amoretta nodded firmly.
"I agree. Devils definitely aren't detached from human sins in this way. They're a corrupt mirror of the human perspective."
"And I think we can rule out Alchemy for the same reason: to have alchemical creations, there would have to be a magician to create them. The creations themselves might ignore the cargoes, but they'd just be tools of the master—sorry, Amoretta."
"Why are you apologizing? Dr. Chartreuse made me for a purpose, after all. I'm well aware of that."
She wasn't chiding Lillet; by her tone of voice she was genuinely confused as to why Lillet would apologize. That's so like her, Lillet thought. The homunculus always had had difficulty with concepts like tact, and even if she might have learned to moderate her own speech when the social graces suggested that a blunt truth wasn't called for, she would never be offended at someone else being rude to her so long as the rudeness was honest.
Amoretta probably hadn't even noticed that what Lillet had said might have been insensitive to say in front of a homunculus, let alone thought to be upset by it.
Limoux's eyebrows had gone up at the word "made," but he said nothing, doubtless having his own problems on his mind. Lillet had a feeling that he had filed the remark away for later, though—the master merchant gathering information reflexively in the event that it might become useful to him in the future.
"That just leaves Necromancy and Glamour. I wish that I knew more about stories of sea monsters; I don't have as much grounding in that area as I do in other magic." She bit her lip. "I really wish you had told Master Freixenet what this was about in advance, Mr. Limoux. He could have assigned an expert in oceanic magic to help you, or at least have given me time to research this situation. The thing is that most of the sea monsters I've heard of, like scyllas and sea serpents, attack by force. A serpent might destroy the ship and the crew like a marauding dragon, but not like this. Even ghosts would leave some trail."
"Do you or the crew have any ideas?" Amoretta asked. "Seafarers would have a better idea what kind of hazards there are at sea, even if only as stories instead of as accurate and tested research."
Limoux shook his head.
"I certainly don't. Believe me, if I did, I'd happily be more specific."
"What about the crew, then?" Lillet asked. "If rumors spread in a port anything like they do in a village, they'll probably have heard something about what's going on, and have their own ideas. They might not have any academic magical knowledge, but in my experience there's a lot of good sense embedded in folk wisdom and superstition, if you look at it with a critical eye."
"I don't want to start a panic on board, though."
"They probably know already. If anything, I bet the reason that they're not grumbling and protesting about sailing a 'cursed route' is because you're here with them. Either they assume you wouldn't be here unless you knew it was safe, or they think you're here taking the risk alongside them and they respect you for it."
"I see…" He stroked his beard, thinking it over. "Still and all…"
"Why don't you start with the officers?" Amoretta suggested. "They might have ideas, and they ought to know if there's been any talk among the crew."
"That's a very good point, Miss Virgine. Captain Pouillac already is in my confidence, and he's a good judge of his crew. As Mistress Blan says, there's no hard in asking the sailors directly if they already know some of what's happened."
"Meanwhile, I'll look through Neptune to see if there are any suggestions there. It's a Glamour grimoire, so the kind of think causing the incidents might even be a summonable familiar, or it might be discussed as a problem that some Rune in the grimoire is designed to protect against." She undid the satchel's buckle.
"Then I'll leave you ladies to it, and let you know if I hear anything." Limoux rose from the table and headed for the cabin door.
"Why don't you go with him, Amoretta?" Lillet said as he left. "Since you have magical knowledge, you'll do a better job of translating rumor into detail and realizing what might be important, and you can remember the exact wording of what people say in case Mr. Limoux forgets."
"All right."
She pushed back her chair, but there was a frown on her face as she did.
"Lillet…" she began.
"Yes? What's wrong?"
"I don't think it's right, what Mr. Limoux did."
Lillet also frowned. It took only a moment's thought before she believed she understood what her lover was talking about.
"I agree with you. I assume you mean that he's sailing this ship deliberately on a route where three other vessels have had their crews vanish, with me on board to try and magically fight off whatever is happening so he assumes that it will happen again, but only officially told the captain about it."
"That's right. It's one thing for him to risk his own life for his own sake, or for him to ask us, as a Royal Magician and apprentice, to face danger."
"It's part of our job," Lillet agreed. "Although knowing what we do now, part of me wished that you were safe at home. I can't be sure that I can keep you safe from a threat that I can't even identify. This isn't like at the Tower, when I could just let time turn back if I failed until I got it right."
"Lillet, don't worry." Amoretta set her hand on Lillet's shoulder, and Lillet leaned in, resting her cheek up against it, feeling the comforting coolness of her skin. "If anyone can do this, then it's definitely you. Not just for me, but for the sake of all those sailors who didn't know they were risking their lives to come on this voyage."
Her mentioning the additional responsibility was not exactly comforting, but the casual confidence she showed in Lillet's ability to handle the situation was.
There was a lot to be said for having the faith of one's best beloved one.
"Thanks, Amoretta. I'll do my best."
"I know you will. I'd better get going, if I'm going to help."
"All right. I'll see you soon."
Amoretta left, and Lillet set the grimoire down on the table. Colored the bright green of Glamour, its binding had a scalloped pattern that reminded Lillet of fish scales, and a trident was inlaid in gold leaf on the spine and front cover alike. The book was clearly a presentation copy, prepared more to sit on a library shelf than as a working volume, but that its contents had been reviewed and verified as accurate by the library staff was all that Lillet cared for.
"Well," she said aloud, "let's see what you have to offer."