Chapter 9

In the taxi, Uncle spoke only to tell the driver we were going to Marsh Mill Lane. I could've coped with his shouting at me, but the silence was almost unbearable. More than once, I caught myself on the verge of telling the driver to stop so I could get out.

The driver dropped us at the end of the street, and we walked the rest of the way - I guessed this was so he couldn't tell anyone which house we lived in.

Uncle set the mirror down at the foot of the stairs, more gently than I'd ever handled it. He held my gaze for several moments. I actually thought he might cry. But then he took a deep breath and said, "Dagoreth knows I haven't brought you up as well as your father would've. But I thought I'd drummed some common sense into you. What in the name of all that's holy were you doing running around after midnight - in the Narrows! - assaulting a Man of the Peace! I suppose I should be grateful you talked them into releasing you without charge."

"Assaulting?" I frowned. "I bumped into him."

Uncle's expression said he didn't believe me.

"All right, I... I ran into him."

Still Uncle looked sceptical.

Heat rose in my face. "I was running from a gang of thieves."

"What were you doing outside the warehouse?"

"They came inside! They were using it as a lair."

Uncle's fists clenched, and I took half a step back. Then he forced himself to relax. "We're going to make some tea, and I'm going do my best to pretend I haven't spent all morning being worried sick about you. Then you can tell me what happened."

More than once as I told my story, my teacup nearly slipped from my grasp. When I'd finished, Uncle made a few choice remarks about Markeshto, his secretary, the thieves and the Men of the Peace. "Though I would've given a few svara to see the looks on their faces when you blew out their candle."

"You wouldn't have seen anything," I said. "That was rather the point."

He gave a sad smile. "But anyway, we have to leave now. Too many people know about the mirror - too many people have a reason to try to steal it."

"Now?" I said. "As in..."

"As in pack your bags. We can share your father's old sea trunk. The ship's ready. The captain said he'd sail if you knew your destination to within a degree, and you've got that now."

"Oh." I'd been so fixated on working out where we needed to go that I hadn't given any thought to actually getting there. The possibility of departure had seemed remote and unreal. I gasped. "I need to tell Shanu."

"Write her a letter. No time for long tearful goodbyes."

"But -" Then I thought writing might be better. Saying farewell for such a long time in person would be painful even if I hadn't nearly accused her father of trying to rob us. I went to my room and started writing.

I was still writing when Uncle knocked on my door an hour later to find out why I hadn't come back down yet. When I told him I was looking for the right words to express my feelings, he tutted and said, "Best not varnish it, lad. Stick to the facts."

I took him at his word, and wrote two sentences of explanation. I sealed the letter and started packing. It took us most of the afternoon to decide what we wanted and cram it into the sea chest. I wanted to take plenty of warm clothing, seeing as we were going to such a cold place, but Uncle persuaded me we didn't have room for it. At last, less than an hour before curfew, we waved farewell to Mara, then dragged the chest into the street and flagged down a taxi. The driver grumbled about the extra weight and bulk, but quickly took us down to the western docks.

We drove past half-a-dozen large ships, unoccupied and silent in the gathering twilight. Ours had to be the small one at the end of the wharf, as it was the only one with any activity around it. Several sailors were moving boxes and barrels onto the deck, some running up and down the gangplank, a couple of them using a crane for the bigger items.

"Welcome to your home for the next six months," said Uncle. "The Silver Dolphin under Captain Rymad, a hundred and eight feet long, two hundred and fifty tons burthen, whatever that means."

"It's a measure of how much cargo she can carry," I said, "and it means she's tiny." Most of the freighters that crisscrossed the Sea of Mulkara were at least a thousand tons burthen, and many were fifteen hundred.

"It's not as if we're going to need a lot of room on the way back, is it?" he replied.

The sailors put the chest into a rope net and used the crane to lift it on to the deck. Uncle strode up the gangplank as they did this, but I hung back. The plank had no rails and it flexed under his weight. It wasn't so much that I was afraid of falling off - I could swim well enough to stay afloat until someone pulled me out - as that I felt if I set foot on that ship, I'd never see Symeera or even Asdanund again. At the top, Uncle turned to me and shrugged.

I couldn't very well refuse to go somewhere he had, could I? I shuffled up the plank. Behind me, a man shouted something that I chose to interpret as "Please hurry up." The wood bounced underneath me as I walked the rest of the way.

Uncle and I had a cabin, which was a relief - I'd thought we'd be in with the crew. It had a window, more for ventilation than for light, and a hook in the ceiling for hanging a lantern from. The door looked solid and had a strong bolt. The place would've been just about big enough for both of us, except that the chest took up a third of the floor space, which meant there was room for only one bed. Uncle spoke to the captain - no small task, as the man had a hundred other things to do before we could sail - who wanted to know why the chest wasn't in the hold, like all the other cargo. Uncle explained we couldn't let it out of our sight. He threw up his hands in exasperation and said he'd send the carpenter to see to the problem once we were underway.

We set sail on time, following the last of the sunlight towards Darmath, our first port of call, where we were due in about nine days. The ship's gentle rocking made me sleepy, but the thought of Shanu reading my letter kept me awake.

The carpenter was a small, jolly fellow, whose jangling toolkit announced his presence long before he knocked on our door. I cast a light spell to allow him to see what he was doing, and he fastened a couple of hooks into the walls for a hammock. I watched him, fascinated that the movement of the ship didn't disrupt his work. He hung the hammock and showed us how to get into and out of it. Uncle insisted I try first. I took off my shoes and jacket and stood on the chest.

Getting in wasn't too bad, though the thing swayed alarmingly. Getting out was much trickier, as there was nothing I could hold onto. I worried that I'd end up rolling out of the hammock and crashing to the floor, and then realised that was almost exactly what I was supposed to do. I swung my legs out of the hammock and allowed my momentum to carry me down, so that I half-fell, half-jumped to the floor.

"That's it, lad," the carpenter said. "You're a born sailor."

"I think we've just worked out who's sleeping where," said Uncle.

"You'll want to buy some candles," said the carpenter, "or some oil for your lantern."

"Why?" said Uncle. "My nephew's good at magic."

"I can see that, Sir, but magic don't work so good over deep water. Most spells take a lot more effort than they're worth at sea."

"Why's that?" said Uncle.

The carpenter gave a polite shrug and took his leave of us.

"I'd forgotten about that," I said. "The theory is that magic comes from the ground, so when you're at sea it has to come from the seabed, and travelling through the water makes it weaker."

Uncle frowned. "We're not likely to have to do much magic at sea, are we?"

"Maybe not, but the..." I glanced at the door. I jerked it open, hoping to surprise any eavesdroppers. Of course, no one was there. Blushing, I closed the door and bolted it. "The mirror interferes with magic, so the crew's spells might be even worse than usual."

"But if they know that spells are weak anyway, they're not going to bother attempting them."

I nodded, hoping he was right. Against my expectations, I slept soundly.

When I woke and went up on deck, we were sailing parallel to a rugged forested landscape to the north. Uncle and I ate breakfast with Rymad, the captain, in his cabin at the stern. Also present were the first mate, Gribekh, and the third mate, Suln. The second mate, Ingryn, who was also the navigator, was asleep, as he currently had the night watch.

"So," said Rymad, once we'd finished eating, "when are you going to tell me what we're looking for?"

"Not yet," said Uncle with a grin. "Maybe once we've left Darmath."

"It's nothing dangerous, if that's what you're worried about," I said.

"I didn't think it was," said Rymad. "You're paying me well, but not well enough to get into any fights."

When I went back on deck, I noticed that the ship had large crossbows mounted on a pivot, one each at the bow and stern. These fired wide bolts, two yards long, with barbed heads, and I shuddered at the thought of what one of those could do to a man. I wondered why we needed them if we weren't planning on fighting. I spotted Suln on the poop deck, and climbed up there to ask him about them.

"They're mainly for shooting pirates before they come aboard, Sir," he said.

"Are we likely to meet any pirates?" Stories about them had seemed exciting when I was a boy, but the thought of encountering them in the flesh was decidedly unappealing.

Suln chuckled. "Not in these waters, Sir. When the Nuhyseans were attacking our merchant ships early in the war, the Navy started escorting them. They didn't kill many dragons, but they caught a lot of pirates, and I suppose that must've scared the rest of them into making an honest living."

"So are we likely to be attacked by dragons?"

He laughed again. "You are a worrier, young Sir, if you don't mind my saying so. Dragons can't fly over water - or not out of sight of land, anyway."

Of course. It was one of the reasons why the Nuhyseans hadn't won the war a long time ago. Nobody was sure if it was something in their nature, or a fear that they couldn't overcome, but if a dragon tried to fly to somewhere it couldn't see land, it would invariably fall out of the sky, drowning itself and more than likely its rider, if he couldn't unfasten himself from the saddle in time. Besides that, we were currently about nine hundred miles from Nuhys and getting further away with every minute - so if we saw a dragon here, it would have to mean that the enemy had overrun the whole of Asdanund within the last day.

Around noon, there was a short Mazorean prayer service on the poop deck. Rymad led it, as Silver Dolphin was too small to have its own priest. I mumbled my way through the responses, ashamed to realise how much I'd forgotten in the few months since I'd last been inside a temple. When the service finished, I turned to leave, and was surprised to hear Rymad utter the opening of the Kashalbean service. The two gospels were broadly compatible, of course, and there was nothing in either that said a man couldn't follow both, but it was quite unusual for anyone to do that nowadays. Obviously, a ship that didn't have a Mazorean priest wasn't likely to have a Kashalbean one either.

Over the next few days, as we continued due west, we saw no land except for the occasional small island. We passed a ship every few hours, going in the opposite direction. Once or twice, I glimpsed a ship ahead or astern of us, presumably also going to Darmath.

On the fourth day out of Symeera, we saw no land. There was another joint Mazorean and Kashalbean prayer service, this time led by Gribekh, the first mate. Oddly, he started with the Kashalbean service, and although I didn't recognise most of the crew yet, the men at this service seemed to be a different set from those who'd been at Rymad's.

On the fifth day, I realised that when you were on board a ship, unless you were one of the officers or crew, there was very little to do. My thoughts turned to Shanu. I wondered what she was doing and thinking. Did she miss me? Did her heart ache for me, as mine did for her? Or was she glad to be rid of me, after the way I'd besmirched her family's name? Was her father even now seeking a more fitting suitor for her? I wanted to tell Uncle to turn the ship around... but no. Quite apart from the fact that I couldn't marry her if I came back empty-handed, we needed the other mirror to be able to pay off the loans Uncle had taken out to finance the expedition.

We reached Darmath on the ninth day after we left Symeera. Docking took a lot longer than I expected, as the wharves had been built with little thought as to how ships might pass one another. I'd thought of the city as being a smaller version of Symeera, but it seemed nearly as big as my home. I asked one of the crew about it, and he said Darmath had grown quickly with the war - the Nuhyseans couldn't attack it, and it had become wealthy supplying Asdanund with many of the goods and raw materials that used to come from Nuhys and beyond. There hadn't been much time to plan its expansion.

We unloaded a few small items of cargo that Uncle had brought to sell, and started loading food and other supplies for the next stage of the journey. The latter, Uncle told me, was part of his plan for foiling spies. We'd brought enough supplies from Symeera to last until Darmath, so anybody watching us in Symeera would've thought we were only going as far as here. As well as that, supplies were a good bit cheaper here, and perishable food would be at least nine days fresher for not having to cross the Sea of Mulkara.

"I thought I might send a letter to Shanu while we're here," I said. "Something longer, to make up for the short one I had to send before we left." I gave him a knowing look, hoping I might make him feel guilty for forcing me to be so brief.

"You can't tell her where we are or where we're going," said Uncle, "or what we've been doing or what we're going to do, because someone might intercept the letter. So what's left to say?"

Trying to make Uncle feel guilty was like trying to set fire to a stone. Blushing, I replied, "That I love her, and I miss her, and I'm looking forward to seeing her again."

He looked at me askance. "She knows all that."

"And people wonder why you've never married."

In our cabin that night, we checked the mirror, to make sure everything was still all right at the other end. The sun was higher than it had been at this time of day, but that was to be expected, since we were further west now, and the difference in local time was smaller. Once, I thought I saw a smudge of smoke over the city, but Uncle convinced me it was probably just a low cloud.

The following morning, we departed Darmath. Just outside the harbour, we saw an Asdanundish ship lying at anchor. Its sleek lines, together with the large number of ballistas and catapults it carried, told me it was a naval vessel.

"Maybe there are pirates in these waters after all," I said to Suln.

"I'd have heard if there were," he said, squinting at it against the sun. "Odd."

"What?"

"She's not local, and she's trying to hide the fact. You see there at the top of the mainmast - there's a gap just below the Asdanundish flag? That's where the captain's personal flag would normally be."

"So if that was flying, you'd know where the ship came from?"

"Yes. And Mulkaran ships don't use catapults - a ship usually rolls too much to aim them properly, and if you're not careful with them, you just end up tearing holes in your own rigging."

"What's it - she - doing here, then?"

Suln shrugged. "I would've thought our boys had plenty to do defending our coast, but maybe there's some new threat we don't know about, and this captain doesn't want his enemy to know that Asdanund knows about him."

At Uncle's insistence, we sailed back east for a couple of hours, until we were out of sight of the city. We then turned in a wide arc to start heading west to Ash-Kalog. Ingryn, our navigator, estimated this stage would take eighteen days. I wasn't looking forward to landing there, although I knew my dislike of the place was irrational. I'd never been to it or met anyone who came from it, but its capital, Iseru, was where my father had died on a trading expedition with Uncle. As such, I couldn't shake the feeling that it was ill-omened.

We made good time for the first two days. Several times, I glimpsed a ship behind us, and thought its sail plan resembled that of the warship, but I never saw it for long enough to be sure. I didn't see it on the third day, as we hit rough seas, and I stayed in the cabin most of the time. Rymad thought there might be a storm ahead of us, and he and the officers argued over whether to go around it or try to endure it. In the end, it didn't matter, because we ran into it.

On the morning of the fourth day out of Darmath, I was on deck, hoping the fresh air would counteract the queasiness I felt from Silver Dolphin's constant rolling and jolting. A sailor shouted at me to get below, and pointed ahead, a little way to port. That quarter of the sky was black with clouds that seemed to boil. Lightning crackled in their depths.

The storm bounced us around first for hours, then for days, slamming us against the walls and floor as a gambler would rattle dice in a box. Every so often it let go of us, seeming to wager everything on one last, desperate throw, and for a minute, or an hour, the sea would be calm, and I would think we had come through, and begin to wonder about eating, or patching up our wounds. Then another wave would crash onto us, and the cycle would begin again.

I lost track of time. Every so often, a sailor called on us, sometimes to bring food, but more often, I thought, just to see whether we were still alive. These fellows looked as wretched as I felt.

Uncle and I stayed in our cabin, leaving only to attend to our sanitary needs - which was seldom, as we couldn't bring ourselves to eat or drink much. The room became a black, airless hole. Lanterns posed too much risk of fire, and neither of us felt capable of attempting a light spell. Above the roar of the wind and the waves, I heard periodic crashes and screams, and imagined sailors being swept out of the rigging, or crushed by falling spars. Oddly, it never occurred to me that I might be drowned. The cabin was cold, but no water ever got in.

I rediscovered prayer, imploring Mazor to ensure we came out of the other side of the storm in one piece, until Uncle told me to shut up.

At last, the shaking and bouncing stopped for longer than usual. I heard a few muted cheers from above. Every part of me ached. My joints felt loose, as if I was a doll that a child had been trying to dismantle.

"Is it really over?" I asked Uncle. My lips stung as I spoke, and I tasted blood.

Uncle looked up from where he lay on the mattress. "Check the porthole," he croaked.

I crawled over to the chest. Against expectations, it had proven heavy enough to stay more or less in place. I wondered if the mirror had survived the battering from our other possessions. I dragged myself up onto the chest, so that my arms were lying across the top of it. I tried to force myself to stand, but my legs had no strength. The ship rolled, and I slid off the chest and onto the floor.

I was still there when a sailor came to the door to say the captain wanted to see us.