Black Halo

The boy tilted his nose up in a vague pretext of scholarly thought.

‘Then what the hell did you take that stone for?’ Lenk thrust a finger at the chipped red gem hanging from the boy’s neck. ‘You said the netherlings used it to avoid the physical cost of magic back at Irontide, right?’

‘I did. And that’s why I’m not using it,’ Dreadaeleon said. ‘All magic has a cost. If something negates that cost, it’s illegal and thus unnatural.’

‘But I’ve seen you use-’

‘What you saw,’ the boy snapped, ‘was me using a brain far more colossal than yours to discern the nature of an object that could very well make your head explode. Trust me when I say that if I “wind us out” now, I won’t be able to do anything later.’

‘The only thing we might possibly need you to do later is serve as an impromptu anchor,’ Lenk growled. ‘Is it so hard to just do what I ask?’

‘You’re not asking, you’re telling,’ Dreadaeleon replied. ‘If you were asking, you’d have accepted my answer as the decisive end to an argument between a man who is actually versed in the laws of magic enough to know what he’s talking about and a bark-necked imbecile who’s driven to desperation by his conflicts with a mule-eared savage to attempt to threaten the former man, who also has enough left in him to incinerate the latter man with a few harsh words and a flex of practised fingers, skinny they may be.’

The boy paused, drew in a deep breath.

‘So shut your ugly face,’ he finished.

Lenk blinked, recoiling from the verbal assault. Sighing, he rubbed his temples and fought the urge to look between Gariath’s legs again.

‘You have a point, I’m sure,’ he said, ‘but try to think of people besides yourself and myself. If we don’t reach Teji by tomorrow morning, we are officially out of time.’

‘So we don’t get paid in time,’ Dreadaeleon said, shrugging. ‘Or don’t get paid at all. Gold doesn’t buy knowledge.’

‘It buys women with knowledge,’ another voice chirped from the prow.

Both of them turned to regard Denaos, inconsiderately long-legged and slim body wrapped in black leather. He regarded them back, a crooked grin under sweat-matted reddish hair.

‘The kind of knowledge that involves saliva, sweat and sometimes a goat, depending on where you go,’ he said.

‘A lack of attachment to gold is an admirable trait to be nurtured and admired,’ Asper said from beside him, ‘not met with advice on whoremongering.’

Denaos’ scowl met the priestess’s impassively judgemental gaze. She brushed his scorn off like snow from her shoulders as she tucked her brown hair behind a blue bandana. Her arms folded over her blue-robed chest as she glanced from Denaos to Dreadaeleon.

‘Don’t let it bother you, Dread,’ she said, offering a rather modest smile. ‘If we don’t make it, what does it matter if we go another few weeks without bathing?’ She sighed, tugging at the rather confining neck of her robes to expose a bit of sweat-kissed flesh.

The widening of the boy’s eyes was impossible to miss, as was the swivel of his gaze to the aghast expression Asper wore. Powerful as the boy might be, he was still a boy, and as large as his brain was, Lenk could hear the lurid fantasies running wild through his skull. Asper’s movement had sparked something within the boy that not even years of wizardly training could penetrate.

A smirk that was at once both sly and vile crossed Lenk’s face.

‘Think of Asper,’ he all but whispered.

‘Huh? What?’ Dreadaeleon blinked as though he were emerging from a trance, colour quickly filling his slender face as he swallowed hard. ‘What … what about her?’

‘You can’t think she’s too comfortable here, can you?’

‘None … none of us are comfortable,’ the boy stammered back, intent on hiding more than one thing as he crossed his legs. ‘It’s just … just an awkward situation.’

‘True, but Asper’s possibly the only decent one out of us. After all, she gave up her share of the reward, thinking that the deed we’re doing is enough.’ Lenk shook his head at her. ‘I mean, she deserves better, doesn’t she?’

‘She … does,’ Dreadaeleon said, loosening the collar of his coat. ‘But the laws … I mean, they’re …’

Lenk looked up, noting the morbid fascination with which Denaos watched the unfurling discomfort in the boy. A smile far more unpleasant than his gaze crept across his face as the two men shared a discreet and wholly wicked nod between them.

‘Give me your bandana,’ Denaos said, turning towards Asper.

‘What?’ She furrowed her brow. ‘Why?’

‘I smudged the map. I need to clean it.’ He held out his hand expectantly, batting eyelashes. ‘Please?’

The priestess pursed her lips, as though unsure, before sighing in resignation and reaching up. Her robe pressed a little tighter against her chest. Dreadaeleon’s eyes went wider, threatening to leap from his skull. Her collar, opened slightly more than modesty would allow at the demands of the heat, slipped open a little to expose skin glistening with sweat. The fantasies thundered through Dreadaeleon’s head with enough force to cause his head to rattle.

She undid the bandana, letting brown locks fall down in a cascade, a single strand lying on her breasts, an imperfection begging for practised, skinny fingers to rectify it.

Lenk watched the reddening of the boy’s face with growing alarm. Dreadaeleon hadn’t so much as breathed since Denaos made his request, his body so rigid as to suggest that rigour had set in before he could actually die.

‘So … you’ll do it, right?’ Lenk whispered.

‘Yes,’ the boy whispered, breathless, ‘just … just give me a few moments.’

Lenk glanced at the particular rigidity with which the wizard laid his book on his lap. ‘Take your time.’ He discreetly turned away, hiding the overwhelming urge to wash apparent on his face.

When he set his hand down into a moist puddle, the urge swiftly became harsh enough to make the drowning seem a very sensible option. He brought up a glistening hand and stared at it curiously, furrowing his brow. He was not the only one to stare, however.

‘Who did it this time?’ Denaos growled. ‘We have rules for this sort of vulgar need and all of them require you to go over the side.’

‘No,’ Lenk muttered, sniffing the salt on his fingers. ‘It’s a leak.’

‘Well, obviously it’s a leak,’ Denaos said, ‘though I’ve a far less gracious term for it.’

‘We’re sinking,’ Kataria muttered, her ears unfolding. She glanced at the boat’s side, the water flowing through a tiny gash like blood through a wound. She turned a scowl up at Lenk. ‘I thought you fixed this.’

‘Of course, she’ll talk to me when she has something to complain about,’ the young man muttered through his teeth. He turned around to meet her scowl with one of his own. ‘I did, back on Ktamgi. Carpentry isn’t an exact science, you know. Accidents happen.’

‘Let’s be calm here, shall we?’ Asper held her hands up for peace. ‘Shouldn’t we be thinking of ways to keep the sea from murdering us first?’

‘I can help!’ Dreadaeleon appeared to be ready to leap to his feet, but with a mindful cough, thought better of it. ‘That is, I can stop the leak. Just … just give me a bit.’

He flipped through his book diligently, past the rows of arcane, incomprehensible sigils, to a series of blank, bone-white pages. With a wince that suggested it hurt him more than the book to do so, he ripped one of them from the heavy tome. Swiftly shutting it and reattaching it to the chain that hung from his belt, he crawled over to the gash.

All eyes stared with curiosity as the boy knelt over the gash and brought his thumb to his teeth. With a slightly less than heroic yelp, he pressed the bleeding digit against the paper and hastily scrawled out some intricate crimson sign.

‘Oh, now you’ll do something magical?’ Lenk threw his hands up.

Dreadaeleon, his brow furrowed and ears shut to whatever else his companion might have said, placed the square of paper against the ship’s wound. Muttering words that hurt to listen to, he ran his unbloodied fingers over the page. In response, its stark white hue took on a dull azure glow before shifting to a dark brown. There was the