'No one's been beyond the Sarcre Islands and the Storm Wall before. No ship could survive those seas.'
'The Llothriall can and just imagine what it may find.'
'New lands.'
'New people.'
'New races with new ideologies. What do you think will happen, Dunsany, when those ideologies come up against the Final Faith?'
'What do you think?' Dunsany sighed and ran his fingers through his beard. 'Gods, whatever happened to discovery for discovery's sake? Why does every pitsing artefact, every pitsing scroll and spell that's unearthed instantly become a weapon in somebody's war?'
'We could always run away to Allantia. Start up a small fishing concern. I could do cantrips for the locals.'
Dunsany shook his head and smiled. 'Or we could take Makennon's new toy away from her.'
This time, when Kelos looked at him, Dunsany could see something like resolve in his eyes. 'Discovery for discovery's sake?'
'Discovery for Discovery's sake,' Dunsany confirmed, raising his tankard. 'Cheers.'
'Get down!'
Dunsany shoved Emuel and Kelos behind a crate as the guard rounded the hull of the vast ship. Beside him the eunuch whimpered, the strange runes and illustrations inked on his body glowing with a blue-black sheen in the Kerberos-lit dusk.
'Was it really necessary to bind him like that?' Kelos whispered, looking over at the shivering, tattooed eunuch.
'If he gets away we're buggered, you know that. No one else can sing to that gem and unlock the magic but him. Unless, that is, you'd like me to perform an impromptu operation on you right here?' Dunsany slowly unsheathed his dagger, a smile playing across his lips.
'No, no that's fine. Really.'
It didn't look like Emuel was going to make a break for it though. He'd been close to a state of catatonic shock ever since they had sprung him from his cell in the cathedral. All they had to do now was board the ship, make him sing and they were away.
'Gods Dunsany, are you sure that this is a good idea? I count three men with crossbows on the foremast and I wouldn't put it past Makennon to have a Shadowmage tucked in there somewhere.'
'Well then, old friend,' Dunsany said, putting an arm around Kelos's shoulder. 'You'll just have to weave your own magic won't you? Now, keep Emuel quiet while I take care of this guard.'
The guard was coming towards them again, having completed a circuit of the ship. Dunsany knelt down and loaded a quarrel into his crossbow. Slowly, he edged around the crate, carefully drawing a bead on the guard while keeping to the shadows. The weapon was custom made, expertly crafted, and the quarrel made almost no noise as it exited the crossbow and entered the throat of the man in the robes of a Final Faith guard. Dunsany briefly left cover to grab the corpse and pull it out of sight of the ship.
Emuel looked down at the pool of blood edging towards him from the body and, before Kelos had time to clamp his hand over his mouth, emitted a piercing shriek. Instantly there was movement on the foremast. Dunsany glared at Emuel and briefly considered cracking him round the head with the stock of his crossbow, but without the eunuch they weren't going anywhere.
'Kelos, remember that magic I mentioned? Well, now's the time.'
Kelos closed his eyes, summoning the threads of elemental power. A coolness coursed through him as the pounding of waves thundered in his head. Beside him Emuel and Dunsany backed away as they tasted the tang of ozone that told them something big was about to happen.
Kelos stepped out of cover and raised his hands.
The ships in this part of the docks were already swaying drunkenly, the fierce power of the sea only slightly dissipated by the massive breakwaters, but the Llothriall now began to lurch even more than its neighbours. The guards in the foremast were having great difficulty in keeping their aim on the man who had emerged from the shadows below them. One let loose with his bow just as the boat lurched hard to starboard and the arrow sailed high into the night. A few almost found their target but Kelos didn't even flinch as the arrows thudded into the wood of the crate behind him. Instead, he concentrated on the great wheel of energy that spun through his mind. The sea surrounding the ship began to churn more furiously now and Kelos spat out the syllables that he had memorised five years before from a rare and mildewed book. For each guttural exclamation a thick rope of water erupted from the waves.
One of the guards dropped his weapon as a tentacle of water snaked around his neck. Hearing the snap of vertebrae his comrade started to scramble down the rigging, but before he could reach the deck he was thrown clear of the ship, crashing into the side of a warehouse. The last man was picked from the foremast, where he had been standing frozen in shock. His bow dropped from his numb fingers as an arm of living water encircled his waist. He looked down as the ship receded below him and then he was upside-down and the sea was rushing towards him.
Kelos lowered his hands and edged towards the dock wall but the guard didn't resurface. The tendrils of water fell, lifeless, and Dunsany and a shaken Emuel emerged from hiding.
'I think that you've found a new way to clear the decks. Don't suppose there's anything you can do for laughing boy here is there?' Kelos cast a silence spell on the eunuch. Emuel looked offended and opened his mouth, but his protest failed to emerge. 'Thank the Gods for that. I didn't fancy boarding the Llothriall while he continued to scream the place down. Now, when we want you to sing, you'll sing okay? Kelos, lead the way.'
On board, at the bottom of the steps leading below, they stopped in front of a door. Dunsany cocked his crossbow and put his ear to the wood. He was raising his arm to signal that it was safe for them to proceed when twelve inches of steel erupted from the door just by his nose. The sword was quickly withdrawn and the door burst open. Kelos flung his palms out and a fireball thudded into the chest of the man who emerged, launching him backwards down the corridor behind him.
Dunsany glanced back at his friend as he stepped over the felled guard.
'I'm warning you now that I can't keep this up for much longer,' Kelos panted.
'Relax, we're almost there.'
Two more short flights of steps and a long corridor led them to the heart of the ship. They stopped in front of a reinforced door, elvish script covering its surface. Kelos traced the design with his fingers, muttering something to himself. Eventually he stepped back and nodded. 'That's the advantage of having designed the wards, I know how to counteract them. On three?' He drew a short sword.
'On three.' Dunsany agreed, drawing his own blade.
As they charged into the room Kelos was flung against the ceiling. For a moment he thought that the boat had taken a massive hit, but then he saw the man in the corner, smiling as he weaved threads of magic, muttering strange syllables.
Kelos's windpipe started to constrict as the Shadowmage increased his hold. Below him, Dunsany was squaring off against the guards who stood in front of the magical gem that was the engine of the vessel. The stone, sitting in its housing of metal and wood, seemed to whisper to Kelos as he gasped for breath.
He watched as Dunsany swung at one of the guards. The man tumbled to the side to avoid the blow and Dunsany took the opportunity to fire a quarrel at the other guard.
When the quarrel entered his thigh, the man grunted and stepped back. However, the injury hadn't slowed him as he roared and shoulder charged Dunsany into the wall. The guard pushed his blade against Dunsany's throat but Dunsany gritted his teeth, reversed his grip on his sword and rammed the pommel into the base of the guard's neck. The man dropped and Kelos cried out a warning as the remaining guard stepped in to fill the gap.
Dunsany failed to fully evade the blow and the blade sliced into his cheek, flicking blood into his eyes. He staggered and almost tripped over Emuel, who was on the floor behind him, rocking back and forth. The guard took advantage of the stumble and swung again, this time nicking Dunsany's wrist, making him drop his sword. Dunsany raised his crossbow and fired. Kelos saw the mage in the corner blink and the quarrel turned to powder millimetres from the guard's face.
'I knew Makennon should never have trusted scum like you.' The guard said, brushing dust from his jerkin. 'If you ask me we didn't do enough in converting this shit hole you people call home. Unbelievers should have been
