The Seascape Tattoo (37 page)

Aros dove into the fray, landing on the slick deck in three-point balance, snarling defiance into the rain. “Time for you to die,” he called.

The false general cocked his head, shaking blood and water from his weapon. “You must be the Aztec I've heard of,” he said.

“I am.”

“Good,” Belot said. The wizard's voice was a strange blend of Silith's baritone and a deeply musical woman's contralto. He'd never heard the like. “You have caused me trouble, but nothing I cannot undo, after all of you are dead. The war has merely started early.”

“And there's nothing here that steel cannot undo,” Aros said. “Look out for your head.”

And with that Aros came at him.

There was something that he had learned from his battle with the general—that battle ferocity alone was not enough, that somehow there had to be a part of you watching the fight as it unfolded, like an angel above or demon below. That was the gift that Silith had given him. And from that perspective, Aros knew that the wizard had all of Silith's technique. Every stroke, block, and piece of footwork. His thrusts and parries were almost as fast, his arm almost as strong. If Aros had not sparred with the real general and then battled beside him, he would have been dead in seconds.

Aros compensated by moving backward, giving way while probing for flaws. There were none, and for a moment he felt despair.

Then it dawned on him that the wizard was predictable.

Aros could see his every next move. He had Silith's moves, his skill, but not his spontaneous ability to combine them in new and disorienting ways. The instant intuitive
creativity
was missing.

And that lack of instant adaptation gave Aros time to adjust. He noticed something else: the wizard was not as strong as Silith had been. Magic and knowledge hadn't quite compensated for a lifetime of wielding that sword, with all the strength and endurance that implied. Regardless of the wizard's powers, Aros's exertions were beginning to stress it. Its eyes were not quite human now. They were empty holes, deep as the chasm between sanity and madness. The mouth a thin line, like a sword slash in wet flesh. In the flashes of light, he saw things, things that chilled him.

It was Silith. It was not.

It was a man. It was a woman. Mere flashes. The lightning revealed such things for moments only, and then the night concealed them again.

“I took his skill,” it hissed. “Sucked it from his marrow as he died. As I will take yours.” But, Aros wondered, was it speaking to him? Or to itself? Was it quite as confident as it wanted him to believe?

Lightning crashed overhead, and that awful glare again revealed a face that was both male and female and larger than either a normal man's or woman's. Not human at all.

But this time, the men around them saw the horror and fell back, screaming, “That ain't the general!” And the murmur ran through them, and they backed away from the men they had been hacking.

“General Silith is dead!” the thing screamed above the roar of the wind. “I, Belot, the One, am in command!”

“I ain't fightin' for no wizard!” one of the men screamed. “Hold up! I fight for king and general!”

There were screams of shared agreement, and the thing in the general's costume struck the sailor down. He groaned and sank, his brains spilled onto the deck.

The men around him grumbled, retreating, swords high but refusing to fight.

“I am in charge!” Belot shrieked. “I am greater than any general, any king, and I—”

And in that moment's distraction, Aros stabbed him through the side ribs, pierced the creature's heart. Not a particularly honorable thing to do, he knew.

But, after all, he was a barbarian.

 

FORTY-TWO

Waging Peace

Belot, the creature who had masqueraded as General Silith, slid to the deck. The male-female form wasted away as well, revealing something beneath that was part squid, part ape. Something that might have thrived on an earlier, less sane world.

And then … it melted away as well, as if its true form was nothing appropriate for this world.

“What was it?” Captain Gold asked, as his surgeon bandaged his arm.

“One of the old ones,” Neoloth said. “We used to pray to them.” Aros turned and looked at his companion. There was something wrong with the wizard. He seemed …
old
.

The Shrike sailors seemed uncertain. Their commander was the first to speak. “What now? We sailed thinking we had been commanded by our general. If we stop fighting you now … what happens?”

There was general murmuring from both sets of combatants. What indeed? Wars had begun over events far more trivial than the kidnapping of a princess or an assault on a royal fleet.

“I can tell you what will happen,” Tahlia said. “I am Princess Tahlia, of Quillia.” She was dressed in a rough cotton robe, not a crown, but she managed to make it regal.

“Princess,” the admiral said. In genuflecting rows, the sailors of the Quillian navy went to one knee before her.

She extended her hand to the admiral, and, after a moment's pause, he took it and kissed the back.

“What will you tell your mother, Princess Tahlia? Whither do we go from here?”

“Home,” the princess said. “There has been enough death this day. I will tell my mother that I was stolen by the Hundred, by a monster which imitated the form of the general and others to foment war. And that the good people of Shrike, once they became aware of this abomination, freed me and fought with me against this evil, and assisted in returning me home. Further, I will say that the good people of Shrike wish nothing but kinship with Quillia and that your act of kindness and fealty to your rightful king can and should be considered the first act in a new and better relationship between Shrike and the other seven kingdoms. By this act, you have earned my friendship and undying gratitude of the queen of Quillia.”

And Aros knew that in that statement she meant not merely her mother, but the woman she would be, for this was the first act of a woman who deserved the title
queen
in every way.

*   *   *

The lines were untied, the damaged ships evaluated, sailors returned to their vessels. Once war is begun, it is difficult to put those dogs back in the kennel, but every sailor there knew that the future of their nations depended on courtesy and caution for the next hours. By the time the lines were untied, the damaged ships evaluated, the sailors returned to their vessels and the Shrike vessels headed north, all were ready to breathe a sigh of relief.

The sailors marveled at the magical creatures that danced on the waves around them as the storm died down and calm returned to the waters.

Aros had watched Neoloth. Something had happened to the man he now considered … if not a friend, then certainly a companion. An ally who understood him entirely too well.

“Help me,” Neoloth whispered, and Aros assisted him to his feet. The princess was being transferred to the flagship of the Quillian navy, which fortunately had not sustained great damage.

“Will you come with me?” the princess asked. She must have noticed that there was something amiss with Neoloth. His complexion had gone pasty, and streaks of white ran in his hair.

“No, no,” he said. “I'll be on soon. I promise.” He managed to wink at her. “More spells to be done, first. Gratitude to our helpers.”

She didn't seem to believe him totally, but there was little she could say. She and Drasilljah walked the gangplank over to the other ship, and with a final look back over her shoulder, disappeared onto the deck. The plank was struck, and slowly, ponderously, the great ship began to turn, its oars stroking the water until its sails could catch the wind and power her home.

And then Neoloth collapsed.

*   *   *

The escape and subsequent battle had taken all of the old wizard's strength.

Aros bent over him. “By the serpent!” he said. “Your hair! Your face!”

Neoloth reached up a trembling hand to clasp Aros's arm. The wizard's hand was knobbed and wrinkled. “Well, it was worth it.”

“Worth what?” Aros asked.

“I've used spells to keep me young, so that the last bit of magic was in me. I gave it up to work with the Red Nun and Drasilljah to protect Tahlia.”

“How … old are you?” Aros asked. And there was a tenderness in the Aztec's eyes that he thought never to see. How strange, for such a thing at the very end of life.

“Too old to count birthdays.” He laughed. A wheezing sound.

The world whirled and faded, and when it returned the Red Nun stood beside him.

“What can I do?” she asked.

“There is nothing,” he sighed, exhaling as if he no longer had the strength to keep breath in his body. “I paid the price for victory, and I'm satisfied with what I purchased.”

Aros held the wizard's hand. Neoloth could see it withering even as he watched. What was he now? He couldn't even remember his years, but they had to be more than …

His mind was growing dim. How strange to be here now, surrounded by these people in the last moments of his long and strange life.

Captain Gold appeared in his wavering vision. Looked at him with concern, but his face was … strange. “Aros,” he said. “Bring the wizard to the side of the ship.”

“Why?” the Aztec asked.

“He's asked for.”

Without another word, Aros slid his arms under Neoloth, as gently and easily as lifting a baby, carried him to the side, and propped him up.

Neoloth could feel it. He was a feather. He was positioned so that he could look down over the side of the ship, and down there in the waves danced the Merfolk.

M'thrilli and his family.

“Neoloth,” the merman said. “We have won.”

“Yes.” He barely recognized his own voice.

“The victory was dearly won, I see.”

“No man lives forever,” Neoloth said. “I think that … perhaps … I finally found something worth dying for.”

Aros shook his head. “That means that, after all this time, you found something worth living for.”

Neoloth laughed at the absurdity of it, and before he knew what had happened, the others were laughing as well. He laughed and laughed until the tears streamed down his face.

How old was he, Neoloth? He didn't even know. Old enough to die here now, beneath the stars, on this ship. Having saved his love, destroyed the greatest threat the world had ever seen …

And found a friend in a former enemy. What a strange life. What a strange, strange …

M'thrilli smiled to him. Beside him, his woman whispered something in his ear, and he nodded. “You have been a great friend to the sea folk,” he said. “And I think we would like to show you something. Come.”

Neoloth was too weak to argue. One place to die was the same as another.

“Good-bye, Aros,” he whispered. “Go and find the life you deserve,” he said. And then slipped over the side and into the welcoming arms of the sea.

 

FORTY-THREE

Undersea

After he entered the water, Neoloth never completely knew what was dream and what was reality.

He was only semiconscious when he struck the water. He remembered being held above the water, and something slipped over his head by the pod of Merfolk, some sort of membrane like the external skin of a jellyfish. He could barely breathe through it, and then, when they pulled him down below the waves and he was being dragged through the water, he could
still
barely breathe.

But … to his wonderment, he could breathe.

In all his life, Neoloth had seen so many wonders, had created so many that he thought he could no longer be amazed.

He was wrong.

They took him down into the depths, out into the deeps. He could barely think or feel anything, so overwhelmed with the very fact of being where he was that he drifted into a kind of trance.

It was dark, darker than night. And then … it was not. There was something up ahead, a reef, he thought. It was not a building, or a city, in any sense he had ever known. This was something different. If the creatures of the sea, the things that were of magic, were as those on the surface, not all of them could live together. Some, such as the leviathans and the great tentacled things that had fought beside them, were clearly no part of this … world.

But there were so many creatures, things he had never seen. Melds of fish and man or horse or lion, beasts that seemed more plant than fish or animal. Things that were translucent, with other creatures living within them.

And the reef, a sort of living complex of small creatures creating structures for larger creatures. And it glowed. He could
feel
it.

This was a place of almost unimaginable magic, as such wonders might have existed when the world was young. Men and gods had squandered mana on the surface, but here the sea denizens had invested it more elegantly. Here diamonds flamed in heaps and acres uncounted, and the magical bestiary swarmed peacefully, living together as men so seldom managed to do on dry land.

Neoloth thought, “What is this?”

And his thought was heard. Or perhaps he spoke and was unaware he was speaking, so dream-like was it all. M'thrilli said,
It is not a place for men.

Why did you bring me here? I am a man.

Today you are not,
the merman thought to him.
Today, you are a friend.

*   *   *

In and out of consciousness Neoloth flowed; down and down and down they took him into a place beneath the sea—and within himself, which he had never found or suspected.

You are very near to death.

Let me go.

Do you love? Does Neoloth-Pteor love?