Accidental War Mage

I turned away, ignoring the auburn-haired woman and her presumptuous advice. True, she indubitably had an interest in continued survival, which was at risk from the bombards of the Sultan’s fleet; however, I did not think she fully appreciated the risks posed to most of the rest of us in the event of a surrender.

“Shut down the rowing-engine!” I shouted as the ship slewed sideways, suddenly bereft of perhaps a third of the oars on one side. “Oars up and all to the wind!”

The night sky darkened further as the weather-witch worked her magic, and the hull groaned as Felix grappled with the helm. The weather-witch stumbled, and Fyodor rushed to her side, holding his wife to help stabilize her.

The strait guarded by Constantinople is a narrow one, and has several sharp turns in it. “Turn the wind with us!”

The weather-witch nodded, grimacing.

Another bombard shell whistled by, clipping the railing of the ship; a man, screaming, slid overboard and into the rising waves. A soft hand grabbed mine, and a feminine voice shouted over the howling wind. Beneath my armor, my good-luck stone turned icy cold against my chest.

“You will turn this ship around at once!” The auburn-haired woman was nothing if not determined, tugging at my hand with both of hers, hints of red light flickering across her body.

“You will shut up and get out of the way,” I shouted back, grabbing back. Diaphanous layers of silk tore as I picked her up and tossed her bodily down a hatch. A soft thump and a loud shriek announced her landing, and I made my way forward to better see the way ahead. Possessed of a measure of common sense and lacking the commanding attitude of the auburn-haired woman, the other three basket-women followed of their own accord, the black-haired woman in the lead and the Circassians following to get out of the way. The brunette Circassian paused to give me the very briefest of angry looks before following the blonde Circassian down the ladder.

After a moment’s thought, I tossed the basket after them. I did not know how it worked, but it was clearly magical, and I didn’t want it to fall overboard. Rain had begun to fall, reducing visibility and control; the weather-witch had no choice but to focus all her attention on commanding the direction of the wind, and we were stuck with the weather that came along with it. I could see the fresh wreckage of a less-fortunate ship to my right, likely a great galley. Reflexively, Felix veered the ship a little bit away from it, coming closer to the left side of the strait.

A bombard fired, more distantly, the splash barely audible over the howling wind and rain. We had opened the range to the lead ships, either through speed or sheer recklessness. Though it was easy enough to see the path through the straight by the diffuse moonlight that pierced the stormclouds, the rain made things tricky, and I could not see through rock. Ahead, I saw approaching cliffs and what looked like an end to the water. I knew that the strait connected through to from the Sultan’s Lake to the Axine Sea; so there must be an opening on one side or another, but which? I stared at the waves.

The current was flowing away from the cliffs to the left. “Hard left!” I called out. The weather-witch, by now lashed to the mainmast for stability, swallowed nervously, making circular gestures with her staff. The sails jolted from the sudden change of wind, and then the hull creaked and groaned as water came into view to the left. The sudden shift of direction sent some men sliding, at least one screaming as he toppled over the railing. By the subtle rattling, he landed on the shipped oars; I hoped he would make it through.

Behind us, the sudden change of the direction of the wind at the sharpest corner of the strait left a spiral in our wake, the wind roaring louder and louder, oddly similar to the sound of a train. Water began to spiral upwards, tracing a rope-like path into the dark clouds – a waterspout. As we straightened back out from our turn, the view to the waterspout was blocked, and I looked back ahead of us. A while later, Katya shouted, announcing she’d seen a sidewheeler, but it was delayed by the waterspout; ahead, cliffs drew nearer, another point at which the strait appeared a dead end.

With the chop of the waves, it was harder to see the current – but there it was. “Prepare for hard right!” I said, looking back at the men. My command was echoed back along the ship. “Hard right! Very hard right!”

The weather-witch’s pointed metal staff whipped around like a baton; the ship groaned; and there, behind us, a growing roaring noise as another waterspout grew. The weather-witch panted heavily, slumping forward; Fyodor grabbed her staff as it fell; and the wind continued to push us forward.

“Wind wild from here!” I shouted. “Felix, we need a little to the left, and it’s open sea.”

Behind us, the waterspout roared, following more slowly. “As much as the sails will take!” I shouted to the sailors. “Let’s not be turned about by the waterspout!”

Daylight found us in the middle of the Axine Sea and uncertain of our precise position within that large body of water. We could say only that we were somewhere in its interior; the shoreline had disappeared some hours earlier and we had been riding wind of uncertain direction and speed against currents of uncertain direction and speed. At dawn, I left instructions for us to head north, and then headed belowdecks to check on the state of the rowing-engine. There, I found that both Vitold and the auburn-haired woman had been tied up. The former was snoring lightly, his head on top of a crate; the latter was gagged and glaring furiously.

“Why is my officer tied up?” I said in a mild tone, looking around at the assortment of soldiers, former galley slaves, mechanics, and personal servants who had chosen to shelter belowdecks and out of the way. The other basket-women edged nervously away.

“She was trying to get him to turn back on the rowing-engine to turn us back to Constantinople,” Zaneta said. Dark circles ringed her tired eyes. She knelt down in front of me, bending her neck and lowering her gaze to the deck. “He was going to obey her. If you must, punish me, this mutiny against your officer is my fault.”

I looked down at Zaneta’s soft hands, the rough ropes snugly binding Vitold and the auburn-haired woman, and then at the guilty-looking mechanics and sailors standing around in stances that vaguely resembled military attention. Men with calloused hands, greatly experienced with ropes, knots, and in at least some cases in grappling in close quarters. I had difficulty believing that Zaneta had acted alone against the auburn-haired woman and Vitold. He was short for a man, true; but he was a man accustomed to handling heavy equipment, and Zaneta was a physically delicate woman who struggled with anything heavier than a fully-loaded breakfast tray.

I spoke, trying to reassure her. “Look, I don’t think that-”

“Please, Master Corvus. You may do whatever you want to me. I only did what I thought was best.” Zaneta shuffled forward on her knees.

I tried again. “It’s not-”

“Anything at all,” she said, bowing down to grasp my boots. “It was my insolence and my insolence alone to act against Lieutenant Szpak. You may punish me any way you wish. I was afraid of returning to Constantinople. Please forgive me. I will do anything you wish. Anything. No matter how degrading or humiliating or painful.”

I paused, waiting to see if she was done talking. “It’s fine,” I said, looking awkwardly down at the beautiful woman clutching my knees. “You did the right thing. If the rowing-engine had come back on while we were in the strait, we would probably have all drowned in the wreck.”

In the corner, the Circassians, already pale of flesh, surprised me by paling further.

Zaneta bowed down again, her head bobbing up and down over my boots. “Thank you, Master Corvus, for your understanding.”

Uncomfortably, I disentangled myself from Zaneta’s grasp and went to check on Vitold, waking him up.

“He should be over the compulsion,” Zaneta said. Now standing, she slipped her arms around one of my elbows. “It’s the enchantress you need to be careful of.”

“I see,” I said, untying Vitold.

Vitold denied all knowledge of having been enchanted. He’d been diligently working on detaching the stubs of the broken oars from the engine, and then someone must have knocked him over the head, for the next thing he knew he was tied up and lying in a puddle of bilgewater. Zaneta and I were both satisfied that he seemed back to his normal self, so I walked over to the auburn-haired woman.

“Hello,” I said.

She glared fiercely, her eyes showing no signs of recognition. To be fair to her, she’d only seen me briefly the previous night.

“We met last night,” I said. “I pulled you out of a basket, but you were being difficult, so I tossed you down here.”

Her eyes flickered up and down as she re-examined me; then she closed her right eye for one moment, a flicker of ruddy light glinting in her blue iris. Then both her eyes widened, and she flinched away from me, saying something that, due to her gagged state, amounted to little more than a muffled wordless set of high-pitched squeals. Given the thoroughness with which she had been bound, her attempt to move away from me had an effect as limited as her attempts at speech – that is, the only movement she accomplished was rolling herself over onto her back.

I sent one of the sailors to fetch Gregor, since I knew that the petite blonde girl had enough familiarity with enchantment to identify the siren in Venice; then took council with her and Zaneta, huddled together in a quiet space belowdecks.

“What, exactly, am I supposed to do with an enchantress who can take control of at least some of my officers? Is there a way we could protect them?” I asked.

Zaneta nodded; Gregor shook her head, giving Zaneta a sneering look and stroking the air beneath her chin. “Theoretically, yes; pragmatically, no. Enchanting that many protective amulets would be extremely difficult, especially without a ready supply of blank orichalcum.”

Zaneta stamped her foot in frustration, folding her arms underneath her bosom in a way that highlighted the size of her feminine assets. “Do you have any magic-suppressing shackles?”

I paused. “I don’t think so,” I said. “Is there such a thing?”

Zaneta looked at me in disbelief, as if astonished by my ignorance; Gregor nodded. My mind drifted back to my time imprisoned by the rebels, and I paused, thinking of another question. “If you try to use magic while wearing such things, will it make your arms feel heavy?”

Zaneta nodded vigorously. “Some of them tighten instead, but that’s not very safe, you can lose a hand or foot that way. The modern method is to have the magic drain empower a weakness spell; that way, the more the prisoner strains magically, the weaker they become physically.”

“I see,” I said, and I did; but we still didn’t have any. “What other choices do I have?”

Zaneta shook her head. “You could have her gagged and guarded constantly, but it would be a little bit of a risk. The safest thing would be to throw her overboard.” She looked at Gregor, as if expecting that Gregor would protest; Gregor nodded vigorously.

“Well, you’re not very chivalrous,” Zaneta mouthed darkly in Venetian while holding her breath. Gregor politely pretended not to notice.

“Is anyone susceptible? Could I put the two of you on guard?” I frowned.

“Um. Maybe?” Zaneta said. “She’s more powerful than I am. I might have trouble countering her if she went for me when I was distracted. It’d take a more powerful mage with a strong will to reliably resist her even when his attention is elsewhere ‘. I bet Lieutenant Teushpa could.”

“Hm,” I said, suddenly inclined to disregard Zaneta’s judgement; if she thought Teushpa was a powerful mage, she was in no position to judge. I paused, thinking back on why I had dumped the auburn-haired woman belowdecks in the first place. “She was shouting at me to turn the ship back earlier. Why didn’t she just enchant me?”

“I expect she tried, for what good it did her!” Zaneta let out a delicate but derisive snort, reaching out to feel my hair and my scalp beneath. My good-luck stone felt cool under my shirt. “She would have failed totally. You’ve proven very resistant to enchantment. I don’t know why.”

Gregor looked over at Zaneta. Her eyes narrowed. “You witch, you’ve been trying to enspell the colonel this whole time! And not just now, don’t try to tell me that was just a first test.”

Zaneta suddenly pulled back her hands, eyes widening in panic. “I, uh…”

I shook my head. “Let’s not get side-tracked,” I said. “Focus on the sultan’s younger sister, Zaneta’s been with us for a while without causing any serious problems. Zaneta, have you tried enchanting Lieutenant Teushpa?”

Zaneta shook her head, then opened her mouth.

Gregor beat her to the punch, blurting out a question. “The sultan’s youngest sister?”

I nodded. “Any other ideas?”

When the two of them mutely shook their heads in reply, I walked over to the auburn-haired woman where she lay on the floor. I checked and adjusted the ropes, untying and re-securing her arms behind her back – the coarse hemp ropes had started to chafe her delicate skin – then rolled her over, hoisting her with my left hand using the convenient handle I’d created. “You and the other servants will have to clear out of the captain’s cabin,” I said. “I’ll be sleeping there tonight. I mean, today.”

I rubbed my forehead tiredly with my free hand, then walked up the ladder back onto the deck and walked to the aft of the ship, ignoring the quiet whimpering I heard from the burden in my left hand. I looked south, to our wake; then sighed, setting down my burden and sticking my legs through the gaps in the aft railing.

After a moment, a brunette head popped above the water.