The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [105]
“Sail ahoy!”
The lookout’s call reminds Creslin that he has but little time.
For the past two days, Klerris has been poking through the ship, mumbling to himself while strengthening the timbers—their joints and the masts—and even the cables and sails with an infusion of order. That infusion is strong enough that even the crew have comments on how much more solid the ship now seems to be.
“Figured it out yet, young fellow?” The wizard’s voice is tired.
Creslin turns his eyes from the bow, where Megaera watches the faint dot of white on the horizon, to the black-clad man. Klerris’s jet-black hair shows streaks of white, streaks that seem to have appeared overnight.
“You work this hard, and you show your age,” the wizard responds to Creslin’s appraisal.
“What would happen if we just avoided them?”
“The Whites, you mean?” Klerris pulls at his smoothshaven chin. “Don’t see how that’s possible. We get around them and they’ll head for Land’s End. They have enough strength to take the town, even with the Duke’s keep. Or they might simply wait and sink the Griffin if Captain Freigr tries to leave. They won’t just let it drop, you know.”
“Then the only way we can be safe is to sink all three of their ships. The High Wizard won’t let that drop. How do we ever get out of this?”
Klerris grins. “You don’t. Once you’re a wizard, you’re stuck with decisions like this for the rest of your life.” His face sobers. “Of course, if you don’t want to make decisions, you dither around until you or people around you get killed. That’s been the problem with most of us Blacks. We don’t like violence and killing. We really need a land based on order, somehow separate from the Whites and the conflicts over the Legend.”
“That’s fine,” snorts Creslin, “but the lookouts have sighted the first of the wizard ships’ sails, and I’m still trying to figure out how to get us out of this.”
“You’re a warrior. You’ll find a way. You have an ocean of air and an ocean of water to work with.”
“Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” Klerris turns and heads toward the bow.
Water? Creslin has never tried to deal with water, except to remove the salt from it. He sends down his senses, then recoils. The water is heavy, far too heavy and cold. But the air carries water, and that water has to come from somewhere. The winds pick it up from the rivers and lakes and oceans. He walks to the fantail, where he lowers a bucket, ignoring the curious looks from Gossel, who stands by the helmsman.
Setting the bucket on the railing, Creslin concentrates again. A small vortex appears over the bucket, and the water begins to swirl like a whirlpool. Creslin frowns, loses his concentration, and the vortex collapses. Still, something nags at his memory. He empties the bucket.
“Sail ahoy!” The second White schooner has appeared to the lookouts, and Creslin strides over to the mate.
“Aye, Ser Wizard?”
“What’s the worst thing that could happen to a ship?”
“Fire.”
“I mean something natural, like a storm, or ice, or . . .”
Gossel pauses. “I’ve heard tell, in southern seas, about waterspouts that could lift a whole ship high enough that she’d fall and break in two.”
“Are there thunderstorms around when that happens?”
“Aye. Never happens without a thunderstorm.”
Creslin nods absently and walks away.
“. . . darkness help us if he calls a waterspout.”
“. . . light help us if he don’t do something.”
Freigr appears from below and heads toward Creslin, who stops the man’s question with a cold glance and walks past him toward Klerris, who is conversing with Megaera.
Megaera starts to leave. “Just stay,” Creslin says and feels for the winds. She raises her eyebrows. Klerris nods, and she waits.
“Do you see any way to save this ship and crew without destroying all three White ships?” Creslin asks Klerris.
“I do not know of a way. I do not know of a way to destroy them, either.” His words are as formal as Creslin’s.
“As a Black Wizard, would you judge those on board this ship of greater value than those on the White ships?