Arlin. For the love of Barl, must you disgrace me?”
Belly still churning even though he’d just emptied it, Arlin wiped his mouth on his fouled silk sleeve. “Sorry, sir,” he muttered. “But I can’t help it. I—”
“Hold your tongue,” his father commanded. “And get control of yourself. You can start by letting go of that rail. The weather’s fine yet you’re acting as though we’re sailing through a storm.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, and unclamped his fingers from the fishing boat’s side. Made himself stand upright, even as the cramps in his gut demanded he bend himself double and upend his stomach’s lining onto the slimy, fish-scaled deck.
Casting him a last look of disgust his father walked away, rejoining Sarle Baden, Ennet Vail and Ain—Lady Freidin—in the fishing boat’s blunt bow. Barl’s tits, the smack stank of rotten guts. Why wouldn’t he be puking with that stench fouling his nostrils and throat with every breath? And the weather might be stormless but the waves beneath the boat’s hull were rhythmic and relentless, rolling… rolling…
With an anguished moan he threw himself over the railing again, as his retching body tried to turn inside out and his eyeballs strained so hard he thought they’d burst.
“Not to worry,” said a nearby fisherman, coiling a tarred rope. “Ain’t every man as takes to the water, young lord.”
Arlin eased off the rail and glowered at him. “Who asked you? Sail the boat, clod, and mind your own business.”
The Olken blinked, his face smoothing blank. “Aye. Right you are, then. Sorry to interrupt. Sir.”
Ignorant fool. The trouble with Olken was they had no respect. Not any more. Not since they started considering themselves equals. His father was right about one thing, at least: Durm’s stupidity had done more than see the Wall destroyed. It had destroyed a way of life. Destroyed centuries of obedience, of acceptance that the Doranen were naturally superior and always would be—pathetic pretensions to Olken magic notwithstanding.
Lur’s ruined now. Let the Olken have it. Somewhere beyond these shores there’s a land fit for the Doranen. Not our ancestral homeland. Father’s wrong about that, old Dorana is surely long lost to us. But there is somewhere. And once that cursed reef’s broken we’ll quit this Olken-ridden wasteland and find it.
The cramps in his belly had finally eased. Turning his face into the salt-soaked breeze he sucked in a deep breath and waited, but his belly stayed quiet. Perhaps the worst was finally over. Profoundly hoping so, he made his unsteady way forward to his father, who stood in serious, low-voiced conversation with his companions, all three mages close friends and allies in the notion that Lur had nothing to offer the Doranen any more. The Olken mayor stood with them, deluded into thinking he was relevant to the morning’s events. He wasn’t. For all the good his magic would do, he might just as well as spit on Dragonteeth Reef.
But he’s useful, so we tolerate him. His ignorant antipathy towards the Doranen plays neatly into Father’s plans.
Father favoured him with a cold smile as he reached the bow. “Good. We’re nearly there, Arlin. Are you clear on how this working is to proceed?”
“Yes, sir,” he said, nodding. “My lords, my lady,” he added to the others. “Meister Mayor. My apologies. Something tainted in what I was served for breakfast, I fear.”
Indifferent murmurs from Baden and Vail, who rarely had any time for him. An affronted stare from Pintte. And Lady Freidin—Ain—nodded, unsmiling. She never smiled at him. For eight years she’d been his secret tutor, taught him everything she knew, helped him discover the length and breadth of his talents—and how better to hide them—and never once had she smiled. He was over his childish infatuation with her, of course. But still. One smile. Was it too much to ask?
Shading his eyes, Arlin looked across the stretch of water in front of them to the foam and froth of ocean breaking over the reef. Hardly distant at all now. The wind had picked up, and the fishing boat was making good time. Beyond the reef the waterspouts danced, capricious and deadly, and whirlpools yawned with deep, wide mouths. Their churning roar sounded a low, predatory warning.
He felt his guts clench again, and ruthlessly banished the fear. I am ready for this. I am a great mage. And he was eager, so eager, to prove that were true. He’d waited in the shadows long enough.
Fernel Pintte cleared his throat. “As you know, sirs, madam, we Olken have a particular affinity for all things natural,” he announced. “Since my arrival in Westwailing I have been focusing my thoughts and feelings upon Dragonteeth Reef. I am comfortably certain that we have chosen its most vulnerable section. And as you battle the poisons Barl and Morg left behind I shall lend you my strength in prayer, so we can achieve victory.”
In private Father called Dorana’s mayor a shrill pipsqueak—but now he smiled, at his most frostily genial, and offered Pintte a polite half-bow. “Your help will be most welcome, Meister Mayor. The task before us is daunting.”
Pintte’s eyes narrowed. “But achievable, yes?”
“Oh yes,” said Father, the merest hint of an edge to his voice. To be questioned over magic by an Olken? That was an insult keen as any sharp blade. “I assure you, Meister Mayor, our goal is quite achievable. We do not seek to destroy all the magic still sunk in the reef. Just this small stretch of it.”
“Precisely,” said Pintte. “That’s all you’re asked to do.”
Father’s lips curved again, but his eyes were chips of blue ice. “I suggest you find somewhere unobtrusive to sit now, sir, so you can lend us your prayers undisturbed. We must prepare for the working.”
From the look on his face Pintte cared not at all for being dismissed, but he was truly a fool if he thought he belonged here with real mages. He withdrew, and Father beckoned everyone closer.
“Make no mistake,” he said, his sweeping gaze cold with purpose, “this working will test us as we have never before been tested. Barl and Morg between them have set a challenge that doubtless would’ve daunted King Borne himself, or Durm. But we are equal to the task. The future of every Doranen trapped in this misbegotten backwater depends upon us, therefore we must be equal to it. Follow my lead. Tread where I tread. Do not let yourselves run ahead of me. Especially you, Arlin.”
He dropped his betraying gaze to the tilting deck. Father was always doing that. Had done it ever since he could remember: diminished him in public even as he boasted of his son’s prowess in private, to those he trusted. He knew why, of course. It was to preserve their secret.
But it still hurt.
“Yes, sir.”
“It is vital that we maintain our focus, no matter what unfolds around us,” his father continued. “Unless we press against the reef’s weak spot with our conjoined wills, undiluted, we will not break through the barrier that keeps us from the world. It will take every last drop of our sweat and power to collapse the whirlpools and the waterspouts along this stretch of reef. But once we have done so—” Father’s face lit with a rare, genuine smile. “Then it will be a simple matter of destroying the reef itself, giving us access to open water. And then—then—”
Behind them, one of the Olken sailors shouted. “Reef ho! Reef ho, Captain!”
They all pushed to the bow’s railing, and saw that the sailor had not mistaken the case. Directly ahead of them lay Dragonteeth Reef, foamed with breaking water, spray spitting high into the air. Beyond it, magic-spawned waterspouts and whirlpools. Even as they stared two more towering spouts spumed into life, whipping up from the ocean’s restless surface. As those two were born three others further out died, collapsing with great wet slaps across the reef and into the surging salt water. Droning ceaseless beneath them, the ravenous whirlpools.
“Lord Garrick! A word!”
Father turned. “Yes, Hayle?”
The fishing boat’s captain was a young man, short and muscled and crusted with salt. Something indefinable about him was reminiscent of Rafel’s father. An air, an attitude, an indifference that grated the nerves. Olken arrogance: it was a hard thing to stomach.
“Can you do what you do from here?” the captain demanded, standing before them with his fists on his hips and his booted feet spread wide. “Only this be the end of mild water we’ve reached. Here on in, the whirlpools and the spouts be set to rile things up. And I ain’t lookin’ to have my boat driven onto the Teeth and smashed to matchsticks.”
Father looked back to the reef, frowning. Was it too far away for the working? Doranen magic was strong. But was it strong enough to reach from here?
“If this is the best you can do,” said Father, grudging, “then so be it. We will just have to compensate for your inadequacy, won’t we?”
The Olken captain’s eyes squinted in a frown. “How long d’you think to take on this?”
“How long?” Father spread his hands. “As long as we require. Hayle, we seek to free Lur from the last bondage of Morg’s evil. Do you mean to suggest you’ve somewhere more important to be?”
“We’ll heave to, then,” said the Olken, his face stained dark red. “And sit tight.”
Father turned his back on the fool, dismissing him. Then he raised a beckoning hand. “Arlin.”
As the boat’s captain retreated, barking orders to the crew, he stepped close. “Father?”
“Time to prepare ourselves,” he said quietly. “We’re close enough. Open yourself and tell me what you feel.”
Aside from seasick, you mean? But if he gave the thought a voice Father would banish him to twiddle his thumbs with Pintte. You need me now. I’ll not jeopardise that. So he closed his eyes, ignoring the shouts and running feet of the fishermen as they obeyed their captain’s orders, pushed away the lingering nausea in his emptied belly and focused on the reef. Loosened his rigorously guarded senses and reached out to taste its magic.
“Faugh!” he exclaimed, revolted, and stared at his father in shock. “That—but it’s foul. I—I can’t taste any of Barl’s sweetness. Does aught of her workings survive?”
His father nodded. “It does.” Even his intimidating composure seemed shaken. Around them, their fellow mages looked equally dismayed. “But only barely. Morg’s magic has had twenty years to infect this place. Like a pestilence it has multiplied. It should’ve been mage-worked at the first.”
“I thought Asher tried.”
“He did,” said his father. “He tried, and he failed. And then after Holze failed soon after, and Asher told the day’s Council that it couldn’t be done, they believed him without question.” Father’s face twisted. “Because he was the Innocent Mage. Because he killed Morg. Because—because—” Rage was choking his voice. “Because twenty years ago we let guilt addle our reason and turn us into milkmaids.”
“You didn’t speak out?” he said, unthinking.
The look Father gave him was so cruel and so cold he thought the blood would freeze in his veins. He stumbled backwards, bumping into Sarle Baden.
“My apologies, sir,” he muttered. “Forgive me.” And wasn’t sure if it was Sarle he addressed, or his father.
Sarle said something excusing and stepped around him to stand at Father’s left hand. Ain moved to his right hand, and Ennet Vail stood beside Sarle. Then Father turned his back, and the others turned with him. The message perfectly clear, he looked at the deck again, just for a moment, then sighed out his feelings until he was empty. Almost empty. As empty as he could make himself, with so many feelings swallowed.
“Follow me,” said Father, his voice low and slow. “This working’s purpose is to unbuild what was built. To destroy what was created. To purify what was poisoned. We begin with Ramin’s Threefold-charm of Dissolution. Shin’tak tak’shin. Dodek’ma ma’dodek. Shin’dodek ta’ma. Adek. Adek. Adek…”
Reciting the spell, sketching its sigils on the salty air, Arlin forgot he was seasick… forgot his frustration, and Ain… forgot the useless Olken mayor behind him and the fishing boat’s crew and Asher, cowering on the harbour’s pier. Forgot Rafel, cowering with him. All that mattered was Dragonteeth Reef. All that mattered was not disappointing his father.
Opened fully to the reef’s foulness, he felt bile crawl up his throat. Felt his bruised belly quiver. Heard the small sounds of disgust from his father’s powerful friends as they too let down their defences and embraced in full the bitter magics sunk into the reef.
There was no sound from Father, of course, save the soft, spitting urgency of Ramin’s dissolution spell.
And if he can stomach it then Barl’s bloody tits… so can I.
Westwailing’s mayor and most of its officials had returned to the crowded foreshore. Two men were left behind, wearing stout wooden truncheons and watchful expressions. Ordered by Fernel bloody Pintte, Da reckoned, to keep a close eye on ’em. Nosy bastards.
Stranded at the far end of the long stone pier with his father, staring across the wide expanse of harbour stretching between them and the reef, Rafel twitched as he felt the first roil of clean Doranen magic stir his blood.
Da, stamping from one side of the pier to the other, stopped still and lifted his head. “Here we go.”
The dot of blue and yellow fishing smack shifted on the distant, uneasy water. Doranen magic roiled again, clashing with the reef’s foulness. Rafel felt bile scald his throat, his mouth. He heard his father grunt. Saw him shift a half-step, bracing himself.
“Sink it.”
“What, Da?” he said, alarmed. “What—”
“This ain’t no bloody use,” said Da, glaring towards the reef. “We ain’t nowhere near close enough. This far away we be tits on a bull.”
He’d wondered about that, but when his father didn’t mention it… and he was wary of seeming pushy. He glanced at the watchdog officials. “Maybe, Da, but this is as close as we’re going to get. Those two won’t let us set foot off—”
“Ha,” said Da. “Like they got a say in it.” Turning, he raked his fierce gaze along the nearby line of moored smacks and skiffs and harbour runabouts. “Don’t need nowt fancy. Just somethin’ as won’t sink when things get a mite frisky…”
Stunned, he glanced again at the officials. Suspicious now, their hands were resting on those truncheons. “Da—wait—you want us to steal a boat?”
“Borrow.”
Steal—borrow—he doubted the mayor’s watchdogs would notice the difference. “Da—”
Da scowled at him. “Rafe, we ain’t got a choice.”
Another surge of soiled magic washed through him, and through Da. Stronger this time, with a hint of bared teeth. He saw his own sickness reflected in his father’s abruptly pale face.
“You’re right,” he said, blotting cold sweat from his forehead. “But what about—”
“I’ll take care of ’em,” said Da. “Rafe—”
And right then, between heartbeats, he saw Da change his mind. Saw sudden fear swamp the sickness. Saw his grim resolve fail.
He stepped closer. “Forget it, Da. I’m coming.”
“No,” said Da, shaking his head. “Your ma’s right. I can’t risk you, sprat. You ain’t ready. Not for this.”
“Are you ready?” he said, stepping closer again. “Is anyone? Da—”
“No,” said Da. “I ain’t goin’ to push you in the deep end, Rafe.”
“You’re not pushing, I’m jumping!” he retorted. “With my eyes wide open. Like you said, Da, I ain’t a sprat any more. This is my choice and you need me, so—so stop flapping your lips, why don’t you? We got to get out to that reef before it’s too late.”
Da stared at him, furiously dumbstruck. Silver in his hair now, just like Mama. Silver in the unshaven stubble on his cheeks and chin. Lines grooved round his mouth, spiderwebbing his eyes. Older, and thinner, and more tired than he’d let on.
Then he shook his head. “Sink me sideways, Rafe, you got a bloody mouth on you. Where’d you get that mouth, eh?”
Rafel grinned, though his heart was hammering him dizzy. “I d’know, Da. Let me think on that a ticktock.”
“Very funny,” Da growled. “But you ain’t too big for a wallop.”
“Wallop me after,” he suggested. “Right now we’ve got to go.”
As though pleading his case, the harbour waters slapped against the stone pier, harder and higher. The tethered fishing fleet, agitated, tugged at its moorings. And the salty sea breeze shivered, stinking of Morg.
Da took him by the shoulder, his grip almost desperate. “Y’know this ain’t a game, Rafe? Y’know we could die?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to say something clever, something full of bravado. And if this was Goose he was staring at, he would have. But it was Da.
He nodded. “I know. And I’ll try not to. I’ll try my best to see you don’t, either. But Da—we’re who we are—what we are—for a reason. And if we waste that, well, I reckon we won’t like ourselves much.”
Silence, as Da stared at him. And then he sighed, his eyes full of shadows. “Reckon you’re right, sprat.” Letting go, he pointed at a cluster of boats moored close to the pier. “That skiff there. That’ll do us. Get it unhitched while I take care of them two gawpin’ fools.”
The fools shouted a warning, truncheons drawn, as he climbed down slippery stone steps and jumped onto the small, weatherbeaten skiff Da had chosen. Its dark green paint was faded and blistered, its single, undyed canvas sail copiously patched. As he unhitched its oiled mooring rope he watched Da freeze the two running watchdogs with a word.
“Don’t just stand there, sprat,” said Da, coming down the stone stairs. “Get them oars out.”
“What about Pintte’s watchdogs?” he said as he fitted the skiff’s oars into their locks.
Da clambered into the small boat. “I’ll let ’em go in a ticktock. Now come on, put your back into it. Row us away from the pier.”
Only mildly resentful, he plonked himself on the splintery wooden rower’s seat, reached for the oars and started pulling. Da stood by the mast and stared towards the distant, poisoned reef.
“Bit further, Rafe. Bit further. Come on. Where’s your elbow grease?”
So he rowed a bit further, easing them away from the moored fleet and into open water, feeling the Doranen magic seethe and his muscles stretch, creaking. The pier and the statue-still watchdogs fell behind them. Fell further. Sweat stung his eyes. Turning, Da gave a sharp nod and pointed.
“Vardo.”
“That’s a good trick, Da,” he said, as the watchdogs leapt and shouted. “When this is over you can show it me.”
“We’ll see,” said Da, scowling. “All right, Rafe. Stop rowing.” Together they shipped the oars, then he turned himself round on the uncomfortable bench. They were still a long way from the blue and yellow fishing smack, and the reef.
“What now?”
Da looked down at him. “Now you hang on.”
“What d’you mean hang—shit!”
A wave had risen beneath the shallow-drafted boat, smooth and powerful, lifting them and surging them towards the arrogant Doranen mages who thought they were strong enough to break Morg’s hold on the reef.
Clutching the bench with both hands, Rafel stared drop-jawed at his father. “Come on, Da. You got to show me how to do that!”
“Do I?” said Da, eyebrows lifting. “After what you used to get up to in your bath?”
Jaw-dropped again, he swallowed. “You knew about that?”
“Course I bloody did,” said Da, as the huge wave he’d summoned carried them swiftly across the wide harbour. “Piss poor mage I’d be if I couldn’t feel that goin’ on under my own roof.”
“You—you never said anything.”
“Every sprat needs his secrets,” said Da, shrugging. “ ’Sides, you weren’t hurtin’ anyone. You were just lettin’ off steam.”
Tangled with difficult feelings, he stared at the fishing smack, much closer now. Stared at the whipping waterspouts on the other side of the reef, spawned by wicked, capricious magics. Thought he could hear the throaty roar of the whirlpools. Tried not to think of being sucked down to his death.
“Da—”
Da grunted, all his focus on keeping them aimed fast for the smack. “Da, that wasn’t all I did,” he said, quickly, before he could change his mind. Before he could die with sins unconfessed between them. “For years I pinched spells from Arlin, and I did them. All kinds of spells. And I never got one wrong.”
The skiff crashed down on the harbour’s rolling surface. Tumbled off the splintered rower’s bench, Rafel stared into his father’s shocked face.
“I’m sorry. I was mad. You wouldn’t let me—you wouldn’t teach me—and—” Cautiously, he sat up. “I’m sorry.”
Da dragged a hand over his spray-soaked hair. “Rafel—”
“There’s more,” he said, bracing his back against the skiff’s side. “It’s worse.”
Groping for the mast, Da cleared his throat. “Tell me.”
His courage almost failed him, then. I shouldn’t have said anything. He’s going to hate me. But it was too late now. “That trunk, in your library,” he said hoarsely. “I—I picked the lock.”
“You picked the lock?” said Da, boggled. “When?”
“The day I felt the earth go funny. At the riverpond. Remember?” “Then?” Da looked like he wanted to sit down, hard. “Rafel, you were a sprat. You were ten. How did you unpick that sinkin’ lock?”
“I don’t know. I just did. It—it wasn’t hard.”
Da ran a hand down his face. “Sink me.” And then he sucked in a sharp breath. “Rafe, you didn’t pinch any of the spells in—”
“No,” he said quickly. “No. I swear.”
“Good,” said Da, sagging.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “But—at least you know for sure I can do it. Doranen magic. And with the reef—I won’t get in the way.”
Da gave him the strangest look. Not angry. Almost—almost guilty. It didn’t make sense. And then he turned to stare at the blue and yellow smack. “We’ll talk on it later, Rafe. On your feet, now, and see how you go with a bathtub the size of a harbour, eh? Quickly, sprat. We ain’t got long.”
That was true. Whatever Rodyn Garrick and his mages were doing, it had stirred the poisoned reef to snarling. Pain bloomed behind his eyes. Unsteady, uncertain, he clambered to his feet, reached for his magic—then hesitated.
“Trust y’self,” Da said quietly. “Like I trust you.”
It was all he needed to hear.
Breathing out, like a prayer, he gathered the harbour’s wild water, none of it safely tamed in a tub. And then, for the first time, no hiding, no whispering, opened himself to the power within.
The borrowed skiff sat on its stern and ran.
“Good, Rafe, good,” said Da, as the wave hurled them onwards, malleable to his mind. Faster and faster, Westwailing vanishing behind them, the reef and the fishing smack looming ever closer.
Their business was serious, dreadful—and he wanted to laugh. “Easy, sprat,” said Da after a few minutes. “Don’t want to run ourselves onto the Dragon’s teeth. Let’s take a breather, eh? I want to get a feel for what them bloody fools are doin’.”
Regretfully he took his father’s advice, letting the wave he’d conjured dwindle almost to death. The skiff settled onto the harbour and drifted to a lilting standstill, perhaps a quarter league distant from the blue and yellow fishing boat. Not so close they’d be swiftly noticed, but close enough to see its crew dotted around the deck, working hard, and the yellow heads of the Doranen mages gathered in the bow.
Not far beyond the smack stretched the ragged reef, with its cloud of sickening magics. On the other side of the reef six enormous water-spouts whipped their erratic way across the water’s restless surface. And droning beneath their higher-pitched howl, the whirlpools. Shading his eyes, Rafel thought he could see one, groaning and grinding a hole in the ocean.
“Drat ’em,” said Da tightly. “That be a bloody daft thing to do, Gar-rick. And here’s me thinkin’ you were a sight smarter than that.”
Tasting the air like his father, he let out a sharp sigh. Daft was right. Poxy Arlin’s father had the mages attacking the reef’s magics with a Doranen spell of coercion, designed to force things apart. Which was fine if they were looking to lift buried stones out of the earth or pull down an old brick wall, but they weren’t. Worse, he could still taste what was left of the first spell they’d tried, and now the leftover echoes of that compulsion spell were muddling with the coercion chant and—
“You feel that, Rafe?” said Da, one hand going to his head. “The reef’s pushin’ back.”
“Aye,” he gasped, his skin prickling with the loathsome touch of it. The pain was in him, too, spiking through his temples and deep into his chest. His belly heaved, and he spat saliva and bile mixed yellowish at his feet. “Barl’s mercy, is that Morg?”
Da was bent over, hands braced on his knees. “What be left of him. Rafe, don’t you give in to it. Don’t let his muck in you. Could be I might need you in a ticktock or three.”
“Why?” he said, and spat sickness again. “What are you going to—”
But Da wasn’t listening. Dropped to his knees, one hand braced on the skiff’s side, he was pouring his power towards the reef, trying to shore up what little remained of Barl’s sweetness. Pouring so much power, Rafel could hardly believe it. What was in his father made his own powers look paltry. All this was in Da? He’d never given a hint of it. In twenty years, not once.
How could he have this and not want it? He’s mad.
But even though Da was amazing, what he gave of himself wasn’t enough. Morg’s foul malevolence was too vile. Too strong. Not even Da’s power and the power of the Doranen mages in the fishing boat combined could smother the reef’s seething darkness. Letting blind instinct guide him he tried lending his own power, but compared to Da and the Doranen it was only a trickle. It was like pissing on flames let loose in a summer wheat field.
His father was breathing so hard now it sounded almost like groaning. With his belly still heaving and his mouth slicked sour, Rafel crabbed his way to the skiff’s bow.
“Da! Da!”
Blood was trickling from beneath his father’s closed eyelids, and out of his nostrils over his pressed-white lips. His fingers were bloodless on the side of the small boat, and every muscle in his rigid body shuddered.
Hunkering down, he threw one arm around his father’s shaking shoulders. “Da, it’s no good. We can’t do it. Stop, before you kill yourself.”
“No, Rafe…” Teeth chattering, Da cracked open one pain-filled eye. “We can. But you got to help me.”
“How?” he said, hearing his voice break. “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
Da’s fingers anchored themselves in his shirt, and twisted. Tugged him close. “Rafe—” His voice was a choked whisper. “D’you trust me?”
What? “Aye, Da! You know I do!”
Da nodded, coughing, a harsh, hacking sound. His twisted fingers tugged again. “Rafe, I’m sorry. You weren’t s’posed to find out. Not like this.”
He stared. “Find out what? Da, find out wh—”
And then he gasped as his father’s spread-fingered hand pressed hard to his face. A flash of heat, burning. A convulsion in his blood. A burst of power, incandescent, like a sunrise in his mind. He tried to pull away, tried to protest, but he couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Now his blood was on fire, flames pumping through him with every beat of his heart. His bones caught fire—and still he couldn’t scream.
Shouting, Da snatched his hand away. Rafel felt himself fall backwards, felt his shoulders smack the skiff’s wet boards. Dazed, he stared at the blue sky, at the clouds scudding across it, set to blot out the sun.
And then he realised: I’m different.
Closing his eyes to the blue sky and the clouding sun, he turned his sight inwards—and discovered a cauldron of power he’d never dreamed might exist. It was terrifying. Glorious. Hot and bright and hungry… and his.
First came astonished pleasure. Then came the rage.
“Rafel!” said Da, on his feet again and hauling him upright, his stubbled face ghastly behind its mask of smeared and trickled blood. “Hate me later. Hate me all you like, ’til I die an ole man—but first we got to help Garrick and them other fools afore it’s too late!”
He felt so betrayed, so wounded, he wanted to vomit, or weep. Wrenching himself free, he snatched at the skiff’s mast for balance and unleashed his woken senses on the world. Felt in a searing rush the unmuffled malevolence of Morg’s blight, saw its claws sunk deep in the heart of the reef, saw with his newly opened eyes how it strangled the tattered shreds of Barl’s miracle. Fed off them. Distorted them. Like a parasite consumed them.
Staggering, his mind reeling, he managed to keep his feet as the skiff rocked and juddered beneath them. The harbour’s waters were waking. Something terrible stirred. A dreadful wave of nausea rose and rolled through him.
“Shit! What—what—”
“Be you with me, Rafe?” Da demanded, breathing hard and heavy. “I need you with me, sprat. ’Cause any ticktock now—any ticktock—”
It seemed to him then that the whole world inhaled, and time stood still, and he was crushed to a pulp. He felt the reef’s magic, Morg’s magic, writhe and shudder in his twisting guts. He felt his blood catch fresh fire, freeze solid then burst burning from his eyes and nose. He heard himself shout. Heard Da shout. Felt the world exhale and magic rip through the water between the reef and the skiff. Their borrowed boat flew into the air, tossing them with it, then smashed again to the harbour’s wildly agitated surface.
His head smacked salty timber, knees and elbows striking hard too. Tossed beside him, his father grunted in pain. Battered and bruised, he scrambled upright and looked around. Da had the same idea. Clutching the skiff’s sides as it rocked and spun, they stared at the blue and yellow fishing boat flailing too far away. Her crew darted from stern to bow and back again, answering their captain’s faint shouts. Terrified in the cloud-striped sunshine, blond Doranen heads huddled close.
A heartbeat later he cried out, because a whirlpool was forming right before his stinging eyes, in the stretch of whipped-up water between the fishing smack and the reef. In Westwailing Harbour, where they’d always been safe. The surge was small but steadily growing, the harbour’s waters spinning… and spinning… and as he watched, dry-mouthed with horror, he saw the blue and yellow fishing boat begin drifting towards it.
“Rafel!” said Da, and reached for his arm. His fingers, taking hold, felt desperate. “We got to stop that bloody thing. We can’t have whirlpools in the harbour. It’ll be the end of everything, sprat.”
“Stop it?” he said, the heel of his right hand pressed to the side of his head against the spike of pain stabbing through his skull. “How?”
“I don’t know,” said Da, teeth gritted. “But we got to try.”
Head pounding, he stared at his father, who’d lied to him. Betrayed him. “Da, there ain’t no way we can—”
Da’s fingers closed so hard on his wrist it felt like the bone might break. “You wanted to know what it were like, facin’ Morg? You wanted to know how I felt that day? This be how I felt, Rafel. This be what it were like. You piss your pants. You shit y’self. This is why I told ’em to leave well enough alone.”
With a shrieking scream a waterspout whipped into life a long stone’s throw from the bow of their skiff. Another shrieking scream and there were two waterspouts—then three—then four. The skiff rocked and spun like a paper boat on a millrace as the spraying spume swiftly soaked them to the skin.
Too far away, too close, the whirlpool whirled wider.
Rafel dragged his sopping sleeve across his face. We’re going to die. Sink me, we’ll bloody drown or get sucked down that thing or ripped to bitty pieces by a waterspout. He turned to his father, not knowing what he’d find. Saw anger. Saw revulsion. Saw pity. Saw fear.
And then saw the face of the Innocent Mage.