“Aye.If you can make sure I don’t die whilst I’m about it.”
“I’ll do my best, my love.”
“I know.”
The captain backed us up so that the rail was behind me and he in front.I splayed my hands apart and held to the wood, facing Dinesh’s strong back as I closed my eyes and called upon my magic:
“Bring me the fire and the flame,
O’er the ocean, in my name,
Give me the lightning and the storm,
From the heavens, let it be borne.”
I briefly wondered if I should continue.I could already feel the power rising within me, but this was no time to be careful.
“Smite those who threaten what’s mine.
They’ll not have anyone this time.
Let the sea and the flame rejoice.
Let the ocean and sky make the choice.”
Cries of terror and men yelling in two languages, then screams and mayhem even louder than before erupted.What if I made things worse?I had to trust I wouldn’t, and I couldn’t stop now.
Wind and rain battered me.My palms burned hot as the power gathered.I filled my mind with images of the men I wanted to protect—Dinesh, Hillier, Martinéz, Lahiri, the entire crew.I prayed the protection I could afford them would be enough to forestall a horrible end.
The noise of the wind, the scent of smoke and charring wood, the crack of broken timber, surrounded me.Something or someone crashed into me, and I was falling, tumbling, hitting a hard surface, and then everything went black.
I came out of nothingness to the sounds of frantic shouting from voices I recognised.
“Get the grappling hooks!Unfasten the ships!Now!Cut the lines, for fuck’s sake or we’ll be burnt to ashes!”
I tried to get up.I was sore and my arm was bent in a painful way.I opened my eyes and discerned that I was back on theArrow, thank God.The French ship—theEloise—was aflame.The swirl of lightning and black clouds obscured any sign of her doomed crew, but theArrowwas in peril.And my magic was still churning around us.
I scrambled to a sitting position, my ears ringing, and raised my hands, focusing my energy into the swirling storm and somehow, somehow, settling and calming the forces at play with only my emotions and my mind.I felt the energy dissipating, as if realizing that the magic wasn’t needed further, and with a strange whooshing sound, the conjuring was gone.
TheEloisestill burned, and her crew lay dead on her deck in various stages of cremation.As I watched, the flames subsided as if the timber and the corpses they fed on had become wholly inedible.
The crew had regained their senses after being abruptly saved from attack, and scrambled to remove the last of the ropes that held the two ships together.TheArrowandEloisesurged apart, creaking and rocking with their newfound freedom, the former a husk of herself—a floating coffin full of burnt corpses.
I would have felt bad, except that theEloisehad been a nasty trap, and I could still hear the ring of the shot that had killed our man.I sat by the rail, staring at my palms, which were red and raw.And then I heard a long note rising on the wind.
“Simon…”a melodic, familiar voice sang.One that usually visited me in my nightmares.
I squinted at the sky.But the sound wasn’t coming from above.
Strange that I could hear the notes over the cries of the crew, who frantically assessed the toll we’d taken.
I pulled myself up and peered over the rail at the rolling waves.
The song grew stronger in my head as I tried to see through the water.What was down there?What was calling to me?I felt an irresistible desire to find out.
“Simon Bartholomew White…”The seductive song pained me with its urgency.
I leaned farther.If I could simply…
