Bob the Mage, ch. 5

[Author's note: Fiction Friday! again, with the fifth chapter of our novel, Bob the Mage, which I wrote some years ago and have rescued from the ashcan of history. When last we visited Bob, our poor excuse for a wizard, in chapter 4 (see also chapter 3, here, and before that in chapter 2, here, then 1, back in April) he had nearly been captured by the Tegoran army, from which he had technically deserted, only to be pressed into service aboard a very suspicious ship....]

Bob the Mage

By Frederick Key

Chapter 5

Maybe you’ve noticed that many ships’ names are great exaggerations. The dirtiest and bulkiest cargo ships might be called Sprite or Lightning. A scow that handles like an anvil might be Lithe or Zephyr. This one was no different. It was called Seaworthy.

The Seaworthy was a three-masted caravel, so at least we didn’t have to row. I was immediately put to all other manner of menial chores, though, even before we’d left the harbor. I wouldn’t have thought they could find tasks for a man who didn’t know a capstan from a belaying pin, but they did. I’ll put it this way: In the annals of seafaring I shall ever be known as “Swabbo McBilgey.”

Something about the way we weighed anchor at night led me to believe that this wasn’t your average cargo ship. I hoped against all odds, like an idiot, that we might be some kind of exploration ship, which would be all right, until I saw Captain Bugsby (for that was the gentleman’s name) studying the stars with his sextant upside down. Also, I wasn’t taken in by the decorative potted ferns along the rail in front of a row of cannon. Something fishy about this enterprise.

As the sailors worked, they liked to grunt out charming sea chanties. My favorite went:

                                Pull up the anchor, let’s go, let’s go

                                Pull up the anchor, let’s go, let’s go

                                We’re not really pirates, we’re just honest sailors

                                And we aren’t at all into looting and breaking

                                So pull up the anchor, let’s go

                                Arr arr

I worked all night and all the next day, catching fleeting glimpses of the land as it dwindled and was gone. I’d never been so far out on the sea. I was still puking at every opportunity, so even when offered food I couldn’t touch it. Finally, at sunset, I was sent to a bunk belowdecks and allowed to collapse.

As I lay there, hoping to stop throwing up so I could sleep, I listened to the chatter from some of the boys. It seemed like they liked their work, but I got the feeling that they’d all been pressed into service as I had. Could that be? Surely somebody on board had started it, unless this was some kind of self-perpetuating bureaucracy and the Seaworthy had not been sailed by willing men since it was launched.

I wondered. Then I had to go use the porthole.

As you’ve undoubtedly realized, I was very stupid at this juncture, so the next morning when Captain Bugsby strolled by as I was swabbing away on deck, I asked, “Begging your pardon, Captain, but what’s our mission?”

Before I knew what was happening I was laid out on the deck with the tip of the mop handle on my Adam’s apple and the captain holding it there. “Swabbo,” he said, “all ye need ever know about this fair vessel is that ye must never look in the first mate’s cabin. Am I understood?”

Great, another overbearing authority figure, I thought, but I said, “Urk, urk, cptn,” which was about all I could say with my throat a hair away from being crushed.

The captain, satisfied by my cringing, said, “Ask me questions again and I put this yar mop handle up yer nose and into the space where yer brain should be.” He allowed me to get up without further harm.

The one bright spot was that I was starting to get my sealegs. I only threw up twice an hour or so, and even choked down some blueberry soup at one point. Then I gnawed some hardtack and threw up again. But aside from that, the sea life wasn’t so bad. Was it my hard work at swabbing, or fresh salt air, or just nasal fatigue that made the ship smell less horrible as I went on? I’m not sure. But it beat army life.

The crew were more repulsive than the Tegoran recruits had been, but none of them bothered me. They were impressed with my little magic tricks. Maybe they left me unharmed because they enjoyed my act, or maybe they feared I might have some real scary magic hidden somewhere.

The captain was a friendly enough scoundrel as long as we obeyed orders, always slapping people on the back and then helping them up. The first mate, an old salt about whom I learned little, wandered about in a daze and said “Um…” a lot. He never checked the stores of grog for pilfering, and we abused said stores mercilessly, so we liked him. He slept below with us, before the mast.

Which made me wonder… Where was the first mate’s cabin? And if he wasn’t in it, what was?

I ought to know better than to follow my curiosity, but it’s a streak as broad as my cowardice. It’s how I got mixed up with the Famous Mages School, in fact. I was a waif, running with a vicious gang of waifs when I wasn’t doing scullery work. One day we mugged this mage—well, actually, they never let me mug anyone; I was their cheerleader—and this mage put a curse on our leader that gave him the runs for three weeks. I needed to know how the mage did that. I’d still like to, actually. It wasn’t in the curriculum at the Famous Mages School. But as my curiosity led me to enroll with Simon the Unsteady, so too did my curiosity lead me to wonder what was in the first mate’s cabin.

Then again, I didn’t want to go through life with a mop sticking out of my nose.

One evening, after I’d helped the fellows with some light bailing, I noticed that Bugsby was going down to the hold to catch rats with his teeth, a pastime to which he credited his robust health. With no one looking at the moment, I sneaked into the officers’ cabins under the poop deck.

The first mate’s cabin was locked, bolted, and chained from the outside, but there was a slot at the bottom of the door that looked pretty fresh. I assumed it had been cut there to slide food to an occupant. I put my face to the floor and peered through the slot, but all I saw was the opposite bulkhead. Then I heard something strange.

A woman’s voice, alto and mellifluous, was singing. She wasn’t singing a sea chanty, either, but a song of yearning and love. She sang:

                “I wish I could be at home again

                And not in this stinking old ship

                The food is atrocious, I don’t feel too well

                And I have this big sore on my lip.”

Well, my heart sang with her words, and suddenly I wished I could be home in Snyrgg. I said, “Hi.”

She said, “Hi.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Suzy. Who’re you?”

“A friend. You sing beautifully.”

“Thank you. You eavesdrop beautifully.”

“Yes, it’s a gift. So, how long have you been a prisoner?”

“Oh, for a while. Ever since I got out of school it’s been one kidnap after another. My father’s a prince, you know, so I’ve got connections.”

“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”

“They don’t kidnap just anybody.”

“And how do you like it?”

“Well, the work is easy but the hours are terrible.”

“Aye. So, ransom?”

“I suppose. All I know is I was doing a little shopping when someone put a bag on my head. And here I am.”

“Being a princess I imagine you’re gorgeous.”

“It is part of the job description. I’m five-eight, strawberry blond hair, amber eyes, and in as good a shape as I can be considering my constant captivity. I used to be thirty pounds overweight but kidnappers have terrible food.”

“I’m sure it’s the same stuff we eat, so don’t take it personally.”

“And what do you look like, sailor boy?”

“Young, scraggly, average height. Motley beard to cover my weak chin. Dressed in the ragged remains of army-issue wizard robes. It’s nice to meet you. I don’t meet many friendly people in my line of work.”

“And what line is that?”

“Survival.”

“I see. Well, if we ever get out of here we should do lunch. What’s your name?”

“They call me Bob. They also call me Swabbo, Spellboy, and worse, but I answer to Bob.”

“Bob it is.”

“Well, thank you for your time, Suzy, but I must go. People are moving around amidships and I’d better go pretend I’m working. But I’ll be back.”

“Oh, please do.”

“One last thing: Would you mind terribly if I effect an amazing and highly improbably escape for you, bring you home, and marry you?”

“Well… I suppose. But I’d hate to think you were marrying me for my money.”

“Mmmm… nah. Not really. I like you.”

“Good, because I’m the eighth daughter of the prince and I’m likely to inherit nothing but some cheap silver plate. And I think my dowry’s gone for ransom.”

“Oh, that’s all right. I’d marry you anyway. Put me in your appointment book. Bye for now.”

“Bye for now.”

Call me a romantic fool, but I was smitten. Not surprising, considering most of the women I’d known in my life were crones or brutes or charged hourly rates. The men, too, come to think of it. But now I had to come up with an amazing rescue for her. All I had was meager magic, and I was completely out of Frog Liver and low on Eye of Newt again. I thought about it all night on my bunk, until I decided I should just lie low, go about my business, and look for an opportunity.

Instead of opportunity, though, trouble arrived. I was swabbing the deck as usual a couple of days later when Murray in the crow’s nest yelled “Ship ho! Ship to starboard!”

Captain Bugsby burst from his cabin, shouting, “Avast ye, mates! Shiver me timbers! Arr! Can ye not smell the booty, the gold? Arr! Where be my parrot? To the guns!”

No one had told me what I should do in these circumstances. Frankly, I wasn’t in the mood. I had this sinus headache, the really annoying kind that just doesn’t quit. Some of the men were knocking over ferns and readying cannon; others were trimming sails or bringing up weapons. Someone handed me a short sword and yelled “Arr!” at me.

I’m afraid I didn’t acquit myself too well as we prepared for battle. I just ran amok on the deck with the sword in one hand and my mop in the other. I tripped over a box someone had left out that was labeled: In case of shivered timbers, break glass. I did, and inside was a flintlock, powder, and shot. I’d never used a firearm before, but I could figure it out, right? Besides, better I should have it than one of these other buffoons. I’d been in situations like this, violent confrontations of the undisciplined, and mostly what would happen is a lot of running and screaming and people bleeding, and I was not planning to be one of the bleeders. Hiding was out of the question, as we were drawing close to the other ship, and it didn’t seem to be a good idea anyway. If we won and the pirates found me cowering in the galley pretending to be a piece of hardtack, it would not go well. I mean, I got along well with my shipmates, but it wasn’t the kind of relationship I could push. So I decided to stand outside the hatch to the lower decks, try to shoot the gun, and run away screaming like a ninny if anyone got close.

If only it had been that simple.

My comrades were snarling and preparing to light the cannon. It was a clear, hot day, the kind where your sweat dries immediately. We were almost in range. The general insanity turned to torturous waiting. The only sound was the moan and creak of the ship and the first mate saying “Um…” as the seconds ticked on. My heart thumped so hard that each beat shook me like a hammer blow.

Then Bugsby yelled, “FIRE!”

The cannon roared, and everybody coughed on the smoke. When it cleared my eyes greeted something horrible.

The ship was pulling up the colors of the royal fleet of the city-state Tegora.

With the sudden realization that I had a stake in this fight I started to fumble with the gun, messing around with gunpowder and getting it everywhere. Some pirates were getting ready to board the Tegorans, but no way was I going over there. I had been captured a lot lately and it was getting to be a habit.

But we were all taken by surprise by what happened next. Row upon row of panels cleverly disguised along the side of the Tegoran ship flipped open, revealing more firepower than I even knew existed. All those big guns suddenly blasted, and the Seaworthy lurched. I’d heard rumors of pirate-hunters while I was in basic training, but I didn’t know they were real.

Moments earlier there’d been a handful of unarmed sailors on the deck of the other ship; now the place was flooded with armed Tegorans. They shot grappling hooks on arbalests, arresting our ship as we tried to change tack. As soon as the two ships got close, Tegorans swung over the gap and boarded us, clubbing and stabbing any pirates who showed any fight. One grabbed Kevin’s peg leg and beat him on the head with it. Talk about embarrassing.

If we’d had a lifeboat I’d have run for it. Such frills were not found on the Seaworthy. If I hid now, I’d just go down to the bottom when they sank the ship, which was probably taking on water already.

Down to the bottom? Suzy!

I had to get her free; the pirates were too busy, and would they add kidnapping to the charges against them by admitting she was on board? I threw down my gun, skirted the skirmishes, and passed by the first mate; he was squinting at the Tegorans and trying to pull a dagger from its scabbard. I jumped over an unattached arm (ick!) and dodged a cannonball and crashed through into the cabin area.

There was the door I wanted, locked up tight as ever. I knew of spells that could open locks, but of course those required magical supplies. And knowledge. And talent. But I had something better—the keys I had just lifted from the first mate. I tried each one in turn—there were at least a score—and one by one the bolt, the chain, and the lock gave way. Then, praying she’d put in a good word for me with the Tegorans, I yanked open the door and saw Suzy.

She was all she’d said, and more. Her light red hair was the gossamer of angel’s wings, her figure fair and sweet, her eyes, serene pools of amber, and her mouth—

Screaming.

“It’s me, Bob!” I said. “I know I don’t look like much, but really, I think you’re overreacting—”

Then, as if to clarify her screaming, she pointed at me.

“Well,” I said, “If you want to be insulting about it, I—”

Everything went black.

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[What's happened to our hero now? It's always something, isn't it? Adventure -- sheesh. Better come back next week for Chapter 6 to find out happened!]