Bob the Mage, ch. 6.

[Author's note: Fiction Friday! has returned, with the sixth chapter of our novel, Bob the Mage, which I wrote some years ago and have revised and posted for you, reader, because this thing we have together means so much. When last we saw Bob, our sad excuse for a wizard, in chapter 5 (see also chapter 4, chapter 3, here, and chapter 2, here, then 1, back in April) he had been pressed onto a pirate ship, met a captive princess named Suzy, and then attacked by Tegoran sailors out hunting pirates. Bob finally laid eyes on Suzy, and then everything went black...]

Bob the Mage

By Frederick Key

Chapter 6

I woke to find myself in chains, which, while neither surprising nor unfamiliar, was nonetheless unwelcome. My head was pounding as though someone was hitting it, and in fact someone was.

“Wake up, you mangy pirate!” someone shouted in my ear. That someone proved to be a jolly tar in the purple and brown of the Tegoran navy. “Breakfast awaits, you scurvy dog.”

I was in an enormous brig in the anti-pirate ship, my wrists cuffed to a long chain that ran through iron clamps all around the bulkhead, through cuffs clamping other pirates’ wrists as well. If I stood enough to get the slack to scratch my hips I would be pulling the pirates on either side of me closer, which is one thing you never want to do with pirates.

Breakfast was hardtack and some kind of spread made of something like blubber and grease. Some yellow water was given to me as well in a clay mug. I had to scrunch low to get the cup to my lips.

Keep cool, Bob, I told myself. Let’s examine the situation. I’ve been captured as a pirate, which means death by hanging at best. I’m returning to a city that wants me as a deserter, and probably thinks I am responsible for the death of the rest of the Gallstone mission, along with any other crimes that creep Lefro has been able to concoct. And he’s had time to think. If Suzy could or would have helped me I wouldn’t be stuck in the wall like some bad artwork now. So we’re looking at death by torture, then hanging. Great. Okay, that’s all sorted out. I know what to do.

They must have heard my shriek up in the crow’s nest.

There was silence following my panic. Then a lone voice growled a few pirates down the line.

“I recognize that shriek, by cracky,” said Captain Bugsby. “That you, Swabbo?”

“Aye, captain, in the flesh, at least temporarily.”

“Ah, yes, the crafty little wizard. I hear you were found paying a little call on the, er, cargo in the first mate’s cabin.”

“What? Me, disobey a direct order?”

“Stow it in your ditty bag, yeh son of a left-handed succubus. I happen to know where you was when a sailor knocked you out, and I’ve been considering what it means. I wondered how the Tegorans found us on the open sea, if it were bad luck or whatever, but then I got to thinking that maybe a man of magic, who’d befriended our, er, cargo, might have had some means to signal the navy. Not that it’s done ye a bit of good, seein’ ye here with the rest of us. She turn ye down, Swabbo?”

“I have no idea what you mean,” I said, although I kind of knew. “Captain, if I could have done the kind of magic you think, your dwarven crimp back in Purgor couldn’t have pressed me into your service. When I tell you I suck at magic, I mean it.”

“Cut the blatherin’, Swabbo. I don’t buy it. Now, ye notice we’re all captured by this common chain, see? So if you’ve any plans on escapin’, just know that by breakin’ the chain ye be releasin’ us all, and the first thing we’re doin’ is strangling you while we beat you to death. Right, me hearties?”

There was much grumbling of assent and a few aarrrrs.

“Captain,” I said, glancing nervously at the seething pirates alongside me, “shouldn’t we all try to escape together? Don’t we have a common enemy in the Tegorans?”

“Oh, these sailors are just doin’ their jobs,” said the captain. “I got more respect for them than I do for you, matey. At sea there’s such a thing as loyalty, and duty, and you failed on both. So if we do get out of these chains I’m plannin’ to hit ye so hard yer ancestors’ll feel it, every pimp an’ whore of ’em. I’m kick ye amidships till ye split down the middle. I’ll bounce yer head off the deck till it cracks like glass. By the time I throw ye to the sharks there’ll be not enough fer a quick snack. And then I’ll really let ye have it.”

He continued in this vein for some time, getting all his other pirates worked up to kill me too. As if I’d put them in chains myself.

When he finally stopped—after one last threat to sit me down on a belaying pin and play spin-the-Swabbo with me—I said, “Does anyone know what happened to the, uh, cargo in question?”

“Don’t waste your breath, um, spellcaster,” said the first mate. “The, um, cargo was just using you to escape. Cargo is, um, all alike, whether in fancy dress or selling itself for a copper a go. If anything, the royal variety is, um, worse.”

“But—I’m in love with her… I mean, it.”

“Well, um… sucks to be you, I suppose.”

And indeed it did suck to be me just then. Even if I’d had my magic supplies, even if my spells didn’t all fizzle out against these iron shackles, and even if I could escape without the pirates killing me, I would still be stuck somewhere on the vast ocean on a ship where every man hated me.

Worst of all, my heart was breaking. I knew the first mate was right.

How long did we spend in that brig? Who knows. It was a very hell down there. We could barely move. There was hardly a bit of daylight. It was hot. What little air there we had was putrid beyond description; every prisoner had a small hole below him to do his evacuation, and the pirates’ aim was awful. It felt like a year, but maybe it was four days. Kevin, who’d gotten his leg back, managed to scratch that many notches in it against the bench. He was slowly sawing notch five into it when we heard the cannon roar and felt the ship rattle.

“I hope it ain’t more pirates,” grumbled Yurk, to my immediate left. “Ain’t enough room for more of us here.”

“Cheer up, matey!” cried Bugsby. “Yeah, a battle means pirates, but our brethren of the salt might win! They’ve come to free us! Cheers for the brethren!”

“Hurrah, brethren!”

“Cheer for these Tegoran civil servants of the sea to bite it!”

“Croak, civil servants!”

“Before ye know it, we’ll be free to keelhaul Swabbo!”

“Keelhaul Swabbo! Arr arr arr!”

“All together, let’s have a mighty pirate cheer!”

“AARRR!”

“Real, um, cool,” said the first mate. “Take five.”

By now the ship was careening pretty hard. We could hear a lot of shouting, but make out no words. Every once in a while there was the isolated boom of a lone gun, which struck me as odd since they’d fired in banks at the Seaworthy. I began to suspect this was no ship they were fighting, and judging by the silence of the pirates, I believe they thought so, too.

I got my answer moments later when the brig’s iron door crashed open. A ragged sailor, dirty and bleeding, leaned in. “Pardons for all of you!” he shouted, and I realized it was the Tegoran captain. “You’re all free men!”

“AARRRR!” cheered the pirates.

“That is, you will be pardoned if you come topside and help us with a spot of trouble.”

“Trouble?” murmured several pirates.

“Well, a sea serpent, actually…”

That struck a nerve.

“Thanks for the pardon, but I don’t mind hangin’…”

“Like to help, but this sciatica…”

“Schedule’s a little tight this week, y’see…”

“The accommodations in this yar brig’ve been lovely, so…”

The pirates nearly broke their chains cowering. More than enemy ships, typhoons, tsunami, more even than termites are the monstrous serpents feared among those who ply the deep. I’d never seen one, only heard tales in hushed tones in the backrooms of waterfront taverns and belowdecks on the Seaworthy. Tales of men crunched between rows of teeth the size of tombstones. Men swallowed whole and digested, alive, slowly. Men burned to the bones by their fiery breath. Even the saltiest pirate was like to soil himself at the thought.

And yet, in the darkness of the brig, two beady little eyes could be seen beaming at me with joy.

“Of course we’ll help,” said Bugsby. “Just loose the chain and give each man a blade.”

The chain terminated at the door where it was attached to a stump of iron by an enormous padlock. The captain produced a key and opened the lock.

Each pirate in turn slipped the chain. By the time I was free a dozen of them would be loose, including Bugsby. And he’d spike me quick, not leaving it to the sea monster to do me in. The future looked very dim and very brief.

I rattled my chains and yelled, “Captain! I am Bob, the great and powerful wizard! Once free of these chains and in possession of my mage supplies, I shall turn the serpent away!”

“That be a lie!” growled Bugsby as he struggled to get the chain through his cuffs. “If he could turn a serpent he could surely escape yon chain!”

The Tegoran peered at me. “Bob? A mage? You’re wanted for capture in my kingdom, are you not?”

“You know about that?”

“Of course. You’re public enemy number one in Tegora.” He rubbed his chin. “Which perhaps means that you are mighty enough to save us.”

“Don’t make no deals with the devil, Cap’n!” frothed Bugsby. “But, uh, is there a reward for this Bob character?”

“Sizeable, yes, but worthless if this monster sinks us, isn’t it? Come on, all of you.”

We eventually got free, Bugsby looking at me the whole time, gold coins virtually shining in his eyes. Well, my bluff had worked, and for the moment my troubles were over.

Except, of course, for the two-headed hundred-yard-long nightmare of a sea serpent I’d promised to vanquish.

It was great to get out of that brig, but—well, the deck was a mess of blood and gore when we emerged. Body parts were scattered here and there, cannon were knocked out of position, large chunks of timber had been bitten right off the rail, and the jigger mast (or so Kevin called it) had been chomped clean off. The wounded and the dead lay in broken stillness. Shrieks and smoke filled the air. And there was the massive sea serpent, more terrifying than I could have imagined. One of its heads had two legs dangling from the mouth, and the other head looked about ready to get its own little nosh.

A storage bin was opened to us that held the pirate possessions, and while Bugsby’s men stood about shaking, waiting to poke at the monster with cutlasses that suddenly looked like toothpicks, I dug through the bin frantically for my magic sack o’ fun. I found it intact—most magic stuff looks like garbage and is often not pilfered—and I trotted up to the port rail where the monster was holding court. And then I started casting futile spells.

I threw everything I had at the monster, and with some pride I can report that it probably got itself a pretty darn good wart on one of its necks. But a wart couldn’t hurt anything that ugly, and it went about its business of trying to thin the manpower. I felt bad that I had lied to the captain, got his hopes up and all, but I was trying.

I was running out of ideas when something astonishing occurred. A couple of sailors rushed up to treat a jack who’d been burned by the beast’s fire breath, and I saw they had cool rags from a bucket of ice water.

“Where’d that come from?” I asked the man playing medic.

“We keep ice in a special chest for such emergencies,” said the sailor. “And the captain’s highballs.”

This was amazing. I had just enough spiderweb in a vial to perform a Cold spell, but it required a piece of ice too—and here it was, on this warm sunny day! A Cold spell might freeze the monster, at least long enough for the ship to escape. It had never worked before, but what the hell. If by some miracle it did, I was willing to bet I’d go from public enemy number one to hero of Tegora number one. I grabbed a hunk of ice and dashed to the mizzen mast.

The big problem, you see, was proximity. I had to touch the damned beast.

I climbed the mast, the ice melting quickly in my sweaty palm, to a point just above one of the monster’s heads. If he swung his jaws at me I might have a chance to swat him. Those jaws might get me as I got it—well, maybe Suzy would think of me fondly. I wouldn’t say that that thought gave me courage, but may have added to the stupidity that made my action possible. Clamping the mast with my knocking knees, I began the chant.

For once, my timing was perfect. I got to the part where my hand starts to glow white when the nearer head saw me and decided it was mage-picking time. The head was as big as a dozen human bodies. The huge, crusted nostrils spewed smoke. Its scales reeked and oozed with the slime of things long dead undersea. I looked into its green eyes and knew terror as I had never known, but it was too late to stop now. As it roared toward me I slapped it on the nose with my hand and completed the spell.

The head lashed backward as if shocked. It felt my spell! Look at me! A real wizard! The other head, chewing on something or someone, also looked up quizzically. As the spell spread they would freeze in place. They were doomed! I roared with hysterical laughter. “Take that, fishbreath!” I yelled.

Then the head I’d whacked gasped so powerfully I was nearly sucked off the mast. The sailors and pirates below looked at me in wonder; what had I done?

And then it sneezed.

I’d given the freaking thing a head cold.

And when a sea serpent sneezes, you don’t want to be around.

But I was.

The head shot a jet of flame so intense that it burned right through the mizzen mast. The mast, confused by this turn of events, swayed a little, not knowing which way to fall. I clung to it like a leech, trying to keep it upright by blowing in the opposite direction of its lean. I shifted my weight as well. My main hope, if I had one, was that the mast would crush me instantly when it smashed into the ship.

The sailors and pirates evacuated the area, diving into hatches. I felt the mast going into the drink to meet the sharks, and I let go. The mast hit the drink and I hit the deck.

Then I was alone with the serpent.

Four rheumy eyes stared at me.

“Nice doggie,” I said.

And then I wasn’t alone.

“Scram, you rotten, soggy old worm!” hollered Suzy from the bow. “Go on, beat it, fin face!”

“Suzy! What the hell!” I shouted, but kindly. It’s hard to be really mad with one you adore, even if she’s doing the dumbest thing you’ve ever seen in your life. And she looked as adorable as I remembered her, defiantly mouthing off to the fearsome creature from the ocean depths.

She turned to me and said, “I’m saving our lives, and I’d have done it an hour ago if the captain had let me out of my quarters.” To the monster: “Didn’t you hear me, you barnacled mutant? Amscray ontopray! Shoo!”

The two monster heads turned to look at this new cut of beef and, to my amazement, pulled back in shock. The head I’d touched sneezed, but this time away from the ship.

“Bless you,” said Suzy. “Now, skedaddle!”

And, I’ll be the son of a weredonkey, it did.

I leaped to the bow and said, “That was amazing! What happened? I guess there’s something to be said about talking tough, huh? How’d you do it?” I wanted to sweep her in my arms but I tripped over some timber and landed at her feet.

“The captain wouldn’t listen,” she said, “and he locked me in the cabin. But he let me out so I could get to the landing boat, just before he died of his injuries. Poor, poor man.”

“What didn’t he listen to?” I asked, crawling to my feet.

“I tried to tell him that women… girls… certain girls… especially of royal blood… certain girls can turn those monsters away.”

“Wait—you mean… virgins?”

She had been shaking violently, and now she turned red. “Well, if you want to be vulgar about it. Hey, maybe you could have turned it yourself, Bob.”

“Well, I—hey!”

I might have had some terse words for her then, but it occurred to me that she was trying to get over her terror; she probably hadn’t known for sure that it would work herself. Would you trust your life to a legend? And a poorly known one at that? I mean, knowing that a virgin could repel monsters wouldn’t help most ships, if you know what I mean, but they might keep one aboard if they knew. Anyway, I recovered myself and said, “No, no, I just thought unicorns were the only ones that—”

“Unicorns? No, they’d splatchcock a virgin same as anyone else. Nasty stick horsies. But serpents, griffins, Horeffian bovines (the furry ones, not the short-hairs), and a few kinds of swamp snakes will run when a royal virgin gives them the business.”

What could I say? She was so wise and wonderful. I reached out to take her hand…

And heard muttering from the deck below.

“Uh-oh,” I said. “I’ve got to get off this ship. The sailors will know that I didn’t turn the beast as promised, and the pirates will either want to capture me for hanging or just hang me themselves to save time. You said something about a boat?”

“Yes, the captain told me where it was,” she said, and added in a small voice, “Take me with you.”

“What? With all the sharks and stuff? I couldn’t subject you to conditions on the open sea with a useless mage, not even if you can repel serpents, even if you are just a royal snob who uses useless mages for your own ends.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“Look, buster, if you think I’m staying on this ship with sixty sex-crazed pirates and captainless sailors running amok, you’re nuts.”

“What makes you think I’m not sex-crazed?”

“I can handle one loon, not sixty.”

“Maybe only about fifty left, actually.”

“Come on.”

I heard shuffling below. Once they were sure the trouble was over, the Tegoran sailors would be coming back up, and I expected I would be blamed for everything. I usually am.

“Yes, fine, I can’t stand around arguing.”

A grabbed an abandoned sword and we made our way across the poop deck to the stern, where a small boat was attached. I hit the winch and we were lowered very quickly, smacking the water like a stone. Fortunately we didn’t float like one. We pulled some oars out of their brackets and I got them in the locks and started rowing, which was useless because the wake of the ship was stronger than my underfed arms. Shark fins were clearly visible, looking for sea monster scraps. Suddenly a breeze kicked up and a swell rose up and the ship went one way and we another. I could make out sailors looking around, then someone pointing and voices rising. Seemed to me a few “Arrs” were audible, but barely so. Had the ship not lost a couple of masts they could probably have come after us, but it was all they were going to be able to do to limp to safe harbor.

As my arms turned to limp noodles, I said, “All right, so what’ve we got by way of supplies?” There was a box stowed under a bench.

“Well, this is a lovely sea for a picnic,” she said. “Let’s see. And we have… a pistol and a dagger.”

“Yum!”

“Also… some hardtack!”

“I’d rather eat the pistol.”

“Some fishing line, I suppose… A bottle of either water or spirits. No corkscrew to open it.”

“The captain probably always had a corkscrew on him.”

“I’m sure you can magic it open.”

“Ha. Anything else?”

“Umm. No.”

I sighed. “This is looking like a pretty unsuccessful first date.”

She shrugged and said, “Impulsive decisions.”

“It could get unpleasant.”

“So far, so good.”

“Have you ever died of thirst before?”

“Have I? Hmm. No, no I don’t think so, Bob.”

“Me neither, but it’s no fun. I’ve never heard of a suicide using that method.”

“Can you conjure up a big feast?”

“Once in school I managed to summon a roasted chicken leg out of thin air.”

“Really!”

“Only had to sacrifice an entire chicken carcass in fire to get the spell to work.”

“Oh.”

“Magic at my level is not very—what’s the word…”

“Magical?”

“Yeah. I can give a sea serpent a wart. I can slow down angry cops. I can melt small amounts of soft metals.”

“Well, that’s not helpful out here.”

We drifted silently for a time, rocked by waves. I tried to concentrate on finding the nearest island, as I had found Purgor in the prairie, but Simon had always said it was a tougher trick on water. The sun climbed in the cloudless sky, and I realized we were doomed.

“You’re taking this all rather well,” I said.

“I like being with you.”

“Yeah? Why’s that? We’ve barely met.”

She smiled. “It’s not easy, being a princess, even a low-ranking princess. When you’re passably pretty and Dad has dough, men are always trying to impress you with their strength or power or bravery or handsome looks. You’re not like that.”

“Boy, I’ll say.”

“You’re you, and you accept that.”

“Meh—the truth comes out eventually. Even though I’m a thief and a fugitive and I cheat at cards, I’m honest.”

I moved a little closer to her. Not too close, since the boat would have capsized, but a little. I could almost reach her hand. “I like being with you, too.”

“Oh?”

“Don’t give me those suspicious eyes. Sure, you’re pretty, and all, and come from wealth, but I’ve known prettier women (sorry!) and disliked most. And the rich ones always sic the guardsmen on me, or their private thugs. You’re a good sport with a great sense of humor and a strong spirit. You’re foolishly optimistic and you have an open heart.” I shook my head. “Those things are in short supply where I come from, and you know what? I’ll bet that’s true where you come from, too.”

She looked aside, grinning.

“And,” I added, “the prettiest eyes in this hemisphere are icing on the cake.”

She brought those eyes up, then, and I looked into them. The fugitive and the princess. And I thought, Wow, screw the boat, and I leaned over and she closed those eyes, her lips parting. And a bolt of lightning missed us by about ten feet and we screamed.

She pointed upward and said, “Look!” The sky had instantly turned dark and roiled with menace. “I thought the sun had climbed into a cloudless sky!”

“Yeah,” I said. “This means one of two things. Either the gods don’t want me to kiss you…”

“Well, my father would probably echo that.”

“Or… there’s enormous magicks afoot.”

Another bolt of lightning struck the sea, and another, and suddenly we were lashed with torrents of rain.

“Whichever it is,” I shouted, “we’d better get ready to bail.”

And bail we did, using hands and my hat, but the rain and seawater were gaining on us fast. We were riding up one wave and down another, my stomach beginning to forget that my legs had become sealegs. The sky grew even darker, but all we could see when the lightning lit it up was sea, sea, endless sea.

Then the boat was sliding down a mountain of water, and in a flash I could see that a giant wave was bearing over us to crush us, and there was nothing that could be done.

“Suzy!” I screamed over the storm.

“What?”

“I love you!”

“I love you too!”

“You do?”

“Yes! Yes, Bob, I do!”

I looked at the wave.

“It figures,” I said.

It smashed us like an egg, the boat shattered, and that’s about all I remember. 

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[Uh-oh! Once again it looks like the end for our hero. For a guy who never goes looking for trouble, he certainly does find it. Can he survive? What about Suzy? Will anyone ever eat that hardtack? Return next week for the amazing and astounding seventh chapter of our story!]