Chapter 20

“Talent—sorcery or telekinesis it matters not—is an enigma. Untold time has been spent attempting to unravel its potential, its origin. However, both remain a mystery. Its potential is unknown, although The Gorge loves to say otherwise. As for its origin, one fact is clear: it is not passed down through the generations.”

—Ker-Rell, traveling lecturer and kinetic

To Seff and Reyn, the darkness revealed a long, wide passageway filled with the shapes of barrels, crates and boxes.

Seff cursed. “That’s a lot of crates and barrels.”

Reyn shrugged. The passageway opened up, in fact, into a whole room with ramps leading down. The corners of the room were piled high with large cans, barrels and bags labeled hardtack, flour, and corn.

Seff groaned. “Hungry?” he said sarcastically.

Reyn and Seff quickly backtracked to the second darkened door. Opening it slowly, they saw sleeping faces and covered bodies in a long row of bunks.

Reyn pulled his head from the gloom. His hand shook from maintaining pressure on the latch. Holding his breath, he seated the door back in its frame and eased up on the latch. The muffled click sounded like a thunderclap to the two boys. The pressure drummed in Reyn’s ears as they waited. No sound of stirring came from within. Light shone from under the final door. Seff shook his head.

Having explored the bow, they started to slowly traverse the ship from bow to stern.

Sailors slept in hammocks, rats squeaked alarm near boxes and crates, and more than a dozen empty beast cages rested uneasily, bound to creaky wood supports. Nearby were empty spaces where cages had been, evidenced by chains and ropes still bound to the supports. They tried their best to hurry past the cargo holds, filled equally by enormous crates, sleeping sailors and vast empty spaces.

They reached the stern and found ladders leading up and down. Beyond, were a series of hallways leading to cabins. They walked through the hallways looking at the doors.

“They’re all unlabeled and dark,” whispered Reyn.

“Yes, well, we’re just going to have to start opening them to see what we can find,” Seff whispered back.

“Isn’t that dangerous? What if someone wakes up to see us staring at them?”

“Who cares? They’ll just see a lantern shining into their sleepy eyes, and we’ll say a quick ‘sorry’.”

“Fine.”

The first door was locked, as were the next five. Seff began to grow impatient.

“This is not going to work,” Reyn said.

“The only doors that aren’t locked in this entire ship are the ones leading to the food, it seems.”

“I guess they get hungry sometimes.”

“Let’s look at all the doors and see if any of them are labeled. Anything to help us.”

Reyn shrugged and said, “Sure.”

And so, they began looking at every door and every passageway in the entire stern portion of the ship. As they turned a corner, they saw a sailor coming their way with a lantern held up, illuminating his face. Seff could see the man’s face, a gnarled and disfigured lump of flesh. The topmost of his nose had been crushed down into his face, while one of his cheeks glistened with uneven scar tissue.

Seff moved the lantern to block his face from the sailor. As he approached, Seff and Reyn continued walking forward. As the sailor passed them, Reyn looked away. Reyn felt his heart might give them away with its loud thumping. He had no desire to be in a running battle in the bowels of a ship, amidst a maze of hallways.

The sailor passed them, not even taking a glance their way.

They went down to the bottom deck and began checking every door. None of the doors were labeled, although they did look slightly different, with changes in wood patterns and handles.

The full four decks were searched.

“What do you want to do?” said Reyn, after spending fifteen minutes walking around.

“Everything is locked. We’ll have to start melting them.”

“What if there’s a person in there? What if someone walks by? I think they’ll notice.”

Seff cursed. “How are we going to rob a ship if all the doors are locked, and we’re too timid to make our way through them? We’re here, and we’re here to rob, not be wimps. I can kill off up to five people almost instantly, so we’re fine. If anyone comes by, we zap them and drag them into one of the rooms.”

Reyn cocked his head and said, “And the lightning bolts make how much noise?”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Most everyone is sleeping on the ship, even with the fires raging in the harbor. It’s pretty quiet in here. This ship must have a thick hull. It’ll be fine.”

“But we’re inside. Do you really think no one is going to hear lightning cracks and thunder from inside the ship?”

“We came here to get some loot, and I’m not stepping off this boat until I’m loaded.”

“I don’t think Natali would approve,” Reyn said.

“Good thing she’s not here.”

Reyn groaned. He worried Seff had gone a bit mad. Against his better judgment, he turned around and started stacking spells on the nearest lock. The air turned even colder; the metal slowly turned from black to red to smoking to melting and setting a small fire onto the door which Seff put out.

When the bolt turned to slag, the door gently rocked open. They pushed through and shined the lantern in, checking the bunks which were empty. They closed the door behind them, setting the lantern down on a desk.

The room was drab with dark blue curtains covering a small window. The wood was sanded but not stained. Two sets of triple bunks sat empty on each side of the room. Reyn and Seff quickly opened up any drawers or cabinet they could find. They were all empty.

“What deck are we on?” Seff asked.

“Third.”

“Anyone with a lot of wealth is going to have larger windows than these, so what we do is climb out the window and go along the outside of the ship until we find some big windows.”

“Can we even get out there?” Reyn asked.

“Let’s try.”

Reyn and Seff opened the small window and peered out. The harbor was still ablaze. One of the masts had fallen on one ship, but the fire had been extinguished. Another was entirely ablaze, and the third one was out of view. There was a thin ledge, so they extinguished their lantern and climbed out.

Once balanced on the thin ledge, they slowly made their way around to the stern from the starboard side. They seemed to have gotten incredibly lucky in their first cabin raid.

There existed only three other windows. One was directly opposite of the first cabin, and the other two were facing sternward. The windows out to the stern on the third deck seemed to be separated into two different cabins. Both were dark, big and somewhat decorative. The harbor’s distant fires reflected off some of the metals, although the light was dull enough to not reveal what metals they were.

“How do we get in?” whispered Reyn.

“Hold on,” Seff said. He quickly cast a long, thin tendril of fire which consequently both lit them up for the entire harbor to see and allowed them to see where the window latches were. Seff extinguished the tendril, used his glass cutter, and unlocked the latch. They opened the window and climbed through. All this was done near silently, for the watch crew was still topside.

After they were in, they pulled the curtains shut and lit up their lantern. A single bed built onto the side of a wall was visible, along with a writing desk, a tall dresser, a few corner tables, a lamp stand, a map table, and a smaller table whose purpose was unknown to Seff or Reyn. A chest lay at the foot of the bed, along with several pairs of boots and belts. A staff lay against one of the walls.

Seff pointed to the staff and said, “Look.”

“Is it a walking staff or a sorcerer staff?” Reyn said.

Seff walked over, picked it up and looked at it. “Sorcerer. It has thick notches all down the length of it.”

“Let’s hurry up.”

While Seff went through the normal items, Reyn tackled the chest by melting whatever metal bits he could find. Most of it was made out of dense wood, but that didn’t stop Reyn from melting the metal lock completely off. Inside the chest were stacks of books, three wands, three different pouches of gold coins, and some other odds and ends.

Reyn took the pouches and wands and left the rest. Meanwhile, Seff had rolled up three different maps and searched the rest of the cabin, but no other valuables could be seen or recognized.

With the valuables tucked into the waterproof sack, they came out the same way they went in. Within just a few minutes they climbed into the second stern cabin. They lit their lantern again, but this time the cabin was entirely different.

There was no chest nor bed nor dresser. Inside were boxes stacked high to the ceiling. They were all sealed tight without labels.

“At least there aren’t people in here,” Reyn said.

“Very funny. I bet Natali would be thrilled to know that we’ve searched half this ship, and the only things we’ve stolen are some maps, pouches and wands.”

“Pouches with gold coins. Those are all pretty valuable, I would guess,” Reyn said.

“Of course they are, but still. It’d take us a few days to go through these crates properly, so I guess we go out again. I think the captain’s room is on the deck above us. We should be able to just climb up to the next deck and break into it the same way.”

“The captain—or whoever has that cabin—probably is there. We could just leave before the sorcerer whose wands and staff we stole comes back and sounds the alarm.”

“We’re already here though,” Seff said.

“We haven’t killed anyone yet, so I think Natali is going to be pretty happy. If we press our luck, then we’re going to have an entire ship crew—and a sorcerer—after us.”

“I can set fire to their ship, and we can leap overboard and swim away to our boat.”

“And they can leap after us and skewer us on their rapiers and longswords.”

“Not if I bolt them to death.”

“That’s just going to make Natali slap you again,” Reyn said, having said the first thing that popped into his mind.

“The cabin up there has to have loot. We’re here for the loot, so I say let’s plunder this ship.”

“Suppose the captain is a highly ranked sorcerer and kills us both.”

Seff paused before answering, “What are the chances that a ship captain is going to be a master sorcerer? I guess he could be, but, even if he was, I’ve already shielded both of us. We should be fine for at least a few spells. If he is a sorcerer and if he does start casting spells on us, just dive through the window.”

“Diving through the window is your answer?”

“Obviously, but we’re not going to know unless we go up there to find out.”

“Even if it’s a normal captain, then all he has to do is call for help, and he has an entire crew swarming us with bows, axes and swords.”

“This part of the ship is mostly empty. I can shield us with a nice spell that deflects crossbow bolts and arrows away from us.”

“Fine, whatever, but if you kill anyone, you’re going to have to answer to Natali,” Reyn said, using Natali as a shield and guise for how he really felt.

“Agreed. Now let’s go,” Seff said as he climbed out onto the ledge once more with Seff.

Time passed by slowly as they searched for a way to go up a deck. After skirting around the stern’s ledge, they came by some ornate metal of some sort plastered onto the side of the stern that they were able to climb on. Having made their way to the second highest deck, they rounded the ship once more to the stern.

The cabin’s windows were not separated into two rooms, yet were approximately the same size at the previous windows put together. This was most likely the captain’s.

Seff used the same trick as before. Within a few minutes they were clambering inside the cabin. Once more Seff lit up the lantern shortly after entering with Reyn.

The room illuminated. They stood next to a long, thin dinner table. On the table was a bowl of splotchy red peaches and forest green avocadoes. A few plates and wine glasses also lay on the table. Just beyond the table and to the right, a giant globe stood. It was beautifully painted with vibrant colors—deep cobalt blues and mossy greens, with blood red lines indicating borders.

Beyond the globe was a bookcase—twelve feet long—measuring from the edge of the dining table to the edge of the captain’s bed. And in that bed, sat the captain, staring at them.