In the Land of Stories Old

Chapter 35

It was Arthur who came to speak to the captain once they had taken Merlin to his bunk below deck, pale but with his jaw set in a way that told Roberts he was out-stubborning the sick horror still so evident in his eyes in order to do his duty. “There’s a cursed forest on that island,” he said as soon as the cabin door had closed behind them. “It’s probably been there since the Cataclysm at least. What we think might have happened is that some idiot started usin’ the wood to make arrows, and the arrows carried the taint from the curse into whatever they touched. The Princes Vinci confirmed that as best they could in the village. This is where the sickness started, and whoever bought those arrows or any meat that was killed with one carried it with them to other islands, other people. At least some of them were most likely raiders, given what you told us…so there’s no tellin’ how far it’s spread, or how much farther that will be. But we have a much, much bigger problem.”

The captain was horrified. “Bigger than that?”

“Yeah.” Arthur took the seat the older man waved him to, swallowing back the sick horror of what he needed to share. “The trees in that forest are callin’ the infected to them, to get the blood they carry—the blood they’re compelled to drink even though it’s killin’ them. We followed them right to it, and then they started fallin’ over, writhin’, vomitin’ out everything inside of them at the foot of those trees—and I do mean everything. And when Merlin saw what was happenin’ he pulled up the biggest ball of lightnin’ I’ve ever seen him conjure and threw it at the forest.”

“We saw the light from that,” Roberts confirmed. “We thought you must be driving off the infected.”

Arthur shook his head. “No, he was tryin’ to burn the forest…but it barely singed the leaves of the outermost trees. They were glowin’ red from the…from the feedin’, and they shook that lightnin’ off like it was nothing. And then that noise started, it was comin’ from the trees near as we could tell, and all the bodies that were layin’ on the ground started to move and we ran for our lives.” He swallowed again. “Captain Roberts, do you know what Merlin is?”

“Other than a prince and a mage?”

“He’s one of the most powerful mages alive,” Arthur told him bluntly. “He threw enough lightnin’ at that forest to take out half a village, and he was still able to run back to the ship with the rest of us. But just cleansin’ the taint off this ship and the people on her took so much power that he’ll be out for an entire day recoverin’ from it, if not longer—we really hope it’s not longer. And that wasn’t even a direct taint, it was just…residue, like when you walk past a big fire and the smell of smoke gets all over you.”

Roberts nodded slowly. “So you’re telling me there’s no way to put a stop to this.”

“I’m tellin’ you we don’t know how we’re gonna stop it, even though we know we have to.” He took a breath. “I think we should burn the pier, that’ll keep most ships away from the place. But past that, I have no idea what we should do.”

The captain’s response to this was to get up and fetch the blue bottle from its shelf, and two small glasses. “There has to be a way. If we all keep thinking, we’re bound to come up with something. Maybe all the mages working together, or maybe there’s an artifact or something that could help—I’ve heard stories about ruins far to the south in the Broken Lands, remnants from before the Cataclysm that are touched with strange magic. I’ve even heard men have seen mermaids and other strange creatures in those cool waters. But we’ll eventually find a way.”

“We’ll have to.” Arthur saluted him with the half-filled glass. “To findin’ a way.”

Roberts mirrored the gesture, and they both knocked the strong spirits back. It felt…odd, giving a fatherly pep-talk to a man who’d already become a legend in his own time, but it had bucked him up a bit and that was probably the best they could hope for. For now, anyway.

They moved the ship closer that same hour, just barely close enough for Arthur to get a flaming arrow onto the end of the pier. Which had been reluctant to burn, but a second arrow had hurried things along and then they’d drawn back again, everyone taking turns watching the fire’s progress from a glass. It was eating at the pilings when Merlin finally woke up the next day, and Noki helped him get back up on deck. “Burning the pier was a good idea, but we need to find some way to keep other people from going there—people who might be tempted to loot a seemingly abandoned village or a shipwreck on the shore. And I’ve no doubt there will be more shipwrecks. The call must resonate in the bodies of the infected, drawing them to try to return to feed the forest. Or maybe the taint just pulls at them because that’s where it originated, I can’t be sure.”

He was still pale and a bit shaky but insistent that he was otherwise fine. The captain privately thought he looked and sounded exhausted but didn’t feel the need to say so. “We’d have to get in close to drop a buoy, too close. That’s what we do to warn for quarantine in other circumstances, but you have to anchor them to the sea floor or they’ll just float away.”

“We would run into the same problem trying to burn the village,” Jack observed; it was an idea they’d already discussed and discarded, mainly because they weren’t sure Merlin would be able to cleanse the taint from anyone else so soon. “If we could get an arrow with magical fire onto the shore, perhaps that would help.”

“It would at least make the place look less inviting,” the captain agreed. “I’d say our only other option is to warn every ship we come across and all the nearby islands.”

“We are safe to do that,” Merlin agreed. “I can try to shield us, if we come in close contact with any other ships that are tainted. Sending a message across, say by way of a paper bird, would be safer…but I suspect that if we do that to the wrong ship they’ll think we’re tainted as well.”

“You aren’t wrong,” the captain said, grimacing. “Any attempt we make to guard ourselves could end up looking suspicious. But how much shielding are you going to be able to safely do?”

Merlin made a face. “It would be a lot easier than cleansing the entire ship and all the people on her, but I understand why you’re asking. As long as we’re not speaking to one ship right after another, I’ll be able to manage it.”

“Wasn’t what I was asking,” the Roberts responded. “I asked how much you could do safely, Prince Merlin.” The startled look on the younger man’s face made him roll his eyes; two of the Seven in a row reacting that way couldn’t be a coincidence. “Am I meant to understand that you seven have been running all over the islands taking care of everyone else’s problems and no one ever gave a damn about what kind of problems it might be causing for you?”

Pino was the one who answered him. “In short, yes, that is exactly it,” he said with a shrug. “When someone calls for a hero to come and save them, it is not unusual for the incident to quickly become a tale for fireside and tavern.”

“They don’t always see us as real people,” Arthur admitted. “Dad warned us about that when we first left home, Merlin and I. He said we should never, ever count on the people we help to have our backs, no matter how good of people they are.” He offered a short bow. “No offense meant, of course. But you’re…kind of a first for us, Captain Roberts.”

That made Roberts snort. “I wish to god I wasn’t, Prince Arthur.” In truth, he thought it might be the most disheartening thing he’d ever heard. And it explained so much. “So where should we go next?”

“Someplace to refill the ship’s casks,” Hans said. “We do not have to tell everyone ourselves about the sickness, or about the corruption on Caray. From one good port we could send out many runners with that information.”

“So long as they are properly warned what to look for in order to avoid being infected themselves,” Kio added. “A dead messenger carries only one message, and that badly.”

“I might be able to contact some of the other mages by bird,” Merlin mused. “Alfred’s mistake was taking the first one that came to him, and that bird simply wasn’t strong enough to make it all the way to the Black Isle, but a large seabird should be able to fly between the islands fairly easily—not like they don’t do it all the time on their own.”

“We couldn’t just send the messages to everyone that way? It would be safer…”

Merlin shook his head. “Alfred directed his bird to me personally, not actually to the Black Isle or even the Black Castle—he was aiming at my magic, just like I focused on his to send the paper bird to him. Any one of us could probably communicate that way with any other mage we’ve met. So once we get to a safe port, I can send out messages to the four I know personally, and then they can send the message along to the others. But we should still send out runners as well.”

“First things first, we need to burn the shore here,” Kio said. “And then we will work on composing an appropriate message while we head for the nearest port, and decide on what to do if we should see another ship before that. If it looks like a raider ship, we should probably just send a paper bird and let them make of it what they will.”

A few of the sailors didn’t look too pleased about that, and Hans shook his head. “When they are about their nasty business, we have no mercy to give them,” he clarified. “But to let any ship we see know of the danger of these waters, this island, is the only decent thing to do. I would wish on no man the fate I saw befall those we followed to the Isle of Deer.”

No one had anything to say to that.

fanfiction In the Land of Stories Old