Aldric Vane's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

Silas came to the shore at dawn. He carried a torch that was not yet lit, and behind him a length of oiled rope. He stopped at the ward line and did not cross it. Aldric stood by his wrecked hull, staff in hand. The green light bled through the cracks in the shattered planks. The two men had met only once. That meeting had ended with a drawn cutlass and a promise to burn. "Sundown," Silas said. "You lower the wards by sundown, or I light your ship. I don't repeat myself." He set the coil of rope on a flat stone. He did not raise his voice. That was worse. Aldric watched him and made a choice. He could not fight across the line. He could not lift the hull alone. But Silas wanted his crew, and Aldric knew where they had gone. "Your men aren't gone," Aldric said. "My wards don't kill spirits. They push them out. They're waiting past the far edge of the boundary. Help me raise my hull, and I'll walk you to them." Silas went still. His red eyes held on Aldric's face, searching for the lie. "You said the wards took them." "They did. Out, not down. There's a difference." Aldric held out the staff. "I can shift the line. Open one gap, wide enough for a man. Your crew can pass. But I need hands first, or none of us leaves." Silas looked at the torch in his fist a long moment. Then he threw it into the wet sand, where it hissed and died. He stepped over the ward line. The hum swallowed him and let him through. He walked to the broken hull and set his shoulder to a fallen beam without a word. They worked until the sun stood high. Silas knew ships. He knotted the oiled rope through the split rail and hauled while Aldric braced the timber with a slow pulse of green fire. The hull groaned. It rose. It settled upright in the shallows, whole enough to float. One man could not have done it. Two did. Silas wiped his hands and turned. "Now the gap. Take me to my crew." Aldric raised the staff. He drew a thin line in the air toward the inland trees, and the ward split open along it, a doorway in nothing. Silas walked through. Aldric followed. Beyond the boundary the air went cold. Aldric had lied about knowing where the ghosts waited. He had gambled that they would be there, pressed against the outside of his own wall. They were not. The far ground stood empty. Silas turned in a slow circle, calling names into silence. The compass at his belt spun and would not settle. Then Silas faced him. His hand went to the cutlass. "They aren't here." His voice was very quiet. "You lied to raise your ship." The ship floated now. And the gap in the wards still stood open behind them, wide enough for anything to come in.