The Wand & the Sea (25 page)

Innes, who was only a few feet from them, responded by extending her webbed fingers. She brought them up at right angles, as if she were getting ready to push a door open. She gently scooped her hands into the air, then rolled them outward; and just as she did so, the ship listed to port, and a gentle swell rose below them and rolled toward the schooner.

“That's it! Keep to!” called Morgan.

Kai shouted down from the crow's nest. “Ten leagues, Captain!”

Ben and Everett gasped as another rogue gust rocked the mainmast. Kai grabbed for the ratlines to keep from falling.

As the schooner closed in on them, the weather got worse. The wind whipped through the sails, and Morgan bellowed orders to turn them leeward, now lower them, and the men on deck sweated as they hauled the lines this way and that. It was far worse than the recent storm, but the skies were clear and bright. Besides that, the waves didn't match the wind; the air came in strange rolling microbursts, but the waves seemed to fight each one, kicking up huge sprays and geysers that fountained over the open sea and onto the deck. The other officers mimicked Innes, extending their webbed hands and sketching elaborate patterns in the air. Everett realized that they were sculpting the waves, fighting the wind with them. Innes's taut brown arms strained against the breeze. Her feet were planted firmly on the deck, keeping her balance even as breakers crashed over her and the wind flew her strawberry hair like a crazy flag behind her head.

“What's Holly doing?” Ben shouted.

Everett peered up at the captain. Holly stood with her at the helm, wand in hand, making stirring motions at the sea. She too was churning up waves and sending them toward the schooner. He explained all this to Ben, who craned his neck around Everett to see.

And still the
Black Dragon
came on.

Somehow it had the wind behind it, though the
Sea Witch
's sails were full, and the
Dragon
approached almost square to starboard. It was as if two opposing gales were driving the vessels together. But Morgan's crew had no control over the winds. Their talent was manipulating the water, which crashed against the wind currents as if smacking brick walls. Sometimes they broke through, but like a relentless tide, the wind pushed them back and back and back.

The ship pitched and rolled crazily between the opposing forces. The top of the foremast gave a mighty crack and tumbled into the sea, ripping the topsail away with it. The bow lurched at least twenty feet into the air and then dropped straight into a trench of gray water that opened in front of it. The hull rolled dangerously, and Kai, above in the crow's nest, clung to the mainmast with both hands. She disappeared into the rigging, trying to climb back to the decks, but a few of the lines snapped free and she was flung over the side of the boat, floating on the air current over the sea.

Morgan saw this as soon as it happened, and poked Holly. Everett could see even from his position how very white Holly's face was, how hard she gripped the wand, but she pointed it at the water below Kai and turned the wand in a spiral. Small spouts of water, as if from a lawn sprinkler, shot from her wand and then into the sea, where they gathered into a small wave. The wave caught Kai as she sank, and it threw her back onto the deck. Holly winced, mouthing
I'm sorry
—the wind was screaming too loud to hear her properly—but Kailani only grinned and righted herself, then joined Quinn on the starboard side, sending larger swells to break through the wall of wind and capsize the
Black Dragon
.

The ships were only a few hundred feet apart now. Everett swallowed, his throat dry despite the constant drenching. The schooner was massive, its hull twice the height of the
Sea Witch
. Its three masts carried eight square-rigged sails from topsail to mainsail, and three wide jibs as well as a huge spanker in the stern. The
Sea Witch
looked like a toy beside it.

Everett could see at least three dozen crew members running all over the deck of the
Black Dragon
. But though they looked like men at first, he soon saw they were only wisps of black smoke, appearing and then vanishing just as he got a good look at them. They had very long arms, or armlike extensions, which swirled several feet into the air and spun like Catherine wheels; a few moments later a whirlwind like a steel ball headed straight for the
Sea Witch
. The first one punched a hole through the main staysail. The second broke off the tip of the mainmast.

“They must be, like, air Elementals or something,” said Ben. “They're shooting
air
at us!”

They were the same creatures Everett had seen every time he'd opened the locket.

The problem was, they controlled the water, too. Though the boys couldn't see any web-fingered women, someone was hurling waves at them. Innes and Quinn raised huge balls of water to break over the
Black Dragon
's bow, but others just as powerful whizzed back at them, borne by the ferocious wind, and exploded over their heads in a salty shower. Morgan answered by congealing her water, rolling it into icy balls that broke through the wind and knocked the
Black Dragon
's rigging askew. Its foremast creaked ominously.

“Good hit!” Ben cried.

Holly apparently couldn't freeze her water missiles, but she hurled as many as she could. Still, the wind was on the side of the
Black Dragon
, and no matter how furiously the
Sea Witch
fired, the schooner's superior numbers won out. Half the crew were charged with deflecting Morgan's ice missiles; the other half fired missiles of their own, devastating the little brigantine. The foremast was in splinters; the staysail was tattered. They couldn't keep going much longer. Morgan was going to have to retreat, however she could.

“We need to do something to help!” Ben said.

“Like what?” As Everett spoke, a wind-driven ice ball the size of a school desk punched a hole through the deck planking in front of them. “We need to get below; we'll get killed up here!”

“We can't leave Holly up there by herself! She's got nothing to fight with!”

Then a thought dawned on Everett that seemed, at the time, very brave and quite brilliant. “Then let's give her something,” he said, and darted to the main hatch, pulling Ben along with him.

Belowdecks, Almaric was huddled low against one bunk next to the prince, who looked quite green, and Ranulf was pacing. “Have they boarded us yet?” he demanded as soon as Everett showed his face.

“No, and don't bother going on deck. You'll only get in the way.”

“If they try to board us, they will pay,” he said tightly. He had drawn Claeve-Bryna, which gleamed and sparked impatiently. “ 'Tis folly to sit here doing nothing, no matter the captain's orders.”

“I've got something that will help.” Everett threaded his way along the narrow passageway and down another level. “I saw them back here.”

“Everett, whither goest?” Avery asked. He stood up, weaving, and then was promptly sick at Almaric's feet.

“Your Highness, do sit down!” Everett heard Almaric say. But then Avery's footsteps came up behind him.

He joined them as Everett stopped in the dark corner just short of the brig. In front of them was the barrel of gunpowder.

“What the . . .” Ben didn't bother to finish his sentence. The barrel spoke for itself. “How can they have
this
?”

“The
Sea Witch
isn't from this world,” Everett said. He was only now realizing it. “And neither is the
Black Dragon
. They were stolen from our world, like the crew—like Pike and Cook.”

“What nonsense do you speak?”

“It's true,” Everett said to Avery. “It must be. These ships are from our world, and so's the gunpowder. Remember? Morgan said Pike and Cook were picked up somewhere else? I'm thinking Morgan can somehow sail to our world. She took the ship from there, or someplace like it. She must've left the cannons and such because she didn't know what to do with them. And this gunpowder's just been sitting here. They must've forgotten about it. But look what else is still here.” He pulled aside the sacks of rice and flour to reveal the muskets.

“What be these?” Avery asked. “Magic sticks?”

“Magic sticks?” Ben scoffed. “Those are
guns
.”

“Brown Bess muskets,” Everett explained. “They're primitive, but they could help. The
Black Dragon
won't have them.”

“But how do you know?” Ben asked. “If that ship's from our world too, it could have a whole load of weapons.”

“It doesn't. Otherwise they'd have used them by now. They're trying to destroy us, so why hold off if they've got cannons? Look, here's the charges.”

Everett picked up the hip satchel filled with little rolls of paper.

“What're these for?” Ben asked, pulling one out.

“It's what you load the muskets with,” said Everett.

“You know how to load a musket?”

“It's not hard. I've seen demonstrations.”

Avery stepped forward. “Give me one of the sticks, Everett. I shall defend the
Sea Witch
and Her Ladyship, the both!”

“One each,” Everett said, handing a musket to Ben and another to Avery.

“Just hold up, use your head a second,” said Ben. The ship lurched and they all stumbled toward the brig. “We don't know how old these things are, how they work—”

“
I
do,” Everett said with confidence. He grabbed the satchel full of charges. “Now, are we helping or not?”

Holly had never felt so cold. Under the tropical sun, the wind and even the seawater should have been warm, but the winds that assailed them came from some different place. Their northern bite cut through her thin shirt, and though the crew hurled waves and ice as quickly as they could, only five of them had that ability. Now that the ships were nearly alongside each other, the men could only manipulate the sails to keep the
Sea Witch
from crashing broadside into the schooner.

Holly shivered, gripping the base of the wand as tightly as she dared, for fear that some breaking wave or whirlwind would wrench it from her grasp. Her fingertips were turning blue; her legs shook beneath her. One minute she was following Morgan's barking orders—“swell off the starboard; now one astern; send that one clear over their bow! Harder now!”—and the next she was standing stock-still, having forgotten the last several minutes. How had the foremast broken? Were there
holes
in the deck? Water was pouring over them from every corner. She could only hope Ben and the others were all right, but there was no time to worry about them now.

She shook her head. She'd thought Kai was up in the crow's nest, but the crow's nest was in pieces, and there was Kai on the starboard side, shouting and flinging shards of ice at the schooner, which suddenly loomed within a hundred feet of the
Sea Witch
. And still, along the decks, Holly couldn't quite see the
Dragon
's crew; they seemed to fade into mist as she followed them, dozens of people, and yet not
solid
, somehow. A shrouded, inky figure, thin and towering, stood at the schooner's helm. Holly tried to make out who it was, but an icy blast of wind and water assaulted her. She swayed at Morgan's side.

Jade was close at her heels, concentrating, boosting her powers with his own. His black fur was slicked against his head, making his green eyes more huge and brilliant. She glanced down at him and realized suddenly that he had been calling her name for a couple of minutes now.

“You are tired, you must get belowdecks, my lady!” he was saying.

“She's not goin' nowhere, not when there's battle to be waged,” Morgan growled. “What's wrong with ye? I said whitecaps astern!”

“She cannot go on, no matter how you browbeat her,” Jade said.

“Don't think ye're takin' the coward's way!” Morgan yanked Holly's wand arm, and she cried out. It was
so
sore. Jade reared back, hissing; Holly swayed, so dazed she didn't know which way to run. Vaguely she felt Áedán scamper up her pant leg to her shoulder, then remembered she had tucked him in a corner beneath the gunwale when she'd needed to summon the waves. She warmed for a moment beneath his touch but then staggered again. Her eyes fluttered closed, then open, and the sky turned dark, then light, then clouded with stars . . . but no it hadn't, that was
her
, that was the inside of her eyelids. . . .

She couldn't tell if she was asleep or awake. She felt scuffling at her feet, and in a sudden burst of awareness, saw Jade sink his teeth into the captain's ankle. Morgan bellowed and shoved Holly away from her. Holly wavered and then, with the next roll of the ship, tumbled down the steps of the poop deck. In a moment Jade was after her, leaping onto her chest, breathing into her face.