Accidental War Mage

After a long day of investigation, I was tired, hungry, and felt the need for a pitcher or two of wine and dinner without company. The best I could do in crowded Venice was to find a taverna where nobody knew who I was, seeking solace in the company of strangers by sitting at a small table meant for two. The other seat was occupied by my gauntlets, with my helmet sitting above it, perched on the tines of my trident.

“He talks to mermaids,” the man sitting two tables down said, revealing the fact that I had failed to find a taverna where nobody knew who I was. “I heard it from Marco.”

Concealing my disappointment in my lack of anonymity, I ignored him and signaled for the waitress, communicating to her with a gesture and a coin that I desired another pitcher of wine to accompany my dinner. The man may have had a sense of who I was, but I consoled myself with the fact that he knew me only through inaccurate rumor; talking to mermaids, indeed!

I had only talked to dolphins, who were a little more bold about visiting the closer parts of the lagoon and occasionally even swam in the Grand Canal. My second conversation with the dolphin had been more fruitful, but I had neither seen nor talked to the mermaids. The dolphin had a few things to say about mermaids, a mix of compliments and insults. Due to the prurient nature of much of the dolphin’s commentary, I shall not repeat it in writing – dolphins may be creatures of the sea, but they have a very earthy nature and a surprising interest in humanoid anatomy.

Mermaids largely stay clear of Venice. It’s too busy, too noisy, the water is much too dirty, and there are too many women around – mermaids, I have since learned, tend to be insecure about their appearance, since their land-bound rivals generally have legs. They also look rather different from dolphins when they surface, although perhaps with very bad vision blurred by exhaustion, one might only see a dark shape breaking the surface of the water.

However, in defense of the man’s misapprehensions, I had indirectly communicated with mermaids. After I had talked to the first dolphin, he had talked to his friends, and one of his friends had talked to a mermaid, who had then discussed my situation with other mermaids. One of those mermaids knew of a ship that the Venetians weren’t using that I could have; it was on the bottom of the ocean. It was a ship that had drowned its master, its keel made from the tree of a liachiad with neither care nor permission, and the god of the sea had refused to let it rot.

At least, that is what the dolphins said that the mermaids told them. I’m not sure how much credence to put in the specifics of the story; dolphins are clever enough and greedy enough to lie, unlike most dogs and a few delightfully innocent humans.

However, I am confident that dolphins, lacking hands and fingers, are incapable of tying ropes; after draining the second pitcher and departing the taverna, I saw that a whole pod of them were pulling knotted ropes as they pulled the liachiad-keeled ship into the lagoon with the high tide, a dark shape mostly below the water, only the forecastle peering above the water. When those dolphins credited the mermaids with tying ropes to the ship, I believed them on that point.

“I didn’t think you would bring me that ship tonight,” I said to a familiar dolphin swimming ahead of the rest, pulling my visor up. My belly felt heavy from what had been an over-large dinner involving several extra helpings of a grain mush that the locals called polenta, lightly seasoned with mushrooms, and my feet felt unsteady from the third pitcher of wine.

The dolphin laughed; I knelt at the edge of the boardwalk and we chatted amiably for a while until a second dolphin swam up to hand me a knotted rope and chide the first dolphin for his laziness. As the dolphins swam away, I eyed the mostly submerged ship dubiously; while I appreciated that the dolphins had brought me a ship, it was in no condition to catch up with a convoy of great galleys.

“What are you doing?” A well-dressed man stood behind me; behind him were about a dozen confident-looking city guards.

“Getting a ship,” I said, holding up the rope. Taking in the position of the arquebuses in the hands of the rearmost quartet of guards, I let the rope drop, hastily lowering my visor. Three bullets rattled off my breastplate as the quartet of guards revealed that they lacked the confidence they displayed; the fourth shot missed, dropping where the dolphins could see it.

I tapped the butt of the trident on the boardwalk. “Hair-trigger guns you have here,” I told the well-dressed man through my visor, my voice echoing through the narrow slits. “No harm done. Except to my men, taken by one of the sirens your lot tolerate.”

“You can come quietly or you can come shouting, but you will come with us,” the well-dressed man said.

I paused, considering the last time I had permitted myself to be arrested. It had been a chilly, hungry, and embarrassing night in the cage in the town square. “No,” I said. Ice rimed the boardwalk as the warm Venetian spring air was replaced with a chilly wind. “I need a ship,” I said. I reached down, tugging the rope with one hand experimentally. The ship, thoroughly waterlogged, didn’t budge; it had settled into the mud with only some of the forecastle visible above the water.

“That ship lacks a mast and sail,” the well-dressed man said, raising empty hands and adopting a conciliatory tone. “I’ll offer you a deal – come with us, answer a few questions, and I’ll cheerfully pay your passage wherever you like, on one of my own galleys.”

“If you fetch a mast and sail, I’ll make my own way with this ship,” a deep voice said, sounding like my father.

The man stepped back to confer with the guards; too late, I realized that the voice must have been my own. There was nobody else standing near me. Was that a promise I could fulfill? How could I possibly be confident that the ship could sail? I looked down at the ship, grounded in the mud, waterlogged, and crusted with barnacles – a ship that should have rotted away to nothing centuries ago. I stared out at the water, distracted, and did not notice the pair of bold guards rushing forward until they shoved me off the pier.

My thoughts turned away from the mysterious voice and my ownership thereof (which had significant implications for later thought) and towards the problem of my sudden downward trajectory. The dolphins giggled unhelpfully, thinking it very amusing that I was being pushed into the water. I flailed my limbs in panic and hit the surface of the water with a great splash.

Down I went into the dark water, sinking under the weight of my armor. Water rushed in through my visor, and I pulled it open to see better. My orichalcum-plated trident had landed point-first in the muck, and I walked along the muddy bottom toward the precious weapon, intending to pull it out before climbing back out of the water. When I gripped the trident with both hands and pulled, though, there began a great rumbling noise and the curious dolphins scattered away as my visor slowly fell back down into place.

I pulled harder, able only to see the muddy ground through the narrow slits of the visor, and the rumbling continued. My lungs began to burn from the effort of holding my breath, and my vision began to dim around the edges just before becoming obscured entirely as air rapidly began to bubble up into my visor. I breathed deeply, new strength coming into my arms, and yanked. The trident popped free of the muck, and I looked around. A confused fish flopped next to me on the muddy ground, which was strewn with all manner of trash and detritus. I was no longer underwater, though water was still draining from the ship. The hull creaked as it leaked at the seams, water spraying in all directions as the aged wood bowed outward from pressure applied in a direction the planks had not been built to resist.

To either side of the ship, water lapped at the sides of the muddy spit of land I was now standing on. Behind me, I could hear shouting and the ringing of bells behind me, which I ignored as I considered the ship. If it truly had been preserved from rotting, perhaps something could be made of it; but water was sunk deep into the very timbers. The bronze ram looked like a solid hunk of verdigris lying in the mud. Experimentally, I scraped at the verdigris with my trident; perhaps some kind of alchemical treatment could restore the ship, I thought to myself.

I pulled off one of my gauntlets, hooking it on my belt, running my hand along waterlogged and barnacled wood as I walked around the right-hand side of the ship. My overindulged stomach twinged as I reached the rear, my hand touching the keel that the dolphins claimed the mermaids told them had been cut from the tree of a liachiad. It felt solid, and for a long minute, I held my hand there, closing my eyes. I could almost imagine trying to talk with a tree spirit.

After a bit, I opened my eyes, walking around the left-hand side of the ship. This side, I noted, seemed free of barnacles, and in much better condition. I shaded my eyes from the bright noon sun, rapping my knuckles against hard dry wood. It felt a little waxy. I made my way to the front of the ship, my empty stomach growling; I was quite hungry, I realized. Clearly, the polenta hadn’t been filling, I thought to myself as I took in the bright white painted eyes of the ship. It really did look like a face, with the brilliant bronze ram gleaming in the sunlight.

The tide was lower, and I realized that the mud was no longer sucking at my boots; it had dried somewhat. I looked over at the boardwalk, but I didn’t see the well-dressed man anywhere; indeed, the boardwalk itself was partly missing to either side of the muddy hill I stood on, the taverna behind the boardwalk tilted at an angle that made the building itself look as if it were drunk. Next to the leaning taverna, there was a long pole that looked to have been fashioned from an entire tree trunk, and piled next to it was a heap of canvas.

“He is awake,” said a familiar voice in Slavonic. “I told you he would wake up again.”

Focusing my eyes, I could see Katya – and, standing next to Katya, Captain Felix Rimehammer, my second in command. Both of whom, if I remembered correctly, should have been waiting on the coastline south of the lagoon with the rest of my company. I turned my gaze back to the ship, looking for clues on the right-hand side of the ship. Its surface also felt waxy, and was – quite suddenly, from my perspective – also free of barnacles. My stomach growled again, complaining of its emptiness, and I felt remarkably thirsty.

I turned my gaze back to the boardwalk; Katya was approaching at speed.

“Seven days and seven nights,” Katya said quietly as she opened my visor. “You made me worry.”

A collection of giggles sounded behind me as she went up on her tiptoes, pulling me down for a kiss. Mostly high-pitched raucous dolphin giggles; but there was also one dulcet contralto chuckle, throaty and far closer to human-sounding. Just not quite.