The Sorcerer's Abyss (The Sorcerer's Path) (16 page)

“Found ya, ya little rat!”

Olivia screamed and slashed at the grasping hand. The man, down on all fours, managed to grab her wrist, wrested the knife from her small hand, and dragged her out. Olivia tried scratching and biting until the man slammed her against the machine.

“Stop squirming or I’ll club ya senseless,” the slaver said. He stuffed a wad of cloth deep into her mouth when she tried to scream again.

Olivia fought back the urge to gag on the filthy cloth and ceased her struggling. There was little she could accomplish by continuing to fight other than being beaten. The slaver carried her downstairs draped over his shoulder. Once at the bottom, he dropped Olivia onto a carpet spread out on the floor. A hundred things ran through Olivia’s mind, each of them more horrifying than the last. She was almost relieved when her captor simply rolled her up into a bundle and hoisted her back onto his shoulder.

“Damn, for a stray, she sure eats well,” the slaver said as he adjusted his burden to accommodate the unexpected weight. “Remember what I said, ya start to struggle or cry out and we’ll club ya senseless.”

Olivia did as she was told and tried to ignore the discomfort and queasiness caused by being draped over the man’s shoulder and bobbing motion. At least the carpet provided some protection from the man’s shoulder digging into her ribs. From the number of twists and turns they made, Olivia assumed they were taking a surreptitious route along the back alleys and narrow, unused byways between buildings.

The odor of the port became strong enough for Olivia to detect it even over the smell of the carpet. She heard the lapping of water against the docks and the creaking of the moored ships nearby. The sickening motion stopped and new a voice spoke.

“Here are your papers clearing your cargo. You shouldn’t have any problems with customs, as usual.”

Olivia heard the telltale clink of coins exchanging hands and they began to move again. The sound of her captors’ feet became hollow as they stepped onto the dock and boarded their ship. The man carrying her dropped her unceremoniously to the deck and used his foot to none too gently unroll her.

One of the slavers opened a hatch from where at least a dozen frightened faces looked up. “Climb on down there. You’re on our ship and there’s no place to run.”

Olivia stood up and smiled. “You’re right. There is no place to run,” she said and kicked the hatch shut.

The three slavers stood immobile, unsure of what to make of the girl’s sudden change in behavior. Even as their slow-processing brains formulated a response, the girl’s form began to shift. She grew taller and aged several years right before their eyes. Her short, brown hair lengthened and became a dark blond with a lock of white framing each side of her face.

“The witch!” one of the men called out.

Ellyssa had been locating and killing pirates for weeks, but she was never able to board one of their ships. The slavers had begun staying out at sea after her failed attempt to destroy the ship and crew. Now they dropped their men off and returned at a prearranged time or when someone signaled them with a lantern.

She had been playing Olivia for almost a week after extracting information out of some of the slavers she brought to justice. It was just a matter of time before they struck at the easy target she created for them. The real Olivia was living in Ellyssa’s room as one of the newest students to attend the Orphan’s Academy. It had not taken much to persuade the girl she was better off there than working for the courier service.

One man turned to run, but Ellyssa reached over her head, grabbed one of the lines strung through the rigging with the Source, and gave him a gallows death. The closest slavers to her drew blades and charged, eliciting a hue and cry of alarm. An evil smile formed on Ellyssa’s face as sent them sprawling with a wave of arcane power. The deck of the ship came alive with the chaotic activity of a kicked anthill. Slavers raced around the deck, cranked the windlasses of the heavy ballista, charged her with drawn swords, and aimed crossbows.

Ellyssa opened a magic gate just as more than a dozen crossbows twanged and two ballista bolts tore through the air where she had been standing. She stepped out onto a yardarm, gripped the mast to steady herself, and laughed maniacally as she looked down and saw several slavers struck by quarrels meant for her. A heavy spear launched by one of the ballista tore through two slavers and buried itself in the mizzenmast.

Stepping out onto the narrow spar was a dangerous maneuver even without the vertigo-inducing effects of the gate spell, but Ellyssa had spent a great deal of time practicing just such a feat. She learned from her first shipboard battle that the sheer numbers and heavy weapons were capable of overwhelming her, so she formulated a plan to mitigate those threats.

Out of range of everything but the crossbows, Ellyssa destroyed the heavy weapons with explosive balls of fire, incinerating weapon, crew, and setting parts of the deck aflame. Not wanting to burn the ship to the waterline with captives aboard, she channeled the Source down into the sea and brought forth a wall of water flooding over the deck, extinguishing the flames and washing the slavers off their feet.

The effort it took to move such a large volume of water was very taxing, and Ellyssa felt herself fatiguing quickly. Before the slavers could regain their feet, the young mage reached out to the mile of cordage making up the rigging. Ellyssa’s magic severed lines and sent them after the panicked men. Like snagging tuna out of the water, Ellyssa savagely jerked the men from the deck one after another until the only thing moving was the struggling slavers suspended twenty and thirty feet in the air.

Ellyssa brought one of the struggling men near. “Where is Captain Jake?”

The man kicked his feet and grasped the rope coiled around his chest and neck. “I-I don’t know!”

“Too bad for you then,” Ellyssa replied.

The man dropped several feet and his struggles ended. She drew another man near, asked the same question, and received the same response. Man after man begged for mercy and claimed to know little or nothing. Some began spinning tales and offering guesses in hopes of placating her, but Ellyssa saw through the lies and deceptions.

“All you have to do is tell me where Captain Jake is and I will let you go free! Is it too much to ask in exchange for your miserable lives?” Ellyssa demanded and brought another man to her. “Where is he?”

“P-please! I don’t know!” the slaver sputtered.

“Useless!” Ellyssa spat and prepared to dispose of this scum just as she had the others.

“Sonjay!” the man yelled just as he began to plummet.

Ellyssa halted the man’s fall. “What of Sonjay?”

“H-he might know where he is!”

“Where is Sonjay?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I know he has his own ship now and runs black market cargo between Lazuul, South Port, and here. He usually makes his run north around this time of year. Please, that’s all I know!”

“Finally, one amongst you is actually worth something,” Ellyssa said and smiled.

The wizard grabbed a rope and used her magic to lower herself down to the deck. Her work here was done and she could hear the whistles and shouts of the watch growing nearer as they came to investigate the commotion.

“Wait!” the dangling slaver said as she turned to leave. “You said you would free me!”

Ellyssa looked up at the terrified man. “So I did.” With a flick of her wrist, the man dropped, the rope reached its end, and his neck audibly snapped. “Now you are the freest person on this ship.”

Ellyssa strode from the ship and, with her back turned, released the rest of the crew with a thought and left their corpses dangling like the ornaments of some macabre winterfest tree. She was exhausted, but her work was not yet over.

The Harbormaster peered through the door of his small cabin on the dock at the slave ship moored at the farthest pier. He watched in horror as the fireballs erupted on the ship and the screams of men reached his ears. He knew what had happened. The Witch of North Haven found them and gave them their due. He had heard the rumors, and he knew the slavers were operating at a high level of alert. These ones gambled and lost.

There had been no more commotion from the ship for several minutes now, and he could hear the Watch arriving. The last thing he wanted was to talk to the Watch. He guessed there was no avoiding it, however. As the Harbormaster, they were certain to want to speak with him about anything happening on the docks. He shouldn’t fret over it. There was nothing tying him to the slavers other than the gold stashed in his wall, and that was plain gold crowns. Some might wonder where he got so much gold if it came up, but bribes and kickbacks were a long tradition for his position. Of course, those were generally for simple black market goods, not human trafficking.

The Harbormaster started with a gasp when he turned and looked into the angry eyes of a young woman. He had no idea how she had gained entry. There was only the one door to his cabin. His first thought was that she was a thief and his eyes automatically shifted to the hidden panel in his wall.

“Looking for this, Harbormaster?” Ellyssa asked and held up a large pouch full of coins.

“Who are you? What are you doing in here, and what do you think you are doing with my gold?” the man demanded.

Ellyssa conjured a small light so the man could see her clearly inside the unlit interior of the cabin. The Harbormaster’s face immediately paled and sweat beaded on his brow as he realized who, or what, had come for him. His cabin was built atop the pier and so was situated several feet above the water. He looked at the trapdoor leading to a small rowboat tied up directly below.

Ellyssa followed his eyes to the trapdoor. “Go ahead. Open it.”

The Harbormaster looked to see if the witch was trying to trick him. When she did not move, he edged toward the trap door. When the girl did nothing but smile at him, he opened the panel and bent down toward the ladder leading to his boat.

“Harbormaster,” Ellyssa said, making the man jump up, “don’t forget your gold.”

He turned and felt his entire body go rigid and an invisible hand force open his mouth as if locked in mid scream. His eyes bulged as he watched the gold inside his bag slither out of the top like a snake from a hole. The gold was no longer in coins. It looked as if it were molten and no longer solid. The gold serpent twisted and writhed toward his open mouth, slithered down his throat, and into his stomach. Ellyssa gave the man a push with her magic and he disappeared into the opening in the floor with a splash.