Jaws of Darkness Read Free Page B

imagination that worked perfectly well.
    “Let it lie,” Ramalho repeated, a little more sharply.
    “Oh, very well,” Xavega said with poor grace. “Some people, though …”
    Now Leino had all he could do not to laugh out loud. Every time Xavega opened her mouth, she showed him how absurd his fantasies were. She was one of those Lagoans with no use at all for their eastern neighbors. Over the years, Lagoas and the land of the Seven Princes had quarreled a fair number of times, as neighboring lands will. When the Derlavaian War broke out, some few Kuusamans had wanted to fight Lagoas and not Algarve. Fools, Leino thought.
    He stole another glance at Xavega. Odds were she’d never look at him, but he still enjoyed looking at her. It might even have been better that she did despise him. He was in less danger of landing himself in trouble this way.
    “Do you suppose we might actually work the magic we all came here to work?” Essi asked.
    “Oh, very well,” Aalbor said, imitating Xavega’s petulant tone so closely that Leino, Essi, and Ramalho all laughed. Xavega sent the senior Kuusaman mage a glare more venomous than any she’d given Leino. As for Leino himself, he sighed. However luscious Xavega’s body might be, in getting it one also had to deal with her mind. That came close to making it more trouble than it was worth.
    Before the three wizards from Kuusamo began to incant, they joined in a small, not quite sorcerous ritual, reciting, “Before the Kaunians came, we of Kuusamo were here. Before the Lagoans came, we of Kuusamo were here. After the Kaunians departed, we of Kuusamo were here. We of Kuusamo are here. After the Lagoans depart, we of Kuusamo shall be here.”
    That little chant was in Kuusaman, not classical Kaunian. Mages from the land of the Seven Princes had prefaced sorcerous operations with it for centuries. Leino had trouble imagining working deliberately planned magic without it.
    Ramalho and Xavega knew what it was, of course, even if they didn’t understand it. As he usually did, Ramalho raised an amused eyebrow. Xavega said something in Lagoan. Leino didn’t speak much of the neighboring kingdom’s language, but both the sound of the words and Ramalho’s dismayed expression made him doubt she’d paid Kuusamo a compliment.
    Aalbor returned to classical Kaunian: “Let us begin.” All five mages pulled off the amulets they wore and held them in their hands. Leino’s, like those of Essi and Aalbor, was of silver set with moonstones and pearls. Xavega and Ramalho used gold charms with lodestones and amber to feel for and tap the power of the ley lines. Lagoan sorcery was of the Algarvic school, more closely related to that of Sibiu and Algarve itself than to that of Lagoas’ island neighbor.
    But the style and substance of the amulets and the charms the mages used to activate them were only means to an end. However much the means differed, they could and did work together toward the same end. As Leino drew sorcerous energy from the ley line and applied it to keeping the Habakkuk’s icy structure solid and secure, he felt the energy also flowing into Essi and Aalbor, into Ramalho—aye, and into Xavega, too. They channeled it to the ship, sensing what was, comparing that to the pattern they all held in their minds of what should be, and correcting the discrepancies they found.
    They weren’t the only team with such a responsibility. Keeping the Habakkuk afloat took a lot of magecraft. Leino shook his head as that thought occurred to him. It wasn’t strictly true. Ice floated. But keeping the Habakkuk afloat as something more than a slowly melting lump of ice took a lot of magecraft.
    At last, Leino and his comrades looked at one another. Have we done all that wanted doing? they asked one another without words. Have we shored up the ship for another day? Again without words, they agreed they had. Will anything go wrong because of something we have failed to do? That was a clear