A Clash of Magics by Guy Antibes (read this if txt) 📕

on a wooden floor that heaved on the swells of the bay. Trevor knew he was being rolled over onto his stomach. Someone took off his clothes and began pressing on his back. He tried to resist the attack but found he lost his ability to fight. Water exploded from his lungs, and then his stomach began to complain again. He was making a mess of wherever he was.

After an eternity of gasping and vomiting, Trevor finally sighed and let welcome darkness overcome him.

He looked up at the clouds and at tall masts trying to touch a darkening sky.

“We thought you wouldn’t be makin’ it,” a sailor said.

“The enclave!” Trevor croaked, his throat sore from saltwater coming in and everything else coming out.

“You won’t be going back there any time soon,” the sailor said. “You are on a ship to Sirland. The captain wouldn’t put the ship back to port. You were lucky one of our sailors spotted you. At least the Old Man let us fetch you from the water. Your fishing suit saved your life. None of us thought you’d be on top of the water by the time we rescued you.”

Trevor got up on his elbows and looked around. The sea surrounded them. Khartoo was out of sight, and so were Lissa and Potur. Trevor tried to teleport, but he didn’t have the magic. Lissa’s attempt to charge his armor and sword was inadequate for the task. He checked on his body. Other than feeling awful, he didn’t detect any other injuries, but something was missing.

“My sword and armor!”

“We have it. The Old Man says it looks Jarkanese.”

“It is,” Trevor said. “Do you have magicians on board?” There was hope he’d make a quick trip of it.

“Most of us can do a few things, but the healer is the strongest of us. Are you a magician? You called out something about the magician’s enclave, and we found you foundering not far from the place.”

Trevor lost all his strength. “I’m the opposite of a magician,” he said. “No magic at all.”

“Are you a soldier then?”

Trevor nodded. “Of a sort. You might call me a spy. I tried to get information on the enclave from the inside, but I failed, obviously.”

“That is a pretty big fail. If we weren’t tacking in the bay, you’d be dead.”

Trevor didn’t know what tacking was, but he was glad he was alive. That was something positive.

“Are you going to stop at a port soon?” Trevor asked.

The sailor laughed, but then his laughter stopped, and he stepped away when a woman wearing a uniform with many unbuttoned brass buttons stepped up.

“What are you going to give me for saving your sorry life?” the captain asked. She had to be the captain.

“I am sure I was saved with a purse in my pocket. The contents are yours, I suppose,” They had saved Trevor’s life rather than loot him and dump his body into the sea, so Trevor didn’t feel he was about to be killed for his possessions.

“Can you get up?” the captain said. She leaned over and helped Trevor to his feet.

Trevor’s legs buckled, but he clamped his lips together and stood straight.

“Tall. Too tall to work the lines,” the captain said. “Can you cook?”

“Well enough to stay alive and not kill other people,” Trevor said.

“You can be a cook’s assistant while we are on the sea. Do you live in Khartoo?”

Trevor sighed as he noticed how quickly the ship was slicing through the water. “I was visiting.”

“We are going to my quarters,” the captain said. “I’m sure you have an interesting story.”

“I have many, unfortunately,” Trevor said.

They reached the captain’s quarters, where the captain had already laid out dry clothes. “Change while we talk.”

Trevor guessed he would be stripping in front of the woman. If she was the captain of the ship, he assumed she had seen everything there was to see.

“Why do they call you the Old Man?” Trevor asked as he took off his diving outfit.

The woman laughed for the first time.

“It is an expression of affection and a bit of joke between my crew and me. Sometimes being a hard-bitten captain gets on the crew’s nerves.”

“What cargo do you carry?”

“Whatever I can scrounge from port to port. I’m already late getting a shipload of Maskumite cloth to Berry Port in Sirland for overland transport to the Kyrian capital. We normally put in at a few ports along the way, but we won’t on this voyage. That is why I didn’t turn back and deliver you back to Khartoo. I’m sorry, but I’m not sorry.”

Trevor managed a smile as he finished buttoning a shirt. “You have put a delay into my plans, but a delay is better than an abrupt stop.”

The captain nodded her head. “That was my thinking. You can probably find a Khartoo-bound ship in a week at Berry Port.”

“I’ll find other means of transportation,” Trevor said. He hoped to find a magician with some power. At least he could get word to the head seer of his dilemma. That would help spread the word, but most of all, Trevor worried about Lissa stuck in Khartoo with Potur. Hopefully, she would head back to the border and wait.

Trevor was given a tiny cabin reserved for the odd paying passenger after providing an entire evening of stories to an astonished Captain Muranna Bookend. He looked at the cuirass, sword, and ring, laying on the bed.

Hopefully, his magical items had enough magic stored in them to get off a message to the head seer from the boat. It wouldn’t have to be long, but he hoped there was a proper seer in Khartoo to tell others that Trevor was alive.

He donned the cuirass and held the sword tightly. The ring was