Page 7
Story: A City of Swords and Fangs
CHAPTER 7
T he little café Hans set as a meeting place had good coffee and tasty pastries. I arrived early and took a seat outside, overlooking the lake. I had passed a couple of marinas with large, fancy boats. Most of the boats docked in front of me were smaller, although a few were rather impressive, with multiple masts and large cabins.
“Good morning,” Hans announced his presence. He had a cheery smile and a large backpack that he set down next to my table. “Let me run in and get some coffee, and we’ll get the boat.”
When he came back out of the café, he nodded to the backpack I had and raised an eyebrow in question.
“I live over a restaurant,” I said. “I brought lunch. Cheese, sausage, bread, some fruit, and a six-pack of beer.”
His smile grew even wider. “Wonderful!”
Shouldering his pack, he led me along the marina, then down a dock. We stopped in front of one of the smaller boats—small, but very neat. It had a single mast, and I estimated the boat to be about five and a half meters long. There was a modest cabin at the front, with total seating for about five or six people.
“It’s not very fancy, but it is sound and safe,” Hans said. There were four life jackets secured with a bicycle lock inside the cabin, and the sails were wrapped around the boom, but he had also carried some other equipment with him. He started emptying his backpack. “Some things are more likely to get stolen than others,” he said.
“You could just ward it,” I suggested.
“I suppose. Seems like a lot of trouble.”
Carrying a large backpack around seemed like a lot of trouble to me.
I followed his directions, and soon we had the mainsail connected to the mast and raised, all the ropes secured, and the jib unfurled at the front.
“Okay, so how do we get out of here?” I asked. There was just the faintest breeze on the marina, which was somewhat sheltered.
He grinned and tossed me an oar.
“And is this how we get home if the wind dies?” I asked. Having never been on a boat—let alone a boat that small—I found it unsteady. And the lake suddenly looked vast and deep.
Hans winked at me. “I normally just call on the nearest aeromancer if the winds are uncooperative.”
Duh. Hans was an aeromancer, with some affinity for water.
He insisted that I wear a life jacket, and I really didn’t require any convincing. I swam regularly in the pool at Master Greenwood’s house in Queen City, but that wasn’t even a puddle compared to Lake Zürich. We paddled out of the marina, and I felt a lot more confident because I could see the weaves of air and water Hans was using to guide the boat and compensate for my lack of skill.
And then he told me to stow the paddle and hang on. The sails caught the wind, and the next thing I knew, we were flying across the water. Even though Zürich was at a lower elevation than Queen City, it was much cooler. That day, the sun was shining and it was warm, but I was glad I’d worn my windbreaker.
I had braided my hair that morning, but on impulse, I pulled out the hair tie and unraveled the plait, letting the wind flow through it. I knew I’d pay a price when I tried to brush it out, but I didn’t care.
A couple of hours later, he sailed the boat into a small, shady cove, and we dropped the anchors. I dug the food out of my backpack, and we had lunch.
“Enjoying yourself?” he asked.
“I love it.” I gestured toward the small cabin. “You can sleep in that, can’t you? Do you ever go out overnight?”
He smiled. “Yes. Stars and silence. Need to watch the weather. This boat is a bit small to handle heavy winds and rain.”
“Ah, but you can shield it, right?”
His brow creased as he stared at me. “Do you do everything with magic?” he asked.
I gave a shrug. “It’s free. I mean, I don’t do everything with it. But it makes sense to use it for some things. I wouldn’t dream of going out at night without casting a personal shield. This city is dangerous!”
He gave me what I took to be an indulgent smile.
“Have you ever been someplace where you couldn’t access a ley line?”
I thought it was an odd question. “No. Why?”
Hans shook his head. “You’re very pretty, Frau Kaitlyn, and very intriguing.”
He leaned forward, and I realized he planned to kiss me. I leaned away from him, turned my head, and looked in my bag.
“Would you like an apple or an orange?” I asked.
As he peeled his orange, he asked, “What do you plan to study at university?”
I grinned. “Everything. Master Adolphus says I can do anything I wish, but how will I know what I want unless I try it? My schedule this fall is full of typical freshman classes: Intro to Chemistry, Biology, German Composition, Math, and Sociology. Oh—and something called History of Magic that Master Adolphus teaches. I’m told it’s required.”
“Everything?” Hans laughed. “How old are you?”
“Nineteen, and I’ve never been anywhere before. I spent my whole life in Colorado. But I might have hundreds of years, right? Lots of time to learn everything. By the way, what are the political divisions within the Guild here? It feels as though a lot of people are walking on eggs.”
He shook his head. “Trying to follow your train of thought is like following a hound tracking a rabbit. You’re all over the place.”
“You think I’m silly. How old are you?”
“Twenty-six. You know, when I first came to the university, I was overwhelmed. I wanted to learn about everything too.”
He was quiet for some time, munching the last piece of his lunch. Then he washed his hands in the lake water and began hauling up the anchors. Finally, he settled by the tiller and let the wind fill the sails.
“There is a schism—a major philosophical division—within the Guild throughout Europe,” he said as he steered the boat out into the open lake. “Many see the rise of the strigoi and the lycans—their growing numbers, wealth, and power—as a threat to the order of civilization. Too much chaos. Those who think that way believe the mages have a duty to impose order.”
“That’s the philosophy of the Knights Magica, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yes, it is. And they have a very strict, religious definition of order. In the past, the Guild has opposed them. We’ve always—at least since the Treaty of Krakow—advocated a balance between chaos and order. That balance presupposes a tolerance of a certain amount of chaos.”
I had seen that division myself. Mages with those views had been a huge problem in Queen City. To enforce their definition of order, some mages believed their rightful place in human society was to rule.
“So, there’s a faction inside the Guild that favors an alliance with the Knights and their vision of a perfectly ordered society,” I said. “But nobody wants to talk about it, or admit it openly. And we’re about two steps away from a civil war no one wants.”
“Maybe not an alliance, but an agreement on a mutual set of goals. I take it that you had such differences in Queen City as well.” He gave me a wry grin. “You’re not silly at all, are you?”
“In my world, keeping my head on my shoulders has always required paying attention to what goes on around me. I’ve seen chaos, and I’ve seen evil. I spent the past year and a half in the household of the Guild Master in Queen City, and I know neutrality may not always be a choice—and may even be the most dangerous path.”
“There was a purge there,” he said.
“You might call it that. There was a mass execution,” I responded. “Some thought that promoting chaos would lead to acceptance of imposed order. Things like that tend to get out of hand.”
“Which is exactly what’s happening here—the conflict between the strigoi and the lycans, and its spillover into normal human society,” he said.
I shrugged. “Balance is messy. Freedom is messy. People and their social constructs aren’t always pretty. And those with power need to tread carefully. It’s easy to see what you want to see and miss what is really there.”
I had spent many evenings talking about such things with Master Elias in Queen City.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7 (Reading here)
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44