Page 14 of The Magic of Pemberley (Fitzwilliam Darcy, Mage #2)

Chapter 14

D arcy squinted at the triangular shape on the horizon. Could it be a sail? The rising moon cast little light over the dark sea. But yes, it was a boat. He was certain of it.

Stiffly he rose to his feet. His legs ached after crouching on the pebble beach for hours, keeping his profile hidden below the small hillock behind him. He picked up the smuggler’s signaling lamp and opened the shutter, revealing a narrow opening that cast light only out to sea. As he had been directed, he swung it back and forth five times, replaced the shutter for a few minutes, and then repeated the actions.

His heart pounded. Would they see it? Was it even the correct ship? If no one came, he would have a very long walk through the desolate marsh back to the nearest village come daylight, and yet another delay to his mission. It was galling to have to rely on smugglers, but they were the only ones who could reach France.

Yes, it was a boat, growing closer. And then a dinghy was lowered over the side and two men climbed into it. They were coming for him. He waited impatiently as it crawled nearer.

As it reached the shore, one of the smugglers jumped over the side and dragged the dinghy up onto the pebbles. He gestured to Darcy with a sharp swing of his head .

Darcy hefted his small trunk and began to carry it to the boat. Apparently not fast enough, for the ragged sailor clad all in black grabbed it from him and tossed it in the boat as if it weighed nothing. Darcy held tight to his satchel as he clambered over the edge. Without a word, the smuggler pointed to the bench where he should sit. Clearly silence was the order of the day.

When they reached the ship, Darcy climbed an unstable rope ladder up the side and over the rail. No sooner had he reached the deck when another smuggler hurried him to a small hatch in the deck.

“Down there. And stay out of sight until we’re at sea,” he hissed.

At the bottom of another steep ladder, this one thankfully made of wood, Darcy had to stoop to pass through the dark cramped passageway below the deck. The only trace of illumination was the dim moonlight angling through the open hatch above. He could barely make out the outlines of crates and barrels, and the stuffy air reeked of old liquor and mold.

The floor suddenly rocked beneath him, and he caught his balance on the edge of a crate. A good thing he was wearing gloves, or he would have a handful of splinters. Carefully he felt his way through the cargo hold until he found a barrel he could rest his weight against.

And he had thought traveling by mail coach was barely tolerable. It was nothing to a smuggling ship. But at least he was on his way. The sooner he reached France, the sooner he could return to Elizabeth.

Assuming he lived that long.

The ship rose and fell more now, so they must have reached open water. It felt as if he had been in the hold for hours.

Darcy made his way back up the rickety ladder and gulped down his first breath of fresh salt air. After the darkness below, the moonlight on deck seemed bright, revealing one man at the wheel and four others coiling ropes and hauling on the sails in the brisk wind. It was a larger boat than he had expected, although nothing to the great ships on the Thames, and it rode low enough in the water that spray occasionally misted the deck.

No one seemed to notice him, or perhaps they were paid not to. He made his way to the wheel and spoke to the man behind it, reminding himself of his alias. “Good evening. My name is Edward Har—”

The smuggler threw up his hand to silence him. “Don’t want to know your name, nor your business neither. You’re just a package I’m delivering, nothing more, nothing less.”

“I thought you worked for the War Office.”

He spat on the deck. “I work for gold. Someone paid me well to haul you over, and I asked no questions. If that Corsican bastard pays me more, I’d deliver you straight to him.”

Darcy sucked in a breath. “You sail under the Union Jack.”

The captain, if he could be called such, guffawed. “Only until we pass the blockade. Then we fly the French colors. Not that we’ve seen hide nor hair of a blockade ship of late, nor the Revenue neither. Better hope our luck holds.” He spat again. “Now stay out of my way.”

Luck? So the smugglers did not know that British ships were hiding in port, those which had not already been sunk by sea serpents. The creatures never seemed to attack fishing boats or small vessels, so they could well be ignorant.

He retreated to a storage bench near the rail, pulling his coat around him to keep off the spray, his arm looped through his satchel. No need to tempt the smugglers with a little extra profit by taking his belongings.

Not that his own gold was in it; that was sewn in the hems of his coat and tucked in his boot heels. The War Office had been thorough.

There was nothing to do but wait. To keep himself alert, he revied in his mind the plans for reaching Paris once the smugglers set him ashore near Calais.

Eventually he began to doze lightly, his chin dropping to his chest .

A thump startled him awake. The boat lurched, and he grabbed the railing to keep his balance. Not the smooth up-and-down of the waves, but as if they had struck something.

Or something had struck them.

The sailors were on their feet, clinging to the mast and conferring in urgent tones. A string of curses flowed from the captain.

Then a giant scaly head rose above the boat. For moment, Darcy could only think that a dragon had somehow come after him, but the long sinuous neck of it told him otherwise. This was a sea serpent.

Horror rose in his throat as a giant tail coiled around the other side of the boat. This was the end. He was going to drown in the Channel, his mission over before it had begun. He would never hold Elizabeth in his arms again, never meet their child.

She would never even know what happened to him. Nor would the War Office.

This was one place where magery could not help him. Neither an illusion nor invisibility could keep him from drowning – but was there a chance he could get word out? He slipped his hand into his inner pocket and rubbed the dragon scale between his fingers. It was the wrong time. Elizabeth was no doubt asleep, but he had nothing left to lose.

Simple. Keep it simple. And so he sent the very image before his eyes, the sea serpent looming over the boat. But there was no connection, no sense of Elizabeth at the other end. He redoubled his efforts. If this was the last thing he would ever do, he might as well use all his power.

The giant head swung in his direction. Huge, gold-ringed eyes shone in the moonlight, seeming to stare straight into him with a piercing curiosity. Had it sensed what he was doing? Or could it smell the dragon scale?

Lady Amelia had said the serpents were cousins to the dragons. Darcy scrambled to his feet, pulling energy through his link to Pemberley and sending it towards the serpent. I am a friend to dragons. Images of Elizabeth and Cerridwen. Of himself in the Nest, of his meeting with the Eldest. He held up the dragon scale with one hand .

A familiar hypnotic sensation entered into his urgent fear, like the time when the dragon had read his thoughts. This time Darcy opened his mind wide, showing anything that could possibly convince the giant creature to spare him.

I come to stop Napoleon, who forces the dragons to fight, who has made serpents attack ships .

Bafflement. Perhaps the serpent did not speak English? He tried again in French, with no better results.

The timbers of the ship creaked loudly around him, the crew shouting in despair.

Darcy gave up on words and scrambled to put his plan into images. Napoleon. Wanting to protect the dragons. His determination to stop the carnage.

Approval flowed toward him. The serpent understood. Darcy took the first deep breath he had managed since the creature had appeared, but water was already rushing into the ship. Once more he held up the scale, even more desperately.

Then the captain shouted, “Stop him! He is in league with the beast!”

Pain exploded in his head and all that was left was darkness.

Darcy awoke to a pounding headache, as if artillery were firing inside his brain. His eyes refused to focus. He was somewhere dim, his back resting on something hard and uneven. As his vision gradually improved, he made out the walls of what seemed to be a cave, one whose walls reflected a rainbow of colors and an odd green glow.

At least he was not underwater. Or drowned.

He remembered the sea serpent. His dragon scale – what had happened to it? He had been holding it in his hand. Was it now at the bottom of the Channel? Had he lost the one tie he had to Elizabeth and England before he even had a chance to use it ?

Desperately he reached for it, but it was not in his pocket, nor in the leather bag hung around his neck. Every movement hurt, but he forced himself to sit up and feel the rock around him. And then he saw it, gleaming, beside his boot.

He grabbed it and held it tightly, its warmth reassuring. But now his head was swimming as well as stabbing with pain. Then a rush of magic scoured through Darcy, making him break out in a sweat.

Suddenly his head no longer hurt, and he could see clearly. He reached back to touch the back of his head. There was not even a bruise there.

What had happened? Where had that power come from? Darcy struggled to his feet and turned in a slow circle. The chamber he was in appeared to have only one exit, but if this was like the dragon Nest, there was no telling what might be an illusion.

He had to find an exit so he could complete his mission. And then a way to escape from France afterwards, now that the smugglers were no longer an option for returning to England. But he was alive, which was more than he had expected when the serpent had crushed his ship. He even still had his satchel, for what little good that would do him.

He set off into the next chamber. It was no different, but the following one was filled with deep pools of water separated by a wide pathway. The air was fresh, with a slight breeze, not cold and dank as he would have expected. His footsteps echoed in the empty space.

The third chamber was different. Not in appearance, though it was darker, and he struggled to see the far end, but in its presence, heavy, weighted with magic, and deeply familiar. He had sensed something similar in the Nest, in the presence of the Eldest.

It was like dragon magic, but with a different flavor, like the tang of sea air. And it was full of grief.

A giant figure waited in the back. Its head rose above a coiled body, part of which rested in a pool of water. Who are you, friend of dragons?

So this sea serpent could use words, unlike the one on the boat.

Yes. I chose to bond to human sailors so I could explore all the seven seas.

Had the serpent heard his unspoken question? And how could he answer without either lying or revealing his name? “I am an Englishman, traveling to France. My wife is a dragon companion, and I am descended from other dragon companions.”

I can taste that, and it is why you were brought here, rather than being left to drown .

He had come within an inch of death, and now he was at the mercy of this huge creature. It was terrifying, but perhaps also an opportunity. “I am grateful for it. May I ask you a question, or is that forbidden?”

You may ask, and I may choose to answer.

He worded it carefully, in case there were bindings in place. “Which is your enemy, the British ships you have been sinking, or the one who has ordered you to do so?”

The serpent sank back on its coils. The question is a clever one.

The back of the cave, formerly shrouded in darkness, grew bright, revealing half a dozen deep alcoves. Most were empty, but one contained a few large eggs, carefully clustered together in a shallow pool. Lazy swirls of steam rose from the water.

Another held a deeper pool that glowed in aqua hues as a long thin shadow moved through it, perhaps a yard long. An infant serpent?

Then a different image formed as in his head, of this same cavern, but the alcoves were piled high with eggs, the deep pools full of wriggling shapes playing together, while young serpents wandered the floor in small groups, clearly interacting silently, a vibrant community.

This was what you would have seen, only a few seasons ago. Now they are gone, all our hatchlings and eggs. For every three ships we sink, he returns one to us. When we refuse to sink one, he gives a hatchling to the Wicked King, to be raised in enforced servitude and all its hatchlings after it. I am not proud of it, but we value our young more than your ships. Regret filled the air.

Darcy inclined his head. All those drowned sailors, who also had families who loved them. “As any parent would. I will have a child soon, and I would do anything to protect him.” But this was it, the answer the War Office had been seeking so desperately, of why the formerly peaceful serpents had gone to war.

He had to risk another question, to confirm what he already knew. “The one who ordered you to sink the ships, who stole your eggs, is it the Emperor of France?”

The serpent shifted on its coils. I am unable to answer that.

A binding, then. “Let me ask this, then. Could you deny it, if you chose to?” Were sea serpents bound by the fae obligations to speak only the truth?

I choose not to deny it, friend to dragons.

Napoleon, in league with the High King of Faerie, so despised by the dragons. How would they respond when they learned the French Emperor was giving him sea serpent eggs? Was this how he was forcing dragons to fight for him?

“Stopping the French Emperor is my goal. It is why I was crossing the Channel, to put a plan in place to end his power.”

The serpent studied him. On behalf of the dragons?

“I am sent by my government, but the dragons know of it. They wish to see Napoleon gone, but they cannot support my mission, since it requires killing. But I, like you, will do anything to protect my unborn child.”

The serpent tossed its head. Dragons are trapped by their very nature, by the price they must pay for bloodshed. I am not. I wish you success on your mission, friend of dragons.

“First I must reach France. Am I there now? Could you tell me how to get there?”

We can take you close to it, but I dare not ask any of my fellows to come near the shore. Can you swim?

“A little,” Darcy said, though he was considered a strong swimmer when it came racing across a lake. Swimming the open water of the Channel, fully clothed, was an entirely different question.

The serpent slithered towards him. Stand still .

Darcy forced his body to obey, grateful now for his experience in the Nest with the dragons and their mysterious ways. A few months ago, he would have been hard put not to flee for his life.

Especially when the serpent opened its massive jaws, only a few feet from his head. Good God, it was enormous, large enough to swallow him whole if it chose! But he stood his ground. The dragons had proved trustworthy, and he needed any ally he could get.

Even when the cloud of sea serpent exhalations enveloped him, cold, clammy, and smelling of fish and seaweed. And so heavy with magic he could scarcely breathe, much less move. The inside of his nose stung as if attacked by hornets. It scoured his skin, not just his exposed face and hands, but all over his body. The power seemed to infuse his very bones.

What had the serpent done to him?

That will keep you safe in the water.

Darcy blinked. Safe from other serpents or from sharks, or would it make him buoyant? Either way would be a gift. “I will do everything in my power to remove the danger to your eggs.”

The sea serpent inclined his head. Your service will not be forgotten. Now my brother will take you as near to France as he dares, and the people on the shore will help you, if you tell them you were brought by one of the les serpents de mer . May good fortune smile on your efforts.

“It already has. I am grateful for this opportunity.” Beyond grateful, in fact.

He was alive for only one reason – because of the dragons. If he had not married a dragon companion, if the Eldest had not given him that scale, he would be dead and his mission over before it had even begun. He wished he could tell Elizabeth that she had already saved his life.