The Gem Lords

Suddenly Mortal - Part 7

     "Saturn," said Strong. "Cast a spell on me, so I can speak and understand their language. We have to talk to them."

     "The situation is plain," said the wizard, however. "What is there to talk about? We just have to wait, see whether..."

     "They have some of my people!" said Strong angrily. "I don't want their slaughter to be the signal for an all out battle! Cast your spell on me. Now!"

     "The only suitable spell I currently have ready to cast requires that I touch one of their people," said the wizard, seeing that the Captain wasn't to be talked out of it. "Physical contact is required for the magic to absorb their language and place it within you."

     "Okay," said Strong without a moment's hesitation. "Let's go."

     He walked towards the part of the railing that touched the wooden ship, and with a sigh of resignation the wizard followed. We have to have a bloody hero for a Captain, he thought in disgust. Probably get us all killed. He stepped aboard the wooden ship, though, following Strong as the foreign crewmen parted in front of them and closed in behind, surrounding them and ringing them with sharp weapons.

     Saturn held out his hands to show they were empty, but since he was a wizard that wasn't very reassuring. He stepped forward, however, approaching the crewman standing directly in front of him, who backed away fearfully, raising his sword. One quick thrust, the wizard knew, and he'd be dead. He didn't even dare cast any defensive spells, because a swordsman could run him through before he'd completed the first word if he thought he was under attack.

     He tried to give him a friendly, reassuring smile, a facial expression that felt alien and out of place on his hard, stern face, and he glanced at the enemy Captain to see how he was reacting. He was simply standing there, though, watching him carefully, waiting to see what Saturn was going to do. If he was going to cast a spell to destroy the wooden ship, the Tharian wizard could doubtless have done that from the walkway around the Jules Verne, but instead he'd deliberately walked into danger, placing himself in peril. Saturn hoped the Captain would interpret that correctly, as an attempt to seek a peaceful resolution to the situation.

     The enemy Captain shouted a command to the crewman, who glanced around at him in terror. He stood his ground, though, as the wizard approached him, and lowered his sword, staring in frank terror as Saturn gently placed a hand on his head and spoke some words in the language of magic.

     The crewman shuddered as he felt a tingling in his scalp, but then Saturn backed away again, smiling with relieved amusement as the crewman carefully fingered his head as if to reassure himself that no harm had been done to him. Saturn then returned to Strong and placing his hand on the Captain's head, speaking more magical words.

     The wizard watched in fascination as the spell had its effect. In his head, the Captain would be feeling some fundamental part of himself shifting into a new shape, and suddenly his eyed widened in surprise as the world he was experiencing was transformed. The wooden ship would now be as as familiar to him as his own hands, every plank and rope known and recognised, and when he looked around at the Jules Verne it would be the Tharian ship that was now become strange and frightening. A terrifying unknown quantity come to turn his life upside down.

     At the same time, though, he would still remember everything about the ship he commanded. Still know everything he needed to know about its every smallest detail and function. He had lost nothing of what he was, but all the knowledge and thought patterns of the alien crewman had been added. It would be giving him a strangely schizophrenic feeling, the wizard knew, having experienced similar spells himself. It would be as if he was trying to be two people at the same time.