Free Mastiff by Tamora Pierce

woman’s scarf. They may have been left behind after an afternoon by the water. Achoo sniffed them and turned away—they did not come from the prince, or his scent had washed clean. Mayhap the toy belonged to one of the other missing children? Given the coating of sand on both, I misbelieved they had been left by the captives.

    I had reached the rocky foot of land that walled off the north side of the beach. Even an adventurous holidaymaker would be hard put to it to climb over this high, stony spur of the cliffs to see if there was a beach on the other side. I was about to turn back when the light from the crystals in my rock sparked an answering gleam at the base of the stone. I knelt to see what it was, setting the toy and the scarf aside.

    I picked up a bronze pendant or ornament. It hung from a thin leather strap that had been worn through at the end. Did the owner even know it was missing? It was nearly flat and round with a raised edge. At the center, also raised, was a design of four lance blade leaves, laid with the narrow tips meeting in the middle.

    I turned the dangle over in my hand, wondering who had brought it to this far corner of the beach. Holding up my stone lamp, I inspected the sand around me and then the cliffs. Here I found one more trail, half blurred by the spells that still remained on it.

    Achoo and I climbed that trail a little way. I stopped and raised my bright stone to examine my surroundings. Stone steps were planted in the steep hillside. They led to the Summer Palace. The walls on the trail were slabs of the same rock as the cliffs, rising high above my head. Defenders could pour anything from arrows to boiling oil on anyone who came this way, and they would have no room to hide.

    Turning to climb down, I saw light on the sea at the edge of the cove. I shoved my fireless stone lamp under my tunic in case more raiders had come. As I stared, though, the lights traced fiery lines as they flowed to the center of the cove and stopped. There they continued to move, shaping figures in the air. Slowly the shapes became familiar—curved sides, flat-faced sterns, masts, sails. Two ships drawn in fire floated over the middle of the cove.

    I snatched up the toy and the scarf I’d found in addition to the brass dangle, then raced with Achoo back to Master Farmer. I kept an eye on those ghost ships. More details appeared to fill in the ships’ outlines, until I could even glimpse the pilot’s wheel on one. When I halted next to the mage, he didn’t even look at me. His gaze was intent on the ghost vessels.

    Tunstall reached Master Farmer just after I did and dumped the things he had found on the sand. “Trickster’s blue pearls, what’s this?” he demanded as I added the toy and the cloth to the pile of findings.

    Master Farmer looked up at us. “There are reasons Gershom called on me,” he said. “I can raise the image of something that’s buried, under the ground or underwater.” He held up his lens. “Once I noticed the traces of magic on the surface out there, I used my lens to see if there was more power under the water. The raiders never left the cove. They sank.” When we stared at him, he shrugged. “Many folk carry magic with them. I found the crew’s charms and amulets and the magics that went into the ships when they were built.” He pointed at the ghost vessels. “With all that, I could draw images of what’s there. The closest ship is two hundred feet off. Oh, and the magic that blasted the bottoms out of them and kept anyone from escaping, that’s there, too. It’s a complex mix of powers, curse it all. Even if I knew the mages who did it, and that’s not likely, I wouldn’t be able to tell if they’d had a hand in this.”

    “That’s mad,” I said. “Two ships, crew, and captives? Why go to all this trouble, only to destroy the profits? It must have taken a lot of power to attack the palace, then flat-out sink the ships so fast that none could escape.