Sennar's Mission Read Online Free PDF

letting it drop.
    Sennar was on his feet by the ladder, his eyes closed, his lips moving slowly around the words of an incantation.
    “What the devil—” the man mumbled between his teeth, but he didn’t have time to finish the sentence. He collapsed, mute and rigid as a smoked fish, and his terrorized eyes rolled back in his head.
    The sorcerer raised his eyelids, took a breath, and focused on calming his trembling hands. He’d been frightened, no use denying it, but he was also overcome with rage. “All hands belowdecks!” he yelled as loudly as possible. “All hands belowdecks, now!”
    Sleepy faces appeared through the hatch. Aires descended the ladder, barefoot and wrapped in a flowing white nightgown that left little to the imagination. She glanced down at the pirate, stiff on the floor, who glanced back with imploring eyes.
    “What’s going on here?” she demanded.
    Sennar’s fury outweighed his intimidation. “Nothing, besides the fact that you and your crew underestimated me.”
    “Whatever it is you just did to him, undo it immediately,” she hissed between her teeth.
    “Patience, Aires. First, I’d like to clear a few things up. Number one: if you’ve taken me for some sitting duck, you’ve miscalculated. Number two,” Sennar pointed to the paralyzed pirate, “this is what happens when you get the bright idea of trying to attack me. And this time I was merciful.”
    A silence filled the cabin. Aires remained motionless, an unreadable expression on her face. Then her lips curled into a sardonic smile. “How talented our sorcerer is. I guess he’s more than just a pretty face, after all.” She walked toward Sennar and brought her mouth to his ear. “Why don’t we make a deal? I’ll worry about cooling my crew’s hot blood, but if you touch another one of them, I swear I’ll personally make sure you regret it.”
    “Done,” the sorcerer whispered, in a cold sweat.
    Aires turned toward the men peering down through the hatch. “This little show is over, boys. Let’s get back to sleep.” In complete calm, she climbed the ladder and disappeared.
    Alone in the hold, Sennar let out a sigh of relief. Then he directed his gaze at the pirate on the floor. He sighed, muttered a brief formula, and broke the spell.
    The man scrambled up the ladder without looking back.

    The following day, Sennar was greeted on deck with glances of half admiration, half terror. The “little show,” as Aires had called it, had made an impression. There were no more attempts to sneak down into the hold, and the sorcerer, though he still kept to himself, began at last to enjoy the trip.
    The ship was gorgeous, made of a dark wood, unfamiliar to Sennar, that rendered it menacing and majestic at once, and set off the striking blood red of the ship’s sails as they fluttered in the wind. Its elegant keel measured no more than thirty arm lengths from stern to prow, and its gunwale was rather low. It was a vessel made for gliding over the foam and seizing treasure, swift beyond pursuit. Not counting the captain and the beautiful Aires, there were some twenty sailors on board.
    The figure he’d glimpsed on the prow the night of their departure was, as he’d suspected, a demon. The bust rose out of the ship’s wood, blending in so as to seem part of the keel itself. A bull’s neck supporting a monstrous head rose out of its sculpted chest; in the place of hair were long, twisting serpents, their gaping jaws full of teeth like quills. As the ship dashed through the waves, the figurehead seemed to jeer at the ocean, deriding it with its monstrous grin. Sennar was no expert when it came to ships, but this one, he knew, was magnificent.
    Each morning, the sorcerer observed the captain standing at the prow, enjoying the breeze, contemplating his creation as it sped like an arrow along the water’s surface. He was fascinated by the man. By the entire crew, really—everyone seemed to have an intriguing story.

    The blond