The mate quickly picked four men to accompany him below. Kulgan seemed to go into a trance for a minute before he said, “Captain, this storm will blow another three days.”
The captain cursed the luck the gods had sent him and said to the Duke, “I can’t run her before the storm for three days taking water. I must find a place to heave to and repair the hull.”
The Duke nodded, shouting over the storm, “Are you turning for Queg?”
The captain shook his head, dislodging snow and water dripping from his black beard. “I cannot turn her into the wind for Queg. We will have to lie off Sorcerer’s Isle.”
Kulgan shook his head, though the gesture was not noticed by the others. The magician asked, “Is there nowhere else we can put in?”
The captain looked at the magician and the Duke. “Not as close. We would risk the loss of a mast. Then, if we didn’t founder and sink, we’d lose six days rather than three. The seas run higher, and I fear I may lose more men.” He shouted orders aloft and to the steersman, and they took a more southerly course, heading for Sorcerer’s Isle.
Kulgan went below with the Duke. The rocking, surging motion of the ship made the ladder and narrow passageway difficult to negotiate, and the stout magician was tossed from one side to the other as they made their way to their cabins. The Duke went into his cabin, shared with his son, and Kulgan entered his own. Gardan, Meecham, and Pug were trying to rest on their respective bunks during the buffeting. The boy was having a difficult time, for he had been sick the first two days. He had gained sea legs of a sort, but still couldn’t bring himself to eat the salty pork and hardtack they were forced to consume. Because of the rough seas, the ship’s cook had been unable to perform his usual duties.
The ship’s timbers groaned in protest at the pounding the waves were giving, and from ahead they could hear the sound of hammers as the work crew struggled to repair the breached hull.
Pug rolled over and looked at Kulgan. “What about the storm?”
Meecham came up on one elbow and looked at his master. Gardan did likewise. Kulgan said, “It will blow three days longer. We will put in to the lee of an island and hold there until it slackens.”
“What island?” asked Pug.
“Sorcerer’s Isle.”
Meecham shot up out of his bunk, hitting his head on the low ceiling. Cursing and rubbing his head, while Gardan stifled a laugh, he exclaimed, “The island of Macros the Black?”
Kulgan nodded, while using one hand to steady himself as the ship nosed over a high crest and forward into a deep trough. “The same. I have little liking for the idea, but the captain fears for the ship.” As if to punctuate the point, the hull creaked and groaned alarmingly for a moment.
“Who is Macros?” asked Pug.
Kulgan looked thoughtful for a moment, as much from listening to the work crew in the hold as from the boy’s question, then said, “Macros is a great sorcerer, Pug. Perhaps the greatest the world has ever known.”
“Aye,” added Meecham, “and the spawn of some demon from the deepest circle of hell. His arts are the blackest, and even the bloody Priests of Lims-Kragma fear to set foot on his island.”
Gardan laughed. “I have yet to see a wizard who could cow the death goddess’s priests. He must be a powerful mage.”
“Those are only stories, Pug,” Kulgan said. “What we do know about him is that when the persecution of magicians reached its height in the Kingdom, Macros fled to this island. No one has since traveled to or from it.”
Pug sat up on his bunk, interested in what he was hearing, oblivious to the terrible noise of the storm. He watched as Kulgan’s face was bathed in moving half lights and shadows by the crazily swinging lantern that danced with every lurch of the ship.
“Macros is very old,” Kulgan continued. “By what arts he keeps alive, only he knows, but he has lived there over three hundred years.”
Gardan scoffed, “Or several men by the same name have lived there.”
Kulgan nodded. “Perhaps. In any event, there is nothing truly known about him, except terrible tales told by sailors. I suspect that even if Macros does practice the darker side of magic, his reputation is greatly inflated, perhaps as a means of securing privacy.”
A loud cracking noise, as if another timber in the hull had split, quieted them. The cabin rolled with the storm, and Meecham spoke all their minds: “And I’m hoping we’ll all be able to stand upon Sorcerer’s Isle.”
The ship limped into the southern bay of the island. They would have to wait until the storm subsided before they could put divers over the side to inspect the damage to the hull.