Midnight's Mask

by Paul S. Kemp

  Within moments he sensed the urgent, excited preparations of his minions as they organized their warbands. He returned his attention to the Source and tried to lose himself in the pale images it showed him.

  Demon Binder cut through the sea. With her smaller topsails unfurled over the mainsails and the elementals pulling her through the water, she fairly skipped over the waves. Hours passed. The day dawned and moved toward welcome night and still those on board had seen no sign of the slaadi’s ship.

  Magadon used the visual leech from time to time to ensure that the slaadi were still sailing west. They were. The slaadi’s ship had only the wind to propel it. Cale knew Demon Binder had to be gaining.

  As dusk fell, darkness gathered in the sky ahead. Cale saw it for what it was: a thunderhead as black as a demon’s soul. It looked as though a titan had charred the clouds. Lightning split the cloudbanks. The light from the setting sun caught the moisture in the air before the storm and created an arc of color that reached across the sky. The crew of Demon Binder seemed to regard it as an ill omen. Under the thunderhead, the air was hazy with rain.

  The crew stopped for a moment in their work and all eyes looked westward, to the gathering storm. Nervous mutters sounded across the deck.

  Captain Evrel said, “A colored arc at sea is the bridge between us and the Stormlord’s realm. And that looks to be enough of a storm that Talos would take a father’s pride in it.”

  Magadon, standing near the captain on the forecastle and eyeing the clouds, said, “I do not think it is natural. It gathers too fast.”

  “The slaadi?” Jak asked, speaking his thoughts aloud.

  Evrel had the sense to pretend he had not heard, or at least had the sense to ask no questions.

  Magadon shrugged. “No way to know.”

  “Doubtful,” Cale said. He shaded his eyes with his hand against the light of the setting sun. “They do not know we are after them.”

  Evrel said, “And they would be fools if they brought that storm down themselves. They’ll be caught in it, same as us.” He paused, looked a question at Cale, and said, “That is, if we’re sailing into it.”

  Cale looked into Evrel’s face. “Captain, it is important that we catch those we’re after. I cannot tell you why it’s important, but it is.”

  He offered no more than that, and in truth, could not offer more. He did not know what the slaadi or the Sojourner planned. He knew only that it would not be good.

  Evrel stared into Cale’s face for a moment, chewed his moustache, and finally nodded. Over his shoulder, he said to Ashin, who stood at the helm, “Steer a course right into it, Ashin.”

  “Aye, Captain,” answered Ashin without blanching.

  Evrel summoned Gorse and ordered, “Batten down every hatch on this tub. Not a drop gets into the hold or she’ll founder for certain. All spare rope below decks is made into lifelines. Turn the decks into a web and remind the men to take extra care. If anyone goes over in that storm, there’ll be no gettin’ him back.”

  Gorse nodded, eyed Cale, Magadon, and Jak, and turned to his duty.

  “Gorse,” Evrel called to his back, and the mate spun. “Find something suitable and round up Rix. Have him make an offering to Talos.”

  Gorse nodded and hopped to his work, barking orders at everyone within earshot. The crew answered his commands immediately and set to their appointed tasks. They knew their business well.

  “An offering to Talos?” Jak asked Evrel.

  “Ship’s custom,” Evrel explained. “You encounter a storm at sea, you throw a sacrifice to the Stormlord over the bow and ask him to spare the ship. Rix is no priest, but he takes the duty seriously enough that Talos might hear him, or at least won’t be offended by him trying.”

  Jak nodded, looked thoughtfully ahead to the gathering storm, and back to the captain. He reached into a cloak pocket and pulled out a large garnet.

  “Give him this to sacrifice, too,” the little man said.

  The captain laughed aloud and took the gem.

  “A storm at sea makes a man feel small, doesn’t it?”

  Jak only smiled sheepishly.

  “This also,” Magadon said. The guide withdrew from his pocket an almost perfectly round, polished river stone that featured bands of gray and red.

  “It’s not worth much, but it took my fancy. I’ve had it for years. Kept it for luck. I took it from the bed of the Cedar River, deep in the Gulthmere. Who knows, it may please the god of storms.”

  The captain took the stone, added it to Jak’s gem, and left the three of them alone on the deck.

  “Can’t hurt, I figure,” Jak explained to Cale and Magadon.

  “I thought the same,” Magadon offered.

  Cale stared at the black, lightning-torn sky ahead and wondered if he shouldn’t have offered Talos something himself.

  Azriim watched the storm clouds gather. The crew watched them too and muttered nervously. Lightning veined the clouds. Thunder boomed overhead. The wind picked up, carried to them the smell of rain. Sails snapped in the rising breeze. The swells started to grow. The ship began to noticeably rise and fall in the waves.

  “That ain’t no natural storm!” A sailor perched in the crow’s nest atop the mainmast called his observation down to the captain.

  Murmurs of agreement sounded from the rest of the crew. Eyes looked accusingly at Azriim, Dolgan, and Riven, the “wizards” who had brought them trouble.

  “It’s as natural as the rock your mother struck against your head at birth,” shouted another crewman, and the joke elicited some nervous smiles from the crew.

  Beside Azriim, Dolgan projected, We may have a mutiny if we force them to sail into that.

  Riven snickered and answered, We kill a few and the rest will fall into line. I’ve seen it before.

  Azriim smiled at that. None of that should be necessary.

  His spell still held Captain Sertan enchanted, and from everything Azriim had seen, the crew would follow their captain down the River of Blood if he commanded it. They would grumble, but they would obey.

  “Come,” Azriim said. “Let us go see Sertan.”

  The three of them walked over the maindeck to the captain, who stood beside his helmsman near the sterncastle. Azriim smiled a greeting while he eyed the Sojourner’s compass, sitting on a stool beside the helm. The needle pointed directly into the storm and—if Azriim was not imagining it—it also pointed ever so slightly downward.

  Sertan, one hand holding a line above him, nodded at the sky and said, “My friend, we should turn back. I’ve seen ships vanish in storms that made less dire promises than that one.”

  “She’s a black heart,” the helmsman agreed.

  Azriim made a show of looking at the cloudbank and nodding. He turned to Sertan and said, “My friend, we need to continue onward. I can double your pay, if need be. It’s important that we proceed. In the name of our friendship, don’t fail me now.”

  Riven masked a laugh with a cough. Even Azriim had to admit that he was laying it on pretty heavily.

  “More coin does drowned men no good,” Sertan answered, though the sly look in his eye belied his words. “And I no more want you to drown than me.”

  I will eat him, Dolgan projected. And you take his form.

  Shut up, Azriim answered his broodmate.

  Dolgan crossed his arms and huffed.

  “Come now, you are no ordinary seaman,” Azriim said. “And this is no ordinary crew. Dolphin’s Coffer can cut a path through that, I have no doubt. Triple the pay when we return to a Sembian port.”

  Sertan frowned, but licked his lips greedily.

  “I thought you were disembarking? You will be returning to the ship then?”

  “Of course,” Azriim lied, smiling. “We will disembark for a time, descend below the waves, and return. How else would we get back to land?”

  Sertan chewed his moustache.

  “Come, my friend,” Azriim chided. “Nothing dared, nothing won. Isn’t th
at right? I’m offering all I have. It’s that important to me.”

  Sertan’s Sembian greed and Azriim’s enchantment made the outcome a foregone conclusion. After only a few moments, Sertan nodded and said, “Done. And we’ll get you through.”

  To the crew, Sertan shouted, “String some lines, lads, and reinforce the sail rigging! Get the boys out of the nests! No one on the masts! We’re sailing down that storm’s gullet and out its arse.”

  Azriim allowed himself a smile. He had won the only battle with Sertan that he would have to fight. Once the storm had a grip on Dolphin’s Coffer, there would be no turning back.

  Outside the former temple of Cyric, Vhostym prepared to cast one of the most powerful spells known to any caster on any world. The magic defied categorization. In the end, it brought into being what Vhostym willed—but within limits.

  The casting required for its power a small tithe of the wizard’s own being. Vhostym, of course, had only so much to give, or would have had only so much to give, if it had been his being that would power the spell. But it would not. Instead, he would draw on the stored power contained in the Weave Tap. The artifact would power the spell, sparing Vhostym the necessity of sacrificing some of his already dwindling lifespan.

  Unfortunately, the spell brought with it certain peculiarities. The magic could have only limited effects on sentient beings. Perhaps that suggested something about the power inherent in a self-aware creature, but Vhostym chose to ignore the implication. Too, the spell could be capricious. The magic required that the caster articulate his will. Sometimes the spell answered the caster’s intent, and sometimes—when the caster tried to do too much—the spell answered a strict interpretation of the caster’s words, which often led to a perversion of the caster’s intent.

  Still, Vhostym had no choice but to use the spell. No other magic could accomplish what he wished. He readied himself and began.

  In his mind’s eye, he pictured the uninhabited island that he had chosen to be the site of his triumph and his death. He pictured it as though seeing it from far above, as he had often done in his scrying lens—a sheer-sided, mountainous chunk of land that rose high from the sea. Human sailors called it the Wayrock. Vhostym called it his.

  He looked upon the temple before him—empty, dark, also his. He sensed the latent amplification properties present in the stone. Properly awakened, that power would turn the temple into the largest magical focus ever made or conceived. And Vhostym would need it. For the spell he was about to cast was feeble compared to the spell he planned to cast after all the pieces of his plan were in place. With it, he would create and control a Crown of Flame.

  He focused, and opened the connection between his mind and the primitive sentience of the Weave Tap. The artifact reached across Mystra’s web and drew power from the mantle of Skullport, where its seed had been planted. It channeled that power to Vhostym.

  Arcane energy rushed into him until he was nearly aglow with it. Holding his hands out before him, ignoring the pain of his failing body, he spoke the short stanza of his spell.

  Power continued to gather in him as he spoke, enough to obliterate an army. He controlled it, concentrated it, projected it outward to the temple.

  The magic took hold and the temple vibrated under the magical onslaught. The stone shimmered silver. Vhostym gave voice to his will. “Let this tower and all of its current contents be removed at once to the Wayrock. Let a suitable foundation be prepared there upon which the tower can safely stand as it does before me now, and let the tower so stand.”

  Vhostym’s hands shook, glowed white with the power they channeled. The tower shook, flared brightly, then … disappeared.

  The magic departed Vhostym. He sagged and disconnected himself from the Weave Tap.

  He allowed a smile to split his thin lips. He was close now. Very close.

  Only a jagged hole in the soil indicated that the western Tower of the Eternal Eclipse had ever stood in the vale. Vhostym had erased it.

  He took a moment to let his strength return, then spoke the words to a spell that would transport him to the Wayrock.

  He wanted to prepare his new spell focus for his next casting.

  CHAPTER 11

  THE GATHERING STORM

  The wind rose as the sun sank below the horizon. The storm swallowed the stars and the sea grew increasingly rough. Demon Binder sailed headlong into the storm’s teeth. The rain started slowly, thick dollops that felt like sling bullets, but soon fell in wind-driven sheets. Immense swells alternately lifted the ship up to touch the sky or sent it careening down to nearly bury the bow in the waves. Foam sprayed. The decks were awash. Through it all, Cale held station in the bow, leaning out over the prow, trying to increase the ship’s speed through sheer force of will. His stomach fluttered every time they descended a swell, but he refused to give ground to the storm. Jak stood beside him, clutching the rail with white knuckles and groaning with every roll of the ship.

  The rain hit Cale’s face so hard it felt like hail. His soaked cloak felt as though it were filled with stones. He looked ahead, blinking in the rain, the spray, the foam. They had to be gaining on the slaadi. They had to be.

  There!

  Atop a distant swell he spotted a green glow. He strained to see. He was not certain that his eyes had not deceived him.

  Lightning ripped through the sky, silhouetting a dark shape atop a mountainous swell—a ship, the slaadi’s ship! Like Demon Binder, it had all of its sails unfurled and was riding straight into the waves.

  “There!” Cale shouted above the storm, in his excitement using his voice rather than the mindlink.

  “I see it,” Jak hollered in answer. The little man slipped and nearly fell as Demon Binder slid down a trough. The slaadi’s ship was lost to their sight.

  Did you see it? Cale asked Magadon. We are closing.

  I saw it, Magadon answered. So did Evrel. He’s concerned for the ship, Erevis. And his crew.

  Cale knew. He was concerned for them too.

  Above them, the billowing square sails strained to contain the fierce wind without shredding. Rigging frayed. The masts creaked, bending under the force of the wind. Thunder rolled. Cale did not know how much more the ship or its crew could endure.

  Below them, the water elementals Jak had summoned pulled Demon Binder through the churning sea, keeping her prow square to the waves. Watery appendages stuck out of the rolling sea to clutch the hull. Cale caught snippets of their rushing voices above the storm. They, too, must have been shouting to one another.

  Tell him to hold on, Mags, Cale projected. We’re getting close. We’ll have them soon.

  Before Magadon could reply, Cale felt a pressure in his temples, an itching under his skull. He looked to Jak, whose expression told him that he was feeling much the same thing. At first Cale thought it was a side effect of the storm, but the pressure intensified, as did the itching. Both grew painful. Cale squinted, clutched his brow.

  “You feel that?” he shouted to Jak.

  Jak nodded, holding two fingers to his temple and wincing with pain.

  Mags? Cale asked. Do you—

  I feel it, Erevis, Magadon answered, and Cale heard the strain in his mental voice. More intensely than you, I think. The whole crew feels it. I can see it in their faces.

  What is it? Cale asked, and felt the connection between him and Magadon waver.

  I … not know, Magadon answered, his reply partially cut off. Not an attack….

  The pressure grew worse as they moved deeper into the storm. Cale’s eyes ached. His head throbbed. He felt as though his eyes soon would pop. He looked back and saw that many members of the crew were balled up on the deck, writhing.

  A wave of dizziness hit Cale and nearly sent him over the side but he managed to get both hands on the rail and his feet stable beneath him. He reached out and took a fistful of Jak’s cloak to ensure his friend did not tumble into the water.

  “What is this?” Jak screamed. He pulled at h
is hair.

  Cale would have ordered Evrel to turn back if it were possible, but he knew it was not. Any change in course risked swamping the ship.

  The pressure grew worse, caused his senses to deceive him. He imagined that he saw flashes of color dancing across the waves—not the green of the slaadi’s ship, but will o’wisps of red and blue, flames of violet and orange, a sunset, a moonrise. Too, he thought he heard music and mumbling voices behind the roar of the storm. A huge shadow formed above him, a floating city. He cowered, then it was gone. He tasted ale in his mouth, beef, anise, onion.

  Beside him, Jak shouted in a slurred voice, “What in the Nine Hells isth happening? I’m stheeing things. Hearing voices in the wind.”

  Cale could only shake his head and answer, “As am I. Hang on to the rail and do not let go, no matter what.”

  He was conscious of shadows gathering protectively around him.

  Cale projected to Magadon, but the mindlink flickered in and out.

  What is hap … Mags? Is there … you can do?

  For a time, Magadon did not answer and Cale feared for his safety. He looked back but could see nothing through the storm and pain.

  Wait, Magadon said, and Cale heard wonder in his tone. Wait….

  Without warning the pressure in Cale’s head decreased, then ceased altogether. Cale gasped, sagged. Jak did the same. Cale’s senses returned to normal. The storm still raged around them but Cale felt a peculiar, inexplicable calm.

  Magadon’s mental voice sounded in Cale’s and Jak’s minds, and the connection was clear, powerful.

  There is a presence here, Erevis. An ancient presence.

  Dolphin’s Coffer rose and fell in the swells like so much flotsam. Lightning split the sky. Thunder rolled. Rain poured down, thumped hard against Azriim’s adopted flesh. Above him, the sails billowed outward in the breeze, straining the masts.