The Dagger of Trust

by Chris Willrich

  "Even if that were true, it wouldn't do to admit it. The universe might be listening."

  "They really are a couple, aren't they?" Corvine said quietly, from where she scribbled more of her composition. "Or they should be."

  "That's what I keep telling Ozrif," Leothric said, "but it just makes him mad."

  "I think it's complicated," Gideon said, strumming.

  "Some men and women," Corvine said, not looking up, "take considerable time to admit the depth of their feelings for one another."

  "Oh?"

  "If given the opportunity," Leothric sighed, "I would see the beauty in a woman's snores, the wonder in her toenail clippings, the glory of her scattered laundry."

  "I can't tell, Leothric," Corvine said, "if you're the most deluded man I've ever met, or the most astute of—"

  Corvine's words were cut off by a shout from Dymphna the lookout.

  Although to port or starboard or sternward the day was clear, the river ahead was cloaked in thick fog.

  The wispy mass was flecked with an eerie, self-luminous green. Within it, trees became crooked shadows, riverbanks became dark curtains, and the water became a gray, uncertain track. Strange suggestions of inky forms scuttled and flew.

  "Slow!" Sebastian called, and the sails were lowered. "Drop anchor."

  "I didn't see it!" called the lookout, still sounding shocked. She was the woman in black who had steered Riposte on departing Oppara, and Gideon thought her a trifle shy. "Until suddenly it was there!"

  "Not your fault!" called Sebastian. "We're chasing something unnatural! Or were chasing..." he added in a lower voice.

  They were face to face with their quarry, in a sense. Riposte lay just outside the unnatural zone of fog, held against the river current by the anchor chain.

  The fog simply waited, like a squatting toad.

  "So there it is," Gideon said, as he, Corvine, and Leothric joined Sebastian, Viridia, and Ozrif at the bow.

  "I must admit," Sebastian said, "I hadn't considered this particular scenario. The obvious one. Now that I've found it, what do I do with it?"

  "I always envisioned discovering some cackling wizard with a misty cauldron," Gideon said. "Or a fog-breathing dragon. Some definitive source."

  "Maybe we should send in a boat," said Viridia. "Or a scouting party along the shore."

  "I think we stay together," Sebastian mused. "Strength in numbers. We should learn what we can from this position. Any of you bards have a spell for extracting information?"

  "I do," said Leothric. "I can attempt to sense the thoughts of any intelligent being within that fog."

  "Mister Leothric, if you're willing..."

  Leothric grunted and readied his dragon puppet and a copper piece. Chanting weird sounds that resembled a distorted version of natural speech, Leothric put the coin into the puppet's mouth. "Penny for your thoughts," he said, and when the puppet's mouth opened, the coin had vanished. Leothric frowned, concentrating. "I don't think I can sense anything..." he began. "Ah!"

  "Ah?" Gideon said after a pause. "Ah what?"

  "I—" Suddenly Leothric was quivering, his eyes fluttering back into his head.

  "Leothric?" Gideon moved to see if the puppeteer needed help, but then he saw they had a bigger problem.

  The fog, previously motionless, now rushed toward them like a veil in a dancer's hand.

  They were engulfed almost immediately, and visibility was no better than that of the gray before dawn. All shapes within the fog were indistinct, including the ship, the banks, and Gideon's comrades.

  "Well," he said. "It almost seems like ordinary weather—"

  Leothric collapsed. Gideon kept him from hitting the deck.

  All at once Leothric sprang back to life, eyes bulging. "Did you hear the singer?"

  "Who?" Gideon asked, skin going cold.

  "We heard nothing," said Corvine, watching Gideon's reaction.

  "Strange," Leothric said. "I heard her so clearly—"

  There came a screeching from amidships, and shouts of alarm.

  "'Safety in numbers?'" Gideon murmured to Sebastian, once he understood what had occurred.

  Seven of the crew had gone frother.

  Chapter Ten

  Requiem for Heroes and Fools

  Gideon knew their names now: the halfling rigger known as the Maestro; the scarred elven rigger Tyndron; the peg-legged helmsman Favian; the one-eyed sailmaster Jarin; the barrel-chested rigger Brew; the cardsharp sailor called Quick; and, to Gideon's surprise, Dymphna, the shy lookout in black. They left their posts and walked to the mainmast, or else slid down it.

  As the ship began to drift, Jarin commenced cutting at lines. Fog filled the mutineers' eyes, and wisps of it drifted from their mouths.

  "This isn't good," Gideon said.

  "They're more stricken than the ones in Cassomir," Corvine said. "Look at them. Less madness, more calm deliberation."

  "Return to your posts!" Sebastian ordered them. "Oakstave, take the wheel," he told an unaffected crewman. "You lot—you're privateers in Taldor's service. Remember your duty!"

  "Spoken like a tyrant," said Favian the helmsman.

  "If it's tyranny you want—" Sebastian shouted.

  "They're not in their right minds, Sebastian," Gideon said. "The fog has them."

  "No, Gideon Gull," said the halfling called the Maestro, ascending the mainmast and laughing. "The fog's liberated us! Think of the fog not as mist, but as smoke." White vapors swirled from his mouth. "We're not mutineers, but fiery revolutionaries. We are the Smoke-Tongued!"

  "Crew, put a stop to them!" Sebastian called.

  Gideon already had ideas about that. These Smoke-Tongued were shielding Jarin and the Maestro while those two worked their mischief.

  But they'd made the mistake of doing mischief with rope.

  Enough line lay near the knot of Smoke-Tongued that when Gideon brought the tune of "Haul Away for Arcadia" to mind, his spell for manipulating rope was able to ensnare Jarin.

  The sailmaster attempted to cut his bonds, but it would be slow going. Gideon wished the spell was effective at snagging more than one foe; but he'd have to trust to his companions.

  The bards had indeed begun to respond, each in their own unique style. Corvine and Leothric joined Gideon in spellcasting, while Viridia and Ozrif took to the rigging to catch the Maestro. The rest of the crew rushed the Smoke-Tongued, or sought to control the ship as it lurched.

  "Your sleeping spell!" Ozrif called to Viridia.

  "He'd drop!" Viridia shouted back. "It could kill him!"

  The Maestro merely laughed and began slashing at the mainsail's rigging.

  Leothric had fewer compunctions. He'd dropped his puppet, but Gideon noticed the bard flapping his hand like a jabbering mouth.

  A blast of magical sound hit the Maestro, and the halfling winced, dropping his knife.

  The blade pierced the deck at Corvine's feet. She gave Leothric a withering look. Leothric shrugged.

  Corvine sang her own incantation, and the most dangerous-looking of the Smoke-Tongued, barrel-chested Brew, blinked and put his hands to his head. Which was good, because he'd just been using those hands to throttle Quartermaster Grizzendell.

  The fog faded from Brew's eyes and mouth.

  "Erm..." he said, and then Grizzendell disabled him with a rather low and wicked kick.

  At this point Gideon imagined the fight was going well, and that the Smoke-Tongued would soon be subdued.

  The fog had other ideas.

  Without his noticing, the nebulosity had grown thicker, and this became apparent when scenes of dread appeared beside every combatant still in his or her right mind.

  At Gideon's shoulder there swam a shadowy rendition of him being thrown out of a former Taldan patron's home, his belongings flung after him. Poorer Taldans jeered as he crawled along the gutter, too drunken to stand. A rather quieter Taldan made off with Gideon's pack. Gideon had never before considered the scene with such clarity, f
or the whole episode remained a blur of shame in his mind.

  He flinched away, saving himself from becoming transfixed. Others were not as prepared. Adebeyo was seeing himself driven away by spears and thrown rocks from his community in far Garund. Grizzendell was seeing himself as a Bleachling, the pale sort of gnome who's forgotten how to enjoy life. Asta saw one of the dragonlike creatures called linnorms devouring her family.

  Sebastian, at least, was ignoring his own specters—what looked to be his father setting fire to a castle, while Sebastian's elven mother, young Sebastian at her side, pleading with him to stop.

  Gideon wanted to comfort them all.

  And then he realized how he could.

  He kindled within him that breed of magic unique to bards, felt it crackle out through his lips as he began to sing.

  Our Taldan rats beat Qadiran rats!

  Our Taldan rats are big as cats ...

  At first the song did nothing. The Smoke-Tongued rushed their fog-distracted opponents, knocking many over. Several ran to the helm, where Oakstave was trying to steer while confounded by images of woe.

  Gideon sang on.

  They eat sharks and whales and wolves and bats ...

  "Eh?" said Grizzendell, shaking his head and looking away from his pale mirror image. "That's 'The Rat Song'...this is no time for 'The Rat Song'!"

  "No!" Corvine said. "Gideon's right. We need to break the fog's grip! Sing, bards! If you know the song, sing!"

  Captain Tambour himself took up the challenge, singing of how Taldor's rats were better than Andoran's rats, or Galt's.

  The ridiculous song went on for many a stanza, with Taldor's ship rats challenging all comers, and Taldor's shanty composers challenging the limits of rhymes for "rats." The crew took heart and resumed battle, even as the Smoke-Tongued shouted back calls for liberty and freedom, sounding like perverse caricatures of Andorens.

  Corvine, not knowing the Rat Song, cast what Gideon recognized as a spell of loathing, something she used at times to dispatch unwanted suitors.

  Up in the rigging, the Maestro suddenly looked up at Ozrif and said, "Get away from me! No! You disgust me!"

  "What?" said Ozrif, pausing in the midst of "The Rat Song." "What did I do?"

  "Just catch him!" said Viridia, between lines about how Taldan rats beat Katapesh's rats. Ozrif leapt onto the mainmast. Hissing, the Maestro abandoned it.

  Even as Gideon believed the tide was turning, he heard a lurch as Riposte scraped something hard on the river bottom. The Smoke-Tongued redoubled their efforts, perhaps sensing that this was their final opportunity.

  Suddenly the Smoke-Tongued named Tyndron loomed right in front of Gideon with a cutlass.

  Gideon's voice faltered. The scarred elf jabbed and flourished with a contemptuous style, demonstrating just how badly Gideon was outmatched. Gideon dove past the sailor, drawing his dagger as he rolled back to his feet, seeking some advantage.

  Dimly, he wondered what drove an elf from the paradises they made for themselves in such lands as green Kyonin, and what wanderlust or sorrow kept them away. A very old snatch of song came to him, and he gasped it out.

  All the stars will fall

  And all the land will gray

  Before Iadara welcomes us

  Unto its breast to stay...

  "Iadara," whispered Tyndron, the fog growing thinner in his eyes.

  "We're headed that way now," Gideon said. "Perhaps..."

  "Iadara cast my family out!" Tyndron roared, mist leaping with his spittle. "After all our work, the newcomers cast us out!"

  "Ah—"

  Tyndron screamed as a sonic spell cast by Leothric slammed into his ears. Sebastian appeared, and whacked the swordsman across the back of the head with the flat of a cutlass.

  The elf went down.

  "Thank you, gentlemen," Gideon said.

  "Well, you seemed to be losing your disputation," Leothric said. Sebastian was already moving on. The bards nodded to each other and did likewise.

  Gideon ran into the Maestro as the halfling hit the deck, desperate to escape the loathsome Ozrif, who was following him, half-seriously demanding, "What is it now? I'm amusing! I'm delightful at parties! I do birthdays and charge reasonable rates!"

  "Get away from me!" squealed the halfling.

  Gideon tripped him. He'd a feeling he'd never catch the Maestro under normal circumstances, but now he grappled the halfling until Ozrif could get the rigger secured with a line. The Maestro hissed and bit.

  "That's an effective spell," Ozrif muttered.

  "Corvine's wrought considerable amusement from it."

  By now the fight was won, and the remaining Smoke-Tongued were unconscious or bound. Corvine and Ozrif used healing magic where they could, and Lunette the carpenter proved skilled at patching up wounds as well.

  Riposte was still in danger, however. The fog continued to taunt them with images of dread, and Grizzendell shouted they were taking on water.

  "Rowers!" Sebastian called. There were mounts belowdecks allowing oars to maneuver Riposte at need, though Gideon knew it would be awkward work.

  As the rowing crew—those who weren't Smoke-Tongued—raced belowdecks, Sebastian spoke to Adebeyo.

  "We lost Oakstave," the first mate said, looking grim.

  Sebastian scowled. "A good man. A good deep-water sailor. Wish we could give him to the open ocean rather than the river mud. But let's be about it, and may the Sellen at last bequeath his bones to the sea. Krypt, you're now second mate."

  A weathered old Taldan, looking as though he were two voyages past the point where saner men retired, simply nodded.

  Sebastian turned to the captured or unconscious Smoke-Tongued. Angling Tyndron's head away with his boot, Sebastian raised his cutlass, hand shaking.

  Looking at his mentor's face, Gideon realized what the man meant to do. "Sebastian, you can't kill them! They couldn't control themselves."

  "Stand aside, Gull! This is a warship, not an Andoren town hall. Mutiny cannot go unpunished."

  "Sebastian!" Gideon grabbed the corsair's arm.

  "I..." Sebastian shook his head and stepped back. "No, you're right. This was not voluntary. I wonder if the fog is affecting me, too." He lowered the blade. "Lock them in irons, Adebeyo. We'll let them go later, if they're in their right minds."

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  No more of the crew became possessed, and the rowers were successful in their work. They emerged from the fog into a blistered-looking sunset.

  As if surrendering for the moment, the mists behind Riposte began to fragment. Whorls and wisps drifted away and faded like so many worms seeking shadow.

  "Just like that, it's gone," Gideon said.

  "But the harm remains," Corvine said.

  "It only seems gone," Sebastian said. "Whoever's behind this has done more than attack my country. They've wounded my ship. I'll find them. I'll chase them into the Abyss if need be."

  "Such oaths are unwise, Sebastian," said Corvine. "I think it's sufficient to swear to chase them upriver."

  "I'm no longer sure," Sebastian said with a faraway look, "how far this river truly goes."

  Adebeyo called up from belowdecks, "The compromised crew look like themselves again, Captain. No fog in their eyes. The ones who can talk can't recall what took place."

  Sebastian nodded. "Treat them well, Adebeyo. But keep them there for now."

  Looking to ensure that the fog was truly gone, Sebastian had them drop anchor, and as Grizzendell supervised the repairs within the leaking compartment, Sebastian sent Lunette over the side to check the damage to the scraped hull. When she returned, dripping and shivering, she seemed paler than usual.

  "What did you find, carpenter?"

  "The harm to the ship isn't so bad," she said, gratefully accepting a blanket Leothric handed her. "It's what I found in addition that worries me."

  "What's that?"

  "A sigil, Captain."

  "A what?"

  "A mystic symbol, g
lowing like some self-luminous slime. It's written all across the bottom of the ship."

  Sebastian frowned. "Can you draw it for us?"

  "It was difficult to make out all at once, but I'll try." Provided with the flip side of a chart and a quill, Lunette began sketching. She had an accurate hand, and the contours of the thing were clear as they swept this way and that.

  "Never seen anything like it," Sebastian said. "Anyone else?"

  "I think it's druidic," Corvine said.

  "You're sure?"

  "Difficult to be sure about anything to do with druids. But that's my best guess."

  "We see marks like that here and there in Andoran, too," Gideon said. "Especially close to the woodlands. I'm not sure what this one means, but it's definitely connected with the druids."

  "Brother Zaganos," Viridia said.

  "Yes, I suspect you're right," Sebastian said, looking troubled.

  "He did say he'd send word," Ozrif said. "Perhaps we misinterpreted what that meant."

  "Yes," Corvine said, "but was it a good word?"

  "I suspect it was," Gideon said. "Consider that the Sellen has its dangers, and we're beyond the region Sebastian's crew is familiar with. Yet we've had no trouble with river-creatures."

  "Plenty of other trouble," muttered Leothric.

  "Leothric, when you cast your mind-detecting spell into the fog, you spoke of a singer. What did you mean?"

  "I...I don't truly know. It was like a dream, a voice within a nightmare, singing, mocking."

  "Did you hear any words? Any message?"

  "There were words, but they seemed far away. I couldn't make them out. Just the beauty. And the mockery."

  "Let's return to matters more concrete," Sebastian said. "The symbol. Gideon, you're suggesting it says, 'Hands off?'"

  "It's only a guess. There may be many old powers and presences in this river."

  Corvine asked, "What if it says, 'Don't feast upon the crew until the new year?'"

  "Or 'This is my lunch, go find your own,'" added Viridia.

  Gideon shrugged.

  "We'll leave the mark in place," Sebastian said. "Though I don't like mysteries on my ship, even benign ones. We'll inquire at the Wildwood Lodge. For now...We make our repairs and continue by day."