Mirian looked to Bellaugh, now leaning into the corridor. He’d pulled a little brass bell from his robe and rang it. From down the hall a steward came running, and Bellaugh softly conferred with him.
“Finze said that the dragon’s tear could be used to open gates to other realms,” Mirian said.
Ivrian had heard of other planes of existence but never really spent much time thinking about them, because they seemed chiefly the concern of priests. “You’re saying this ancient wizard-king sent his people on to paradise or the Plane of Water or something?”
“Not necessarily,” Mirian answered. “And if he did build a gate, he probably wouldn’t build it to any place like those.”
Bellaugh shut the door behind him and answered, eyes glinting with eagerness. “There are said to be pocket dimensions and planes of existence parallel to our own. Truly powerful magic-users can access them.”
While Ivrian considered that, Bellaugh nodded to Jekka. “I’m having some refreshments brought round.”
“Do you think,” Mirian asked Bellaugh slowly, “that there’s a gate over there, northeast of Smuggler’s Shiv?” She pointed to the map and the icon of the weeping dragon that was located right on top of the Lizard Kings—a reef chain that had been carved into towering likenesses of lizardfolk by Jekka’s ancient forebears.
“It certainly sounds like there used to be. Surely it’s not there now or we’d have heard of it, wouldn’t we? People would be slipping through all the time. But then, that old quote from Tyrvale said the lizardfolk were sealed off behind the gate. So it’s probably closed.”
“Then we must open it again,” Jekka said.
“That’s liable to be difficult.” Bellaugh opened his arms and shrugged, as if embarrassed. “I’m sorry to say it. If this Reklaniss used a tear to close the gate, you’ll probably need one to open it. And those are in very short supply.”
“What if he made the gate with the tear, but you need something else to get there?” Jekka asked.
Bellaugh patted his belly once more. “I suppose that’s possible … If I were you I’d get down to this jungle city and poke around. You can read inscriptions to see if there are any clues about it on the buildings there.”
Jekka bowed formally. “I thank you, Venture-Captain. You have done us a great kindness.”
“Not at all, not at all.”
“You don’t understand,” Kalina said with great sincerity. “We shall return the favor, and give you whatever information we have that interests you, though I don’t think it can help anyone as much as you have helped us.”
“You never know.” He tapped the book. “I doubt old Tyrvale ever imagined he’d be aiding lizardfolk searching for their lost people when he wrote the text. Although, if you’re in the mood for favors…” He smiled at Jekka and Kalina, who simply stared back.
Bellaugh apparently hadn’t had enough experience with lizardfolk to know they were vague on any number of social cues.
“You need to finish the sentence,” Mirian suggested.
“My pardon. I by no means wish to impose. But I’d be quite interested in getting some help translating some lizardfolk book cones we have in storage here, and if possible, getting a translation of those you have in your possession. I know you’ve been looking over them, Kalina. Do both of you read your language?”
“Yes,” the lizardfolk answered in unison.
“Well then—perhaps one of you could remain here while the other journeys? Surely Mirian doesn’t need you both.”
Ivrian rather expected she might. Jekka’s coloring flared across his skinlike facial scales, bright blues and yellows, mostly, with hints of red. For all that he’d spent months around the lizardfolk, Ivrian still didn’t know how to interpret all of the color shifts.
Kalina and Jekka faced each other and exchanged rapid-fire vocalizations. It sounded something like warbling intermixed with growls, rather like low-pitched birds.
“What are they saying?” Bellaugh asked Mirian quietly.
“I’ve no idea.”
“You don’t really need them both, do you?” he asked. “This ruin isn’t too far from Port Freedom, and Tradan surely has manpower to spare if he’s already looking into it.”
Mirian looked displeased, though it didn’t show in her answer. “It’s really up to them.”
As one, Ivrian, Mirian, and the venture-captain turned to watch the lizardfolk argue. The two neither moved their hands nor shifted stances. Only their necks and heads drifted from time to time.
They reached some kind of accord. Eerily, both turned to face the others at once.
“It is decided,” Kalina said. “I will stay.”
“You don’t have to,” Mirian said. “You can return the favor at a later time.”
“Indeed,” Bellaugh said, hastily. “I was really only jesting.”
He hadn’t been—Ivrian could tell that much. In his eagerness to latch on to more information for his lodge, Bellaugh had pressed harder than he’d possibly intended and regretted it, or at least regretted upsetting Mirian, for whom he seemed to harbor some honest affection.
“No, I will remain.” Kalina bobbed her head. “I would first like to finish reading the lizardfolk books you have here, in case they can be used in our search.”
“Of course.” Bellaugh nodded.
“Will the wheeled box be available each day to take me from Mirian’s home to here?”
“My dear,” Bellaugh said with an expansive gesture, “I will make comfortable quarters for you here. Consider it your home away from home.”
“Also,” Kalina said, “can you teach me to read the human letters?”
“Well, there are many…” Bellaugh’s voice trailed off as he confronted the lizard woman. Despite the lack of facial muscles, her expression somehow denoted eagerness. “What I mean to say is, that can definitely be arranged.”
“And I should like to hear more about being a Pathfinder,” Kalina added.
Bellaugh laughed. “Whatever you like.”
Ivrian thought Bellaugh lucky he hadn’t promised that to Jekka, because the lizard man would have sucked down bottle after bottle of his finest wine without showing the slightest sign of inebriation.
“You three will be fine without me for a while,” Kalina said. “You managed well without me once.”
Mirian frowned and Ivrian grimaced at the memory of Kalina’s death, which numbered right up there among his least favorite recollections. Though her body had been preserved by Jeneta, priestess of Iomedae, there’d still been no guarantee her spirit would be strong enough to return to the physical world. It had been a grueling few days waiting to find out.
“We’ll be in touch as soon as we return.” Mirian glanced at Ivrian. “How about you? You up for another venture? This one you can write up.”
Ivrian laughed. “You think you can keep me away? I’ll look forward to meeting your half sister.”
Jekka, who had been silent up until then, cocked his head to one side. “I have been wondering, Mirian. Is your sister my half sister as well? You name Kalina your cousin.”
“That’s up to her,” Mirian said. “It’s bad enough they have a native woman in the family. Charlyn never really accepted our father remarrying, in part because my mother is native. I’m not sure what they’ll think when they find out I adopted two lizardfolk. Ivrian didn’t put that in his book.”
He hadn’t—just as Ivrian had left other specifics private, he’d merely declared that Mirian and Jekka had pledged a lifelong bond of friendship. He chuckled, remembering how Tradan had referred to him in his letter. “What will they think when they learn you’re friends with a gaudy pamphlet writer?”
Mirian smirked. “This might be fun.”
6
THE NEXT BOTTLE
ENSARA
Ensara sat alone with his drink on the balcony, wishing the raucous music below was either softer or more tuneful. He despised it almost as much as the sound of the boasting sailors and t
he forced laughter of the prostitutes.
One of the latter drifted forward in the swirl of her flounced skirt. Mevrana.
“Why the long face, Meric?” she asked with a smile.
He gulped another swig of rum. “I hate this place.”
She sat down beside him and put a dimpled chin on one manicured hand. “So leave it.”
“And go where?”
She smiled and put her other hand over his. “Seems to me you ought to feel a little more celebratory. From what I hear, you and Sarken were lucky to get away with your lives.”
Ensara withdrew his hand, suppressing an inward shudder, and poured himself another drink of rum from the half-empty bottle.
“What was it?”
“Dramen said it was probably a devilfish, but all we ever saw were the tentacles.”
He didn’t want to talk about it, but the words started whirling up out of him anyway. “Snatched up Kavel and dragged him off. We could hear him screaming even through the water. And then there was all this blackness. Ink, Dramen said. There was no way to get him free. It was all we could do to get out alive. We almost didn’t.”
“But here you are.”
“Aye. Me and Sarken and Dramen.” Three out of the six who’d dived with Mirian.
He looked down over the balcony rail to the lower level. He could hear the women oohing and ahing. Sarken was going on again about how he’d show that salvager what-for if he ever caught her. How he’d personally kill Mirian Raas because she was a double-crossing witch.
“I wish he’d shut his damned mouth,” Ensara muttered, and took another drink.
Mevrana reached for his hand and swirled her fingers along the hair there. “You want to go in back? Take your mind off your troubles?”
He shook his head.
“You know I can get you thinking about something else,” she said with a winsome smile. “Or stop you from thinking at all for a good long while.” She pushed the bottle away. “And it will be a lot more fun than this.”
He drank.
She pouted. “You’re really broken up about it.”
He shrugged, distractedly reached for her hair with one hand. She smiled as he toyed with its ends. And unbidden, that dark, curling hair of Mirian Raas’s came to his mind.
“So are you really going to hunt down this salvager?” she said softly. “They say she all but sank Kradok’s ship a few months back. Killed him with that wand Sarken’s waving around.”
“Is he doing that again?” Ensara didn’t even want to look.
“So are you going after her?”
“No. I’ve got better things to do.”
“Do you?”
“The way I figure it, we kind of had it coming, you know?” He met the woman’s eyes. “We ambushed her ship, took her prisoner. We had her outnumbered but she took us down. All’s fair in love, war, and cards, right?”
“That’s what they say.”
“But what do you do when you sit down for a play and someone’s just better than you? Honestly better? Do you get up and kick the chair? Or do you reach over and shake their hand and tell them they did good?”
“I think you like her.”
Ensara stared down at his glass.
Mevrana laughed, suddenly a little shrill. “She handed you your ass, and you liked it.”
“It’s just … I respect her, you know?”
“Oh, I understand.” Chair legs scraped in protest as she stood. “You get over your pirate queen, you know where I am.” She smiled sourly and sashayed off.
He listened as she took the stairs down to the main level.
There was a time when he’d liked crashing in with a grin and a swagger, watching the women come running. They went to him because he was a captain, which meant he’d have money and gave them status and bragging rights. They’d smile and laugh at his jokes and moan loud when he took them to the back rooms.
Somehow it had all gone sour as lime.
What he really wanted was to go back to the ship, but it felt like a prison now. He had to earn some money; the crew was getting restless. And that jackass Sarken had them all worked up about getting vengeance. What he should probably do is arrange for Sarken to get himself killed, but Ensara wasn’t really interested in that, either.
He poured himself another drink and swirled it around in his glass. He stared at the empty chair, tried to imagine what it would be like to have Mirian Raas sitting across from him. They could talk about the sea and the stars, about life on the waves, and places they’d been. He could give her back the wand and apologize.
What would she say?
He still wondered about that moment right before she darted off. She’d pulled him out of the way. He’d said as much to Sarken. Maybe she hadn’t known the thing was there and she really had wanted a deal. Surely with that beast lurking around the corner she would have seemed more leery.
Or maybe she was just treacherous and sneaky. That part didn’t matter so much. He was treacherous and sneaky.
Ensara emptied the glass.
What mattered was that she had pulled him out of the way before turning to flee. And that made her interesting.
He toasted her imagined presence across from him. “Here’s to a better meeting,” he said softly.
The conversation below lulled. Ensara didn’t bother looking to see who had entered. He reached for the bottle, poured the last drink, and thought about downing it.
But then he heard his name, and the low sound of a woman’s voice, then Sarken’s answer: “What do you want with the captain?”
“A business proposition,” the woman replied. She sounded haughty, confident.
“He might already be up to some business if he’s moved off the balcony,” Sarken said, and there was a roar of laughter.
Ensara climbed to his feet, surprised by how uneven his stance was. He didn’t actually feel drunk. He leaned against the rail and looked down, then tipped his hat.
He didn’t recognize the willowy woman with the dark hair and expensive clothes, nor the well-dressed, grim-looking man at her side.
He put a bit of a growl into his voice. “What’s all this, Sarken?”
“Captain!” Sarken brightened and gestured to the two strangers. “This lady here, she’s looking for you. Says something about business.”
He felt the woman’s eyes seek his own. She had that unmistakable air of nobility one usually didn’t find on folk at Smuggler’s Shiv.
What the hell. “Send her up.”
He saw them divert around the bar and pass out of sight, Sarken trailing. Ensara really wasn’t in a mood to deal with Sarken, but he might need him on hand. The woman’s bodyguard could be trouble. And who knew what either really wanted?
He could hear the creak of their feet on the stairs, the patter of Sarken asking questions and the woman’s curt responses, though he couldn’t make out what was said.
Could be they needed to hire him for something, and by Gozreh, his ship needed money. Ensara quickly whipped off his hat, fluffed its feather, then reset it before inspecting his collar and sleeves. A bit frayed, and that wine stain had never come off the left cuff. He didn’t look his best, but then even slumming he looked a cut above the usual riffraff of the Shiv.
It didn’t take much to affect that old confident grin. When Sarken guided the woman and her guard to his table, he had one hand thrown over the back of a nearby chair. He touched the tip of his hat to her.
She was older than he first thought. Still attractive, shapely under her emerald dress, but sort of sour-looking, really. Pale. Even featured, with dark eyes and long black hair. And she was wearing long white gloves, like a woman might at the opera. That in itself was a damned strange thing. It could get a little chill in Sargava, some nights, but it wasn’t cold this evening.
No, there was something odd there, just as there was something peculiar about the woman’s companion in his plain black suit with waistcoat, all made from the finest materials. Like someone ha
d told him to avoid notice by wearing dark clothes, but he had too much money to do it properly.
He would have stood out in any case, for he was as tall as Sarken, and broader besides, as though he spent all his spare moments climbing ropes to build up his shoulders.
“Cap’n, these two wanted to see you.”
“Much obliged, Sarken,” he answered with a grin. “I’m Captain Meric Ensara, of the Marvel. But I gather you know that.”
“I do,” the woman said curtly.
“You can join me if you like,” Ensara told her. “But I don’t recommend what I’ve been drinking.”
“Then why are you drinking it?”
If she’d smiled he would have assumed she was flirting, but on inspection he wasn’t sure she had ever smiled. It was a question reflecting mild curiosity.
“Because I had nothing better to do until you came along,” he said with a grin.
Still no smile. The bodyguard pulled out a chair for her and she sank down across from him, sitting prim and proper, back straight.
Sarken swaggered over to stand behind Ensara.
“I,” the woman said, “am Lady Rajana Rotaine. I understand you recently encountered the salvager Mirian Raas.”
“Word gets around, m’lady.” He eyed her, trying to decide what her origin point was. Not Sargava, clearly. “How can I help you?”
There. He was being gentlemanly, but not deferential.
“I have it on good authority that an item of hers may have come into your possession. If you would be so kind, I should very much like to examine it.”
Not really phrased like a question, he thought. More like a polite command.
“I’m always pleased to oblige a lady, m’lady. But before I do, how did you hear, and why do you want it?”
“I have friends who keep me well informed of the goings-on here in Smuggler’s Shiv.”
Vague as the answer was, it satisfied Ensara. For it wasn’t as though anyone on the crew had kept their encounter with the sea monster secret over the last few days. Especially not Sarken.
“As for why I want it, if it meets my specifications, I may offer monetary compensation.”
Ensara was pretty certain he must be drunk then, because he realized he wasn’t thinking very clearly. He needed money, and this woman smelled of it. Yet he wasn’t really sure he wanted to give up Mirian’s wand. He wanted to turn it over to Mirian instead, maybe send it in a package. An opening gesture, like.
Pathfinder Tales--Through the Gate in the Sea Page 7
