Pathfinder Tales--Through the Gate in the Sea

by Paizo Publishing LLC.

  Even as she looked for a key or a doorknob, Jekka latched hands upon a metal bar in front of him and pushed down. Mirian heard a soft clanging noise and the entire panel swung inward.

  Air rushed in—clean air with the moist, warm tang of the jungle. A light shone in the distance, and it wasn’t until she’d followed Jekka into the fresh air that she realized it was the moon shining on the dark river.

  They’d emerged in a small circle of pillars on a knoll overlooking the southern end of Port Freedom. Their passage ended in the base of a statue of a woman with upraised arms.

  Mirian reached back to help Tradan out. Jeneta followed, wiping sweat from her brow.

  The scholar in her was curious as to whom the statue represented and how long it had stood there, for Mirian didn’t recognize the blocky architectural style. But there were other, far more pressing matters. Tradan was in poor shape. And she and Jekka had a long trek ahead of them, and pirates to fight.

  “Jeneta, get Tradan to town, and—”

  “No,” Tradan said, breathing heavily. “Can’t abandon—”

  “Get to town, and send guards. They’ll come at your authority, won’t they?”

  Tradan nodded slowly. “But—”

  “No buts. We can’t do this on our own. Jekka, are you ready?”

  “But there are only two of you!” Jeneta said. Her speech was pressured, nervous. “We’ve got to save Ivrian and Charlyn!”

  Mirian laid a hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. “And we will. But I need you to help Tradan get reinforcements.”

  Jeneta’s jaw clenched, but she nodded.

  With that, Mirian and her blood brother turned and started back for the jungle. They’d be lucky to get back in time at all. She hoped at least to be able to scout the area before reinforcements arrived. Much as she hurried, though, she was afraid her bloodline was going to lose another member this night, and that she’d be attending the funeral of another friend.

  19

  CHANGING PLANS

  ENSARA

  He hadn’t really thought she’d burn the place down, but he had come to find out Rajana was a woman of her word. Ensara was just glad she had ordered the servants and the visiting healer into the barn where she’d put them under with a sleep spell. He liked to think that even his men would have balked at burning the servants alive, but he wasn’t sure.

  The men certainly seemed pleased with Rajana—they’d looted the great mansion, carting away silverware and gold idols and a small chest of Mirian’s sister’s jewelry.

  He could hear them now talking about what they’d do with the money, but he was shaking his head in the entryway of the old farmhouse they’d taken shelter in, a few miles from the ven Goleman estate. It had all gone wrong.

  Sarken came lurching down the hall and stopped, catching sight of him in the shadows. He advanced past the lantern they’d hung on a rusting hook in the wall. “Something wrong, Cap’n?”

  “It’s not clean, Sarken. We’re pirates, not arsonists.”

  His first mate frowned at him and stepped closer. “How’s this any different?”

  “The city guard’s going to come down on us. Hard.” It was a weak answer. It wasn’t even what he was thinking, so he couldn’t be sure why he said it.

  “I’d like to see any city guard who could stand up against Rajana’s magic.” Sarken’s voice practically dripped contempt. “You’ve gone soft.”

  “No.”

  “You could have that fine piece right now, the way she looks at you. What’s wrong with you?”

  He felt the little devil of rage sitting on his shoulder. “As a general rule, I prefer not to bed down with vengeful folk who league with devils.”

  Sarken snorted. “You need to relax, Cap’n. The men are happy. We’re living well.” Sarken encompassed their dilapidated plantation house with a sweeping gesture of his hands.

  He could hear several men laughing it up in the dining room on the other side of the wall. Overhead, meanwhile, he heard low voices, and a grunt.

  “I hope they kick the shit out of that writer,” Sarken said. “You think Rajana will let me have a turn with the woman when they’re done questioning her?”

  “I don’t think I’ll let you have a turn with her,” Ensara said, coolly.

  “That’s too bad.” Sarken smiled. “Say, are you in charge still? While we’re on land, I mean? Or is it Rajana? I mean … this was all her idea. The idea that’s getting us paid. It sure as seven hells wasn’t your idea.”

  “You want to cross blades with me, Sarken?” Ensara’s hand dropped to hilt.

  “Naw, Cap’n.” Sarken showed gapped teeth in a confident smile. “Not right now. I just think maybe you ought to do some thinking. Maybe your ‘principles’ don’t add up to much, gold-wise. Or crew-wise. Or woman-wise.”

  Sarken swaggered off down the hall and ventured into the dining room. His arrival was met with a roar of pleasure.

  While Sarken stood framed in the doorway, greeted like a conquering hero, Ensara fought down the urge to drive a knife into his back. Hardly gentlemanly.

  “Bloody hell,” he whispered.

  Hand still to his blade, he started down the hall. Without really planning his steps, he started up the creaking stairs to the second floor. On reaching the landing his eyes strayed immediately to the closed door where he could hear the woman’s voice, and the man’s answer.

  That, he knew, was where Rajana and her creepy assistant were treating with the writer and his friend. Ensara frowned as he passed, and came to a door farther down the hall, where one of his men sat against the wall beside it with arms crossed. He was carving his initials into the floor with a knife by the light of a rusty lantern.

  “Go,” he said.

  Bolvik stood, yawned, scratched under one sleeveless, tattooed arm, then considered Ensara. “Whatcha doin’, Captain? I thought you said the woman was off limits.”

  “None of your damn business,” Ensara snapped. It was a fair question, and he didn’t have a lie ready.

  Bolvik didn’t like that, but he moved off toward the stairs, frowning.

  Ensara picked up his lantern, turned the doorknob, and pushed open the door.

  At one time this might have been a finely appointed bedroom, with splendid wall hangings. No doubt there had been a large wardrobe and dresser. Certainly the old frame would have had a mattress on it, not just a pile of sheets over the sagging frame. And probably, though he couldn’t be certain, there had never been a bound and gagged woman lying in its center.

  He hadn’t been there when Rajana’s man carried her here. He’d kept far away. Now he saw that staying far away didn’t really inoculate him against the evil, because he should have stopped this.

  He’d heard the expression “bound hand and foot” but he’d always imagined that meant tied at the ankles and wrists. Charlyn ven Goleman was practically clothed in rope. She’d been caught in her night shift, and so the ropes began at her bare ankles and wrapped up to the back of her knees. There was a gap there, and then another mass of tightly coiled ropes about her thighs.

  Her arms were likewise secured to her sides and, as though there were not already rope enough tying her in place, her wrists were bound behind her back and then secured to her ankles. She had been blindfolded with torn white cloth and gagged with the same.

  At the sound of his entrance she shifted helplessly, the whites of her soles wriggling, her hands twitching. She mumbled a protest into her gag and her tumble of dark hair shook.

  At the sound of his tread her mumbles increased and she struggled violently, shaking the frame and accomplishing nothing.

  That tore it. No way was he going to let his honor be stained by this woman’s suffering. Ensara retreated, closed the door behind him, and set the lantern on the floor. “Shh,” he cautioned. “I’m not going to hurt you.” That, he thought, might be exactly what a rapist would say, and he scowled at himself. “I’m here to free you. Stop making so much noise.”


  She went silent at that, and he withdrew his knife. Charlyn struggled uselessly in the bonds. He didn’t see how Narsian could possibly have assaulted her while she was wrapped like this, so he might have saved her from the worst of her captor’s plans.

  “Hold steady,” he instructed her, quietly. From the room across the hall he heard a masculine shout of pain.

  Charlyn held her wrists stiff, straining to keep the rope taut as he sliced through, careful not to touch her skin. Strangely, Narsian hadn’t taken her bejeweled ring. Ivrian then cut the first of the chest ropes.

  One slice there and the rest of the chest ropes fell away. He took off her gag and blindfold, and she squinted at him in wary surprise.

  “You’re one of the pirates,” she said weakly.

  “To my shame.”

  “Why are you helping me?”

  “Because,” he said, moving down to her ankles, “you deserve far better, m’lady.”

  A few slices and she was free below as well. Charlyn moved quickly to the headboard away from him, the bed creaking loudly, and rubbed her wrists.

  “You’re all right now,” Ensara told her. “We can get you out that window there,” he said. “The gods know we’ve got plenty of rope—”

  “What about the others?”

  “The others?” Ensara repeated, stupidly. After a moment he understood. “I don’t think there’s any hope for your writer and his friend. And we didn’t get anyone else. Including your husband,” he added quickly, “and sister.”

  “What about Jekka?”

  “The lizard man?”

  “Yes.”

  “They were in the basement. If there’s another way out, they might be okay. Otherwise someone’s going to have to dig them free…”

  “Then we’d best hurry.

  He reached past her for the ropes, ignoring that she flinched from him. In the rooms below, his men laughed at something. He was betraying them. And what was he going to do, after? Head to the ship? His ship? He supposed there were enough men left aboard to crew her, and others could be hired.

  He was going to cut and run, and leave Sarken and these fools here. Tell the others things hadn’t worked out …

  “You let them burn down my home,” she said, her voice shaking. “My home. And everything in it.”

  “I didn’t have any way to stop them without being killed—” He fell silent as she choked down a sob and wiped at her eyes.

  “Let’s just focus on getting you out of here,” he said, and with deft hands set to finding the longest strands of rope and tying them together.

  “Where’s Ivrian?”

  Ensara shook his head. “They’re questioning him.”

  “You’ve got to free Lord Galanor.”

  “No,” Ensara said.

  “No?”

  He sighed as he reached for another rope and knotted it. “Look, I would if I could. But I can’t. Rajana—she’s a Chelish wizard. If you read Ivrian’s story you know how powerful she is. She and her … well, the man who tied you up, are questioning him right now.” Best to keep her mind off of that. He nodded toward the shuttered window. “That goes out the back. We’ll just lower down on these ropes and then we can get down—”

  “You’re coming with me?”

  “I can’t stay here,” Ensara answered morosely. He finished knotting the rope, then crept over protesting floorboards and opened the shutters. One creaked faintly, and some dust dropped into his hand. He peered into the darkness, searching for the sentries he’d posted. He didn’t see any, though he knew damned well he’d set one in that crumbling outbuilding to the left. Odds were they’d be watching the perimeter, not the house, and that they wouldn’t notice two figures in the darkness against the building.

  But then, odds weren’t in Ensara’s favor these days.

  Outside, the steamy darkness of the tropical night greeted them, along with the bleating of frogs and the chittering of insects.

  Ensara’s hands were clumsy with his mounting nerves. This was taking too long. If Rajana wandered in to investigate, or if she were alerted by Sarken … He tied the escape rope to the bedframe and lowered it carefully so it didn’t thud against the aged siding.

  Charlyn looked frightened but determined as she climbed over the sill and grasped the rope, wincing as she scraped her arm. Ensara cringed as her body bumped against the building’s side, making a soft thud.

  He heard footsteps in the corridor.

  She was down and out of sight. Ensara blew out the lantern and, his heart pounding, scrambled after her. Rope climbing was second nature to an old salt like himself, and he was halfway down in seconds.

  “Hey!”

  Someone was shouting from the window directly overhead. Sarken?

  He dropped the rest of the way, stumbled, and grabbed his hat as it tumbled into the long grasses.

  He spotted Charlyn moving through the darkness with exaggerated care, probably because she had the soft feet of a noblewoman and the ground was covered with dense clumps of weeds and thick grass.

  “Hey!” Sarken called out. “The bitch got loose! Sentries, wake your asses up!”

  There was movement in the shadow of the outbuilding.

  Ensara caught up to Charlyn and effortlessly lifted her in one arm. She let out an indignant cry and slapped at his back.

  “Stop that,” Ensara snapped, and jogged deeper into the darkness.

  But it was too late; he heard footsteps behind. With the woman slung over his shoulder, he ran, cursing softly.

  “Why didn’t you get me some shoes?” Charlyn asked.

  Where was he supposed to have gotten shoes? He didn’t feel like telling her he was just sort of making this up as he went. It wasn’t until he’d seen her lying there helpless that he’d decided enough was enough, which she’d probably think reflected just as badly on him as everything else he’d already said.

  “No time,” he told her, and hurried on, fully conscious of the noise he made as he crashed through the low plants. The road was just a little farther on, but he pulled up short to listen beside a thick baobab tree, setting her down.

  Sounds of the nearby jungle echoed through the night. There was some kind of hooting bird or mammal, the insistent hum of insects … and the shouts of the pirates who followed.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” Charlyn asked.

  “I can’t say as I do,” he said, rather testily, “but I could do with a little less criticism, if you don’t mind.”

  He scooped her back up, blundered and tripped in the roots of a bush, and they both tumbled.

  She cursed colorfully, and the sounds of the chase grew closer.

  “Hide over there,” he said gruffly. “I’ll try to even this out.” He looked around. “Actually, get over there and make some noise.”

  She slid away and before long was shaking the boughs of a nearby bush.

  “They’re over this way!” shouted thin-voiced Neshmer.

  Ensara waited, steel held in the shadow of a tree so no moon-light could silver it.

  Neshmer’s squat body crashed out of the bushes. The other sentry, crookbacked Perken, was a few steps behind. Ensara waited for them both to pass. Even as Perken called for Neshmer to go left, he came up behind. Perken was starting to turn when Ensara caught him in the head with the pommel of his cutlass. He lay moaning.

  “Perken?” Neshmer said. “Perken?”

  And then Ensara had a sword to the man’s back.

  “Just drop the blade, Neshmer, and—”

  But Neshmer whirled and slashed at Ensara’s head.

  Ensara threw up his sword to block, got tangled in the lower limbs of a tree branch.

  Luck was with him, though, for Neshmer’s own cut lodged in the same limb, and as he struggled to free it Ensara ran him through.

  “Sorry about that, lad.” He hadn’t wanted to kill him, but he hadn’t had any choice.

  There was the crash of more brush behind him, and he heard Sarken calling.
<
br />   “Ensara, I know you’re out here! I know you let her go, you bastard!”

  “Keep making noise,” Ensara suggested softly, hoping Charlyn was still nearby. He slid off into the brush, looking for a better angle of attack.

  Sarken was hurrying through the jungle, making all kinds of racket. Ensara tensed, waiting …

  And then he heard the snap of a branch behind him.

  Reflexes born of a dozen battles set him moving to the side as he turned, and that was all that saved him, for Sarken’s overhead blow whipped through the space where his head had been just moments before.

  How the hell had Sarken gotten behind him so fast?

  “I knew you’d gone soft,” Sarken said. “You want a woman so bad you turn your back on your mates?” He thrust at Ensara, driving him back.

  Ensara kept clear, wary of Sarken’s greater strength.

  “She’s a fine looking piece,” Sarken continued, “but you could have had Rajana.”

  “I could have drunk poison, too.” He dodged another swipe. “And that’s what she is. That’s what all this is, Sarken. We’re sailors. Not murderers. Not kidnappers—”

  “We’re pirates, you stupid bastard!” Sarken hacked through intervening brush and motioned back Belvic. “He’s mine. Just like the captaincy.”

  It was goggle-eyed Belvic who’d been making all the racket. Sarken had been using him as a decoy just as Ensara had used Charlyn.

  “You’re working with dark powers.”

  “What do I care?” Sarken demanded. “We’re going to be rich, you dumb shit. You and all your airs. I put up with them because you used to have style. It gave us a reputation, like.”

  Ensara parried a broad swing. Sarken’s massive strength almost tore the weapon from his grasp.

  Ensara backed away.

  “You’ve know this was coming for a long time. Face it.”

  He was forced back and back again. He bumped up against a branch with his arm, then grabbed it with his left hand as he retreated, pulling it back like a great bow. He let go just as Sarken advanced.