Pathfinder Tales--Through the Gate in the Sea

by Paizo Publishing LLC.

  Tradan’s eyes blazed out from a face pale from exhaustion and injury. “If he knows where this shipwreck is, then by the gods, beat the coordinates out of him and haul him off to jail!”

  “It’s not that simple,” Mirian countered. “First—” She paused to glance over at the somber, laconic-looking captain, sitting in his faded finery. His hat had been lost somewhere in the jungle, but he retained a stained white silk shirt and a torn pair of breeches stuck into worn, calf-length black boots. “—he’s cooperating fully, so there’s no need to threaten him.”

  Tradan sighed in agitation.

  “And,” Mirian continued, “Captain Ensara thinks he knows where the lizardfolk ship ended up, but only approximately. If his first guess is wrong I want him there for other educated guesses. We’ve got a limited window.”

  “The gate can open only on the dawns immediately before, during, and after the full moon,” Jekka explained. “If we’re to reach the gate, we must recover the eyes from the shipwreck. And captain Ensara knows where it lies.”

  Tradan shook his head and kept shaking it. He held on to Ensara’s guilt the way a dog worries a cloth scrap ripped from an intruder. Mirian understood: Tradan’s house was burned to the ground, his servants assaulted, his guards slain, his chief assistant murdered, and his wife abducted.

  Tradan still wasn’t satisfied. “Even if this pirate’s right, you said the seas beyond the gate were a maze, and you needed the chart. Rajana has that.”

  “Jekka’s memory’s practically flawless. He thinks he can remember the book cone’s chart well enough to guide us through the maze beyond the gate.”

  “Practically,” Tradan repeated. “Mirian, haven’t enough lives been lost? Even if you can find this wreck, and even if your … friend’s memory is as good as you say, who’s to say how the lizardfolk on the other side of the portal will greet you? You saw what they did to the humans in the tomb. They arranged them like museum exhibits.”

  “They will listen to me,” Jekka promised.

  “Will they?” Charlyn had been quiet until then. Her voice came very softly, but carried a quiet power. “Can you be sure of that, Jekka?”

  “My people will give me right of speech,” Jekka explained. “They will hear from me that the humans are my kin and allies.”

  “How long has it been since they walled themselves off?” Charlyn asked. “Five hundred years?”

  “Closer to two thousand,” Tradan corrected.

  His wife might not have known the precise date of Kutnaar’s founding, but she knew her nation’s history. She faced Jekka, speaking slowly. “Five hundred years ago, the Chelish Empire ruled the waves. Now many of its vassal nations have broken away and the center is rotten to the core with devil worship. It doesn’t take very long for customs to change a great deal. They may not agree to hear you at all.”

  Jekka remained unfazed. “In the human world, perhaps. My people’s customs remain the same.”

  Charlyn’s voice was weary. “You do realize you’ll be risking the lives of your sister and your friends, don’t you, Jekka? Their survival is completely dependent upon your memory to get them through the maze, and your speech to convince the lizardfolk beyond.”

  Jekka’s tongue flicked out, but he did not speak.

  “You’re forgetting one thing,” Ensara said quietly. Everyone looked to him in surprise. “If Rajana gets her hands on that dragon’s tear, it’s going to be bad news for Sargava. And anyone else, really. She has to be stopped.”

  Tradan’s face flushed. “How dare you! How dare you offer advice on the security of our nation! You’re the one who put her on our path!” Tradan lifted clenched fists and started forward.

  Mirian grabbed his wrist and Tradan angrily shook her off.

  “He just wants his ship back,” Mirian reminded her brother-in-law.

  Ensara shook his head sadly. “I think my ship’s gone.”

  “Good,” Tradan snapped.

  “Be that as it may,” Mirian said, “the captain has a point about Rajana.”

  “Rajana surely does not have the power to take the tear from an entire island of my people,” Jekka asserted.

  “If they’re still there in force,” Mirian said. “Suppose they’re not, or that they have no wizards? She’d wreak havoc among them.”

  From outside came a tentative knock.

  “Yes?” Tradan answered gruffly.

  “The ship’s boat has pulled up alongside, m’lord.”

  Mirian had sent a messenger back to the Daughter of the Mist rather than taking her wounded and exhausted team back through the maze of docks. After arranging for an outrageous fee to the Rivermen’s Guild to use her own vehicle, the boat must have maneuvered through the marsh to where the wealthy had their flat-bottomed river vehicles docked.

  Tradan turned, still frowning, to his guests. “It looks as though this debate has ended. If you’re determined upon your fool course, I can only wish you my very best.” He sighed, and his tone softened. “I wish there were more I could do.” He pointed a shaking hand at Ensara. “I will tell you that you should not trust him any farther than you can throw him. And you should probably throw him into the sea.”

  “We’ll be keeping a close watch,” Mirian assured him.

  Jekka moved toward the door, and Ensara followed slowly, perhaps because he’d been on his feet for more than twenty-four hours.

  Mirian caught Jekka’s eye. “See that Jeneta and Ivrian are up and moving.”

  “Yes.”

  Charlyn came forward to put a hand to Tradan’s arm. “I’d like a moment alone with my sister.”

  “Of course, my heart.” Tradan smiled tightly to her, waited for Jekka and Ensara to exit, then bowed his head politely to Mirian and stepped into the bright sunlight. He closed the door behind him. He was a pompous racist, but he really did seem to love her sister.

  It had been a very long night, and between the lengthy conversation with the guards and the lengthy trip to the riverboat, Mirian estimated she’d gotten less than two hours of sleep.

  “Mirian.” Charlyn patted the cushion beside her and Mirian came and took a seat, feeling strangely like she were being invited for a chat with her mother, even though Charlyn bore no resemblance to the Bas’o artisan who’d captured her father’s heart.

  Her sister’s throat worked silently before she spoke. “Mirian, my mother is ailing and may not have much time left. My uncle is dead, and my grandparents. Our father is dead, and our brother is dead, and my children lie in the family plot.” Charlyn reached out and clasped her hand, squeezing her fingers tightly. “Apart from my mother you’re the only blood relative left, and I barely know you. But I know now that I want to know you. You’re brave and decisive and clear-headed—everything I would want my own daughter to be…” Charlyn paused, briefly closed her eyes, and Mirian felt something give a little inside her.

  “Even if I knew nothing about you,” Charlyn managed, “I could judge your character by the company you keep.”

  Mirian pressed the small, cool hand between her own. “I wish I’d reached out to you sooner.”

  “We can look forward, not back. That’s what your brother, Jekka, told me. I like him, Mirian. Very much.” Charlyn’s eyes sought hers. “But be careful. He’s so eager to find his people that he doesn’t see he’s already found his family.”

  Mirian smiled weakly. The shot had gone home. “I relate to that.”

  “You will be careful?”

  “I’m always careful.”

  “So I’ve seen,” Charlyn said seriously, then squeezed her hand a final time and released it. “I will pray for you.”

  Mirian bowed her head in acknowledgment. “And I’ll take comfort from that.”

  Charlyn nodded slowly. There looked to be something more she wished to say, but she seemed hesitant.

  “Is there something else?”

  Charlyn let out a long, slow sigh. “I killed a man today. To save the pirate captain.”

&
nbsp; “I know.”

  “You know?”

  “I wasn’t sure you wanted to talk about it.”

  “I’m not sure I do.” Charlyn’s tone had grown strained. Mirian clutched her sister’s hand again, accidentally brushing against the ruby stone she wore.

  “He was an evil man,” Charlyn said weakly. “I know it. I heard him asking if he could have me, when the other man was done, and he said…” Charlyn shook her head. “Why do I feel bad that I killed him?”

  “Because you’re a good person. You saved Ensara. And if you hadn’t saved Ensara, Jekka wouldn’t have a chance of finding his home.”

  “I suppose that’s true.”

  “I don’t think you’ll ever have to face that kind of dilemma again.” She patted her sister’s hand and released it.

  “But it wasn’t a dilemma. I didn’t even think about it. That’s what bothers me. I think I wanted to kill him.”

  “He had it coming, didn’t he?”

  “Is that what a priest would say?”

  “It depends on the priest.”

  Charlyn smiled ever so slightly.

  “You did what you had to do, Charlyn. I’d have done the same.”

  She nodded slowly. “How do you get used to killing?”

  “It’s not something you get ever get used to, but you have to be able to get past it. He was a bad man, and you had no other choice.”

  She nodded slowly. “I wish…” she shook her head. “I wish lots of things, Mirian. Most of all I wish that you and Jekka will come back to me. Please be safe.”

  Mirian reached for her sister and pressed her tight. She breathed in her scent, as she always did when she embraced her mother, and wondered why she’d never done this before. She resolved to do it more in the future.

  Charlyn walked her to the door and touched her hand a final time, and then she left the single, large cabin and moved on across the deck. Tradan she found in conversation with Jeneta beside the railing, which surprised her more than a little. She overheard them as she drew close.

  Tradan was mid sentence “—be able to thank you properly for all that you did.”

  Jeneta’s answer was quiet and little formal. “It was my duty, as a priestess—”

  “You saved my life,” he said. “And I shall be eternally grateful. If there’s anything I can ever do for you, you have only to ask.”

  Jeneta nodded once as Tradan continued speaking to her. “I want you to know that I overheard some of what my, uh, former assistant was saying to you about the Mzali, and what you said to him.”

  “Yes?” Jeneta’s tone was icy.

  “You did a fine job putting him in his place.” Tradan cleared his throat. “It seems through no fault of the present generation that we are stuck with one another, and perhaps there’s a better way forward than at each others’ throats.”

  “Or with one of us as the other’s servant.”

  Tradan blinked at his. “Quite. Although I don’t know how to turn that around.”

  Jeneta spoke with quiet confidence. “There are native scholars you might partner with, m’lord. Young minds from both cultures might be enriched from your sponsorship.”

  Mirian added: “But you couldn’t swoop in and tell them everything they’re doing’s wrong and that your way’s the right way.”

  Tradan put a protesting hand to his breast. “Mirian, I would never.”

  It seemed likely to Mirian he would, but she couldn’t be entirely sure. Tradan looked back again to Jeneta. “I’ll give what you’ve said some thought, young woman. There’s a fellow in Kalabuto I might reach out to. A native, I mean. He’s doing some interesting work.”

  “That would be a start,” Jeneta said.

  “I’ll do it.” Tradan flashed Jenete a smile and then patted her shoulder, as he might a child. Mirian stifled a groan. At least he was trying to exceed his limitations. It was going to be a long road.

  Tradan moved to stand at Charlyn’s side as Mirian and Jeneta climbed down into the boat, and they called a final farewell as Mirian waved.

  Bald, dark-skinned Gombe grinned at her as she set her boot on the rower’s bench. “Got your message, Cap’n! Pirates. Bloodthirsty natives with fire nets. And I see my cousin has kept everyone alive and is still looking her finest. Just like me.”

  Homely Gombe was ever ready to make fun of his own appearance. Mirian was happy to see him, but too tired to enjoy any jests. “Let’s get underway.”

  “Aye, Cap’n. You heard her, lads.”

  With that, they pulled away from the expensive yacht that would be her sister’s home until arrangements were settled upon for a new apartment. The mansion itself would be rebuilt eventually, but for now, for peace of mind, Charlyn and Tradan were staying in more familiar quarters.

  “Smartly, boys,” Gombe said. “We don’t have all day.”

  There was a lot of traffic along the docks, and Mirian found herself searching the anchored boats and the barges of the rivermen for the faces of Telamba and Rajana. Absurd, she realized, to even think they would reveal themselves.

  “The Daughter’s shipshape?” she asked Gombe.

  “Assuredly, Captain. You haven’t been gone that long!”

  She supposed they hadn’t been, although it felt like a lifetime. And gods, she was tired. Almost as tired as Ivrian still looked. He’d claimed that he heard angelic trumpets after he smacked his head during his rescue. The trumpet blasts had been the sound of cavalry sent from Port Freedom against the pirates.

  As they headed into the reedy river channels, she leaned toward the writer. “How are you holding up?”

  He smiled cheerfully back at her. “Just fine, Captain.”

  “You lie so well I almost believe you.”

  “Nothing a little rest won’t cure.” Ivrian’s expressive face grew more somber and he brushed at the sleeve of his borrowed shirt. “There’s something that’s been troubling me, Mirian. Venthan informed on us.”

  “Did he?”

  “The Mzali sorcerer, Telamba, refused to help him because he was their informer. I guess they used him but didn’t respect him.”

  Mirian was so tired she almost told him that people reaped what they sowed, which wouldn’t exactly have given Ivrian the solace he was after. “I suppose if he hadn’t spied for them, the Mzali wouldn’t have turned up, and then it would have been a lot harder extricating you alive.”

  “Huh. I guess you’re right. Why do you think he did it?”

  “There’s no telling. They might have threatened him.” Since the Port Freedom healers hadn’t been able to revive him, even after Tradan donated generously to the local temple of Iomedae, she supposed they’d never know.

  Gombe chattered a little, trying to raise their spirits, but sensing their mood, the second mate eventually lapsed into silence.

  The hot sun on her face, the rhythmic creak of the oars, and the slap of the water was soothing. Mirian wanted, more than anything, to close her eyes and rest just as Ivrian decided to do. He sat low, his head lolling against Jeneta’s thigh. The priestess smiled contentedly down at him, surreptitiously stroking his hair.

  Mirian started. There was no missing the tender, protective look in the healer’s eyes. In a sudden crash of insight she considered Ivrian’s chiseled chin and striking features, his flashy dress, and way with words. She recalled just how young the priestess truly was.

  Mirian suppressed a groan. Seventeen was the perfect age to fall head over heels in love with the wrong person. How could Ivrian be letting her—

  Mirian’s thought died in midstream. Judging by the gentle rise and fall of Ivrian’s chest, he wasn’t letting her do anything. The writer was deep asleep.

  Mirian would have to have a talk with her. Later, though. She was so tired.

  It would have been so easy to lean back against the bench, but instead she held her breath from time to time, or rubbed her eyes, or hummed softly—any trick to stay conscious. Dozens of ships anchored at the makeshift moorin
gs beyond the river’s mouth, and as they passed, faces peered down from the decks and stern gallery windows. Who could say which among them might be leagued with Rajana or Telamba?

  Rajana, at least, was probably already well away, but that didn’t mean she might not have paid someone to make trouble for them. No, she realized, Rajana seemed to have thought them all dead. That’s what Ivrian had told her, at least. She shook her head. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t take precautions.

  Mirian was relieved when they final pulled up alongside the Daughter. She stiffened her back and feigned energy she lacked as she hurried up the ladder. Once upon the weather deck, she formally greeted Rendak. The sturdy first mate gave her a fierce hug before turning to help the others aboard.

  Shortly thereafter, Ivrian had been set up in the tiny mate’s cabin and Ensara had been introduced for a second time to the scowling Rendak. Jekka, Mirian and Ensara then went with the first mate to the cabin, where Mirian pulled out the precious undersea charts drawn from generations of salvaging.

  Jekka watched, blinking rarely. Outside, Gombe could be heard getting the ship underway. They had no precise heading yet, but Mirian had given orders to sail north toward Smuggler’s Shiv.

  “Well?” Rendak growled.

  Ensara wiped his eyes and stared down at the chart. “I’ve never seen one with sounding depths this precise. Not beyond the shallows.”

  “Generations of my family have been salvaging Desperation Bay. We’ve kept notes.” Mirian tapped a light mark she’d drawn on the chart. “This is approximately where we found the wreck.”

  Ensara peered at the mark, then the numbers indicating nearby depths. Finally, he touched the paper with a grubby fingernail. “Here.”

  “Kellicam’s Trench?”

  Halfway between Smuggler’s Shiv and the Kaava Peninsula a finger of deep ocean thrust into Desperation Bay—one of such dark depths that her family had never felt especially compelled to explore it. It was indicated as a thin slash across the chart, stretching west to east. Her great-grandmother’s precise handwriting labeled it in several places as “unknown.”