Pathfinder Tales--Through the Gate in the Sea

by Paizo Publishing LLC.

  “You sure it’s not this trench?” Mirian tapped an underwater sinkhole only a half league south.

  Ensara rubbed his short beard and his dark eyes glinted mischievously. “Is that where you want it to be?”

  “It’s not as deep,” Rendak said. “We’ve touched bottom there. Only Mirian—or someone else with the rings—could get to the bottom in Kellicam’s Trench. Maybe. It’s very, very deep.”

  “I’m not sure how deep the drop-off was,” Ensara said. “The wreck was heading over when the three of us swam clear.”

  “And the creature was still aboard?” Jekka asked.

  “It was still eating my men,” Ensara answered grimly. “If it hadn’t been distracted by its meal, the three of us could never have gotten out. Now, it might be in your sinkhole, because it was hard to know exactly where we came up. But I think…” he paused to drag his finger over to the trench, “that we were here.” Again his eyes looked to Mirian’s. “My ship was heading north by northeast when they heard us calling.”

  She nodded.

  Ensara sounded more tentative. “Incidentally, why lead us down to be ambushed and then pull me out of the way?”

  “I didn’t know the monster was there,” Mirian said.

  A smile twitched at his mouth. “Really.”

  “I swear.”

  “So you really were going to strike a bargain with me,” he mused.

  “No—I was determined to find a way out. You’d threatened to sell my people into slavery.”

  The light in his eyes dimmed.

  “What did you expect?” she asked.

  “If you wanted a surprise, why did you save me?”

  “I still haven’t figured that out. Why’d you chop through that boggard instead of me?”

  Ensara glanced over at Rendak, but found no welcome in either his gaze or the eyes of the lizard man. “I figured I’d made things bad enough for you already,” he said. “I swear by the gods, Mirian—”

  “Captain,” she corrected.

  “Captain,” he said wearily. “I was going to send that wand back to you with a note of apology.”

  “Were you. Until someone offered you money for it?”

  “It got complicated! I saved your sister!”

  “After you helped burn down her house!”

  “I didn’t give those orders! That was Rajana. By that time she was in charge, and my first mate was planning mutiny because he saw me chop through that boggard who was coming for you!”

  “So it’s my fault you got in over your head?”

  “I never said that!”

  Rendak cleared his throat. “So, Captain, what’s our heading?”

  Mirian sighed and pulled herself together. “Kellicam’s Trench. I hope you know what you’re talking about, Ensara, because we don’t have a lot of spare time.”

  “I just hope that thing isn’t still on the ship,” he said.

  “I don’t plan to go aboard. I just need access to the jewels set in the prow.”

  “You want me to put him in irons?” Rendak asked.

  So far as she knew there were no irons on the ship. She guessed Rendak was being metaphorical. “No. He’s as flagged as the rest of us. Get him some grub and then let him bed down. But he’s to be kept under guard.”

  “You want me to waste manpower keeping a man watching him the whole time?”

  “You’ve been able to trust me so far,” Ensara said.

  Mirian snorted in derision.

  He turned up empty palms. “Look, what do you think I’ll do? I want to stop Rajana as much as you.”

  “What about after?” Rendak asked him.

  “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

  Rendak’s dark eyes fastened on Mirian. “What do we do with him then?”

  “I guess I haven’t figured that out yet myself. It depends upon how he comports himself.”

  “Right now I just want to comport myself to a hammock.”

  Mirian stared hard at Ensara. “Your word, as a gentleman…” She tried not to sound too mocking. “… that you’ll not try anything?”

  “My word,” he said, with great, sad dignity, “on Irgal’s axe.”

  Rendak rolled his eyes, but Mirian knew Ensara believed in his own pledge. “You heard me, Rendak. Feed him and bed him down. When he wakes, put him to work.”

  “You really think—”

  “I’m too tired to think. Just do it. Don’t wake me until we get there unless there’s a sea monster or a pirate fleet bearing down on us.”

  “Aye, Captain. Come on, you scrub.” He motioned Ensara after him.

  Mirian rose on tired legs and made for her bunk. Jekka, though, still hadn’t left. He’d remained strangely silent throughout the conference.

  “Shouldn’t you grab some sleep as well?” she suggested.

  “Mirian.” He stepped closer.

  “Yes?” She paused at the bunk side, turned, and sat down on it to pull off her boots. Gods, a good wash would be fabulous. A bath would take too much energy, but a nice cold cup of water she could rub over her face would be wonderful. She guessed what he was after. “I wish we could stop and get Kalina, Jekka, but if we’re to reach the island before Rajana we just don’t have time.”

  “I know that. What if there’s no one there?”

  She dragged her mind away from thoughts of clean water. “You mean on your island? Kutnaar?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why wouldn’t they be there?”

  “Why haven’t they ever come back? Tradan asked that, and he is right. My people are curious. Wouldn’t they have returned from time to time, to look around?”

  “Maybe they have and they’ve been careful about it.”

  “Then why didn’t they contact any of us?”

  Why was he dragging this out? Wasn’t he tired? “You said that your people were scattered. Maybe they came out from Kutnaar and couldn’t find them.”

  “Yes,” Jekka said, his voice trailing off slowly.

  “Is there something else? Because if you take too much longer saying it, I’m liable to fall asleep sitting up.”

  “No, my sister.”

  He started to turn away, and she felt a little pang of guilt.

  “I don’t know what we’ll find, Jekka. But we’ll find it together, all right?”

  “Yes.”

  Sleep enveloped her like a soft, hearth-warmed blanket on a chilly evening. She knew no dreams, only surprise when Rendak set a hand on her shoulder.

  Light in the cabin was dim, but he held a lantern near his bearded face so she’d recognize him.

  “We’re at the anchor point,” he said softly, “just shy of the drop coordinates. How are you feeling?”

  She sat up, stifling a groan, and stretched. She felt dirty. She’d be in the water soon enough, but what she really wanted was a hot bath with perfumed soaps. “Awake,” she said. “Any trouble?”

  “Nothing. A little mist on the waters near the shore. Some storm clouds are scudding in from the south but they don’t seem headed our way.”

  She nodded understanding. Rendak backed away to hang the lantern from the hook on a ceiling joist, and Mirian swung out of the bunk. “I suppose I’d best eat.”

  “We’ve got a fine oyster stew and some fair bread and cheese waiting your pleasure.”

  She set feet to the planks. “Thanks. You think we’re doing the right thing trying to get through this gate, Rendak?”

  “You mean do I think you’re guiding us into the right thing?”

  “Yes. Usually it’s just you and me and Gombe taking the risks—”

  “Now that’s not true, Captain. We all take risks anytime we go to sea. There’s no telling when a storm will drift down, or when a ship on the horizon will turn out to be a pirate. And besides, think of the payoff if we get through.”

  “Will there be a payoff, Rendak? Jekka thinks he can get us through the maze if we can get through the gate. All right, I trust his memory. But can he really keep
us from getting killed outright by the other lizardfolk?”

  “Those are fair questions. I’m glad I’m not the captain.”

  “Thanks,” she said dryly. “I just can’t help wondering if this is too big for us.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Maybe we should turn this one over to the Custodian of Sargava. Let him send in a fleet.”

  Rendak grunted as he sat down beside her. “There’s all kinds of problems with that, the first being you can just about guarantee you’d be starting a war, even with Jekka on board. The lizardfolk on the other side won’t take kindly to a fleet, will they?”

  “All right,” she acceded grudgingly.

  “Second, it’ll take too long. We’ve got one night before the full moon, and you know that Chelish wizard’s going to get there first. There’s no way you could muster the Sargavan navy and get them into position before her—”

  “We might—”

  “—and you want to be the first.” He grinned at her. “And you know what’s best for Jekka. If this is his homeland, a place of safety for his people, do you really want the Sargavan fleet knowing how to get in and out?”

  “No.” And that brought up another worry. “What if there is no way out?”

  “Now nothing that he found said that, did it?”

  “What if he never wants to come back out?”

  “Now we get to it.” Rendak nodded slowly. “If it’s a safe haven for him, why would he want to? I know your oath to him and all that … and I’m fond of him myself. He’s good in a pinch. But when the time comes, you’ll have to let him go.”

  “You sound like my father when my dog got old.”

  “Well, it’s kind of like that, isn’t it?

  “Jekka’s not a pet,” she said sharply.

  “No, but he’s not human. And as much as he loves you—and I think he does, mind—he wants his own kind. And I don’t just mean Kalina. Hell, how’d you feel, trapped in a swampland with your cousin and a bunch of lizardfolk? There’d be no men around, not even a good-looking pirate bastard like Ensara. There’d be no children. You’d never—”

  She felt a flush touch her cheeks. “I get the analogy, Rendak.”

  “Well. There you go, then.”

  “So. We’re doing it for glory.”

  “Right.”

  “For our nation.”

  “Right—can’t risk that Chelish wench getting hold of that magical doodad.”

  “And for my brother. My brother, the lizard man.”

  “I’ve met a lot of humans I valued less.”

  She nodded, then decided to make a point. “I don’t think Ensara’s attractive, by the way.”

  “No?”

  “He’s handsome, but there’s nothing there.”

  “I’m glad you made that clear.” He smirked.

  She wagged a finger at him. “Now you’re mocking me. Just because someone’s handsome doesn’t mean I’m interested in them. Besides, I seem to remember you mooning over someone just a few days ago like a moonstruck boy.”

  “If you’re referring to the astonishing Djenba, I was the soul of discretion.”

  She laughed.

  “I was!” Rendak put a hand to his chest, as if wounded. “What a woman.”

  “All right, loverboy. Get me some of that oyster stew. And then it’s time for a drop.”

  24

  A FRIEND BELOW

  MIRIAN

  Rendak insisted upon joining the dive, even after Mirian reminded him it might be too deep for him to reach with just an air bottle.

  “Jekka and I can keep watch above you,” he said stubbornly.

  And so he slipped overboard with Jekka and Mirian and Ivrian. If she’d let him, Gombe would have come along as well. Instead, she left him in command and had Jekka shoulder Gombe’s air bottle so he wouldn’t have to keep surfacing.

  Ivrian still had dark circles beneath his eyes, but he assured her he was fit and ready. And, no matter that Gombe and Rendak were seasoned divers, next to her, Ivrian had the most experience working with the magic rings. With them, the writer would be the only one beside herself capable of diving deep.

  The nighttime ocean again provided a magical light show. Schools of blue-and-green jellyfish pulsed as they drifted along, trailing strands of tentacles many times longer than their translucent bodies.

  Mirian led them deeper and deeper, seeking the ocean floor. Once she saw the waving tendrils of seaweed stirred by a cool current, she diverted north, glow stone shining on her chest.

  Rendak swam to her left, tube leading back to the air bottle in the pack on his shoulder, and beside him, Ivrian. Both men wore tight-fitting pants and short-sleeved shirts. Rendak carried a short spear and Ivrian, now that he wore the twin to Mirian’s ring allowing free movement underwater, a sword. He carried his wand in a holster strapped to his hip.

  Jekka swam on her right. She’d grown used to having him there, at her side. What would it be like without him?

  The drop-off into the trench loomed suddenly out of the gloom, a yawning darkness that swallowed light. She hovered in the cool water. The glow stone only touched the coral and anemones along the closest edge. Tiny points of color gleamed below, like distant stars, but there was no knowing if these were luminous fish, or the lures of strange predators of the deep.

  She led them east along the rim of the trench. She hoped to find a track left in the ocean floor by the shipwreck’s passage, and they fanned out along the rim to seek it, each staying within ten feet of their nearest companion.

  They almost missed the signs, as the ship had skipped along the bottom, sometimes touching, sometimes drifting. If they hadn’t doubled back to look at the seafloor eighty feet back from the edge, they would never have discovered the path of chaos stretched through the sandy bottom.

  Mirian shined her glow stone into the depths, but it didn’t show her anything. The darkness was so intense the light fell off only five feet out.

  How deep did the trench go? Beyond a certain level Jekka and Rendak could not accompany, since the pressure would be too great.

  Mirian led them over the edge and down, taking care to keep a few feet clear of the wall. She played her light along the side, searching always for holes and crevices.

  Jekka dove beside her, his own glow stone piercing the depths ahead. Ivrian followed, his magical fins glowing brilliantly like Mirian’s. Rendak brought up the rear.

  The lights each bore were a fragile, illusory comfort. There was always some worry with a salvage drop, but Mirian’s was tripled in this enveloping darkness. She hadn’t felt this kind of apprehension since her first dive, long years ago. And well did she remember her grandmother’s warnings never to risk a deep dive, even if the family magics made it possible. There was too much, she’d warned, that lived in the deep dark and was fearless of humans.

  They swam farther and farther down. Their light reflected from a pair of wide green eyes that quickly withdrew into a crevice. A curious bullnose shark swam near, attracted by the glow, but swam on when Jekka swished his tail threateningly.

  Finally Rendak surged up to touch her calf. When she turned to look at him, he held his hand before his glow stone, signaling that he needed to rise. He’d reached his limit.

  Mirian, protected as she was by the ring, felt only a hint of the pressure she knew must be compressing his chest. She pointed him up. Rendak grabbed Ivrian’s shoulder, pointed at Mirian, then kicked up. He was warning the writer to keep an eye on her. Apparently he didn’t think it necessary to do the same with Jekka.

  Mirian checked in with her blood brother. The lizard man pulled his air tube into his narrow mouth, sucked in a gulp, then signaled his readiness.

  How much deeper could he go?

  They descended another ten feet, and then twenty before her light caught on something promising farther below—it looked like a tree shorn of leaves, standing canted away from the side of the trench. A ship’s mast?

  A few feet further down
she confirmed it. She glanced at Jekka, then saw him signaling—he too had reached his limit.

  She motioned for him to retreat, looked back overhead to the glimmer of light that was Rendak’s glow stone, and pointed Jekka up toward him.

  So it was up to her and Ivrian. Even with him swimming at her side, she felt honest fear. Except for the narrow circle of light, the darkness completely encompassed her. Anything might lie beyond her narrow range of vision.

  She tried not to think about that. Focus on the task at hand, her father had told her.

  The wreck’s stern had scraped against rock that had torn the beautiful railing away. Mirian swam over the deck of the ship and the yawning mouth to the stairway where the devilfish had laired, and felt a chill entirely different from that of the cold water surrounding them. Still, she debated again about trying to remove the strange gear that had sent the ship on its underwater journey. Unlocking the secrets of that magical propulsion unit could advance naval technology by tremendous bounds … but that was not why they’d come. Not today.

  Swimming toward the prow, she found the ship hadn’t actually come to rest on the bottom, but was suspended on a projection of rock outthrust from the wall, its prow jutting over the darkness of the trench.

  She carefully inspected the trench wall and found it blank. That didn’t mean something might not be crawling or floating along five feet to her left or right, but it gave her the illusion of security. Certainly it would feel safer trying to pry out the eye on this side of the ship than while floating unprotected over the abyss. She touched Ivrian’s shoulder, then indicated the darkness.

  He gave her a thumbs-up and turned, sword at the ready, floating only a few feet away from her.

  There was no trouble finding the gleam of the violet ship’s eye, set high along the prow in the starboard side, for it reflected the brilliant white of her glow stone. She hoped that its different color didn’t indicate a different function. Those they’d found in the tomb of Reklaniss were onyx.

  Once she scraped the scum completely clear with her gloves, she saw the great gem was seated in a brass fitting bolted to the ship’s dark hull. If she was merely after the gem itself, she could pry it free, but then she’d have to worry about constructing a makeshift holder. Better, then, to remove the entire assembly. She reached carefully into her pack of tools.