Mistshore w-2

by Jaleigh Johnson

  "Sull and Fannie are fine," Ruen said. "The others fled in fear of your spell."

  Relief flooded Icelin, bringing with it a sense of peace. This was justice, she thought. I will die here and never hurt anyone again.

  "Go," Icelin said. "Get out of here. Make sure Sull gets to safety, and your marker is paid. That's all I care-"

  A wave of energy shuddered through Icelin's body. She felt the last vestiges of the spell inside her explode outward. The door and part of the wall blew apart, but Icelin didn't hear the grinding, tearing metal. The force of the blast deafened her.

  "How convenient," Ruen said. He was still shouting, but his voice seemed to come from very far away. He had his hands at her armpits, dragging her to her feet. "You made us a door."

  "You shouldn't have… done that," Icelin said. She swayed on her feet. A beam broke away from the ceiling, trailing a sheet of flame all the way to the ground.

  "We've got to run," Ruen said. He took her hand, yanking her behind him. "Put your arms around my neck."

  "But the ring-"

  "Do it!"

  Icelin wrapped her arms around him. Ruen lifted her onto his back and sprinted to the gap in the wall. Icelin felt as if she were flying. More beams dropped around them, but Ruen found a path through as if by magic. The fire and smoke were everywhere, but he kept running.

  Suddenly they were through. Cool air hit Icelin's face. It was daylight.

  The twisted opening spat them out onto a small dock behind the warehouse. Parts of it burned with the building, but Ruen didn't stop to see if it would hold their weight. He charged down the narrow platform all the way to the edge and jumped into the water.

  The impact shook Icelin loose from Ruen's back, but he stayed beside her. The cold water shocked her limbs into functioning. With Ruen's aid, she swam to the surface.

  "We'll say in the harbor," Ruen said when they'd caught their breath. "Swim underwater as much as you can," he told her. "They'll be watching to see if we survived. We've got to find cover."

  He dived down. Icelin followed, keeping a hand on his flank so she wouldn't lose him in the murky water. As far as she could tell, they were headed roughly in the direction of the shore.

  They surfaced in a thick stand of brush about thirty feet from the dock. Sull waited in the weeds.

  "I saw you go off the dock," he said. "Fannie slipped away. No one's watching that I can see."

  Icelin was shaking by the time she got out of the water. When she came within reach, Sull pulled her against his chest, hugging ber so hard Icelin couldn't breathe.

  "I'm all right," Icelin said weakly. She patted him on the back.

  "Thought I'd lost you, little one," the butcher said roughly. He released her and mopped his eyes with his apron. Ruen stood a little apart, scanning the area. The warehouse continued its slow collapse, but they were clear of the devastation.

  "Let's get out of here," Ruen said finally. He moved away, crouching low along the shoreline, not waiting for their reply.

  "Where are we goin'?" Sull asked. He led Icelin by the hand, half-supporting her. "She needs rest."

  "Back into the water," Ruen said. He waded in up to his waist. "Keep her head up. She'll be fine."

  The water felt colder. Icelin's teeth chattered, but she swam with Sull's aid, following Ruen into the harbor.

  They swam clear of the dock and out into open water. The sky was gray and overcast. In the distance, deep blue clouds threatened rain, but the day was still too bright. Icelin felt horribly exposed. At any moment, she expected shouts to go up from the shore.

  "Don't worry," Ruen said, seeing her expression. "We're going under." He took in her chattering teeth and general state of disarray. "Sull, you'll have to tow her if she slows."

  "I can make it," Icelin said, but she slurred the words.

  "We'll stay under until we reach the wreckage," Ruen said, nodding to the floating mass of Mistshore's main body. "We should be able to swim under the docks and footpaths. Ready?"

  Icelin nodded, and they dived. Sull kept one arm around her and used the other to swim close to Ruen.

  They swam for what seemed like an eternity. After a time, Icelin simply floated in Sull's grip, concentrating on keeping her breath in her body. When she felt she could bear no more, Sull angled upward to the light.

  They came up under one of the wooden pathways. There was barely room for their heads underneath the rotting planks, but the sound of the waves lapping against the pilings concealed their gasping breaths.

  Icelin could hear footsteps echoing loudly just above their heads. "Where are you taking us?" she whispered..

  Ruen put a finger to his lips. He disappeared beneath the surface, leaving her and Sull to tread water.

  "We should swim back to shore," Icelin said. "I don't like this." She expected Sull to echo the sentiment, but the butcher shook his head. Water plastered his red hair over his ears.

  "I wouldn't have found you without him," Sull said. "He tracked you. Persistent as a demon, he was. Ghosted into that warehouse and took out the meanest of the elPs men without a sound."

  "But why?" Icelin said. "He never wanted to help me. He could have left you on the beach to die."

  "Maybe he is everythin' you thought he was," Sull said.

  Ruen broke the surface a few feet away and waved a hand. Icelin experienced a renewed shock of weakness as she slogged through the water. "We're here," Ruen said.

  "Where?" Icelin asked.

  "If you can hold on for a little longer, I'm taking us someplace safe," Ruen said. "Nine feet straight down there's a figurehead: the Blind Mermaid, they call her. She sticks up from the sand, so you can't see her fish half. She's buried along with the rest of the The Darter."

  "The Darter?" Sull said. "You mean she was part of a ship?"

  "She sdll is," Ruen said. "But she has a more important job now. She's the guardian of a door, a secret door we're going to need. So we'll be paying her a visit." He raised a hand to forestall more questions. "When I go down, you'll follow a few feet behind. Don't be afraid of what you see, or how deep we go. Just keep following me."

  Icelin nodded, but her hesitance must have shown. Ruen scowled and shook his head impatiently.

  "This is important," he said, speaking to both of them. "You can't turn around. Once we go down, it's all the way. Or you'll drown. That's how they keep out the ones who aren't supposed to be there."

  Isn't that us? Icelin thought, but she didn't give it voice.

  "We'll follow you," she said. She'd decided to trust Ruen Morleth once, and now Sull seemed convinced of the man. He'd saved her from the fire, risking his own life to do so.

  They dived. The water seemed darker here, a creature stretching out inky black arms to envelop them. When they got to the bottom, Icelin and Sull stayed back. Icelin pushed her drifting hair out of her eyes and strained to see what Ruen was doing ahead of them. Craning around his body, she saw the figurehead.

  The wooden mermaid was covered in a shawl of seaweed, the thin, green streamers trailing behind her like a living cloak. Buried to the waist in sand, the mermaid stared up to the surface through her sightless eyes.

  Ruen put his thumbs to both her eye sockets and pushed. The wooden orbs disappeared inside her skull, and Ruen back-stroked furiously, propelling himself away from the figurehead.

  Light burst from the mermaid's eyes, beams of illumination that spilled over her wooden sockets and down her rigid face like tears. The rotting wood glowed golden, suffusing, impossibly, with life.

  The mermaid's skin turned white, and her hair moved in the water, shifting colors from brown to blue-green. She uncrossed her arms from in front of her bare breasts, brandishing a trident in one hand, and a glowing green orb in the other. She turned her head at an odd angle to regard them. Though her body now throbbed with life, her eyes remained vacant.

  She doesn't really live, Icelin thought. She's a construct of some sort. A guardian, Ruen had said.

  "Welcome
to the Cradle," the mermaid spoke. The words reached Icelin's ears clearly, magically propelled through the water. "Those who seek entrance, come forward. But do no harm in Arowall's house, or face a slow death in Umberlee's embrace."

  With those cryptic words, the mermaid lifted her arms, crossing the trident in front of her. The orb flashed green, and the trident glowed in answer. She brought it down in one swift stroke, driving the weapon into the sand covering her lower half.

  A deep rumbling echoed beneath them. Awestruck, Icelin watched the sand roil, parting on either side of the mermaid's body. Contained by magic, the tempest of sand and water swirled around the mermaid and revealed her glossy silver tail. Beneath the webbed fin, a dark space yawned.

  Lit by spheres of magical radiance, the narrow passage led into the hull of what looked like an ancient sailing ship. The wood around the animated figurehead was rotting and caked with barnacles, but somehow it remained intact.

  Ruen swam for the passage; Icelin and Sull followed quickly. Icelin's chest ached to draw breath, and as she swam down the dark tunnel, she realized what Ruen meant about not turning back.

  The sand was already swirling behind them, sealing off the entrance. The mermaid resumed her frozen pose, her sighdess eyes betraying nothing of what lay beneath her fin. There was no way out behind them. It was death or forward.

  CHAPTER 10

  Cerest paced in front of the burned-out shell of the dockside warehouse. He stopped long enough to kick a smoking timber against the tin wall. A rattling crash brought down a rain of ash and smoke.

  Ristlara and Shenan stood a little way off, looking anxious and unamused by his outburst.

  "Come away, fool," Ristlara said. "The Watch is sure to bring a patrol. We won't be seen here with you."

  "Tell your men to regroup. I want to know how many we lost." Cerest already knew Greyas was gone. Greyas, Melias, and Riatvin. Now he was entirely dependent upon the Locks and their hunters. The idea galled him, but what choice did he have?

  "She walks with two companions now," Ristlara said. "The big one is an oaf, but he's strong; and I'll lay odds the thin one is a monk, and quite powerful. Think, Cerest," she said, putting a hand on his arm. "How can you be certain she possesses the powers Elgreth did? Shenan says she is an untried child."

  "Can Shenan deny the evidence of her eyes?" Cerest waved an arm to encompass the devastated warehouse. "My untried child did this. The men may have slain Greyas and the rest, but she brought the building down. You heard her, Shenan; it wasn't her first display of such power. She is more than Elgreth ever was. While she is alive, I will have her."

  Ristlara and Shenan exchanged doubtful glances. It infuriated Cerest. How dare they show such disrespect?

  "Where do we search now?" Shenan spoke up. "The trail is cold."

  "They can't go far," Cerest said. "If she is as unstable as I believe, she'll turn up again. Until then, we wait."

  Cerest rubbed his face. He needed to rest. If his own body sought reverie, Icelin would be near exhaustion.

  We'll both rest, Cerest thought, and tonight-yes, it would be tonight-we'll talk again. He would help her work through the trauma of the past. She had been scarred too-not physically, but the pain was there, a raw wound that only another, equally scarred being would understand. Those scars would be the link that bound them together. They would make each other whole.

  "Cough it out, there's a good girl."

  Sull smacked her on the back, forcing up more of the loathsome harbor water than Icelin thought possible for anyone to swallow.

  She crouched on the floor of the lowest deck of The Darter; Sull and Ruen stood on either side of her. Behind them, a wall of water stretched weirdly from floor to ceiling, kept from rushing into the cabin by an invisible magical field that faltered and sprayed jets of water at random intervals.

  In front of them, a trio of large, armored guards stood with drawn swords, the unfriendly ends pointed at each of their throats. The one pointed at Icelin bobbed uncertainly as she threw up around it. Icelin tried to appear as contrite as she could, under the circumstances.

  "Where are we?" she asked when she could speak again.

  "I told you: this is the back door," Ruen explained. "They'll check our weapons here." As he said it, the guards stepped forward, divesting Sull of his sash of butcher's tools. They took nothing from Ruen but the ring on his finger. Icelin saw his jaw tighten, but he said nothing.

  Icelin allowed them to take the pack off her back without resistance. She saw one guards eye linger on the gold box buried at the bottom.

  "What's in it?" he asked.

  "An heirloom," Icelin said, "bequeathed to me by the last of my family."

  "Open it," the guard said.

  Icelin looked at Sull uncertainly. He knew what she was thinking. She'd not yet opened the mysterious box, found buried beneath the floorboards of Brant's shop. Who knew what it might contain?

  "Arowall s rules state that no one may lose their possessions while under the protection of his hospitality," Ruen said. Icelin wondered whether his words were for her benefit, or the guard's.

  The man glared at Ruen and spat on the deck. "I know the rules better 'an you, Ruen Morleth." He looked at Icelin. "I said open it, girl."

  Icelin took out the box and laid it in her lap. She ran her fingers along the edges until she found the clasp. Thank the gods it wasn't locked. Releasing the catch, she lifted the lid.

  Red velvet lined the inside of the box, but it was frayed and soaking wet from their swim. Nestled in the small space was a stack of folded parchment sheets, tied together with a black ribbon. The parchment and the ribbon were dry and perfecdy preserved, obviously via some magical means. "Icelin" was inked on the top sheet.

  "They look like letters," she said. She traced her name and felt a stab of disappointment. She had hoped Brant's words would be on the pages, but she didn't recognize the thick, black script proclaiming her name so boldly.

  "Some heirloom." The guard sniffed. His fellows chuckled.

  Icelin clutched the letters and tried not to let her anger show. It would be foolish to provoke these men.

  Ruen laid a hand on the closest guard's arm. Immediately, the other two raised their swords.

  "Step back," the largest of them warned.

  "My apologies," Ruen said. He smiled easily and removed his hand. "I couldn't help but notice how cold your friend's skin is."

  The guard he'd touched paled. Reading the mocking light in Ruen's eyes, he gripped his sword as if he might strike out at the thief.

  "Get on with you," he said, his teeth gritted. "Though if it were up to me, I'd stick your head through that wall and let you breathe seawater."

  Icelin quickly sealed the box and stood up. She wished she could read whatever was in the letters, but this was not the place. Palpable tension thickened the air. She had no idea what Ruen had done to offend the guards, but they stared at him now with murder in their eyes.

  "You know the way," the guard said, still eyeing Ruen hatefully. "He's expecting you."

  "You know this Arowall fellow?" Sull asked when they were past the guards. "I hope he likes you better than that lot."

  "Arowall was captain of The Darter? Ruen said, "a pirate vessel for twenty years. When his ship finally went down, he'd strung it with so many magics salvaged from old cargo that the ship stayed intact. It drifted into the harbor and stayed here, resistant to water and, mostly, to time."

  "What is The Darters purpose now?" Icelin said.

  "Without a ship, Arowall had to turn his hand to another profession," Ruen said, running his hand along the wall.

  "The Cradle?" Sull said, echoing the mermaid's words. "Sounds awfully harmless for a pirate."

  "Not exactly," Ruen said. He pointed ahead, where another pair of guards flanked a door at the opposite end of the ship. "Fighting was Arowall's second favorite activity, so he created a shrine to the sport. He died years ago, but his descendents- one of them is the man we're going t
o see, he goes by Arowall too-have been keeping up the business, and they turned The Darter into a secret passage to their domain."

  The guards opened the portal and Ruen ushered them through.

  Icelin's mouth fell open in shocked amazement.

  She'd expected to enter another cramped cabin, but instead she beheld a tunnel through the seawater. It extended eight feet above their heads, reinforced by another magical shield. Water beaded and dripped on their heads in a steady drizzle. The air reeked of salt.

  "They drain the water periodically," Ruen said, "so it doesn't flood the passage."

  "Don't look sturdy to me," Sull said.

  "It isn't." Icelin pointed to the stutters in the shield. The sensation of walking on water unnerved her. She kept her eyes off her feet. "Was the shield here before the Spellplague?" she asked.

  "Yes," Ruen said. "The enchantments held. Most people who come to the Cradle come from Mistshore, walking above water. Only the lucky souls who can't afford to be seen entering the Cradle use this entrance now."

  "Who?" Icelin asked.

  Ruen shrugged. "Maybe a young noble. He wants a night of fun but doesn't want his face known in Mistshore. Long as he doesn't mind a swim, this is the way he comes."

  The tunnel began a gradual, upward slope. At the end loomed another water wall.

  Ruen passed through the opening first. Icelin followed, with Sull bringing up the rear.

  Behind the wall Icelin could tell they were in the belly of another ship. The hull had been reinforced several times over. No visible magic greeted them beyond the water wall. A ladder led up to the main deck, and Icelin could see a square of dull sunlight above. The breeze blowing down the ladder was cool and smelled strongly of rain. She couldn't see anything beyond the opening, but she heard muffled voices.

  She turned around and noticed for the first time the pair of guards standing on their side of the wall. One of them, a young man not much older than Icelin, stepped forward to speak to Ruen.