Umara looked at Anton like she wanted to say something but didn’t know what. After a moment, she settled for, “I’ll go talk to Kymas.” She turned toward the hatch under the awning projecting out from the quarterdeck. Likely knocked loose by the shaking the galley had weathered, the left side of the sailcloth rectangle drooped.
Then an oarsman cried out. Together with Umara and the captain, Anton hurried to the larboard side of the galley to see what had alarmed the man. By the time they got there, other folk were peering, pointing, and exclaiming.
A bowshot away, a shadowy form stood on the surface of the sea. In the gloom and the rain, Anton couldn’t see it particularly clearly, but he had no doubt it was Evendur Highcastle.
And why, Anton thought bitterly, wouldn’t it be? The living corpse was the Chosen of the Queen of the Depths. He felt like an idiot for imagining he could dispose of such a monstrosity just by sinking a caravel out from under him.
“Still,” Umara breathed, “he doesn’t have a ship or a band of followers anymore. Perhaps he’ll give up for today.”
As if in response, the sea heaved beneath the galley and sent it crashing down, throwing the decks into confusion once again. Oars lurched in the thole pins, battering rowers with bone-breaking force. Arms flailing, a marine toppled over the side. For a moment, it looked as though Umara might tumble after him, but Anton grabbed her arm and steadied her.
“Kill the creature!” Anton bellowed. “Kill him!”
He’d momentarily forgotten he wasn’t the captain aboard this vessel, but the Thayans heeded him anyway. Arrows and crossbow bolts arced in Evendur’s direction. Rattling off words of power, Umara thrust out her arms and sent darts of blue light streaking after them.
Some of the arrows and quarrels fell short or flew wide. Waves leaped up to block the others. Even so, two or three actually pierced the bloated, decaying flesh of their target, and Umara’s magic did, too. But they evidently didn’t do much damage, because Evendur started forward.
The sea raised the galley and dropped it into a trough. For a heartbeat, the sea streamed across the deck, and someone screamed.
Then the tall, pale man Anton had met on the benighted street in Westgate strode out of the cabin in the stern. He now wore an intricately embroidered scarlet robe and cloak. “What is this?” he demanded.
Umara stared at him. “You—”
“I know a spell to shield me when I absolutely require it. Now, why is the ship still being tossed about when our attackers are burned alive or drowned?”
“Not quite all of them are.” Anton pointed to the figure advancing atop the sea.
Kymas Nahpret smiled a grim little smile. “The fool doesn’t know when to give up, does he? But if he insists on perishing with his vessel, I’ll oblige him.”
The wizard pulled a slender ebony wand from his sleeve. He hissed an incantation that filled Anton with instinctive revulsion even though he didn’t understand a word of it, then flicked the wand in Evendur’s direction as though miming a teacher’s admonitory tap on a daydreaming pupil’s head.
The air around Evendur darkened. Then vapor puffed from the dead man’s body, and Anton realized it was the rain that had truly darkened in the course of changing from water to something that seared like vitriol.
And, to Anton’s excitement, it appeared to be hurting Evendur more than anything else hitherto. The dead man flailed, staggered, and then plunged down into the sea as, perhaps, the magical assault broke his concentration.
Some of the Thayans cheered. Until, like an invisible cable was drawing him up, Evendur rose above the surface once more.
By then, though, in a manner that momentarily reminded Anton of Dalabrac and his countless blowpipes, Kymas had traded the ebony wand for one made of glass or crystal. He shouted a word that sounded like crockery smashing and stabbed the instrument at the Chosen.
At the same moment, Evendur shook his fist at his attacker. The wand shattered, and a wave of transformation ran up Kymas’s hand and on into his arm, turning the limb as clear as the mystical weapon had been. Immediately after the first wave flowed a second that made the wizard’s altered substance crack and crunch.
Wincing, Anton expected to see Kymas’s whole body break into hundreds of glittering shards. But Kymas arrested the change by dissolving his whole arm into mist, in effect amputating it above the highest point to which the infection had spread. When he willed it back into solidity, it was pallid flesh and blood-red sleeve once more.
Anton thought it an impressive defense, but Kymas still looked rattled that Evendur had reflected his own attack back on him. The Red Wizard pivoted to the captain and said, “Why aren’t we moving?”
“Same reason as before,” the officer answered. “The rowers aren’t ready to row, and the current and the wind are both running against us.”
Now that someone had drawn Anton’s attention to it, the pirate felt the wind gusting from bow to stern driving spattering rain before it. At least, he thought, it was doing Falrinn some good. Unwilling to bide dangerously close to the Thayan ship while Evendur bounced it up and down, the gnome was fleeing westward.
Anton hoped Falrinn would get away, and it actually looked likely. The Bitch Queen’s Chosen appeared to be devoting all his attention to the galley.
All his attention and all his power. The ship rose high and smashed down. The mainmast snapped at the base and fell toward the stern with broken cordage streaming out behind it.
Anton sprang in front of Umara and raised his arm to protect his face. A line whistled past his ear, but nothing struck him. The mainmast slammed into the smaller mast aft, snapping it as well, and both hammered down on the quarterdeck.
“Much more of this,” the captain said, “and the hull’s likely to start coming apart.”
Umara turned to Anton. “You said Evendur wants Stedd alive.”
“We may have made him so angry that he’s willing to settle for drowning without the frills as opposed to ritual sacrifice. Or else he wants to force us to surrender.”
“Then he’s going to be disappointed,” Kymas said, and Anton had to give him credit. He’d seemed shaken for an instant, but he was all resolve now. “Umara and I are more than a match for any jumped-up zombie, especially if we work together.” He turned to the other mage. “Let’s try some necromancy. We’ll command him to pull his own head off.”
Whispering in unison, the Red Wizards whispered words that set Anton’s teeth on edge. But they didn’t make Evendur decapitate himself or even break stride, and a moment later, the sea heaved the galley up and down. The tangled wreckage of the two masts bounced and shifted, and sailors scrambled to keep from being crushed, or swept overboard.
“All right,” Kymas said, “more acid. He didn’t like it before.”
True, Anton thought, but the corrosive rain hadn’t stopped Evendur, either, and he suspected it would have even less effect the second time around. He turned to the captain and asked, “Where are you keeping the boy?”
“The lower rowing deck,” the Thayan said. “But …”
Anton looked around and spotted a companionway that looked like it ought to lead to the lower banks of oars. Weaving around injured men and trying not to trip over snapped rigging, dropped weapons, and other litter, he dashed in that direction.
The next upheaval came when he was partway down the steep little flight of steps. It pitched him forward to splash down into bilge water that sloshed back and forth with the rocking of the boat.
Near the companionway, a mariner had jammed himself in a corner. The captain probably expected him to command the oarsmen, but at the moment, his eyes wide with fear, he didn’t seem to working on anything but making sure the tossing of the galley didn’t throw him around.
Beyond the sailor were the rows of benches with an aisle running down the center of them. There was just enough wan gray light leaking in through the outriggers to illuminate the creatures occupying them. But even if there hadn’t been, Anton wo
uld have known them for what they were by the rotten stink that suddenly assailed him.
Like the zombies topside, these looked relatively fresh and had likely started the voyage as living slaves. They still wore their leg irons, and the shackles had held them more or less in place as the galley slammed up and down, although jerking oars had battered them and left them sprawled and twisted in peculiar attitudes.
Stedd lay in the filthy water between two of the central benches. To Anton’s relief, the boy’s face wasn’t submerged, but he wasn’t moving, either.
As Anton splashed toward him, the nauseating stink of corruption intensified, and the air grew colder even as the light dimmed. Or was it? Anton suddenly wondered if it was actually his eyes that were failing.
He might be going blind. He realized he felt weak and sick in a way that his exertions and bruises didn’t explain. He was stumbling, dizzy, and his pulse pounded in his neck. Was the beat irregular? He wasn’t sure, but he thought so.
Then, mere shadows in his murky sight, the dead men started to turn in his direction. They were about to rise and swarm over him. He knew it.
Except, he realized, that he didn’t.
Common mindless zombies wouldn’t do that, or anything, without being ordered to, and besides, these were shackled in place. A curse had evidently poisoned his mind with terror and nonsense. Resisting its influence as best he could, he reeled onward.
Another upheaval sent him staggering, and the lurching end of an oar nearly caught him in the kidney. Then a final stride brought him to Stedd, who didn’t react to his arrival.
The boy’s eyes had rolled up, with white showing all across the bottoms, and he was shaking. Cast in the form of a skull, an amulet made of black metal hung around his neck.
Anton pulled off the medallion and threw it as far as he could. Stedd’s shuddering abated immediately, and so did the Turmishan’s own feelings of illness and dread. Plainly, Kymas Nahpret had used magic to render the boy prophet helpless. Perhaps the amulet had somehow focused the innate vileness of the zombies, the undeath that was antithetical to the life-giving light and warmth of the sun, on him.
“Hey!” called the Thayan braced in the corner. “You’re not supposed to do that.”
Anton didn’t bother to look around. “One more word,” he said, “and I’ll kill you.” And then, to Stedd: “Wake up, lad. Come back to me.”
Stedd’s eyelids fluttered then his eyes focused on Anton. “You …” he croaked. “I was having nightmares …”
“They’re over now,” Anton said.
“I remember, the bad man made me wear the black skull … did you come to help me?”
Anton felt a twinge of discomfort or something akin to it, but there was no time to pause and wonder why. “We need to help each other. Evendur Highcastle, the ‘bad man’ who put a price on your head, is attacking us. Nobody has been able to hurt him, or at least, not enough for it to matter. But maybe you and your sun god can.”
Stedd shook his head. “I couldn’t pray with the skull around my neck. I couldn’t even think.”
“You have to—”
The world, or at least their little bit of it, heaved up and down. Zombies flailed back and forth as though trying to dance despite the impediment of their leg irons. In the aftermath, Stedd looked shocked, and Anton realized that was only natural. The boy hadn’t been conscious for any of the previous tosses.
“As I was saying,” the pirate continued, “you have to use your power, and that’s the reason why. Evendur will sink us if you don’t.”
“But I’m weak!”
“What matters is, is Lathander weak? That’s not what you told me when we were hiking to Westgate.”
Stedd swallowed. “All right. I’ll try.”
The boy had trouble standing, so Anton helped him. Then they hurried to the companionway and up into the rain.
With commendable discipline, those marines who hadn’t yet tumbled overboard or suffered some other mishap were loosing arrows and crossbow bolts as fast as they could shoot. Still casting magic in concert, Umara and Kymas conjured a fiend with the curling horns of a ram and the leathery wings of a bat and sent it flying at Evendur with its barbed spear leveled.
Yet none of the defenders’ efforts were helping very much. Evendur had a couple more arrows sticking in him, and a couple more charred and torn places in his flesh, but he was only a javelin cast away now and still inexorably advancing. Waves leaped to block the missiles streaking at him; one momentarily assumed the form of a gigantic fish to swallow the bat-winged devil whole.
Stedd gawked at Evendur, then took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Hoping the boy was reestablishing a broad, clear channel down which his god’s power could stream, Anton positioned himself so as to screen him. If the Bitch Queen’s Chosen hadn’t already noticed Stedd on deck, there was no reason to give him a second chance.
The ship wallowed. Anton had the feeling that the unquiet water beneath her was getting ready to fling her into the air once more.
“Take all the time you need,” he said to Stedd. “But if that’s more than another heartbeat, hang on to something.”
“I’m ready now.” Stedd stepped into the open and thrust his hand at Evendur.
The undead pirate’s head jerked in the boy’s direction. Whitecaps broke across the surface of the sea. But before the water could do whatever its master wanted it to, a ray of brilliant light streaked from Stedd’s fingertips, struck Evendur in the center of his massive chest, and set him ablaze—not with fire, but painting him with radiance.
Evendur’s will brought waves leaping over him, but they failed to extinguish the dazzling halo. Then he roared words of power that included the name “Umberlee.” When they too failed, he dived beneath the surface and hurtled along for some distance like an undersea shooting star. And then, at last, the glow went out.
Unfortunately, that meant Anton could no longer see him in the depths. He waited tensely to find out if the undead reaver would return to the fray. Time dragged until it seemed likely the answer was no. A breath later, a sailor let out a cheer, and his fellows joined in.
The moment after that, Stedd collapsed to his knees.
Anton crouched beside him. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” the boy whispered. “Just … that was harder than making all the food … it was the hardest thing yet …”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Kymas said. “You won’t feel tempted to make a fuss when we put your amulet back on and restore you to your friends in the lower tier. This time, I think we’ll tie you up as well.”
“Hold on,” Anton said.
The senior wizard turned to him. “I can see you and Umara have come to a genuine understanding, and I appreciate all you’ve done this morning. I look forward to welcoming you as you deserve. But it will have to wait until the prisoner’s secure. As he just demonstrated, he’s dangerous.”
“The pirates and sunlords both managed to hold him without torturing him.”
Kymas shrugged. “He’s growing more powerful, and in any case, what’s the difference?”
Anton didn’t know, and the prudent part of him urged him to let the matter go. Unfortunately, another part was set on having its way.
“Make me the boy’s warder,” he said. “I’ll manage him without breaking his mind or making him sick. That way, you can be sure he’ll reach Thay alive and fit for whatever you mean to do with him when you get there.”
“An interesting proposal,” Kymas said, “but I prefer the existing arrangements. Now, please, stand aside.” He gazed steadily into Anton’s eyes.
For a moment, Anton felt lightheaded, and then his sensible side finally came to the fore. He drew breath to tell the Red Wizard he could have it his way but then recalled the malaise that had afflicted him among the undead oarsmen. Kymas Nahpret had created that enchantment, and Anton’s sudden willingness to give way likely derived from a similar source.
The Turmishan clenched his fis
ts. “Stay out of my head, you piece of dung.”
Kymas sighed. “This is so perverse of you. I truly did intend to honor whatever promise Umara made you, but by your pugnacity, you’ve forfeited any claim on my good will. Surrender your weapons.”
Anton whipped out his dagger, lunged, grabbed the wizard by the collar, and poised the blade at his throat. “No. You put the boy and me ashore. Or else you and I can die together.”
“You should have opted for your enchanted weapon,” Kymas replied. “Then murdering me would at least be possible, albeit unlikely. My dear, would you please put an end to this farce?”
Umara rattled off rhyming words and pointed at Anton. Pain ripped through his chest, and, gasping, he stiffened.
In that moment of incapacitation, Kymas wrenched himself free. Then he punched Anton in the head.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ANTON FELL TO THE DECK UNCONSCIOUS, AND UMARA LOOKED down at him with a knot of emotions pulling tight in her chest. She couldn’t untangle them all, but she did know she was angry.
Why did you make me do that? she silently asked. Why were you such an idiot?
Kymas gave her a sardonic look. “That was marginally helpful,” he said, “but if I’d been in the mood to brawl, I could have broken free at any time. Why didn’t you cast something a bit more lethal?”
Because she herself wasn’t sure, she made up a lie that ought to satisfy him: “I expended much of my power aboard the pirate ship and nearly all the rest when you and I were fighting the Chosen of Umberlee. I don’t have any lethal spells left.”
“Hm. Well, perhaps it worked out for the best.” The vampire turned to Ehmed Sepandem. “Now that the wizards have attended to all the difficult and dangerous tasks, maybe your men could at least muster the wherewithal to carry our two prisoners down to the lower oars.”
“Yes, lord,” the captain said.
When they all arrived there, Kymas had the mariners drag Stedd to the center of the rowing benches and bind him hand and foot. Then the vampire retrieved a skull-shaped medallion made of black metal from the bilge water and hung it around the boy’s neck. Umara could see Stedd straining to resist the talisman’s influence, but he quickly lapsed into a sort of twitching, shivering trance state nonetheless.
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