Kymas then glanced around at the zombies. The attack on the galley had so thoroughly battered a couple of the creatures as to rob them of animation. Others had suffered broken bones that would hinder them as they sought to row.
“Put our new guest behind an oar,” Kymas said. “He can take up some of the slack.”
“Yes, lord,” said a marine. “Uh, should I kill him? So you can make him like these other things?”
“No,” Kymas said, “just lock him down, and chain his hands to the oar while you’re at it. He can work himself to death here in the dark and the stink with the magic of the amulet gnawing away at him. It will give him the opportunity to reflect on his insolence.”
Umara watched the marines carry out their master’s instructions. Until, surprising herself, she blurted, “Is this truly necessary?”
Kymas regarded her quizzically. “The wretch didn’t just argue with me. He insulted and threatened me. I see no reason to grant him the mercy of a quick death.”
She took a breath. “I was thinking, must we kill him at all? I recognize his transgressions, but I also see that if not for him, we might neither of us be alive or have Lathander’s Chosen in our possession. Doesn’t it—”
“Balance the scales?” Kymas shook his head. “I’m disappointed in you, Red Wizard. What a very un-Thayan way to think.
“The lowly owe the high respect and obedience,” the vampire continued, “whereas the high don’t owe the lowly anything at all. Certainly not fairness, whatever that weakling’s notion actually means.”
Umara realized she’d pushed as hard as she dared. Bowing her head, she said, “Yes, Master. I understand.”
“I hope so. Let’s get out of here.”
Back on deck, Kymas strode briskly toward the cabin under the quarterdeck, but not quite briskly enough. Suddenly, wisps of smoke puffed from his hands and face, and, sizzling, patches of alabaster skin charred black. His protective charm was failing, and despite the clouds and the rain, the light of the hidden sun was burning him.
He sprinted toward the stern, dodged through the wreckage of the fallen masts, threw open the hatch to his cabin, scrambled inside, and slammed it shut behind him. Umara scurried after him, hesitated, then rapped on a detail of the naval battle carved into the panel, a warship stuffed from prow to stern with spearmen.
“Come in,” he said, the hint of an edge in his cultured voice. “The screen is in position to block the light.”
It was, and by the time she stepped around it, his burns were already healing. “I’m glad you’re all right,” she said.
“You should be,” he replied, “considering that it was your foolishness that delayed me below deck.”
“I apologize.”
“The principle I just explained to you—that I shouldn’t have needed to explain—applies at every point up and down the great long ladder that is the world. It applies every bit as much between you and me as it does between your Turmishan friend and me.”
“I know that, lord.”
“Then come ‘apologize’ with your blood.”
As he bared her neck, he murmured, “I know you dislike this. I’ve always known. Do you know why I don’t change your loathing to pleasure?”
She hesitated. “Because a Red Wizard needs to learn to endure that which is difficult?”
“Well, yes, partly. But mostly because your aversion increases the pleasure for me.”
Anton gathered that he must, in his own bellicose and imbecilic fashion, have impressed the Thayans, for they hadn’t contented themselves with chaining down his feet. They’d also looped a set of manacles around his oar before locking them on his wrists, a hindrance that prevented him from reaching the narrow blade hidden in his boot.
The manacles clinked every time he and his zombie benchmate with the skin sloughing off its grub-infested arms and torso hauled on their oar. After a while, he’d realized he was croaking out his reminiscences, tall tales, and sea shanties in time to the beat.
“So the sea giant said, ‘If that’s the Pool of Love, why does it bubble and smoke?’ And I said …”
Curse it, what had the clever original hero of the story said to convince the wicked giant to dive into the lava? Anton’s mother had told him the tale dozens of times, but now he couldn’t remember.
Blame exhaustion, the fetid air, or the debilitating aura of the skull medallion. Perhaps because Anton wasn’t currently attempting to remove the amulet from around Stedd’s neck, the effect wasn’t hitting him as hard, but he could still feel it in his body and mind alike.
He wracked his brain for several pulls on the oar, then gave up and started a new story. “You may have noticed that unlike many another pirate—or all these Thayans—I don’t have any tattoos. But I used to. I was covered from the neck down. And this is the story of how I lost them.
“The Iron Jest,” he continued, “had been through a storm so terrible it left every sail in tatters. If we didn’t mend them, we’d never make port. But when we checked the ship’s stores, we discovered we’d forgotten to stow any thread.
“So I took my dagger and picked at a bit of the tattooing on my left big toe until I dug the end of a line of ink out of my skin. Then I pinched it between my thumb and forefinger and started pulling very carefully.”
“What?” Stedd mumbled.
Anton grinned. He’d talked and sung his throat raw in an effort to rouse the boy despite the power of the skull talisman, but he’d nearly given up hope of it working.
“Never mind,” he said. “Just wake all the way up. But don’t squirm around.”
He didn’t want the overseer of the lower tier to realize Stedd was awake. Fortunately, the Thayan had already proved to be a lackadaisical supervisor, happy to stay by the companionway outside the aura of the amulet so long as Anton kept rowing. And if the pirate and the boy prophet kept their voices low, the creak of the oars should cover the sound of their conversation.
Stedd’s eyes fluttered open. “I’m sick …”
“You’re exhausted and wearing that filthy skull again. But you have to raise the power to free yourself.”
Stedd grimaced. “I don’t think I can. Not like this. It’s just too much.”
There was a demoralizing certainty in the lad’s voice, but Anton struggled to keep any hint of defeatism out of his own. “Surely not too much for the fighter who destroyed Evendur Highcastle.”
“I didn’t destroy him. He’d already used up a lot of his own strength, and you and the wizards had already hurt him some. So I was able to hurt him more. Enough to chase him off. But that was all.”
“If we’re not done with him, that’s all the more reason for you to get us free.”
“All right, I’ll try.” The boy stared at the planking over their heads as though hoping by sheer force of will to peer through it to the sky beyond. His lips moved as he whispered his entreaties. But Anton couldn’t see anything happening in response, not even the faintest, briefest flicker of conjured light, and finally Stedd said, “I’m sorry.”
Anton sighed. “So am I.”
“But this isn’t the end. As long as we don’t give up, we’ll find a way.”
A muscle in the Turmishan’s back gave him a twinge and made him suck in a breath. “Boy, I don’t give up. Ever. But I don’t care if you are Chosen, whatever that really means; you need to get over thinking that destiny or some friendly god is going to make everything come out all right. That’s not how the world works.”
“I don’t think that. Not exactly. But—”
“Show me the divine hand manifest in what’s happened to you so far. Everybody lied and betrayed everybody else. Everyone wanted to kill you or peddle you to those who would. It’s not exactly the sort of inspirational fable the priests like to tell. It’s what that dastard Kymas called it: a farce. A bloody, random comedy of errors.”
“Everything is different than I thought it would be, back when Lathander first spoke to me. I’m scared a lot of the time
. But I need to go east, and you know what? I am. You took me part of the way, and the Thayans are taking me farther.”
Anton frowned. He hadn’t looked at the situation like that. Probably because it was a ridiculous perspective.
“It’s not going to help you,” he said, “that Thay just happens to lie at the eastern end of the Inner Sea. You won’t even lay eyes on Sapra as the galley sails on by.”
“Maybe. But it isn’t true that nobody’s really my friend. There were Questele and the other Moonstars, and now there’s you.”
“By the fork, mooncalf, haven’t you figured me out even now? I didn’t sneak into the House of the Sun or chase after the galley to rescue you. The sordid truth is, I never stopped intending to sell you to Evendur. It was just another droll twist in the plot of the farce that put him and me on opposite sides today.”
“I did figure that out,” Stedd answered, “and I don’t like it. But then you tried to help me when the Red Wizard said he was going to hang the skull on me again.”
“And I have no idea why. But you can rest assured that if I had the moment to live over again, I’d cheerfully drop the chain over your head myself.”
“I don’t believe that. Why do you want to be bad? You try so hard that when a good feeling pushes you to do something, you don’t even see that’s the reason why.”
Inwardly, Anton flinched. “Has your Morninglord been telling you the alleged secrets of my innermost heart?”
“No. It doesn’t work like that. But sometimes I understand things I wouldn’t have before.”
“Well, this isn’t one of those occasions. I don’t have to try to be bad. I am bad, and I have a string of outrages and atrocities to prove it.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“Enough prattle! Pray. Meditate. Find some magic to set us free.”
Lying in filthy bilge water, Stedd presumably resumed trying to do precisely that, albeit, to no more effect than before. At least the absence of twitching and jerking provided reassurance that he hadn’t slipped back into nightmare-ridden delirium.
Meanwhile, Anton felt pains flower throughout his body. He was strong and fit but lacked the calluses and specially developed musculature of a galley slave, and he was paying for it. The ordeal would have been even more taxing if he hadn’t figured out how to let his putrescent but indefatigable benchmate do more than its fair share of the labor. Unfortunately, he couldn’t let the zombie do too much more than half, lest the overseer take notice.
In time, Anton also learned that even with the sun hidden behind the rainclouds, he could guess the passage of time by the way the feeble daylight shined through the outriggers. Thus, he judged it was late afternoon when, robed in scarlet and magenta, her head newly shaved, her cheek bruised where he’d pinched it, Umara descended the companionway.
“Be quiet and keep still,” Anton whispered. He suspected the wizard intended a closer inspection than any the overseer had made of late, and he didn’t want Stedd to give himself away.
Somewhat to the pirate’s surprise, Umara gave the Thayan mariner permission to vacate his post for a while, and the man clomped up the steep shallow steps. Then the mage headed down the central aisle.
She gazed down at Stedd with a somber expression that hinted at regret, but her jaw tightened as she stepped around him to reach Anton. She backhanded the reaver across the face; her rings tore his cheek.
“Idiot!” she snarled.
For some reason, Anton could only laugh, even though it made his sundry aches hurt worse. “Is that how Thayans apologize?”
“I have nothing to apologize for!”
“No,” he said, “you don’t.” Deciding she likely wouldn’t object if he let the zombie do all the rowing, he uncurled his raw fingers from the oar. Even that hurt; they didn’t want to straighten out.
“What possessed you to defy a Red Wizard and a squad of marines standing ready to assist him?”
“I relish a challenge? It seemed like a shrewd idea at the time? Truly, I can’t explain the impulse. Some passing madness, I suppose.”
“And now you have to die for it.”
“Are you here to do the honors?”
She scowled as though he’d bruised her feelings. “Kymas doesn’t mean to let you off that easily.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised. Why did you come, then?”
She reached into a concealed pocket and brought out a little silver flask. When she offered it, he drank without hesitation, for after all, who would waste poison on a man in his situation?
The liquid burned like some unfamiliar sweetish liquor, but its analgesic properties took effect far more quickly than that of alcohol alone. One mouthful made Anton’s assortment of pains dwindle significantly.
Umara reclaimed the flask and screwed the cap back on. “You won’t wake up stiff, either.”
“You mean they’re eventually going to let me rest? I’d just about concluded your crew can’t repair the rigging to raise a sail.”
“They can’t. In fact, Evendur Highcastle crippled the galley in several ways. We lost one of the side tillers, and we’re taking on water as fast as we can pump it out. Captain Sepandem plans to limp to the coast and, if possible, find a shipyard and put in for repairs. If it’s not possible, we’ll continue our journey on land.”
“Through the wilds of Gulthandor? That should be entertaining. Perhaps Lord Kymas will let me tag along as a porter.”
Umara put away the flask and produced a split biscuit with a slice of fried fish in the middle. The aroma flooded Anton’s mouth with saliva, and he took the food and gobbled it down. The bread was stale and hard, and the fish cold and greasy, but he was too hungry for it to matter.
“That was all I could bring,” the wizard said.
“I’m sure it was tastier than whatever scraps my keeper will eventually toss my way.”
“And it’s all I can do for you.”
“It’s more than I expected.”
“I mean it. I won’t be back. Not like this. My duty is my duty, my path is my path, and that’s all there is to it.”
“Truly, I understand. You have a respectable place among your people. Ambitions, too, I imagine. You can’t just throw them away.”
“No,” she said, “I can’t.” She looked at him for another moment, then turned away.
Stedd said, “Wait!”
Startled, Umara gaped down at the boy, and Anton felt an impotent urge to grab him and smack him. Didn’t the empty-headed child realize that the possibility of him eventually channeling more magic, however remote that possibility might be, was the best chance they had? And he’d just thrown it away.
“You’re conscious,” Umara said.
“Yes.” Stedd tried to sit up despite the impediment of his bonds.
After a moment, Umara helped him lift his upper body out of the bilge water and settled him against the end of a bench. “How?” she asked.
“Anton talked to me to help me wake up. And maybe I’m getting used to the skull. I mean, just a little. I can’t reach out to Lathander, so don’t worry about that.”
“Then why reveal you’re awake?” the wizard asked.
“So I can talk to you,” Stedd replied. “You and Anton are just alike. He thinks he has to be bad. You think you have to be what you are. But you don’t. You can change.”
Umara sighed. “You’re a bright boy, Stedd. I could tell the moment I met you. But you’re talking about things a child can’t understand.”
“You’re wrong. Even with the skull around my neck, I still see things.”
She hesitated. “Like what?”
“Like, you don’t even want to go where you’re going. Not really. You like magic, but hardly anything else about your life.”
“So I should throw it all away to help you? No. I’m not a traitor.”
“Lathander doesn’t want you to be. He wants you to make your country better.”
Umara blinked. “What, now?”
Even in the gloom, Stedd’s blue eyes seemed to shine. “It’s … you’re right. I don’t understand everything. How could I, when I’ve never even been to your land? But it’s like there are two Thays. A real one, and one you dream about.”
“I don’t dream about it. Like any educated person, I know that a hundred years ago, Thay was different. But I’m not obsessed with the past. I’m getting on with my life.”
“Anything that changed once can change again. There’s a new dawn every day, even when people can’t see it behind the clouds.”
“That may be, but it’s ridiculous to tell me to go change Thay. I’m one person!”
“You can’t do it all yourself, but you can be part of it. Maybe a big part. Only, not if you just keep doing what you’re told no matter how low or mean it is. You have to start listening to your heart. Then Lathander can help you.”
Umara snorted. “Why would he? The old Thay, the Thay you imagine I’d want to restore, was his enemy.”
“But it was still better than the land you have now. And if it came back, maybe it could get better still.”
The Red Wizard stood silent for a breath or two, then shook her head. “It was a good try, child. But some lies are just too absurd for anyone to believe.”
Stedd frowned up at her. “I don’t lie. That’s the two of you.”
“Well, I’m truly sorry I ever deceived you, and sorrier still for what’s coming. But I can’t do anything about it.” She turned and waded back up the aisle with her scarlet robes dragging in the bilge water.
As she disappeared up the companionway, Anton said, “It was a good try, but also a rotten choice of tactics. There was never any hope of persuading her.”
“I guess,” Stedd said, and now he simply seemed like a sad, tired little boy, without even a hint of divine inspiration in his manner. “At least she didn’t make me go back to sleep.”
The Reaver Page 17
