Frowning, Anton realized that was true, she hadn’t, and for a while, he wondered if Stedd’s plea actually might have struck a chord with Umara. But as he toiled through the night and into the following day, exhaustion made every pull on the oar a torment, and the power of the skull medallion scraped away at his manhood and obliged him to struggle against recurring urges to weep and beg the overseer for mercy, he decided it plainly hadn’t.
But then, when it was afternoon once more, the mariner abruptly slumped, slid off the little seat built into the corner, and started snoring. And a moment later, Umara descended the steps with Anton’s saber and a cutlass tucked under her arm.
She plucked an iron key from the overseer’s belt and hurried down the aisle. She then pulled the chain from around Stedd’s neck, flung it away like Anton had, and unlocked the Turmishan’s manacles.
“I don’t know why I’m doing this,” she growled.
Anton grinned. “Blame the lad. Clearly, his greatest magic is the ability to rob folk of their common sense.”
Evendur floated in the endless green waters of Umberlee’s otherworldly ocean. Enormous eels and sawsharks came swimming to inspect him.
He didn’t recall passing from one level of reality to another to reach waters that would douse Lathander’s burning light and help him recover his strength. Maybe he’d done it instinctively. But it was also possible the Queen of the Depths had drawn him here, and not for healing but for judgment.
Suddenly, she came swimming out of nowhere—or rather, out of another hidden doorway from one place to another—with gigantic great whites, krakens, jellyfish, and sea dragons swimming in attendance. Huge and terrible as the apparition that had risen from the pool in the temple had been, it barely hinted at the awful majesty of the goddess in her latest form, the trident tall as a tower in one clawed and scaly hand, the least of the shells that made up her jewelry as big as wagon wheels, and her mane of kelp and gelatinous cloak streaming and swirling around her. Evendur felt like a speck of plankton drifting in front of a whale.
As in the temple, he struggled against the urge to plead that if the goddess would only give him the chance to finish his task, he could still capture the boy. In all likelihood, excuses and assurances would only anger her further, and in truth, for the fearful part of him that a man kept hidden from the world, it was easier to remain silent in the face of her transcendent malice and disgust.
A colossal shark glided closer to him and opened its jaws. Umberlee’s eyes followed it. They were like immense black pearls, yet at the same time, whirlpools spinning down into annihilation.
Evendur steeled himself against the terror howling inside him. He meant to perish without letting it out. That, it seemed, was the only thing left to him.
Then, however, the shark veered off just before its toothy maw would otherwise have engulfed him. Had Umberlee really only ever meant to scare him? Or, at the final instant, had his display of courage blunted her fury? He had no way of knowing, nor, at this moment of reprieve, did he care.
“I made you my vessel,” the Bitch Queen said. “You are the fangs that tear, the jaws that clamp, the tentacles that snare and sting. Yet a child bested you. Fail again, and you will pray to me through endless eons to send a hungry beast to end your suffering.”
With that, she wheeled, and her monstrous entourage turned with her. The flukes of her scaly mermaid tail were as long as many a city street, and when she swept them downward, the motion created a surge that tumbled Evendur through the water.
Umara gave Anton the key, the saber and cutlass, and the silver flask containing what remained of the analgesic elixir. As he bent to unlock his leg irons, she drew her dagger and crouched down in the bilge water to cut Stedd’s bonds, while the reeking zombies rowed obliviously onward.
By the time she finished freeing the boy and helping him to his feet, Anton was rising, also. She frowned to see that despite drinking what remained of the elixir, he had difficulty straightening all the way up and flexing his fingers with their broken blisters.
He gave her a crooked smile. “If my condition distresses you, you should have come to your change of heart sooner. Or brought another dram of potion. You didn’t, did you?”
She shook her head. “There wasn’t any more.”
“Well, I’ll be all right.” The pirate drew his saber and cut at the air. “Once I move around enough to work the kinks out. What’s the plan?”
“One that I hope won’t even require you to fight. Kymas is a vampire—”
“Oh, splendid!”
“I hope that for us, it will be. It’s afternoon. He ought to be sound asleep in his coffin. I’m going to stab a stake through his heart and then cut his head off.”
“And afterward, the crew won’t think anything about it?”
“Afterward, I’ll be the only Red Wizard left aboard.” She smiled. “And where I come from, killing one’s superior is an acknowledged way of climbing the ‘great long ladder.’ ”
Anton smiled back. “It’s reassuring that you actually aren’t doing this because the boy’s blather drove you insane or, worse, moral.”
“Hey!” said Stedd.
Anton stayed focused on Umara. “Make me invisible again and I can come with you.”
“I thought of that, but no. For pure sneaking, one is better than two even if the second sneak is veiled in magic.”
“I suppose. Especially in the rain. Then what do you want me to do while you’re busy staking and beheading?”
“Just stay here. It will be as safe as anywhere. Come running if you hear a commotion. Or, if you see that it’s too late to help me, do whatever you can for yourself and Stedd.”
“All right. Good hunting. And thank you.”
“Thank me when it’s done.” She gave Stedd a smile, squeezed his shoulder, and headed for the companionway.
Her heart pounded as she stepped back up into the rain, agitated by the irrational fear that somehow, all the sailors and marines would perceive she’d just gone from being Kymas’s faithful lieutenant to his would-be murderer. But no one gave her a second glance.
She took a deep breath, looked around, and found Ehmed glowering at the crewmen laboring to repair the damaged side tiller. She beckoned to him as she approached, and he strode to meet her.
“Lady Sir,” he said, “how can I serve you?”
“You know,” she said, “what manner of being Lord Kymas is. So you know that unless he works magic to transcend his normal limits, he sleeps—and sleeps deeply—during the day.”
“If you say so. You’re the mage. You understand the nature of … of gentlemen like that better than I do.”
“I also understand,” Umara said, “why under normal circumstances, Lord Kymas prefers to keep his precise resting place a secret even from me. But unfortunately, our situation isn’t normal anymore. The ship could go down at any time.”
Ehmed frowned. “The men and I will get you to shore.”
“I believe you will if anyone can. Still, if we do sink, Kymas may well require my magic to save him. So I need you to tell me where his coffin is.”
The captain cocked his head. “How would I know?”
“Because it’s your galley. You must know where the secret compartment is.”
“I would if there was one, but there isn’t. I never saw a coffin come aboard, but I figured it was in my … I mean, in his cabin. Haven’t you seen it there?”
“No.” Nor could she imagine how he could have fit such a large object in amid all the clutter. “But you know what? I’m fussing over nothing. We aren’t going to sink, certainly not before nightfall, and when Kymas wakes, I’ll ask him where the box is.”
“That makes sense to me, Lady Sir.” Ehmed paused. “Is there anything else?”
“No, Captain, thank you.”
“Then I’d better get back to directing the men.”
Ehmed returned to the damaged tiller, and she made her way past a pair of mariners working a pump an
d followed the hose down into the cargo hold aft of the lower banks of oars. Despite the pump team’s dogged efforts, water sloshed around her feet and partway up her calves.
She was now underneath Kymas’s cabin, and she could imagine him retiring there at daybreak, then changing to mist and passing through some tiny opening down to this space, where his coffin actually resided. But when she whispered a charm and set a patch of bulkhead alight, she didn’t see it.
That didn’t actually surprise her. If the box was down here, it was surely either invisible or wrapped in illusion. She murmured a counterspell to strip such concealments away.
Nothing changed.
It was possible she simply hadn’t mustered the force necessary to disrupt the original enchantment, but she doubted it. Kymas was the more powerful wizard overall, but she fancied herself his equal at casting and penetrating veils.
If he wasn’t down here, he must actually be in the cabin. Somehow.
She climbed back topside and headed for the carved hatch under the still-drooping awning. No one would suspect anything amiss if she passed through readily. But if somebody noticed her having difficulty, he might realize she was entering without permission.
She turned the handle and pulled. The hatch shifted minutely, then caught in the frame.
So she whispered a word of opening. The lock clicked, and the hatch hitched open. She slipped inside and closed it behind her.
The magical candles and torches were still burning as they would for centuries unless some spellcaster went to the trouble to extinguish them. The greenish light gleamed on the rack of staves, Ehmed’s suit of half plate on its stand, the little metal automaton, currently draped motionless atop the sea chest as it awaited a new command, and all the rest of the jumbled articles Umara had seen on previous visits. Rainwater dripped through a pair of new leaks in the timbers overhead.
Umara recited the same spell of revelation she’d cast in the hold, and with the same lack of results. Nothing hitherto unseen popped into view, and everything that had already been visible remained as it was.
Yet, she reflected, scowling, if the coffin was here, wizardry had to be hiding it somehow. Whirling her hands in spiral patterns, her fingertips trailing crimson phosphorescence, she recited a spell intended to indicate the presence of any sort of magic.
In response, the entire cabin seemed to glow with rainbow colors, because so many of the articles before her bore enchantments. Kymas must have enchanted nearly every item he’d brought on the journey—or had some underling attend to the chore—at least in one petty fashion or another, and even the evicted Ehmed had left a couple magical belongings behind. There was simply no way to pick out the spell concealing the coffin from all the others.
Umara wondered how much time remained before sundown. Not much, she suspected. Perhaps not much at all.
She started picking through the articles in the cabin, examining the cramped space by feel as well as sight. Her mouth was dry, and her pulse quickened. The jangling tautness in her nerves demanded that she rush, but she forced herself to remain methodical.
Yet even so, she nearly passed over the oblong carnelian box on one of the built-in shelves. She was already turning away when it struck her how exactly it resembled a certain type of Thayan sarcophagus.
She found that she couldn’t simply lift the lid and look inside. A ward was holding it in place, and she’d have to disrupt it. But as she drew breath to do so, she was already certain what she’d find.
Magic could change the size of a person or object. To a shapeshifter like a vampire, such spells likely came easily, and she was glad of it. She liked the thought of her proud master perishing while shrunk to the size of a doll.
Metal clinked, and then something bumped between her shoulder blades and clung there, yanking her cowl off her head as it scrabbled for purchase. A shrill brassy tone like the blare of a glaur horn jabbed into her ears.
Startled, she faltered, and something sharp stabbed into the skin on the left side of her neck. An instant later, a little hinged arm of red and black metal whipped around the right side of her head, and tiny fingers with needle points clawed at her eye. She flinched away, and they tore her cheek instead.
She reached behind her and yanked her small attacker from its perch. She felt a twinge as its fingers pulled free of her neck and hoped she hadn’t just ripped her own skin too badly.
Grunting, she threw her assailant against the screen in front of the hatch. Still emitting the brassy wail, it fell with a clatter and then rolled to its feet.
As she’d realized as soon as she saw its arm, it was Kymas’s little metal golem. It hadn’t been inert after all. It had been surreptitiously standing watch and sprung into action when she touched the shrunken stone coffin.
The automaton poised its hands to claw and grab, flexed its knees, and sprang upward. She backhanded it and knocked it flying into the rack of staves.
Once again, the metal puppet scrambled up as soon as it fit the floor, but this time, she was ready for it. Backing away to the minimal extent the close quarters allowed, she rattled off words of wrath and thrust out her arm. Her fingertips throbbed, and darts of blue light shot out of them to pierce her attacker and tear it to shreds. The blaring died.
She felt a surge of satisfaction. Then other fingers, full-size this time, grabbed her from behind and threw her face first into the screen. The collision made it fall back into the hatch and then crash to the floor. She fell right along with it.
She was half stunned, but instinct made her flounder over into a sitting position to face the new threat. No doubt roused by the racket the marionette had made, Kymas loomed over her. She thought dazedly that she was sorry she’d missed seeing him emerge from the coffin and grow to normal size. That would have been interesting.
“I can respect the desire to eliminate me,” he said, exposing fangs that had already extended, “but not your judgment. You should have waited until you were stronger.” He stooped and reached for her.
She was certain that no attack she could cast in the instant remaining would stop him. Investing it with every iota of willpower she could muster, she screamed the word of opening instead.
With a crash, the hatch flew open. Banging, the storm covers did, too. Gray daylight shined through the openings, and Kymas’s hairless head and alabaster hands burst into flame.
The vampire roared and flailed. Umara snatched for the stake concealed in her robe. If she could stab it into his heart, that would be the end of him.
But despite the fiery agony he was suffering, Kymas caught the stake in mid-thrust. He jerked it away from her, reversed it, and swept it down at her.
She flung herself to the side, and the stake made a cracking sound as the point slammed against the floor. She scrambled out onto the deck before he could try again.
The hatch slammed shut behind her, and with a ragged clattering, the storm covers did the same. Kymas apparently possessed a charm of closing as potent as her word of opening.
Umara knew what would happen next. The blaze consuming the vampire’s substance would gutter out. He’d shield himself against the sunlight and perhaps take another moment to start healing his burns. Then he’d come after her.
The sailors had heard the racket in the cabin, witnessed her frantic, scuttling withdrawal, and now they were gaping at her. She drew herself up straight and attempted to cloak herself in the haughty aura of command proper to a Red Wizard.
“Kymas,” she shouted, “is a traitor and means to kill us all. When he comes out, attack him!”
She couldn’t tell if anyone believed her or meant to obey, nor did she have time for persuasion. She raised her hands to conjure a blast of fire, spoke the first crackling word of the incantation, and then realized that any magic that further damaged the already crippled galley might result in her death even if Kymas’s retribution didn’t.
Anton, she decided, had been right. Stedd really had robbed her of every trace of sense.
Despite the rain pattering on the deck overhead, Anton heard a brassy note cutting through the air. Next came banging, and then the sound of Umara shouting.
Stedd asked, “What was she saying?”
“I couldn’t make the words out, either, but she told us to consider noise the call to battle. Can you blast Kymas the way you blasted Evendur? Or work any magic to hurt him or slow him down?”
“I don’t think so. Not yet.”
“Then keep hiding. If neither Umara nor I come back for you … well, you’ll have to think of something.”
With that, Anton climbed the companionway. He half expected crewmen to start shouting and rush him the moment he slipped up onto the desk, but they didn’t. Everyone was busy staring at the galley’s stern—
—where Kymas Nahpret stood casting about with the carved hatch to his cabin standing ajar behind him. The vampire had charred patches on his ivory face and hands but the failing, feeble light of an overcast dusk wasn’t inflicting any new burns. He must have shielded himself against the sun.
Unlike those who served him, Kymas oriented on Anton immediately. The undead mage stared, and despite the intervening distance, the pirate felt a surge of lightheadedness. He couldn’t remember why everything had seemed so dangerous and urgent just a moment before.
Then crimson light rippled over the vampire’s body. Above and behind him on the quarterdeck, Umara appeared with her hand outstretched. She’d breached her invisibility by making a mystical attack.
Unfortunately, the spell didn’t appear to have harmed Kymas, but it did make him whirl in Umara’s direction. When he did, Anton’s head cleared.
The Turmishan drew his blades and charged down the strip of deck that ran between the upper banks of oars. Now lashed in place, the fallen mainmast took up part of the walkway.
Anton’s dash snagged the attention of some of the Thayan mariners, distracted though they were. A couple oarsmen—two of the ones who were still alive instead of zombies—started to scramble up from the benches onto the deck with the manifest intention of blocking the way. But then someone called, “Belay that!” Whereupon the rowers faltered.
The Reaver Page 18
