by Tim Waggoner
“I wonder if we’ll learn the truth about them,” Asenka asked.
“If we do, we won’t be able to speak of it to others,” Tresslar said. “We are now physically incapable of speaking, writing, or in any way communicating information regarding the Turnabout to anyone who is not already bound by the magic of the Oathbinder. And remember what Thokk asked us? To swear that we wouldn’t reveal any of the ship’s secrets. He didn’t limit us to just the one secret, either.”
Anger clouded Yvka’s delicate features. “You knew that and didn’t tell us? Who knows what we might learn about the Turnabout and her crew? And we won’t be able to tell anyone? Ever?”
“I’m sure you’re employers would’ve preferred you didn’t take the oath,” Tresslar said. “But I saw no point in informing the rest of you about the scope of the promise we allowed ourselves to be mystically bound to. I want the Amahau back, and swearing that oath was the only way to ensure that we reach Trebaz Sinara as swiftly as possible. We all had to swear. If even one of us refused, Onu would never have given the command to use the ship’s elementals.”
Yvka looked as if she’d gladly cut Tresslar’s throat right then, but she fell silent. Ghaji knew that as an operative of the Shadow Network, it galled her to be tricked into anything, let alone being tricked into taking a magically-binding oath as broad in scope as this one. Secrets were the Network’s stock in trade, but what good were secrets to an operative if she couldn’t use them?
Ghaji was about to say something to Yvka, but before he could, the three containment rings flared to life as the pilots seated within the towers activated the spells that woke the air elementals. Gusts of wind blasted forth from the rings to fill the Turnabout’s sails, and the galleon leaped forward, the sudden acceleration almost knocking the companions off their feet.
They were on their way to Trebaz Sinara at last.
It shouldn’t be long now.”
Nathifa stood at the prow of the Zephyr, her bloodless white hands gripping the ice-covered railing. She looked eastward into the darkness, toward Trebaz Sinara. Skarm sat in the pilot’s seat behind the glowing containment ring, keeping the air elemental active. The barghest, while possessing more stamina than a mortal creature, was on the brink of exhaustion. The magic that controlled the elemental was contained within the pilot’s chair itself, but wielding that magic still required the contribution of the pilot’s will. Someone trained in using the seat’s magic could do so with minimum effort, but Skarm had no such training. Thus the energy drain on the barghest was significant. Not that Nathifa cared what happened to Skarm. All that concerned her was reaching Trebaz Sinara and obtaining the last object she needed to realize her dark dreams—and those of her mistress, of course.
The lich sorceress sensed more than heard Makala approach her from behind. A moment later, the vampire joined Nathifa at the railing.
“Haaken is still sleeping. And before you ask, I didn’t take any of his blood … much as I might have wanted to.”
“I would’ve known if you’d tried. And I would’ve punished you.”
Makala smiled, as if to show that Nathifa’s threat didn’t impress her. The vampire was becoming far too bold, and the lich was beginning to regret accepting her as a servant. She reminded herself that Vol sent Makala to her, and that meant the vampire had an important role to play in fulfilling the queen’s plan. But Nathifa vowed to continue keeping close watch on the woman, for she had no doubt that Makala was going to attempt some manner of treachery, and sooner rather than later.
“Why does the man sleep so much?” Makala asked. “He’s no longer human, but he still seems to possess a human’s weaknesses.”
“He’s no longer only human,” Nathifa corrected. “He still requires rest, though less than a mortal needs. While you slumbered during the day, Haaken spent several hours practicing his new skills. He’s unused to transforming back and forth between his various forms, and he’s unaccustomed to the physical exertion of swimming so much.”
Letting Haaken swim meant deactivating the air elemental so that he could keep up with the Zephyr. Nathifa didn’t like slowing down and adding hours to their journey, but Haaken would be useless to her as a servant if he didn’t possess at least a minimal mastery of his lycanthropic skills. Nathifa forced herself to view the delay as an investment, though it wasn’t easy. She’d bided her time for a hundred years, but now that the culmination of everything she had worked for was finally at hand, she found herself becoming increasingly impatient, almost as if she were a mortal woman again.
She gazed up at the night sky. The cloud cover was light, and the Ring of Siberys was visible off to the south, a luminescent band of golden dragonshards that encircled the world high above the equator. A number of Eberron’s twelve moons could be seen as well, four of them full and bright.
Nathifa frowned. Something tickled at the edges of her memory … something about full moons and sailing on the Lhazaar. It was a memory from her living days, when she and her two brothers had raided throughout the Principalities. But she couldn’t quite—
The moons dimmed and winked out, followed closely by the Ring of Siberys. Nathifa was a lich, and thus couldn’t know fear, but she felt something distantly akin to that emotion as she looked up at the black sky.
“The sky’s gone dark,” Makala said. “Is a storm coming?” The vampire didn’t sound afraid, merely curious.
Nathifa struggled to call on more memories from her life as a mortal woman. “It doesn’t feel like a storm. You can smell a storm coming, even when it’s still miles away.” Not that she could—her sense of smell had died with her mortal body a century ago. But the vampire’s senses were sharp, and Makala should be able to detect a change in the wind’s scent.
The wind began to kick up then, almost as if purposefully contradicting Nathifa’s words. It gathered strength quickly, and was soon blowing with gale force, the air so cold that even Nathifa’s undead flesh could feel it, and for the first time since she’d died, Nathifa shivered.
“It certainly feels like a storm to me!” Makala had to shout to be heard over the roaring of the wind.
“It’s worse than that!” Haaken shouted. “It’s a Ragestorm!”
The two undead creatures turned to see Haaken approaching. Though the newly reborn lycanthrope wore only the black trunks Nathifa had given him, he appeared unaffected by the wind’s icy blast. Nevertheless, the fear he felt was evident in the panicked expression on his face as he gazed up at the blackened sky.
It had been many years since Nathifa had sailed the Lhazaar as a living woman, but she was confident she’d never heard of anything called a Ragestorm. She was about to demand Haaken tell them what he knew, but the lycanthrope spun and headed aft.
“We have to deactivate the elemental!” he shouted over his shoulder as he made his way across the ice-covered deck toward the pilot’s seat. Skarm still sat, hand pressed palm down on the control arm of the chair, keeping the air elemental active.
Nathifa felt a surge of anger. Haaken was her servant, and she should be giving orders to him, not the other way around. But the man’s sailing experience was far more recent than hers, and she decided to trust that he knew what he was doing. She once again looked skyward to see what she might be able to discern about this Ragestorm.
Despite the absence of moon and starlight, Nathifa’s undead eyes could see well enough to make out an amorphous, shifting cloud hovering over the Zephyr. Some portions of swirling vapor seemed to form suggestions of eyes and mouths—dozens of them. The gale buffeting the sloop blasted down from the cloud, and Nathifa thought the creature—for she was certain the thing, whatever it was, was alive—resembled an air elemental. Or, more accurately, a number of air elementals that had joined together. She sensed malevolence in the cloud, a deep, fierce anger.
“Perhaps we should consider taking shelter in the cabin!” Makala shouted, her voice edged with terror. “Or better yet, the hold!” The vampire, despite her great st
rength, was having trouble withstanding the force of the Ragestorm. She held onto the handrail for support, gripping it so tight that her fingernails sank into the wood. No doubt she was terrified of being hurled overboard by the gale-force winds, since vampires were weakened by running water. A fast-flowing river was dangerous enough, but the Lhazaar Sea was another degree of peril entirely.
Still, Nathifa ignored Makala’s suggestion. The lich hadn’t been one to run away from a fight when she was alive, and death hadn’t changed that aspect of her personality.
Haaken came stumbling back toward the Zephyr’s prow, a terrified Skarm in tow.
“We deactivated the elemental, but I fear we were too late!” Haakan shouted. “The Ragestorm has our scent now, and it won’t let go of us until it gets what it wants!”
“And that is …?” Nathifa asked.
Haaken kept his eyes on the roiling cloud above them as he answered. “A Ragestorm is a group of air elementals that were once bound in containment rings on sailing vessels or airships. During the Last War, when elemental vessels were damaged in battle and their air elementals were released, sometimes they merged into a single creature. I’m not sure why—something to do with the release of the magic within the containment rings themselves. Once a Ragestorm is created, its only purpose is to seek out other bound elementals of its kind, free them, and absorb them into its mass, growing larger and stronger. The Ragestorm sensed our air elemental and was drawn to our ship. But though we shut down our containment ring, the storm knows we have an air elemental onboard, and it won’t leave until it’s absorbed it!”
Nathifa looked back up at the Ragestorm with renewed interest and pondered what, if anything, her magic might be able to do to drive the creature off, if not destroy it altogether. Elementals of any stripe were notoriously hard to work with, and it required a high degree of mystic finesse and skill to deal with them. Nathifa had no training in the handling of elementals, and very little practical experience to drawn on. She wished she had Espial with her, but the obsidian skull that allowed her to hear her mistress’s voice was inside the cabin, and she feared there wasn’t time to retrieve it. She would’ve liked to consult her goddess on the best way to deal with the Ragestorm. But then, Vol preferred to help those who helped themselves.
The wind increased until it felt as if claws of ice raked their flesh. Nathifa could feel a column of air surround her, and a quick glance told her the others were experiencing the same thing. The Ragestorm was reaching out with invisible hands and grabbing hold of each of them. She felt air spinning rapidly around her, pressing inward with each revolution. The Ragestorm was attempting to crush them. Accompanying the sensation of increasing pressure was a feeling of movement, as if Nathifa were being lifted upward by the small whirlwind that had taken hold of her. But her feet remained on the Zephyr’s deck, as did the others’. She was puzzled for a moment until she realized that they were being lifted upward because the ship itself was rising. The Ragestorm had grasped the sloop within its winds and was bearing the craft aloft, most likely intending to dash the Zephyr back into the sea, cracking the ship open like an egg, destroying the containment ring, and releasing its trapped brother. Voices shrieked in the wind, screaming rage in a language Nathifa didn’t recognize, though she was able to divine the basic meaning from the tone.
You hunt us …
… capture us, enslave us …
Now it is we who hunt you …
You shall pay for what you’ve done to us, what you’ve done to our brother …
Nathifa knew that she had only seconds to act to prevent the Ragestorm from ruining everything she had worked so long and hard for, had sacrificed so much for …
She knew only a little about elementals, but from what Haaken had said, the release of mystic energy which occurred when the containment rings were destroyed acted as a binding agent of some sort, fusing the elementals and holding them together. But if a different sort of mystic energy were introduced into the mix, perhaps the binding agent could be disrupted.
You shall pay …
… pay, pay, pay!
The column of whirling air that pressed against her like the squeezing hand of an invisible giant prevented her from filling her lungs, and without enough air to speak, she couldn’t use any spells that required a spoken component. And since her arms were pinned to her sides by the Ragestorm, the same went for spells that needed mystic gestures. That severely limited her options. If only she held the Amahau … but no, she’d left it back in the cabin. For safekeeping, of all things.
PAY, PAY, PAY!
She felt her ribs beginning to crack under the pressure the Ragestorm applied, and though she experienced no pain, she didn’t relish the idea of being an undead ragdoll, her body crushed to the point of uselessness. With no time left, she chose to forego subtlety in favor of sheer power. She concentrated on gathering the necromantic energies at the core of her foul being—the dark power that dwelled where her mortal lifeforce once had—and using only the power of her will, she thrust the energy toward what she sensed was the heart of the elemental conglomerate that held them and their ship in its grasp.
A bolt of crackling ebon energy lanced forth from Nathifa’s forehead and streaked into what she judged was the center of the creature—though in truth, she had no idea if this thing even had a center. The voices of the Ragestorm raised in pitched and took on an edge of desperation as the necromantic energy she’d released began to eat away at the ties binding the air elementals to one another.
No, you mustn’t!
Stop … please!
We beg you!
“You want me to stop? Fine!” Nathifa shouted into the wind. “Release us and be on your way! Otherwise, I’ll keep attacking, and you’ll be forced to let us go!”
The shrieking stopped and the wind’s anger abated somewhat, though it didn’t entirely vanish. The Zephyr remained aloft, though Nathifa had no idea how high above the sea she hovered. Nathifa had the impression the Ragestorm had paused in its attack and was trying to decide its next move.
They didn’t have long to wait.
The wind ceased, and the Zephyr—possessing all the aerodynamic properties of a large boulder—plunged to the waiting sea below. The sloop hit the water, sending up great plumes of seaspray. The whirling column of air that had held Nathifa withdrew, and when the Zephyr struck the surface, the lich was knocked off her feet. Before she could stand, a wave washed over the rail, engulfed her, and carried her away.
Nathifa had been bobbing on the surface of the Lhazaar for only a short time before she saw a dorsal fin slicing through the water toward her. As it drew close the shark slowed and turned its side to her. The lich took hold of the creature’s dorsal fin, and the shark began swimming with powerful strokes of its tail. Within moments, they were in sight of the Zephyr—or at least what was left of her. The vessel was still afloat, but she listed to starboard and a set of runners was missing. The shark brought Nathifa up to the sloop’s hull, and the lich let go of the creature’s fin and, using her own magic, levitated up and over the ship’s railing. Once her feet touched the deck, she took hold of the railing behind her to steady herself. She wasn’t about to waste something as precious as magic energy to help her keep her footing on a canted deck.
A moment later, a humanoid shark climbed over the railing and joined Nathifa. The creature’s facial features began to soften, and its eyes became less cold. Soon, a nearly naked Haaken stood next to the undead sorceress, also gripping the railing to keep from sliding on the slanted deck.
“I thank you for coming to my aid, Haaken.” The words were as sawdust in her mouth. She wasn’t used to needing help, and she was even less used to thanking anyone. She glanced around, searching for Makala and Skarm. She found the latter in his barghest form clinging to the mast, fur soaked and body trembling with fright. As for Makala …
A black-winged bat swooped down from above and circled the lich and the wereshark once before transforming into
Makala. The vampire smiled weakly.
“All present and accounted for,” she said, her voice tinged with weariness. It was clear to Nathifa that it had taken a great deal of strength for Makala to resist the energy-draining power of the Lhazaar. But resist she had, if only just.
Nathifa gazed skyward and was pleased to see the moons and stars once more. She didn’t know whether she’d destroyed the Ragestorm or merely driven it off. Either way, she was glad the damned thing was gone.
She turned to Haaken. “How bad is the damage?”
“Bad enough. When I was underwater, I swam around the Zephyr to get a good look. We lost the starboard runner, which is why the ship is listing so badly. There are no leaks as yet, but the hull’s been weakened in a number of places. Even if we shore up the weak spots by spreading pitch on them, it’s only a matter of time before we start taking on water. The mast and sails look fine, and the containment ring seems undamaged. We’ll have to check, but I don’t think the Ragestorm was able to absorb the ship’s elemental. Not that it matters. We can’t travel at top speed without both runners, and even if we could somehow fashion a new starboard runner, the hull wouldn’t be able to withstand the stress of traveling that fast. We can remove the port runner so that we can sail by natural wind power alone, but our speed will be greatly diminished.”
“I don’t want to spend any more time at sea than necessary,” Makala growled. “My sarcophagus survived the Zephyr’s fall. It slid about and damaged the starboard rail, but at least it didn’t break through and sink to the bottom of Lhazaar. I have a place to rest during the day, but I still don’t have a source of nourishment.” She shot Nathifa a quick glare. “None that I’m permitted to avail myself of, anyway. The sooner we make landfall, the better as far as my thirst is concerned. But my own selfish considerations aside, we aren’t in any hurry, are we? Trebaz Sinara will still be waiting for us whether we arrive in one day or a half dozen.”
