The Reaver, Page 3

  “I mean no irreverence, Captain, when I point out that the Queen of the Depths, mighty as she is, isn’t the only deity in the world, nor is hers the only priesthood.”

  At last, Evendur’s corpse face twisted into an expression Umara could interpret: a sneer. “They’re the only ones that matter hereabouts. I’m making sure of it. Go home and tell Szass Tam that if he approaches me with the proper reverence, I may look on his petitions with favor. If not, Thayans can expect ill winds, sea serpents, and yes, the attentions of my pirates, whenever they set sail from Bezantur. The waveservant will show you out.” He turned and strode out through one of the doorways along the wall.

  Umara sighed and reached for Kymas with her thoughts. Did you follow all that? she asked.

  Yes, replied the vampire mage. The creature’s an arrogant buffoon. Even though the words were scornful, the underlying feeling wasn’t. Kymas was impressed, perhaps even rattled, as his lieutenant had never known him before. Had they been conversing in the normal way, he likely would have concealed any trace of it beneath a facade of urbane imperturbability, but that was more difficult with their psyches linked.

  Whatever you think of Highcastle’s judgment, Umara said, he manifestly is a Chosen. But now that we’ve established that, what are we supposed to do about it?

  You know, my dear. You know.

  That’s fine to say, but how are we supposed to manage it? Looking through my eyes, you saw how strong the creature is and, when I used the talisman, perceived his spiritual strength as well, but for argument’s sake, let’s say our wizardry could overpower him. We’d also have to contend with all the temple defenses, mystical and mundane, get off Pirate Isle, and escape across stormy seas that the raiders know how to sail better than our mariners ever will.

  I’ll think of something, Kymas said. I haven’t worked as long as I have and climbed as high as I have only to fail Szass Tam now.

  Umara might have found that dauntless attitude more inspiring if she hadn’t suspected that only she and Kymas’s other servants would have to pay the ultimate price for failure. She’d fall with a half-uttered spell on her lips, and the legionnaires would drop with bloody swords sliding from their hands, while the vampire slipped away to safety in the form of a fluttering bat or drifting mist.

  It wasn’t that Kymas was cowardly. She’d known him to brave considerable dangers when he judged circumstances warranted it. But never to spare or save one of his mortal agents. In his eyes, the living were so far beneath him that he sent them to their deaths with no more hesitation than a lanceboard player sacrificing pawns.

  “Saer?” said a half-familiar voice. Umara blinked and discerned that in the moment when she’d turned her attention inward—or to the undead mage secreted on the Thayan vessel in the harbor, depending on how one cared to look at it—her escort had approached her. “The Chosen said it’s time for you to go.”

  “Of course,” she said, “lead on.” The cleric—who had the hard, truculent look of a youth who’d been a pirate until recently—turned away, and she started whispering a spell.

  She was trying to be stealthy about it, but the waveservant either heard her or simply sensed something amiss. He jerked back around with the tines of his trident dropping to threaten her.

  Then she spoke the final word of the rhyming incantation, and the pugnacity in his face gave way to blinking confusion. That in turn melted into chagrin, and he hastily turned the points of his weapon away from her.

  “I’m sorry!” he said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  Umara smiled. “It’s all right. Something just startled you, I suppose.”

  The young priest shook his head. “I suppose. Still, if I hurt one of Captain Highcastle’s guests …”

  “If you want to make it up to me, how about letting me look around a little? I’ll come back to the main entrance when I’m ready to leave.”

  He hesitated. “The Chosen said to show you out.”

  “That’s exactly what you will do after I’ve looked my fill.” Hoping he found her attractive—she’d observed that non-Thayan men sometimes did despite the shaved head and tattoos they deemed bizarre—she gave him a smile. “Please? The temple is magnificent, and I know you need to get back to your post.”

  The waveservant sighed. “I guess I do. Otherwise, I’d show you around myself. Just don’t be too long, all right?” Resting his trident on his shoulder, he took his leave.

  That was risky, Kymas observed. What if the beguilement failed?

  It didn’t, Umara replied, and now I can search.

  For what?

  Anything that will help us.

  She skulked to one of the doorways behind the well. Beyond it was a smaller room where a cylindrical screen revolved around a greenish magical flame. The screen had shark shapes on it, and thus the light cast shadows of sharks circling the walls. Gold and silver gleamed atop an altar hewn from coral.

  A common thief would likely have been happy to snatch the offerings and flee, and for a moment, her pride in her heritage and arcane accomplishments notwithstanding, Umara rather wished she was one. Then she thrust the feckless thought aside and prowled on into the next chamber, and the one after that.

  Although she’d never visited a temple of Umberlee before, all great castles, palaces, and the like possessed certain features in common, and she soon discerned that she’d passed from the more public part of the structure to an area where important folk had their apartments and personal workrooms. That had its good side. She’d left the sentries and warding glyphs behind. But if anyone noticed her trespassing, it might well be someone less easily befuddled than her erstwhile escort.

  In time, her search led her to a map room. Some hung on the walls, many were rolled up with their ends protruding from cubbyholes, and others lay spread on long tables where round brass weights kept the corners from curling up.

  All the ones she could see were nautical charts. Spaces inland from the coasts were mostly blank, but the parchments were replete with information about the tides, reefs, shoals, and even the tiniest islets of the Sea of Fallen Stars. Some even pinpointed features in the uttermost depths like the sea elf city of Myth Nantar.

  It occurred to Umara that the knowledge stored here might be even more valuable than the coins and jewelry she’d already left unpilfered. But it seemed just as irrelevant to her present needs, and so she began to turn away. Then dark spots caught her eye.

  Specifically, greasy-looking smudges on one of the charts unrolled on a tabletop and the several smaller parchments scattered around it. In her imagination, Evendur traced lines on the map with a fingertip and held the papers before his eyes to read them, and exudate from his rotting skin left stains.

  She headed for the table in question. When she was halfway there, she heard a faint creak of leather at her back. Someone was coming.

  She hastily stepped aside so no one could see her from the other side of the doorway. But that wouldn’t protect her for long, not in a room with nowhere to hide and no other exits. She whispered a spell, swept her hand from the top of her head down the front of her body, and cloaked herself in invisibility.

  A moment later, Evendur himself strode into the chartroom, and she swallowed away a sudden dryness in her throat. In that instant, she found it all but impossible to place any faith in the basic magic she’d employed to conceal herself.

  Yet if the spell was basic, her skills were not, and evidently even the Chosen had their limitations. Evendur stalked on past her.

  That was good as far as it went, but if the Queen of the Depths chose this moment to peer out through Evendur’s eyes, it was inconceivable that the charm would blind her. Breathing shallowly and holding still, Umara could only hope the deity had other matters to concern her.

  Evendur moved to the same chart and notes that had snagged Umara’s interest and studied them with the glum air of a man who, despite a lack of fresh facts or insights, had succumbed to the urge to resume picking at a vexin
g problem. Eventually, he tossed down a parchment to slide off the table and spill to the floor, made a disgusted growling noise, and turned back toward the door.

  Umara started to relax at least a little, and then the Chosen stopped short. Frowning—another expression just barely identifiable despite the bloat and decay—he peered about.

  He senses he isn’t alone, Umara thought, and now that he’s set his mind to it, he’s going to spot me. If he can’t do it by himself, he’ll call on Umberlee to help him.

  Strike first! Kymas said. He knew as well as she did how unlikely she was to prevail, but if by some miracle she did, he’d reap the benefit, and if she perished, he might learn something useful from the manner in which the Chosen opted to kill her.

  She, however, had no intention of revealing herself by initiating combat or otherwise so long as any alternative remained. She whispered a cantrip, stretched out her hand, and shook it back and forth. The rolled maps in one of the floor-level cubbies rustled.

  Evendur strode to the source of the noise, crouched down, and peered into the nook. Umara knew he wasn’t going to find anything but hoped she’d allayed his suspicions even so. Mice were good at vanishing when larger creatures approached, and they infested nearly every manmade structure from time to time. With luck, the Temple of Umberlee was no exception.

  Evendur snorted and stood back up. He took a last look around, then headed for the door.

  Once she was sure he was truly gone, Umara let out a long breath. Her shoulders slumped, and her hands began to tremble. But she didn’t have time to fall apart, so, scowling at her own frailty, she stifled the aftereffects of her close call by pure force of will and hurried to the table.

  It took longer than she would have preferred to consider the chart and the papers, which proved to be dispatches from spies stationed at various points around the Sea of Fallen Stars. But no one else turned up to interrupt her, and by the end of the examination, she was smiling.

  Thanks to their psychic link, she knew Kymas was smiling, too. She could even tell his fangs had extended thanks to a phantom sensation in her own mouth.

  Easy prey, her master said, yet a prize that will fully satisfy Szass Tam. We merely have to find the child first.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ANTON AWOKE LYING IN THE DARK WITH NO IDEA WHERE HE WAS or what had happened to him. He only knew his head was throbbing and he urgently needed to throw up.

  Instinct warned him he mustn’t stay on his back lest he end up choking. He tried to roll over onto his side, but something prevented it. In his blind confusion, he couldn’t tell whether it was simply that the agony in his head made him spastic or if something external restrained him.

  He strained and finally flopped over just in time to retch out the contents of his stomach. Then he passed out.

  When he roused again, it was to a telltale rolling beneath him and light shining through his eyelids. Squinting, he discerned that the glow came from a storm lantern in Naraxes’s upraised hand. They were in the cramped hold of the Iron Jest. The lanky first mate stooped to avoid bumping his head.

  Anton’s hands and feet were tied, which had likely contributed to the difficulty he’d experienced turning over. Stedd Whitehorn, the boy prophet, was a few steps away and bound in a similar fashion.

  Anton wanted to talk sitting up as opposed to lying in a sticky puddle of his own puke, but when he tried to lift himself, the pain in his head, which had subsided to an almost-tolerable ache, exploded back into full-blown pounding torture. “By the Maiden’s kiss,” he gasped, tears blurring the lantern light, “how many times did you bash me?”

  “Just three,” Naraxes said. “Just until I was sure you were out. But then the men kicked you around and stamped on you.”

  “Why? Why mutiny at all when I’ve led you to dozens of prizes and we’d just seized the biggest one of all?”

  Naraxes hesitated as though he might be feeling the slightest twinge of guilt. “I didn’t plan it. I just … lost my temper, and it went on from there. But it’s been coming for a while. You throw our lives away and laugh as the corpses pile up.”

  “Maybe no one ever told you this, but a pirate’s trade is inherently dangerous. And I never required anybody to run a risk greater than the ones I ran myself.”

  “Still, we’ve followed you as far as we care to.”

  “So why let me claim a captain’s share of the price on the young preacher’s head? I follow that much of your logic. But why bring me back aboard? If you’re all so disgruntled, why not finish me off? Or leave me to the pig farmers?”

  “You’ll remember the gale you insisted on sailing through. There’s a chance it’s still blowing, or that another will rise, and if we give a life to Umberlee, maybe she’ll show mercy to the rest of us.”

  Anton snorted. It made his head throb. “A little treachery is one thing, but now I’m truly disappointed in you. You’ve spent too many years at sea to believe you can bribe the weather, by tossing people overboard or otherwise.”

  Naraxes frowned. “Maybe I didn’t always believe it, but I’ve changed along with the world. You haven’t, and that’s another reason to get rid of you. Only captains who truly revere Umberlee—and the crews that follow them—will prosper in the days to come.”

  “And reverence involves more than hunting someone down and trading him for a heap of Evendur Highcastle’s gold. Fair enough. But maybe it’s not too late for me. Perhaps you, with your deep understanding of spiritual matters, could instruct me in the mysteries of your faith.”

  Naraxes smiled a crooked smile. “Why settle for a mortal teacher when you’ll meet the goddess herself soon enough?”

  “Are we absolutely set on that? What if we don’t run into a storm?”

  “Then a sacrifice will show our gratitude and keep you from reaching Pirate Isle alive to complain you were ill used. The goddess knows, you have no friends there, not as such, but even so, other captains might object to a mutiny.”

  “And here I was consoling myself with the expectation that all Immurk’s Hold would mourn my passing.”

  “Not likely. But it still seems easier all around if people believe the pig farmers killed you. Make your peace, Captain. We’ll come and fetch you when it’s time.”

  Naraxes turned, hung the lantern over his arm, and climbed the ladder that ascended to the main deck. The hatch creaked open, thumped shut, and utter darkness swallowed the hold once more.

  “Well,” Anton murmured, “that could have gone better.” He tried to bring his feet and the hands tied behind his back together.

  Pain stabbed down the length of his body. Until this moment, the hammering in his head had masked the full extent of his injuries, but now they announced themselves enthusiastically. He had broken ribs and a broken collarbone for certain, perhaps a broken hip and knee as well, and bruises and swelling everywhere.

  But he’d always been strong and limber, and he couldn’t afford to let the damage stop him. His breath rasping between his teeth, he strained uselessly until the self-inflicted torture wrung a cry out of him, and he had no choice but to relent.

  Panting, he gathered the resolve to try again. Then he heard something sliding and bumping in his direction.

  Still addled with pain, he needed a moment to remember his fellow captive and infer that the boy was crawling toward him. “What?” he croaked.

  “I can help you,” Stedd answered. “Just stay still.”

  Anton wasn’t sure exactly why the boy wanted to help him, but in his current circumstances, he didn’t care. He drew breath to instruct Stedd, and then small fingers brushed his forearm.

  Surprise kept him from speaking as he’d intended. Stedd’s touch was warm, but somehow, not in a way that suggested fever. Rather, the warmth felt right, natural, or at least that was as close as Anton could come to describing the sensation.

  “The Morninglord gave me a lot when I was using it to help the village,” said the boy. “I don’t know how much more I can pull i
n right now. But whatever I get, you can have.”

  For a breath or two, nothing more happened, and Anton wondered how, without alienating him, he could convince Stedd to stop playing at being a holy man and do something practical. Then the child gasped, and the warmth in his fingers surged up Anton’s arm and into the core of his body, while red and gold light washed across the hold. Because he and his fellow prisoner were lying back to back, Anton couldn’t see the source of the glow but assumed Stedd was creating it somehow.

  The tingling warmth and the light faded together, and as they did, Anton realized his many pains were dwindling, too. Even when he stretched, twisted, and pulled against his bonds, the resulting discomfort was insignificant compared to the torment he’d suffered mere moments before.

  “By the fork,” he murmured.

  “You should thank Lathander,” panted Stedd, a touch of childish exasperation in his voice, “not call out to his enemy.”

  Folk had gotten out of the habit of thanking Lathander since the god had supposedly disappeared a hundred years ago, but Anton saw no profit in remarking on it. A theological discussion wouldn’t get him untied. “If you say so. Now hitch down until you can reach the top of my left boot. Unless my shipmates searched me very thoroughly, there’s a skinny little blade riding in a hidden sheath. Pull it out.”

  Stedd fumbled at the task for a while. Then he said, “I found it, but I can’t get it! They tied my hands too tight. My fingers are numb!”

  “Never mind,” Anton replied. “Roll back out of the way and let me do it.”

  This time, he managed to contort his body into the necessary position but then discovered his fingers were dead and clumsy, too. As he repeatedly tried and failed to extract the blade, he wondered why the power that had fixed his battered head and body hadn’t relieved him of this impediment as well. Maybe it enjoyed spurring men on with false hope and the frantic, futile struggles that ensued.