Queen of the Depths Read online

  “Will he return with more warriors?” asked Tu’ala’keth.

  Anton grinned. “That’s the funny part. Thayan trading enclaves count as Thayan soil. They insist on it. That means the local watch and what-have-you carry no authority within these walls, and most likely they resent it. They won’t be in any hurry to come accost us even if a Red Wizard begs them.”

  His slate-colored cheeks and forehead bristling with splinters, Durth shook his head. “Still when I think of the swag the dog just snatched away from us.…”

  “Don’t worry,” Anton said. “We still have the gold.”

  And, as they discovered when they broke into the strong room, it was a lot of gold. It was as much as he’d ever seen in one place—enough to take everyone’s breath away.

  Captain Clayhill turned to Chadrezzan. “It will be heavy,” she said. “Can you conjure some of those floating disks to carry it to the ship?”

  The magician inclined his head.

  “Then let’s move. The Sembians could still bestir themselves to chase us.”

  “If they do,” said Tu’ala’keth, “the wind and currents will not favor them.”

  Tu’ala’keth knew Anton had taken a late watch. She found him alone in the forecastle, gazing over the black, silver-dappled expanse of the moonlit sea. Knowing how humans depended on the glare of the sun, candles, and the like, she wondered if he could actually see much of anything.

  She joined him at the rail and pointed to starboard. “Do you see the school of mackerel,” she asked, “swimming just below the surface? If the others were awake, we could net ourselves a good breakfast.”

  “No,” he said, “I can’t make them out. You should sleep, too, if you want your side to finish healing.”

  Beneath the silverweave she’d painstakingly mended, her wound gave her a twinge, as if agreeing with him.

  “I wished to talk to you,” she said. “You seem troubled.”

  He snorted. “I’m trying to act triumphant. I must not be the dissembler I hoped I was if a creature who doesn’t even know humans can see through me.”

  “You and I are the hands of Umberlee, sealed to a single purpose. That is why I ken your feelings.”

  “Or you’re just shrewd.”

  “Tell me what bothers you. Do you fear our charade is taking too long? It has occurred to me that while we play games above the sea, the dragon flight may already have laid waste to all As’arem … perhaps even all Serôs.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “I’d just about decided you never felt doubt or worry about anything.”

  “I am mortal and thus incapable of perfect serenity. Besides, Umberlee is demanding. It may be that she has chosen us as her agents but is testing us, too. Or testing me, anyway, as an exemplar of the shalarins. She has set me a challenge, which I must quickly overcome, or she will give the wyrms leave to obliterate my race.”

  “That’s a cheery thought. For what it’s worth, I’m told dragon flights run around erratically. They don’t always race from one big collection of victims straight to the next. So chances are pretty fair they haven’t chewed up all of Serôs yet. I was actually pondering something else.”

  A fish jumped, making a soft splash off the port bow. The deck rose and fell beneath their feet. “What were you brooding over?” asked Tu’ala’keth.

  “Just that we’ve done, and instigated, a lot of killing.”

  His tone was somber, though she had no idea why. Slaughter was a holy act when the slayer dedicated the kill to Umberlee. “And so?” she asked.

  “So nothing, I suppose. The Grandmaster knows, after all this time, it shouldn’t bother me. I’ve stood and watched murders, rapes, and acts of torture, because to intervene would unmask me, thwart my mission, and so, theoretically, allow even more suffering elsewhere in the world. But it still does trouble me sometimes. Of late, maybe more than it used to.”

  She groped for comprehension. “But the pirates and Thayans are both enemies of your people, are they not? Was that not part of the reason you bade me point Shandri Clayhill at Saerloon? So that whoever died in the course of the raid, Turmish would be the better for it?”

  He nodded. “I wasn’t sure you understood that, but yes. Still, no doubt, the zulkirs are scum, and so are Red Wizards. You couldn’t rise in, or even stomach, the crimson order if you weren’t. But do you think every warrior, sailor, and dockhand we killed was a fiend incarnate? Or were they just ordinary folk doing their jobs and trying to get by? Checkmate’s edge, it’s not their fault they were born Thayan. Some may even have been slaves.”

  “They certainly were not fiends. Demons are magnificent entities. Viewed clearly, they afford us a glimpse of the divine.”

  Her observation failed to divert Anton from his own chain of thought: “But really, I don’t mind Thayan blood on my knife. It’s the deaths of our shipmates that weigh on me because we knew one another.” He sighed. “When I first took up this line of work, one of my mentors warned me the hard part was befriending the enemy. Not the doing of it, but the consequences. Because when you betray them, you bear the guilt.”

  “Your true loyalty is to Umberlee, and in any case, you have not betrayed the reavers.”

  “We lied to them.”

  The remark reminded her of her own misgivings, but she pushed them aside. “For a sacred purpose! And if that is not enough, the ruse gave them the courage to win glory and wealth.”

  “But Harl won’t get a chance to spend his share. He died protecting you.”

  “For that reason, Umberlee has taken his spirit into her keeping, as she will one day welcome us if we do not fail her.” She peered at him, saw her words had given him no comfort, and felt a pang of frustration. “Why did you become a spy in the first place, if you are too squeamish for the work?”

  Where wise counsel had failed, the exasperated question surprised a smile out of him. “ ‘Squeamish?’ I haven’t heard that before! In truth, I didn’t start out to be a spy. When I was a boy, I loved tales about paladins. I wanted to grow up to be one and begged my parents for permission to train with the Fellowship of the True Deity.”

  “But they refused?”

  “Oh, no. They were pious folk and approved of my aspirations. But it turned out that, while I took to swordplay and the rest of the combat training, I had no real patience for the constant prayer, fasting, meditation, and general asceticism an apprentice paladin had to endure, and discipline and self-denial only became more difficult when I started noticing girls. Perhaps because I chafed at them, I couldn’t establish the special bond with Torm his knights must have, nor learn to work even the simplest bit of divine magic. By trying, I discovered a small knack for the arcane, but that was beside the point.

  “When it became clear I was hopeless, my masters discharged me, and I enlisted in the Turmian army. If I couldn’t be a mystical hero, I’d at least be a chivalrous one. I imagined myself dubbed a knight on the battlefield, fighting single combats with champions from enemy armies, devising brilliant strategies to turn certain defeat into total victory … suffice it to say, if it was a piece of rubbish from a heroic saga, it was rattling around in my head.”

  “I take it that the army, too, was not as you envisioned it?”

  Anton chuckled. “Sad but true. My superiors showed a strange reluctance to place a raw recruit in command of his own company, or otherwise reward my manifest talents as they deserved. I grew bored with regimentation and routine and disliked taking orders from fellows I deemed less clever than myself, and certainly less worthy than the paladins back in the cloister. In short order, I turned into a shirker and a troublemaker. Once my impudence even earned me a flogging.

  “But occasionally I earned my keep. I always volunteered for scouting, carrying dispatches cross-country, any task I could undertake alone, guided solely by my own wits. Then I did well. In time my checkered career caught the notice of one of Turmish’s spymasters, who convinced me I was better suited for his trade than a life in the ranks.”r />
  He shrugged. “And that’s the tale. I’ve been playing this game ever since. Lies and low blows may look shabby compared to paladin’s miracles and valor, but they, too, serve a purpose. At least when some clerk doesn’t just take my report and stuff it in a cubbyhole unread.”

  “You yearned to serve a deity,” said Tu’ala’keth. “Yet now that the greatest of all has claimed you, you find no joy in it. What makes you so perverse?”

  He hesitated. “I promised to help you—and Umberlee—and I will. But your deity stands for cruelty, greed, and destruction. Torm is virtue, honor, and loyalty. It’s scarcely the same thing.”

  “You must open your eyes,” said Tu’ala’keth. “You see sharks devouring prey, tempests destroying ships and drowning mariners, victors slaying the vanquished—Umberlee’s reflections in the mundane world—and you cringe. As well you might, for these events are terrible. But so, too, are they sacred and beautiful. They are life expressing and refining itself. Without the urge to feed and to have and to master, what creature would discover its strengths, or do anything whatsoever?”

  Anton shook his head. “You may be right, but I can’t feel what you feel. If it’s any consolation, I don’t spend much time contemplating the glories of Torm anymore, either. Of course I still believe in him, and all the gods. I’m not insane. But it’s hard to imagine them stooping to take an interest in the small, grubby lives of people like Harl and me. I suspect that by and large, we mortals are on our own.”

  “No,” she said. “The gods may sometimes hate us, chastise, slay, and damn us, but they are never remote or indifferent. I believe that if you are true to our purpose, Umberlee will reveal herself to you, and you will know better.”

  “Well, maybe so.” He glanced up at the moon and the trailing haze of glittering motes people called her tears. “Hmm. It’s past time for Williven to relieve me. Let’s go wake the lazy bastard.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Someday, when Shandri Clayhill had taken enough prizes, when other captains sailed aboard vessels she’d provided in exchange for a cut of the plunder, when she was as a grandee by the standards of Dragon Isle, she’d have her own coquina mansion, swarming with flunkies, slaves, and sycophants. For now, though, when she had business to conduct ashore, it was necessary either to hire a room in a tavern or borrow space in Vurgrom’s mansion.

  The latter was plainly more suitable for divvying up the spoils from the red caravel and the Thayan enclave, even if she disliked having her blustering chieftain sitting to one side, cup in hand, overseeing the proceedings. It would be too easy for him to countermand one of her decisions or offer “advice” that would effectively preclude her making one in the first place.

  But really, how likely was that, in the wake of her triumph? So let the fat fool watch and reflect on the fact that, for all his boasting, it had been a long while since he’d taken such a prize. Maybe then he’d stop patronizing her and treat as he did the other—the male—captains who’d pledged him their fealty.

  She resolved to stop chafing at his presence and focus on the task at hand. To whit, supervising her crew, who for the most part looked happy enough as they pawed through the bags and coffers heaped in the middle of the floor, raking out gleaming gold coins and other treasure. Some playfully donned oddments of sparkling jewelry. For an instant, she scowled, wondering if they were doing so in mockery of the way she customarily adorned herself, but then decided they probably meant no harm.

  An orc unstoppered a pewter vial, took a sip, then jumped so high he slammed his head against a rafter. His friends laughed as he dropped back down to the floor. Sealmid fingered the edge of a broadsword. The enchanted blades the Thayans manufactured in quantity were inferior compared to truly splendid arms such as Kassur’s spear or Anton’s cutlass, but wickedly sharp nonetheless. The minimal contact sufficed to slice the first mate’s skin, and grinning, he raised his hand to display the welling blood.

  Of course, it was fairly easy to divide specie or even minor potions and talismans seized by the dozen. If anyone chose to quarrel, it would be over the more potent magic the Red Wizards and their chief lieutenants had reserved for their own use. But after stuffing their pouches and sea bags with silver, gold, and gems, the ordinary gentlemen of fortune had no claim on the more precious enchanted articles, and surely the voyage had yielded enough of the latter to satisfy even a complement of officers as acquisitive as those who served aboard Shark’s Bliss.

  As captain, Shandri got first pick. She advanced to the table, took up a greatsword, and pulled it from its scabbard. She didn’t actually need to since she and her lieutenants had already examined all of the items, but she felt a certain theatricality was appropriate to the occasion.

  She spoke the word—Mask only knew what it meant—graven on the blade just above the leather ricasso. Darkness swirled inside the steel, and she sensed the sentient weapon’s eagerness to kill, a gleeful malevolence directed at all the world but her.

  It was a magnificent sword, and a big one, too, nearly as long as she was tall. If she fought with it, no one could possibly think of her as a fat old man’s dainty concubine. She brandished it, and everyone gave a cheer.

  She also chose an onyx ring that would enable her to see in the dark like an owl, and she reckoned, she was through. She beckoned for Sealmid to take his turn.

  The first mate chose a bow—seemingly made of polished amethyst though it flexed like yew—and the purple quiver of arrows that went with it. Durth, who fancied himself the finest archer in all the Pirate Isles, cursed, and the human gave him a mocking toothless grin. The lookout strode forward, clenching his gray-skinned fists.

  “No!” Shandri snapped. “I called him; he chose; that’s the end of it.”

  The orc took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yes, Captain,” he muttered.

  “You can pick last, to remind you to keep a grip on your temper.” She cast about. “Anton.”

  Anton sauntered to the table, made a show of inspecting the remaining articles, then grinned, selected a cape, and spun it around his shoulders. The garment was a vivid scarlet, a fitting wrap for a Red Wizard, but shot though with threads gleaming gray like steel. The magic in the weave could absorb the force of a cut or blow as if the cloth were a piece of plate armor.

  He then picked up three red-bound books and a wand.

  A deafening boom thundered through the room. The floor shook, and Shandri staggered a step. Taking advantage of its new mistress’s sudden lack of balance, trying to reach for the nearest potential victim, the greatsword shifted in her grasp. No! she thought, and it abandoned the effort. She sensed the mind inside the blade, half sheepish, but likewise half amused.

  There was no time to think about that now. She pivoted to see what had caused the bang. Chadrezzan stood glaring, gripping his serpent-girded staff with both gaunt hands. From his stance, she surmised the mute had disrupted the proceedings by striking the butt of the rusty rod on the floor.

  “What are you doing?” Shandri demanded.

  Chadrezzan jabbed a long, skinny finger at Anton.

  “What he means,” Kassur said, “is that the wand and grimoires should rightfully go to him.”

  “Nonsense,” Anton said. “He’s not an officer. He doesn’t get a double share.”

  Chadrezzan gestured to himself, then to the priest of Talos.

  “He’s pointing out,” said Kassur, “that neither one of us is weighted down with gold. In fact, we haven’t pocketed a single copper. That was so we could fairly claim the spellbooks and wand.”

  “That’s too bad,” Anton said, “because it still doesn’t give you the right to choose ahead of me.”

  “Be rational!” snapped the priest. “Thanks to a fluke, you can call yourself ship’s mage, but your handful of paltry spells doesn’t derive from the learning of a true wizard. They’re just a bit of freakishness, like an extra toe.”

  “It makes no difference,” Anton said.

  “It does!”
At the most peaceful of times, Kassur stamped about glowering, seemingly full of anger he could barely contain. Now his face was brick red, and as he shouted, spittle flew from his lips. “You can’t profit from the lore in those volumes or use the wand either!”

  “I can profit from it all if I sell it.”

  “Chadrezzan will use it to augment his abilities.” Kassur pivoted toward Shandri. “Captain, you saw the magic he threw at the Thayans and how potent it was. We never could have won without him.”

  “We never would have won,” said Anton, “if I hadn’t opened up the house.”

  “That was one spell,” said Kassur, without diverting his monocular gaze from Shandri. “Chadrezzan cast more than a dozen. Imagine what he’ll be able to accomplish for us all once he masters the secrets of the Red Wizards. It’s stupid—and selfish—to deny him the chance.”

  Some of the company clamored in agreement, but as many appeared to favor Anton. Durth said, “If I had to give up the bow, then your friend can do without the stinking books.”

  “As well as the wand,” Kassur retorted, “and the cape? If you can’t see anything else, it should at least be clear to you that the greedy bastard’s laying claim to too much.”

  Shandri thought he might well be right, but with the disparate items involved, it was difficult to be sure.

  She was certain she didn’t want to lose Chadrezzan or Anton from the ship’s company or appear less than fair and impartial in the eyes of her crew. She also did not want to do anything Vurgrom would view as a mistake. Feeling overwhelmed, she hesitated.

  The tiny image of one of the oil lamps reflecting in each black lens of her goggles, Tu’ala’keth stepped forth from the crowd. “This squabble is foolish.”

  Anton grinned. “That’s what I’m trying to tell them.”

  The shalarin gave him a stare. “I mean it is you who are the fool. I told you at the start, we have come to Dragon Isle to craft an instrument of sacrifice. To spill blood upon the waters for the glory of Umberlee. Anything that strengthens Shark’s Bliss serves our purpose. Accordingly, Chadrezzan shall have his tools.”