Queen of the Depths

CHAPTER 2

When they reached the shallows, Tu’ala’keth stroked the neck of her seahorse, and the animal obediently came to a halt. Anton stopped more awkwardly, nearly slipping from the back of his steed, and the creature tossed its ruddy, black-eyed head in annoyance.

The riders dismounted, Tu’ala’keth waved her hand in dismissal, and the seahorses swam away to roam and forage as they would so long as they didn’t stray too far from the island. She wanted them to hear and come if she called.

That accomplished, she and the human swam up the slope of the seabed. They soon reached a point where a person could set his feet down and wade with the upper part of his body out of the water, and Anton chose to do so.

She compelled herself to do likewise, meanwhile striving to conceal her trepidation. Such an emotion was weak and unworthy. She had come on Umberlee’s business, and the goddess would protect her.

Still it was one thing to be certain of her deity’s power and another to place her confidence in the contrivances of the Arcane Caste. If the talismans they’d provided failed to work properly, she was in for discomfort, even pain.

When she raised her upper body out of water the sun was even brighter, but with her goggles in place, she could see. The air passing through her gill slits felt strange, thin, but sustained her nonetheless. The latter benefit was due to the enchantment woven into her silverweave armor, a fine mesh tunic of worked coral.

Anton made a retching sound and, as she turned to look, finished coughing the water from his lungs. He straightened up, wiped his mouth and shaggy black whiskers, and asked, “Are you doing all right?”

“Of course.” She hefted her stone trident. “Onward.”

They sloshed toward the white-sand beach. Tu’ala’keth had done a bit of walking in her life, but not much, and it made her feel as clumsy as Anton had looked trying to manage the seahorse. She resolved to master the trick of it as quickly as possible.

She supposed she might have quite a bit to learn, for the landscape before her looked dauntingly unfamiliar. In its essence, Dragon Islea name of good omen, surelywas a mountain like any other, just one so tall its crest rose high above the surface of the sea. But it had no abundance of fish swarming about its stony crags, just a few gulls swooping and wheeling. The odd-looking vegetation was equally sparse.

Everything seemed muted, too, as if she’d gone partially deaf, and what she could hear was different. Absent was the ambient drone she’d known her entire life, a hum composed of the noises generated by the tides, currents, and countless marine organisms striving to survive. In its place was only the susurrus of the breaking waves and a bit of clamor rising from the town at the end of the strand, where humans and their ilk shouted to one another, scraped barnacles from a beached ship, or pounded pegs into the half-completed hull of a new one.

Bracketed by fortifications where land met water, the settlement was as peculiar as the rest of the scene. Naturally, Serdsian towns had no use for docks or boats floating at anchor, but something else struck her as even odder. All the doors were at ground level, and that was where everyone moved about. Some of the rough coquina structures were several stories high, but even so, it was plain that in a real sense, humans lived their lives in only two dimensions.

The cloth rectanglesfields of black emblazoned with skulls, crossed swords, and similar devicesflapping atop several of the most imposing structures added a final note of strangeness.

Anton shivered and gave her a grin. “It’s funny. When I was under water, I never really felt wet. Now that I’m in the air, I can feel I’m soaked.”

“What do we do next?” asked Tu’ala’keth.

“The sea turned my clothes to rags. I need new ones. Even more importantly, I need a barber. The cult identified a spy with long hair and a proper Turmian square-cut beard. Accordingly, I mean to turn into a clean-shaven fellow with close-cropped locks.

“So here’s the plan. At the end of the beach, there’s a path that runs up around the edge of the town. If we take it, we can reach the fellow we need without everybody in town gawking at us.”

“But surely some people will see us.”

“Oh, yes, the lookouts manning the battlements at the very least.”

“What if one of them is a cultist and knows your face?”

“It’s unlikely, but should it happen, life may get interesting very quickly. If the prospect frightens you, you can always turn around and jump back into the water.”

She scowled. “I would never shrink from anything Umberlee requires of me.”

“Of course not. Perish the thought.”

As they tramped up the beach, Tu’ala’keth kept a wary eye on her companion. She thought he might try to escape, but so far, he showed no signs of it. She wondered if he’d found the wisdom to embrace his destiny or if he was merely biding his time and reassured herself that it didn’t matter either way. Umberlee would make use of him regardless.

Despite the magic woven into Tu’ala’keth’s gear, the sun felt unpleasantly hot on her skin, and though she’d used it for years, her long trident suddenly seemed heavy. In time, she hit on the expedient of carrying it tilted over her shoulder, and that made it easier to manage… until the shaft started galling her skin.

The path climbed as the pirate haven of Immurk’s Hold itself ran upward from the harbor to higher ground. The slope made walking all the more difficult, and Tu’ala’keth’s calf muscles and the soles of her bare feet ached at the unaccustomed motion. Once she and Anton passed the fortress, she took her mind off her discomfort by peering down the streets and alleys that connected to her route. Her initial impression was that humans shared their habitations with an interesting miscellany of animals: plump, crested, strutting birds that seemed unable to truly fly no matter how frantically they flapped their wings; fat, oinking creatures rooting in muck; a smaller, shaggier, bleating animal with hooves and horns; and by far the most numerous, little brown creatures with short legs and long, hairless tails, digging and scurrying through heaps of refuse.

“Here we are,” said Anton. He led Tu’ala’keth down a quiet street so narrow the bright sun overhead left a welcome stripe of cool shade along one side. “I hope Rimardo is still in business.”

“Is this someone you trust?”

Anton grinned. “The Red Knight forbid! But the old miser knows how to cut hair and stick leeches on a festering wound, sells clothing pilfered from the dead, and despises everybody too profoundly to go out of his way to help anyone. In the Pirate Isles, that’s all you can expect of a barber.” He pushed aside the makeshift oilcloth curtain that hung in place of a door.

Rimardo’s shop proved to be a filthy one-room shack jammed full of bins, crates, and barrels. The proprietor himself, a scrawny, wrinkled, sour-faced runt of a man, sat the strapping Anton on a tall stool then had to step up on a box to reach his head. Though the spy had warned Tu’ala’keth that folk hereabouts were likely to stare at her, Rimardo showed no interest, nor, after determining what his customer wanted and negotiating a price, did he utter another word. Tu’ala’keth wondered if Anton patronized him partly because of his sullen, incurious nature.

She watched with mingled impatience and interest as the razor scraped away the Turmian’s lathery whiskers. To her sensibilities, all body hair was disgusting, and even after the shave, he had his share, just as his muscular frame still had a lumpish thickness. But he didn’t look as uncouth as before. The brown hue of his skin was pleasant to look on, and his square features, though coarse compared to those of most any shalarin, nonetheless bespoke resolution, and the green eyes, intelligence.

Rimardo evidently had no mirror a customer might employ to approve or disapprove his handiwork.

Anton ran his fingers over his jaw and scalp to assess the results then said, “Good enough.” He rose from the stool and started rummaging through the bins and crates, strewing rejected garments on the floor. Rimardo evidently expected no less of his patrons, for he watched the process without comment.

Anton selected leather sandals; baggy, blue, knee-length breeches; a scarlet sash; and a loose, white, sleeveless shirt that opened all the way down the front. Indifferent to Tu’ala’keth’s scrutinyappropriately so, since her folk regarded nudity as normal, and there was no carnal attraction between their two species in any casehe stripped and pulled them on. “You can keep my old clothes,” he said to Rimardo.

The barber spat in their general direction.

Anton grinned. “Yes, well, that’s why I wanted new ones.” He slipped the cutlass through the sash, tossed Rimardo one of the silver coins they had taken from Umberlee’s altars, and led Tu’ala’keth back out into the open air.

“Are we ready now?” she asked.

“Almost. I’ve been many different men during my years of spying, but none of them had a tattoo of an octopus running down his left arm, and so I hanker for one now. It takes a few minutes. If I can find a secluded spot in which to work, “He cast about. “There.” He strode to a neighboring shack, tried the door, and found it warped in its frame. He shoved hard, and it yielded with a squeal.

The little cottage was empty, devoid of furniture and tenants, too. She wondered how he’d been able to tell from the outside.

Anton murmured the same arcane rhyme over and over again, meanwhile drawing on his skin with his fingertip. An image took form beneath the strokes, clear and vivid as if the digit were a needle dipped in ink. She supposed he’d chosen to depict an octopus because of his recent combat and might not even realize the cephalopods were familiars of Umberlee. Still it was fitting that he branded himself with such a sign, whether he understood the significance or not.

When he finished, she said, “Now we begin.”

He grinned. “Yes, impatient one. I wanted to be inconspicuous until I achieved the proper appearance, but henceforth, you can attract as much attention as you like. Parade as if you expect people to stare and to make way for you, too. As if you’re a personage.”

“I am. We both are: agents of the Queen of the Depths.”

“That’s the spirit.”

Now they marched through the center of town, down teeming streets and across bustling marketplaces selling what were evidently plundered goods, cringing or stolid slaves included. Unfamiliar sights, sounds, and stinks came quickly, relentlessly, now. It was almost enough to disorient her, and she watched Anton with special care lest he attempt to lose himself in the crowds.

He didn’t, though, and in a few minutes, they arrived at one of the massive coquina structures that appeared to be fortresses as much as houses. A rectangular black cloth, emblazoned with a white grinning skull above and a red axe beneath, flapped from a pole atop the roof.

“Behold the residence of Vurgrom, self-styled ‘the Mighty,’” Anton said. “With luck, he and the captains of his faction are still looking for new crewmen. They’ve suffered losses of late.”

“Are you certain?”

“Who do you think informed the Turmian fleet where to intercept Vurgrom’s ships before I had to take up the matter of the cult? Shall we?”

Though the house could likely serve as a bastion at need, the wrought-iron gates were unguarded and unlocked. Dozens of air-breathers, human mostly but with a smattering of other races, occupied the courtyard beyond. Some sat at trestle tables gorging, drinking, playing cards, or throwing knucklebones. A few wrestled or fenced with clattering wooden swords. At the far end, though, business was in progress. A knot of folk stood beneath a verandah, where dignitaries slouched in rattan chairs could survey them, should they deign to take notice. Unfortunately, the petitioners had competition for their betters’ attention. At the moment, the captains, if that was who they were, seemed more interested in consulting with each other and with the flunkies scurrying in and out of the door behind them.

Tu’ala’keth and Anton headed toward the press. “Captain Vurgrom!” shouted the spy.

One of the petitioners, a squat man with a snout of a nose and two pointed teeth jabbing up from his under-bite across his upper lipan indication, Tu’ala’keth surmised, that his ancestry wasn’t pure human-turned and growled, “Wait your turn!” Then he caught sight of her, and his eyes widened in surprise.

“We might do that,” Anton said, “if we intended to serve as ordinary reavers. But since we merit something grander, we take priority. Now, I’m sure you recognize my companion for what she is. Shut your hole before she lays Umberlee’s curse on you.”

The pirate scowled, but he stepped back, too.

“Captain Vurgrom!” Anton called.

A hulking whale of a man with a braided red beard sat in the center of the platform in a high-backed chair that looked in imminent danger of collapsing under his weight. He held a golden, ruby-studded cup in one meaty, copper-furred hand, and a prodigious battle-axe lay at his feet. He looked around in annoyance, evidently, but put away his glower when he spotted Tu’ala’keth.

“I’m Vurgrom the Mighty,” he said, “and those who wear the drowned man’s hand are always welcome in my palace.”

She inclined her head to acknowledge his courtesy. “That is well. I am Tu’ala’keth. I have decided to sail with you for a season. We will take lives together, in sacrifice to Umberlee.”

“In other words,” said Anton, “we’re offering ourselves as officers. Tu’ala’keth is both a waveservant and a shalarin. She wields powers over sea and storm no human, ore, or what have you can hope to match. Whereas I”he grinned”have my own talents. I can swing a cutlass as well as any man here and practice sorcery as well. In my time, I’ve been a navigator and a boatswain, too. I guarantee the ship that brings us aboard will profit.”

Someone made a contemptuous, spitting sound.

Surprised, Tu’ala’keth turned to see a burly, sneering, ruddy-faced man clad in dark vestments decorated with dabs and jagged streaks of silver. The hem and the ends of the sleeves were cut in ragged, sawtooth fashion. A patch covered his right eye, and he held a spear in his hand.

It all served to mark him as a priest of Talos the Destroyer, chieftain of the Deities of Fury, and Tu’ala’keth felt a spasm of reflexive dislike. On the surface, Umberlee was Talos’s ally, even, in a certain sense, his subordinate, but as a waveservant advanced in the faith, she learned that her goddess and religion strove for the day when they could topple the Storm Lord from his preeminence.

“You sound like very special people,” the Talassan jeered. “But you’re too late. There was only one captain looking for officers today, and she’s already chosen my friend and me for ship’s mage and priest.”

“Umberlee sent me here,” said Tu’ala’keth, “and death upon the sea is her dominion. If you truly revere the powers of Fury’s Heart, you will step aside.”

“I revere Talos,” said the man with the eye patch. “Your patron is merely his whore, and so I caution you to pay him the respect he deserves.”

“Theology’s always fascinated me,” Anton drawled, “but unless I’ve washed up on the wrong shore, this is an assembly of freebooters, not priests. So I’ll simply say this: I don’t know you, Patch, or this friend of yours, either. But I’m still sure Tu’ala’keth and I will prove of more use than you to the captain who was considering choosing you”

“Who has chosen us!” said the Talassan, glaring.

“or to some other with the good sense to recruit us.”

Vurgrom grinned. “That’s bold talk, stranger.”

“Anton Fallone.” The spy, who’d warned Tu’ala’keth he meant to give a false name, now turned his gaze on the only female seated among the captains. She was a young human, slim by the standards of her race, with bronze-colored curls. She wore an abundance of glittering, delicate jewelry and a frilly gown that contrasted oddly with her several scars and the dense tattooing crawling on her bare arms, shoulders, and neck. “Captain, I believe you are a person of sense. I see it in your face.”

Now that Anton had spoken to her directly, the Talassan’s features turned blotchy and even redder. “If you have any sense,” he said to the spy, “you and your pet fish won’t annoy a priest of the Destroyer any further than you have already.”

“I doubt,” said Tu’ala’keth, “that anyone here is so foolish as to fear Talos more than Umberlee. It was she who proved her power by smiting these islands only fifteen years ago.”

“All the more reason,” said the human priest, “to honor the god who holds the Bitch’s leash.”

It was an obscene imagethe mistress of the raging sea, destruction incarnate, leashedand even had Tu’ala’keth been willing to let the blasphemy pass, she sensed that if she and Anton did, they’d forfeit all hope of winning the pirates’ respect and places of authority among them.

Accordingly, she brandished her skeletal amulet on the end of its cord and declaimed a prayer. The folk standing between her and the Talassan realized what she intended and scrambled out of the way. The holy words of the incantation sounded hushed and strange enunciated in air instead of water, but she could feel power massing and knew she was performing the conjuration properly. On the final syllable, a harsh noise blared. People cursed and clapped their hands over their ears. The Talassan staggered a step, and blood dripped from his nostrils.

But to her disappointment, the attack didn’t hit hard enough to disrupt his own chanting and gesturing. He thrust out his hand, and a rustling, fan-shaped burst of something yellow and fluid exploded from his fingertips. She tried to jump out of the way, but it brushed her even so, searing her flank despite the silverweave.

She realized the stuff was flame. It was clever of the human priest to strike at her with a force alien to her experience. But she refused to let it spook her or even to take her eyes off him to see if the fire had taken root in her flesh, even though she’d heard it could cling to you and burn and burn and burn.

Meanwhile, another man stepped forth from the crowd. Plainly, he must be the Talassan’s comrade.

Tu’ala’keth hadn’t taken a good look at him before. Her circumstances were too unfamiliar, too many people were milling about, and things were happening too quickly. She beheld a gaunt, wrinkled man with piercing maroon eyes, a lantern jaw, and a long, tangled mane of graying hair. He wore a russet mantle embroidered with black serpents and carried a long staff of rusty iron, with another snake, carved from carnelian, twining around it.

Tu’ala’keth was no wizard, but she’d mastered her own form of magic, and generally recognized power when she saw it. The man was a conjuror of considerable talents. Fortunately, she didn’t have to contend with both him and the Talassan by herself. Cutlass in hand, Anton ran at the warlock, who swept his serpent-girded staff through mystic passes. Strangely, though, he didn’t recite any words of power, any more than he’d taken part in the verbal preliminaries to the fight.

She perceived that much in an instant but didn’t have the luxury of watching any more. She had to stay focused on the Talassan. Hurrying as quickly as she daredit would do no good to botch the incantationshe commenced another spell. Had her opponent done the same, she likely would have finished first, but instead, he resorted to a different form of magic. He simply shook his spear at her, and suddenly he seemed huge, fearsome, more vivid and real than anything else in the world. The sheer, naked force of his anger made her want to turn and flee or grovel and beg for mercy.

She understood what was the matter. Most every priest possessed the ability to affright or command the undead, and some clerics exercised such powers against other sorts of beings as well. The Talassan apparently knew how to chasten creatures of the sea.

But mere comprehension didn’t negate the effect. She had to deny it. Push it out of her head. She snarled, “I am a waveservant!” and felt the compulsion crumble away.

By that time, though, the Talassan had reached the end of another conjuration. Distortion shimmered around his outstretched hand, and a shrill whine cut through the air. He was attempting a sonic attack of his own, but to Tu’ala’keth’s surprise, his effort didn’t hammer and tear at her flesh. Instead, the silverweave shivered on her torso as if trying to shred itself to pieces. Her foe somehow recognized that if he destroyed it, she wouldn’t be able to breathe.

But the coral mesh held together. She chanted a prayer, and the few stray blades of grass pushing up between the flagstones at the human’s feet abruptly multiplied, thickened, and grew tall. For a split second, they undulated like eels then whipped around the human and yanked themselves tight, binding his limbs. They crawled higher still, seeking his head to gag, blind, and smother him.

The Talassan had no choice but to try to dissolve the effect. Otherwise, it would render him helpless. He started jabbering a counterspell, and Tu’ala’keth cried, “Silence!” The charge of magic infusing the word stole his voice only for an instant, but that was enough to spoil the rhythm of his conjuration.

Green strands coiled around his mouth then masked his face completely. He heaved and thrashed, lost his balance, and fell. Tu’ala’keth hefted her trident and ran at him.

“Enough!” Vurgrom bellowed.

Tu’ala’keth felt a pang of frustration and nearly defied the command. But to do so might hinder Umberlee’s cause, so she halted short of her target.

An instant later, the coils of grass burned away in a flash of fire. Even bound as he was, the Talassan had somehow managed to destroy them. He sprang to his feet, raised his spear over his head, and shouted rhyming words.

“I said, enough!” Vurgrom said. “The fight’s over, Kassur. The shalarin beat you, and her friend beat Chadrezzan.” The spectators cheered or groaned and swore, depending on their sympathies.

The man with the eye patch shuddered as if he found the words unbearable, as if the violence of his nature left him no choice but to ignore them. It made Tu’ala’keth feel an odd twinge of sympathy. They might be enemies, but they were also both priests of the Gods of Fury, and understood that by rights, a duel such as theirs should end in death.

But they were also trying to make their way among folk who lacked their sacred insights. So in the end, he broke off his conjuring and gave a curt, grudging nod, and she, too, forbore to strike at him again.

Several paces away, Chadrezzan lay on the ground with blood seeping from a torn lip, while Anton stood over him, cutlass poised to chop. But when the spy saw that the wizard intended to obey Vurgrom’s command, he grinned and reached to help him up. Chadrezzan spat, ignored the proffered hand, and rose on his own, moving in a slow, pained manner that suggested that, at some point during the fracas, Anton had kicked or kneed him in the crotch. The spy shrugged and sauntered back to Tu’ala’keth’s side.

“Good,” Vurgrom said. “Freebooters brawl, if they’re any good at their trade. It’s natural and gives the rest of us something to bet on. But I don’t see any point in letting you butcher one another when you could all be useful to the faction.”

“But in what roles?” asked the tattooed woman, her manner that of a protege seeking guidance of a mentor. “I’d like to bring all four of them aboard Shark’s Bliss, but I can’t lead a company that’s all officers and no common hands.”

The huge man chuckled. “It’s your ship and your decision, honey cake. I can only advise. Though I will say that I would never have taken all the prizes I have, nor won eternal fame, if I hadn’t favored men who’d already proved they knew how to win a fight.”

“Hmm.” “Honey cake” took a second, pretending to deliberate, though it was plain to Tu’ala’keth that Vurgrom’s words had already decided for her. “Waveservant, Anton, my name is Shandri Clayhill. I’d like to bring you aboard Shark’s Bliss as ship’s priest and mage.”

“That’s outrageous!” Kassur exploded. “You already offered the positions to Chadrezzan and me, and he’s a master wizard, able to slay a dozen men or shatter a hull with a single spell. All you’ve seen this impostor do is cast a couple of petty charms.”

“He’s right, of course,” murmured Anton to Tu’ala’keth. “The mute’s a true magician, far more powerful than the likes of me. But I recognized him as an elementalist, and elemental magic isn’t dainty. It takes up space. So I hovered close to the crowd as I advanced on him, and he couldn’t throw his most potent spells at me for fear of hitting them as well. Vurgrom wouldn’t have stood for that.”

Captain Clayhill glanced at Vurgrom, evidently making sure KaBsur’s outburst hadn’t swayed him, then said, “My decision stands. But you and your comrade are welcome aboard the Bliss as well, on the understanding that, for the time being, anyway, you’ll serve as ordinary gentlemen of fortune, receiving one share each, not two.”

“We accept,” gritted Kassur, “for now.” He glared at Anton and Tu’ala’keth, and she answered with a sneer.

Some of the folk in the boisterous crowd staggered or moved with exaggerated care. Others spoke too loudly or slurred their words. Despite the noise and the frequent jostling, a few snored, sprawling back in their chairs with limbs akimbo or with their heads cradled in their arms on wet, scarred tabletops.

Puzzled, Tu’ala’keth turned to Anton. “Is this a sick house?” she asked.

Anton grinned. “A tavern. Don’t you have tavernsand intoxicants, and drunksin Seros?”

“We have intoxicants, but no establishments like this.”

“Well, now that you’re a pirate, you’d better get used to them.”

Captain Clayhill motioned to them, and they followed her and the rest of her officers on through the press.

Toward the rear, the common area with its benches, hearth, and hard-packed bare-earth floor broke apart into hodgepodge of smaller rooms, niches, and closets fitted haphazardly together. The captain was evidently familiar with the layout, for she led her officerssave for Tu’ala’keth, a mix of humans and the stooped, brutish, gray-skinned race known as oresstraight to the private chamber she’d hired for the occasion.

Tu’ala’keth was grateful when the door shut out the noise and stink of the common room. Someone had already brought in pewter goblets and bottles of wine, and several of her companions made haste to pour themselves drinks, but she didn’t follow their example. No sea creature drank anythingor else, depending on how one looked at it, one drank constantly, simply by using one’s gillsbut even if she had been susceptible to thirst, she would have been more interested in the map spread on the table, the curling corners weighted by extra cups.

She saw with relief that she could pick out the place Anton had specified when he’d sketched a far cruder chart in the sand. By her standards, she knew a fair amount about the shape of the world. She could have drawn a map of Seros in considerable detail. But she’d never had any reason to concern herself with what lay beyond its waters.

“Are you ready?” Captain Clayhill asked. Though still aglitter with jewels and frills, she was no longer the girlish sycophant taking her cues from Vurgrom. Away from him, she put on a harshness, a striding, shoving impatience, which had taken Tu’ala’keth by surprise.

“Yes,” the shalarin said.

“Then find us a worthy prize.”

“As you wish.” Tu’ala’keth seated herself, yet another action that felt clumsy in a medium as lacking in buoyancy as air. “It will be helpful if everyone stays quiet.”

The pirates settled to watch her. She gripped her skeletal pendant with one hand, poised the other over the chart, murmured words of praise to Umberlee, and pretended to slip into a trance.

It gave her a vague sense of shame. Her creed taught her to use every weapon and seize every advantage in the pursuit of her endsto resort to subterfuge whenever she deemed it useful. Still she couldn’t help feeling it was one thing to lie about mundane matters, and something else, something akin to blasphemy, to claim she was employing her sacred gifts when, in fact, nothing of the sort was going on. Despite Anton’s assertions to the contrary, she had no more talent for divination than any other cleric.

But the spy insisted they needed to exploit her cachet as an exotic shalarin waveservant to further their mission. Since it was manifestly Umberlee’s will that the endeavor succeed, Tu’ala’keth swallowed her qualms as best she could.

She let the litany of praise fade into a wordless croon. She’d once known a genuine oracle who made sounds like that. When she felt the first phase of the charade had gone on long enough, she brought her index finger stabbing down.

Everyone leaned to see where she was pointing. “Saerloon,” Captain Clayhill said.

“I see docks,” droned Tu’ala’keth. The somnolent voice she’d adopted made her sound like the drunken men outside. “Buildings with a wall around them, an enclave accessible from land or sea. People bring bags and chests stuffed with gold to buy what the folk in the compound have to sell.”

“It all fitth tho far,” said Sealmid. He was the first mate, a human with a broken nose, many missing teeth and, in consequence, a lisp. “A good many rich traderth have a thetup like that. But which”

Harl the helmsman, an ore whose garments of clashing colors were garish even by freebooters’ standards, shushed him.

“I see the men in charge,” Tu’ala’keth continued. “They carry staves and wands. They wear red.”

Everyone stared at her. Finally the helmsman said, “Are you talking about Thayans?”

“I do not know,” Tu’ala’keth said. She wanted them to believe that, as a gifted seer, she could perceive all matter of hidden things, but her instincts told her the ploy would be more convincing if her powers fell short of omniscience. “But Saerloon is not their homeland. They trade talismans and potions for heaps of yellow gold.”

“Thayanth,” Sealmid sighed. “All honor to the Bitch Queen, but thith doethn’t help uth.”

“Hear her out,” said Anton, his gaze fixed on Captain Clayhill. “Please.”

The pirate leader shrugged her tattoo-covered shoulders, where images of blossoms and butterflies mingled with skulls, snarling basilisks, and bloody swords. “I suppose we might as well.”

Tu’ala’keth rambled on, laying out the rest of the information in a disjointed sort of way, as if, in her daze, she failed to comprehend its meaning. She reckoned that too would make it seem as if she were plucking it from the spirit world as opposed to repeating facts and rumors Anton had gleaned during his years as a spy.

When she reached the end, she sat quietly for a moment then gave a little jerk as if waking from a doze. “What did I say?” she asked.

Harl gave her a yellow-fanged smile. “You told us a lot, waveservant. Unfortunately, it was all about Thayans. Nobody raids Thayans. It’s bad luck.”

“The kind of bad luck where the Red Wizardth turn you into a worm or light you on fire like a candle when you try,” Sealmid said.

Tu’ala’keth scowled. “Umberlee has chosen these folk to be her prey, and ours. We will not fail.”

Captain Clayhill sat frowning, staring into the depths of her amber wine, then gave her head a shake. “If it worked, we’d make a fortune. But the risk is too great. I waited too long to command Shark’s Bliss to lose her now.”

According to Anton, in theory, pirate crews elected their captains, but the truth was more complex. On Dragon Isle, no one ascended to such a position without the approval of one of the several factions. Tu’ala’keth could readily believe Shandri Clayhill had spent a long, dreary time cultivating Vurgrom before he endorsed her aspirations.

“Try again,” the human continued. “Find us another target.”

Tu’ala’keth ostentatiously folded her arms. “No. The goddess has already spoken.”

Captain Clayhill glared. “I revere Umberlee, and I respect her clerics. But you’re one of my officers now, and you’ll follow orders.”

“Hold on,” Anton said. “Let’s at least discuss the Thayans before we give up all hope of robbing them. Tu’ala’keth has given us their secrets. That should enable us to discern their weaknesses and put together a plan to exploit them. What if…”

Pretending to devise it on the spot, he laid out his scheme. The notion was that she would prove herself a powerful seer and spellcaster, he would establish himself as a cunning strategist, and as a result, the pirates would come to hold them both in high regard.

After he finished, the reavers sat quietly for a heartbeat or two, pondering. Then Harl said, “It isn’t the stupidest plan I ever heard. I can halfway imagine it working.”

“Can you halfway imagine the part that cometh after?” Sealmid asked. “Thay we do escape with the loot. Then a bunch of the really powerful Red Wizardth get together and lay a curthe on uth.”

“They have an ugly reputation,” Anton said, “and deservedly so. But they’re not gods. They have their limits.”

“Whereas Umberlee is the greatest of gods,” said Tu’ala’keth. “Do her bidding, and she will protect you.”

“I believe you,” Captain Clayhill said. “I do. But to hazard Shark’s Bliss in the way Anton suggests No. It would be too easy for things to go wrong.”

Tu’ala’keth stared into the captain’s eyes. “You say you believe, but in truth, you have no faith at all, neither in Umberlee nor in yourself. No faith and no courage. Perhaps you had them once, but as you toadied to Vurgromand surrendered yourself to his luststhey withered inside you.”

Captain Clayhill sprang to her feet. “Give me your sword,” she snarled to Sealmid.

Tu’ala’keth remained seated, as if the human’s anger was of no concern to her, thus maintaining the appearance of strength. “Will you strike me, then? To what end? Will the other reavers finally respect you if you kill me sitting in my chair?”

The captain gripped the hilt of Sealmid’s broadsword but didn’t raise it to threaten Tu’ala’kethnot yet. “The other reavers do respect me!”

“No,” said Tu’ala’keth, “they do not. To gain their admiration, you strove for your captaincy, but the manner in which you achieved it makes it a lewd jest.

“You know this, and it gnaws your soul. You tell yourself you would do anything to achieve true respect, but you lie. The trouble with the mask of servility is that, worn too long, it starts to impress its shape on the face beneath. Without realizing it, the pretender opens himself to genuine meekness and uncertainty.

“So it is that you fear to wager what little you have already gained. Even though no pirate wins glory except through daring and ferocity.

“Umberlee wishes to wake these sleeping virtues in you. Because you have the potential to be the greatest of reavers and stain the waters red with the blood of your prey. I see it now. It is why she sent me to you.

“But to achieve your destiny, you must pay heed when she speaks through me. It begins here. Do what other captains fear to do. Plunder the Thayans. Win the respect of Dragon Isle, so that one day, you may rule it. Vurgrom and his rivals aspire for supremacy, like Immurk in his day, but the prize will be yours if you find the strength to take it.”

Captain Clayhill stared at Tu’ala’keth in manifest astonishment. Finally the human’s lips quirked upward. “It’s tricky to know how to respond when somebody insults you with one breath and praises you with the next.”

“I did neither. I spoke the truth as the Queen of the Depths revealed it to me. Hear or ignore it as you please.”

Captain Clayhill turned to Anton. “Tell me your idiot plan again,” she said, “from the beginning.”