The Dragon Isles

Chapter Five

Most of Kingfisher’s sleepy crew had already gathered at the rail, as Mik pushed his way to the side of the ship.

“Where away!” he shouted up to Trip.

The kender shielded his eyes from the morning glare. “Fifteen degrees to starboard,” he called down from the lookout perch.

Mik peered into the glittering dawn sea and spotted a tiny black silhouette bobbing over the waves.

“The kender has the eyes of an eagle,” Bok said, looking in the same direction. “I see nothing.”

“Adjust heading fifteen degrees to starboard,” Mik called up to the helmsman.

“Aye, aye, captain!”

Karista Meinor pushed her way through the crowd to Mik’s side. “I trust,” she said, “that this is only a momentary diversion from our course.”

“Naturally,” Mik said, climbing up to the bridge. “But the law of the sea requires rescue of shipwreck survivors.” He called up to Trip again. “You’re sure there’s someone on that wreckage?”

“Positive, captain. Or I’m a monkey’s cabin boy.”

Mik glanced from Trip in the rigging to Karista, who had followed Mik up to the bridge. She prowled the deck like an anxious cat. Kingfisher’s captain knew the aristocrat had little tolerance for the kender.

“Bok can come up,” Trip called down, reading his mind, “if he and Karista don’t believe me.”

Neither the aristocrat nor her bodyguard accepted Trip’s offer.

It took the ship just over an hour to reach the wreckage Trip had spotted. The Northern Turbidus Ocean rolled gently under Kingfisher’s keel as they sailed. The mild sea showed no signs of the previous day’s storm. The sun stretched her fingers higher as they traveled, and soon lit the whole sky with bright, golden light.

Mik knew the fair weather wouldn’t last; at this time of year, the Turbidus could change its character from seductive to violent in an instant.

A cotillion of Turbidus dolphins arrived to watch Kingfisher’s passage. The aquatic mammals’ sleek black and white forms raced beside the ship or danced in front of the bow. Trip climbed down from the rigging and leaned over the gunwale to watch them. As they closed in on their goal, though, the dolphins disappeared back into the deep.

Very little debris floated on the surface as they drew near the wreckage. A single, wide swath of planking bobbed on the ocean’s green-gray surface. Strapped atop the wreckage, lay the prostrate body of a slender, beautiful woman. She was clothed only in soaked gossamer fabric and delicate jewelry. Her long platinum hair lay arrayed around her head like a sunburst, some of the delicate locks trailing into the water. Her skin was as blue as the evening sky. Whether alive or dead, none aboard Kingfisher could tell from this distance.

“That’s no wreckage,” Mik said, eyeing the castaway’s strange conveyance. “It’s a raft.”

“Not a very sturdy one either,” Trip added. He squinted his hazel eyes and peered at the strange sight. The raft appeared to have been cobbled together quickly from stray bits of wood the ship’s carpenter had lying around. Very little craftsmanship was evident in its plank and rope construction. The waterlogged deck was barely sufficient to keep its passenger above the surface. “And why do you suppose she’s tied down?”

“To weather yesterday’s storm, perhaps,” Karista suggested.

“She couldn’t have tied herself like that,” Mik said.

“Maybe someone stranded her like that for good reason,” Bok offered.

“Aye,” agreed Pamak. “It’s a bad omen. We should abandon her to her fate.”

Mik frowned at them. “Lower the ship’s boat and meet me at the raft,” he called to the crew. He grabbed a full skin from near the water barrel and dived over the side.

“I’m coming, too,” Trip said, bounding over the rail after his friend.

The captain and the kender swam quickly to the makeshift raft as Kingfisher’s crew unlashed the boat from amidships and lowered it over the side.

Mik and Trip reached the castaway quickly, and tread water at the raft’s perimeter. “Scramble aboard and cut her ropes,” Mik said. “This flotsam won’t take my weight.”

“Aye, captain,” Trip replied. He pulled himself onto the small raft and began severing the woman’s bonds with one of his pearl-handled daggers.

Mik swam around near her head, careful not to topple her into the deep as he skirted the perimeter of the rickety platform. The woman’s eyes were closed tight and crusted over with dried salt. She didn’t move at all or make any sound, and, at first, the captain thought they’d come too late.

As Mik watched, though, he saw that her chest rose in a slow, shallow rhythm, and a faint pulse throbbed in her smooth neck. “She’s alive,” he said. “Though not for much longer if we hadn’t found her.”

“Good thing I spotted her, then,” Trip replied. He finished cutting the last of the victim’s bonds and slipped back into the water.

Mik unstoppered the waterskin and poured a little over the blue-skinned woman’s face, gently cleaning off the salty residue. She still didn’t stir, so he dribbled a little onto her pale blue lips. Her tongue darted out and licked up the moisture and her eyes flickered behind her eyelids; she didn’t wake, though.

Just then, the ship’s boat pulled alongside.

“Lift her aboard,” Mik said to Marlian, standing in the skiff’s bow. “Gently.”

“Aye, captain,” Marlian replied.

Mik and Trip helped the crew carefully maneuver the blue woman off the raft and into the longboat. The captain and the kender then scrambled aboard, and they all quickly returned to Kingfisher.

Using some spare sail cloth as a sling, they hoisted the castaway up to Kingfisher’s deck and gently laid her down.

“She’s blue!” Bok blurted.

“Well, she’s a sea elf,” Mik replied. “They’re common enough in these waters-though seldom seen.”

Karista Meinor frowned. “She’s badly sunburned-almost purple,” the noblewoman said. “I doubt she’ll survive.”

“I’ve some sunburn oils in my cabin that may help,” Mik said. “If we can tend the bums and get some water into her, she may make it. Elves are hard to kill.”

“Who could have left her like that?” Bok asked rhetorically. “She’s so beautiful.”

“Bah! You were right earlier, bodyguard,” Pamak said. “A sea elf, shipwrecked? Tied to a raft? I repeat, she’s a bad omen. We should throw her back to the fishes.” A number of other sailors grumbled their agreement.

“Whoever did this to her, didn’t want her with the fishes,” Karista noted. “They wanted her to die stretched out like a skinned animal.”

“We’ll worry about how and why she came to be on the raft later,” Mik said. “For now, take her to my cabin. I’ll tend her burns. Trip, bring more fresh water.”

“Aye, captain,” the kender replied. Trip fetched several more waterskins while the crew gingerly carried the castaway into Mik’s cabin below the bridge.

The captain set up a canvas pallet in the comer opposite his hammock and they laid the sea elf s unconscious body on it. Mik and Trip knelt down at her side. Karista, Bok, and a number of other crew members waited at the doorway.

“Do you have any magic that could help?” Mik asked Karista.

“I have some remedies to relieve fever,” she replied. “I don’t know how effective they’ll be, though. I’ll fetch the herbs I need from my cabin.”

“Have the helmsman resume our previous course,” Mik said to Bok.

The big bodyguard peeled his eyes away from the elf, nodded, and went to do as Mik asked.

“Clear the cabin,” Mik said, indicating everyone else should leave. The fascinated crew members went back to their jobs as Mik and Trip tended to the castaway’s injuries.

Mik gently massaged fragrant oils into the elf s blue skin. When she finally groaned slightly, Trip put the waterskin to her lips and made her drink. As she did, the kender eyed the glittering jewelry holding her scant costume together.

“No borrowing, Trip,” Mik cautioned. “We wouldn’t want her to forfeit her modesty.”

The kender laughed, and reluctantly tore his eyes away from her jewelry.

Karista returned shortly with a silver brazier filled with burning herbs. She chanted and made passes with her hands over the injured woman-but none of them saw any obvious effect.

The aristocrat shook her head. “The magic does not work as reliably as it once did,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

Mik stood and stretched. “You did your best,” he said. “We all have. There’s nothing more we can do for her now. Undisturbed rest is probably her best chance at recovery. Besides, we have work to do. Saving this poor girl cost us valuable time. It’ll take keen sailing to reach the proper coordinates by the time Paladine’s constellation rises tonight.”

“But shouldn’t we change her sunburn salve?” Trip asked.

“Later,” Mik replied. “This evening perhaps, before Paladine rises. We’ve a lot of ocean to cover before then. Let’s get to it.”

“Aye, captain,” the kender replied.

The wind was against them for most of the day. Through clever sailing, though, Mik still managed to make up most of the time they’d lost.

As the sun settled behind the shoulders of the ocean, the wind shifted to the southwest, urging them on their way. Mik stood in the bow, watching the dappled red and orange reflections on the water creep into purple and indigo. He called back a final course correction to the helmsman, and then ate a brief supper with the crew on the deck amidships.

Karista and Bok took their meal below; they seldom deigned to eat with Kingfisher’s crew. Only as he washed the last of his bread down with a swig of rum did Mik notice that Trip was missing as well.

Mik found the kender, as expected, within the captain’s cabin. Trip had opened Mik’s sea chest once more, and taken out the golden artifact and the parchment with the transcribed verses of the prophecy. He sat perched on Mik’s hammock, perusing the paper and turning the artifact over in his small hands.

“Honestly,” Mik said, “I’m not sure why I bother to lock that chest.”

“I’m not sure why you bother, either,” Trip replied. “It’s not a very good lock. Karista could probably open it if she had a mind to.” He dropped out of the hammock and smiled.

“How’s our patient?” Mik asked, gazing at the blue form of the castaway. Her skin looked very dark with the red light of sunset streaming through the cabin’s small windows. Mik crossed to a hanging brass lamp in the center of the room and lit it.

“Better, I think,” Trip replied. “She hasn’t woken up or moved much, though. Should we oil her bums again?”

Mik nodded. “It’s not much,” he said, “but all we can do to help her survive.”

Trip laid aside the Prophecy and the artifact, and both of them gently rubbed fragrant oil into the sea elf s blue skin. They worked silently for a while, pausing only to drip fresh water onto her pale lips. Then Trip asked, “When you look at the artifact… at that black diamond, do you… see anything.”

Mik hesitated a moment. “Like what?”

The kender screwed up his face in perplexity. “I dunno. Like a bigger diamond surrounded by treasure, maybe.”

Mik nodded and chuckled. “Never any secrets while you’re around, Trip.”

“Oh, I like secrets as much as the next fellow,” Trip said, “just not when they’re being kept from me. So… what do you see?”

“A storm-tossed ocean,” Mik replied. “An island. A temple. Sometimes, a treasure.” As he spoke, he continued massaging the sunburn oil into the elf s soft skin.

The woman’s eyes flickered open. “Treasure?”