The Reaver

CHAPTER THREE

Startled, the villagers gawked at Stedd. Anton hurried up to stand beside him. “This is none of our business,” he said from the corner of his mouth.

Although he didn’t mean for anyone but the boy to hear it, the warning made the waveservant sneer. “Indeed it isn’t, stranger. Indeed it isn’t. You and the child stay out of it. Unless you care to come to the shore and offer with the rest of us.”

Perhaps it was the fact that Anton had only just escaped the identical fate that made him feel a pang of disgust. “You’re going to drown the old woman?”

“We are. She’s feeble and useless. She takes food from the mouths of those who still contribute to the village. She needs to die.”

“No,” said Stedd, “you mustn’t do it. It’s wrong.”

The priest’s mouth tightened. “No, child, it isn’t. Listen and learn. Umberlee has become the greatest deity hereabouts, and, I truly believe, in all the world. The wise know this because the sea keeps rising to demonstrate her power. Thus, her will-her creed-is right by definition. And she teaches us to love strength, hate weakness, and worship her before all other gods or goddesses. Those who follow her path will thrive. Misery and death await all others.”

“But that isn’t true,” argued Stedd, addressing not just the waveservant but everyone within earshot. “Umberlee isn’t making it rain. The world is being reborn, and the Great Rain is part of the birth pains. Like all such pains, it will come to an end, and when it does, we can live in a time better than any we’ve known before. But it depends on how we act now. If we hold onto kindness and hope even when it’s hard, tomorrow will be good. But if we turn vicious and hurt even our own neighbors, then it won’t matter that the sun is shining and the crops are growing, because we’ll still be like wild starving dogs on the inside.”

Anton’s eyes narrowed in surprise. Aboard the Jest, Stedd had demonstrated a remarkable ability to heal, but in the time since, he’d mostly seemed like a normal little boy. Now, however, the wandering prophet who’d annoyed the church of Umberlee by preaching a doctrine diametrically opposed to its own stood revealed, with a confidence in his stance and a conviction in his voice that lent weight to his words despite his youth. In fact, it was possible the contrast served to make his entreaty all the more impressive.

Certainly, some of the villagers looked interested if not dumbfounded. The waveservant, however, laughed a nasty laugh. Before the Great Rain, he’d likely lived a relatively unassuming life. The other villagers would have turned to him when it was time to sacrifice to his savage goddess for a safe voyage or good fishing but wouldn’t have tolerated him trying to tell them what to believe or order them around. Now, however, he seemed confident-indeed, arrogant-in his new leadership role.

“Madness,” he said, “madness and impudence. I am a priest. The wisdom of a deity informs every word I say. Can you say the same, little boy? If not, I suggest you shut your mouth.”

“Yes,” Anton said, “do that.” He took hold of Stedd’s shoulder to pull him back.

But the boy twisted away with surprising strength. “I can ‘say the same.’ Because Lathander speaks through me.”

That declaration brought another moment of quiet, and then the waveservant laughed again. “If you’re going to trade in blasphemy, you should at least bring your lies up to date. The Morninglord died a hundred years ago.”

Stedd shook his head. “He didn’t. For a while, he had to stop being what he was, but now he can be again. He can shine the light he shined before.”

“Gibberish.” The priest shifted his gaze to Anton. “But blasphemy nonetheless. Take your lunatic ward away from here before my duty obliges me to take him from you.”

“Everyone is looking at me,” said Stedd, once more addressing the crowd at large. “Don’t. Look in the eyes of the kinswoman and neighbor you’re about to kill. And if you’re too ashamed to do it, learn from that. It’s the good part of your soul trying to stop you from doing something awful.”

Villagers muttered to one another. Then a woman who held a couple of the ceramic pots said, “I don’t … I mean, Aggie is kin to me on my mother’s side.”

“To me, too,” said a runt of a man bundled up in gray. With a deferential if not apologetic demeanor, he turned to the waveservant. “I know we complain, Saer, but we’re not starving yet. We catch some fish.”

The priest sneered. “And how long do you think that will last if you fail to honor the Queen of the Depths?”

“We could sacrifice something else,” the small man said. “Maybe a chicken. I have an old hen that’s stopped laying.”

“Quiet!” the cleric snapped, and the word carried a charge of magic like the crack of a whip. The runt jerked and made a choking sound as the command momentarily deprived him of the power of speech. Other villagers flinched.

“Don’t be afraid,” said Stedd. “The waveservant is trying to bully you into doing what he wants. But if you say no, the Morninglord will protect you.”

The priest scowled. “Let’s put that lie to the test. Let’s see your dead god protect you.” He snatched a little seashell from a pocket of his cloak and squeezed it in his fist until it cracked. Three streaks of greenish blur wavered into being in the air before him, then, in just a heartbeat, put on definition and solidity.

The sahuagin were the size of men, with shark-like heads complete with fangs, crests of fin running down their spines, and tridents in their clawed, webbed fingers. Gill slits dilated and contracted in the sides of their scaly necks, but they were entirely capable of surviving out of water long enough to make an example of a “blasphemer” and his hapless companion.

Somehow comprehending without being told what their summoner desired, the sea devils lumbered forward. Peasants screamed and scrambled to distance themselves from the creatures.

Anton shot Stedd a glance. “You said your god would protect us.”

“Yes,” said Stedd, his blue eyes wide, “but not through me! I couldn’t get my magic back because I had to bail out the rowboat.”

For an instant, Anton imagined himself stepping aside and waving the sahuagin on by to stab and claw the boy to pieces. But satisfying as that might be, it would mean giving up the bounty.

He yanked his cutlass from its scabbard. “Stay back!” he said, and then the sea devils shambled into striking distance.

In his experience, these brutes were strong, ferocious, and skillful with their chosen weapons, but not especially agile on land. That appeared to be the only advantage he possessed, but maybe if he maneuvered constantly and forced the sahuagin to keep turning back and forth, it would be enough. He parried an initial trident thrust, dodged right, and slashed.

His target jerked back from the blade, and a cut that might have been lethal merely split the leathery hide above its ribs. He lunged to make a follow-up attack, but the sea devil blocked quarterstaff-style with the shaft of its trident, then jammed the length of wood into him and heaved him staggering backward.

Anton struggled to recover his balance as his feet slipped in the mud. He was still floundering when his adversary’s trident leaped at his face.

Incapable of any other defense, he threw himself down in the muck, and the three-pointed weapon shot over him. He rolled to one knee and slashed. The cutlass sliced the sea devil’s leg, and it staggered and roared.

By that time, the other two sahuagin had circled their comrade to threaten Anton anew, but they faltered for a heartbeat as though his dive to the ground had surprised them. It gave him time to jump up and scramble left, obliging them to change their facing once more.

He scored twice more in the moments that followed, once on the hobbling foe he’d wounded initially and once on a fresh one. But, armored by their scales, neither dropped.

Curse it, he had to dispatch the enemy faster than this or they’d surely kill him instead. Energized by combat, he no longer felt weary and hungry but recognized that for the illusion it was. Soon, he was going to slow down, the sea devils would finally succeed in surrounding him, and that would be that.

Time to take bigger chances, then. He extended the cutlass and hurled himself forward.

The all-out running attack might well be his last if the sahuagin he’d targeted-the lamed one-simply shifted its longer weapon into line to spit him. But it reacted a hair too slowly, and the cutlass punched into its throat and half ripped its head off as he sprinted by.

Grinning, he wrenched himself around. Then his momentary elation gave way to dismay.

One sea devil broke away and started toward Stedd. Sidestepping, its fellow positioned itself and leveled its trident to keep Anton from rushing in pursuit.

Anton stepped into the distance, inviting an attack, and drew one in the form of a stab to the belly. He parried with all his strength, and that was forceful enough not merely to deflect the trident but to make the sahuagin fumble its grip on it. He lunged, cut, and the creature reeled. He charged around it.

By then, the sea devil that was after Stedd had backed him up against a wall. Either the idiot boy hadn’t had sense enough to run out of the village or else the shacks and ring of spectators had hemmed him in.

Anton cut into the sahuagin’s spine with its spiny, scalloped fin. The shark man stumbled, shuddered, then fell down into a puddle.

The resulting splash almost covered the sound of footsteps charging up behind Anton as he’d rushed behind the creature he’d just dispatched. Almost, but fortunately, not quite. Realizing that, despite the wound he’d given it the sahuagin that had attempted to bar his path was still on its feet, he whirled to face it.

Sure enough, here it came, with blood pouring down from the gash on the top of its head. Hoping the flow was getting in its yellow eyes and blinding it, he decided to feint high and cut low. But then a strangling pain erupted in his chest, and he doubled over retching brine.

Well behind the creature, the waveservant grinned and brandished his trident over his head. In his struggle to best the shark men, Anton had all but forgotten the foe who’d whisked them to the battlefield, but now he realized Umberlee’s servant had cast a spell on him.

The sahuagin poised its trident for a thrust. Anton feebly waved his cutlass but could do nothing more. Until he finished expelling the conjured seawater from his airways, he’d be as incapable of self-defense as any other drowning man.

Then a high voice screamed, and a different trident pierced the sea devil’s flank at the spot where a human carried his kidney. His face contorted, Stedd worked to shove the heavy, triple-pointed spear deeper into the sahuagin’s flesh. The creature hissed and swung its own weapon high for a counterthrust down at its assailant.

Anton’s chest and throat still burned, and he couldn’t stop gasping. But gasping was breathing, and if he could breathe, he could fight. He hacked the sahuagin’s leg out from under it and finished the job of splitting its skull when it fell.

Then he straightened, smiled at the waveservant, and took satisfaction in the flicker of alarm in the other man’s expression. “What’s the matter,” he rasped, “all out of summoning spells?”

The waveservant looked to his parishioners. “Kill him!” he cried. “While he’s still weak!”

After a moment, three of the rougher-looking villagers started forward. But with a theatrical flourish, Anton slowly swept the cutlass, now gory from point to guard, in their direction. They balked.

“For your own sakes,” said Anton, “don’t. Leave the priest and me to settle this between ourselves.” He strode forward, and the rustics scurried to clear his path.

For a moment, the waveservant looked like he was considering turning tail. Then his square face twisted. He hissed words that sounded less like human language than breakers curling and foaming toward a shore, and on the final syllable, jabbed his trident in the direction of his oncoming foe.

Nothing seemed to happen. But intuition prompted Anton to glance back. Streaming up into the air from a puddle, rippling water gathered itself into the shape of a floating trident. If he hadn’t turned, it would have struck him down by surprise. As it might spear him yet, for as he knew from past experience, he couldn’t destroy such a manifestation of magic by any means at his disposal.

He ducked its first thrust, whirled, and ran, zigzagging to throw off its aim. The trick enabled him to reach the waveservant unscathed.

That accomplishment meant he’d now have to contend with two stabbing tridents instead of one, but he didn’t care. All that mattered was that at long last, his true foe was finally within reach.

Anton cut at the waveservant’s head, and the priest blocked the stroke with his trident. The pirate then sprang to the side and discovered an instant later that he’d timed the trick properly. The flying trident streaked through the space he’d just vacated toward its creator.

Unfortunately, though, the three tines splashed harmlessly against the waveservant’s chest. Then the scattered droplets flew back together to reform them as the trident spun itself around. Evidently, the magic couldn’t harm the man who’d worked the spell. But at least for the moment, both tridents, the one of steel and ash and its counterpart of solidified water, were in front of Anton. That was better than having to worry about a stab in the back.

He beat the mundane trident hard enough to loosen the Umberlant’s grip on it. As he’d known it would, the action opened him to a thrust from the flying weapon, but he pivoted back in time to defend with an equally forceful parry. The trident splashed apart, then flew back together as it had before.

But before it could finish reforming, Anton rushed the waveservant. Scrambling backward, the priest dropped the trident and opened his mouth, no doubt to attempt more magic. Happily, to no avail. The cutlass slashed his face and then pierced his heart before he could even start the prayer.

As the waveservant collapsed, Anton spun back around to face the trident of water. He had to dodge one more thrust, and then the weapon fell apart and splashed back onto the ground.

Anton was panting, and his blade shook in his hand. But he couldn’t relax yet. He had, after all, just killed the village priest, and although he’d intimidated the locals previously, they might yet find the nerve to try to avenge one of their own.

He turned around to find them gawking at him. He couldn’t tell how they felt about what had just happened. Maybe they were still deciding.

Then Stedd walked forward several paces, perhaps so everyone in the crowd could see him clearly. “I’m sorry for this,” he said. “We didn’t come here to hurt anybody. But the priest brought it on himself. He wanted to prove Lathander couldn’t help me, and he paid for his disbelief.

“That means,” the boy continued, “he gave his life to teach you all a lesson, but the lesson wasn’t what he expected. Will you learn it? Will you choose a different path than the one he was pushing you down? This is the time to decide!”

A big, middle-aged man with shrewd, deep-set eyes squared his shoulders. He looked like the sort of fellow who might have been a village elder or even mayor before hard times and the desperation they engendered allowed the waveservant to usurp everyone else’s authority.

“Let Aggie go,” the big man said, “and put her things back where they belong.”

His body slumping, Anton let the cutlass drop to his side.

At some point, a sailor, likely at the displaced captain’s command, had rigged a little awning stitched from sailcloth to project out from the edge of the quarterdeck over a bit of the main deck. The cover provided some shelter, and Umara had taken refuge beneath it to eat her biscuit and mug of fish stew out of the rain.

It was a decent supper by the low standards of shipboard life. The cook had paid an exorbitant price in Thayan silver for flour while the galley sat at anchor in the harbor of Immurk’s Hold, and as a result, the ship’s biscuits were currently fresh and soft. A sensible person would enjoy them before they petrified into the usual flavorless, tooth-breaking lumps.

But the best Umara could manage was a few nibbles, even though her body presumably needed nourishment to replace the lost blood. Lingering revulsion robbed her of her appetite.

People claimed a vampire’s kiss could induce rapture. With a mix of wistfulness and thankfulness, she wondered why Kymas never bothered to manipulate her emotions in that fashion. Maybe he assumed she already enjoyed the sting of his needle teeth and the suck of his cold lips-she’d certainly been too prudent to indicate otherwise-or perhaps the nature of her experience simply didn’t matter to him.

She could only hope that when she herself was undead, predation would feel different from the other side. Because if the act still revolted her, and yet she had to perform it over and over down the centuries of her extended existence …

With a scowl, she shoved such anxieties away. Of course, she’d relish drinking blood. Her transformation would sweep away her squeamishness along with any other weak mortal feelings and notions that might otherwise keep her from thriving. It would solve her problems and make her better than she was, and, fixing her mind on that reassuring truth, she slurped in another mouthful of fish, carrots, and lentils.

The taste still failed to stimulate her appetite.

With a sigh, she stuck the remains of her biscuit into a cloak pocket in the hope she’d want it later. Then she walked to the gunwale and flicked the contents of her cup down into the black, benighted sea.

Moments later, the hatch below the quarterdeck clicked open, and Kymas emerged in a red hooded cloak like her own. With his thirst slaked, he looked every inch the mage as courtier, moving in unhurried fashion with a subtle smile on his face. It had taken Umara years to learn to recognize the bare hint of tautness in his posture that revealed something had displeased him.

Fortunately, it didn’t appear that the something was her. Kymas gave her a smile and said, “There you are. Good. You can help me sort this out.” He raised his voice: “Captain!”

Ehmed Sepandem was an aging Mulan with two missing fingers, a pockmarked sour face, and a disposition to match. Umara sometimes wondered if his bitterness arose from the growing suspicion that his masters deemed his lifetime of service insufficient to merit the supreme reward of undeath. Whatever the cause, he was a tyrant to the crew but came quickly as any common swab when a Red Wizard called him.

“Yes, Lord,” Ehmed said.

“Good evening, Captain,” Kymas replied. “Do you know, I believe I’m growing accustomed to life at sea. Though shut up in the cabin you were generous enough to lend me, I somehow sensed the ship was making little headway. So I came on deck to see for myself, and sure enough, it’s so.”

Ehmed glanced back at the lateen sails. “The wind’s still from the east, Lord. We’re beating into it, but it’s slow going.”

“That makes sense on its own terms,” Kymas said, “but I was under the impression that it was precisely for occasions like this that we have oars.”

The captain hesitated. Umara suspected that, like many an underling faced with a superior’s unreasonable demands, he was calculating how to explain the realities of the situation without appearing insubordinate.

“The oarsmen rowed all day,” he finally said. “They have to eat and rest, or they’ll be of no use tomorrow.”

“I see your point,” Kymas said, “and I apologize. Here we are, Lady Ankhlab and myself, wizards of Thay, guests aboard your vessel, and we should have taken an interest in your problems before this. Let’s go down to the first bank.”

The first bank of benches was below deck, and the reeking, whip-scarred wretches shackled behind their oars were slaves. Kymas looked around, and then, pointing, said, “I’ll have that one.”

Even skinnier than his fellows, truly emaciated, the man the vampire had indicated sat slumped motionless and perhaps unconscious over the shaft of his oar. Ehmed grunted. “I don’t know what you have in mind, Lord, but that man won’t last much longer even with proper use.”

“That’s why I chose him,” the wizard replied. “I like to think I’m a good Banite overall, but I confess to a preference for mercy within the bounds of practicality.”

With that, he headed down the aisle between the benches, and Umara and the captain followed. Either sensing something uncanny about the vampire or simply leery of any Red Wizard, slaves shrank from him to the extent their leg irons would allow.

The dying oarsman, however, remained oblivious until Kymas took hold of matted hair crawling with lice and lifted his head. The rower then yelped and tried to slap the Red Wizard’s hand away, but Kymas held onto him without difficulty.

The vampire stared into the slave’s eyes. “I’m going to set you free. Do you believe me?”

His struggles subsiding, the oarsman stared back. “Yes,” he murmured.

“Good.” Kymas glanced around at Umara. “Could you do something about these?” He gestured to the cuffs securing the slave’s ankles.

Umara didn’t have a key to the leg irons, but she didn’t need one. Trying not to breathe in the stench of the filth under the benches, she kneeled down and spoke a word of opening, and the magic popped the shackle open.

“Now come along,” Kymas said. Hobbling, the mesmerized slave followed him, Ehmed, and Umara up back up onto the main deck.

The upper bank of oars was the responsibility of free men, mariners who performed other duties besides rowing. Naturally, they weren’t chained to their benches, but some were resting there even so. In the close confines of the ship, it was a place to sit or stretch out. Others stood in line waiting for the cook to ladle out their evening meals.

“I’d like everyone’s attention!” Kymas called, and the crew turned to look at him. “Gather round.”

After a moment of nearly universal hesitation, all hands except those occupied with some essential task came closer. Umara had seen such reluctance countless times before. Many Thayan commoners preferred to keep their distance from Red Wizards, especially undead ones.

“Thank you,” Kymas said. “Now I don’t have to shout to ask who among you understands what I’m trying to accomplish by chasing around the Inner Sea.”

Nobody answered.

Kymas nodded. “That’s what I thought, so allow me to explain. Over the course of the last couple years, individuals with special gifts have been appearing in various places around Faerun. Allowed to run wild, these Chosen, as they’re called, pose a threat to Thayan interests. But conversely, if someone could lay hands on one of them and fetch him to Szass Tam, our monarch could harness his power to do great things.”

Based on her own understanding of magic and all the stories she’d heard about the ruler of her homeland, Umara suspected the prisoner in question wouldn’t survive the harnessing. Or else would wish he hadn’t.

“So that’s my mission,” Kymas continued, “and I’m not the first of our master’s servants to undertake something similar. I’m told he dispatched an expedition to the Star Peaks but it failed to accomplish its objective, and those agents had to bear the weight of his disappointment.”

The vampire ran his gaze over his listeners. “I would very much regret finding myself in the same position, and yet the obstacles in my way are considerable. I’ve identified a target, but others are seeking him, too. I need to scoop him up before they do. Thus, it dismayed me to learn that the combination of contrary winds and human frailty has slowed our progress to a crawl.

“I can’t do anything about the former. I never studied that form of magic. But I can address the latter.” Kymas turned to Umara. “Kill the slave.”

She felt a twinge of distaste. As every Thayan understood, the lowly lived and died to serve their betters, but unlike some aristocrats, she took no pleasure in the gratuitous mistreatment of slaves. But she supposed it wasn’t gratuitous if her superior commanded it, and it might actually be an act of mercy to put the wretch out of his misery.

She murmured rhyming words that filled her mouth with a metallic taste, then breathed on her hand at the end of the incantation. The taste departed, and her hand changed. Catching the light of a nearby storm lantern, her skin glinted. Her fingertips tapered into points, and a ridge like the edge of a knife protruded along the bottom of her hand from the tip of the little finger to the wrist.

As it did, the slave finally shook off the dazed passivity Kymas’s gaze had induced and realized what was about to happen. Goggling, he tried to recoil, but the vampire and Ehmed were in the way, and the latter shoved him stumbling back in Umara’s direction. She sliced the side of his neck.

Blood jetted, and the slave fell. Kymas waited for him to stop shuddering and then said, “My turn.”

The senior wizard made a little snapping motion with his arm, and a wand carved of bone slid out of his voluminous sleeve and into fingers just as ivory-pale. He raised the implement over his head and chanted in the language of Thanatos.

The words and the feeling they engendered, as though the night was a huge black fist closing around the galley, made Umara’s ears ache and her temples throb. And she was not alone in her distress. One onlooker vomited. Another sailor scurried into the bow to get as far away as possible. His retreat represented a breach of discipline, but he was evidently willing to risk a flogging.

The corpse twitched, then shuddered. A pale yellow luminescence flowered in its eyes.

“Stand up,” Kymas said, and the zombie did. “Everyone, behold an improved oarsman. It doesn’t need nourishment or rest. If I wished, it would row without stopping for years on end, until its joints simply fell apart. If I filled the benches with others like it, I would no longer have to worry about making good time.”

One of the sailors clenched his fist and touched it to his heart. It was a way of asking the Black Hand to shield him from misfortune. No doubt his fellow mariners likewise recognized that Kymas was threatening them and not merely the slaves.

Kymas smiled. “But alas, the transformation involves a tradeoff. As living men, you possess skills that would depart your bodies along with your souls, and I would hate to see my mission fail for lack of access to those abilities. For that and other reasons, I’d prefer to leave you as you are provided you can muster the will to row for longer periods at a stretch. Can you?”

For a moment, no one answered. Then a man said, “Aye.”

Kymas smiled. “Splendid. By all means, have your suppers before you return to the oars.” He turned to the zombie. “You, come with me back below.”

Where, Umara reflected, the gruesome sight of the creature would provide the same sort of motivation to the slave rowers, and after that, Kymas would bid it return to its station. She wondered how well its bench mate would tolerate having to toil beside it.

When Anton tried to rise from the pallet Aggie had made for him, his body was as stiff as an iron bar. That, along with exhaustion and the relief of resting warm, clean, and dry at last, made him as disinclined to stand up as ever in his life.

Grunting, he struggled to his feet anyway, then contemplated the garments hung near the fire. Any item he put on now would likely still be damp come morning. He supposed it didn’t much matter. The rain would find its way inside his cloak soon enough, perhaps before he and Stedd had even left the village.

Still, he simply pulled on his breeches, threw his mantle around his shoulders, and drew up the cowl. Then he opened the cottage door, slipped out, and eased it shut behind him.

Every step squished mud up between his toes, but at least the rain had let up some and merely pattered on his shoulders. He was glad, but months into this sodden catastrophe he knew better than to take that as cause for hope that the precipitation might actually stop. The weather was simply teasing him.

When he reached the shore, he sheltered beneath an apple tree. Except for a couple of stunted green pieces of fruit rotting on the branch, it wasn’t bearing. Maybe salt water, diffusing through the soil from the encroaching sea, had poisoned it.

He gazed out across the waves rolling in beneath the cloud cover. Everything was black except for the flicker of lightning far to the northwest.

That dark vista was essentially what he’d hoped to see. Yet for some reason, it set a hollow ache inside him. He supposed it was just another manifestation of his fatigue.

Still, tired as he was, it would be more prudent to stand and watch for a while than just take a single look and return to the cottage. He knuckled his eyes, and then a voice said, “What are you doing?”

Anton turned to see that Stedd, wrapped in the hooded mantle the villagers had given him, had crept up behind him. “You’re supposed to be asleep.”

“I woke up and saw you sneak out,” Stedd replied. “What are you looking for?”

“The lights of the Iron Jest. Or of any other ship that might be hunting us. Now go back to bed.”

Instead, the boy moved up to stand and look out over the waves beside Anton. “Are you angry at me?”

“I was for a little while,” Anton admitted, and then, mindful of his resolve to stay on good terms with his unwitting captive, added a lie: “Not anymore.”

“Because I got you into a fight? You didn’t want the waveservant to drown Aggie, either. I could tell.”

“That doesn’t mean I would have chosen to risk my life-and yours-to save her.”

“People have to help each other. It’s what Lathander wants. It’s what Umberlee doesn’t want.”

“If you say so.”

Stedd frowned up at him. “Don’t you believe Lathander’s back?”

Anton shrugged. “How would I know one way or the other?”

“Because I healed you.”

“And the magic had to come from somewhere. I follow the logic. But healers aren’t all that uncommon, they claim to derive their abilities from many different sources, and in my experience, some of them aren’t especially nice people.”

“Do you think I’m ‘nice’?” Stedd replied.

Anton snorted. “I didn’t let the sahuagin have you, so apparently I don’t mind you all that much. But here’s the nub of it. I’m helping you for your own sake, not some god’s. I don’t care if Lathander has returned or not. I don’t believe any deity is going to put himself out to make my little mortal existence any better. To the extent they notice us at all, the gods want us to serve them, not the other way around.”

“That’s the bad powers like Umberlee. It’s not Lathander, or why did he save Aggie?”

“I saved Aggie after-skip it. I don’t want to hear that the Morninglord inspired me or gave me strength or whatever rebuttal it is that just popped into your head. I want to know if you understand how lucky we are that this dismal little place is so completely out of touch. If the waveservant had been on the lookout for you, or if any of the locals knew about the price on your head, our afternoon could have turned out very differently.”

“I have to speak up for Lathander even when it’s dangerous.”

“Who’ll speak for him if Evendur Highcastle gets his slimy dead hands on you?”

“Maybe somebody who heard me speak before.”

“Curse it, boy, do you want to die, or do you want to reach Sapra?”

“Sapra. You know that.”

“And do you believe it’s the will of your Morninglord that has you traveling with a scoundrel who’s survived for years with all the navies of the Inner Sea trying to hunt him down?”

“Yes.”

“Then mind me. When I tell you it’s safe to climb up on a stump and preach, do that. But when I say you need to keep your mouth shut, or tug your hood down, turn, and walk away, you do that, too. Agreed?”

Stedd hesitated, then said, “I can’t just turn my back if something truly bad, like what was happening to Aggie, is going on right in front of me.”

“The rise of the Church of the Bitch Queen notwithstanding, I doubt we’ll find ourselves constantly stumbling across attempts at human sacrifice. That would be bad luck to say the least. Will you follow my lead in less drastic circumstances? I swear on Lathander’s sword-”

“He has a mace: Dawnspeaker.”

“Fine. I swear on his mace Dawnspeaker that heeding me will increase the likelihood of your reaching Turmish alive.”

Stedd frowned, pondering, and then held out his hand. “I promise.”

Anton shook the boy’s hand and, yielding to a pang of curiosity, said, “What’s special about Sapra, anyway? Why is it important that you go there?”

Stedd sighed. “I don’t know yet. I wish Lathander would just tell me everything at once, but it doesn’t work like that. He lights up things-the things I can see-a little bit at a time.”

“Like a sunrise,” Anton said.

Stedd grinned. “Yes! At first, when I got out of the camp-”

“The camp?”

The boy waved his hand, seemingly to indicate that “the camp” was far enough behind him that it no longer mattered. “I only knew I had to come south. And even with a war blocking the way, I made it. Then, when I saw the Great Rain, I understood I had to tell people the rise of the sea didn’t mean they needed to bow down to Umberlee and follow her teachings. They could still be good and put their trust in Lathander. Then, last month, I realized I needed to go to Sapra.”

Anton smiled. “And do … something.”

“I guess. Anyway, I think that somehow, Sapra is where a thing that’s supposed to happen, will. Or won’t, if I can’t do what I’m supposed to. But I’m going to!”

Anton had to admit, Stedd made it sound interesting. For a moment, it almost seemed a pity that the boy was never going to get within a hundred miles of Sapra.