"When has that ever stopped you?" the grand d.u.c.h.ess demanded. "Singing in taverns, fighting in the streets like a regular man-at-arms. Why not bed a watchman for good measure?"
"Now you"re just being rude," Arietta said. "Kleef risked his life to save you."
"As well he should have," the grand d.u.c.h.ess retorted. "If you had just listened to your father, none of this would ..."
The grand d.u.c.h.ess stopped abruptly, but Arietta was already reeling, her heart aching as if from a blow. Her mother had just given voice to her own worst fears, and now she found herself floundering in a sea of doubt again, wondering whether her faith in Siamorphe was just a spoiled n.o.blewoman"s silly fantasy after all.
"Arietta, I didn"t mean to say that you"re responsible," the grand d.u.c.h.ess said. "Only the Shadovar are to blame-"
"It"s quite all right, Your Grace," Arietta said. "I understand exactly what you meant."
They reached the bulkhead. Arietta removed her arm from around her mother and turned to Jang.
"The grand cabin is in the stern," she said. "Would you see that Her Grace is made comfortable and given food and water?"
Jang cast a wary glance at the grand d.u.c.h.ess, then said simply, "Yes."
"Thank you." Arietta started up the companionway, but stopped halfway up and glanced back down at her mother. "And, Jang, do remember that you"re in charge."
CHAPTER 8.
KLEEF WAS ON THE ROWING THWART, FACING AFT AND PROPELLING the little skiff through a miasma of gnomish fog. The sky above was yellow-gray, the surrounding air was yellow-gray, and even the sea upon which they floated was a rippling yellow-gray reflection. The Wave Wyvern had dimmed into gray nothingness over a hundred oar strokes ago, and he had no way to tell how far they had come-nor even which direction they were traveling.
But the agate on Watcher"s crossguard was growing steadily brighter as he rowed, and occasionally he could hear a voice call out somewhere beyond his shoulder. So far, none of the voices seemed to belong to Joelle, and that gave him hope. Whatever was happening, she and Malik were taking care to stay hidden, and that could only mean that the Eye of Gruumsh remained safe.
Kleef was about to say as much when Arietta"s hushed voice sounded from the bow thwart behind him. "There!"
He turned to look over his shoulder and found her already nocking an arrow. She pointed the tip ahead and a little to the starboard.
"See them?" she whispered.
Kleef followed the arrow and spotted the dim shapes of two longboats crammed with shades. The forms were still too distant and indistinct to tell much about the pa.s.sengers, but the boats seemed to be diverging-either moving toward separate targets or trying to flank a single one.
A male voice-Kleef thought it sounded like Carlton-called out in the fog ahead. It was answered by Tanner"s voice, at least a dozen paces away. Both longboats altered course, one angling toward Carlton"s voice, the other toward Tanner"s.
"Quieter and faster." Arietta"s whisper was so soft Kleef could barely make out her words. "Maybe we can take them by surprise."
With two boatloads of shades to face, the advantage of any surprise they achieved would quickly reverse. Still, Kleef had to smile at Arietta"s enthusiasm. She had the spirit of a warrior and the pride of a lord, and he didn"t quite know what to make of her. Her heart seemed too pure to belong to a n.o.ble, yet she had lied about her ident.i.ty for no reason he could see. It made him wonder if lying was just habit for her, if the practice simply ran in n.o.ble blood.
"Kleef, I said ..." Arietta let her complaint trail off, then spoke in a more urgent whisper. "Wait! Hold here."
Kleef let the oars hang in the water, putting just enough pressure on them to slow the skiff without making noise, then glanced over his shoulder again. Arietta was scowling and looking hard to starboard, where the blurry shape of a half-submerged temple could be seen no more than thirty paces distant, sitting on the sh.o.r.e of a rocky islet.
"Something"s wrong." Arietta pointed in the direction opposite the islet. "Shouldn"t the Roamer be somewhere over there?"
"If it"s still in the pa.s.sage," Kleef said. "Maybe Greatorm got lost in his own fog."
"And sailed across half the reef before running aground?" Arietta shook her head. "I don"t see that."
Actually, the distance would have been closer to a quarter of the reef, but Kleef saw her point. From what they had seen during the previous day"s low tide, it would have been impossible for any vessel with a keel to cross that much of the reef.
"Maybe they"re wading," Kleef suggested. "Or swimming."
"It"s possible," Arietta said. "But the water would be over their heads in a lot of places, and swimming in this fog would be madness."
Then the voices called out again-this time from a good twenty paces to the left-and Kleef understood.
"They couldn"t have moved that far." He spun the skiff around. "It has to be a trick."
Arietta scowled. "That wasn"t in the plan." She hesitated, then asked, "Was it?"
"Not that anyone told me about." He began to row away from the Shadovar. "I don"t even know how they could do it."
Arietta did not even hesitate. "Malik," she whispered. "He"s the tricky one."
The longboats had dimmed to gray blurs when Kleef saw a hazy figure rise in the stern of the farthest one. For an instant, he feared they were about to be attacked, but the shade merely extended an arm over the side of his boat. He spoke a few syllables in an ancient, sibilant language that were clearly audible across the water, then c.o.c.ked his head as though listening for a reply.
A moment later, a deep murmuring groan bubbled across the water, and the shade sat down again.
Behind Kleef, Arietta let out her breath. "What was that about?"
"Nothing good," Kleef said. "I don"t think we"re the only ones who realize the voices are a trick."
He pulled harder on the oars, and both longboats vanished into the fog. An instant later, so did the rocky islet, and Kleef was left with no real sense of where the hidden pa.s.sage lay.
"Keep a sharp eye up there," he said. "I have no idea where we"re heading."
"Just watch our wake," Arietta said. "Keep it straight, and we should be heading more or less in the right direction."
Kleef was impressed. "A minstrel, a lady, and a sailor?"
"Not a sailor," Arietta replied. "Just smart."
Kleef was about to ask whether he had just been insulted when a tremendous slurping sound rolled through the fog. It was followed by clacking crossbows and a long chorus of screams. Kleef adjusted their course toward the sounds, then began to row so hard the oars slammed against their locks.
"Faster!" Arietta ordered.
Kleef put his legs into it, pushing against the rear thwart-and snapping it off its mounts.
"Any harder and we"ll break up," he said. "What"s happening back there?"
"How should I know? Just keep ..." The sentence ended with the tw.a.n.g of a snapping bowstring. "What is that thing?"
Kleef glanced back to find a writhing mountain of shadow rising ahead, its blurry darkness so pure that it seemed to shed Greatorm"s fog as though it were water. A single enormous eye with a dozen deformed pupils peered out of a pulsing maw, and the maw was surrounded by jointed barbs.
Arietta loosed another arrow, and it was only then that Kleef noticed a flurry of tiny black slivers flying up from below the monster"s immense bulk. He followed the line of slivers down to their source, where he found the silhouette of the Lonely Roamer sitting in a channel of dark water.
Still rowing, Kleef continued to watch over his shoulder as the shadow creature dipped down and grasped the Roamer"s entire bow in its jaws. The screams aboard the ketch grew even more panicked and terrified, and human shapes began to leap overboard. Then the creature lowered the rest of its body to the surface, and the ship began to move backward toward Kleef and Arietta, raising a man-high wave before its stern. A flash of red hair went over the side, and Kleef felt a lump form in his throat.
He doubled his pace, throwing his weight forward and backward so fast the thwart rocked and creaked beneath him, pushing his feet against the hull so hard he feared he would loosen a plank.
The Roamer continued to move toward them, coming fast and pushing the wave ahead of its stern. Kleef moved the skiff out of the way just in time to avoid being swamped, but the wake raised the little boat a good four feet above the surrounding sea, and they had a crystal-clear view of the leviathan as it swam past.
Rippling with muscle and sinew, the thing was as big around as a war galley and as long as Ringfinger Wharf. The dorsal fins along its spine were as tall as houses, and the beat of its enormous tail created such a wave that Kleef barely managed to keep the skiff from capsizing.
Once the wave was past, he started to row again. Immediately, he began to hear screaming and splashing, and when he looked over his shoulder, he saw several dim fog-shrouded figures in the water. Some appeared to be swimming better than others, but all were flailing in panic, and a couple seemed to be thrashing their weapons into the sea. Finally, he spotted a fan of red hair about twenty paces away, and a cold hollow formed in the pit of his stomach. Unlike everyone else, this figure was motionless, and it was impossible to tell whether she was alive or dead.
No sooner had Kleef turned the skiff toward her than Arietta pointed in the opposite direction. "Over there, Kleef. It"s Malik."
Kleef looked over his other shoulder and saw a small figure, also about twenty paces away. The little man was holding his robe in one hand and his sword in the other, flailing madly as he tried to swim.
Kleef turned away. "Joelle"s not moving," he said, continuing to row in the same direction. "We"ll save her first."
"Malik has the Eye!" Arietta objected. "We need to get him first."
"He"s doing fine," Kleef said. They were only ten paces from Joelle, and now he could see something dark and sinuous circling her in the water. "At least he"s still swimming."
"d.a.m.n it, Kleef!" Arietta yelled. "If that thing gets Malik, Shar wins."
Before Kleef could look back toward Malik, a splash sounded. He spun around and saw Arietta in the water, head down, legs kicking, and sword in hand as she swam toward the little man. Behind her, a serpentine shadow turned in her pursuit, its body a tiny mimic of the great leviathan that had taken the Lonely Roamer.
Cursing the stubbornness of the n.o.bility, Kleef grabbed Watcher and leaned over the side of skiff, slashing it down across the phantom"s back. The thing came apart in a cloud of inky darkness that quickly sank out of sight.
"Arietta!" Kleef yelled.
Whether Arietta had heard him or not was impossible to say, but she continued to swim. Kleef glanced back and saw that he had drifted to within five paces of Joelle. He didn"t know whether his judgment had been clouded by the heartwarder"s charm or his dislike of Malik, but it was clear that Arietta had been right about going after Malik first-and it was just as clear that it was too late to undo his mistake.
Kleef swung the skiff in behind Joelle. Now that he was so close, he could see that she was holding her sword in one hand, her head moving ever so slightly as she watched a sinuous shape circling her. He grabbed his sword again and swung into the water.
The serpent sensed the attack coming and twirled away in a flash-straight onto the tip of Joelle"s outstretched sword. It writhed on the blade, whipping its tail around to slash her legs. The water went instantly red and cloudy, and she answered with a quick wrist flick that opened up six inches of flank. The serpent seemed to explode, its insides bursting out through the wound to engulf it in a churning ball of shadow.
Kleef slipped his free hand under Joelle"s arm and lifted her into the skiff. Blood oozed from a finger-length gash on her lower thigh, but with Arietta and Malik in the water, there was no time to worry. He lowered her into the stern of the skiff, then set Watcher aside and took the oars again.
Joelle clamped a hand over the wound to stop the bleeding and drew her legs up, then looked around the boat and frowned.
"Where"s Malik?"
Kleef nodded toward where Arietta had her sword arm wrapped around Malik, pulling him back to the boat. The little man was thrashing his sword into the water and kicking so hard that Arietta could barely hold onto him.
"And you came after me first?" Joelle asked. "That"s sweet, but Malik is the Eye-bearer."
"Yeah, that"s what Arietta said." Kleef was rowing hard, looking back over his shoulder and trying not to feel guilty. "But I don"t see why Malik is the bearer. He"s a bungler-and not to be trusted, I have a feeling."
Joelle gave him a benevolent smile. "That"s the whole point, Kleef," she replied. "Anybody else, the Eye would corrupt. But Malik? He already stands on that side of the temple."
Arietta suddenly let go of Malik and slipped beneath the water. Kleef feared that one of the serpents had dragged her under, but a moment later, she came up with the thing writhing on her sword.
Malik screamed and began to slash at it so wildly that Arietta had to hold it at arm"s length-and even then, he came closer to hitting her arm than the creature.
Kleef steered the skiff around behind the little man and released the oars, then caught the wrist of Malik"s sword hand and squeezed hard.
"Be ... still."
Once Malik stopped flailing, Kleef hauled him from the water and dropped him into the bow of the skiff, then turned to see Joelle taking Arietta"s sword from her. He leaned down to pull her into the boat-only to have her knock his arm away.
"I"ll do it myself."
She grabbed the skiff and seemed to rise out of the water like a breaching swordfish, then threw a leg over the side and rolled into the boat. Kleef was relieved to see that she did not leave any blood in the water behind her.
"Get us out of here!" she ordered. "Before Yder realizes they jumped."
Kleef nodded and grabbed the oars-then felt something heavy clinging to the one on the port. He grabbed Watcher in one hand and used the other to push down on the oar handle, levering the blade out of the water.
Clinging to the end was a sodden gnome with an angry gleam in his eyes. "You owe me a ship," he growled. "A good one."
"You can have the Wave Wyvern," Arietta said. "All you have to do is find her."
Greatorm"s expression brightened. "You"re serious?"
Arietta nodded. "I"ll give you a letter of transfer," she said. "My mother has family in Westgate, so I imagine the Wyvern will head for there-a.s.suming Jang can keep her away from the Shadovar, of course."
"In that case, start rowing." Greatorm crawled up the oar and tumbled into the skiff, then pointed over Kleef"s right shoulder. "Sh.o.r.e"s that way."
Kleef started to row, but looked to Arietta. "What about survivors?"
"Survivors?" Greatorm scoffed. "Do you hear anyone screaming out there? The fry got "em all."
Joelle nodded. "He"s right," she said. "Go on."
Kleef continued to look at Arietta. As a n.o.ble of Cormyr, she was the closest thing he had to a commander right now.
She c.o.c.ked her head, either listening or thinking, then finally nodded. "Keep rowing, Kleef," she said. "Even if there were survivors, our first duty is to the mission."
CHAPTER 9.