Starspawn

by Wendy N. Wagner

  The way he climbed over the huge boulders and slabs of rock, intent on his footing, he could be back on Sorind, happily exploring. It made her smile to see him like this, as ordinary as could be, just a boy and his dog and their ever-present curiosity. Even with the wind keening at her, she felt a little better watching him.

  “Kran!” she called. “It’s time to go!”

  Fylga looked back at her and barked twice. Kran stood up straight and waved his arms hugely. Jendara put her hands on her hips, trying to figure out what he meant. He beckoned at her.

  She made her way toward them. With the ground strewn with fallen rocks, it wasn’t easy. “What is it?”

  Kran cupped his ear and pointed at the wall ahead.

  Jendara strained to hear whatever he did. All she heard was the wind, muttering and hissing to itself. She straightened up. They didn’t have time—

  Fylga scrambled up on a shelf of rock and began to paw at the wall, raking away loose gravel and mud. Kran jumped up beside her and set his shoulder against the wall. Rock groaned and scraped.

  “Be careful!” Jendara shouted and raced to catch up with him just as Fylga fell through.

  20

  THE STARS OBSCURED

  Jendara grabbed Kran by the back of the jacket as he wobbled on the edge of the rock shelf. “Vorrin! Help!” She hauled backward, her heart pounding.

  Kran looked back at her, his face split in a wide grin. He shook his head.

  “What?” she snapped.

  Fylga barked, the sound resounding off the rocks. Jendara let go of Kran to rub at her ears. He wasn’t falling. Fylga hadn’t fallen, either. She leaned around Kran to peer into the gap they’d opened in the wall.

  On the far side, another slab of rock stuck out, this one canted at a steep angle. Fylga stood a few feet below the tilted slab, her tail wagging as she balanced on top of another massive boulder. Huge rocks stood all around her, evidence of previous rockfalls and cave-ins.

  Kran waved his hand in front of her face. Jendara frowned at him. “What?”

  He crooked two fingers at his eyes, his gesture for “look where I look,” and then stabbed them out into the darkness.

  But it wasn’t entirely dark. Beyond the massed boulders, a faint gray light reflected off rippling water. It had to be sunlight. The spiders’ cavern must have once been joined to this larger one, until some ancient cave-in and subsequent rockfalls had separated the two spaces. “A sea cave,” she mused. She patted his shoulder. “It’s some find.”

  He pushed her hand away and pulled out his slate. Nearly sunset. Western light?

  She read the words twice, her mind still focused on the cavern behind her. Zuna was in bad shape, and Fylga was already making her way to the next boulder. It was hard to pay attention to her son’s cryptic notes when all she wanted to do was grab the stupid dog and get out of this damned cave and back to the Milady’s grotto.

  Kran underlined the last sentence, looking at her questioningly.

  Western light. But there hadn’t been any other open sea caves when they’d circled the island—just the big grotto on the west side of the island.

  Jendara grinned at him. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

  “Jendara? Kran? You two all right?” Vorrin called from behind them.

  Jendara spun to face him. “Kran found the Milady’s cave!”

  * * *

  Jendara waited on the rocky shore for the dinghy to reach them. It had pained her more to watch her son and his dog swim away from her than it had to rip open her chin, but as Vorrin pointed out, Kran was the best suited for the job. Glayn was a slow swimmer, and with Jendara’s injured arm still so awkward, she couldn’t have made it across the cavern.

  That logic hadn’t made it any easier to turn her back on her boy and go help Vorrin bring Zuna out of the spiders’ cavern. Fylga was a good swimmer, but if there was anything lurking in that lake—a group of deep ones or even an ordinary sea snake—Jendara knew the dog was no protection. She made Glayn stand with her and watch the boy’s every stroke while they were separated.

  But here they were, boy and dog, rowing to their rescue. He’d even had the presence of mind to grab a lantern.

  Vorrin put his arm around her. “He’s a fine boy, Dara. Strong and smart and level-headed.”

  She rested her cheek against his shoulder. “I don’t know how we got so lucky.”

  “He gets it all from his mother.” He pulled back, his eyes dancing. “Well, at least the first two.”

  Jendara swatted his arm. “Thanks a lot!” Then a thoughtful look came over her face. She nodded at Glayn, who was offering Zuna water from his canteen. “But in all seriousness, the whole ship raised Kran. Everyone helped. And you’ve always been there for him.”

  “I’ve always loved Kran,” he said in a soft voice.

  Then he hurried into the shallows to hold the dinghy steady for the boy. Kran gave the man an absentminded hug and then scrambled up on the shore. The moment made Jendara’s heart float.

  But a ribbon of chilly steel tethered her heart inside her rib cage. To love, she had learned over the years, was to risk loss. And today she’d lost Sarni just when she was starting to really get to know her.

  By all she held holy, she promised herself, she wasn’t going to lose any more of her loved ones to this damn island. And anything that came between her and her people would find that out the hard way.

  * * *

  Glayn entered the galley and Jendara jumped to her feet. “How’s Zuna?”

  Kran and Vorrin looked up from their card game with anxious expressions. Only Korthax ignored the gnome, lying on the floor with his face covered.

  Glayn sank onto a bench. “Better, I think. With the healing potion and a little sleep, I think she’ll be mostly herself tomorrow. The worst was bandaging the bite. I just kept thinking of—” He broke off and rubbed his palm across his face.

  Jendara swallowed down the lump in her throat. “Let me get you some dinner.”

  She brought him a dish and sat down beside him. “We’ve been making some plans,” she said. “We’ll set out first thing in the morning.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m not leaving this island without Tam, Glayn. He’s like a brother to me. But none of us are in any shape to go out tonight.”

  “I said ‘sure,’” the gnome said in a dull voice. “So let me be until morning.”

  She got up from her seat, stomach twisting around what she’d eaten earlier. She strode over to Vorrin and leaned close to his ear.

  “I’m going above. Do a little scouting, just to make sure we didn’t miss anything in that far corridor.”

  “I’ll come with you.” Vorrin started to his feet, but she pushed him back into place.

  “No, I need you to keep an eye on things. You know I can handle myself.”

  “I know, but I don’t like it.”

  “I won’t be long.” She shrugged on her sheepskin jacket and hurried off the ship. She jogged up the stairs as quickly as her human-length strides could take her.

  The boulevard unfolded in quiet gloom: with the sun so low, the glow from the skylights was faint, but the open doors of the Star Chapel spilled out a soft amber glow. Jendara broke into a run, eager to reach the chapel. She could check it over and catch the last of the sunset.

  Inside the chapel, a few bloodstains marked the spot where they’d fought the deep ones, but besides that minor token of violence, the room was filled with peace. A breeze wafted in through the broken windows, and peach and pink tones fanned across the horizon joyfully.

  Jendara leaned her forehead against the cool stone, breathing in the clean fresh air and letting the last rays of sun play over her skin. As a pirate, she had seen the world. Much of that world was dark and unpleasant, with petty crooks and vicious creatures eager to prey upon anyone weaker than themselves. Ancestors knew, she’d been one of them once. But wherever she’d gone, the sweetness of nature had always revived her. Fresh air and clea
n water were things she could always count on.

  But not here. The island’s long sojourn beneath the waves had corrupted this place, corroding even the inner wholesomeness of the stone itself. She wondered if that corruption came not from the sea—the sea had been Jendara’s constant companion since the day she was born on a small island—but from the people who had lived here before and died in the island’s drowning. From the prison cells in the island’s depths to the horrible staring eyes in the ruined paintings staring down from the boulevard’s walls, this place was saturated with foulness and despair. She had run down the boulevard, she realized, not just to reach this last bit of sunshine before it could fade away, but to escape the evil around her.

  Who had lived in this place? Why had they built it? The questions felt vital. There was a reason the black robed denizens of Leng had been so interested in this place. The deep ones knew it, even if the ulat-kini didn’t—they had their own connections to this place.

  She had a hunch that whatever had brought all these creatures here, it had something to do with the evil she could sense at the heart of all of this.

  “I thought you might come here.”

  She turned to face Korthax. His face looked less strange than it had the first time she’d seen him, here in this same room. She couldn’t decide if that was because she’d grown accustomed to his fishy, froggy looks, or if she had simply seen so many odder faces. She found herself unsurprised to see him. After what they’d just been through, he must have needed to be alone as well.

  “I’m sorry about Fithrax.”

  He crossed to her side so he could lean out the window. “Do not be. He was a—” He made an unintelligible sound, but his face conveyed plenty.

  “Even if he was a real bastard, he was still your brother.”

  He glanced at her. “Yes.” He paused, looking for the words. “But he was too hungry for power. It is his fault we work for black robes. If I had become leader, everything would be different.”

  “What do they want?” Frustration colored Jendara’s voice. The black-robed folk of Leng, with their black ship and their strange building materials, were not like any of Golarion’s people that she had ever known.

  “They ask us for help, ask us to join them and free Leng from evil spiders. They say they admire us for our lives on the sea and under it.” Korthax gave a disbelieving snort. “Fake talk. Too showy.”

  “False flattery or not, if there are spiders like that on Leng, I’m not surprised they came looking for help.”

  Korthax leaned far out the window, his face darkening. “You see that?”

  Jendara shifted to see out farther. The bulk of the island cut off her view, but she could just make out a black dot moving in from the far northwest.

  “Is that the black ship?”

  He squinted. “But it is not alone.”

  Jendara watched the black shape become a cluster of dots. The massive black ship from Leng led a group of smaller longships. None flew a flag. They could hail from any port in the Ironbound Archipelago, or even from the mainland. There was nothing northwest of this island, not even a tidal atoll, but Jendara knew that meant nothing. The rocky shoals off the northeast side of the island meant any craft wanting to approach the ulat-kini’s docks had to come from the northwest.

  Her lips tightened. Her easy-come, easy-go treasure mission was getting even more crowded.

  “Let’s go tell the others,” she said.

  Korthax kept staring as if he hadn’t heard her.

  “Korthax?”

  He pulled his head back inside and blinked at her for a second. The last fingers of sunlight cast a ruddy stain across his green cheek.

  “Yes,” he said, finally. “The others should know.”

  * * *

  Jendara opened her eyes. The cabin was quiet. Even the wind had died down, and yet she couldn’t sleep. When she’d been on watch, she could hardly keep her eyes open. Only the sounds of one of the crew members thumping around down in the storage room had kept her from dropping off with her head on the deck railing. But somehow now that she was in bed, the act of closing her eyes felt repugnant.

  She rolled over, trying to enjoy Vorrin’s warm bulk beside her on the mattress. In the dim closeness of the cabin, she could hear Kran’s easy breathing. The boy had spent the last few hours of the evening playing some ridiculous string-weaving game with Korthax, and now he slept the peaceful sleep of the young. She owed Korthax for that, she supposed. After the horrors of the day, the boy needed time to play and be silly to clear his mind and settle his thoughts.

  She sighed. If she kept thinking about it, she would never go to sleep. Jendara forced her eyes closed and listened to the soft sounds of her family’s breathing.

  She fell

  down

  down

  into the well of sleep, where far above the black velvet of the sky turned behind a veil of unchanging diamond pieces.

  Stars. Her thoughts echoed off the walls of stone around her. The great weight of them pressed down upon her and she clawed at the walls, unable to rip her eyes from the sky above for even a second. The stars. The stars. She had to reach them. They burned brighter and brighter, bearing down on the world like fierce, angry eyes.

  Her fingers slipped and skidded on the damp stone. Something was wrong, something was terribly wrong, she wasn’t hearing just the sounds of her thoughts and the sounds of her own flesh slapping against the stone, but some other terrible sound—

  a screaming

  —she batted the thought away, of course no one was screaming, she had to get to the stars, no matter what happened—

  And now the light of the stars was bright enough to bring a grayness into the very depths of the well itself, and she glanced around her and realized she was floating, floating on a thick liquid whose level was rising, rising, terribly rising even as the volume of the screaming grew louder and louder—

  And then a face broke the surface of the liquid, and it was Sarni, her face bloodstained and swollen and another face emerged, so bloody Jendara couldn’t name it for a moment, but it was Leyla, and then Morul, and then all the faces of the people of Sorind and she was swimming in their blood and the level was rising, rising, rising—

  Taking her toward the stars whose gaze she could no longer meet, but could feel drilling into her flesh and another face came up from the depths of the blood, an utterly familiar face—

  she tried to wake up, but she couldn’t pull herself up out of the well of sleep—

  she had to wake up before the eyes opened and it was really him—

  Kran’s eyes opened and blood washed over her head and she was drowning and—

  “Jendara, wake up.”

  Jendara’s eyes flew open.

  Vorrin shook her shoulder again. “Wake up.”

  “I’m awake.” She shuddered and sat up. Someone had lit the lantern beside the bed, and Kran stood beside it, his eyes huge and darkly circled. “What a nightmare.”

  Kran nodded. She could see him tremble even at this distance.

  She reached out for him and pulled him to her. “A horrible nightmare. So horrible.”

  Vorrin folded his arms around them both. “Me, too. Blood, and stars, and I was trapped.”

  Kran went stiff in Jendara’s grip.

  “What did you say?” Her voice was a whisper.

  “My dream.” Vorrin pressed his cheek against hers. “I was in some kind of pit trap and there were these horrible stars in constellations like I’d never seen before.”

  “And a lot of blood,” Jendara said.

  Kran pulled away, his eyes wide and terrified as he nodded.

  Jendara dug her fingers into the edge of the mattress. “What in all hell were we dreaming?”

  * * *

  Haggard and drawn, they dressed and made their way to the galley. Fylga greeted them at the galley door, her tail pressed low to her legs. Jendara brewed tea and moistened some dried meat for the dog. They could all use a
bit of a treat this morning.

  Zuna trudged into the galley, bundled up in an old quilt. Jendara offered her a cup of tea. “You all right?”

  Zuna shook her head. “Bad night. Gozreh keep me from dreams like that ever again.”

  Jendara stirred oats into her pot of hot water. “You worship Gozreh?” She felt strange asking. Zuna had served as the ship’s navigator for years. Jendara should have known such a basic fact about one of her crew members, but Zuna was a private person, and Jendara … well, she had to admit that she hadn’t tried very hard to get to know her.

  Zuna pressed the hot mug against her bandage, the tired lines of her face softening. “My mother raised me to believe. I’m not a good follower, but I make offerings when I remember.”

  Jendara could understand. She opened her mouth to explain her own feelings, but the galley door swung open and Glayn came in, looking even worse than Zuna.

  Vorrin looked up from his mug. “Bad dreams?”

  Glayn’s lips tightened. “Bad’s not the word for it.” He joined Jendara beside the stove and she put a mug of tea in his hand. “Thanks.”

  “I had a feeling.” Jendara rubbed her dry eyes. She could make tea and start porridge as if it were just another morning, but it wasn’t. She squared her shoulders. “What kind of place gives a group of people the same evil dreams? What does that?”

  Kran’s chalk scuffed across the surface of his slate. He held it up. I keep having nightmares. Don’t want to sleep.

  Vorrin patted the boy on the back. “I know, Kran. You must be exhausted.”

  Glayn put down his tea. “Do you think it’s just us? I mean, do you think Korthax had those dreams?”

  Zuna stretched and yawned. “He’s humanoid. I guess.”

  “Well, I’m going to ask him.” Glayn strode out the door.

  Jendara brought down bowls for everyone, moving at what felt like half speed. They had to find Tam and Boruc today. She couldn’t imagine another night like the last one.

  The galley door burst open.

  “Korthax’s gone.” Glayn paused to catch his breath. “I checked everywhere, and he’s just gone.”