by Mel Odom
There was a moment of confusion as they fell in a tangle at the foot of the landing. The platter of food went flying while the ale pitcher shattered against the wall. Jherek ended up face first against the serving wench’s well-cushioned charms. He managed to prevent his full weight from falling on her by catching himself on his knees and the fist around the hook handle.
He pulled his head up from her breasts, the fragrant rose scent of them filling his nose. His face flamed in embarrassment.
“Lady,” he apologized as he pushed himself up, “I’m truly sorry.” Awkwardly, knowing there wasn’t any time for anything else, he pushed up and resumed his chase, drumming his boots against the steps.
At the base of the stairs, Jherek ran through the coral shell stringers that made a partition from the steps leading into the main tavern. Vurgrom stood near the entrance, his face showing agitation and the fact that he recognized Jherek. The pirate captain leveled a thick forefinger in the young sailor’s direction and shouted, “A hundred gold to the man who guts that bastard!”
Instantly, nearly every man in the tavern surged to their feet and drew weapons. Vurgrom grinned, the effort like a rictus in his round moon face.
“Been nice knowing you, boy, but you signed your own death papers coming here after me.” He made an obscene gesture, then pushed through the door out onto the street.
Nearly half the tavern got up and followed Vurgrom, letting Jherek know the pirate captain had stationed men downstairs as well as upstairs. At least forty men came at Jherek with drawn swords, eager to cash in on the pirate captain’s offered bounty.
Jherek watched helplessly through the paned windows as Vurgrom disappeared, heading down the incline toward the harbor. Stubbornly, the young sailor held his ground with the beaded strings covering the doorway at his back.
A woman to his left cursed and stood suddenly, sweeping back the hooded cloak that had covered her face. Tall and slender, her silky black hair hacked off evenly just below her shoulders, her pointed ears visible, she wore a rough green shirt that was loose enough to disguise her sex, and scarred leather breeches tucked into high-topped boots.
She grabbed the chair she’d been sitting in and hurled it toward the front of the crowd gathered in front of Jherek. The chair hit two men and knocked them backward into the others.
“Back, you damn slime-sucking bottom-feeders, or I’ll fillet you myself!” she cursed as she drew a scimitar and dirk, then rushed toward Jherek.
The young sailor turned to face her, lifting his cutlass.
“Not me, you brain-dead ninny,” she told him sharply. “I’ve come to take a stand with you, though by Fenmarel Mestarine’s kindness, I don’t know why. You’ve cut yourself enough trouble for a small army, much less one sailor boy.”
Jherek kept his blade up, wary that she could be attempting to trick him to get close enough to put a blade between his ribs. “ ’Ware now, lady,” he warned. “I don’t trust so easily.”
“Azla!” someone in the crowd shouted. “Azla of Black Champion is here!”
“Kill her,” another man roared. “Vurgrom’s bounty on her head is a thousand gold pieces!”
The half-elven woman’s brows arched in anger. “You’d better pick sides quickly, boy.” A half-grin played on her face, but it was cold as a moneylender’s heart. “I’m worth more dead than you are and I don’t intend to die without trying to escape. You’re standing in the way.”
“Aye,” Jherek replied, watching as the crowd regrouped, “but there was a mess left upstairs as well.”
Azla glanced back at the tavern crowd and knocked a thrown dagger from the air with the flat of her scimitar. “Our chances of escape have got to be better there than here.”
Jherek nodded, hating to lose Vurgrom and not certain what they were going to do even if they made it back up the stairs. He pulled the beaded strands to one side.
“No,” Azla said. “You first.” She spoke like one used to command.
“Aye.” Jherek turned and raced back to the steps, waiting for her.
Azla reached for the pouch at her side and stuck enough of her arm inside it that Jherek knew it was a bag of holding. She removed a small flask, handling it carefully.
“Keep moving,” she ordered, then flung the flask at the doorway as two men shoved their heads through.
The flask tumbled end over end and struck the floor, shattering and spreading slow moving oil in spots and a pool. Immediately, the oil caught fire. The flames spiraled up at once, and the spots that had landed on the two men charred holes in their clothes. They yelled in terror and pain and began beating at their clothing, but it only served to spread the flames. The fire in the doorway rose up four feet high.
“Run,” Azla directed. “I don’t have any more of that ensorcelled oil with me.”
She sprinted after him as they ran up the first set of stairs. Three pirates were coming down, fleeing from Glawinn. The lead pirate raised his sword, yelling hoarsely to warn his mates of the danger.
Jherek reached the corner of the landing first and blocked the man’s sword with his cutlass. The other two men ran into the first, and all of them struggled to keep their balance. The young sailor kicked the first man in the chest, pressing his own back against the wall to get everything into the effort he could.
All three pirates slammed against the railing, snapping the supports off and tumbling amid screams to the floor below. They’d only just landed when the first of the pirates from the tavern area burst through the oil, stopping only long enough to slap the few flames from his clothing. Now that the oil had nearly exhausted itself, other pirates followed.
Glawinn gazed down through the maze of switchback staircases. “Company?” the paladin asked calmly.
“Aye,” Jherek answered, breathing hard from his exertions, “and plenty of it.”
“Who’s she?” Glawinn asked.
“A friend,” the young sailor said, glancing at Azla again. Despite her unexpected appearance, he got a good feeling about her. “For now, at any rate.”
The half-elf smiled and shook her head. “From the looks of things,” she said, “I may be the only friend you people have in Westgate.”
“Not the only,” Glawinn snapped. “Begging your pardon for my abruptness, lady.”
“That’s Captain Azla,” she growled.
“I stand corrected.”
Jherek glanced back down the stairs and watched the pirates getting themselves organized. “Maybe we should sort that out later.”
“The boy’s right,” Glawinn said. “What’s your plan?”
“The harbor,” Azla answered. “We jump.”
* * * * *
“I’ve been pursuing Vurgrom for years,” Azla told them.
Jherek sat in Black Champion’s galley nursing a cup of hot tea. For the moment, Glawinn, Sabyna, and he were guests of Azla. After jumping from the third floor of the tavern, they’d been pulled from the water by some of Azla’s crew, who had been waiting in a small skiff for just such an eventuality. They sat at one of the long, rectangular tables where her crew messed. All of them had dry clothes from supplies the ship’s captain had on hand.
Glawinn sat at one end of the table working on his armor. It was a job he’d told them couldn’t be put off, and a job he didn’t want anyone else doing. Jherek didn’t blame him. A knight lived and died by the care he showed his weapons and armor. Having to pull it off quickly to keep from drowning after jumping into the water, made Glawinn even more thankful it wasn’t lost to the harbor bottom.
“Why?” the young sailor asked. He’d been impressed by the caravel. Black Champion was a tight-run ship, and one of the cleanest he’d ever seen. That effort was reflected in the galley’s spotless floors and cooking area. Three cooks were already at work on the next meal and the smells made his stomach rumble in anticipation.
Azla sat across from him, dressed in a somber black that seemed to fit her mood. “Vurgrom and I have been at odds with each other
for years,” she explained. “He’s declared himself king of Immurk’s Hold, while there are no few who think I should hold that office.”
Jherek almost choked on his tea, realizing for the first time that he’d accepted the invitation of a pirate. He glanced at Sabyna. The ship’s mage had a personal vendetta against pirates since her own brother was slain by Bloody Falkane. No emotion at all showed on Sabyna’s face, nor did she return Jherek’s look.
“Vurgrom has seen me as a threat ever since, and taken steps to eliminate me and my ship,” Azla said. “I’ve returned the favor upon occasion. Lately, through spies I’ve got in Westgate and other ports, as well as in Vurgrom’s crew, I found out he’s been stealing and buying artifacts scattered all across the Sea of Fallen Stars. He’s made deals with traders in all the nations, as well as bargains with some of the undersea races.”
“Do you know what that’s about?” Glawinn asked.
Azla shook her head. “I’ve heard that he’s got a contact on the Sword Coast that he sells them to regularly. Now you tell me he was in Baldur’s Gate the night it was struck by the sahuagin attack. It makes the whole situation I’ve been following even more suspicious.”
Jherek silently agreed.
“I’d found out from my spies that Vurgrom had been out to the west and was going to be returning through the Lake of Dragons sometime during the last week. It was the first time he’d been off the sea in months. He owns over half of the Bent Mermaid and I thought to take him there.”
“Until we showed up,” Glawinn said, brushing at the fittings on his chest plate.
“Aye,” Azla said. “I had a team of men waiting outside. If Vurgrom had been with a much smaller group, we could have taken him outside the tavern and spirited him away through the sewers under the city till we got him back to Champion.” She scowled darkly. “With a little time, I’d have found out soon enough what he was up to.”
“And now?” Jherek asked.
“Now,” the half-elf captain said, “I’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way. Follow him until I get an opportunity to find out what he’s up to and move against him when I can.”
“I’d like to accompany you if I could,” Jherek asked.
“To get back the trinket he took from you?”
Jherek grimaced. “Aye, but I’d prefer it if you didn’t talk about it so casually.”
“From what my spies tell me, Vurgrom was quite pleased to get that pearl disk. It was one of the things they’d hoped to acquire in Baldur’s Gate.”
The announcement shocked Jherek, and it must have shown on his face. How had Vurgrom even known about the disk if it had been hidden away for so many years? And what was it?
“I have room aboard for extra crew,” she said. “If you’d like, you’re welcome. As long as you understand that I’m captain of this ship.”
“Aye,” Jherek said.
“There must be one other stipulation,” Glawinn stated, turning to face her. “As long as we’re aboard, there is to be no taking of prize ships, no piracy.”
“Making demands like that goes against the acknowledgement of my being the captain,” Azla stated.
“Yes,” Glawinn admitted, “but you don’t know yet how we may help you in your own agenda. As you’ve seen from the disk and all that this boy has been through to get it here, our fates are tied up in it. I’d think it’s better that we worked together.”
“You’re shipless,” Azla pointed out.
“Today,” the paladin said, “but not in a day or so. There are some here in Westgate who claim Lathander as their deity. I would be able to find a ship, I promise you.”
“Then why want to join me?”
“Because I think you know Vurgrom better than anyone else we’d likely find. If anyone can keep up with him, I’m betting that it’ll be you.”
Azla pushed her tea away and stood. “All right,” she agreed. “You have your bargain. A combination of our talents, skills, and destinies. I won’t take any ships while you’re aboard, but what do I get in return?”
“If we can manage it,” Glawinn answered, “Vurgrom’s head on a pike.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Azla said, then turned and walked away.
XXII
26 Kythorn, the Year of the Gauntlet
Pacys sat on an outcropping of rock overlooking the sea elf city of Faenasuor. The old bard gave no thought to the two hundred feet of ocean above him, nor to the bluish hue it seemed all the world had taken on. The folk of Serôs called all depths between one hundred fifty feet and three hundred feet the Gloom. The Sea of Fallen Stars itself served to stratify civilizations and undersea worlds.
A few tall towers, mute testimony to the hubris of the elves of the ancient empire, stood up from the sea floor, rising over the other recovered structures and the new dwellings that had been built. The city sprawled unevenly across the irregular seabed the elves called the Hmur Plateau. Despite seventy years of reclamation efforts, much of the city yet remained in a state of disrepair. Excavation teams harnessing pilot whales, narwhals, and giant crabs worked to clear more debris in an effort that had been ongoing during the days Pacys had spent there. Brackish clouds of debris and silt, exploded upward from avalanches of resettling rock, sifted constantly in the currents, eventually drawn away.
Besides being an acknowledged center of sea elven history, Faenasuor was also surrounded by oyster beds. Pacys watched sea elves out harvesting pearls from the oysters, clams, and other mollusks that created them. They worked in groups, gathering the sea’s bounty, then used the pearls to trade with other undersea races and surface dwellers. The last few days spent there had been highly instructional regarding all of Serôs and some of the Taker’s legend, but it had also served to remind Pacys of just how much he didn’t know.
He turned his attention back to the instrument Taareen had given him. Despite the magical bracelet he wore, he couldn’t play the yarting underwater. Communication was fine, but the yarting’s notes all suffered. So he’d put the instrument into his bag of holding and decided to wait until he returned to the surface to play it again.
The song kept coming together in the old bard’s head. Thankfully, his musical skills weren’t limited to the yarting. Over his life he’d found nothing he couldn’t play with some skill.
Taareen had given him a saceddar, an alu’tel’quessiran musical instrument Pacys had never seen before. Mounted on a chest plate that hung over the player’s neck and shoulders, the saceddar had thirty crystals of various sizes and thicknesses across it. To play it, Pacys wore platinum finger and thumb caps on both hands. The metal was more durable than gold and struck a truer note.
He played the saceddar by striking his fingers and thumbs against a single crystal or a combination of crystals at the same time. Striking a new crystal or combination broke the vibrations of the last ones, effectively silencing them and providing for long and short notes.
When Taareen had given it to him, Pacys had been fascinated. That fascination had grown even more when the old bard discovered how easily playing the instrument came to him, and how parts of the song he’d been working on seemed to knit themselves to the new medium. He’d composed new parts over the past days, as well as learning the songs from Taker legends.
Scrabbling to his right, the sound dimmed by the water reached Pacys’s ears at the same time as the vibrations from the stone shelf he sat on. He turned and saw Khlinat pulling himself up through the twisted coral growth.
“Ye got up early this morning,” the dwarf commented as he settled himself across from the bard. The potions the sea elves kept him supplied with allowed him the same free movement and breathing ability as Pacys had from his enchanted bracelet.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Pacys said.
Khlinat wiped at his face, and the old bard knew it was because even though the potion protected him from the harsh nature of the sea, it left the dwarf feeling like he was wet the whole time. “I didn’t rest too well either, songsmith, but
I know it’s ’cause I ain’t never going to get acclimated to this way of living. What’s yer excuse?”
“Restlessness, I think.” Pacys pulled on the saceddar and fastened the straps. He took the finger and thumb caps from the small fish bladder bag that hung around his neck and fitted them on.
“Oh, and ye mean yer through prowling through them sea elf books, then?” Khlinat asked hopefully.
“I don’t know that I could ever be satiated with that, my friend. The wisdom of the ages resides in those tomes. Magic, history, travel, philosophy, worlds await any adventurer with the skill to read.”
“Aye,” the dwarf said, “and a goodly pouch of gold, I’m thinking, for any man clever enough and brave enough to make off with some of them books. Like as not, nobody’s ever seen anything even kin to them topside.”
“I’d say you’re right. Even skilled as I am in languages, when trying to read ones that should be open to me, I found them hard to decipher.”
Most of the books were written in special pastes that hardened and adhered permanently to pages that were cut from the shells of giant clams. A lot of time went into the creation of each book, so they were highly prized. Some of them were even tonal books, pieced together with crystals like the sacedder and designed to be struck by a tiny mallet in order to be read. Still others were merely books ensorcelled to withstand the sea.
Khlinat waved irritably at a small school of fish that seemed determined to find hiding places in his beard and hair. With the constant immersion of living beneath the Sea of Fallen Stars, his peg had started to show signs of distress. Taareen had asked a local smith to help out, and the dwarf had been issued a new peg made of green-gray coral Taareen had called claw coral and hydra’s stone.
“So what are we to do?” the dwarf asked.
“I don’t know.” Pacys’s fingers wandered across the saceddar’s surface, pinging crystals. Before he knew it, he’d started a new song weave. The notes from the struck crystals cut through the water like a knife, pouring out into the sea.