Red Tide

by Marc Turner

  “You sought out Tia’s help. May as well use it now.”

  “And if she betrays us?”

  “If she betrays us, she’ll probably just keep the money and not show. We can worry about that if it happens.”

  “If it happens, we won’t find out until tonight—after the gates to the Upper City are closed. That means we lose a night when we could have been looking for Lamella and Rendale.”

  Vale shrugged. “Then we hit the gates as soon as they open tomorrow morning. If I go through fast, I might be able to lead the guards away, create enough of a stir to let you slip in unseen. Or we hand out a few sovereigns, find some scum to kick up the dirt.”

  “Then why aren’t we doing that now? If we timed it just as the gates were closing, we’d have the fading light to help cover our tracks.”

  “Hitting the gates ain’t less risky than hoping for Tia to come good. And Rendale and Lamella ain’t going to thank us if we show up with half of Gilgamar’s soldiers at our backs. Your choice, though. That’s the privilege of command.”

  “My choice, yes,” Ebon said. “And the only thing I know for certain is that whichever option I choose, it’ll be wrong.”

  Vale shrugged again. “So pick the other one.”

  * * *

  Galantas’s boat cleared the dragon’s skeleton and picked up speed. Behind, the darkness in the water drew nearer. Through the froth in the boat’s wake, Galantas glimpsed flutters of black that might have been tentacles. The threads of the Weaver’s web trembled at the creature’s passage.

  Sender’s blessing, it was quick.

  Galantas scanned the channel ahead. To either side, the cliffs dropped straight into the sea. Too steep for climbing. There were no caves they could shelter in, no beaches offering a safe exit from the water, meaning their only hope was to outrun the beast. Quarter of a league away, the strait opened out onto choppier water. This, Galantas knew, was where the Weaver’s web—and thus its territory—ended. But there was no chance of the boat reaching that point before the creature overhauled it.

  Not without a detour, at least.

  To get where he needed to go, he’d have to run the precise course he’d followed in the Thousand Islands Race three years ago. First he had to take a bearing on the channel’s underwater ruins. There were submerged buildings beneath the waves, flashing past in a gray blur. Galantas looked for a tower that reached almost to the surface. He might have missed it but for a telltale ruffle of water where the waves broke over it.

  “A point to starboard!” he said to Barnick.

  The boat changed direction.

  Now that the craft’s course was set, Galantas needed to consider distances. He scanned the northern cliff, looking for the mark he’d made three years ago. They were approaching Hangman’s Drop, and the gallows was visible atop it. Below, a handful of stunted trees clung to the cliff, their roots half exposed …

  “There!” he shouted to Barnick, pointing. A splash of white paint a hundred armspans away.

  “I see it!”

  Galantas looked at Qinta. The Second had not been involved in the Hundred Islands race, so he’d have no idea what was about to happen. “Get a grip on something,” Galantas said. “And make sure you take a good breath.”

  Eighty armspans to their target. Galantas could see the shape of the building under the water ahead.

  Sixty armspans.

  Galantas looked round to see the Weaver closing. Its shadow rushed toward them like the coming of night. The sea bulged with its passage.

  Forty armspans.

  Twenty.

  Galantas hunched down in the prow and braced his legs under the oar bench. The boat drew level with the mark on the cliff. “Now!” he shouted to Barnick. Then he took a deep breath, as much air as his lungs could take.

  The boat began to sink.

  Most people thought water-mages could guide a craft only over the waves, but there was no reason they couldn’t steer under them too.

  The timing of this maneuver was all-important. The boat traveled much slower underwater than it did on the surface. Dive too soon, and the Weaver might catch them before they reached their destination. Leave it too late, and they might overshoot their target. The mark on the cliff was to show where to start the descent, but with the creature so near, Galantas wondered if he should have stayed above the surface a while longer.

  The sea closed over him.

  Ringing silence in his ears. The waves tugged at him, and he tightened his grasp on the gunwale. From the Weaver behind came a clicking noise, all stretched and distorted by the water. Like a blackcraw pecking at a snail’s shell. It took all Galantas’s will not to look round. His pulse was beating double time. Not good. If he wanted his breath to last, he would have to remain calm.

  Calm. Right.

  The sagging black threads that made up the creature’s web shook. They looked so delicate it seemed the currents must tear them apart, yet stuck to one was the corpse of a briar shark, long dead and half decomposed. Barnick guided the boat past. Ahead a shadow took form in the water. Moments later an immense domed building became visible. Across it Galantas could see carvings of ships made from bones—carvings identical to those on the dome in the South Corridor that he had walked across to win that bet with the Needle.

  They were going to make it!

  Then he saw the hole in the dome’s side that the boat must pass through. His elation faded. It was smaller than he remembered. More a fissure than a hole, wide and shallow, with blackness beyond. When he’d taken part in the Thousand Islands Race, it had been in a boat with a mast that could be taken down entirely. Would the stub of mast left by Qinta’s sword fit through the opening?

  The clicking sound became louder. To either side of Galantas, the threads of the Weaver’s web twitched. As the boat approached the dome, Barnick aligned it with the place where the fissure was broadest. The front part of the craft passed through. Galantas looked from the opening to the mast. Damn, this was going to be close. Barnick steered the boat low, so its hull scraped the bottom of the hole.…

  But the mast still snagged on the top of the fissure, bringing the craft to a juddering halt.

  Galantas fought down panic. His back prickled. He could feel the pressure in the water caused by the Weaver’s coming. Qinta looked over Galantas’s shoulder, horror in his expression.

  Click click click.

  Barnick reversed the boat a handspan before propelling it forward again. The mast struck the dome with a bang that Galantas felt through the boards. A puff of dust floated down, but the stonework held. The boat retreated once more for another try. To hell with this. Even if Barnick could batter a way through the fissure, how much of the dome would he bring down on their heads by doing so?

  Time to move.

  Click-click-click.

  Grabbing the mast, Galantas hauled himself toward the bow. If he swam into the dome, he would likely drown there, but anything beat joining the Weaver for lunch.

  Then the mast thudded into the dome a third time.

  The stones at the top of the fissure crumbled, and the craft shot forward into darkness.

  Cool water inside, and so much relief Galantas almost relinquished his hold on the mast. It was too early to count his blessings, though. The Weaver wasn’t going to let them escape so easily. Would it try to smash through the dome and follow them?

  Of course it would.

  A muffled boom sounded behind. The whole building shook. When Galantas looked back, he saw the fissure had doubled in size, and another section of stonework broke away and toppled into darkness. Cracks radiated outward from the enlarged opening. Beyond, a huge eye stared at Galantas—or at least part of an eye, since it was bigger than the Shroud-cursed hole. Overhead, patches of light showed where the dome’s roof was coming apart. But it only had to hold a few more moments. Galantas’s boat was over halfway to the other side now. The exit from the dome was a pale arch on the opposite wall, growing larger with each thumping
heartbeat.

  A last look back. The Weaver’s eye was gone from the hole. Maybe the creature had given up the hunt.

  Or maybe it was smart enough to go around the dome and wait for them on the other side.

  The boat glided through the opening and into sun-bright water beyond. No clicking noises to be heard. No sight of the beast either, though the strands of its web still quivered. Barnick steered the craft up at an acute angle through the swaying threads.

  Galantas gritted his teeth. His breath was tight in his chest. It reminded him of that time he’d dived for sunpearls in the Outer Rim, but he’d managed to hold on then, and he was going to make it now too, because the boat suddenly broke the surface. He heaved in a lungful of air. A world of sound returned: the cawing of starbeaks, the fretting of the sea against the cliffs, Qinta coughing and gasping. The boat was full of water, and Galantas bailed with his hand until a gesture from Barnick set the liquid running up the sides of the craft and over the gunwales.

  Galantas slumped back against the boards, his clothes sodden, his hair dripping.

  The boat flew over the water. As it reached the point where the strait opened out, the sea became rougher. Qinta peered into the waves behind, his face as pale as Shroud’s ass. “Do you … see it?” he croaked between breaths.

  Galantas scanned the water. The strands of the creature’s web were clustered thickly below the hull, but of the beast itself there was no sign. He grinned. They’d done it! A slice of luck along the way, maybe, but that was becoming a habit with him. How long could it last? When you diced enough times with Shroud, eventually the Lord of the Dead was going to throw a pair of sixes.

  If that happened, though, Galantas would just match his score and beat him on the next cast.

  Shouts from the east, and he looked back along the strait. He’d forgotten about the stone-skins. At the entrance to the channel, the Augeran ship had halted. Was it ensnared in the creature’s web, or had it simply abandoned the pursuit? A scraping noise reached Galantas, like claws on wood.

  Then the vessel began to sink.

  Cries sounded from the deck. A wave of water-magic burgeoned beneath the hull as the vessel sought to retreat, but it was going nowhere.

  In the sea below, shadows gathered.

  * * *

  Karmel followed Caval along the path through the long brown grasses in the boneyard. Ahead was a knot of trees, and sitting with his back to one of them was Mokinda. He didn’t look up as they approached. Behind, Karmel heard screams as the stone-skins continued their attack on Bezzle. The boneyard, situated on a rise at the northern edge of the city, offered views of the fighting, but the priestess had no interest in watching. As Caval halted alongside Mokinda, she set her back to the action and waited for the Erin Elalese to catch up. Her hands trembled with the memory of what she’d done to the man in the alley. Had she killed him? She saw again his cheek gaping open. He deserved it, she told herself. As if saying it made it so.

  Noon was the first of the Erin Elalese to reach the boneyard. His eyes had a haunted cast to them, and his face and forearms were covered by so many insect bites he might have fallen asleep on an anthill. It was Amerel, though, on whom Karmel focused her attention. She too had insect bites on her face. At the house, the first thing Karmel had noticed about her was her white hair, yet now it was the woman’s eyes that stood out. Their whites were crisscrossed by tiny blackened blood vessels, making them look like orbs of shattered glass. There was no more life in them than there was in the graves all about.

  In Olaire, Senar Sol had been reluctant to talk about his fellow Guardian. That reticence had told Karmel more than his eventual cursory description of the woman. His warning about her Will-persuasion had stayed with the priestess, though. Be sure of your purpose, he had said. Else she will twist you round and round until you can’t remember which way you started facing.

  It was Caval who broke the silence. “Senar Sol sends his regards,” he said.

  Karmel almost smiled in spite of herself. An astute opening, that, since it told Amerel the Chameleons knew not just who she was, but also what she was capable of. And that they’d be ready if she tried to use her power on them.

  If the woman was caught off balance, she gave no sign. “I’d say some introductions are overdue.”

  As are some thanks, Karmel almost said, but she held her tongue.

  “Ah, I am Caval, and this is Karmel. The one who doesn’t speak is Mokinda.”

  “You are Chameleons,” Amerel said, looking from Caval to Karmel.

  Caval nodded.

  She swung her gaze to Mokinda. “But not you, I think.”

  The Storm Lord did not reply, but perhaps he didn’t need to. There was something in Amerel’s half smile that suggested she already knew who he was.

  She looked back at Caval. “You mentioned Senar Sol.”

  Caval nodded a second time.

  “I thought he was dead.” There was nothing in her tone to indicate whether she was pleased or disappointed to discover otherwise.

  “If so, he looked remarkably well for it. He works for Mazana Creed now.”

  “As do you, I take it.”

  “In this endeavor, yes.”

  “And what is ‘this endeavor’?”

  Caval looked at Mokinda. Evidently he was wondering whether the Storm Lord would take up the narrative, but the Untarian seemed happy to let Caval do the talking. Who better to lead the blind than the blind, after all?

  Noon spoke. “How do you know us?” he said, scratching at a bite on his hand. “How did you know we were here?”

  The questions were coming so fast this was beginning to feel to Karmel like an interrogation. “You have heard of the emira’s shaman, Jambar Simanis?” she said.

  Amerel inclined her head.

  “Then you will know his reputation as a seer. He predicted you might need some help.”

  “And you just happened to be in the neighborhood.”

  The words were spoken casually, yet there was a weight to the Guardian’s gaze that told Karmel she was on dangerous ground. But then the priestess suspected there was no such thing as safe ground within a stone’s throw of this woman. “If you’re wondering what else Jambar told us, no, we don’t know why you’re in Bezzle, or what you were doing back at the house. Nor do we care.”

  It was said with such feeling that it drew a raised eyebrow from Amerel. The Guardian drummed her fingers on the gravestone she sat on. A glance at Mokinda suggested she thought the Storm Lord might know more than the Chameleons did, and perhaps that was true. But it wasn’t Karmel’s concern, and so when Amerel looked back at her, she met the woman’s gaze evenly.

  The Guardian said, “Senar Sol told Mazana Creed about the history between Erin Elal and the stone-skins?”

  “Yes.”

  “And because of this, the emira thinks we should work together? Or perhaps she seeks a favor in return for your help earlier?”

  Caval said, “You are quick to discount her charitable nature.”

  Amerel’s smile did not reach her eyes.

  “Actually,” Caval added, “Mazana believes you’d want to help us even if you weren’t in our debt.”

  “Because you’re planning a strike against the stone-skins? In revenge for Dragon Day?”

  She was fishing for information, Karmel realized: about what Jambar had foreseen of the Augerans’ next movements, and whether this was a revenge strike in truth, or a preemptive move against a further attack by the stone-skins on the Sabian League. Since Karmel did not know, she kept her silence.

  “What is your target?”

  “The stone-skin fleet,” the priestess said.

  “The stone-skin fleet,” Amerel repeated. “What, all of it?”

  “Yes.”

  The Guardian laughed. “And you need our help to destroy it? Why? There are three of you already.”

  “Our reaction was much the same when Mazana told us her plan.”

  Amerel tried to appea
r amused by this talk, but her fingers had ceased their tapping. “I’m listening.”

  A gust of wind set the grasses in the boneyard rustling. Far behind Karmel, a sorcerous explosion sounded, and she saw flames reflected in Amerel’s eyes. She noticed a spot of blood on the back of her thumb—the man’s blood. With a shudder, she uncapped her water bottle then used the water to wash her hands. “Are you familiar with the use of dragon blood to lure the dragons to Dian on Dragon Day?” she asked.

  “It draws them like sharks.”

  Karmel nodded. “The blood of the creature killed in one Hunt is used to draw the dragons for the next. Except this year it wasn’t one dragon killed, it was a dozen. A dozen. All that blood meant Mazana Creed was able to do some experimenting. When the gate was finally lowered on Dragon Day, many dragons were trapped in the Sabian Sea. The emira has been finding out how much blood it takes to attract them, and apparently the smallest drop is enough to draw them across the length and breadth of the Sabian Sea.”

  Another explosion sounded, closer this time, but Amerel didn’t take her gaze from Karmel. “Go on.”

  “The rest I’m sure you’ve already guessed. Mazana has given us a flask of dragon blood, together with some blowpipes and darts. The plan is to reach the harbor undetected, then tip the darts with blood and use them to mark the Augeran ships.”

  Karmel wasn’t sure how she’d been expecting the Erin Elalese to respond. With incredulity perhaps, maybe even excitement. Instead Noon grimaced as if he’d already had the idea himself and rejected it. Amerel’s expression remained impassive. “The emira plans to release the dragons from the Sabian Sea?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Then she’s relying on the dragons that have returned to the Southern Wastes. How can she be sure a mere drop of blood will lure them over such a distance?”

  “She isn’t. But if we do our job right, there’ll be more than just one drop. Every ship we mark will make the lure stronger.”

  Noon snorted. “You’ll be lucky to get close enough to mark even one. In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a battle going on down there.”

  Caval said, “Ah, a battle needs two sides to fight it. This is a massacre. It’ll be over before nightfall.”