by Tim Waggoner
“It sounds like indentured servitude! I admire that you want to protect Solus and Tresslar—assuming the artificer ever gets his wand back for anyone to take it away from him again—but do you really believe the Network will live up to its end of the bargain?”
“It may be difficult for someone not part of the Network to believe, but once the Hierarchs make a bargain, they keep it. Especially within the organization. We have a saying: ‘True loyalty is the only item that cannot be bought.’ That’s why it’s so highly prized in the Network.”
Ghaji understood now why Yvka had been so reluctant to talk with him the last few days, and why she’d seemed to be hiding something more important than usual. On one level he was relieved to know the truth, and he was pleased that she’d finally told him something of her life working for the Shadow Network. But he also feared the implications of what she intended to do.
“So just how tight a rein will these Hierarchs wish to keep on you? And what will this mean for us?”
“It will mean the end of my freedom, at least, the kind I enjoy now. As for you and me …” She looked away, tears forming in the corner of her soulful eyes. “The Hierarchs are unhappy enough that I have friends outside the Network as it is. Once I start working for them as a dragonmarked operative … I just don’t know.”
There were so many things Ghaji wanted to say to Yvka. In the end, too many. Instead he took her in his arms and held her tight. Holding eventually led to kissing, and kissing in turn led to other things, and for a time the two lovers forgot their troubles as they lost themselves in each other.
And the Turnabout sailed on, slicing through the waves like a finely honed sword as the elemental galleon ran full out for Regalport.
Moonlight painted the water lapping at Regalport’s central dock a gleaming silver. Nathifa thought of Diran Bastiaan and his companions—who surely were on their way to Greentarn even now—and she hoped the reflected moonlight wasn’t an omen of ill fortune. The sorceress told herself to forget such foolish thoughts and have faith in the machinations of her Queen. Even if Bastiaan and the others managed to arrive this night, there was nothing they could do to stop her. Failure was impossible.
Still, the water’s silver glimmer seemed to say otherwise.
Nathifa stood on the dock next to where the Zephyr was berthed. With Skarm left behind on Trebaz Sinara and most likely dead, Haaken had taken over piloting the elemental sloop. Since the spells that allowed one to activate and control the vessel’s wind elemental were built into the pilot’s chair, no special skill with magic was necessary. In his previous life as commander of the Coldhearts, Haaken had captained a ship called the Maelstrom, and he proved quite adept at piloting the Zephyr, so much so that Nathifa had no regrets over abandoning Skarm. In fact, it was something of a relief to be rid of the bumbling fool.
They’d approached Regalport at dusk, but the bay had been cluttered with fishing boats, pleasure craft, and trading vessels, and night had fallen by the time they’d maneuvered through the maze of ships and managed to reach the central dock. No berths were available, so Haaken jumped over the side, took shark form, located a small sail boat and bit through the mooring line. He gave the vessel a shove, and the boat drifted away from the dock, making room for the Zephyr.
Once the sloop had taken the sail boat’s place, Makala stepped onto the dock and tied the Zephyr’s lines to rusted iron cleats. Just as she finished, there came the sound of boots pounding on wood as two men ran down the dock toward them, swords drawn.
“Here now! What do you think you’re doing?” one of the men shouted.
Guards, Nathifa thought. What a nuisance.
“Slay them,” she told Makala.
Grinning, the vampire stepped forward to meet the guards’ advance. She backhanded one man, sending him into the water for Haaken to deal with. She grabbed hold of the other by his throat, slammed him down onto the dock, and fell upon him like a starving animal. Moments later, both guards were dead, their bodies tossed into the sea.
Nathifa had kept watch for other guards while her servants dispatched the men, but she’d sensed none. Neverthless, she ordered Makala and Haaken to perform a quick search of the docks and slay any other guards they might find. A short while later, the vampire and the wereshark returned to the Zephyr, the blood covering their mouths and hands telling Nathifa that the docks were now clear for them to go to work.
Haaken and Makala brought up the statue of Nerthatch from the Zephyr’s hold. Centuries ago, the evil priest had attempted to raise the bodies of those who’d lost their lives in the unforgiving waters of the Gulf of Ingjald to create an undead army. This night, Nathifa would use the priest’s petrified form to raise something entirely different—and far more deadly—from the frigid depths of the Lhazaar.
Makala had hold of the top half of Nerthatch’s stone body, and she carried it with ease. Haaken gripped the lower half, but as he was in human form, he was having a harder time of bearing his share of the statue’s weight. Protruding from the statue’s chest was the hilt of a silver dagger. Both Makala and Haaken were most careful to avoid touching it. It took several minutes for the two of them to get the statue onto the dock and positioned facing seaward, as Nathifa wished.
Once the statue was in place, Haaken said, “You still haven’t told us what we’re going to do tonight. But whatever it is, wouldn’t it make more sense to do it out in the bay aboard the Zephyr? That way we’d be certain no one could interfere before we were finished.”
“Mere servants such as yourselves could never appreciate the full majesty of Vol’s grand design,” Nathifa said. “Suffice it to say that the mystic rite we are going to conduct needs to be performed on a passageway between land and sea.”
Haaken continued to look her with a blank expression on his face.
“A passageway such as this dock,” Nathifa added.
Haaken grinned as his face lit up with comprehension.
Nathifa sighed. If the imbecile wasn’t so useful when in wereshark form, she might’ve slain him on the spot for his stupidity. But no, as satisfying as it would be, she couldn’t harm the idiot. Haaken Sprull had a very important role to play in what was about to occur.
“I’ve never been to Regalport,” Makala said. “It’s impressive.” The vampire had turned away from Nathifa and Haaken and now stood gazing shoreward.
Nathifa had been too caught up in the excitement of knowing that everything she had sacrificed so much for was finally on the verge of being fulfilled to pay much attention as they’d approached Regalport. But now she turned and for the first time took a good look at the city that was known as the Jewel of the Principalities.
Nathifa and her brothers had traveled here once, over a century ago. Regalport had been a major city even then, one that both Kolbyr and Perhata had attempted in their own small, inadequate ways to emulate when they’d founded the cities that bore their names. But Regalport had grown a great deal since Nathifa’s breathing days. Music and laughter drifted out from numerous dockside taverns, and everbright lanterns dotted the city like a field of stars that had fallen from the heavens. There were so many buildings that the cityscape resembled a mountain range silhouetted against the night sky, and Nathifa was surprised to find herself feeling a twinge of homesickness for her lair in the Hoarfrost Mountains. She’d thought herself beyond such emotions.
Regalport was full to bursting with life, and Nathifa could sense its energy, almost see it shining in the darkness like a miniature sun, warm and glowing and above all, alive. For an instant she questioned what she had come here to do. What purpose would destroying this life serve? How would it grant her desire for vengeance against her brother Kolbyr, dead now for a hundred years? How long had it taken for Regalport to become the great city it was now? How many men and women had worked to make it so? For the first time in her long life, Nathifa realized how easy destruction was and how arduous the process of creation, how fragile the result. Destruction was the act of a mome
nt. Simple, mindless, pointless. But creation was complex, thoughtful, and shaped toward an ultimate goal: to make meaning. Destruction was, in the most profound sense, meaningless.
“Don’t tell me that after everything we’ve been through you’re losing your nerve.”
Makala’s words startled Nathifa out of her thoughts, and the lich glared at the vampire with her sole remaining eye. “Stand guard while I prepare the ritual. Once I have begun, I must not be interrupted. Kill anyone who approaches.” Without waiting for Makala to respond, Nathifa turned to Haaken Sprull. “Stand behind the statue of Nerthatch and place your hands upon the shoulders. Once you’ve done that, transform into your hybrid form. I shall begin my spell shortly afterward.”
The sea raider looked skeptically at the sorceress. “That’s all? I just have to … stand there?”
Nathifa allowed herself a slight smile. “Your role is a bit more complicated than that, but you are essentially correct. Now do it.”
Haaken gave Makala a look that said he was beginning to doubt their mistress’s sanity, but he did at Nathifa commanded. He stepped behind the statue of the priest, placed his hands about the stone shoulders, and shifted to his transitional form of half man, half shark.
Nathifa then reached inside her dark substance and brought forth the dragonwand. She had carried the Amahau inside her during the entire journey from Trebaz Sinara, the artifact full to bursting with the mystic power she had drained from Paganus’s hoard. Having that much magical force contained inside her had been uncomfortable, and she felt relieved that the dragonwand was no longer housed within her darkness. The Amahau fairly hummed, so full of power was it, but Nathifa knew that the dragonwand could’ve held even more energy. If only she’d had more time in the crypt. But she hadn’t, so however much power she’d managed to take would have to serve. She only hoped it would prove sufficient.
The lich leveled the dragonwand at Haaken and concentrated on releasing the Amahau’s stored energy. A bolt of crackling energy surged forth from the mouth of the dragonhead at the tip of the wand, lanced through the air, and struck the wereshark just below the point where his dorsal fin emerged from his back. Haaken bellowed in pain, muscles spasming as mystic power filled his being. He thrashed back and forth like a captive beast trying to escape a trap, but he was unable to remove his clawed hands from the statue’s shoulders. His flesh was bound to the stone now, and he would not be able to let go until the enchantment was ended. Nathifa continued releasing magical energy into Haaken’s body as she at last began chanting a spell that she’d learned a century ago.
The sorceress sensed the dark power contained within the statue of Nerthatch begin to respond to the magical force flowing into it through Haaken’s body. Then, though Nathifa couldn’t see it from where she stood, she knew the statue’s stone mouth opened to emit a soundless cry, one that not even she could not hear. But the summons wasn’t intended for her.
Several moments passed in this manner before they heard the sound of roiling water, as if something large were surging toward the dock at incredible speed. A few seconds later a pair of gray-skinned hands, fingers tipped by black claws, reached up over the dock’s edge, took hold, and a man-shark pulled itself out of the water. It was followed by a second, and then a third. The weresharks regarded the bizarre scene before them for a moment and then, as if obeying orders only they could hear, the three aquatic lycanthropes stalked past and lumbered down the dock toward shore.
Toward Regalport.
Jahnu followed the flow of people out of the tavern, his wife at his side, her hand resting in the crook of arm.
“Did you enjoy the bard, my love?” Dirella asked.
Once outside, the tavern-goers began to head in different directions, strolling slowly in pairs or groups of three and four, enjoying the night air. It was somewhat chilly for a walk, Jahnu thought, but the buildings, two and three-stories, made an effective windbreak here. Plus he and his wife were hardy Lhazaarites who knew to dress for the weather in heavy clothing and fur cloaks.
Jahnu turned left and Dirella allowed herself to be led. She was a very independent person. Her family owned several dockside warehouses, and though it pleased her to defer to her husband at times, there was never any doubt between them as to who was the more dominant in their marriage.
He shrugged in answer to his wife’s question. “There’s no denying the skill with which the man played, but his voice often seemed harsh to me, like he was … I don’t know. Singing between the notes somehow.”
“That’s because you’re human, dear. Elvish music is composed for people with elvish hearing.”
Dirella spoke with a patronizing voice, as if she were pointing out something that should be blindingly obvious. She used that voice a great deal more than Jahnu appreciated. He worked to keep his tone neutral as he replied. He didn’t want to spoil the evening by getting into a fight.
“But if I’m not elvish, then how can I …” He trailed off. Coming toward them, washed in the eerie green illumination of everbright street lanterns, was a creature out of nightmare. Roughly humanoid, though larger and more muscular. Naked, with slick, tough-looking hide, and clawed hands and feet. Most disturbing was its shark-like head with its maw full of triangular teeth.
Jahnu stopped and stared at the strange apparition walking down the street toward them. Dirella, still holding onto her husband’s arm, stopped as well.
“Do you see that?” Jahnu asked in a hushed voice. He knew what he thought he was seeing—a monster stepped straight out of childhood bedtime stories—but such a thing couldn’t possibly be here. Not on the streets of Regalport! High Price Ryger made sure his city was one of the safest in the Principalities. The city watch was well trained and well paid, and the Prince’s Sea Dragons diligently patrolled the waters beyond Regalport.
“It looks like a, a walking shark,” Dirella said, a note of wonder in her voice. “Do you think it’s a joke of some kind? A drunken sailor playing a prank in costume?”
Jahnu let out a relieved sigh. Yes, of course! It had to be something like that!
The “wereshark” stopped as it drew near. Its dead-black eyes narrowed, and Jahnu caught a whiff of saltwater mixed with the scent of rotting meat wafting forth from the thing’s tooth-filled maw. Suddenly, he wasn’t so sure that this was a joke.
The wereshark lunged and sank its teeth into Jahnu’s shoulder. The man screamed as his blood geysered into the air, splattering his wife who was also screaming now and desperately attempting to pull free of her husband—his arm had folded back reflexively when the creature bit into his flesh, trapping her hand in the crook of his elbow. The wereshark didn’t look at Dirella as it gnawed at Jahnu’s bloody shoulder, serrated teeth sawing gobs of meat off the bone. But the woman’s scream rose to a high-pitched shriek and, as if to silence her, the wereshark lashed upward with a clawed hand and disemboweled her. It worked most effectively. Dirella became instantly quiet as her intestines spilled down the front of her expensive gown and onto the ground.
The wereshark ripped a hunk of meat from Jahnu’s shoulder, and the man fell sideways onto his dying wife. Dirella, unable to support her own weight any longer, let alone that of her husband, slumped to the cobblestones below, and Jahnu landed in a bloody heap on top of her. Through blurred vision swiftly going black, Jahnu saw the wereshark swallow his flesh and then, grinning in a way a true shark never could, the beast crouched down as it came toward them to continue its grisly feast.
The sight Jahnu saw as life left him was a hazy image of other weresharks filling the street, and the last sound he heard were the screams of other victims as the monsters ran forward to join in the slaughter.
More weresharks arrived, and more after that, and they all walked past Nathifa, Haaken, and Makala and continued on into the city. Dozens of them.
Nathifa paused in her chanting, unable to stop herself from laughing in delight. It had begun! Nothing could stop Vol’s conquest of the Principalities now! Nothi
ng!
The lich resumed chanting and the weresharks kept coming.
And that’s when Nathifa saw the prow of an elemental galleon coming fast toward the dock.
She’s already started!” Diran said.
The priest stood at the stern of the Turnabout, peering through the lens of a hand-held telescope, long black hair trailing behind him in the wind. The sky was clear, and the moons provided sufficient light for him to make out Nathifa standing on Regalport’s central dock. He recognized the statue of the priest Nerthatch that Ghaji and he had been forced to deal with on Demothi Island. Haaken Sprull, in the shape of a half-man, half-shark, stood behind the statue, clawed hands gripping its shoulders, blunt snout pointed skyward as he bellowed in pain. Behind Haaken stood Nathifa, holding the dragonwand and blasting the wereshark with a stream of mystic energy released from the Amahau. Makala stood close by, watching the procedure with a malicious grin, clearly amused by Haaken’s pain.
A steady parade of weresharks climbed out of the bay one by one, pulled themselves onto the dock, and lumbered past the lich and her servants as they headed into Regalport proper.
Diran handed the spyglass to Ghaji so the half-orc could see for himself. The other companions gathered around, and though they didn’t have telescopes of their own, the elemental galleon was only a quarter of a mile away from the docks and closing fast. They could see well enough to give them a good idea of what was happening.
Ghaji lowered the spyglass. “This is Vol’s grand scheme? To send a bunch of ugly fish-faces into Regalport for a late dinner? It’s an awful thing, but I don’t see how that will help her conquer the Principalities.”