by Unknown
“Any trouble?” I asked him.
” Shapes move beneath the waters, captain.”
“Haul anchor and ready the sails.”
“Where to?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?”
I met with the Devil’s Four-a term that lodged itself in my head, despite its idiocy-in my quarters. “Where do we take him?” I asked. “At first I’d thought we hide him inland, at Neruma.”
Seagrave’s beard appeared to writhe with disapproval. “An overland j ourney? As tough on us as it would be on Firsk.”
“Right. Other suggestions?”
“We’re using Twill as bait, yes ?” Rira asked.
“Well-protected bait.”
“Then north, to the edge of the Abendego storms ?”
Seagrave twitched. “Firsk’s crew is as able there as we. If we’re to fight an even battle, let’s not do it on the skirts of a hurricane.”
“We take him to Port Peril, then,” said Aspodell. “Firsk doesn’t dare invade the very city of the pirate king. He’d have to come at us by stealth, alone or with a handful of crew. And when it comes to subtlety, my wager’s on us. By which I mean, me.”
I left a moment’s pause for objections, nodded my assent, and left the cabin to order a course for Port Peril.
A good wind cleared the sky and filled our sails. As the Aspidochelone bore down on the Terwa coast it grew stronger. The ship’s hull and decks sang in harmony as we cut the water, carried on the waves. Seagrave took the helm, belting out a ribald shanty about a ship besotted with a mermaid. I’d heard the song before, but never so many verses of it. The crew bellowed the chorus and left the verses to him. I joined him on the aft deck, not to better hear what rhymed with “weatherduck,” but to scan the horizon for signs of Kered Firsk’s vessel, the Slicer. From my eavesdropping on the harpies before we slew them, it
seemed more than likely that they’d already alerted the Monster Captain to Twill’s presence. His dark ship could be waiting for us behind any island.
Twill stumped up beside me. The set of his brow suggested that he’d also mulled the chances of an ambush.
“You look haler already,” I said.
“Salt cod and hardtack. Now I remember why I promised myself never to sail again.”
“When we get to Port Peril, we’ll feed you better than that.”
“Your healers say you’re a Pathfinder.”
“That I am.”
“So you care more about discovering facts to put down in your little books than you do about the fates of others.”
“These goals are one and the same. The soul needs knowledge like the belly needs food.”
“There’s nary a lesson I’ve learned that I don’t wish I hadn’t,” he said, almost to himself. “How to break locks most ofall. Things are put behind lock and key for a reason, that’s what I’ve discovered. Best to leave secret doors secret and closed chests shut. Ain’t nothing I e’er opened wasn’t more trouble than good. It’s a curse, a punishment for curiosity and greed. For caring more about ill-got riches than my own kinfolk and comrades. They say I’m among the best in the world. Near as good as Vitta ofMendev, they say. And what’s it got me? Bad company and worse grub. What’s money? It runs through your fingers. What’s lore? A bunch of words. Dead thoughts about dead men.”
“Men prosper when they learn, and suffer when old truths are lost.”
“How many truths are my life worth?”
Before I could answer him, the ship lurched. I flew against the rail, catching myself just in time to avoid a nasty bang on the head. Twill landed face-first on the deck. From the corner of my eye I saw a sailor plummet from the rigging. A loud splash announced his fall into the sea. I looked to the anchor, wondering if some fool had let it drop. But it remained in place, drying and swinging, its chain still well secured.
The Aspidochelone continued to slow until finally we were becalmed altogether. The winds blew as powerfully as ever, rattling in the sails to no effect. It seemed like magic, so I called for Rira. In the meantime, men leaned
over the port rail, looking for the fallen sailor. They cried his name. It was Feddick, a recent recruit who signed on with us at Hell Harbor, bringing with him a haunted look and a history ofhaving been press-ganged.
We waited for him to break up through the waves. They ran fast, so he could easily have been pulled out ahead of our inexplicably halted ship. Old Hallegg took command of the detail, leaving me to deal with whatever had stopped us.
“What is this?” I asked Rira.
“I don’t like it,” she said.
“I’m not asking you to like it, I’m asking you to account for it.” This outburst I immediately regretted. An angry captain is a weak captain. I wondered what sly expression hid behind Rira’s mask.
She wove a looping pattern in the air with the fingers of her left hand while muttering a barely audible arcane formula. A faint hum followed her movements. It stopped when her hands did. “Whatever it is, it’s not a spell.”
“The work of an enchanted object?”
“Not that, either.”
“Battle stations!” I called. The crew broke from the search for Feddick to take up the cry. Soon they were arrayed with swords in hand, or behind ballistae or fire-throwers.
The waves broke into a white froth. Creatures bubbled up from below the waves. Fishy heads appeared, framed by fans of red gill-fins. Some were drably colored, others splendid. It was the sea devil war-party we’d outdistanced on our way to Sarenvent, back to greet us again. How had they stilled our ship, if not by magic?
The most outrageously patterned oft he sea folk, whom I took to be a queen or the like, rose up from the water, held aloft by two lesser subjects. Droplets of water fell from the tips ofher face-spines, some ofwhich extended to a yard in length. Her enormous shark and its aquatic howdah were nowhere in evidence. We’d last seen the sea devils as they fought off a squid-thing; presumably her mount and its apparatus were now in its gullet.
“Who leads you greasy airbreathers ?” the sea devil queen called, her voice a distorted burble.
I swept to the rail. “I am Challys Argent, captain of the Aspidochelone.”
“Your appearance disgusts me. The sound produced by your useless lungs and lips is like unto the coupling of clawfish. To address you is to demean myself. So I shall merely specify my name, which is Kless of milting Snasn, breeding Shalligilat, lineage Sho-ese. The remainder of this parley shall be undertaken by one oflesser worth, the herald Drid, of milting Lellij, of breeding unspecified.”
As captain of a pirate vessel, I should have perhaps interrupted her insults and asserted my authority. As a Pathfinder, I’d won a priceless opportunity to observe the speech patterns of southern sea devil royalty, and to record them accurately for future posterity.
A mottled specimen, its headdress of fins thin and punctured, bobbed up in the waves ahead of Kless. “Though I am but a worm, I am still of the true race, and thus infinitely superior to all else who swim the waves, and, it need not be said, landwalking nonentities such as yourselves. Yet at the behest of the great and merciless Kless, I command you to obey.”
This had gone far enough. ” Show respect, sea-trash, or I’ll boil the water around you with our battery of fire-throwers.”
The drab fish-people darkened; the vivid ones grew even more so.
“Let me demonstrate,” said the herald Drid.
The prow ofthe Aspidochelone rose into the air, seemingly pushing itself up out of the water. Sailors tumbled down from the fore deck to the aft. They dangled from the rigging. A few thudded to the deck. The prow then fell, abruptly released. A shockwave ran up through the ship and into our bones. Loosened nails jutted up through the planking. A fire-thrower fell from its housing to clatter and roll. Rira stopped it with her foot.
“Were it our desire, pathetic motes,” continued Drid, “we could, with a shrug, tear your ship to shreds. This will become our desire should you make any untoward or hostil
e motion, or speak in such a way as to offend the supremacy of our race. Is our position clear, ape-spawn?”
“You have articulated it precisely,” I replied, hands curled tightly around the rail. In the hilt of my cutlass, a crystal pulsed with cold blue light. Of the five stones, it was the one that held Rira’s geas. Its sudden gleam meant that she was fighting its hold over her. My adjutants always chose inopportune moments to test their magic bonds. This struck me as particularly ill-timed.
Drid gurgled on: “Be it also clear that the true race never acts out of mercy toward inferiors.”
I caught Rira in a sidelong glance. Her position mimicked mine-spine straight, gripping the rail as if to strangle it, quaking with contained rage. Was her rebellion aimed at me? Was it even conscious? As fully intent as I should have been on Drid’s demands, I couldn’t help but consider her mask. Of its origins, Rira refused to speak. Its metal lips and flaring gills certainly bore a striking resemblance to the creatures below.
“If we do not destroy your ship,” Drid said, “it is merely because we do not wish unnamed others to count themselves over-pleased by our cooperation.”
“You mean Kered Firsk. If you hate all humans, why do-“
“Do not inquire of us!”
The queen flared her face-spines. In response, the prow of the ship again pushed itself up, though not quite so high or for as long as before. The crew let me see its collective fear. If it were only me in danger, I’d have restated the question. Instead I fell silent.
“Inutile landwalker Challys Argent, you will do as we command. We intuit that on board your laughable vessel quivers a contemptible bag of flesh known by your people as Twill Ninefingers. For reasons we do not deign to enumerate, we demand this chattel. It will be surrendered to us forthwith. We will then depart, without feeding any of you to our sharks. Though you might be inclined to fall to your knees and weep with gratitude, we eschew such displays. Give us the Ninefingers, and consider our business transacted.”
At some point during the parley, Aspodell had eased up next to me. “They can’t tell one inutile fleshbag from another. Tell them I’m Twill.”
“I can’t let you sacrifice yourself”
“Nor am I suggesting it. That queen’s last meal will be the steel of my rapier.”
“Even you can’t take an entire sea devil war party.”
Twill Ninefingers appeared at my other elbow. “Nobody’s going in my stead.”
“Twill-“
“This is my doom. That’s plain to see. I should never have opened that first lock. Anybody taking my place dies for nothing.” He leapt up on the railing. “I’m Twill Ninefingers! You want me?”
I grabbed for him, but Aspodell pulled me back.
“You got me, you rotten nyoggot!” Twill leapt from the rail into the sea below. Unprepared for this, the sea devils swam in a confused pattern. Ninefingers hit the waves on the outer periphery of their formation. One of their great white sharks lunged at him. Sea devil soldiers leapt on it, grappling its slippery hide. It bucked and snapped at them. A soldier cried out in thrumming tones, the underside ofhis arm stripped to the ulna. Blood pooled in the water, sending the other sharks into frenzy. The sea devils fell on them, hauling on reins of seaweed, or prodding them with long poles. The ends ofthese devices glowed when they made contact, and seemed to exert a pacifying magic. One by one the sharks succumbed to docility. In the meantime, Drid and several other of the queen’s attendants had plucked Twill from below the surface. They yanked his head up and back as still others produced a drinking
vessel fashioned from the ornate shell of some deep -sea mollusk. Holding his
mouth open with their webbed claws, the attendants poured a saffron-colored
liquid. It spilled acros s Twill’s face and into the water. Having thus dosed him-undoubtedly with waterlung-they ducked his head down and out of sight. Still working to calm their sharks, the entire party disappeared into the depths.
The crew held its collective breath, waiting for the force holding our ship
to release it. Though fresh gusts rattled the Aspidochelone’s sails, it did not budge. Pressure built in the masts and booms; they groaned as if ready to crack.
“Lower the sails,” I shouted.
The crew rushed to seize the halyards.
A yell from the aft deck sent me running, to see Feddick’s upper halfbobbing in the waves below.
” Shark bite?” I asked Seagrave.
“If so, it’s no shark I’ve ever seen. See how the bite is shaped like a narrow V?”
I nodded, though in truth I could make out nothing more precise than a gruesome smudge of severed entrails.
“What did this was more beak than sharky jaw,” Seagrave said.
“Giant squid? Kraken?”
“Or the like.”
A dark mass snaked under the surface of the water. Feddick’s remains jerked and were gone, pulled below.
I ordered Old Hallegg to fetch our own supply of waterlung. We’d liberated several doses from Megeus the cyclops, and so had draughts to spare. When he came back with the chest containing the potions, he said, “You wouldn’t be going yourself, would you, captain?”
Otondo growled over Old Hallegg’s shoulder. “We don’t need you talkin’ ‘er out of things. Do we?”
Hallegg withdrew a step.
“I need one to come with me,” I said.
Rira stepped forward. “It should be me.”
When Hallegg offered her the potion chest, she waved it away. In response to my questioning stance, she tapped her mask. “What do you think this does ? Who do you think put it on me?” Before I could turn these rhetorical questions into an occasion for further inquiry, she plucked up one of the specialized crossbowlike weapons the crew sometimes used for spearfishing, strode to the rail, and jumped over. I quaffed the waterlung potion and followed her, doffing
superfluous items of clothing along the way. An instant of vertiginous suspension followed. Then I angled my body to mimic a knife, and in this shape sliced down through the waves. I rode the force of my dive until it dissipated,
then curled around to view the underside of the ship from a vantage dozens of yards below the surface.
An enormous creature, half fish, half octopus, dangled below the ship, seven spined tentacles wrapped around our rudder and much of the hull’s aft section. Its skin, mottled and fibrous, was the color of a blood blister. Bony projections protected its glowing cerulean eyes. Muscular, elongated flippers extended past its vestigial tail. These fluttered in tandem with a prominent anterior dorsal fin, holding our ship in place. They would have worked harder still when the sails were up. My memory flashed to a page from a long-destroyed copy ofthe second folio of the Abyssal Synoptic. The author, Praligeus, called it a devilfish. He identified the term as a misnomer, however: It was an escapee not from one of the layers of Hell, but from the aquatic regions of the demon-haunted Abyss. Praligeus also claimed for it the rudiments of a mind. But then, he also assured readers that it grew no larger than a horse. This specimen was nearly as large as my ship.
If it was capable of thought, it could have received and carried out instructions from its sea devil masters-or it could choose to disobey them. However, I had no means of divining what its instructions were, or plumbing the extent of its loyalties. Nor could I communicate with it while underwater. We would have to dislodge it the simple way.
Rira, a string ofbubbles pouring from her mask, directed a barrage of complex gestures at me. She swam toward the devilfish, enacting a spell. A pulsing, white energy rippled from her fingertips. They traveled outwards in a series of expanding circles. As each ripple struck me, my muscles spasmed in agony.
She was throwing lightning bolts beneath the water. Rira had been struck by the force of her own spell, and seemed worse off than I. She floated in the water as if stunned.
The first of the white circles reached the devilfish. Energy danced along its rugose flesh. Instantly, it releas
ed the ship’s hull. It collapsed into a defensive ball, with its tentacles wrapped protectively around its body. Each time an electric ripple struck it, the beast shuddered. As badly as it had hurt us, Rira’s spell had clearly done greater harm to the creature.
It remained in its ball as the last ripple washed over it. With sluggish movements, Rira seized the cros sbow she’d slung across her back. I swam forth, cutlass ready.
As I neared it, the first of Rira’s projectiles struck the creature. Guided by enchantment, the spearlike bolt homed in on a spot between tentacles, lodging in the devilfish’s eye. The behemoth uncurled itself from its ball, emitting a black liquid. This billowed out to fill a sizeable volume of water centered around the nexus of its tentacles-what would have been its nose, had it been configured like an ordinary fish.
I reversed course too late; clouds of the dark substance washed over me. As soon as it made contact with my flesh, my gut erupted with the urge to vomit. Fighting this with all my will, I swam back, out of the cloud. Concentrating my strength into my legs, I dove behind and beneath the devilfish. Above me Rira had done much the same, avoiding the cloud. A succession of bolts already pierced the thing’s spine. I stabbed my cutlass into the muscle fixing its flipper to its body.
The creature rolled over, grazing me with its half severed flipper. It skittered through its inky cloud and made a foolish attempt at flight. In the panicked effort, it caused its flipper to detach entirely from its side. Only a
threaded cord of nerves connected the creature to it. Gouts of blood blackened the water. The devilfish pitched onto its side and bobbed to the surface.
Rira and I clambered onto the ship to the cheers ofthe crew. She leaned against the rail. I lay on the deck, gasping. My next command was is sued flat on my back and heedless of my dignity.
We would make speed to Dead Slave Cove, and a decisive reckoning with Kered Firsk.
Chapter 6
Dead Slave Cove
On a bench near the helm, Seagrave unrolled a sea chart. It would be a race to Dead Slave Cove, where the sea devils were to rendezvous with Kered Firsk. They had departed to the west, meaning that they would likely round the large isle of Motaku along its north face. From there we mapped their most probable route. It would take them deep into the Shackles, traveling west till they reached Shark Island. Twenty miles, give or take, separated its westernmost point from Raptor Island, where our destination lay.