Authors: Jaleigh Johnson
Blue missiles of magical energy shot from her hands. They hit the injured leucrotta in the chest. The beast howled. The blue streamers sank into its flesh, briefly illuminating the beast’s face.
Before the injured one could recover, the missiles rebounded, striking the leucrotta Ruen was.fighting in the spine.
In the explosion of pain and surprise, the leucrotta lost its balance at last, its back legs collapsing underneath its body.
Ruen took the distraction and flipped himself onto the leucrotta’s back, raking his body across the beast’s singed fur. The leucrotta howled and bucked, trying to throw the monk off, but Ruen locked both arms around its head.
The leucrotta turned and charged toward the water. It would force Ruen off one way or another. When the beast turned its
head, Ruen sprang up, contorting his body so that his full weight landed on the leucrotta’s left flank. With his arms locked around the beast’s head, Ruen had the leucrotta disoriented. It tried to twist free, but Ruen pulled straight up and to the right with all his sttength.
The leucrotta’s neck popped with a stomach-turning crunch. It sagged against Ruen, biting and snapping at random, its senses shattered by the trauma it had suffered.
Ruen grabbed the jagged remains of Bellaril’s dagger and plunged it into the beast’s throat. It coughed once and expired, collapsing half on top of Ruen. He shoved the body off into the harbor.
The injured leucrotta howled furiously, a cry echoed by the deformed man. He hefted his spear, aiming it at Ruen, while the leucrotta lunged for him.
“No!” Icelin cried. Ruen dodged, but the leucrotta grabbed him by the shoulder, tearing out a chunk of flesh.
He crab-crawled back, putting a little distance between them, but the leucrotta was already tensing to spring again.
Icelin gauged the distance and cast another spell. She twisted her arms together and waited, sweat from the pain pouring down her face, until the deformed man threw his spear. He aimed for Ruen’s heart.
Icelin spoke a word, and Ruen and the leucrotta disappeared. She untwisted her hands and instantly they reappeared, but they had exchanged places on the raft.
The deformed man stared, his jaw slack with horror, as his own spear punched a hole in the leucrotta’s flank. Its wicked point protruded out the other side, between two of the leucrotta’s ribs.
The beast collapseddead before it hit the groundand Ruen was up and moving, grabbing Icelin, hauling her to her feet.
She sagged against him, her strength gone. She’d done too much. Three spells practically at once, and she was losing blood, despite the bandage.
“He’s still armed,” Ruen said, and as he spoke, the deformed man drew a broadsword from a ratty leather scabbard. He let himself fall out of the air, landing on the raft with a crash that sent Icelin and Ruen to their knees and jarred the leucrotta’s body.
Seeing the corpse up close seemed to incense the man more. He came forward, slashing wildly with his blade. Ruen let go of Icelin and rushed him. He ducked under the man’s reach just before his slash would have come around and decapitated him. He brought his forearm up and blocked the slash at the man’s wrist, leaving his other hand free for a counter attack.
One of the few things Icelin had learned to be true about Ruen Morlethhowever much honor he showed as a thief, as a Mistshore fighter he would never fight fair.
So Icelin was not in the least shocked when Ruen brought his other hand up and snagged one of the tentacles writhing at the deformed man’s waist. He wrapped it around his fist and yanked.
The man s swotd arm flew out wide at the same time his face came down, until he was nose to nose with Ruen. The monk snapped his skull against the deformed man’s and released the tentacle.
The deformed man staggered back. He tried to bring his sword up, but Ruen had him this time. The monk took his thick wrist in both hands, twisted and brought the sword point down, driving it harmlessly into the raft. The deformed man released the sword and it bobbed there, a scar in the wood.
Ruen brought his fist around and punched the deformed man in the stomach. He stumbled backward and off the raft. No spell held him as he plunged into the water.
Ruen went back to Icelin’s side. “Are you well enough to walk? We have to get to a hiding place. We won’t be able to fight Cerest like this.”
“I know,” Icelin said, “but Bellaril’s wound is bad. I don’t think we can move her.”
A pitiful wail erupted from the water. Icelin and Ruen tensed. Ruen turned, his fists raised to defend against another attacker, but it was the deformed man. He thrashed in the water, his tentacles floating weirdly around his head. It gave the impression an octopus was latched onto his neck.
“Gods,” Icelin said, “he can’t swim.” She took a step toward the edge of the raft.
Ruen latched onto her arm. “Or maybe he’s a clever play actor who’ll stick you with a hidden dagger when you get close enough to help him.”
The cries intensified. Icelin flinched. “If that’s so, you’ll finish him when he makes his attack. If it’s notI can’t listen to him die like that.”
“He was willing enough to let us be eaten by his dogs,” Ruen said, but Icelin had already shaken off his restraining hand.
She walked to the edge of the raft and got down on her knees. She buried one hand in the strapping that kept Ruen’s raft together and extended the cither out to the deformed man.
He thrashed for a handful of breaths, his eyes huge in the lamplit darkness. He watched her for sign of a trick, but she just let her hand linger in the air like a bird hovering before a cat.
The deformed man dipped down, catching water in his half-open mouth. He coughed and spat. Panting now, he reached out and grabbed her small hand.
Icelin tightened her grip on the strapping. She felt Ruen’s legs on either side of her. He grabbed her shoulders to steady her, and hauled her up by the armpits with the deformed man in tow. Together, they dragged him up and onto the raft.
He lay on his side, in a pool of water and leucrotta blood, coughing up harbor filth from his slack mouth. Icelin stood over him, unsure how far the uneasy truce was going to stretch.
The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, like sudden heat in a cold room. She looked up and saw a man standing in the torn gap of the Ferryman’s hull. She didn’t know how long he’d
been standing there, watching them, but the man looked to be about a hundred and ninety years old.
He had a narrow, jaundiced face, but his expression was not unkind. Gteen eyes peered out from eye sockets that were heavy on top and papery with age on the bottom. His thick, stark white eyebrows were raised in speculation. He was clean-shaven, head and face; and wore a long set of robes, white over gray. A black belt that looked like it had been chewed on by wild dogs circled his waist.
But the feature that demanded the greatest portion of Icelin’s attention was the carved wooden staff he held in his right hand. The wood had been notched with arcane markings over every visible surface At its peak, a swirling red mist encircled thin shoots of wood, like foliage on a burning tree.
He had the staff slightly pointed forward. Icelin could imagine a ray of arcane power shooting from the tip and striking Ruen down before the two of them could flinch. This was not a warrior’s polearm; this was a wizard’s staff. It relied not on human strength, but on a connection with its master. The staff would respond to its wielder’s slightest instinct, and it would do so in the space between heartbeats.
Icelin raised her hands, palms out. “We surrender,” she said.
When he heard the doglike howls, Cerest motioned for his remaining men to abandon the boats. At first they hesitated, their eyes drawn to the wraiths circling endlessly above the gap between the Ferryman and the leviathan.
The undead creatures did not appear to notice them. They chased and dove at three flaming orbs hanging in midair; but for all their frenzied efforts, they could never capture the arcane energy. Cerest thought the orbs must be Icelin’s doing, and wondered for a breath if she had laid a trap for him here.
The dwarf woman’s screams rang out in concert with the snarls of beasts. Cerest slapped the boat nearest him with an oar to get his mens’ attention. Reluctantly, they slid into the dark water. Stealth was the wisest option for whatever lay ahead of them.
They were only five, but they were the deadliest of the Locks’s muckrakers, in Cerest’s opinion. Up to their noses in the water, they swam silently through the gap between the Ferryman’s corpse and the leviathan’s. They carried no light source, trusting Cerest’s vision to lead them through the complex tangle of ship and creature. Above their heads, the wraiths continued their oblivious circling.
One leucrotta was dead, and the second dying, by the time they came within sight of the raft and its torn occupants. Cerest watched the monk fighting a hideously deformed man, and then a breath later helping Icelin save the man’s life.
So that was how it was between them, Cerest thought. He was her dog, awaiting the command to throw himself into death’s
path. He felt a strange surge in his chest, a heat that did not diminish, even with the harbor soaking his clothes to his skin.
He didn’t like the way the monk touched Icelin, the rough way he hauled her back upon the raft, as if she were so much refuse he couldn’t wait to cast off. Yet at the same time he stayed as close to her as polite proximity would allow. Like the dog Cerest had named him, he soaked up the energy of her presence; and his body practically vibrated, begging for more.
Cerest didn’t want to see that type of connection between the monk and Icelin. Icelin was his.
“Kill the thin man,” Cerest whispered to his men. But one of them lifted his hand to his throat, gesturing for silence.
Cerest followed the man’s gaze and saw the old man standing on the Ferryman’s ruins. His staff glowed brightly, illuminating too much of the ruins for Cerest’s comfort. The old man looked shrewd, and comfortable in his power.
“Dive down,” Cerest said. “We’ll swim a safe distance away and watch. If we get the chance, kill the old man quickly and bring me his staff. Do whatever you wish with the thin man, as long as you kill him in the end. By that time, Icelin and I will be safely away.”
He sank under the water, knowing the men would follow. The burning sensation remained in his chest.
“Who are you?” the old man asked.
Icelin felt a strange pull on her scalp, as if some invisible hand were tugging at her hair. The strange lifting sensation brought the truth to her lips, like drawing up water from a deep well.
“Icelin Team,” she answered, and felt strangely calm, unafraid of this powerful stranger. “My companions are Ruen Morleth and Bellaril.”
As soon as she’d finished speaking, the calm force shattered, and terror burst free in Icelin’s chest.
“His magic compels truth,” Icelin said, her words running together. “Don’t answer his questions.”
“My apologies,” the man said. “I only wished to confirm your identities. I won’t invade your private space again. I owe you thanks for saving my friend’s life.”
“It was her doing, not mine,” Ruen said. “In thanks, why not tell us your name, friend, and how you know who we are?”
“The wraiths whisper things on the edges of my hearing,” the man said. “Lies, mostly, and tantalizing hints about secrets that are better left unspoken. I can’t help but listen. They have whispered your names in fear.”
“Good,” Ruen said. “And your name?” he prompted.
“Call me Aldren,” rhe old man said, “faithful servant of Mystra’s memory.” He stepped down from the Ferryman onto the raft. He never lost his balance, and the raft did not stir in the water. Icelin suspected that like the deformed man, he was hovering inches above the water.
The deformed man was sitting up on the raft, his head dipped between his bent knees. He looked like he was going to be sick. Aldren touched’the glowing nimbus of the staff to the deformed man’s shoulder. Cast in red, his tentacles basked in the arcane heat. The deformed man looked up at his master.
“It is all right,” Aldren said. “Take three deep breaths and you’ll be feeling back to normal.”
Icelin watched the deformed man do as he was told. The pain creases slowly left his face, and a peaceful resignation descended over his features, as if, for this man, “normal” was simply a chosen level of bearable suffering.
“Who is he?” Icelin asked. The unshakable trust in the deformed man’s eyes when he looked at Aldren gave her courage. Surely, no one who could inspire that kind of love would hurt them without cause. “Why are you both here?”
“Darvont has been a friend to me for a long time,” Aldren said. “He attacked you in defense of me. It is difficult for his
mind to grasp the subtleties between intruder and refugee.” He moved his staff back to its upright position beside his head. “Come inside my home, if you will. I can help your friend and give you the answer to your other question.”
Icelin looked at Ruen, who shrugged. “He has the upper hand as either a friend or foe.” He added, “Bellaril will not survive without aid.”
Icelin nodded. Together they lifted Bellaril between them and followed the old man through the wound in the Ferryman’s hull. Icelin cradled Bellaril’s head gently and felt the lifebeat in her neck. She thought of Sull, and a fresh prayer surged within her, a plea for the lives of her friends.
They came through a dark passage and into a chamber of muted spell light. Aldren had cast a light spell on the preserved nests of insects clustered near the ceiling. A dank chill filled the air, creating the unsettling atmosphere of a tomb.’Jagged planks and ripped sail gave way to what Icelin could only describe as a nest carved of rotting wood and arcane power.
Planks from the main deck had been stacked against the wall, their ends warped by magic so that they curled back on themselves like wood shavings. The rough chairs had been fastened to the hull for stability. Their curling ends seemed to have been done purely for style.
“Put her here,” Aldren said.