“That boat belongs to His Majesty, now,” the admiral said calmly, his thumbs wedged comfortably in the straining belt of his uniform. “We will use it as we see fit.”
“You can’t be takin’ whateva you want from us! We need dat boat to find dem murderin’ basta’ds that took oua people!”
“The pirates took prisoners?” Huffington asked, right on cue. He was risking his position by drawing the admiral’s potential ire, but he and Tipos had agreed to help each other, and bringing out the facts might give Paska and Tipos a better argument. “That is unusual?”
“The pirates did not take prisoners, but they allied themselves with a group of savages,” the admiral explained, his face impassive. “Supposedly, several natives were taken captive, though for what reason, we do not yet know.”
“We know bloody
well
why dey took ‘em!” Paska raged, stepping forward. One of the marines interposed himself between Paska and the admiral, and had the good sense, Huffington thought, to look nervous, so close to the irate woman.
“Dey were cannibals,” Tipos said, his voice calmer than Paska’s but his tone imploring. “If you don’t let us take de
Flothrindel
, you condemn oua frien’s to death.”
“That boat belongs to the Imperial Navy now,” the admiral repeated, his tone flat. “It stays here.”
Huffington backed away, turned and caught Tipos’ eye in passing, keeping his face carefully neutral. He slipped out of the room, and as the great doors closed behind him, he heard Paska’s voice once more rising over her baby’s persistent cries. He smiled grimly. The admiral deserved everything he got.
≈
Dura jerked awake, cracking her head on a bar of her cage. Pain lanced through her skull. She stifled a curse and rubbed the sore spot; she’d hit the very same place a dozen times, right where the cannibal’s club had knocked her unconscious.
Lucky I’ve got a bloody thick skull,
she thought.
The cage was made of bamboo poles—significantly harder than her head—lashed tightly together with leather straps that had been soaked to make them shrink, then lacquered with some type of tree-resin. As a result, the bindings were impervious to the efforts of either her fingernails or teeth. The worst part was that the cages were only about three feet square, with no room to stand or even turn around. It was bad enough for Dura, a dwarf born and bred to endure fatigue, toil, and discomfort, and of a smaller stature. The taller captives bore their captivity less easily: they were miserable, frightened and desperate. Freedom was unlikely; an easy death was all that most were hoping for. Their captors knew their trade well, and keeping captives alive and secure was their specialty.
That, and cruelty.
She wrinkled her nose at the stench of rotting meat and human filth that grew worse every day. Five days they had been on the island. Five days, and three of their number had been taken from their cages, one every other day. Three people she had known—two men, one woman—had been taken, flayed alive, roasted and eaten in full view of the other captives. Some had wept, some had sat silent or muttered quiet curses or oaths. Dura had simply watched, and wondered what curse from the gods, what twist of fate or superstition, had brought these people to such depths of depravity. The consumption of the flesh of any sentient race was taboo among every civilized culture in the realms. Some of the less than civilized cultures, minions of the Dark Gods and the savage races of the wilderness, for example, were said to feast on their captives, but even jackaleks and ogres did not eat their own kind. Only humans had somehow earned that particular curse.
Dura could not discern a hierarchy among their captors, or even identify a chief or shaman who held sway over the populace. She had seen no one pay deference to another, no badges of office, no signs of authority or organization. How they functioned as a society was a mystery. They seemed to make decisions by yelling at one another until one prevailed, then, strangely, the decision became law. And they argued incessantly. This very morning they had argued about which of the captives would be their next feast. It took a while, but once they had decided, they acted as one, dragging a young man—a bright fellow named Nori, a talented crafter of their primitive dugout canoes—out of his cage to his fate.
Twenty-two captives remained.
Tomorrow would be a reprieve; no captive would be taken, slaughtered and eaten. The following day, however, one of them would die. The last thing Dura wondered before she closed her eyes again, was if it would be her.
Chapter 19
Predators and Prey
“We are close.” Ghelfan sipped his wine and tapped the much-expanded map they had created. It covered the table of the main mess aboard
Peggy’s Dream
three pages deep, beautifully rendered in the shipwright’s elegant hand. Many levels had yet to be charted, but their goal, the Chamber of Life, was somewhere near the center and below where their existing maps extended. He was sure of it.
“It’s about bloody time,” Feldrin said, and Ghelfan could see agreement in Cynthia’s dark-circled eyes. Fatigue and anguish were wearing her thin, so thin that he doubted her complete sanity.
“We found inscriptions here, here, and here.” Ghelfan tapped his stylus at three spots on the map in the city’s lowest explored level and equidistant from the center. “All refer to cautions and protocols associated with the Chamber of Life. I believe the chamber itself must be one level below: here.” The area he tapped this time was a void in the center of the map where no patrols had explored—indeed, where no passages delved.
“All the passages above have either ended or turned along this circle,” Cynthia observed, reaching to scribe an arc with her finger. Her movement jolted Mouse from his slumber on her shoulder and he grabbed onto her hair to keep from falling into her blackbrew cup. The poor sprite was as exausted as any of them, having run messages and joined in the exploration with Cynthia every day. “The chamber must be vaulted, arching up through the levels above.”
“That is what I surmise as well.”
“But all those stair hatch things we’ve found along here are closed. The level below’s flooded,” Feldrin said, his Morrgrey scowl firmly in place. His eyes slid sidelong to his wife. “Can you hold the sea back if we have to open one of these doors?”
“Yes.”
Her answer was so matter of fact that Ghelfan wondered if she truly understood the question. The forces involved if one of the floor hatches was opened to the sea would be titanic. A chamber or corridor would fill in seconds if she could not hold back the sea. Unfortunately, there was no way to test her abilities; he would have to take her word for it.
“Very well.” He pointed to a descending stairwell that was marked as closed. “I suggest we try this one. It is closest to this harbor.”
“Good.” Cynthia lifted her cup in a trembling hand and gulped the cold blackbrew. “We’ll do it first thing in the morning. A small group would be better, since I can’t hold back the entire ocean. Maybe six.” She looked to the shipwright. “You have done more than I intended you to do on this trip already, Ghelfan. If you want to stay aboard the
Dream
…”
“I will accompany you, Mistress, if you would allow it. You may have need of me, since any warnings or protocols you find will undoubtedly be inscribed in elvish, and I wish to see the Chamber of Life. It is the chance of a lifetime.”
“All right, then.” She turned to her husband. “Feldrin, I want Edan along on this. We’re certain to meet up with the mer, and he’s our secret weapon. Would you mind sending word for him? I think we should let him know what we’re up against.”
“Right.” Feldrin lifted his own cup; its contents were also cold, but distilled rather than brewed, and he drained them in a single swallow. “I’ll get the little firebug.”
≈
“By the nine unholy hells…” Sam breathed, staring up at the floating city. She had first spied Akrotia with the setting sun, looking like a sharp-peaked island silhouetted against a blood-red horizon. During the early hours of the night they had approached, slowly and silently, like a cat stalking a mouse. Now, under the silver moonlight, the city loomed bigger than anything she imagined; she discerned towers, archways and roads, but not a single light shone from any of the peaked windows. Camilla had told them the city was dead, and it seemed she was right. The entire place was nothing but a mausoleum.
She whispered an order to Uag, tracing a circle in the air with her hand, and the blades of the four long sweeps bit into the water, silently propelling
Manta’s
twin hulls around the city. Sam climbed the ratlines to the foretop for a broader perspective, peering into the coves and inlets in search of her quarry. They passed two curious harbors, their mouths huge archways, and as a third hove into view from around the bend, she spotted the characteristic masts of the two schooners silhouetted by the moonlight.
“Starboard rudder!” she hissed down to Uag, keeping her voice low. Sound carried far across water, and the sea witch might have sentries posted. “Turn around. Go back.” She climbed down and grinned at them in triumph. “They’re here! We’ll go back to the first harbor we saw and go in there.”
“Aye, Capt’n Sam.” Uag grinned back at her, his shark-like teeth glowing in the moonlight.
Manta
turned until her bows pointed back the way they had come. After a short time, the arch they sought rose ahead of them, silver in the moon’s luminous glow.
They approached warily; though the city looked dead, gods only knew what might be lurking, watching them from those dark windows. The only sound was the rhythmic swish-splash of the sweeps and the lapping of the lazy swells against the city’s hull. As they neared the arch, mutters broke out among the crew, and the cadence of the oars became less synchronized. Uag spoke before Sam could, ordering them to silence.
“Slow, now!” Sam ordered as they came abreast of the looming arch. She peered through it into the harbor, sweeping her viewing glass from left to right. Piers jutted out from the low seawalls; it would be easy to get ashore. “Good! Take her in, Uag.”
“Aye, Capt’n Sam.” Uag hissed orders, and
Manta
turned until her bows pointed at the center of the gap under the arch.
Sam stood on the port bow, staring open-mouthed up at the wondrous structure. The arch, a perfect half circle thrice the height of
Manta’s
masts, was etched with flowing script that glinted in the moonlight. Though clear against the gray stone, the characters were completely foreign to her. As they slid under the arch, she noticed a wide slot cut into the arch’s underside. The arch seemed hewn from a single piece of stone, with no seams except for that mysterious slot.
A portcullis, maybe?
Thus her eyes were directed up instead of down into the water’s depths as they passed the threshold. Her lapse of attention cost them dearly.
Sam pitched forward at the same instant she heard the terrible grinding sound of
Manta’s
starboard hull grounding on coral. The bow pulpit hit her in the stomach, which kept her aboard, and the ship spun around to starboard. As she gasped for breath, she found herself staring down into the water at the moonlit coral reef that she would have seen if she had been paying proper attention. The port-side hull ground to a halt on the edge of the reef as the ship came around, her bows now pointing across the aperture.
Sam peered into the water and quickly assessed the situation.
Good that we were going slow
, she thought.
It should be easy enough to push off and
—Before she could complete the thought, one of the long ocean swells lifted
Manta
up and dropped her even higher onto the offending reef, leaving the ship high and dry.
“By all Nine Hells and high water!” Sam pushed off the pulpit and turned to face her crew. They were already on their feet, their eyes wide and white against their dark faces, their features painted with fear. It would be dangerous for her if that fear turned to panic. “Well,” she said in a satisfied tone as she looked around, “that saves us time docking, anyway. Splash the launch, Uag. We’ll go ashore and have a look around.” Perhaps if she played it down, their lack of experience would let them believe her story.
“But, Capt’n Sam, de ship is on de rocks! We’re stuck! We gotta get her off before she sinks!”
“
Manta
will not sink, Uag,” she explained patiently. “I saw this ship being built; she’s strong! Her keels are on the coral, but her hulls are fine. She’ll have a few scratches, to be sure, but we’ll get her off. But we need daylight to do it, so we might as well go ashore now and have a look around.” She fixed him with a level stare, and said her next words slowly and deliberately. “Splash the launch.”
“Aye, Capt’n Sam.” He spoke to the rest of the crew, and there was some argument, but they finally relented.
By the time the launch bobbed beside
Manta
, Sam had dressed and armed herself for the excursion. She doubted she would find Edan tonight, but she could scout their position by moonlight easily enough. There was a wide avenue that seemed to circumscribe the entire city, and she could follow that until she was close, then pick a spot to spy on them. Then it would be a matter of watching and waiting for the right opportunity. When she found Edan, she would rescue him from the sea witch, and they would escape together on the
Manta
. If Cynthia Flaxal died in the process, so much the better.
≈
*They near the chamber, my love,* Slickfin signed to Eelback. *Today we heard them banging and fumbling around. Noisy, clumsy creatures.* She flipped her beautiful tail, admiring the way the scales glistened and sparkled in the pale light that shone from the ceiling of the Chamber of Life.
Most of the chambers they had flooded made her uncomfortable, being structured to accommodate landwalkers, not mer, but she liked this one. The domed ceiling arched high and sported an intricate mosaic of glass prisms. Akrotia had been constructed to bring light into this deep chamber, bright during the day, and soft at night, as now. It made her feel as if she swam in the open ocean, with the moonlight filtering down through the sea above her head.
She and Eelback swam lazy circles around the center of the room, where the Chamber of Life itself rested atop a many-tiered dais. The crystalline structure glittered in the subdued light, like one of the tiny floating jellies that she loved to watch in the moonlight. Fluttering her gills in mirth, she swam into the chamber through one of the four open arches, then out the opposite side. It was inert, now, of course, safe for them to explore. She was no seamage, and had no magic to awaken Akrotia. She flipped her tail playfully, swam back to Eelback, and curled her tail around his.
*Yes, they come near,* Eelback agreed, sliding his hand down her flank in affection. *When the seamage comes to this place, Akrotia will live again.*
*And then, my love?* Slickfin shuddered, and a milky substance issued from her underside, at the base of her caudal fin. She flicked her tail and her potent scent wafted through the water. Eelback’s color shifted from light to dark, his broad shoulders quivering.
*Then, we will populate our new home. And you, my sweet Slickfin, will be the trident holder’s wife, and mother to Akrotia’s first generation.* His hand found hers and he pulled her into a spiraling embrace, their tails flexing and undulating together.
*Yes, my love,* she signed, her hands fumbling the words through their embrace.
Then their clinch became even more intimate, and neither could sign. They drifted to the floor of the chamber, each shuddering in the throes of their passion. After a time, a shower of tiny, glistening orbs bathed in a thick, milky fluid fell to the floor beneath them. Slickfin and Eelback floated quietly for a long moment before Eelback finally stirred. He brushed her cheek with his smooth, webbed fingers and signed farewell, then swam out of the chamber.