amends with her daughter.
They approached the vessel's side, Lucius ahead of Myrmeen. He gripped the rung that jutted from the side of the ship and climbed upward, unencumbered by weapons of any kind. Myrmeen was bothered by the dead weight of the heavy bag slung on her back, the strap pulling on her throat as she climbed. They made it over the top and walked directly into a pair of sailors. Darting out of the way, they were not surprised to go unnoticed; Lucius had cloaked them in a spell of invisibility. They could see each other, but no one else would mark their presence.
Myrmeen and Lucius did not speak as they walked quickly to the bridge. The fighter clutched the molded grip of a blade as they approached the ship's navigator. Beneath Myrmeen's boot, a floorboard groaned loudly. The man at the helm turned suddenly and stared directly at the tall, gaunt mage and his beautiful companion. Then he frowned and turned back to the large wooden wheel that he gripped tightly.
Human, Myrmeen thought with dismay, or so he seems. Lucius glanced down at her foot, then turned his gaze to her face and motioned for her to step on the creaking floorboard again. She leaned on the wooden plank a second time, causing the sailor to spin around in genuine alarm. The man was on edge and Lucius capitalized on this fact as he held out his open palm and blew a handful of dust into the man's face. Myrmeen quickly sheathed her blade as the man fell forward. She caught his limp body with both hands. Dragging the man a half dozen feet, she carefully laid him beside several coils of rope, then she speedily disrobed. Removing his jacket, Myrmeen slipping it over her shivering, waterlogged body, then donned his leggings, boots, and the dark cap he had worn.
Lucius held the wheel for her. She took it as the mage hurried to the unconscious man's side and covered his pale, pink body with a blanket from the adjoining deck. Lucius then released the spell of invisibility that cloaked them. Myrmeen wondered if the others were on board, then committed the ship to its new course. The sailing vessel veered abruptly, engaging on a route that would take it parallel to the shoreline.
'What in Cyric's hell are you up to?' someone shouted.
Looking over her shoulder, Myrmeen saw that several members of the crew were racing in her direction. Lucius stepped before her, his lips moving, his fingers gesturing. The advancing crewman were suddenly lifted into the air, their legs yanked upward as if they had been plucked by gigantic, invisible hands. The men levitated into the rigging, where they grabbed hold, screaming in anger and fear. Two of the seven men Myrmeen counted nearly floated beyond the reach of the sails, into the sky, but they managed to grab hold of the flapping canvas sails and save themselves. Three men approached from the rear of the ship and Myrmeen relaxed as she recognized Shandower and the two Harpers, who were all soaking wet.
'There were five more, but we subdued them,' Ord said, watching the floating men above his head in amusement. The sailors cast creative variations of all-too-familiar curses at their vessel's usurpers.
'They were all human,' Shandower said as he spat on the deck with disgust. 'I should have guessed that the Night Parade wouldn't leave itself exposed like this.'
'Perhaps we'd be better off sinking this ship after we check the hold,' Ord said. 'It would be a short journey from the city lockup to ready buyers in the streets for those weapons if we allow them to be confiscated-only the suppliers would change.'
Myrmeen nodded. Their goal had been not only to interfere with the smuggling operation that would give the night people more gold for their dark purposes, but also to bring them from the shadows of myth and children's whispered tales to the light of scrutiny from the authorities. That plan depended on encountering at least a few of the monsters on board and securing their capture.
'Ord, you take the helm from Myrmeen,' Reisz said. 'The rest of us will go below.'
The young man started to protest, then fell silent when he registered the look in Reisz's eyes. 'Of course,' Ord whispered, 'Roudabush.'
Reisz nodded and followed the others below decks.
Lanterns lighted the first deck to which they had come and a full search netted the adventurers only two frightened deck hands who had run at the first sign of trouble. Shandower agreed to test these boys, firing his weapon into brilliant, blue-white life as he touched each of their hands. The first boy fainted, his fear causing him more harm than the gauntlet's touch. The second was slightly more at ease after realizing that the Harpers did not plan to kill him. He touched the glove voluntarily and was relieved when all he felt was a slight racing of his heart as the green lightning coursed through him. The unconscious boy was bound and left behind, the second taken with them as they found the door to the cargo hold.
The teenager, a rail-thin boy with thick, dark hair, angular features, and a scar above his left eye, shouted for them to stop before they pulled back the heavy, square door that secured their cargo. Reisz, who had been holding the rope that would pull open the wooden door, shuddered as if his worst fears had been confirmed.
'What's down there?' Myrmeen asked as she heard a groan that had not come from the wood-frame ship's shifting.
'It's not the crew,' Reisz said as the rope fell from his hand. 'It was never the crew.'
Beneath them, the floor undulated and they heard a heavy thud. Something incredibly large and strong had struck from below. The sound came again and Myrmeen decided that whatever was making the noise wished either to gain their attention or escape from the hold. Lucius took Myrmeen's arm. 'We must leave. We can sink the ship from a distance.'
Myrmeen thought of the ambush they had walked into at her childhood home, the nest of nightmares they had uncovered and to which they had lost two of their oldest and dearest friends. She quickly scanned the faces of those who had boarded the ship with her and wondered who would die next if they did not follow the mage's urging.
'No!' Shandower shouted. 'This is what we came here for, proof that the nightmares are real. There were never any forbidden weapons on this ship, only more of their kind, beings who could not pass for human and needed special care.'
Myrmeen stared at the madness she saw in Shandower's eyes and was grateful that she had decided to spare Krystin this sight. A part of the assassin had hoped for this-a part of him had wanted to fight the monstrosities even if it meant sacrificing all the others to satisfy his needs.
/
The words were branded into her memory, but she could not recall if it had been her father, Dak, or her second husband who had spoken them.
You can't, she suddenly understood. No one can make the monsters go away but me.
'Myrmeen,' Reisz urged, 'we made a mistake. Let's leave while we still can. If he's right and those things escape-'
'Retreat,' she hissed, still watching Shandower's eyes, worried that the fervor she saw within him might one day stare out at her when she looked at her own reflection.
'I'm not going without seeing what's down there,' Shandower said as he shoved Reisz out of the way, took the heavy rope in his hand, and yanked the door upward.
Looking over the assassin's shoulder, drawn in perverse fascination, Myrmeen was certain that she was staring into the pit of ultimate damnation. Dozens of monstrosities lay below, their bodies intertwined as they writhed frantically. Many were climbing the walls and two were on the stairway leading up to them. At the center of the gathering lay an obese, grotesque creature that appeared to have the power to manipulate its own body as if it were clay, stretching its muscles and tendons into shapes that seemed strangely familiar to Myrmeen. The monster's stomach was immense, lined with a set of jaws large enough to swallow a man whole. Its face was marked with huge, egg shaped eyes, and a wide, gentle smile.
Myrmeen suddenly recognized the shapes it was forcing its body to create: Musical instruments.
Blood-soaked tendons stretched to the consistency of strings for a large pink harp, while hard muscle coalesced to form a lute near the base of the monster's incredible bulk. A long, thin appendage shot from beneath its layers of fat that had been its jaw, with holes suddenly appearing to mark it as a wind instrument. The host of smaller, equally inhuman creatures stopped and turned, their mad, chattering sounds dropping away in anticipation.
'Lucius!' Myrmeen shouted.
The mage was already gesturing, his hands stretched before him. The sound of thunder roared in the confined space and a flash of lightning burst from Lucius's hands. The light was so intense that it nearly blinded those gathered above the hold. The fleshy harp and lute were destroyed by a deadly bolt of bluish red light, and the monster wailed in agony, odd music accompanying its screams.
