Passage to Dawn

teased the drow about it in the days to come. She also was smiling because Drizzt had won.

For some reason, that was very important to Catti-brie.

Chapter 8 SEA TALK

Repairs continued on the Sea Sprite for two days, preventing her from putting up her sails in full. Even so, with the strong breeze rushing down from the north, the swift schooner made fine speed southward, her sails full of wind. In just over three days, she ran the four hundred miles from Mintarn to the southeasternmost point of the great Moonshae Isles, and Deudermont turned her to the west, due west, for the open sea, running just off the southern coast of the Moonshaes.

'We'll run for two days with the Moonshaes in sight,' Deudermont informed the crew.

'Are you not making for Corwell?' Dunkin Tallmast, who always seemed to be asking questions, was quick to interrupt. 'I think I should like to be let off at Corwell. A beautiful city, by all accounts.' The little man's cavalier attitude was diminished considerably when he began tugging at his ear, that nervous tick that revealed his trepidation.

Deudermont ignored the pesty man. 'If the wind holds, tomorrow, mid-morning, we'll pass a point called Dragon Head,' he

explained. 'Then we'll cross a wide harbor and put in at a village, Wyngate, for our last provisions. Then it's the open sea, twenty days out, I figure, twice that without the wind.'

The seasoned crew understood it would be a difficult journey, but they bobbed their heads in accord, not a word of protest from the lot of them-with one exception.

'Wyngate?' Dunkin protested. 'Why, I'll be a month in just getting out of the place!'

'Whoever said that you were leaving?' Deudermont asked him. 'We shall put you off where we choose … after we return.'

That shut the man up, or at least changed his train of thought, for before Deudermont could get three steps away, Dunkin shouted at him. 'If you return, you mean!' he called. 'You have lived along the Sword Coast all your stinking life. You know the rumors, Deudermont.'

The captain turned slowly, ominously, to face the man. Both were quite conscious of the murmurs Dunkin's words had caused, a ripple of whispers all across the schooner's deck.

Dunkin did not look at Deudermont directly, but scanned the deck, his wry smile widening as he considered the suddenly nervous crew. 'Ah,' he moaned suspiciously. 'You haven't told them.'

Deudermont didn't blink.

'You wouldn't be leading them to an island of legend without telling them all of the legend?' Dunkin asked in sly tones.

'The man enjoys intrigue,' Catti-brie whispered to Drizzt.

'He enjoys trouble,' Drizzt whispered back.

Deudermont spent a long moment studying Dunkin, the captain's stern gaze gradually stealing the little man's stupid grin. Then Deudermont looked to Drizzt-he always looked to Drizzt when he needed support-and to Catti-brie, and neither seemed to care much for Dunkin's ominous words. Bolstered by their confidence, the captain turned to Harkle, who seemed distracted, as usual, as though he hadn't even heard the conversation. The rest of the crew, at least those near to the wheel, had heard, and Deudermont noted more than one nervous movement among them.

'Tell us what?' Robillard asked bluntly. 'What is the great mystery of Caerwich?'

'Ah, Captain Deudermont,' Dunkin said with a disappointed sigh.

'Caerwich,' Deudermont began calmly, 'may be no more than a legend. Few claim to have been there, for it is far, far away from any civilized lands.'

'That much, we already know,' Robillard remarked. 'But if it is just a legend and we sail empty waters until we are forced to return, then that bodes no ill for the Sea Sprite. What is it that this insignificant worm hints at?'

Deudermont looked hard at Dunkin, wanting at that moment to throttle the man. 'Some of those who have been there,' the captain began, choosing his words carefully, 'claim that they witnessed unusual visions.'

'Haunted!' Dunkin interrupted dramatically. 'Caerwich is a haunted island,' he proclaimed, dancing around to cast a wild-eyed stare at each of the crewmen near to him. 'Ghost ships and witches!'

'Enough,' Drizzt said to the man.

'Shut yer mouth,' Catti-brie added.

Dunkin did shut up, but he returned the young woman's stare with a superior look, thinking he had won the day.

'They are rumors,' Deudermont said loudly. 'Rumors I would have told you when we reached Wyngate, but not before.' The captain paused and looked around once more, this time his expression begging friendship and loyalty from the men who had been with him so very long. 'I would have told you,' he insisted, and everyone aboard, except perhaps for Dunkin, believed him.

'This sail is not for Waterdeep, nor against any pirates,' Deudermont went on. 'It is for me, something I must do because of the incident on Dock Street. Perhaps the Sea Sprite sails into trouble, perhaps to answers, but I must go, whatever the outcome. I would not force any of you to go along. You signed on to chase pirates, and in that regard, you have been the finest crew any captain could wish for.'

Again came a pause, a long one, with the captain alternately meeting the gaze of each man, and of Catti- brie and Drizzt, last of all.

'Any who do not wish to sail to Caerwich may disembark at Wyngate,' Deudermont offered. It was an extraordinary offer that widened the eyes of every crewman. 'You will be paid for your time aboard the Sea Sprite, plus a bonus from my personal coffers. When we return. .'

'If you return,' Dunkin put in, but Deudermont simply ignored the troublemaker.

'When we return,' Deudermont said again, more firmly, 'we will pick you up at Wyngate. There will be no questions of loyalty asked, and no retribution by any who voyaged to Caerwich.'

Robillard snorted. 'Is not every island haunted?' he asked with a laugh. 'If a sailor were to believe every whispered rumor, he'd not dare sail the Sword Coast at all. Sea monsters off of Waterdeep! Coiled serpents of Ruathym! Pirates of the Nelanther!'

'That last one's true enough!' one sailor piped in, and everyone gave a hearty laugh.

'So it is!' Robillard replied. 'Seems some of the rumors might be true.'

'And if Caerwich is haunted?' another sailor asked.

'Then we'll dock in the morning,' Waillan answered, hanging over the rail of the poop deck, 'and put out in the afternoon.'

'And leave the night for the ghosts!' yet another man finished, again to hearty laughter.

Deudermont was truly appreciative, especially to Robillard, from whom the captain had never expected such support. When the roll was subsequently called, not a single one of the Sea Sprite's crew meant to get off at Wyngate.

Dunkin listened to it all in sheer astonishment. He kept trying to put in some nasty flavoring to the rumors of haunted Caerwich, tales of decapitation and the like, but he was shouted or laughed down every time.

Neither Drizzt nor Catti-brie was surprised by the unanimous support for Deudermont. The Sea Sprite's crew, they both knew, had been together long enough to become true friends. These two companions had enough experience with friendship to understand loyalty.

'Well, I mean to get off at Wyngate,' a flustered Dunkin said at last. 'I'll not follow any man to haunted Caerwich.'

'Who ever offered you such a choice?' Drizzt asked him.

'Captain Deudermont just said …' Dunkin started, turning to Deudermont and pointing an accusing finger the captain's way. The words stuck in his throat, though, for Deudermont's sour expression explained that the offer wasn't meant for him.

'You cannot keep me here!' Dunkin protested. 'I am the emissary of his tyrancy. I should have been