Passage to Dawn

Dunkin leaned heavily on the rail and went silent.

Deudermont ordered the sails lower still and brought the schooner to a creeping drift. The mist grew thick about them and something about the way the ship was handling, something about the flow of the water beneath them, told the captain to be wary. He called up to Catti-brie, but she had no answers for him, more engulfed by blinding mist than he.

Deudermont nodded to Drizzt, who rushed off to the forward beam and crouched low, marking their way. The drow spotted something a moment later, and his eyes widened.

A pole was sticking out of the water, barely fifty yards ahead of them.

Drizzt eyed it curiously for just an instant, then recognized it for what it was: the top of a ship's mast.

'Stop us!' he yelled.

Robillard was into his spellcasting before Deudermont agreed to heed the warning. The wizard sent his energy out directly in front of the Sea Sprite, brought up a ridgelike swell of water that halted the ship's drifting momentum. Down came the Sea Sprite's sails, and down dropped the anchor with a splash that seemed to echo ominously about the decks for many seconds.

'How deep?' Deudermont asked the crewmen manning the anchor. The chain was marked in intervals, allowing them to gauge the depth when they put the anchor down.

'A hundred feet,' one of them called back a moment later.

Drizzt rejoined the captain at the wheel. 'A reef, by my guess,' the drow said, explaining his call for a stop. 'There is a hulk in the water barely two ship-lengths ahead of us. She's fully under, except for the tip of her mast, but standing straight. Something brought her down in a hurry.'

'Got her bottom torn right off,' Robillard reasoned.

'I figure us to be a few hundred yards from the beach,' Deudermont said, peering hard into the mist. He looked to the stern. The Sea Sprite carried two small rowboats, one hanging on either side of the poop deck.

'We could circle again,' Robillard remarked, seeing where the captain's reasoning was leading. 'Perhaps we will find a spot with a good draw.'

'I'll not risk my ship,' Deudermont replied. 'We will go in using the rowboat,' he decided. He looked to a group of nearby crewmen. 'Drop one,' he instructed.

Twenty minutes later, Deudermont, Drizzt, Catti-brie, the two wizards, Waillan Micanty and a very reluctant and very frightened Dunkin glided away from the Sea Sprite, filling their row-boat so completely that its rim was barely a hand above the dark water. Deudermont had left specific instructions with those remaining on the Sea Sprite. The crew was to put back out of the mist a thousand yards and wait for their return. If they had not returned by nightfall, the Sea Sprite was to move out away from the island, making one final run at Caerwich at noon the next day.

After that, if the rowboat had not been spotted, she was to sail home.

The seven moved away from the Sea Sprite, Dunkin and Waillan on the oars and Catti-brie peering over the prow, expecting to find a reef at any moment. Farther back, Drizzt knelt beside Deudermont, ready to point out the mast he had spotted.

Drizzt couldn't find it.

'No reef,' Catti-brie said from the front. 'A good and deep draw, by me own guess.' She looked back to Drizzt and especially to Deudermont. 'Ye might've bringed her in right up to the damned beach,' she said.

Deudermont looked to the drow, who was scanning the mist hard, wondering where that mast had gone to. He was about to restate what he had seen when the rowboat lurched suddenly, her bottom scraping on the rocks of a sharp reef.

They bumped and ground to a halt. They might have gotten hung up there, but a spell from Robillard brought both wizards, Deudermont and Catti-brie floating above the creaking planks of the boat, while Drizzt, Dunkin and Waillan cautiously brought the lightened boat over.

'All the way in?' Drizzt remarked to Catti-brie.

'It wasn't there!' the young woman insisted. Catti-brie had been a lookout for more than five years, and was said to have the best eyes on the Sword Coast. So how, she wondered, had she missed so obvious a reef, especially when she was looking for exactly that?

A few moments later, Harkle, at the very stern of the rowboat, gave a startled cry and the others turned to see the mast of a ship sticking out of the water right beside the seated wizard.

Now the others, especially Drizzt, were having the same doubts as Catti-brie. They had practically run over that mast, so why hadn't they seen it?

Dunkin tugged furiously at his ear.

'A trick of the fog,' Deudermont said calmly. 'Bring us around that mast.' The command caught the others off guard. Dunkin shook his head, but Waillan slapped him on the shoulder.

'Hard on the oar,' Waillan ordered. 'You heard the captain.'

Catti-brie hung low over the side of the rowboat, curious to learn more about the wreck, but the mist reflected in the water, leaving her staring into a gray veil whose secrets she could not penetrate. Finally, Deudermont gave up on gathering any information out here, and commanded Waillan and Dunkin to put straight in for the island.

At first, Dunkin nodded eagerly, happy to get off the water. Then, as he considered their destination, he alternated pulls on the oar with pulls on his ear.

The surf was not strong, but the undertow was and it pulled back against the rowboat's meager progress. The island was soon in sight, but it seemed to hang out there, just beyond their grasp, for many moments.

'Pull hard!' Deudermont ordered his rowers, though he knew that they were doing exactly that, were as anxious as he to get

this over with. Finally, the captain looked plaintively to Robillard, and the wizard, after a resigned sigh, stuck his hand into his deep pockets, seeking the components for a helpful spell.

Still up front, Catti-brie peered hard through the mist, studying the white beach for some sign of inhabitants. It was no good; the island was too far away, given the thick fog. The young woman looked down instead, into the dark water.

She saw candles.

Catti-brie's face twisted in confusion. She looked up and rubbed her eyes, then looked back to the water.

Candles. There could be no mistake about it. Candles. . under the water.

Curious, the woman bent lower and looked more closely, finally making out a form holding the closest light.

Catti-brie fell back, gasping. 'The dead,' she said, though she couldn't get more than a whisper out of her mouth. Her sharp movements alone had caught the attention of the others, and then she hopped right to her feet, as a bloated and blackened hand grabbed the rim of the rowboat.

Dunkin, looking only at Catti-brie, screamed as she drew out her sword. Drizzt got to his feet and scrambled to get by the two oarsmen.

Catti-brie saw the top of the ghost's head come clear of the water. A horrid, skeletal face rose to the side of the boat.

Khazid'hea came down hard, hitting nothing but the edge of the boat and driving right through the planking until it was at water level.

'What are you doing?' Dunkin cried. Drizzt, at Catti-brie's side, wondered the same thing. There was no sign of any ghost, there was just Catti-brie's sword wedged deeply into the planking of the rowboat.

'Get us in!' Catti-brie yelled back. 'Get us in!'

Drizzt looked at her hard, then looked all around. 'Candles?' he asked, noticing the strange watery lights.

That simple word sparked fear in Deudermont, Robillard, Waillan and Dunkin, sailors all, who knew the tales of sea ghosts, lying in wait under the waves, their bloated bodies marked by witchlight candles.

'How pretty!' said an oblivious Harkle, looking overboard.

'Get us to the beach!' Deudermont cried, but he needn't have bothered, for Waillan and Dunkin were pulling with all of their strength.