Corsair

Geran thought he could make out the lights of Mulmaster far below their keel, but it was possible that it was some other city altogether; their speed was increasing as they rose, and they were sailing far faster than the wind could ever have carried them. The air grew thin, and frost glittered on the decks and rails, but Sarth’s prediction seemed accurate-conditions remained tolerable, if not particularly pleasant, even as the blue haze of the world began to give way to the pure dark of the Sea of Night. The ship’s crew began to break out heavy cloaks for all hands on deck.

Geran relinquished the ship’s wheel to the helmsman of the evening watch after careful instructions about the ship’s handling. He stepped over to the rail to join Hamil and Sarth in admiring the night sky, now brighter and clearer than anything he’d ever imagined possible. Selune and her Tears seemed as bright as silver suns as they rose over the port bow, and Geran noted that their course seemed to be taking them swiftly in the moon’s direction. Was that the meaning of the Black Moon’s name? A reference not to the Moonsea, but to Selune itself?

They kept to the destination indicated in Narsk’s letter, and the world fell farther away under the keel. After several hours, Geran came to realize that they might be at sea-so to speak-for what might amount to a day or two of voyaging, perhaps more. He told Andurth to set the normal sailing watch and arranged a rotation of trusted helmsmen. He wanted Sarth, Hamil, or himself on deck at all times, just in case the journey took some unexpected turn. Then he went below to rest for a while.

When Geran came back up on deck after sleeping a few hours, Selune filled half the sky. A quarter crescent of the moon’s silver-white surface glowed with such brilliance that Seadrake’s deck was almost as bright as it would have been at twilight on a clear day, despite the black skies around them. Most of the moon’s surface was in shadow, but Geran could still make out its warm gray outline against the blackness of the sky. Behind the moon a long, disorderly line of lesser bodies trailed behind the great orb, slowly tumbling and drifting against the starry dark-the Tears of Selune. From the world below they were a crown of gems sparkling to the west of the moon, but from his new vantage Geran could see that they were tiny island-worlds that formed a great archipelago across the dark sky.

“The eleventh Tear,” he murmured. Not even the wonders of Myth Drannor’s glass towers compared to the marvels they sailed toward. He looked back toward the great curve of Toril below and caught his breath. The world of his birth was now much farther away than it had been when he went below. It was a blue-green orb hanging in the sky opposite Selune’s gleaming white. He realized after a moment’s thought that Toril was much larger than Selune; when he was on Toril gazing up at the moon, it was not much wider than three fingers held at arm’s length, but now that he was near Selune looking back at Toril, both his hands together could not completely occlude it.

The air was bitterly cold, and he quickly returned to his cabin for a heavy cloak before mounting the steps to the quarterdeck. There he found Hamil at the helm, standing on a footstool to see better over the wheel. “What are you doing at the wheel?” he asked. “Your turn isn’t for hours yet.”

Hamil shrugged. “I asked Sarth if I could have his turn, and he agreed. I was up on deck anyway, taking in the sights.”

“I’ve seen some strange and wondrous things in my travels, Hamil, but I have to admit this is about the strangest and most wondrous yet.” Geran shook his head. “No one will believe a word we say about this when we return.”

Hamil smiled. “I’ve been looking at the moon. You can see mountains now, and seas. And if you look closely, I think you can make out plains and forests.”

Geran turned his attention to Selune’s surface. It was marked by great round craters, just as he would have expected. But he could make out the distant glitter of pale blue waters shining in the sunlight in the largest craters, and the knife-edged shadows of mighty mountains. He wasn’t sure he could make out anything he could definitely call a forest, but there were dark gray-green smudges around the knees of the mountains or the crater walls, and some stretched far out over the plains. “It’s a world of its own,” he said. “Why shouldn’t it have its seas and mountains?”

“I suppose, but why is it so white? I don’t think it’s snow or ice. Maybe its grasses and trees are silver-white in color? Or maybe much of it’s covered in white sand?” Hamil looked up at Geran and grinned. “You know, we could go have a look when we’re finished with your cousin.”

“Why not?” Geran answered. He looked at the starry compass; the six-pointed star that served as the indicator of their course was quite bright now. He pointed it out to Hamil. “I think we’re getting close to our destination.”

“Well, if you’re right about the symbol the compass is showing, then the Black Moon’s hiding-hole should lie straight ahead of us. What’s out that way?” Hamil peered over the wheel, trying to see past the ship’s bow. Geran moved over to the rail and leaned out to gain a better view of what was directly ahead.

Their course now seemed to lead them across the moon, since the bowsprit was fixed in the center of the Tears. They might be heading for any of three or four of the dark islets, but they were still a long way off. “We’ll keep on like this, but keep a close eye on the compass,” Geran said. “The closer we come, the more quickly our bearing to Neshuldaar might change. If we start to sail by it, the indicator might fall off abruptly.”

They sailed on for another hour or more, now seeming to glide past the surface of the moon. They were so far above it that its mountains were merely wrinkles in its gray-white surface. Geran wondered if anyone-or anything-lived in the shadow of those mountains, and what they saw when they looked up into their own sky. Stories about the moon and its people belonged in children’s rhymes, but here he was, sailing past it at a speed that must be unimaginable. If this was possible, then anything was. Eventually Selune began to fall astern, and Seadrake glided silently toward the Tears.

After a time, he stepped in to take the wheel and relieve Hamil. Geran kept his eye on the starry compass and the six-pointed mark glowing brightly in the center of the dark glass. As it drifted out of the center, he steered to correct it, following the course as closely as he could. Soon the Tears shone all around Seadrake-each a great drifting mountain, slowly tumbling through shadow and silver light. It was impossible to be sure of their size, since there was nothing to compare them to, but Geran guessed that the smaller ones were perhaps a couple of miles across, while the largest might have been as much as fifty or more. The Tear in front Seadrake’s bow showed itself to be one of the larger ones, an asymmetrical body whose shape reminded him of a giant’s foot. He could make out a dense, world-girdling jungle of purplish vegetation, dotted with small sapphire lakes and wreathed in silver mists.

“The hidden isle of the Black Moon,” Hamil murmured. “Is that it?”

“An island of sorts, I suppose,” Geran said with a frown. It didn’t seem like much from their vantage, but as he studied it he came to realize that the whole thing was rather like three or four decent-sized mountain ranges mashed together and joined at their bases. It might be fifty miles or more from one end to the other-quite a large island indeed. Finding Kraken Queen in that maze of cliffs and misty forest might be much harder than he thought, even assuming that no dangerous creatures lurked in the area. He glanced again at the compass and adjusted his course. “Descend slowly,” he said aloud, allowing the bow to begin dropping toward the worldlet below.

“Look, there!” Hamil said. He pointed over the rail. Geran summoned a crewman to mind the helm and rushed to join Hamil at the rail. Far below them a tiny flicker of firelight glimmered by the shore of one of the lakes. Geran drew out his spyglass and peered at it; a strange, square keep of black stone stood clinging to a sheer cliffside overlooking the lake. The flicker of firelight seemed to be a beacon fire in one tower of the keep. Smaller lights illuminated a wharf by the lake, the battlements of the keep, and a black-hulled galley lying alongside the dock.

“It’s Kraken Queen,” Geran said. He passed the spyglass to Hamil and straightened up. “Master Andurth! Douse the ship’s lanterns, and bring us down low to the hillside there. Tell the ship’s company to don armor and make ready for battle.”

“What is your plan?” Sarth asked him.

“First I’ll take the ship to cut off their retreat,” Geran answered. He gripped the rail and fixed his eyes on the tiny castle below. “Then … then I mean to storm the keep. One way or another, the Black Moon dies tonight.”

TWENTY-FOUR