“Listen to me,” said Tu’ala’keth. “After you left, I made a point of keeping an eye on Kassur and Chadrezzan.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re our enemies, and because, unlike everyone elseunlike you, obviouslythey only drank a cup or two of liquor.”
“I had to buy drinks and keep pace with everyone else. That’s how you give the impression of good fellowship. I know a charm to sober up, and I cast it from time to time. But I used up the power then still couldn’t get away.” He belched then eyed her quizzically. “You said something about Cha… Chadrezzdandan?”
She gripped her skeletal amulet, recited a prayer, and planted her other hand in the center of his chest with its repulsive bristling hairs. The spell would purge poison from a shalarin’s system, and she hoped it would wash alcohol out of a human’s veins as well.
Her fingers tingled and glowed blue-green, and he jerked back from her touch as if she’d struck him, banging up against the wall. “Ouch!” he said. “Thanks. That helped. Now what about the Talassans?”
“They stayed sober and eventually slipped away from the celebration. I believe they mean to kill you.”
“You could be right. I never spotted them peeking in at me or stalking me, but that means little. Curse it, anyway. I knew they’d try to murder one or both of us eventually, but why did it have to be so soon?”
“Because you offended them anew, and like me, they worship a deity of Fury. Whenever possible, we act on our anger without delay.”
“But they’ll have to delay if we can make it back to Vurgrom’s house. They can’t strike us down in front of our shipmates. The question is how to sneak there? I think, skirt the edge of town, the way we did our first day here, then come downhill.”
“I can fill the streets with an early-morning fog.”
He frowned, pondering, then shook his head. “No. It worked in Saerloon, but in this situation, I’m not willing to blind Kassur and Chadrezzan if it means blinding us as well. We’ll keep to the shadows and hope for the best.”
“As you wish.”
They skulked forward. Her pulse ticking in her neck, Tu’ala’keth peered back and forth and up and down, checking doorways, windows, the mouths of alleys, and rooftops. She told herself it was no different than playing hide-and-seek with an enemy amid the maze-like twists and cavities of a coral reef. She was not at a disadvantage in this alien environment, nor was she frightened.
“Thanks for coming to warn me,” Anton murmured.
“You are my partner in Umberlee’s sacred work.”
“Right. But thank you, anyway.”
A shadow shifted at the edge of her vision, where the stifling wool hood cut it off. She jerked around, and Anton pivoted with her. Reacting to the sudden motion, a small four-legged animal bounded away.
“Just a cat,” Anton said.
“I see that now,” she said stiffly.
They crept onward. Somewhere in the ramshackle settlement, a chickenno, the proper term, she had learned, was roostercrowed. Up ahead, where the narrow lane intersected another, a man in rags lay motionless on the ground. Perhaps he was a reveler stupefied by drink. Or maybe someone had murdered him. In theory, Immurk’s Hold was a haven where all pirates, even the bitterest rivals, observed a truce, but as Tu’ala’keth’s own situation demonstrated, the reality was otherwise. If a reaver wished to slay an enemy, the town simply asked that he pursue the vendetta with a modicum of discretion.
In any event, the important thing was that the human sprawled in the intersection wasn’t Kassur or Chadrezzan. He was too short and pudgy and dressed in grubby, nondescript clothing, not vestments decorated with jagged stripes and spangles or a cloak adorned with serpents. She was just about to turn her attention elsewhere when he heaved himself up into a sitting position.
She saw then that the thing wasn’t plump but rather bloated with the progress of decay. Sores, the marks of the sickness that had ended its life, mottled the puffy, discolored face. The mouth hung open, and dark fluid had oozed forth to stain the chin. The glazed eyes were empty.
It was a corpse, surely reanimated by Kassur’s magic. He probably hadn’t even needed to kill it or dig it up. The inhabitants of Immurk’s Hold could be lackadaisical when it came to disposing of their dead.
The cadaver gripped a dented tin pot in one swollen hand and a black iron skillet in the other. It fumbled them over its lolling head and banged them together. The clanking seemed preternaturally loud in the empty predawn streets.
Anton snatched his cutlass from its scabbard. No doubt he meant to silence Kassur’s sentinel by cutting it to pieces, but Tu’ala’keth had a faster way. She gripped her amulet and willed forth a blaze of spiritual power. The corpse finished rotting in a heartbeat, corrupt flesh eroding away in strips, bones crumbling to powder.
Still the dead thing’s sudden action had taken her by surprise, and she knew she hadn’t acted quickly enough. She turned to Anton and said, “Kassur and Chadrezzan surely heard that.”
“I know. We need to get under cover.” He cast about.
By making for the edge of town, they’d distanced themselves from coquina mansions, solidly constructed warehouses, barracoons, chandleries, and the like. The structures on the perimeter were a motley collection of shacks pieced together from driftwood, logs harvested from the interior of the island, and whatever other materials came to hand. Tu’ala’keth saw little reason to prefer one to another.
“There,” Anton said and led her to the flimsiest of all. It looked as if the builder, though initially intending to erect a proper cottage, had grown slothful partway through the process. The facade and one other wall were made of wood, but the remaining two and the roof were simply flapping canvas stretched over a frame, thus creating a structure half house and half tent.
Anton tried the door and found it fastened. He whispered his spell of openingTu’ala’keth found it marginally encouraging that he hadn’t squandered all his magic resisting the effects of dissipationand on the other side of the panel, a bar squeaked as it slid in its brackets. That noise sounded jarringly loud as well, but she knew it was just because of her nerves.
She and Anton scrambled into the houseall one sparsely furnished room, with rushes strewn on the dirt floorand he shot the bar behind them. A human mother and two small, snaggletoothed boys of mixed blood sat up from their pallets to goggle at the intruders. Perhaps the children’s ore father was away at sea.
Anton pointed his cutlass at the family. “Stay where you are, and don’t make a sound,” he said.
White-faced, the woman gave a nod.
The windows facing the street were made of canvas as well, so as to admit a little light. Anton cut a peephole in one then knelt behind it. Tu’ala’keth crouched beside him.
“You must realize,” she whispered, “this structure is no refuge. Chadrezzan can blast it apart with a flick of his fingers.”
“I know,” he said, “but first he and Kassur have to find us, and that’s the point. With luck, they’ll need to get close, and we’ll have a better chance than we would with them lobbing flame and lightning from a hundred paces away.”
“I understand.”
“Then hush and use your ears. We may well hear them coming before we’re able to see them.”
He was right. After a few moments, something hissed out on the street. At first she couldn’t see it, but then Anton tore the peephole larger, expanding their field of vision.
It was fire making the sibilant sound. Shrouded in yellow flame, turning his head from side to side, Chadrezzan stalked along with a look of intense concentration on his face. Kassur followed behind, spear at the ready. He too had cast some sort of defensive enchantment, revealing itself as an outline of scarlet phosphorescence around his body.
“They are not peering into doors or windows,” whispered Tu’ala’keth. “They must be seeking us with magic. My guess is Chadrezzan has given himself the ability to read minds. He is sifting through all the thoughts in the area, trying to pick out ours, while
Kassur labors to sense the enchantments in your cutlass and my silverweave.”
“That’s how it looks to me, too. Here’s what we’ll do: I’m going to go out the back and circle around. Give me a few seconds then start thinking, Umberlee, help me, over and over again. If Chadrezzan is listening to thoughts,
