The Dragon Isles

Chapter Six

“You’re alive!” Trip gasped. “You’re awake!”

“Barely,” the sea elf replied, her voice dry and cracking. “Where am I?”

“You’re aboard Kingfisher in the Northern Turbidus Ocean,” Mik replied. “I’m Captain Mikal Vardan, and this is my friend, Tripleknot Shellcracker.”

“Hi!” the kender said. “My friends call me Trip.”

The sea elf tried to speak again, but only a dry rattle came out.

“Here,” Mik said, putting a skin of water to her pale, parched lips. She drank eagerly. “Who are you?” he asked. “Where do you come from?”

She smiled weakly. “My name is Ula,” she said. “I come from… many places. Most recently, from a ship called Golden Harvest.”

“Were you shipwrecked?” Trip asked. “How did you get tied to the raft?”

The elf woman laughed briefly, then a spasm shook her and she began to cough. “Not… shipwrecked,” she said when she stopped coughing. “My shipmates grew… tired of my company.”

Mik’s dark eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“The dragon Tempest prowls these waters,” she said. “… Many ships have been destroyed. My… superstitious crewmates convinced themselves that I… was leading the dragon to them.”

“Were you?” Mik asked.

Ula shook her head.

“But why’d they tie you to the raft?” Trip asked.

“They wanted to appease the dragon.” She managed a weak chuckle. “It didn’t work.” Her green eyes fluttered shut once more.

“So the ship was destroyed?” asked the kender.

Ula didn’t reply.

“We’ll let you rest,” Mik said. “Call if you need anything.”

“All right,” she said, her eyes still closed. “I still want to know… about that treasure… though.” Her words trailed off and she drifted into sleep once more.

“What a rotten thing to do,” Trip said, “tying someone to a raft to feed them to a dragon. Probably an interesting way to die, though. Just throwing her overboard wouldn’t drown a sea elf. That must be why they tied her down.”

“Yes,” Mik said thoughtfully. “C’mon. She needs to rest.” They left a waterskin by her bed and went out through the map room onto Kingfisher’s quarterdeck.

“Any change?” Karista asked when she saw them.

Mik nodded. “She woke, briefly.”

“Did she say anything?”

“Not much,” he said.

“You think she’ll live?”

“It seems more likely now,” he replied.

“Her former shipmates cast her overboard to appease a dragon!” Trip burbled.

All around them, the crew stopped working.

“Just superstitious nonsense,” Mik said, shooting the kender an angry glance.

“How can you be sure?” Marlian asked warily.

A wry smile crept over Mik’s face. “The girl’s alive, isn’t she?”

“She said her name is Ula,” Trip ventured cautiously.

Mik nodded.

“The name means nothing to me,” Karista said.

“I heard of a mercenary sailor named Ula once,” Bok replied. “She was supposed to be very dangerous.”

“If she’s so dangerous, how did she end up tied to a raft?” Karista snapped. “We’re wasting time. The blue siren isn’t going anywhere-at least for the moment. We need to he about our business.”

“Lady Meinor is right,” Mik said in a loud voice, commanding the attention of all the crew. “The stars are rising. Soon, Paladine will show the way.” He directed their attention to the constellations hovering above Kingfisher’s bow. “To your stations while I chart the stars and set our course.”

The crew nodded and went back to their business, the possibility of the dragon-for the moment at least-forgotten.

Mik climbed to the bridge, followed by Trip, Karista, and Bok. He took sightings on Paladine and the Heavenly Palace, and set course on a line between the two.

Kingfisher’s small crew scrambled across the deck, adjusting ropes and rigging as required. Mik took the tiller and, using the verses of the Prophecy as guide, set sail through the deepening night toward the Dragon Isles.

Karista and Bok soon retired to their cabin below. Mik and Trip, though, stayed on deck, tending the tiller and watching the stars.

Getting under way on the final part of the journey buoyed the crew’s spirits. They sang as they worked-both to set the rhythm of their labors and to keep themselves awake through the long, cool night.

Bok materialized to complain that the singing kept his mistress awake, though Mik and Trip suspected he was merely bellyaching on his own account. The captain declined to do anything about it, and chants persisted through the darkness, as the crew kept the rigging trim and the ship in top shape.

Several hours past midnight, Mik yawned and handed the tiller to old Poul. The wizened sailor took over gladly, and whistled an old seafarer tune as he held their course.

A fragment of verse from the sea shanty echoed through Mik’s mind as he walked through the map room to his cabin.

He yawned again as he opened the cabin door. What he found on the other side, shocked him back to wakefulness.

Ula, the sea elf, was awake and sitting up on her cot. In her slender blue fingers she held a folded piece of parchment and the artifact containing the black diamond.

Anger flared in Mikal Vardan’s eyes. “Where did you get that?” he snapped.

Ula regarded him calmly with her green eyes. “I found it by my bedside,” she said. “I recognized it as a very interesting piece-probably quite valuable. You really shouldn’t leave such things lying about-especially when you have unexpected guests.” She held the artifact and the parchment out to Mik.

He grabbed them, silently cursing himself. He and Trip had been so startled when the elf woke up, they’d forgotten to put the precious items back into Mik’s sea chest. Mik inwardly cursed Trip for ferreting his possessions out in the first place. He locked the diamond key and the paper away once more-putting his enchanted fish necklace in the chest as well-then turned back to the elf and forced an easygoing smile.

“I didn’t expect you up so soon,” he said.

“I heal quickly,” she replied.

“Very quickly.”

“Do you have any food around? I’m famished.”

Mik went to his sideboard, fetched some bread and cheese, and cut her some with the dagger from his waistband. “Is this all right?” he asked. “I’m not sure what sea elves usually eat.”

“On land, we eat the same things you do, mostly.”

He handed her a waterskin, which she set down on the cot beside her as she ate.

Mik watched her carefully, noting that her blue skin seemed to be healing. It was less burnt than before. She moved gracefully, even when eating, and her form and figure were among the most perfect he had ever seen. Elves were beautiful as a rule, but Ula was uncommonly lovely, even among elves.

She threw her head back, shook her long platinum-colored hair off her smooth shoulders, and took a long drink of water. As she put the skin down she sighed contentedly and said, “Maybe tomorrow, I’ll be up for something a bit stronger.”

Mik nodded, unable for a moment to find his tongue.

Ula laughed. “You look as though you need rest almost as much as I do.”

“Yes,” he said absently. “I’ll need all my wits about me the next few days.”

“Where are you headed?”

“A place that may not exist,” he replied, “the Dragon Isles.”

“The Dragon Isles? Oh, they exist, all right,” she said.

He regarded her skeptically. “How can you be so sure?”

She yawned and lay down on her cot once more. “I lived there… once. A long time ago.” She reached beside die cot and rescued her blanket from the floor.

“Perhaps you could help us find the place, then,” Mik said. He crossed to his sea chest, pulled out a rolled silk tapestry, and rigged it to hang down the middle of the cabin, between her bed and his hammock.

“Perhaps I could,” she said with a smile. “For a price. Everything has its price.”

“You’d have to take that up with Milady Meinor,” Mik said. “She’s financing this expedition.”

“I’d rather take it up with you,” she replied sleepily. “In the morning.”

“In the morning then,” he said.

Mik blew out the hanging lamp and retired to his hammock, but he didn’t sleep very well. His dreams were plagued by glittering diamonds, and the gemstones hanging at the sea elf s slender waist.