Corsair

NINETEEN

10 Marpenoth, the Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR)

They lost sight of Kraken Queen an hour after moonrise, when not even the keen-eyed Hamil could make out the tiny, dark hull any longer. Geran stared up into the starry night for a long time after that, hoping against hope for some glimpse of Kamoth’s flagship, but finally he had to admit that the pirates had escaped him. Tales of flying ships, stories of brave seafarers who dared to sail the starry waters of the Sea of Night above the skies-Geran had heard such things all his life, but he’d always dismissed them as fanciful nonsense. He’d seen the battle spells of mighty wizards, the eldritch glades of elven Myth Drannor, the strange wonders of soaring earthmotes and magical changelands that dotted the world in places where the Spellplague had touched it so long ago, but he’d never imagined that a bloodthirsty band of marauders such as the Black Moon corsairs might command the arcane learning to sail the skies. Red Wizards he might have thought capable of such a thing, or perhaps the legendary High Mages of distant Evermeet. But simple pirates?

He sighed and returned his attention to the moonlit quarterdeck. “Andurth, you’ve got the ship,” he said. “I’m going below.”

“What course?” the sailing master asked.

“Keep on this way until you hit the coast. After that … east toward Mulmaster, I guess. Maybe that’s where Kamoth’s headed.” Geran didn’t really believe so, but it was the only thing he could think of. He looked over to Hamil and Sarth. “Would you join me in my cabin? We’re in need of a new plan, and I’m in need of some drink.”

He led the way down to Seadrake’s master cabin, a comfortable room beneath the quarterdeck. Unlike Narsk’s quarters on Moonshark, Geran’s cabin was neat and uncluttered. He hadn’t been aboard long enough to make a mess of it, and Kara hadn’t really settled in during the time she’d used it. Geran asked the steward to fetch a flagon of wine and several cups then took a seat at one end of the cabin’s table. The steward returned with their wine, and Geran poured himself some and took a deep swallow. Hamil and Sarth followed his example.

“So what do we do now?” Hamil asked. “We can’t follow Kraken Queen into the sky!”

“No, we can’t, but I refuse to abandon Mirya to Kamoth and Sergen,” Geran replied. “Sooner or later, Kamoth’s got to bring his ship to port. Wherever that is, we’ll find him again.” If nothing else, he might be able to find an archmage to teleport him there. Perhaps Hamil was right, and she was relatively safe so long as she had value as a hostage. But if Kamoth and Sergen decided they no longer feared pursuit, they might not see any reason to continue to spare Mirya and her daughter.

He stared into his cup, absently rolling the dry red wine across his tongue as he considered the puzzle before them. There had to be a way to follow her! “Sarth, what do you know about flying ships?” he finally asked.

“Little, I fear,” Sarth said. “I have heard it said that great ports such as Waterdeep or Westgate sometimes see ships that call from far places indeed-cities in different planes or lands beyond the Sea of Night. And I have read accounts of some such visits in old tomes. For instance, there was a wizard named Gamelon Idogyr who visited Waterdeep a few times in the years before the Spellplague. He called on the Blackstaff on occasion, and one of the Blackstaff’s apprentices recorded Gamelon’s accounts of his voyages in the Sea of Night. Gamelon was said to arrive and depart aboard a mysterious ship of strange design that no seafarer had ever encountered elsewhere.”

“A flying ship?” Hamil asked. Sarth nodded in reply, and Hamil continued. “Then all we have to do is find one of those mysterious ships, so that we can follow Sergen and Kamoth to their lair. How hard can it be?”

“Most such vessels hide their origin. They shift planes or take to the skies a few miles away from their destination and simply sail into harbor like any seagoing ship would.” Sarth smiled bitterly. “And I’ve heard nothing of any visits in a very long time. I suspect that the masters of sky-sailing ships-if any still visit Faerun-keep their secrets to themselves in these darker and more dangerous times.”

“Well, we know of at least one that is still around,” Hamil observed. “How did a pirate like Kamoth come by a ship like that? Is he a wizard of some kind?”

“Kamoth is no wizard,” Geran answered. “And I can’t believe that he has any powerful mages at his command, or we would have seen their magic at work in Hulburg.”

“In that case, how does one make a ship fly? Or shift planes? Or otherwise behave in a manner that ships shouldn’t?”

“According to the account of Gamelon, skyfaring or plane-sailing vessels are powered by some sort of magical device, such as a helm or a keel carved with potent runes,” the sorcerer answered Hamil. “Creating such a device requires a powerful and knowledgeable wizard, but controlling one that has already been installed on a ship is much easier. Kamoth might not need a mighty wizard. He would only need a little training in the arcane arts and the knowledge of how to steer.”

“In which case, why did he wait so long before taking to the air?” Geran mused. “Was he simply toying with us? Did he hope to avoid us without giving away his secret? Or was there some other reason?”

“Could it be something about the Talons?” Sarth asked. “Or sunset? Perhaps to sail the Sea of Night he must wait until the skies grow dark?”

They fell silent, nursing their goblets of wine. The ship rode lightly over the swells, stretching out her legs with a full spread of sail and a following sea. Geran finished his cup and began to pour himself another. He realized that he was exhausted. Between the last desperate days on Moonshark and the hurried pursuit of the fleeing pirates, he’d hardly slept in three or four days.

Hamil cleared his throat. “You mentioned a magical device, Sarth,” he said. “For example, a compass?”

Geran and Sarth stared at the halfling. “The starry compass,” Geran breathed. “That’s why Kamoth sent Narsk to Mulmaster. He wanted Moonshark fitted with one too. And we left it on Moonshark’s quarterdeck!”

“We had more pressing matters to deal with at the time,” Hamil reminded him. “However, if it’s something that you have to know how to use, I don’t think we need to worry about Murkelmor or anyone else left on Moonshark taking to the skies. Whatever the Red Wizards taught Narsk about using the device died with him.”

Geran stood and paced toward the stern end of the cabin. A wide row of windows provided a fine view of the darkened Moonsea and the stars low in the sky. Kraken Queen sailed somewhere in that sky, even as he stood gazing out at the night. Wherever she was going now, Seadrake could not follow without a starry compass of her own. It was possible they could obtain one from the Red Wizards in Mulmaster … if the arcane merchants had another one they would be willing to part with, and if their price was something he’d be able to meet. On the other hand, he knew there was a starry compass aboard Moonshark. The pirate galley was damaged and shorthanded; she’d be easy prey for Seadrake.

“We need Moonshark’s compass,” he said over his shoulder. Maybe he could persuade Murkelmor to part with it peacefully and leave the Moonsea; he didn’t relish the thought of crossing blades with his former shipmates. “Sarth, can you divine her location?”

“I will attempt it immediately,” Sarth answered. He stood up and left the cabin.

“The last I saw, Moonshark was headed southeast past Hulburg’s Arches,” Hamil said. “Where do you think Murkelmor would have taken her?”

Geran thought about it. The gale blowing from west-northwest would have made it nearly impossible to make any progress toward the west, so Moonshark would have stood south-straight out to sea and ultimately to Mulmaster on the opposite coast-or turned east to hug the shore and flee into the uninhabited coastlands of the Galennar. Mulmaster probably offered the best haven available in the eastern half of the Moonsea for a pirate ship on the run, but he doubted that Murkelmor would have wanted to chance stormy, open water with a damaged bow. No, it was more likely that the dwarfhad steered eastward, searching for some deserted cove or sheltered bay in the desolate Galennar where he could make repairs and reorganize the ship’s crew.

“My coin’s on the Galennar,” he told Hamil. “It’s a hard and dangerous coast, but there are places where a ship can lie hidden. And it’s uninhabited, so Murkelmor won’t have to worry about the rest of the crew deserting the ship-or some local lord seizing it.” Of course, they’d been much closer to the Galennar two days ago when they had sailed from Hulburg. “On the other hand, I’ve already guessed wrong in chasing Kraken Queen. If Sarth’s divinations can tell me something about which way to set my course, I’d feel much better about sailing to the far end of the Moonsea.”

Sarth rapped on the door and then came in with a heavy leather satchel. “My cabin’s too small for this,” the sorcerer explained. Geran and Hamil retreated, giving him space to work. Sarth opened the satchel and took out a stub of charcoal, drawing a circle about ten feet across behind the table and marking it with runes. He arranged candles at several points around the circle, lighting them with a wave of his hand. Then he removed a plain iron nail from his satchel-a fitting from Moonshark, or so Geran guessed. The swordmage watched as Sarth repeated the ritual he’d performed in the conjury of his small tower, reading from an old tome and flinging pinches of mysterious powders into a small brazier he set up beside his reading stand. Sarth inhaled the fragrant smoke rising from the brazier and stared blankly into space.

Hamil glanced at Geran, but Geran motioned for him to wait. Thirty heartbeats passed, and then the sorcerer exhaled and shook his head. “Moonshark lies in that direction,” he said, pointing toward somewhere that would have been off the port bow had they all been standing on the quarterdeck. “She is perhaps two hundred miles distant, drawn up on the beach in a cove surrounded by steep bluffs. There are ruins above. I see a bonfire on the beach, and many of our former shipmates. They are all armed. They fear the night.”

“Does that seem familiar to you, Geran?” Hamil asked.

“Ruins … it might be Sulasspryn, but they’d be fools to put in there. In any event, the direction and distance confirm my guess. They’re hiding out somewhere in the Galennar, all the way at the far end of the Moonsea.” Geran sighed. The winds favored them, but it would be a day and a half to cross the Moonsea again … assuming Moonshark stayed where it was and didn’t sail off somewhere new in the meantime. At least they’d have a good night’s sleep. “I’ll tell Andurth to change his course. I doubt that we can crowd on any more sail, but he might find a way.”

Sarth and Hamil returned to their own cabins. Geran went back on deck and told the sailing master to steer for the eastern end of the Moonsea at the best speed Seadrake could manage. Then he came back to his cabin and fell into his bunk. He lay awake for a time, desperately hoping that Hamil was right and that Mirya was unharmed. He couldn’t bear the thought of harm coming to her, not on his account. Yet that seemed to be exactly what had happened. Five months ago House Veruna’s sellswords had tried to deflect him from uncovering their crypt-breaking and their extortion of Hulburg’s folk by striking at Mirya. Now a new enemy had chosen the same course-likely at his treacherous cousin Sergen’s urging, he reminded himself. He didn’t think he loved Mirya, not in the way he once had; a foolish, wishful part of his heart still clung to the memory of Alliere and the leaves of Myth Drannor, and at other times his arms remembered the slender waist of Nimessa Sokol before him as they rode across the moonlit hills of the Highfells. But he would rather have stabbed himself with his own sword than see Mirya Erstenwold hurt on his account. After much tossing and turning, he finally fell into a discontented sleep.

The morning broke gray and dreary. Geran awoke to find that the wind remained cold and blustery, a restless autumn gale that veered wildly throughout the day but stayed more or less west and north despite its sudden changes. Whitecaps danced across the Moonsea, and Seadrake’s bow kicked hissing sheets of cold spray over the foredeck as she flew over the swells. Late in the afternoon they struck the Moonsea’s northern shore about twenty miles west of Hulburg, not far from the ruins of Seawave, and here Geran reluctantly decided to anchor for the night. The waters at the eastern end of the Moonsea were poorly charted, and more to the point, it would be all too easy to sail past Moonshark in the dark. He felt reasonably confident that Murkelmor wouldn’t have sought shelter so close to a city the Black Moon had just attacked, but he didn’t care to run too much farther to the east without carefully checking the bays and coves of the steep coast as they passed by. If Moonshark’s damage was severe enough, Murkelmor might not have had much of a choice about putting in to begin repairs.

They passed the night in a small, poorly sheltered bay, straining at the anchor. The wind slackened before dawn, but heavy rain moved in after the gale. When they raised anchor and steered east out of their small bay, they did so in a cold, merciless downpour. Hamil shivered and pulled the hood of his cloak over his head. “Have I ever told you how much I loathe the weather around here?” he asked Geran.

“Many times last spring, but you seemed to like the summer well enough.”

“Well, summer was far too short. Clearly a cold, wind-driven rain is the natural state of affairs in these lands, and anything else is a temporary aberration.”

Geran smiled humorlessly. “My apologies for the inconvenience. If it’s any consolation, I don’t think much of the weather either. It’s going to cut our visibility to a mile, perhaps two if we’re lucky. We’ll have to stay close to the coast and move slowly, or we might miss Moonshark.”

“Have you given thought to how you mean to get the compass from Murkelmor?”

Geran nodded. “I’ll ask him for it, if he’s willing to parley. It’s no good to him without someone to waken its enchantments. I’ll even pay a fair price. But I’ll take it by force if I have to.” He hoped it wouldn’t come to that; even though he and Hamil had parted ways with the crew of Moonshark under difficult circumstances, he’d sailed with them long enough to view some-Murkelmor for instance-as relatively decent fellows despite their choice of career. As far as he knew, they hadn’t done any harm to Hulburg or its shipping themselves, even if their fellows in the Black Moon had. On the other hand, if Murkelmor refused to part with the starry compass, Seadrake was bigger, better armed, and had a full crew including heavily armed soldiers. Geran did not intend to leave without the compass.

Hamil frowned skeptically under his sodden hood. “I doubt that Murkelmor or Skamang will be interested in parley, but I suppose it doesn’t hurt to try.”

They stood out to sea and ran east. By late morning they passed Keldon Head and Hulburg, slowly closing with the shore again. The coastline here consisted of one headland after the next, steep and desolate. Two or three centuries ago these lands had been inhabited, in the days when Hulburg and Sulasspryn were vital cities carving out land from the wilds of the Moonsea North. Here and there the ruins of old homesteads stood on the south-facing hillsides, with the occasional stump of a crumbling watchtower atop a hill. Geran knew that a small number of shepherds and goatherds kept their flocks in the vales behind the coastal hills, at least within a few miles of Hulburg. But here they were passing into empty lands where no one lived. There was no road or path through these parts into other lands, so no travelers had reason to continue eastward from Hulburg, and the danger of monsters from the Galena Mountains or the bleak ruins of Sulasspryn kept anyone from trying to settle here.

Half an hour after they passed Hulburg by, two swept horns appeared above the ladder leading down to the main deck, followed a moment later by the rest of Sarth. Like Hamil, he wore a heavy cloak against the rain, and like Hamil, he also was soaked already. Unfortunately, few hoods fit him well, so he simply glanced up at the sky with a flicker of annoyance and endured the rain pelting down.

“I have repeated my divinations,” he told Geran. “Moonshark has not moved. She lies perhaps fifteen miles or so ahead of us.”

“Sulasspryn, then. It must be.” Geran frowned. “But why lay there for so long?”

“She must have been more damaged than we realized,” Hamil suggested. “If the stem is well and truly sprung, Murkelmor might have to steam a new piece of timber into shape to fix it. That could take a while.”

“Or perhaps another pirate den is hidden in the ruins there,” Sarth said. “We first found Moonshark in Zhentil Keep, after all.”

“I’ve never heard any such story, but I suppose it’s possible. We’ll approach carefully.” Geran rubbed at his jaw, thinking over Sarth’s tidings. “Any news of Mirya?”

“Only the faintest hints. She lives still-I feel confident of that-but she has passed beyond the range of my divinations.”

“Is she in Faerun?”

“I do not know, Geran. She must be very far away if she is, a thousand miles or more.” The tiefling glanced up into the sky. “I believe she is somewhere above us. She might be held somewhere high in the mountains or perhaps on a high-drifting earthmote. I have seen fortresses, even towns, on some of the larger ones. Or she might be somewhere in the Sea of Night.”

“The starry compass, then,” Geran breathed. He nodded to the tiefling. “My thanks, Sarth. Without your efforts we’d have no hope at all of finding Mirya and her daughter.”

“I only hope that my meager talents do not lead you astray,” Sarth answered.

“Of that, I have no fear,” Geran said. He returned his attention to the gray coastline sliding by through the rain and mists. They continued on for several hours, making little speed in the light wind. Eventually Geran had Andurth call the crew to their rowing stations and continued at half speed, a pace the crew could sustain for hours by rotating rowers to and from the benches. Unlike Moonshark, Seadrake was not really fitted out for rowing speed; she was made for sailing and could only put about twenty oars in the water through high, awkwardly sited ports.

Early in the afternoon, they rounded a headland and spied the ruins of a large city hugging the hillsides of the bay beyond. Old walls encircled the place, marred by numerous gaps. Twisted trees grew up through flagstone courts and choked what used to be the city’s boulevards. High on a hill overlooking the harbor, the keep that had once dominated the place was an empty shell cleft in two by the gray scar of an old landslide; a huge mound of rubble at the foot of the hill marked where most of the castle had fallen. Many other buildings in the vicinity looked as if they’d been knocked down by similar upheavals. Those that still stood stared blankly out to sea, their windows and doorways filled with ominous shadow. Geran could not shake the impression that the city was watching Seadrake approach, resentful of the intrusion.

“This is Sulasspryn?” Hamil asked. “What happened here?”

“No one knows for sure,” the swordmage said. “Some disaster befell the place a hundred years or more before the Spellplague, and few people survived to tell the tale. As the story goes, the ruling family feuded against a drow city beneath the Galenas and won-or so they thought. But the dark elves had their revenge in the end. They undermined the citadel and collapsed it, wiping out the city’s rulers in one swift stroke. Then the dark elves and their monsters boiled up from beneath the city, slaughtering or carrying off most of Sulasspryn’s citizens.” Geran shrugged. “I don’t know if there’s any truth to it, but in Hulburg they say that Lolth’s curse lies over the ruins. You can’t find a soul in Hulburg who’d dare set foot within the walls.”

“Including you?”

Geran pointed at a high hilltop west of the city. “When I was about eighteen or nineteen, Jarad Erstenwold and I rode to the headland there to look on the ruins. That’s as close as we cared to be. And even then my father was furious with both of us. He feared that we might wake things better left undisturbed.” He paused, and found that a shadow of old dread had crept over him. He was as close to Sulasspryn as anyone from Hulburg had been in a long time, and it struck him as an unwholesome place to be. “To tell the truth, I sincerely hope Moonshark’s moved on by now. I don’t like to linger here.”

“No such luck, I fear.” Hamil pointed over the rail at a customshouse close by the water’s edge. As Seadrake slowly sculled across the harbor, the slender black hull of the pirate galley-concealed by the ruined building at first-came slowly into view, drawn up on the shore behind the structure. “There she is! It looks like we’ve caught Moonshark on the beach.”

The pirate galley was drawn up on the strand a short distance outside the city walls, well hidden by the headland that sheltered the city’s old harbor from the westerly winds. If the rain had been a little heavier, or Seadrake a little farther out from the shore, they might have sailed past without spotting the other ship. Geran signaled to the helmsman, who turned the wheel and brought the ship into the harbor. All over the Hulburgan vessel, the soldiers and sailors scrambled to make themselves ready for battle, quickly donning mail shirts or leather jerkins and uncovering the ship’s catapult. The swordmage peered toward the shore, looking for signs of commotion-the Black Moon pirates might try to launch their ship and make their escape before Seadrake landed, or at the very least make ready to defend the ship. But he saw no one moving on the shore.

“Where are they?” he muttered. “They must have seen us by now.”

“I don’t care for the looks o’ the shore,” Andurth said in a low voice. “I can beach if you insist on it, but we’ve a deeper hull than that galley there, and I fear we’ll be stuck fast. It’ll be a devil of a job to get back in the water.”

Geran frowned. The dwarf was right; there was good, deep water by the quays in the city proper, but he was not about to tie up in the middle of the ruins. The shore the pirate ship was drawn up on looked wide and muddy. “Very well. We’ll land by boat.” He hesitated then asked, “Hamil, can you see anyone ashore?”

The halfling shook his head. “It looks like there’s a camp on the beach, but there’s not a soul in sight. I’d suggest that perhaps they’re all belowdecks on Moonshark or sheltering from the rain in the ruins, but somehow I don’t really think they are. I don’t like the looks of this, Geran.”

“Nor do I,” Geran answered. “But we’re here, and we need Moonshark’s compass.” He sighed and looked over to Andurth. “Master Galehand, drop anchor and put the ship’s boats in the water. I’ll take twenty hands ashore.”

“Aye, Lord Geran,” the dwarf answered. He shouted commands to the sailors on deck. The crewmen aloft began to furl the sails one by one, while others hurried to the ship’s anchor or began to unlash the ship’s boats.

Geran absently listened to the bustle and commotion. His attention was fixed on the mist-wreathed ruins looming over the harbor, concealed by veils of rain. Some dire peril awaited within, he was certain of it. But he had no idea what it might be.