Corsair

TWENTY-TWO

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

Geran opened his eyes to darkness and cold water. His head ached, his left wrist and right knee throbbed, and when he tried to roll over, a sharp jolt in the middle of his back made him hiss in pain. Slowly he pushed himself upright, careful not to wrench his back again. All he could make out was a pale shadow over his head-most likely the hall in the ruined palace above. Rubble shifted under him as he moved, and he slipped deeper into the cold water that apparently half flooded the cellar. It wasn’t deep, no more than a foot or so, but he was lucky he hadn’t wound up with his face in the water after striking his head. He might have drowned.

“I’ve had better days,” he muttered to himself. He snorted at his own dark humor and paid the price when pain seared his back again. He winced and looked around the ruined chamber. Where in the world was he again? What was he doing here?

“Sulasspryn,” he murmured aloud. “I’m in Sulasspryn.” Seadrake was anchored out in the bay. Hamil, Sarth, and a score of armsmen were somewhere down by the pirate Moonshark on the beach-or at least that was where he’d last seen them. If the light in the room above was any indication, night had fallen in the streets above. That meant he’d been unconscious at least five or six hours, and possibly much more. Gingerly he reached up to feel his skull and discovered a big knot and some crusted blood high on the left side of his forehead. All things considered, this was in fact shaping up as one of the worst days he’d had in a very long time.

He sat up carefully, picking himself up out of the cold water and seating himself on the mound of rubble. He still couldn’t see much of his surroundings, but he decided against showing any light just yet. If there was anything in here he needed to worry about, it would’ve had hours to do with him as it liked while he was unconscious. Instead he tried to piece together his situation. Surely Hamil and Sarth knew he was missing-if in fact they, or anyone else, had survived the fight on the beach. Obviously, they hadn’t found him yet. Either no one had been able to come looking for him, or they had no idea where he was. Both possibilities suggested that it was up to him to find his way back to the rest of the landing party, or to Seadrake if the landing party was no longer ashore. “Or to Hulburg if Seadrake has to put to sea,” he added to himself. He didn’t relish the idea of a thirty-mile walk home.

He looked around for the satchel with the starry compass. It was nowhere nearby. He scowled in the darkness and kneeled to feel around in the cold, foul water of the cellar, ignoring the aches and pains of his injuries. The compass was the whole reason they’d come to this accursed ruin-he couldn’t leave without it, not if he had any hope of rescuing Mirya and her daughter from Kamoth and Sergen! He splashed around for several minutes in the shadows before he remembered that he’d lost the satchel during his midair struggle with the gargoyle that had tried to carry him off. The compass was somewhere outside, lying wherever he’d dropped it unless something or someone had picked it up.

“Damn the luck!” he swore. Geran stood and kicked at the water, earning himself another jolt of pain from his knee. He had to find the compass before he did anything else, gargoyles or no gargoyles.

The first order of business was escaping from this cellar. Now he needed a little light. He reached down and found a small stone in the mound of rubble below the collapsed floor, and murmured the Elvish words of a light spell over the stone. A bright blue-white radiance sprang up from its surface; Geran tucked it deep into his palm and closed his hand over it, so that only a small, blue glimmer showed from between his fingers. After all, he didn’t want to give away his location to everyone nearby. By the stone’s occulted light, he studied the subterranean chamber into which he’d fallen. It was a large hall with a dozen or more thick columns, the ceiling a good twenty feet or more overhead. An old slide had ruined the far end of the chamber, leaving a wall of rubble. Some sort of temple? Geran guessed. Or perhaps a trophy room or banquet hall? It seemed strange that any of those things might be located in a cellar, but maybe the ancient catastrophe that had destroyed Sulasspryn had caused some sort of collapse here.

The only stairs he could see were choked with rubble, so Geran held up his light and studied the hole in the ceiling through which he’d fallen. He certainly couldn’t climb back up that way, not with his bad wrist and bad knee. But he didn’t necessarily have to climb. He picked out a spot in the room above, gathered his concentration, and spoke a single arcane syllable: “Seiroch!”

The teleport spell whisked him through an instant of icy blackness, and then he was in the chamber above. He missed his footing, stumbled, and fell, wrenching his knee again-he hadn’t been able to see exactly where he was going to appear from the chamber below, and he’d picked a spot where the wreckage of old furniture littered the ground. Rain drummed down in the street outside, and scores of leaks in the roof of the old palace or temple allowed steady streams of rainwater to pour inside. That must have been the source of the water standing in the cellar below, he realized. Quickly he covered up his light again, leaving just a tiny glimmer peeking between his fingers as he stood and hobbled to the archway to peer up and down the street.

It seemed abandoned, but it was hard to be certain; the night was black, cold rain fell in sheets on the old cobblestones and broken tiles, and the wind blew in short, stiff gusts that rustled the trees and rushed through the wiry grass growing up between the ancient walls. A whole flock of gargoyles could have been standing in the street thirty yards away, and Geran wouldn’t have known it. He decided to risk a little more light, and let more of the illumination show from the stone he held. Sulasspryn in its day had been much like old Hulburg, a small city huddled around a good harbor on the north shore of the Moonsea. Most of the old buildings were made of well-dressed stone, with slate tiles for roofing and broad avenues of mortared flagstones. Unlike Hulburg, it had never been rebuilt after its collapse; no one had ever come to clear the streets of rubble, cannibalize stone from old buildings, or build atop the ruins. If the Hulmasters had never resettled in Hulburg, this is what Hulburg would have looked like, Geran thought.

He limped across the street to the place where the gargoyle had dropped him, and found the cedar tree he’d fallen through. He searched beneath its boughs for a long time, shivering in the cold and the wet, and found nothing. He allowed the light to shine brighter still and peered into the branches, wondering if the satchel had been caught somewhere higher up, but it was not there either. “Think, Geran,” he growled. “Where did you drop it?”

He tried to recall those last dizzy moments of the fight by the beach. The gargoyle had seized him in its talons, struggling to carry him aloft. He remembered the bluffs overlooking the harbor passing under his feet in a wild whirl, then the first few buildings by the edge, looking down and seeing the satchel fall toward the ruins below. The gargoyle had kept flying inland, toward the ruined citadel in the heart of the city, carrying him along. If he had to guess, the satchel was somewhere between the edge of the bluff and the place where he’d fallen, probably not more than a hundred yards from where he stood.

Closing his eyes, he whispered the words of a minor charm intended to reveal the presence of magic nearby. He felt nothing, but that didn’t surprise him. He would have to be close to the starry compass in order to detect its enchantment in that way. Unfortunately, he had no other method for locating the compass besides groping through the rain and darkness in the hopes that he might physically stumble over it. The best thing to do would be to retrace the gargoyle’s dizzying flight over the ruins as best he could, stopping frequently to repeat the minor divination. But even that would be nearly impossible, because he wasn’t sure exactly which way he’d come before, and even if he were, he couldn’t cut directly over the intervening ground. He’d have to find avenues that led back in the way he wanted to go without diverting him too far from the gargoyle’s path.

“Or would it be wiser to remain here and wait for a rescue party?” he muttered to himself. He had no idea if Seadrake was still in Sulasspryn’s harbor or not. He didn’t think they would have left without him, but if the monsters had driven them off, Hamil and Sarth might have had no choice but to flee. They’d seen him carried off by the gargoyle, after all; they might very well assume that he was dead. Geran sighed. It was all too likely that he was stranded in Sulasspryn, alone and injured. In which case, the sooner he recovered the compass and made his way out of the ruins, the better off he’d be. He set out cautiously in the direction he guessed was most likely to lead him toward the place where he thought he’d dropped the compass.

He spent an agonizing hour groping his way through the streets, slowly working his way back toward the harbor. He blundered into blind alleys, climbed painfully over the rubble of ruined buildings, and backtracked dozens of times to try to stay as close as he could to his guess at the straight-line path back toward the harbor. Every fifty steps or so he paused to repeat the charm, hoping for some faint glimmer in the darkness. Several times he heard things moving in the ruins around him-the grating sound of rubble shifting, distant croaking cries that echoed from the stones, and one time the sudden flurry of heavy wingbeats somewhere overhead. For that one, Geran froze where he stood, not daring to move or make a sound until he was certain the creature was gone. But even after the wingbeats faded, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was lingering nearby, something that had his spoor and was patiently stalking him through the rain and the gloom. Icy tendrils of dread began to creep down his spine, and he hurried along as quickly as he could.

He turned a corner into a small, cluttered alleyway-likely a workshop district in Sulasspryn’s better days-and pressed himself into a doorway, straining eyes and ears to detect any motion in the night around him. Something was abroad in the darkness, of that he was sure, and he did not care to meet it. He waited for a short time, watching back the way he’d come, but he could see nothing but the faint glimmer of puddles in the street and the dim, jagged shadows that marked the rooftops of the ruined city. He murmured the words of his detection charm again, stretching out his senses for the peculiar psychic impressions of magic nearby … and this time he felt a distinct answer, a faint vibration like a harpstring plucked in a nearby room. He turned and stared, trying to discern exactly which direction he’d felt the enchantment from, and decided that it was down the alleyway and a little to one side, perhaps in one of the old houses along the lane or just behind them.

He turned to leave, and in the corner of his eye he glimpsed a dark shape slipping across the street behind him. The air grew colder, and Geran jerked his head back, afraid he might have been seen. Best to move on while it’s not in sight, he told himself. Quickly he hurried down the alleyway, moving toward the place where he’d felt the glimmer of enchantment. It still hovered at the edge of his awareness, and he fumbled toward it as he slipped and stumbled through the rubble. A doorway loomed up to his left; he cautiously stepped through, one hand on the hilt of his sword, the other cupped around his light-pebble.

The roof of this small home had fallen in long ago and was now an overgrown mound of rubble in the center of the floor. Rain spattered down from the open sky-and there, half hidden in the underbrush by one wall, the leather satchel gleamed wetly. Geran crossed the room and picked it up. It felt full, but to be certain he undid the latch and reached in. The fall might have damaged the orb, after all … but smooth, unbroken crystal met his fingers. He pulled out the starry compass and quickly examined it. In the darkness the tiny pinpricks of white light embedded in its substance seemed to glow faintly. He sighed in relief and put the magical device back into the satchel.

With the compass in hand, now he was free to find his way out of the city by the most direct route available. He hurried back to the alleyway outside and turned left, hoping that the next big street might lead him toward the bluffs overlooking the harbor. If he remembered rightly, there were old stairways zigzagging down from the street-ends to the strand below.

Something was waiting for him in the street.

He froze in midstep as he emerged from the alleyway, aware of a presence-several presences-gathered in the shadows outside. Again, cold dread welled up in his heart, stealing his voice. He heard the creature this time, a thick wet gurgling sound that wheezed in the darkness. And then that sound shaped itself into words and spoke. “Geran Hulmaster,” it bubbled. “Geran Hulmaster.”

Geran recoiled several steps, until he sensed another one close behind him. He swept out his sword and turned in a circle, trying to menace all the things around him with its deadly point. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was look upon the creatures closing in on him … but he needed some light to fight by. He opened his hand and held high the stone with the light spell. Blue-white radiance flared brightly in the shadowed street, revealing the leaning cornices and cracked facades of the ruins around him.

The dwarf Murkelmor crouched before him. At first Geran thought he was wearing some kind of strange, tattered cape, but then he realized that the flesh of Murkelmor’s chest and shoulders had been ripped to ribbons. Murkelmor raised his eyes to meet his horrified gaze, and Geran saw that half his face had been clawed off as well. His eyes were a dead, pupil-less white, and his teeth had grown long and sharp. Black gore crowned him like careless splatters of paint. More of Moonshark’s crew stood in the street behind Murkelmor or stared at Geran through crumbling doorways. They were all dead, with torn, pallid flesh and lifeless eyes.

“Get away from me!” Geran cried. He’d faced ghouls and other such undead before, but never had he seen one he’d known as a living man. It was a peculiarly horrifying experience. Murkelmor bared his fangs and shambled forward a few steps; others of the crew closed in from behind Geran, reaching out with hands whose blood-caked nails had grown into filthy claws.

“Geran Hulmaster, you slew us,” Murkelmor rasped. “You betrayed us, you drove us here, and here we died. A heavy debt you owe us.”

Geran shivered at the idea of what he might owe to Moonshark’s crew. Still, he tried to answer. “You meant to pillage Hulburg, murder its defenders, enslave its women and children,” he said to the gruesome thing that had been Murkelmor. “It was my duty to fight you. I didn’t mean for you to come to Sulasspryn, Murkelmor, and I’m sorry that Moonshark came to a bad end here. But it was not my fault that you chose the course you did.”

Behind him, a tall shape stumbled out of the shadows. Geran swung his sword point to menace the new threat and found himself facing Skamang. The big Northman had been eviscerated, and his ruined face was a mask of gore. Skamang bared his fangs and hissed at him. “Look what you’ve done to us! You must die to set matters right. A heavy debt you owe, Geran Hulmaster!”

The crewmen behind him edged closer. Geran tried to keep them at sword point, hoping to keep the dead pirates from attacking. He was in no condition to fight, and he doubted very much whether he could outrun them. Besides, something did not make sense to him. Murkelmor and Skamang had known him as Aram, a rootless brigand. As far as Geran knew, there was no way either of them-or their undead corpses-should know his true identity. Perhaps the dead saw through such things more easily than the living, or perhaps there was more to this meeting in the shadows of Sulasspryn.

“How do you know my name?” he demanded.

The dwarf snarled in anger and gnashed his long, pointed teeth. For a moment he rocked back and forth, moaning, as if he did not want to answer. But then he let out a thick, bubbling breath from his ruined chest and said, “We’ve been given a message for you.”

“A message? What message? From whom?”

“King Aesperus sends his greetings, Geran Hulmaster,” Skamang said, speaking from behind him. “He bade us tell you that the fates of Hulburg and the family Hulmaster now hang upon your choice. Follow your intended course, and the harmach’s enemies will triumph over Hulburg. Return home, and you can prevent the harmach’s defeat for now-but Grigor will be the last of the Hulmasters to rule, and his enemies will lay the city in ruins before he dies.”

Geran shivered. He’d met Aesperus once, on the slopes of a barrow in the Highfells a few miles outside of Hulburg. The mighty lich-king was master of the undead in these lands, and he’d known Geran for a Hulmaster. He didn’t know why the King in Copper had decided to speak to him through the dead of Moonshark… and he didn’t like the message, either. “Which enemies?” he asked Skamang. “What danger in Hulburg can I avert?”

“An adversary you’ve forgotten threatens the harmach’s seat,” Murkelmor said. “But if you defend Hulburg, the Black Moon escapes. The two you seek’ll be lost t’ you forever, and in time the Black Moon’ll work your ruin. If you pursue the High Captain, you may save the two you seek, but Hulburg is doomed t’ fall under the power of your foe. Others dear t’you will suffer in their stead.”

Geran frowned, puzzling over the lich’s rede. How could defeating his enemies lead to Hulburg’s fall? And who was the forgotten enemy-the Vaasans who had aided the Blood Skulls in their war? Some other tribe of Thar? It would seem that defeating his enemies and protecting the city went hand in hand, yet Aesperus said otherwise. And even if Aesperus was being truthful, which choice was the lich trying to lure him into making? To give himself a moment to think, he looked at Murkelmor and asked, “Did Aesperus make you into what you are?”

“There be other powers beside King Aesperus in dead Sulasspryn,” the dwarf answered. “But none return from th’ grave within the bounds o’ his old kingdom without his knowledge.”

“Why does Aesperus want me to know this fate?”

Skamang laughed softly behind him, a horrible sound. “King Aesperus has no more words for you, Geran Hulmaster. And now that we’ve delivered his message, he no longer has any hold on us. We can do with you as we like.” He lurched forward, reaching out with his clawed hands.

“Reith arroch!” Geran shouted, summoning a sword spell. Instantly his elven blade flashed with a brilliant white light, throwing shadows back against the night. The ghouls that had been the crew of Moonshark shrank from the light, which seared their undead flesh. Geran took a half step toward Skamang and slashed the dead Northman across the face before he could recover. Skamang shrieked and collapsed to the ground, blinded by the searing light.

Geran swung wildly, keeping the dead crewmen at bay. Then he used his teleport spell, choosing a spot on the other side of a large building’s crumbling wall. He appeared in a tangle of underbrush, slipped, and then climbed to his feet. Sheathing his sword and cupping his light closely, he scrambled through the ruins at the best speed he could manage, hoping that he’d given himself the head start he needed to escape from the vengeful crew. He could hear them scrabbling over the rubble and moaning in frustration behind him.

Geran pressed on, ducking through ruined doorways and climbing over decaying walls until he could no longer hear Moonshark’s undead crew behind him. He slowed down, moving more cautiously, and found a street leading downhill-toward the harbor, he guessed. He made his way down through an area of dense overgrowth, fighting his way through thorny thickets, and then emerged on the shore. He couldn’t see if Seadrake was still out in the harbor, but Moonshark’s battered hulk creaked in the gusts somewhere not too far away.

“I hope Hamil and the rest are out there somewhere,” he muttered. He shrugged the satchel off his shoulder, took out the starry compass and tucked it inside his shirt, and put the small stone with its light spell in the satchel. Then he went down to the water’s edge and held the satchel open, facing out toward the harbor. The satchel shielded the stone’s bright glow from anyone in the ruins above and behind him, but allowed the bright blue-white illumination to show toward anyone out at sea.

They might have had to pull off, he told himself. He’d seen a number of gargoyles flying out to attack the ship while the landing party battled the monsters on the shore. For that matter, it was possible that Seadrake’s crew had met the same end as Moonshark’s, torn to pieces to a man. But then, faintly, he saw a yellow light far out on the water shining back at him. It gave two short blinks.

Geran lowered himself to the rocky beach and hunkered under his sodden cloak. He kept a wary eye on the dark bluffs behind him, half expecting the beat of gargoyle wings or a sudden rush from the shadows by his former shipmates. Half an hour later, he heard the muffled clinking of oarlocks and the soft splash of oars in the water.

Geran, is that you? Hamil asked silently.

“I’m here, Hamil!” Geran called. He pushed himself to his feet and limped out to meet Seadrake’s boat. Ten Shieldsworn pulled the oars; Hamil stood in the bow with an arrow on his bowstring, and Sarth scanned the skies nervously from the stern.

The halfling vaulted over the bow and splashed ashore. “Where have you been? What happened? Are you hurt?”

“The curse on these ruins interfered with my divinations,” Sarth added. “In truth, we feared you were dead.”

“Am I hurt? Yes, but nothing fatal. As for the rest, I’ll tell you the tale on the way back to the ship.” Geran could not suppress a shiver. “I found the rest of Moonshark’s crew. They’re all dead … but they don’t rest yet. The King in Copper’s got them.”

“Aesperus?” Hamil frowned and shook his head. “I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone, not even Skamang. You’re lucky we didn’t leave you here with them; we intended to sail at first light.”

Geran glanced once more at the ruins of Sulasspryn and shuddered. “The sooner we’re away from this accursed spot, the better.” He and Hamil climbed into the longboat, and they shoved off the shore and rowed through the rain back out to the waiting ship.