Corsair

TWENTY-THREE

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

When they returned to Seadrake, Geran learned that they’d lost nine men from the landing party and two more aboard Seadrake-a heavy toll, but not as bad as he’d feared in the first chaotic moments of the gargoyle attack. Many more were injured to a greater or lesser extent, but Brother Larken, the young friar who sailed as the ship’s prelate, proved to be an able healer. After the first skirmish with the gargoyles, Larken saved the lives of several severely injured men and repaired injuries that might have crippled others. He looked after Geran as soon as Hamil and his rescue party brought the swordmage back on board, speaking healing prayers over the worst of his injuries. Geran met the morning stiff and sore, but his left wrist was knitting, and he was able to stand up straight on the quarterdeck with only a few aches and pains to remind him of his hours among the ruins.

Behind them, Sulasspryn receded into the morning mists. The rain had finally slowed in the hour before dawn, becoming a steady drizzle instead of a downpour. The first thing Geran did as they sailed away from the ruins was to summon Seadrake’s carpenter-one of the sons of old Master Therndon, Hulburg’s master shipwright-to the quarterdeck and start him working on a frame for the starry compass similar to the one that was on Moonshark.

Andurth Galehand watched the carpenter with a disapproving frown. Many dwarves didn’t think much of arcane magic, and seafarers were a superstitious lot in the best of circumstances. After a moment he shook his head and turned to speak to Geran. “We’re standing sou’west because that was the best course to take us away from Sulasspryn,” he said. “But I reckon we’re clear now. What course, m’lord?”

Geran glanced up at the sky. The overcast seemed like it would be with them for a while yet, and the gusty winds of the previous night had settled into another steady blow from the northwest. He didn’t think it would matter much where they were when they used the starry compass, but it couldn’t hurt to steer toward Umberlee’s Talons. That was where Kraken Queen had left the Moonsea, after all. On the other hand, if Aesperus had been speaking truthfully through Murkelmor and Skamang, then he ought to consider turning toward Hulburg instead. “Keep her on this heading for a while,” he finally told the sailing master. “I’m not sure where we’re bound, but we might as well work westward while I’m thinking about it. We might return to Hulburg before we do anything else.”

“Aye, m’lord,” Galehand answered. “Steady as she goes.”

Geran decided that it wouldn’t help the carpenter finish any faster if he stood and watched the fellow work, and went below to his cabin. He sent his steward to ask Hamil and Sarth to join him then sent the young fellow off to fetch a hearty breakfast from the galley. When his friends arrived, he motioned for them to join him at the table.

“I told you that I met Murkelmor and some of Moonshark’s crew during the night,” he began. “I didn’t want to say more around the crew or the armsmen, but here’s the rest of the tale: They carried a message from the King in Copper. Aesperus said that if I continued after Mirya, Hulburg would fall into the power of a forgotten enemy … whatever that means. But if I abandon Mirya to protect the harmach, both she and Selsha would be lost. The Black Moon would escape us, and a different disaster would befall Hulburg in years to come.”

“A grim prophecy,” Sarth observed. “Doom awaits on either hand.”

“So it would seem,” Geran said. He leaned back in his chair, gazing out the stern windows at the shore behind them, now a dim gray line along the horizon. He could see nothing more of Sulasspryn.

“Do you have any reason to believe that the King in Copper is telling the truth?” Hamil asked.

“I have no reason to think that he isn’t. I only met the King in Copper once, but I came away with the impression that he’s not the sort to waste words. In his eyes, the living aren’t worth lying to.”

Hamil nodded slowly. “I had a similar impression,” he admitted.

“Aesperus is certainly capable of lying,” Sarth said. “While I have not met him as you have, I studied him through historical accounts and his own correspondence for many months. He probably would not break his word once he gives it, but he has a way of honoring his bargains with unfortunate consequences.” The tiefling stood and paced, his slender tail swishing behind him. “The question that interests me is why Aesperus would choose to give you this warning. He would not do it for your benefit. He hopes to influence your decision to his own advantage.”

“Assume that Aesperus is right, then,” Hamil said. “Something bad will befall Hulburg if Geran keeps after the Black Moon now. But he also said that abandoning the effort to chase down the Black Moon would bring ruin too. Both options would seem to be disastrous. How is that supposed to influence Geran’s decision?”

“Aesperus wants me to seek some third option?” Geran mused aloud. “I suppose it’s possible to abandon both causes, although I hardly see how that could help.”

“Or perhaps he suggests that you should return to Hulburg, leaving Seadrake to pursue the Black Moon pirates,” said Sarth.

“Which might in fact bring down both dooms that Aesperus warned you against,” Hamil answered. “That might be the point of his warning, in fact-choose one or the other so you don’t stumble into both.”

“This is maddening,” Geran muttered. “It might be that his only purpose was to see if he could get me to second-guess everything I do and jump at my own shadow, in which case, he’s well on his way to succeeding. It would have been better if he hadn’t said anything at all.” He shook his head. “In every tale I’ve ever heard told about an omen, prophecy, or prediction, efforts to cheat fate invariably fail. Why try to avoid it?”

“You do not strike me as a fatalist,” Sarth said.

“I don’t intend to surrender meekly to whatever doom is approaching.” Geran sighed and looked away from the window. He couldn’t imagine why Aesperus had deigned to warn him about the dangers ahead. In truth, he wished the King in Copper had no idea who he was. But the lich had taken an interest in him, whatever the reasons, and somehow Geran doubted that Aesperus would bother with any petty falsehoods or misdirections. That meant he had to choose. On the one hand, his family and his home stood in jeopardy. On the other, a woman he cared for deeply, even loved, and her innocent daughter faced a terrible fate … and his traitorous cousin seemed all too likely to escape him again.

Hamil watched him struggle with his thoughts. “So what will you do, then?” he asked.

Geran weighed his words before he answered. “I’ll do my best to forget what Aesperus had to say, and carry on as I intended,” he finally said. “I don’t know what threatens Hulburg, but I certainly know the peril Mirya and Selsha are in. I simply can’t leave them to their fate. And if Hulburg is doomed no matter what I do, then I might as well see to it that Kamoth and Sergen aren’t the ones who bring it about. What happens after that, happens. I have to believe that even Aesperus can’t foresee every outcome.”

The steward returned with their breakfast then, and Geran was surprised to discover how famished he was. Of course, he’d been outdoors in cold, damp weather for most of the last day, and that always left him starving afterward. When they finished, the three comrades went back up on deck and found that young Therndon’s frame was ready for the starry compass. With care Geran, Sarth, and the carpenter installed the dark orb in its new place just ahead of the helm.

When they finished, Geran waited for the pinpricks of starlight he’d noticed the previous evening to appear, but nothing more happened. He looked to Sarth. “I think that’s exactly the way it was fixed to Moonshark. Have we missed something?”

Sarth shook his head. “No, I do not think so,” he said slowly. “The device is enchanted to carry the ship to the Sea of Night, but it’s the middle of the day now. I think we’ll need to wait for the sun to set.”

“Just as Kamoth did the other day with Kraken Queen,”Geran said. He looked up at the sky and frowned. That would explain why the corsair ship hadn’t fled into the skies at the first sight of the Hulburgan warship. “All right, we’ll try again at dusk.” He mastered his disappointment and went back down to his cabin to get a few hours’ rest. He’d been awake for the better part of three nights running, and the time he’d spent unconscious in the cellar in Sulasspryn hardly counted as sleep.

A little before sunset, he roused himself and went back up on deck. Gray ramparts of cloud scudded along the horizon to the north, and the wind was growing stronger again. Geran had Galehand order all hands on deck, since he didn’t know what would happen if the compass worked, and he waited for the last orange gleam of daylight to fade in the south. Then he turned to Sarth. “Let’s try it now,” he said.

“You should remember, this is not my field of expertise,” the sorcerer replied. Sarth murmured arcane words and laid his hand on the surface of the compass. The pinpricks of starlight embedded in the crystal orb began to glow brighter and swirl slowly under his touch. Geran held his breath, watching intensely. Nothing else happened. Sarth frowned and tried a different incantation. That failed as well. Then he attempted a third, with a similar lack of effect. “I am sorry,” Sarth said. “There must be a specific incantation to address the device.”

Geran turned away and slammed one fist against the ship’s rail. “Damnation!” he snarled. Now what were they supposed to do? He’d assumed that the operation of the starry compass would be no obstacle, but it seemed that wasn’t the case.

“Wait!” said Hamil. “I forgot that I had this. Try the incantation from Narsk’s letter!” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper. “It’s a little sodden from that swim in the harbor the other night, but you can still make out the words.”

Sarth took the paper and looked at the words. “Very well,” he said. “Perhaps the Red Wizards who gave Narsk the compass gave him this incantation to awaken it.” He laid his hand atop the compass again and read aloud from the damp paper. “Jhel ssar khimungon, jhel nurkhme thuul yasst ne mnor!”

Around the circumference of the device, ghostly white runes became visible. A tiny dot of white light appeared near the top of the compass. Geran could sense the arcane power of the device at work. A faint silvery sheen appeared around Seadrake’s deck and masts, like moonlight caught in mist, and the ship leaped swiftly over the wavetops. “I think it’s working this time!” he called to Sarth.

“You have the helm, Geran,” Sarth answered. “The compass should be answering to you.”

Geran nodded. He wondered how he was supposed to steer up. After all, there was no set of sail or rudder he knew of that would carry a ship aloft. But he hadn’t seen any special gear on Kraken Queen in the brief time he’d been alongside the Black Moon flagship, so he didn’t think he needed any. The device was magical; perhaps it answered to the helmsman’s voice or will.

Feeling a little foolish, he fixed his eyes on the compass and said aloud, “Ascend slowly.”

Whether it was the sound of his voice or his simple intent, the starry compass heard him and answered. Its pinprick lights glowed brighter, and Geran let out a startled exclamation as some unseen force began to push the deck up under his feet. From either side of the hull the silvery sheen playing over the deck extended into two ethereal wings, seemingly made of nothing more than stardust and moonlight. He heard the sudden rush of water under the hull, the ruffle of the confused wind in the sails, and the mix of curses, gasps, moans, and whoops from the crew. The bowsprit rose high into the sky, and the ship leaped clear of the Moonsea in a burst of white spray. Almost immediately she heeled over in the breeze, carrying far too much canvas aloft now that there was no longer the weight of her hull in her water to hold her upright. Geran automatically spun the wheel to turn straight downwind and correct the dangerous heel, and the ship answered to his direction easily even though the rudder had no water to bite into.

“We’re flying!” Hamil said with a laugh of delight. He leaned by the rail, one hand knotted in the shrouds as he looked over the side.

“Lord Geran, I’ll give ye every gold coin I own if ye’ll only set us down again,” Andurth Galehand answered. “It’s no’ right for a ship to behave in such a way!”

“We’ve more flying ahead of us, so you might as well learn to like it,” Geran told the sailing master. “I’ll hold her steady for a bit. Have the crew take us down to half-sail or less. I don’t think we need much canvas at all right now.”

The dwarf looked pale, but he nodded. “Aye, m’lord.” He turned and started shouting orders at the crew.

Geran looked at the compass and said, “Level now, and steady as she goes,” he said. The bowsprit dropped a bit, and the deck slowly leveled in front of him. Now they might be sailing along on a smooth, calm day-but the Moonsea was hundreds of feet below their keel. He realized that he could see quite a distance from their height. Off his port bow he could make out the distant peaks of the Galena Mountains, glimmering orange with the sunset above a mantle of clouds that blanketed their lower slopes. And on his starboard beam he could faintly make out the snowy slopes of the high Earthspurs, rising in the wild lands south of Mulmaster-the better part of a hundred and fifty miles off, if he was right in his reckoning.

“Amazing,” he murmured. He watched the crewhands taking in sail. When he was satisfied, he turned gently to run across the wind again. The ship heeled over, but much less than before; it was about the same as running across a stiff breeze in a waterborne vessel. “Ascend normally,” he said aloud. This time the bowsprit came up even higher, and the ship seemed to soar upward as she climbed. A glance over his shoulder at the Moonsea dropping away below convinced Geran that he wouldn’t ever need to order the ship to ascend at its best rate; he already felt as if he’d better hang on to the helm to make sure he didn’t fall over the sternrail. He was surprised to see a small wisp of cloud pass by beneath them.

“How high can we go?” he wondered. “The air grows thin and cold atop the highest mountains. If we sail into the high reaches of the sky, wouldn’t we encounter the same conditions?”

“What little I have read of voyaging in the Sea of Night suggests that we will,” Sarth said. “The aether above the world is too rare to breathe, but artifacts such as the compass or magical helms gather it closely about the vessel-or so I have read. I recommend a cautious ascent, so that we can turn back if I am mistaken.”

“A wise suggestion,” Geran agreed. He glanced again at the compass and saw that the symbols along its equator were glowing brightly. The skies were darkening overhead, and he could make out the first dim stars glittering in the sky. Symbols and stars … he smiled at his own thickheadedness. “The compass symbols are constellations!” he said to Sarth and Hamil. “Look, that one right in front of us, that’s the Swordsman,” he said, pointing at the compass. “And look where our bow is pointed-the Swordsman is rising right in front of us. And that one to the left of it, that must be the Phoenix.”

Sarth leaned close to inspect the compass. “I think you are right, Geran,” he said. “Terrestrial directions must become meaningless in the Sea of Night. With no north, no south, a voyager must find some other way to mark his course. The constellations keep their places in the sky as Toril turns beneath them.”

Seadrake continued to climb up through the twilight. Gale-hand peeked over the rail and quickly retreated with a sick look on his face. “Where are we bound?” he asked Geran. “Just how high d’you mean to sail?”

“That’s a good question,” Hamil said. “Where are we bound? I’d sort of hoped it might be obvious once we got aloft, but now I’m not so sure. Kraken Queen could be anywhere!”

Geran pondered the question for a moment. Narsk might have had some instruction from the Red Wizards in Mulmaster, but he doubted that Kamoth would have entrusted them with the location of his hidden isle. It was more likely that he’d told Narsk how to find his retreat beforehand. “Kamoth’s letters,” he murmured. He frowned and brought them to mind again. In the second letter there’d been a strange phrase, something he hadn’t understood at the time: Neshuldaar, the eleventh tear.

He focused on the starry compass, with its slowly turning constellations and bright pinpricks of light. “Show me the course to Neshuldaar,” he said to the device.

The small pinpoint of white light at the top of the compass abruptly moved and disappeared. It returned a moment later at the side of the compass, but this time it was a bright, six-pointed star, the brightest symbol visible in the device. Geran grinned and slowly turned the helm in that direction; the six-pointed star swung around like the needle of a lodestone until it rested in the center of the device, and there Geran steadied the helm. Their course seemed to lead a little to the right of the Swordsman.

“Look there,” Geran said to Hamil. He pointed at the flickering star. “That’s where we’re bound. Neshuldaar, whatever or wherever it might be.”

They were higher than the tallest mountain peaks now, and the world was passing into night below them. 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.”