Plague of Spells

CHAPTER TEN

The Year of the Secret (1396 DR) Green Siren on the Sea of Fallen Stars

What infantile game is Behroun playing, wondered Japheth.

A porthole leaked watery daylight into the warlock's cramped cabin. A ratty travel duffel lay next to him on the cot. Japheth's things lay scattered from the duffel's open mouth. Empty vials, elixirs, crushed essences of this and that, and his other tools littered the rumpled blanket. A large travel chest sat opposite the cot and took up a majority of the cabin's floor space. He'd had it delivered from the hold to his room, claiming it was his own. The chest's side was stenciled with the Marhana crest.

No one had connected the "ghost attack" with the bulky piece of luggage open before him.

No one except Japheth. He had watched the altercation of a few hours earlier unfold in a daze, but that was normal when walking the crimson road. It was just that detachment from reality that enhanced a walker's sensitivity to psychic and spiritual phenomena. Thus he'd seen the shadowy figure rise out of the hold. He'd observed when it was struck down by Captain Thoster's war wizard.

When the apparition shriveled beneath Seren's magical attack, his augmented vision noted a spark of blue fire zip away from where the shape disintegrated. Despite Seren's spell of seeing, she missed the fleeting movement. But Japheth saw the flame plunge into the side of a large chest in the hold.

Once the hubbub, inquiry, and heated recriminations by fearful crew died down, Japheth descended into the hold to see into which chest the spark had fled.

The chest turned out to be the property of Marhana Shipping.

Behroun hired Japheth to aid Captain Thoster, but also to gather intelligence about Thoster's privateer enterprise to make certain the pirate wasn't cheating Behroun out of more than could be overlooked. Lord Marhana had also apparently sent along a second spy, this one to keep tabs on Japheth himself.

Oddly, the spy Behroun had selected was Lord Marhana's own sister.

The warlock gazed into the open chest at a sleeping girl's features, loose and smooth as she lay nestled amid clothing and waterskins. Bits of food and other detritus lay in the chest with her-she'd obviously been living inside for several days.

Japheth would never have guessed the girl… what was her name? Anusha! Japheth wouldn't have guessed Anusha had the proper mental mindset to become a spy. Impossible as it seemed, he couldn't deny the evidence of his eyes: Anusha possessed the same shape as the dark, burning silhouette he'd seen three times now, the last just hours ago when Seren had somehow discorporated the menacing image. If Anusha was its source, he supposed it was lucky she hadn't died in the psychic backlash. On the other hand, perhaps she was hurt in some mental fashion Japheth couldn't overtly observe; he hadn't been able to wake her by saying her name aloud or shaking her.

The warlock had vaguely noticed the girl around the Marhana estate over the last few years, without really paying her too much mind. Lately he noted she had started dressing more like a woman than a child. And why not? She had grown. She must be at least twenty years, come to think of it. An adult, despite how Behroun seemed to treat her. Looking back, he supposed she was held back from the rights and responsibilities of true adulthood, as the children of the privileged often were. If she had been born into the circumstances most faced across Faerыn, she would already be about her chosen trade in a journeyman's capacity, possibly even married and caring for children of her own.

Japheth said, "Anusha, wake up!" She stirred slightly, but did not open her eyes.

She wasn't unattractive. Now that he thought back, he remembered she had essayed a few awkward attempts to engage Japheth in conversation. He'd always cut those moments short. The warlock disliked Behroun so much that he'd instinctively backed away from any interaction with the man's younger sibling.

When he'd thought about her at all, he'd assumed she was a lonely girl to be pitied for her isolation, nothing more. He'd been proved wrong. Her apparent role at Marhana Manor must have been an elaborate ruse to fool anyone who had business with Behroun that Anusha was harmless.

Japheth continued to study her.

He never suspected Anusha might be spellscarred.

"Time to see what you have to say for yourself," he muttered as he snagged a blue vial from the litter of eccentric objects on his cot.

He popped the vial's stopper and poured its fizzing contents into the girl's mouth. The scent of honey and orange blossoms filled the restricted cabin. He was unconcerned she would choke on the fluid, despite her slumber. It was an elixir of healing; he could not harm her with the fluid even if he wanted to.

Anusha's eyes opened, bleary and wincing away from the light. She blinked a few times, and then tracked around until she focused on Japheth. Her brows knit, as if someone had just posed her a riddle she couldn't quite solve.

Japheth said, "Hello in there. Anusha, isn't it?"

"Uh…" she said, her voice cracking with disuse.

"I must admit, you fooled me. I am in awe of your theatric skill. Still, the job Behroun set you in this ship to accomplish is done. Now that I know you're aboard, you'll not catch me unaware of your scrutiny again. Not that I had planned on double-crossing Behroun… though his mistrust wounds me."

"W-what?"

Japheth plunged forward. "What I find far more intriguing is how you pursue your spycraft. How long have you been spellscarred? I didn't think you were caught in the initial wave-of course, if you had been, you would be grossly disfigured, I suppose."

"Spellscarred?"

The girl continued to play her role, so well in fact that Japheth wondered if one or more of his assumptions were incorrect.

Despite himself, he reached out and said, "Let me help you out of there, eh? Then you can tell me your side of things. How your brother put you up to it and all that."

Anusha tried to sit up, groaned, and fell back.

"Take my hand," said Japheth, his palm still proffered.

Anusha took it, and he pulled her into a sitting position. Her fingers were cool and slightly clammy. She relinquished his grip, coughed, ran a hand through her tangled hair, and… blushed?

She said, "F-first, you're wrong. Behroun didn't send me. I came on my own; he doesn't know I'm here. This is probably the last place he'll think to look for me. He's a toad."

"A toad?"

"He doesn't care anything about me-only if I can help him get adopted into New Sarshel's lineage of noble Houses. Without me to back up his claim, there's no way they'll let him join their cozy club."

"I see," said Japheth, though he did not. "So why are you here, if he did not set you to spy on me?"

"I had to go somewhere!" She threw up her hands. "Behroun was trying to send me away to the country; he thinks assassins are after me." She snorted.

"Assassins that have a strange, ghostlike silhouette, perhaps?"

She looked down and said, "Yes."

Japheth waited a moment then asked, "A shape you call to do your bidding am I right? Some sort of spirit of the air that answers and reports to you?"

"No, that shape is me," she blurted, looking directly into his eyes for a moment, then glancing down again. "The shape is… my dream self. I dream myself out into the world, leaving my sleeping body behind. Usually no one can see me. Except for you. And a guard dog on this ship. And… people can see my reflection."

"You're a wizard then, despite your tender years, able to cast spells of scrying." "No, I-"

"Perhaps you have applied yourself to the mental arts and have learned psionic, remote viewing?"

"Nothing like that!" she protested. "No, it just happened one night. I was having a dream. One of those dreams where you know you are dreaming? And I saw you."

"Me?" He forgot his follow-up inquiry about how Behroun intended to communicate with her while she spied.

"Yes. I was lost in the city I thought a dreamscape. Then I saw you, and I followed you. I thought it was all inside my own head. You walked into an old curio shop, and, um…"

The warlock realized she had seen him purchase traveler's dust. Unexpectedly, a sliver of shame touched him. It was his turn to blush.

"Anyhow," said Anusha, "when you left the shop, I followed you back to Behroun's office. I saw you… agree to Lord Marhana's demand. I thought it was all a fantasy of sleep. Then I discovered everything I witnessed actually happened. I was seeing the waking world."

Japheth looked at the girl with narrowed eyes. He said, "I don't understand."

Anusha shook her head. "You think I do? It just happened to me. I took a nap, and next thing I knew, I was dreaming myself into the world!"

"Have you had any contact with spellplague?"

She shook her head, but her eyes grew thoughtful. Anusha said, "No, but I've been beset by dreams of burning blue. Isn't that how it looks?"

Japheth nodded. "I think my assessment is correct. You are spellscarred."

The girl shuddered. She said, "The one thing I know for certain is that I saw Behroun when he didn't know I was watching. He is an awful man."

"He has his peculiarities," offered Japheth diplomatically. The girl was a sibling of Lord Marhana, even if only by one parent. And she still could be spinning a great yarn and secretly working with her half brother.

"He is a killer, and I hate him," she declared, staring at Japheth as if challenging him to say differently.

The warlock changed tactics. "So you… 'woke' to strange new abilities and learned your brother was a bastard, who-"

"Literally a bastard," she interrupted.

"Yes, right," he sighed. "My question, then, is merely this: how is it that I find you stuffed, of your own accord apparently, into a travel chest on a ship of freebooters allied with your oh-so-hateful half brother?"

"I told you! He was trying to send me away, out of the city. I decided I would go, but somewhere of my own choosing. Somewhere he would never think to look for me. Somewhere I could see things I was never allowed to even imagine while I was kept safe in my suite. Since I can dreamwalk, I thought I could mingle even with pirates and stay safe."

"You sought adventure? I hate to break it to you, but the stories about the exploits of heroes leave out-"

"That's only half of it!" she snapped. "Mostly, I was worried. I wanted to see what Behroun is so excited about. I wanted to know what sort of deal he's going to make with pirates and who knows what else. I'm still loyal to my family name, you know, even if everyone treats me like I'm a child. If Behroun means to do something to drag the Marhana name through tar, I intend to stop him."

"Hmm," mused Japheth. He hadn't expected that sentiment. Perhaps she wasn't as emotionally-shallow as he'd initially assumed.

Japheth said aloud, "If your words are not lies to blind me-"

He raised his hand to silence her protest.

"Why are you on board this ship physically at all? If you can dreamwalk, why didn't you just send your dream self to the ship? If we sink, you could have awakened safely on land. Now you'll go down with the rest of us."

"My dream form can stray only a little way from my body. Only about a mile, maybe two. I can't explore the whole world when I dreamwalk-only what's nearby."

Japheth rubbed his jaw, not certain if he believed the girl. He knew of a quick and dirty enchantment that could compel her to tell the truth… but if it turned out she hadn't been lying, the act of robbing her of her own volition, however J briefly, would turn her against him. That was the problem with such inducements-one never really knew in the first place whether one had properly identified a reasonable target | for harsh questions until afterward. That's why enlightened | societies frowned on the use of involuntary, magical interrogations or even baser forms of physical torture.

Of course, in these post-Spellplague years, when 5 things were only just coming under control, surviving institutions were not the sticklers for decorum they had been before the Year of Blue Fire.

More to the point, Japheth had worked long and hard on developing a persona that matched his circumstances. That facade he'd created for himself, friendless and cruel, hard to acquaintances and vicious to enemies, would force the truth from the girl in a moment, regardless of consequence.

Why didn't she show more fear? She even knew he walked the crimson road, yet she treated him in a strangely friendly manner, as if she didn't, in truth, fear him.

Japheth decided, for the moment, to act as if he believed Anusha.

"Very well, then, Lady Anusha," he said, surprising himself with the smile in his voice, "let's get you cleaned up and give you a little exercise, eh? You can move about here within my cabin unseen. No one has the key but me."

Japheth drew some fresh water from ship stores and filled a large hand basin for Anusha. He heated the water with a flourish of fire, smiled, and left her to her own devices.

It was tricky given the limited space in the cabin, but she managed a reasonably decent sponge bath. If nothing else, at least she had tendays of clean clothing in her travel case.

She found a hand mirror in the trunk and observed her image in its restricted oval. Presentable, she decided. Her hair was still damp, but she rather liked the look. She imagined it made her seem daring. Anusha wondered if Japheth thought so.

She struck a pose, and then laughed. "How about that, warlock? You've found a stowaway who isn't afraid of your mysterious ways."

A voice outside the door silenced her.

"Captain? Can I help you?" It was Japheth's voice, faint as if from some distance away.

A much louder reply sounded right outside the door. "Japheth, ain't you a fair sight; just the man I was looking for. We have a problem."

Anusha stifled a gasp.

"What sort of problem?" Japheth's voice was closer now.

"Something's moving around your cabin. It may be our ghost still devils us."

Anusha began to stealthily gather her unpacked clothes, combs, and other oddments from the floor, cot, and tiny cabinet holding the hand basin. Her belongings were everywhere!

"Captain," came Japheth's voice, "you're right. Behroun sent along a secret spy to watch us. Seren flushed it out, but its presence remains."

She smothered a gasp of surprise.

"Damn me for a kobold!" came Thoster's reply.

"I'm afraid so. Fortunately I recognized the creature's purpose. It is a ghost in truth-the spirit of an executed murderer. Behroun suborned it with necromancy and set it to watch us."

"Beat me with a yardarm!"-

"Indeed," returned Japheth. "Just in case the spirit survived Seren's attack, I set a trap for it in my cabin. Lucky I did! I caught it not more than an hour ago. It is held fast in a prism chiseled from a gorgon's heart."

"A gorgon's heart?"

"Dangerous to gaze upon, I know, but not to worry. Such things are extremely effective for holding ghosts and other immaterial wisps. Do you want to take a look? If you take just a quick peek, you should be all right, I suppose. I don't have to warn you what could happen if you stare too long at a prism carved from a gorgon's heart."

"… no, no Japheth, I can imagine it well enough without taking a gander. Sounds as if you have the spirit well in hand. We can deal with Behroun when we return to Impiltur. Ain't no need to risk the Green Siren's captain, eh?"

Japheth laughed in agreement.

"Just see to it you don't let it loose again, eh? And don't speak of this to anyone, not even Nyrotha." "Of course."

Anusha heard the captain's heavy footsteps recede.

A quiet knock sounded on the cabin door. Anusha unbolted the latch and stood back.

Japheth glided into the chamber and closed the door behind him. There was no place for both of them to stand except within half an arm's length from each other. The warlock smelled of musk and sandalwood.

"You look rested," he said, grinning. His eyes danced, and the brooding lilies of his face melted.

"I thought you were giving me up!" she whispered, despite that she wanted to shout.

The warlock laughed, nodding. "I wondered if you could hear what I said. A shade of the truth to make the lie more believable, is all."

"What if the captain had decided to look?"

Japheth shook his head. "I knew he wouldn't. Thoster and his crew will do much to avoid the unquiet dead. Behroun told me the Green Siren had an encounter with a ghost ship last year. They lost a quarter of the tirew. I suspected the captain would be happy to let me handle the 'ghost spy,' especially after I threw in that nonsense about a gorgon's heart."

"Still," she chided him. She grabbed his upper arm and squeezed.

Japheth looked down at her hand.

Anusha immediately released her hold and said, "Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't-"

"No, no, you can touch me. I don't mind. I mean…" Japheth cleared his throat and said, "We shouldn't be embarrassed of a little contact in a close space like this. It's bound to happen."

"Yes," she agreed, wondering what Japheth was really thinking. Her stomach fluttered as if butterfly wings trembled beneath her skin.

"In any event," continued the warlock, with perhaps just a touch of new color on his cheeks, "if you're concerned the captain will drop in unexpectedly, maybe you should slip out of here as a dream and look around the ship every so often, just as a precaution."

"I can't fall asleep on a moment's notice," Anusha replied. "I can only dreamwalk once I'm asleep, and I'm afraid I've been getting too much of that lately. The first time I dreamwalked, it was only after I stayed awake for nearly a tenday!"

Japheth looked thoughtful. He carefully pushed past her to his cot, his shoulder brushing against hers. He said, "See? Bound to happen," he said lightly, then turned his attention to his duffel and its contents.

"You know, Anusha, I could help you fall asleep whenever you wished, instead of waiting for tiredness to overcome you. Then you could dreamwalk at need."

"I could?"

He nodded, an excited smile turning up the corners of his mouth. His hands skimmed over the cluttered containers on his coverlet. He selected one glass bottle filled with a thick purple fluid. He popped the seal, gave a sniff, and then recoiled. "This is too strong undiluted…" he said under his breath.

"Ah!" Japheth plucked a silver vial from the cot and uncorked it, looked in, and mumbled, "Empty, that's good." He allowed a single drop of the thick purple fluid to fall in.

The warlock grabbed the waterskin from his belt and filled the silver vial to the brim. A puff of white mist escaped the open vial like the exhalation of a panting beast. A smell like blackberries wafted through the cabin. Japheth capped the vial and held it out to Anusha.

She accepted the cold silver thing. She asked, "So what is this exactly?"

"It is a potion of somnolence," said Japheth, as if that explained everything.

"Is it a drug?" Anusha asked.

Japheth's gaze flicked down to the vial in her hand, then back to her eyes. He replied, "It will help you unleash your dream form when you're too provoked to sleep. Just a sip should be enough to send you off to dreamland in less time than it takes to count down from ten. But yes, I suppose you could call it a drug. Use it only when you have time to sleep for several hours. If you don't abuse its use, you'll be fine. But if you're worried, pour it out. I was only trying to help."

Anusha examined the vial, her mind turning over the warlock's gift. Because it was from him, she ultimately decided to keep it. She didn't want to hurt his feelings. And after all, the soporific fluid could prove indispensable in the right situation. It couldn't hurt to keep the elixir.

The morning dawned wet and windswept. Iron gray waves stretched away in all directions save for the mist-shrouded line to the south. The line was the boundary between the sea and an island.

Foam-spotted wakes stretched away from the shoreline in both directions. Flashes of green fins, black gills, and long, muscular tails were visible even from the Green Siren's deck. Countless fish swam just below the surface. The swarm grazed some invisible nutrient, moving now in unison, now in erratic frenzy.

As the Green Siren drew closer, the shore resolved into a beach of acrid water, weeds, and brine pools. The polluted-looking sand was vacant but for gray rocks in heaps, oddly scoured rock formations, and a lone tower slick with dark fungus.

Captain Thoster had warned Japheth to expect the old tower, and indeed the small isle on which the tower was situated. He named isle and tower Hegruth. Both had been drowned beneath the surface of the Sea of Fallen Stars for millennia. The receding sea now revealed the forgotten ruin of unknown provenance. Its obscurity and appearance on no terrestrial map made it the perfect place for a clandestine meeting with… someone.

Thoster had been less forthcoming about the identity of she who was supposedly going to offer them the deal of the decade, a deal so fruitful it would make Marhana's fortune. Japheth knew their contact was a female by the pronoun Thoster used to describe her, but nothing more.

The warlock turned his gaze away from the tower to scan back along the Green Siren's deck. The crew not taking in sail or shipping oars openly stared at the approaching tower, apparently as unfamiliar with the beslimed spire as himself. Captain Thoster stood on the elevated poop deck at the pirate ship's stern. On the captain's left was the doughty helmsman, whose scarred hands gripped the wheel with casual skill. To Thoster's right stood Seren, the war wizard. The woman caught his eye and winked.

Japheth stared back without acknowledging the gesture. Seren was like him in some ways-she had learned, sooner than most others, to master anew the raw arcane energies that permeated the world after all spells went awry. Unlike him, she hadn't cheated by finding an easier route to reclaim arcane magic with drugs and pacts. By Seren's accoutrement, it seemed she had found her way back through study of magic with a vicious, unyielding determination.

He completed his scan of the deck. Nowhere did he detect a wavering, shadowy silhouette with the outline of an impetuous girl. That didn't mean Anusha wasn't present in her "dream form." With her sharing his cabin, he hadn't taken any traveler's dust in two days. Without the heightened sensitivity of the drug, he was blind to her direct presence.

His palms broke out with moist itch, even as his mouth dried. He recognized the signs; he'd gone too long since last he'd stepped foot on the road. He should take a pinch now. Just a single grain, that would be-

He squeezed his eyes shut, slightly disgusted at the sudden veering of his desire. He had resisted the urge to stride the road longer than normal, and now he was out of sorts. The itch on his palms grew more pronounced. Why did he resist the urge?

Anusha was the reason, he admitted.

Why was he suddenly so concerned with how she viewed him? It wasn't like him. Then his cloak fluttered of its own accord, as if something beneath its dark folds sought escape. Had he imagined it, or was his control over the portal stitched into the cloak's hem fraying with his lack of concentration? He couldn't restrain a worried groan.

A voice in his ear interrupted his internal dread. "Are you well, Japheth?"

The warlock blanched and spun around, recognizing the whisper a moment too late to quell his reaction. Anusha had apparently been standing next to him all along.

From the poop deck, Japheth saw Captain Thoster's large hat swivel toward him for a moment, then back to the approaching tower.

Barely moving his lips, Japheth said to thin air, "Do not startle me so. The captain notices my strange antics of late.

I think he's worried about the ghost in the gorgon heart."

He thought he heard a suppressed giggle, nothing else. The girl's physical remove from reality made her rash, he thought.

Then again… wasn't he being equally rash avoiding that which was required, if not now, then later? It wouldn't matter what she thought of him if his mind spun free of reason for failing to set spiritual feet on the crimson road.

His shaking hands produced a small, dull tin. From it, he produced a grain of traveler's dust.

"Japheth," came her instant whisper. He ignored the entreaty. He tilted his head toward the sky and dropped the miniscule crystal into his left eye.

The itch faded. His breathing steadied, and his hands ceased their shake. By the time the tin was re-stowed in the folds of his cloak, he saw the outline of Anusha's dream form fold itself into the scene. He smiled her way, and then looked out again past the wooden railing.

The air was like crystal, the sky an open glass, and the water a translucent skin that his enhanced vision easily, joyfully pierced. The many wakes in the water were indeed, as earlier surmised, fish, though swimming among the crowd were several scaled humanoid forms, half hidden among the schools, keeping their heads just below the water's surface. Japheth wondered if those creatures were associated with the entity they were to meet. He mentally shrugged-it didn't matter that much to him at the moment, as the drug's euphoric effect blew through his mind like a gust of cool air.

Something emerged from the tower balcony. Some sort of humanoid, kin to those swimming beneath the surface in front of the tower. He'd made an astute guess.

Though still relatively far, Japheth's dust-enhanced vision saw the figure had a round face surmounted by wide, bulbous eyes that stared back at him, rarely blinking. Its lipless mouth was a long slit bisecting the lower face, closed, though he suspected rows of needle teeth within. The creature wore a gold crown on its head like an artificial crest. Its garments were singularly gold-hued, as was its pincer-headed staff. This must be the… female they had come so far to meet.

Captain Thoster's voice rang out across the waves, apparently magically augmented by Seren, "Hail, Nogah of Olleth! We have come, as you asked. Let us parley and see how we may serve each other, and in so doing, serve ourselves!"

The creature replied, her words also supernaturally loud, though blurred and lisped, as if being formed by a vocal apparatus never meant to choke out Common. She said, "Well met, Captain Thoster. Welcome to my abode, again."

The captain barked orders. The anchor was let out. The ship's launch was prepared for a landing party, and then carefully lowered over the side. Those going ashore would include the captain, Seren, Japheth, and several nervous crew members.

Japheth just stared, absorbing all the frenzied activity but apart from it. Whorls and swirls of dazzling color intruded upon his vision, and just as reality seemed to waver in favor of a winding road of ruby, Thoster called him over to the side of the ship where they'd lowered the launch. Japheth forced his mind back from the imaginary trip it yearned to take. Instead, he climbed down a knotted rope ladder into the rocking launch.

Anusha's roiling, uncertain outline wavered at the prow. She gazed at the tower, though all aboard the ship but he failed to see her. The crew pulled on the launch's oars, not bothering with putting sail to the single, short mast. Quickly enough, the craft crossed the distance between the anchored Green Siren and the squalid shore.

Japheth disembarked. Seawater slopped over the top of his boots and soaked his feet. The odor of decaying fish burned his nostrils. Once the boat was pulled up onto the beach, the landing party made for the base of the tower, Thoster and Seren in the lead, followed by four pirates with their weapons drawn. Japheth brought up the rear. The girl, whose sleeping body still lay in the Green Siren, kept him company.

A gaping hole in the tower's base opened onto narrow basalt stairs that circled upward in shallow loops, tracing the tower's circular exterior. When they reached the first landing, the weapon-wielding pirates preceded Thoster and the others into the chamber where their host waited.

The room was moist, and the ceiling was so low the captain's hat threatened to scrape it. As before, Japheth's drug-heightened sensitivity revealed a translucent, greenish sparkle to the captain's skin in a regular, repeating pattern.

The warlock realized the pattern he saw below the captain's skin resembled the fishy scales of the creature standing before them, she who Thoster called Nogah.

Emboldened by his altered state, Japheth broke the mutual silence. "You are no sea elf, that's certain."

Nogah fixed the warlock with her dinner-plate eyes and blinked.

Captain Thoster laughed, and then said, "Nay, sea elves ain't been seen much in the Fallen Stars since the Spellplague. Except for Myth Nantar, their cities mostly shook to rubble, and they're keeping beneath the waves-who knows when they'll be back, or if. Nogah here is kuo-toa. She's a 'whip,' which means something like a queen-in-waiting, maybe. Her folks have been gathering in the waters hereabouts ever since they seized Olleth-"

"Captain Thoster," lisped the kuo-toa whip, "your swift arrival is much appreciated. But who are these two?" The creature gestured with her staff toward Seren and Japheth. She didn't react to Anusha, who stood at the kuo-toa's elbow in immaterial guise.

"Nogah, these are the ones I promised who can help," said the captain. "Seren is a wizard, and Japheth says he's a warlock."

"They can access arcane magic?" she inquired, her eyes blinking rapidly.

"Yeah, quick studies, they are. I seen 'em both hurl spells, which is better than most the old mages can claim, except for all the liars."

"Good," she crooned.

Seren stepped forward. "Yes, I am here to help; I don't know about him." The wizard waved toward Japheth. "Thing is, I don't know with what. The good captain wouldn't tell me. He just kept repeating that meeting you would be worth my while."

The kuo-toa gazed a few more heartbeats at Seren, then swiveled to stare at the warlock.

Japheth's buzzing thoughts finally lined up enough for him to say "I have the proxy of the shipping magnate, Behroun Marhana of New Sarshel. While I have many talents of my own, I can also call upon my patron's material and financial resources, if I judge what I hear today to be in Marhana's interests."

Nogah rasped something in a tongue Japheth didn't know, and then added, "Listen, then, and see."

The kuo-toa gestured toward the balcony opening. "What do you see?" she asked.

Beyond the balcony's stone railing rolled the wide sea. The Green Siren rode the swells, and the numberless marine creatures along the shore continued to fulfill ancient drives to eat and propagate. Japheth also saw the other kuo-toa below the surface, much closer now than they had been before. They must be moving closer in case their mistress needed help in dealing with her visitors.

Captain Thoster said, "A whole lot of nothing. So?"

"I see a world ready to be plucked," replied Nogah. Japheth tried to ignore her squishy, lisping inflection to Common, like she was trying to suck the marrow out of a bloody bone with each word. His state of mind made it difficult to concentrate.

She continued, "I see a world crying out for new direction. A world where those who align themselves properly will be rewarded with riches beyond their wildest dreams. What do you say to that?"

"I see that every time I pull alongside a merchant ship and demand the contents of their hold," boasted Thoster.

"Baubles compared to what I offer." Nogah sniffed.

"What exactly do you offer?" asked Seren.

"I offer you a measure of protection and even control when I summon up old lords and old races. When I call upon antique powers that dwarf any our world has heretofore known, everything changes. I'm offering you the chance to survive that change, and what's more, profit from it. Perhaps even exercise some measure of control over the events that fate might otherwise dictate."

Neither Thoster nor Seren had an immediate reply. They seemed a little taken aback. Japheth said, "A very kind offer, to be sure. Especially since most of us have just met. You must want something from us, if you're willing to give so much?"

The kuo-toa whip nodded, her eyes blinking rapidly. She said, "Of course."

"If you have the strength to call up these 'old lords and old races,'" queried Japheth, "beings that can reorder the world in the manner you describe, what help from us could you possibly require?"

"Ah, that is the tangle, drylander. I have lost the talisman required to begin. It was stolen from me, and I need help to retrieve it."

"Sure," said Thoster. "Why's it you can't get aid from Olleth itself, a city filled with kuo-toa? Come, Nogah, what need have you for me and folks I can gather?"

"You are perceptive, Captain Thoster. One of the reasons I enjoy our dealings so much. But your assumption is incorrect; Olleth will not help me. In fact, they want me dead."

"You're a whip. They can't strip you o' that."

"They can. They have. I have been named race traitor, blasphemer, and I've been excommunicated from the Sea Mother's church. No kuo-toa will have anything to do with me, other than try to skin my hide as a trophy."

Japheth held his tongue, even though he could see kuo-toa below the water line with his crimson gaze. Obviously Nogah exaggerated the degree to which her own race reviled her. The kuo-toa he could see there were drawing closer still. Many had moved so close to the tower's base that the warlock could no longer see them below the balcony's floor. The kuo-toa had a strangely feral look to them-their eyes were smaller than Nogah's, more bestial. Strange.

Also, the day's light was waning. A sea mist was rolling in across the waves. Already the Green Siren was enveloped and lost to sight. The fog's leading face churned onward, sending streamers of mist snaking toward the shore and tower. Japheth had never seen anything like it. Then again, he rarely traveled by sea. For all he knew, the phenomenon was natural. The kuo-toa he saw converging through the wave-tossed shallows were not alarmed by the advancing mist. In fact, by their sudden unnerving grins, it seemed they welcomed its arrival.

Thoster was saying, "For the sake of argument, let's say you ain't lying to me. You really do need my help and that of these others. Who stole this talisman from you, and where can we find the thief?"

The warlock wanted to know more about these "old lords and old races." Japheth had some experience with ancient beings who promised great power. Nothing was ever simple when it came to such extraordinary guarantees. The single "old lord" he had discovered and entered into a pact with had ultimately proved an alarming force in Japheth's life.

Certainly, if not for the Lord of Bats, the crimson road would have claimed the warlock long before now. Being alive, no matter the situation, had to be preferable to being dead. Right? It was a question he often asked himself. And despite his ties, he did delight in the various arcane tricks and amazing curses he was now able to call upon. And what about the impressive space hidden within the folds of his cloak? Other men would give far more than he to be able to wear such a thing as an article of clothing.

On the other hand, if not for the pact he'd sworn to the Lord of Bats, he wouldn't have to daily attend to the bidding of Behroun Marhana, a fouler and pettier man Japheth had yet to meet. What a convoluted series of events had put him in such thrall, he mused. If only-

"You're insane!" Seren's sudden accusation brought Japheth back to the present. While he had been touring, for the hundred thousandth time, his past indiscretions and failures, the others had continued their discussion. Something had riled up the war wizard, and even Thoster's eyes were wide with unexpected surprise. What had he missed?

Nogah raised a conciliatory, webbed hand. "I grant that on its face, the task we must accomplish…"

A rivulet of mist edged across the tower and into the balcony. It seemed a live thing, a fog tentacle seeking something.

"How peculiar," said the warlock. He wondered if the opaque cold front was natural weather after all. For one thing, his dust-enhanced vision was having difficulty piercing it.

Alerted by his comment, the kuo-toa glanced at the advancing mist streamer. She shrieked, then lisped, "Gethshemeth knows!"

She backed away from the advancing streamer. She rasped, "The mist is merely a cloak-it hides whatever force the great kraken has thrown at us!"

Great kraken? Japheth repeated mentally. What folderol is this?

The war wizard spat out a flurry of loose syllables and waved her red-runed wand. A gentle breeze issued from nowhere to blow toward the balcony opening. The mist's ominous advance slowed, hesitated, and then began to retreat in the face of the mild but unrelenting draft. But how long would the woman's casting keep it at bay?

An ululation of feral anticipation soared up from somewhere below the tower, hollow yet somehow more threatening because of the muffling, mysterious mist.

"The kuo-toa…" began Japheth, his voice a dry croak. He tried to shake off the lethargy the traveler's dust sometimes produced when he didn't succumb to its vision of the burning road. "The kuo-toa outside that are converging on us-are they with you, Nogah?"

She hissed, blinked rapidly. She said, "Fool! I told you I am anathema in Olleth. The Sea Mother has demanded my head for my affront. But worse, all those I subverted with the Dreamheart now follow Gethshemeth, the great kraken. It sends them against me now, lest I contrive a plan to take back what it stole!"

Seren broke in. "Fool? You're asking us to go against a great kraken and call us fools?"

The moist patter of many squishy feet sounded loud on the open stair.

Captain Thoster drew his slender straight-sword from its silver sheath. Metallic disks inset flush in the blade's side whirred and spun with golem-like precision. A greenish fluid pulsed within straight, hair-thin conduits that ran from hilt to tip, whetting the fine edge of the blade with an emerald sheen. Thoster called it his Blade of Venom, an antique but deadly weapon found among Lantan's watery remains. A product of vanished gnome craftsmen, who infused knowledge of golems and gears into their works.

Seren began the opening phrases of a spell.

Anusha… Japheth couldn't see her. Was she gone, or had the sensitivity granted by his traveler's dust passed?

"Are we facing the great kraken itself?" asked Thoster. The captain stared into the wide, fog-obscured opening on the balcony. "It could reach this high, I think."

Japheth replied, his voice growing surer, "I saw only kuo-toa converging, no kraken small or great."

"Well… maybe we ain't all dead!" exclaimed Thoster. A small grin chased away worry lines with deeper grooves. "Fish-men I can handle. No offense, Nogah." The captain turned to face the stairs, his blade whirring and clicking like a hungry insect.

Unless the kraken has come in the meantime, thought the warlock. Better be sure.

Japheth projected an arcane summons into the space hidden within his cloak, to his hidden fortress, shadow-drenched Darroch Castle. The call roused those he sought from their lightless roosts. Crying and chirping their eagerness in registers higher than men could hear, they emerged as a dark swarm from Japheth's billowing cloak.

Seren and Nogah both exclaimed in tones surprisingly similar for such disparate family trees. Thoster, familiar with the warlock's many abilities, grinned wider.

The cloud of flapping black motes arced straight into the wall of mist, immediately lost to sight.

But bats did not rely on eyes alone, and now, neither did Japheth. Nay, he was the bat swarm. Closing his eyes on the tower interior, he opened his perceptions to the audibly sculpted, texture-defined world the bats inhabited.

His fingers, grown long and composed only of sound, caressed the tower as its rounded sides fell away behind. The wet, uncertain boundary of the sea lapped up from below. Bipeds with large, noise-muffling eyes and hard scales scampered from the water's edges up the beach of sound-scattering sand, to join their brethren already snorting and giggling at the tower's base.

Japheth directed the darting swarm out over the water. His touch-sight stretched down to pat the sea's inconstant surface. The water was impenetrable, but its fluid, ever-changing nature betrayed the shapes of what lay beneath. Mostly, that was bulging swells of water that rolled endlessly to the shore, there to break and froth on the sand. But the swarm also discerned schools of fish as small mounds sliding along the surface, the edges of a half-formed coral reef, and what might even be a drowned shipwreck.

Nowhere could he perceive what he most feared to discover: great, sinuous bulges in the water hinting at tentacles hundreds or more feet in length, or a great bulblike central body with a brain more ancient than the founding of Impiltur. Japheth had seen pictures of kraken in the Candlekeep stacks.

He found no evidence of such a shape, but something else was fast approaching.

A handful of ballista-like shapes arrowed through the water. They left V-shaped wakes behind each one's single high fin that pierced the boundary into air. Sharks, and big ones. Worryisomely, the contours of reflected sound revealed each bore a rider, but the swirling seawater foiled him from teasing out real shape from fancy.

The swarm veered closer, darting down to intersect the line of the onrushing fins.

Japheth saw a warty arm rise from the water and point. He had just a heartbeat to study it, to recognize that its oozing, sound-absorbing flesh wasn't the scaled arm of a kuo-toa, before pain cut his connection to the swarm.

He opened his eyes, his mouth dry.

"What?" said Captain Thoster.

"Kuo-toa, maybe twenty. Well, maybe they're not exactly kuo-toa; they looked warped somehow. And, I think… a covey of water witches."