Rising Tide

XX

15 Mirtul, the Year of the Gauntlet

"Impossible," Sabyna said, pushing her way free of the young sailor. "We're miles from land." She had trouble standing as Breezerunner continued rocking while its length cleared the obstruction. Rushing to the railing, she peered down into the dark water, knowing the obstruction had to be underwater or the pilot and lookouts would have seen it.

Jaxx in the crow's nest sounded general quarters on the conch shell kept there for that purpose. The mournful wail filled the night. Men erupted out onto the ship. Many of them were half-dressed, and the night shift carried lanterns that threw dizzying ellipses across the deck.

"What in the three by three hells's going on here?" Tynnel yelled. He stood in the open doorway of his cabin under the stern castle, a cutlass naked in his fist.

"Hit something, cap'n!" Jaxx called down.

"What?"

"Don't know, cap'n. Didn't see anything then, and don't see anything now."

"Mornis," Tynnel shouted.

"Sir," the first mate called back.

"Get down into that hold and let me know what kind of shape we're in." The captain strode across the deck, glancing in all directions suspiciously. He closed on Sabyna. "I thought you kept a spell on this vessel that would warn us in the event of a possible collision."

"I do," the ship's mage said. "I renewed it this afternoon." She faced the captain with certainty. "Whatever we hit, it's less than thirty feet in length and underwater." The spell she'd managed to put on Breezerunner would notify them of anything bigger than that, or any stationary object above the water line. "Probably it's drifting as well."

Mornis reappeared at the top of the hold, gasping. He was a man in his middle years, his head shaved bald though he wore a forked gray beard. "We appear to be whole, cap'n, not taking on any water that I could find."

Tynnel waved him off, glancing briefly at the young sailor standing beside Sabyna, then back at the ship's mage. "I want to know what kind of shape my ship's in," he told her in a harsh voice.

Sabyna felt a momentary flicker of fire at the tone in his voice, but she pushed it out of her mind, clearing her thoughts so she could work her spells. She wasn't going to forget the treatment, and they would talk about it later. Just because she was occupying herself with company didn't mean she was letting down on the job.

She also didn't blame Tynnel for his gruffness; his ship was his life and his freedom. Without it, he'd be land-bound or working for someone else. Even independent ship owners relied on investors to a degree, and bringing a cargo in late or not at all risked financial disaster.

Pushing out her breath to further relax, she headed for the hold. The spell came easily to her lips and she took a one inch unflawed steel disk from her belt pouch that she kept with her. She rubbed it between thumb and forefinger as she descended into the hold.

"May I accompany you?" Jherek asked.

Glancing to her side, Sabyna saw the young sailor stepping in to match her pace. She looked past him, further down the stairs leading into the hold and saw Tynnel's face lit by the lantern he carried. The captain didn't look happy about what he saw there.

"Yes," she said. "That'll be fine."

A little bit of score settling now wouldn't hurt, she thought. She'd been doing her job and Tynnel would have to admit that. She seized the lantern one of Mornis's men held, then walked the prow through the narrow corridor formed between the crates and huge wine flasks they intended to trade and sell along their route.

The air inside the hold was damp and fetid. It always was this time of year and so near the Shining Sea. Moisture clung to the oaken beams in places, gleaming under the lantern light.

At the prow she passed the young sailor her lantern, then spoke her spell. At the end of it, she tossed the steel disk into the air. Instantly, it burst into bright, hot flame and charred to nothing. Even before it finished burning away, her mage's senses had increased. She could feel the striations and pressures within the ship's structure like it was a second skin over her own bones. Even the cool of the sea lapped at her, and the wind sweeping Breeze-runner's deck prickled along her skin.

She walked the length of the ship. When she reached the other end, her spell-enhanced senses died away. Perspiration trickled down her cheeks and her head hurt from the stress and strain. "The ship's fine," she announced.

Tynnel didn't look any happier. "What did we hit?"

"We could go back and look," Sabyna suggested. She was curious herself, and she hated not at least making the effort to find out.

The captain led the way back to the main deck and shouted out the order to change the sails and bring Breezerunner around. "Can you pinpoint the area?" he asked her.

"I can give you my best guess," Sabyna answered.

Slowly, the ship came around, working with the wind. After only twenty minutes' searching, one of the sailors called out, "Found it, cap'n! Sunken ship by the looks of it!"

Sabyna felt a chill shoot through her stomach. A ship sunk this far out from Amn, there'd be no chance for any survivors that hadn't made the lifeboats or a rescue ship. It was too far to swim and the ocean was filled with savage creatures. She followed Tynnel to the starboard side and gazed out at the water as Breezerunner slowed from a crawl to a gentle bob fully stopped on the ocean's surface.

Three men handled lanterns in the prow, lowering them over the side by ropes. As clear and as clean as the sea was, even the lantern light at full night was enough to reveal the outlines of the small cog listing nearly upside down in the water. The stern area wasn't visible at all.

Tynnel gave orders to lower a rowboat with Mornis in charge. Shrill squeals whined around the deck as the block and tackles were used. The first mate quickly picked his people.

"Probably a damned waste of time," the captain said angrily as he peered at the stricken ship, "but we've got to investigate and see if there's any potential salvage value."

"She's not resting on the bottom," Sabyna said. "She's drifting. That's why we passed over her instead of her ripping our bottom out. There won't be any salvage. I've never seen a cog less than thirty feet long, and if it was longer than that, my alarm would have sounded. What we're seeing out there is part of a ship. Something broke it in half."

"We'll see."

"I'd like to go with the rowboat crew," she said.

He glanced at her with a sour expression. "I'd feel better if you stayed aboard Breezerunner."

"My magic will allow me more salvaging time and ability than anyone else you could send," she pointed out. "In these currents, that ship could be gone in moments, taken completely to the bottom."

Tynnel gave a short nod. "First sign of trouble, I want you back here."

Sabyna joined the rowboat crew, scrambling down the rope ladder that had been thrown over Breezerunner's side. Her feet reached the rowboat and Mornis guided her to secure footing.

"Lady."

She looked up at the young sailor who lied about his true name. "What?"

He held a lantern and the illumination turned the bronze of his face to smooth butter. "I've some experience in salvage work," Jherek said. "If I could be of assistance?"

"We don't need some wetnose along on something that could be a dangerous bit of business," Mornis stated gruffly. "Assuming there's nothing nasty waiting in that ship's carcass, if it goes down, there could be a hell of an undertow."

"He's worked as a shipwright," Sabyna said. "He could be of help." She glanced to the right and saw Tynnel standing there. "Captain?"

"Let him go," Tynnel said. "It's Sabyna's call."

Sabyna knew he was giving her back some of the authority and respect he'd stripped from her earlier. She kept the smile from her face and nodded to the young sailor.

Jherek joined them in the rowboat, hardly causing any rocking. Seating himself, he took up an oar and shoved it into an oarlock, then awaited commands.

Sabyna deliberately distanced herself from him and watched him as she sat in the middle of the rowboat. The slat felt hard and unyielding.

Mornis bawled out orders, getting the rowing groups into action. The rowboat came about smartly in the water, cutting through the gentle waves to the area marked from above by the lanterns.

Reaching into the bag of holding at her waist, Sabyna seized the hunk of ivory and off-white cloth inside and unfurled it into the air before her. All of the rowboat's crew except the young sailor drew back.

The cloth resembled a patchwork quilt without the stitching. When Sabyna released the cloth, the scraps fluttered and flew, twisting as if caught in a gentle hurricane. Then they bunched into a serpentine figure that wafted gently in the breeze six feet above the boat and the cowering sailors.

"Guard," Sabyna ordered.

The serpentine shape stretched out and flattened, riding the winds just above and in front of the rowboat.

"What is that?" Jherek asked.

Sabyna looked at him, searching for any reproach in his gaze. She didn't find it and guessed that he'd never heard of the creature. "That's a raggamoffyn," she told him. "My familiar."

"Some say those are creatures of evil," Jherek said, and several of the sailors quietly agreed with him.

Sabyna watched the raggamoffyn change its shape as if luxuriating in the freedom. Since it wasn't well received aboard Breezerunner, she didn't often let it out of the bag of holding except in her cabin.

"Some are evil, I suppose," she agreed. "Some are only pranksters and don't know anything of accountability. Pretty much, they're whatever they want to be. The raggamoffyns known as shrapnel are evil to the core. There are those who say that they're a race of creatures unto themselves, and still others who say they are the minions of a faceless wizard with a black heart. I don't know what to believe about all that, but this raggamoffyn does what I ask it to."

"I see."

The rhythmic sweep of the oars through the water provided an undercurrent to their conversation. Sabyna held her lantern aloft, searching the water ahead of the row-boat. The raggamoffyn involuntarily flinched away from the flame, creating a momentary bow in its present linear shape. "Its name is Skeins. I created it when it came time for me to take a familiar. The cloth it's made of is the shroud that covered my brother Dannin for his funeral service. I was ten when he died and I saved it, knowing exactly what I was going to do with it. When it was time, I sought out another raggamoffyn and made it perform the rites necessary to give life to Skeins."

"Ship the oars," Mornis ordered. "Get ready to pull away."

Sabyna stood in the rowboat's prow, gazing down into the water where the cog lay. The ship twisted and turned a little, rocking with the currents that held it. The wreckage appeared lifeless, white wood showing where some of the hull had been splintered and cracked under pressure.

Something thumped the inside of the ship, the hollow gonging noise echoing through the water was barely heard above the creak of the rowboat.

Jherek listened to the thumping coming from inside the wrecked cog. It sounded across the flat sea, and stopped after less than a minute.

"All right," Mornis said, "I need two volunteers to investigate the wreck."

None of the sailors raised their hands.

"I'll go," Jherek said.

"An" you're a damn fool if you do," Aysel said from further back in the stern.

Jherek had seen the big man come aboard when the rowboat had been loaded, but had ignored him. He ignored him again and rose easily to his feet. He pulled off his boots and shucked his cutlass, keeping only the hook and a knife in a scabbard on his shin.

"Anyone else?" Mornis asked.

No one volunteered.

Jherek didn't blame them. If someone else had volunteered to go, he'd have let them. The water was dark, the illumination wouldn't travel very far into it, and there was no telling what lay below. He walked to the rowboat's edge and started taking deep breaths to completely fill his lungs for the dive.

"Brave bunch, aren't you?" Mornis challenged. He pulled off his own boots, then his shirt. He kept a long saw-toothed knife. He flicked his gaze to Jherek. "You might want to take that shirt off too, lad."

"I'll be all right," Jherek replied, not wanting to chance the tattoo being seen. "The water will be cold."

The first mate chuckled. "About to dive into something like that," he gestured at the sunken cog, "and you're worried about a little chill." He shook his head. "You ready to do this?"

"Aye." Jherek marshaled his control, pushing away the fear that filled him. He didn't know any of these people, much less whoever might be in the sunken cog. He had no business jumping into that water, but he couldn't pass it up either.

"I've got a candle here that's got a bit of magic in it," the first mate said, rummaging in the pouch he kept at his waist. "Once it's lit, it'll burn underwater as well. Mage who sold it to me called it a candle of everburning. Cost me a lot, but a man at sea in the dark, light gets to be a most precious thing, you know?"

"Aye," Jherek said. He knew from experience how hopeful lights, even along an unknown coastline, could make a crew feel.

Mornis lit the candle and it caught with no problem even in the breeze blowing over the rowboat. He stepped to the rowboat's edge and dropped into the water.

Jherek followed the man, cleaving the water cleanly, not leaving the rush of bubbles behind the way Breezerunner's first mate did. He focused on the candle in the first mate's hand. The soft yellow glow belled out almost ten feet in all directions before the darkness of the water absorbed it.

The dulled splash of another body diving into the water sounded behind Jherek. He turned and looked up, watching as Sabyna swam toward him. The raggamoffyn took to the water as well, eeling through the ocean with more grace than the young sailor would have credited the creature with. He paused and waved the ship's mage back. She shook her head at him and kept swimming.

Turning his attention back to the cog now that he was near enough to see it, Jherek knew from the way it had broken in half that the ship had been sheared by its enemy. Arrows jutted out along the hull above where he believed the waterline would have been. A man's body, bloated and swollen from its time at sea and showing signs of having been attacked by small marine predators, twisted in the ship's rigging that dangled down from the broken deck.

With the way the cog was tilted, Jherek knew nothing survived in the cargo hold. It had been broken open to the sea and all compartments filled. That left only the stern cabin.

Evidently Mornis had the same thought because the first mate swam for the cabin at once. The cabin's door was tucked away under the ladder leading to the stern castle. On its side as the ship was, the cabin door faced down.

The thumping echoed through the sea, sounding eerily displaced and more immediate in the water. The first mate put his shoulder to the door and pushed but couldn't budge it.

The thumping repeated, suddenly showing more vigor, and Jherek knew someone was still alive on the ship. He swam to the first mate's side. Mornis moved the candle, showing the gaps between door and frame had been pressed together by the structural damage done to the cog and the depth's pressing in at it. The lock inside held it closed.

Desperate, his time to stay underwater with the oxygen in his lungs already growing short, Jherek used his knife to pry out the hinge bolts, letting them drop to the ocean bed hundreds of feet below. He sunk his hook into the wood beside the door to give himself more leverage, then flipped around so he could slam his feet into the door.

When he kicked out the third time, already going lightheaded from lack of oxygen and from the effort he was expending, the door turned sideways in its frame.

Mornis reached up and yanked it away, then swam inside with the candle leading the way.

Jherek went after him, trusting that some kind of air existed inside the cabin if someone was still alive. If there wasn't, he felt he could still make the surface before he passed out.

Books and other debris swirled around in the murky water, lit up by the candle. Even as he neared the surface inside the cabin, he glimpsed the boy standing there against one wall, immersed up to his chest.

The boy couldn't have been over nine years old, Jherek knew as he surfaced. Small framed and lean, the boy clung to the sconce mounted on the wall with fading strength. He held onto a brass candlestick with the other, using it as a weapon. His black hair was plastered against his head, and his eyes and nose were reddened from crying.

Jherek took a deep, shuddering breath and waited, giving the boy space. Mornis knew the boy was panic-stricken and stayed back as well.

"Easy, lad," the first mate said softly. "We're here to help you. Heard you knocking. You look like you're about all done in."

"They're all dead!" the boy screeched, fresh tears wetting his face. He held the candlestick threateningly.

"I know, lad. We seen 'em." Mornis swam forward, offering his hand. "I need you to come with me. We've got to be getting you out of here."

"Stay away!"

"Lad, you've been trying to save yourself for a long time from the looks of things," Mornis said, "but you can't hold on much longer. This old ship, she ain't going to last much longer neither."

"I don't know you," the boy shrilled. "I want my father!"

Jherek felt helpless, watching the boy trapped between grief and fear. It was a bad place to be. He knew from personal experience. His father's voice haunted him. So, are you gonna be a pirate and take your place proper on Bun-yip, or ain't you? Live or die, boy. The choice is simple. He forced the words away, tucking them back into that piece of his mind where the nightmares hid.

"What's your name?" Jherek asked softly and calmly.

The boy refused to answer, drawing big gulps of air as he frantically looked from one face to another.

"My name's Jherek." Too late, he remembered that he was supposed to keep his identity secret. If Sabyna or Mornis noticed, though, they kept it to themselves. He didn't think he'd even been introduced to the first mate. "Tell me your name."

"Wyls," the boy said. "My father put me in here and told me to stay. Where is he?"

Jherek shook his head and kicked with his feet to take some of the distance away between them. "I don't know, but we can try to find out."

"He should be coming for me," the boy cried. "He told me he'd be back."

Jherek took another deep breath, maintaining eye contact with the boy. He willed both of them to be calm. His heart hammered in his chest, though, and he knew his lungs were struggling with the trapped air in the cabin. The ship must have been underwater for hours. Maybe there'd been more air trapped in the pocket earlier, but what was left was fouled from being breathed again and again.

"Let me take you to him."

"Will you help me find him?"

Jherek looked at the hungry, desperate gaze. "I'll help you if I can." He lifted his hand from the water, offering it to the boy. Water dripped from his fingers, making concentric circles across the ocean surface trapped in the room with them.

"Liar!" The boy struck out with the candlestick.

Jherek barely had time to draw his hand back before the instrument smacked into the water. From the corner of his eye, he saw Sabyna wave her hand.

In response, her raggamoffyn familiar shot up from the water in his serpent's shape. Before anyone could react, the raggamoffyn exploded into hundreds of wet fabric pieces that flew through the air. They hovered around the boy like a bee swarm, twisting and turning like gulls gliding through storm weather. The fabric pieces covered every inch of the boy's body, including his eyes, nose and mouth, slamming into place with wet splashes. When the raggamoffyn finished, the boy looked like a mummy. He screamed, his voice thin and hollow, echoing in the limited space. The raggamoffyn held fast, following every movement with its shape. The boy clawed at the fabric pieces, trying to rip them free.

"Foul beast," Mornis exclaimed, drawing back fast enough to make even the magic candle gutter for an instant.

Jherek started forward, his knife already in hand. "Leave him alone," Sabyna said.

Torn by what was going on, feeling guilty for even being a part of it, he glanced back at her. The boy's screams continued unabated. "This isn't right. He's going to be more scared than ever."

She looked at him and didn't flinch from the accusation in his eyes or the whimpers the boy had been reduced to. "This way he'll live," she said. "We all will. Can't you feel the currents changing?"

Now that she'd mentioned it, Jherek did feel it, and he knew what it meant. "It's getting colder," he said. "We're sinking again."

"Aye," she said. "If we'd waited for the boy to get calm enough on his own…"

"She's right," Mornis said. "I don't like that thing either, but it's saved us some time." He took a deep breath and disappeared under the water until only a faint glow from the magic candle was visible.

The boy fell silent suddenly, then lurched free of the sconce and waded into the water after Mornis.

As the light left the cabin, Jherek looked at the ship's mage. Her face remained calm, but there were unshed tears in her eyes.

"It was the only way," she told him in a shaky voice.

"Skeins will keep him safe enough till we reach the surface. The raggamoffyn is controlling his body now."

"Aye," Jherek replied. "You did what you could."

"You don't think I should have done this."

"Lady," Jherek said, "I only know what I should do. I wouldn't dare to presume to tell another what to do."

"You're so young," she said. "How'd you get to be so judgmental?"

"I'm not."

"You are," she said. "Maybe you don't realize it yet. You're going to have a hard, narrow path ahead of you." Without another word, she dived beneath the rising water that claimed the interior of the cabin.

Jherek followed her, feeling the whole cog slide deeper into the ocean. He felt confused about her, about what she'd said. He didn't know what he was going to do about that, or why he felt he had to do anything at all.