The Cerulean Storm

ELEVEN THE DHOW

As the dhow left Samarah’s harbor, a gust of wind skipped across the swells ahead. Silvery columns of dust swirled skyward, forming a chain of featherlike silhouettes against the yellow horizon. For a moment, they hung like clouds above the pearly sea, then the bluster died. The plumes slowly melted back toward the surface, forming a low-hanging dust curtain that shrouded Jo’orsh’s distant figure in a mantle of gray.

Tithian braced his arm on the tiller and pulled himself upright, sitting squarely on the floater’s dome. He peered out toward the open sea and cursed his lack of a king’s eye. With Jo’orsh wading through chest-deep silt, it had been difficult enough to see him before the gust came up. Now, keeping the banshee’s lumpy head in sight would be impossible.

The effort of sitting upright was almost too much for the king. His time in the well had reduced him to something of a skeleton. The pallid skin dangled from his sticklike arms in loose folds, and each time he exhaled, his breath filled the air with the stench of starvation. He had little desire for solid food, and the few morsels his former slaves had forced him to eat sat in his distended stomach like rocks. The king thought that Sacha’s approach to helping him recover, trickling warm blood down his throat, had been much more sensible.

After a few moments of peering into the dust haze, the king let his elbow slip over the tiller and slumped back down. He was careful to keep his bare foot pressed against the Dark Lens, which lay in the open bilge in front of him. He was drawing the Lens’s energy through his body, using it to feed the dome and keep the ship afloat.

Tithian looked toward the top of the mast, where Sacha had positioned himself to serve as a lookout. “I’ve lost sight of the banshee,” he called. “Can you see him?” “Through this haze?” the head scoffed.

As Sacha replied, Neeva ducked under the low-hanging boom of the lateen sail and stepped back toward him. Since her days in the gladiator pits, her skin had grown darker and less sensitive to the sun, as demonstrated by the fact that she wore nothing but a leather breechcloth and halter to protect her from its blistering rays. To Tithian’s eye, she also seemed more beautiful. Motherhood had given her a fuller figure, while her muscles were more sinuous and less manlike. Her emerald eyes, however, remained as fiery and angry as they had been when the king had owned her-especially when they were looking at him.

Tithian met her glare. “What are you staring at?”

Without answering, Neeva picked her way toward the stern. It was not an easy task. They had just entered the open sea, and the dhow was pitching badly as it rode across the dust swells. To complicate matters, the small boat was crowded to overflowing. In the open bilge lay Caelum, crammed in next to a dozen kegs filled with chadnuts and water. His head had been bandaged, but he had not yet regained consciousness. To Tithian’s way of thinking, he was just taking up limited cargo space. Sadira stood along the port side, braced between a barrel and the gunnel, holding the line that controlled the set of the sail. On the opposite side of the boat sat Rikus, his bald head and pointed ears barely visible over the cask tops.

As Neeva came abreast of the mast, she stopped to grab her battle-axe from between two water barrels.

Tithian raised a brow. “I’d advise you to remember that without me, this boat will sink,” the king said. “And with it, all hope of rescuing your child.”

“I don’t care if we sink,” countered Neeva. “We’ve hardly left the harbor and already we’ve lost sight of Jo’orsh. We’ll never catch up to him-or my son.”

“The dhow is a sensitive craft,” Tithian replied. “We’d be traveling faster if Sadira had left Caelum in Samarah with the other dwarves-as I suggested.”

“I doubt Caelum’s weight is slowing us down that much.” Neeva raised her axe. “Besides, it doesn’t matter. We may have lost Rkard, but I want you to die before he does.”

“Don’t be foolish, Neeva.” Sadira laid a restraining hand on the warrior’s arm.

The action caused a subtle shift in the sail’s trim and the dhow slowed. The sorceress let a little line slip through her ebony fingers, returning the boom to its original position.

Once the dhow had returned to speed, Sadira looked back to Neeva. “Jo’orsh is showing himself because he wants to help us track Rkard,” she said. “When he sees us falling behind, he’ll wait.”

“And let Borys escape with my son!” Neeva spat back.

“That won’t happen,” Tithian said. “Borys wants the banshee to follow. That’s why he took the boy.”

“Explain yourself,” Rikus ordered. He rose and peered at the king over a water barrel. “If you had something to do with the Dragon seizing him-”

“I wasn’t even conscious,” Tithian spat. “But I do know Borys wants the banshees alive. In Ur Draxa-his home-he has a way to make them dispel the magic that hides the Dark Lens from him and the sorcerer-kings. The Dragon needs Rkard alive because Jo’orsh was sent to protect the boy.”

Neeva frowned. “Sent?” she asked. “By whom?”

Tithian swallowed hard and found himself gripping the tiller so hard his gnarled joints turned white. Nevertheless, the blunder did not cause the king to panic. He simply looked Neeva in the eye and lied: “Agis sent them.”

“You don’t expect us to believe that!” Sadira snapped.

“Not really, but it’s the truth,” Tithian said, silently cursing the sorceress. Did she have some way to tell that he was lying? “Jo’orsh and Sa’ram were guarding the Dark Lens when we found it. They were going to kill both of us, until Agis told them about Kemalok being uncovered. Then they left, saying something about the return of the king.”

“How’d they come by the Belt of Rank and Rkard’s crown?” demanded Neeva.

“Why don’t you tell me?” Tithian returned, dodging the question.

This was the moment the king had been dreading since Rikus had pulled him from the well. In the hurry to pack the dhow and start after Jo’orsh, there had not been time for his temporary allies to interrogate him. But now, he sensed the questions would begin. As weak as he was, Tithian feared it would be difficult to keep himself free of his own tangle of lies.

Neeva picked up her axe again. “Your raiders stole those treasures from Kemalok.” She stopped a pace in front of him, holding her weapon level with his neck. “I know that much, and it’s enough to warrant your death.”

Tithian did not flinch. “Do you really expect to frighten me? I know you won’t strike-not while you need me to rescue your son.”

Neeva’s gaze burned with a profound hatred such as the king had never seen before, and he had seen many, many kinds of hate. The warrior’s arms began to tremble, and tears of frustration welled in her eyes. For a moment, the king feared she would actually lose control of herself and strike. Then she gave a tremendous scream and spun away. Sighing in relief, Tithian committed her expression to memory as a reminder of what would happen if he allowed her to live a moment too long.

As Neeva returned to the front of the dhow, the king noticed Sadira staring at him. Instead of blue-glowing embers, her eyes now resembled a pair of sapphire-colored suns, each blazing with a radiance that nearly blinded him. The sorceress did not move or speak but merely continued to watch him. In that moment, Tithian understood why she had not asked about Agis: She knew that her husband had been murdered by him.

“You won’t kill me, either,” Tithian said, not as sure of his words as he would have liked. “We want the same thing.”

“No. I want to kill the Dragon. You want to free a monster.” As Sadira spoke, a cloud of black fumes shot from her mouth and coated Tithian’s body, bringing with it a fearsome cold that chilled his bones to the marrow. “Tell me what you’ll gain by helping Rajaat escape,” she ordered.

“Wh-what makes you think I want to?” Tithian gasped, his teeth clenched. The contrast between the Dark Lens’s heat and Sadira’s cold made his bones feel as if they were melting. He expected to burst into flame or shatter like a block of ice at any moment. “I thought the champions killed Rajaat.”

“Don’t lie to me!” Sadira hissed.

Again, the black fumes. “Stop it, wench!” Tithian’s teeth chattered so badly, he could hardly force the words from his mouth. He wanted to use the Lens and counterattack, but to use the Way now, he would have to let the dhow sink. He could not allow that. The king needed both Sadira and Rikus alive, at least until Borys no longer stood between him and freeing Rajaat. “I c-c-command it!”

“You don’t have to answer,” the sorceress said. “I’m enjoying this.”

“I’m too exhausted,” Tithian warned, fighting back the waves of darkness descending over him. “The dhow will sink.”

“I don’t think so,” said Sadira.

Tithian heard the sorceress whisper an incantation. The dhow suddenly rose out of the dust, lifting its weight off the king’s spirit. The boat’s speed increased by half, and it began to slice through the air as smoothly as an arrow.

“You still need me!” Tithian said. Hoping to use the Way to defend himself, he tried to lock gazes with Sadira-but could not bear to look into the blazing blue suns of her eyes. “What will you do if we don’t catch Rkard before dark?”

“I won’t kill you yet,” the sorceress replied. “You haven’t suffered enough.”

An inky cloud boiled from between Sadira’s blue lips, engulfing the king in cold vapor. He opened his mouth to scream, but his frozen voice did not rise to acknowledge the pain. He felt his feet slip from the Dark Lens, then he sank into a bitter slumber more icy and black than his own heart.

Later, after what seemed an eternity of bone-deep aching, Tithian returned to awareness, not so much waking as crawling from beneath a terrible, crushing blackness. His body hurt worse than it had before, as if that were possible, and he wondered-not idly-if Neeva had beaten him while he slept. Slowly, the king came to realize that he was lying on the floor of the dhow, stuffed between the side and the water casks. He heard voices, and the speakers did not seem to realize he had returned to consciousness. Always one to spy, Tithian kept his eyes closed and listened.

“I’m not saying we should let the Dragon keep Rkard,” said Sadira. “But I’m not so sure we should kill him. I’m certain that Tithian’s helping us destroy Borys only because it’ll make it easier to free Rajaat-and we know how much worse than Borys he would be.”

“So we should let the Dragon keep collecting his levies?” Rikus asked. “Never!”

“Rikus, that’s not what I said-and you know it,” Sadira shot back.

The voices of both Sadira and Rikus seemed harsher than necessary, leading Tithian to suspect that they were angry with each other-and to wonder if he could use that fact to his own advantage.

“We have the Dark Lens now,” Sadira continued. “Borys knows better than anyone how powerful it is. We can force him to return Rkard and forsake his levies.”

“But what about the prophecy?” Neeva demanded. “The banshees said Rkard would slay the Dragon. We can’t just ignore them.”

“Why not?” Sadira challenged. “They also said he’d do it at the head of an army of dwarves and humans. Where is that army now? It took Borys and his sorcerer-kings about as much effort to destroy all our warriors as it takes a mekillot to smash a jackal.”

“We must have misunderstood what they said about the army,” said Neeva. “If Jo’orsh and Sa’ram said that Rkard will slay the Dragon, I have faith he will.”

Tithian had to bite his cheek to keep from laughing. The so-called prophecy was nothing more than an elaborate ruse he had invented. Faced with the difficult task of overcoming Jo’orsh and Sa’ram before he could steal the Dark Lens, the king had instead lured the banshees away from their duties by convincing them their thousand-year-old ruler had been reincarnated as a mul child.

It had never occurred to Tithian that his deception would dupe anyone other than the two spirits, but it appeared his former slaves were bigger fools than he imagined. He could hardly wait to see what happened when a six-year-old boy tried to kill the Dragon. The entertainment might even be enough to repay him for the indignities he was suffering at the hands of the child’s mother and her friends.

After a moment’s silence, Sadira continued the debate. “Neeva, did it ever occur to you that the prophecy might be a warning? That it might be something we don’t want to come true?” she asked. “Perhaps the fate of our two armies is a portent of what’ll happen if we go through with this plan.”

“What the prophecy says doesn’t matter,” declared Rikus. “We’ve got to kill the Dragon, even if doing so frees Rajaat.”

“Think of what you’re saying!” Sadira objected. “As powerful as the sorcerer-kings are, it took all of them together to imprison Rajaat-and he could be even more powerful now.”

“I don’t care,” said the mul, stubborn as ever.

“Borys and the sorcerer-kings are greedy and power hungry, but their evil is nothing compared to that of Rajaat,” Sadira pressed. “At least they won’t wipe out every Athasian race except the humans-and wouldn’t have the power to succeed if they tried.”

“True,” agreed the mul. “And I’m as worried as you. But we’ve got to kill the Dragon. We’d be fools to think we can control him forever. So, if we free Rajaat, we’ll just have to destroy him, too. We can’t trade one evil for another.”

There was a short silence, then Sadira asked, “Neeva, what do you think? It’s your son we must risk if we decide to kill the Dragon.”

“And it’s my son who’ll have to live-or die-with the scruples of our choice,” she said. “Given that, there’s only one thing to do. Rkard must kill the Dragon.”

Tithian heard Sadira suck in a deep breath. “Victory or death, then,” she said. The declaration was one that Tyrian gladiators had once recited before entering the arena.

“No, just victory,” said Rikus. “Death means that we have lost, and we can’t allow that-not when we are risking so much.”

Tithian heard the soft slap of three hands coming together, then Rikus said, “That leaves us only one problem: Tithian.”

“As much as I’d like to kill him, we can’t,” said Sadira. “He’s the only mindbender among us, and we know from the battles we’ve already fought that we can’t get along without one. Abalach-Re used the Way in the Ivory Plain and nearly defeated me, and I suspect that Borys will prove even more powerful.

“We can’t trust Tithian,” objected Rikus.

“Of course not,” replied Sadira. “But we can keep him under control until we’ve killed Borys.”

“And after that?” asked Neeva.

“As soon as the Dragon falls, he’ll try to kill us,” said Rikus, lowering his voice to a whisper. “If we want to survive, we’ll have to kill him first.”

Tithian smiled to himself. They could try to murder him, but snow would blanket the Athasian deserts before they outperformed him at his own art.

In his stomach, the king felt the dhow descending. “It’s almost dark,” said Sadira. “We’d better rouse His Majesty.”

A small foot smashed into Tithian’s ribs, forcing him to groan in pain.

“Time to go to work,” Sadira said. With one hand, she grasped his hair and pulled him off the bilge floor. She sat him on the floater’s dome. “I trust you slept well.”

Tithian opened his eyes, feigning grogginess. The Dark Lens had been moved to the bow of the craft, and the king could see little more than its red-tinged base showing beneath the boom of the lateen sail. Neeva and Rikus stood directly in front him, their weapons in their hands as they glared at him with open hostility. Caelum still lay in the bilge, his bandage crusted with dried blood.

The king reached up and pulled his coarse hair from Sadira’s grip. “You shouldn’t separate me from the Dark Lens,” he said. “Borys has been looking for me, hoping to find the Lens nearby.”

“Then I hope he finds you,” said Sadira. “It would save us a journey.”

“How far have we gone?” Tithian asked, looking around. He saw nothing but dust swells swaddled in the purple shadows of dusk, with no sign of land in any direction. “Where’s Jo’orsh?”

Sadira pointed to a spot off the port bow. “Every now and then we see a furrow of dust over there,” she said. “Sometimes he sticks his head up to be sure we’re still following.”

“That won’t do me much good.” The king laid his hand on the tiller. “I’ll never see him in the dark.”

“Don’t worry,” said Rikus. The mul sat on the starboard gunnel and laid his sword across his knees. “I’ll be sitting up to help you look.”

“So will I,” added Neeva. She took a similar position on the port side. “And if one of us even thinks you’re using the Way against the other or hears anything that sounds remotely like a mystic word, we’ll assume the worst.”

“That means we’ll cut you up into little pieces.” Rikus reached out with the tip of his sword and cut the strap of Tithian’s shoulder satchel. The bag slipped off the king’s shoulder and fell out of the dhow. “Just in case you didn’t understand.”

Tithian lunged for the sack, trying to grab it before it sank into the Sea of Silt. He instantly felt Sadira’s fingers digging into his shoulder, jerking him away.

“You fools!” The king hissed, watching the satchel sink beneath the dust. “That was magic!”

“Which is why I thought it best to be rid of the thing,” said Sadira. “Who knows what surprises you had stored in there for us?”

“Now that we’ve made our point,” said Rikus, “is there anything else we should know about-so we don’t accidentally throw it overboard?”

The king shook his head. “You’ve no need to fear me or anything I have left.” He grasped the tiller. “If we’re going to kill Borys, we have to work together. I understand that-probably better than you.”

“Good,” said Sadira. She moved toward the bow. “Then you take over until dawn.”

Tithian opened himself to the floater’s dome, allowing his life energy to flow into it. Icy tendrils of pain began to spread up through his hips and into his abdomen. He closed his eyes and visualized the ship’s hull in his mind, then pictured the gray dust swells changing to blue waves of salt water-the Sea of Silt as it was, long before the sorcerer-kings ruled Athas. The dhow’s weight settled on his spirit, filling him with a terrible ache, and again the craft began to pitch as it rode across the endless swells of dust.

That was how it went, day after day. From dawn to dusk, Sadira’s magic carried the dhow above the gray waves. Then, as dark fell, Rikus roused the king to float the craft over the silt. The mul and Neeva spent the nights sitting to either side of Tithian, watching his every move. At least once a night, one of them smashed him with a fist, just to make certain that he knew they would kill him at the slightest provocation. The king accepted his persecution with a grace that Rikus found vaguely unsettling, never complaining or begging forbearance. Tithian did not even try to win them over with cajolery or false promises, perhaps because he knew such efforts would only bring more abuse.

On the afternoon of the third day, Caelum finally woke. With a great deal of care, more from Sadira than Neeva, the dwarf soon felt well enough to call on the sun. After that, the women left him to his own resources, and he quickly grew better, using his healing powers to mend his terrible wound. Other than the dwarf’s recovery, the routine never changed. Jo’orsh’s head periodically rose out of the dust, his glowing orange eyes serving as beacons in the darkness of the night. Sacha stayed atop the mast day and night, never leaving his post-which was probably wise, since neither Rikus nor any of the others had quite forgiven him for pulling the scouts into the well to feed Tithian.

Deep into their fifth night, with a steady wind blowing from the west and a dust curtain clinging to the sea, Sacha suddenly drifted down from the mast. “Lights,” he reported. The head’s voice was so hoarse that Rikus could barely understand him. “Behind us.”

The mul glanced over the stern and saw nothing but the impenetrable blackness of the dust curtain. “I don’t see anything.”

“You weren’t sitting on top of the mast,” Sacha countered. “There were a dozen clusters of them, spread out across the horizon. It’s a fleet coming up behind us.”

Tithian cursed.

“What do you know about this?” Rikus touched the tip of his sword to the king’s throat. “If you’ve betrayed us-”

Tithian slapped the blade away. “This is no trick,” he sneered. “It’s the fleet of the sorcerer-kings.”

Rikus moved his sword back toward the king and said nothing.

“What do I have to gain by lying?” growled Tithian. “When the sorcerer-kings came to meet Borys in Samarah, they arrived on a fleet of Balican schooners. It appears they’ve been summoned to Ur Draxa.”

“Why?” asked Neeva.

“To find us, I suspect,” said the king. “From my experience, Balican fleets sail in tight formations. If they’ve spread out, they must be searching for us.”

Neeva went forward to wake Caelum and Sadira.

“Bring me the Dark Lens,” said Tithian.

Rikus shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“You stupid mul!” hissed Sacha. “It’s our only chance.”

“Our only chance to get killed,” Rikus countered. “Even with the Dark Lens, we can’t sink a fleet of ships carrying all the sorcerer-kings of Athas-at least not at night, when Sadira’s powers are so limited.”

“We can’t outrun them, if that’s what you’re thinking,” said Tithian. “They have too much sail.”

“Then we’ll do the next best thing-we’ll hide,” said Rikus. “The dust curtain will conceal us.”

“It won’t,” said Tithian. “They have magic cones of glass-king’s eyes-that they use to see through the silt haze.”

“And what do they use to see through the dark?” asked the mul. When the king did not have an answer, Rikus smiled. “I thought so. The next time we top a dust swell, swing us around so we’re sitting across the slope, near the bottom of the wave.”

The mul sheathed his sword and went forward to the mast. He waited until Tithian started to bring the dhow around, then he lowered the sail, furled it to the boom, and undid the lashings holding the whole assembly to the mast. By the time he had pulled the rigging free and had laid the boom and sail aside, Neeva had awakened Caelum and Sadira. The dwarf helped Rikus unstep the mast, fold the long yardarm down, and lay the whole thing in the bilge.

“Cover the boat with silt,” suggested Tithian.

Rikus frowned. “Won’t that sink us?”

The king shook his head. “Why should it? I’m holding us aloft,” he said. “We won’t be able to move very fast, but with our mast down, we’re not going anyplace anyway.”

Rikus nodded, then he and the others began pulling dust from the upslope into the dhow. Soon only their bodies and the tops of the gunnels-made of weathered bone almost as gray as the silt-showed above the sea. The mul instructed the others to lie down, then he began covering them with powdery loess, leaving only their faces exposed so they could see and breathe.

“This should hide us from the fleet,” said Neeva. “But what about Jo’orsh? We could lose him.”

“Perhaps, but he hasn’t changed direction in days,” said Sadira. “And if the sorcerer-kings are behind us, I suspect we’re still traveling toward the Dragon’s home.” “Right,” agreed Rikus. “But I am worried that the banshee will stick his head up at the wrong moment. His glowing eyes would be hard to miss on a night like this.”

“You needn’t worry about Jo’orsh,” said Tithian. He pushed a liver-spotted hand under the dust to maintain contact with the floater’s dome. “He can take care of himself.”

With that, the king slid down into the bilge, accompanied by Sacha, who had carefully remained out of everyone’s reach during the preparations. Rikus covered the pair with dust, then took a moment to inspect the dhow. When he was satisfied that everything was covered as well as it could be, he drew his sword and lay down, taking care to position himself between the king and the Dark Lens.

They waited in the silt-heavy gloom for what seemed an eternity, listening to their own heartbeats and the wind hissing across the silt. The hollow that they had carved from the dust swell slowly filled in, and loess gathered around Rikus’s nose and mouth. At first, he tried to keep a clear air passage by blowing the stuff away, but this did not work, and he eventually had to move his hand up to fan the stuff away. He began to doubt that Sacha had really seen any lights, and occupied his time by trying to think of possible reasons for the disembodied head to lie. Aside from Sacha’s malevolence, he could not see what the head might gain by making the dhow sit motionless in the dark.

Rikus was just about to rise when he heard the distant creak of straining masts. The others heard it, too, for the dhow fell even more silent, as if everyone had drawn a deep breath and had held it. The sound grew louder and steadier, until at last the mul recognized in it the rhythmic cadence of a ship sliding over dust swells.

Far to the dhow’s stern, the flickering beams of huge oil lamps began to dance across the silt. The rays roved back and forth in great arcs, creating long columns of bright, windborne silt that pierced the darkness like spears. Even with the lights, the dust was so thick that Rikus doubted the Balican searchers could see more than a few yards beyond their gunnels-at least they couldn’t have, if not for the magical king’s eyes Tithian had mentioned.

The lights danced ahead to the next swell, then the schooner itself slipped into the trough. If not for the muffled voices of its crew and the halos of its deck lamps hovering far above the dust, Rikus would hardly have known it was there. It took many moments for the ship to pass. From the lights shining on the various decks and portholes, the mul formed a fair picture of its size and shape. The thing was huge, at least three times the size of the mighty war wagons Hamanu had sent to attack Tyr during the war with Urik. It seemed entirely possible that the whole village of Samarah could have fit on one of its decks. By the time the schooner’s stern lights faded into the dusty night, Rikus felt more certain than ever that he had made the right decision in electing to hide. Fighting the schooner would have been like battling an entire legion.

The ship had hardly passed when the glow of another schooner’s lantern stabbed through the darkness overhead. Rikus heard his companions gasp, then the light illuminated a small circle on the crest of the next dust swell. The yellow disk began to sweep slowly down the slope, coming in their direction.

Rikus gripped the Scourge more tightly, preparing to leap up and fight. As his companions tensed to do the same, he heard dust rustling all around him. “Stay still,” he whispered. “Don’t move unless I say to.”

The light continued to come toward them. Rikus guessed the beam would sweep across the ship just about where he lay.

A loud hiss sounded from just in front of their dhow. An instant later, a huge bowsprit drifted over the crest of the dust swell in which they had buried themselves. The spar was as long as a tree, and it gleamed with the reflected rays of an oil lamp. It was passing so close that Rikus could have jumped off their little craft’s bow and caught hold of it.

The schooner’s lantern beam approached to within an arm’s length of the dhow. At the same time, the prow of the Balican schooner burst through the dust swell, spraying a thick plume of silt high into the air. Rikus closed his eyes and ducked down beneath the dhow’s gunnel, pulling himself toward the bottom of the bilge.

The mul felt the bow rise as the schooner’s wake pushed their little craft aside. The dhow spun toward the bottom of the swell and began to slip down the slope. It moved easily for it was still being levitated by Tithian. Fighting the urge to sit up, Rikus opened his eyes to the burning silt. He saw yellow light illuminating the silt over his head. He could do nothing except remind himself that this was the reason they had camouflaged their boat, and to hope that his companions also remembered that.

An instant later, the amber glow vanished. The mul pushed himself up. He thrust his head out of the dust, gasping for breath and expecting to hear an alarm cry rising from the schooner.

Through a thick cloud of dust, Rikus saw the dark wall of an immense hull looming high above them. The mul looked toward the schooner’s bow and saw the beam of the lantern sweeping away from their dhow. From his angle below the gunnel, he could not see the lookouts. Nevertheless, he did not think they had seen the dhow. There was no sign that anyone was attempting to shine a light in their direction, nor did he hear anyone shouting an alarm. It seemed that their camouflage had kept the dhow concealed, at least for the brief instant that the lantern had flashed over it.

Rikus saw the heads and shoulders of his companions showing above the dust around him. Neeva was biting her finger to keep from coughing. Sadira and Caelum were both prepared to cast spells, the sorceress holding the dark lump of a spell component in her hand, and the dwarf touching his fingers to the sun-mark on his forehead. Only Tithian seemed calm, leaning against the floater’s dome and smirking at them with an air of condescension.

It took only a moment longer for the schooner’s stern to hiss past and disappear behind the next dust swell, leaving the dhow alone in the vast, inky darkness of the Sea of Silt. They all breathed a sigh of relief and began to scoop the silt out of the bilge.