The Clandestine Circle (2 page)

All around, heads turned to watch the ship, and those close to her held their breaths. The first impact came with a loud thud and a splintering, grinding noise as the ship sideswiped another large merchantman. She began to slow, then a gust of wind caught her sails in its clasp and sent her rushing forward directly toward the long southern pier and an Abanasian trading vessel tied alongside to unload its cargo of cattle and sheep.

The crew of the trader,
Whydah
, gaped at the ship bearing down on them and scattered wildly just as the runaway rammed into the broad midsection of the trader, with a crash of splintering wood. The ship’s bell clanged crazily. The impact jarred both vessels and raised a cacophony of bellows from the terrified livestock.

“Look out!” someone yelled just as the bowsprit and the foremast of the runaway crashed to the decks, bringing down yards of canvas and a tangle of ropes and shattered spars.

“Great galloping sea dragons!” roared the Abanasian captain. “What in the name of Chaos do they think they’re doing? Come on, you lot, get over there and teach them some manners.”

His crew climbed swiftly to their feet, grabbed the nearest truncheon or cutlass, and swarmed over the debris of mast
and sail onto the offending merchantman. Once on board, they paused and stared around at the lifeless deck in surprise. It was hard to vent anger on people who weren’t to be found. Slowly they spread out to investigate.

The first mate made his way cautiously toward the upper aft deck and the ship’s wheel. Something large lay in the shadow at the base of the big wheel, something that didn’t look right. A bundle of laundry or bedding perhaps.

“Sir!” called one of his sailors from near a large hatch that led down to the crew’s quarters. “Over here!”

The first mate hesitated, then switched around to see what the man had found. He hadn’t gone more than five paces before the stench hit him. He clapped a hand over his nose and mouth and fought the desire to gag. His sailor looked green. Pale as the sheets, the two men lifted the hatch and peered downward.

The first mate glimpsed a row of supine bodies, all hideously dead, before he knocked the sailor’s hand away and slammed the hatch shut. The sounds of retching behind him told him his own man had succumbed to the stench of rot and death, and he had to swallow hard to stifle the nausea in his gut. He wiped his streaming forehead. By the gods, it was hot.

“What about the rest of them?” he shouted.

“There are bodies over here,” replied another sailor from the doorway into the galley and captain’s quarters. “The officers and the cabin boy!”

“And here!”

“Over here, too,” other voices responded from other parts of the ship.

“Rolfe,” bellowed the captain to his first mate. “What’s going on over there? Where is the crew?”

Rolfe scratched the back of his balding head as he looked around at the wrecked merchantman. “They seem to be dead, Captain.”

There was a stunned pause, then, “All of them?”

“So far, sir.”

“I think there’s one still alive up here,” shouted one of the sailors. He waved from the aft deck and bent over the pile of
clothes Rolfe had noticed earlier by the wheel. The first mate hurried up the ladder to the deck to see for himself.

A man lay by the ship’s wheel where he had collapsed, perhaps after a last desperate effort to steer his ship to safety. His skin was a ghastly yellow, like ancient vellum pulled tight over the bones of his long frame. Livid blotches of red and purple, like bruising, mottled his face, neck, and arms. Dried blood caked his nostrils and ears, and more blood oozed from his mouth and the corners of his sunken eyes. Bloody vomit stained his clothes.

It seemed impossible that this wreck of a man could still be alive, but Rolfe and his companion leaned closer and saw the faint flutter of the man’s chest. Their eyes lifted and met with a mutual look of fear.

“Is this some sort of plague?” asked the sailor nervously.

The first mate shook his head. “Not one I’ve heard of, but the absent gods only know what has spawned since their departure. We need a healer.” He rose to his feet, propelled by a sudden decision. “All of you,” he shouted to his crew, “off the ship, now!”

Relieved to get away from the death ship, the crewmen hurried back to their vessel and reported to the captain. Rolfe hesitated, torn between his desire to get off this frightening death ship and his compassion for the sick man. After a moment of indecision, he left the sick man where he lay and went in search of water and something to make him more comfortable. To his surprise, the water barrels on deck were dry. No amount of compassion would drag him into those lower decks to look for water, so he returned to his own ship to fetch a bottle.

The captain met him on the deck of the
Whydah
. “The harbormaster’s coming. Is it that bad?”

The look on his first mate’s face was all the answer he needed.

Meanwhile a crowd had gathered on the pier to view the accident and lend a helping hand if needed. Humans, dwarves, minotaurs, a few gnomes and elves, and a swarm of wide-eyed kender waited in loudly talking groups to see what would
happen next. Their shouted comments and chattering conversations combined with the lowing of the distressed cattle and the general ruckus of the docks to make a steady din of noise.

A wave of movement through the crowd caught the eyes of the captain and the first mate. They saw the tall, slender figure of the harbormaster approaching down the long stretch of the pier, followed by a contingent of the City Guard in their scarlet uniforms. The onlookers parted before them.

The first mate waited patiently while the harbormaster greeted the captain of the
Whydah
and briefly surveyed the damage. Carrying a flask of water, Rolfe escorted the harbormaster over the ruin of the mast and sails and onto the Palanthian merchantman. The City Guards stayed at the dock to keep the crowds off the ships.

Shaking his head in dismay, the harbormaster climbed the ladder to the aft deck and knelt by the sick man. “Is this how you found him?” he asked the waiting sailor.

Rolfe nodded without reply.

The harbormaster’s piercing eyes filled with sadness when he tilted the dying man’s head just enough to recognize his face. “I know this man. Captain Southack. One of the best.”

Rolfe was not surprised. He knew, everyone knew, the harbormaster of Sanction, and the harbormaster made it his business to become familiar with every ship and captain that plied the waters of Sanction Bay. He was a half-elf who, many years ago, before the Chaos War, had worked in the harbor as a slave under the Dark Knights of Takhisis. Now a member of Hogan Bight’s government, he was free and master of his domain.

Together the two men gently rolled the captain onto his back, lifted his head, and trickled a few drops of water down the man’s throat. The effect was instantaneous and shocking. A violent tremor shook the captain’s body and wrenched his bloody eyes open. No intelligent awareness remained in his dark gaze, only the fevered terror of madness.

A gasping, raw scream tore from his throat. “Go away!” Fresh blood oozed from his mouth. “Don’t touch me!” he shrieked, thrashing away from them.

Rolfe dropped the flask and scrambled away as if punched, his face creased with fear.

The harbormaster placed his hands on the captain’s shoulders and tried to ease him back.

The sick man would have none of it. “No. No, no, no. Don’t touch me,” he screamed again. Blood dripped from every orifice, turning his blotched face into a hideous death mask. “Poison … death … everywhere,” he panted, his eyes wild. “Stay away!”

“There’s something sensible,” Rolfe muttered under his breath. He wanted to bolt back to the
Whydah
, to get away from this terrifying apparition, but his pride would not let him leave the harbormaster alone.

All at once the captain’s voice fell silent. A second tremor shook through his ravaged body and left him limp and deathly still, his mouth open, his face slack.

The first mate looked at the harbormaster as he checked the captain’s pulse. “Is he gone?” A nod answered his question. Fearfully he wiped the captain’s blood off his hands. “Gods beyond, did they all die like this? What is wrong with these men?”

The half-elf stood up, his expression grim. “Do not disturb anything on this ship. I will send a healer to investigate this strange malady.”

Rolfe stood, relieved to be able to turn this tragedy over to someone else. “What about our ship?” he inquired worriedly. “We’ve got to get those cattle off, and Gilean only knows what damage has been done belowdecks.”

The harbormaster nodded his understanding. “Go ahead and unload your cargo and do any necessary repairs. The dry dock is available at the moment if you need it. We’ll check this ship and move it as soon as possible.” Leaving the dead man beneath a shroud of canvas, he strode to the damaged rail and passed on his instructions to the captain of the
Whydah
. Then he called to the City Guards’ leader. “Sergeant, send word of this accident to Lord Bight. He may want to investigate this himself.”

The leader of the patrol saluted smartly. He snapped an
order to his patrol, and a slim, attractive, woman with short-cropped red hair stepped out of rank. “Lynn, you have a horse stabled nearby. Take the harbormaster’s message to Lord Bight. He’s in the eastern fortifications, surveying the lava dike. Find him, then report back to me.”

The woman masked her pleasure of the unexpected task behind a stiff salute and a deadpan expression. Lynn of Gateway, a sell-sword, ruffian, and newly trained member of Sanction’s City Guard, would not show much enthusiasm for saddling her horse and riding all over Sanction to find the governor, Lord Hogan Bight, after a long, hot night of walking patrol through the tavern alleys of Sanction’s waterfront and harbor district. But as soon as she turned her back on the sergeant and marched up the long wharf toward town, Lynn relaxed her stiff facial mask and allowed herself to smile. Meeting Lord Bight was something she had wanted to do for a very long time. Filled with anticipation, she broke into a jog toward the stables where she boarded her horse.

A
pleased nicker greeted Lynn as she opened the stall door. Windcatcher, a powerful bay mare, pranced excitedly in place while Lynn buckled the bridle on her shapely head. The woman ran a hand down the horse’s silky neck.

Keeping a horse in Sanction on a guard’s meager pay was an expensive luxury. Prices were high, hay and oats were often hard to come by, and it was difficult to find time around her new duties to exercise a horse every day. Lynn, however, considered her mare not only a pleasurable indulgence, but also, in her line of work, a necessity.

She had been living in Sanction for almost eight years and was well known to many people there as a cutthroat alley-basher named Lynn of Gateway, who managed to worm her way into the City Guards and put her skills to a more legitimate use. Only a few people, a very few, knew the redheaded, freckle-faced alley cat with a temper was more than she seemed, and if anyone outside of that small circle
learned her true identity, Lynn knew a fast horse could be her only chance of survival. So she scrimped and saved to keep Windcatcher fit and well housed, and she silently prayed that the day she had to flee Sanction would never come. In the meantime, the mare had proved useful for other tasks as well, and this morning, unknowingly, she had helped obtain Lynn’s first chance to meet Lord Governor Hogan Bight himself.

Humming to herself, Lynn eyed her saddle, then decided against it. The day, newly begun, was rapidly losing any hint of the night’s cooler temperatures. She tossed a light blanket over Windcatcher’s withers instead and sprang to the bay’s broad back.

The mare danced in anticipation, but she was too well trained to bolt. At Lynn’s signal, she bounced out of the stable and into the traffic on the busy streets. The sergeant had said Lord Bight was somewhere in the fortifications on the eastern side of Sanction, the opposite side of the city from the harbor, so Lynn guided her horse toward Shipmaker’s Road, the main east-west thoroughfare that bisected Sanction, and nudged her into a comfortable jog trot. It was impossible to travel faster than that. Although it was early morning, the streets were full of carts, wagons, and pedestrians, and the shops were already bustling with people trying to do a day’s work before the heat became unbearable.

This summer in Sanction was the hottest in memory since the Chaos War over thirty years ago, and one of the driest. It had altered the routines of daily life in the city by making early risers out of everyone and virtually closing down the town by noon. Only dogs, kender, gully dwarves, and the City Guard could be found moving about outside in the middle of the afternoon. By evening, the intense heat relaxed its grip just enough to give some relief and bring the city back to life.

In the lower end of Sanction, where the taverns, inns, offices, and warehouses jostled for space along the waterfront, most of the people Linsha saw on the streets were connected with the city’s burgeoning sea trade: sailors, sail makers, carpenters, rope
makers, caulkers, oar makers, and blacksmiths. There were minotaurs, dwarves, humans, and elves all working together to load and unload cargo, refit ships, repair sails, and build new businesses. Only the taverns were quiet at this time of day, until the heat drove everyone indoors or to the nearest shade and a cool drink.