The Skybound Sea (76 page)

“And now you’ll at least have larger accommodations.”

Lenk held up a hand to silence the unrest fomenting behind him. “Fine. We’ll do this. We’ll go back aboard the ship. But out of protest, we’re not bathing for another day.”

Denaos leaned over to the young man. “Did … that sound like a better threat in your head?”

“Shut up and come on,” Lenk sighed, trudging off toward the ship with his companions in tow.

“One moment!” The harbormaster cried after them, flailing at the tiny vessel. “You can’t leave something like this docked here! Not without signing, not without a fee!”

“Gariath will handle it.”

The dragonman hauled himself onto the dock before the harbormaster could ask. Wordlessly, he pushed past the assembled to the far end of the dock and returned dragging a freshly-polished anchor behind him. With a heft, a grunt, and a snarl, he tossed it onto the deck of their vessel. There was a loud crack, then a sputtering sound.

“Handled,” Gariath growled, turning to stalk toward the ship with the others.

“It won’t be poor accommodations,” Miron said, walking alongside Lenk. “Goodness knows you’ve been through enough. We’ll arrange for private cabins … or one, at least. And food. You’ve done us a great service, Lenk, and are to be rewarded justly.”

“As I recall, the reward is just about one thousand coins,” Lenk said. “Gold. U
n
sealed. No kings or gods or birds or crap on them. I want to be able to spend them in any nation I happen to feel the need to get drunk in.”

“And you shall have the full amount,” Miron said, voice dipping, “in time.”

Lenk came to a halt. “What?”

The Lord Emissary’s smile turned sheepish. “There were expenses, I’m afraid, that had to come from somewhere. And Port Destiny is largely Zamanthran. Rest assured, when we return to the mainland and to a proper temple of Talanas, we’ll be able to—”

“How much?”

“Pardon?”

“How much can you give me now?”

Miron smiled. “Well …”

“Thirty.”

Denaos stared at him for a long moment from across the table. “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you. I think I had a
if you think I’m going to take that crap I will gut you like a fish
in my ear.”

“The deal was for one thousand,” Asper said, wincing. “Granted, I wasn’t keen on taking money from the church and I was planning on giving it all back, anyway, but to make the gesture would have been nice.”

“Well,
I
had plans,” Kataria muttered. “Plans that involved me replacing a bow I lost while I was out nearly
dying
for the pious moron who was supposed to pay us.”

“This does seem like duplicity,” Dreadaeleon said. “My share was going to go toward research, fees for the Venarium, that sort of thing. How am I to get anything done with
five
coins to my name?”

“Four, actually,” Lenk said. He tapped the bottle at the center of the table. “This stuff is actually supposed to be pretty good, according to the smelly gentleman I bought it from.”

“And is it?”

“I haven’t tasted it yet.”

“You spent five coins on a bottle of whiskey,” Kataria said, “without knowing what it tastes like.”

“He was
very
smelly. I assumed he was a drunk. So, I figured he probably knew what was good enough to smuggle out of Argaol’s hold.”

Denaos blinked, struggling to find words. “I mean … that’s
kind of
logical, but—”

“
And
I wanted to celebrate,” Lenk said. “I mean … we’re alive, right? We succeeded in what we set out to do. We retrieved the Tome of the Undergates, stopped a demonic incursion—”

“We set out to get paid, technically,” Dreadaeleon corrected him. “Adventurers, and all.”

“So, we
procedurally
succeeded, shut up,” Lenk spat. “And we owe ourselves a drink for it.” He all but tore the cork from the bottle and downed a long, slow swig. When he set the bottle back down, they were staring at him curiously. “What?”

“I feel you’re acting like we’ve accomplished more than we have,” Asper said. “No matter what happens next, whether we all stay together or go our separate ways, we’re still adventurers, still not exactly a respectable trade.”

“Which might affect the glory of this whole thing,” Dreadaeleon said. “Not a single one of the sailors believed me when I told them what happened. Nor would I fault them for doing so.”

“We left behind a lot of dead bodies and a couple of races previously unknown by most cultures that join those same cultures in hating us,” Kataria said, slumping in her seat. “We … did things on those islands.”

“So, when you get down to it,” Denaos added, “we went out to the middle of nowhere, nearly killed ourselves, came back with terrible injuries
that will probably last us a lifetime, somehow managed to earn the wrath of
several
races through the actions of six people, all for the sum of thirty—”

“Twenty-five.”

“
Twenty-five
gold coins and to possibly spare a world that loathed us a gigantic demon eating them alive, which they wouldn’t believe we did, anyway.” He looked around the table. “Have I got that right?”

“Roughly,” Asper said.

“Yeah,” Kataria grunted.

“More or less,” Dreadaeleon sighed.

“So, why should we be celebrating?”

Lenk had no answer. He looked at himself, wounded and hurting. He looked at his sword, resting in the corner of the cabin and ready to be called back. He looked back in his mind and saw the Abysmyths latching onto their mother and calling to her.

And he wondered if he had done anything more than kill a mother trying to reunite with her children because someone in a robe told him to.

He had no answer.

Someone else did. That someone rousted himself from his cot and with slow, lumbering steps, came to the tiny table of their tiny cabin and sat down in a chair that was tiny for him. Gariath leaned on it, the wood groaning beneath his weight. He stared at the bottle for a moment, as though he expected it to come alive at any moment and give him a profound answer.

When nothing came, he reached over as if to strangle it and took it by its neck. He looked at each of them, in turn.

“Because this,” he said, “is all that we have. And it is something solid.”

He threw his head back and poured the liquid down his gullet. His nostrils flared. His earfrills fanned out. He snorted, passed it to Lenk.

“This tastes like shit.”

The Aeons’ Gate

The Sea of Buradan

To my most esteemed colleague
,

It may grieve you to hear of the loss of Sheraptus and his warriors. It most certainly may grieve you to know that the vast majority of his knowledge on the manipulation of portals went to the grave with him. You undoubtedly know by now that our agents were unable to retrieve anything from his operations on Komga but bodies and a flimsy gate he used to enter
.

Comparatively, the loss of the martyr stones he loved so well may seem a trifle
.

Still, I must urge you to look at this as a gain for us. Ulbecetonth is dead. This is certain. And her brood and consort and prophet followed her back into hell. I can sense no more of her taint in this world. It is of little consequence that Sheraptus’s hand was not the one that struck the final blow, as was intended
.

It may even be to our boon that it was not. I know you were originally skeptical of my decision to send adventurers as insurance should Sheraptus fail—and for this, I will expect more deliberate thought given to my ideas in the future—but I presume you take no issue with the results of their handiwork, admittedly sloppy
.

Regardless, the item is once again in my possession. I make for Cier’Djaal at once and shall rejoin you in ample time
.

I anticipate the guise may have to be left behind, unfortunately. While Toha is far enough removed from civil society that the nation of the House of the Vanquishing Trinity is easy enough to believe, it will be harder to masquerade as a Lord Emissary of a nonexistent organization in a more populous area
.

You will have questions, undoubtedly. I will provide answers. With one more obstacle removed, our goals are that much closer. I can speak only for myself, as I ever do, but I view any loss as acceptable so long as it brings us closer to our goal of awakening these mortals to the reality of their situation and the blindness of their gods
.

Yours
,

A.M
.

When he was done, Miron set aside his quill and inkwell. He neatly folded his letter into thirds and placed it in an envelope. He dripped a bit of wax upon it and let it dry before holding it to his lips and muttering something in the old words from the old speakers.

And then he turned to his window.

The creature perched there looked at him without eyes. A woman’s face, gentle and curved, rested on her hands. Behind her, a bulbous abdomen quivered beneath a pair of moth wings. Those wings rose, the eye spots upon them blinked. She spoke through teeth contorted into a permanent smile.

“It goes?”

“It goes,” Miron replied, handing the letter to the creature. “Far away and you know where.”

“I cannot forget. Ever.” Its eyes drifted to the book, the flat black square upon the table. “This goes?”

“This stays. You go.”

“I go.”

And with that, the creature took the envelope and fluttered away into the night. Miron did not bother to watch it go. He had watched it go many times and always had it found its way. The Laments had their way of going unnoticed.

That was no worry for him, either. He had more pressing concerns.

The book. The tome. The key to everything. Despite everything else he had ever spoken of, he had been earnest when he said he doubted the adventurers. Even knowing Lenk to be what he was, he had doubted the man’s ability to deliver.

Maybe it had been that inside him that had delivered it. Maybe it was something else, something mortal.

Little problems for little men.

He had a vision.

And now, he had the means to realize it. He slid his hands over the tome. The change came almost instinctually, reaching out to the words in the book as they reached out to him. His skin slid off of his hands, his fingers suddenly too large for it. Gray flesh shone stark like stone in the firelight. He felt his lips peel over themselves, his teeth too large for his mouth.

He felt his hands tighten around the book as it whispered to him. As it told him all the great things he may accomplish, all that he was doing was good.

It spoke to him.

And Azhu-Mahl answered.

S
AM
S
YKES
is an author. You probably already figured that out, since you’ve just read his book, though. Unless you skipped right to the end? Shame on you. Or did you skip right to the About the Author page? That’s weird. I’m not sure why you would do that. Nobody reads these things.

And since nobody reads these things, I can say pretty much anything I want to back here. And you know something? I really don’t care for manatees
at all
.

Sam Sykes is 28. He lives in Arizona. He can eat most animals alive.