Under Fallen Stars (34 page)

Jherek almost choked on his tea, realizing for the first time that he’d accepted the invitation of a pirate. He glanced at Sabyna. The ship’s mage had a personal vendetta against pirates since her own brother was slain by Bloody Falkane. No emotion at all showed on Sabyna’s face, nor did she return Jherek’s look.

“Vurgrom has seen me as a threat ever since, and taken steps to eliminate me and my ship,” Azla said. “I’ve returned the favor upon occasion. Lately, through spies I’ve got in Westgate and other ports, as well as in Vurgrom’s crew, I found out he’s been stealing and buying artifacts scattered all across the Sea of Fallen Stars. He’s made deals with traders in all the nations, as well as bargains with some of the undersea races.”

“Do you know what that’s about?” Glawinn asked.

Azla shook her head. “I’ve heard that he’s got a contact on the Sword Coast that he sells them to regularly. Now you tell me he was in Baldur’s Gate the night it was struck by the sahuagin attack. It makes the whole situation I’ve been following even more suspicious.”

Jherek silently agreed.

“I’d found out from my spies that Vurgrom had been out to the west and was going to be returning through the Lake of Dragons sometime during the last week. It was the first time he’d been off the sea in months. He owns over half of the Bent Mermaid and I thought to take him there.”

“Until we showed up,” Glawinn said, brushing at the fittings on his chest plate.

“Aye,” Azla said. “I had a team of men waiting outside. If Vurgrom had been with a much smaller group, we could have taken him outside the tavern and spirited him away through the sewers under the city till we got him back to Champion.” She scowled darkly. “With a little time, I’d have found out soon enough what he was up to.”

“And now?” Jherek asked.

“Now,” the half-elf captain said, “I’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way. Follow him until I get an opportunity to find out what he’s up to and move against him when I can.”

“I’d like to accompany you if I could,” Jherek asked.

“To get back the trinket he took from you?”

Jherek grimaced. “Aye, but I’d prefer it if you didn’t talk about it so casually.”

“From what my spies tell me, Vurgrom was quite pleased to get that pearl disk. It was one of the things they’d hoped to acquire in Baldur’s Gate.”

The announcement shocked Jherek, and it must have shown on his face. How had Vurgrom even known about the disk if it had been hidden away for so many years? And what was it?

“I have room aboard for extra crew,” she said. “If you’d like, you’re welcome. As long as you understand that I’m captain of this ship.”

“Aye,” Jherek said.

“There must be one other stipulation,” Glawinn stated, turning to face her. “As long as we’re aboard, there is to be no taking of prize ships, no piracy.”

“Making demands like that goes against the acknowledgement of my being the captain,” Azla stated.

“Yes,” Glawinn admitted, “but you don’t know yet how we may help you in your own agenda. As you’ve seen from the disk and all that this boy has been through to get it here, our fates are tied up in it. I’d think it’s better that we worked together.”

“You’re shipless,” Azla pointed out.

“Today,” the paladin said, “but not in a day or so. There are some here in Westgate who claim Lathander as their deity. I would be able to find a ship, I promise you.”

“Then why want to join me?”

“Because I think you know Vurgrom better than anyone else we’d likely find. If anyone can keep up with him, I’m betting that it’ll be you.”

Azla pushed her tea away and stood. “All right,” she agreed. “You have your bargain. A combination of our talents, skills, and destinies. I won’t take any ships while you’re aboard, but what do I get in return?”

“If we can manage it,” Glawinn answered, “Vurgrom’s head on a pike.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Azla said, then turned and walked away.

XXII

Pacys sat on an outcropping of rock overlooking the sea elf city of Faenasuor. The old bard gave no thought to the two hundred feet of ocean above him, nor to the bluish hue it seemed all the world had taken on. The folk of Seros called all depths between one hundred fifty feet and three hundred feet the Gloom. The Sea of Fallen Stars itself served to stratify civilizations and undersea worlds.

A few tall towers, mute testimony to the hubris of the elves of the ancient empire, stood up from the sea floor, rising over the other recovered structures and the new dwellings that had been built. The city sprawled unevenly across the irregular seabed the elves called the Hmur Plateau. Despite seventy years of reclamation efforts, much of the city yet remained in a state of disrepair. Excavation teams harnessing pilot whales, narwhals, and giant crabs worked to clear more debris in an effort that had been ongoing during the days Pacys had spent there. Brackish clouds of debris and silt, exploded upward from avalanches of resettling rock, sifted constantly in the currents, eventually drawn away.

Besides being an acknowledged center of sea elven history, Faenasuor was also surrounded by oyster beds. Pacys watched sea elves out harvesting pearls from the oysters, clams, and other mollusks that created them. They worked in groups, gathering the sea’s bounty, then used the pearls to trade with other undersea races and surface dwellers. The last few days spent there had been highly instructional regarding all of Seros and some of the Taker’s legend, but it had also served to remind Pacys of just how much he didn’t know.

He turned his attention back to the instrument Taareen had given him. Despite the magical bracelet he wore, he couldn’t play the yarting underwater. Communication was fine, but the yarting’s notes all suffered. So he’d put the instrument into his bag of holding and decided to wait until he returned to the surface to play it again.

The song kept coming together in the old bard’s head. Thankfully, his musical skills weren’t limited to the yarting. Over his life he’d found nothing he couldn’t play with some skill.

Taareen had given him a saceddar, an alu’tel’quessiran musical instrument Pacys had never seen before. Mounted on a chest plate that hung over the player’s neck and shoulders, the saceddar had thirty crystals of various sizes and thicknesses across it. To play it, Pacys wore platinum finger and thumb caps on both hands. The metal was more durable than gold and struck a truer note.

He played the saceddar by striking his fingers and thumbs against a single crystal or a combination of crystals at the same time. Striking a new crystal or combination broke the vibrations of the last ones, effectively silencing them and providing for long and short notes.

When Taareen had given it to him, Pacys had been fascinated. That fascination had grown even more when the old bard discovered how easily playing the instrument came to him, and how parts of the song he’d been working on seemed to knit themselves to the new medium. He’d composed new parts over the past days, as well as learning the songs from Taker legends.

Scrabbling to his right, the sound dimmed by the water reached Pacys’s ears at the same time as the vibrations from the stone shelf he sat on. He turned and saw Khlinat pulling himself up through the twisted coral growth.

“Ye got up early this morning,” the dwarf commented as he settled himself across from the bard. The potions the sea elves kept him supplied with allowed him the same free movement and breathing ability as Pacys had from his enchanted bracelet.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Pacys said.

Khlinat wiped at his face, and the old bard knew it was because even though the potion protected him from the harsh nature of the sea, it left the dwarf feeling like he was wet the whole time. “I didn’t rest too well either, songsmith, but I know it’s ‘cause I ain’t never going to get acclimated to this way of living. What’s yer excuse?”

“Restlessness, I think.” Pacys pulled on the saceddar and fastened the straps. He took the finger and thumb caps from the small fish bladder bag that hung around his neck and fitted them on.

“Oh, and ye mean yer through prowling through them sea elf books, then?” Khlinat asked hopefully.

“I don’t know that I could ever be satiated with that, my friend. The wisdom of the ages resides in those tomes. Magic, history, travel, philosophy, worlds await any adventurer with the skill to read.”

“Aye,” the dwarf said, “and a goodly pouch of gold, I’m thinking, for any man clever enough and brave enough to make off with some of them books. Like as not, nobody’s ever seen anything even kin to them topside.”

“I’d say you’re right. Even skilled as I am in languages, when trying to read ones that should be open to me, I found them hard to decipher.”

Most of the books were written in special pastes that hardened and adhered permanently to pages that were cut from the shells of giant clams. A lot of time went into the creation of each book, so they were highly prized. Some of them were even tonal books, pieced together with crystals like the sacedder and designed to be struck by a tiny mallet in order to be read. Still others were merely books ensorcelled to withstand the sea.

Khlinat waved irritably at a small school of fish that seemed determined to find hiding places in his beard and hair. With the constant immersion of living beneath the Sea of Fallen Stars, his peg had started to show signs of distress. Taareen had asked a local smith to help out, and the dwarf had been issued a new peg made of green-gray coral Taareen had called claw coral and hydra’s stone.

“So what are we to do?” the dwarf asked.

“I don’t know.” Pacys’s fingers wandered across the saceddar’s surface, pinging crystals. Before he knew it, he’d started a new song weave. The notes from the struck crystals cut through the water like a knife, pouring out into the sea.

The music surged through him, building, and he gave himself over to it. The sound was haunting and evil, at turns strident and threatening. It stabbed Pacys deep within his heart with an icy finger, yet he found he couldn’t let go the song.

Sharp, poignant notes echoed across Faenasuor and floated toward the surface. Movement, barely sensed in the currents and then only because the old bard had attuned himself to listen for vibrations because of the saceddar, swirled around him. He knew from the feel that it was something large.

In front of him, Khlinat’s eyes rounded in horror. “Get down, friend Pacys!” The dwarf pushed up quickly, reaching out for the old bard’s robes and yanking him to one side.

Pacys flailed in the water, recovering quickly as he remembered to swim instead of trying to walk. He turned as Khlinat threw himself at the monster that swam up from the murky depths behind the rocky shelf.

The creature was a wide-jawed fish eighteen feet in length and nearly half that in width. Gray-blue, iridescent scales covered it, darker at the top and lighter at the bottom so it would gray out against the surface when looked at from underneath. Most sea predators possessed similar coloration for exactly the same reason.

Already in attack mode, obviously about to seize Pacys before the dwarf yanked him out of the way, the giant fish swam for Khlinat. It opened its mouth, blowing out fist-sized chunks that whirled around the dwarf.

Khlinat gave vent to a dwarven war cry and attacked the giant fish with both hand axes. Before he had the chance to land a blow, though, the giant fish opened its mouth, darted forward, and gulped him down whole.

Pacys watched in disbelief as his friend disappeared without a flicker of movement, then he noticed that the fist-sized chunks the creature had vomited up were swimming in his direction. Their bright teeth caught his attention first. Fully a dozen of them, as vicious looking as their parent, closed -within striking distance.

Acting quickly, Pacys spoke a command word and gestured at the approaching fish. A shimmering filled the water in front of him just before the first of them reached him.

The fish smacked up against the invisible shield that formed in front of him. It stopped the next two as well, but the fourth one got through. Finning close to the old bard, the fish sank sharp teeth into his flesh.

Watching the blood stream into the water from his wound, Pacys voiced another word, traced a ward with his forefinger, and touched the fish attacking him. Electricity sparked in the fish’s eyeballs. The predator released its hold and rolled over on its side, floating limply.

Pacys retreated, watching as the fish battered against his shield. He summoned his magic around him again and crafted another spell. Throwing his hand straight out to the side of the shield, he released energy bolts that darted from his fingertips.

Five greenish bolts of light streaked through the water away from the invisible shield, then curved back around and struck five of the remaining eleven fish, tearing their bodies to pieces. The others descended upon the spilled entrails and ripped flesh in a frenzy.

Taking advantage of the moment, Pacys swam to the bottom and stood on the rocky shelf. He took his staff from his back and flicked the razor-sharp blades out. He glanced at the parent fish, seeing that it had turned to face him. His heart was torn over Khlinat’s fate.

One of the fish found its way around the invisible shield.

Pacys swept, the staff around and neatly sliced the fish’s head off. The pieces floated in separate directions for a moment, then were seized by its brethren.

Blood streaming from the giant fish drew the old bard’s attention for a moment. Crimson mist poured from the creature’s gill slits and it moved as though in agony. Pacys whirled the staff again and gutted another one of the fish. Shifting, he spotted movement in the distance, recognizing it as sea elves riding giant seahorses. They sat crouched down over their undersea mounts, barely skimming above the kelp and seaweed lining the ocean floor.

The next fish through the shield evaded the old bard’s staff and sank its teeth into the flesh just below bis ribs. He groaned in pain and elbowed the fish away, but it was on him again, tearing savagely, before he could take a full step.

The old bard drew a knife and drove it through the fish’s head, through the gaping jaws and stilling the biting teeth. Though the tiny brain refused to accept the idea of death, it could no longer tear at him. It bumped him, rubbing its rough scales over his side, enveloped in the blood clouding the water.