The hosts of Zhaitan sought the abyss as living things seek the air.
At last, Caithe and Magnus reached the Cormorant. Caithe grasped a line that hung in the water and pulled herself out of the soup. Magnus followed.
The deck of the Cormorant was ravaged. Rotting corpses lay interspersed with the freshly dead.
"What a mess," Caithe said as she stepped over the rail.
"Caithe! You're alive," called Eir from the aft deck. She was ruddy-faced, red hair torn wildly from its braids, but she smiled with triumph.
Caithe climbed the aft stairs. "Not just alive. Victorious!"
"Yes," added Logan, "though some of us feel less than victorious." He glanced at Rytlock, who was vomiting over the aft rail.
Only then did Caithe notice Snaff and Zojja, who stood in swooning concentration beside Eir. They were bringing up the two barques. Both were smeared with undead and scratched from stem to stern.
Magnus the Bloody Handed stepped up and bowed to them all. "You have done it. You have slain another dragon champion."
"Yes," Caithe said. "Him and his followers. Do you see?" She gestured beyond the aft rail of the Cormorant, where the whirlpool closed. The once tormented sea settled into its regular rhythm, the waves rising and falling like breath.
Magnus nodded, his face lined with deep gratitude. "Now Destiny's Edge has purchased its own billet. All of you are free."
The Ship's Council of Lion's Arch announced a feast for Destiny's Edge, slayers of Morgus Lethe. Every captain wanted to host the banquet, and every dignitary wanted to attend-with supporters and family and friends. As a result, no ship was big enough, and measures had to be taken to keep out undesirables.
In the end, the feast took place in the middle of the Grand Harbor aboard not one but seven ships, connected via gangplanks and swinging lines. Each ship sought to outdo the others. Every deck was holystoned, every bit of brass polished, every rail festooned. Lanterns blazed upon the spars, sending a warm and manifold light down over the elegantly garbed partygoers.
Even Eir and her companions wore new clothes-greatcoats in dazzling white. They were gifts from Magnus the Bloody Handed, tailored from the first shipment of fine wool to pass the erstwhile lair of Morgus Lethe. Each coat designated its wearer an honorary member of the Ship's Council.
"I think we look dashing," Logan said, "as white as Seraph."
"I think we look like waiters," Rytlock griped. His brawny shoulders bristled beneath the yards of white cloth, and his horns continuously snagged the coat. "I can't move!"
"Luckily, all you have to do is shake hands."
It was true. From the beginning of the party until well into the evening, Destiny's Edge stood as a long line of dignitaries filed past and shook their hands.
The companions coped with varying degrees of success. Eir and Logan were the most gracious, nodding and thanking people. Snaff and Zojja didn't understand how to keep the line moving, though. Whenever someone would say, "I don't know how you did it," Snaff would leap in with, "Well, let me tell you! It all began with the design of the hold golems…" Then he would spin a long, elaborate tale, all the while shaking the person's hand so that he or she could not get away, with Zojja breaking in every fifth word with a correction.
The companions were, of course, stationed on the finest of the seven ships-the Pride-a great war galley that belonged to Commodore Lawson Marriner of the Ship's Council. He was a man of contrasts. The finery of his greatcoat contrasted with the leathery skin of his seafarer's face, and his quick movements aboard ship and his even quicker mind belied his age. When finally the receiving line ran out, the commodore showed the members of Destiny's Edge around his ship.
"It's a warship, yes," the commodore said as he guided Rytlock and Logan into the stateroom beneath the aft deck, "but it's also one of the meeting places of the Ship's Council." The room was lavish, with silver leaf and red velvet drapes. In the center stood a great, round table in oak, where the commodore and the captains of Lion's Arch routinely met to do the city's business. Just now, though, the table was loaded with thundershrimp and clams and swordfish and squid. "Avail yourselves."
Rytlock grinned and grabbed a plate. "Ah, seafood."
"I'm surprised a charr would like seafood," Commodore Marriner remarked.
"I like any food I can spear with my claws," Rytlock replied.
There was plenty to feast on, of course-ales and wines and cheeses and breads and every other bounty of this bountiful city. Loaded down, Logan and Rytlock staggered out the cabin door and seated themselves on the capstan. There, they ate, listening to a nearby conversation.
"It's the size advantage, for one," said a young asura, her skin smooth despite sea and sunshine. She was speaking to Snaff, Zojja, and Caithe, and judging by her short greatcoat, she was a person of importance. "I mean, a norn in the hold-it's a comical thing. And on deck they're constantly getting whapped by the boom. 'Bring a ship about and there's a norn in the drink' is the old saying. And have you ever seen one climb the ratlines? Looks like a mantis in a spiderweb."
Rytlock laughed, a shrimp flying from his mouth.
"I can imagine," Snaff said encouragingly. "Go on, Captain Shud."
"Captain?" Rytlock wondered.
"Shhh," replied Logan. "I want to hear this."
The captain went on, "An asuran ship, though, there's a thing to behold. We fit everywhere-the tops, the decks, the holds. And we can run more sail than any norn ship. We can set the boom four foot off the deck, not twelve. No, the seas were meant for us-"
"Not to mention the innovations," broke in another asura, who was shorter than the first. The tail of his greatcoat pooled on the deck.
"What innovations, Captain Tokk?"
"Well, things like retractable keels so you can sail in three feet of water, and retractable masts so you can sail beneath bridges."
"Fascinating," Snaff said. "I'd like to learn more."
"Well, I would like to learn more about you and your goals."
"Ehh?" asked Snaff, his mouth hitching.
Captain Tokk smiled, his face beaming red. "Well, you've done so much for the norn in defeating Jormag's champion, and then for Lion's Arch by defeating the Orrian dragon's champion, but what have you done for our own people?"
Snaff blinked. "Well, I invented completely new forms of golems, ones that allow the controller to move them while moving their own bodies. I call it double sight."
"What else?" Tokk pressed, smiling in a self-important way.
"Well, I've innovated sand golems-actual golems that rely more upon the powerstone dust that controls them than on the substances that make up their physical forms."
"Exactly," Tokk said as if he hadn't heard a word. "Nothing. It's time for you to pay back your homeland by defeating another dragon champion."
Snaff blinked away his frustration. "Another dragon champion?"
"It's rising near the city, in the jungle beyond the swamp."
"Yuck," Snaff said.
"I know! Mud, mosquitoes, those bushes that stick seedpods to your pants-"
"Sticker bushes-"
"Thanks," Tokk replied. "Yes, in such a horrid place is where a champion of Primordus is rising."
"Just name him!" Snaff said, scowling now. "Imagine the cheek, rising near Rata Sum!"
"He is called the Destroyer of Life," Tokk said, his eyebrows lifting as if his own words amazed him. "His master, Primordus, was the first of the Elder Dragons to rise, and he wreaked havoc on the dwarves. They slew his first champion, the Great Destroyer, and we allied with the dwarves to fight back the tide of minions that boiled up from the deep places. For centuries, we had them driven back. But the old wyrm found a new champion. The Destroyer of Life is forged of stone and magma. He is raising more armies of destroyers."