She lowered the crossbow to her desk and smiled at them.
“I-as your mistress and servant to the great smiling goddess-can put up with much. Brutality, murder, pillage, torture-these things are nothing to me. Indeed, I offer great reward to those who undertake them in the light of the goddess’s smile.”
She gestured to her coin, which gleamed in the candlelight with a radiance that matched her smile. Then her smile turned and she frowned at them.
“Then again, my goddess frowns upon those who fail me-or, worse, question me and her great works. And the reward of such disfavor, well … I shoot you in the godsdamned face. Thus.” She gestured to the body of the man on the floor, around which a pool of brackish blood was spreading. “Now. Are there any questions?”
The room was silent.
She smiled. “Go then, and bask in the smile of the goddess.”
The men crowded out of the room as fast as they could.
“Not you, however,” she said, to man who’d chosen the lucky coin. He jerked straight as though she’d stabbed him in the spine.
“Oh, don’t fret,” the Coin Priest said, rounding her desk. “That one fully deserved it, for bungling the mugging. That’s how Beshaba smiles.” She seized his arm and squeezed, her nails digging into his flesh. “But you won’t fail me again.”
The scarred man shook his head sharply, fear in his eyes.
“Good.” She leaned in and grasped the lucky sellsword by the chin, stroking his stubbly jaw. Dealing death always gave her an appetite. He trembled as she drew close enough to kiss him on the lips.
“Now, about that reward,” she said, and she pulled him into her embrace.
She loved the taste of fear.
CHAPTER TWELVE
23 KYTHORN (NIGHT)
The port of Luskan, it was said, hadn’t seen active service since the reign of the pirate kings of the old world, and Kalen could well believe it. In his childhood memories, it had been wretched, but what lay before him was worse: a graveyard for the hulks of ships murdered in century-old conflicts. Its headstone was Luskan’s chief landmark and the former power in the city, the legendary Host Tower of the Arcane, with its four spires like the trunks of an eldritch tree. It lay in rubble on central Cutlass Island, as it had for a century.
During summer nights such as this, a foul, humid fog gripped the bay, choking off breath and irritating the lungs. Anyone foolish enough to row out on such a night-like the two men in the shallow-bottomed skiff, with their pack behind them-would cough and sneeze and choke and generally suffer through a miserable journey.
At least his spellscar had grown quiescent, seemingly content in a way it had not been since he’d traded harsh words with Myrin in her chambers. Had he really avoided her all this time? He put that concern aside and focused on how much he hated Luskan-every dripping, moldering, disgusting finger-length of it.
“Tell me again,” Kalen said between oar strokes, “why we’re in this boat, braving these waters to climb aboard a derelict that’s been floating in the bay for a month?”
“Because a dead body told us to,” Rhett said. “Rather, the corpse said he-that is, the necromancer speaking through him-thought there was, how did he name it … a ‘source of corruption’ in the bay. Then the man the corpse had been mugging-back when he was alive, that is-he was the one who told us about the derelict.”
“This is the man”-Kalen coughed-“without his own face.”
“The same.” Rhett snuffled. “Which I didn’t realize until after the corpse talked-hmm.” He grinned. “It didn’t sound much better the second time, did it?”
“At least it’s a lead.” Kalen coughed again, harder this time.
Kalen’s inquiries that day told him the derelict in question had drifted into Luskan’s harbor a month gone. It had borne black paint, which meant plague, so no one had touched it for twenty days-long after anything could be alive inside. Eventually, the desire for loot had gotten the best of several Luskar, who’d raced to get to the ship to pilfer what they could.
Kalen would have done the same fifteen years past. If he had and the plague had come from this ship, he might have been its first victim.
Now he and Rhett were in a rickety skiff, rowing through the sickly fog toward what could possibly be the source of Luskan’s scourge. This they did on the word of a dead man and at the suggestion of a man who’d been wrapped in illusions.
They drew up on the derelict and Kalen hammered a stake into the barnacle-encrusted hull. He was unconcerned with the damage. The ship would never again be seaworthy and they needed to tie the skiff off, lest it drift away while they were about their business.
“Saer Shadowbane,” Rhett said. “I’ve a question.”
Kalen knew what he would ask and feared it. “If you must.”
“Why did you make me Lady Darkdance’s guardian, when she clearly wants you?” Rhett cleared his throat. “For her guardian, I mean.”
“You’re the one with Vindicator,” Kalen said.
“That’s another question.” Rhett fingered Vindicator’s hilt. “This sword is yours-clearly yours. And yet I’m the one carrying it.”
“So it would seem.”
Kalen’s body ached from his earlier fight with Sithe, up on the roof. She’d thrashed him again, then walked away in silence.
“Saer, you’ve set me about those things you should be doing yourself.” Rhett visibly mustered himself. “And yet-”
“I won’t take you for my apprentice,” Kalen said.
Gloom enclosed the little skiff, filling the air between them and choking off their words. Silently, Kalen looped the skiff’s mooring rope around the stake.
Ultimately, Rhett gave up with a sigh. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”
“This isn’t the life you want. And even if it is …” Kalen’s eye fell on Vindicator-on the long flaw that ran through the steel. He remembered Vaelis and the words turned to dust in his mouth. “I am no master for you. I know that, even if you do not.”
The assertion hung between them. Ultimately, Rhett nodded.
“Well,” Rhett said, “at least we managed to leave Myrin back at the Rat.”
“True.” Kalen sneezed. “She does tend to make things … interesting.”
“Well that’s”-the boy sneezed as well-“certainly true.”
A third sneeze cut through the silence. Kalen and Rhett looked at one another. The half-elf dropped his hand to Vindicator’s hilt. Kalen waved him to peace and inclined his head toward the packs at the back of the skiff.
“Sorry.” Myrin shimmered into visibility. “The sea air is just so awful.”
Kalen found he wasn’t truly surprised. Her presence explained his spellscar’s serenity. Even now, he felt the calming influence of her own scar on his. From that, he really should have known she was there before they’d set out on the bay.
“We’re turning around,” Kalen said stiffly.
“Kalen!” Myrin protested, at the same time Rhett said: “Saer!” They looked at one another, both startled the other had cried out.
“Very well.” Kalen drew a loop of knotted rope from the back of the skiff and put it over his head and shoulders.
“ ‘Very well’?” Rhett asked. “You aren’t going to try to stop her from coming along?”
“Would it work?” Kalen drew out his two very sharp daggers.
“Not likely.” Myrin gave Rhett a smug smile.
Kalen ignored them both and turned to the ship instead. He stabbed one knife into the spongy wood, then the second higher up. Dagger by dagger, he made his way quickly up the ship’s hull. A quick check of the main deck yielded no obvious threat, so he tied off the rope to the main mast and threw the end back to the boat. He heard Rhett and Myrin arguing below and the rope pulled taut.
The ship hadn’t looked distinctive from a distance, but up close Kalen recognized the cut of the sails and the unusual configuration of ropes and cranks. He also knew some of the sigils from his days in Westgate, training with the Eye of Justice. This ship operated out of Akanul-Airspur, if he guessed rightly-and he found it remarkable that it had come so far west of its berth. Kalen saw no corpses on the main deck. If the crew perished of plague, they must have done so below. He waved to the others.