He spotted the anchor set against a rocky ridge. He was surprised at how much colder it was down here, suddenly, and knew that he wouldn’t be able to stay for long. He tested the safety line on the main anchor line again, then set off, swimming to the end of its length, then circling around.
This was the spot, Pericolo had assured him, but he saw no signs of a wreck. He came to a smooth and sandy bed among the rocks and glided across it. Feeling quite vulnerable, he shifted his gaze this way and that as if he expected a giant shark to sweep in from the darkness and gobble him up in a single bite.
The surprise came from below instead, as the ground suddenly erupted, sand flying up all around him. He thrashed and gurgled with surprise, and nearly swallowed the seawater.
His eyes went wider still as a gigantic flat fish flapped its mighty wings and rushed away, its powerful wake spinning him around. Regis had never seen such a beast, with massive mandibles and a stringy tail running out behind it.
The sand settled and so did he as the ray moved out of sight.
On he went, more cautiously now, watching the ground and rocks, particularly the small caves in those rocks, more carefully than looking ahead, more concernAlpirs and UntarisIment of oned with keeping himself alive than with any shipwreck.
The big winged fish returned, and it was not alone.
Regis held himself very still as the gigantic rays glided all around him. He could sense their curiosity, and knew at once that it was his illuminated headband attracting them. They glided in from the darkness, appearing all of a sudden, their white underbellies bright in his eyes. One after another, they floated past, and despite the fact that every one of them-and there had to be a dozen or more-was much larger than he was and could likely buffet him to death with ease, the halfling found himself giggling at the surreal scene. He felt as if he wasn’t in the water then, but rather, floating up in the night sky, with magical celestial behemoths flying around him.
After a long while, he reminded himself of his mission, and of the tremendous amount of water between him and the surface. On he went, the giant winged fish hovering around like a protective escort-and indeed, the halfling came to think of them in that manner, for he came to understand that they meant him no harm, that curiosity, not aggression or hunger, kept them near to him.
He had almost completed his wide circuit of the anchor line, coming over one dark ridge, when he found the seabed falling away from him, farther into darkness. Worse, the current in this ravine proved quite strong, and Regis held onto the rocks of the ridge and thought to backtrack instead of continuing along.
He was just about to do exactly that when he noted a crossbeam against the stones just below and before him. It hardly registered to him initially, and he started back, and indeed had gone some distance before he even realized what he had seen.
A mast.
Regis rushed back to the ridge and moved lower, toward the beam. Yes, it was a mast, lying against the stone. Using its reclined angle as a pointer, the halfling crept farther, to the very end of his tether. He couldn’t quite make out the markings, but it seemed to him that there was something there, a hull, lying on its side against the rocks before and below him. He reached back and pulled the elven cord, but it had no more length to give to him.
He looked up, at the long and dark ascent, at the rays gliding all around.
It would take a long time to get back up there, hoist the anchor, and reposition the boat, and the thought of coming back down here after the sun had set was not a comforting one.
Regis fiddled with his harness, producing one of Wigglefingers’s potions. How many times had the wizard told him not to use these unless absolutely necessary? They were expensive and took a long time to brew, after all. But Regis wasn’t about to return to the surface and come back down this day. He put the vial in his mouth and bit off the cork, the cool liquid affording him the ability to breathe underwater. Even with that, it took all of his courage to continue. He untied his tether line and started down, holding the rocks as securely as if he was scaling down the side of a mountain. The current tugged at him, and if it caught him, he feared he would be washed far, far away, and probably held under long enough that he would drown.
But now he saw the hull, battered and broken, cracked amidships.
He couldn’t be sure that this was the boat he had been seeking, of course, for the Sea of Fallen Stars was littered with shipwrecks.
And yet, he was sure.
And it called to him like a siren’s song, but caught in the entrancement of the magical melody, Regis merely thought it his own a long while to realizeju{margin-top: 1em;text-align: centerim curiosity pushing him along.
He crept closer, but had no direct path to the broken hull. He planted himself against the ridge and pushed off, swimming furiously.
The current grabbed him and rushed him along to the shipwreck, then right past it! At the last instant, the halfling lunged out with his hand and caught the taffrail and held on for all his life.
Finally he pulled himself aboard and spider-walked along the side of the hull to the wide crack.
He peered in, his light shining on a scene that had known only darkness for many decades.
Fish scampered all around, and past their flickering scales, Regis noted crates lying around the hold, many broken, but some intact, and one in particular catching his eye, for it gleamed of silver in his headband’s light.
He pulled himself into the hull and, relieved of the current’s pull, rummaged around. He opened a bag Pericolo had given him, a magical bag of holding, and eased into it a pair of small boxes and a coffer, all the while making his way to the large silver crate.
No, not a crate, he realized as he arrived just above it.
A coffin.
A coffin made of silver, and with chunks of broken mirrored glass atop it and beside it. Regis caught his own reflection in one large shard, but looked away immediately, remembering the story of bloody rats Donnola had told him.
Too late.
A halfling, a copy of Regis himself, slid out from the mirror, drawing a rapier identical to the one on Regis’s belt.
Regis cried out, bubbles escaping, and fell back, crashing against crates and boxes, thinking only of escape. But he couldn’t get away; the magical image was too close, and too intent on destroying him.
He saw the tip of the rapier, darting for his face.
“He’s been gone too long.” Donnola crouched down at the rail, peering intently into the dark water.
“At ease, lass,” Wigglefingers interjected. “Yer little friend’s got potions if he needs them. He’s been down longer than this just catching shellfish.”
Donnola didn’t respond, other than to shake her head. She knew that Wigglefingers was stretching the truth, for Spider had never been down this long, she was sure.
“Can you enlighten us with a magic vision, perhaps?” Pericolo asked his wizard, clearly as nervous as his granddaughter.
Wigglefingers nodded and fumbled around his cloak, producing one scroll tube after another until he settled on the appropriate one. He pulled the parchments forth, cleared his throat, and began his incantation. A few moments later, an eye, huge and bulbous, its pupil alone as large as the halfling’s head, appeared in the air beside him, floating as if in water.
Wigglefingers cast an enchantment upon the eye, giving it light, then sent it forth into the sea, and willed it down along the anchor line. Soon after, it neared the bottom.
“I see his tether,” the wizard announced, for only he could view the scene through his wizard’s eye. “Spider is on the bottom, out that way.” He pointed to the northeast, back toward the coast, though the hills of Aglarond were long out of sight. At the same time, the wizard eye rushed along the tether. asked, and Catti-brie nodded.we, particularlyim