The manacles clinked every time he and his zombie benchmate with the skin sloughing off its grub-infested arms and torso hauled on their oar. After a while, he’d realized he was croaking out his reminiscences, tall tales, and sea shanties in time to the beat.
“So the sea giant said, ‘If that’s the Pool of Love, why does it bubble and smoke?’ And I said …”
Curse it, what had the clever original hero of the story said to convince the wicked giant to dive into the lava? Anton’s mother had told him the tale dozens of times, but now he couldn’t remember.
Blame exhaustion, the fetid air, or the debilitating aura of the skull medallion. Perhaps because Anton wasn’t currently attempting to remove the amulet from around Stedd’s neck, the effect wasn’t hitting him as hard, but he could still feel it in his body and mind alike.
He wracked his brain for several pulls on the oar, then gave up and started a new story. “You may have noticed that unlike many another pirate-or all these Thayans-I don’t have any tattoos. But I used to. I was covered from the neck down. And this is the story of how I lost them.
“The Iron Jest,” he continued, “had been through a storm so terrible it left every sail in tatters. If we didn’t mend them, we’d never make port. But when we checked the ship’s stores, we discovered we’d forgotten to stow any thread.
“So I took my dagger and picked at a bit of the tattooing on my left big toe until I dug the end of a line of ink out of my skin. Then I pinched it between my thumb and forefinger and started pulling very carefully.”
“What?” Stedd mumbled.
Anton grinned. He’d talked and sung his throat raw in an effort to rouse the boy despite the power of the skull talisman, but he’d nearly given up hope of it working.
“Never mind,” he said. “Just wake all the way up. But don’t squirm around.”
He didn’t want the overseer of the lower tier to realize Stedd was awake. Fortunately, the Thayan had already proved to be a lackadaisical supervisor, happy to stay by the companionway outside the aura of the amulet so long as Anton kept rowing. And if the pirate and the boy prophet kept their voices low, the creak of the oars should cover the sound of their conversation.
Stedd’s eyes fluttered open. “I’m sick …”
“You’re exhausted and wearing that filthy skull again. But you have to raise the power to free yourself.”
Stedd grimaced. “I don’t think I can. Not like this. It’s just too much.”
There was a demoralizing certainty in the lad’s voice, but Anton struggled to keep any hint of defeatism out of his own. “Surely not too much for the fighter who destroyed Evendur Highcastle.”
“I didn’t destroy him. He’d already used up a lot of his own strength, and you and the wizards had already hurt him some. So I was able to hurt him more. Enough to chase him off. But that was all.”
“If we’re not done with him, that’s all the more reason for you to get us free.”
“All right, I’ll try.” The boy stared at the planking over their heads as though hoping by sheer force of will to peer through it to the sky beyond. His lips moved as he whispered his entreaties. But Anton couldn’t see anything happening in response, not even the faintest, briefest flicker of conjured light, and finally Stedd said, “I’m sorry.”
Anton sighed. “So am I.”
“But this isn’t the end. As long as we don’t give up, we’ll find a way.”
A muscle in the Turmishan’s back gave him a twinge and made him suck in a breath. “Boy, I don’t give up. Ever. But I don’t care if you are Chosen, whatever that really means; you need to get over thinking that destiny or some friendly god is going to make everything come out all right. That’s not how the world works.”
“I don’t think that. Not exactly. But-”
“Show me the divine hand manifest in what’s happened to you so far. Everybody lied and betrayed everybody else. Everyone wanted to kill you or peddle you to those who would. It’s not exactly the sort of inspirational fable the priests like to tell. It’s what that dastard Kymas called it: a farce. A bloody, random comedy of errors.”
“Everything is different than I thought it would be, back when Lathander first spoke to me. I’m scared a lot of the time. But I need to go east, and you know what? I am. You took me part of the way, and the Thayans are taking me farther.”
Anton frowned. He hadn’t looked at the situation like that. Probably because it was a ridiculous perspective.
“It’s not going to help you,” he said, “that Thay just happens to lie at the eastern end of the Inner Sea. You won’t even lay eyes on Sapra as the galley sails on by.”
“Maybe. But it isn’t true that nobody’s really my friend. There were Questele and the other Moonstars, and now there’s you.”
“By the fork, mooncalf, haven’t you figured me out even now? I didn’t sneak into the House of the Sun or chase after the galley to rescue you. The sordid truth is, I never stopped intending to sell you to Evendur. It was just another droll twist in the plot of the farce that put him and me on opposite sides today.”
“I did figure that out,” Stedd answered, “and I don’t like it. But then you tried to help me when the Red Wizard said he was going to hang the skull on me again.”
“And I have no idea why. But you can rest assured that if I had the moment to live over again, I’d cheerfully drop the chain over your head myself.”
“I don’t believe that. Why do you want to be bad? You try so hard that when a good feeling pushes you to do something, you don’t even see that’s the reason why.”
Inwardly, Anton flinched. “Has your Morninglord been telling you the alleged secrets of my innermost heart?”
“No. It doesn’t work like that. But sometimes I understand things I wouldn’t have before.”
“Well, this isn’t one of those occasions. I don’t have to try to be bad. I am bad, and I have a string of outrages and atrocities to prove it.”
“That doesn’t mean-”
“Enough prattle! Pray. Meditate. Find some magic to set us free.”
Lying in filthy bilge water, Stedd presumably resumed trying to do precisely that, albeit, to no more effect than before. At least the absence of twitching and jerking provided reassurance that he hadn’t slipped back into nightmare-ridden delirium.
Meanwhile, Anton felt pains flower throughout his body. He was strong and fit but lacked the calluses and specially developed musculature of a galley slave, and he was paying for it. The ordeal would have been even more taxing if he hadn’t figured out how to let his putrescent but indefatigable benchmate do more than its fair share of the labor. Unfortunately, he couldn’t let the zombie do too much more than half, lest the overseer take notice.
In time, Anton also learned that even with the sun hidden behind the rainclouds, he could guess the passage of time by the way the feeble daylight shined through the outriggers. Thus, he judged it was late afternoon when, robed in scarlet and magenta, her head newly shaved, her cheek bruised where he’d pinched it, Umara descended the companionway.
“Be quiet and keep still,” Anton whispered. He suspected the wizard intended a closer inspection than any the overseer had made of late, and he didn’t want Stedd to give himself away.
Somewhat to the pirate’s surprise, Umara gave the Thayan mariner permission to vacate his post for a while, and the man clomped up the steep shallow steps. Then the mage headed down the central aisle.
She gazed down at Stedd with a somber expression that hinted at regret, but her jaw tightened as she stepped around him to reach Anton. She backhanded the reaver across the face; her rings tore his cheek.