Umara recited the same spell of revelation she’d cast in the hold, and with the same lack of results. Nothing hitherto unseen popped into view, and everything that had already been visible remained as it was.
Yet, she reflected, scowling, if the coffin was here, wizardry had to be hiding it somehow. Whirling her hands in spiral patterns, her fingertips trailing crimson phosphorescence, she recited a spell intended to indicate the presence of any sort of magic.
In response, the entire cabin seemed to glow with rainbow colors, because so many of the articles before her bore enchantments. Kymas must have enchanted nearly every item he’d brought on the journey-or had some underling attend to the chore-at least in one petty fashion or another, and even the evicted Ehmed had left a couple magical belongings behind. There was simply no way to pick out the spell concealing the coffin from all the others.
Umara wondered how much time remained before sundown. Not much, she suspected. Perhaps not much at all.
She started picking through the articles in the cabin, examining the cramped space by feel as well as sight. Her mouth was dry, and her pulse quickened. The jangling tautness in her nerves demanded that she rush, but she forced herself to remain methodical.
Yet even so, she nearly passed over the oblong carnelian box on one of the built-in shelves. She was already turning away when it struck her how exactly it resembled a certain type of Thayan sarcophagus.
She found that she couldn’t simply lift the lid and look inside. A ward was holding it in place, and she’d have to disrupt it. But as she drew breath to do so, she was already certain what she’d find.
Magic could change the size of a person or object. To a shapeshifter like a vampire, such spells likely came easily, and she was glad of it. She liked the thought of her proud master perishing while shrunk to the size of a doll.
Metal clinked, and then something bumped between her shoulder blades and clung there, yanking her cowl off her head as it scrabbled for purchase. A shrill brassy tone like the blare of a glaur horn jabbed into her ears.
Startled, she faltered, and something sharp stabbed into the skin on the left side of her neck. An instant later, a little hinged arm of red and black metal whipped around the right side of her head, and tiny fingers with needle points clawed at her eye. She flinched away, and they tore her cheek instead.
She reached behind her and yanked her small attacker from its perch. She felt a twinge as its fingers pulled free of her neck and hoped she hadn’t just ripped her own skin too badly.
Grunting, she threw her assailant against the screen in front of the hatch. Still emitting the brassy wail, it fell with a clatter and then rolled to its feet.
As she’d realized as soon as she saw its arm, it was Kymas’s little metal golem. It hadn’t been inert after all. It had been surreptitiously standing watch and sprung into action when she touched the shrunken stone coffin.
The automaton poised its hands to claw and grab, flexed its knees, and sprang upward. She backhanded it and knocked it flying into the rack of staves.
Once again, the metal puppet scrambled up as soon as it fit the floor, but this time, she was ready for it. Backing away to the minimal extent the close quarters allowed, she rattled off words of wrath and thrust out her arm. Her fingertips throbbed, and darts of blue light shot out of them to pierce her attacker and tear it to shreds. The blaring died.
She felt a surge of satisfaction. Then other fingers, full-size this time, grabbed her from behind and threw her face first into the screen. The collision made it fall back into the hatch and then crash to the floor. She fell right along with it.
She was half stunned, but instinct made her flounder over into a sitting position to face the new threat. No doubt roused by the racket the marionette had made, Kymas loomed over her. She thought dazedly that she was sorry she’d missed seeing him emerge from the coffin and grow to normal size. That would have been interesting.
“I can respect the desire to eliminate me,” he said, exposing fangs that had already extended, “but not your judgment. You should have waited until you were stronger.” He stooped and reached for her.
She was certain that no attack she could cast in the instant remaining would stop him. Investing it with every iota of willpower she could muster, she screamed the word of opening instead.
With a crash, the hatch flew open. Banging, the storm covers did, too. Gray daylight shined through the openings, and Kymas’s hairless head and alabaster hands burst into flame.
The vampire roared and flailed. Umara snatched for the stake concealed in her robe. If she could stab it into his heart, that would be the end of him.
But despite the fiery agony he was suffering, Kymas caught the stake in mid-thrust. He jerked it away from her, reversed it, and swept it down at her.
She flung herself to the side, and the stake made a cracking sound as the point slammed against the floor. She scrambled out onto the deck before he could try again.
The hatch slammed shut behind her, and with a ragged clattering, the storm covers did the same. Kymas apparently possessed a charm of closing as potent as her word of opening.
Umara knew what would happen next. The blaze consuming the vampire’s substance would gutter out. He’d shield himself against the sunlight and perhaps take another moment to start healing his burns. Then he’d come after her.
The sailors had heard the racket in the cabin, witnessed her frantic, scuttling withdrawal, and now they were gaping at her. She drew herself up straight and attempted to cloak herself in the haughty aura of command proper to a Red Wizard.
“Kymas,” she shouted, “is a traitor and means to kill us all. When he comes out, attack him!”
She couldn’t tell if anyone believed her or meant to obey, nor did she have time for persuasion. She raised her hands to conjure a blast of fire, spoke the first crackling word of the incantation, and then realized that any magic that further damaged the already crippled galley might result in her death even if Kymas’s retribution didn’t.
Anton, she decided, had been right. Stedd really had robbed her of every trace of sense.
Despite the rain pattering on the deck overhead, Anton heard a brassy note cutting through the air. Next came banging, and then the sound of Umara shouting.
Stedd asked, “What was she saying?”
“I couldn’t make the words out, either, but she told us to consider noise the call to battle. Can you blast Kymas the way you blasted Evendur? Or work any magic to hurt him or slow him down?”
“I don’t think so. Not yet.”
“Then keep hiding. If neither Umara nor I come back for you … well, you’ll have to think of something.”
With that, Anton climbed the companionway. He half expected crewmen to start shouting and rush him the moment he slipped up onto the desk, but they didn’t. Everyone was busy staring at the galley’s stern-
— where Kymas Nahpret stood casting about with the carved hatch to his cabin standing ajar behind him. The vampire had charred patches on his ivory face and hands but the failing, feeble light of an overcast dusk wasn’t inflicting any new burns. He must have shielded himself against the sun.
Unlike those who served him, Kymas oriented on Anton immediately. The undead mage stared, and despite the intervening distance, the pirate felt a surge of lightheadedness. He couldn’t remember why everything had seemed so dangerous and urgent just a moment before.
Then crimson light rippled over the vampire’s body. Above and behind him on the quarterdeck, Umara appeared with her hand outstretched. She’d breached her invisibility by making a mystical attack.