Although she’d never visited a temple of Umberlee before, all great castles, palaces, and the like possessed certain features in common, and she soon discerned that she’d passed from the more public part of the structure to an area where important folk had their apartments and personal workrooms. That had its good side. She’d left the sentries and warding glyphs behind. But if anyone noticed her trespassing, it might well be someone less easily befuddled than her erstwhile escort.
In time, her search led her to a map room. Some hung on the walls, many were rolled up with their ends protruding from cubbyholes, and others lay spread on long tables where round brass weights kept the corners from curling up.
All the ones she could see were nautical charts. Spaces inland from the coasts were mostly blank, but the parchments were replete with information about the tides, reefs, shoals, and even the tiniest islets of the Sea of Fallen Stars. Some even pinpointed features in the uttermost depths like the sea elf city of Myth Nantar.
It occurred to Umara that the knowledge stored here might be even more valuable than the coins and jewelry she’d already left unpilfered. But it seemed just as irrelevant to her present needs, and so she began to turn away. Then dark spots caught her eye.
Specifically, greasy-looking smudges on one of the charts unrolled on a tabletop and the several smaller parchments scattered around it. In her imagination, Evendur traced lines on the map with a fingertip and held the papers before his eyes to read them, and exudate from his rotting skin left stains.
She headed for the table in question. When she was halfway there, she heard a faint creak of leather at her back. Someone was coming.
She hastily stepped aside so no one could see her from the other side of the doorway. But that wouldn’t protect her for long, not in a room with nowhere to hide and no other exits. She whispered a spell, swept her hand from the top of her head down the front of her body, and cloaked herself in invisibility.
A moment later, Evendur himself strode into the chartroom, and she swallowed away a sudden dryness in her throat. In that instant, she found it all but impossible to place any faith in the basic magic she’d employed to conceal herself.
Yet if the spell was basic, her skills were not, and evidently even the Chosen had their limitations. Evendur stalked on past her.
That was good as far as it went, but if the Queen of the Depths chose this moment to peer out through Evendur’s eyes, it was inconceivable that the charm would blind her. Breathing shallowly and holding still, Umara could only hope the deity had other matters to concern her.
Evendur moved to the same chart and notes that had snagged Umara’s interest and studied them with the glum air of a man who, despite a lack of fresh facts or insights, had succumbed to the urge to resume picking at a vexing problem. Eventually, he tossed down a parchment to slide off the table and spill to the floor, made a disgusted growling noise, and turned back toward the door.
Umara started to relax at least a little, and then the Chosen stopped short. Frowning-another expression just barely identifiable despite the bloat and decay-he peered about.
He senses he isn’t alone, Umara thought, and now that he’s set his mind to it, he’s going to spot me. If he can’t do it by himself, he’ll call on Umberlee to help him.
Strike first! Kymas said. He knew as well as she did how unlikely she was to prevail, but if by some miracle she did, he’d reap the benefit, and if she perished, he might learn something useful from the manner in which the Chosen opted to kill her.
She, however, had no intention of revealing herself by initiating combat or otherwise so long as any alternative remained. She whispered a cantrip, stretched out her hand, and shook it back and forth. The rolled maps in one of the floor-level cubbies rustled.
Evendur strode to the source of the noise, crouched down, and peered into the nook. Umara knew he wasn’t going to find anything but hoped she’d allayed his suspicions even so. Mice were good at vanishing when larger creatures approached, and they infested nearly every manmade structure from time to time. With luck, the Temple of Umberlee was no exception.
Evendur snorted and stood back up. He took a last look around, then headed for the door.
Once she was sure he was truly gone, Umara let out a long breath. Her shoulders slumped, and her hands began to tremble. But she didn’t have time to fall apart, so, scowling at her own frailty, she stifled the aftereffects of her close call by pure force of will and hurried to the table.
It took longer than she would have preferred to consider the chart and the papers, which proved to be dispatches from spies stationed at various points around the Sea of Fallen Stars. But no one else turned up to interrupt her, and by the end of the examination, she was smiling.
Thanks to their psychic link, she knew Kymas was smiling, too. She could even tell his fangs had extended thanks to a phantom sensation in her own mouth.
Easy prey, her master said, yet a prize that will fully satisfy Szass Tam. We merely have to find the child first.
CHAPTER TWO
Anton awoke lying in the dark with no idea where he was or what had happened to him. He only knew his head was throbbing and he urgently needed to throw up.
Instinct warned him he mustn’t stay on his back lest he end up choking. He tried to roll over onto his side, but something prevented it. In his blind confusion, he couldn’t tell whether it was simply that the agony in his head made him spastic or if something external restrained him.
He strained and finally flopped over just in time to retch out the contents of his stomach. Then he passed out.
When he roused again, it was to a telltale rolling beneath him and light shining through his eyelids. Squinting, he discerned that the glow came from a storm lantern in Naraxes’s upraised hand. They were in the cramped hold of the Iron Jest. The lanky first mate stooped to avoid bumping his head.
Anton’s hands and feet were tied, which had likely contributed to the difficulty he’d experienced turning over. Stedd Whitehorn, the boy prophet, was a few steps away and bound in a similar fashion.
Anton wanted to talk sitting up as opposed to lying in a sticky puddle of his own puke, but when he tried to lift himself, the pain in his head, which had subsided to an almost-tolerable ache, exploded back into full-blown pounding torture. “By the Maiden’s kiss,” he gasped, tears blurring the lantern light, “how many times did you bash me?”
“Just three,” Naraxes said. “Just until I was sure you were out. But then the men kicked you around and stamped on you.”
“Why? Why mutiny at all when I’ve led you to dozens of prizes and we’d just seized the biggest one of all?”
Naraxes hesitated as though he might be feeling the slightest twinge of guilt. “I didn’t plan it. I just … lost my temper, and it went on from there. But it’s been coming for a while. You throw our lives away and laugh as the corpses pile up.”
“Maybe no one ever told you this, but a pirate’s trade is inherently dangerous. And I never required anybody to run a risk greater than the ones I ran myself.”
“Still, we’ve followed you as far as we care to.”
“So why let me claim a captain’s share of the price on the young preacher’s head? I follow that much of your logic. But why bring me back aboard? If you’re all so disgruntled, why not finish me off? Or leave me to the pig farmers?”
“You’ll remember the gale you insisted on sailing through. There’s a chance it’s still blowing, or that another will rise, and if we give a life to Umberlee, maybe she’ll show mercy to the rest of us.”
Anton snorted. It made his head throb. “A little treachery is one thing, but now I’m truly disappointed in you. You’ve spent too many years at sea to believe you can bribe the weather, by tossing people overboard or otherwise.”