Sea of Death: Blade of the Flame - Book 3 (17 page)

“I don’t know about this,” Ghaji said. “Nothing personal, Solus, but you’re still learning to use your abilities. If you make a mistake while attempting to read Diran’s mind …”

“He won’t!” Hinto said. The halfling smiled up at his psiforged friend and patted the construct’s stone hand. “Will you?”

“I shall do my very best to ensure your safety, Diran,” Solus said.

“It’s the
very best
part that worries me,” Ghaji muttered.

Diran considered for a moment. “Even if there is a risk, I believe it is one worth taking. The demon showed me images other than the
Zephyr
. They made no sense in and of themselves, but I fear they might portend ill for the future. Any information we can learn about the demon’s visions might help us prevent them from coming to pass. Go ahead, Solus.”

The psiforged nodded once, then lowered his hood and stepped toward Diran. He reached up and gently touched his blunt stone fingers to Diran’s temples, and his eyes glowed a brighter green. Diran gritted his teeth and winced a couple times, but otherwise he appeared to be in no discomfort. Within a few moments, it was done, and Solus lowered his hands.

The psiforged then spoke two words. “Trebaz Sinara.”

Haaken Sprull drifted in feverish delirium, his dreams filled with sharp teeth and the stink of fetid breath seasoned with rotted flesh. Over and over in his mind he saw cold-black shark eyes roll white, saw a tooth-filled maw clamp down on his legs, felt white-hot pain burn through his nerves as those teeth shredded meat, snapped bone, and spilled his life’s blood into the freezing surf …

He screamed and his eyes snapped open.

The Coldheart commander lay on a pallet in a darkened cabin, the sheet beneath him soaked with sour sweat. Haaken sensed motion and thought he might be at sea, but if so, the water must have been especially calm today, because the ship’s passage was smoother than any he’d ever experienced before. At first he thought he was aboard the
Maelstom
, the Coldhearts’ vessel, but this cabin was more cramped than his: the walls closer together, the ceiling lower, and the pallet softer than he preferred. Then he remembered—the
Maelstrom
had run aground on Demothi Island when he’d attempted to strand the priest and his half-orc friend there. Not one of his more brilliant schemes, he had to admit, considering how it had turned out. His crew dead, his ship destroyed, his legs …

He sat up in sudden panic. He remembered everything: hiding out on the island when the undead rose from the waters surrounding Demothi, seeing Diran Bastiaan and the half-orc defeat the zombies, witnessing the arrival of the elemental sloop and the dark creatures that sailed upon it …

He remembered the lich summoning a huge shark from the sea, remembered the foul beast biting off his legs. But he felt no pain … true, his legs felt odd in a way that was hard to define, but they didn’t hurt. The light in the cabin was too dim to see by, so—hands trembling—Haaken reached down slowly to feel his legs.

They were still there, but that came as little relief to him. For what he felt protruding from below his knees were small, stumpy limbs, hardly longer than a child’s legs. What’s more, the skin felt smooth when he ran fingers down it, but rough when he slid his fingers back upward. Each foot had only three stubby toes, all with sharp claws. There was something familiar about this strange new flesh he possessed, but his mind refused to supply the answer to the mystery, almost as if Haaken was too terrified by the truth to allow himself to recognize it.

“You’re awake. Good.”

The voice sounded cold and hollow, like winter wind blowing between ice-coated gravestones. Haaken remembered that voice. It belonged to the lich.

He turned toward the direction the voice came from, and in the darkness he saw two small pinpoints of crimson light. The lich’s burning eyes.

A cold chill gripped his heart, and it was all he could do to force words out. “What … happened to me?”

The lich made no noise as she moved, but her crimson-fire eyes grew larger as she came closer. Haaken wanted to flee, but he was too paralyzed with fear to do more than sit and watch as the undead sorceress approached his pallet.

“You’ve been granted a great honor, Haaken Sprull,” the lich said in her whispery graveyard voice. “My mistress has chosen to include you as part of her glorious plan.”

“Uh, and that mistress would be …”

“Vol,” the lich said. “I am her most devoted servant. You also serve her …
now.”

Haaken couldn’t see in the dark, but he could hear the lich’s smile in her voice. He tried to put up a brave front as he responded. “I serve no one but Baroness Calida!” But despite his intention, his words came out sounding timorous and weak.

The lich released a hissing laugh that sounded like a nest of venomous snakes had taken up lodging within her throat. “You have no choice but to serve Vol, Haaken. She’s in your blood.”

The Coldheart commander thought of the loss of his legs and the strange limbs that had replaced them. “That shark you summoned …”

“You are doubtless aware of what those who worship the Silver Flame call the Purge, when the so-called Purified caused the near extinction of Khorvaire’s lycanthropes. But even warrior-priests as mighty as those of the Silver Flame have their limits, and while the Purified carried out their Purge on land, they were unable to do anything about the lycanthropes that inhabit the seas. The creature that attacked you was a wereshark, Haaken. A very old and powerful one. It passed its curse on to you through its bite. Your new lycanthropic healing abilities are already in the process of regenerating your lost legs, and you should be completely healed well before midnight. At that time you will be able to begin your new life as a servant of our most dread mistress.”

If Haaken hadn’t seen the ancient wereshark with his own eyes, he would’ve thought the lich was insane. But more than the evidence of his eyes, he could sense that the lich’s words were true. He could feel it in his blood.

A wereshark … Haaken had heard of them, of course. Every sailor had. He’d never seen one before, but then again, maybe he had and just hadn’t realized it. He’d seen hundreds of sharks over the years, and any one of them might have been a lycanthrope. The thought that he was now such a creature should’ve filled him with loathing, but it didn’t. Instead, he felt curiously good, even excited. Like all Lhazaarites, Haaken was more at home on the water than off. Now he would know what it was like to be able to breathe underwater, to swim free and strong, to hunt prey, capture it, and devour it whole.

Without realizing it, he smiled, revealing two rows of sharp white teeth.

“What must I do?”

And there in the dark, while Haaken’s new legs continued to grow, Nathifa told him.

D
iran, are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” Ghaji asked. “You know a lot more about hiring ships than I do.”

Dusk was approaching, and the inner courtyard of the palace was cloaked in shadow. Baroness Calida and Taran had gone inside a while ago. The boy had been eager to have his mother show him his bedroom; tonight would be the first night he’d ever slept in it. Their other companions had already left the courtyard for Kolbyr’s docks. Only Ghaji and Diran remained behind—and Leontis. The cloaked priest still sat on the edge of the fountain and stared into the water, as unmoving as any of the animal statues that ringed the fountain.

“Asenka and Hinto know just as much as I, if not more,” Diran said. “And thanks to Calida’s generosity, we’ll be able to hire the fastest ship in port, no matter how much the captain charges. You’ll have no difficulty finding a suitable vessel with or without me.”

After Solus had identified a destination for them, Diran had told the Baroness that he’d changed his mind about accepting a reward from her. Calida had been only too happy to fund their expedition to Trebaz Sinara.

Diran glanced at Leontis then lowered his voice. “There’s a reason
my old friend has sought me out, and if I’m to discover what it is, I’ll need to speak with him alone.”

Ghaji scowled—which didn’t surprise Diran since the half-orc scowled all the time, even when he was happy—then nodded once. “Very well. I’ll be down at the docks with the others … if you need me.”

Diran smiled and clasped his friend’s shoulder. “When have I ever not needed you?”

Ghaji grinned. “Truer words were never spoken.” Then with a last suspicious look at Leontis, the half-orc turned and left the courtyard.

After Ghaji had departed, Diran stood for a moment regarding Leontis, whose attention was still fixed on the water within the fountain’s basin. It hadn’t been that many years since Diran had last seen Leontis, and the man looked almost untouched by the passage of time. Oh, there was some gray in his beard, but not much … a few more lines around the eyes, perhaps. But the greatest change in Leontis wasn’t physical. He seemed weary, as if he were weighed down by a heavy burden. Depression and spiritual malaise were hardly uncommon among the Purified, especially in those who took the most active role in combating the evils that plagued the world. There was a saying in the Church: “Gaze into the Darkness long enough, and you’ll see that the shadows you find there are your own.”

And never had that bit of wisdom been driven home for Diran like that night many years ago by the banks of the Thrane River….

“Do you see it?” Diran whispered. “There, up ahead.”

There were enough moons in the sky to provide sufficient illumination to allow even someone without an assassin’s training for night-work to see. At least, there should have been.

“Where?” Leontis whispered back, sounding vexed.

Diran tried not to sigh. He was fond of Leontis, and they got along well, but he sometimes found it difficult to have patience with his fellow acolyte’s lack of experience. “Ahead of us on the riverbank,
about a hundred yards away. A mill, I think. That’s where the evil is located.”

Leontis’s teeth flashed white in the moonlight as he smiled. “How much are you willing to wager that Tusya knew about the mill long before we came to the area, and that’s why he chose to make camp here?”

Diran smiled in response, but he didn’t draw his lips away from his teeth. Emon Gorsedd had taught him to be more cautious than that. A bit of moonlight reflected off one’s teeth at the wrong time could well mean the difference between success and failure for an assassin. And failure too often meant death, and not for one’s intended target.

“Not a single coin,” he said.

The river burbled on their left, its gentle sound accompanied by the soft whisper of the wind. Despite the lateness of the hour, birds sang to one another, perhaps stirred by the blue-white light of the moons, and their trills added notes of beauty to the night’s symphony. During his years as an assassin, Diran had learned not to be taken in by false appearances, and this lesson had only been reinforced during his time with Tusya. Just because all seemed peaceful here didn’t mean they weren’t in danger. Evil all too often disguised itself as innocence and beauty, a sweet-smelling poison waiting for someone foolish enough to drink it, as Aldarik Cathmore might have said.