The Seascape Tattoo (13 page)

Neoloth brought the mug back to his “master,” who downed it greedily. Gold watched them with a suspicious eye.

“Good,” Aros said with an imperious sneer. “But next time”—he threw the rest of the water in Neoloth's face—“next time, when you're told what to do, you damned well hop to it!”

Neoloth fought his urge to use the talisman to turn the arrogant thief into a toad and bowed. “Yes, sir! I'm sorry, sir.”

As he backed away, bowing and scraping, Captain Gold approached. “Not thirsty,
sir
?” The odd emphasis was a jest.

“Ah, don't have my sea legs yet. Feeling a bit chancy, and I thought the water would help. By the time this sluggard brought it, it was too late.”

Was this role-playing? Actually, he did look a little brownish-green around the gills. Had Aros the pirate king always been a bit seasick? Gold had certainly never known that.

Gold decided there was enough truth here to matter. “I have just the thing,” he said, then called out, “Steerman! Passenger taking the wheel!”

A raft of different emotions flickered across Aros's face, the last one a mixture of gratitude and concern. “Been a while.”

Gold laughed. “Oh, just keep your eye on the east and steer us north. Feeling the wheel in your hands makes the waves feel … homey. Half-tamed. You'll remember fast.”

Gold retreated from the scene, leaving Aros in control of the ship. After a minute, Neoloth humbly approached him.

“Was that imperious enough for you, Washelisk?” Aros said under his breath.

“You,” Neoloth replied, “are enjoying this entirely too much.”

“It's all in a good cause,” he said reasonably. “Oop! Someone coming.”

A sailor approached, winding a rope around his arm as he did, and Neoloth adjusted his body language to grovel a bit more. When the man passed, he drew closer. “Good, actually. But remember that the relationships are formalized, especially if the servant is not a bondsman. He has
chosen
to work with the master and could change his mind at any time, find a new employer. Losing a servant is a major hassle. Keep your manners unless something goes foul. Would you discharge me for a single error?”

“Depends on the mistake. Not for dawdling, right?”

“If not, don't threaten. If so, just do it and get me out of the house quick, before I decide to steal something on my way out of the door. If you swear, don't overdo it.”

Aros cursed without heat. The feel of the wheel beneath his hands was beginning to sooth his gut. “So many rules.”

“Perhaps I could find the right cloaking spell after all,” Neoloth sneered. “Perhaps it's too much for you. Perhaps
I
should be the missing prince, and your heritage makes you more suitable as a servant than a master—”

As another sailor drew near, Aros gave Neoloth a backhanded slap across the mouth. Neoloth reeled back. His hands twisted as if about to perform an arcane gesture. Aros's hand slipped to the hilt of his sword.

“Be careful, wizard,” he said. “There are limits.” His eyes glittered. He fixed his eyes on the northern horizon. “Do you think I'm too stupid to recognize your hand in my downfall?”

Neoloth looked up at him, eyes blazing with both anger and curiosity. “Then … why?”

Aros laughed bitterly. “Do you think I wouldn't have done anything,
anything
to get out of that prison? And do you think that I won't find a way to take revenge?”

“If you try anything, you'll die…,” Neoloth began.

Aros's smile broadened. “Everyone dies, my fine wizard.
You
are the one for whom death holds terror. You are the one who sought to cheat death of his due. I'm a barbarian, remember? Don't you civilized men know we hold our lives cheaply? Didn't the implications of that occur to you?”

“But…” Neoloth's head was spinning.

“Why?” Aros asked. “Because we hold life cheap but freedom dear. Kill me now.” He inhaled deeply. “And what happens? I die with the smell of the sea in my nose. The wind in my hair. And the happy knowledge that you'll be at the bottom of the ocean before my body is cool.”

The wizard blinked. “What?”

Aros leaned close. “Where are you?” he asked. “Whose friends surround you? That is not solid ground beneath your feet. What law can protect you here? Yes, you have magic. But there are a thousand ways to die at sea. Care to wager on whether you can evade them all?”

Neoloth turned away, unwilling to let Aros see his eyes, which blazed. “I won't bet.”

Aros gripped his arm. Despite the wizard's artificially maintained vigor, the barbarian's grip sank deep. He pulled Neoloth closer. “Then you will damned well show me respect. Or we can both die. Here. Or in Shrike, where again your life will be in my hands. Look in my eyes. Do I lie?”

Neoloth didn't need to look in Aros's eyes. And didn't need to look around to know that the sailors were laughing at him, thinking they were seeing a man of wealth and power abusing a helpless servant. And if he wasn't careful, they were right.

He swallowed his bile. This … was not the time or place. Later, after their mission was complete …

Yes. Later.

He said, “I don't need your eyes. The truth is in your voice.”

Aros released his arm. Neoloth rubbed it, wincing as the circulation returned.

Aros turned the wheel this way and that, enjoying the day. “Please.” All traces of his barbarous accent disappeared, and he spoke as one highborn. “Continue your discourse.”

Neoloth steadied his voice. This man had depths he'd not expected. “If my service is pleasing to you, sometimes you thank me. ‘Thank you' can also mean that you want me out of the room. You call me by my first name unless you're really angry, then use the whole name…”

Neoloth was looking straight out over the waves. Seething. He caught himself. This would not do. He had lost a beat, missed a step. Aros was now too much in control of the situation.

And, confound it, he was not the least bit comfortable with the extent of his dependency on the barbarian's oath and sense of honor.

 

FIFTEEN

Mers, Octopi, and Agathodaemon

The ship was at peace, and the men were stuffing their faces in the mess, Aros roaring wild songs with the best of them. “I beg your leave, sir,” Neoloth said. Aros waved his hand at the wizard and he left, happy to emerge back in the air.

He spit over the rail, tasting blood. “Bastard,” he said, and rubbed his mouth, imagining that he could still feel the impact of the Aztec's hand. “You'll pay for that.”

The roar of the singing sailors rose above the sounds of wind and surf. Neoloth went up to the stern and looked down at the ship's silvery wake. Something was in it. Something with a luminescence all its own.

He stared down into the waters, and, as he did, he could finally make out a family of Merfolk following the ship.

They jigged and pranced in the water to the music wafting up from the mess. Dancing in the moonlight.

Neoloth watched them, a strange contentment stealing over his heart. “If such glory as this still exists in the world,” he murmured, “perhaps all is not lost.”

One of them rose up on his tail in the wake, then another, the wet blond hair dripping down over her breasts. Her smile was pure enticement. The sailors and Aros were singing of a tamed hurricane, and she sang, too.

Happy memories eased his foul mood. “Ah, my beauty. If this was another time and another place. I would show you such a mating dance. We would rejoice in the waves, you and I.”

She canted her head questioningly, as if to say,
Why not now?

“Why…” He laughed to himself. He shook his head. “I would seem stupid to you if I spoke the words.”

Her eyes beckoned.

“I feel your pull, as of old. Feel what sailors have always felt, when you called to them. But another has my heart now. Another…”

He smiled. “Listen to me. I think I'm in love.”

Almost as if she had been waiting for him to say those words, she smiled to him, fading back, the family capering on the waves. And as Aros's voice roared in the night, Neoloth did a few fancy jig steps on the forecastle, laughing at the world and at himself.

*   *   *

In the morning, the ship had docked at a small island. Aros and Neoloth disembarked. Neoloth carried the little oilskin-wrapped package beneath his arm. Agathodaemon was coiled around his neck.

Captain Gold stood at the head of the gangplank, looking down at them. “We'll have an hour or two here. Mind telling me what the play might be?”

Aros shrugged. “Magicians are a different breed,” he said.

“I'll be back,” Neoloth said. The wizard picked his way around the edge of the island. Aros accompanied him uneasily.

They found their way to a sheltered cove, out of sight of the ship.

“What now?” Aros said. Neoloth enjoyed the uncertainty in his voice.

“Now … we'll see what we see.” From the little oilskin-wrapped package, he extracted the talisman and set it carefully on a flat rock at the edge of an outcropping. While the snake slithered about, Neoloth uncurled the papyrus and, reading, spoke under his breath.

Aros stood and stepped back. The rock vibrated, and the entire cove began to hum. “What are you doing?” he asked. And the trace of nervousness in that question was gratifying.

Neoloth shushed him. “Wait.”

Nothing … and then the water rippled. Shapes crawled out of the little waves … not human, not even mammal, and hard to see. They flowed like hummingbird shadows. Aros had never seen an octopus, but this must be what they were. Several of them came crawling onto the sand, turning sand-colored as they came.

Agathodaemon regarded them.
Were they cousins to the serpent?
Aros wondered. There was a certain resemblance, a certain similarity of locomotion … suddenly he wished he had as much scroll learning as Neoloth.

But damned if he was going to ask the question.

“Thank you,” Neoloth said, and bowed to one of the creatures, the biggest. “I bring greetings from your southern relations.”

The octopus's beak didn't move. “We received your message. What is it you wish?”

The others crawled and pulsed. One of them confronted Neoloth's snake. They examined each other and then backed away. Colors ran across that one's flank, and Aros saw the shadow of a snake.

“I am Neoloth-Pteor,” the wizard said with an incongruous little bow. “I travel to Shrike on business. I need to know what you know about them.”

“I would not go there,” the big one said.

“No!” the other agreed. “Not there.” Those spoke up from the rocks, half in the wavelets. Aros could not see them clearly.

“Why not?” Aros asked, uninvited.

The cephalopod rippled, changed color, and then crept closer to Neoloth. “Who is this one?”

“One … who helps me,” Neoloth said.

The octopus burbled and then continued. “When I was young, Shrike was a good place. The ships plied the sea and caught many fish, but the sailors respected the old gods and gave back a tenth of all they caught as offering.”

“No more?”

“No more. Today the ships smell different. They smell like burning oil. They foul the water. They throb like living things and stink of pitch.”

“What does that mean?” Neoloth asked.

“I do not know. But there is something else. Their ships travel far, and what they bring back does not smell like fish.”

“What, then?” Aros asked.

“It smells like man.”

“Cargo-hold passengers?”

The creature seemed to consider. “They dump the offal overboard.
That
smells like frightened human children. There is something else as well. The waters of their river are not good.”

“A river that flows into the ocean?” Aros asked.

“Yes. It tastes of metal. They are using fire, inland.”

Neoloth crouched down. “Can you go and find out what they are doing?”

The body of the octo-wizard turned blue and black. “Perhaps. If we wished to die. It is poison. It has killed fish. The waters are poison. We thought this was why they do not fish. There is little to fish. My people do not go there any longer. I have been poisoned. It will soon be my dying time.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” Aros said. “I wish you a good death.” To Neoloth's surprise, he actually sounded sincere.

“One more thing. Have you seen this woman?” Neoloth produced an image of the princess.

“Who is she? Your mate?”

“She is a queen's daughter. Have you seen her?”

The octopus bubbled. “What happened to her?”

“She was kidnapped,” he said. “We think she was taken to Shrike.”

“How long ago?” it asked.

“Perhaps a moon. Have you seen her?”

“Possibly,” the big one conceded. It whistled.

From the half-submerged rocks another octopus said, “A ship came into the harbor. One of their small, stinky ships came to it. Caught my attention. I went up to look. Two women were taken from the ship. Both wore masks. Smaller human's hair was gold.”

“And the larger woman?”

It purpled. “We think it was a female. It is a little hard to tell humans apart.”

“The larger one. The color of her hair?”

“Red. Coral red.”

“That could be Drasilljah,” Neoloth said. “It is possible. My friends, thank you so much. And if you could please speak with your friends and relations. It is critical that we find her.”

Neoloth stood and stretched. He glanced back at the forested section of the island, seabirds whirling overhead. There was food and water here. And he knew what he had to do.

“I ask a favor of you,” he said to the octopi.