Richard Byers: The Reaver

But escaping the rain didn’t mean she’d escaped water, or at least the idea of it. As one would expect, the keepers of Umberlee’s house had adorned it with representations of sharks, eels, octopuses, and the goddess herself with her clawed hands, finned elbows, kelp hair, and cloak made of jellyfish dragging a ship beneath the waves. In addition, some acoustical trick filled the structure with the rhythmic hiss and crash of the waves below, while the cool air smelled of brine.

As Umara’s guide conducted her deeper into the temple, she paid attention to the number and locations of other guards. She noted, too, the glyphs protecting windows and thresholds. Many of the symbols were unfamiliar to her, likely because they derived from divine magic rather than arcane. But even so, she could often sense the power lurking in them as a twinge of headache or a prickling on her skin.

Her escort ultimately brought her to a round chamber with several doorways leading out of it and what appeared to be a bottomless pool in the center. Given that the spacious room was above sea level, she inferred it was enchantment that drew the water up the shaft. Wet, splayed footprints suggested that some marine creature had recently clambered from it to confer with the waveservants or Captain Highcastle himself.

“Sahuagin,” rumbled a voice at her back. “We’re good friends.”

Startled, she nearly jerked around. But it wouldn’t do to appear nervous, and so she took a breath and turned with the composure appropriate to her alleged role as an envoy. At which point, she had to steady herself again.

Like most Thayans, she’d spent her life growing accustomed to the undead and in fact was obliged to consort with a vampire nearly every night of her life. Yet even so, the sight of Evendur Highcastle jarred her.

Plainly, he’d been a hulking brute of a man even when alive. The tendays he’d supposedly spent lying at the bottom of the sea before his goddess saw fit to reanimate him had swelled his bulk even larger just as they’d softened his features. Still, despite the bloated, mushy look of him and the bits the fish had nibbled away, the balanced solidity of his stance conveyed a sense of enormous strength.

His costly but mismatched attire accentuated the grotesquerie of his appearance. From his massive shoulders swept a pearl-bedizened, high-collared green cloak that was part of the regalia of a high priest of the Bitch Queen. Yet beneath it, he still dressed like a pirate with plunder to squander and an utter lack of taste, in a jerkin with alternating ruby and emerald buttons, an orange sash, black and white checked breeches, and high maroon boots inlaid with erotic imagery.

Spreading her hands, Umara gave Evendur a shallow bow, respectful but not servile. “Captain Highcastle, Szass Tam sends felicitations to his brother in undeath.”

The pirate’s face shifted, but his features were too puffy for Umara to tell exactly what expression he’d assumed. Her inability to read him gave her another twinge of unease.

“Does the lich understand that I am more than undead?” Evendur asked. “That I am the Chosen of the Queen of the Depths?”

Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? said Kymas, speaking inside Umara’s head. Use the talisman .

Safely ensconced in the coffin concealed aboard their galley, his very existence unsuspected by any of the locals, the vampire could afford impatience. Umara was the one who’d suffer if Evendur caught her doing something he didn’t like. She exerted her will to quiet her superior’s urging and to keep the nasty sensation it produced, like an itch inside her skull, from showing in her face.

“He does indeed,” she said to Evendur. “Who could doubt it, considering how quickly the church of Umberlee, under your leadership, is extending its influence around the Sea of Fallen Stars? That’s why he sent me.”

“To pledge me his fealty?”

Despite the gravity of Umara’s situation, the question almost surprised a laugh out of her. Divinely anointed or no, the living corpse plainly didn’t understand the ruler of Thay.

“Honestly, no,” she said. “Only a small portion of Thay is coastline, and Bane is our patron deity. But Szass Tam offers an alliance between equals.”

“I just told you: He and I are not ‘equals.’ ”

“Captain, it’s not for me to debate that. You and Szass Tam are both greater than I, so how could I even pretend to know which of you stands higher than the other? All I can do is deliver my master’s message and hope that something in it meets with your favor.”

The drowned man grunted. “Continue, then.”

“Thank you. Szass Tam asks you to consider that he has the strongest army in the East, and you have a mighty fleet. Thayan traders have goods to sell-including crops grown in fields where continual rain doesn’t spoil them-in Turmish, Impiltur, and the cities of the Dragon Coast if they can convey them to market without the sea wolves of Pirate Isle attacking them. They’ll pay you for immunity … and for doing your utmost to destroy their Aglarondan competitors.”

“What do I care about armies when I’m building an empire of the sea?” Evendur replied. “And as for the toll you propose, I already have something similar in mind, but I don’t need an arrangement with your master to collect it. The day will come when every man who sails these waters or lives anywhere near them will tithe to Umberlee and her church.”

“To answer your question about armies,” Umara said, “may I show you something? I’ll need to work some magic, but I give you my word, it’s harmless.”

Evendur spat a wad of something too dark and foul to be a living man’s saliva. “I don’t need your ‘word’, girl. You couldn’t hurt me if you tried. Go ahead and cast your charm.”

Inwardly, Umara bristled at his contempt, but, probably fortunately, she’d had a great deal of practice masking her resentment when undead beings condescended to her. She simply said, “Thank you,” turned toward a clear space in the circular chamber, and began an incantation from Six Lies and a Question , a grimoire supposedly authored by the legendary illusionist Mythrellan.

As Umara crooned and whispered, she swept her hand back and forth like a child finger-painting. Gradually, a city square crowded with figures took form, and when the magic filled in enough detail, the figures began to move.

Soldiers wearing sea-green cloaks emblazoned with the image of a dolphin leaping over a seashell battled other men-at-arms clad in white surcoats bearing a purple dragon emblem. The major differences between the two factions were that the warriors of the dolphin were fully armored and attacking in squads, while as often as not, the men of the dragon wore no mail, carried no shields, and scurried to form up with their comrades.

The scene shifted to a tree-lined boulevard and then a shabby little marketplace in the shadow of a towering city wall. In each view, it was plain the warriors of the dolphin and shell had attacked the Purple Dragons by surprise and to deadly effect.

Evendur Highcastle had been an infamous pirate long before he rose from the waves as an undead monstrosity, and he studied the butchery with what Umara took to be professional interest. That meant it was time to use the talisman in her pocket. If she was lucky, his distraction combined with the magic already seething in the air would keep him from noticing another momentary pulse of power.

She wrapped her fingers around the carved onyx disk and mouthed the trigger word Kymas had taught her. Pain stabbed between her eyes as her perceptions shattered into paradox.

Evendur seemed to loom taller and also to spring toward her even though neither of those things actually happened. Rather, he became more massive and real than anything else, the crushing force of his presence diminishing the thick stone walls around him to something as wispy as the clash of shadows Umara had conjured to hold his attention.