Bruce Cordell - Key of Stars

“Stonekeel’s work?” Anusha asked.

The captain smirked and nodded.

“You must have paid through the nose to get her on such short notice,” she said. “I can’t think of a shipwright with a longer backlog.”

“Karna Stonekeel and I go back, ’s all,” the captain said. “I paid her a king’s ransom, aye, but she owed me too.”

Anusha decided not to ask what the shipwright could possibly owe a pirate.

“Last time I put out of New Sarshell,” said the captain, “it was Japheth on deck, and you stowed away in the hold, not that I knew it then. With you up here this time, it makes me wonder; do you think we’ll find a warlock down there stuffed in a trunk?”

“You’re funny, Captain,” she said. She smiled at the ridiculousness of the image.

No, Japheth wasn’t on the ship. He was … where? If the wizard’s portal ritual had worked, he was deep in the Yuirwood, tracking down Malyanna.

Using the powers granted to him by his newly sworn star pact.

Anusha frowned.

“You all right lass?” asked Thoster.

Anusha drew in a breath, and nodded. “Just letting my mind reel out too far,” she said.

“Worried about the warlock?” the captain said.

She wasn’t worried in the way he guessed, but she nodded anyway.

“I wouldn’t,” Thoster said. “He’s no slouch, and he’s with Raidon too.”

“True,” she said.

“And, I hope he ain’t worrying about you; I’m here,” the captain added with a chuckle.

“Don’t forget Yeva,” she said.

“Your friend the walking statue?” the captain replied. “She likes it below, it seems.”

“Well, she doesn’t like to come on deck much because she’s afraid she’ll fall off and sink.”

The captain grinned.

“Also-just like you said about Raidon, I’m ‘no slouch’ either,” she said.

“Indeed,” Thoster replied.

Anusha laughed.

“Japheth,” mused the captain, “comes off as a fierce sort, at least on the surface. He once told me he could curse the heart out of a demon. Trying to ruffle my feathers by way of indirect threat, I think. But … I don’t doubt he could slay a demon just so, and probably not think twice about it.”

“I suppose,” said Anusha.

“But I think he’s proved he’d go the last mile for you,” the captain said.

“Yes. What’s it to you, pirate?”

“Well, I don’t mean to be nosy, but I have to wonder why he’s there”-the man pointed east-“and you’re here?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Anusha said.

The captain chuckled. “Mayhap,” he said. “But were I you, I wouldn’t throw a good thing away just to prove I could.”

Anusha snorted. “We each took on the task suited to our strengths,” she said. “Separating was the logical choice-we didn’t choose against the relationship, as you make it sound. It’s not an either-or. Being in love doesn’t mean you do everything together.”

The captain raised his hands. “My misunderstanding!” he said. “Didn’t mean to wrinkle your frock.”

“It’s all right,” Anusha replied.

But it unsettled her how the privateer had so casually pierced to the heart of the matter. Had she separated them for more than merely logical reasons?

If so, then so be it, she thought. It had been necessary. Too many questions required answers-answers she was unlikely to get if they remained together while danger closed in from every direction.

The question was, could she separate the man from his issues? When she was with him, forgetting her concerns was easy. Despite her fears, he’d demonstrated he wasn’t a slave to his new pact, nor even to his old addiction.

It was when she was apart from him that all her worries returned. That’s really why she’d suggested they separate, so she could think clearly without Japheth around to confuse her.

At this point, she had to admit her plan wasn’t working.

If anything, with only her memory of him present, she vacillated even more spectacularly between hope and distress, back and forth over the course of hours.

All she knew for certain was that she missed him.

“Hold,” said the captain. His voice was devoid of the amusement it’d held moments earlier. “Listen!”

“No, I’d rather we not discuss my love life any longer …” Anusha saw the captain’s head was cocked to one side, as if he were straining to hear something.

The mist around Green Siren thinned. Then the fog peeled away, opening up the view on all sides.

Streamers of black cloud swirled on the horizon, creating a vortex in the sky. Lightning danced at the storm’s hollow heart, briefly illuminating an obelisk jutting from the crown of a thunderhead.

It was still miles away, thank Torm, but-

A brilliant flash revealed the petrified shape that crouched atop the obelisk. The Eldest! Still unmoving and as stiff as stone … But even the glint from its pocked carapace across the miles that separated them made Anusha’s stomach heave. She flinched her gaze away, then forced herself to return her regard to the horrific sight.

Small dots circled Xxiphu like crows around a tower. If the flying shapes were visible at such a distance against the city, Anusha realized that whatever the specks were, they must be colossal.

“The music … it’s like smoke in my mind,” Thoster said. “Awful, yet … enticing. Xxiphu commands that we find the Key of Stars and deliver it.” The privateer clutched the amulet that lay atop his jacket. When his fingers brushed the stone, some of the tension that bunched above his eyes faded.

Anusha swallowed. She strained to listen, but heard only the sound of the waves against the ship and the distant rumble of thunder.

“I hear nothing,” she said.

The captain shook his head. “It’s there all the same,” he said.

“Does it say anything else?” Anusha asked.

Thoster nodded. “It says, ‘Come to me, children of Toril, and serve.’ ”

The fluting melody tattered the moment Thoster’s fingers brushed Seren’s amulet. The sound threatening to engulf his mind in a conflagration of wonder was reduced to simple, if atonal, music. The piping melody, echoing and ethereal, lost its power to command him. He let out a relieved breath.

The magic in the talisman, which kept him from unraveling into a scaled mess, also protected him from Xxiphu’s mental compulsion.

“Children of Toril?” said Anusha.

Thoster shrugged, but as he did so, the image of a scaled fish person flashed in his mind. A kuo-toa. He tried to say the word aloud, but surprise robbed him of volume.

The deck vibrated with Yeva’s approach from belowdecks. “I counsel we keep our distance,” the iron woman said.

Thoster only nodded.

“Yeva,” said Anusha, “The captain says he can hear some sort of music. But I don’t hear it, nor does the crew. Can you?”

The woman’s metal head swiveled to regard the distant city. “A telepathic aura surrounds Xxiphu,” she said. “It carries some kind of compulsion, but one narrowly tuned to reach only a certain subset of creatures. More than that … I cannot say.”

“Kuo-toa,” said Thoster, finally managing to make his voice work again. “That’s what Xxiphu’s after.”

“And you can hear it?” said Anusha. Her gaze dropped to the captain’s forearm. It was covered with the sleeves of his black coat. She’d seen what was hidden beneath, though. “Would that mean-”

“Something along those lines,” Thoster interrupted. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out myself.”

“Mmm,” Anusha said.

The lookout on the mainmast screamed. “Something in the water! Approaching starboard!”

Thoster followed the woman’s pointing finger.