Erin Evans - The God Catcher

The knot around her ankles was tighter, and her freezing fingers couldn't seem to pull the cords free. Her lungs shrieking with pain, she let out the rest of her breath as she dug her fingernails into the hemp. It wouldn't budge.

The edges of her vision crumbled. She took in a mouthful of brackish water and nearly panicked as it flowed over her tongue. She made herself swallow to keep it from her lungs. Forget the knots-she needed air.

Not straight up, she told herself, though it was torture not to make for the nearest surface. Ferremo waited there, she didn't doubt.

She pushed off the muddy floor of the harbor, swimming with her hands toward the dark shape of a boat's hull. The rope dragged behind her, slowing her down. She fought against it, against the icy water, with every last bit of her strength.

Just as she thought she would never escape the water, Tennora broke the surface and gulped air.

The night was clear, and Selune was full and shining on the waters. Tennora floated on her back for a moment, taking long, slow breaths. The boat she clung to, a skiff trimmed in fishing nets, was perhaps sixty feet from the dock. She pulled herself along its hull and peered around the stern at Ferremo Magli, sitting on the dock, cleaning his nails with the tip of a knife and waiting to see if Tennora's corpse stayed down.

She hauled herself into the boat in one quick motion and lay on its deck, flat on her back and shivering.

A quarter hour passed before she heard the hoofbeats of Ferremo's horse passing on into the busier parts of the docks and the city beyond. Her muscles by then felt all but numb from her soaked leathers. Her wrists and ankles were chafed. She had not gotten Nestrix back, and her options for following through on her plans were far more dangerous than she'd hoped to have to work with.

But you aren't dead, she reminded herself. And once again, despite the inopportunity of the moment, Tennora couldn't help grinning.

Tennora approached the God Catcher cautiously, watching for signs of either Dareun's minions. If the followers of the dragon were there, they had hidden themselves admirably.

After another moment of watching, Tennora squelched her way across the square and into the building, favoring her wounded side. The cantrip she'd used had dried her clothes admirably, but her hair was still wet, her braid hanging down her back in a bedraggled line. And her boots were still soggy with mud and water that the spell couldn't seem to drive out. She thought about stirring up a fire to dry them by, and maybe sitting for a while, warming her bones, maybe getting a little bit of sleep…

She shook her head. Nestrix was still in trouble, and where Tennora had to go, it wouldn't matter if her boots were soggy. She trudged up the stairs.

At least you don't have to smell the sewers while you wait to die.

Wouldn't the Marchenors' son be aghast to discover a green dragon lairing in the sewers he so proudly patrolled? The sewers of Waterdeep were complicated and twisting. Where a hundred years earlier they lay in neat, straight lines to the bay, a burgeoning population and increasing rains had required that the tunnels and pipes be widened. And when that had not proven enough, the cellarers and plumbers' guild had dug new lines, above and below the existing sewers in some places. The results ran more tangled than the streets of Waterdeep-if one couldn't hide in Waterdeep Above, then Waterdeep Below was the place to be. Even the guards who patrolled the sewers for dens and warrens couldn't cover every inch of ground.

Like in many old buildings, the God Catcher's cellar ran into the sewers below. Unlike in many old buildings, this was because the God Catcher's leg had punctured the old sewer line when the ground beneath it had turned to mud. The leg, as the rest of the statue, had been hollowed out, and a passage led down to where the tenants could dump their wash water and chamber pots. Hot in the winter, cool in the summer, smelling rancid and musty all the year long-the entry point to the God Catcher's leg was open. And unguarded.

On the last flight of stairs, Veron sat waiting for her with a sour glare.

"Where have you been?" he demanded. "And what are you wearing?"

"None of your business," she said, climbing up around him. "And you have eyes; figure it out."

Veron fell into step beside her. "I have been worried senseless. I sat in that tavern for three hours waiting for you. Those heart-warders thought I was a madman. How did you get past me?"

"You're not as observant as you think you are." She was tired and cold, and his line of questioning set her teeth on edge.

"Where did you go?" he said.

"To save Nestrix." She unlocked the door and strode inside. She'd need the dagger, the carvestars-a nap, oh by the watching gods, she was tired. How did people do this night after night? She sat down for a moment at the table, trying to gather her thoughts.

Veron dropped into the seat opposite her. "I thought we went over this."

She rubbed her eyes. "Yes, well, things have changed. The man who took her is up to something. And now he has an artifact to help him along. So you'll have to find someone else, because I'm not helping."

The bounty hunter regarded her for a long moment. "You look exhausted."

"Worse," she said. "What's worse than exhausted?"

"Dead."

Tennora shook her head behind her hands. "No, I'm not that lucky."

"Here," Veron said. She uncovered her face and looked down at the small clay vial he was holding. "It's good for exhaustion."

"Right," she said. "I'll bet it will put me right to sleep like a good girl, so you can go off and slay the dragons." Veron scowled and put the vial back in his pocket.

"You are too clever," he said. "All right. I can't let you do this by yourself. Let me help."

Tennora laughed. "Unless you have such a potion-" Veron sighed and pulled a second vial, silver and stoppered with wax. Tennora gave him a pointed look. "Enough games."

Veron pulled out his knife and worked the cap off. He took a sip and held the remainder out to her. "No games. I'm with you if you think this fellow is more trouble. But you have to tell me everything you know. And once we've reached her and stopped him, I have no choice but to take her in."

"Try to take her in," Tennora said. "You can't ask me to help you."

"I can, but you won't," he said. "Will you at least stand aside? Give me a chance."

Tennora eyed the silver vial. "She says she had a reason. For killing the wizard."

"Of course she had a reason," he said. "There's always a reason. Let the court decide if it's a good one."

"You don't think it's a good one."

He hesitated, and in that brief moment Tennora saw that he wasn't sure. For as much as Veron Angalen insisted on the rightness of his task, he did not know what had happened on that night in Cormyr-or any other time he suspected that Nestrix had a hand in someone's death-any more than Tennora did.

"The odds say no," he said, "she didn't have a good reason. When someone is tied to as many deaths as she is, even Tymora wouldn't take the bet that it's merely coincidence."

Tennora took the vial from him. "Perhaps you're watching the wrong pieces of her game," she said, and tipped the potion back. Within moments, the fatigue melted out of her muscles and the ache out of her bones. The bruise on the side of her face faded. She stretched her neck.

"Better?" Veron asked.

"Yes," Tennora said, standing. She went to the shelf beside her bed-the only one that hadn't been damaged-and took down her spellbook. "Give me an hour."

"And then what?"

"And then," she said, "we're going into the sewers."

Dareun was beginning to question his judgment-a feeling he despised acutely. But the creature who called herself Clytemorrenestrix of the Calim wasn't giving anything up. No amount of threats, of cajoling, of searing pain seemed to break through her insistence that she could not tell him how to avoid the dragonward as she clearly could. She lay now, breathing heavily on the bottom of the cage, bruised and bloodied.