Richard Byers - Queen of the Depths

Some of the folk in the boisterous crowd staggered or moved with exaggerated care. Others spoke too loudly or slurred their words. Despite the noise and the frequent jostling, a few snored, sprawling back in their chairs with limbs akimbo or with their heads cradled in their arms on wet, scarred tabletops.

Puzzled, Tu’ala’keth turned to Anton. “Is this a sick house?” she asked.

Anton grinned. “A tavern. Don’t you have tavernsand intoxicants, and drunksin Seros?”

“We have intoxicants, but no establishments like this.”

“Well, now that you’re a pirate, you’d better get used to them.”

Captain Clayhill motioned to them, and they followed her and the rest of her officers on through the press.

Toward the rear, the common area with its benches, hearth, and hard-packed bare-earth floor broke apart into hodgepodge of smaller rooms, niches, and closets fitted haphazardly together. The captain was evidently familiar with the layout, for she led her officerssave for Tu’ala’keth, a mix of humans and the stooped, brutish, gray-skinned race known as oresstraight to the private chamber she’d hired for the occasion.

Tu’ala’keth was grateful when the door shut out the noise and stink of the common room. Someone had already brought in pewter goblets and bottles of wine, and several of her companions made haste to pour themselves drinks, but she didn’t follow their example. No sea creature drank anythingor else, depending on how one looked at it, one drank constantly, simply by using one’s gillsbut even if she had been susceptible to thirst, she would have been more interested in the map spread on the table, the curling corners weighted by extra cups.

She saw with relief that she could pick out the place Anton had specified when he’d sketched a far cruder chart in the sand. By her standards, she knew a fair amount about the shape of the world. She could have drawn a map of Seros in considerable detail. But she’d never had any reason to concern herself with what lay beyond its waters.

“Are you ready?” Captain Clayhill asked. Though still aglitter with jewels and frills, she was no longer the girlish sycophant taking her cues from Vurgrom. Away from him, she put on a harshness, a striding, shoving impatience, which had taken Tu’ala’keth by surprise.

“Yes,” the shalarin said.

“Then find us a worthy prize.”

“As you wish.” Tu’ala’keth seated herself, yet another action that felt clumsy in a medium as lacking in buoyancy as air. “It will be helpful if everyone stays quiet.”

The pirates settled to watch her. She gripped her skeletal pendant with one hand, poised the other over the chart, murmured words of praise to Umberlee, and pretended to slip into a trance.

It gave her a vague sense of shame. Her creed taught her to use every weapon and seize every advantage in the pursuit of her endsto resort to subterfuge whenever she deemed it useful. Still she couldn’t help feeling it was one thing to lie about mundane matters, and something else, something akin to blasphemy, to claim she was employing her sacred gifts when, in fact, nothing of the sort was going on. Despite Anton’s assertions to the contrary, she had no more talent for divination than any other cleric.

But the spy insisted they needed to exploit her cachet as an exotic shalarin waveservant to further their mission. Since it was manifestly Umberlee’s will that the endeavor succeed, Tu’ala’keth swallowed her qualms as best she could.

She let the litany of praise fade into a wordless croon. She’d once known a genuine oracle who made sounds like that. When she felt the first phase of the charade had gone on long enough, she brought her index finger stabbing down.

Everyone leaned to see where she was pointing. “Saerloon,” Captain Clayhill said.

“I see docks,” droned Tu’ala’keth. The somnolent voice she’d adopted made her sound like the drunken men outside. “Buildings with a wall around them, an enclave accessible from land or sea. People bring bags and chests stuffed with gold to buy what the folk in the compound have to sell.”

“It all fitth tho far,” said Sealmid. He was the first mate, a human with a broken nose, many missing teeth and, in consequence, a lisp. “A good many rich traderth have a thetup like that. But which”

Harl the helmsman, an ore whose garments of clashing colors were garish even by freebooters’ standards, shushed him.

“I see the men in charge,” Tu’ala’keth continued. “They carry staves and wands. They wear red.”

Everyone stared at her. Finally the helmsman said, “Are you talking about Thayans?”

“I do not know,” Tu’ala’keth said. She wanted them to believe that, as a gifted seer, she could perceive all matter of hidden things, but her instincts told her the ploy would be more convincing if her powers fell short of omniscience. “But Saerloon is not their homeland. They trade talismans and potions for heaps of yellow gold.”

“Thayanth,” Sealmid sighed. “All honor to the Bitch Queen, but thith doethn’t help uth.”

“Hear her out,” said Anton, his gaze fixed on Captain Clayhill. “Please.”

The pirate leader shrugged her tattoo-covered shoulders, where images of blossoms and butterflies mingled with skulls, snarling basilisks, and bloody swords. “I suppose we might as well.”

Tu’ala’keth rambled on, laying out the rest of the information in a disjointed sort of way, as if, in her daze, she failed to comprehend its meaning. She reckoned that too would make it seem as if she were plucking it from the spirit world as opposed to repeating facts and rumors Anton had gleaned during his years as a spy.

When she reached the end, she sat quietly for a moment then gave a little jerk as if waking from a doze. “What did I say?” she asked.

Harl gave her a yellow-fanged smile. “You told us a lot, waveservant. Unfortunately, it was all about Thayans. Nobody raids Thayans. It’s bad luck.”

“The kind of bad luck where the Red Wizardth turn you into a worm or light you on fire like a candle when you try,” Sealmid said.

Tu’ala’keth scowled. “Umberlee has chosen these folk to be her prey, and ours. We will not fail.”

Captain Clayhill sat frowning, staring into the depths of her amber wine, then gave her head a shake. “If it worked, we’d make a fortune. But the risk is too great. I waited too long to command Shark’s Bliss to lose her now.”

According to Anton, in theory, pirate crews elected their captains, but the truth was more complex. On Dragon Isle, no one ascended to such a position without the approval of one of the several factions. Tu’ala’keth could readily believe Shandri Clayhill had spent a long, dreary time cultivating Vurgrom before he endorsed her aspirations.

“Try again,” the human continued. “Find us another target.”

Tu’ala’keth ostentatiously folded her arms. “No. The goddess has already spoken.”

Captain Clayhill glared. “I revere Umberlee, and I respect her clerics. But you’re one of my officers now, and you’ll follow orders.”

“Hold on,” Anton said. “Let’s at least discuss the Thayans before we give up all hope of robbing them. Tu’ala’keth has given us their secrets. That should enable us to discern their weaknesses and put together a plan to exploit them. What if…”

Pretending to devise it on the spot, he laid out his scheme. The notion was that she would prove herself a powerful seer and spellcaster, he would establish himself as a cunning strategist, and as a result, the pirates would come to hold them both in high regard.

After he finished, the reavers sat quietly for a heartbeat or two, pondering. Then Harl said, “It isn’t the stupidest plan I ever heard. I can halfway imagine it working.”