Richard Byers - Queen of the Depths

They sloshed toward the white-sand beach. Tu’ala’keth had done a bit of walking in her life, but not much, and it made her feel as clumsy as Anton had looked trying to manage the seahorse. She resolved to master the trick of it as quickly as possible.

She supposed she might have quite a bit to learn, for the landscape before her looked dauntingly unfamiliar. In its essence, Dragon Islea name of good omen, surelywas a mountain like any other, just one so tall its crest rose high above the surface of the sea. But it had no abundance of fish swarming about its stony crags, just a few gulls swooping and wheeling. The odd-looking vegetation was equally sparse.

Everything seemed muted, too, as if she’d gone partially deaf, and what she could hear was different. Absent was the ambient drone she’d known her entire life, a hum composed of the noises generated by the tides, currents, and countless marine organisms striving to survive. In its place was only the susurrus of the breaking waves and a bit of clamor rising from the town at the end of the strand, where humans and their ilk shouted to one another, scraped barnacles from a beached ship, or pounded pegs into the half-completed hull of a new one.

Bracketed by fortifications where land met water, the settlement was as peculiar as the rest of the scene. Naturally, Serdsian towns had no use for docks or boats floating at anchor, but something else struck her as even odder. All the doors were at ground level, and that was where everyone moved about. Some of the rough coquina structures were several stories high, but even so, it was plain that in a real sense, humans lived their lives in only two dimensions.

The cloth rectanglesfields of black emblazoned with skulls, crossed swords, and similar devicesflapping atop several of the most imposing structures added a final note of strangeness.

Anton shivered and gave her a grin. “It’s funny. When I was under water, I never really felt wet. Now that I’m in the air, I can feel I’m soaked.”

“What do we do next?” asked Tu’ala’keth.

“The sea turned my clothes to rags. I need new ones. Even more importantly, I need a barber. The cult identified a spy with long hair and a proper Turmian square-cut beard. Accordingly, I mean to turn into a clean-shaven fellow with close-cropped locks.

“So here’s the plan. At the end of the beach, there’s a path that runs up around the edge of the town. If we take it, we can reach the fellow we need without everybody in town gawking at us.”

“But surely some people will see us.”

“Oh, yes, the lookouts manning the battlements at the very least.”

“What if one of them is a cultist and knows your face?”

“It’s unlikely, but should it happen, life may get interesting very quickly. If the prospect frightens you, you can always turn around and jump back into the water.”

She scowled. “I would never shrink from anything Umberlee requires of me.”

“Of course not. Perish the thought.”

As they tramped up the beach, Tu’ala’keth kept a wary eye on her companion. She thought he might try to escape, but so far, he showed no signs of it. She wondered if he’d found the wisdom to embrace his destiny or if he was merely biding his time and reassured herself that it didn’t matter either way. Umberlee would make use of him regardless.

Despite the magic woven into Tu’ala’keth’s gear, the sun felt unpleasantly hot on her skin, and though she’d used it for years, her long trident suddenly seemed heavy. In time, she hit on the expedient of carrying it tilted over her shoulder, and that made it easier to manage… until the shaft started galling her skin.

The path climbed as the pirate haven of Immurk’s Hold itself ran upward from the harbor to higher ground. The slope made walking all the more difficult, and Tu’ala’keth’s calf muscles and the soles of her bare feet ached at the unaccustomed motion. Once she and Anton passed the fortress, she took her mind off her discomfort by peering down the streets and alleys that connected to her route. Her initial impression was that humans shared their habitations with an interesting miscellany of animals: plump, crested, strutting birds that seemed unable to truly fly no matter how frantically they flapped their wings; fat, oinking creatures rooting in muck; a smaller, shaggier, bleating animal with hooves and horns; and by far the most numerous, little brown creatures with short legs and long, hairless tails, digging and scurrying through heaps of refuse.

“Here we are,” said Anton. He led Tu’ala’keth down a quiet street so narrow the bright sun overhead left a welcome stripe of cool shade along one side. “I hope Rimardo is still in business.”

“Is this someone you trust?”

Anton grinned. “The Red Knight forbid! But the old miser knows how to cut hair and stick leeches on a festering wound, sells clothing pilfered from the dead, and despises everybody too profoundly to go out of his way to help anyone. In the Pirate Isles, that’s all you can expect of a barber.” He pushed aside the makeshift oilcloth curtain that hung in place of a door.

Rimardo’s shop proved to be a filthy one-room shack jammed full of bins, crates, and barrels. The proprietor himself, a scrawny, wrinkled, sour-faced runt of a man, sat the strapping Anton on a tall stool then had to step up on a box to reach his head. Though the spy had warned Tu’ala’keth that folk hereabouts were likely to stare at her, Rimardo showed no interest, nor, after determining what his customer wanted and negotiating a price, did he utter another word. Tu’ala’keth wondered if Anton patronized him partly because of his sullen, incurious nature.

She watched with mingled impatience and interest as the razor scraped away the Turmian’s lathery whiskers. To her sensibilities, all body hair was disgusting, and even after the shave, he had his share, just as his muscular frame still had a lumpish thickness. But he didn’t look as uncouth as before. The brown hue of his skin was pleasant to look on, and his square features, though coarse compared to those of most any shalarin, nonetheless bespoke resolution, and the green eyes, intelligence.

Rimardo evidently had no mirror a customer might employ to approve or disapprove his handiwork.

Anton ran his fingers over his jaw and scalp to assess the results then said, “Good enough.” He rose from the stool and started rummaging through the bins and crates, strewing rejected garments on the floor. Rimardo evidently expected no less of his patrons, for he watched the process without comment.

Anton selected leather sandals; baggy, blue, knee-length breeches; a scarlet sash; and a loose, white, sleeveless shirt that opened all the way down the front. Indifferent to Tu’ala’keth’s scrutinyappropriately so, since her folk regarded nudity as normal, and there was no carnal attraction between their two species in any casehe stripped and pulled them on. “You can keep my old clothes,” he said to Rimardo.

The barber spat in their general direction.

Anton grinned. “Yes, well, that’s why I wanted new ones.” He slipped the cutlass through the sash, tossed Rimardo one of the silver coins they had taken from Umberlee’s altars, and led Tu’ala’keth back out into the open air.

“Are we ready now?” she asked.

“Almost. I’ve been many different men during my years of spying, but none of them had a tattoo of an octopus running down his left arm, and so I hanker for one now. It takes a few minutes. If I can find a secluded spot in which to work, “He cast about. “There.” He strode to a neighboring shack, tried the door, and found it warped in its frame. He shoved hard, and it yielded with a squeal.

The little cottage was empty, devoid of furniture and tenants, too. She wondered how he’d been able to tell from the outside.