Richard Byers - Queen of the Depths

Anton murmured the same arcane rhyme over and over again, meanwhile drawing on his skin with his fingertip. An image took form beneath the strokes, clear and vivid as if the digit were a needle dipped in ink. She supposed he’d chosen to depict an octopus because of his recent combat and might not even realize the cephalopods were familiars of Umberlee. Still it was fitting that he branded himself with such a sign, whether he understood the significance or not.

When he finished, she said, “Now we begin.”

He grinned. “Yes, impatient one. I wanted to be inconspicuous until I achieved the proper appearance, but henceforth, you can attract as much attention as you like. Parade as if you expect people to stare and to make way for you, too. As if you’re a personage.”

“I am. We both are: agents of the Queen of the Depths.”

“That’s the spirit.”

Now they marched through the center of town, down teeming streets and across bustling marketplaces selling what were evidently plundered goods, cringing or stolid slaves included. Unfamiliar sights, sounds, and stinks came quickly, relentlessly, now. It was almost enough to disorient her, and she watched Anton with special care lest he attempt to lose himself in the crowds.

He didn’t, though, and in a few minutes, they arrived at one of the massive coquina structures that appeared to be fortresses as much as houses. A rectangular black cloth, emblazoned with a white grinning skull above and a red axe beneath, flapped from a pole atop the roof.

“Behold the residence of Vurgrom, self-styled ‘the Mighty,’” Anton said. “With luck, he and the captains of his faction are still looking for new crewmen. They’ve suffered losses of late.”

“Are you certain?”

“Who do you think informed the Turmian fleet where to intercept Vurgrom’s ships before I had to take up the matter of the cult? Shall we?”

Though the house could likely serve as a bastion at need, the wrought-iron gates were unguarded and unlocked. Dozens of air-breathers, human mostly but with a smattering of other races, occupied the courtyard beyond. Some sat at trestle tables gorging, drinking, playing cards, or throwing knucklebones. A few wrestled or fenced with clattering wooden swords. At the far end, though, business was in progress. A knot of folk stood beneath a verandah, where dignitaries slouched in rattan chairs could survey them, should they deign to take notice. Unfortunately, the petitioners had competition for their betters’ attention. At the moment, the captains, if that was who they were, seemed more interested in consulting with each other and with the flunkies scurrying in and out of the door behind them.

Tu’ala’keth and Anton headed toward the press. “Captain Vurgrom!” shouted the spy.

One of the petitioners, a squat man with a snout of a nose and two pointed teeth jabbing up from his under-bite across his upper lipan indication, Tu’ala’keth surmised, that his ancestry wasn’t pure human-turned and growled, “Wait your turn!” Then he caught sight of her, and his eyes widened in surprise.

“We might do that,” Anton said, “if we intended to serve as ordinary reavers. But since we merit something grander, we take priority. Now, I’m sure you recognize my companion for what she is. Shut your hole before she lays Umberlee’s curse on you.”

The pirate scowled, but he stepped back, too.

“Captain Vurgrom!” Anton called.

A hulking whale of a man with a braided red beard sat in the center of the platform in a high-backed chair that looked in imminent danger of collapsing under his weight. He held a golden, ruby-studded cup in one meaty, copper-furred hand, and a prodigious battle-axe lay at his feet. He looked around in annoyance, evidently, but put away his glower when he spotted Tu’ala’keth.

“I’m Vurgrom the Mighty,” he said, “and those who wear the drowned man’s hand are always welcome in my palace.”

She inclined her head to acknowledge his courtesy. “That is well. I am Tu’ala’keth. I have decided to sail with you for a season. We will take lives together, in sacrifice to Umberlee.”

“In other words,” said Anton, “we’re offering ourselves as officers. Tu’ala’keth is both a waveservant and a shalarin. She wields powers over sea and storm no human, ore, or what have you can hope to match. Whereas I”he grinned”have my own talents. I can swing a cutlass as well as any man here and practice sorcery as well. In my time, I’ve been a navigator and a boatswain, too. I guarantee the ship that brings us aboard will profit.”

Someone made a contemptuous, spitting sound.

Surprised, Tu’ala’keth turned to see a burly, sneering, ruddy-faced man clad in dark vestments decorated with dabs and jagged streaks of silver. The hem and the ends of the sleeves were cut in ragged, sawtooth fashion. A patch covered his right eye, and he held a spear in his hand.

It all served to mark him as a priest of Talos the Destroyer, chieftain of the Deities of Fury, and Tu’ala’keth felt a spasm of reflexive dislike. On the surface, Umberlee was Talos’s ally, even, in a certain sense, his subordinate, but as a waveservant advanced in the faith, she learned that her goddess and religion strove for the day when they could topple the Storm Lord from his preeminence.

“You sound like very special people,” the Talassan jeered. “But you’re too late. There was only one captain looking for officers today, and she’s already chosen my friend and me for ship’s mage and priest.”

“Umberlee sent me here,” said Tu’ala’keth, “and death upon the sea is her dominion. If you truly revere the powers of Fury’s Heart, you will step aside.”

“I revere Talos,” said the man with the eye patch. “Your patron is merely his whore, and so I caution you to pay him the respect he deserves.”

“Theology’s always fascinated me,” Anton drawled, “but unless I’ve washed up on the wrong shore, this is an assembly of freebooters, not priests. So I’ll simply say this: I don’t know you, Patch, or this friend of yours, either. But I’m still sure Tu’ala’keth and I will prove of more use than you to the captain who was considering choosing you”

“Who has chosen us!” said the Talassan, glaring.

“or to some other with the good sense to recruit us.”

Vurgrom grinned. “That’s bold talk, stranger.”

“Anton Fallone.” The spy, who’d warned Tu’ala’keth he meant to give a false name, now turned his gaze on the only female seated among the captains. She was a young human, slim by the standards of her race, with bronze-colored curls. She wore an abundance of glittering, delicate jewelry and a frilly gown that contrasted oddly with her several scars and the dense tattooing crawling on her bare arms, shoulders, and neck. “Captain, I believe you are a person of sense. I see it in your face.”

Now that Anton had spoken to her directly, the Talassan’s features turned blotchy and even redder. “If you have any sense,” he said to the spy, “you and your pet fish won’t annoy a priest of the Destroyer any further than you have already.”

“I doubt,” said Tu’ala’keth, “that anyone here is so foolish as to fear Talos more than Umberlee. It was she who proved her power by smiting these islands only fifteen years ago.”

“All the more reason,” said the human priest, “to honor the god who holds the Bitch’s leash.”

It was an obscene imagethe mistress of the raging sea, destruction incarnate, leashedand even had Tu’ala’keth been willing to let the blasphemy pass, she sensed that if she and Anton did, they’d forfeit all hope of winning the pirates’ respect and places of authority among them.

Accordingly, she brandished her skeletal amulet on the end of its cord and declaimed a prayer. The folk standing between her and the Talassan realized what she intended and scrambled out of the way. The holy words of the incantation sounded hushed and strange enunciated in air instead of water, but she could feel power massing and knew she was performing the conjuration properly. On the final syllable, a harsh noise blared. People cursed and clapped their hands over their ears. The Talassan staggered a step, and blood dripped from his nostrils.