Crossroads 04 - The Dragon Isles (13 page)

 
          
Mik
smiled as he recognized it, too. With just a brief glance at his companion, he
ran the last few steps into the chamber; Trip followed right behind.

 
          
Shimmer
stopped dead at the entrance of the room, while his captives sprinted ahead.

 
          
Trip’s
childlike face broke into a huge grin as he saw his former shipmate, and
shouted, “Ula!”

The Dragon’s Rage

 
         
Mog
crouched behind a screen of long weeds and peered at the amazing city of
lights. He’d never seen anything like it before. His dragon-like senses drank
in every sight and smell until he was nearly intoxicated with the novelty.

           
Still, even giddy, he was careful to
keep out of sight of Reeftown’s guards. Yes, the elfin patrols seemed weak and
frail compared with his own might, but the dragonspawn knew that many feeble
creatures might overcome a single more powerful one.

 
          
If
Mog were to fail on his mission, he would face Tempest’s wrath, and that was a
fate worse than death. Mog felt the dragon in the hack of his mind even now,
calling to him, cajoling him, threatening him—just as she did all her servants.
The tiny Turbidus leech on his hack binned when she was angry, and sent thrills
down his spine when she was pleased. Thus Mog’s mood always mirrored that of
his sea dragon mistress.

 
          
She
had been angry for months now, frustrated with her inability to pierce the Veil
protecting the Dragon Isles. She had destroyed dozens of ships in her fury,
uncaring of their cargo or true destination. That some of them
may
have been headed to the isles had
been enough reason to vent her fury.

 
          
The
ships’ contents satiated the hunger of Tempest’s servants—sharks, razorfish,
numerous and various-sized Turbidus leeches, and a small contingent of
dragonspawn such as Mog. As the oldest, cleverest, and strongest of the spawn,
Mog always got the juiciest shares of the prey. Even the sharks could not
compete with him.

 
          
In
that sense, the last months had been one long smorgasbord of carnage. The trail
of destruction and chaos had been pleasurable. Those past pleasures, though,
were balanced out by the fire of the sea dragon’s rage now coursing through
Mog’s brain.

 
          
He
could feel her prowling the deep at the furthest range of the Veil’s magic
She
had not been able to come close—but her servants had.

 
          
Trailing
the shipwreck survivors was not easy; the magic of the isles confused the
senses. Keeping the victims in close sight was a difficult task, since
Tempest’s spies had to remain hidden. Some Turbidus leeches were small, though,
and communicated telepathically with their mistress. And the sharks and others
she enslaved numbered many—enough, laid end to end, to stretch for leagues. Her
servants formed a vast chain with Mog commanding them, following the battered
mariners and their captors from the wreck of
Kingfisher
to Reeftown.

 
          
How
could these fleshy, humanoid creatures penetrate the Veil when Tempest could
not? It was Mog’s duty to find out.

 
          
Scavengers
swam near Mog’s hiding place. They were only two—a Dargonesti man and woman—and
they towed a largish seaweed sack of plunder between them. The size and the
weight of the bag slowed them considerably.

 
          
Mog
flashed from his hiding place and took the woman by surprise.

 
          
Before
she even knew what had hit her, the dragonspawn snapped her neck, and her body
sank to the sand below.

 
          
The
man
turned,
a cry of warning on his lips, a spear in
his hand. Mog clamped his jaws over the man’s head, stifling the cry. The
dragonspawn’s rear talons opened up the man’s belly, spilling the elf s guts
into the dark ocean.

 
          
Mog
drank the blood that leaked from the man’s mouth until his victim stopped
quivering, and the elf s blue limbs hung limply in the water.

 
          
Quickly,
the dragonspawn dragged the corpses back into the weeds to feast.

Allies & Adversaries

 
         
Mik
smiled at the blue-skinned dargonesti. “It’s good to see you, Ula,” he said.

 
          
“And
you, captain,” she replied. Her skin looked slightly burnt, once more—a
souvenir of her encounter with Tempest’s steaming breath.

 
          
“Me
too,” Trip said.

 
          
Ula
nodded indulgently, then the figure in the doorway caught her attention and her
lithe body stiffened.

 
          
“Shimanloreth,”
she
said,
her voice almost a whisper. “I didn’t expect
to see you here.”

 
          
“Nor
I, you, Ula Drakenvaal,” he replied, his voice cold and strangely formal.

 
          
“We
thought you were dead,” Trip continued, oblivious to the tension between the
knight and the elf.

 
          
Ula
took a long, deep breath. “I thought you were dead as well, minnow,” she said.
“Though I held out some hope, when I saw my cellmate.”

 
          
“What
cellmate?” Mik and Trip asked simultaneously. They looked around the room and
spotted a figure standing in the shadows near a round window looking out over
the city.
“Karista!”
Mik said. “I can’t believe you’re
alive!”

 
          
The
aristocrat turned to face them, anger burning in her steely eyes. “I have a hard
time believing it, too,” she hissed, glaring at the kender.

 
          
“I
hope you’re not angry about the seaweed,” Trip said, “I just borrowed it, and—“

 
          
“The seaweed!”
Karista shrieked. “The ship is lost and all
the crew killed, save the four of us! Everything is a disaster!” Trip lowered
his eyes and dug his toe into the coral floor of the room. “It’s not like it’s
all
my
fault or
anything.” Karista
continued,
her voice low and
deadly. “I hadn’t connected it before, but the trouble began
after
we picked up that ill-omened sea
elf. What happened to the last ship you were on, Ula? Pamak and the other
sailors
said
you were cursed!” “Hah!”
Ula said. “So
I
caused your ship to
sink? It’s that same kind of superstitious nonsense that got me tied to a raft
and left to die in the first place. I caused
no
ships to sink. People—both human and elf—make their
own
luck.”

 
          
“That’s
certainly true in
your
case,” Shimmer
added, speaking through clenched teeth.

 
          
Ula
shot him an angry glance,
then
turned back to Karista.
“Look to yourself, milady Meinor, if you don’t like the way things turned out.
What happened had nothing to do with
me.
I was just an innocent on
your
ruinous journey. What would I have to gain by wrecking your fine ship?” She ran
one slender finger over her newly burnt skin.
“A nice
scalding from a dragon?
A bludgeoning from Lakuda’s
scavengers?
Being thrown in a cell owned by a woman who’d just as soon
see my head on a pike?”

 
          
“How
do we know you’re not
in league
with
these people?” Karista replied. “You seem to know them well enough.”

           
“Yes,” Mik said quietly. “You do
seem to know them.”

           
Ula turned back to Shimanloreth.
“Let me out of here, Shim,” she said angrily.

           
“You know I can’t,” the knight
replied.

 
          
“I
know you can do whatever you want to do,” Ula said.

 
          
Shimanloreth
shook his armored head. “No,” he said.
“Whatever we had
together ended when you left Reeftown.”

 
          
“Not
by my choice alone,” she replied. “Let me out. Unless, you’d like to see me
dead by Lakuda’s hand. Or,” she added, nodding to her cellmates, “by one of my
fellow prisoners.”

 
          
“You
have made your own fate,” he said defiantly, “not I.” Then he turned and walked
out of the room.

 
          
“Lakuda
will kill me!” Ula called after him. “You know that.” She sat down on a chair
made out of carved coral and cursed.

 
          
Karista
Meinor crossed her arms over her chest and smiled in satisfaction. “You have a
talent for making enemies, it seems, my ill-omened
friend”
she said.

 
          
“Don’t
flatter yourself that you’re in the same league as Lakuda,” Ula shot back.

 
          
“All
right, you two,” Mik said. “We’re all in this together, and we need to work
together if we’re to have any chance of getting out.”

 
          
“Why
should I want to get out?” Karista asked. “My ransom will surely be paid.
Escaping seems like a foolish risk.”

 
          
“Hah!
Let’s hope there is no haggling over the price. Otherwise, Lakuda will cut your
wrists and leave you for the sharks,” Ula replied. “My likely end as well.”

 
          
“Our
mutual fate, I fear,” Mik said soberly.

 
          
“Certainly
not as interesting as being eaten by a dragon,” Trip added forlornly.

 
          
“Were
there any other survivors?” Mik asked the two women.

 
          
Both
Ula and Karista shook their heads. “I doubt it,” the aristocrat replied. “I
didn’t see any on the surface before ... before the ship dragged me under. If
Lakuda’s people hadn’t found me, I would have drowned.” She glared at Trip
again, who shrugged.

 
          
Mik
sighed. “Litde chance we’ll be rescued or ransomed,” he said. “So we’ll just
have to get out of this fix on our own.”

 
          
He
seated himself on one of the room’s seashell-like chairs and rested his bearded
chin on his hands. Trip plopped down beside him, and Ula pulled her chair in
closer. Karista paced the room, running her long fingers over several potted
plants that looked like stiff seaweed.

 
          
“What
can you tell me about the guards?” Mik asked Ula.

 
          
“They’re
as good as Lakuda’s rabble comes,” she replied. “We wouldn’t want to fight them
without weapons—not in the water, anyway.”

 
          
“And this Shimanloreth?”

 
          
“You
don’t want to tackle him,” Ula said.

 
          
“I’ve
never seen a knight underwater before,” Trip said.

 
          
“And
aren’t likely to see one again,” Ula replied.

 
          
Mik
nodded grimly. “Maybe you can sway him to our side.”

 
          
“I
wouldn’t count on it,” Ula said.

 
          
Mik
rose and walked to the room’s sole window—round like a porthole and about the
size of a ship’s wheel—and peered out into the deep. The sun had long since
set, but many small life forms, like undersea fireflies, twinkled in the
darkness. In their flickering glow and the light from the town’s windows, sea
elves swam about their business.

 
          
“I
will not participate in any plan to escape,” Karista said stubbornly. “We are
lucky to be alive. We’ve had enough trouble already—and this Lakuda woman seems
nearly as ruthless as the dragon. Do whatever you like, but I will stay here.”

 
          
“Suits
me,” said Mik. “Trip, I’m guessing Shimmer didn’t search you well enough.”

 
          
“No
one ever does,” the kender replied with a shrug, pulling another small piece of
magical seaweed from an inside vest pocket. “I’ve got this, plus the wad you
gave back to me.”

 
          
Ula
smiled. “Shimmer isn’t very familiar with kender.”

 
          
“Lucky
him,” muttered Karista.

 
          
“With
three of us able to breathe underwater,” Mik said, “perhaps we could take those
guards by surprise.”

 
          
Shimmer
swam impatiently around Lakuda’s audience chamber. Occasionally, he dipped down
to the pile of loot waiting to be divided and ran his orange eyes over it. How
much was it worth, this pile of treasure? Was it worth Ula Drakenvaal’s life?

 
          
Lakuda’s
guards paid little attention to the bronze knight They adjusted their grips on
their tridents and pointedly looked the other way as Shimmer circled the big
booty-filled shell tethered in the middle of the room. The guards knew his
relationship to their mistress, and—even had they not—none would have dared to
cross him anyway.

 
          
Several
long minutes later, a circular side door to the chamber irised open, and
Townboss Lakuda drifted in. Her green hair had been undone and trailed behind
her like a long seaweed cape. In her left hand she held a stoppered flask of
azure wine. In her right she carried the large shell of a half-eaten oyster.
Her black eyes gleamed when she spotted Shimmer. “Will you join me in a drink?”

 
          
“No,”
Shimanloreth replied.

 
          
“Rest
beside me,” Lakuda said, gliding into her golden throne and holding out one
thin-fingered hand.

 
          
Shimmer
didn’t look at her but kept gazing at the treasure-filled shell. “I was
wondering if my share of today’s forage would cover the Drakenvaal’s ransom,”
he said.

 
          
Lakuda’s
black eyes narrowed. “So,” she said. “I knew you’d take an interest in her
capture. You really shouldn’t concern yourself, though. She lost all interest
in you long ago.”

 
          
“I
know that.” -

 
          
“And
still your feelings for her persist,” Lakuda said sarcastically. “She’s beneath
you, you know.”

 
          
“Some
would say,” Shimmer
replied,
his tone careful and
measured, “that
you
are as well.”

 
          
Lakuda
laughed, her raspy voice echoing around the chamber. “A cut well placed! I
won’t hold it against you though—so long as you join me in a drink.”

 
          
She
dropped the empty oyster shell and unstoppered the wine. The shell drifted
slowly down, but a servant appeared and scooped it up before it hit the chamber
floor. The servant darted back out the door she’d entered through.

 
          
A
small blue cloud formed above Lakuda’s unstoppered flask. The mistress of
Reeftown took a drink and then closed the top with her fingertip. “Well?” she
asked.