Midnights Mask (18 page)

“A problem,” Cale answered, and left it at that. He

released his hold on Magadon and considered.

He looked toward the hold. Jak had hung a rope ladder from the top of the hatch. One by one, the freed slaves climbed up it and stood on deck. They wore only ragged tunics and trousers. All were bootless. All had a tenday’s growth of beard on their faces. Many coughed or swayed on their feet.

Their gazes went to the dead and unconscious Thayans, still scattered about the deck, to Cale, to Magadon. Most gave hard smiles and nods.

They stood about near the hatch, obviously unsure what to do. Other than the coughing, they looked to be in decent health, nothing like the slaves Cale had seen in Skullport.

Cale and Magadon walked over to the slaves as more continued to climb the ladder. Before Cale could speak, one of the former slaves, a short, thickset man of about thirty winters, stepped forth and said, “Seems we owe you thanks, lubber, for freeing us and giving these Thayan flesh peddlers what they deserved.” He grinned—his front teeth were gone—and extended his hand. “So, thanks to you.”

Cale took the man’s hand in his own. Nods around. Murmured gratitude.

The man had called Cale “lubber.” Cale’s hopes rose. “You are a sailor, then?”

“Aye,” said the man.

“As are we all,” said another bass voice, from just inside the hold. A thicket of black hair appeared in the hatchway, followed by a head the size of a bucket, and a body as large as a great orc. A black beard, shot through with gray, hid his mouth, but the man’s dark eyes carried a hardness Cale had seen only in his own reflection and Riven’s single eye. An overlarge, misshapen nose jutted from his face like a weathered crag.

“Captain on deck,” said the man with whom Cale had been conversing, and the rest of the former slaves stood at attention.

“Ease, men,” the captain said, and lifted himself fully out of the hatch. The men relaxed and the captain’s gaze swept the ship, the sea.

“This whore is still underway. Jeg, Hessim, Veer, Pellak, get the mainsail furled. Nom, get her anchor down until we know what’s what. Ashin, get on the helm.”

Without hesitation, the men snapped to their duties. Cale considered protesting, thought better of it, and got out of their way.

“Runnin’ hard at night,” the captain said to Cale. “Thayans are fool sailors. You’re not seamen, are you?” “No,” Cale answered.

“But you two and the little fellow would be the men who freed us.”

Cale nodded, as did Magadon.

“Then you have my gratitude and that of my crew.” He extended his hand. “Captain Evrel Kes, out of Marsember. These are my men. “

Cale took his hand. Despite the captain’s age and the fact that his large body had gone somewhat fat, there was strength in his grip.

“Erevis Cale,” Cale answered.

“Magadon, out of Starmantle.”

“Jak Fleet,” said the little man’s voice as his red head popped out of the hold and he climbed onto deck. To Cale, Jak said, “That’s everyone. Still some stores down there. Grain and spices, I think.”

Cale realized the captain had come up from the hold last, only after all his men had been freed and sent above. Cale liked him already.

Above and around them, Cale and his comrades watched as the captain’s men scaled the mast and began drawing up the mainsail. They hollered down to Nom to drop anchor.

“I can see, you fish turds,” Nom shot back from the bow, and released the anchor.

Evrel smiled at his men’s banter.

From the helmsman’s perch, Ashin called, “This one’s still alive, Captain.”

“As are a few of these,” called another crewman, sticking his foot into one of the Thayans Cale had left unconscious on the deck.

Evrel looked at Cale and said, “The punishment at sea for slavery is execution.”

Cale saw no bloodlust in the captain’s eyes, no need for vengeance. Evrel was simply proposing to do what he saw as his duty.

“You are captain of this ship, now,” Cale answered, and not even Jak protested.

Evrel nodded. “You know the law of the sea, Ashin. They go over. All of them.”

Ashin nodded, heaved the still immobilized slaver over his shoulder, carried him to the side, and cast him over. Three other crewmen threw the unconscious Thayans over the rail.

“The corpses go after them,” said Evrel to the crew. “Step to it, lads. This ship stinks badly enough.”

The crew gathered the remaining dead and pitched them over, but not before stripping them of weapons and valuables. The captain watched it all, then turned back to Cale.

“I left my manners in the hold,” he said, and smiled. “Well met, Erevis, Magadon, and Jak. Now, if you were sailors, I’d wonder at a mutiny. As it is, I wonder how you got aboard. I do not see another ship.”

“Spell,” Cale said, and left it at that.

Evrel frowned. Cale knew that sailors were notoriously suspicious of magic, and captains more than most.

“You’re hunting Thayans, then?” Evrel asked. “Or slavers maybe? Or did this crew in particular do something to run afoul of you three?”

Cale shook his head. “None of those. What we are hunting escaped us. The slavers just got in our way.” The captain stared at him a moment.

“Reason enough,” Evrel said. “And fortunate for me and my men. I’ll remember to stay out of your way.”

The dropped anchor noticeably slowed the ship. The rest of Evrel’s crew, having cleared the decks of bodies, set about familiarizing themselves with the vessel’s operation and layout. The heavyset man Cale had spoke with earlier issued frequent orders. Cale assumed him to be Evrel’s first mate. He soon walked over to confer with his captain.

“My first mate,” Evrel explained. “Gorse Ohs.”

Gorse nodded a greeting. Cale, Jak, and Magadon reciprocated.

Jak asked, “How did you and your crew end up here, like this?”

‘ The captain’s lips curled and Gorse gave a harsh laugh.

Evrel said, “I commanded Sea Reaver, a carrack out of Marsember. We were taken on the open sea by a three-ship pirate fleet out of the Pirate Isles. These bastards,” he made a gesture to indicate the Thayans, “bought us from the slave blocks there. I don’t know what they had in mind for us.”

“Nothing good,” Gorse said.

“That’s certain,” answered the captain.

Cale had given the captain and crew time to get their hands around the ship, so he cut to his question. He had no other options. They would have to pursue the slaadi using ordinary methods of transport.

“We need your services, captain. Can you sail this ship? The… men we are pursuing are aboard another ship and we have to catch them.”

Evrel and Gorse shared a look and Gorse nodded.

Evrel looked back to Cale and said, “She’s an ugly Thayan bitch, but we can sail her, Erevis Cale. Where is the other ship you’re after? Be difficult to track her by night.”

Cale said, “Near Traitor’s Isle is the last we knew of her.”

Evrel nodded and called over his shoulder to the helmsman’s post. “Ashin, where in Umberlee’s realm are we? And how far from Traitor’s Isle?”

Ashin plucked the mechanical device from the table near him and climbed out of the steering pocket. He held the device to his eyes, looked skyward, and manipulated the mechanism.

Evrel said, “As long as he can see the sky, Ashin can locate us on the Inner Sea better than any helmsman I have ever seen. He can make a decent estimate even without the astrolabe.”

Gorse added, “The men think his father was a water elemental with a bent for studying the stars. He knows sea and sky as well as any.”

Cale smiled. He liked the new crew of Demon Binder. In short order, Ashin pulled the device from his eye and

shouted, “We’re far west of that, Captain. Nearest port is

Procampur. More than eighty leagues from Traitor’s Isle.” Gorse whistled and shook his head.

The captain turned back to Cale, brow furrowed. “You’re sure you marked this ship near Traitor’s Isle?” Cale nodded.

“More sorcery,” Gorse muttered.

Evrel said, “There’s no catching it, Erevis. We are two days from that island sailing day and night and assuming favorable winds. So unless you can lift this ship out of the water and fly it there, your hunt is over.”

The moment Cale heard Evrel’s words, he understood why Mask had arranged for the slaadi to escape, or at least understood one reason. The Shadowlord wanted to test Cale, to see how far he could push his abilities, and he wanted Cale to sink deeper into the shadows.

Jak must have seen something in his expression. “What is it, Cale?”

An idea, little man.” Cale put a hand on Jak’s shoulder and said to Evrel, “Captain, I am going to do exactly that, if you and your crew are willing.”

At first Evrel smiled, as though Cale were making a joke, but a frown quickly swallowed the smile. An even deeper frown formed on Gorse’s Tips.

“You are not jesting?” the captain asked.

“I am not.”

“You’re not?” Jak asked.

The captain studied Cale’s face, looked to Jak, to Magadon.

in Chondathan, Gorse said, “Captain, we hardly know these men. They could be pirates, Zhents, evil men who just need a crew. We should be careful.”

Before Evrel could respond, Cale said, “Gorse, I speak and read nine languages. You will need to use something more obscure than Chondathan to communicate secretly in my presence. And you’re right. You do not know us. So know this: I once killed for coin. Now I serve Mask the Shadowlord as a priest. And I am as much shadow as man.”

He held up his hand and let shadowstuff leak from his fingertips. Both captain and mate went wide-eyed.

“Umberlee’s teats,” Gorse cursed.

“I am a mindmage and woodsman born of an archdevil,” Magadon said, doffing his cap and showing the stubs of his horns.

His words did nothing to set the seamen at ease.

Jak grinned and said, “I am the ordinary one, it seems. A onetime Harper and priest of Brandobaris the Trickster.”

Cale looked the two sailors in the eyes and said, “That is all you are going to get. But now you know us as well as most. Well enough?”

Gorse cursed, but to his credit, also smiled.

“I’m just a fisherman’s son out of Arabel,” the mate said.

The captain, too, grinned through his beard.

“Tabs take me, Erevis Cale, but if you can make this ship fly, I swear that you will always have a welcome berth on any vessel I command.”

Cale wondered if the captain would feel the same after he learned what Cale intended. Cale would not make the ship fly. He would surround it in darkness and move it and the whole crew from where they were to the shadow of the cliffs of Traitor’s Isle.

Get your men ready,” Cale said to Evrel.

In no time, word went from the mate and captain to the crew. So, too, did the description of who and what Cale, Magadon, and Jak were, or once were. Few of the crew made eye contact after that. All muttered, but all obeyed the captain’s orders. They seemed both fascinated and fearful.

Cale took a position in the bow, standing just over the leering wooden demon’s face that decorated Demon Binder’s prow. Jak and Magadon stood beside him. Behind them on the deck and above them in the rigging, the crew waited in pensive silence. The calm sea, as black as jet under the starlight, seemed also to be waiting.

Cale imagined in his mind’s eye the towering cliffsides of Traitor’s Isle, the long shadow cast over the water by its tower, even by starlight. He started to draw the night around him, around Magadon, around Jak. He spread it out to the rest of the ship like a dire fog. A rustle went through the crew but they held their ground.

Cale waited until pitch cloaked the entire vessel. He alone could see within the darkness. He reached out with his mind, found the correspondence between the darkness that shrouded him and the darkness near Traitor’s Isle. He tried to take the entire ship in his mental grasp. It defied an easy grip. He struggled, sweating, praying, asking Mask for aid. Finally he mastered the darkness and took it.

Somewhere, he knew, Mask was pleased.

Cale felt the flutter in his gut that bespoke instantaneous transport. He let the darkness subside. It flowed off the ship’s decks like mist to reveal… water the color of pitch, a sky as dark as a demon’s heart. A sourceless ochre light backlit clouds shaped like the faces of screaming men. Green lightning ripped the sky to pieces.

The Plane of Shadow.

“Trickster’s toes,” Jak muttered.

The crew echoed Jak’s sentiment. A chorus of oaths ran from bow to stern, a fearful chorus.

“Erevis….” Magadon began.

The feat had left Cale drained, wrung out. His body felt worn; his breath came hard. He sagged, leaned on Magadon for support.

Magadon took his weight. The guide stared at him, studied him.

“You look different, Erevis,” Magadon said. “The shadows around you… they’re darker.”

Cale nodded. He had taxed himself, sunk deeper into the shadows, and even still he had not quite accomplished what he wished. He saw Mask’s hand in it.

Evrel climbed the forecastle, eyes hard, brow furrowed. When he saw Cale, he stopped in his tracks.

“Talos, man! Your eyes.”

Cale looked away. He knew his eyes glowed yellow on the Plane of Shadow.

“What do you want, Evrel?” Magadon asked, his voice stern.

“What do I-? Look around. Where are we? This is no sea that I know.”

The crew nearby murmured agreement.

Magadon started to speak but Cale held up a hand to cut him off.

“We are on the Plane of Shadow, Evrel,” Cale said, his voice heavy with fatigue. “Do not be concerned. I’ll be taking us back to Faerun soon. This is just a waystop.”

:”Soon?” Evrel asked, and rubbed his chin.

“Soon,” Cale answered. The shadows nourished him and his strength already was returning. He patted Magadon on the shoulder and stood on his own feet.

A cry from up the mast drew their eyes.

“There, look there!” called a crewman, and pointed to the sky.

High above them, a swirling mass of black forms like a flock of giant bats detached from a cloud and wheeled downward.

Thunder boomed in the distance.