If so, then so be it, she thought. It had been necessary. Too many questions required answers-answers she was unlikely to get if they remained together while danger closed in from every direction.
The question was, could she separate the man from his issues? When she was with him, forgetting her concerns was easy. Despite her fears, he’d demonstrated he wasn’t a slave to his new pact, nor even to his old addiction.
It was when she was apart from him that all her worries returned. That’s really why she’d suggested they separate, so she could think clearly without Japheth around to confuse her.
At this point, she had to admit her plan wasn’t working.
If anything, with only her memory of him present, she vacillated even more spectacularly between hope and distress, back and forth over the course of hours.
All she knew for certain was that she missed him.
“Hold,” said the captain. His voice was devoid of the amusement it’d held moments earlier. “Listen!”
“No, I’d rather we not discuss my love life any longer …” Anusha saw the captain’s head was cocked to one side, as if he were straining to hear something.
The mist around Green Siren thinned. Then the fog peeled away, opening up the view on all sides.
Streamers of black cloud swirled on the horizon, creating a vortex in the sky. Lightning danced at the storm’s hollow heart, briefly illuminating an obelisk jutting from the crown of a thunderhead.
It was still miles away, thank Torm, but-
A brilliant flash revealed the petrified shape that crouched atop the obelisk. The Eldest! Still unmoving and as stiff as stone … But even the glint from its pocked carapace across the miles that separated them made Anusha’s stomach heave. She flinched her gaze away, then forced herself to return her regard to the horrific sight.
Small dots circled Xxiphu like crows around a tower. If the flying shapes were visible at such a distance against the city, Anusha realized that whatever the specks were, they must be colossal.
“The music … it’s like smoke in my mind,” Thoster said. “Awful, yet … enticing. Xxiphu commands that we find the Key of Stars and deliver it.” The privateer clutched the amulet that lay atop his jacket. When his fingers brushed the stone, some of the tension that bunched above his eyes faded.
Anusha swallowed. She strained to listen, but heard only the sound of the waves against the ship and the distant rumble of thunder.
“I hear nothing,” she said.
The captain shook his head. “It’s there all the same,” he said.
“Does it say anything else?” Anusha asked.
Thoster nodded. “It says, ‘Come to me, children of Toril, and serve.’ ”
The fluting melody tattered the moment Thoster’s fingers brushed Seren’s amulet. The sound threatening to engulf his mind in a conflagration of wonder was reduced to simple, if atonal, music. The piping melody, echoing and ethereal, lost its power to command him. He let out a relieved breath.
The magic in the talisman, which kept him from unraveling into a scaled mess, also protected him from Xxiphu’s mental compulsion.
“Children of Toril?” said Anusha.
Thoster shrugged, but as he did so, the image of a scaled fish person flashed in his mind. A kuo-toa. He tried to say the word aloud, but surprise robbed him of volume.
The deck vibrated with Yeva’s approach from belowdecks. “I counsel we keep our distance,” the iron woman said.
Thoster only nodded.
“Yeva,” said Anusha, “The captain says he can hear some sort of music. But I don’t hear it, nor does the crew. Can you?”
The woman’s metal head swiveled to regard the distant city. “A telepathic aura surrounds Xxiphu,” she said. “It carries some kind of compulsion, but one narrowly tuned to reach only a certain subset of creatures. More than that … I cannot say.”
“Kuo-toa,” said Thoster, finally managing to make his voice work again. “That’s what Xxiphu’s after.”
“And you can hear it?” said Anusha. Her gaze dropped to the captain’s forearm. It was covered with the sleeves of his black coat. She’d seen what was hidden beneath, though. “Would that mean-”
“Something along those lines,” Thoster interrupted. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out myself.”
“Mmm,” Anusha said.
The lookout on the mainmast screamed. “Something in the water! Approaching starboard!”
Thoster followed the woman’s pointing finger.
A school of large fish darted along just below the sea surface, occasionally breaking above, roiling and splashing the water. The disturbance was closing on Green Siren’s position. He squinted, focusing on the approaching school. He felt his eyebrows rise when, instead of fins, he saw scaled limbs and webbed feet. Spear tips, harpoons, and other weapons gripped tight in fishy hands also flashed above the water line.
“Hard about!” Thoster yelled, even as he spun the wheel. Too little, too late. The attackers were already too close. He wished, not for the first time, that Green Siren had a porthole installed below the waterline to afford a better view of threats that swam beneath the surface.
“Break out arms! Repel boarders!” he shouted.
He glanced at Anusha. “Don’t just stand there; get to your cabin and lock yourself inside your strongbox, lass!” he said. “You ain’t protected by dream!”
Anusha ran for the stairs. Yeva stamped after her.
Thoster lunged for the starboard railing.
The approaching swimmers had already halved the distance. Though still mostly hidden beneath the waves, Thoster knew what they were: kuo-toa. He also knew there were many, many more than the few dozen he could see along the surface.
Crew swarmed the railing around Thoster. Most had their swords and axes drawn, but a few fired crossbow bolts into the swell of the approaching tide. The bolts struck the frothing water with no apparent effect.
“Don’t waste your shots!” Thoster yelled. “Wait until they breach!”
He drew his venomous blade. Its cunning gears immediately began to spin and click, pulling poison from the ever-full reservoirs hidden in the hilt.
The kuo-toa reached the ship and swarmed up the sides.
Ten or twelve attackers fell back into the waves, crossbow bolts buried in their heads, necks, or chests. But others leapt from the water to take the place of the fallen. The kuo-toa gave voice to a wordless chant that prickled Thoster’s spine. It was the same melody as the one emanating from Xxiphu.
The second wave of climbers reached the railing, and nearly as one, the crew slashed, stabbed, and clubbed the boarders. A dozen more kuo-toa fell back into the water. Scarlet threads of blood spread through the lapping waves.
A crewman screamed as a kuo-toa harpoon skewered him through the chest. The attacker wrenched the harpoon, pulling the crewman forward over the rail. The man yelled again before he hit the water. Thoster kept his eyes on the spot where the man had gone under, even as he dispatched two boarders with his sword. The crewman didn’t surface again.
A yell pulled his attention to the ship’s port side. A separate wave of kuo-toa poured over the railing there, unopposed. The damn things had surrounded Green Siren!
“ ’Ware behind you!” he screamed at his crew. Their attention was fully occupied with the initial boarders, who’d apparently served merely as a distraction.
Thoster swept his sword through three more starboard attackers, then charged across the deck to a wedge of spear-wielders who’d come over on the port side. The kuo-toa hissed and cried out in a disturbing language whose slick consonants made him queasy. He didn’t know the words, but … The sounds were hauntingly familiar.
He growled and engaged the lead kuo-toa. It was more proficient than the ones he’d already dispatched, damn it all. The two sides of the wedge continued to move forward, attempting to wrap and surround him!