Attat lifted his hand, and a minotaur shaman, wrapped in a red robe embroidered with feathers and beads, stepped from behind the dais. He held a small pouch in one hand, sprinkling some dust from it onto Tailonna's shackles. The chains snapped open on their own. For the first time since Maq had met the sea elf, she saw a faint smile cross her blue lips.
"Now everyone is free to leave with you, Maquesta, even Koraf. There are times when simpleminded brute strength has its applications. With the addition of Koraf you will be well equipped to bring back the morkoth.
"I am, however, a worrier. I like having added insurance for a challenge such as this." The minotaur lord snapped his fingers, causing the bracelets on his wrists to jangle discordantly.
With that, two guards stepped forward, grabbed Melas, and threw him onto his back. A third pried open his mouth, and two more guards rushed toward Maquesta to keep her from interfering. The shaman stepped near Melas, this time holding a vial filled with a viscous black liquid. He poured its contents down Melas's throat. Maquesta, horrified, brushed past the guards and slid to her father's side. He gagged and then lay still, panting. Maq helped him to his feet. All the tentative good health and color that had started returning to his countenance had vanished, replaced by a sickly gray.
"What have you done!" Maq screamed at the shaman. She glared angrily at Attat. "We had a deal, and this was no part of it!"
The minotaur lord approached her slowly, then looked down his bull-like nose at her.
"Your father stays here. And just to make certain you're properly motivated, we've given him a dose of slow-acting poison-a potion of choke weed," Attat hissed maliciously. He held up another vial, this one containing a golden liquid. "You have thirty days to bring back the morkoth. Within those thirty days, this antidote will save him. Longer than that, well…" The minotaur shrugged his shoulders. "If it takes you longer than thirty days, Melas will not survive."
In a somewhat more ramshackle compound not far from Attat's, a different sort of minotaur lord met with a pirate called Mandracore the Reaver.
Chot Es-Kalin, dressed in worn brown robes with a voluminous hood to mask his identity, went to the locked desk in the dingy office and picked up a piece of curling parchment. After turning the letter this way and that, he threw it at the pirate, a brutish half-ogre who sat in a rickety wooden chair.
"Why do they send me information this way? It's worthless!" Chot snarled. He waved his thick arm about for emphasis and spit in the direction of Attat's palace. Chot spoke minotaur, the only language in which he had any fluency He stamped his hooves and glared at the pirate.
Mandracore scanned the paper quickly, then stood. "It says Attat is sending out another expedition for one of his prizes, off the coast of Saifhum." The pirate sneered. "He's just trying to add to his menagerie. Maybe he's after a bullshark or another sea elf. He's sending the Perechon, a ship he recently acquired after the race. It's of no concern to us."
"The ship's crew?" the minotaur persisted.
"Humans," Mandracore replied. "The same crew who used to man the ship, only now they're working for Attat."
The minotaur pulled the parchment from the pirate's hands and crumpled it angrily. "It is of concern to us. He's after something dangerous, else he would have sent a minotaur crew. Follow them, and if you can, destroy them!" Chot ordered. "It will be the perfect way to strike at Attat-to keep him from gaining something he clearly wants quite badly!"
Mandracore looked surprised. "We have other, more pressing business in those waters. I don't think our friends would be happy to see us stirring up trouble there… yet," Mandracore said silkily.
"Never mind what makes them happy. I'm not their lackey, though you are mine! And crushing Attat in everything he attempts makes me happy," the minotaur snapped. "Anyway, a talented half-ogre such as yourself should be able to keep everyone satisfied: our friends, yourself… and me. Now go!"
Chapter 7
Maquesta, still in shock that Attat would poison her father, said little on the way back to the Perechon. Lendle trotted at her side. Koraf dragged the cage Attat had given them to hold the morkoth, and Ilyatha and Tailonna trailed behind him. No one spoke, making the cortege seem like a funeral procession. At one point, Maq glanced behind her. If this mismatched group made up the core of her fighting team, she was in trouble, and her father's life was in a great deal of jeopardy.
It was dusk by the time they had rowed out to the Perechon.
"Where's Melas?" Fritzen asked as he helped the shore party climb aboard.
"Get the crew together on the main deck," Maq said curtly by way of reply.
Maquesta motioned for the others to come with her, leading them to the upper aft deck where they waited for the sailors to gather below. Most of them stared at Bas-Ohn Koraf, giving the minotaur a mixture of looks: surprise, puzzlement, fear, and apprehension.
"Melas won't be sailing with us," Maq announced when they were all together. "Lord Attat has poisoned him. My father slowly dies, and Attat will not save him unless we are successful in capturing the morkoth."
Angry mutterings broke out among the sailors, many of whom started pointing at Koraf and whispering "spy," "beast," and "lowlife." Their looks of puzzlement and fear gave way to hatred. The hostility was thick on the deck, and Maq did her best to try to dispel it, though she noticed even Fritzen looked with suspicion at the minotaur. "We have thirty days. If we present the creature to Lord Attat within those thirty days, Melas will be spared. I intend for us to be gone only twenty."
Then she proceeded to introduce the new crewmembers, ending with Bas-Ohn Koraf.
"For the duration of this voyage, Koraf will be my first mate." Jeers, hisses, and shouts of "No!" threatened to drown out Maquesta's words, but she gritted her teeth, waved her hands to silence the men, and continued. "He is worthy of the position, and you will accord him respect. Do not judge him because of his race. I have more reason to loath minotaurs than you. I will assign Ilyatha and Tailonna duties once I have a better understanding of their skills. Bear in mind that we must all work together as smoothly as possible, and we must sail as well as we ever have. There is no room on this voyage for petty hostilities. Anyone who can't follow these instructions should get off before tomorrow morning at dawn. That's when we'll be pulling anchor."
At first light, as the fishing fleet at the south end of the harbor was preparing to set out on their day's work, the Perechon glided past the galleys and merchant vessels, through the scummy brown water of Horned Bay harbor, out past the breakwater and into the open sea.
After a sleepless night in which she repeatedly questioned her decision to make Koraf her second, Maq took the helm. She had considered naming Fritzen, but Lendle had pointed out the half-ogre's continued depression, and counseled her against giving him too much responsibility too soon. Still, she had gone over her navigation route with Fritzen the night before. Her plan was to sail between the southernmost tip of Saifhum and the Outer Reach of the Maelstrom that churned the waters at the center of the Blood Sea, over the spot where the ancient city of Istar had stood before being struck down for its arrogance during the Cataclysm. The Maelstrom progressed in ever intensifying rings toward its center, the Heart of Darkness, as sailors called it. Any ship that broached the Outer Reach took the chance of being disabled by the constant storm that raged over the Maelstrom and sucked down to the bottom of the Blood Sea. The route Maquesta had mapped was riskier than it would have been to set a course around the northern tip of the island of Saifhum to reach the kuo-toa colony. But this route would save them considerable time. Bas-Ohn Koraf and Fritzen had reluctantly agreed.