* * * * *
A gentle chiming in Azriim's head awoke him from sleep. One of his alarm spells had been triggered. Erevis Cale was aboard. He climbed out of bed and as he donned his clothing and weapon belt, reached his mental fingers out for Dolgan, who slept in the mate's quarters nearby.
The priest of Mask is aboard.
Dolgan answered back, his consciousness noticeably groggy. He is?
Azriim rolled his eyes as he buckled his belt. No matter the situation, Dolgan could always find a way to ask a stupid question.
Find the assassin and meet me outside the forecastle, Azriim projected.
Should I alert the crew to intruders? Dolgan asked.
Not yet, Azriim answered. Let us see what events bring.
He stayed in Captain Kauzin's form but willed himself invisible. He exited his quarters, walked a short corridor, and exited the forecastle. There, he waited for Dolgan.
His broodmate's mental voice sounded in his mind: The assassin is not in his quarters.
No? Azriim asked. How interesting.
He reached out with his mental perception and tried to contact Riven.
CHAPTER 7
DEMON BINDER
The darkness dissipated and Cale, Magadon, and Jak found themselves near the aft railing on the sterncastle of Demon Binder. A short, bearded crewman, perhaps thirty winters old, stood a few paces from them, looking out over the sea. Cale had not seen him in the scrying lens.
The crewman noticed them at the same moment they noticed him.
Surprise widened the man's dumbfounded eyes and temporarily stole his shout.
Cale did what he must. In the space of two heartbeats, he lunged forward and impaled the man through the heart with Weaveshear. The man groaned, bled, sagged toward Cale. Cale caught him up before he fell and heaved him over the rail. The crewman never uttered a scream but the splash of his corpse hitting the sea sounded loud to Cale's ears. He, Jak, and Magadon shared a tense look while they waited for a cry of alarm.
It never came. No one had heard. All three visibly exhaled.
Cale wiped a bloody hand on his cloak. He noticed the way his friends looked at the blood and projected a reminder: These are slavers, not spice merchants. They do not deserve your pity.
Magadon and Jak looked over the railing, back at Cale, and nodded.
The ship was quiet, the deck barely moving on the calm sea. A brisk wind from the south stirred their cloaks, snapped the sails above them. Masts creaked. The sea lapped against the hull as it cut its way through the water.
Selune, gibbous and waxing, hung low in the sky, trailed by her glowing train of silver tears. Along the deck of Demon Binder, a few covered oil lanterns hung here and there from the railings. Otherwise, the ship was dark.
Soft steps, Cale projected, and pointed at the deck of the sterncastle below his boots. He figured some of the crew-the masters who ranked below the first mate-were sleeping in quarters below them. The cabins of the captain and mate, where Cale expected they would find Azriim and Dolgan, would be at the bow of the ship in the forecastle.
Soundlessly, the three slid forward to the edge of the sterncastle until they could look down on the maindeck below. A score or so crewmen lay sprawled about, sleeping. Some hung in canvas hammocks strung between posts. Others slept in the large, cloth-lined leather bags Cale had once heard a sailor call a "deckbag." Cutlasses, knives, and belaying pins lay within ready reach of all of them. Slavers kept their weapons ready at hand.
The night helmsman stood at the tiller in the steering pocket almost directly below them, presumably guiding the ship by the stars. Across the ship, Cale saw two sailors standing on the forecastle to either side of the bowsprit, looking out at the sea ahead.
Cale's heartbeat accelerated. Hopeful that he had found the slaadi, he whispered the words to the spell that allowed him to see magic.
Nothing lit up on the two sailors, but Cale did detect a diffuse magical aura glowing before the door that led to the interior of the forecastle. The slaadi must have warded it. He would examine it more closely when he got there.
A man in the forward crow's nest, Magadon said, peering up the masts. I see no one in the rear nest.
Could you cover the deck from the forward nest? Cale asked.
Magadon eyed the nest, the deck, judged lines of sight.
The sails will create some blind spots, the guide answered, but otherwise, yes.
Cale nodded. He looked down at the top of the helmsman's head. The man was unsuspecting, vulnerable, alone. Cale could see no way that they could move across the ship unseen without first putting down the helmsman.
First the helmsman, he said. Then the lookout in the nest.
He started to move but Jak's hand closed on his shoulder.
A spell first, the little man projected. If it does not work, we put him down.
Cale looked into Jak's eyes. He did not see weakness there, but neither did he see bloodthirst.
They're slavers, Jak. Remember Skullport?
Jak nodded. I know what they are, Cale. But that doesn't mean that I want to kill everyone aboard, at least not if we do not have to. We're here for the slaadi. Well enough?
For a moment, Cale imagined himself through Jak's eyes. He must have looked a bit too ready to shed blood. Perhaps he was a bit too ready to shed blood. He did not want to become so much a shade that he forgot how to be a man.
Well enough, he said. I'll get in position. Then you cast. If your spell doesn't work. . . .
Jak nodded.
Cale sheathed Weaveshear and merged with the darkness, becoming invisible even to his friends. He circled the sterncastle, silently padded down one of the two ladders that led to the maindeck, and took station directly behind the helmsman. He drew a dagger.
The helmsman wore a sweat-stained tunic and wool breeches. His beard and hair were ill kept, his arms gnarled and scarred. He stood in a large opening, almost a box, that sank below the level of the deck-the steering pocket. The tiller shaft stuck out of the rear of the box. An elaborate metal device, no doubt for charting course, and a waterskin sat on a small table within arm's reach. The helmsman hummed to himself while he held the tiller, probably to help stay awake.
Now, Cale projected to Jak.
Cale did not hear Jak cast his spell but he knew when the spell was completed because the helmsman's humming ceased. The man stood rigid and silent, tiller in his frozen hand.
It worked, Cale projected to Jak. How long will it last?
Hard to say, Jak answered.
Cale did not like the uncertainty but decided that he would accept it for Jak's sake.
The one in the crow's nest? he asked Jak.
After a moment's hesitation, the little man answered, Too far.
Cale had expected as much. He is mine, then. Give me a ten count.
Magadon said, I will meet you there.
Jak projected, I'll go invisible and seal the door out of the sterncastle with a glyph. I'll meet you at the bottom of the mainmast.
Good, Cale said. He looked up to the crow's nest and felt the darkness there. He stepped in one stride from his place behind the helmsman to the rear of the crow's nest. The crewman occupying the nest made no sign that he heard Cale appear. The sailor, who could not have seen many more than twenty winters, leaned on his elbows over the front of the crow's nest, staring out over the sea.
Cale hesitated, torn. He could have used a spell like Jak's. There was no guarantee that it would work, but he could have tried. But then he reminded himself that the crew made a living selling other human beings into bondage. When he remembered Skullport, the despair he had seen in the eyes of the slaves there, he needed no further justification. The sailor had chosen this occupation. There were consequences to that choice.
Cale stepped behind the man, jerked his head back to expose his throat, and slit his jugular. Cale became visible the moment he attacked but the man never saw him. The sailor's scream was nothing more than a wheezing gurgle through the new opening in his throat. He flailed for a moment in Cale's grasp but his strength left him as quickly as his blood. Cale lowered him to the bottom of the nest as he died. It was soon over. Cale peeked over the edge of the nest to the deck below and saw no sign that anyone had heard.