“No, sir. I know you’re a great man, the most respected in these isles. Anyone would be proud to join your faction. I’m just saying I mean to look out for myself. To catch the freshest wind that blows my way and snatch every coin that rolls within reach.”
“My house is your house,” said Teldar, “whenever you feel inclined to visit. We’ll talk further. But for now… well, I’m afraid I’ve grown too old and dyspeptic to drink the night away as a pirate should. But you young cutthroats enjoy yourselves.” He rose and dropped a handful of clattering silver on the table.
A cool breeze blew, bearing the damp, salty tang of the sea. Lathander, god of the dawn, had just begun silvering the eastern horizon. Soon Tu’ala’keth would need her goggles. At the moment, though, they dangled from her neck beneath the hooded cloak she’d found in Vurgrom’s house. She hoped that with her face shadowed by her cowl and her crest of fin squashed down, she looked unremarkable in the the itchy, confining mantle.
She prowled from one tavern, brothel, and gambling den to the next, most still roaring despite the hour. Anton was supposed to be in one of them, but she couldn’t go inside to find out which. Her rudimentary disguise was unlikely to deceive even the most inebriated observer at close range.
Finally, up ahead, a big, black-haired man stumbled from a torch-lit doorway. His cape was red with strands of gleaming gray in the weave, and an octopus tattoo writhed its tentacles down his arm. He wandered into the nearest alley and relieved himself against a wall.
Tu’ala’keth strode toward him. “Anton!” she whispered.
His head jerked around. “Oh, it’s you. I truly must be drunk. I didn’t spot you muffled up in all that black.” He fastened up his breeches, turned, and blinked at her. “What in the name of the Lanceboard are you doing here? You and I are supposed to be quarreling, remember?”
Anton had needed a dispute with his shipmates to create the impression he was dissatisfied. Now the other factions would seek to recruit him. In the process, they’d boast of their enterprises, and give him the opportunity to pry into their secrets. Meanwhile, Tu’ala’keth, still a prized and trusted member of Vurgrom’s organization, would find chances to investigate his activities. At some point during the course of it all, she or the Turmian would uncover information that pointed to the Cult of the Dragon’s secret lair.
That was the plan, anyway. But it wasn’t what mattered at the moment.
“Listen to me,” said Tu’ala’keth. “After you left, I made a point of keeping an eye on Kassur and Chadrezzan.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re our enemies, and because, unlike everyone elseunlike you, obviouslythey only drank a cup or two of liquor.”
“I had to buy drinks and keep pace with everyone else. That’s how you give the impression of good fellowship. I know a charm to sober up, and I cast it from time to time. But I used up the power then still couldn’t get away.” He belched then eyed her quizzically. “You said something about Cha… Chadrezzdandan?”
She gripped her skeletal amulet, recited a prayer, and planted her other hand in the center of his chest with its repulsive bristling hairs. The spell would purge poison from a shalarin’s system, and she hoped it would wash alcohol out of a human’s veins as well.
Her fingers tingled and glowed blue-green, and he jerked back from her touch as if she’d struck him, banging up against the wall. “Ouch!” he said. “Thanks. That helped. Now what about the Talassans?”
“They stayed sober and eventually slipped away from the celebration. I believe they mean to kill you.”
“You could be right. I never spotted them peeking in at me or stalking me, but that means little. Curse it, anyway. I knew they’d try to murder one or both of us eventually, but why did it have to be so soon?”
“Because you offended them anew, and like me, they worship a deity of Fury. Whenever possible, we act on our anger without delay.”
“But they’ll have to delay if we can make it back to Vurgrom’s house. They can’t strike us down in front of our shipmates. The question is how to sneak there? I think, skirt the edge of town, the way we did our first day here, then come downhill.”
“I can fill the streets with an early-morning fog.”
He frowned, pondering, then shook his head. “No. It worked in Saerloon, but in this situation, I’m not willing to blind Kassur and Chadrezzan if it means blinding us as well. We’ll keep to the shadows and hope for the best.”
“As you wish.”
They skulked forward. Her pulse ticking in her neck, Tu’ala’keth peered back and forth and up and down, checking doorways, windows, the mouths of alleys, and rooftops. She told herself it was no different than playing hide-and-seek with an enemy amid the maze-like twists and cavities of a coral reef. She was not at a disadvantage in this alien environment, nor was she frightened.
“Thanks for coming to warn me,” Anton murmured.
“You are my partner in Umberlee’s sacred work.”
“Right. But thank you, anyway.”
A shadow shifted at the edge of her vision, where the stifling wool hood cut it off. She jerked around, and Anton pivoted with her. Reacting to the sudden motion, a small four-legged animal bounded away.
“Just a cat,” Anton said.
“I see that now,” she said stiffly.
They crept onward. Somewhere in the ramshackle settlement, a chickenno, the proper term, she had learned, was roostercrowed. Up ahead, where the narrow lane intersected another, a man in rags lay motionless on the ground. Perhaps he was a reveler stupefied by drink. Or maybe someone had murdered him. In theory, Immurk’s Hold was a haven where all pirates, even the bitterest rivals, observed a truce, but as Tu’ala’keth’s own situation demonstrated, the reality was otherwise. If a reaver wished to slay an enemy, the town simply asked that he pursue the vendetta with a modicum of discretion.
In any event, the important thing was that the human sprawled in the intersection wasn’t Kassur or Chadrezzan. He was too short and pudgy and dressed in grubby, nondescript clothing, not vestments decorated with jagged stripes and spangles or a cloak adorned with serpents. She was just about to turn her attention elsewhere when he heaved himself up into a sitting position.
She saw then that the thing wasn’t plump but rather bloated with the progress of decay. Sores, the marks of the sickness that had ended its life, mottled the puffy, discolored face. The mouth hung open, and dark fluid had oozed forth to stain the chin. The glazed eyes were empty.
It was a corpse, surely reanimated by Kassur’s magic. He probably hadn’t even needed to kill it or dig it up. The inhabitants of Immurk’s Hold could be lackadaisical when it came to disposing of their dead.
The cadaver gripped a dented tin pot in one swollen hand and a black iron skillet in the other. It fumbled them over its lolling head and banged them together. The clanking seemed preternaturally loud in the empty predawn streets.
Anton snatched his cutlass from its scabbard. No doubt he meant to silence Kassur’s sentinel by cutting it to pieces, but Tu’ala’keth had a faster way. She gripped her amulet and willed forth a blaze of spiritual power. The corpse finished rotting in a heartbeat, corrupt flesh eroding away in strips, bones crumbling to powder.
Still the dead thing’s sudden action had taken her by surprise, and she knew she hadn’t acted quickly enough. She turned to Anton and said, “Kassur and Chadrezzan surely heard that.”
“I know. We need to get under cover.” He cast about.
By making for the edge of town, they’d distanced themselves from coquina mansions, solidly constructed warehouses, barracoons, chandleries, and the like. The structures on the perimeter were a motley collection of shacks pieced together from driftwood, logs harvested from the interior of the island, and whatever other materials came to hand. Tu’ala’keth saw little reason to prefer one to another.