He glanced at her with a sour expression. "I'd feel better if you stayed aboard Breezerunner."
"My magic will allow me more salvaging time and ability than anyone else you could send," she pointed out. "In these currents, that ship could be gone in moments, taken completely to the bottom."
Tynnel gave a short nod. "First sign of trouble, I want you back here."
Sabyna joined the rowboat crew, scrambling down the rope ladder that had been thrown over Breezerunner's side. Her feet reached the rowboat and Mornis guided her to secure footing.
"Lady."
She looked up at the young sailor who lied about his true name. "What?"
He held a lantern and the illumination turned the bronze of his face to smooth butter. "I've some experience in salvage work," Jherek said. "If I could be of assistance?"
"We don't need some wetnose along on something that could be a dangerous bit of business," Mornis stated gruffly. "Assuming there's nothing nasty waiting in that ship's carcass, if it goes down, there could be a hell of an undertow."
"He's worked as a shipwright," Sabyna said. "He could be of help." She glanced to the right and saw Tynnel standing there. "Captain?"
"Let him go," Tynnel said. "It's Sabyna's call."
Sabyna knew he was giving her back some of the authority and respect he'd stripped from her earlier. She kept the smile from her face and nodded to the young sailor.
Jherek joined them in the rowboat, hardly causing any rocking. Seating himself, he took up an oar and shoved it into an oarlock, then awaited commands.
Sabyna deliberately distanced herself from him and watched him as she sat in the middle of the rowboat. The slat felt hard and unyielding.
Mornis bawled out orders, getting the rowing groups into action. The rowboat came about smartly in the water, cutting through the gentle waves to the area marked from above by the lanterns.
Reaching into the bag of holding at her waist, Sabyna seized the hunk of ivory and off-white cloth inside and unfurled it into the air before her. All of the rowboat's crew except the young sailor drew back.
The cloth resembled a patchwork quilt without the stitching. When Sabyna released the cloth, the scraps fluttered and flew, twisting as if caught in a gentle hurricane. Then they bunched into a serpentine figure that wafted gently in the breeze six feet above the boat and the cowering sailors.
"Guard," Sabyna ordered.
The serpentine shape stretched out and flattened, riding the winds just above and in front of the rowboat.
"What is that?" Jherek asked.
Sabyna looked at him, searching for any reproach in his gaze. She didn't find it and guessed that he'd never heard of the creature. "That's a raggamoffyn," she told him. "My familiar."
"Some say those are creatures of evil," Jherek said, and several of the sailors quietly agreed with him.
Sabyna watched the raggamoffyn change its shape as if luxuriating in the freedom. Since it wasn't well received aboard Breezerunner, she didn't often let it out of the bag of holding except in her cabin.
"Some are evil, I suppose," she agreed. "Some are only pranksters and don't know anything of accountability. Pretty much, they're whatever they want to be. The raggamoffyns known as shrapnel are evil to the core. There are those who say that they're a race of creatures unto themselves, and still others who say they are the minions of a faceless wizard with a black heart. I don't know what to believe about all that, but this raggamoffyn does what I ask it to."
"I see."
The rhythmic sweep of the oars through the water provided an undercurrent to their conversation. Sabyna held her lantern aloft, searching the water ahead of the row-boat. The raggamoffyn involuntarily flinched away from the flame, creating a momentary bow in its present linear shape. "Its name is Skeins. I created it when it came time for me to take a familiar. The cloth it's made of is the shroud that covered my brother Dannin for his funeral service. I was ten when he died and I saved it, knowing exactly what I was going to do with it. When it was time, I sought out another raggamoffyn and made it perform the rites necessary to give life to Skeins."
"Ship the oars," Mornis ordered. "Get ready to pull away."
Sabyna stood in the rowboat's prow, gazing down into the water where the cog lay. The ship twisted and turned a little, rocking with the currents that held it. The wreckage appeared lifeless, white wood showing where some of the hull had been splintered and cracked under pressure.
Something thumped the inside of the ship, the hollow gonging noise echoing through the water was barely heard above the creak of the rowboat.
Jherek listened to the thumping coming from inside the wrecked cog. It sounded across the flat sea, and stopped after less than a minute.
"All right," Mornis said, "I need two volunteers to investigate the wreck."
None of the sailors raised their hands.
"I'll go," Jherek said.
"An" you're a damn fool if you do," Aysel said from further back in the stern.
Jherek had seen the big man come aboard when the rowboat had been loaded, but had ignored him. He ignored him again and rose easily to his feet. He pulled off his boots and shucked his cutlass, keeping only the hook and a knife in a scabbard on his shin.
"Anyone else?" Mornis asked.
No one volunteered.
Jherek didn't blame them. If someone else had volunteered to go, he'd have let them. The water was dark, the illumination wouldn't travel very far into it, and there was no telling what lay below. He walked to the rowboat's edge and started taking deep breaths to completely fill his lungs for the dive.
"Brave bunch, aren't you?" Mornis challenged. He pulled off his own boots, then his shirt. He kept a long saw-toothed knife. He flicked his gaze to Jherek. "You might want to take that shirt off too, lad."
"I'll be all right," Jherek replied, not wanting to chance the tattoo being seen. "The water will be cold."
The first mate chuckled. "About to dive into something like that," he gestured at the sunken cog, "and you're worried about a little chill." He shook his head. "You ready to do this?"
"Aye." Jherek marshaled his control, pushing away the fear that filled him. He didn't know any of these people, much less whoever might be in the sunken cog. He had no business jumping into that water, but he couldn't pass it up either.
"I've got a candle here that's got a bit of magic in it," the first mate said, rummaging in the pouch he kept at his waist. "Once it's lit, it'll burn underwater as well. Mage who sold it to me called it a candle of everburning. Cost me a lot, but a man at sea in the dark, light gets to be a most precious thing, you know?"
"Aye," Jherek said. He knew from experience how hopeful lights, even along an unknown coastline, could make a crew feel.
Mornis lit the candle and it caught with no problem even in the breeze blowing over the rowboat. He stepped to the rowboat's edge and dropped into the water.
Jherek followed the man, cleaving the water cleanly, not leaving the rush of bubbles behind the way Breezerunner's first mate did. He focused on the candle in the first mate's hand. The soft yellow glow belled out almost ten feet in all directions before the darkness of the water absorbed it.
The dulled splash of another body diving into the water sounded behind Jherek. He turned and looked up, watching as Sabyna swam toward him. The raggamoffyn took to the water as well, eeling through the ocean with more grace than the young sailor would have credited the creature with. He paused and waved the ship's mage back. She shook her head at him and kept swimming.