“I must see her, Nyam.”
Nyam nodded slowly. “I understand.”
“Last night she visited me.”
“Oh-ho! Did she indeed?”
Vaddi colored. “Only briefly! Just to explain something of the history of—” he tapped his chest. “She spoke of helping me to leave. She was going to try and arrange for something, so I can’t just go.”
“No.”
“She kissed me,” he said softly, as if to himself, and in saying it he felt again the magic of that fleeting moment, the strange power that it had awakened in him.
Nyam was scratching his beard. “I see. Passions are aroused …”
“No, it was a brief kiss, barely a touch.”
“Not a real kiss then?”
“No … well, yes! I don’t know, it unlocked something—”
Nyam groaned.
“What?”
“Nothing, nothing. Go on.”
“I have felt constrained for so long, yet now, something is working loose in me. Like … I don’t know. Like a thorn in the flesh, set in deep, and then it slowly rises to the surface.”
“It’s called love, Vaddi.”
“No, not that. Well, yes, it is that, but there is more.”
“Well, I can see a difference in you. A glow. Must be your elf blood.”
Before they could continue their conversation, two burly ruffians elbowed their way to the table and squeezed themselves on to a bench, swapping crude curses with the existing occupants. Just when it seemed there would be a brawl, the former occupants edged up the bench, grumbling about it never being too early for sticking warthogs. Like dogs growling over a bone, all parties settled down to an uneasy truce. Vaddi tried not to gape at the two newcomers and Nyam laughed aloud.
“Allow me to introduce Skaab and Thucknor. Vaddi.”
The two pirates, for Vaddi thought they could be nothing but freebooters, given that their rough dress, sea-beaten features and gnarled hands proclaimed it for all to see, grunted their rude greetings to the youth, showing their teeth, such as they were, in brief but ghastly grins.
Vaddi nodded but found it hard to speak.
“What news have you brought me?” said Nyam.
The bigger of the two, Skaab, was a man twice the girth of most, with a striped shirt that had long since given up being buttoned. His enormous gut, singularly hairy, bulged. He leaned forward, though with difficulty. “We ’ad your man followed. The cleric. Last night. ’E was a busy bird, that one.”
Someone from the bar leaned over the table and prepared to set down a tray of huge tankards, foam slopping over their rims. Skaab and Thucknor scooped up a tankard each before they had been set down. Nyam produced a coin and gave it to the barman. Vaddi tried not to grimace at the treacle-like ale. Nyam sipped his own.
“Go on, Skaab.”
“ ’E came down ’ere to the docks.”
“Aye,” snorted Thucknor, who was marginally less rotund than his mate. “Keeps strange company.”
Nyam leaned forward. “Quietly now.”
“Y’know Vortermars? Captains a privateer up and down this southern coast, between Darguun and Q’barra.”
“Yes, I know him,” said Nyam with a deep scowl. He glanced at Vaddi. “As big a roach as ever crawled out from under a barrel.”
Both Skaab and Thucknor laughed, an unnerving sound. “Well, the cleric met with his first mate, Gez Muhallah. Planned a little trip.”
“To where?”
Skaab looked around, but no one appeared to be trying to listen to them. “We know Gez. ’E’s a tight-lipped monkey, but we ’ad a few ales with ’im. It’s no secret that Vortermars makes the Aerenal run when it suits ’im.”
“What trade does he ply there?” said Nyam.
“Anything that others won’t touch,” grinned Skaab. “Forbidden stuff, like the rarer woods, drugs, artifacts …”
“So the cleric is bound for Aerenal?”
“Aye, with a valuable cargo, if Gez was to be believed.”
“Which was?”
“It took us a while to find out,” sniffed Thucknor, draining his ale and leaning back, as big a hint as he could give that he was still thirsty.
“You’ll have all the ale you can drink for a week, you dogs! Just tell me what you know.”
Skaab nodded. “Aye. We went down to the docks where the Sea Harlot was anchored up. Vortermars’s ship. Nice lines. Trim, fast.”
“Get on with it!” said Nyam.
“The cleric met elves, but they weren’t the ordinary types, not like you see all round Pylas Maradal. These were weird. Can’t put me finger on it. Painted for one thing. Cold fish. Didn’t like the smell of them.” Skaab sat back, shaking his head as though the thought of these elves disturbed him.
Nyam, too, looked deeply uneasy.
“What is it?” said Vaddi.
“If it is what I think, I am puzzled as to why the cleric should be trafficking with them. It can only mean the worse for us. So what happened?”
Thucknor took up the tale. “The cleric must have done some deal with these elves. We couldn’t hear it all, but we saw them agreeing something.”
“What was this cargo you spoke of?”
“A girl. Elf girl.”
Vaddi looked askance at Nyam, but then something crossed his mind, a grim shadow. He felt himself growing cold. “A girl? What did she look like?”
“Pretty piece,” said Skaab. “We saw ’er with the elves at dawn. They were taking ’er onboard the Sea Harlot. At swordpoint. And the air was ’umming with sorcery! Spells locking with spells. Six elves, all with power, otherwise she would’ve been too much to ’andle. She was … well, about the same age as the boy ’ere. Short, dark ’air, slim build.”
“Zemella!” breathed Vaddi, an icy fist gripping his heart.
“Aye, that was her name!” said Thucknor. “I heard the cleric say it.”
Vaddi’s mouth went dry. He turned a devastated look on Nyam. “Then Cellester is no ally after all. It has all been a deception!”
“Softly, my boy. What happened? The elves sailed with the girl. And the cleric?”
“He went with them. Bound for Aerenal.”
“Do you know which port?”
“Shae Thoridor initially. Unload a legitimate cargo. After that, the east coast, maybe. Even Gez Muhallah don’t pass on everything.”
“The girl was to be delivered to Shae Thoridor?”
“Dunno,” said Skaab and Thucknor in unison. “Unlikely. All the under’and stuff goes on elsewhere. You should know that, Nyam.”
Nyam sat back with a sigh. “Yes, I know it only too well.”
“What now?” said Skaab.
Vaddi looked intently at the peddler. “We must follow,” he said. “Wherever they have taken her, we follow. I cannot believe that Cellester means Zemella anything but harm.”
“Khyber’s shadows! I fear you are right, but why? Why has he abducted her?”
“So you’ll want passage to Aerenal?” said Skaab.
Nyam glanced at Vaddi. “Can you arrange it, promptly?”
“If you mean to give chase to the Sea Harlot and get into a ruckus with ’er, forget it. No one ’ereabouts will mess with Vortermars, especially as ’is ship is now dripping with sorcery. It’s faster than a gale with that accursed crew! Best go as a trader. In disguise, if you get me.”
“How soon?”
“We can get you on a ship before noon. Earlier if the money’s right.”
Nyam patted his robes and his coins clinked. He frowned at Vaddi. “The sooner we go, the better, Vaddi?”
Vaddi glared at him. “There’s no other course.”
“Yes, I thought as much. I fear that kiss is going to prove very expensive.”
11
Dark Crossings
In Xen’drik, in what had once been a gigantic temple to powers long buried under the weight of aeons, figures gathered, acolytes in a ritual they had been performing for days. They lit the braziers wherein strange and baleful fires glowed, filling the air above them with writhing mists and aerial phantoms, warped and misshapen. The cloaked ones chanted, the rhythm of their incantations ebbing and flowing, swelling the smoke-shapes in the air, giving life to them. Faces flowed out of that crawling fog—tortured faces, faces that contorted in pain, ethereal bodies straining to be corporeal, like prisoners desperate to be free of bonds that had gripped them for centuries. In the wide circle that was the floor of the ruin, cleaned of its debris and weeds, an immense pentacle had been unearthed, its etchings reeking with sorcery, the sigils and designs of its inner heart alien and blasphemous. They pulsed with life, like the veins of some gigantic beast on the edge of wakefulness.