“Call me Trip,” burbled the kender. “Can we… call you, uh… Lakuda and Shimmer?”
Both scavengers pointedly ignored him as they continued to drag the bound captives forward.
Shimmer glanced at his companion, his orangish eyes shining from beneath his bronze helmet. “Hauling them to Reeftown would be easier if they would cooperate.”
Mik smiled. “Sure. Just cut us free, and…” He never finished his sentence.
As Shimmer turned toward the captives, he lifted the faceplate of his helmet ever so slightly. Beams of dazzling light shot out from the crack, filling the sea with multicolored brilliance.
A wave of dizziness swept over the shipwrecked captives. Mik’s senses reeled and he remembered no more.
When Mik woke again, he found himself bound by the waist to a long rope. Trip was tied behind him, like two caught fish on a line. Their hands had been tied as well, though their legs remained free for swimming. Lakuda darted in front of them, tugging on the rope; Shimmer brought up the rear. Mik’s cutlass had been confiscated and, along with the daggers they’d lost earlier, put into a bag-like net hanging from Shimmer’s right shoulder.
Whatever spell the Bronze Knight had used against them, the effects hadn’t lasted long. Mik recognized the wreckage of Kingfisher around them as they swam forward.
Occasionally, Lakuda or Shimmer would break away and scoop up a piece of debris from the ocean floor. They’d examine the item and then either stuff it into one of the pouches hanging from their belts, or drop it back into the silt.
As they passed a large tangle of ropes and chains, Mik’s heart fell. There, amid the wreckage lay the body of Pamak. Parts of his torso had been bitten away, and his bloated tongue lolled horribly out of his mouth. His eyes peered, unseeing, into the endless deep. Already hagfish and other sea scavengers had begun to strip the flesh from his bones.
Shimmer paused a minute to yank the chain free from the tangle. Pamak’s body danced horribly, like a puppet on a string.
Hatred for these heartless scavengers welled up within Mik’s breast. He lunged forward, an incoherent scream on his lips.
The move yanked Shimmer off his feet and caused the knight to plunge into the silt Lakuda darted back and swung the haft of her spear into the back of Mik’s head.
The sea filled with bright points of light, and Mik’s face smashed into the mud. A moment later, Shimmer’s big hand jerked him up again. Mik blinked and tried to regain his senses.
Lakuda pointed her spear at the sailor’s chest “Try anything like that again.” she said, “and IT gladly run you through”
“He was part of my crew,” Mik said.
Lakuda’s black eyes narrowed. “Now he’s just fish food.”
They swam in silence for a long time after that. Lakuda snaked through the water in front of them; Shimmer plodded along behind, a large sack of loot on his armored back. The wreckage of Kingfisher soon disappeared into the indigo darkness.
Mik couldn’t tell whether they were headed toward the isles or away. Their captors swam swiftly over the sparse patches of seaweed and coral. Clearly Lakuda and Shimmer knew the sea bed as well as Mik knew the stars at night.
The constant swimming soon fatigued the sailor and Trip. Lakuda and Shimmer pulled them along if they flagged, the ropes tugging uncomfortably at the captives’ middles.
“Maybe I don’t want to see a sea-elf city after all,” Trip moaned.
“We’re not scuttled vet,” Mik said in a low voice.
Shimmer and Lakuda never seemed to tire, nor did they stop for food. Soon Mik found his eyes drifting shut despite his discomfort.
Entirely without realizing it he crossed into the land of dreams. There he sailed a fine, proud ship, larger and newer than Kingfisher. Old friends, some long dead, others he’d left behind on this voyage, manned the ship. They dived for pearls and recovered sunken treasure. Trip clung to the rigging and prowled the deck, constantly getting underfoot. Mik smiled and breathed the clean salt air. The wind tugged at his hair and raised goose-bumps on his dark skin.
“Mik, look!” the kender burbled.
Mik blinked, and immediately the aches of captivity returned to his limbs. He felt the deep sea currents tugging at his hair and clothes, and he tasted the pristine magical air as it filled his lungs. “Trip?” he asked sleepily.
“The city! Look!”
Mik raised his weary head and gazed where Trip indicated.
Ahead of them, the ocean shimmered blue with flickering iridescent light. Within the glow, an amazing conglomeration of architecture rose from the ocean floor. Houses formed of coral, seaweed, and pieces of sunken ships dotted the submarine canyon. Each dwelling lay piled on top of the next, as the jumbled village reached toward the unseen surface far above.
Mountainous reefs surrounded the canyon in a horseshoe shaped wall, forming a natural bowl protecting the strange village. A tangled mesh of seaweed, like a living net, defended the front of the settlement. Sea elf guards swam patrol just outside of the netting.
Elves, fish, rays, and many aquatic creatures that Mik couldn’t recognize darted in and out of Reeftown’s gently swaying architecture. Tiny glowing life forms sped among the coral canyons like shooting stars flitting through the night sky. Cool blue and green lights leaked from windows cut into coral walls, or filtered between the cracks in the houses’ odd construction. Some buildings looked like huge seaweed cocoons, while others were formed from the rotting cabins of submerged galleons.
“It’s beautiful,” murmured Trip.
Chapter Twelve
“Yes… beautiful,” Mik replied. In his mind, though, a picture of the northern butterfly fish formed. It was a beautiful creature, arrayed in featherlike multi-colored scales. Each tip of its delicate-looking raiment, though, ended in a spine coated with deadly poison. That is how Reeftown looked to him.
They swam toward the titanic fronds of kelp circling the town’s perimeter. The living barrier swayed gently in the current. Two Dargonesti sentries stood guard beside a coral gateway in a rocky wall at the foot of the weeds.
“Flimsy-looking… defense,” Trip bubbled.
“Say that after the weeds have snapped your neck, crushed you, and left your body as fodder for the sharks,” Shimmer replied.
“Test it, if you like,” Lakuda added.
The kender might have tried it, if he hadn’t been tethered to Mik. As it was, his wide hazel eyes scanned the fence’s perimeter, hoping that someone else might give it a go.
As the four of them approached the coral gate, a lance-toting sentry in turtle-shell armor stepped up to meet them. He bowed low.
“Felicitous greetings at your return, Townboss Lakuda,” he said.
“I trust your forage was successful,” added an elf woman, wearing golden seashells and carrying a trident, who stood at the gate beside the turtle-shelled guard.
“Volrek… Tila,” Lakuda replied, giving the man and woman a nod in acknowledgement.
The sentries stepped out of the way to let the Townboss of Reeftown pass.
“We’ve sent the other foragers straight to your villa, milady,” Tila said. “It seems a fair haul.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Lakuda said to the woman.
Tila bowed.
Mik and Trip exchanged a nervous glance.
Lakuda, Shimmer, and their captives passed through the gate into Reeftown. During the brief stop at the gate, Mik and Trip had recovered enough energy to swim along with their captors-which was better than being dragged.
Mik saw now that their previous observations about Reeftown were in error. Close up, the village looked less like a proud, undersea city and more like a refuse heap. The town was mainly composed of cast-offs and marine junk. The buildings seemed shabby and in ill repair. Scavenger eels circled through the streets, gobbling up pieces of rotten wood and decaying seaweed.