A bright shape flitted out of the bubbling, blood-stained darkness. It slashed down and across the monster’s tentacle, near Mik’s ensnared hand. The tentacle fell away and Mik found himself free.
“Thanks, Trip!” Mik burbled, recognizing the pale shape in the water nearby.
The kender, his cheeks puffed out with fresh air, nodded and slashed swiftly again with his twin pearl-handled daggers. In moments, they severed all the rubbery arms holding the ship captain.
Trip darted aside and headed for the surface again as the enraged creature reached out to grab them once more. Instead of following the kender, though, Mik dived straight for the center of the flailing mass.
The creature’s pale green eyes, large as dinner plates, swiveled toward the sailor. The arms turned inward in a futile attempt to stop his descent.
Mik seized the creature’s flabby, scale-covered skin with one hand to anchor himself. With his other hand he plunged his dagger as far as it would go into the monster’s center.
The creature’s distressed cries rang in his ears as he twisted the knife sideways, cutting across the bony ridge between the thing’s eyes. The monster flailed at him.
He ripped out the dagger, bursting one of the greenish eyes as the weapon pulled free. The creature’s tendrils waved frantically around him like a mass of angry snakes. He kicked away from it and burst free. Mortally wounded, the monster sank slowly into the depths.
Just before Mik reached the storm-tossed surface, he saw Trip diving down once more.
The kender spotted him, grinned, and then turned back toward the waves above.
They broke through the surf an arm’s-length apart.
“Hey, thanks for saving my life!” Trip gasped, spitting salt water from his lips.
“Don’t mention it,” Mik replied.
They gazed through the storm and spotted Kingfisher’s three tawny sails bobbing over the waves a short distance away.
“Can you make it?” Mik asked.
The kender nodded, and they both fought across the breakers toward the caravel. Kingfisher rolled nimbly on the ocean, her raised bow and high stern deck staying well above the surging seas. The ship’s red sides glistened in the rain as though they’d been freshly painted. The great blue eye painted on the bow for good luck seemed to stare at the castaway mariners as they returned.
The crew dropped a boarding net over Kingfisher’s side, and the kender and the captain grabbed hold when a wave swept them near. They clung as the storm alternately tried to pound them into the gunwales or rip them back into the sea.
Crewmen aboard the aging caravel pulled on the net as Mik and Trip climbed up, and the castaways soon tumbled to the sodden deck, exhausted. They lay on the well-worn planking, panting to regain their strength. Driving rain and sea spray washed over their faces.
A shudder ran through Mik’s body and he felt suddenly cold. He glanced down and saw one of the jeweled scales of his enchanted necklace crumble into dust. The price of the magic seemed higher every time he used it. Magic was fading from Ansalon and soon even artifacts like the necklace would be nothing more than fancy jewelry.
A shadow fell over Mik’s face and he gazed up at Karista Meinor. Lightning flashed. The pale brilliance reflected from the aristocrat’s steely eyes and illuminated her well-rounded form. She looked beautiful, even amid the storm, even with her billowing silks soaked and clinging to her tanned skin.
She eyed the drenched sailor angrily. “That was a foolish thing to do, captain,” Karista said. “You could have been killed. I didn’t hire you to get sacrifice yourself for a kender. I hired you to do a job.”
“I didn’t sign on to watch my friends die,” Mik replied. His brown eyes narrowed. “Or even my enemies.”
Bok, Karista’s huge bodyguard and paramour, stepped forward and helped Mik to his feet. “The kender’s a stowaway,” he said, “of no value to milady’s expedition. We should have tossed him overboard when we first discovered him.”
Trip, still sputtering on the rain-soaked deck, glared at Bok, uncharacteristically holding his tongue.
“I’m still the captain here,” Mik replied. “It’s my decision who stays aboard and who takes up company with the razorfish. Unless, of course, you’d care to hire someone else to complete this little errand of yours.”
Karista waved one bejeweled hand at him dismissively. “You know that’s impossible,” she said.
“We’d never find another captain before the typhoon season hits,” Bok added.
Mik smiled. “How unfortunate.”
Karista’s ruby red lips pulled tight across her straight white teeth. “Your experience makes you uniquely valuable to this expedition, captain,” she said. “As you well know.”
Mik nodded.
“Nevertheless,” she continued, “I hired this crew, and supplied this ship, and… forgave the considerable debts you owed my family.”
“That’s not the only reason I agreed to do this,” Mik countered.
“Be that as it may,” she said, “our agreement is not fulfilled until this mission arrives at a satisfactory conclusion.”
“I signed to sail you where you want to go,” Mik said. “Whether you find what you’re looking for when we get there… ? That’s your gamble.”
Karista nodded slowly. “Indeed,” the aristocrat said. “But if the legends are true, you stand to gain nearly as much as I.”
“That’s the other reason I came.”
“So we’re in agreement, then?” Karista asked, arching one thin eyebrow.
“Just so long as I make the decisions aboard this ship,” Mik replied.
Karista bowed slightly and rain ran in long rivulets from her wavy brown hair. She cast an indifferent glance at the kender, still fuming silently. “Insofar as running the ship,” she said, “I accede to your superior knowledge.”
Thunder crashed.
“Well, we ain’t so sure about that,” boomed a loud voice.
A tall man with a scar pushed through the group of sailors surrounding the rescued mariners. He was nearly as large as Bok and looked even meaner. A lanky woman with short blond hair stepped up beside him.
“Some of us think,” she said, “that it might be time for a new captain.”
Chapter Two
Though the storm was abating, the wind still howled around Kingfisher and rain washed the decks. Tall waves caused the caravel to lurch precariously. Kingfisher’s crew, though, stood ominously still as the tall crewman and the lanky female sailor stared into Mik Vardan’s brown eyes.
“We don’t intend to follow this witch to our deaths,” the man said, pointing to Karista Meinor, “no matter how good she pays.”
“Five have died already,” the woman put in. “And your little friend was almost the sixth.” She glanced at the kender.
“Little…!” Trip said, rising to his feet.
“None of us plans to be next,” the man growled. “We’ve already sailed beyond the charts-beyond all good sense. None of us is sailing any farther.”
“We want to know our destination,” the woman added. “The Meinors’ money and your reputation as a salvage captain may have lured us this far, Vardan-but we’ve done no salvage and there’s no destination in sight. Money will only buy loyalty for so long.”
“So I see,” Karista muttered.
Mik gazed around the assembled crew, grim-faced and sodden in the howling storm. “Do Pamak and Marlian speak for all of you?” he asked.
Most of the crew nodded and grumbled, “Aye.”
Mik turned to Karista Meinor. “I think, perhaps, it is time you revealed the purpose of our voyage, milady,” he said. “In such perilous seas, the crew deserves no less.”
“You cannot give orders to milady,” Bok said, stepping in front of his mistress and nearly slipping on the wet deck.