As Mik watched, though, he saw that her chest rose in a slow, shallow rhythm, and a faint pulse throbbed in her smooth neck. “She’s alive,” he said. “Though not for much longer if we hadn’t found her.”
“Good thing I spotted her, then,” Trip replied. He finished cutting the last of the victim’s bonds and slipped back into the water.
Mik unstoppered the waterskin and poured a little over the blue-skinned woman’s face, gently cleaning off the salty residue. She still didn’t stir, so he dribbled a little onto her pale blue lips. Her tongue darted out and licked up the moisture and her eyes flickered behind her eyelids; she didn’t wake, though.
Just then, the ship’s boat pulled alongside.
“Lift her aboard,” Mik said to Marlian, standing in the skiff’s bow. “Gently.”
“Aye, captain,” Marlian replied.
Mik and Trip helped the crew carefully maneuver the blue woman off the raft and into the longboat. The captain and the kender then scrambled aboard, and they all quickly returned to Kingfisher.
Using some spare sail cloth as a sling, they hoisted the castaway up to Kingfisher’s deck and gently laid her down.
“She’s blue!” Bok blurted.
“Well, she’s a sea elf,” Mik replied. “They’re common enough in these waters-though seldom seen.”
Karista Meinor frowned. “She’s badly sunburned-almost purple,” the noblewoman said. “I doubt she’ll survive.”
“I’ve some sunburn oils in my cabin that may help,” Mik said. “If we can tend the bums and get some water into her, she may make it. Elves are hard to kill.”
“Who could have left her like that?” Bok asked rhetorically. “She’s so beautiful.”
“Bah! You were right earlier, bodyguard,” Pamak said. “A sea elf, shipwrecked? Tied to a raft? I repeat, she’s a bad omen. We should throw her back to the fishes.” A number of other sailors grumbled their agreement.
“Whoever did this to her, didn’t want her with the fishes,” Karista noted. “They wanted her to die stretched out like a skinned animal.”
“We’ll worry about how and why she came to be on the raft later,” Mik said. “For now, take her to my cabin. I’ll tend her burns. Trip, bring more fresh water.”
“Aye, captain,” the kender replied. Trip fetched several more waterskins while the crew gingerly carried the castaway into Mik’s cabin below the bridge.
The captain set up a canvas pallet in the comer opposite his hammock and they laid the sea elf s unconscious body on it. Mik and Trip knelt down at her side. Karista, Bok, and a number of other crew members waited at the doorway.
“Do you have any magic that could help?” Mik asked Karista.
“I have some remedies to relieve fever,” she replied. “I don’t know how effective they’ll be, though. I’ll fetch the herbs I need from my cabin.”
“Have the helmsman resume our previous course,” Mik said to Bok.
The big bodyguard peeled his eyes away from the elf, nodded, and went to do as Mik asked.
“Clear the cabin,” Mik said, indicating everyone else should leave. The fascinated crew members went back to their jobs as Mik and Trip tended to the castaway’s injuries.
Mik gently massaged fragrant oils into the elf s blue skin. When she finally groaned slightly, Trip put the waterskin to her lips and made her drink. As she did, the kender eyed the glittering jewelry holding her scant costume together.
“No borrowing, Trip,” Mik cautioned. “We wouldn’t want her to forfeit her modesty.”
The kender laughed, and reluctantly tore his eyes away from her jewelry.
Karista returned shortly with a silver brazier filled with burning herbs. She chanted and made passes with her hands over the injured woman-but none of them saw any obvious effect.
The aristocrat shook her head. “The magic does not work as reliably as it once did,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
Mik stood and stretched. “You did your best,” he said. “We all have. There’s nothing more we can do for her now. Undisturbed rest is probably her best chance at recovery. Besides, we have work to do. Saving this poor girl cost us valuable time. It’ll take keen sailing to reach the proper coordinates by the time Paladine’s constellation rises tonight.”
“But shouldn’t we change her sunburn salve?” Trip asked.
“Later,” Mik replied. “This evening perhaps, before Paladine rises. We’ve a lot of ocean to cover before then. Let’s get to it.”
“Aye, captain,” the kender replied.
The wind was against them for most of the day. Through clever sailing, though, Mik still managed to make up most of the time they’d lost.
As the sun settled behind the shoulders of the ocean, the wind shifted to the southwest, urging them on their way. Mik stood in the bow, watching the dappled red and orange reflections on the water creep into purple and indigo. He called back a final course correction to the helmsman, and then ate a brief supper with the crew on the deck amidships.
Karista and Bok took their meal below; they seldom deigned to eat with Kingfisher’s crew. Only as he washed the last of his bread down with a swig of rum did Mik notice that Trip was missing as well.
Mik found the kender, as expected, within the captain’s cabin. Trip had opened Mik’s sea chest once more, and taken out the golden artifact and the parchment with the transcribed verses of the prophecy. He sat perched on Mik’s hammock, perusing the paper and turning the artifact over in his small hands.
“Honestly,” Mik said, “I’m not sure why I bother to lock that chest.”
“I’m not sure why you bother, either,” Trip replied. “It’s not a very good lock. Karista could probably open it if she had a mind to.” He dropped out of the hammock and smiled.
“How’s our patient?” Mik asked, gazing at the blue form of the castaway. Her skin looked very dark with the red light of sunset streaming through the cabin’s small windows. Mik crossed to a hanging brass lamp in the center of the room and lit it.
“Better, I think,” Trip replied. “She hasn’t woken up or moved much, though. Should we oil her bums again?”
Mik nodded. “It’s not much,” he said, “but all we can do to help her survive.”
Trip laid aside the Prophecy and the artifact, and both of them gently rubbed fragrant oil into the sea elf s blue skin. They worked silently for a while, pausing only to drip fresh water onto her pale lips. Then Trip asked, “When you look at the artifact… at that black diamond, do you… see anything.”
Mik hesitated a moment. “Like what?”
The kender screwed up his face in perplexity. “I dunno. Like a bigger diamond surrounded by treasure, maybe.”
Mik nodded and chuckled. “Never any secrets while you’re around, Trip.”
“Oh, I like secrets as much as the next fellow,” Trip said, “just not when they’re being kept from me. So… what do you see?”
“A storm-tossed ocean,” Mik replied. “An island. A temple. Sometimes, a treasure.” As he spoke, he continued massaging the sunburn oil into the elf s soft skin.
The woman’s eyes flickered open. “Treasure?”
Chapter Six
“You’re alive!” Trip gasped. “You’re awake!”
“Barely,” the sea elf replied, her voice dry and cracking. “Where am I?”
“You’re aboard Kingfisher in the Northern Turbidus Ocean,” Mik replied. “I’m Captain Mikal Vardan, and this is my friend, Tripleknot Shellcracker.”
“Hi!” the kender said. “My friends call me Trip.”
The sea elf tried to speak again, but only a dry rattle came out.
“Here,” Mik said, putting a skin of water to her pale, parched lips. She drank eagerly. “Who are you?” he asked. “Where do you come from?”
She smiled weakly. “My name is Ula,” she said. “I come from… many places. Most recently, from a ship called Golden Harvest.”