Wincing in pain, Cenhar stumbled and nearly fell, but Harp half-carried him down to the ocean waves where they frantically scrubbed off the creatures, some of which were already burrowing into their skin. Harp yanked off his shirt and scrubbed his face and the back of his neck. As they cleaned off the last of the insects, Cenhar groaned in pain. Harp helped him back ashore, and the old man collapsed on the beach.
“What happened?” Boult asked as he loosened the shoulder straps on Cenhar’s leather chestplate. The warrior took ragged breaths between his gritted teeth. A green vine had wound tightly around his upper arm; hooked burrs curled deep into the inflamed tissue.
“It jumped on him,” Harp said.
“The vine jumped on him?” Boult repeated, “I don’t like that sound of that.”
“How long were we in there?” Harp asked.
“Not very long,” Boult replied. “But we all came out onto the beach in different places.”
Harp pulled his dagger out of his boot and began to slice through the vine, sparking cries of pain from Cenhar.
“Damn,” Harp said, sheathing his dagger. “We have to get him back to the ship. Help me lift him.”
But when they tried to pick Cenhar up, his body went rigid, and he seemed to stop breathing.
“Poison?” Boult asked.
“His lips are blue,” Harp said. “We have to move.”
Verran laid his hand on Harp’s shoulder. “Let me try,” he said, but he looked terrified.
“Try what?” Harp asked suspiciously. But he moved away so Verran could kneel beside Cenhar.
Verran held his hands over Cenhar’s chest and began to chant under his breath. As his trembling fingers moved through the air, the barbed plant began to twist and writhe around Cenhar’s arm. The warrior cried out, and Harp moved to stop Verran, but Boult stayed Harp with a hand on his shoulder. The dwarf pointed to the vine, which began smoking as if it were burning from the inside out. With a hissing sound, it blackened and dropped to the sand. Small puncture wounds remained in Cenhar’s arm, but the redness vanished, and Cenhar flexed his huge gnarled hand with a look of relief.
Boult helped Cenhar sit up, and both of them stared at Verran, who looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and hide.
“Stop looking at me like that,” he said defensively. “I saved you.”
“Uh, thanks.” Cenhar swayed on his feet, and Harp thought the behemoth of a man was going to faint back onto the sand.
“We didn’t know you were a sorcerer,” Boult said to Verran.
“I’m not. I got rid of the vines, that’s it.” Verran jutted out his chin defiantly.
“You used magic!” Boult said.
“You should have told us,” Harp said.
“I’m not … It doesn’t matter,” Verran said shakily.
“Magic always matters,” Boult insisted.
“It’s complicated,” Verran said, kicking at the sand beneath his boots. “And private.”
“If you want to be on the crew, you have to be honest with us,” Boult continued angrily.
“Really?” Verran said. “Does that just apply to me? The captain can keep whatever secrets he wants?”
“What do you mean?” Harp asked.
“You have a massive secret. Not even a secret. It’s all over you.”
“What do you want to know, Verran?” Harp asked quietly.
“How’d you get the scars?” Verran demanded.
When he saw how the other men reacted to the question, Verran lost his adolescent bravado. “They’re all over your body. I even saw them on your feet. You get those kind of scars from a demon pact.”
“There are ways to get scars like mine,” Harp said quietly, “that make a demon pact look like a stroll down the dock. I’m no warlock.”
“What then?
“It’s a long story I promise to tell you another time,” Harp said, “but now….” Harp stood up and brushed the sand off his knees. He caught Verran’s eye and held it. “Where did you learn about demon pacts, Verran?”
Verran looked away from Harp and rubbed his eyes with his fists. “I don’t know anything,” he insisted. Harp could tell he was lying-and doing it badly.
“I’m not angry,” Harp said. “Whatever your story is, you’ve clearly got skills we need. Besides, you wouldn’t believe what Boult told me earlier.”
Boult coughed, and Harp continued, “Men are entitled to their secrets, sure. But when it affects the safety of your crew, it’s time to put it in the open.”
“My father … was a warlock,” Verran said and stopped. Harp noticed the tears forming in the boy’s eyes and decided the topic should be discussed with fewer people around.
“Good enough,” Harp said, raising his hand. He turned to talk to Cenhar. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I been dragged through all Nine Hells … No offense to you, Verran,” Cenhar said.
“Can you row the skiff back to the ship?” Harp asked.
“I don’t need to go back.”
“You’re ill,” Harp said firmly.
“My arm’s all right,” Cenhar said. He waggled his fingers as if to prove that everything worked. “But I don’t want to-”
“Sleep on the ship,” Harp insisted. “Tell Llywellan what happened. He’ll keep an eye on you.”
“What if you have trouble?”
“We’re going to find the colony. We’ll come back to the ship and figure out our strategy together. No time for trouble.”
For a moment, Cenhar looked like he wanted to argue. Changing his mind he said, “Aye, captain.”
“Kitto, Boult, help him get the boat on the water.”
When the three men had moved away, Harp turned back to Verran.
“Your father was a warlock?” Harp prompted.
“Not at first. I loved my father, but he was … easy to persuade. He began studying with a man who had traveled everywhere searching for lost magics and artifacts. My father idolized him.”
“A sorcerer?” Harp asked.
Verran gave a non-commital shrug. “He was very charismatic, and his followers were utterly devoted to him. I’d never met someone who was so … strong-willed. Just a few words could convince you of things that, as I look back on it, made no sense.”
“You knew the man?”
Verran wiped his sleeve across his eyes. “Yes. My father used to take me to their gatherings, in the guts of a derelict building. I was always the youngest one there.” He looked up at Harp. “They said it made me special.”
“You were a child, Verran,” Harp assured him. “You couldn’t have known any better.”
“Some things are horrible no matter how old you are.”
Harp took a deep breath. He and Verran had more in common than the boy thought.
“The man offered my father a deal,” Verran said.
“It’s one of the oldest stories,” Harp said grimly. “Men sell their freedom for power.”
“And it worked,” Verran said bitterly. “My father became very powerful. But he also changed. He’d been so happy, so cheerful, and suddenly it was like something black replaced his heart.”
“Spending too much time around death will do that to a man,” Harp agreed.
Verran shook his head. “It was more than that. I saw scars on his hands one night. Scars just like you have, only they were fresh,” Verran continued. “My father was so proud of them. Whatever he’d done had been a major accomplishment. Mama got so angry. I’d never seen her like that. She saw marks on his back. There were five of them, all in a row. Like … silhouettes of a shape that’s just a little too far away to recognize. The night when he got those scars, one of the … silhouettes … took a new shape. It was finished.”
“I don’t understand, Verran,” Harp said patiently. He knew the boy was trying his best to explain, but finding the right words to describe something evil was hard. Harp knew that as well as anyone.
“It was the pact. My father was given power. And he was expected to do certain tasks, part of a larger plan that none of us understood.”
“And one of those debts was paid that night?” Harp pressed.
“Yes. My mother was clever. Once she saw the mark on his back, she knew what he had done. She took me away from him.”