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“Idiot!” she snarled.

For some reason, Anton could only laugh, even though it made his sundry aches hurt worse. “Is that how Thayans apologize?”

“I have nothing to apologize for!”

“No,” he said, “you don’t.” Deciding she likely wouldn’t object if he let the zombie do all the rowing, he uncurled his raw fingers from the oar. Even that hurt; they didn’t want to straighten out.

“What possessed you to defy a Red Wizard and a squad of marines standing ready to assist him?”

“I relish a challenge? It seemed like a shrewd idea at the time? Truly, I can’t explain the impulse. Some passing madness, I suppose.”

“And now you have to die for it.”

“Are you here to do the honors?”

She scowled as though he’d bruised her feelings. “Kymas doesn’t mean to let you off that easily.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised. Why did you come, then?”

She reached into a concealed pocket and brought out a little silver flask. When she offered it, he drank without hesitation, for after all, who would waste poison on a man in his situation?

The liquid burned like some unfamiliar sweetish liquor, but its analgesic properties took effect far more quickly than that of alcohol alone. One mouthful made Anton’s assortment of pains dwindle significantly.

Umara reclaimed the flask and screwed the cap back on. “You won’t wake up stiff, either.”

“You mean they’re eventually going to let me rest? I’d just about concluded your crew can’t repair the rigging to raise a sail.”

“They can’t. In fact, Evendur Highcastle crippled the galley in several ways. We lost one of the side tillers, and we’re taking on water as fast as we can pump it out. Captain Sepandem plans to limp to the coast and, if possible, find a shipyard and put in for repairs. If it’s not possible, we’ll continue our journey on land.”

“Through the wilds of Gulthandor? That should be entertaining. Perhaps Lord Kymas will let me tag along as a porter.”

Umara put away the flask and produced a split biscuit with a slice of fried fish in the middle. The aroma flooded Anton’s mouth with saliva, and he took the food and gobbled it down. The bread was stale and hard, and the fish cold and greasy, but he was too hungry for it to matter.

“That was all I could bring,” the wizard said.

“I’m sure it was tastier than whatever scraps my keeper will eventually toss my way.”

“And it’s all I can do for you.”

“It’s more than I expected.”

“I mean it. I won’t be back. Not like this. My duty is my duty, my path is my path, and that’s all there is to it.”

“Truly, I understand. You have a respectable place among your people. Ambitions, too, I imagine. You can’t just throw them away.”

“No,” she said, “I can’t.” She looked at him for another moment, then turned away.

Stedd said, “Wait!”

Startled, Umara gaped down at the boy, and Anton felt an impotent urge to grab him and smack him. Didn’t the empty-headed child realize that the possibility of him eventually channeling more magic, however remote that possibility might be, was the best chance they had? And he’d just thrown it away.

“You’re conscious,” Umara said.

“Yes.” Stedd tried to sit up despite the impediment of his bonds.

After a moment, Umara helped him lift his upper body out of the bilge water and settled him against the end of a bench. “How?” she asked.

“Anton talked to me to help me wake up. And maybe I’m getting used to the skull. I mean, just a little. I can’t reach out to Lathander, so don’t worry about that.”

“Then why reveal you’re awake?” the wizard asked.

“So I can talk to you,” Stedd replied. “You and Anton are just alike. He thinks he has to be bad. You think you have to be what you are. But you don’t. You can change.”

Umara sighed. “You’re a bright boy, Stedd. I could tell the moment I met you. But you’re talking about things a child can’t understand.”

“You’re wrong. Even with the skull around my neck, I still see things.”

She hesitated. “Like what?”

“Like, you don’t even want to go where you’re going. Not really. You like magic, but hardly anything else about your life.”

“So I should throw it all away to help you? No. I’m not a traitor.”

“Lathander doesn’t want you to be. He wants you to make your country better.”

Umara blinked. “What, now?”

Even in the gloom, Stedd’s blue eyes seemed to shine. “It’s … you’re right. I don’t understand everything. How could I, when I’ve never even been to your land? But it’s like there are two Thays. A real one, and one you dream about.”

“I don’t dream about it. Like any educated person, I know that a hundred years ago, Thay was different. But I’m not obsessed with the past. I’m getting on with my life.”

“Anything that changed once can change again. There’s a new dawn every day, even when people can’t see it behind the clouds.”

“That may be, but it’s ridiculous to tell me to go change Thay. I’m one person!”

“You can’t do it all yourself, but you can be part of it. Maybe a big part. Only, not if you just keep doing what you’re told no matter how low or mean it is. You have to start listening to your heart. Then Lathander can help you.”

Umara snorted. “Why would he? The old Thay, the Thay you imagine I’d want to restore, was his enemy.”

“But it was still better than the land you have now. And if it came back, maybe it could get better still.”

The Red Wizard stood silent for a breath or two, then shook her head. “It was a good try, child. But some lies are just too absurd for anyone to believe.”

Stedd frowned up at her. “I don’t lie. That’s the two of you.”

“Well, I’m truly sorry I ever deceived you, and sorrier still for what’s coming. But I can’t do anything about it.” She turned and waded back up the aisle with her scarlet robes dragging in the bilge water.

As she disappeared up the companionway, Anton said, “It was a good try, but also a rotten choice of tactics. There was never any hope of persuading her.”

“I guess,” Stedd said, and now he simply seemed like a sad, tired little boy, without even a hint of divine inspiration in his manner. “At least she didn’t make me go back to sleep.”

Frowning, Anton realized that was true, she hadn’t, and for a while, he wondered if Stedd’s plea actually might have struck a chord with Umara. But as he toiled through the night and into the following day, exhaustion made every pull on the oar a torment, and the power of the skull medallion scraped away at his manhood and obliged him to struggle against recurring urges to weep and beg the overseer for mercy, he decided it plainly hadn’t.

But then, when it was afternoon once more, the mariner abruptly slumped, slid off the little seat built into the corner, and started snoring. And a moment later, Umara descended the steps with Anton’s saber and a cutlass tucked under her arm.

She plucked an iron key from the overseer’s belt and hurried down the aisle. She then pulled the chain from around Stedd’s neck, flung it away like Anton had, and unlocked the Turmishan’s manacles.

“I don’t know why I’m doing this,” she growled.

Anton grinned. “Blame the lad. Clearly, his greatest magic is the ability to rob folk of their common sense.”

Evendur floated in the endless green waters of Umberlee’s otherworldly ocean. Enormous eels and sawsharks came swimming to inspect him.

He didn’t recall passing from one level of reality to another to reach waters that would douse Lathander’s burning light and help him recover his strength. Maybe he’d done it instinctively. But it was also possible the Queen of the Depths had drawn him here, and not for healing but for judgment.

Suddenly, she came swimming out of nowhere-or rather, out of another hidden doorway from one place to another-with gigantic great whites, krakens, jellyfish, and sea dragons swimming in attendance. Huge and terrible as the apparition that had risen from the pool in the temple had been, it barely hinted at the awful majesty of the goddess in her latest form, the trident tall as a tower in one clawed and scaly hand, the least of the shells that made up her jewelry as big as wagon wheels, and her mane of kelp and gelatinous cloak streaming and swirling around her. Evendur felt like a speck of plankton drifting in front of a whale.