“Yes,” he lied, “I’ll take you to Sapra. After all that’s happened, I owe it to you.”
Umara tapped on a hatch carved with a scene of a Thayan fleet vanquishing an anonymous enemy armada. She wondered how long ago the naval victory had happened or if, in fact, it had ever truly happened at all. As she and Evendur Highcastle had discussed, Thay, for all its might, had never been much of a naval power, and its history was less than replete with glorious triumphs at sea.
“Come in, my friend,” Kymas called.
She did and immediately had to detour around a folding screen positioned to block out every trace of sunshine. Even the sad, wan excuse for daylight currently sifting down amid the rain could sear a vampire’s skin like flame.
Someone had secured the storm covers so the portholes couldn’t admit any light, either, and only the greenish glow of cool magical fire illuminated the cabin, but that sufficed to reveal the clutter. Kymas hadn’t required the displaced captain to remove his possessions before bringing in his own. A rack of staves stood shoved up against a suit of half plate on a stand like the bars of a torture cell; a spindly, jointed figure resembling an unstrung marionette made of black and scarlet metal sprawled across the lid of a sea chest; and volumes of arcane lore were jammed into the little bookshelf alongside rutters and a manual of naval regulations.
Tall, slender, and so pale that the viridian light turned him green as well, Kymas sat gazing at the end of his arm. There was no hand sticking out of the voluminous crimson sleeve of his robe, just wisps of vapor.
Umara had watched her master practice the trick a hundred times but still didn’t see the point. What use would it ever be for Kymas to turn a portion of his body to mist while keeping the rest solid? Perhaps it was simply a pastime for idle moments.
He smiled at Umara, and the fog congealed into long, tattooed fingers and a thumb. “Have we left the harbor?” he asked.
“Yes,” Umara said, “and the captain says no other ship followed us.” From what she understood, it wasn’t unknown for the marauders of Pirate Isle to cheerfully conduct business with outsiders who risked dropping anchor there, then attack them when they sought to depart.
“I doubted anyone would,” the vampire replied, “given that we’re supposedly carrying Captain Highcastle’s answer to our lord and master. Still, it’s helpful to be sure. It frees us to focus on the business at hand.”
“We’ll need to focus,” Umara said.
Kymas arched an eyebrow, or rather, the smooth bit of alabaster skin where an eyebrow would be if, at some point during his mortal life, a barber hadn’t permanently removed it. “That sounded grim. I trust you aren’t having second thoughts about the plan that your own audacity made possible. Because I agree it’s a better bet than trying to abduct the Chosen of Umberlee.”
“That doesn’t mean it will be easy. The church of Umberlee is already hunting for this Stedd Whitehorn. So are scores of pirates and, I’m sure, other knaves who hope to sell him to Evendur. Somehow, we need to find the boy ahead of all of them.”
“And so we will. Watch and learn.”
The undead mage snapped his fingers, and, clinking, the faceless black-and-red metal construct reared up from the lid of the sea chest. It then leaped to the top of a small table and proceeded to clear it, jumping to the floor with one item, setting it down, then springing back up for another.
Meanwhile, Kymas extricated a rutter from the bookshelf. He flipped through the first several pages, then put the book down on the table open to a chart showing the Inner Sea in its entirety.
“Now,” he said, drawing a silver lancet from one of the many pockets in his ornately embroidered wizard’s robe, “I need just a drop or two of mortal essence.”
Inwardly, Umara flinched, but only inwardly. She gave him her left hand, and he pricked the tip of her middle finger. Nearly black in the greenish light, a bead of blood welled out.
Inhaling deeply-smelling the dollop of liquid life he’d just released from Umara’s veins-Kymas stared at the bead long enough to give his lieutenant a pang of apprehension. Finally, however, he moved her hand over the open book and squeezed her finger below the tiny puncture. Drops of blood pattered down onto the map, and then he let her go.
Pinching with the thumb and forefinger of her other hand, Umara applied pressure to stanch the bleeding. All right, she told herself, it’s over, and you’re fine. Now do what he told you: watch and learn.
Kymas fixed his steel-gray eyes on the rutter and placed his hands just in front of and to either side of his face. It was a posture that always reminded Umara of a draft horse wearing blinders, but it was actually called the Window, and it was used for spying out that which was hidden.
Kymas then growled and hissed an incantation in the tongue of Thanatos, the Belly of Death, the layer of the Abyss where Orcus, Prince of the Undead, held sway. Now that liches, ghosts, and their ilk controlled the councils of the Red Wizards, the language had come into fashion for many sorts of magic, and Umara had perforce mastered it even though simply listening to it made her lightheaded and queasy.
It had an effect on Kymas, too. His upper canines lengthened, and his eyes became chatoyant, flashing in the emerald light like mirrors.
As his recitation continued, he invoked Orcus and the demon prince’s vassals Glyphimbor, Sleepless, and Doresain the Ghoul King. He called on Kiaransalee and Velsharoon as well, extinct powers whose names nonetheless still exerted pressure on the fabric of All. Meanwhile, the sprinkled spatters of blood crawled toward one another like slugs.
As their paths converged, they fused together into a single writhing blob, which ultimately reared up in the form of a tiny humpbacked imp with stunted wings. The miniscule demon cast this way and that like a hound trying to pick up a scent, then scuttled across the map to the western stretch of the southern shore. There, it pointed repeatedly, jabbing with a clawed finger.
Kymas smiled. “The Black Lord is smiling on us. It won’t take too long to reach that stretch of coast.”
The blood imp looked up at its captor and gave a little cry like the cheep of a chick. There were no words in it, but no experienced mage would have needed them to understand what the creature wanted. It had done its summoner’s bidding and now wished to return to the underworld.
“Later,” Kymas told it, “when I have the child in my hands.”
The captive spirit howled-which still sounded more like cheeping than anything else-and shook its fist. The vampire put an abrupt end to its tantrum by flipping the rutter shut and squashing it inside.
“Even spirits as lowly as this one will test you,” Kymas said. “Never tolerate their impudence. Or defiance from any underling, come to think of it.”
“Thank you for giving me the benefit of your wisdom,” Umara said. “I’ll tell the captain where we need to go.”
“In a moment,” the vampire replied. “First, I need your help with something else.” He held out his hand, and her heart started thumping because it was clear what he wanted.
She felt a witless urge to remind him he had a ship full of servants he could use to slake his thirst but knew it would do no good. She was the mortal whose blood he’d seen and smelled with the vileness of the Abyss reverberating through his mind, and she was the one he craved.
She steeled herself with the certainty that he wouldn’t kill her. Even in the grip of his thirst, he had a wizard’s self-control, and she was useful. Nor would he transform her into a thing like himself. In his eyes, she hadn’t earned it yet. Then she tugged her cloak and robe away from her throat and went into his embrace. There was nothing else she could do.
“I knew the trick had worked,” Anton continued, “when I heard a great scraping and grinding, the Sembian ship lurched to a sudden stop, and her crew went staggering across the deck. Some even tumbled over the rail. As I’d hoped, the fact that they drew a finger length more than we did made all the difference. They had to stay hung up on those rocks and watch the Iron Jest sail away into the night.”