Samas Kul decided it was time to go. But he didn't share his conclusion with the transmuters who'd had the honor of journeying with him aboard his own ship, and they kept hurling spells at the enemy.
They were useful followers. He was genuinely fond of some of them. But they weren't made of gems and gold, and it was their bad luck that a spell of translocation could shift only so much weight.
Hoping that no one would notice his absence for at least a little while, he descended a companionway, murmured a word of opening, and entered his luxurious cabin inside the sterncastle.
A stack of chests stood in the center of the space. They couldn't contain the whole of Samas's liquid assets-the entire ship scarcely sufficed for that. But they did represent a significant portion of them, holding as they did, rare mystical artifacts and his finest gems.
He regretted it bitterly that henceforth, he wouldn't be any sort of sovereign lord. But at least he'd still be the richest man in the East and perhaps all Faerыn.
He removed a scroll from within his robe, unrolled it, and drew breath to read the trigger phrase of the magic bound in the ink and parchment. Then voices clamored overhead.
In itself, that wasn't unusual. People had been yelling all night when some threat or target drew near. But this time, the noise had an excited, almost exuberant quality that piqued his curiosity. He decided it wouldn't hurt to delay his departure long enough to determine what all the fuss was about.
He slipped out of the compartment and felt the locking ward seal it behind him. He walked to the rail to peer across the waves at whatever had manifestly riveted everyone else's attention.
It was the dream vestige. The cloud was churning, thinning, shrinking, drawing in on itself. He recited a rhyme to enhance his vision, and then he could see why. The shadows that comprised it were clawing at one another. To some degree, they always had, but now it mattered. They were ripping each other to bits.
Samas murmured an incantation that would allow him to communicate with Thessaloni Canos aboard her war galley. For a moment, he actually glimpsed her, breathing hard with a bloody cut just beneath her left eye. "Do you see what's happening to the dream vestige?" he asked.
If his voice, sounding from the empty air, startled her, he couldn't tell. She answered immediately, and her manner was crisp. "Yes, Your Omnipotence."
"If the entity shrivels up and dies, can we salvage this situation?"
"Yes."
Feeling like a dauntless warrior in a ballad, Samas squared his shoulders. "All right, then, Tharchion. Let's do it."
The fleets battled through the night, and for most of it, Malark couldn't tell who was winning. It was too dark, the conflict was unfolding over too wide an area, and too many of the combatants were entities whose capabilities he didn't understand.
But he realized the truth when Szass Tam stopped brandishing his staff and chanting words of power to flop down atop a coil of rope and slump forward. The lich looked as spent as any mortal laborer after a hard day's toil.
Malark squatted down on the ink black deck beside him. Up close, he noticed that the lich stank of decay more than on any occasion he could recall. "They beat us, didn't they?" he whispered, making sure that no one else would overhear the question.
Szass Tam smiled. "Yes." He nodded toward the east, where the strip of sky just above the horizon was gray instead of black. "Dawn is coming to exert its usual deleterious effect on our troops. I've expended all the power Bane gave me, and my own magic, too. Of course, I could still call any number of arcane weapons and talismans into my hands, but none of them would change the outcome."
"So what do we do?" Malark asked.
"Precisely what you in your wisdom suggested earlier. We withdraw our remaining ships while our swimming and flying warriors cover the retreat." Szass Tam struggled to his feet. Suddenly he held a scroll in his withered fingers. "I'll send shadows of myself to the various captains to inform them of the plan."
"We can communicate with bugle calls," Malark said. "You don't have to strain yourself any further."
"I suppose not," Szass Tam answered. "But I'm their leader and I'd prefer they hear the bad news directly from me, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof."
Aoth, Brightwing, and Mirror flew back and forth across the slate gray sea, edged with silver where the wan sunlight caught the crests of the waves. Corpses, arrows, and scraps of charred and shattered timber, the detritus of the battle just concluded, floated everywhere. The council's ships were dots dwindling in the west.
Aoth knew he should give up and return to his own vessel before it sailed farther away. He was exhausted, and through their empathic link, he could feel that Brightwing was wearier still. How could it be otherwise, considering that she was wounded and had carried him around all night?
Yet for once she performed her task without grousing, even though he sensed she considered it futile. Bareris had destroyed the dream vestige, but had almost certainly perished in so doing. It was doubtful his friends could even recover his body. It could have dissolved in the fog-thing's grip, or sunk to the bottom, or a current could have swept it far away.
Aoth was just about to abandon the search when he spied a pale form bobbing in the chop. Responsive to his unspoken will, Brightwing swooped lower. Bareris was floating face down, but Aoth recognized him anyway, perhaps by the uncommon combination of a lanky Mulan frame and longish hair.
Aoth rattled off an incantation. Bareris floated up out of the water. Brightwing flew past him as slowly as she could, and Aoth snatched hold of him and hauled him onto the griffon's back.
Bareris's ordeal had dissolved his armor and clothing and bleached his skin and hair chalk white. It had also stopped him breathing and stilled his heart.
All his friends could do was carry him back to the roundship and then make ready to give him to the sea all over again, this time with the proper observances and prayers. Aoth couldn't find a priest of Milil, god of song, so one of the Burning Braziers agreed to officiate.
They packed a dingy with inflammables to make a floating pyre, then laid Bareris inside it. They were just about to light it and set it adrift when the bard opened eyes turned black as midnight.
epilogue
18-19 Marpenoth, the Year of Blue Fire
Aoth swallowed a first mouthful of sweet red Sembian wine, sighed, and closed his eyes in appreciation. As far as he was concerned, Escalant wasn't much of a city compared to Bezantur, Eltabbar, or even Pyarados, especially now that it was overrun with refugees. But it had taverns and strong drink, and after a day of trying to help the town accommodate the needs of all the newcomers without exploding into riots, and striving to shore up the port's defenses in case Szass Tam showed up to attack it, those were the amenities he craved.
The common room suddenly fell silent. Aoth opened his eyes. Bareris and Mirror, the latter currently too vague a shadow to resemble anyone in particular, were standing in the doorway, and everyone else was edging away from them.
Aoth didn't share the crowd's instinctive antipathy for walking corpses and ghosts, but he couldn't help wishing that his friends hadn't come looking for him just then. He'd hoped for some time alone to relax. Still, a decent fellow didn't duck his comrades, so he called out to them, rose, grabbed the bottle, and led them outside. Better that than to shroud the whole tavern in gloom and apprehension.