Chapter 11

Mislaxa's Necklace, the Tiderun

Sleep. I must sleep. So cold.

You will sleep, do not fear. But first, I must ask you some questions.

Hard to remember. It is very different here. Gray.

I know. This is not easy for me, either. But it must be done.

Can I not sleep?

Questions first.

Very well.

Do you remember a statue? It was called the Hooded One.

Statue…

Your people bought it from a man, in Blood Eye. His name was Ruskal.

Ruskal… yes. It was precious, from Old Aurim. A good bargain.

It is the reason you were killed.

It was? Ah. A bad bargain after all, then.

The ones who killed you came after it. It wasn't to be found, though, was it?

No. Sold it already. Just the day before.

Who bought it?

I… can't remember.

Try. Please.

Difficult… wait. Human. A merchant, from Malton-on-the-Run. Sammek Thale.

Thale. Where was he going to take it?

Don't know. Back home, perhaps.

What was his ship's name?

Name… it is hard. I do not remember how to read the human tongue. I do not remember much.

Show me the shapes of the letters.

W-H-I-T-E W-O-R-M.

Thank you. One more question: do you know who killed you?

No. Didn't see well. Shadows only, then the blade in my body. I still feel it, entering my flesh.

I am sorry. You may sleep now. I have all I need.

I have a question for you first.

Ask.

My people? My village? Did any of them—

No. They are all dead. I will make a pyre for them.

And for me?

And for you. Now sleep. Reorx awaits you.

Sleep

Shedara awoke with a gasp, her heart beating fast. The cave was dark, the sounds and scent of the sea very near. Her elvensight showed crabs scuttling across the stone, nothing more. She lay back, tears springing into her eyes. The dead dwarf's voice, conjured by magic the elves reviled, still haunted her sleep. She didn't even know his name, but she feared she would dream about the dwarf for a hundred years or more.

She was tired, but made herself get up. There was pale light in the cave's mouth: dawn approaching, the tide rising. Before long, the water would creep into the cave. She needed to be gone before then. She gathered her things, pulled a bulbous, mottled green fruit—picked on an island not far from here—from her pouch, and ate it as she walked out into the morning.

The last few weeks had been hard. Tracking Sammek Thale had only been the first chore: she'd taken a small dwarf-skiff that had survived the razing of Uld and headed north. When she got to Malton, on the northern shore of the Tiderun, she'd found him gone, his people knew not where. Indeed, they were worried for him, that some storm or other peril had claimed the White Worm. He was a week overdue. She'd asked Thalaniya's help in tracking him, but Solis was waning and the magic was weak. It would be days before the amulet's enchantment would function again. She'd resolved to find him the old way, as she'd done things during the Godless Night. She sailed from port to port, asking after the Worm. And finally, after four days, she'd found him, moored thirty leagues west, and on the Run's far shore.

But not the Hooded One. Pirates had taken it, Thale told her, along with the rest of the riches he'd bought from the dwarves. The statue was long gone, and he would be lucky if his business partners didn't hang him when he got back to Malton. It would take years to recover the money he'd lost in the expedition. Sammek Thale was going home a broken man.

This was not Shedara's concern.

She had a new quarry, and Thalaniya couldn't yet help her. Solis was new, and the pearl remained dark, as though no spell at all were cast upon it. She'd set out on her own, seeking Harlad the Gray, and followed his trail to Mislaxa's Necklace: a chain of rocky, pine-dotted islets that had been hills before the First Destruction drowned them. The day before, she'd spotted his vessel, the Blade, anchored in a cove three leagues away. She'd held off confronting him then, choosing to wait until the morning. Many of his men would be senseless in the morning, victims of too much grog the night before. It would be safer.

Clouds blanketed the sky, and a rainy haze in the west promised a foul day. That was good—the pirates would rise later, might have even drunk more last night if they knew this was coming. The sea-lanes would be quiet, with no one to plunder.

Her skiff—sentimentally perhaps, she'd named it Forgotten Uld—was moored fifty paces from the shore. It had been ten paces the past night, at ebb-tide. She ate the fruit—it tasted something like a pear steeped in wine—while she looked at the blocky, square-rigged boat. The core of the fruit was mealy and sour, with tiny, black seeds. She tossed it away for scavengers. Making sure her pack was watertight, she waded out into the sea and swam. The water was warm.

A few minutes later, she was on the skiff, the sails unfurled and lines cast off. Wind caught canvas, and she was underway, a sure hand on the tiller guiding her among the rocks.

The Necklace was dangerously rock-clogged, something avoided by most larger vessels. Charts of its waters were rare, but evidently Harlad had one, for he had taken the Blade—no small ship, for a pirate cutter—in deep to hide. Shedara guided the Uld among the islets and hidden shoals, all the time watching the curtain of rain advance behind her stern. The wind was picking up, and the water was dotted with caps of white. When she saw the spire of rock she sought—a steep-walled pinnacle topped with a ring of standing stones, white with gull droppings—she tacked and put the ship in irons, waiting for the weather to come to her. The Blade lay on the far side of that spire, waiting.

The rain came on, fine and cold, making her shiver. It made it hard to see more than a dozen paces, and the clouds dimmed the light even more. It was time. Furling the sails, she pushed the anchor overboard and felt it clank against the rocky bottom. She checked her blades, made sure they were all where they ought to be, then took her pack and swung over the gunwale, into the water again.

The rocks on the shore were slippery, but she found handholds and hoisted herself up, startling a bird that had been intent on cracking clams. It squawked at her in annoyance, winging away. Shedara started up the slope of the island.

When she reached the top of the hill, she entered the ring of stones. Some had toppled or cracked, but most stood erect, having survived millennia and two Destructions. They were twice as tall as she was, gray and narrow, and capped with orbs of different hues—some white, some black, and some red. Weird runes were graven into their sides. It was a calendar, she guessed, for tracking the moons—and with them, the ebb and flow of magic in the world. The hulderfolk, a race of wild elves who dwelt in dark, unspoiled woods beyond the Conquered Lands, still made rings like these. She glanced around, raising an eyebrow—had these hills and valleys once belonged to that secluded people? Had forests of oak and redleaf covered these lands, instead of water? If so, the humans must have driven the hulder out, just as the Silvanaes had driven them out later, to forge Armach-nesti.

The circle, she decided, was a good enough place to work. The hulderfolk would have built it in a place where sorcery was strong. Lunis was waxing, and had enough power for simple spells, if not the great works Princess Thalaniya cast. The incantation to shrink the statue so she could carry it—should she find it—was a simple spell.

She cleared her mind, opened it to the red moon's power, and began to move. Her fingers danced on air, tracing symbols—not unlike those graven into the standing stones. The motions drew down the light of Lunis, focusing and binding it within her. It felt like the rush of lovemaking to her, and she ached at the memory of its absence during the Godless Night. Some had claimed to pull the same power from the air around them, during that time, but she had never mastered that ability. Now that the magic was back, she reveled. Eldritch words formed in her head, flaring in her memory as she spoke them, then fading into forgetfulness.

"Teval im eosang, shai-unak poralan… ."

If the motions drew the power, the words gave it shape. With them, she wove a shell around her, like a caterpillar spinning its cocoon. When it was done, she brought her hands down. For a moment it seemed everything around her had turned as clear as glass. Then it faded back into view, and it was she who disappeared—a shimmer in the air. Smiling, she walked out of the circle and up onto a fallen stone that gave a vantage on the cove beyond.

There was the Blade, quiet and still, hardly anyone moving on her deck. The black trident flew atop her mast. Shedara knew Harlad by reputation: every thief in Southern Hosk did. The minotaur was a legend, the subject of a hundred chanteys sung from Rudil to the Fisheries of Syldar. She admired him, in a way. True, he had no respect for anyone or anything, including his own word, but he had fame and accomplishment. Moon-thieves worked in the shadows and did not earn such reputations as Harlad's.

All the same, she would sheathe her dagger in his heart if it won her the Hooded One.

She stood where she was for a time, letting the rain worsen. The invisibility spell would hold until she chose to let it lapse. She watched the Blade, working out where Harlad's cabin would be, spotting the lone guard who stood watch, and planning where she would come aboard. She must be quick and sure. She was still plotting when, in the distance, she saw something that drove a needle of fear into her gut.

Another ship.

The rain darkened everything, but there was no mistaking that it was black, narrower, faster, and more dangerous even than the Blade. Full sails held taut on its two masts. Even in the ragged weather, it was moving fast. There was something odd about the black ship. It took her a moment to realize that it was sailing straight into the wind. Impossible, even for the finest mariners on Taladas. It could only mean one thing.

Sorcery.

"No," she muttered, through lips grown thin. "Not again. Not this time."

Jumping down from the stone, she started to half-run, half-slide down the slope toward the Blade. She had to get to it fast, had to reach Harlad before the shadows did, before she lost the Hooded One again.

They didn't see her; wouldn't have, even without the spell. The few pirates who were awake stood at the portside rail, watching as the shadow-ship sliced into the cove. It moved of its own accord, not beholden to wind and current. Even the waves refused to break against its bow, instead sliding apart to let it pass. It seemed to throb with witchery, as if it were spun out of smoke and held together by will and the black moon. Perhaps this was so. Dark figures swarmed on its deck like ants. Shedara glimpsed them as she hoisted herself over the Blade's starboard gunwale, up onto the deck. If the pirates had been looking, they would have seen an inexplicable shower of water as it dripped off her invisible form. Instead, she went unnoticed.

The black ship was closing in. The pirates drew cutlasses and reached for belaying pins. A few held crossbows. It wouldn't be enough. Shedara knew the crew of that dark vessel to be the same creatures that had killed both the dwarves of Uld and Ruskal Eight-Fingers. Harlad the Gray and his mates might be the most feared raiders of the Run, but they couldn't stand against such power. And neither could she. If she listened to the voice in her heart that urged her to fight beside the pirates, to add her blades to theirs, she would accomplish nothing—except to die with them.

They weren't important. The Hooded One was.

One minotaur hadn't gone with the others: the guard at Harlad's cabin. He remained at his post, presently turned around and speaking through the door, opened a crack. Describing the scene, Shedara thought. Harlad would emerge soon and join the fight.

She crossed the deck at a run, boards creaking beneath her feet, the sound unheard among rain and shouting. A glance over her shoulder showed the dark ship looming and pulling alongside the Blade. The shadows would board their prey soon. She could smell the coming slaughter. So could the minotaurs, who were beginning to shy back, the curses dying on their lips. Shedara shuddered at the thought of what sights might make hardened bull-men anxious. She was glad she couldn't see the black ship's crew.

Don't be too smug, she told herself. You may yet.

The guard must have heard something, for he turned, a great, red furred hulk, and squinted in her direction. A spiked cudgel came up in his hand and whistled through air where she was no longer. She rolled and sprang up with her dagger in her hand. She cut the back of the guard's knee, the knife biting deep, slicing the hamstring in two. He dropped with a grunt, too surprised to cry out. The cudgel fell from his hand. Shedara spun, dodged a massive, flailing fist, and leaped onto his chest, driving her blade into his jaw, just under his chin.

Blood poured from the wound, but the minotaur made no sound. He was already dead, his body twitching for a moment before falling still. Shedara yanked the knife free. She would be visible now. The contact of battle always broke the spell. But the pirates remained intent on the other ship, shouting to one another to keep their courage up. Greed outweighed their terror: they would not yield the loot they had pillaged, even if it threatened to cost them their lives.

Fools, Shedara thought, and slipped through the door.

Harlad's cabin was dark, the windows shuttered. For a frightening moment Shedara was blind, but then her elvensight took over, showing her shapes: a table, two stools, a foot-locker, and some random trinkets spread about—coins and jewels and a silver candlestick, unlit. No statue, though; no Hooded One. Likely it was in the hold, below.

A narrow bunk stood on the far side of the little room with a figure sitting on its edge. A minotaur with one horn. She knew him from the tales, even in the dark.

"Who's there?" growled Harlad. "Stang? Answer me, man!"

Shedara said nothing, creeping forward. She saw the bottle of brandy, empty beside the bed. Like the pirates who still slumbered, Harlad had drunk too much last night, and why not? He'd been safe, as far as he knew. He shook his head groggily, groping for the shutters.

She acted at once, a throwing knife dropping from its wrist-sheath into her hand, staying there for a breath, then flying through the darkness to pierce Harlad's reaching hand, pinning it to the wood behind.

Harlad was tough. He didn't scream, only grunted, grabbed the hilt of the knife, and started to work it free.

"Sargas's balls," he growled. "Whoever that is, you're going to get new holes to breathe through! Lads! To me!"

The shout went unheard. Shedara felt the bump of the black ship's hull against the Blade's, then the bellowing of the minotaurs, first in rage, then in fear… then, unmistakably, pain. The attack had begun. From the enemy, the shadows pouring onto the ship, there came neither cries nor footfalls.

Harlad was almost free. She came at him from the flank, which was wise because when she got close his fist hammered through the air with force enough to break her neck. He missed her entirely, however, and she kicked him, hard, in the side, and hit the spot she meant to: his kidney. He grunted again and fell back on the bed. She drew a second blade and came down beside him with a dagger against either side of his throat. She pushed the daggers, loosing trickles of blood.

"Move, and you die," she said.

Harlad stiffened, held his breath, then began to laugh.

"Khot," he swore. "Bested by an elf, and a she-elf besides. I might have known it would come to this. I'll never live it down, when they hear of it back in Lamport."

You'll never see Lamport again, Shedara thought. The cries of the crew were dwindling. The fight was almost over. She was out of time.

"The statue," she said. "A man with a hood. Tell me where it is."

Harlad sneered. "You'd best pray I never find out who you are, elf. If I do, I'll wear your pointy ears as rings on my own."

She put a little more pressure on the blades, felt the veins beneath pulse, and heard the pirate catch his breath. Quiet now, on the deck. The air was growing chill, and the shadows were drawing near.

"The statue," she said.

"What of it? I don't have the thing any more, you fool!" he snapped. "I gave it away. Search if you want, stem to stern. You won't find it. You came here for nothing!"

A creak behind her, the door swinging wide. Cold like the winds of the Panak filled the cabin. No light, though. Something blocked it out. Shedara didn't look, didn't have to. She could feel the shadows draw near.

"Who?" she whispered urgently. "Who did you give it to?"

Harlad saw something behind her, standing in the doorway of the cabin. His eyes went wide. The terror came off him like a smell. She was afraid too, all her instincts telling her to get out, to leave now. She made herself stay, the blades firm against Harlad's throat.

"Tell me," she said. "If you do, I'll kill you quick. Don't, and I leave you to them."

Harlad stared at the doorway behind her, then at her, then back at the doorway. He swallowed and breathed a name.

"Thank you," Shedara said, and cut with both blades.

She whipped around at once, as the blood fanned from the twin slashes on Harlad the Gray's throat. There was something in the doorway, all right. It was smaller than she'd expected, dark, cold, and twisted. Man-shaped, though little taller than a goblin. It, too, held a blade in each hand: wicked, sickle-shaped knives. The shape came at her silently, its weapons whistling through the air. She leaped sideways, bumping into the wall, and parried each dagger with one of her own. For a horrid moment she expected the sickles to pass through her knives like smoke, but they were solid, and momentarily blocked. The creature leered, its face barely more than a skull covered in taut-stretched skin. She had never seen its like before.

Or had she? Something about it was familiar. Something…

Oh, gods, she thought. She knew what she faced—or what it had been, before evil magic had twisted it.

It was too strong for its size, too strong for her. It pushed, throwing her off balance, the sockets where its eyes should be blank and unreadable. Shedara brought her knee up and slammed it into the little fiend's chin. It reeled, stunned, then snapped back together, every joint tensing, its blades flicking forward like scorpion tails.

She dodged and felt one sickle score her side. The wound was numbingly cold and no blood came from it. Hoping it wasn't deep, she stepped to her right, swung behind the shadow, and planted a dagger in the back of its head.

The blade turned freezing, and she let go with a gasp. The shadow fell, and Shedara felt a rush of relief. Whatever these things were, they could be killed. As she watched, its body unraveled and vanished like smoke, leaving behind nothing but her dagger.

She felt more cold: another shadow at the door. She knew she couldn't handle any more. She was wounded, and she'd barely beaten the first one. She reached past Harlad's hand, pinned to the wall, and opened the shuttered porthole. Gray rain-light spilled in, barely brightening the cabin. Shedara glanced over at the door with a gasp. There were three creatures there, not just one. All little and hideous, wizened and withered like mummified kings in ancient tombs. All held hooked blades, and shadowstuff clung about them like floating cloaks.

Render, she thought with a start. Once, those things were kender.

A taller figure loomed behind them, robed and hooded. For a wild moment, Shedara thought it was Maladar, the Hooded One himself, come to life. But all the tales said the Faceless Emperor wore blue robes, and this figure wore black. He reached out a gloved hand.

"Surrender, elf," said a soft voice, sweet as honey. "Tell me where the Hooded One is, and you may live."

Shedara nearly did. The voice compelled her, the black moon's power running thick through the words. The name Harlad had told her leaped to her tongue and hung there, begging her to speak. The robed man held her transfixed for a breath… two… three. Then she shook herself, shuddering as the enchantment lifted, and threw her second knife at the figure in the doorway. Without waiting to see whether it struck, she turned, threw her arms up over her face, and leaped through the window.

The glass exploded outward, shards biting into her arms as she flew through the air. Then she was falling, and the water rose up to slam into her. She sank beneath the surface and stayed there, gazing up at the hulk of the Blade above her, the black ship beside it. Holding her breath, she waited for the shadows to dive in after her.

But they didn't.

Her lungs burned for air. She had to do something. She summoned the strength to cast another spell, invoking Lunis's power. The water dragged at her hands, making it hard to form the necessary gestures, and the words were meaningless as they bubbled from her mouth, taking with them the last dregs of air. But the magic suffused her again, and she felt it run deep, filling her chest.

This had better work, she thought. She opened her mouth and inhaled.

Water flooded down her throat, filling her lungs. For a moment she choked at the sensation, and had to stave off the urge to panic. After that moment, though, the feeling of drowning subsided, and she smiled. She was breathing the water.

Shedara stayed there a while longer, staring up at the Blade. Cold leeched from its hull, down into the sea. She could sense the shadows moving beneath its decks, murdering and savaging the crew as they went. They wouldn't find the Hooded One, though. Only she knew where it had gone. For the first time, she had the advantage over her foes.

Wheeling about, she took a deep breath and swam away.