Chapter 10

Fourteen days passed. Fourteen days upon a sea as calm as if it were painted and their ship were but a painted vessel. Fourteen days since they had felt a breath of air. Fourteen days since they had seen the welcome sight of land, anything but the endless ocean that stretched to the horizon.

The crew of the Starfinder had long since ceased to hope. Listless and haggard, they lay in their bunks or sat on deck, staring at the indifferent sea, awaiting whatever fate had been decreed for them.

Small cups of water, doled out once a day by Harfang, were just enough to keep them alive and make them long for more. Food supplies had steadily dwindled, and the elves, already slender in build, looked like living skeletons.

They made no effort to tend the sails. They knew no wind would come. Each day the horizon was the same and the sun rose blazing over the sea. Each day Harfang brought out the ship’s astrolabe and took sightings. Afterward, he disappeared into the captain’s cabin, reemerging later, looking grimmer than before.

Malshaunt sat cross-legged on the deck, surrounded by bottles, boxes, and other magical paraphernalia. His lips, dry and cracked from thirst, moved steadily, casting spell after spell. None took effect, even the simplest. It was as if all magic had been drained away from him, leaving him an empty shell. He would not speak to any other member of the crew, even Harfang, and if any came too close to him, he bared his teeth in an animal snarl. The crew soon learned to avoid him and let him be.

Of Tashara herself the crew had seen nothing since their strange journey began, drawn south in the irresistible current. She brooded in her stronghold in silence. Harfang brought her food and water each day in the same portions he gave to the crew. In her absence, the elves began to exchange stories about her. Some said she had spirited herself away from the Starfinder by sorcerous powers and even then continued her relentless pursuit of the White Wyrm. Others said she was already dead, and it was to a corpse that Harfang brought food and drink. Still others whispered she was wrapped in a mystical trance from which nothing could waken her until a wind came again to blow them back to the shores they knew.

Tashara sat motionless on a stool. For the past five hours, she had not moved. Her hands rested on her knees, her chin was slightly tilted upward. Her eyes stared sightlessly.

There was a knock on the door, and she stirred.

“Come!”

Harfang entered, bearing his usual portions of bread and water. He placed them on the table without a word and turned to go.

“Harfang!”

“Ma’am?” The mate stopped in surprise.

“Fetch Malshaunt. I wish to speak to you both.”

The mate left and returned a few minutes later with the mage. Both stood before the captain, awaiting her orders.

Tashara rose and, from its hiding place, drew forth the cloth-wrapped bundle. “I am about to show you,” she said, “a great secret. I need not say the rest of the crew should know nothing of this.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Malshaunt said. Harfang grunted an assent.

The captain uncovered the sphere. From both the mate and the mage came sharp intakes of breath.

“Is that what I think it is?” came Harfang’s voice, harsh in the stillness.

“A dragon’s eye!” Malshaunt’s face was sharp and greedy. “May one ask, ma’am, where you obtained this?”

Tashara shook her head. “You may not. I have possessed it for many years. Before even you and I met, Malshaunt. It has been of the greatest assistance to me in tracking dragons—especially in tracking this Great White Wyrm. But now… now…” Her face was troubled. “Now something is wrong. It will not speak to me. It is as if it has gone blind. That is very unusual and strange. Ominous, I think.”

Harfang cleared his throat. “When did this happen, ma’am?”

“Shortly before we came to Horend, the sight began to grow cloudy. Since then, I have seen nothing in it.”

Malshaunt, without touching the sphere or the elaborate setting that held it, examined it carefully from every angle. He held a hand above it, eyes closed, face drawn as if concentrating hard, then shook his head. “This is a power beyond anything I know.”

Tashara turned her face to Harfang, who stepped back. “No, ma’am. I know nothing of magic. I can sail this ship where you command, but I leave magic to those who understand such things.” He shot Malshaunt a glance strongly tinged with dislike. The mage returned it in kind.

Tashara cast a cloth over the eye and rested her chin in her hand. “Very well. We will wait and see.”

“Wait for what, ma’am?”

“For something to happen that may restore sight to the eye. For something to return us to our quest for the wyrm. For something, anything, to happen.”

Like the elves, Ayshe had ceased to work. Sleep was almost impossible, with the growling pain in his belly and the heat below deck that would not cease, even at night. His eyes felt hot, and his throat sore, so he spoke only if necessary. He noted that his skin was growing thin and papery, as if his body were devouring itself from within.

The sun rose low in the sky, and night fell quickly. Dawn was almost a punishment since it brought a faint hope they might see land or escape the current that bore them inexorably south. That hope grew fainter throughout each day and was dashed as night came. With each dawn, the crew knew their chances grew dimmer, and as hope faded, so, too, did their strength and will.

They told stories of the far south of the world, stories they might have laughed at if they’d heard them in a public house in Palanthas, but out there, beneath the burning southern sun, such tales seemed reasonable and indeed probable.

Ayshe listened as Samustalen and Samath-nyar spoke of what might be beyond the horizon.

“I’ve heard,” said the Kagonesti, “that far south, beyond the lands of ice and snow, is a great forest that stretches out as far as the sky. If we reach it, my sister and I can roam forever free.”

“Nay,” grunted Samustalen through parched, cracked lips. “Beyond the southern sea, the waters of the world pour forth in a great cataract over the edge of Krynn and plunge endlessly through space. That’s our fate: to be flung out among the stars.”

Ayshe shut his aching eyes. He did not believe Samustalen, but for a moment he imagined such a thing: a great dark sky, filled with burning lights, a roar of waters beyond anything known in this world. For a moment, the ship was poised on the brink of infinity. Then there came the downward rush, the wind racing through his hair and beard. In his vision he thought he saw, for a moment, a shining figure clad all in white standing at the edge, welcoming arms spread wide. Then the moment passed, and he was back in the world.

He woke with a start, not knowing how long he had been asleep. His arms and legs were burned black by the sun, and though he did not know it, his face, wrinkled and pressed, was surrounded by a halo of hair spattered with gray amid its familiar browns and reds. The elves were gathered on the foredeck, staring over the bowsprit, Ayshe joined them, moving gingerly, wriggling through to gain a clear view of the sea ahead.

The line between sea and sky was thin and white. It was distant mountains were arising from the sea itself. They were drawing closer, and the elves gazed at them with fixed eyes, welcoming any change in the monotonous scene.

Harfang joined them, spyglass in hand. He examined the phenomenon closely then passed the glass to Feystalen.

“Icebergs,” the second mate observed. “I’ve seen them once on another southern voyage.”

“What are they?” asked Ayshe.

“Mountains of ice. They float in the water; in fact, most of their bulk is under water. They can grind a ship to bits in moments.” The mate left that grim picture hanging in the still air for a moment then observed, “I’ve heard them called Takhisis’s Teeth.”

Any hope the crew bore that the great ice floes would disrupt the current in which they were caught perished as they grew nearer. The icebergs seemed to open a way for the Starfinder. But the meaning of their name was grimly clear.

“Listen!” Shamura called as they came near the first floe.

A horrid grinding, like some giant gnashing his teeth, filled the air. Ayshe saw that the icebergs, though parting to allow the Starfinder among them, ceaselessly collided and strove against one another. The noise from their violent conflict filled the air and deafened the crew. Huge sheets and blocks of ice were torn free and crashed into the sea, sending up clouds of spray. For a moment the crew hoped the waves from the violence would move them out of the current that drove them, but they soon realized that for reasons beyond their comprehension, the waves always seemed to be blocked by other floes before they could reach the Starfinder, or moved in the wrong direction.

The elves stirred and muttered. Turning, Ayshe saw the noise had drawn Tashara at last from her cabin. The captain of the ship looked like the walking dead. Her face was white, the same color as the surrounding ice, and the bones in her face stood out, casting dark shadows on her flesh. Behind her was the tall figure of Malshaunt, his eyes fixed on the captain. The crew parted for her as she paced to her nest and gazed south with sightless eyes.

The crashing of the bergs intensified, and now and again cascades of finely ground icy spume sprayed across the deck, making it slick and difficult to walk upon. Those of the crew who had the strength staggered below to clothe themselves in warm furs. Others, too weak to stand, lay still while their shipmates covered them in woolen blankets to preserve their lives.

Tashara ignored the snow and ice—her body seemed fashioned of the same substance as their surroundings—as she sought to pierce the icy walls of their prison with her gaze. The ship plowed on, driven forward by the current and by the waves kicked up as parts of the bergs crashed into the sea behind them.

The floes grew larger, towering over the ship. They looked like playthings fashioned by the gods for some titanic game. The sun glittered and shone from their facets. To the elves, it seemed as if the air were shifting and moving about them, distorting sky and sea. All perspective was lost among the cyclopean forms. Sounds echoed and rebounded amid their passage, adding to the tumult and confusion.

Two of the floes in their path struck one another with thunderous force. Shards of ice scattered over the ship, striking the crew, slicing open flesh. Malshaunt screamed magic words to the unheeding air, trying to shield himself and Tashara from the ice storm, but his spells had no effect. Most of the crew clung groaning to the deck, while a few tried to crawl through the hatches to take shelter.

The floes drifted apart, and Harfang raised a feeble shout as he saw ahead a path of clear water. The current pulled them onward, until at last they drifted free. Behind them, the passage through which they had come closed with a snap and crash as two giant icebergs struck together. It was as if a range of mountains had sprung from the sea, barring the way back. The ship under the gleaming sun, whose light turned all their ice cover to a rainbow. The air warmed slightly, but a chill was over the still air. Not a breath of wind stirred the sails, and yet the current drew them farther south.

Three more days and nights passed in like fashion. The ice mountains were far behind them, almost vanished on the northern horizon. The ice that had landed on the boat had not been enough to quench the crew’s thirst. The current that held them captive remained the same, both in speed and, as far as they could tell, in width. Tashara had once again retreated to her solitude, and none of the crew save Harfang and Malshaunt saw her.

No one among the crew moved. They lay in painful poses scattered about the deck, never going below. None had any hope. The boards beneath them had shrunk for lack of moisture. Harfang and Feystalen dragged themselves from elf to elf once a day, doling out the pitiful portions of remaining bread and water that alone kept them clinging to life.

The mates dropped heavily to the deck.

“Our supplies grow ever lower,” Feystalen said. “There must be some alternative.”

Harfang shook his head. “No. The current is too wide and too strong. We cannot row out of it in the Starfinder, and we have nothing else to carry the crew.” He struck the deck with a fist made feeble by hunger. “We need a cursed wind.”

Feystalen made a ghastly exhalation that sounded like an attempt to laugh “Exactly! Cursed!”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this ship is cursed. Didn’t you hear what I told you of that man the captain killed in the ruined village. His curse is upon us! It follows us and will drive us to the end of the world.”

Harfang snorted. “Curses!”

“Believe in them or not, Harfang, you must admit there’s something unnatural about this current. It never wavers, it never slows, and we cannot tell what drives it. What other explanation do you have for it?”

Harfang shrugged and was silent.

After a while, the second mate asked, “What of the captain?”

“What of her?”

“What does she think? What does she command?”

“She sits silent in her cabin,” Harfang said after a bit. “She eats almost nothing. She says almost nothing. Malshaunt clings to her like a shadow.”

“Then we come to it at last,” Feystalen whispered, in an almost inaudible voice. “We’ve no choice, Harfang. We must rebel. You must lead us. You must take the ship!”

The mate shook his head. “Not yet. Not yet.”

The night came, and the only relief the crew felt was the sinking of the sun. Ayshe wondered how many more sunsets they would see before hunger and thirst claimed them and the Starfinder became a floating grave, a ship crewed only by corpses.

The sun rose red over a scarlet ocean, whose colors dissolved to yellow, blue, and green in the growing morning light. The air was heavy and weighed on the crew. Near where Ayshe lay, Lindholme, a lithe Silvanesti elf, moaned to himself. When Harfang passed among the crew with their daily bread, Lindholme reached up and caught his sleeve.

“I can take no more of this! Release me! Use your knife release me from this Abyss!”

Harfang jerked away from him. Riadon, lying nearby, cackled with laughter. “No!” he cried. “He can’t! And do you Because none of us can die. The ship is cursed! We must starve forever and lie in this accursed current forever, never dying, never finding peace! The ship’s cursed!”

A murmur of assent rose from those of the crew whose cracked lips could still form sounds.

Harfang glared at them. “Silence!” he snapped. “Let no one try to spread fright with old wives’ tales of curses!”

A footstep sounded nearby, and Malshaunt glided over the deck to stand near Lindholme. His face was filled with contempt and loathing.

“Release you!” he snarled. “You fool, you cannot be released. You are embarked upon the mightiest quest in the history of Krynn, tracking a beast that is without equal. You follow a woman who has more strength and courage in her littlest finger than you have in your entire body. And you beg for release? Does your oath mean nothing, then? Will you betray your companions because of a little growling in your stomach? By all the gods, you’re not worthy to serve in Dragonsbane. Perhaps you should indeed be ‘released’ so the rest of us can be free from the stench of your cowardly company!”

Lindholme’s eyes scrunched shut as if he were trying to cry but had no moisture in his body for tears. The unsmiling mage stared at him. Lindholme stretched up a skeleton-thin hand as if trying to reach out to Malshaunt, but the mage drew back, pulling his robes with him. He turned his back on Lindholme and stalked toward Tashara’s cabin.

A shadow passed over the deck. Harfang turned, and the elves pushed themselves up from their recumbent positions to stare at the sky. Clouds were scudding across it, appearing as if from nowhere, some of them low enough to touch the Starfinder’s masts. Lightning flashed between the clouds, and a gray haze spread across the sun. Large drops of rain pelted down, scattering the dust that covered the deck. The elves opened their mouths to drink the water falling from the heavens.

Harfang spun on his heel and shouted to Feystalen, “Sound quarters! Somethings wrong! This isn’t natural!”

To the north, a great gray sheet swept down from the clouds and brushed the sea.-It swept toward them at frightening speed. Spurred by the sight, the elves roused themselves, staring above. The cloud spread and twisted, and from its heart came the sound that haunted Ayshe’s dreams: a long, low growl.

The dragon’s visage formed, followed by its body, emerging into the sky as if the clouds themselves were creating it. It seemed even larger than the dwarf remembered it from that terrible day so long ago in Thargon. At the time, he’d thought it was gray, but with it before him, he saw it as a blinding white, an unnatural white, the sickly white of a dead fish’s belly. The only color about it was its two gleaming emerald eyes.

In length, it seemed to him immense, yet smaller than he remembered it in Thargon. Its wingspan stretched for thirty yards, while its body was a third of that in length from the tip of its snout to the end of its curling tail. Parts of its body were indistinct, as if they hovered between two worlds. Around its neck was a mane that pulsed and swelled. With horror, Ayshe realized it was made up of serpents, each writhing with a life of its own.

The dragon’s body was clad in a mail coat of scales, each as big as the dwarf. Its claws were curved like scimitars and razor sharp. It reared back against the sky and plunged, seeming to draw the clouds with it. A blast of its breath narrowly missed the Starfinder, and beside the ship a great sheet of ice sprang into being on the surface of the sea. It was torn to pieces a moment later by the waves, and parts of it struck against the hull with hollow booms.

The dragon beat its wings. A gust of wind caught the ship as if it were a toy, and the vessel keeled sideways.

“Steady, all hands!” Harfang roared. “Brace yourselves, lasses and lads!”

The sky had grown completely dark, and icy winds raked the sea, stirring great waves topped with white. The air was filled with the roar of thunder and the crash of the waves as they struck the ship and tossed it to and fro.

Tashara burst from her cabin, her feet steady beneath her as she ran swiftly along the deck and sprang into her nest. “Mage!” she shouted. “Now! Cast a spell!”

Malshaunt thrust out his hands. A ball of fire leaped from them, expanding as it raced for the dragon’s chest. It smashed against the cloudy scales and burst like gnome sky rockets, showering down on the turbulent sea. Ayshe could not see clearly through the driving rain, but it looked to him as if the place on the dragon’s hide where the fireball had struck was darker. Malshaunt gave a cry of triumph; his magical powers had returned.

The White Wyrm’s growl came louder, angrier. Ayshe clapped his hands over his ears. Just as it had that dreadful day in Thargon’s streets, a wave of unreasoning fear swept over him. Slowly he forced himself to stand. The images of Chaval and Zininia rose before him. He would not give in to fear.

The dragon breathed its icy blast again, barely missing Malshaunt. Ropes and deck boards froze solid, and pieces of rigging shattered and fell overboard. The mage leaped nimbly onto another network of ropes and let loose another fireball. That one struck the beast’s wing and dissipated like the other. Beyond Malshaunt, Samath-nyar and his sister circled the deck, wyrmbarbs poised in their hands, waiting to get close enough to the beast to strike. The chains on their spears were linked to iron staples, driven deep into the deck.

The White Wyrm drew back and brought its wings together. The clouds above it thickened, and two eddies extended down from them, fanned by the creature’s wings. They touched the water and drew it up into great whirling spouts that roared and shimmered in the twisting lightning that streaked the sky.

“Oars!”

Harfang’s voice could barely be heard above the tumult. Ayshe turned and, grasping whatever handholds he could find, began to make his way toward the hatch that led belowdecks. He caught a glimpse of Samath-nyar racing forward, his wyrmbarb in his hand, poised for a strike at his foe, who was hovering overhead.

“Belay that order!” Tashara’s cry rang clear, penetrating the storm itself. “Stand fast, every one of you!”

The twin waterspouts bore down on the ship, whipping the sea to foam. The roaring from them drowned all other noises.

“Lash yourselves down!” Tashara’s voice came to Ayshe as if from a great distance. He scrambled for a stray rope, flying free in the wind. It whipped across his face, raising a welt of reddened skin. He grabbed for it again, caught it and encircled his waist with it, pulling a knot tight, wrapping his arms and legs about a spar. Around him, he could see through the roiling waters the other elves doing the same. Alone of them, Samath-nyar still stood erect, his wyrmbarb poised to throw.

This is the end, Ayshe thought. No ship can survive this. This is the end. Far above him, he caught a glimpse of the Great White Wyrm’s snapping jaws and heard its growl, but amid the chaos, it held no terror for him. The serpents that formed the beast’s mane gave their own shrilling cry, venomous as an adder, high-pitched as the sound of iron rubbing against steel. The sound burst through the chaos to strike the crew, like a physical blow. Ayshe felt blood burst from his nose and ears and cascade down his beard, which was tangled by the raging wind that sought to tear him from his post.

The waterspouts dipped closer, and the crew could see their glossy sheen and feel the air vibrate with their power. Past the spouts, they saw a great wall of water, three times as tall as the Starfinder’s mast, bearing down on them. For a moment, some imagined they could see within it titanic faces with swirling hair, mouths open in lament. Ayshe thought he recognized the staring dead faces of Chaval and Zininia, joined with all the White Wyrm’s victims in an eternal chorus of sorrow and horror. Their cries overcame his senses.

Waves crashed over him, smashing against the sides of the ship as she heeled first to starboard then to port. There was a great crack and snap as the mainmast. broke. A moment later the mizzen crashed onto the deck in a tangle of ropes and shattered wood.

Ayshe opened his eyes against the wash of water to see a wooden beam, caught in a current, bearing down on him. He tried to duck, something struck his temple, and he knew no more.

“…all right?”

“…swallowed water…”

“…lucky…”

An iron band was wrapped around Ayshe’s head. It slowly tightened, then loosened, and he felt blood pounding in his ears. Something was choking him as well. He coughed, spat, and vomited, and the band tightened again.

“…easy…”

“…don’t try… get up.”

Blurred shapes wandered before his half-open eyes: tall, thin figures. He licked his lips and found to his surprise they were no longer dry, as they had been for the past fortnight. He moved an arm, then a leg, and groaned as pain shot through his chest.

The figure before him resolved into Omanda, the ship’s healer. The elf woman smiled at him, dark circles beneath her eyes.

“Master Dwarf, I’ve always heard dwarves had heads of iron, but I never would have believed it until now.” She chuckled. “Anyone else would be dead.”

Ayshe reached up and found a bandage bound around his head. He began to rise, groaned again, sank down.

“Rest easy,” Omanda told him. “You’ll not be fit to stand for a day or two.”

The dwarf realized he was lying in his hammock. For a moment he wondered if the dragon’s attack had been only a nightmare.

Omanda moved away to other bunks and hammocks. Turning his head as much as the pain in it would permit, Ayshe saw that half a dozen of his shipmates were also injured. Across from him, Jeannara was lying with her arm bound in a sling, her face dead white in the soft gloom. In another bunk, Samath-nyar lay. One arm was curled behind his head. The other…

Ayshe realized with a shock that the elf’s other arm was missing, its stump marked with a blood-soaked bandage. He shut his eyes and turned away. Beneath the horror of the attack, one memory rose to comfort him.

He had not run away. He had stood his ground. True, he had not actually fought the dragon, but neither had he fled. That was something. Holding that thought, he fell asleep.

When he awoke, he felt strong enough to rise. To his delight, someone had placed a bowl of water and a bit of bread by his berth. He consumed both with the greed of the long-starved and slowly climbed the ladder to the deck.

A scene of devastation met his eyes. The Starfinder had survived the dragon’s attack—but barely. Both masts were broken off. Elves labored to clear away the tangle of rigging and spars from the mizzen, which lay fallen on the deck. The other mast had been washed overboard by the fury of the waterspouts.

The bowsprit was gone as well, along with Tashara’s nest. Most of the poop deck and part of the ship’s stern had been torn away, shattered as if by a giant’s hammer. All over the deck, crewmen—some wrapped in bandages and slings, some limping—were pushing, pulling, tying, and hammering.

Of the dragon and the waterspouts, there was no trace.

“Master Dwarf!” Harfang strode up to Ayshe, beaming. “Right glad I am to see you on your feet.”

Ayshe nodded his thanks. “I’m glad to see all of us above water.”

“Aye. But there is much to be done, and we’ve need of your skills.” Harfang led him across the deck, noting as they went the things that needed to be repaired.

Ayshe lifted his nose and sniffed the air. “A breeze. Wind.”

“What’s more, from the southwest.” Harfang was obviously in a good humor. “Enough, I’d say, to carry us back to land—that is, if we can raise and secure the mast.”

The dwarf gave it a quick professional appraisal. “We can rig block and tackles here and here,” he told the mate, pointing. “A line here and here to secure it. We can lash it to the stump of the main. It will be good enough to get us to land as long… as long as…” His voice faltered.

The mate seemed to understand. “Don’t worry. The captain thinks the beast is gone for now.”

“And why did she appear?” Without waiting for an answer, Ayshe started for the stairs leading to the forge but stopped and looked back at the mate. “Did we lose anyone?”

“All survived save one.” Harfang’s face was grave. “Feystalen is missing. None saw him fall.”

The dwarf closed his eyes. The iron band around his head tightened. Feystalen, for his part, had befriended the dwarf, had welcomed him aboard the Starfinder. He was gone. Ayshe breathed a prayer to Reorx for the soul of the second mate. Shaking his head, he went below.

That the Starfinder had survived at all seemed miraculous, let alone with the loss of only a single crewmember. Both masts had been down, most of the sails been washed overboard, along with their rigging, and the hull had been scored and battered from rocks drawn up from the depths of the ocean by the storm’s fury as well as by ice floes produced by the wyrm’s breath. Fortunately, the rudder had survived intact, and it only remained to jury-rig the surviving mast.

Under Ayshe’s direction, the crew raised the mizzen and bound it in place with heavy ropes, bracing it with pieces of broken spars. The rain from the storm clouds that had accompanied the dragon had filled the water barrels sufficiently to allay the worst of the crew’s thirst, though food was still in short supply. Among the elves, there were sprains and broken bones, and Omanda went among them, doing what she could, invoking the gods’ magic to knit torn flesh and sinew and repair shattered arms and legs.

Samath-nyar appeared above deck a few days after the attack, a thick bandage about the stump where his arm used to be. He would speak to no one save his sister and to her in only monosyllables. He did not take part in any of the crew’s work but instead paced silently from one side of the deck to the other, staring at the sea and the sky.

Captain Tashara, much to Ayshe’s surprise, was everywhere, leading the repair efforts, taking soundings and sightings, reorganizing the crew’s watches to accomplish the work that needed to be done. She announced, on Harfang’s recommendation, the promotion of Jeannara, the bo’sun, to second mate. Given the rumors Ayshe had heard from the crew about relations between Harfang and Jeannara, the dwarf wondered if that might lead to some awkwardness, but neither the elf nor the man seemed concerned.

Tashara was in high spirits, and when she stood in her nest, which the crew had rebuilt from’ broken timbers, she often sang aloud in Elvish, songs that were familiar to the Silvanesti Qualinesti and spurred them onward in their work. She seemed more like a captain of the ship than at any time since Ayshe had first encountered her, and he wondered at the change.

Malshaunt, too, seemed exultant since his magic had returned. Among his first actions was to make ready the spell that powered the sails of the Starfinder even when there was no wind blowing. With other spells, he was able to aid in the repairs, though the ship would still need the attention of trained shipwrights to return her to her former strength.

At last, when all had been made ready, Riadon, Anchallann, and Samustalen climbed the mast and let drop a single broad sail, square and patched together from the remnants of the other sails that had been retrieved.

There was an anticipatory hush. Malshaunt, from the midst of his double circle drawn upon the deck, spoke the word of power. The gull’s feather vanished in a puff of flame.

For a moment, the world seemed to stand still. Then a wind from the west caught the canvas and filled it with a crack. The deck shifted under their feet, and the Starfinder turned her head east toward land.

“The curse is lifted!” Tashara declared in a ringing voice. More softly, she added, “We have made a blood sacrifice, and the gods are appeased. May they welcome Feystalen among them that he may roam among the stars. Now we must set our eyes on the prize. It lies within our grasp. We have only to reach out and take it.”