Shadowmasque (21 page)

All his will and purpose was sunk into this task, yet as he worked part of him mind could not help but be aware of his surroundings — Zanuur tasted Rikken’s ale then asked for the goldpurl instead; Logrum of the Vandal Lord arrived and demanded a cup of each; Raleth of the Iron Fist was next to appear, choosing a beaker of ale; Flane was last, even though the Bitter Biter was moored closest to the
Mocker
.

Bureng was less than half way through the lantern engraving when Flane appeared. He sensed the corsair captain’s grim regard from the moment he stepped onto the helm deck, ignored the others and came over to stand at one end of the table. A brief moment passed, then Flane casually picked up the iron helm as if to examine it closely…

“Be so kind,” Bureng said levelly, “as to leave that well alone.”

Everyone nearby seemed to hear the danger in his voice, as he had intended, and all eyes were on the two men. Flane appeared not to notice as he ran his thumbnail over dents in the helm.

“What
is
all this for?” he said.

It took sheer effort of will to keep his composure while maintaining the tightly-controlled flux of Wellsource power. Lifting the gleaming tip of the lancet from the lantern’s side, he looked up at Flane.

“I have already explained,” he said. “The black sorcery of the dead — remember, captain? Each of these objects will become a talisman of great power, and you shall have one…” He took a sideway step and calmly plucked the helmet from Flane’s unresisting hands, replacing it on the table. “But not yet.”

Then he returned to the lantern, lancet tip poised to resume its chasing.

“I know a little magery,” came Flane’s voice. “Perhaps I might help quicken matters.”

“Your abilities would not be sufficient, captain. Be patient.”

“Well, ser, if I can render any assistance —”

“No, I need nothing from you.”

“Not even these?”

There was a soft, clinking thud as something landed on the table top. Bureng glanced up to see a fist-sized pouch lying there with gold coins spilling from its loosely-tied neck.

“I sent one of my men down for a look at the wrecks,” Flane said. “He came back with that.”

Bureng switched his gaze to Flane, and held that one-eyed stare.

A perilous man,
came the thoughts of his inner eye.
He could endanger your plans and mar the shining perfection of your destiny. You must deal with him, but not straight away — in time he will provide reason enough for you to crush him utterly. For now, however, he has his uses…

Bureng let a wolfish grin show, then reached for the pouch and tipped out the rest of the coins.

“Yes, these would indeed be of use. The five talismans I am trying to create will act as sources of the reviving spells, while these coins and others will be bound to the talismans and placed in the wrecks below, thusing anchoring the power of the spells.” A sneer crept into his smile. “Is your curiosity satisfied, Flane?”

“Only by the merest amount,” said the captain of the Bitter Biter. “But it will do for now.”

Then he turned his back to Bureng, gazing out at the gloomy shoreline of Sickle Bay. Bureng stared at him for a long hate-filled moment, then forced his attention back to the task at hand.

During the next hour of waiting, Raleth swapped a series of ribald jokes with Logrum, each striving to outdo the other with obscene grotesquerie. After this, Logrum engaged Zanuur in a banter exchange that grew sarcastic and vicious, ending with Zanuur stalking off to the bows, his face like thunder. Logrum then proceeded to drink cup after cup of the goldpurl until the small cask ran dry, and was about to start on the ale when Raleth objected. Disagreement over this quickly led to raised voices that were added to by a returned Zanuur. It would have resulted in angry oaths and drawn daggers had not Flane interrupted.

“Cease this din!” he exclaimed. “Mother’s name, I’ve heard harbour-scolds make less noise than you bickering whelps!”

“They’d be a lot quieter if they were over the side, cooling their heads in the water,” Bureng said with an unkind smile.

“I’ll open the guts of anyone what lays hands on me…” Then he gave Bureng a narrow-eyed look. “You done with yer scratchin’?”

“The engravings are finished, each a perfect coil of braided spell emblems and each one made to interlock with the others.” On the table before him they lay — helm, shield, bear statuette, handmirror, and lantern, placed neatly around the small chest which now held all the coins and the chain links. A faint emerald radiance gleamed in the grooves of the patterns on the talismans, suffusing the metal of each.

“And now?” said Flane as he and the others approached the table.

“And now,” Bureng said, “it is time for the word!”

And up from the dark pool in his mind came a long word of clashing, guttural syllables. Instantly, the glowing patterns on the talismans flared up in a dazzling burst of viridian light. The other four captains cursed and staggered back, shielding their eyes, Bureng just stared, delighting in the raw and lurid outrush of power. Hot, vivid light drenched everything in the vicinity and for a moment Bureng felt as if he was connected to everything and everything was in his power.

Then the dazzling brilliance of it waned and subsided, leaving the talismans to glow like dull green embers. But he could feel, almost see, bonds and linkages which had not been there before, a pleasing outcome.

“”They are ready for you now,” he said and the other captains gathered round as he handed out the talismans one by one. The shield he gave to Raleth, the helm to Zanuur, the bear statuette to Logrum, and the lantern to Flane, while keeping the mirror for himself. The four captains regarded their prizes with a mixture of curiosity and wariness.

“Now what?” said Logrum, who was holding the bear figurine as it it was a cat that might try to escape.

“Now you all return to your ships and either place the talismans in your cabins or keep them on your persons,” Bureng said. “You will see why later. And while you are doing this, the divers will go beneath again to carry these down to the wrecks.”

He indicated the small casket of coins and links, every piece of which now shimmered and glittered with puissance. For every piece was now ready to become a conduit for the powerful spells residing in the talismans.

Bureng beckoned to Bull Arik, overseer of the divers, and placed the casket in his hands.

“Go now with your men,” he said. “Give one of these thaumaglyphs to each diver for each dive — they are to stow one in every wreck, wedged into a crack or some place where it will be held fast. When all the thaumaglyphs are gone, have the divers stripped and searched — understand?”

Grim and steady, Arik nodded. “Aye, master.”

Soon, a flotilla of small craft began spreading from the
Mocker
, gigs returning the captains to their ships while some half a dozen skiffs took the divers out to return to the wrecks of the dead.

Soon, Bureng sang in his thoughts. Soon.

The early evening was sinking into dimness and a chilly breeze from the north was dying away. Mist was rising, harbinger of the night. At length the diving was done and from his vantage on the helm deck Bureng could see the boats draw together to allow Bull Arik to carry out a search for anything secreted. During which there was a brief struggle followed by a body being rolled over the side, then a solitary diver making a final descent.

When Bull Arik at last returned to the
Mocker
, Bureng was waiting on the short gantry that overlooked the main deck.

“Just one betrayer, Arik?”

“Aye, captain,” the big man said sourly. “Gref the Honjirman — didn’t think he’d be that stupid.”

“Plenty of stupidity in this world, Arik,” Bureng said. “Who can know when it will burst forth?” He surveyed his crew. “Now my savage brigands, prepare yourselves and stiffen your spines against mewling cowardice! This next spectacle will test your bravery to the very bone!”

Then he took the talismanic mirror from within his long coat. He had scraped most of the corrosion from its face but the metal was still dull and deeply tarnished except where the bright silver showed in the grooves of the pattern he had placed there. He stroked the curved frame, muttering the first lines of the conjoining ritual, and the intertwined spell emblem brightened and seemed to writhe. Then the threads of power began to grow from the pattern, extending from the mirror in straight lines out through the air, four stretching across the waters to the ships of his fellow captains while scores angled downwards into the bay, some passing through the woodwork of the
Mocker
. Soon the other talismans had sent their own threads into the deeps and the net of revenance was laid out before him, a web of ghostly tendrils that only he could see.

All was tense silence aboard the
Mocker
and all eyes were on Bureng. The breeze had dropped to naught, the sails hung limply on the crosstrees and the murky waters of Sickle Bay were calm and hazed by mist. Bureng smiled and spoke the next lines of the ritual.

From his and the other four talismans bright emerald motes raced along the conjoining threads and down into the waters. For a moment, nothing — then glows began to flicker in the depths, catching the attention of the crew who crowded the rails to see. The glows brightened into flashes that streaked through the deeps like eldritch lightning. Clouds of inky darkness seemed to billow past beneath the waves and an ominous rumbling could be heard, the voice of a storm in the abyss.

A strange pressure settled over that part of the bay, over its perfectly flat, undisturbed surface. A faint but creeping odour tainted the air smelling like hot stone one moment, rank rust in the next. From his perch on the deck gantry, Bureng saw some of his men fumble for hidden amulets or mutter charms, among them Cursed Rikken who was trembling visibly as he held onto a lanyard with both hands. Then Bureng felt something change in the web of power and switched his gaze to the waters off the starboard as the first mast broke the surface.

Then there were others, some whole, many broken, others with crosstrees still bearing the rotting remnants of sails and tangled skeins of rigging, and all draped in kelp and streaming water. Scores of masts were rising slowly rising now, blackened spars emerging from the waves as the dark storm flickered and rumbled beneath. And after the masts came the ships themselves, their hulls encrusted with barnacles and coral, holed and shattered flanks gushing with outpourings of water laden with silt, sea creatures and rotting detritus. Inner structures creaked and groaned, and aboard the vessel nearest the
Mocker
the main mast cracked in the middle and crashed down onto the deck with a heavy crosstree punching through the deck at an angle and out the side of the hull.

As the underwater storm abated, pale webs of sorcerous power danced across the decks and played about the rigging. The revenant vessels took on a faint radiance and as the gloom of evening deepened figures began to appear on their decks, advancing stiffly to the deck rails to mutely stare at the five ships of the living. Others were clambering up the decrepit flanks of the motionless hulks to swell the mouldering ranks of the undead. Even at this distance, some of the
Mocker
’s crew were grimacing at the stench of putrefaction.

Satisfied with all that he saw, Bureng took his talismanic mirror in both hand and said:

“Hanavok, admiral of the Sea Horde — come forth! I command you!”

For a long moment there was no indication that his summons had been heard. Then some way off, one large ship started to move, listlessly turning its prow towards the
Mocker
and, without so much as a breath of wind, slid through the calm waters. In the muffling quiet there were only soft lapping sounds accompanied by the creak of sodden timbers as the ancient vessel came alongside. Bureng climbed unhurriedly back up to the helm deck as the undead ship slowed to a halt with its high sterncastle looming over the
Mocker
’s aft. With the mirror in one hand, Bureng smiled as he regarded the stern’s corroded woodwork, the details of once-elaborate carvings now half-rotted, half-buried beneath oozing hanks of seagrass among which crabs and the like writhed.

A figure stepped out onto a low-railed catwalk running along the side of the sterncastle, almost level with the
Mocker
’s helm deck. The figure was that of a man, or at least the boney remains of a man, garbed in a barbaric armour of scales and spike, now decayed and rent with gaps. A rusted, pitted helm loosely enclosed a slimy, dripping skull whose eyeless sockets turned in Bureng’s direction. As Bureng met that empty gaze he knew that this had to be Hanavok, commander of the Ogucharn Sea Horde and deputy to Siggarak who had led the Pirate Princes against the Empire a century ago. He could also see that the reviving spells were continuing their work, drawing moisture and other essences from the surroundings in order to refashion the vanished flesh of these necrotic mariners.

And there were neither lips nor tongue within that lichenous jaw, yet still a thready whisper touched Bureng’s awareness:

“You have brought us back to this place — why?”

“To complete your unfinished task, admiral,” Bureng said. “To topple the Khatrimantine throne and lay waste to its capital.”

“We…remember…but we no longer desire this. We have no desires….”

“But I
do
desire it,” said Bureng. “And I have laid it upon you to obey my will.”

By now a grey film had spread across the bony planes of Hanavok’s skull and a single, pale membranous eye now stared from the right socket.

“We obey…the will…what is your command?”

“To set a course for Sejeend,” Bureng said. “Once there, to lay siege and break its walls.”

“It shall be done.”

As one, the ragged ghost fleet began to move, coming about to point their prows westward. At the same time, Bureng rapped out a string of orders to his own crew who carried them out with the alacrity of men glad to be distracted from the ghastly apparitions amongst which they sailed.