Rising tide - Mel Odom [93]
"You have a long life line," she said, reading the automatic signs, "but there are breaks in it, indicating a change in location or your view of the world." She felt him try to pull the hand away, but maintained her hold. "The breaks in your heart line show that you've had disappointments in your life."
Without warning, a jolt of electricity sizzled through her mind. Her vision glazed over, suddenly filled with the sight of a great sea battle involving dozens of ships. She stood on a deck, and the vision was so strong that she felt the movement of the ocean. She smelled blood and the salt of the sea, different in some regard from the Sea of Swords.
She looked around in the vision, knowing she was seeing it from the young sailor's eyes, but not knowing how it came to be since none of her magic would enable her to do this. Whatever the source, it came from outside her and forced her to see. The ship rocked suddenly and she turned in the direction the force had come from in time to see a boarding party swinging aboard the ship.
A tall man with wild black hair and fiery brown eyes dropped onto the deck before her. A short, thrusting goatee and mustache covered his cruelly handsome face. He was dressed in black, tight breeches tucked into buccaneer's boots and a black shirt with belled sleeves left open to reveal the tattoo of the flaming skull wearing a chain mask that left only the eyes and fanged mouth uncovered. Another tattoo on his left cheek showed a shark-like creature with a black haired mane twisted in mid-strike.
Selune help her, she recognized the man at once, and she prayed him dead in the same instant.
The man attacked at once, and she wielded her sword to parry the heavy-bladed falchion he swung. Afternoon sunlight glinted from the blades. He drew back immediately, setting himself to swing again.
The vision was rudely interrupted and Sabyna's senses returned to her own body, to her own time. The young sailor held her, steadying her as another shudder passed through Breezerunner, shaking the whole ship as the dulled thud of impact echoed up through the hold.
"We've run aground," the young sailor said, helping her to her feet in spite of the way the ship jerked and tossed. "We'll be lucky if we haven't torn the bottom out of her!"
XX
15 Mirtul, the Year of the Gauntlet
"Impossible," Sabyna said, pushing her way free of the young sailor. "We're miles from land." She had trouble standing as Breezerunner continued rocking while its length cleared the obstruction. Rushing to the railing, she peered down into the dark water, knowing the obstruction had to be underwater or the pilot and lookouts would have seen it.
Jaxx in the crow's nest sounded general quarters on the conch shell kept there for that purpose. The mournful wail filled the night. Men erupted out onto the ship. Many of them were half-dressed, and the night shift carried lanterns that threw dizzying ellipses across the deck.
"What in the three by three hells's going on here?" Tynnel yelled. He stood in the open doorway of his cabin under the stern castle, a cutlass naked in his fist.
"Hit something, cap'n!" Jaxx called down.
"What?"
"Don't know, cap'n. Didn't see anything then, and don't see anything now."
"Mornis," Tynnel shouted.
"Sir," the first mate called back.
"Get down into that hold and let me know what kind of shape we're in." The captain strode across the deck, glancing in all directions suspiciously. He closed on Sabyna. "I thought you kept a spell on this vessel that would warn us in the event of a possible collision."
"I do," the ship's mage said. "I renewed it this afternoon." She faced the captain with certainty. "Whatever we hit, it's less than thirty feet in length and underwater." The spell she'd managed to put on Breezerunner would notify them of anything bigger than that, or any stationary object above the water line. "Probably it's drifting as well."
Mornis reappeared at the top of the hold, gasping. He was a