Under Fallen Stars - Mel Odom [137]
"Easy, young warrior," the paladin advised. "It's over."
Jherek struggled against the man for just a moment, then realized the caravel's crew was even now beginning to throw the dead pirates overboard. The young sailor took a deep breath, feeling his heart hammering at his ribs and his body shake with exhaustion. Blood streamed down his face and from half a dozen other cuts across his body where his armor hadn't protected him. He let the cutlass hang like an anchor at the end of his arm.
He glanced at Sabyna as Azla assigned a man to relieve her. The ship's mage met Azla's eyes briefly, then Sabyna turned and walked away.
Jherek wanted to go to her, but he knew it wasn't right. Sabyna was capable of standing on her own, and if she wanted his company, she was capable of asking for that as well.
She didn't.
Uncaring of the debris that occasionally struck the deck around him, he walked to the railing and watched the pirate ship that had trailed them break off pursuit as the supernatural wind continued pushing Black Champion away. In moments, it was tacking back toward Vurgrom's other ship.
Jherek stared back at the spewing volcano in the distance, watching as more lava poured into the Alamber Sea. He didn't understand the forces that had pulled him there. He reached out for the voice inside his head, opening himself up to it, wanting it to fulfill its promise.
Only emptiness rang inside his skull.
Jherek gazed down at the deck, watching Sabyna walk away. The ship's mage had her arms wrapped tightly around herself. She never looked up at him. A heaviness he'd never felt lay on the young sailor's heart. He couldn't make sense out of anything, and in that moment, knowing how little control he had over anything that happened to him, he let go the faith he'd tried to cling to for so long.
Ilmater the Crying God, the god to whom the young sailor had given himself, shed no tears for Jherek Wolf's-get. The young sailor's heart turned cold and hard. No matter what happened, he promised himself silently, once he got the pearl disk from Vurgrom, he would be free.
Covered protectively in Iakhovas's grasp, Laaqueel watched the fiery red of the volcano channel give way to the cool blue of the sea again. Huge boulders spun through the water, wreathed in flames that wouldn't die, until they dropped out of sight.
Iakhovas gripped the wheel sternly, altering his course. "See, priestess. We are arrived hale and whole. If you have faith, all things become possible."
"You have my thanks, Most Exalted One. If not for you, I would have died."
"You cannot die. I won't let you. Our fates are strongly wound together-as long as you acknowledge them."
Laaqueel stepped away from him, no longer feeling the pull of the currents sweeping Tarjana's deck. She stood easily on her own. "Where are we?"
"In the Alamber Sea."
The water around Tarjana roiled with boiling bubbles that raced for the surface. They were so thick, so tightly compacted together, that they created a misty curtain that limited visibility to no more than a few feet. Only the magic surrounding the mudship yet protected them.
Laaqueel looked behind, making sure the fliers trailing them had made it as well. Miraculously, the cone of protection that extended over Tarjana weaved back through the roiling water. She couldn't see if all of the fliers were there, rowed from the belly of the volcano that had burst underwater, but she got the sense that most of them had.
"Where are we going now?" she asked.
"There is much to do now that we are here," Iakhovas said. "First, we will find a place that will serve as our base of operations. If I'm to free the forgotten clan of We Who Eat from this place, I must find the tools to do it."
"Do you know where these items you need are?"
"Yes. There is an ancient place that lies far from here. It's called Coryselmal, a broken city