Everything was spoiled, and now Kellic was dead.
First she’d had to resort to spells to silence the lizardfolk. Then, hoping to head Kellic off before he saw what she’d done, she raced to the orlop deck and discovered Atok dazed and chained.
Sylena knew then things were bad, but she’d harbored hope her sister might know some spell to erase or alter Kellic’s memory, or that she herself could still explain everything.
And then he’d flung himself into the fireball.
“Put him out! Put him out!” Kellic was clearly beyond help, but there was a fair chance the burning corpse might set fire to the deck. The sailors hurried to smother him with her expensive pillows.
Atok and another sailor piled into the remaining salvager and took him down. Rendak struggled, cursing, and Atok lifted a knife to his throat.
“No,” Sylena snapped. She might yet profit from him. “The treasure was blasted over the side with Mirian and the others! Atok, retrieve it!”
“Yes, mistress.”
Atok sheathed his knife and rose, a little unsteady. He stepped past the smoking cushions and the burnt lump they hid. He dove through the broken window.
In addition to his own considerable prowess as a warrior, Atok wore an enchanted anklet that granted him the power to summon and command sharks. Even wounded, he’d make short work of Ivrian Galanor. And Mirian Raas and the native salvager were probably already dead. The trick would be getting their treasure-filled satchels before they sank too deep.
Sylena pointed at Rendak. “Pull the pack off that one and chain him back up. Don’t leave any slack this time! And use more chains!”
Rendak glared as three sailors dragged him off. “Your gillman’s not coming back!” he shouted from the corridor.
The lowly salvager’s opinion was beneath notice. She paced over to the sailors ruining her pillows, and they looked up from their work. The fire was out, and she became closely acquainted with a nearly unbearable reek of charred flesh. Her sister was a powerful wizard, but even she couldn’t bring back the dead. Even if they could find a cleric powerful enough for that feat, her superiors would never approve the expense.
If only the idiot hadn’t jumped in front! “Take that away and throw it over the side.”
The eldest sailor knuckled his brow with a calloused hand. “Yes, mistress.”
“And throw out the pillows as well. There’ll be no getting rid of that stink.”
“Yes, mistress.”
The four burly men hastened to obey, but even after they’d transported the body the smell still lingered.
Scowling, Sylena stepped to the galley window. A last amber beam of sunlight lit the surface of the ocean where she hoped to see Atok surface. He did not—but then, he hadn’t been gone long, and it might take some time to recover the treasures.
She turned on her heel, bent to open the pack the sailors had pulled off Rendak. The first thing she touched felt like one of the sculptures.
Surely not.
She pulled her hand out and stared at the ruby lizard head, which coughed. The thing’s teeth were bared, and for a moment she imagined it was laughing at her. It was all she could do to keep from smashing it into the blackened deck planks in frustration.
This was the worst of the bags, by far. The jewels that filled the others would be more valuable in any city. Only a collector would pay full value for sculptures, and the mocking lizard head seemed to know that.
“Atok will come back,” she told it, and pushed the thing into the haversack before setting it firmly on the planks. Atok would surface with the lost bags. And then all the jewels would still be in her possession, and her sister would be pleased, and so would their masters back in Cheliax.
Kellic was dead, but she might still claim some kind of property reward once Sargava was retaken. After all, she knew the city. It was a shame about him, but there would be other pretty men.
Deciding the smell was too overpowering, she left the cabin and moved up top, remembering only then to instruct the helmsman to drop anchor, and to tell the ship’s captain to lower the rope ladders, one to starboard and one to port.
She went to stand by the taffrail, peering into the dark water.
Sylena watched for long moments, but it was one of the hands who saw the shark fins a quarter league east and pointed them out to her.
She grinned to herself. That meant Atok had finished off Lady Galanor’s boy and was probably watching his minions feast.
“Go tell the crew to keep watch for Atok,” she instructed. “He may need help climbing the ladders.” Atok would have to manage two satchels, after all.
“Yes, mistress.” The sailor saluted and hurried off.
But Atok didn’t rise.
Night fell in earnest, and she stared out at the waters in disbelief.
How dare he fail her!
For a long time she gripped the rail, seething, but as the moon rose her anger was mixed with a sense of loss. What would she do without Atok? He hadn’t been a friend, exactly, but he’d been the only person she trusted. He had always apologized when he irritated, and his advice had never failed to be sound.
And now he was gone, with the treasure. She felt a tightening in her chest. What would she tell her sister?
She’d allowed a fortune to slip through her fingers. Sylena could make a little selling the lizardfolk to the arena in Crown’s End, and maybe Rendak, too, if she claimed he were a murderer. Given his disheveled state and lack of identification, no one would be likely to believe any protests he offered.
Those four could scarcely make up for the money lost, but it would be something.
The important thing, she reminded herself, was that she’d kept the treasure from the Sargavans. The salvagers were surely dead on the ocean floor or currently being digested by sharks, and so long as the jewels were with them, they wouldn’t be paid to any pirates to hold off the Chelish fleet. She hoped her sister would like that. She wished now that she’d never contacted Rajana to brag about her success over the mirror. Atok himself had suggested she surprise her.
She would be surprised now, Sylena though bitterly.