Ship of Dragons (Quest of the Nine Isles Book 3) Page 3

  I lurched across the uneven deck and slammed into the thick mast in the middle of the ship. I caught hold of it and clung for life. I suddenly remembered stories of how sailors sometimes tied themselves to masts to keep from being swept overboard during storms. Too late to wonder if I should have done the same.

  I caught a fleeting glimpse of Basil some distance away, wrestling with the ship’s wheel. Then I had to close my eyes against the stinging rain. I heard and felt the moment a great wave dashed into us and swept over the deck. Then the ship pitched over to one side until it seemed as if we would surely tip over. I opened my eyes to see a mountain of water looming ahead. This second wave crashed over us like a blow. Its strength knocked me off my feet and dragged me away from the mast I had clung to. My desperate fingers caught hold of a bit of rope even as the rest of my body was pulled helplessly overboard.

  “Basil!” I screamed uselessly, although I knew there was nothing he could do to save me.

  I plunged headlong into the wild ocean, the icy waves closing over me.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  This time when I opened my eyes I was surrounded by the familiar cracked pillars and weed-choked floor tiles of the dreamworld. It was nighttime here, as it always was. A crescent moon hung suspended in the black sky. In the distance, I heard the chirping of crickets.

  I was vaguely aware I should be hearing other sounds, the roar of an angry ocean and the wail of storm winds. But it was impossible to focus on what was happening to my real body. It was far away in another place. Here in the dreamworld, I was safe, even comfortable.

  But that didn’t prevent a confused sense of urgency from prodding me. There was something I was supposed to be doing here. I had been drawn into this dream for a reason. I spun around, taking in the web of slender threads crisscrossing the open space all around me, suspended by no visible means. Some of them were dark and silent, the threads of lives that were finished or nearly at their end. Others glowed and pulsed with the energy of life.

  One of the threads nearest me seemed to whisper wordlessly. I didn’t know how certain threads called to me at different times, but somehow this one was calling me now. Unable to resist the force that prompted me to move closer, I crossed the tiles and stretched out my hand, tentatively touching the wispy bit of web. It was so delicate and light I hardly felt the brush of it against my skin. Instantly I was transported.

  * * *

  I was walking through a rain-soaked bazaar in some unfamiliar city where all the buildings were low squatting hovels with thatched roofs. The steeple of a single high tower rising above the rooftops was the only tall building around. On a sunny day it would have cast a shadow over the whole square. But this wasn’t such a day.

  Mud squelched under my boots and splattered up my legs while a strong wind tugged at my blue coat, fanning its long tail behind me. I pulled the wide brim of my hat down to keep the rain off my face.

  Some distant part of me tucked away in the back of my mind, the part that was still me, noted without surprise as I adjusted my hat that my hands were not my own. They were the larger, more callused hands of a man. I was used to that. My dreams often transported me into the bodies of other people, leaving me a helpless observer to their actions. Even now, this host’s thoughts crowded mine out, making me lose awareness of any emotions or sensations but his.

  All around, local people in brightly colored smocks scattered, some eager to escape the sudden downpour, others looking frightened by the half dozen rough-looking companions I brought with me. It was wise of them to duck through shadowed doorways and down side alleys to avoid us. We bristled with sharp weapons and were scarred and hardened by our years marauding on the high seas.

  But it wasn’t trouble we pirates were here for today. It was power.

  The one local who didn’t flee our presence, a mustached man in an orange turban, scurried ahead of us, constantly looking back over his shoulder to be sure we still followed. I only understood half the excited words he spoke, but I didn’t need to comprehend his language to know if what he was leading me to was real. I would know the moment I saw it.

  Our guide led us through a wide arched doorway. We ducked beneath a drooping red curtain soggy with rainwater and entered the shadowed interior of an old building. Out of the weather now, water ran off our clothes and formed puddles across the dirt floor. I took in our surroundings, noting stacks of woven baskets stuffed to the high rafters with unidentifiable foods, while larger bulky shapes covered in dusty protective cloths stood in the background. It was a storehouse of some kind, a place of cobwebs and decay that looked as if no one had entered it in a long time.

  Our turbaned guide beckoned us forward, and I followed as he led the way to the largest object in the room, a looming shape concealed beneath a covering. The dust over the covering was particularly thick. Clearly this object had been undisturbed for many years—probably for decades, if the rumors I had heard were true. It was not the kind of thing many would have use for.

  The orange-turbaned man grabbed the edge of the covering and whisked the cloth aside, revealing the treasure underneath.

  I looked upon a complicated contraption of sleek metal, belts, cogs, and gears. It made up an impressive machine about twice the size of a man. When our guide pulled a lever, the machine fell backward with a heavy slam that jarred the floor beneath my feet, turning the face of the apparatus into a table-like surface with shallow sides that made it resemble a giant coffin. Chains dangled from rings on the sides. Despite a few patches of rust and the general air of neglect, the device glistened in the weak light slanting through the doorway.

  Our mustached guide looked at me anxiously and made his first effort to communicate in the common tongue.

  “Is this what you look for, Captain?” he asked.

  I eyed the nightmarish construction of metal, chains, and bolts and felt a certainty of victory swelling within me.

  “Yes,” I answered the nervous seller. “This is exactly what I was looking for.”

  * * *

  The dream shifted suddenly, and the scene went dark. I felt myself being pulled away from this time and place and drawn into another.

  But when the world around me became clear again, I still wasn’t in my own body. This time I was a green-haired dragonkind woman crawling out of a hole in a pile of rocks. I felt hungry, thirsty, and exhausted. I had been hiding among the rocks bordering the beach for days, ever since my encounter with the giant jungle cat shortly after becoming stranded on this island. Somehow I had managed to outrun the fierce orange-striped beast the first time I caught him stalking me. But I knew he was still out there among the trees somewhere, probably farther inland, waiting for me.

  Yet I had no choice but to venture out into the pale light of early dawn. My mouth was dry, and a raging thirst overwhelmed me. Looking across the ocean pounding against the beach, I could see distant storms over the water. I had heard their thunder all night long. But the rain I so desperately hoped for never reached the tiny island where I had been shipwrecked. The storms stayed in the distance, destroying my hope that I wouldn’t have to risk leaving my shelter.

  Now I could wait no longer. I had to find fresh water. The salty surf crashing against the shore only yards away was tempting, but I knew I couldn’t drink it. I had no choice but to go inland.

  I picked my way over the rocks, my movements slow and weak after days without food. I had survived the sinking of the Ninth Isle by escaping on a crudely built raft. After days of being adrift on the ocean, my husband had been washed overboard during a storm and I had been wrecked upon this tiny island. The place was uninhabited and so small I probably could have walked the length of it in a single day. But this would be the first time I had become desperate enough to do so.

  Leaving the rock-littered beach behind, I ventured into the shadows of the trees. The vegetation grew thicker as I moved farther inland in my search for pools of fresh water. I felt the trees, hanging vines, and boulders closing in on me
like the walls of a cage. They would block me in and make it harder to flee if I encountered danger. I tried not to notice how the deep shadows would make a perfect hiding place for any hungry beasts crouching there, watching me pass. I especially tried not to dwell on a particular orange-striped beast with jaws wide enough to devour me whole.

  With fear making my heartbeat quicken, I tried to hurry my steps, thinking to get my mission over with more quickly. But my protruding belly, swollen with the child I carried inside, slowed me down and made me clumsy.

  Was it my imagination or did I hear the trickle of water up ahead? It couldn’t be seawater. The roar of the ocean had already faded in the distance. This was something else, something closer.

  I parted a curtain of vines, and there it was just ahead of me. Surrounded by a ring of tall jagged boulders was a little pool of water. It was small, hardly more than a puddle, but my heart leaped with joy at the discovery, as though I had found treasure.

  I ran to the pool and dropped down on my knees at its edge. The water tasted faintly stale but not salty. I drank greedily, wetting the insides of my mouth and quenching my thirst. Only when I could drink no more did I sit back on my heels and begin to consider the question of how I could carry some of this water back to my shelter.

  That was when I heard it—the snap of a twig nearby.

  Fear seized my heart. I looked up, expecting to see the hungry jungle cat crouching opposite me. Instead, I was met with the point of a spear shoved in front of my face.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I awoke coughing and choking, as if I had swallowed the entire ocean. Confused and blinded by light, I couldn’t tell up from down. I rolled over onto my side and vomited up salty seawater. Then I sucked in air, grateful for every gasp.

  Where was I? Whose body was I in? For a few seconds my mind reeled between visions of a rough pirate in an exotic bazaar and a pregnant dragonkind woman on an uninhabited island. I didn’t know which one, if either, was me.

  But then it all came back in a rush, and I knew I was safely anchored in my own mind and body again. Or maybe not so safely. I remembered being washed overboard in a terrible storm, carried off the boat by a giant wave, and buried deep underwater.

  Only here I was now, lying on something solid. Eyes still bleary from the stinging seawater, I squinted against the gray light of dawn. I was sprawled across the deck of our little ship, my clothes wet, my hair spilling around me like a soggy mass of blue seaweed. How had I gotten here?

  “You never let go of the rope,” Basil said, cutting into my thoughts. I hadn’t noticed him crouching beside me until now. “When I towed you back in after that last wave carried you over the side, you were unconscious but still clinging so tightly to the line that I couldn’t pry your fingers loose. I finally had to cut the rope with my belt knife.”

  I looked down to see that I was indeed still holding on to a limp piece of rope. Vaguely I remembered having grabbed hold of it just before being washed overboard. I cast it aside now.

  I looked to Basil. “You hauled me back onto the ship. You saved my life.”

  “You don’t have to sound so surprised,” he said, looking offended. “I can act the hero when I’ve a mind to.”

  He had a point. I didn’t know why it was unexpected. My cousin had helped me before in the past. But this was the first time he had risked his own life to do it. He would have had to leave the helm unmanned as well. Which meant nobody was steering us.

  I sat upright, alarm rushing through me. To my relief, we didn’t appear to be on the verge of capsizing. Although the winds raged on and a thin drizzle still fell from the sky, we seemed to have left the worst of the storm behind us during the night. Now the weak light of dawn that managed to filter through the dark clouds overhead revealed rough seas stretching as far as the eye could see but none of the massive waves that had threatened us before.

  “Is there any damage,” I asked Basil, crawling to my feet.

  “Not much,” he said, putting his hands on his hips and joining me in surveying the vessel. “All in all, we came through in surprisingly good shape. It’s a miracle, considering the size of that storm.”

  “It was no ordinary storm,” I told him. “That was some sort of cursed hurricane, sent from Zoltar’s mountain, the black rocks that tried to kill us once before.”

  “So now both the mountain and the sea are cursed?” he asked doubtfully.

  I didn’t need him to believe me. I knew in my heart it was no natural storm that had attempted to destroy us. But there was no time to argue about it now, not while we were still in the grip of the gale.

  “Have we ridden out the worst of it, do you think?” I asked Basil.

  “I’d say the worst is behind us,” he said. “Now we’ve just got the winds pushing us on.”

  “Which could be a good thing,” I said, thinking aloud. “The Gold Ship Voyagers had a head start, but this might help us make up time and narrow the gap.”

  “It would if we knew what course they had set,” he reminded me.

  My mind flashed back to the dream I had been having before the storm, the nightmare in which I had looked down from the sky on a fleet of golden-sailed ships.

  “I think,” I told Basil, “that we do know.”

  * * *

  Using the compass and one of the tattered maps I had taken from among the mapmaker’s things, we sailed for the black mountain of Zoltar, letting the storm winds at our back carry us on our way. I had no intention of getting too close to that deadly place again. We would take care only to skirt the cursed stretch of water, without getting near enough to be drawn in by the fog and the mountain. Through my dream, I had seen the gold-sailed ships accomplish this, and I was confident we too could avoid the deadly shoals.

  For two days we sailed through a stormy sea, our ship cutting through waves that sometimes rose nearly high enough to crash over our decks. But the worst fury of the hurricane had been spent that first night, and now its persistent winds were on our side, lending us speed. I began to hope we might catch up to our enemies.

  While we continued our long chase, I had plenty of time to think about the dreams that had come to me during those moments when I was washed overboard, before Basil had rescued me. I was afraid of what might be happening even now to the green-haired young dragonkind woman. It seemed she had escaped being devoured by a beast of the jungle only to encounter some new form of danger. All I had seen of her enemy was the tip of a spear, but that at least was enough to let me know she was not alone on the island where she was stranded. And whoever it was that shared the place with her was clearly hostile. Perhaps she was dead already? But I tried not to dwell on that possibility. The sense of helplessness it awoke in me was too unpleasant. I had to believe that, somehow, this strange woman who shared with me the burden of being the last of our kind would find a way to survive, to stay alive until I could reach her.

  I was equally troubled by my dream of the pirate in the rain-soaked bazaar. His was a form and a threat I was coming to know better than I ever wanted to. I had hoped I was free of the obsessed Captain Ulysses and his fierce crew after Basil and I had escaped his ship. Basil’s sister, who sailed with the pirates, had wavered in her loyalty to them just long enough to help the two of us escape their clutches while she chose to remain behind. But my continuing to dream about the pirate captain suggested maybe his part in my fate was not yet finished. Was I destined to meet him again one day? And what had he been up to during my glimpse of him during the dream? I couldn’t be sure whether I had been seeing him in the present or was witnessing some past event. Not knowing the timing was frustrating, because it meant I couldn’t comfort myself with the belief that he was far from here and occupied on some distant shore. The truth was he could be anywhere.

  But it wasn’t the pirate that filled me with a squirming sense of dread. It was that mysterious machine he had been in the process of acquiring. What was its purpose, and why had Ulysses been searching for it? I wasn’t sur
e why the sleek metal contraption with all its gears and chains struck such fear in me. I only knew I felt instinctively threatened by it.

  All that we had been through and all that I feared lay ahead made it almost an anticlimax when Zoltar’s mountain finally came into view on the second day. We saw its dark, jagged peaks in the distance and the fog-shrouded waters we knew concealed the deadly shoals. But we steered well clear of the black tower of rock, and even the lingering storm winds and choppy seas that carried us didn’t attempt to push us into that dangerous stretch of ocean. We sailed by without incident, and I breathed a sigh of relief as soon as the evil place disappeared on the horizon behind us.

  It was late into the following day when the storm winds finally left us altogether. The gale had been steadily weakening and the waves growing smaller for a long time. Now they deserted us, replaced by a natural calm. The clouds disappeared from the sky, and the water grew smooth and glassy. I guessed we were far enough away that Zoltar’s influence couldn’t reach us. Or perhaps whatever magic he had used to create the storm had simply worn itself out.

  Shortly after the storm faded away, we glimpsed a smudge of brown and green in the distance that represented the first scrap of land we had seen since leaving the swamp-infested homeland of the mapmaker. At first I thought it was only a mirage, a trick of the lowering sun reflected on the waters. But as we drew nearer, it became clear we were looking at real solid ground. It was a small island, short and narrow enough that I could probably have walked from one end to the other in a single day. But it had trees and great gray boulders at its heart, and its edges were encircled with pale sandy beaches.

  Basil suggested we stop here and go ashore to refill our waterskins. It was only a precaution. We still had plenty of water left to continue our voyage. More than that, I didn’t like the idea of losing some of the time we had gained in our chase after the Gold Ship Voyagers.