Azriim walked to the edge of the wooden gangplank and waited. He knew it would be rude to go aboard without an invitation. The other crewmen aboard the ship eyed him as they worked, laughing and making the occasional snide comment at Azriim's expense. Azriim ignored them. He had business to do. And besides, they dressed like buffoons.
With his left hand, he drew one of his wands-a finger-long shaft of ash capped with gold-and palmed it.
After a time, Azriim heard the call, "Captain on deck," as it passed from sailor to sailor. Hearing this, Azriim deemed at least some of the crew, and probably the captain, to be ex-navy. He rebuked himself for not anticipating that. He could have adopted the form of a scarred veteran. Still, coin spoke with a loud enough voice to a Sembian crew.
The captain appeared at the top of the gangplank. Black hair worn in a short helmcut topped a clean-shaven, pockmarked face. Bags hung under his piggish eyes. He wore fitted wool breeches, high boots, a broad belt with a silver buckle, and a stiff-collared blue shirt. A broadsword and dagger hung from his hip. He did not advance down the gangplank to offer Azriim his hand.
"I am captain of Dolphin's Coffer," he said, his voice loud and resonant. "Captain Sertan."
Azriim made a bow and wasted no time. "Well met, Captain. I need your services and that of your ship."
The captain frowned. "You want a berth on my ship? You know where we're headed, do you?"
Azriim reached into his shirt pocket with his right hand and withdrew three rubies, each as big around as a fivestar. Several sailors in the rigging caught their sparkle and whistled.
With onlookers focused on his extended right hand, Azriim used his body to shield his left hand. He surreptitiously pointed the tip of the wand at the captain and mentally activated its magic, which made the target open to suggestion. Azriim contained a smile when the captain's expression slackened-a telltale sign that the magic had worked.
Azriim said, "No. I want to reserve your entire ship into my service, and I want you to head where I request. No questions asked. This is half of what I'm willing to pay."
Captain Sertan eyed the gems and licked his lips. He might have agreed to Azriim's request even without the aid of the wand. There was no cargo he could carry that would profit him more than what Azriim offered.
"That sounds quite reasonable, friend," said the captain, and he walked down the gangplank. His voice had the lazy lilt of the enspelled. "Tell me more."
Azriim smiled in a comradely fashion. "I want you to set to tonight and sail for Traitor's Isle. Anchor there and wait for up to a tenday. I and my two companions will meet you there, probably within only a few days."
"Meet us? You won't be aboard?"
"Not at first. But we will show eventually." He pressed the rubies into the captain's hands. "And if we do not, keep what I have paid you and be about your own affairs."
"Very well," the captain said. "I will recall the crew."
Azriim smiled. "Excellent! But first show me your ship." Azriim needed to memorize the appearance of the vessel, to make teleporting there easier.
They turned and walked up the gangplank. Azriim knew that the wand's effect would last only a few days, but he figured that would be long enough. Cale would either show within that time or he would not. And if Azriim had need, he could always renew the effect of the wand once he came aboard near Traitor's Isle.
He looked the captain up and down and said, "I admire your garb, by the way."
CHAPTER 5
ANGRY GHOSTS
Cale, Jak, and Magadon followed Sephris and the Oghmanytes as they walked toward the Sanctum of the Scroll.
"He must have moved into the temple," Jak said. "Or they forced him to move there."
"So it appears," Cale said.
When they first had met Sephris, the Chosen of Oghma had lived with a caretaker in a small residence near Temple Avenue. Sephris had covered the walls of his home with erudite mathematical scribblings. That was where Jak and Cale later had found his corpse, gutted by the slaadi. The creatures had murdered the loremaster for helping Cale and Jak. Cale guessed that the Oghmanyte high priest had moved Sephris into the temple for his own security.
"Do you think he will be . . . upset when he sees us?" Jak asked. He twirled his pipe in his fingers, a nervous habit.
"We'll soon know," Cale answered.
"Who is he talking to?" Magadon asked, indicating Sephris.
From their position behind and slightly oblique to Sephris and the Oghmanytes, they could see the loremaster in profile. His lips moved continuously, though he appeared to be talking to no one in particular. Cale was too far away to read them, but he knew well enough what the words were.
"He is talking to himself," Cale said. "Calculating."
"Calculating?" Magadon asked.
Jak said, "He does mathematics, the kind no one understands but him. That's how he knows things. He's always doing it."
Magadon's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, 'knows things'? Is he a prophet?"
"Of sorts," Cale said. "Wait, and watch."
The priests neared the tiered steps that led up to the double doors of Oghma's temple.
Still muttering as he walked, Sephris pulled a stylus-the kind with a sharpened tip that was used to write in wet clay-from an inner pocket of his robes and pushed up his sleeve. He pressed the stylus's tip into his forearm and began to write on his flesh. His expression never changed, even when he started to bleed.
"Gods," Magadon oathed, aghast. "Is he mad?"
"Maybe," Jak said. "But I've never before seen him do anything self-destructive. What's wrong with him?"
Cale shook his head.
At first the priests accompanying Sephris did not notice his wounds. When they did, one of them shouted and the whole group stopped. Another of the Oghmanytes, a young, brown-haired woman, gently pried the stylus from Sephris's fingers, all while speaking what Cale took to be gentle reassurance. The loremaster calculated throughout, offering the woman only token resistance. Another of the priests, a middle-aged man with wavy blond hair, stepped forward, took Sephris's bleeding forearm in his hands, and whispered what Cale assumed to be a healing spell. The wounds in Sephris's arm closed.
"This may not be a good idea, after all," Jak offered.
Cale agreed. It appeared that Sephris may have truly gone mad.
"Agreed," he said. "Let's see where his sums take him. If he wants to see us, he will let us know. Otherwise, we go to Elaena."
The priests escorting Sephris closed their circle more tightly around the loremaster and hustled him forward. He moved with them, as stiff as an automaton, still calculating. The group reached the stairs and started up.
Sephris put three stairs under him and stopped, head cocked to the side. The priests tried to pull him along but he resisted.
"Here we go," Cale said.
The three of them continued their slow walk forward, eyeing Sephris.
One of the priests asked Sephris a question and the whole group tried to move him forward, but the loremaster held his ground. He irritably pushed away the hands that tried to force him up the stairs. He turned around, numbers and formulae still tumbling from his lips. He dropped the book under his arm and scanned the crowd as he calculated. The gazes of his escorts followed his.
Sephris's eyes found Cale and Cale read his lips:"... two and two are four," the loremaster said.