Black sails tore out of the moonless night, all but invisible as the corsair Stargazer swooped down on her prey. Even as the merchant galleon's crew recognized the danger, three ballistae cracked in perfect unison, and their steel heads bit into the planks of the ship's hull.
"Haul!" bellowed a voice, and Stargazer's capstan spun, hauling in the lines affixed to the ballistae bolts, pulling the two ships together.
The two hulls met with a crack, and thirty seasoned pirates leapt aboard the merchant ship in a wave of curses and flashing steel. One stout sailor swung a boathook, cracking a burly pirate across the face. The pirate responded with an anatomically impossible epithet and a sweeping blow of his heavy axe that clove the sailor's skull like an overripe melon. The captain and crew of the Golden Griffin dropped their weapons and backed against the windward rail, pleading for mercy, hands raised.
"Bosun Grogul!" The voice cut through the night like a knife, staying the burly pirate's hand as he raised his axe above the merchant captain's head. "Stand down! Secure their weapons and start your search!"
"Aye, Captain!" The half-orc pirate spat blood onto the deck. He glanced over his shoulder at his captain standing on Stargazer's rail, and the rage in his eyes dimmed. "Search party with me! You others, secure this rabble!"
Captain Torius Vin stepped onto the deck of the merchant galleon with the preternatural agility of a born seaman, one hand on the silver hilt of the cutlass at his hip. His confident swagger was that of a man walking across a street instead of a lurching deck as he stepped over the corpse of the dead sailor and confronted the captain of the Golden Griffin.
"Where is it, Captain Wayland?" He stroked his carefully groomed goatee, dark eyes narrowed.
"Where's what?" The merchant captain's voice sounded harsh with fear. "You're nothing but a damned pirate!"
Torius grinned—he expected fear from his conquests, but not defiance—and drew his cutlass. The flat of the blade slapped the captain's cheek, the edge coming to rest beneath the man's ear. "A pirate I am, Captain, and I may even be damned one day. But not today, and not by the likes of you! If you hand over the coffer you're delivering to Benrahi Ekhan of Azir, I'll spare the lives of you and your crew. If you lie to me again, I'll feed you to the adaro a piece at a time—your right ear first."
"Bugger yourself, pirate!" the captain spat. "You'll kill us all anyway. You vermin have no honor!"
Torius' wrist stiffened, and the razor edge of his cutlass drew a bead of blood from the captain's ear. "Have it your way," he said, but a soft voice from behind him stayed his hand.
"My captain!" There was a rustle of scales against wood. "I can help, if you'll allow me."
"Celeste!" Torius lowered his sword and glanced over his shoulder to see... nothing. "Is there time?"
"There's always time, Captain Vin. It's what we do with it that matters." The voice was as hauntingly beautiful as the night sky. "In this moment of it, I can find what you seek."
"Then by all means proceed, my dear." Torius stepped back.
Undulating coils of starlight flowed over the conjoined rails of the two ships as a huge serpent with the head of a woman materialized from invisibility. The white waves of her hair glowed in the starlight as she slithered to Torius's side, then smiled, her fangs glistening with venom. Torius stifled a chuckle at the gasps of horror from the Golden Griffin's captain and crew; where they saw a monster, he saw magnificence.
"Captain Wayland," she hissed as she bent close to the man's sweaty face. Torius heard the whisper of her quietly murmured spell. "If not to save your own life, then for the lives of your crew: tell me where you have hidden the coffer destined for Benrahi Ekhan."
The man paled nearly to the naga's alabaster hue, swallowed, then answered. "In a secret compartment under the chart table in my quarters. This is the key." He fumbled a heavy brass key from a pocket, and it floated out of his grasp and into Torius's hand.
"Mister Caliel!" Torius tossed the key to his first mate. "Get that coffer, double quick! Time is of the essence!"
Celeste is an exceptional woman—in many senses.
"Aye, sir!" The tall man, a half-elf by the gentle point of his ears, gathered two men and hurried aft.
"Celeste," Torius said more quietly, "best go below now. Thank you for your help."
"Who am I to argue with the stars, my captain?" Her lips curved in a knowing smile. "I await you in your cabin." She slithered away with astonishing alacrity, gone by the time Torius turned back to the captain of the Golden Griffin.
"Now, Captain, there are two possible outcomes to this night's events, and only one ends with you still breathing." He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a large, flat bottle. "Outcome one is that you and your crew each take a single draught from this bottle, and forget the last half-hour of your lives. Outcome two is that you all die, right now."
"That's a choice?" the captain scoffed, his defiance returning.
"Life or death? Yes, I do believe that is a choice, Captain." A door slammed, and Torius turned to see Caliel with a small metal coffer, while his two companions hefted much larger bundles of finery. He grinned. Pirates will be pirates, he thought, then turned back to the captain. "Choose now—live or die. Quickly! If you delay, your choices get cut in half." He tapped the side of the man's neck with his cutlass.
The captain cursed, but took the bottle, removed the cork and tilted it into his mouth, then passed it to the next man in line. Torius watched carefully, making sure each sailor took a mouthful of the precious potion and swallowed. It had cost him plenty, but he gauged it worth the lives of fifteen men, given that he'd already taken from them a prize fifty times the potion's value. When the last man in line drank, he took the bottle back and smiled; the captain's eyes were already glassy with forgetfulness.
"Bosun Grogul! Anyone else aboard?"
"No, sir! Searched from stem to stern."
"Good! We're leaving. Gather your men and get aboard Stargazer."
"Aye, Captain!" The boatswain and his men, burdened with more armfuls of carefully selected spoils, returned to the corsair.
"Farewell, Captain." Torius gave a fluid salute that ended with his cutlass snapping into the scabbard at his hip. He leapt to the rail of his ship and doffed his hat in a sweeping bow as his men cast off and the ships parted. "May we do business again soon!"
As Stargazer heeled away, black sails vanishing into the cloak of night, Torius strode through his grinning crew of pirates and shouted down the open main hatchway. "All secure below, Snick?"
"Secure as a half-orc's virginity, Captain!" a high-pitched feminine voice called back up.
The joke elicited a round of giddy laughter from the crew, and a growl from the bosun, which was probably what the gnome was aiming for. Others, however, seemed in a less humorous mood.
"Besmara's boots, Captain, that was close," Caliel grumbled. "You put a lot of faith in that wizard's concoction, expecting it to keep our identity a secret."
"Aye, we could'a took her like a cheap doxy, Captain," Grogul said as he wiped his gore-streaked axe with a rag. "Dead men don't talk, and it would'a saved the cost of that potion and gained us a hold full of fine Qadiran silk."
The bosun's boldness loosened the tongues of some of the other crew, and Torius heard a rush of dark muttering. He shook his head dismissively.
"The potion was crafted by a priest, actually, Caliel, and I tested it personally. Besides, this way we're free to plunder the Golden Griffin at a later date. Set course for Katapesh, and don't spare the canvas. I want twenty miles between us and the Golden Griffin before sunrise!" Torius pointed to the coffer. "Grogul, bring that to my cabin. Now. It's worth more than a dozen holds full of the finest silks in Golarion."
"Aye, sir!" The boatswain scooped up the coffer and followed.
In Torius's dimly lit cabin, they were greeted by the disconcerting sight of several navigational instruments, including an elaborate astrolabe, floating about the sinuous coils of Stargazer's navigator. She lay beneath the open skylight, but turned from her celestial observations as they entered, the tip of her tail twitching in delight.
"My Captain, I see that we're underway. I'll take my instruments up to the quarterdeck presently to get a proper fix and plot our course. Ah, Grogul, you bear the coffer of Gods' Tears." She cocked her head in concern. "And you're injured."
"Bah! Just a bloody lip, Miss Celeste." The half-orc put the box down and nodded. "I'll leave you to yer snake charmin', Captain." He ducked out of the cabin with a tusky grin.
"Pass the word for Snick to come by when she's through mothering the ballistae, Grogul. I'll need her to open this thing."
"Aye, sir." The door clicked closed.
"You take a great risk in this endeavor, Torius." Celeste turned to the astrolabe, rotating the discs more accurately with her magic than most could with two hands. "Such a valuable prize will not go unmissed."
"Not such a great risk, Celeste. The Sword of Man himself would thank me for keeping such a relic out of Rahadoum. The Gods' Tears will vanish in the markets of Katapesh, and there'll be no trail leading back to us." He unbuckled his sword and hung it on a peg near his bunk. "Which was another reason for the potion. Better to obliterate their memories than kill the crew of the Golden Griffin. Contrary to what Grogul thinks, dead men do occasionally talk."
He stepped to where Celeste lay coiled, her torso swaying easily with the roll of the ship as she gazed at a particularly bright star through her telescope. A stylus on the chart table scratched down a series of numbers. Beneath the charts lay several scrolls, mostly zodiacs of various cultures and lengthy scholars' notes of celestial observations. He stood next to her and stared up at the star-filled sky; this far from the lights of any city, they were so clear he felt as if he could reach out and touch them.
"It's a beautiful night." He brushed a hand through her silvery hair.
"Isn't it?" The tip of her tail shuddered as she turned to him. "And speaking of potions."
A thin drawer beneath the chart table opened and a small vial floated out. The stopper twisted free and she quaffed the contents in a single gulp. Her shape shifted with the potion's magic, her tail morphing into two long legs, two pale arms sprouting from supple shoulders. In the time it took him to draw a deep breath, she stood before him as a tall, willowy human woman with skin the luster of pearl and eyes of midnight, her face and hair unchanged. He reached for a cloak and draped it over her shoulders, though she was unabashed by her lack of raiment. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, unaccustomed as she was to having digits.
"Celeste, Snick will be coming by to open the coffer any minute."
"And the potion will only last a few minutes also." With a glance from her, the door's bolt clicked closed. "Time enough."
"Oh, hell," he murmured as her hands explored beneath his shirt.
"Besides," she breathed, nuzzling his neck, "it's been far too long since I've had arms to hold you."
He felt the prick of her fangs, then the familiar rush of weakness from her venom and the odd euphoria that accompanied it. He knew the weakness would fade quickly; he'd become accustomed to Celeste's venom. In fact, he'd become quite fond of it... and her.
"And legs," he reminded her. "Don't forget your legs..."
Neither of them noticed the soft click at the door, or the shadow that passed below the lintel.
Coming Next Week: Pirate problems in Chapter Two of Chris A. Jackson's "Stargazer."
Read more about Torius, Celeste, and the crew of the Stargazer in the new Pathfinder Tales novel Pirate's Honor, available now!
Chris A. Jackson is the author of the Scimitar Seas nautical fantasy series, which has won sequential gold medal awards for fantasy from ForeWord Reviews, as well as Weapon of Flesh, Deathmask, A Soul for Tsing, and the Cornerstones Trilogy. He lives with his wife on a sailboat in the Caribbean. For samples of his work, his blog, and his convention schedule, visit jaxbooks.com.
Illustration by Eric Belisle.
