Oberon's Dreams - By Aaron Pogue Page 0,12

heat-haze hallucination Corin had seen before.

He stepped forward onto the cobblestones and a new shape loomed out of the darkness. A tall, square block ahead on his right. Another step made it clearer, even in the gloom: a three-story building, looking for all the world like a fancy shop off Prince’s Way in Ithale’s capital. He saw the shadow of another beyond it, and just perhaps another across the wide street.

He stopped in the deep and echoing silence, straining his ear, but the only sound of life in this whole place was the nervous rustle of his bravest followers shuffling in behind him. They hung back, but Charlie Claire came up behind Corin. He carried a torch that flickered against the darkness, and still it took him a moment to recognize what he was seeing. At last the sailor gasped.

“By all the gods!”

A frightened whisper fluttered among the rest of the crew. Corin turned his back on the row of storefronts dancing in the torchlight.

Charlie’s eyes strained wide. “What is this place?”

“We’ve found the dead god’s tomb.”

Charlie shook his head. “This is no tomb. This is a city! Those are shops. That’s the sign of a money changer, but it never swung in a summer breeze. Not here. Who made this place?”

“A race long dead,” Corin said, loud enough for all to hear. “I have been studying Jezeeli, and no civilized tongue has spoken its name for more than a thousand years. We are safe.”

“You never said it was a city!” Charlie cried.

I never believed it was, Corin thought, but he kept that to himself. He let his eyes dance with mischief. “I asked much of you. Blake was not wrong on that count. We have all toiled toward this day, and this last secret I saved as your reward.”

He stepped aside so they could see right up the wide boulevard. “A whole forgotten city, yours to plunder! This is fitting work for a pirate, no?”

A dozen voices answered, “Aye!”

Corin grinned back at them. “Fetch Blake in here. Let him see what he will miss!” It took only a moment, and every man among the crew came back with him, until they crowded the little plaza at the foot of the road.

The first mate’s gaze was hard as steel, flashing fury not yet touched with despair. Corin only grinned more deeply. Despair would come.

“My men,” he cried, “this place is yours! Despoil it of its riches!”

They cheered at that. They surged forward, leaving only Corin and Blake as they charged up the way, pouring through open doors and into all the shops. The farther they carried their torches, the farther the place seemed to stretch. It felt endless.

“Gods’ blood,” Corin breathed. “Even I had not imagined a place such as this.”

“You do not deserve this reward,” Blake growled.

“Oh, it is mine by right. You whined at what I asked of you, but I’ve spent more effort than the crew combined to find this place.”

Blake sneered. “It will still be in vain.”

“Your mutiny is dead. Be glad you’re not and hold your tongue.”

The first mate smiled, showing far too many teeth for a man in bonds. “I’m not alone. My father’s men will find me here, and they will take what you have found.”

“Your father’s—” Corin began, but he stopped himself short. “You always struck me as a nobleman’s son, playing at being a pirate.”

“An infiltrator,” Blake said. “A planted spy, for the glory of the Vestossi name.”

“Of course you’re a Vestossi,” Corin said. “There’s nowhere in the world I can escape Ephitel’s wretched protégés. But why would I leave you alive to tell them?”

“Because you’re weak. You are a scoundrel when you should be a gentleman, and you are soft when you should be hard.”

“I am a pirate,” Corin interrupted, growing bored.

“You are like no pirate I have known.”

“No.” Corin grinned as his men began emerging from the shops, their arms laden with spoils. “No, I am far, far richer. I’ll take one day’s head start, then let your father try to find me.”

Charlie approached first, coming from the money changer’s shop on the closest corner. Corin saw no sparkle among the bundles in his arms, and he recognized confusion on the sailor’s face. Five paces brought him close enough for Corin to see what he carried.

“Books?” Corin asked.

Charlie nodded, still looking baffled. “The place was full of them. They’re in no language I have ever seen.”

Blake sneered. “Now you can read?”

The sailor answered quietly. “I know the shapes of