Pirate's Honor, page 15
Torius's eyes softened when he looked at her, which calmed her nerves somewhat. They understood one another; he would never make her pose as a slave.
"She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. No one else comes close."
"Exactly!" Thillion exclaimed. "And not just beautiful, but unique! That's key! I'm sure that Ekhan will feel the same way. As to why we can't use someone else: Miss Celeste is ideal for this role because not only will she attract Ekhan with her unique beauty, she can also use her magic to charm him. That also allows us to play with his mind, which is vital. This is a man of great power and influence. We have to break his confidence, drive him to near madness to destroy his credibility with the Osirians. If things play out, the combination of Celeste's seduction, her magic, and the mental instability we hope to induce will have him right where we want him by the time we get back to Sothis."
"I know nothing of seduction," Celeste protested, "and I can only be in human form for minutes at a time." A pleasure slave—how dare he!
"The time factor actually works in our favor," Thillion countered. "Brief glimpses can be more enticing than long looks, and having you pose as the captain's slave presents the added enticement of forbidden fruit. The less he sees of you, the more he'll want you, and by gaining his trust with your magic, you can make him crave your company. Also, you'll have weeks to practice while we travel to Azir to pick him up. And ...we may have someone to coach you in the finer points of playing the courtesan. We need someone in Sothis to prepare for our arrival, and since Vreva Jhafae is indirectly responsible for our current situation, and is also threatened by Ekhan, I thought we would ask her to help."
"Vreva?" Celeste flared her body and rose on her coils. "You intend to have Vreva Jhafae teach me how to act like a human being?"
Thillion leaned back, his eyes worried as he looked back and forth between Celeste and Torius. "She is a courtesan. Being graceful, sensual, and persuasive is what she's best at."
"You mean besides lying, betraying, and spreading her legs for any man with a hundred scarabs!" Celeste writhed with anger. "Or is she to teach me that, as well?"
"Celeste!" Torius snapped. He nodded to Thillion and added hesitantly, "He does have a point ..."
Celeste stared at Torius in disbelief, overwhelmed by both fury and disappointment. She opened her mouth to speak, but Snick cut her off.
"So we've got him lusting after Celeste—then what? How are we were going to drive him crazy?"
Thillion's reply was enthusiastic. "We addict him to a hallucinogenic drug. Miss Celeste informed me that lunar nagas often form drug cults using a concoction of their venom as an addictive hallucinogen. I immediately saw an application for our purposes."
Celeste saw Torius stiffen, his jaw clenching, and his hands balling into fists at his sides. He didn't look at her, but stared fixedly at Thillion as the first mate continued.
"An alchemist in the Nightstalls sold me a recipe for such a concoction. By spiking Ekhan's wine, we can gradually induce hallucinations and addiction. We can also purchase scrolls of illusion magic for Miss Celeste to cast to reinforce those hallucinations, and the rest of us can play simple tricks on our own. By the time we're done with him, he'll be putty in our hands." Thillion sat back with a self-satisfied smile.
Everyone looked to Torius, then to Celeste. She felt as if she lay coiled under a giant magnifying glass, but her resolve held firm.
"I'll help however I can, but I will not play the part of anyone's slave." She glared at Thillion, then looked to Torius for support, but the captain wouldn't meet her eyes.
"It's your decision, Celeste," Torius said, his voice hard. "I can't make you do anything you don't want to do."
Celeste's stomach knotted with unease at the lackadaisical support. He knew what she'd gone through, how she felt about her time as a slave, yet he wouldn't back her position. Instead, he put the decision on her. If she refused to help, and the plan failed, it would be her fault.
Torius stood abruptly, his next words clipped. "All right, everybody, let's sleep on this. I like the overall plan, but without Celeste we'll have to find someone else to play that part. Snick, this is your kind of scam, so I want you to go over every detail with Thillion. Think it through and look for improvements and ways we could get into trouble."
"Captain," Thillion said, "some of the details are dependent on—"
"We'll discuss it tomorrow. Meanwhile, everyone's got to think of a disguise and an assumed name; we have no idea what Ekhan knows about us."
"Blue hair okay?" Snick asked.
"Fine. And arrange to take your babies off the ship and store them. Merchants don't carry such elaborate weaponry, and I don't want Ekhan or, Gozreh forbid, the Chelish Navy stumbling across them. And since we'll have to pass through the Arch of Aroden to get to Azir, that's a distinct possibility. Rent warehouse space here and we'll leave some crew behind to guard them. Understood?"
"Uh ...I suppose." Her smile faded.
"Grogul, you're hard to disguise and you're well known as my bosun. While Ekhan's aboard, you'll have to play a common sailor and bunk forward with the rest of the crew. Got it?"
"No problem, Captain."
"Thillion, you're new to the crew, so you're probably okay with only a name change. When Old Black's done with the ship, she won't look much like her old self, so have some new ship's papers forged and order placards with the name Sea Serpent. We won't put them on until we're well away; who knows if Ekhan has eyes on the Katapesh docks."
"What's your disguise going to be?" Snick asked.
"I'll shave, cut my hair, wear a fez, and play the most obsequious, money-grubbing merchant captain you've ever had the displeasure to meet. By the time we get Benrahi Ekhan back to Katapesh, we'll be the best of friends."
Snick lingered while the others filed out. "Captain, Old Black wants to knock out part of the hold's deck to add cargo space, but I—"
"We'll talk later, Snick."
The gnome raised her eyebrows, then left, closing the door behind her. Torius immediately turned to Celeste.
"Celeste, did you—"
"I'm not taking courtesan lessons from Vreva, Torius!"
"That's not what I was going to say!" he snapped, then looked down while he took several deep breaths.
Celeste was taken aback; Torius never yelled at her. She was still angry, but his reaction caught her off guard. Finally he looked her in the eye, a strange expression on his face.
"Celeste, did you get me addicted to your venom so that you could control me?"
Cold fingers clutched her heart, and she stared at him in shock. "No! Torius, I would never do that!"
"Yet you told Thillion that lunar nagas use their venom to addict followers in drug cults."
"Yes, but ...well, no! The followers take the concoction of their own accord. It's not the same!"
"How not the same? I'm addicted to your venom; if a day goes by without you biting me, I start shaking like a drunk coming off a binge!" His fists were clenched white at his sides. "How is that not control?"
"I don't control you, Torius!"
They stared at one another for a long moment, and she could see the doubt in his eyes. Turning away, he grabbed his sword, then pulled something from his pocket and tossed it onto the table. He left the cabin before she could think of anything more to say.
Slithering over to the table, Celeste used her magic to unroll the scroll he had dropped; it was a copy of the transformation spell. She hissed as she read it. What she hoped would enhance the intimacy between them had been perverted into something that would transform her into a slave. She hissed again and let the scroll reroll.
Still angry and confused, she curled up in her nest. Despite her exhaustion, sleep wouldn't come. Her head continued to pound in time with the carpenters' hammers as the work stretched on into the night. An image came unbidden into her mind—Vreva's glistening body as she fornicated with the slaver, her graceful motions as she walked, the way she posed while talking ...Was that what the crew—what Torius—wanted her to be? Her fury ebbed, replaced by distress as she considered Torius's question about the venom.
"I would never do that!" she whispered.
She uncoiled and recoiled, trying to get comfortable, but she may as well have been lying on a bed of nails. Deep down, she knew it wasn't discomfort keeping her awake, or even the noise, but rather the dread that her answer to his question might have been a lie.
paizo.com #2495541, Ronald Hartman
Chapter Twelve
Transformations
Celeste thrashed on her bed of pillows, but the vibrations of hammers, chisels, and saws that reverberated through the ship would give her no peace. Three days of the shipwrights' work and three nights without a decent view of the stars had left her teetering on the brink of madness. All she wanted was sleep, but guilt lay heavy on her troubled mind. It had been long years since she had been this miserable.
And on top of it all, Torius hadn't come back to the cabin since the previous evening.
As darkness began to descend outside, the hammering and shouting finally wound down. She twisted around once more and curled into a quivering heap, pleading for sleep as she buried her head among her coils.
"Celeste?"
She snapped upright, hissing and flaring reflexively, but it was only Torius. She must have drifted off and not heard him enter the cabin. She eased back down and uncoiled.
"You startled me."
"Then we're even." He took a deep breath. "I came to ask if you wanted dinner. Snick said you haven't been eating."
"No, thank you. I'm not very hungry. I've been unable to sleep with all the pounding. Did you want to have another meeting in here?"
"We'll meet in the galley."
Torius looked no better than she felt. His hands quivered when he hung up his sword, his face glistened, and his hair was matted with sweat. When he doffed his kaftan, his underlying shirt bore dark stains under the arms. Guilt flooded over her; these were withdrawal symptoms. He was suffering from his addiction to her venom.
"Thillion's altered the plan to take you out of it." He washed his face in the basin and toweled dry. "We still want to use your venom, if that's all right, but you won't have to deal with Ekhan. We will, however, have to move you to the forepeak and keep you out of sight once Ekhan's on board."
"Will I be able to come out at night?"
"Maybe when Ekhan is sleeping. It depends on his habits. We'll have to be careful."
"And who will play the part of your pleasure slave?" She tried to keep the sarcasm out of her voice, but wasn't sure if she managed it.
"Vreva, if she'll do it, and if Ekhan doesn't know her personally. She said he sent a thug, but he still may know her by sight. We have to talk to her before we firm up the plan."
Celeste's aching head reeled; Vreva Jhafae playing the part of Torius's pleasure slave meant that the woman would spend at least a month in their cabin while Celeste was forced to hide at the other end of the ship.
"Go ahead and get some sleep." He didn't seem to notice her agitation. "We'll probably be heading out to sea late tomorrow once they finish work on the ship, and I'll need you to plot a course to Okeno."
He left without another word.
Sleep was the farthest thing from Celeste's mind now, with visions of Vreva playing an all-too-willing sex slave plaguing her thoughts. An uncomfortable rift had opened up between Celeste and Torius; the doubt she had seen in his eyes haunted her, as did the specter of her own guilt. How long could Torius withstand the courtesan's seduction, especially if he harbored the suspicion that Celeste had deliberately addicted him to her venom as a means of control? She knew Torius—he had no tolerance for that kind of control ...from anyone.
"I'll lose him," she realized, lashing her tail in frustration.
Torius, this ship, and the crew had become as important to her as the night sky, yet she risked losing it all because she was unwilling to don a phony collar and take seduction lessons from Vreva. With a surge of resolve and a flick of magic, she cast her invisibility spell and opened the cabin door.
Celeste peered down the dim corridor, wary of any worker or shipwright who might have lingered to finish up a job. She saw no one. Her mouth watered as the aromas of garlic, curry, and meat wafted to her. Familiar voices reached her from the galley; though most of the crew ate forward, Torius and his officers generally took their meals there. Gathering her courage, she slithered forward as quietly as she could.
"It all depends on Vreva," Thillion said as she neared the galley door. "If she's unwilling to help, we're sunk."
"I don't like the idea of her spending time alone with Ekhan," Grogul added. "It'd give her the perfect opportunity to rat us out."
Celeste peered around the corner into the galley, relieved to see only Thillion, Torius, Grogul, and Snick at the table, though Soursop clattered around the stove. She slithered silently into the room. Torius's back was to her, and she could see the sheen of sweat on his neck. His hands remained clenched under the table.
"I'm afraid that's a risk we'll have to take, unless we completely change the plan," Torius said. "We'll just have to make it worth her while. Vreva is out for only one person, and that's herself."
"That's what worries me," Grogul said. "Ekhan's got more to offer than we do. He's rich and powerful."
Celeste whispered a spell under her breath, then carefully approached the table.
"She's gotta know she's shark bait if we find out—" Snick began, but Celeste interrupted her by cancelling her invisibility spell.
Grogul, Snick, and Thillion jumped at her sudden appearance. Torius whipped around and lurched off the bench seat to stare at her.
"Celeste!" Torius sounded flustered and looked wildly around before fumbling off his shirt and wrapping it around her. She hadn't thought to put on clothes. "What—"
"I'll do it," Celeste said, trying to sound calm despite her aching head and tumultuous thoughts. She fumbled her arms into the sleeves of his shirt. "And as you can see, the transformation spell works. I learned it today when I was unable to sleep."
"You'll ...what?" Torius blinked at her, and she tried to smile.
"I will play your slave, wear a collar, and even take lessons from Vreva Jhafae, if I can manage to be in the same room without biting her." She accepted Torius's help to sit on one of the benches, and smiled at Soursop when he placed a plate in front of her, his huge belly jiggling like a pudding as he chuckled.
"I put some extra pepper sauce in there for ya, Miss Celeste." He winked and wiped his hands on his apron.
"Thank you." Celeste picked up a fork, holding it awkwardly in her slender fingers. Funny—she had never eaten in human form. She and Torius had always had better things to do when she had arms and legs. The fork dropped from her clumsy fingers, and she sighed. "I'll need much practice."
She could feel everyone's eyes on her, so she kept her gaze down. Once more she tried to manipulate the food-laden fork, but it tilted and the food plopped onto her plate. Her hunger got the best of her, and she used her magic to float a bite of Soursop's fluffy curry-and-garlic mashed potatoes up to her mouth. She closed her eyes in bliss at the explosion of flavors.
"You'll have plenty of time to practice." Torius looked at her curiously. "Why the sudden change of mind?"
"I was being selfish and foolish," she replied not untruthfully, though it certainly wasn't the entire basis of her decision. "Frankly, playing this part frightens me, and I find the thought of interacting with Vreva nauseating. But if you all believe that I can do this, and are willing to help me, I'm willing to try."
She looked up to see Thillion's surprise, Snick's satisfied grin, and Grogul's relief, but her captain's gentle smile was the only response that really mattered. Heartened, she dug into her dinner and listened to the rest of them talk.
"All right, then we're back to our original plan. Celeste, you'll come into the city with me tomorrow to buy some illusion scrolls. I also want to pick up some potions and more copies of the transformation scroll in case of an emergency. Then we'll head for Okeno and see if we can't enlist Vreva's help."
Thillion nodded. "There's one more factor to consider. In dealing with Ekhan, we would benefit from an alliance with someone on the inside, someone who knows Benrahi Ekhan and can convince him to do business with us."
"The halfling," Torius said with a nod. "Twilp Farfan. How do we find him?"
Thillion grinned and looked to Snick.
"Thillion sent me on a little fact-finding mission." The gnome gave him a wink. "Found out he works out of Ostenso. He's sold stuff in the bazaars here and he's got a reputation among ...certain people I know for being a pretty good acquirer. But nobody said he worked for Ekhan."
"Excellent information, Snick. Thank you." Thillion turned back to Torius. "We must try to persuade Farfan into helping us. I don't know how yet, but I'm sure he has a weakness. Everyone does. It'll depend on his loyalty to Ekhan."
"He's a thief, isn't he?" Grogul said derisively.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Snick's luminous eyes flashed with ire.
"Thieves don't have any loyalty," he said with a shrug.
"That's like saying all half-orcs are murderous thugs, or that pirates have no honor." Snick shook her head. "Thieves have more loyalty than you think. If Farfan had a reputation as a backstabber, Ekhan wouldn't have trusted him in the first place."
"Great!" Grogul's tone dripped sarcasm. "So we just need to convince a traitorous courtesan and a loyal thief to help us drive a vengeful merchant crazy. This is gonna be fun."
Celeste kept eating. She didn't think this plan was going to be fun at all.
∗ ∗ ∗
By the time Torius dragged himself back to his cabin that night, it was near midnight and he felt like a kebab that had been grilled, dropped in the dirt, and gnawed by rats. Grogul and Thillion had accompanied him into the city to make a few more purchases necessary for their scheme. Then, back on Stargazer, Snick had dragged him through every inch of the ship, showing him all the changes the shipwrights had made so far and detailing the work to be finished in the morning. At noon tomorrow, cargo would arrive to be loaded into the newly expanded hold. His hand quaked like a leaf in the wind as he turned the latch on his cabin door.
