by E. S. Bell
“That napkin was silk,” the pirate lamented.
Selena glared. “You have enough on this table to feed that girl for a month.”
“That’s not the point. I don’t run a charitable organization. If it gets out that I’m getting soft, well…” He speared a piece of mango with a dagger, ate it. “I’ve got enough competition as it is.”
Selena tore off a small hunk of bread. “You’ll forgive my lack of sympathy.”
The pirate snickered. “Yes, I’d be shocked if you sympathized with the plight of a lowly pirate such as me.” Then his laughter died and he turned his blade to her with narrow eyes. “Then again, I’ve heard things about you. Maybe you’re not as pure as you look. Tainted, even.”
Selena set down her bread. “What do you want?”
“Now, now,” Jarabax said. “Let us not be rude. After all, I brought you here because I want to help.”
“You have a ship for me and a crew to man it?” Selena sipped from a mug of water. She knew the answer before the pirate laughed at her again. Anger colored her cheeks as she waited for Jarabax’s mirth to subside.
“I haven’t a ship to spare,” he said. “And I’ve heard you’ve had no luck with some of the other captains. I’m not surprised. Uago is entirely peopled with scoundrels and lowlifes.”
“And what does that make you?”
“Their king,” Jarabax said brightly and then pouted. “Or one of them. As I said, I have competition.”
He poured two glasses of wine as the sun broke through the eastern window. Selena shook her head at the proffered glass. The pirate shrugged. “More for me.” He sipped delicately and then dabbed his mustaches again. “But they are fools to deny you. They don’t know who you are. But I do.”
Selena fought the urge to cover her wound, as if it were visible. “Do you?”
Jarabax held his wine glass up to the new morning light, appreciating the crimson hues. “You are the reason the war ended. You are the Aluren who can rouse the very oceans. If the ignorant scum around here knew what you were capable of, well…this island is filthy and debased but, to us poor lowlifes, it’s all we’ve got. It has not escaped me that you might use your ability to wipe this ugly slate clean, so to speak. Hence my generous hospitality.” He gestured at the feast between them.
Selena pushed her small plate of food away, her appetite swallowed by the memory of a crashing wave and the screams of the dying. She took a steadying breath. “Get to the point of this meeting, if you have one.”
Jarabax’s lazy smile widened. “My point is, I know what happened on Isle Calinda. And what happened after, despite your Temple’s best attempts to keep that little bit of history a secret.” He sat back in his chair. “I wager they consider it a black mark on their shiny reputation, eh?”
Selena’s chair scraped as she rose. “Thank you for the bread.”
“Leaving already?” Jarabax made a tsk tsk sound. “You are unworldly to become so offended by the likes of me: a liar and a scoundrel. I know about your wound,” Jarabax added quickly when she continued to the door, “because Skye told me.”
Selena turned. “Skye…?”
Jarabax took up the second wine glass, his lazy smile returned. “Forgive me for toying with you, but I can’t resist. You, who appear so pristine and good, and yet who could burn my ship to ashes with a word.” He smiled slyly. “Or drown it to the Deeps.” He set the glass down with a clink. “The truth is, I admire you, Selena Koren. Power such as yours is worthy of admiration, so when Skye appeared to me two years ago and charged me with a task on your behalf, I agreed with relish.”
Selena stepped slowly back toward the table. “Skye was here?”
“Aye, she was. Moreover, she knew you would be passing through here and that you would need help. How she knew…well, that’s just Skye for you.” He stabbed another slice of bright orange fruit, sucked it off his dagger’s blade.
Selena sank back into her chair. “What did she say?”
Jarabax shrugged. “This and that. That and this. We spoke of many things. I enjoyed her company immensely and was ever so sad to see her go.” He heaved a sigh. “Anyway, the purpose of her visit was to leave you a gift and instructions that when you passed through Uago, I should seek you out and give it to you.”
“Skye left me a gift? Hanna said it was from you.”
“Do I look like a man who shares secrets with street urchins? Hanna knows nothing but what I tell her.”
“What is it?”
Jarabax glanced out the window. The morning had broken fully; the sky in the window outside was pure blue without a cloud to mar it. “Another dawn, another day. He grows restless waiting for you.”
“He?”
Jarabax looked her up and down, at her pure blue Aluren overtunic and the delicate silver stitching. His laugh was loud and hearty. “Oh, sweet Paladin, you’re going to love this.”
A Gift
Choppy water tossed the small skiff. Two pirates rowed and a third grizzled sea dog kept beside the pirate boss. The older pirate said nothing but regarded Ilior through flinty eyes and sat with a cutlass resting across his knees. They made their way through the ship graveyard to the shattered coast that made up Isle Uago’s northern shore. Salty ocean water had eaten away at the stony walls, leaving a grotto of warrens and caverns in the stone. Rough, porous rocks the color of old blood jutted up from the crashing tides like sentries to bar passage to the caverns. The water churned, and more than once Jarabax’s men had to push off these rocks with their oars. Ilior helped when the water was particularly rough, shoving the little boat away from outcroppings that threatened to tear holes in the hull. Through it all, Jarabax sat in the prow, relaxed and calm, watching Selena from beneath lowered lids. A dozing cat evinced more energy, and when the skiff scraped against some submerged obstacle, he only smiled.
The sun rose in a sky of cloudless blue, but all fell into shadow when the little boat entered the mouth of a large overhang of rock. They ran aground in a dark cavern. Selena stepped out of the boat; rocky silt crunched beneath her boots.
“He’s in there,” Jarabax said, with a lazy nod at the cavern as the rest of the crew climbed out of the boat. It was pitch black; a hole in the stone. Selena touched her own wound absently, as the clank of metal against rock echoed out of cavern.
“He’s chained?” Selena turned to Jarabax. “Need I remind you that slavery has been outlawed in all realms and isles for two hundred years? Punishable by death?”
“Svoz is not a slave. Not…quite.”
“Not quite?”
“I can say nothing more to assure you.” Jarabax offered a wide smile. “Once you meet him, you’ll understand.”
“What kind of name is Svoz?” Ilior asked. “From Isle Juskara…?”
“Eh…not quite.” Jarabax bent at the waist and peered into the cavern. He cupped his bejeweled hands over his mouth. “Svoz? Come on out, my good fellow. Your new master has arrived.”
“Master?” Selena said, but then Svoz began to emerge from the hole in the cliff.
She felt him first; a low heat preceding him that she sensed—as she did the summer sun or a hearth fire—as a tingle against her own pervasive cold. Chains clanked and scraped. Selena sucked in a breath while Ilior hissed a curse in his own tongue and moved to stand before her.
Svoz came out blinking black-upon-black eyes; eyes as black as his pointed teeth and the row of horns over his hairless head; as black as the claws on his hands and feet. His red skin glistened as if he had just bathed his massive muscled body in blood. He wore a loincloth of the matted fur of some unknown creature and nothing else. A chain tethered to his ankle trailed back into the cave. He cleared the low ceiling of the cavern, yawned and stretched two wings that were red-veined and creaking. His black eyes found Selena and he smiled with a mouth full of onyx teeth.
“Ah. The godly little bitch. I’ve been expecting you.” He bowed his massive, horned head and laughed; a sound so low it seemed to
originate from the ground.
“What is it?” Selena breathed.
“Sirra’k kah,” Ilior hissed, and drew his broadsword. “Demon…”
Selena turned to Jarabax, incredulous. “Skye left me this?”
“She did.” Jarabax was giddy. “Are you not pleased? Sirraks—shapeshifters in the common parlance—make powerful weapons. A true rarity. With Svoz at your side, none will dare double-cross you.”
“Shapeshifter?” Selena said.
“The pirate whoreson speaks true,” Svoz said. “I’m bound to serve you with the sole purpose of visiting unknowable pain on any putrid flesh sack who threatens you.” He cocked his huge head. “May I offer a small sample of the outrageous violence I shall wreak on your behalf? How about you, brother?” he asked Ilior. “I’d like a shade from that abominable sun. Might I hack off your remaining wing? It should do nicely and it’s obvious you no longer need it.”
Ilior swore in his own tongue that sounded like rocks scraping together. “Send it away. It’s dangerous. A cursed being.” He hefted his sword. “It should be put down…”
Svoz hissed and spread his wings so that he seemed to tower over Ilior, though they were of a height.
Selena stepped between them. “Stop, both of you. Why?” she asked Jarabax. “Why would Skye give me such a creature and consider it a gift?”
“I presume she felt you might need Svoz’s services in the trials to come.” Jarabax smiled his lazy, knowing smile. “Whatever those may be.”
Selena shook her head. “None of this makes sense. Skye consorting with pirates. And him…” She gestured at Svoz.
“War makes interesting bedfellows,” Jarabax mused. “It can make business partners out of Paladins and pirates alike. And the currency best exchanged in trying times such as war isn’t gold—though we pirates like that too.” His smile revealed more gold teeth than white. “Secrets. Information. Did you presume Skye achieved her victories during the war without relying on less than luminous allies?”
“Every pirate collective stayed out of the war…” Selena said, and guessed that was untrue before Jarabax laughed uproariously.
“Aye, we did not fight, that’s true enough,” he said when he caught his breath. “But ships from all over the Western Watch made port with us on their way to or from the fighting. We learned much that wasn’t meant for our ears, and Skye made great use of our treasure trove of secrets, I assure you.”
The pirate sighed, looking at Svoz with undisguised envy. Selena could imagine the reprehensible acts the sirrak would perpetrate at Jarabax’s command.
“And it shames me to admit,” he continued, “that despite her plundering my connections and I for whatever advantages she could find, when Skye left our humble isle ten years ago, I owed her a favor. A favor. Our second most valued coin.” Jarabax sighed again. “I hate that.”
“He speaks too much,” Svoz said to Selena. “Shall I rip his throat out?”
Jarabax recoiled and said quickly, “Skye called for that favor two years ago. She gave me Svoz to watch over—and feed— until such time as you came to claim him. Somehow she knew you would.” His smile was back. “And here you are.”
Selena shook her head. “How did Skye come to possess a sirrak?”
Jarabax shrugged. “Ask him.”
Svoz shook his head. “Alas, I am forbidden to speak of previous indentures…no matter how interesting they were.”
Selena felt Ilior’s hand on her arm. “May I speak with you a moment?” He drew her out of earshot; the crashing waves echoing in the cavern drowned his words.
“This is a bad idea. That…thing…is dangerous. An abomination. Sirrak’ah. Blood dragons, they are called among my people. They hatched from blacked eggs that fall from the Void.” He gripped her arm tighter. “They care for nothing but murder. Violent murder. They thirst for it. A creature like that is not fit to walk beside you.”
Selena bit her lip. “I understand. I feel…unclean for taking him—”
Ilior’s eyes widened. “You are considering it? Do not! I tell you, it is an obscene creature.”
“Yes, but powerful,” Selena said. “I’ve heard the stories. Sirraks are ferocious in battle and their ability to change appearances might prove valuable. Ilior, I will need all the help I can get to fight these Bazira.”
“I will help you,” Ilior said. “I will stand with you, always.”
Selena smiled. “I know you will, my friend. But I don’t know how strong these Bazira I face are going to be. Killing them…It will close my wound. That is everything. I can’t turn aside an advantage and I certainly can’t leave a sirrak to serve the pirates.”
Ilior appeared to be biting back words. “If you think it wise.”
“I don’t. Just as I don’t wish to take two lives in cold blood. But…I have to do my best.”
The Vai’Ensai nodded and they rejoined the others.
“Do you know what keeps them bound to a human?” Selena asked as they walked.
“Sirrak’ah,” Ilior muttered. “We call them blood dragons for a reason.”
Jarabax’s insouciant demeanor was fast eroding. Svoz stomped around the cavern as far as his chain would allow. The sirrak fanned his wings and made idle, yet intricately detailed and gruesome threats to the pirates. The violence in his words was a sharp contrast to the refined, imperious tone of his voice. The pirates had their cutlasses drawn and leveled.
“Do hurry,” the pirate told Selena. “Take control of your pet, or I will.”
Svoz ceased his pacing and approached Selena. Behind her, Ilior growled deep in his throat.
Selena’s mouth felt dry. “What do we do?”
Svoz bared black teeth that gleamed in shafts of sunlight that spilled through cracks in the cavern overhang. “I’ve been trapped here so long. I’m thirsty….so very thirsty.”
Ilior made a strangled sound while Jarabax’s eyes widened.
“I’ve never seen this,” the pirate breathed. He withdrew an ornate dagger from the sash at his waist and handed it to Selena. “Sirraks use blood magic. Magic from another plane.” He looked at her, his eyes wide. “Give him your blood and he is yours.”
Selena took the dagger as Svoz knelt before her. His mouth was hanging open and yellowed saliva dripped from between his black teeth. Selena swallowed hard and laid the dagger against her palm.
“No,” Ilior whispered behind her. “Don’t do this.”
Selena hesitated. Her wound breathed its cold draft in her chest, making her shiver. Skye Heard the god and sent me on the quest that will close my wound. And now Skye has gifted me with this…creature for a reason. Faith.
She drew the dagger across her skin.
The pain was swift and bright but Svoz’s reaction consumed her attention. His imperious demeanor disappeared, and he writhed and moaned in delight, contorting his form to bend under her outstretched hand. A forked tongue, long and obscene, protruded from his mouth to catch Selena’s dripping blood. He lapped at it eagerly, wantonly, and she squeezed her eyes shut, disgusted. When that tongue wormed its way over her palm, she snatched her hand away.
“Enough!” she cried, breathing hard. “Is it? Is that enough?”
“To satiate me?” Svoz licked his lips. “Never. Human blood….” He sighed gustily. “There is nothing sweeter. But to bind us? Aye.” He got to his feet and bowed low, composure returned. “Master.”
Selena’s stomach roiled. She poured water from her ampulla, found the moon in the sky, and murmured the sacred word to close the gash on her palm.
“You can unchain him now,” she told Jarabax.
“No need, Master,” Svoz said. “Now that I am yours…” He vanished in a plume of acrid, greasy smoke. The empty chain fell to the soil. Another plume of smoke erupted behind her, and Svoz stepped out of it.
Jarabax sighed. “Such a valuable tool…”
Svoz grinned wickedly. “You have no idea.”
The small party returned to the skiff,
the hulking sirrak bringing up the rear. Ilior stayed close to Selena, trudging through the shore in stony silence.
“Skye’s command was that he remain in this cove and out of sight,” Jarabax explained as they walked. “I don’t need to tell you that had other pirate collectives learned of his presence, I’d have had a fight on my hands to possess him. But Skye is no fool. She ordered him to remain hidden and he was bound to obey. The chains were my request. For the benefit of my men who were entrusted with feeding him. The chains made them feel better about the whole situation, and I think you can understand why. And that reminds me: Svoz’s feedings…” The pirate chuckled as they arrived at his skiff. “A thing to behold, I assure you, but no longer my duty. I will take you back to solid ground and then we will part ways until such time as I call upon you for the favor owed.”
“What favor?” Selena demanded. “As far as I’m concerned, our association is over.”
“As far as I’m concerned, I’ve housed and fed your pet sirrak for two years,” Jarabax said. “You are in my debt.”
“Shall I tear his arms off, Master?” Svoz asked placidly. “He can’t ask you for a handout out if he doesn’t have any.”
Jarabax coughed. “Business can wait. Let’s depart this grotto. There is no rush, of course.”
Jarabax’s skiff was too small for Svoz to join them and Selena watched, her eyes wide, as the sirrak altered his form. His red skin lightened to a skin tone, and his wings seemed to fold in on themselves and then disappear. A linen shirt, breeches, and boots were born of the skin on his chest and legs, and the black of his horns became hair. In moments, the hulking sirrak was gone and in its place was a sailor, as human as any, but for his eyes. Svoz’s eyes were a strange, silvery hue that gave him the appearance that he had no iris. Only black pupil.