The Wrath of a Shipless Pirate (The Godlanders War)

by Aaron Pogue

  “You don’t have to point out my mistake. Oh, now I know it well. I know it well. And that’s why I decided to get out of the pirating business altogether. That’s why I was here when you came looking.”

  “Here in Khera?”

  “Aye, aye! Y’see, I found myself in possession of one of these books.”

  “I thought you said you hadn’t looted one.”

  “Oh, not from the cavern, no. I got mine later.”

  “From the strongbox?”

  “Well, we couldn’t take the strongbox with us when we sank the ships. That was where we stored the dwarven powder.”

  “You sank the ships? You sank them on purpose?”

  “Not me. I couldn’t have made up a plan like that. It was Taker. When the justicar had found us, Taker trapped him in the ship’s hold and told the captain we would have to sink the ship, or we would all be answering to Ephitel.”

  “You sank the Diavahl to kill a justicar.”

  “Ooh.” Charlie gave a little whistle. “Gods grant we killed him. He’s a justicar. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’s still alive, still trapped inside our brig beneath the sea off Jebbra Point.”

  Corin closed his eyes again and groaned. “You raise more questions than you answer, Charlie Claire.”

  “Beg pardon, Captain.”

  “No. No pardon. Just save the tales for now and tell me why you stole a book.”

  “To get away. It’s like I said. Ethan Blake was a miserable captain, and his first mate was a madman. When we moved the booty off the ship, I found a chance to slip away. I grabbed a book and slipped away in the confusion.”

  “That worked?”

  “Oh, when the powder blew, there was a good confusion. They likely think I’m dead. I’d be surprised if all of them survived. It was not a careful blast.”

  Corin had his doubts that someone like Blake would miss such a detail, but he kept that to himself. He rubbed his brow, still trying to understand how all the pieces fit together. “Again. You stole the book and brought it here to Khera …”

  “Not straight to Khera. I stopped in Aljira, where I found Sleepy Jim.”

  Corin perked up. “Is he here? Did you bring him with you?”

  “Nah. Jim gave up the sea. Found a pretty brown girl and an olive press and made himself a proper man.”

  Corin grinned despite himself. “Good for Sleepy Jim.”

  Charlie spat. “What kind of life is there on land?”

  “The kind you’re looking for, unless I lost track of your story.”

  “True enough. It’s true enough. I found Sleepy Jim and told him what I had, what I wanted, and he found me a buyer.”

  “Here in Jepta?”

  “No. Ithale. Some scholar who was interested in ancient things. I don’t know how Jim knew him.”

  “Jim knows everyone. It’s one of the advantages of becoming an old pirate.”

  “Well. There you go. He sent a messenger to Nicia and got one back, and we arranged a meet. The scholar didn’t trust a trip to Aljira, but he was willing to come to Khera.”

  “It’s a shorter trip.”

  “And the caliph’s guards do not like pirates much.”

  Corin chuckled. “No. Less and less, it seems.”

  “Well. That’s it. That’s my whole tale.”

  Corin sat up straight and tossed a glare at his old deckhand. “What? That can’t be all. What became of Iryana? And Ethan Blake?”

  “Storms take ’em, but I don’t know. That’s why I ran away.”

  “And you’ve heard nothing?”

  “I’ve done everything to keep right out of sight. I don’t know a thing.”

  “Then…” Corin sighed. “You were right, Charlie Claire. You’re useless to me. But tell me the rest.”

  “The rest?”

  “What became of your transaction?”

  “You’re not listening!” Charlie wailed, gesturing wildly toward the open window. “It was today. That’s who I was waiting for down at the docks. He was coming in this afternoon, but you abducted me!”

  “Then I begin to understand your earlier frustration.”

  Charlie grumbled under his breath a moment, then raised his voice in something close to despair. “What am I to do, Captain? I had one shot—”

  “You do still have the book?”

  “Oh, of course I do, but how often will you find a man who’d pay two thousand livres for a book?”

  “Show me. Where is it stashed?”

  Corin had expected Charlie Claire to name a place, but instead the pirate blushed a bit and turned away. He rummaged in his breeches a moment, muttering, then dragged out a battered volume. Corin accepted the manuscript only reluctantly, but he could not have refused. He had to see it. He had to know.

  But there was nothing special here. Its cover was of ordinary leather, supple, and its pages silk-soft paper. Nothing like the artifact that Corin carried. The pirate captain opened to an interior page and read a line or two, but it was dry and dull. Corin had rescued from the fire the final memory of Oberon himself, scratched out on the flesh of the city’s dying biographer, and in its epilogue it told of Corin’s future.

  But this? This was the biography of some meticulous hotelier who once had lived in Jezeeli. It would be worth a fortune at the University, but it was no treasure trove for Corin. Still, he riffled the pages and listened to their gentle whisper.

  A fortune indeed. And as it happened, Corin was in need of some funds. Perhaps Charlie Claire would be some use to him after all. Corin kept that thought to himself, but he offered Charlie Claire a genuine grin. “A book like this will find a buyer on its own. Let’s get back down to the docks.”

  They didn’t travel by the dream this time. Powerful as Oberon’s magic had proven, Corin had no desire to lose any more time. Instead, they walked the city’s empty streets. Once or twice Charlie spoke up to tell him of some event that had transpired in the hundred days he’d lost, but mostly they were quiet. Silence lay across the city in the early hours, and it seemed wrong somehow to break it.

  But the docks were far less reverent. Sailors woke and slept according to the hours of the tides, not sun or moon, so even now the piers were bustling as ships were loaded and bleary-eyed passengers climbed unsteadily up narrow gangplanks. Charlie’s gaze kept drifting toward them, searching for the man he’d hoped to meet.

  Corin never even looked in that direction. Instead, he caught Charlie’s sleeve and dragged him hard toward the wine shop where the two had planned to meet. “Come on! Forget the ships. The man you’re looking for is over here.”

  Charlie sighed, defeated. “I’m telling you, he won’t be there. Chances are, he left at sunset. We’re near enough ten hours late. What kind of posh would wait that long?”

  Corin arched an eyebrow. “The same kind who’d travel all the way from Nicia to meet with you. The same who’d pay two thousand livres for a book.” Corin hesitated, weighing the book in his hand. “Four thousand. I would swear to it.”

  Charlie shook his head. “It was Sleepy Jim negotiated two. You can’t do better than Jim.”

  “I can. I have. Why do you think they made me captain?”

  Charlie stared at him a moment. Then he ducked his head, looking almost bashful. “Captain…would you…I mean, if you would be kind enough…will you do the deal for me? Four thousand livres’d get a man much further than two.”

  Corin couldn’t hide his grin. He’d been thinking the same thing and wondering how to get Charlie to trust him. “I’ll see what I can do. Just peek inside and find the man and point him out to me.”

  “I still find it hard to—”

  “He’s there. Have faith. Just take a peek.”

  Charlie shrugged aside his doubts and complied with Corin’s orders. He crept close to the tavern’s open door and peeked around the corner. His search had barely started when he gave a startled gasp and turned back to Corin. “How did you…how could you have known?”

&nbs
p; “He’s there?”

  “He’s just about asleep in his own cups, but he is there.”

  “Which table?” Corin straightened his tunic and adjusted the sword belt on his hip. “What’s he wearing? What age?”

  “Fourth table down the far wall. He’s dressed in robes like these dirty locals wear, but you can tell him by his golden rings and pale skin. And er…” Charlie’s lips moved silently as he reviewed all the questions; then he nodded once. “Oh! Twenty summers. Maybe twenty-one.”

  “Twenty? He’s a boy!”

  Charlie laughed. “And you’re a doddering old man?”

  Corin shrugged. He was not yet twenty himself. “I am a pirate. That is a young man’s trade. But scholars, academics…”

  “Jim said he was no ordinary buyer, but he is rich and anxious to be…less so.”

  Corin shared a grin with Charlie Claire. “You have a way of making things clear. You’re right. Now step aside, and let us see if I can gain a double share.”

  The pirate captain adjusted his shirt, accepted the book from Charlie, and strode through the tavern door with all the pomp and confidence of an Ithalian lord.

  He barely made three paces before he spotted the buyer at his table. Then Corin stumbled in his shock. He caught himself, just short of falling, with a hand on another patron’s table. The rattle and clatter of dishes there raised the dozing buyer, the youthful scholar, and Corin almost slipped away through dream. He hesitated, desperate not to lose any more time, and that moment was long enough.

  The buyer blinked the sleep from his eyes, searching for the source of the disturbance. When he saw Corin, recognition flared into a blazing fury.

  The scholar lunged to his feet and stabbed an accusing finger toward Corin. Then he shouted with a sonorous voice that overwhelmed the tavern’s chatter, “Guards! Guards! Someone call the caliph’s guards! This man’s a pirate and a villain and a thief! Someone capture him!”

  The scholar scrabbled at his belt for a modest work knife, but Corin felt far more concerned about the caliph’s guards. The pirate captain dashed forward, caught the scholar’s extended hand in his, and growled a curse even as he closed his eyes. He stepped through dream and brought the buyer with him, back to that same rented room.

  How much had that cost him? Hours or weeks? Foolish! He should have sent Charlie to make the sale and pilfered a share of the money after the deal was done. But here he was, and almost too late he remembered the work knife on the scholar’s belt. Corin struck the scholar one sharp backhand to keep him disoriented, then chopped down hard to knock the knife from his grip. As long as he was at close quarters, he seized the chance to snatch the heavy purse at Tesyn’s belt. Corin slapped him openhanded to keep him distracted, tucked the purse inside his own cloak, and withdrew two paces in a bound.

  Then he caught his breath and heaved a weary sigh. “What have you done, Tesyn?”

  “What have I done?” The scholar raised his voice to shout through the thin walls. “Scoundrel! Thief! Release me!”

  Corin didn’t strike him again. He didn’t touch the sword on his hip. He merely raised one eyebrow, and the young nobleman shut up tight as a Medgerrad clam. Corin took a slow step back and sighed. “So. It would appear that you remember me.”

  “Remember you? You sank my father’s fastest merchant ship! You held me captive seven weeks and cost my family an enormous ransom!”

  Corin shrugged. “But that was years ago.”

  “That isn’t all! You ransomed me my books at twice the price you asked for me.”

  Corin couldn’t quite hide his grin. “My crew would not believe it.”

  “It isn’t funny! You cost me my destiny.”

  “I’d hardly think—”

  “No! No, you never would. You’re just a stinking pirate. You’re just a dirty brute. I doubt you even read, so how could you guess what secrets those books held?”

  Corin bit his lip, considering his response. He knew those secrets quite well. It had been young Tesyn’s map that led Corin and his crew to the buried city of Jezeeli—the same tomb of a forgotten god where his men had found the book he now hoped to sell.

  But how much should he share? By the weight of Tesyn’s purse—assuming the thing held good Ithalian gold—Corin already had enough in coin to fund his plans for revenge. But now that he knew whom he was dealing with, Corin wanted something more. The scholar could give him information.

  So the pirate let the insults pass unanswered and instead asked a question of his own. “What was it, then? What was this destiny I stole?”

  “I am not here to lecture history with my very nemesis! Now step aside or draw your sword, because I have no reason left to tarry here.”

  Corin raised the eyebrow again. It didn’t work this time. The scholar shook his head. “If your accomplice lured me here in hope of another great ransom, resign yourself to disappointment now. My father has disowned me.”

  “And yet you promised quite a fortune for a book…”

  “My own funds. And that was everything I owned, but I won’t share a sou of it with you. I’d rather go home empty-handed.”

  Corin considered all the threats that he might use, but in the end he chose another path. He produced the ancient manuscript and tossed it almost casually to the scholar.

  Tesyn nearly dropped it. Even after he’d secured the book, he didn’t understand. “What’s this? Your ridiculous demands? You had them bound?”

  “It is the promised book. The one you came here for.”

  “Impossible! That manuscript should be at least six hundred years in age.”

  “Nearly twice that.”

  The scholar shook his head. “No, no. I’ve seen the Khera Codex too, but I suspect its timeline—”

  “You are wrong,” Corin said, unyielding. “Jezeeli fell twelve hundred years ago, and in your hands you hold a perfect artifact, untouched by time.”

  The scholar’s eyes strained wide. He shrank away from the book in his own hands, gripping it delicately with just thumb and forefinger. He shook his head slowly back and forth. “It can’t…It’s not…How could…” Something clicked behind his eyes, and he fixed Corin with a piercing glare. “How can you know these things?”

  Corin spread his hands. “As it happens, I can read.”

  “You…you read my notes?” The nobleman went pale and in a voice just above a whisper, asked, “You deciphered my map?”

  Relishing this reversal, Corin held his gaze. “I? A stinking pirate? A stupid brute?”

  The scholar frowned, considering, then he unleashed a booming laugh. “Hah! No. No, how could I have thought it?”

  “I did!” Corin shouted. “It took three years, but I uncovered all Jezeeli’s secrets.”

  “Three years? Your story crumbles with every word. My family has been searching for this place for decades.”

  “Your family searched libraries and ancient records. I searched in the world. That’s the key. It’s not enough to read the books; you have to risk your neck. You have to go adventuring to find anything worth having.”

  Tesyn snorted. “You sound like Lorenzo. But there, you see? The Vestossis are hunting for Jezeeli too, with ships and expeditions. And for all their vast resources, they can’t find it.”

  “But I did! You hold the proof within your hand.”

  The scholar glanced down at the book, then heaved a weary sigh. “Oh, more the fool am I. I wanted so much to believe, but I should have known.” He cast the book aside. Corin winced as it struck the stone floor, but the scholar had already forgotten it. “I say again: Draw your sword or step aside. I’m finished here.”

  Before Corin could find an answer, the door slammed open. Charlie Claire came bustling in, all out of breath. “Oh, praise the thunder! You’re here.”

  “I am,” Corin said. “And how many days have I lost this time?”

  “Days?” the scholar asked.

  “Not half an hour,” Charlie answered. “But you near lost me. The
caliph’s guards came faster this time.”

  “Half an hour,” Corin mused. “But over the same distance that cost us half a day. It makes no sense.”

  “What makes no sense?” the scholar asked, suddenly interested.

  Corin met his gaze. Perhaps this shipwreck could be salvaged yet. He showed his teeth. “The magic of Jezeeli. How did you think I brought you here? King Oberon himself taught me a trick or two.”

  “King Oberon,” the scholar breathed, almost reverent. “You are a monster and a madman, but I’d give much to hear your story.”

  “Aye, you will. Two thousand livres, as agreed, and you will tell me everything you know about this place. About its lore and its strange magics.”

  “As easily done as asked,” the scholar said. “And alas, as quickly done. What can I say you don’t already know? The legends tell of Jezeeli or Jesalich or—”

  “Gesoelig,” Corin told him. “But Jezeeli’s really close enough.”

  The scholar sighed. “You see? It cost me years of study to learn the things you already seem to know.”

  “But there are gaps in what I know. Who are the druids? What was their pact with Oberon? Why did they leave yesterworld to come here? What was the purpose of the strictures?”

  Both men stared at Corin, the scholar every bit as baffled as the deckhand. Corin’s stomach sank. “Forget the druids, then. Tell me about the elves who remained loyal after the city fell. Where did they flee? What became of them? Surely they didn’t all join Ephitel.”

  The scholar took a sharp step closer. “The elves? The ghosts who haunt the Isle of Mists? Are you telling me that they came from Jezeeli?”

  “That’s all you know?” Corin sagged, suddenly very tired. “You truly don’t know more than me.”

  The scholar bristled. “I know the grammar of a dozen living languages and half a dozen dead. I know the economy and culture and military disposition of every nation in Hurope. I know—”

  “Too much by half,” Corin interrupted. “And yet none of it of any use to me.” Corin felt a sickness in his stomach, exhaustion in his bones. “If you don’t want the book, take your money and go.”