by Mel Odom
Finaren filled the glass in front of him and put the bottle away unstoppered. "Me, I'm going to get royally pissed back at Butterfly, lad." He drained off half the contents of the glass, then had a coughing fit that ended with, "I've damn sure earned it."
Jherek said nothing, already not liking the turn the conversation was taking.
"Valkur's brass buttons, lad, would that you were not who you are." Finaren met his level gaze, and Jherek saw the pain in the older man's eyes.
"But I am," Jherek whispered, barely able to get the words out.
"It's one thing for me to tell my crew a white lie for a good reason," Finaren said.
"I never asked that," Jherek said.
"I know that, lad. Hell, I'm not blaming you for me putting me own head in a noose on that one. You came to me and told me about that tattoo, same as you told Shipwright Makim who you were, and it was my choice not to tell the crew about it."
Jherek remembered that decision. Even though Finaren had made the choice, he'd hated living that lie around men who on occasion trusted him with their lives.
"They wouldn't have stood for it," Finaren said. "Me, I don't know how I'd agreed to let you ship with me."
Jherek opened his mouth to speak, not sure what he was going to say.
"You just shush, lad," the captain cautioned. "I'm here to make my peace, and I'll not have you taking blame on yourself where there's none. I could have done it another way, but I knew there'd be some of them men wouldn't stand for having you aboard. Selune grant me some good fortune here that they never find out who you truly are."
Shards of hot tears stung the backs of Jherek's eyes but he wouldn't let them fall. He grew angry at himself, knowing how the conversation was going to end, and frustrated with himself that he could have believed even for a moment that it was going to go any other way.
There was no way to escape his heritage. The flaming skull tattoo marking him as one of Falkane's pirate crew had been magically administered, put on by Falkane himself. Falkane hand picked his crew, taking the hardest men a reaver's life could turn out, and he tied them to him for the rest of their lives by the tattoo. Nothing could erase that tattoo once it had been inscribed. Jherek had tried everything. Even before Madame litaar had attempted to remove it with her magic, he'd even tried to cut it from his flesh, leaving the scars that marked it.
"Lad, one of the most unfair things in life is the fact that a man can't pick the man who fathered him." Finaren's voice took on an unaccustomed thickness. "That day you came to me, why that's as clear in my mind as if it were yesterday. You were only a lad. Hell, you still are, but then you didn't have all the muscle and height you've picked up these past few years. You were just a spindly boy, not even shaving."
Jherek remembered, too. He'd thought Madame litaar was punishing him for wanting to go to sea and had set his interview up with the crustiest captain that operated out of Velen to discourage him. Finaren's demeanor had been hard to take.
"I thought I'd have you out away from the city a half day's journey and you'd be crying for your ma," Finaren went on. Even though he knew Madame litaar wasn't Jherek's natural mother, he'd always referred to her that way, 'Taut I saw that look in your eyes when you talked about the sea, and I knew it came from the fire in your belly a man always has when he's fallen in love with the briny blue."
"There's no other place I'd rather be," Jherek said.
"I know, lad, and a man with that kind of passion, he's going to find the way of it. That's why, even after you told me who you are, and showed me the tattoo when I doubted, that I let you sail old Butterfly. I turned down growed-up men to put you on her deck."
Jherek knew it was true. Malorrie maintained contacts among the docks and had relayed the stories to him.
"Damn your father's eyes, lad," Finaren said, "I can't be taking you with me any more. We've had a good run of luck these past few years. I tell you now, I've never had a finer man crewing aboard Butterfly. Umberlee take me now if I'm lying."
"No one said anything to me these last couple of days," Jherek protested, knowing that was just as damning as anything. He just wasn't ready to let go.
"I know, lad, but plenty's been said to me since then. Your birthright has almost split my crew. Some are for you and some are against you. Almost had guts spilling out on ship's decks tonight when the matter was brought up, and I can't have that. I've got to have a crew like the fingers on a hand, always together and always working to stay that way. Otherwise I'm out of business and someone else'll be owning Butterfly. That's a thought that makes the blood run cold." Finaren shook his head sorrowfully and finished his glass. "What if they learned the real truth of the matter?"
"I don't know," Jherek whispered. Even then, it hurt to get the words out.
"You aren't just a boy who escaped impressment," Finaren stated. "You're Bloody Falkane the Wolf's son!" He paused and made a brief luck sign in Selune's name. "There are those who'd kill you hoping to get back at that man."
Jherek leaned back in his chair, defeated. He looked at the table, suddenly realizing what it meant: one man giving and one man taking. Only there were no deals he could make and he knew it.
"You hate me, don't you, lad?" Finaren asked gruffly.
"No," Jherek answered honestly.
Finaren looked away for a time, then gradually met his eyes again. "I hope you mean that, lad. It'd break me heart if you did."
Jherek tried to get around the hurt and loss that filled him. During the last few years, other captains had offered him employment after learning how good he was aboard ship and how skilled he was with marine craft as well as weapons. He'd turned them all down, even the offers that came with more wages attached. For a moment he resented the fact that he hadn't accepted them, hadn't left Finaren and gone his own way, but he knew if another captain had discovered the truth about his birth, he'd have been hung from a yardarm if he hadn't had his throat slit first.
"Maybe I can get a ship somewhere else," he said.
Finaren nodded. "Aye, there's a thought, but try somewhere far from the Sword Coast where the flaming skull tattoo won't be as heatedly remembered."
"Could you give me a letter of recommendation?"
"Aye, that I could, lad, but are you sure you want to ask me for one? Someone asks around down here, they're going to find out about this. By morning, this whole town will know and tongues will still be wagging."
Jherek knew he was right.
"Maybe the Sea of Fallen Stars," Finaren suggested. "You find a captain, tell him your da was a fisherman, that you learned the trade from him. They see what you can do, you'll move up smart enough."
Shaking his head, Jherek said, "I can't lie. I didn't lie to you, and I'm not going to lie to someone else. There'll be another captain out there willing to take a chance on me."
Finaren hesitated for a moment, then shook his head sorrowfully. "I hope you're right, lad, but you're going to be looking for one few and far between. You're no stripling boy now. You're almost a man full-grown. Most men will look on you as more of a threat. Valkur's brass buttons, Jherek, how many of them sahuagin did you kill in that battle? How many pirates and other creatures before that?"
"I couldn't tell you."
"Look for a way to get rid of that tattoo," the captain advised. "That'd be the first thing to work on."
"Madame litaar couldn't get rid of it."
"Meaning no disrespect whatsoever, lad, but your ma don't know everything that's under the sun. Mayhap you'll find a mage in one of them countries around the Inner Sea who'll know just what to do."
Jherek nodded, not knowing what he was going to do. The only true home he'd ever known was here in Velen. Leaving it while on a ship, knowing he was going to return, was one thing. Moving was an entirely different matter.
"I do know one thing, though, lad," Finaren stated. "Traveling around and hiring mages, that's going to cost some money."
Jherek nodded. That was another problem that he was going
to have to think on.
"There," Finaren said with a small smile, "I can help." He took a leather bag from under his blouse and pushed it across the table.
Jherek hefted it, surprised at how heavy it was.
"Go on," Finaren said, "take a look."
Untying the strings, Jherek peered in surprised to see a collection of gold pieces and gems. He looked up at the captain. "What's this? If this is charity-"
Finaren held up an authoritative hand and interrupted, "Hold your water, lad. Charitable I may be, foolish I am not. What you've got there you've rightly earned. When I hire a man onto my ship, I set aside a bit of the wages I pay him that he don't know about. Bonuses, you might call them, for every voyage we take together. I know men living on ships don't always put back for them rainy days. So when I got a man laid up by illness or injury, or I got a man don't come back to his family, I can see to it he don't go hungry or homeless. Or unburied if it comes to that. That there's the coin I've been putting aside for you, and I managed to scrape together a little over two thousand gold pieces worth of gems to pay for them healing potions you got from the Amnians. Unless you'd rather have the draughts and try to sell them yourself."
"No. I know you've been generous." Jherek also recalled that the ship didn't have any healing potions aboard, and for every one he tried to sell, he'd be forced to think about Yeill again. He didn't want that either.
"You might be able to double your money on those potions," Finaren pointed out.
"One of the things you always taught me was to take the money up front if I wasn't sure where I'd be the next day."
"Good lad," the old captain congratulated. "I kept the crew aboard Butterfly till just before I came to meet you here, but they'll be telling tales up and down the docks tonight. You might warn your ma that some angry people could show up at her house."
For the first time, the cold realization that he might not have a choice about staying in Velen struck Jherek. The town had been Madame litaar's home for dozens of years. She'd buried a husband there, and other family as well. Malorrie had been buried there himself. Neither of them might be willing to move.
Finaren read the look on his face. "You hadn't thought about that, had you, lad? About the fact that once this is out in this town, you might be forced to move?"
"No," Jherek replied honestly. He looked out the dirty window and tried to imagine living anywhere else. He couldn't. The only life he'd known before Velen was his father's ship.
"Even if someone here don't try to kill you," Finaren warned, "didn't you say Falkane might come looking if he knew where you were?"
The possibility seemed small now, but Jherek remembered how much it had frightened him when he was younger. "I don't know."
"Get out of town, lad," Finaren said. "That's my advice. For what it's worth."
"I'll think about it." The stubborn streak that had helped Jherek survive the hardships he'd experienced up to now surfaced.
Finaren started to argue. Jherek could tell by the way the captain's lips jerked and his eyes narrow. Then the older man shrugged. "As you think, lad." He stoppered his bottle. "As for me, I've got to go so you can be going."
Jherek nodded, not wanting the man to walk away from him, but knowing there was no way to hold him.
"You put that purse away and keep it safe," Finaren ordered as he rose from his chair.
"Thank you."
"Know something else, Jherek: if there's ever a time I can be of help to you-in any way-you don't hesitate to come to me. Right now, I've done all I can."
"I know."
"Come here, lad, that I can say a proper good-bye."
Jherek stood, hugging the old man back as fiercely as Finaren hugged him. He didn't know if it was Finaren's tight hold or his throat swelling with emotion that shut off his wind.
Finaren cuffed him on the back of the head and stepped back. Tears gleamed in the old man's eyes and ran down unashamedly into the rough crags of his weathered face. "I want you to know something else, lad," he said in a thick, hoarse voice. "If me wee boy that Umber-lee had taken from me so long ago had turned out to be anything like the kind of man you are, there wouldn't have been a prouder da in all of Faerun."
"Thank you," Jherek said with difficulty. His heart felt like lead in his chest, stillborn and heavy. He hadn't even known Finaren had lost a son or even been married. He watched helplessly as the captain grabbed his bottle from the table and turned around. He walked away, his legs still bent from all the days at sea.
Jherek tucked the purse inside his shirt and left a couple silvers on the table for the serving girl. He wiped his face and walked outside. The smell of the sea hit him more strongly when he walked outside. Full dark had descended on Velen while he'd been waiting in the tavern. Several ships occupied the small port, their rigging beating rhythmically against the masts in the strong breeze.
His steps turned automatically toward the alleys he'd often traveled to the docks from Madame litaar's house. When he'd worked for Shipwright Makim, he'd spent most of his evenings watching the ships put out to sea. When he'd gone to Madame litaar's to live after being hired to repair her roof, he'd often stolen away when she wasn't looking to spend time at the docks. When he'd put together enough money to buy a small skiff, he'd sailed it every evening and every free day he had.
He paused on a familiar promontory on a hillock in back of Hient's Glass Shop. The breeze cut across from the east, coming in over the Drake Gate that lead overland out of the city. He thought about traveling through the forest, knowing he might not be safe on any ship. He disliked the idea immediately. The sea was his life. It had birthed him and held an attraction he couldn't shake.
A woman's scream cut through the night from the east. He turned at once, tracking the scream as the echoes died around him. With all the noise coming from the docks, he doubted anyone else heard. He moved through the alleys, unable to ignore the plea for help, dreading the place he was sure it was taking him to.
VI
3 °Ches, the Year of the Gauntlet
Laaqueel felt grateful as the salty sea closed over her when she dived into the ocean through the hole in bottom of Drifting Eel. She didn't even mind the terrific cold. She took a deep draught in through her mouth and blew the excess out through her gills, soaking them. Sahuagin warriors filled the water around her.
She swam toward Smuggler's Bane Tower quickly, following the retreating line of chain nets. The nets left streamers of bubbles in the water that helped mask her approach. She took what cover she could, knowing the glamour Iakhovas had over the ship wouldn't extend much past the hull of the pentekonter.
The next few minutes would tell the success of the invasion or the death of thousands of sahuagin. The malenti thought it would be worth it if Iakhovas's own death could be guaranteed. The ebony quill near her heart quivered, as if the sorcerer was letting her know he could sense her traitorous intentions. She regretted the thought immediately. Sekolah had never indicated that Iakhovas's quest in any way went against the desires of the Great Shark.
When she reached the sandy beach on the inside of the great harbor, she unfurled one of the hook-filled nets from her side and shook it out. She raced up onto the beach without breaking stride. The harsh clanking of the steel nets filled the air.
Five men wearing the uniform of the Waterdhavian Guard lounged at an open area talking and filling pipes. A small lantern hung from a pole overhead, providing them a small light to congregate by. One of them spotted the malenti as she ran up onto the beach. He started to yell a warning to his companions.
Still in motion, Laaqueel moved smoothly, drawing her trident back and letting fly. She was as skilled with the weapon above water as she was below. Her weapons masters had seen to that.
A heartbeat after leaving her hand, the trident slammed into the guard's chest and drove him backward against the stone wall.
Trained and efficient, the guard members went into action at once. Having both hands free, Laaqueel
whirled her net over her head and threw it. The net splayed out, the lantern light reflecting from the dozens of sharp barbs tied in the mesh. It hit the man in front, then the weighted ends swung around the man nearest him, trapping them together. Both men went down screaming as the other's struggles only set the hooks more deeply.
A sahuagin spear took a fourth man high in the chest, entering from the side and ripping through his lungs. He didn't have enough breath left to scream in pain.
The fifth man made it up the short flight of steps carved into the stone at the base of the Smuggler's Bane Tower. A quarrel fletched his back as he dashed through the doorway at the top of the steps. His yells for help were audible even above the clanking retreat of the nets.
The door slammed shut as Laaqueel freed her short sword and started up the stone steps. She turned to Bounndaar, raising her voice so she could be clearly heard. "Get crossbowmen along the shoreline. Those men in the tower are going to know about us in a moment."
"At once, most favored one." Bounndaar turned and yelled orders to his men.
Laaqueel faced the door, standing on the small porch area before it. The windlass controls to raise and lower the nets occupied the lower section of the tower. Two narrow, winding staircases led to the floors above. Saying a quick prayer and calling on Sekolah to allow her power to be strong, she threw her open hand against the iron-bound wooden door blocking entrance to the tower.
She felt the magical wards protecting the door resist her spell, then felt them collapse on themselves. Immediately, the door warped, sprung out of its hinges by her magic. She said another prayer when she took up a small hammer from her harness, using up another of her spells. Concentrating hard, not as familiar with this spell because she seldom used it, ignoring the bustle of activity on the other side of the door, she imagined the glowing force around the hammer, making herself see it in her mind.