City of Jade

by Dennis McKiernan

  Dawn arrived, and Fat Jim took the helm, and Long Tom the watch. First Bosun James appeared and assumed his duty, as did the day crew. Aravan came adeck as they piped the sails about to run southwesterly, and the Eroean tacked across the wind to take up the next leg.

  In the second candlemark after making the turn, the foremast lookout cried, “Somethin’ in the water, Cap’n, nigh dead ahead.”

  As Aravan and Long Tom strode to the base of the stem, the lookout added, “A bit starboard, sir. Oh, cor blimy, it looks to be a swimmer. . no, wait a moment, it be two children!”

  Aravan, with his keen Elven sight, peered ahead and slightly to the right to catch sight of the pair.

  “Cap’n, they’re sinking.”

  Of a sudden, from a bright flash of light, a falcon sprang, and hurtled ahead of the ship. O’er the water it sped to where the two had just gone down, and then in another flash of light, Aravan appeared and plummeted into the sea.

  “Lower a boat,” shouted Long Tom, racing to the starboard davits. “Now, by damn! Now!”

  As sailors sprang to obey, Long Tom grabbed three crewmen and shoved them into the boat, leaping in after. “Faster, by damn, faster!”

  Even as the dinghy dropped ten feet to the water, Long Tom yelled up, “Have Fat Jim and James heave to nearby.” Then he grabbed an oar and turned to the crewmen in the boat with him. “Row, you sea dogs, row!”

  Aravan arrowed down into the depths, stroking deeper into the water, all clarity clouded by the Argon outflow. There! Two forms, one clinging to the other, came into hazy view, and down Aravan plunged.

  He caught both of them, and kicking and with one arm thrusting, the other holding the pair, he turned upward.

  Moments later, he burst through the surface and took a great gulp of air, and then he looked at these children-Nay! Not children, but two buccen Waerlinga instead. And neither of them were breathing.

  Long Tom and the crewmen pulled alongside, and Aravan let the big man take the two aboard, and then he clambered over the wale after.

  With Tom working on one Warrow, and Aravan on the other, they turned them facedown to press water out from their lungs and then faceup and began breathing into them.

  One of the buccen, the one with dark hair, the one with Long Tom, began hacking immediately, while the fair-haired one with Aravan exhaled a long sigh and gave a slight cough and began breathing on his own; but he did not come to. The Elf measured the Waerling’s pulse beat, and gauged his breathing, and then, cradling the wee one’s head in his lap, Aravan sat back and relaxed.

  The other Warrow broke free of Long Tom and scrambled forward and cried, “Pip. . Pip. . Pipper. . are you. . all right?” the words ejected between wheezes and hacks.

  But Pipper said nought, slack and unconscious as he was.

  “He is safe, my small friend,” said Aravan, “as art thou.”

  At these words, the dark-haired Warrow began coughing again and fell back against Long Tom. Moments passed ere the buccan got control of his breathing, and then he closed his emeraldine eyes and slumped wearily, as if on the verge of a swoon.

  Even as Tom held the Warrow, the big man frowned and looked at Aravan and asked, “What’n th’ w’rld was these two doin’ way out here?” With a free hand he gestured ’round and said, “Oi mean, there be no land nowhere near, and there be no flotsam from no sunk ship ’round about, neither. How did they get here? ’N’ why ain’t that one awake?”

  Aravan looked down at the fair-haired Waerling. “I detected a faint trace of Nightlady on his breath.”

  “Noightliady? ’E wos drugged?”

  Aravan nodded. “It would seem so.”

  “ ’N’ j’st who moight’ve did that, eh?”

  The dark-haired Warrow, without opening his viridian eyes, murmured, “Ruck-loving, rat-eating thieves did it, that’s who. Ruck-loving. . rat-eating. .” His voice dwindled to a whisper, and he fell into exhausted sleep.

  And there was nought to wake him or the other buccan but the quiet plash and pull and plash and pull of the oars as the crewmen rowed back to the ship.

  40

  Recruits

  ELVENSHIP

  EARLY SUMMER, 6E9

  The men who had rowed the longboat fastened the davit hooks through the eyelets in the bow and stern, and other crewmen aboard the Eroean hoisted all up and to the rails. Quietly, Aravan and Long Tom handed the two buccen from the craft and into the waiting arms of Brekk and Dokan, who cradled the Waerans like wee bairns and took them below to the warband’s quarters and laid them in hammocks. The ship’s chirurgeon, a Gothan named Desault, stripped their wet breeks from them and wrapped the Warrows in blankets, then measured their pulses and thumbed back eyelids in the shining lantern light; he listened to their breathing and felt the cool of their pale flesh.

  “We’ll need to chafe them a bit to raise their warmth,” said Desault.

  As Aylis began rubbing the dark-haired one, and Aravan did the other, the chirurgeon pointed at the fair-haired buccan and added, “By the look of that one’s pupils, Captain, I think he was drugged.”

  Aravan nodded and said, “His breath carries a faint trace of Nightlady, Desault. What of the other? He was conscious for a while after Long Tom got him breathing again.”

  “Him? I think he’s just spent beyond his means to stay awake.”

  “Oi’d guess he moight o’ been keepin’ t’other one afloat,” said Tom. “Oi mean, th’ cap’n here says he wos still holdin’ on when they went under. So as Oi suspect, he wos keepin’ hisself ’n’ t’other abobbin’ f’r a good bit o’ toime, he wos, Oi guess, Oi would, Oi do.”

  “Well, if the other is indeed drugged, he must have been keeping them both up,” said Desault. “And I’d say he was long at it, for he is truly totally spent. I would think that all they each need is rest, one to get past the Nightlady, the other simply to recover from his ordeal. When they waken, they’ll need warm drink, and mayhap a bit of broth, as well as a small bite to eat.”

  “I’ll tell Cook,” said Dinny, one of the two new cabin boys taken aboard when Noddy was promoted, Ebert being the other new boy. “Tea and honey and biscuits and soup ’tis.” Dinny bolted up the ladder and out.

  “I’ll remain here awhile,” said the chirurgeon.

  “I’ll sit with you, Desault,” said Aylis.

  “I’ll stay as well,” said Lissa, “though what I might be able to do, I can’t say.”

  “Liss, you can let us know when they waken,” said Aravan.

  “Er, Cap’n,” said Long Tom, “d’y’ want them t’see that we’ve a Pyskie aboard? Oi mean, all th’ crew be sworn t’secrecy, ’n’ these two be not.”

  Aravan looked down at Lissa. “When they begin to come around, find me and then take to thy quarters. Though I deem we’ve nought to fear from Waerlinga, still I would they be sworn ere revealing your existence to them.”

  Lissa grinned and sketched a salute and said, “Aye-aye, Captain.”

  “I believe that’s enough chafing,” said Desault. “Their color is now good. We’ll just wrap them in their blankets; that should be enough.”

  Moments later, Aravan and Long Tom headed for the ladder, Long Tom asking, “What be our course, now, Cap’n?”

  “We still ply for Port Arbalin,” replied Aravan.

  It was late in the night when, “I have to pee,” muttered Pipper. He groaned and opened his sapphirine eyes. “I have to-” He gasped and bolted upright. “Bink! Bi-! Ooh, I’m dizzy.”

  Pipper caught a glimpse in the lantern light of what seemed to be a fox darting away. He rubbed his face and looked again, but it was gone. Then he saw a beautiful female sitting nearby and just then rousing from a doze. Was she a Human? An Elf? Something in between? At that moment she opened her eyes and smiled at him.

  “Wh-what happened?” asked Pipper, looking about at the swaying hammocks.

  “You were drugged,” said the female.

  “Where am-? I’m on a ship!” blurted the
buccan in realization.

  Aylis stood and stepped to his side. “ ’Tis the Eroean .”

  “The Elvenship?”

  Aylis nodded.

  “Oh, my, the Elvenship,” breathed Pipper. “I’ve got to tell Bink. Where’s Bink?” His voice took on an edge of panic as he wildly looked about. “Where’s Bink?”

  “Your friend?”

  “Yes, my-Oh, there he is. He’s on the Eroean , too?” Then Pipper said, “Oh, Bink would say you are a ninny, Pip, that’s what. Of course he’s on the Eroean , too.”

  “We plucked you both from the sea,” said Aylis.

  “From the sea? The last thing I remember is Tark and Queeker forcing me to take a drink of Rackburn’s foul-tasting stuff.”

  “Forcing you to take a drink of Nightlady?”

  “Look, I’ll tell you all about it, but right now I have to take a-Um, er. . I say, is there a privy nearby?”

  Aylis laughed and said, “We thought you might need to go, and we’ve a chamber pot at hand.”

  “Wull, then I’ll. .” Pipper started to throw off his blankets but quickly covered up again. “Hoy, now, where’s my clothes? I mean, I can’t go traipsing about naked as a loon.”

  Aylis smiled and said, “I’ll turn my back. The privy pot is right there.”

  She listened as he swung down from his hammock and, on unsteady feet, lurched the few steps to the privy pot. He made water for what seemed a very long time, and Aylis wondered how someone that small could hold that much. But at last she heard him stumble back and, with a grunt, swing up into the hammock. A moment later he said, “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to dress and make certain that Bink is all right.”

  She turned about to find him once again under his blanket, his eyes closed. “I’m afraid,” said Aylis, “the only thing we found you in were breeks.”

  “Breeks? No boots, no jerkin, no-”

  “Just breeks.”

  “Well, if you could bring me-”

  Roused by the noise, “What th-?” exclaimed Binkton, sitting up and then wildly grabbing at nought but thin air as the hammock flipped over and he fell out to hit the deck with a muffled thud. As he groaned to his feet and fought his way free of his blanket, he shouted to no one in particular, “Are we on a blasted rat-eating ship?”

  By this time, Pipper had raised up enough to see Binkton, with the Human, the Elf, the whatever, now on one knee at his side. “Are you injured?” she asked.

  “What?” Binkton whirled around and snarled, “Am I-?” But in that moment he discovered he was naked and facing a kneeling female. “Oh, goodness.” He grabbed at his blanket to cover himself.

  In that same moment, Aravan clambered down the ladder to the peals of Aylis and the fair-haired Waerling’s laughter, while the dark-haired buccan seethed and glared at the two.

  The Warrows slept the rest of that night and most of the following day, Pipper casting off the dregs of Nightlady, and Binkton recovering from his ordeal. That evening they told Captain Aravan of the events leading up to their near drowning in the Avagon Sea:

  “. . and then they threw us overboard, the two of us shackled together, a great weighty chain dragging us down, Pip entirely unconscious. But I picked the lock on the chain and-Oi, now, wait a moment. Why, those dirty, rat-eating blighters, Pip, I’ll wager it was our very own chain I sent to the bottom.”

  Pipper managed an “I wouldn’t know, Bink,” around a mouthful of soup-sopped bread.

  “Our lock, too!” shouted Binkton in ire.

  Aravan waited for the pique to subside, then asked, “And thou didst say this man, this Largo Rackburn, is the one responsible?”

  “Yes,” seethed Binkton. “He and Tark and Queeker and others. But it’s Rackburn behind it all, him and his gang of ruffians, threatening shop-keepers and landlords and peddlers and whoever else they can take from.”

  Aravan and Aylis and the two buccen sat on the low foredeck of the Eroean , Pipper and Binkton now dressed in their breeks but nought else, their jerkins and boots and socks having gone into the sea. Yet the night was mild, and a light southern breeze spilled over the larboard bow and brought comforting warmth with it. A half-moon rode overhead, shedding silvery light down upon the decks.

  The buccen’s state of undress would not last long, for the sailmakers and leather workers had taken their measures and were even then sewing shirts and trews and cobbling footwear.

  Aylis smiled at the fuming Warrow and said, “But you, Binkton, and you, Pipper, you took from them and gave back to those who had been wronged? Nicely done, I say. Nicely done.”

  Binkton, pulled from his vexation by her smile, nodded and said, “I’d rather you just call me Bink and him Pip.”

  Pipper managed a nod, even though he was at that moment taking a sip from his cup of tea. No sooner had he a mouthful than he choked and hacked and coughed and pointed, trying to say something, though it seemed more as if he were strangling. As Aravan patted the buccan on his back, Pipper finally managed, “B-Bink! Look. A tiny person.”

  Aravan laughed and said, “For a Waerling to dub someone else tiny, well. .”

  Lissa groaned and dropped her ‹wild-magic› cloaking shadow and said, “I forgot.” She turned to Aravan and said, “I’m sorry.”

  But Aylis said, “Fear not, Liss; they have already taken the oath to reveal nought seen nor heard aboard the Eroean .”

  His mouth yet agape, Binkton stared at the Pysk, but Pipper, now past his choking fit and grinning with the wonder of looking upon someone so wee, said, “You forgot what?”

  “That Warrows can see through Pysk darkness.”

  In that same moment, Vex scrambled up a ladder from belowdecks and came trotting toward Lissa.

  “I knew I had seen a fox,” said Pipper. “And now I know why.” He turned to Aravan. “You’ve a Fox Rider aboard.”

  “Of course he’s got a Fox Rider aboard,” snapped Binkton, now past his own moment of awe.

  “No, what I meant,” said Pipper, “was why do you have a Fox Rider aboard, if I might ask-might I?”

  “I am a scout,” said the Pysk. “And by the bye, my name is Aylissa, but everyone calls me Liss or Lissa.”

  “Pipper Willowbank at your service,” said Pipper, leaping to his feet and bowing, “but everyone calls me Pip. And that one over there is Binkton Windrow; but you can call him Bink.”

  Binkton, too, got to his feet and bowed, and Lissa curtseyed in return.

  As Pipper and Binkton resumed their seats, Lissa clambered up the ladder to the foredeck and sat down as well, Vex curling up beside her. “A scout, you say,” said Pipper. “Oh, I’ve always wanted to be a scout aboard the Elvenship. I mean, legend has it that way back when, Warrows were known to do such.”

  Aravan nodded. “Aye, ’tis true. Betimes in the High King’s First Era, I did sail with Waerlinga as scouts, for none can move quieter than they.”

  “Hmph,” snorted Lissa. “Not even Pysks?”

  Aravan held a hand out level and waggled it. “Wert thou afoot, mayhap so, but afox, I think not.”

  Lissa cast a skeptical eye, but said nought.

  Aravan turned a speculative look upon the buccen. “Ye didst say ye performed as Fire and Iron. And thou, Binkton, canst pick locks?”

  “Haven’t come across one yet that I couldn’t open,” said Binkton proudly.

  Pipper nodded in agreement and said, “It was all part of our act. Why, as a challenge, Bink even broke out of the gaol cell they have in Raudholl. Opened the Dwarven shackles, too.”

  “Thou didst pick the locks in Redhall?”

  Binkton grinned and nodded.

  “Hai!” said Aravan, casting the buccan a salute.

  “Is that a difficult thing to do?” asked Aylis.

  “Well,” said Binkton, “I don’t like to brag, but-”

  “It took him four candlemarks,” blurted Pipper, all agog at the skill of his cousin. “Whereas, in the Human gaols”-Pipper snapped his fingers-“it took
but mere moments.”

  As Aylis covered her smile with her fingers, her eyes dancing in merriment, Binkton sighed and said, “Pip’s right. It took a while, but I finally did get loose.”

  “To open Dwarven fetters and one of their gaol doors in but four candlemarks is quite remarkable,” said Aravan.

  “Well, I would have done it sooner,” said Binkton, “but all I had left after the Dwarves searched me was but a piece of bent wire.”

  Aravan rocked back in amazement, while Aylis and Lissa and Pipper clapped in applause.

  Even as Binkton blushed in response, Aravan now turned his gaze upon Pipper. “And thou art an acrobat?”

  Now Binkton bubbled over and said, “Pip can tumble and juggle and he walks tightropes and swings from trapezes and makes incredible flying leaps from one to another at heights that take your breath away and all without a net, too. And he’s the one who figured out how to get into places where we retrieved the stolen coin, and some of those were quite tricky.-Oh, and he thinks up these clever illusions, to make it seem we’ve done something impossible.”

  “Ar, but you are the master of the sleight of hand, and can pick pockets and juggle, too, though not at the same time,” said Pipper, “to say nothing of managing to get out of the tightest bindings, as well as chains and locks.” He turned to Aravan and said, “We were taught by our Uncle Arley.”

  Aravan cocked an eyebrow. “Was his name Arley Willowbank? And didst thine uncle spend some time in Caer Pendwyr?”

  Pipper nodded and said, “Lots of other places, too.”

  Aravan smiled. “If I be not mistaken, thine Uncle Arley was an agent of the High King.”

  Both Binkton’s and Pipper’s mouths dropped agape. “He was?” asked Pipper, while Binkton said, “Of the High King?”

  Aravan nodded. “He was oft sent on missions where places needed to be gotten into and locks picked and items found or retrieved.”

  Aylis turned to Aravan. “He was a King’s thief?”

  “Indeed,” said Aravan. “His public performances were merely his way of allaying suspicion as to his real endeavors.”