by Rob J. Hayes
Thanquil wrenched his mind away from the demon sword and found Captain Keelin Stillwater watching him. The man wasn’t overly tall but he was stocky and was definitely among the better dressed pirates Thanquil had met. In truth the Phoenix did not feel much like a pirate ship at all. There was drinking and scuffling and at times the crew were crude and the captain assured Thanquil if they ran into a fat juicy merchant vessel they would run her down and rob the guts from her but the pirates of the Phoenix, while not polite, were civilised. They dressed well, cleaned themselves and treated each other with respect. Thanquil couldn’t decide whether it was his own image of pirates that was wrong or just the men on this ship. One thing he was certain of, though, Captain Stillwater did not like him.
He considered for a moment asking the captain why, using his compulsion on the man to explain his obvious dislike but he knew how that would end and the sea did not look particularly warm. There were other ways though. Thanquil knew better than most Arbiters that often all one had to do was coax the target to start talking and then shut up and let them spill it all.
“Drake has someone. She’s very… She’s mine and I want her back.”
Captain Stillwater cocked an eyebrow but said nothing.
“Just thought you should know why I’m chasing him,” Thanquil continued.
“Doesn’t change a thing, Arbiter. The Fortune is faster than the Phoenix. End of.”
Thanquil swallowed down a sigh. He had hoped the captain might elaborate on his own reasons for striking the deal with Thanquil but it seemed the man was more shrewd than that.
“You’re not from the Pirate Isles,” he tried.
Captain Stillwater laughed. “No one is from the Isles, Arbiter. Folk just end up there trying to escape whatever it is they’re running from.”
“Like the Inquisition.”
“Aye. Lots of folk run from that.”
“But not you.”
Captain Stillwater sucked on his teeth and looked out across the water. Ignoring the blinding sun and the shards of light it sent dancing across the waves. Thanquil tried to follow his gaze but had to shield his eyes from the glare.
“Five Kingdoms. Easterner from near Land’s End.”
Thanquil let slip the smallest of smiles and kept quiet. He couldn’t say he was particularly bothered about the man’s reasons for his part of the deal but right now he would take any distraction he could get.
“You want to know why,” Captain Stillwater glanced at Thanquil and he could see anger in the man’s eyes. “Mine is a deal made out of the desire for revenge, Arbiter. Is that a problem?”
Thanquil slowly shook his head.
“Good. Because I intend to kill him. I had family once; a mother and father, older brother, younger sister. I had a home. Until Arbiter Prin came.”
Still Thanquil kept quiet. He had no love for Prin, quite the opposite, the rack-thin Arbiter had always enjoyed the judgement too much for Thanquil’s liking. Their calling was necessary but they killed people and that should never be fun.
“My father requested him, or, he requested one of you. Thought my sister, Leesa was possessed. She had always been sickly and quiet, knew things she shouldn’t but not things she couldn’t.
“When Prin arrived,” Captain Stillwater paused taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “He killed her. Burned her at the stake for heresy. Burned her alive. She was eight years and he burned her alive for nothing.
“Split my family apart. My brother left, couldn’t stand to be around. My mother died of… something. She’d already stopped wanting to live long before though. I left soon as I could.” The captain again focused Thanquil with his grey eyes. “So now that’s your end of the bargain. You tell me where I can find Arbiter Prin so I can kill him and I’ll take you to where Drake is most likely to be, further than that I want nothing more to do with you, Arbiter. Are we clear?”
Thanquil nodded. He could barely even see the ship on the horizon now. Jezzet and Drake were little more than a speck vanishing into the seascape.
Part 4 – Reunion
Thanquil
“Get ya gear, Arbiter. We’re here.”
Thanquil was awake in an instant, half remembered dreams of darkness and demons fading quickly. He’d always been a light sleeper but these days more so than ever. Looking at the locked chest by his bunk, he knew why. The sword whispered to him during the days but at nights when he was asleep all he dreamed of was demons and his past.
He rubbed at his eyes and yawned, looking for the source of the voice that had awoken him. A balding pirate with a tuft of hair was standing at the top of the stairs looking at him. “We’re here,” the pirate repeated. “Cap’n ses to get ya gear. Ya gettin’ off soon as we make port.”
“Wonderful,” Thanquil said rolling out of the bunk and stretching. “The sooner I’m back on dry land the better…” he started to say but the pirate was already gone. None of them were particularly social towards him and some of them were damned rude. A few had taken to baiting the Arbiter in an attempt to get him thrown off the ship early and fatally. Thanquil had stoically ignored all such attempts but he’d have been lying if he said he there wasn’t anyone on the ship he wouldn’t happily judge.
It was over a month since they had spotted Drake’s Fortune and over a month since it had run off leaving them in its wake. Captain Stillwater assured Thanquil that no matter how fast the Fortune she could not be more than a few days ahead of them. The wind had been good and steady all the way with not a storm in sight and they had only stopped the once for pirating. Unlike the brutal massacre Thanquil might have expected it was a mostly bloodless affair. The crew of the trader had fired a few arrows over towards the Phoenix but had soon relented when Captain Stillwater had sailed alongside them and promised life to all crew members so long as they surrendered their captain and their cargo. A short mutiny had followed and both cargo and bloodied captain had been handed over. Then Keelin Stillwater had briefly questioned the mutinied captain before deciding he was worthless and throwing him overboard. The Phoenix had calmly sailed away with a hold full of pilfered bounty and not a single loss of life. Stillwater assured Thanquil that was how most pirating went but he wasn’t entirely certain if he believed the man.
Thanquil didn’t really have much to collect. His coat he had eventually taken off and stowed under his bunk due to practicality, he now retrieved and felt all the better for wearing it again. Nothing made him feel quite so naked and helpless and being bereft of his Arbiter coat. His sack full of clothing and supplies he had never unpacked so he simply shouldered it once more. The demon sword was less simple. First Thanquil disarmed the protective charms; two were gone already and two pirates had burned hands to attest to how well the charms worked. Once the crate was unlocked Thanquil spent a minute staring at the covered blade; just being so near to it he could feel his old wounds ache and a strange irritable sensation like an itch he couldn’t quite reach. He took the sword from the chest and quickly hung it from his belt, pulling his coat around it to obscure its presence. Then he was heading for the hatch and onto the deck.
It was early dusk outside, the sun just beginning to dip below the water line and that surprised Thanquil. It was barely dawn when he had lay down in his bunk and the days in the wilds were never so short. He had slept an entire day away and still felt unrested. Pirates ran to and fro, some climbing up rigging and adjusting canvas, others washing down the deck or performing a multitude of tasks Thanquil neither had a name for nor understood. Captain Stillwater ran a tight ship and a clean ship and anyone who did not have a job soon found themselves inheriting one. Thanquil himself had been put to work untangling rope more than once, quite how the rope got into so tight knots in the first place was a mystery he didn’t think he’d ever understand but then he didn’t care to. He’d just be happy never to see a rope again.
“Captain Stillwater,” Thanquil said with false cheer as he approached.
The captain turned with a
smile on his face that soured the moment he laid eyes on Thanquil. He had been standing, talking with his first mate, a burly man with permanently ruddy cheeks whose name Thanquil had never bothered remembering, but now he turned and regarded Thanquil with cool distaste.
“I’m told we’ve arrived,” Thanquil prompted.
“Aye, that we have. About time I got you off my bloody ship. About time I got that payment you owe me.”
Thanquil nodded, his hand twitched in his pocket. Most times aboard ship after so long he shook uncontrollably from his lack of theft but not so on this journey, he had taken to sneaking into the cargo hold and pilfering small items originally stolen from the trader. It kept his compulsive need to steal at bay and seemed somewhat fitting.
“First things first, captain. Exactly where are we?”
“Welcome to Fortune’s Rest, Arbiter,” Captain Stillwater said pointing out over the railing.
Thanquil felt his jaw drop and what he was seeing deserved no less. There were ships everywhere; hundreds of them, more than he’d ever seen collected in one port. Bare masts thrust up in the sky and round hulls bobbed down below on the water. There was no uniformity, some of the ships were small cogs mostly used for short trading trips and others were galleys best suited to war. Some of the boats faced them while others faced inwards or out in a jumble of directions. As Thanquil watched he saw lights begin to flicker into existence, tiny lanterns on the ships to ward off the encroaching darkness.
“This is a city,” Thanquil said unsure of whether or not his own words were a question.
Captain Keelin Stillwater laughed from beside him, a wide grin splitting his face. “Not quite, Arbiter. Fortune’s Rest is the largest pleasure house in the known world. Drake claims three hundred ships at last count. A fleet by any other name and verging on an armada, I’d wager. It moves regularly but those of us with invitations have ways of finding it.”
“It’s Drakes,” Thanquil said. “He owns it?”
“Aye, that he does. Most anyone who’s anyone has been here one time another and some folk say more bits pass through Fortune’s Rest in a night than in the rest of the wilds combined. It’s how Drake made his fortune though he’s not so stupid as to rely upon it solely. These days he damn near owns Chade and word tells he’s in bed with that bloody thief master in Truridge.”
Thanquil still couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. It almost looked like Soromo; hundreds of different rafts all lashed together in a maddening series of walkways almost like a maze only the ships of Fortune’s Rest could move, could sail away. Drake Morrass had created a mobile city out in the ocean.
“Is Drake here?” Thanquil asked Captain Stillwater.
“Couldn’t say,” the captain replied. “But then I never agreed to take you to Drake, just to where he’s most like to be. Way I hear it he’s never gone from here for too long. So, time to pay up Arbiter. Where do I find Prin?”
Thanquil snapped out of his wonder and looked at the captain. Stillwater’s face had become grave, his grey eyes bright in the waning light. “I don’t know exactly,” Thanquil said. “But I can tell you where he’s most like to be. There’s a fishing village in southern Sarth, between Swordpoint and The Burned Lands. Village is called Ironsands. It’s where Arbiter Prin was last stationed and still is to the best of my knowledge.” The lie came easily to Thanquil’s lips, he had no idea where Prin was stationed and nor would he give up a fellow Arbiter, even one such as Prin, for misguided vengeance.
Captain Stillwater nodded, he eyes never leaving Thanquil’s own. “Can’t say fairer than that, I suppose. One good deed, as they say.”
“So we’re done,” Thanquil said, turning his eyes back to Fortune’s Rest.
“We’re done.”
Before Thanquil could ask the Captain to lower a skiff the man grabbed him by his coat collar and span, dragging Thanquil with him. The world turned and Thanquil felt his feet leave the deck and saw the railing pass beneath him. Then he was falling. The water was more than just shocking; it stunned the breath from his lungs and left him gasping. He was surrounded, submerged and lost, unable to figure out which way was up and…
Thanquil gasped and cold water flooded into his lungs, he gagged and coughed all at once but still could get no air. Something gigantic moved close by and on instinct he kicked towards it, not knowing what it was and not caring.
He broke the surface of the water gasping and coughing and with an unhealthy amount of flailing as he struggled to stay afloat. Thanquil had always hated the water, especially the sea; one could never tell what was below you, in the depths, just waiting… Panic set in and he flailed again, coughing more and more as he attempted to clear his lungs.
“Might want to calm down, Arbiter,” shouted Captain Stillwater from somewhere above.
Thanquil looked up to see the hull of the Phoenix sliding past him slowly, gaining speed. Through water-blurred vision he could just about make out a group of figures staring down at him and laughter reached his ears. His bag coat and weapons were weighing him down, dragging him down and he struggled to tread water.
“Fortune’s Rest is that way,” the figure that sounded like Stillwater pointed and Thanquil turned in the water. All he could see was the tiny fires of the lanterns flickering in the distance. “Hope you can swim. And give Drake my regards.”
Thanquil wasted no more time on the Phoenix or its captain, nor on the crew shouting witch hunter based insults at him. He struck out towards the floating pleasure house and kicked with all his might, steering with his arms as he went and hoping his strength would hold out against the cold seeping into his bones.
By the time Thanquil reach the outermost ship of Fortune’s Rest he had lost track of time and barely had the strength to grab hold of the soaked rope ladder that led up to the deck. He steadily pulled himself hand over hand, whispering a lazy blessing of endurance as he went to keep himself going, usually he could combine two or even three blessings but he was finding it hard to focus, finding it hard to keep his mind ticking over. Eventually he gained the deck and with a little more struggling rolled onto his back and lay there gasping, staring up at the mast above him, and the sky it reached towards and the tiny blinking stars that pocked that sky. Darkness had set in now and the cold appeared to have come with it. Thanquil could feel himself shivering and counted himself lucky, he knew it was when he stopped shivering that he needed to worry, before that happened he needed to find a fire and he didn’t think the owners of this ship would be too impressed if he set it ablaze.
“Never seen a man swim to the Rest ‘fore. How’d you get here?”
Thanquil rolled over to see a tall, burly man with a face full of beard and a hand full of cutlass. In his other hand he held a lantern out in front of him and beyond that light Thanquil could see another three folk, similarly armed, all staring at him.
“Boat,” Thanquil managed through chattering teeth.
“Pirates threw you overboard, heh? Aye they do that to tourists from time to time. Bit of hazin’, nothing more.”
“Hazing…” Thanquil chattered rolling onto his front and pushing to his knees. “They tried to kill me.”
“Nah. You’re still alive. They wanted ya dead, I reckon ya would be.”
Thanquil let out a ragged sigh and determined not to argue with the man. “I need a fire and some food.”
“Well we got both of those here at the Rest but each’ll cost ya. Can ya pay?”
Thanquil nodded and his hand went to his belt only to find his purse was well and truly gone. He hadn’t felt anyone lift it from him which probably meant he had lost it in the swim. He groaned when he realised, while he had lost his purse, he hadn’t lost the demon blade; it clung to him and filled him with dread even now.
“I appear… to have… lost… my purse.”
“Well now. That makes for something of a problem then. See we don’t just give things away for free here…” One of the other men stepped forward and whispered in the sp
eaker’s ear. “That right? You one of them witch hunters?”
Thanquil groaned. “Yes. I’m an Arbiter.”
A grin broke onto the man’s face. “Well that makes a whole world of difference. Been told one of you might be popping by some point. Never expected you to crawl up out of the drink though. Come on,” the man moved forward and took Thanquil under the arm, hauling him to his feet and supporting him as they walked. “We’ll get you warm and fed. Drake’s orders.”
It turned out the man’s name was Ianic and he was a pirate, or at least he had been up until a few years back. Drake had taken his ship and his crew, murdered the captain and given the others a choice; die or join Fortune’s Rest as a guard. All the guards were ex-pirates gone legit, according to Ianic and many of them fared well in their new roles.
Ianic had a wife, two children and a cabin aboard one of the larger boats; a galley by the name of Defiant. He was housed and clothed and paid well enough to provide and mostly his job entailed patrolling the Rest and making his presence known. Crime was a rare thing aboard Fortune’s Rest despite the criminal nature of the entire enterprise. Folk didn’t commit crimes because the punishments were somewhere beyond severe and many of the people who frequented were rich enough to consider traditional crime far below them.
It seemed Drake had set up his pleasure house to be a cut above the rest and discretion was the name of the game. Discretion and supply as, according to Ianic, almost any tastes could be catered for.
Ianic half supported half dragged Thanquil into the bowls of the ship he had pulled himself up onto and kicked open the door to the galley. The chef raised a giant metal spoon in complaint but soon quieted after a hissed word from Ianic. The pirate sat Thanquil down in front of the fire and wandered away to fetch some food.
Blood dripped from Thanquil’s fingers to the ground below, a steady rhythmic drip drip as it rolled down the channel on his arm, across his hand and down his digits. The wolves below yapped and growled and snatched at the dripping gore. They had long since given up worrying at his coat and now he regretted throwing it at them.