The Long Road Back: A Jarthen-centric Interquel (pt. 4)

I didn’t take to the ship all that well. ‘Tween the tarks yelling at me fer doing everything wrong like I was s’posed to have known how to keep that hunk of wood afloat somehow before getting sold to the likes of them and the sea-sickness that more or less kept me pressed up against the rail of the deck anytime I was awake I started to suspect that Tawiri and Rofi were right and I wasn’t going to last. But the thing folks never tell you about sea-life – even among the pirates, who everyone always considers such a raucous and impatient bunch – is that it goes slow. ‘Cause when it comes down to it, you’re stuck on that great hunk of wood. Just you and the waves for months at a time with nothing but the same 100 or so feet of deck to walk around on and the same 40 or so fellas to talk to day in and day out, and in situations like that you get used to things as they are and it takes more than what one might expect to stir things up. Things get an odd rhythm. People get an odd rhythm. And so, they got used to me heaving my rations overboard and my woeful lack of which knots were the right ones and apparently I wasn’t really nuisance enough to warrant the more violent attentions of the pirates. It was easier just to ignore me, I guess.

Course, I didn’t know that at first. So, I spent those first few weeks on the ship terrified that the lot of them were a moment away from flaying me alive or tossing me overboard or some other equally unwholesome thing. But as the days ticked by and it got clearer and clearer to me that to them I was just a sort of annoying ghost, I did what anyone would do. I went with it and became as ghost-like as I could, hovering on the edges of it all. And fer that, I’m eternally grateful because I doubt I would have made it out of all of it and back in one piece had I not had that time to catch my bearings and get a bead on the rest of them. And that sort of thing – getting a bead on other folks, I mean – well, in my limited experience, it always seems like everything’s a good deal clearer when you’re watching from without than trying to piece it together from within, you know?

First thing that I picked up from them is that all the pirates on the Sinn were felintarks, but that didn’t mean much to them. Judging from the robes and the language, the higher-ups were straight out of the Empire. The Elvo-Felintark Empire, not Elothnin, I mean. Though, I guess, technically all of us were straight out of Elothnin since we’d just pushed out of Opleneer. But I’m sure you catch my meaning. Anyway, the captain was about as Felin as you can get, the sort that always seems to carry the desert around with them even when they’re out on the sea. He was taller than me, broad-shouldered but a bit on the lean side for them, with eyes the color of the dunes in the San-Kesh in the clear light just after dawn. I didn’t know who he was at first, he wasn’t the type that threw his weight around much. He didn’t need to, never heard him raise his voice, not once, not in the all those months I spent on his ship. Hell, half the time, he didn’t have to say anything at all, he just had to look up and the rest of them would scramble all over themselves to do whatever needed doing. So fer a while there, I thought his first mate - a brawnier, older, weathered looking fella who barked orders in this heavy, loud voice - was in charge. He was brash and short with everyone except the youngish man with the yellow eyes, the one who always stood just a bit apart from everyone else and who never, it seemed, had to wrangle with the ropes himself.

All the fresher tarks had his rigid sort of grace in varying degrees. There were about fifteen of them, turned out a lot of them were related. It was a family enterprise of sorts and at least five or so of the mates were cousins of the captain. They looked a bit alike, they all had the same woeful lack of humor (regardless of what language they were speaking), they all smoked those awful-smelling Felin cigarettes like chimneys, and they all swathed themselves in robes and scarves from head to foot so thoroughly that you couldn’t see the marks and wouldn’t know they were anything but legitimate merchants just to look at them.

The rest of the crew were tarks, too, but the ears and the eyes and the fangs were all they really had in common. And, it turned out, a good many of the rest of them were only mostly felintark. A lot of them had streaks of elf in them or T’Langan or both. They wore loose linen shirts with the collars turned down and the sleeves rolled up so their tattoos were laid out for all to see. They were a wild sort, full of bluster and banter, always teasing each other and sniping at each other. The lot of them were as deeply committed to their casual chattiness as the fresh ones were to their restrained silences. It made it easy to trace which ones fell in together, which ones had histories and whether those histories were good. The one who tattooed me that first night fer instance, Muladah, he was a tricky fella. Talked to everyone all the time – talked to the fresh ones to keep them off guard, to keep them from watching the rest too closely, and could spin the longest yarns to someone who just stood there glaring at him, quiet and controlled and irritated, better than anyone I’ve ever seen including red elves. Just a thing of beauty to watch. And he talked to the cargo (even me now and again) and the cargo talked back. Tawiri and Rofi kept to themselves more or less, but they didn’t mind Muladah so much and more often than not he was the one that got sent to fetch them when the captain had work for them to do. In a word, Muladah was the lynchpin of the ship – he was the only one of his set that the captain would speak to directly (though always with a couple of his own lingering nearby) and the only one of the crew that could get more than three words out of either of the elves. He was a valuable man and it was plain as day to me that he knew it and the captain knew it and the captain was not happy about it.

The first sign of trouble, to me anyway, happened about two and a half months out. I was in my usual spot on the deck, leaning up against one of the masts and keeping a close eye on the rest of them. The first mate was cleaning his nails with a mean-looking knife and watching a clutch of the wilder ones playing cards on the deck. Muladah wasn’t playing, he was standing a bit off, watching the first mate watching them play, chatting with the card sharks. After awhile, one of them won the hand and swept up a heaping armful of cigarettes and various bits of foreign money. He was one of the real young ones, a fella they called Nossi which is Felin for half. He was on the small side and thin as a wire, which made me think that if he were named after something it might be some elf blood. Anyway, Nossi was a helluva a card player. He won a couple hands any time anyone played. Didn’t matter who started the games or when, he’d appear out of nowhere and get dealt in, leaving everyone a bit poorer sooner or later. So, he’s sitting there with this pile of cigarettes in front of him and he grins up at the first mate. “Hey, Hayim,” he said. “Heard you’re running short. Want some?”

The first mate didn’t even look up. He just shook his head.

“C’mon, play me for it. You win, you take it all and you don’t have to put anything up.”

The first mate shook his head again. “Not with you.”

Nossi pestered him a bit more, but by then Muladah was looking a might worried and kept telling him to drop it. But Nossi didn’t listen, he just kept on, egging him and teasing him. Asking if he was scared he’d lose. Hayim finally looked over and shot him a cold smile, that sort of arrogant smile you give a snarling dog stuck on a chain when you’re standing just out of its reach. “If I wanted them, I’d just take them. But I’d rather go without than settle for a kalit’s leftover’s.”

Now, kalit means ‘son of a whore’ in Felin and it’s one of those things you just don’t say to a felintark, even if they're wild and only mostly Felin. I didn’t know that then, but with the way Nossi was up and lunging at him and the way the rest of them were just barely holding him back it was clear enough what the first mate was getting at. Hayim cocked an eyebrow and said summat in Felin that just made things more tense than they already were.

“He’s not a cheater, you sandblasted bastard!” one of the others, a big fella named Salir, shouted back.

Muladah smacked Salir in the back of his head and shoved him back towards the rest. “Hayim, you know you can’t say that without proof.”

The first mate shrugged. “He’s a nahsiyya, proof enough.”

Nossi lunged forward again. “I’m half gold, you smug ass!”

“Magick’s magick.” Muladah started towards the first mate, but the first mate held out his hand. “Stay there, Mul.”

“Look, Hayim -- ”

“First mate to you.”

Muladah sighed and nodded, ignoring the angry looks of the others. He let out a stream of Felin, soothing and careful and too quick for the first mate to break in and after a long moment, the first mate nodded. “Deal?” he asked.

“Deal. For now.”

Nossi shook his head and started to whisper summat to Muladah, but Muladah shut him up and had Salir hand over all the winnings to the first mate. Then, he started dragging Nossi off towards the other side of the deck. “It’s just cigarettes. Count cards when we put into port and you’ll win more off someone who can’t leave you bleeding on deck,” I heard him saying as he herded the boy past me.

“Mul, I don’t see why we’re waiting on this -- ”

“Well, I do see why we’re waiting and that’s why I’m heading it and not you.”