The Long Road Back: A Jarthen-centric Interquel (pt. 7)

My palms were sweating when I knocked on the door of Muladah’s cabin. The captain’s cabin. No one called him Muladah anymore, not even Nossi and Salir. My instincts had been to keep what had impressed Nossi so much to myself (since it seemed to me to be a fool’s errand to draw attention to myself in the midst of a boatload of pirates), but I’d spent the days after Nossi’s well-meaning attack asking around about our routes and contacts and such, feeling out whether we were ever heading towards the western waters. And from the sound of things, we weren’t. Turned out there was some sort of bad blood ‘tween Muladah and a couple of the T’Langan fleets (although no one was really sure what kind of bad blood or how much of it there was, since as far as anyone could tell those problems had happened back before he was calling himself Muladah) and it seemed likely that he was content to stick around the Felin seas where he was safest. Which was precisely the last place I wanted to be sticking around myself. I figured this odd -- well, not talent precisely as I don’t really do much. It’s more like a tolerance or a resistance or summat. Anyway, I figured this odd quirk of mine might just be the bargaining chip I’d been looking fer. Or hoped, at least.

“Who is it?” he called. And let me tell you, Muladah took to the captaincy like he’d been born for it. He sounded just like those sergeants back in the Imperial Army, the ones that were forever ordering me to fetch this and that and run laps fer the hell of it. The kind of voice that don’t have to sound threatening ‘cause the one using it knows folks are going to listen. Sounded, frankly, a bit like the captain whose cabin he’d stolen.

“Jarthen.”

“Who?”

“Shakhar.”

There was a pause, and during that pause it took a helluva a lot of effort not to bolt off up to the deck and crawl into the crow’s nest. Not that it would have helped much, not a lot of running one can do on a ship. The door to the cabin swung open and Muladah stood there watching me with a slight, surprised smirk. His hair was loose, he was naked to the waist, and there was an open bottle of rum in his hand that it looked like he’d made a decent dent in already. I’d never seen him shirtless before, and I found myself staring at the lines of ink crawling over his arms and across his chest – he was just covered in them. His arms were more black than brown and the fleet insignias across the front of him were packed together just as tight. A lot of the names on his left arm, the one Nossi told me they used to mark out their enemies, were in T’Langan. And a lot of those had thick, dark lines through them, which meant they weren’t enemies to no one anymore. Those black lines stirred the memory of just how easily he’d killed those other tarks back during the mutiny and suddenly it occurred to me that Muladah was not at all the sort of man I was equipped to bargain with. “Sorry, Captain, didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ll just go,” I said, backing away.

“Nossi says you play chess, is that right?” I nodded. “Are you good at it?”

“I’m…I’m not terrible,” said I, resolving that no matter how terrible he was it was probably in my best interest to lose.

“From what he says I’m sure that’s an understatement. Play me a game. If you win, you can ask for whatever you came to ask. If you lose, you don’t get to ask me for anything ever again. Deal?”
That question, I knew, wasn’t really a question. Really, it was an order. I let out a nervous laugh and glanced over my shoulder, wishing I hadn’t mustered up that stupid amount of courage to knock in the first place. But that clear path stretching out behind me wasn’t really a path at all. “Of course, Captain. And a fine deal it is.”

Muladah smiled and stood aside to let me in. I stepped past him and took a breath to steady myself, as it appeared throwing the game weren’t much of an option at that point. The cabin was small, about the same size of the hold they kept me in back when I was still cargo. Between the cot and the desk and the crates of maps and rum and such, it was a cramped place. But it was private and that was certainly a step up from my spot in the hold with the rest of the crew. Just in front of the cot was a trunk with a lamp on it, casting a yellowish glow over the floor. The light flickered and died near the walls, the shadows along the perimeter of it stretched and warped as the boat swayed from side to side. And if the cards laid out on the trunk were any indication, he’d been playing solitaire before I’d bothered him. When he shut the door behind me, everything felt too small. I kept watching him out of the corner of my eye, wary like a trapped rabbit, and I knew I was just as defenseless.

Muladah pointed to a closed crate near the door and sat down on the cot, sweeping the cards up with one hand and pouring me a glass of rum with the other. I dragged the crate over, fidgety and nervous and trying to find a way around drinking the rum, but there wasn’t one. I took a breath, squared my shoulders and knocked it back as quick as I could, swallowing it fast enough that I didn’t really have to taste it. But I didn’t need to taste it to feel the way it burned the hell out of my throat. I managed not to wince or anything, but Muladah could tell what sort of effect it was having on me anyway. He laughed, poured a bit more in my glass when I set it down again, and told me to drink it slower until I got a taste fer it.

He turned and started rummaging around fer an old battered chess set, which had apparently settled to the bottom of a box of maps. What it was doing there was anyone’s guess, I suppose. He turned away from me as he did, the thick, sinewy muscles of his back surged and knotted, catching the lamplight in odd ways that reminded me once again how much bigger than me he was. There were scars on his back – long, twisted bits of flesh cutting across him. Lash marks, they looked like. Most of the pirates had them, they seemed to be another marker of the life along with the tattoos. I kept hoping that I’d get out of it all before I got some myself but as should be clear by now, I don’t have the best luck. He caught me staring at them when he turned round again and smirked a little wider as he set up the board. “T’Langans, they think a whip’ll solve any problem.”

I stared into my glass, feeling just awful about having been caught like that. Seemed like the sort of thing one ought not draw attention to. Seemed impolite. And it’s not as if I was in any position just then to be rude. “Ah.”

“Word of advice from me to you, Shakhar: stick with us tarks. Tinkers lie through their teeth every chance they get and every T’Langan I’ve ever met had a mean streak a mile wide.”

“I believe that about the T’Langans,” said I, “but Semadran folk seem as honest as anybody else, far as I can tell.”

He glanced up and grinned. The lamplight bounced off his fangs and made his golden eyes a stranger shade of yellow. I shrunk away a bit, holding my half-full glass of rum to me like a shield. “A good liar makes you think he’s honest.”

“That’s true.”

He cocked his head to the side and watched me a little longer. Felintarks, they don’t blink like us humans do. I mean, they do blink, don’t get me wrong, but they don’t need to as often as we do or summat. They can stare right at you fer the longest time. “You got a tink friend out there somewhere?”

I shook my head and knocked back a bit more rum.

“I bet you do. Only ones that call them Semadrans are the tinkers themselves and the ones with the fetishes.”

“What?”

He held up his hands. But he still didn’t blink. “As long as everyone’s still standing after I don’t care what you do on your own time. That’s a nice thing about the life, odd preferences about things that don’t matter don’t matter either.”

“I – no, my preferences aren’t odd. No, knew a silver fella back when I ran with the Rebels. He was quiet, but he didn’t seem like a liar.” That little silver git that sold me to Muladah’s ship wasn’t mincing words either.

“Sure, sure. Black or white?”

“Don’t matter to me.”

“There’s an advantage in going first, yes? Might as well take it when it’s being offered. Unless, of course, that question of yours isn’t really worth asking,” he said, spinning the board so the white side faced me.

I frowned a little and swallowed the rest of the rum, keeping the empty cup in my hand so he wouldn’t get a chance to fill it again. And then, I made my move. Nothing bold, nothing fancy, just a pretty standard opening, just to feel him out. A nice worn-in sort of opening everyone who knew anything about chess would know by heart. Muladah’s first couple of moves were a pretty fair approximation of a number of ways my opening usually played out. I figured him fer one that knew his way around the board a bit and started watching his game closer than the man himself. But then, about eight or so moves in, he lost his rook to a silly, careless mistake and missed the trap I was setting fer him and it became pretty clear that he didn’t know his way around the board half as well as he thought he did. Or half as well as I did.

I considered fer a moment, figured I didn’t really have a choice, and stopped pulling my punches. Within five minutes I’d cleaned out half his pieces and had the remaining few trapped in one corner of the board, separated and blocked off from his king. He rallied a bit in the endgame (he was one that thought well on his feet, and even better when there were only five or so pieces to think about) but the damage was done and the checkmate was inescapable.
Muladah shook his head and took a long pull from his bottle. “Damn, boy, Nossi wasn’t exaggerating.”

“Elothnian, born and bred. Come by it honest. Captain.”

“Ah, no reason to look so scared. Deal’s a deal and those who can’t stand to lose shouldn’t bother playing, right? Ask, you’ve earned it.”

I laughed and brushed the hair out of my face. I was nervous as all hell and needed summat to do, so I just sat there messing with my hair like some schoolgirl fer the longest time. “I’m not here to ask anything.”

Muladah raised his eyebrows and took another pull from the bottle. I caught his eyes darting around me, probably looking fer weapons I didn’t have. “Is that so?”

“Aye, Captain.”

“Well, I’m sure you didn’t come banging on my door for the conversation. No offense, Shakhar, but you’re not exactly the most thrilling conversationalist on board.”

“No, Captain, I’m sure you’ve taken that honor yourself.” He smiled and gave me an appreciative nod. “No, I’m not here fer anything, sir. I’ve got all I need. I just…thing is, it sounded like I might have summat you might need. Need’s too strong a word – summat what could come in handy, I mean.”

“Oh?”

“Aye, sir. Thing is, magick don’t work quite right on me. Nossi seemed to think you might find that useful. Charms, whatever it is the golds do, it all just sort of rolls off my back.”

He watched me for a second, his face blank and smooth. “Just rolls off, does it?”

“Seems to. I can’t really explain it, it just…look, Tawiri, you keep him around fer translating and such, right? Nossi said he can speak whatever ‘cause of the magick, is that right?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, the poor little bastard can’t hardly get a sentence out around me. I can tell it bothers him, too. That’s what I mean. The magick, it just sort of breaks down when they try using it on me. I don’t see what – look, I am sorry to come barging in here, I am. Nossi just thought it was summat worth mentioning, is all.”

He watched me a little longer and nodded. “It’s been mentioned. More rum?”

“No, Captain. Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

“Anything else?”

“No, sir.”

“Then hand me that map there behind you and see yourself out.”