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The Long Road Back: A Jarthen-centric Interquel (pt. 13)

Felintarks are a strange people, especially when it comes to their laws. They ban all drugs but tobacco and alcohol in the Empire, punishment fer getting caught with pipeherb is a stiff fine and a week locked up in jail. Any amount of pipeherb, even if it’s just the resin in an empty pipe. The brothels there are all legally run – whores have these ironclad contracts that strip them of their ability to do anything but sit there and take what comes, but it’s all by the books. Still, though, legally speaking the only folks who can take advantage of the services of a girl whore are the men and the only ones who can take advantage of the services of a boy whore are the women. Not to say that these lines don’t get crossed in practice, but that’s the way the law stands. And even though felintarks talk a big game about how they’re all equal to each other and the Emperor’s not worthy of any more respect than your local cat-eared baker, they’ll take anyone within their borders without citizenship papers as goods to be bartered in their perfectly legal slave markets.

I didn’t actually know that was the case until they dragged me to Shalakesh and stuck me up on a podium out there in broad daylight, right in the middle of the market district. I’d assumed that it was an illegal trade, given the way they rushed me out of Essala as soon as I’d gotten there. Turns out, that’s just standard practice to keep the slaves themselves disoriented and cut off and therefore less likely to escape. They had us locked up in a pen, what seemed to be a converted stable or summat, the lot of us shackled to the door posts of the stalls. We were uniformly a young group, a lot of us not yet full grown. Besides myself and a handful of gold elves and one lone silver elf, the rest were mixes. None of them were full Felin. I wanted to ask them who they were, how they’d gotten into such a situation, but I couldn’t talk to them. It wasn’t permitted fer us to speak, I’d learned that the hard way on the road to Shalakesh. We could hear the bustle of the market outside, the calls of the barkers and the clatter of goods being moved, and every few minutes a trader came in and unlocked another of us and led us to the auction. Sometimes they came back with the unsold in tow, sometimes they came back alone.

When it was my turn, I was blindfolded before they unlocked me. I think they did that ‘cause I’m tall and ropy and look like I could’ve put up a better fight than the rest of us. They tied my hands behind my back, slipped a noose over my neck attached to a long pole the traders use to drag us around without ever being close enough for us to be a danger to them, and was pushed forward. “Do you know Felin?” the trader asked. I nodded. “Semadran?” I shook my head. We made the rest of the walk in silence.

Once he had me up on the podium, shackled to it by the ankles, the auction started and my blindfold was pulled off. A throng of mildly curious felintarks stood in front of me. Out on the street past them, crowds of less curious felintarks and the odd Semadran passed by without even casting so much as a cursory glance my way. “This one’s young and fit, fluent in Felin. Opening bid is 50 marks.”

The felintarks ahead were quiet. A couple peered at me fer a moment and then raised their eyebrows and muttered to each other, pointing at my marks. The trader sighed and jabbed at me until I stood up a bit straighter. “He was in and out of the life faster than you can spit. He was only on one ship.”

“On one ship for how long?” someone asked.

I grinned in spite of myself and leaned forward as much as the restraints allowed. “Long enough to learn your language, start to finish, and I’m not good with tongues,” I yelled out. Just as I suspected, two big fellas came out of nowhere and slammed me to the floor, and another gave me a set of lashes right there in front of the crowd. But the pain of it seemed worth taking if it meant causing such a ruckus made me unsellable and got me sent further west.

“He’s not house material,” the trader yelled out over my screams, “but look at him! Look how much he can take! Any builders out there? This one, he’s perfect for you – just make sure you shackle him and ignore the noise. 40 marks, he’s a steal.” But they saw me now as dangerous and disobedient. One flaw could be overlooked, but not both. “Come on, he’s as mundayne as they come. No tricks with this one, and the trouble that’s there can be beat out of him. 35 marks.” Still, no one seemed interested. The trader frowned and leaned over to one of the ones holding me down. “Show them his teeth.”

The other traders pulled me upright again. One of them took a handful of my hair and jerked my head back with one hand and forced my mouth open with the other. I snapped at him and got a solid punch to the jaw fer my troubles. “Fine condition this one, just needs training. 30 marks.” And then, a few seconds later, “25 marks! Last offer!”

No one took the offer. They half-walked, half-dragged me back to the stables, tossed me in the stall and locked me up. A foot or two managed to lodge itself in my ribs while they did it, and I lay there bruised and bleeding but on the whole feeling rather vindicated. The way I saw it, the worst case scenario was getting moved north instead of west and disappearing into the Empire forever. But if that was the case, at the very least I would’ve made the trader’s lives that much more difficult and that was a comforting enough thought to get me through the night.

*****

The march from Shalakesh to Tarquintia is a lot longer than the march from Essala to Shalakesh, and where the road to Shalakesh sticks close to the coast and can be traveled quickly a lot of the route to Tarquintia is through the dunes of the San-Kesh. It’s slow-going. It’s a blank, empty place and by a day out of Shalakesh I couldn’t have said which way was north or could have found my way out of it on my own again. Walking through it was like being out on the ocean– nothing but nature anywhere you looked – but worse, since there wasn’t even a ship to hold us. It was just us. Me and the other slaves walking through the sand, flanked on the sides by the traders on their horses, just little specks in the wasteland.

The traders gave us nothing to ease the journey. They drove us hard, lashed to a pole by our wrists, without anything to shield us from the blinding heat of the sun besides what we’d come to them already wearing. We stopped once, sometimes twice a day to rest and eat, but we were given just barely enough food and water to keep us going. The traders didn’t feel the need to give us any more than that, after all, every time one of us fell due to exhaustion or sunstroke, they got dragged along anyway by the rest of us who were still up and moving. A few days out of Shalakesh, a young fella got hit hard by the strain. He collapsed during the day and by nightfall he was shivering and feverish. The traders watched him but dragged him along the next day anyway. Two days after that, he was sliding through the sand, his eyes glazed, muttering under his breath. They had us stop marching, cut him free and looked him over, and cut his throat. There was some talk amongst the traders about what to do with the body and whether he’d cut much into their profits, but they decided it was easiest just to leave him there for the animals and that they’d just raise the prices of the rest of us to cover the cost of it.

The nights, though, they were the worst. At night, the traders set up their tents and took shifts standing guard over us while the others slept. There were three of them – one distinguished looking fella with a graying beard who watched everything around him like a hawk, one tall, lean man who was forever cracking jokes to the other two that he always found a good deal funnier than they did, and one young, cocky, lawless fella that was the worst. He made everyone uncomfortable, even the other two traders. He was brash and willful and rode around with his hair uncovered, which is against the tark’s religious teachings and marked him as a loose cannon of sorts. From the bits of conversation I picked up from them, it seemed this one had joined their ranks because he knew the routes, but the reasons he knew the routes were substantially less savory that moving slaves to and fro. They were careful not to say anything direct about it but if I had to guess, I’d say he was a reformed bandit, though how reformed was anybody’s guess.
But while he made the other traders a bit uneasy, he scared the living hell out of us slaves. His cruel streak went unchecked during his nightly shifts and when it was just us and him he took the opportunity to do whatever he wanted. A lot of his shifts he spent cutting one of the women free and dragging her off just out of sight but still within earshot of the rest of us and then tying her back up again before waking up whichever trader was set to relieve him.

At the start of that trip, I tried to keep myself separate and distant from everyone and everything else around me. After all, it had gotten me through the markets in Shalakesh. But watching that bastard making life so much more difficult fer those poor souls lashed just a little further down the pole and knowing that I was being spared because of nothing more than the luck of having been born a man chipped away at my resolve. Fer days I blocked it out as best I could. After all, I told myself, there wasn’t anything I could do to stop him that wouldn’t end with me left there bleeding in the desert myself. I was just as stuck as they were. But I couldn’t block it out when he took a particular shine to a fragile looking half-grown gold girl. She was tied just ahead of me on the line, and I spent all day staring at the fresh bruises that appeared there overnight, cataloguing them, counting them, keeping an eye on which ones were fading. One day, her shirt was torn when he tied her up again. The loose strip of fabric flapped uselessly in the still air, in time with the march, while the ruined neckline started sliding down her shoulder. A criss-cross of old lash marks peeked out at me. I walked for hours staring at them, wondering how old she was and who’d done that to her and what other sorts of transgressions were marked on her beneath her dusty clothes.

Every few steps, she’d twitch her shoulder up and back, trying to find some way to jerk her shirt back into place without the use of her hands. I watched the brown skin turn red and I remember thinking that of all that had been thrown at her the least she deserved was not to be sunburned any worse than she already was. I glanced up ahead at the traders, talking amongst themselves, and leaned forward, catching the edge of her shirt in my teeth and pulling it up high enough that it wouldn’t slip down again. She caught her breath and looked over her shoulder at me, terrified and confused, like she thought I was going to hurt her too. All it took was that one look and everything unraveled. In the wake of that look, me and my fears about fate and wars a thousand miles away didn’t seem so pressing, not when there was summat like that right in front of me.
In the days that followed, I paid a lot more attention to her than I did to myself. It seemed to me like she needed the attention more than I did, faced as she was with all that I wasn’t faced with myself. If she looked shaky during the march, I angled myself over and forward so she could walk in my shadow. At night, when it got cold and she’d shiver, I’d tap at her with my foot until she moved back enough fer my body heat to help stave off the cold. But still, when that bastard cut her free and dragged her off, there was nothing I could do but watch and pray he brought her back again in one piece.

*****

I was the second one brought out from the holding pen in the markets in Tarquintia. They try and get rid of the less desirable goods first, lulling the buyers into a false sense of low prices before springing the better finds on them. And, when ones like me don’t sell, the traders use that as leverage to drive the prices of the one folks actually want to buy up higher, citing their own starving children and such things. This time, they didn’t bother blindfolding me or treating me any different than the rest. After all, I’d behaved myself on the walk out and the traders had begun to suspect that the fight had been driven out of me.

I was pushed up onto a podium, aching all over. I was thirsty and sore and tired because they’d made us walk through the night to get there on time and I hadn’t had any sleep yet, just those few spare moments of rest in the pen before they dragged me out of it again. Frankly, I’d begun to suspect that the fight had been driven out of me, too. I heard the older trader start in on his pitch about me being young and strong (although I doubt that was all that convincing given the state I was in), but I wasn’t really listening. I kept looking over at the pen, at the rest of them. Every now and then, someone would jab me in the ribs and I’d look forward again, but a few seconds later, I’d get distracted and my head would turn of its own accord and I’d be staring once again at the pen.

That bandit bastard leaned forward and grabbed my hair, jerking my face forward again. And I just snapped. I lunged at him, screaming at him not to touch me and telling him just what I thought of him, about how if there was any justice in the world he’d get his soon enough and one day he’d be the one tied up and getting sold off. I stood there, straining against the chains, railing at him in my native tongue that no one there but me spoke, and not caring that he didn’t understand what I was saying. He ducked back, standing just out of my reach, smirking and telling the crowd not to worry, that I spoke Felin, too. “Go on,” he said, poking me with a pole, “show them you know a proper language, boy.”

“Don’t call me boy, you heartless bastard,” I spat back. And I hadn’t meant to, but I spat it back in Felin and the pleased look on his face was enough to set me struggling and snarling again. The ropes around my neck tightened, and I yielded, desperate fer another breath. The anger drained out of me, replaced by panic, and then finally hollow acceptance when I was able to breathe again. I dropped my face, burning with shame and weakness, and listened as the older trader listed the opening bid for 55 marks. There were no takers.

“Come on, this one’s a steal. He’s far enough away from the coast now that those marks don’t mean anything and he’s far enough away from Elothnin that there’s no danger of him running off and finding his way back. Look at him! He’s -- ”

“Elothnin? Did you say Elothnin?” someone out in the crowd asked.

“Yes. He got picked up by pirates in Opleneer.”

“When? When did they – move, damn it! I’m trying to get through! – when did they take him?”
“I can’t say, but I know it wasn’t long. Just the one ship, sir. Are you interested?”

My heart dropped. I shut my eyes and slumped, knowing it was the end of the road fer me. There was commotion up ahead, the sound of people shuffling and grumbling. Then, just a little in front of me, I heard someone take in a quick breath. “How much for him?”

“For you? 50 marks. It’s a fair deal -- ”

“Fine, 50 marks. Here, take it.”

There was a slight pause. “Anyone want to go up to 55?”

“Damn the auction! Here’s – here’s 20 more, just give him to me now!”

The trader let out a quiet laugh. “Alright, if you insist,” he said, unlocking the chains. I sighed and cast one last look over at the pen as I was shoved off the podium. Strong hands took me by the shoulders, and I flinched and stared back down at my feet. I wanted to believe that there was no way that whatever I’d just been sold into was worse than what I’d been put through to get to the market, but I knew it wasn’t true.

I waited for a rope around my neck that never came. I was gently pushed out of the market, onto the street, the man behind me muttering about luck and god’s grace and such things that just fell on deaf ears as far as I was concerned. Just past the gate, he sighed and turned me around to face him.

And the face was familiar. I was convinced I was dreaming. He looked me over, dusting the sand off my shoulders. “Jarthen, please tell me you’re alright,” he said very quietly.

I stared at him, left silent by the sound of my own name.

“Maybe – maybe you don’t recognize me? I’m Safir, I took you through the Dark Lands. The rebels, they’ve been looking for you.”

It had to be sunstroke. I was sure I’d fallen prey to the desert, that I’d gone mad with fever and that none of it was really happening. That really I was talking to myself and being pulled through the burning sand. But it seemed so real. “How did you find me?”

“I didn’t. I was buying fruit across the way and heard you yelling in Common.” He pulled an apple out of his pocket. “Here, eat. Do you need water? Are you hurt?”

I stared at the apple. A little boy ran into me and knocked it from my hand. He laughed, apologized and tossed it to me, where it hit me hard on the elbow. It stung. Safir picked it up and handed it to me again, frowning at the child’s retreating back. “Eat it.”

I held the apple close to me and glanced around, looking for the hidden seams between what was real and what wasn’t, and caught sight of the gold girl being led up to the podium. I grabbed the sleeve of Safir’s robe. “You’ve got to buy her.”

“What? Jarthen -- ”

“You’ve got to buy them all.”

Safir sighed and tried to lead me away, but I wouldn’t move. “I can’t. I spent everything on you.”

“You can’t just leave them here! I’ll pay you back, I swear I will. I don’t know how, but I’ll find a way, just please don’t leave them here.” Up ahead, the auction fer her broke out, prices got thrown out and topped and thrown out again.

“I’m sorry, I can’t.”

The shouting stopped and the trader pointed to a woman in the back, beckoning her forward. The pair of them exchanged words and shook hands and the girl was handed over to her. I went cold all over. I’d been spared again.

“Thank god I found you. It’s a miracle. I’ll get you back to them, I promise,” he said.

I watched the woman pull her away, watched her until her tiny form got swallowed up by the crowds. I fought back a wave of tears and let Safir lead me in the other direction. “It’s a lot of things, Safir, but it’s not a miracle.”

The Long Road Back: A Jarthen-centric Interquel (pt. 12)

With both me and Muladah looking, it didn’t take more than two or three months to find someone as mundayne as me. I found her, actually. Her name was Shalija and she was a barkeep in a tiny, no-name tavern in a tiny no-name port in the isles. I first noticed her, I have to admit, ‘cause she was worth looking at. Felin woman, they tend to be a good-looking bunch – fierce without looking too tough, round in all the right places, all that dark, shining hair – and Shalija was a fine example. And that day, I weren’t the only one noticing her. There was a fella perched there at the bar, some strange mix of silver and gold and felintark from what I could see, chatting with her in low tones. Or trying to, anyway, though she wasn’t paying much attention to him aside from casting an annoyed look his way now and again. And as she passed by, a stack of bottles in her arms, he reached out and caught her and she stumbled forward. The bottles went flying out of her hands, crashing to the floor and shattering, ale and wine rushing out in all directions. She let out a string of curses and dropped to her knees, gingerly herding the shards into a messy pile. But the floor was slick and slippery, and she lost her balance and landed on a jagged piece of glass.

Shalija let out a yelp of surprise and pain, her hand hovering over where the glass had lodged itself in her arm. The fella at the bar knelt beside her, told her he was a healer, and gently plucked it out again. “Someone give me a rag or a scarf or something,” he called out.

I was down there on her other side, half my sleeve torn off, wrapping it around the wound in a heartbeat. “Is she a’right?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine, it’s just – ah!”

The fella shooed at me but I didn’t go anywhere. He frowned at me, cleaned the wound, and pressed his hand to it, watching me with a slight smirk. “You’ll be fine in a second, I promise,” he said, focused and intent. But a few seconds later, when the blood was still oozing out, he frowned and pulled his hand away, murmuring under his breath and looking the wound over.

Shalija started to pull her arm back. “It’s not going to work. I need stitches, go get Doc Rahmed from the next street over, he’s Felin, he can fix it.”

“No, no, I’ve just…give me more of your shirt,” he said, poking me. I handed him another strip of cloth and watched as he cleaned the wound again, stared at it, and shook his head. “I don’t – it’s not even deep! Something’s not right here, I’m a good healer, ask anyone.”

“Magickal healer?” I asked. When he nodded, I remembered the way Rofi never quite seemed able to patch me up back on the Sinn and I broke into a wide grin that wasn’t really appropriate given the situation. “It might not be you.”

“What?”

“You wouldn’t get nowhere with me either. Here, lass, I’ll take you to the doctor,” I said, helping her to her feet. The healer made to stand himself, getting halfway through a handful of questions he never really finished and watched me lead her out of the bar. “A’right, which way?”

“Down this street and to the left,” she said. “This is just my luck. He’s going to make me pay for all of it, I know he is. Shit.”

“Let’s get you stitched up, you can worry ‘bout that later.”

“I’m going to have to work it off.”

“Look, what’s your name?”

“Shalija.”

“I’m Shakhar. Can I ask you summat?”

Her eyebrows shot up. “You’re Shakhar? From the Tarnib?”

“Yeah. Does that happen a lot? With the magick, I mean, not getting hurt like this.”

She shrugged and fiddled with the blood-soaked bit of my shirt wrapped around her arm. “I don’t know. Magickal folk, they talk a big game, but the only ones that ever seem impressed to me are the ones who’ve had one glass or pipe too much, you know? I don’t really think there’s as much difference between us and them and they’d have us believe.”

I let out a loud, triumphant sort of laugh and got an odd look from her in return. “Let’s get you patched up, then I’ll take you to the Sinn. My captain’ll pay fer all those broken bottles and then some. That a’right with you?”

She shot me a wary look. “Will he cover the doctor’s fee, too?”

“Oh, aye.”

“Alright.”

Within two days, she was on the ship as Muladah’s tether, which did the simultaneous duty of boosting his reputation and having someone as mundayne as me sit in on the negotiations without having to pay them a mate’s wage. He was thrilled, I was thrilled, she was willing. As soon as she accepted his offer and he marked her as his, he pulled me aside and told me that the next time we ported, I’d be stepping off the Sinn fer good. I made him swear on the ship it was true, and when he did it, so help me, I believed him. I laughed and hugged him – literally threw my arms around him right there in front of the rest of the crew so relieved I felt that I was in a real danger of making the spectacle worse by bursting into tears on top of it. And I stayed like that – hopeful and cheerful and revitalized – even when Nossi pulled me aside a few days later and told me that we were heading east, to Essala, looking a bit dark and worried.

“He swore on the ship,” said I.

“He swears on the ship a lot. It makes me nervous when he swears on the ship, things never fall out the way they should when he does that.”

But I just shrugged and stared out at the sea, savoring my last views of the pirate isles. “Him and me, we had a deal. If he says we got to go east to send me west, then I guess we got to go east to send me west. I mean, Essala’s a big port, right?”

“Yeah. Big Felin port. Big Felin trading city.”

“Big Felin port full of ships headed by captains that haven’t burned their bridges with the T’Langans?” He sighed and nodded. I laughed and patted his shoulder. “Ah, don’t worry, I’ll miss you, too.”

“Yeah,” he said, pulling himself off the railing and casting one last look at me over his shoulder, “I bet you will.”

And, good lord, was he ever right. Because the night we put into Essala, Muladah had Salir blindfold me, tie my hands behind my back, and then dragged me to the closest slave trader he could find. “Do you move the goods westbound?”

I went cold all over. “Mul, what the hell’s going on?”

He pulled down my blindfold and shot me this wicked, cold smile. “I’m sending you west, just like I promised. Now smile, Shakhar, show him you’ve got decent teeth so I can get a good price.”

“What?”

Muladah laughed and shoved me forward towards the slave trader. Ropes wound themselves around me from either side, pinning me in place, while the man peered at me and poked at me. “Pirates are hard to sell,” he said.

“Yeah, I know, but he’s strong and already knows Felin. 50 marks.”

I tried to turn to look at him, but the ropes dug in and I couldn’t do anything but stare at the wall. “You bastard! I found you another one! You lying bastard!”

The slave trader smirked and looked past my shoulder. “Strong and mouthy. Cheap combination. 15 marks.”

As soon as the haggling started, I might as well have been a sack of grain. It didn’t matter how I carried on, what I threatened to do to him, the pair of them acted like I wasn’t there. Like I wasn’t anything worth paying attention to, no different than a yapping dog. In the end, I was sold for 23 marks, the bastard branded my cheek with a hot iron, and I was lashed to a line with thirty other hollow-eyed scarred-up souls and sent marching by foot through the desert westbound to the slave markets in Shalakesh.

The Long Road Back: A Jarthen-centric Interquel (pt. 11)

Velladiah did end up joining with us. He came out of the cabin bad-tempered and surly but he came out allied with the Sinn. And it took him no more than a week of getting stuck close to me and getting nowhere with anyone on board before he got his fill of it and found himself his own ship and the alliance turned into the start of the Tarnib fleet. I doubt you’ve heard of that one. The only ones anyone knows outside of the life are the grand old ones. But the ones in the life sure as hell know about the Tarnib. And I’m a big reason why.

I spent a year straight being Muladah’s front line. By two months into his campaign to brand every heartless half-elf delinquent in the pirate isles with his name, he’d bumped me up to first mate. Salir weren’t that pleased to be demoted but he never got much of a chance to do anything about it since I was always either with the captain or doing the captain’s job fer him. Every couple of weeks some new upstart was getting dragged on board and locked in the cabin with me and Nossi. And by the end, they were begging fer spots in our fleet. I mean, I had to watch them like a hawk since they’re not above begging in one breath and fleecing you in the next, but still. A year out and folks in the Haven knew who I was and I started feeling like I’d never get out of the life again.

Then came the day that Velladiah ran the red flag up his mast. That itself weren’t all that unusual, a red flag just means the other captain wants to meet but not that they’re in danger or anything. So, we let them pull up alongside us, threw the lines to draw them over and a plank from his deck to ours, and Velladiah came on board. He glanced around fer anyone but me, but everyone else had tucked themselves out of sight. “Jarthen, a pleasure as always.”

“Same. Everything a’right?”

He nodded, still scoping out the deck. “Sure, sure. Like to speak with yer captain if he’s got a minute, though. Got a proposal for him.”

I headed down below deck, gesturing fer him to follow me. “What sort of proposal?” I asked, knocking on the captain’s door.

“Didn’t say it was a proposal for you, did I?”

“No, but we both know I’m going to hear it.”

“Then you’ll hear it when you hear it.”

Muladah called us in, and I took my place behind him and Velladiah sat down across from him. “Everything alright, Vella?”

Velladiah smiled and Muladah smiled back and quickly looked away again. “You start with that and I’ll let Shakhar take over.”

“Oh, I’m not starting with anything. Just genuinely happy to see you, that’s all. Been too long.”
“So this is just a friendly chat between captains, is it? No formal requests or anything?”

Velladiah shrugged and smiled a little wider, watching Muladah stare at the top of the desk instead of looking anywhere near him. “Well, maybe just the one request.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“I’ve got lots of contacts, you know that.” Muladah nodded. “Yeah, and some of those contacts, some of the better ones, they’re out there in the archipelago.”

The captain shook his head. “No, Vella, no reason to go where we’re not wanted. Not when we’ve got such a lock hold on things here.”

Velladiah leaned forward and Muladah leaned back and away. “C’mon, let me break off alone. Just for a year, tops. I can get us into the black market all the way up through the City of Mages.”

“Wait,” said I when I caught Muladah glancing over at him, “way I heard it the only friends you really got anymore are us.”

His eyebrows shot up. “I’d call you a great many things, Shakhar, but I’m not sure friend is one of them.”

“Hell, you know what I mean. Way I heard it we were the only crew that would touch you with a ten foot pole.”

Velladiah frowned at me and turned back to Muladah. “Look, I’ll go under a different name if that’s what you’re worried about. Though I’ve always been on better terms with the T’Langans than anyone else, ask around.”

“T’Langans?” I asked. For the first time in months a bright flare of hope flashed in me.
“Yeah, T’Langans. Which is just another reason not to send him that way. No, Vella, stick with the fleet.”

“Whoa, let’s not be hasty,” said I. “We’ll have to go west sometime, right? Why not now? Why not let him hook us up with his contacts and what have you?”

“We don’t have to go west at all,” he said. “Show him back to his ship.”

Velladiah frowned. He sat there glaring at Muladah fer a second or so, looking like this would be the time his temper got the better of him and he lashed out, but when Muladah glanced back up again and waved at him, he forced all that bitterness back down again. He smiled and nodded and pulled himself up. And I just knew that if he walked out of the cabin, my chance to escape was walking out with him. I leaned forward and caught him by the arm. “Look – wait! – look, Captain, if you’re worried about him going rogue there’s provisions fer that, right? A man of yours on his ship, right?”

“Yes, but -- ”

“Then why not let him go and stick a man or two on his ship?”

Velladiah shot me a skeptical look and ripped his arm out of my grip, but sat back down again. “It would be an honor to sail with a mate of yours, Captain.”

“I know it would be. Too bad that honor don’t go both ways, huh? Shakhar, come with me a minute,” Muladah said, pushing me roughly towards the door.

I scrambled out the door, terrified and giddy at the same time. “Captain -- ”

Muladah took my chin in his hands and jerked it one way, then another, looking me over. “What, you worn down or something?” he said, quiet and low, half to himself.

I fought the urge to jerk back again. I’d learned pretty quick not to make any sudden moves around the pirates. “I’m not charmed.”

“Sounds like you are,” he said, pushing me away, still watching me too close fer comfort.
“I’m not. I just think it’s an idea worth listening to, that’s all. I don’t see what the harm in it is,” I said, careful as I could.

“Oh, really? An idea worth listening to? And since when are you the authority on that? You don’t know anything about anything.”

“All due respect, sir, but by now I’m sure I know summat about summat. I’m not saying that I know anything close to what you do, but I think we both know I’ve been around the block a couple of times by now. Look, I know you don’t want to go west. But I also know you’ve been turning folks down more often than you’ve been taking them into the fleet of late. Why not let Vella go after whatever he’s going after, stick one of ours on board to keep an eye on him, and let in someone a bit less of a hassle to keep in these waters here?”

Muladah watched me fer a moment, sizing me up and wearing summat between a scowl and a smirk. Then, without a word, he was back inside the cabin and I was stumbling after him, the hopeful pounding of my heart making it hard to listen to the conversation that followed. “Well, Vella,” he said, sitting back down again. “I might be persuaded if you take one of my choosing.”

“Deal, that’s fine by me. You know, Avo’s got -- ”

“Nossi stays with me. I need him and he’s putty in your hands, we all know it.”

Velladiah tapped the arm of the chair, his eyes flicking from me to Muladah and back again. “Thing is, all your mates are putty in my hands except that one next to you.”

“Captain, he’s right. He’s tricky as hell. I don’t mind going with him. To keep an eye on him. Since it’ll only be a year or so,” I said in a low, even voice, trying very hard to sound nonchalant about it.

Muladah turned to me. “You really want to go west, Shakhar?”

“Really want to? I wouldn’t say that, no. No, I told you straight I don’t get on well with T’Langans. But looks to me like we don’t really got much of a choice,” said I.

“So you don’t want to? I wouldn’t want to push you into something you didn’t want to do. I wouldn’t want to give someone as valuable as you any reason to start looking at other crews.”

I fought the urge to point out that he’d pushed me into doing any number of things I didn’t want to do and just barely managed to keep it to myself. I was getting more agitated by the second – it was so close I could taste it. “No, Captain, I don’t particularly want to and I don’t particularly don’t want to, either. Got no strong feelings, myself, it just struck me as a good idea.”

He nodded and cast a quick glance at Velladiah, who was steadily watching me. “No strong feelings at all?”

“No, sir.”

“Nossi says you and him don’t mix well. And from what I can tell there’s no love lost between the two of you. In my experience – and mind you, Shakhar, experience is all I’ve got to go on, I don’t have your brain – but in my experience sticking two fellas that can’t stand each other together in close quarters with orders to keep an eye on each other usually ends pretty quickly with one of them unable to keep an eye on anything. And as smart as you may be we both know you’re not much of a fighter. Strikes me that you ought to have strong feelings against it.”

I felt myself flush. I looked away. “You’re right, Captain. But, still, no one else fer it but me.”

“Then maybe he shouldn’t sail west.”

Velladiah banged the top of the desk and pointed at him. “You can’t – no, we had a deal! Shakhar, you heard him, didn’t you?”

“Aye.”

“No, we didn’t. You called it a deal, you jumped the gun.”

“You sneaky bastard!”

Muladah laughed and settled back in his chair. “Leave if you want. See how far you get alone before one of mine notices you don’t have an escort on my ship and cuts you down. You really think you can make it all the way to the plank?”

Velladiah crossed his arms and slunk down in his chair. “If we’re making a deal we ought to just get on with it and damn all the dancing around.”

“Yes, you’re right about that. Well, here’s how it’s going to play out: you stick with me and mine until such time as we find ourselves another like Shakhar who can keep tabs on you proper.”
“And if I find someone like that,” I asked quickly, “you’ll send me off with him?”

Muladah grinned at me and shook his head. “If we find someone like that I’ll send him off with Vella. You stay with me. Take him back to his ship.”

That’s the moment I panicked. I panicked and got sloppy and more or less dug my own grave. All the waiting, all the tension and fear, it just got the better of me. I had to get back – as much fer myself as fer all that Na-Fra laid on me right as he was dying. I went quiet after that, kept to myself and wouldn’t say two words to anyone, always keeping one eye on the rest and one eye searching fer a way out. I bided my time until we ported a couple of months later and then I made one last play fer my freedom. I ducked off the ship as soon as it was tied to the dock, I was off it so fast that I drifted off into the crowds mulling around it before Nossi had a chance to catch up to me. I tucked myself as far down into my jacket as I could, hunching a bit so I didn’t stick out quite so much. It was a small, cramped, foggy little place, not terribly well known and likely one of the worst spots I could have picked to try what I tried there since we had a strong hold on it. But, like I said, I was panicked and not thinking straight.

I made a beeline for the agents’ street. I’d been in that port before, so I knew where I was going, it’s just east of the docks, tucked on the edge of a rocky cliff side facing the sea. It was a sheer drop and stories went that more than one drunk pirate stumbled off it and disappeared and at least as many who’d been deemed troublesome had been pushed over. I remembered those stories as I walked past the windows bearing Felin or Semadran or Droma signs, knowing that if things didn’t go the way I was hoping they would that I might be deemed troublesome myself and find a similar end, but the risk seemed worth taking. I ducked into the first T’Langan place I saw. It was a small, cramped little office with a dark human woman sitting in a worn-looking chair with her feet propped up on an equally worn-looking desk. She was playing some sort of card game with herself, idly flipping the cards over and shuffling them again in some pattern I couldn’t make sense of while keeping an eye on a pair of children playing in the middle of the floor in front of her. She glanced up when I came in, frowned, and shooed the children into the back room. Then she told me to drop my weapons at the door. I told her I didn’t have any on me. Or I tried to, but I ended up mangling the patois and it took a couple of tries. It’s the same with Felin, too, I can understand a few languages, but the only one I can really speak is Common.
She frowned a little more and tried speaking Felin, but when she didn’t get any farther and I couldn’t get anywhere in Common with her I sucked it up and went with the patois. “Do you have any ships in port?”

“Why?”

“Because I need to get to the archipelago.” I heard chatter outside growing louder and the sound of approaching footsteps and darted past the window, glancing out to make sure it wasn’t anyone from the Sinn. “Please, I got to get on any ship heading out that way. I’ll do anything. Any position, even cargo.”

“Cargo?” she asked. I nodded. “Are you on the run?”

“I’m trying to be.”

“Running from what?”

I’d been hoping she wouldn’t ask that. I decided to dodge it. “Just escort me. Just get me a meeting. Come on, you and yours can’t be getting a lot of bites way out here, can you? And I’ll make it a deal worth taking and then you’ll get all the credit.”

She crossed her arms and watched me for a second. “We don’t need to get that many bites way out here when we get so many back home.”

“I will pay you to get me on a ship.”

“How much?”

I pulled out everything I had and held it out to her. Like I said, by that point the Tarnib fleet was doing well enough that Muladah was on the market fer a tether. So I, as a mate, was raking in a decent amount. And as far as I could tell, there wasn’t anything more useful to spend it on than a bribe. Her eyes went wide and she locked the door and drew the curtain. She had me drop it all on the desk and she started sorting through it, pulling out the T’Langan coins and the things that can be traded anywhere – jewelry, drugs, that sort of thing. The Felin marks she left. I took this as a good sign. “Show me your marks.”

“Rather not.”

She frowned and took the Felin marks after all, payment fer letting me keep my name and history to myself. “Alright, stranger. Follow me.” She yelled summat back to those children in what I presume was T’Langan and ushered me out of the office, locking it behind her. She led me to the docks, where the Sinn was looming down on me making my heart beat a mile a minute, to a T’Langan ship. And it struck me that she must’ve been right about not needing to pick up folks in the isles because that ship, it was a beauty. One of those big, broad galleys they got, with three masts, each taller than the last. I’m telling you, compared to the Sinn – a narrow, light clippers the tarks are so fond of, built fer outrunning enemies rather than fighting them – that thing looked like a joy to sail on. She brought me on board, waved over some brawny fella so dark that it was hard to tell the marks from his skin, who led me below deck to the captain’s quarters.
The captain was pouring over a map spread out across a table, leaning over it and making notes to himself, when we came in. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow and his arms were coated in names down to the wrist. I remember staring at those arms fer what felt like the longest time – they were lean and strong and leathery, his hands had long spidery fingers, and half the tattooed names had these deep, vicious looking scars raked across them. He and his mate exchanged a few words and then the captain glanced up at me. “Where are you from?”

“Elothnin, sir.”

“Where?”

“The, uh, the land below the Felin empire,” said I.

He nodded and glanced at his mate. “You’re human?”

“Yes.”

“All human?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s something. Better the wrong kind of human than anything else. So you’re defecting, are you?”

“I am.”

“From what ship? What fleet?”

“I’d rather not say.”

His eyebrows shot up. He exchanged a few more words with his mate, the pair of them laughed, and then he asked me again who I belonged to.

I took a quick breath to steady myself and forced myself to look him in the eye. “I belong to myself.”

“Yourself and who else? We don’t get many like you way out here, I doubt you came all this way to get your start in the life. Someone carried you to the isles.”

“I belong to myself,” I said again.

He made a sort of soft grunt, not quite a laugh, and nodded at the mate. The mate wrapped one hand around my throat and slammed me up against the wall, and with the other he pulled my shirt loose enough to get a look at my chest. He let out a low whistle when he saw the Tarnib symbol there. The captain said summat else and then he had hold of my hair and jerked my head to the side, and I heard him say summat about the Sinn. And when he did, things got real tense.
The captain barked out in T’Langan and I got slammed to the floor and that big bastard had my hands tied behind my back in less than a minute. I didn’t struggle. The captain yelled out another order and I felt hands patting me down, searching through my pockets. “I got nothing on me, no weapons, no money, nothing,” I said. “I swear it on the Sinn, I’ve got nothing.”

“You’ll swear on the ship you’re deserting?” the mate said.

“Unless he lets me onto yours I got no other ship to swear on,” said I.

A heavy, sharp sort of silence settled on the cabin. The captain had me pulled up and deposited in a chair. “Are you Shakhar? Are you Muladah’s man?”

“My name is Jarthen.”

“He’s got to be Shakhar, Captain. He’s a mate, look at his ear.”

“Look, what does it matter who I am? I’m trying to get out! I don’t know what he did to you but I had no part in it. Just take me on your ship. Please, however you want. Crew, cargo, hell I’ll even tether to you if it’ll get me headed west. Please.”

“Why do you want to go west? There’s nothing out there for you. Did he send you here? Did he not learn his lesson?” the captain asked.

“He don’t know I’m here, I swear on my ship.”

The captain’s eyebrows flicked up. “Why T’Lango?”

“I got friends heading that way. Rebel elves, they’re going that way.”

“Who?”

“The rebels. The red elves.” He blinked at me. Apparently news of the Border Wars wasn’t really news worth hearing out that far. I tried a different tack. “Look, does the name Na-Fra ring any bells?”

“I don’t know every black-skinned pirate on the seas, boy.”

“He wasn’t a pirate. Well, he was but not fer long. He was a seer, he led a host of T’Langans to fight with the elves in the forest. Did you hear about that? He told me to get back to them, said he’d had visions about me. I --I think his brother’s still a pirate.”

“Which pirate?”

I frowned and shook my head. “Don’t know.”

“Visions?”

“Aye.”

The captain glanced over at his mate and laughed. “That’s quite a story, boy. No wonder Muladah lets you do all the talking. Next time, though, you might want to check your facts. Mundayne seers don’t have visions. Their prophecies are blind.” He laughed again and gave an order to his mate. An hour or so later, his mate came back, with Muladah in tow. He didn’t look at me when he came in, not once. He handed over a fat sack of coins, pointedly looked away while they untied me, and made small talk with the mate as he walked us back to the docks. As soon as we were off the ship, Muladah’s fist slammed into the side of my face. I yelped and fell heavily to the water-logged planks and he hit me again. And then once, maybe twice more before everything went black.

When I woke up again, I was in his cabin. He was sitting in a chair, watching me, drinking rum straight out of the bottle. I winced and gingerly tapped my swollen cheek. “Rofi’ll patch you up. Sorry for that, I just couldn’t run the risk of you running off again before we got back here. Just a matter of practicality.”

“Captain, I -- ”

“So what’s this about red elves and needing to get to T’Lango?” he asked. I swallowed and went quiet. It didn’t seem like talking to him was going to do much good. “Lo-Felai said you started going on about a seer and Ravel told me when we picked you up in Opleneer that you’d gotten duped by a pair of addicts who promised to send you west. But he said you were an Imperial deserter.”

“I am.”

“Is that all?”

I shrugged and pulled my knees to my chest. I felt empty, hollowed out. I felt like a failure, and I remember thinking that fate herself was as much a failure as I was given my situation, and that the pair of us had let Na-Fra down.

“Shakhar.” I didn’t move. Muladah sighed, I heard his chair being dragged a little closer. I was certain he was going to beat me bloody and I decided to just let him. “Jarthen, I’m a reasonable man. I owe you a lot. And I thought you and I were on good terms, the way things have gone. Imagine my surprise when I find out you’re out there throwing yourself at the mercy of someone as heartless as Felai. But I can’t sail west. I’ll get skinned alive if I do.”

I nodded and leaned against the wall. I was only half-hearing him. I was distracted and he sounded far away and insignificant.

“Look, I’m going to have to make you take lashes for that. I’m sorry about it, I am, but rules are rules and they all know I already favor you. But I’ll have Nossi do it, he’ll go a lot easier on you than Salir would.”

“Much obliged.”

“Of course. Now, if you’re really that set on heading west I think I have a way to get you there that won’t leave me in a lurch.”

My head whipped over. “What?”

He nodded. “If we find another like you I’ll send you off with some fellas traveling westbound myself. I’ll make the arrangements for you.”

“What’s the catch?”

“The catch is that we have to find another like you,” he said, leading me up to the deck, where Nossi was already waiting with lash in hand.

Additional Recollections Collected

-- A Life on One's Own --

When I reached 16 years of age, mother determined that my education could no longer be fulfilled by private tutors, and arranged for me to be sent to boarding school. Because I did not come from vassal or noble stock, the Opleneer Junior Academy, generally regarded as the finest institute of juvenile instruction in the Empire, was not open to me. Instead, I secured a seat at Neerhemhind's Dandleknack School. Dandleknack, or 'Dandy' as it is affectionately dubbed by its alumni, boasts a curriculum and sense of dignity that are unmatched even by its more famous counterparts. The school itself dates to the reign of when Agatar Dandleknack founded the Neerhemhind Institute for the Enlightenment of Youthful Minds with the singular purpose of creating a new educational model. While most other schools of the time limited themselves to curricula based heavily in the classical literature of Elothnin, etiquette, and the moral improvement of children through hard labor, Dandleknack sought to incorporate the new fields of mathematics, natural philosophy, and a brave new discipline called broad history -- the study of foreign nations and Elothnin's place among them. Although his ideas were initially spurned by our country's hereditary elite, the new school attracted the offspring of the rising mercantile and official classes whose influence was growing at unprecedented rates. Over the coming years the school's reputation and enrollment ballooned until it achieved its current rank as one of Elothnin's finest. Indeed, I may add with not immoderate satisfaction that many of the schools that decried Dandleknack's theories quietly incorporated them into their own curricula a few decades later.

Bidding my mother and home farewell was perhaps the most difficult experience of my life to that point. Though the temptation was nigh overwhelming, I had sufficiently mastered my emotions by this point in my life that I did not shed a single tear. She didn't show it at the time, but I'm fairly certain that the parting was just as difficult for Mother. She and I were as close as mother and son ever were. I was her confidante, bosom companion, and most earnest supporter. A smile comes to my face whenever I think of the meals, irreverent gossip, and lofty conversations that we shared over the course of my childhood. Nevertheless, I looked ahead to the new chapter of my life, even as I bid a reluctant goodbye to the previous one. I knew that the time had come to truly begin my life as a man.

Students at Dandy live in Harplay House, a stately old building that exudes an air of the classical period of Elothninian architecture. It is a sprawling facility with long winding hallways lined with rooms that vary greatly in terms of size, shape, and ceiling height. I was assigned to a two person room on the fourth floor of Harplay. It was already furnished with a pair of narrow beds, desks, and book cases, all of which were bathed in the light of two enormous South facing windows. I will admit that I suffered from no small amount of trepidation when I learned that I was to have a roommate. I had never lived with anyone beyond my family and the servants and never shared a room. Mother had always been particularly discerning in terms of the people with whom I spent my time, and made it a matter of principle that my morality and health should not be sullied by too much interaction with other children. Indeed, apart from a few illicit rendezvous with the local boys, my experiences with my peers were severely limited. So, it was with some surprise that I found myself immediately enamored of Dyles Montarington, my roommate.

I uttered a sound of surprise when I entered our room for the first time. It was neither the beauty of the architecture nor the quality of its furnishings that elicited this response. Rather, it was that Dyles was quite naked when I opened the door.

"Well what are you waiting for?" he asked as I stood there gaping.

"Pardon?"

"Are you going to close the door? You're letting a draft in.”

"Oh, of course, yes." I shut the door, and tried not to stare directly at him. It was an entirely new experience for me, being in the presence of a naked body other than my own.

"Well, I suppose introductions are in order. I'm Dyles," he said, pulling on a pair of the school-issue trousers.

"Atelon Scrudton," I said, not sure whether I ought to shake his hand or offer him a shirt.

"Nice to meet you, Scruddy." He resolved my ambiguity by firmly grasping my hand in greeting. His grip was as strong as you would imagine from such a fine, young fellow as him. Dyles was a study in that athletic grace and dignity that many associate with Dandy students, his thick blonde hair fell just short of his warm brown eyes. His face was handsome, and his shoulders broad. He seemed to fit better in a classical painting than our humble lodgings, and I felt strangely giddy as he sized me up. "Do you play football?"

"I can't say I ever have." Mother had specifically forbidden me from organized sporting. Such pursuits were dangerous frivolities in her mind.

"You look like you might be alright at defense. Let me see your legs."

"Pardon?"

"Your legs, Scruddy! I need to see what we've got to work with," he said impatiently.

"I'm sorry, I'm not sure that I understand --"

"Bloody hell," Dyles said, striding towards me, his shirt as yet unbuttoned. Before I could utter a word in protest, Dyles yanked my pants to the floor and was appraising my physical proportions with the expert eye of a butcher. I later learned that his father was a tremendous enthusiast for athletics of all sorts, and made his fortune by organizing amateur sporting groups in Neerhemhind. His son had apparently inherited this interest, and was eager to organize an interscholastic league, an idea relatively unheard of at the time. "Not too shabby, could stand a bit more meat on 'em, but we can take care of that. You quick?"

"Quick enough, I suppose," I said nervously.

"You'll be coming out for the team then, and I won't hear otherwise."

**** An Inauspicious End Begets a New Beginning

Despite some hesitation on my part, Dyles made good on this threat and dragged me out to the pitch that weekend for the first practice. About twenty eager young men arrived at the large open field a mile west of Dandy designated as our facility. Football was new to the majority of those who decided to attend, and our faces betrayed a mixture of curiosity and anxiety as Dyles explained the game to us. "Football is the greatest test of athleticism, skill and strategy ever devised," he began grandly. "There are 11 players per side, one ball, and two goals. The point of the game is to navigate the ball, using anything but one's hands or arms, into the opposing side's goal as many times as possible over the course of the game." Dyles spoke at length about the various tactics, formations and finer points of the sport that left those of us without prior experience quite confused. Fortunately, however, Dyles soon had us engaged in such vigorous drills that we didn't have the energy to worry about our own ignorance.

I found football to be simultaneously difficult, exhausting, invigorating, inspiring and enlivening. I was charmed. Over the next few weeks we practiced 6 days a week, honing our skills, and sculpting our bodies through countless hours of physical exertion. I was pleased to note how favorably my body responded to this vigorous exercise, clothing my hitherto bony arms in a rippling layer of sinuous muscle, and granting me a new found endurance. This experience imparted to me the deep importance of physical culture, a facet of life. To this very day, I engage in a ritualistic adherence to a scientifically designed program of calisthenics, deep tissue massage, and vigorous bouts of physical exertion with an almost religious fervor. I credit this exacting regimen with my excellent health and superior resistance to all manner of illness. If more of our young men were to embrace these habits, I do not doubt that the well-being of the nation, both moral and physical will be greatly improved. But I digress.

Two nights before our first game of the season against the Elmont Institute, Dyles let us go from practice early. He said we all ought to blow off some steam before the match, to stave off the unfortunate effects of nerves, and forge our bonds as a team. As I am sure the reader has gathered, Dyles was a rather indelicate fellow in some respects, not nearly as refined and sophisticated in his habits as one might expect from his family's material wealth. It was from him that I truly learned riches alone do not a gentleman make. Nevertheless, he was a good-hearted boy in his own ribald way, and I do not doubt that his suggestion we, as a team, visit a local pub was made with the best of intentions.

We made our way from campus into the city. Dandleknack lies in what one might consider a suburb of Neerhemhind, occupying a sprawling stretch of vibrant lawns kept beautifully manicured by the school's more unruly charges as a form of punishment. All fifteen of us wound our way behind the high hedges that protected the playing field from observation by the uncompromising teachers who monitored the grounds, and saw that we young men didn't get into too much trouble. The blood pounded in my ears, and my entire frame was enlivened by that first thrill of deviance. Until that point, I had never considered breaking a rule, Mother instilled in me a tremendous respect for authority, and the example of my father provided ample evidence of delinquency's folly. However, there, with a pack of young men, thirsting for freedom and independence at my back, how could I decline a little innocent fun? We hopped over a low stone wall, and managed to escape through a narrow gap between the hedges, twenty yards away from the gate. I was astonished that our giggling and half-hearted attempts at concealment were not more easily apprehended, but I have since become acquainted with the deficiencies endemic to pickets.

With Dandy behind us, we marched happily towards the outskirts of Neerhemhind, the lights of the city our beacon. We sang as we walked, a few of those raucous tunes that are popular among students, and engaged in the requisite amount of horseplay and tomfoolery before we found a large public house, its stone walls fairly vibrating from the laughter and good cheer it encapsulated. We spread ourselves across several tables, trying our best not to get too close to the locals who held a rather negative view of Dandy's affluent student body. We ordered ale from an attractive barmaid, and she brought us trays of enormous brimming tankards. It was not my first taste of alcohol (I’d had a glass of wine during the holidays), but I was not prepared for the full effects of an evening's worth of ale. The first tankard went down easily enough. I felt exhilarated from the conspiratorial nature of the whole affair, and intemperately engaged another round with my comrades. And another. And another. With each passage of the barmaid we grew louder, more confident of our brilliance. By the fifth round, my stomach was on the verge of violent protest, but my thoroughly addled mind insisted that my digestive tract was just being a slouch, and that more ale would quash its rebellious spirit.

Aside from Dyles, who apparently was more practiced in the art of imbibing, the rest of the team was in a similar state, half-way between enthusiastically drunk and painfully ill. While he was only just crossing the threshold of confident inebriation, the rest of us were on the precipice of over-consumption. He called to a pair of attractive young women who had just entered, offered to buy them a drink if they joined he and I at the table. By this point, I was sufficiently overstimulated as to be numb to the enticement of conversation with even the Queen herself, but I did not protest. I don't remember their names, but they seemed nice enough. Dyles immediately engaged the blonde in conversation, leaving me to entertain her brunette friend.

"So...what do you do?" I asked in a slurred voice. My tongue felt heavy, and my brain was clumsy, fumbling through a fog to find something to talk about.

"I work on the high street. Me mistress is a woman o' means, his lordship being a very successful landowner," she responded in a chipper voice, taking a rather large sip from the ale Dyles had ordered her.

"Oh, that must be quite nice. Who is she?" She mentioned some minor dignitary whose name escapes me. Dyles, in the meantime, was moving rather faster with her friend. They had retired to a more private booth to engage in activities best not put to words. I will admit that the sight of Dyles' rapid conquest combined with the alcohol sloshing around in my stomach, aroused certain desires on my part. She was a fine looking young woman in the bloom of health, her dark hair cascading down milky shoulders, truly a vision of feminine beauty. She seemed a little unnerved, and I realized that I was staring at her. I quickly lowered my eyes.

"You're quite beautiful," I said.

She flashed me a nervous smile, and giggled a little. "Ye ain't so bad yerself. What do ye do?"

I cringed slightly at her ill-bred accent, but the fog of chemical and romantic intoxication pushed me on. "I'm a student at Dandy."

She looked impressed, and preened a little bit. I suspect that she was a little embarrassed that she hadn't realized she was in the presence of such up and coming young men as ourselves. I looked over at Dyles and his partner, enmeshed in a tangle of groping hands and hungry lips. I leaned towards her. I could smell the faint aroma of beer and soap on her clothes, and she blushed, but did not recoil from my advance. We stayed there for an impossibly long moment, our mutual desire steadily intensifying. Finally I made my move. I could feel the warmth of her breath on my lips. We were inches from an embrace when a powerful, unexpected wave of nausea washed over me. I managed to turn away just in time to save her from the bulk of the vomit that I expelled. I felt like my insides were in revolt, as I heaved up the contents of one of the tankards in a single go. I apologized to the disgusted young woman, and dashed out of the pub and relieved myself of a considerable quantity of the evening's refreshments, along with my supper onto the cobblestones. I stayed on my hands and knees, waiting to see if my body would be racked by further heaving convulsions, trying to catch my breath even as I sat in a pool of my evenings .

"You seem to be having a rather bad night," a deep, resonant voice said from just behind me. I was surprised by the richness of the voice. It was robust, without a hint of harshness just unadulterated baritone. My eyes slowly fell upon a pair of black boots polished to mirror sheen, connected to the long graceful legs of a dancer that supported a narrow-waisted, broad shouldered torso clad in fine evening wear. His pants were pinstriped, and tailored to a tight fit that highlighted the musculature of his thighs to great effect. He wore a jacket of a fine, black material that had an exotic shine to it evoking the finest Felin silk atop a rakishly loose white linen shirt with buttons of glimmering opal. Around his neck was a red kerchief, knotted tightly into place with a pearl topped pin. Finally I reached the face of this strange apparition. His features were perfectly chiseled, every plane of his face seemed to have been carefully calculated to maximize his beauty. His eyes, which seemed to laugh at me without a hint of malice, were the deepest, purest shade of blue I'd ever seen. An unruly mop of luxuriant auburn curls framed this portrait of a man. He extended his hand, which was large and strong, yet surprisingly gentle at the same time, and hoisted me to my feet. I stood there staring at him for a moment, uncertain as to whether my legs would be able to support me in my weakened condition. "Are you alright?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, of course. Thank you," I said, finally remembering that I had a voice.

"Too much ale?"

"Is it that obvious?" I asked, blushing hotly for no reason in particular. Perhaps it was the lingering effects of the alcohol, but he made me nervous and strangely excited just standing there staring at me, my pants legs damp with beer.

"It is, but that's to be expected of a frosh." I flushed and nodded, a little embarrassed that my inexperience was so apparent even to a complete stranger. "You do go to Dandy, don't you? You look familiar."

"Yes, yes I do," I stammered back.

He nodded approvingly. "I figured as much. You have the look of a Dandy man, even if you haven't yet acquired the stomach of one."

"Is there terribly much drinking required?"

"If you want to have fun there is. I'm Sacheverelle Lascenn, by the way."

"Atelon Scrudton."

"What's say we go in and get you some water -- you'll thank me in the morning," he said, guiding me through the bar's door. We sat down together and he procured a glass of water from the bartender. We chatted for a while about various frivolities. I found that, despite his somewhat sardonic demeanor, he was extremely solicitous of me. He watched me with a maternal fondness that immediately endeared him to me. When Dyles and the others told me that it was time to go I reluctantly assented.

"I hope I see you around," I said to Sacheverelle uncertainly. I desperately hoped the strong affinity I felt for him was mutual, and not some sort of inebriated illusion.

He gave me an enigmatic smile. "Oh, you will."

The Long Road Back: A Jarthen-centric Interquel (pt. 10)

I never did get the hang of the cards. And I thought that would be the end of that, but it wasn’t. A few months after we stopped in the Haven, Muladah had us port in Alassah. And the night before we landed, Nossi pulled me out of the berth and led me to his cabin. “What’s going on?”

“Guess we’ll find out together.”

“You don’t know? He didn’t tell you?” Nossi shrugged and shook his head. I frowned and pulled him into a dark corner just around the side of the door. “I don’t like this.”

“Shakhar -- ”

“He shouldn’t be asking fer me, it makes me nervous.”

Nossi held up his hands. “Shakhar -- ”

“Has he got summat new up his sleeve, is that it? Who’s he…shit, he’s not taking me out is he?” Nossi laughed and reached fer my arm, but I ripped it away from him, panicked and scarcely breathing. “Holy hell, you’re in on it, aren’t you? You lying little two-faced -- ”

“Jarthen, pull yourself together,” he said, taking a firm grasp of my arms and shooting me a curious, worried sort of look. “No one’s taking anyone out unless you’ve heard something I haven’t.”

I stared at him fer a second, not quite willing to believe him. But then the second passed, and the panic and fear passed with it, and I let out a tight, nervous laugh and started towards the captain’s cabin. “Right, course. Right.”

Nossi frowned and darted ahead of me, keeping a close eye on me. “You alright?” I nodded. “What was all that about?”

“Just, you know, it’s a damn pirate ship, that’s all.”

Nossi cocked an eyebrow but didn’t say anything else. He knocked on Muladah’s door and Salir opened it. He wasn’t paying much attention to us, he was staring at a map of the pirate isles, and was away from the door as soon as it swung open. Nossi stepped into the cabin and pulled me through after a second. The nervousness had crept back up and I’d just been standing there on the other side of the threshold. “Get the door,” he whispered. I pulled the door shut behind me and kept myself close to the wall, glancing around at everything but Muladah.

“What’s wrong with him?” Muladah asked.

Nossi shrugged and took a seat across from him. “He blocks, remember? I can’t pick up anything from him you can’t pick up on your own.”

Muladah leaned back in his chair, watching me with a slight sly smile. He waved me over and I told him I was fine right where I was. He smiled a little wider. “Shakhar, come on. Don’t make me yell across the cabin. Take a seat.”

I was tempted to point out that the cabin weren’t all that big and that he seemed to have no problem being heard at the moment, but I kept my mouth shut and took a seat next to Nossi. Salir glanced up, took one look at me, and laughed. He leaned over to the captain and said I didn’t have spine enough to survive in the life. The big smug bastard still thought I didn’t know a word of Felin and was always saying things like that around me. I frowned a bit more and stared at my boots since saying summat back just seemed like more trouble than it was worth.
“Yeah, maybe. Sal, go watch the deck, would you?” Muladah said.

“Sure, Captain. My pleasure,” he said. I felt a good bit better when the door closed behind him and it was just the three of us in there. A far cry from fine, but a good bit better nonetheless. Muladah pulled a box out of a crate and dropped it on the table. It was that same box, I noticed, he kept the tattoo supplies in. “So, we’re putting into Alassah, as I’m sure both of you know.”

“Old news,” Nossi said.

Muladah nodded and opened the box, drawing out a sharp-looking needle. It was a bright silver, no ink stains on it, and thicker than the ones he’d used to mark me. I became distinctly uncomfortable. “Sure, sure. But you know who’s in Alassah, don’t you? If anyone knows it’s you.”
Nossi laughed and shook his head. “Nah. He’s laying awful low, the way I heard it. I can’t say I blame him, considering.”

The needle caught the flickering lamplight and I felt my heartbeat ratchet up. I fidgeted in my seat, wanting desperately to ask Nossi who the hell he was talking about and tell Muladah that I wanted none of what he’d called me there fer, but I just sat there. I was stuck.

Muladah ran the needle over a candle flame and dropped it into a glass of rum. “If I can get him on the ship the two of you can hook him. You know I’m right.”

My head jerked up. “The two of us?”

Muladah smiled at me and nodded. I made a number of sounds that can’t properly be called words and Nossi laid a hand on my shoulder and pushed me back in my chair, leaning across the table as he did it. “Mul, no, he’s not -- ”

“I know what he is.”

“What he is is nothing useful, not for this.”

Muladah glanced up at Nossi, his eyes cool and tricky and clever. “Either he’s useful or he’s got no place in my crew. Shakhar, Nossi doesn’t think you’re worth keeping around.”

Nossi sighed. “That’s not what I meant, you know it isn’t. He’s just a kid and he don’t know anything about anything, you can’t just throw him in with Vella. Vella will tear him to pieces.”
I forgot to breathe. I opened my mouth, but no noise came out and I closed it again. And Muladah just sat there watching, the entire time.

“He seems like a bright fella to me, he’ll pick it up quick.”

I found my voice again. “I’m not.”

Muladah grinned at me. “You are. You knew enough to get bumped to crew, didn’t you?”

I shook my head and looked away, sinking into the side of the chair closest to Nossi, like he could protect me somehow. “No, sir. No, that was just generosity on your part.”

“Well, consider this more proof of my generosity,” he said, reaching across the table and pulling me up by the arm. He dragged me around the table and pushed me into his own seat and before I quite realized what was happening, he’d stabbed that damn needle through my earlobe and was shoving summat else in the bleeding wound along with it. I let out a loud, surprised yell and sat there, frozen and wide-eyed and waiting fer him to stab me again.

Muladah laughed and looked over at Nossi. “Delicate little fella, isn’t he?”

“Well, hell, Mul, you didn’t tell him what you were doing.”

Muladah laughed again and peered down at me. “You’re alright, it’s over.”

“It is?”

“It is,” he said, grabbing my arm and hauling me upright again. “Congratulations.”

“Fer what?” I asked. I reached up to my ear and winced. There was a ring in it that hadn’t been there before and it took some effort on my part not to rip it out and throw it at him.

“For your promotion. You’re one of my mates, now. Like him,” he said, pointing at Nossi.

“What?” Nossi shrugged and shot an annoyed look at Muladah. Muladah laughed a little louder. “Oh, no. Captain, I’m not cut out fer that.”

“Are you saying you know better than me, Shakhar? Are you telling me how to run my own ship?”

“No, no!”

“Good. Sit down.” I sat. My hand drifted up towards my ear again and Nossi swatted it away, saying summat about it getting infected if I didn’t watch it under his breath. I hadn’t seen him that annoyed since the card game with Faliah, but this time, I think, the annoyance was all his. “I made you a mate for a very specific reason. So listen close.”

“I will, Captain.”

“We’re porting in Alassah. And in Alassah, I’m sending Salir out to get a man named Velladiah on board. To negotiate a fleet alliance. But Velladiah, he’s a tricky bastard, and he’s one of those that just oozes magick out of every pore. Which is where you come in. I don’t have a chance in hell of getting a decent deal out of him, I’m a sitting duck for him. But you aren’t.”

My eyes went wide. “You want me to negotiate fer you?”

Muladah grinned. “See, you’re cleverer than you give yourself credit for. Really, you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.”

“But – but I don’t…Captain, with all due respect, shouldn’t you have someone who’s been around awhile longer handle this fer you?”

“That’s why Nossi’ll be there right beside you. He knows protocol. And he knows Vella.”
Nossi crossed his arms and looked away, shaking his head a little. “This is a bad idea.”

“Only if it doesn’t work. If it does work it’s brilliant and you know it.”

“It won’t work.”

“Nossi -- ”

He shook his head again, still staring at some point on the wall just to the side of the captain. “It’s a bad idea.”

“It’s an order, is what it is.”

*****

Nossi kept saying that Velladiah wasn’t in Alassah and that even if he was there was no way that the captain could get him onto the ship. He said that, but he was tense and nervous and snappy and I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe what he was saying since it looked to me like he didn’t quite believe what he was saying himself. So the day I ended up in Muladah’s cabin sitting in Muladah’s seat with Nossi standing just behind me I was disappointed, but not really surprised.

“How are you doing?” Nossi asked, eyeing the door like it was going to leap off its hinges and attack us.

“A’right.”

“Really?”

“No.”

He patted my shoulder. “Just remember what I told you. Make him do the talking. And if I start getting odd on you, pull rank and send me out.”

“I…I really don’t want to have to do that,” said I. I had a sudden vision of me trapped in that tiny cabin alone with some great monstrous fella – all fangs and sharp knives and strong hands.

“It’ll be fine.” But he didn’t sound so convinced of that himself.

There was a knock on the door and I froze. I cast a terrified look over at Nossi. He wrapped his arms around himself, gave another of the frustrated, bitter sounding sighs he’d been letting out since the captain had promoted me, and told whoever it was to come in. Salir opened the door, looking a wee bit nervous himself, and held it open fer someone that, frankly, didn’t strike me as someone worth worrying much about. On the surface, at least. He was about an inch or so taller than me but lanky and skinnier. Rail-thin, and not the sharp, sinewy type of thin but a frailer sort. And nearly as young as me. Actually, he looked quite friendly. He had an expressive face and broke into a wide, familiar sort of smile when Salir led him in, grinning at me like we’d grown up together. And, really, he could have had I not known better. Even with the green elvish eyes, he could have since we’ve got our fair share of half-reds running around. He turned to Salir, ducking in a little, and thanked him fer his help in the patois. Salir mumbled summat under his breath, but Velladiah caught him by the arm before he could slide by, saying summat in a quiet, rich voice that set Salir laughing nervously and grinning sheepishly.

“Vel, don’t,” Nossi said.

Velladiah kept right on looking at Salir, smiling a little wider. “Avo, I’m not -- ”

“Salir, leave us be, would you?”

Salir turned towards us but couldn’t quite pull his eyes away from the gangly brown-haired half-grown boy beside him. “What did you call him?”

Velladiah leaned in conspiratorially. “Didn’t he tell you? His name’s Avomilai. Do you know Droma?”

“Me? No, I – ”

Nossi was across the cabin in three long strides. He took hold of Salir’s arm and shoved him through the cabin door, locking it once he slammed it shut again. “Take a seat,” he said, casting a mean look at Velladiah as he passed. But then, Velladiah grinned and Nossi grinned back and whipped his face away. He shook it once, twice, and then the brightness fell away and he was the same anxious, bad-tempered fella from the moment before.

“Been awhile, Avo.”

“Maybe, but you’re not here for me.”

Velladiah took the seat across from me. He gave me a warm, approving sort of nod, still watching Nossi from the corner of his eye. I think he was, anyway. It’s hard to tell with elf eyes. He started to say summat, but Nossi glared at him, hissing summat in Droma before he got the chance. Velladiah watched him fer a second longer, that inviting smile still stretched across his face. “Well, there are rumors about you, too.”

Nossi smacked me in the shoulder and I cleared my throat. Velladiah looked over. “Muladah, is it? I have to say, I’ve never seen one of yours look like you,” he said in Felin.

“The captain’s out. I’m here in his place. I’m one of his mates.”

Velladiah leaned forward, glancing me over. “Strange, being brought to the cabin to haggle with someone who’s not here.” His Common was good. Flawless. He sounded a wee bit like some of the rebels that grew up around me and mine, like Adahna or Sellior.

“He wanted me to extend an offer of alliance to you,” said I, looking him right in the eye and keeping myself as still and composed as I could, just like Nossi told me to. Still, though, my leg kept twitching and fidgeted, and a slight nervous tapping could be heard coming up from under the desk.

Velladiah pulled a case out of his pocket, plucked out a Felin cigarette, and offered one to me. I declined with a sharp, swift shake of my head. “Now that’s something, isn’t it?” he said, lighting it and sending a pair of smoke rings drifting towards the porthole. “But, you know, ‘tis not good practice to start talks with some lad you’ve never met, is it? I’m Velladiah,” he said, holding out his hand.

I took it out of habit. The moment he started shaking it, I frowned and made a note to myself to watch myself a bit more closely. “I’ve heard.”

“Heard good things or bad?”

“Heard your name was Velladiah, that’s all.”

He laughed and leaned back in his chair. “Good answer. Say, you from Elothnin? You look it, sound it.”

“I am.”

He cocked his head to the side. “From the Fethil, are you?”

“I am.”

Velladiah looked over towards Nossi with a sly smile. He said summat I couldn’t follow about me being Fethilian, but I was fairly certain I knew what he was going on about. I frowned and shook my head. “Mr. Velladiah, if you got summat to say, you got to say it to me. And that sort of thing is off the table.”

He glanced back at me and grinned. “Why, because it’s true?”

“Because it’s not and there’s no place fer empty rumors here. And because…well, that’s all. So speak Common, a’right?” said I. My voice cracked once or twice, and I flushed bright red when it did it, feeling exposed and vulnerable.

“Well, actually, lad…what’s yer name?”

“Shakhar.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Really? Sounds Felin.” I nodded. “Alright, if you say so. Well, Shakhar, thing is that when someone’s nice enough to come onto yer ship, they get to pick the language. Point of procedure, right?”

“Yeah, well, that decision is made for you when the man you’re talking to only speaks one language,” Nossi said quietly, staring pointedly at his boots.

Velladiah glanced over at him, quick as a flash. A predatory, sly grin broke across his face and all at once he was draped over the side of the chair, closing the gap ‘tween the two. Nossi’s mouth twitched, his face flushed. “Sure, sure, unless there’s someone else in on the talk that can translate. Like you.”

“I’m an empath, not a mirror.”

“Just ‘cause you come by the languages honestly don’t mean you can’t translate. I could demand this whole thing happen in Droma and the only way he could get around it would be to throw you out. It’s within my rights.”

I leaned over. “Is that true?”

“It is,” said Velladiah. “But, I’m a reasonable man. And my Common’s held up well enough. So, I formally request talks open in Common.”

The pair of them turned to look at me in unison. There was an awkward handful of seconds before I realized they were waiting fer me to say summat. “Oh. Right. Accepted.”

“Good. Let’s here what you lot brought me out for.”

Nossi poked my shoulder and pointed to a bottle of rum on the floor between us. I slid it across the table, jerking my hand back when Velladiah’s started towards it. “On the behalf of Muladah of the Sinn, I make a formal request fer alliance.”

Velladiah looked the bottle over, frowned slightly, and glanced up. “Is this a joke?”

“What? No! Or maybe it is, but if it is no one’s told me, I swear!” said I.

He slammed the bottle down again and shook his head. “That’s barely a step up from sea water, I’m not opening with that.”

“Then go back where you came from,” Nossi said, still staring at his feet.

Velladiah let out a sharp laugh. “Did you even see what he gave me, Avo?”

“I picked it out, Vel. And from where I’m standing it’s too generous.”

“Then maybe I ought to be standing back on the dock.”

“Maybe you -- ”

This struck me as not at all the way things were supposed to be going and in that moment having to tell the captain how badly I’d managed to muck it up before it even started struck me as a surer avenue to bodily harm than trying to smooth things over. “Whoa there. No need to go anywhere. That’s just…uh…just what we got on hand, didn’t mean nothing by it. Let’s get this show on the road.”

“Boy, don’t sit there and treat me like I’m blind,” he said, pulling himself up.

I waved at him and rooted around in the crate beside me fer the fanciest looking bottle I could find. I handed him a small bottle of fluted purple glass. Velladiah took it and watched me fer a second. “Alright, I’ll stick around a bit longer.”

Nossi leaned across and snatched the bottle out of his hand. “Not with that.”

“What? No! It was offered and accepted!”

“Don’t sit there and act like you didn’t see half of it’s gone already. It’s not a valid offer. Hell, it’s not even good rum.”

Velladiah crossed his arms and frowned. “Still not taking that shit you tried to force on me.”
“I didn’t try anything. You’re negotiating with Shakhar, not me.”

Velladiah stood up and leaned towards him, angling his reedy form across the table. “Yeah, and how strange is that?”

“Keep your distance.”

But he didn’t. He propped his chin up in his hand and tapped Nossi’s arm. “Avomilai, we both know this kid, he’s not the one in charge. Not really.”

Nossi looked away, plucking at his hair and blushing again. “Vel, back off.”

“It’s just that the way it looks to me, Avo, is that you’re the one really calling the shots here. I mean, makes sense given how fresh caught this one is. And I can’t think of -- ”

Nossi took two steps back and Velladiah took three steps forward. Nossi landed against the back wall of the cabin and Velladiah threw his arms up on either side of him. He was trapped. “Vella, I swear I’ll -- ”

“ – anyone better for it than you. Or anyone I’d rather deal with than you. Fond memories, right, Avo?”

“Vel -- ”

In one smooth motion, Velladiah took hold of Nossi’s chin and gently pushed him against the wall. He wasn’t holding him there, there was no force from what I could see, but Nossi was pinned just the same. He swallowed, the blush got brighter. “Hey, I’m just trying to speed things along, you know? Cut out the middleman and all that. What do you say, Avomilai?”

Nossi blinked at him. Then he smiled and darted forward and started speaking Droma in a low, quiet voice, his eyes flicking over towards me now and again. Velladiah angled himself between the two of us and whispered summat back.

“Nossi?”

But he weren’t listening to me anymore. He was just chattering away with Velladiah, handing him some other bottle of rum and a map along with it, like I wasn’t even there. In short, he was starting to seem a touch odd to me.

I tugged at the cuff of his sleeve. “Hey, Nossi.”

Nossi frowned at me and jerked his arm away. He pointed at me and said summat in Droma that set Velladiah laughing.

“Pulling rank, head out,” I said quietly. Nossi cocked an eyebrow at me and started leading Velladiah away. So, not sure what else to do, I took hold of his arm and dragged him towards the door, muttering an apology to Velladiah. A bit of a struggle ensued that ended with Nossi throwing a punch at me and me catching it and twisting his hand until he cried out and shoving him through the door and locking it while he was disoriented. Which meant I’d locked myself in the cabin with Velladiah. Which made my heart skip a couple of beats while I made my way back to the desk.

“No offense, but you probably shouldn’t have done that,” Velladiah said.

I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he was right. But I kept my face as plain as I could and shrugged. “Let’s just get this hammered out, a’right? The captain wants an alliance with you and a spot here on the Sinn until such a time when you get a ship of your own, at which point the alliance will be a fleet with him as runner.” I said this very quickly, repeating what Muladah had told me word fer word.

He smirked, still leaning against the back wall, looking far more comfortable there than I was comfortable with. “Bet you don’t even know what half of that means, do you?”

“I don’t have to understand it, I’m just the messenger. Only one that really has to understand it is you and I’m sure you understand it all just fine. So, sit down, would you?”

“Why, does me standing here make you nervous?”

“Aye.”

He watched me fer a second, the smirk got a little trickier. “I’ll sit down if you tell me yer real name.”

Now, I sort of had him half-made by that point. All the smiling, the touching, purring out folks’ names like that, I’d seen the red elves do that before. I knew he was charming them and I’d picked up enough from those months spent with the Rebels to know that charms work quicker and faster on most when the charmer’s touching you and calling out to you by the name you go by. And I knew that it worked a little better on me if they did that but it was still a far cry from whatever usually happened when they did it. I figured I’d just let him try it, get frustrated like they always did, and move on with the negotiations. “Jarthen, my name is Jarthen,” I said holding out my hand.

He grinned when he took it, and not in that friendly way. He grinned in triumph, like I’d stumbled into a trap. “Nice to meet you proper, Jarthen.”

I grinned back, but mostly felt annoyed. Velladiah’s eyes flicked up to mine, fixed on me like he was waiting fer summat. I grinned a bit wider and felt still more annoyed. I pulled my hand back and pointed to the chair across from me. “Same. Deal’s a deal, take a seat.”

Velladiah stared at me fer a second. “Aw, c’mon, no reason for that, Jarthen.”

“Deal’s a deal,” said I, clearing off a small spot on the desk. Then, remembering it weren’t my spot to clear off, I thought the better of it and put the maps and such back in their place again.
“Jarthen?” I looked up, and again that victorious, vindictive grin broke across his face. In the space of a second, he leaned down and took my face in his hands, so close I could feel his breath landing on my cheek. I yelped and leapt back, but he held on and got jerked back along with me. “Jarthen, lad, let’s be reasonable.”

“Look, those things they say ‘bout us Fethilians? I’m real sorry, but they’re not true. Not true in my case anyway, so, uh, would you mind sitting down over there?” said I, gently trying to push him back again.

But my attempts didn’t do much. He ignored them and leaned in a little closer anyway. I blushed and let out a nervous giggle, embarrassed and flustered and wondering if Nossi had failed to mention that the deals in the life were sealed in ways past just those tattoos. “Sure, sure,” said he, “but that don’t mean we can’t be friends, eh? You scratch my back I’ll scratch yers. Got contacts all over, I could get you anything you want.”

“I – I just want you to sit over there and get this show on the road, honest.”

His smile faltered. “What?” His voice was markedly less friendly now, making me uncomfortable in a whole new way.

I pulled his hands away from me and scrambled out of the chair. “Yeah. So, don’t take this the wrong way if it’s not the case, but you look like you might have some red in you. And if you were charming me – and again, if you weren’t, I’m real sorry fer saying it – but if you were charming me you shouldn’t bother. It just don’t stick with me. So, we’ll have to work this out proper-like, Mr. Velladiah.”

All the warmth dropped away from him. He frowned and shook his head, casting an angry look at me. “Is this Avo’s idea of a joke? Stick me in here with someone too simple to negotiate right?”
“Well, sir, it’s no joke. And I’m not simple, just mundayne.”

He laughed and started towards the door. “Fine line ‘tween the two in my experience.”

“Look, it locks from the inside and I got the key, so -- ” Velladiah whipped around and came flying at me, knocking me to the ground and rifling through my pockets. “Not on me, I don’t have it on me!”

“Well, where the hell did you put it?”

“I put it right where it’s staying ‘til we come to an agreement,” I said, hoping I was sounding a far bit braver than I felt.

Velladiah pulled me upright again and sent me sprawling towards the door. “I don’t deal with cabin boys.”

“All due respect, sir, I’m a mate.”

“In name only.”

“As I understand it, name’s enough.”

He shook his head again, tense all over like a cat about to strike. “You little fresh caught son of a whore, open the damn door!”

I felt myself blanch but stood there anyway. “Are you refusing negotiations?”

“No, I’m respectfully requesting appropriate accommodations to make them in.”

“Well, I think, sir, that this is about as appropriate as you’re going to get today.”

A New Era Dawns

Well ladies and gentlemen, we, your beloved purveyors of the Tale of Jarthen and other sundry tales from the Jarthenverse have reached a turning point in our glorious endeavor. As such, we have decided to elicit your candid feedback on how we ought to proceed. To wit, a response to the following questions would be greatly appreciated:

1. If you have read the second draft of the Border Wars book (Tale of Jarthen, not the version posted on the blog), what are your thoughts? Things that suck? Things that are good? Things that are missing? Criticisms are really awesome.

2. With regard to the Border Wars 2, would you like us to continue the habit of weekly installments? We ask, not because we feel neglected, but because it doesn't seem like too many people have been reading the Jarthen Interquel (you really should, it's awesome), and it might be easier for us to post it in a different way.

3. Is there anything we've done in the past that you would like to see more or less of in general? Anything we haven't done that might fun?

Any feedback is appreciated, even if it's just to say you guys blow and should really reevaluate our choice of pastimes.

Not to spoil the surprise or anything, but you can expect a tremendous number of changes in the future! Also, the backlog of podcasts is in the process of being addressed -- does anyone still want to listen to them? Should we continue them in Book 2?