Chapter 3
A murmur of voices came faintly as if from a long distance. Ayshe stirred and wondered if he ignored the voices whether Chaval would let him sleep another ten minutes. For some reason his pillow seemed unpleasantly hard, and he could use some additional sleep time since his body appeared to be aching.
A bucket of freezing water splashed over him, and he regained consciousness with a painful jerk. All the memories of the past few days came flooding back. He tried to sit up, though an ache in his head told him he wasn’t ready for such exercise.
The circle of faces around him drew back. With a great effort, the dwarf raised himself on his elbows and looked about.
The sky was still dark, but a pale glow showed that dawn was not far off. In front of him, a tall elf was holding a torch to illuminate the scene, and it cast its reflections on the wet deck beneath the dwarf. The light flickered and shifted in the breeze. The ship swayed beneath him as she ran before a wind that filled her sails above his head. The noises—the creak of ropes, the groan of wood and iron—brought back to Ayshe his last sea voyage three years earlier, the voyage that had deposited him in Thargon. That voyage and his life before the dragon’s attack seemed to belong to another lifetime.
A hand reached down, grasped the front of his shirt, and pulled him to his feet. He found himself staring into the face of the human he’d seen ashore, the man he’d assumed was captain of the ship.
“As I thought!” the man growled. “It’s the village smith.” He examined Ayshe as if he were some repulsive species of marine life. “What are you doing here, smith?”
Ayshe rubbed his aching head. “I came… I came to find answers.”
“Answers to what?”
“Why the dragon attacked us. Where it came from. Who you are. You seem to know about the dragon. I think you should have told us what you know.” Ayshe was conscious of how thin his speech seemed. Gallipol’s plan, which had seemed dubious when he was standing by the forge fire, appeared completely harebrained at the moment. A small voice in his mind said he might have expected something cooked up by the human village mayor would end in disaster.
“How did you get here?”
Ayshe hesitated. Evidently they had not yet found his boat. If he concealed its existence, perhaps he could make use of it again. “I swam,” he said sullenly.
The man looked at him with some measure of respect. “A long way to swim on a hope. Why should we give you answers?”
“Because our homes were destroyed!” The dwarf felt rage swell within him—rage directed both at the man before him and at himself for his cowardice. “Because our families were killed!”
“ ’Our’?” queried the elf holding the light. “What is a dwarf doing in a village of humans in the first place?”
Ayshe glanced at him. “I came to Thargon three years ago as a stranger, and the people there welcomed me as a friend.”
The elf snorted. “More than any humans would do for elves!” he growled.
“Peace, Ridrathannash!” The human continued to examine Ayshe’s face. “I told you, dwarf, when I was ashore that the wyrm will not attack again. Why do you asks for more?”
All the dwarf’s grief welled up and spilled from his lips. “Because we have a right to know why!” he shouted.
“A right?” The man put his face within an inch of Ayshe’s. “A right? You have no right! Do you imagine you’re the first village ever attacked by a dragon? By that particular wyrm? We’ve seen men, women, and babies slain by that beast and its kin. I’ve seen men with their guts torn out, women dead with babies plucking at their breasts for milk, children slaughtered at their school desks. A reason? There is no reason, fool! It’s a dragon. That’s what they do. They kill people.” He turned away as if there was no more to be said on the subject.
One of the elves turned to him. “What shall we do with it, Harfang?”
It took Ayshe a moment to realize he was the it in the elf’s question.
Harfang glanced at him. “He swam out here. Let him swim home.”
Ayshe could see through the rail the darkness of Ergoth’s shore rapidly receding, and his heart sank into the pit of his stomach. Stealthily boarding his boat and sailing back was not the same as being thrown overboard. Even if he could struggle through the chilled water in his weakened state and somehow reach the shore, he’d be miles from the village. With tundra wolves on the prowl, and who knew what other creatures roaming the empty land, his chances of getting home were small and growing smaller by the moment.
One of the elves grasped him firmly around the middle and carried him toward the rail. Harfang, evidently indifferent to his fate, had turned away to speak to another crew member.
Ayshe struggled, kicking against his captor, but in vain. The elf’s wiry strength held him tight. The dwarf gave up hope. Perhaps there was no point in struggling or even in swimming. He would let himself sink beneath the waves and find peace. He could not think what he would say to Chaval and Zininia when he saw them in the halls of the gods, but he would beg forgiveness. Perhaps that would be enough. He saw the dark water beneath him and instinctively drew in his breath in anticipation of the plunge.
“Halt!”
The voice came from behind him, and he felt the arms of his captor stiffen. Silence filled the deck, as if the very sounds of the ship had fallen quiet at the sound of that voice. It was musical, with a crystalline quality, as if it were something unbearably fragile.
Slowly the elf set the dwarf down, and Ayshe turned.
It was another elf. She had emerged from the entrance to the cabin at the stern of the ship and contemplated the scene while the crew stood frozen in their positions. Her hair was pale, almost white, and cut very short—so short that in places Ayshe could see the gleam of her scalp. From one eye to the base of her chin, a horrid scar twisted the flesh, as if a blade of fire had struck her, leaving its mark as shiny tissue.
She was clad in breeches with an old sea cloak wrapped around her. Even so, Ayshe could see that her arm, outstretched toward him, was emaciated, as if time and care had burned away every ounce of superfluous flesh, leaving only muscle and bone. As he saw her more clearly in the rising light of dawn, Ayshe also realized with a shock that she was blind. Her eyes had a white film over them, and she turned her head this way and that, as if hearing sounds beyond the range of mortal beings.
Beside and just behind her was another elf, also thin and pale. His head was shaven save for a single topknot of dark hair that was bound in delicate silver filigree to form a long braid, reaching almost to the ground. His mouth was drawn in a thin line. At his belt, he carried a coiled whip, and he showed great deference to the elf woman.
The human presented himself before her, also with deference.
“Who is this”—she sniffed the air—“dwarf?”
“He’s a smith, Captain, from the town we just visited. He survived the wyrm’s attack and swam out here to spy on us.”
“Not so!” The words came unbidden from Ayshe’s mouth.
The blind captain turned her sightless eyes to him. “Release him,” she ordered. Ayshe shrugged away the elf’s hands and walked over to stand before her. She reached out and touched him, running her fingers over his face as if to understand and memorize his features.
“You came for answers,” she told him, her musical voice pitched to carry only to he and Harfang. “But there are no answers. Harfang is right—dragons are what they are. Their minds are unfathomable, their souls corrupted, serving the gods of evil. Des qath e shanfala du qa’esari…” Her voice trailed off into a string of Elvish words the dwarf did not recognize. She seemed to be speaking in a dialect long since fallen into disuse, and suddenly he had a vision of centuries of life, a life beyond comprehension, carrying a burden of unending pain and sorrow born of a great tragedy. Tears sprang into his eyes. He looked up and saw to his surprise that the elf was smiling. She turned to Harfang.
“We have need of a smith, have we not?”
The human glared at Ayshe but answered the captain respectfully. “That’s so, ma’am. But I had thought to promote Alyssaran to that position.”
The captain shook her head. “We are short of crew with little chance of finding more in these parts save what the fates bring to us. Chance has sent us this dwarf, just as chance sent him to that village three years past.” She turned to Ayshe. “Are you skilled at smithing, dwarf?”
Ayshe was still trying to figure out how the strange elf captain knew of his arrival in Thargon, so she had to repeat the question. He reached behind him for his axe and found it missing. Harfang made a gesture, and one of the crew tossed him the axe, which he handed to the captain.
Ayshe cleared his throat. “I forged that… from old memories of time with my kindred in the Khalkist Mountains.”
The elf captain felt it carefully, running her fingers along the metal, tracing the engraving and decoration, seemingly taking pleasure in their intricacies. She tested the blade with her thumb and smiled again.
“What is your name, dwarf?”
“Ayshe.”
“Who was your forebear?”
“Balar,” the dwarf replied, somewhat unsettled. He’d not thought of his father in a long time.
“Then Ayshe, son of Balar, you are smith and armorer to the Starfinder. What say you?”
In the clear light of morning that was upon them, Ayshe could see the hills of Northern Ergoth marching past. A brisk breeze blew across the deck, stirring his hair and beard. Harfang watched him narrowly, and the dwarf found his mind was already made up.
“Aye, Captain. I accept.”
“Good!” The elf clapped him on the shoulder and without another word turned back toward her cabin. At the same time, activity on the deck resumed, and the moment they had stood frozen in time dissipated.
Ayshe looked to the east, where the sun rose over the hills out of the morning mists and spread its joyous rays across the expanse of water. Hope bloomed in his breast. Perhaps the strange elf captain was right. His heart demanded vengeance. He was aboard a ship pursuing the dragon that had destroyed his town and killed his friend. The fates had sent him here. On behalf of the town, he would bear witness and take his revenge.
Malshaunt the mage followed the captain back to her quarters. “With respect, ma’am, he-said, his voice cold, what was the reason for taking aboard a… dwarf?” In his mouth, the word sounded like poison.
The captain sat. “My good Malshaunt,” she said, staring straight before her, “one must take what the gods send us. The dwarf Ayshe has appeared on the Starfinder. No doubt for a reason; it is up to us to determine why he is here.”
Malshaunt shrugged. “Doubtless he came here to steal some goods for the aid of his village. One could hardly expect less of a dwarf…or of humans.”
The blind captain shook her head. “Peace, mage! And have a care. Your hatred of all other races is dangerous.”
The mage’s mouth tilted in a slight smile, like a cold sun breaking through the clouds on a wintry day. “Yet I’ve heard you say, Captain Tashara,” he observed, “that hatred is a creative power if one has the wit to wield it creatively.”
The captain did not match his smile, and a small line appeared on her forehead, but she said nothing for a moment. Then she rose and stepped to a large table on which a chart was pinned. The mage accompanied her.
Tashara ran her hand over the chart. An observer would have seen that unlike most charts, on hers the features were raised slightly: shorelines, names, navigation lines, and notations. Tashara ran her fingers over them then turned to Malshaunt and raised her eyebrows.
The mage stepped before the chart and spread his hand over it, muttering a few words beneath his breath. The lines on the chart rippled and changed. Tashara slowly reached down and placed a single slender finger on a small dot near the west coast of Northern Ergoth. The dot appeared to be moving.
Tashara traced a line with her finger down the coastline and south to the other half of Ergoth. Then she lifted her fingers from the chart and seemed to grope for a moment in the air close above the map, as if feeling the winds that swept above her ship. Malshaunt watched silently. His expression seemed to intensify when he looked at the captain. The captain’s face bore an expression of utmost concentration, and small beads of sweat broke out on her brow. Her lips moved but gave no sound. At last she sank back into a seat, exhausted. She rose and staggered slightly. Malshaunt offered a hand, but she pushed it away and made her way to her bunk, where she lay silent. The mage returned to the map, looked at it for a silent moment, then snapped his fingers over it.
He looked once more at the slender figure of his captain and went out.
The dwarf followed Harfang—First mate of the Starfinder from the way the rest of the crew addressed him—down the hatch he’d entered on first boarding the ship. They made their way between the barrels and through the door. There was a low-roofed compartment with curving walls, along which and between which were slung the hammocks of the crew before the mast. The mate pointed to one.
“There you’ll sleep. When you do sleep. There’s work enough to keep you occupied night and day.” He glanced disdainfully at Ayshe’s clothes. “Shamura!”
A tall female elf emerged from the back of the room. “Sir?”
“Get our new smith some clothes.” Harfang chuckled without humor. “You’ll have to cut down some breeches to fit him. Two sets. Same as everyone else.” He waved a hand of dismissal, and the elf disappeared.
They retraced their steps, emerged on deck again, and strode to another hatch near the mainmast. Ayshe knew enough of ship construction to understand that below deck the hull was divided into compartments, made as watertight as possible with tar and caulking, so a breach in the ship’s hull might be confined to only one area of the vessel.
Descending into that new area, the mate and smith found themselves amid barrels and boxes of stores. Bags of onions and potatoes hung from the beams that formed the great ribs of the hull, along with smoked hams, sides of bacon, and salt pork. The roof was low, and Harfang was obliged to duck, though Ayshe had no such problem. The dwarf could not shake the feeling he was in the belly of some monstrous sea beast that rode the waves, ignoring the tiny creatures that swarmed over it.
Along one side, partly shielded by a row of crates, was a small smithy. A shuttered port showed where the smoke from the forge could escape, though Harfang informed the dwarf on fair days he would be expected to set up his works on deck. Tools hung neatly along the wall, and Ayshe, inspecting them, was impressed by the care and forethought that had gone into their assemblage. Jigs, files, hammers—their surfaces polished to gleaming silver so no flaw might be transferred from them to the metal they struck—burnishers, and tongs. Some were cruder than he was accustomed to, and others seemed to have come from other parts of Ansalon where practices were different, but on the whole he would want for nothing.
Harfang, who had not suspended his hostility, told him he would be allowed to light the fire for only a few hours at a time. Every precaution had been taken to prevent any of the hot coals from spilling onto the wooden deck. If the dwarf needed assistance, it could be provided, “although we’re short-hauled at present,” Harfang informed him.
The mate’s speech was abrupt. He discouraged questions, and Ayshe did not ask any. Finally the mate said gruffly, “Your mess is at six bells. Someone will show you the way.”
Behind him a voice said, “Harfang?”
Harfang turned. “Yes, Feystalen?”
“Begging your pardon, Captain Tashara would be glad of a word, sir.”
Harfang nodded. “Aye. Very well. Perhaps you can answer any questions our new crewman has. Any, that is, that can be answered.” He nodded to Ayshe and went out.
After Malshaunt left the captain’s quarters, Tashara remained lying silent in her bunk for a quarter of an hour. At length she rose and crossed with sure feet to the back wall of the cabin. She pressed her hand against a section of the paneling, and an opening was revealed. The captain reached into the dark recess and brought forth a bundle wrapped in cloth. She bore it to the table and drew the cloth from it, revealing a sphere about eighteen inches in diameter. It did not appear hard or fixed but moved and pulsated, as if with a curious life of its own, as if something within it agitated its surface. The captain placed a hand on it and bent her head.
“Tell me!” she muttered. “Tell me! I must know!”
For a long time, the only sounds in the cabin were the same whispered words, repeated tens, hundreds, thousands of times.
“I must know!”