by Jaxon Reed
The captain turned and paced about the small room for a moment. He said, “So, a wealthy merchant sails to the Ageless Isles in search of fortune.”
“I wouldn’t call myself wealthy. I make enough to eat.”
“Hm. Tell me of your shop. What street is it on, in Ruby City?”
“It’s a stall, actually. At Market Square. I rent it.”
“Who is your landlord?”
“A man named Felway.”
The lies came easily to Stin, answering each question without batting an eye. He could have just as easily lied about most any of the capital cities, having spent time stealing in all of them.
Cessic smiled and said, “Felway the Fence? I did not know he dealt in the renting of market stalls. So he’s a landlord, too.”
Stin frowned. He decided to take advantage of the captain’s familiarity with Felway. At the same time, he found himself hoping Cessic had not heard of Felway’s death yet.
“Felway has his hand in many things throughout the city. In fact, that is one of the reasons for my voyage. I hoped to profit enough to pay off my debts to him.”
The captain seemed satisfied with Stin’s answers. He smiled, showing the golden tooth again, and said, “Well, there’s no sense in holding a man for ransom who owes Felway the Fence. Felway would as soon see you die before handing over money to bring you back. Especially if it’s more than you owed him.”
Stin grunted an acknowledgment, but said nothing.
“Well, Steck, now that you’re onboard Wavecrest you’re expected to pay your own way. I’m conscripting you to the crew. You will follow the orders of my first mate, Melton. He will assign you to your quarters and duties. In return you’ll help pay for the damages inflicted on my ship by Dream of the Isles.”
Stin raised an eyebrow and said, “Hardly seems fair to assess all the damage to me alone, Captain.”
Cessic smiled wide, flashing his golden tooth. “Welcome aboard, Steck.”
-+-
Melton was shorter than average, missing his left leg below the knee, and sporting a receding hairline. Stin took Melton for a man of quick decision and slow wit. For his part, the first mate of Wavecrest seemed to take an immediate dislike to Stin.
Stin followed the grumpy sailor deeper into the ship, the wooden leg tapping a sullen rhythm on the deck boards.
They finally made their way to sleeping quarters, a cramped room in the bowels of the ship with berths stacked four high.
“Pick one. Most of the men sleeping here were killed trying to take your ship.”
Melton turned on his wooden heel and headed back up top.
A few men occupied some of the bunks. They all stared at Stin. He met the eyes of each one, turning left to right. At his far right he spied the bald giant who had pulled him overboard.
“Well at least I know somebody here. Tell me which bunk to choose, old friend, so I don’t piss anybody off.”
The other men seemed to hold their breath as they swiveled between the giant and Stin. The giant’s eyes narrowed to slits for a moment. Then he grinned wide, his tongue poking out between his missing front teeth, and he laughed.
“Bwahaha! I like you! And y’ fight good! Aye, I be the one what brought ye. You’ll do well here. Come bunk in this spot near mine, and if any give ye trouble aboard Wavecrest they’ll answer to me, Plinny the Giant!”
-+-
Stin never could tell if the other pirates truly liked Plinny, or if they were simply scared of him and pretended to like him out of fear for their lives.
Plinny dominated all discussions, especially at mealtimes in the mess where he took up half a table for himself. He regaled Stin with stories of kidnapped damsels and looted plunder, gold stolen and gold spent, the best houses in every port filled with women willing to relieve sailors of their gold, the best taverns with the best ale, and the best sea lanes filled with boats carrying more gold.
Plinny amused himself in the telling of these tales, and often broke out in uproarious laughter. No one was more amused by his tales than Plinny. Everybody within earshot, or at least in sight of Plinny, laughed, too. Courteously, almost. So it seemed to Stin.
On Stin’s fifth day aboard Wavecrest, at supper, Plinny said, his booming voice filling the mess, “Steck me boy! Hast I ever telled ye about Mickee’s House o’ Pleasure in Port Osmo?”
In fact, Stin had heard the tale twice. But as the honored guest at Plinny’s table, the only guest, Stin flashed a smile between his mouthful of gruel and gamely shook his head, giving Plinny the encouragement needed to begin telling it once more.
“Well, y’ wouldn’t believe they’d even care about the needs o’ human sailors in Port Osmo. But they do, mate. They do!”
He paused to bellow out a thunderous roar of laughter, making the cups rattle on all the nearby tables.
“Ugh! Not the Port Osmo story again.”
All sound died, save the creaking of the ship. Everybody in the mess held their breath.
Plinny turned and faced a pirate three tables away, a skinny fellow with dark hair and brown skin suggesting Crystal Kingdom ancestry.
“What did ye say, Veeroy?”
“The Port Osmo story. Don’t tell it again for love of the Creator. We all know how it ends. You go running out the back door with a midget whore on your back. I done hear’d it nine times since we left Corsairs Cove, man!”
Stin watched as Plinny’s face turned red. Then puce. Furtively Stin glanced about for weapons. Nobody wore a sword, and he began to see the captain’s wisdom in storing all blades in the hold between battles.
Plinny jumped up and grabbed a chair. He swung it over the table, breaking it into pieces. He held a splintered chair leg like a club and said, “She . . . weren’t . . . no . . . midget!”
He took one long stride toward the man’s table, covering half the distance in a single step. Everybody scattered out of the way, leaving poor Veeroy to face Plinny alone.
Stin jumped up and put himself between the two men.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Did you say this was Port Osmo, Plinny?”
Plinny stopped his advance, but he still stared in rage at Veeroy, who now cowered down in his chair trying to look as small as possible.
“Aye. Port Osmo.”
“Isn’t that the only seaside town in all of Dwarven Land?”
“Aye.”
“And there really was a house of ill repute there, catering to humans?”
“Aye. ’Twas.”
“That is fascinating, Plinny. I have never heard such a tale. What happened? How did you happen to be there? And what was a dwarf doing there if the place catered to human sailors?”
At last Plinny tore his eyes from the quivering Veeroy and focused on Stin.
“Aye, that’s just it, see. It catered exclusively to humans!”
“Amazing. Tell me more.”
As Plinny started in on the tale once more, Stin maintained eye contact. He dropped his hand under the table and made a shooing motion toward Veeroy.
Very carefully, Veeroy crept away while Plinny’s enthusiasm for retelling the story began to grow. Slowly, men returned to their seats and resumed eating, keeping a cautious distance from Plinny’s table and the broken chair.
“And then I ran out the door with her clinging on me back!”
He burst out laughing again, and Stin howled along with him.
Plinny wiped away tears of mirth and tossed the chair leg on the floor. He said, “Come along, Steck!”
They walked out of the mess with the giant’s arm over Stin’s shoulders.
-+-
The story of how Stin “saved Veeroy’s life” took on a life of its own. In the days ahead, Stin found himself solving more disputes. When arguments broke out, the cry of “Find Steck!” would go out from the crowd and somebody would run to fetch him. After resolving several arguments, he gained a reputation for wisdom and peacekeeping.
One night Veeroy and a young man named Strunk got into an argumen
t about two gold doublets found under Veeroy’s bottom bunk. Both men claimed ownership, and it appeared Veeroy seemed destined for another fight.
Somebody ran and alerted Stin, who hurried down to the sleeping quarters. He found the men squared off, snarling at one another, with a crowd around them waiting for the scrap to start.
Stin said, “Come on, men. Stand down. Let’s see the coins, what are we talking about?”
Grudgingly, Veeroy unclenched his fist and displayed two island doublets, the thick gold coins glinting in the light.
“Let’s have them, Veeroy. Come on now, be a good fellow. Hand them over so I can help determine their proper ownership.”
Never taking his eyes off Strunk, Veeroy moved his hand a bit closer to Stin, who smoothly transferred the gold pieces into his own palm.
Everybody waited in anticipation while Stin examined the coins. He turned them over, polished them on his tunic, and held them up in the light to examine them again. He bit each one and examined the tooth marks.
Finally he looked up. Both men had shifted their attention to him, along with everyone else in the room.
“Alright, men. Let’s solve this. Veeroy, do you swear these are your two coins?”
“Aye. That I do.”
“I see. And Strunk, what do you say? Are you willing to swear these are your coins?”
“Aye. They be mine.”
“Well, men. You see the dilemma we have. Both of you swear they’re yours. I have no way of discerning who tells the truth. Nobody does. It’s quite the conundrum. Do we all agree it’s basically an unsolvable question?”
He looked around the room and everybody nodded. He looked back at the two pirates. Strunk nodded, but Veeroy’s brows furrowed into a frown. He opened his mouth to say something but Stin quickly began talking again.
“Then we will have to solve this by chance! Let luck assign the ownership of these disputed pieces. That sounds reasonable, don’t it, boys?”
Again, everybody in the crowd nodded. He looked back at Strunk and Veeroy and raised his eyebrows. Strunk nodded again. Veeroy looked at the unanimous crowd and reluctantly nodded too.
“Let me propose a coin flip for each one. If you call it right, the coin is yours. If you call it wrong, in the interest of fairness I’ll keep the coin. That way neither man profits off the misfortune of the other. Are we agreed?”
With the general wave of consent and agreeableness emanating throughout the room, neither Strunk nor Veeroy felt predisposed to dispute this idea. Before they could consider it further, Stin hurried on.
“Now, when I flip this, I’m going to catch it. If we let it hit the deck it may roll off and get lost and start some other fight later, am I right boys?”
Everybody laughed. Strunk laughed and nodded, too. Veeroy nodded reluctantly again.
Stin flipped one of the heavy gold coins up in the air and neatly caught it with a slap of both hands. He carefully lifted up his top palm and peered at the coin.
“King or Palace, Veeroy?”
“King!”
Stin lifted his hand and held out the coin for all to see.
“I’m sorry, Veeroy. It’s Palace. No hard feelings.”
Before Veeroy could respond, he flipped and caught the other coin.
“King or Palace, Strunk?”
“Palace!”
“I’m sorry, Strunk. It’s King.”
The crowd dispersed, the tension seeping out of the room like a receding tide. Both men parted with Stin amicably, although Veeroy seemed rather morose as he crawled into his bunk.
Stin left the room two gold doublets richer, and finding himself amazed the pirates weren’t familiar with simple sleight of hand and basic coin tricks.
-+-
Work proved incredibly arduous onboard Wavecrest. As a fresh “recruit,” Stin found himself assigned to the most menial of jobs. Melton had him cleaning the head, swabbing the decks, scrubbing the railings with a holystone, and washing dishes at mess. Within a couple of weeks, though, Stin had befriended most everyone and managed to trade his worse assignments with others.
Stin discovered Veeroy worked with the Quartermaster. This opened his fertile imagination to many possibilities, and he quickly worked to become Veeroy’s best friend.
Veeroy still smarted from the loss of his two gold doublets. Finally, Stin let him have one of the coins back.
“But look, I did save your life. Twice. And what’s one gold coin among friends who will save you when you’re in mortal peril?”
“Well, I don’t, uh, see how you saved me twice. Maybe once from Plinny.”
“By the High Tower, man! You didn’t see the look in Strunk’s eyes? He was willing to slide one between your ribs for sure. Look, don’t tell him but I’ll give you his coin, the one he called Palace on and lost. Here.”
It never occurred to Veeroy to ask how Stin knew it was that particular coin. Instead, his fortunes half restored, he happily began pilfering items out of storage for Stin.
Drinking was strictly prohibited on Wavecrest, except under special exceptions like victory celebrations. Stin quickly deduced the pirates would do almost anything for a bottle, including picking up all his work details. From that point forward, he never cleaned another head, dish, or deck.
Within days, Stin no longer worked at all, having talked or traded his way into having his chores covered. He spent his free time sleeping late, avoiding Melton, and trying to learn as much as he could from the crew.
Then he discovered bone cards.
He had heard of it his first day, but had never sought it out. Games of chance held little interest for him. But then one night Plinny came back to his bunk bragging about a particularly profitable evening. He showed Stin his winnings: 19 silver coins and one gold doublet.
Intrigued, the next night Stin accompanied Plinny to the games, and watched him lose eleven silver coins along with a small bag of copper ones.
The game seemed simple enough. A deck was shuffled then dealt out to the players. Cards ranged in value. The eins could be either the lowest or highest, depending on the game, but in bone cards it served as the lowest. The other cards followed in point value up to thirteen. After the ten, the prince was worth 11, the queen 12, and the king 13.
To start a round, each player threw a coin into the pot, flipped his top card over and rolled a die. The highest number combination won. Rolling a six and drawing a king produced 19 points, the highest in the game. In the event of ties, the pot was evenly split.
Sometimes the men would play under “Island Rules,” which allowed for no ties. Instead, the suits of the cards dictated priority, with spades serving as the highest followed by hearts, squares, and clovers.
“I can’t win if I keep drawing low cards!” Plinny shouted, his voice thundering over the planks and out across the darkened water. “I think I got every eins in the deck! An’ all the twos and threes, as well!”
“Cheer up, mate,” Strunk said as he poured out the contents of the playing pot into his leather purse. “I’m sure there’s a king or queen in your pile somewhere.”
Strunk set the pot back in the middle of the circle and said, “Everybody throw in his coin.”
The pot clinked as players tossed in their silver, then everyone took turns flipping cards and rolling dice.
Plinny drew a prince and rolled a five, finally besting the others.
“It’s about time! I need to get back some of my silver you lot been taking all night. It reminds me of a game I once played in Old Mother’s Tavern in Pert when I was a just a wee boy . . .”
Having heard this story before, Stin tuned him out and focused on picking the pockets of a pirate standing nearby.
He looked around at the others trying to find another suitable mark when he noticed Quent standing idly by. He eased over in the healer’s direction.
Stin smiled and said, “I haven’t seen you much lately.”
“Mm. Officers, you know. We don’t fraternize much.”
<
br /> “Amazing. Who would have thought pirates have officers?”
“We don’t think of ourselves as navy officers, really. But it amounts to the same thing. There’s a command structure. Lines of authority. Separate mess hall and head. Private cabins.”
“Sounds like a pleasant life.”
“Mm. It’s pleasant enough, until I have to start sawing off mangled limbs and mopping up blood from the latest venture.”
They paused as Plinny’s laughter rumbled all around, sending a minor shockwave of sound through the ship.
“Ha! Eighteen points! Beat that, Strunk, ye old codswallop! Bwahaha! Ye got sixteen! Gimme that pot!”
As Plinny settled down for the next hand, Stin continued the conversation. He said, “They certainly enjoy their game.”
“Mm. Luck is a fickle mistress. The men love her like their mothers when she’s on their side.”
“Do the officers play bone cards? Do you?”
“No, no. I read books mostly. On occasion I might play Table Battle.”
“Aha, a man of strategy.”
Quent nodded and said, “My brother and I played it growing up. He’d win more often than not. He came up with bolder strategies than I.”
Plinny won again. They paused as the giant’s laughter drowned out all other sounds for a moment.
“So you don’t play games of chance, Quent, and you prefer books to the company of others. Yet, every night I see you out here for the entire game. Several games. All the games, I’ll wager. Why is that?”
“Mm. I’m here to keep it fair.”
“How’s that?”
Quent said, “The men are of low magic, for the most part. And that’s true of many laborers. They work the fields, or the wagons, or the boats. They keep the streets clean, they hawk their wares at market. Their magic is reserved for little things. They certainly aren’t court mages.
“And so it is with pirates, most of them. They swing swords instead of slinging spells. But on occasion . . . on occasion you’ll find someone who has some sort of magical ability that gives him an edge at cards or dice.
“When that happens, fights break out. People get thrown overboard. Disunity spreads throughout the crew. So, one of my talents is the detection of magic. I stand guard over every game and make sure nobody cheats by influencing the flip of a card or the roll of a bone.”
