The Rover

by Mel Odom

“Hallekk,” Captain Farok called only a couple of minutes later. “Get yer new potato peeler belowdecks. Topside is meant only for sailin’ men. Them’s been my orders since ye walked onto One-Eyed Peggie, and they’ll stand.” He turned his back and started down the stairs toward his quarters.

  “Aye.” Hallekk looked at Wick and jerked his head. “Let’s go, little man.” The big dwarf took the lead, leaving the first mate in control of the ship.

  “Thanks,” Wick said, “for saving me back there.”

  Hallekk shrugged and smiled good-naturedly. “Sea monsters don’t always see too good topside. It mighta missed ye.”

  Wick gazed at the cracked planking where he’d been standing. “I don’t think it would have missed.”

  “Bad luck,” Critter squawked high overhead. “Ye’re a halfer what’s carryin’ bad luck. That there sea beastie come to ol’ One-Eyed Peggie a-lookin’ for ye, drawn by the smell of bad luck what clings to ye. We’d be better off a-drownin’ ye in the hold like a bilge rat.”

  A handful of the nearby pirates looked at Wick as the little librarian passed. Pirates, Wick knew, were a superstitious lot, and some of them might even believe the rhowdor’s words.

  “Bad luck,” Critter accused again. “Some warrior ye got there, Hallekk. Gonna bring us nothin’ but trouble and death, he is.”

  “Ain’t ye done with them dishes yet, halfer?”

  Weary and aching from the backbreaking labor of the last eight days, Wick didn’t bother looking up. Nor did he bother pointing out the obvious fact that he wouldn’t still be elbow-deep in the harsh soapy water if he’d been finished with the dishes. During these last eight days, he’d gotten to know Slops’ face pretty well and he knew how the man would look now. The dwarven ship’s cook only had the one expression: flinty-eyed anger mixed liberally with pure mean.

  Wick took the last wooden bowl from the scouring bucket, passed it through the rinsing bucket, then wiped it dry with the towel that he kept draped over one shoulder. He started every morning before breakfast with a towel and kept it changed out during the day.

  “That’s the last of it,” Wick admitted.

  The galley was darkened now, lit only by the one whale-oil lantern Slops allowed during the nightly cleanup. The foul smoke given off by the burning whale oil stung the little librarian’s nose. Whale oil didn’t burn as cleanly as glimmerworm juice while traveling the Blood-Soaked Sea.

  When Wick had objected to the foul-smelling whale-oil lanterns and suggested they use the glimmerworm juice kept down in One-Eyed Peggie’s hold, Slops had laughed at him. So had several other pirates and Critter. Outside of Greydawn Moors, as it turned out, not much glimmerworm juice and candles were gathered or made. As a result, there was no casual use of the glimmerworm juice. On the three mainlands along which the pirate ship sometimes traded, glimmerworm juice was only used by the wealthy to light their homes.

  “Then hurry up and empty them buckets,” Slops complained. “I gotta get me some sleep soon. Breakfast comes early of a morning on this ship.”

  Wick put the wooden bowl away in the stacks at the side of the kitchen area and made sure the stacks were secure. He knelt and grabbed the soap bucket by the handle, then lugged it up the steps, moving automatically now to One-Eyed Peggie’s pitch and yaw. Even though it had seemed like forever to him, Hallekk had told Wick that he’d gotten his sea legs much quicker than most new pirates.

  Slops sat at one of the tables, pipe smoke wreathing his head. He yawned and scratched his homely face irritably. “I’ve definitely seen faster dishwashers than you, halfer.”

  Maybe, Wick thought to himself, but at least I know for a fact that the dishes start out clean the next morning. He bit his tongue. “I’m working on it.”

  “Gonna have to do better,” Slops grumbled. “I can’t stay up all night watchin’ ye do them dishes, then still be expected to get up in the mornin’ and lay out a proper feed for this crew.”

  You could help with the dishes. But Wick didn’t say that either. Slops had big-knuckled, rough hands that were surprisingly quick, and he didn’t hesitate about smacking anyone that he thought was sassing him in the kitchen.

  Wick stumbled on up the steps. Carrying the heavy bucket of soapy water in both hands made the going awkward, but he lacked the strength to carry the bucket in one hand. It was thirty-seven stair steps till he reached the main deck. He glanced at the black sky, noting that the habitual fog that plagued the Blood-Soaked Sea had parted somewhat during the evening. For the last three days and nights, it had rained. A wet sheen still clung to the decks.

  The two moons lent a silvery hue to the curlers rolling across the ocean. Jhurjan the Bold and Swift gleamed crimson in the sky. Gesa the Fair only winked shyly further to the north. The gentle wind brought in the chill from the sea that prickled Wick’s skin.

  The first night aboard ship—that he remembered—had been horrible. Not since his early days as a novice at the Vault of All Known Knowledge had he been crowded into such a small space with so many others.

  Most of all, though, Wick missed reading. Though Slops took care to see that there were no idle moments in the little librarian’s day and actually well into the night, Wick desperately needed the comfort of a book. All of the crew aboard One-Eyed Peggie were illiterate and had no interest in books. Most of them didn’t believe Wick could really read, or that he was even a Librarian.

  Wick took a fresh grip on the bucket of soapy water and hesitated only a moment before stepping to the railing. Though they hadn’t seen another sea monster since the one that first day, the fact remained that there were plenty of them in the ocean. Some of them were nocturnal feeders that were known to snatch crewmen from ships’ decks. Or so Wick had been told.

  He lifted the bucket of soured, soapy water and dumped it over the side. Chunks of food and pools of grease mixed with the soap plunged down into the sea in a long splash that was barely audible above the constant slap of the waves and the creaking rigging and straining sailcloth above.

  The sea was slightly lit up around One-Eyed Peggie. Captain Farok kept a half-dozen whale-oil lanterns burning aboardship as running lights, so other ships that might be in the area would be warned that One-Eyed Peggie was in the area.

  Wick stared hard out at the blackness and gray fog mixing above the sea. He didn’t know how far One-Eyed Peggie could have come in eight days’ sailing time, but he knew the distance had to be considerable. And nearly all of it had taken him far from Greydawn Moors.

  “Thinkin’ of throwin’ yerself over?”

  Startled by the nearness of Hallekk’s voice, Wick turned around. The metal bucket he carried clanged against the railing.

  “What’s goin’ on down there?” one of the watchmen posted in the stern demanded.

  “Nothin’ to worry yer knob about,” Hallekk replied. “Go on about yer business.”

  Wick looked up at the big dwarf and felt guilty. “I didn’t hear you come up.”

  Hallekk grinned a little. “Way ye was a-thinkin’ so hard, I’m not surprised. Never seen a man had a way of thinkin’ so hard as ye.” He leaned on the railing and looked out to sea. He took out a pipe, then glanced at Wick. “Ye smoke?”

  “Occasionally.” Wick wondered if the question was a trick. Still, while the rest of the crew and Critter treated him rather shabbily, Hallekk had never gone out of his way to be unkind to him.

  “I’ve an extra pipe.” Hallekk dug in his jacket and brought out two pipes and a pouch. He filled both and passed one to Wick, then offered a light from the nearby whale oil lantern.

  “Thank you,” Wick said, still feeling slightly wary.

  “Do ye know why ye didn’t throw yerself overboard?”

  Wick shook his head. He’d been too scared to do much more than think about it. Swimming for shore wasn’t an answer.

  “Why, it was because ye knew a-throwin’ yerself over the side wasn’t a-gonna get ye home, little man.” Hallekk blew smoke out and it was quickly strippe
d away by the wind. “A man sets himself a goal, he kinda a knows when he’s a-workin’ toward it an’ when he ain’t. Drownin’ or gettin’ et by some ugly sea monster, now that ain’t a-gonna get ye home, is it?”

  Wick waited a moment, then asked, “And what will it take to get me home?”

  Hallekk shrugged. “Why I don’t know. Just know that doin’ that won’t.”

  “I shouldn’t be here,” Wick said.

  “I know, little man, I know.” Hallekk looked away. “An’ partly that’s my fault, an’ I’m sorry as I can be for it. Figured we could conk ye on the knob, make use of ye for a little while, and ye’d escape and make yer own way back to home with a slew of new tales for the tellin’.” He puffed on the pipe. “If’n that was what ye wanted. Of course, there was always the possibility that ye would come to like One-Eyed Peggie and decide to stay aboard her. There’s worse things a man can do with his life, I’m a-tellin’ ye.”

  “I’m not cut out to be a pirate.”

  “Nope,” Hallekk agreed. “But ye could be a sailin’ man. If’n ye put yer mind to it. Ye got the makin’s for it. In my years, I’ve seen a lotta men walk a ship’s deck. Most of them could do it after awhile. But ye’re comin’ up on the trade natural like, learnin’ in days what it took some months to master.”

  “It’s not a trade I’d wanted.”

  “Nope, an’ me neither. Me da was a stonecutter, an’ he trained me to be a stonecutter, too.”

  “Then why are you a pirate?”

  “Same as you,” Hallekk said. “Went into town and got whonked on me knob when I wasn’t lookin’. Next thing I knew, I was at sea for seven years. By the time I finally made it back to Cuttersville where I’d come from, I found out me da had died in the quarry. An’ the sea had laid her mark upon me; I couldn’t wait to get back to a deck beneath me feet and sails a-poppin’ over me knob.”

  “I’m sorry about your da.” Even though Wick could barely keep his eyes open, Hallekk’s story moved him.

  “It’s okay. Me da and me wasn’t all that close. See, he was trainin’ me to be a stonecutter like him, but that wasn’t the path I wanted to follow.”

  “What did you want to be?”

  Hallekk grinned and shook his head. “Back then, I didn’t know. I just didn’t want to be like me da.”

  “I wanted to be like my father,” Wick said.

  “Oh? He a librarian, too?”

  Wick smiled sadly. “No. He doesn’t exactly approve of me being a librarian.”

  “Then why wasn’t ye what he was?”

  “Because I wanted to be a librarian more than I wanted to be a lamplighter.”

  “Betwixt ye and me,” Hallekk said more quietly, “I’d keep it to meself about what ye was if’n ye talk to crews of other ships. Librarians don’t really got good names away from Greydawn Moors.”

  Wick couldn’t believe his ears. “How could anyone say such a thing? Why, the Vault of All Known Knowledge is the only thing standing between the world and the darkness of ignorant savagery. If we didn’t keep the world’s learning safe, we would lose everything. Lord Kharrion and the goblin hordes almost took the world’s knowledge from us once. Don’t they know that?”

  “Aye.” Hallekk nodded and puffed on his pipe. “I’ve heard them legends.”

  “Legends!” Real anger touched Wick, for the first time overriding the fear that he’d lived with for the last eight days. “Kharrion’s threat was not a legend! It’s the truth!”

  “Mayhap,” the big dwarven pirate said, “mayhap it was the truth then. But it’s not the truth now, little man. At least, it’s gettin’ so’s it ain’t the truth. See, most folk have a way about them, of rewritin’ the past to work into what they see now. Then that becomes the truth. An’ what they’re sayin’ now is that the librarians are a-feedin’ themselves off other people’s fears. Fears—some say, mind you—that are put there by the librarians in the first place so’s to make themselves out to be heroes and wise men and puff up their own importance.” He rolled an eye over at Wick. “And to keep eatin’ without doing any real work.”

  “That would never happen!” Wick declared.

  “An’ ye know this to be true yerself? Did ye ever see Lord Kharrion or all them goblins what he was supposed to have stirred up?”

  “Of course not. But I’ve read hundreds of books about the wars that took place against Lord Kharrion. Many of the battlefields where those encounters took place still remain, and so do the scars of battle upon them.”

  “So ye say,” Hallekk agreed. “An’ so may ye believe. But not everybody’s got that belief.” He waved out across the water. “Why, ye get out far enough, them stories change. There’s them what believe the Vault ain’t named the Vault of All Known Knowledge for all them books on them shelves. There’s some what think fabulous treasures are hidden there.”

  “What kinds of treasures?” Wick asked.

  Hallekk’s gaze took on more interest. “There’s them that talk of gold an’ gembobs an’ suchlike that are kept in the Vault. A few of ‘em even talk of wizard’s trinkets an’ charms.”

  Wick didn’t say anything. Images of the rooms in the Library that contained things like the quartermaster had described flashed through his mind. But each one of those items was a very important piece of the world’s history as well. Their worth couldn’t just be counted in gold.

  Hallekk continued leaning on the railing. He pulled at the pipe casually, attention seemingly on the gray smoke that slipped away from him.

  “It’s not like that,” Wick said.

  “Oh? An’ there’s not them things there?”

  “A few. But they’re vases from past kingdoms. Heirlooms left by great families of elves and humans and dwarves. Many of them are histories.”

  “An’ they’re not worth anything, eh?”

  “They’re worth more than the gold and gems in them.”

  “Some folks, they don’t care much for history. It’s today that they care about. History don’t fill yer belly when it’s a-pressin’ against yer backbone.”

  “People like that,” Wick whispered, “would only tear the Vault apart, loot what they immediately recognized as valuable, and leave the rest to fall into ruination.”

  “Aye. An’ probably spend their ill-gotten gain as quick as a man could. But it would be a high time while they had them coins a-jinglin’ in their coin purses, wouldn’t it?”

  “Men like that couldn’t rob the Library.” Wick desperately wanted to believe that.

  Hallekk scratched his chin, then glanced at the little librarian. “What I’m seein’ of Greydawn Moors, little man, ye folk aren’t exactly well protected. Oh aye, the Knucklebones Mountains might afford a terror or two for them what might be the least bit fainthearted, but they’s climbable.”

  “There are the dwarven warriors and the eleven warders who have sworn to protect the Library.”

  “An’ not near enough of ’em if more’n a few ships dropped anchor at Yonderin’ Docks an’ decided to crack open the Vault.”

  The thought filled Wick with fear. He’d always thought the goblinkin had been the greatest enemy the Library would ever have to worry about. But if legends were spreading about unguessable wealth held within the Vault of All Known Knowledge, what would keep human, elven, and dwarven brigands from tearing down the walls and looting the Library?

  “Now an’ don’t be all grim-faced,” Hallekk said. “I didn’t intent to scuttle yer boat none.”

  “You don’t know how important the Library is.”

  “I know some people think the Vault is important. That’s part of why I keep on bein’ a pirate.”

  “I don’t understand,” Wick said.

  Hallekk grinned. “Well, a pirate’s life is excitin’ enough for me, but there’s more to piratin’ than just a-takin’ other people’s treasures. At least, it is here in the Blood-Soaked Sea. Us dwarven pirates, why we’re the first line of defense against them what come a-lookin’ for Greydawn Moo
rs and the Library.”

  The little librarian glanced at the big dwarf doubtfully. “I’ve never heard anything like that.”

  “Mayhap ye hasn’t, but it don’t make it any less true, little man. I don’t think it’s anythin’ all them grandmagisters of late would be prideful of admittin’. I’ve heard tell they kind of throw their noses in the air when it comes to the likes of me.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand.” Wick felt terribly bewildered.

  “Ye bein’ a librarian an’ all, that’s just one of the reasons ol’ Cap’n n Farok didn’t take to ye so kindly upon first blush of meetin’ ye. Us dwarven pirates in this part of the world is bound to the Library, an’ grandmagisters of late don’t seem to want to remember that. The grandmagisters kind of lord it over us, an’ the pirate cap’ns, why they’s ready to mutiny, they is. But they can’t. Just let one of them pirate cap’ns decide to sail out of the Blood-Soaked Sea an’ see what happens to him an’ his crew.”

  Just one of the reasons Captain Farok didn’t take kindly to me, Wick thought ruefully, but his curiosity was raised. “What happens?”

  “Why their ships fall apart on ‘em,” Hallekk replied. “Drags ’em right down to the bottom of the sea an’ tucks ’em to be with the fishes in Torloc’s Locker.”

  “Why?” Wick was fascinated, and the empty bucket was almost forgotten at the end of his arm.

  “’Cause the pirate ships in these waters has got wizards’ spells on them is why. Most of the pirate ships out a-sailin’ on the Blood-Soaked Sea were first financed by the grandmagisters from the old days.”

  “But why would the grandmagisters finance pirate ships?”

  Hallekk relit his pipe from the whale oil lantern. He puffed to get it going again. “When ye think of the Blood-Soaked Sea, what do ye think of first?”

  “Why—sea monsters,” Wick admitted.

  A scowl fitted itself to Hallekk’s broad face. “Okay, well what do ye think of after that?”

  Wick considered. “The storms that are said to wrack this sea.”

  The scowled furrowed deeper lines into Hallekk’s features. “An’ then what?”