The Corsairs of Aethalia: A Thalassia novel

by Patrick McClafferty

  “I’m sorry that your money was stolen, Jorse.” She looked at a small ledger. “You have earned four rappen. I would be willing to loan you a few more, if you like.”

  Jorse almost said no. “Thank you, Captain. I would appreciate that.” The smell told him that Pandaros was near.

  “Why do ye think ye need money, trader boy?” The First Mate’s voice was a snarl. “Ye ain’t goin nowhere. Seems that the bilges need cleaning, an since the other crew will be ashore, you kin do their jobs fer em.” His grin was nasty and the teeth he showed were brown.

  “Raiders Rules.” The captain’s voice was level, but her eyes were made of ice. “All crewmembers get approved shore leave, when available. This is available, Mister Pandaros.” She glanced at the list of men going ashore. “He will go on the third watch and be back for the last dogwatch. You will not prevent him.”

  Pandaros’ hate-filled eyes glared at Jorse, and then strangely, he smiled. “Aye, Cap’n, whatere ye say.” He bent close to Jorse as he turned, and his breath made the boy gag. “Ye’ll never get back on board, you little gull dropping. I’ll see to that.” He stomped off toward the stern.

  “Be careful, Jorse.” Captain Jolenta said softly, laying a sun brown hand on his arm.

  “I will, Captain, believe me I will.”

  Lin was with him, as the longboat began the long pull into shore that afternoon, low sluggish waves lapping at the slim hull. She looked troubled.

  “It’s all over the boat.” Her voice was level, but it still conveyed her concern. “Pandaros is out to get you. If you don’t come back on board, you will be flogged around the fleet when you are caught. Fifty lashes on every ship. Turn right around and go back, Jorse. It’s not worth your life.”

  He looked at her eyes, blue as the sky, and put his small bag of stones into her hands. “If the chance should come up, bet this on me.”

  “What are you going to do?” Her voice had a shrill note.

  Jorse just smiled. “Watch and learn.”

  The game dome was a massive structure, easily two hundred paces across, and filled with a haze of smoke and the din of human voices. Massive trunks of whole bann trees soared a hundred feet to hold up the roof, and provide a focal point at the center of each of the competitive arenas. Cured and uncured logs, as thick around as his body, formed the walls and ceiling, and a small hole in the very top, only the width of the Donner-kind, let out the smoke and smells. Jorse’s eyes watered and he blinked in the light of countless torches and lanterns. With a studied look of awe on his young face, the boy wove through the crowd slack jawed. Lin, at his side, just glared at him. Inside he laughed, as he recalled the city where he grew up. If they could only see the Castle Frigyes back in Boktor, with its slender towers that looked as if they were trying to pierce the very sky with their flapping pennons, or the Grand Hall with its soaring walls of massive stone blocks, and great buttresses. He had been there once on a feast day. In the immense hall, Lords and Ladies dressed in all the colors of the rainbow, and the room was bathed in a magnificent illumination from sweeping windows of stained glass. Each cunningly wrought piece was held in place with Grull tree glue, which, after being mixed with certain powders, dried as hard as stone.

  “Well, well, well” A familiar voice came out of the throng. Pandaros swaggered out, followed by two of his toadies. “If it ain’t the trader boy an is little girlfriend.” He bent down and Jorse noted that his breath smelled even worse than normal. With an effort, the boy stifled the gag reflex. “Y’ain’t welcome here unless yous come to play, boy.” Jorse knew that was a lie. All were welcome to come and bet.

  “Well, I... uh...” Jorse made indecisive noises, and looked at his feet. Lin looked at him suspiciously.

  “I’ll tell ye what boy.” The First Mate’s voice became oily and Lin gripped his arm - hard. “Ye just tell me what things ye played with, as a child like.” His eyes glittered.

  “Well...” Jorse shuffled his feet. “I played a little stick ball.” He lied. “I was never really any good. I’m kind o clumsy.”

  “Nothin to be worried about, boy. We don’t play too rough here.”

  The boy shuddered.

  The quiet voice said inside his head. He hadn’t heard from her in months.

  He replied simply.

  The voice replied.

  “Well then.” Pandaros was smiling, showing his brown teeth. “Hows about we play with these.” He pulled two staves from a rack of assorted weapons, and tossed one to Jorse. The boy let the wooden staff bounce off his chest and land on the floor. The First Mate barked an evil laugh. “Go ahead, boy. Pick it up, or are ye scared?”

  He picked up the staff, dropped it again, and picked it up again. “Uh...” He stammered. “I don’t know about this, Mister Pandaros, sir.” Jorse studied the staff in his hands. It was six feet of smooth, supple hickory and about the width of the one he had used in Boktor against the street toughs. If anything, this one was a bit more flexible, and faster in the hands of someone who knew how to use it. “Maybe I am just a bit scared.” The hands holding his staff seemed to shake.

  The voice said clinically.

 

 

 

  “Well, if you think it will be all right.” Jorse began to strip off his rough coat, hesitated, and then removed his boot knife. He bent to Lin as he put all his worldly possessions into her hands. “Bet it all on me, money coat, knife, everything.” He whispered. Lin’s frown, already creasing her fine face, grew deeper. She just nodded. “All right, Mister Pandaros. Lead the way.” Jorse took a deep breath. “This will probably be a short match; I’m really not very good.”

  The bigger man smiled and pointed to the ring. “We’ll see, boy. We’ll see.”

  Jorse stumbled getting into the ring and Pandaros laughed again, with a short and ugly sound. Outside the ring the boy could see men crowding around. Lin was there, too, talking to a grizzled sailor and pointing at Jorse and handing over his belongings. It was time.

  The boy held the stave loosely in his hands, looking clumsy and untrained. The First Mate held his staff at mid guard, horizontally across his body.

  There was the boom of a deep drum, and a voice shouted, “Go!”

  Pandaros attacked quickly, a one, two, three strike at head, mid-section and knees. Jorse blocked all three, using clumsy hesitant moves. Pandaros was good, he thought grimly, but not good enough. Pandaros launched a crashing attack, designed to disarm his opponent. Sucking a finger as if he’d been hit, Jorse dropped his staff. Pandaros bowed to the applauding audience and Jorse picked up his staff.

  “It’s time to end this farce, boy.” The First Mate growled, stepping closer. It was what Jorse had been waiting for.

  “As you wish, thief.” Jorse smiled thinly and Pandaros’ eyes widened in surprise.

  The big man attacked and Jorse’s staff blurred, striking the First Mate’s right elbow, then a heartbeat later, the left. The First Mate’s staff hit the floor of the ring with a thump in the sudden silence. The boy’s staff was a humming blur that slashed out, catching Pandaros across both shins. Both legs folded, bending in an unnatural way, and the big man dropped to his knees, eyes stunned. The pain hadn’t hit him yet. Whirring again, the staff came down on the man’s right shoulder. The sound of the breaking collar bone was loud in the silence of the dome. Pandaros landed on his back, twitching. Jorse’s staff tip pressed lightly against the panting man’s Adam’s apple.

  “Where is my locket?” The boy said aloud. “Where?”

  “Pouch on my right hip.” The big man gasped.

  Jorse jerked the pouch out of the big man’s pants and Pandaros screamed shrilly
as his broken body shifted. In full view of the huge silent crowd, the boy slowly removed the silver locket and chain, and draped it around his own neck. Afterward he dropped the pouch on the floor, looking sadly at the spilled stones. His gaze shifted to the whimpering man lying at his feet.

  “If you ever steal from me or bother me again, I will break every bone in your body. Trust me, I know how to do it and...” He paused to give emphasis to the lie. “I know how to keep you alive to enjoy the whole splendid process. Have I made myself clear?” Pandaros nodded once before his eyes rolled up in his head and he went limp. Jorse picked up his stave and climbed out of the ring, glaring at the crowd. No one stopped him.

  ~~~

  He was rich. At better than a hundred to one odds, his investments had paid off splendidly. His new coat was thick and warm, and in his boot rested a stelwood crystal knife. The hilt was plain ribbed bannwood, and it was the best he could afford. Still, after everything was said and done, he had two silver fracen, five blue batzen and a large handful of clear rappen to his name, nestled safely in his pouch. Now he sat on a small hummock of sand overlooking the beach where the longboat would pick him up in an hour or two, the staff driven into the ground at his side like a thin flagpole. The stars sparkled over the bay, and in the distance lights winked from the various war boats anchored there. A woman’s laughter drifted from somewhere.

  Jorse blinked in surprise. He hadn’t realized that he had taken the locket off his neck and was staring at it. He did as he was told. The small locket glittered in the starlight, and then he felt something reach out from inside him, the locket slowly opened. There was another push from inside him and two misty figures were standing before him. They were tall and regal; both wore crowns. The detail was so great that he could make out the man’s green eyes, and the woman’s flowing auburn hair. Their faces were ... sad.

 

 

  He closed the locket and the misty figures winked out.

 

  He thought desperately, feeling trapped.

  The voice paused.

 

 

  Jorse stared a long time at the quiet bay, and the uncaring lights of the stars. Overhead the rings of Thalassia spun a curving silver cobweb against the black of space. The sand was cold beneath him, but he didn’t feel it, and the breezes carried the smells of roasting meats from the game dome, but he didn’t smell them. The last words Anya had said echoed in his mind.

  He said to the invisible presence in his mind. There was a sense of satisfaction, of relief, deep within him. The soft voice of Anya began. She stopped and the silence stretched.

  Jorse began. There was a soft footstep, a breaking twig, and he felt a flash of anger at the interruption.

  The voice said soothingly.

  “Jorse?” Lin’s voice was tentative, nervous. She sounded out of breath. “Are you all right?” She didn’t bother waiting for a reply. “It’s time to go—the boat’s waiting.”

  He stood and brushed off his pants. “I’m fine, Lin. It’s just... I didn’t want to hurt him, Lin, but I had to. If I hadn’t he would have kept after me until he killed me—one way or the other. Now, by the time he heals, I’ll be long gone and he will remember my last words. I won’t have to fight him again.”

  Lin was silent as they walked. The longboat was ahead of them, a darker shadow on the shore and the voices of the boat’s crew were soft and subdued. Lin took his arm and held him back in the dark. “You won’t have to worry about fighting Pandaros again, Jorse. He killed himself when he woke and discovered how badly you had beaten him.”

  The boy stopped and stared at the girl’s face. How could she be so cool about it? The man had been her shipmate, no matter how bad his disposition. Jorse felt his stomach clench. “I took away his pride, I guess.” He whispered. “He had nothing left...”

  “No!” Lin’s reply was sharp. “You did NOT take away his pride. The captain did that when she refused to pay him as First Mate.” They resumed walking toward the longboat. “He killed himself because you proved him a thief, and still you left him his purse - you could have taken it, you know. You proved yourself the better man. He was a coward and he chose the coward’s way out.”

  The longboat slid over the long, oily swells; the rhythm of the sweeps was hypnotic. “You don’t know us yet, or know our ways. Pay is our god, and the worst possible insult is to call another person a thief. It’s even worse when you can prove it in public.”

  Jorse shook his head slowly. It was just too much. How could they be so remote from everything human? He chuckled quietly to himself. He was a good one to talk.

  Anya’s voice said dryly.

  Jorse’s cheeks grew hot at the compliment. No one had ever called him a man before— or good.

  He replied.

  Anya di
dn’t chuckle. She laughed. Guffaws rolled around inside his head and Jorse laughed right along. It had been a long time since he laughed. He sniffed and wiped the tears out of his eyes. Lin looked at him strangely. It was too bad; he thought a little wistfully, that his best friend was an alien creature that lived inside him. The strangely choked up voice of Anya replied.

  Life on the Donner-kind returned to normal. Idzy, the leathery, bearded helmsman who had spoken kindly to Jorse before shore leave, took over the duties of First Mate, again without the pay. This didn’t appear to bother the man in the least, as the boy found out quickly when he was informed that he would be taking on the full duties of helmsman now, with a commensurate raise in pay, of course.

  Captain Jolenta had said nothing when he returned the money she had loaned him, but did raise one slim eyebrow when he added an extra rappen, for the interest, he told her.

  The sea slid by, a dark mysterious gray-green as the crew worked feverishly to lash down the new pod the ship had purchased, and the weather grew colder. A dusting of snow on the scrubbed-smooth deck often greeted him in the mornings now, and he was thankful for the warm, lined gloves he had purchased at the Sandritch. The crew of the Donner-kind, on the other hand, wasn’t quite so warm. Oh, they talked with him, and he messed with them, but conversations seemed to dry up when he came around and then there were the continual sidelong looks. He heard the word “killer” more than once. He was an “outsider”, and no matter how hard he tried he would never be an “insider”.

  Captain Jolenta, however, seemed to take him more seriously. Although she might recheck his calculations, she seemed to follow his course recommendations more often than not. After four weeks at sea, she came up to him shortly after he had come on watch one blustery morning.

  “Bring us about to a sou, southwest heading, Jorse. We be swinging down to the shipping lanes, now that our boarding pod is finally ready.”