The Ancient

by R. A. Salvatore

  Bransen knew in his heart, though, that it would not be so.

  A few heartbeats later, Fatuus relented and removed his warm and trembling palm.

  Bransen opened his eyes, looked the man in the eye and said, “Than … Th … Th … Tha … k you.” And he smiled and nodded, standing straighter, for indeed he felt much better (although he knew already it would be a very temporary sensation).

  Cadayle came back to his side and said, “It is a fine thing you did this day,” breaking Fatuus from his apparent trance.

  He blinked repeatedly as he looked at the woman and her husband. “The wound is … is profound,” he said.

  “As many of your brethren have told us,” said Cadayle. She looked at Bransen, and her smile came wide and sincere. “You performed very well, Brother. I have not seen him so straight since before the wound.”

  Already, though, Bransen began to bend, a bit of drool dripping from his mouth.

  “It will not hold,” Fatuus observed, and Cadayle offered a shrug and a forgiving smile in response.

  “You must bring him to the Chapel of Precious Memories,” Fatuus insisted. “I will beg Father Malskinner to allow others to participate. Our combined powers will lengthen the healing, I am certain.”

  “Of course,” said Cadayle.

  “Before Parvespers tomorrow,” Fatuus bade them, referring to the ceremony of twilight. “We will be out all the day offering our services to the brave men on the docks.”

  “The slaves of war?” Cadayle asked. “Indeed, we saw them at their labors, being beaten like dogs.”

  “The filth of Ethelbert?” Fatuus replied, his eyes wide with horror. “Nay, not them, surely! Nay, nay,good lady, I speak of the privateers.” As he finished he pointed to a pair of ships moored out in the open river to the north of the wharves, and sailing under no flag at all, none that Cadayle could see, at least.

  “Privateers?”

  “Free men,” Fatuus explained. “Beholden to neither Ethelbert nor good Laird Delaval. They have sailed in at the behest of Laird Panlamaris the Bold, leader of Palmaristown, who seeks to enlist them in the united effort against foul Ethelbert and his swarthy minions.”

  “To bribe them, you mean,” Cadayle reasoned.

  “They will be compensated in coin, yes,” said Fatuus. “And through the work of the Brothers of the Chapel of Precious Memories. God-given magic to heal their blistered feet and the many wounds brought back from weeks of toil at sea. It is the least we can offer to goodly Laird Delaval in his struggles against the Southern filth that is Laird Ethelbert.”

  Cadayle turned her look to Bransen, who, even through his Stork visage, wore a mischievous smirk. They were both well aware, after all, that the southeastern Abellican chapels served Ethelbert as these in the west and north served Delaval—and all in harmony and pragmatism.

  Callen had barely closed the door to the room the three rented at a Palmaristown inn when Bransen grabbed up his gemstone and strapped it to his forehead under his black silken mask.

  “Privateers,” he said, not a hint of the Stork in his strong and steady voice. “Mercenaries.”

  “What are you thinking?” asked Callen.

  “My guess is that my husband has decided that our load of booty is too dangerous to keep saddlebagged over poor old Doully,” Cadayle replied, and Bransen nodded.

  “I had thought to spread the wealth to the commonfolk about the region but feared that some of the jewels would be recognized,” Bransen explained. “I’ve no desire to bring that pain to anyone—the same pain that both of you felt at the hands of Laird Prydae when I passed the stolen necklace to Cadayle.”

  “You need not remind me of that,” Callen assured him. “Did I not bid you to throw the stolen coins and jewels into the river and be done with them?”

  “And now I intend to do something along those very lines.”

  “By taking the treasures to the privateers and bidding them to double-cross Laird Delaval,” Callen reasoned. “So you’d throw in with Ethelbert?”

  “I care not if they all kill each other,” said Bransen. “But there is a delicious irony in using that fool Yeslnik’s treasures to buy off Laird Delaval’s intended allies.”

  “As delicious as the Stork becoming a hero of the land against the interests of the lairds?” Cadayle asked. Bransen stopped putting on his black shirt and stared hard at her.

  Cadayle merely shrugged, though, and offered him a warm smile. Her statement had been blunt, of course, but she, and perhaps she alone, had earned the right to talk to him in such a manner and many times over. Bransen could never be wounded by Cadayle’s honest reference to the Stork, since Cadayle alone had stood by him before the creation of the Highwayman, when he had found the gemstone magic to allow him to free himself of the crippling bonds of his physical infirmities.

  Bransen finished dressing in the black outfit his mother had brought from Behr, finishing by tying the torn strip of fabric over the distinctive birthmark on his one bare arm.

  Bransen took up the fabulous sword, holding it reverently before his eyes as he studied the intricate vine and flower designs etched into its gleaming blade. The weapon had no equal north of the Belt-and-Buckle Mountains, and few swords even of the Jhesta Tu mystics in Behr could match its quality. Staring at the marvelous blade, Bransen was reminded that he would one day go there, to the Walk of Clouds, to learn from the masters.

  He slid the sword into its sheath and slung it across his back, then took up the saddlebags full of Yeslnik’s treasure and tossed them over his shoulder. He moved to the room’s small window and peeked around the heavy curtain, considering the setting sun.

  “The privateer captains might be ashore,” Cadayle said.

  “I will find them,” Bransen promised, and Cadayle and Callen nodded, neither about to doubt this man who had delivered them from a life of misery beneath the boot of Laird Prydae.

  He went out in the dark of night, hand-walking down the side of the two-story inn so fluidly that anyone looking on would have thought he was using a ladder.

  The Highwayman didn’t need a ladder.

  He didn’t bother with the bustle he heard emanating from the many taverns along the wall separating the two city levels, reasoning that if the privateer captains were in one of those establishments, they would return to their ships in any case.

  He found the docks nearly deserted, with only a couple of slaves swabbing the planks halfheartedly, and with no dockmasters to put whips to their backs. Bransen paid them little heed as he moved through the shadows along the wharves to the smaller docks and the tiny boats. He secured one without incident and floated out from the wharf, gently paddling as the current caught him and dragged him along. That current took him toward the moored privateers, for the tide was receding in the gulf, which meant that he merely needed his oars to steer the craft, and not noisily row it.

  He kept glancing back over his shoulders, locating the dark silhouette of a mast protruding into the night sky, and appropriately angled his oars, drifting slowly, slowly, and in no hurry whatsoever. He brought the rowboat up against a mooring line and tied it off there, then gathered up his bags and, with a quick check to ensure that his precious sword remained secure in its sheath, the Highwayman began his climb.

  A few moments later he came over the rail, silent as death, dark as night, and carefully paced about the deck, seeking sentries and the general lay of the ship. He’d never before been on a ship and had never even seen one up close. It took a lot of his concentration to resist losing himself in the experience, for truly this craft was a work of art, so sleek and beautiful and ultimately functional. He studied the many ropes, climbing and disappearing into the mass of rigging. Many generations of sailors had perfected this design one rope at a time, he understood immediately, recognizing in general fashion the evolution that had led from simple, single-mast boats to this intricate and wondrous threesail design.

  He found a raised cabin aft and quickly discerned, from t
he shouting within, that the man inside carried great authority, and was likely the captain of the vessel himself.

  Or herself, Bransen realized as he sidled up to a small window beside the forward-facing door and peeked in.

  She stormed about a decorated desk, a rolled parchment in hand, a red bandanna tight about her head, with dark brown tresses flowing out behind and halfway down her back. She wore a puffy white blouse gathered about her slim waist and unbuttoned far enough down to be quite revealing with her every sudden turn. Black breeches and high boots completed her outfit, along with a dirk on her right hip, a curved sword on her left. She was not an unattractive woman, surely, and carried about her an aura of competence and danger.

  He had come in late in her tirade, and she seemed too upset to speak in complete sentences, apparently, but it wasn’t hard for the Highwayman to fathom the gist of her rant: the nature of the deal offered by Laird Panlamaris, representative of Laird Delaval.

  “Five months o’ sailing!” she cried. “Five! And feedin’ a full crew and a hundred hungry soldiers to boot. And that through a gulf full o’ powries! E’er ye seen a powrie, boy? Nasty little redcap hungry to open yer belly and tug out yer guts! Might that he’ll eat ’em right there while ye’re watch …”

  She stopped and stared, mouth agape.

  “Do go on,” the Highwayman bade. “I admit that my own experiences with the wretched powries are rather limited, but from what I’ve seen, I’ll not contra …”

  The woman drew out her sword and leaped for him, thrusting for his throat.

  But his own sword appeared in his hand, as fast as a blink, and he easily and gently guided her stabbing blade aside so that it poked into the jamb of the open door. She kept coming, and reached for her dirk, but there, too, he beat her to the quick, and the sailor grasped at an empty sheath!

  The Highwayman held her stolen dagger up before her astonished eyes. He edged the privateer back at the point of her own dirk.

  “Good lady, you have no fight with me,” he said, and he flipped the dagger, catching it by its tip and presenting it back to the sailor.

  She stared at him for many heartbeats before grabbing the presented hilt and yanking the dirk back from the intruder. She presented both her blades in a defensive stance as she continued to size up the stranger, clearly unsettled.

  The Highwayman calmly replaced his sword in its sheath across his back, and the privateer seemed all the more frazzled.

  “Who ye be?” she demanded.

  “An independent rogue,” he replied. “Much akin to yourself, I would expect.”

  “Ye’re to lead with insults?”

  “Hardly, milady. I hold my head with pride and would expect no less from you and the worthy sailors of these fine ships—ships flying under the flag of neither Ethelbert nor Delaval.”

  “We’re in Palmaristown, which has thrown in with Laird Delaval.”

  “No doubt because Laird Delaval has shown the deeper pockets.”

  The woman tilted her head back and narrowed her eyes.

  “Or because you believe that he will win out in the end and see a brighter future for those who do not oppose him,” the Highwayman bluntly added. “In either event, I salute you. I hold nothing but respect for any who can thrive in these dark times. I hope you will come to see me equally worthy of your respect.” As he finished, he pulled the saddlebags off his shoulder and tossed them at the privateer’s feet.

  The woman glanced down at them, but immediately lifted her gaze back to the surprising man in the black mask.

  He shrugged.

  The woman hooked her saber under the flap of the nearest bag and with a deft flick of her wrist, severed the tie and pulled open the flap in a single, fluid movement. A few coins rolled out, and several jewels showed, and despite her best efforts, the woman’s eyes flashed with obvious interest.

  “If you came to bargain, what a fool ye be to lay out the ante openly, and with yerself surrounded by potential enemies,” she said.

  Again he shrugged, so confidently, and the smile showing under his black mask clearly said that he believed he could rather easily retrieve his treasure.

  “What army serves ye?” the woman demanded.

  “I am independent, and I offer no threat to accompany my gift to you, good lady. I came here to present you with these coins and jewels, stolen from the castle of the Laird of Delaval himself.”

  The woman glanced at her crewman, who, throughout this entire ordeal, hadn’t even moved. Nor did he notice his captain’s look, fixated as he was on the marvelous and surprising intruder.

  “You would be wise to keep them hidden while you remain on the river, or even in the gulf,” the Highwayman said. “Delaval has sent word far and wide to find these, no doubt.”

  “Ye mean to push the burden o’ them onto me?”

  “If you do not want them, lady …”

  “I said no such thing.”

  The Highwayman smiled wider.

  “And what’re ye asking in return for this … gift?”

  “Nothing,” he replied. “They are indeed a burden to me, as I remain in Delaval’s lands.”

  “You would have us sail you to the reaches of Laird Ethelbert?”

  The Highwayman paused, and almost agreed to that, thinking that he could then get around the spurs of the Belt-and-Buckle and into the famed city of Jacintha, in Behr, which would allow him an open road to the Walk of Clouds. Black wings of doubt fluttered up all about him, though, forcing him to admit to himself, yet again, that he was not ready for that ultimate journey.

  “At another time, perhaps,” he said. “I have business remaining here, though I do hope to reach Entel and beyond, all the way to Behr, in the near future. Should we meet again when my business is complete, I would beg of you to consider providing such passage.”

  “And for now?” the woman asked, looking down at the open satchel.

  “I would beg you to hoist your sails and be gone from this place.”

  The woman looked at him suspiciously. “Ye be an agent of Ethelbert indeed, then.”

  “Independent,” the Highwayman reiterated. “Truly so. I care for neither of the feuding lairds, nor for any of their lackey lessers. If all the nobles of all of Honce are murdered in their sleep tomorrow, I will raise a glass in celebration. But of now, it is Laird Delaval who has most aggravated me, and it does me pleasure indeed to stick pins into his sides, first by robbing his treasury, and then …”

  “By buying off three ships he has employed for his efforts,” the privateer reasoned.

  The Highwayman shrugged. “The treasure is an offer of truce from another independent. Perhaps a prepayment for services needed some time hence. But I hold you to nothing at all. I come in salute—better that one such as you possess the coins and jewels than have me bury them in a hole. How should I ever live with myself if these treasures find their way into the hands of an innocent and oblivious peasant, who is then hanged by Delaval’s people for possessing them? Here, I know, they are in competent hands of men and women wise enough to keep them safe and secret. So yes, I beg you to relieve me of my burden.”

  The privateer looked down at the bags again, licking her lips as she imagined the treasures within. If the hints showing on the open edge were any indication, she knew that this might well be the most profitable day of her life. With a sigh, she slid her weapons away and lifted her eyes to regard the Highwayman.

  But he was already gone from her cabin.

  It is an amazing transformation,” Callen said early the next morning. Bransen had just awakened and was still rubbing the sleep from his eyes when Callen walked through the door of their rented room. Beside him on the small bed Cadayle hardly stirred other than to bury her face in her pillow against the intrusion of daylight.

  “I did not know that you had been here before,” Bransen replied, his voice steady, for he had slept with the soul stone firmly strapped in place on his forehead.

  “Of course I have not,�
� said Callen. “I’m only echoing the words of the townsfolk. Palmaristown has seen a great shift in the last few months. No Samhaists remain in the city, and there are few in the surrounding countryside by all accounts. And even the people here fast abandon the ways of the Ancient Ones.”

  “The Abellicans have the gemstones and the favor of the lairds across all of Honce,” Bransen said.

  “But the change is coming more quickly here than elsewhere—even than in Delaval itself from what I could see. I had no such expectation, since Palmaristown is on the border of the wilderness. Across the river is land untouched by the Abellicans by all accounts.”

  “And land unwanted by the Samhaists, likely,” Bransen reasoned.

  “Or perhaps the Samhaists are out there, just across the river, watching and biding their time.”

  Bransen shrugged, as he hardly cared. As he studied Callen more carefully, though, he recognized that she was more than a little unsettled by the sweeping changes, which surprised him given her unpleasant history with the brutal Samhaists.

  “Perhaps the world will become a better place as the Samhaists recede into the shadows,” he offered. “Not that I expect much better from the Abellicans.”

  “If they’re not killing people it will be an improvement,” Callen said, and Bransen smiled at her, glad that his words had apparently eased her troubled soul. He sympathized, and understood her inner turmoil, for indeed the changes sweeping the land were vast and profound, and Bransen recognized that few of the people had come to terms with them as of yet. Looking at it all from a removed point of view, it was more amusing than unsettling. He figured he really couldn’t lose, for anything would be better than the present state!

  “Did your tryst go well?” Callen asked.

  “I believe it did.”

  “Those ships are from Bergenbel, the one holding south of the gulf that hasn’t thrown in for either Ethelbert or Delaval. Both sides value that port, I am told, and so they pay dearly for the services of the privateers who have taken up the mercenary cause.”