Heroes of Time Legends: Murdoch's Choice

by Wayne D. Kramer

  CHAPTER 1

  THE GALE

  7/19/3203

  There comes a time for any ruthless seafarer at the top of his game, once well along in years, to set aside the rough-and-tumble manner of his occupation and gird himself with the kinder, gentler mien of the Pop-Pop.

  Captain Zale “the Gale” Murdoch was no small amount of man. Just shy of fifty-five years old, he had grown and shaped himself a magnificent ale-gut, a solid round and impenetrable protrusion. A thin carpet of cropped, silvery brown and auburn hair covered his head and flowed into the whitening hairs all about his face. His legs were thin and his wrists were small, but he had all the muscle he needed. His greatest muscle, after all, was his brain.

  Lola, his darling wife, stood just behind him. She was well-built and broad-shouldered, the sort who could stack two mounds of firewood in the dead of winter while tending a pot of stew and scouring the tub all at the same time. She had dark, discreetly graying hair and an endearing round face.

  They approached the home in which Lola’s daughter lived with her husband and children. It was a modest abode of sand-colored bricks, situated in Warvonia’s southwestern residential district.

  Zale was just in from yet another plunder-rich voyage sure to be the envy of every other merchant in the guild. A self-satisfied smirk stretched his broad, whiskery face. He would have his reward.

  But that was no matter now. What mattered now was beyond the humble, wooden door before him. He pushed it open with a flourish, ready to demand the tribute he’d so rightfully earned.

  “Give ol’ Pop-Pop a smooch!” He belted out a belly laugh, shaking his girth. Squeals of delighted children welcomed him.

  Four children to be exact, and not just any children. His granddaughters. Fawn was age nine, Sage was age six, and little Nova was turning four on this very day. Hazel, reaching out and babbling from within her mother’s arms, was not yet two.

  “Oooh, I hear someone’s having a birthday!” Zale teased.

  “Me! Me!” piped Nova. She had bouncing pigtails of white and golden hair.

  Zale stooped low to accept the incoming barrage of hugs and kisses. Ecstatic little arms yanked him beyond the threshold.

  Lola followed him in and eagerly accepted her own bounty of cuddles.

  “Grammie Gangy!” greeted Fawn.

  “Well hello…and happy birthday, Nova!” Lola replied.

  Zale took care not to stumble as the kids pulled him farther in.

  The lower half of his left leg was composed entirely of graphenite, a dark-gray metal-gemstone alloy considered to be one of the strongest and lightest available. Rarely was it spared for the needs of an ordinary civilian, but Zale was anything but ordinary. He’d proven his service to the crown time and time again, starting with over two decades in Tuscawny’s naval Sea Force, years spent with obsequious buffoons who specialized more in bootlicking than navigating vessels. He bested his nitwit shipmates at every turn, whether rigging a ship for prompt departure or locking blades with marauders.

  Things got interesting when the seafaring mercantile guild sought him out.

  The pay would be better, the work more interesting, and he’d be among true professionals. Unlike the mercantile guilds of other provinces, crews from Rocknee, and more specifically its prominent port city of Warvonia, were often entrusted with the most specialized and rare of cargo runs.

  It became almost an afterthought to Zale that this was one of the kingdom’s iffier mercantile guilds. Most assumed it was a guild of criminals—bootleggers, privateers, and smugglers sanctioned by the crown to sail their private vessels, without the colors of their land, and retrieve the kingdom’s less-than-virtuous bounties. Zale saw it as a guild of the competent.

  He received a quick lesson in the magnitude of his new charge during one of his earliest assignments, a secretive mission of military import. As his ship approached the jagged sea stacks of Aviania, just outside the Great Crescent, their ship was attacked by terons, horrible winged creatures with talons like giant fishhooks and teeth like spearheads. Zale fared the worst, his leg ripped beyond saving. Zale never even knew what they had come for.

  The guild showed remarkable diligence in arranging to have his limb rebuilt. Medical breakthroughs, it turned out, were quite possible for those whom the officials deemed worthy of the resources. With his new leg, Zale returned feeling stronger than ever before, like something more than a mere man.

  The great tale of Pop-Pop’s metallic leg was one he loved telling his grandchildren.

  Technically these were grandchildren only by marriage, the daughters of Lola’s only child, Haly, and her husband, Dane. That made them no less family to Zale. They were every bit as much so as even his own daughter, Starlina, borne by a woman of his wilder past. For a while he wasn’t sure which one. He had no children with Lola, but she had every assurance of being the only woman for him till death. With this gal, he was convinced that he actually meant it.

  He relished the bliss of Nova’s birthday party, enjoying great food and conversation. He lowered himself into an armchair, the kids clambering all around.

  “So, a birthday!” Zale spoke grandly, taking Nova into his lap. “How old are you—two? Three?”

  “Four!” Nova insisted, holding up three fingers. Fawn corrected her hand by lifting one more of her fingers. “Four! Four! Four!”

  “Oh, it can’t be! Four years?” He turned to Lola. “Can it be, sweet Dwoey?”

  “It can,” sweet Dwoey confirmed.

  “Let’s see. Born in 3199, on this nineteenth of Jovidor… with this year being 3203…. By the stars! You are four!”

  Sage, a round-faced jewel with wavy locks and sheer joy in her gait, thrust a wooden sauropod toy in his face. “Sing the song, Pop-Pop! Sing the song!”

  Zale chuckled as another of his many gifts garnered the appreciation of present company. He took the toy in one hand and conducted the tune with his other, as his pleasantly coarse voice sang out:

  Diplodor the Dinosaur,

  he went down to the knickknack store.

  Got some snacks and a whole lot mooooore!

  Diplodor the Dinosaur.

  Once, of course, was never enough, so he repeated the song three times more before finally giving ol’ Diplodor the sendoff. He joined his family in mirthful laughter, thanking the divinity of Eloh for the gift of this joyful respite before seeking his next adventure.

  Warvonia was oft considered the gem of Tuscawny’s eastern coast. Largely unchanged for hundreds of years, many of the town’s outermost structures and walls were composed of old stone blocks quarried from the Monarch Mountains in the south. Red-roofed turrets prodded at the sky from its ancient wall towers and gatehouses. Farther inside the town, colorful, half-timbered houses lined narrow, cobblestone streets. At the locale’s nucleus was an expansive town square famous for its aisles of market booths, which throughout the year were themed to seasons and holidays.

  It was here that nineteen-year-old Jensen Karrack chanced a chance meeting with Zale Murdoch that was, in fact, not really chance at all.

  Jensen sought Captain Murdoch’s blessing to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage.

  He had played this moment in his mind countless times. Even so, his palms were sweaty and his heart raced. He couldn’t quite pinpoint why he was so nervous. Starlina and he plainly loved each other. They had for years. It had never been abundantly clear how the captain felt about this relationship. He had, at least, never spoken out against it.

  Of course, he had never spoken out in favor of it, either.

  Perhaps Jensen’s nerves came simply from the fear of rejection. Perhaps he feared rejection in the form of being hung from the Queenie’s rigging or drowned in a barrel of brine.

  Then there was his career to consider. Securing a position on Captain Murdoch’s crew right out of university had taken no small amount of persuasion.

  But it had to be done, and so here he was.

  He already knew, tha
nks to a tip from one of his shipmates, that the legendary captain would be here today. Nervously he stood at the end of one of many streets spilling into the town square, running a hand through his brown-and-buttercream hair and stroking the goatee on his chin.

  Finally, he saw his target. Captain Murdoch, dressed in a dark-red tunic and off-white trousers, strolled alone toward the market booths. Inhaling a deep breath, Jensen stepped lively into the bustling town center.

  “Captain!” he called out, his voice cracking a little. “What a coincidence seeing you here!”

  Murdoch turned with a scowl. His eyes softened with recognition, although the look wasn’t exactly a cordial greeting. “Afternoon, Jensen.”

  “Gathering some essentials, sir?” Jensen cursed inwardly at this weak attempt at small talk.

  “That’s what the market is good for, so I hear,” Murdoch replied.

  “Uh…yes, sir. That it is.”

  Jensen followed Murdoch toward an aisle of produce stands, all freshly spread with the season’s latest bounties. Summer, sub-season of harvest, had ended with the start of Jovidor, and the fall sub-season had begun. Indeed, crops had produced aplenty, with baskets of colorful berries, piles of melons, and carts overflowing with peppers, cultivar beans, and all manner of vegetables.

  The captain paused to pick through a cart of apples. “What’re you after?” he finally asked, not taking his eyes off the fruit.

  “Hmm, yes, an apple will do nicely,” Jensen stammered.

  He grabbed the first apple within reach and absently handed the merchant a five-lat coin.

  Murdoch turned and walked off.

  “Actually, sir…I’d like a word, if you please.”

  The captain’s stony expression remained unchanged. “Well, we are both here, after all.”

  Jensen’s mouth felt very dry. “Sir…it’s about your daughter, Starlina. As you know, we’ve known each other since childhood, and we have grown into fine young women—uh, woman— rather, she has grown into a fine young woman…sir.” Murdoch’s agog expression bore into him. “I find that I’m…well, I’m in love with her, sir. I’ve a mind to propose marriage. I’d hoped I might have your blessing.”

  Murdoch looked him up and down. Jensen wondered if this might be a good time to turn around and run. He watched for the captain’s reaction, hoping he hadn’t signed his own death warrant.

  Murdoch’s mouth fell open. “Bah hahahahaha!”

  A few passersby flinched at the sound, widening the space between them.

  “You’re a fanciful one, Jensen. Never forget—the sea is an unyielding place. See that your earnest whims and callow impulses don’t get the better of you.”

  His mouth frozen agape, Jensen watched Zale Murdoch disappear into the market crowd.

  Nova’s birthday two days prior still replayed merrily in Zale’s mind as he made his way toward The Wench’s Tavern. He took in a sliver of nighttime sky as he walked the streets, Eliorin’s planetary rings painting a bright band across the starry tapestry. Despite being nestled along one of the town’s lesser-traveled alleys, the tavern tended to host some of the land’s most travel-seasoned patrons. It was the preferred hunting ground for new mercantile work, and it was one of very few places where those seeking Zale knew they might eventually find him.

  Their next job would be especially important.

  Zale’s crew was but one solid catch away from breaking the guild’s mastery bar, a goal set every year by the guilders. It was a number based on the value of a crew’s lifetime catch. Every year, of course, it only increased, always pushing more hopefuls out of the running. Zale and his crew were already well beyond goals of the past. To reach this goal granted the crew’s captain “grandmaster” status. Reaching the goal was practically unheard of, with the exception of certain legendary crew masters of the past. With it came the promise of greater authority within the guild, quota flexibility, and riches aplenty.

  The rules of the bar were clear: only one crew would ever be awarded grandmaster status within a given year, and they had until the end of Agust to do it. After that, the bar would be moved again.

  This year Zale’s crew was especially close. One more run of reasonably high value would do it. With this being the twenty-first of Jovidor, they still had just shy of nine weeks before the current goal expired.

  Zale threw open the tavern door like a gust of wind, blowing the room into a curious silence. His eyes surveyed the environs as he took measured, clomping steps toward the bar counter in the back.

  “The Gale.”

  “Zale the Gale.”

  “Murdoch, Captain ‘the Gale’ himself.”

  His name traveled throughout the room in a chorus of whispers—music to his ears. He pulled a chair at the bar and sat with a groan, the room behind him returning to its usual din of chatter and thumping mugs.

  When the barkeep arrived, Zale greeted him with a polite smile. “Dark stout ale for me, good sir. Thank you.”

  His drink arrived in tandem with a lanky man in a long, dark coat. He had a lean, almond-shaped face and short, dusty-blond hair.

  Zale kept his eyes forward as he lifted the glass for a drink. “Evening, Dippy.”

  “Good evening, sir.”

  Dippy was first mate of the Queenie, essentially an extension of Zale when it came to finding new jobs and, if needed, additional crewmembers. Dippy wasn’t his real name, of course. His real name was Daubernoun. He looked like a Dippy to Zale, and so Dippy he became.

  “What’s the report?” Zale asked.

  “A few private jobs,” Dippy replied. “Some collectors seeking rare minerals like gold-veined lapis and green moonstone.” Zale raised an unimpressed brow. “Lapis? Do they take us for land-rats? Tell him to go up the coast into Korangar, and turn left at Boring Town. Luxorite I’d have found interesting, for a zesty chance at bilking foreign royalty.”

  There was a loud thump across the room, accompanied by a frenzy of shuffled chairs. A man fell to the floor, completely still. In this place, it was just as likely to be from drunkenness as poison. A bald man wearing a frock coat leapt to his side.

  Zale was about to turn back to his drink. In spite of himself, he kept watching.

  The bald man seemed to be tending to the man on the floor. He leaned in close, placing his hands delicately on the man’s head and chest.

  “Bizarre,” Zale muttered.

  The bald man looked up and made eye contact with Zale. Seconds later, the fallen man gasped, scrambled to his feet, and stumbled out the exit.

  Dippy pointed toward the spectacle. “Did that guy just heal that other guy?”

  The bald man stood slowly and went back to his table as though nothing had happened.

  Zale took a swig of ale. Strange sights were not uncommon here in the tavern.

  “What other jobs, Dippy?” he asked.

  “There’s another seeking quandalite.”

  Zale scratched at the thick stubbles of his chin. “Don’t hear that one every day. Does he have the lyra to show for it?”

  Dippy faltered a bit. “Says he’s willing to pay more than market…but only with a ten percent deposit.”

  “Bah ha!” bellowed Zale with a slap of the counter. “Hire the Gale on such nominal dosh? And my papa’s Grimy the Grimkin.”

  “Well, I thought you’d say that.” Dippy ran a hand through his hair. “There is one more, Captain. Fella claims to represent nobility, here on business for the Palace.”

  Zale frowned. “Curious case. Are you sure about this? The Palace—Metsada Palace?”

  Metsada Palace was the kingdom’s prime seat of governance, home to King Berosus Sar-Utultar and the legendary Throne of Light. The palace itself rested upon a star-shaped plateau said to have been formed by the divine using bolts of lightning. Zale, along with many others, assumed this to be just part of a larger narrative which insisted upon the King’s divine right to the Throne.

  “Does he claim to come from the Palace?” Zale asked. />
  “Says he’s from Brumm, actually.”

  “Brumm?” This was a different story. The Palace was located in the province of Sharm, just south of Brumm, and between them coursed the rugged Ba’ar Mountains. It wasn’t extremely far from Metsada Palace as the starling flies, but getting there was no quick jaunt.

  On top of that, citizens of Brumm, compared to Sharm and Rocknee, were generally stereotyped as less refined.

  Zale went back to his mug with a throaty chuckle. “Ask him why he married his sister.”

  Dippy’s eyeballs darted back and forth. “Captain…I think this one might be serious.”

  “Go on, man! Ask him!”

  Zale watched as Dippy took timid steps away from the counter and stopped at a table by the farthest wall. Zale had already dismissed this prospect as codswallop. Seated there was a very plain man in very plain civilian clothes. He looked frail amongst this tavern of burly louts. His face was pallid, his black and white hair unkempt, his tunic of ragged brown linen.

  Dippy asked the question. Zale took another gulp from his mug. Insolent hound, he thought. Serves you right for wasting the Gale’s time.

  The man’s dark scowl caused such a transformation in his face that even Zale flinched. His words to Dippy seemed sharp and pithy. Dippy looked as though the man had just pointed a knife at his chest.

  A minute later Dippy scampered his way back toward Zale. This time he motioned to the barkeep for an ale of his own.

  “Well, that looked eventful,” said Zale.

  “He doesn’t have a sister.” When the ale appeared, he took a long drink. “What he did say is that he knows you have a wife, a daughter, a stepdaughter, and four grandchildren in the vicinity of Warvonia.”

  Fury filled Zale so fast that his vision nearly blurred. “What?!”

  Men at the nearest tables shifted their chairs uncomfortably.

  Dippy leaned in. “Captain, please listen. This guy seems well-connected. He might be for real. He seems dangerous.”

  Zale considered that. It often held that the dangerous men were the more serious ones. “What’s the job?” Zale rumbled.