by David Samuels
in Issue 95. December 2019
The Southsea Shadow
15 Month of Cosmic Vespers | Afternoon
My stomach growled in mutiny as I prepared to toss our last loaf of bread over the walls and into the sea. Hopelessly outnumbered and marooned without escape, my crew and I had nothing left in our arsenal except bluster and bluffs.
About twelve warships besieged us offshore from this dratted island fortress, their slanted sails boasting the white tulip of the Khazal’s Tideguard. Otherwise known as a corsair’s worst nightmare.
Even though their flagship flew a black banner of parley from its mainmast, ice-cold unease squirmed under my stony exterior. Countless archers in plaited leather kilts and lamellar jerkins pressed against the front rails of that ship, longbows nocked and ready to fire. Rumor says an arrow from one of those longbows can pierce steel and rip flesh apart. I wasn’t eager to learn the truth to that one.
Nor did I let the stories stop me from wearing a suit of platemail. Well, make that half a suit. What with the crenellations protecting my legs, I preferred a tropical breeze below the belt over sweating to death beneath greaves and sabatons. Besides, I was already uncomfortable enough with my potbelly vying for space against the nippled breastplate.
The armor was one of many Pre-Worldflood artifacts the monks kept locked up in this fortress of theirs. These monks – Lorebearers, they’re called – scavenge relics from the past in order to better understand the present. Or something like that.
One thing’s for sure: they couldn’t have picked trickier waters to call home. Their sea-lashed fortress clung to the islet like a colony of hermit crabs, stone legs enclosing a cluster of baileys. If by some miracle the Tideguard’s flagship navigated past the boulders and shoals, then waves of whitecaps would smash the sorry bastards against the barnacled walls. The only breakwater wide enough to offload troops curved behind the lighthouse-mounted gates to my right.
In another mood I might’ve laughed at the fact that today’s refuge had been last week’s deathtrap. Our raid should’ve gone smooth as silverware, really: break into the fortress, pilfer anything worth a damn, and get the hells out of there lickety split. Just my luck for our longboat to collide into the landward side of the lighthouse at the last moment. Since then, we’d been stranded for a week with little food or water. Not that the lackeys ahead of me needed to know.
After a blast of fanfare from the rear of their flagship, all hands on deck cleared a lane for their captain. He wore a brocaded longcoat open to a knee-length kirtle, blunt features enshadowed by the wide brim of his hat. Only when he reached the foredeck did I recognize him as Tidelord Zuhkrim.
Last I’d seen him was at one of the Khazal’s summer jubilees, back before my bloodkath’s name had been wiped from the Ancestral Tablets. All because my father, a Tidelord himself, was framed for sabotaging his own fleet in a battle against the Flaurian Freehold. Too much to hope the Khazal would dismiss him as an imbecile. Especially in the Hundred Palaces, where deception holds more sway than merit ever could.
“I’ve come on behalf of the Khazal,” Zuhkrim shouted the obvious over the surf. “Lay down your arms and we’ll let your men live out their days in His Unity’s saltmines. Resist any further and we’ll blast you with cannonfire.”
“We both know you wouldn’t dare damage this fortress or the treasures housed within!” The helm filtered my words with a hollow ring as I shouted with more courage than I felt. “I’d spit on the Khazal’s terms if I thought it was worth the saliva!” Or if I had enough in my mouth to spare.
A few of the longbowmen gaped at the remark, and even the Tidelord tipped back his hat as if to reconsider the threat I posed. Between my black-bristled beard and the network of scars I’d gained since the jubilee, there was no way he could’ve picked me out from a pack of corsairs, helmet or no.
“Bold words,” he said, “for a pirate who’s outnumbered three hundred to thirty.”
More like three hundred to nineteen, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. “Outnumbered, aye, but we’ve got the strategic advantage. Go ahead and try to row your crew past the shoals. If they don’t get swept aside by the rapids, my men will pick them off one by one.”
“Since when do pirates conscript ghosts?” he called to a round of laughter.
“We don’t conscript ghosts so much as we turn busybodies into them. For every shield hanging on the wall, I’ve got an archer posted somewhere behind an arrowslit. Understand?”
The longbowmen stirred at that, some moving their lips to count up the arms slung from the crenellations. Kite shields, crescent shields, forty in all, only half of which still had owners. The others belonged to those who’d lost their lives in the shipwreck. Yet another thing Zuhkrim didn’t need to know.
“That’s a lot of mouths to feed,” he called back. “If we don’t kill you, then starvation will.”
“You think we aren’t prepared for setbacks like these? Hah! Our ship’s loaded with a year’s worth of hardtack.” I crossed my toes, hoping he’d buy it. “If you plan to outlast us, then think again. How far can you stretch the Khazal’s pursestrings, I wonder, before they snap?”
The words left the Tidelord gaping like a fish, and I could practically see the fear of execution glinting in those brim-shadowed eyes.
“If you run out of food, let us know!” Even though fights were breaking out between my men for a full belly, I tossed our final loaf into the sea. My heart felt like it plunged off the walls along with the bread. “Plenty more where that came from! Don’t think for a moment you can starve us out of here!”
The Tidelord bit his lower lip, then said, “Who are you to take a high tone with me?”
I could’ve told him then. About how my father had been in his shoes. That the Tideguard fought for the wrong side. And yet I called, “Who am I? Why, I’m the man with the hostages.”
Then I went clanking into the lighthouse and yanked a Lorebearer out by the collar. Gagged and bound, he shook his head frantically as I dragged him into full view of the fleet.
“Wait!” shouted the Tidelord. “Stop!”
But I needed to show this pompous fool that I meant business. Upon my upraised hand, an arrow whisked out of the upper lighthouse and into the Lorebearer’s heart. He crumpled limply to the stonework in a spray of scarlet. Liquid warmth oozed between my toes, reminding me to uncross the pairs of hairy links.
Several longbowmen recoiled in shock, while the ballsiest among them shot off an arrow that hissed in a blur toward me. I congratulated myself for not flinching when it narrowly missed my plated girdle. Maybe it was because I’d come to accept death as likelier than ever lately.
“Ceasefire!” ordered Zuhkrum. Despite the steel in his voice, both gloved hands betrayed his bafflement by trembling at his sides. “You listen to me, seadog-”
“No, you listen! From here on out, a monk dies every sunset until you take your fleet back to Faral-Khazal.”
“You’ll pay for this, worm.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Just then the monk moaned past his gag.
Damn. The force from that sandbag-capped arrow should’ve knocked him senseless. I pinned his shoulder down with the heel of my foot, soles sticking to the ink from the monastery’s scriptorium. Good thing the waves drowned out his moans or else Zuhkrum might’ve noticed.
If he didn’t call off his men soon, however, people would start dying in earnest. Many people indeed.
Tidelord’s Log
15 Month of Cosmic Vespers | Afternoon
Pirates. Nothing good ever came from pirates.
Stupid of me to think they’d give in to my demands. And yet every day out here chipped away at the Khazal’s coffers. Not to mention those hostages, the poor souls.
The humid climate hounded me on the way to my cabin in the rear of the Silver Gryphon. With its sleekly carved furniture and saffron-dyed tapestries, the chamber usually lightened my heart at the end of the day. But not tonight, when Lorebearer Akzo awaited at the pentagonal table in the center of the room.
Akzo was calming himself with a cup of mint tea that shook in his grip. He had returned from a pilgrimage on the night of the raid, at which point he sailed to us in Faral-Khazal as swiftly as possible. Swift enough for us to catch the outlaws still lurking hereabouts. Which made me wonder why they didn’t escape when they had the chance.
“So what do we do?” he asked in a warbly voice.
My body heated up from the pressure. Hunching both shoulders, I hung my hat above the washstand and rinsed the sweat off my face but found no relief there.
The plates of triceratops horn sewn into my longcoat were chafing at my neck, so I shrugged off the layer and draped it on the chair opposite the missionary. Then I gripped the backrest with both hands and looked him in the eye.
“If the pirate’s claim about those shields is true, then storming the fortress would mean death for at least a third of my men. I won’t risk those numbers. Not when the Khazal’s breathing down my neck.” Nor could my conscience bear such losses.
“And what of my brethren?” Converting worry into anger, Akzo set his cup down with a harsh clink. Then he snatched his bamboo staff – the one that marked membership in his order – and used it to surge up in a swirl of lotus-sewn robes.
“You heard the man!” he went on. “Another monk for every day we sit around waiting.” He spoke down to me with all the authority of a schoolmaster, which in a sense he was. Aside from their monasteries, Lorebearers operate scholastic missions in cities to educate the public. Hence why the Khazal is so determined to defend them, even if this particular fortress straddles his realm’s southernmost rim.
“I think he’s bluffing,” I said, only to receive a glare from Akzo. “Not about the deaths, but the provisions. He would’ve thrown more than a loaf if he spoke truthfully. This cur strikes me as the sort who likes to send the strongest message possible.”
“All the more reason to subdue him before he lands another blow.”
I caught myself gritting my teeth out of habit. It’s gotten to the point where the toothaches keep me awake at night. I sighed through my nose and chewed my cheek instead. “Tomorrow we’ll shoot him dead just before he executes the next monk.”
“And what if that enrages the rest of the pirates? Hmm? Or if the next captain is crueler, what then?”
I found myself grinding those damn teeth again. “Pirates are quarrelsome. Left leaderless, they might fight amongst themselves.”
“A flimsy foundation on which to build your strategy.”
On that we could agree. I wasn’t cut out for this sort of thing. Never have been, never will. If only my father hadn’t been a Tidelord, then I could’ve pursued my dreams.
A songsmith? he’d once roared in that deep-bellied thrum. Slaves play music. Peasants, scum. You’re of the Ancestral Tabulary! Your place is at the head of an armada, not the back of a quartet. Mention music once more and the next tune that concerns you shall be the elegy to your death rites.
I wandered to the cabinet set next to the bay window. Then I slid the panels open and feasted my eyes on the stringed instruments stored within.
My home away from home, right here on the ship. A mandolin with a crescent of pearls around its soundbox. A Fenlish woodharp with strings of woven shamblegrass. My first lyre, the one I’d snuck home from the Heights of Plenty. Trailing my fingers along the glossy surfaces, I said, “Do you ever wonder, Lorebearer, why the cosmos gives us destinies we cannot fulfill?”
Taken off guard, Akzo puffed out a sigh before saying, “What do you take me for, a Moonseer? I cannot waste time discussing astral mysteries. Must I return to the Khazal and request another Tidelord?”
“No,” I said at a volume that verged on a shout. If I failed here, who knew what would happen? I could wind up like that one Tidelord, the one who lost a battle with Flauria and paid the ultimate price for it.
“Tomorrow.” I closed the cabinet doors and pressed my forehead against the cool varnish. “We act tomorrow. You have my word.”
The Southsea Shadow
15 Month of Cosmic Vespers | Late Afternoon
After my parley with the Tidelord, Three-Prong Thesion helped me out of my armor in one of the cells of the dormitory. Good man, Thesion. He was the first to join my crew when I went rogue five years ago. I disliked that he was some nobody fisherman back then, and a Flaurian to boot, but I didn’t exactly have the pick of the lot at the time.
I’d left my banished name in Faral-Khazal and made off with our family heirlooms, using them to set myself up as a captain aglitter with his ill-gotten gains. With the training gained from my Tidelord father, I matched my words with a string of successful raids. Perhaps I’d grown too sure of myself – otherwise we wouldn’t be in this mess at all.
When Thesion set the breastplate next to his trident on the recessed stone bed, he turned to me with a frown I knew all too well. Normally a cheery fellow, it never boded well to see a glum look cross that pale face of his.
“Something on your mind?” After letting my belly air itself out, I slipped a linen tunic over my shoulders.
“The men are talking.”
“Aren’t they always?”
“About you, Captain.
Damnation. I should’ve been prepared for that, but I had enough on my mind as things stood. “Well, let’s go see what’s the matter.”
Nineteen of the sorriest pirates to sail the seas assembled in the refectory, where they hunched around the two longtables that ran the length of the room. Their leather armor looked as cracked and salt-stained as the frescos on the walls. Some wore more blood than clothing, the infections under their bandages reeking worse than low tide.
I addressed the four rows of faces from the head of the hall with Three-Prong at my side. “It’s come to my attention that some of you are grumbling about our bind. Not that I blame you.”
I planted a foot on the ledge of one bench, elbow atop knee all brotherlike. “I’ll be straight with you. We’re in a bit of a pickle and I’m every bit as hungry as you are. Otherwise I’d call this the quandary for what it is and not a starsworn pickle.”
Hopefully the scattered chuckles helped douse the tension.
“Still,” I went on. “Now that the bread’s gone, we have enough rice in the larders to last us a week.” Optimistically. I’d said a week because we could only reuse the same monks so many times before Zuhkrim caught on.
“What about the sea-caves?” The suave voice belonged to Liyento the Penceling back at the next table over. Some merchant lord had run him out of the Penny Fiefdoms, and he’d wormed into our fold a few months back. Picking his nails with a dagger, he said, “So far we’ve found three caves outta here. S’pose we try escaping through those?”
“And afterwards?” I demanded. “Have you forgotten that we’re surrounded? Zuhkrim’s patrols will scoop us out of the waves like pieces of driftwood. And that’s assuming we can get past that blasted current of water.”
More than a few of the boys thumped the table in agreement, but Liyento’s scowl looked sharper than ever under the torchlight of a nearby cresset. As soon as he grumbled harshly to himself, I swung my foot off the bench and faced him squarely. “If you’ve got something to say, Penceling, say it.”
Liyento rolled those slanted eyes of his. I wanted to gouge them out when he grumbled, “S’ easy for you to say all this.”
“Care to elaborate?”
Li stabbed the dagger into the table and left it quivering. “We all heard the Tidelord’s demands. Give up and the men get to live. He never said anything about you. S’why you don’t want to surrender.” The bench creaked backward as he sprang to his feet, slapping both palms on the table to either side of the dagger. “You don’t want to end up decorating the Ruby Gate with that ugly mug of yours.” He looked from face to startled face as he said, “We’re sitting ducks here, led by a man with the spine of a jellyfish!”
In a blur of motion, I seized Three-Prong’s trident and sent it flying. One of the prongs caught Li by the throat, spraying blood all over the table. The other two knocked him to the back wall where they hooked into the cresset and spilled the torch out of the iron cradle. His red-smeared body went up in a whoosh of flames, squirming all the while. Oh, how he squirmed, gargling out his last in bubbles of blood.
The others could only gawk in horror until the flames dwindled to embers. Good. If they couldn’t respect me, then let them tremble in fear. As for myself, well, I’ll admit that the smell of burning flesh set my stomach grumbling.
“You weren’t kidding.” I said to a flabbergasted Three-Prong as I shook out my mainhand. “Those spear-fishing lessons did pay off.”
I turned to the others and wrung my hands as if to rinse off the mess Li had made. “With that out of the way, onto better tidings. You’ll be pleased to learn that the pigeon came back.”
More thumps of approval, slow and reluctant this time. A day after the raid-turned-shipwreck, I’d sent a messenger pigeon to the corsair prince in Marauder’s Cove, offering half of the monastery’s loot in exchange for a rescue.
“Reinforcements will arrive any day now,” I told them. “All we need to do is sit tight. Let’s have no more talk of the m-word.”
Meeting adjourned, the boys returned to their posts in the gloomy corners of the monastery. On the upside, my words had delayed a forceful takeover. Downside being my promise for reinforcements was a, well, lie is such a dirty word.
Call it a bluff.
Tidelord’s Log
16 Month of Cosmic Vespers | Afternoon
Same time as yesterday, we moored the Silver Gryphon to the edge of the island’s shoals in order to parley. I expected the pirates to be late, them being pirates, but as afternoon crept into evening I began to doubt they’d turn up at all.
As part of the original plan, I’d posted my sharpest marksmen below decks where they took up position behind the hidden arrowslits carved into the gryphon figurehead’s eyes. After dispatching the captain, they were supposed to give our landing parties covering fire during low tide.
But if the pelicans roosting on the crenellations were any indication, then not a soul roamed the ramparts, unseen or otherwise.
Eerie. No other word for it. I didn’t want to expose my men to whatever traps the pirates had in store, but I’d sworn to Akzo that we’d strike today. Some might call me an unrefined string-strummer, but I was just as much a man of my word. One way or another, today would spell doom for the ringleader and freedom for the monks he held captive.
With less than an hour before the tide rose with the Sister Moons, we ferried ourselves across the channels in two rowboats, ten hands aboard each. I brought Akzo on my boat at his insistence. No reason to deny him that, or so I thought at the time.
The ocean’s surface reflected a crimson-streaked sky as we rowed up to the fortress. Good thing the place wasn’t defended – the whirling currents were problematic enough. We pushed off from boulders and breasted the rapids in a heart-stopping sequence of jumps and lurches. Water sloshed over the sides of the rowboat and soaked leather kilts, vests, and longcoats by the time we passed the two domed towers that marked the harbor entry.
The splash of our oars resounded in counterpoint to the swishing sea, as if every slice into the water was another intrusion. I almost leapt overboard at the voice from over my shoulder.
“That explains a thing or two,” said Akzo from the bench behind mine.
I followed his eyes to the shipwreck at the rocky base of the lighthouse. Both halves of the belly slanted off the boulder and into the harbor. Pale arms and legs bobbed above the tideline, dead limbs washed absolutely bloodless.
And yet fresh blood dripped from the ramparts. Upon the wall walk sprawled a corpse with a slit neck, bearded face lolling over the edge with an upside-down gaze fixed on us.
“Doesn’t look like a monk,” I said, judging from those mottled leathers and the serpent tattoos on his arms.
“No,” said the Lorebearer. “Nor do I believe my brethren are capable of such violence.”
Then who was responsible? Or maybe the better question was, what? “Rumor soars that Lorebearers hoard all kinds of Antediluvian secrets within their lairs,” I said to Akzo. “Is it possible that some breed of monster dwells in the bowels of this monastery?”
His scoff did little to settle my nerves. I clamped down my teeth to keep them from grinding as I guided our row boat ashore.
On my signal we unsheathed our swords and proceeded into the fortress. Past the quayside and further down the inner bailey, the external walls converged and twisted around to throw off pursuers. I divided my men three by three in tortoise formation in case potshots assaulted us from overhead. But at this point I feared something viler than pirates. Long shadows jumped off the walls and stopped my heart whenever we turned a bend. I struggled to steady my sword-hand as I led my men to the double doors at the end of the stone alley.
How I wished I was back in my cabin playing the lyre just then. But no. I was a Tidelord, born and raised, so I advanced on the doors with that purposeful stride that kicked up the tails of my longcoat.
And yet those doors. Something about them sent a chill up my tailbone. They loomed twice my height, all silver and ebony, carved in twisting patterns that seemed to leech the dying rays of daylight.
A gentle push sent them creaking out to a black void. Blackness that seemed to swallow the squadron as we marched inside, enfolding us all like the wings of a primeval demon.
“Let’s get some light in here,” I ordered after failing to spark my flint and steel. I’d blamed it on my trembling hands and yet my men fared no better.
“Cosmos be damned,” I swore under my breath. And even though we’d kept our supplies in oilskin bags, I excused us with: “Duds. Must be waterlogged.” Maybe then, ignoring our fear, we could somehow conquer it.
The doors slammed shut so loudly they set my hair on end. Our shrieks and shouts and swears of alarm rumbled off the walls as inky shadows pooled in my vision. Not just your nightly gloom either, but that pure, impenetrable darkness that convinces oneself he’s gone blind.
Any attempt to reassure my men died in my throat. The silence smothered everything down to the hitch of our breaths. As if I was all alone, lost in the clutches of something unseen.
Into the silence came the wail of another door. My heart sped up to a drumroll when an outburst of disembodied voices boomed from that direction, their echoes legion in number. Scrabbling footfalls drew rapidly closer while I gripped my sword with shock-numbed fingertips.
Nerves taut as lute strings, I faced out from my men and raised my shield up high. Dull blows rang against the surface as I stabbed over the rim. Blindly, frenziedly, I plunged the blade into softness and ripped back with spurts of coin-flavored fluid.
Soon the last guttural battlecry faded to the ragged breaths of my men. “Someone get the door,” I said, and wished I hadn’t. The influx of starlight unveiled a scene most foul. A chamber of horrors that’ll rob me of sleep for the rest of my life.
Blood and intestines and unspeakable gore lay strewn between the twenty-odd corsairs and monks on the floor. Besides the fresh gouges and punctures on their bodies, crusty blood rimmed all of their mouths.
“Someone’s cut out their tongues.” My own voice spooked me in this stars-forsaken place. Without their tongues, they couldn’t explain themselves in the darkness. Explain that my men were being tricked into killing them like so many cattle.
All that needless violence sickened me to my core. I crumbled to my knees and let the sword slip from my fingers. It clanked harshly on the floor, only to be topped in pitch by a nearby wail.
All eyes swiveled to the corner of the chamber, where a surviving monk knelt with the body of Lorebearer Akzo in his arms.
“What in the name of all ancestors happened here?” I marched up to the sole survivor, furious that Akzo got himself killed during the chaos.
Still he kept rocking back and forth, damn him, dripping tears onto the corpse’s lotus robes. I had to slap him on the cheek before he’d look me in the eye. And those eyes lacked something unnameable. Some human essence that he’d lost over the trauma. From his robes he produced a crinkled sheet of papyrus, which I yanked away from his trembling hands and tilted up to the torchlight.
Zuhkrim,
If you’re still alive, you’re doubtless wondering what that was all about.
You’d be shocked at how easy it is to drug a crew of men from a communal tank of rainwater. Especially when there’s a satchel of hag’s tears stored in the apothecarium of a certain monastery. One of the monks coughed up the herblore after some steel-knuckled persuasion. Hence why he needed to die first. Hells, if the others knew I planned to cut out their tongues while they were unconscious and lock them in that antechamber, they would’ve flayed me alive. Our sentries, too, had to go, even if there weren’t enough hag’s tears to go around.
Why, you ask? It’s a bit of a head-scratcher, I’ll grant you, but the answer is simple.
A diversion. By the time you read this, I’ll have escaped through the lower tunnels, weighing my feet with sandbags and breathing through a tube I’d rigged from three of those silly bamboo shafts the Lorebearers carry around.
Regrettable it had to end like this. I’m sure you’re a splendid fellow and all, but it was your skin or mine. And in case you haven’t noticed the lengths I’ve undertaken here, I cherish my skin immensely. As for yours, well, might I suggest going pirate? Against His Unity’s wrath, that’s the surest bet at survival.
Three cheers for the Khazal’s Tideguard,
The Southsea Shadow
Temples throbbing in rage, I crumpled up the letter and shoved it into my longcoat. “Scout the perimeter,” I told all and sundry. “Ambulatory patrols, two vessels each, and be quick about it!”
Tidelord’s Log
17 Month of Cosmic Vespers | Morning
Scarlet rays of dawnlight seeped through the bay window as I paced up and down the length of my cabin. I hadn’t yet changed out of my bloody longcoat, letting the bone plates scrape my neck and elbows as a form of flagellation. All night long I’d lost myself amidst a fog of anguish, sometimes glancing out the bay window for the return of our patrols.
Besides my Silver Gryphon by the reefs and a smaller sailboat named Roc of the Sea within the monastery harbor, the rest of my fleet were widening a circle around the island in search of the so-called Southsea Shadow.
Another Tidelord would’ve been running through excuses to plead to the Khazal at that point. But for some reason I couldn’t get this one damnable song out of my head. “The Lillies Abloom,” it’s called, and with its sprightly beat and cheerful refrains it seemed to mock my straits.
Last time I remember hearing it was during the Khazal’s midsummer jubilee. I’d give anything to go back to that night. To taste the nectarine vintages and dance to the-
No. Better to focus on the present than pine over the past. Pacing and pacing, I failed to shake off how I could’ve acted differently. If only we’d known the Shadow was lying about his food supply. Or how few men he really had under his command.
Never believe a pirate. Lesson learned. But would the Khazal let me live to put knowledge to action?
Again with the song. That blasted, irksome, beautiful song. In a red flash of rage I swept everything off the table. Teacups and candlesticks and charts clattered a storm onto the floorboards.
Only then, after my rage subsided, did the importance of that song float to the surface of awareness.
A musician never forgets a voice. Not even after five years. Of the many voices I’d heard during the Khazal’s jubilee, one tickled incessantly at my recent memory. The voice of the armored captain from the day before last. The voice of the surviving Lorebearer from yesterday. The voice of…
“Drosh,” I rasped in an undertone. Then at the top of my lungs I shouted, “It’s Drosh! Drosh is the Shadow!” More importantly, he was still within reach. Still on the island, posing as another. I almost tripped over a kettle in my rush out the door, commanding all hands to deploy the row boat.
This time the rapids didn’t even faze me on the way to the monastery. Nor did I wait for landfall before I splashed into the water, wading with all haste for Drosh of Bloodkath Khebrar.
My heartbeat throbbed in time with my bootsteps as I hurried into the dank stone halls of the stronghold. Leading with my sword, I raced through the dormitory and the apothecarium; the refectory and the scriptorium; the garden and solar and even the larder without a trace of the outlaw.
It wasn’t until I stumbled across a cluster of my men in the lighthouse that I realized they were the first signs of life so far. They froze their game of knucklebones the moment I stepped inside.
“Where is he?” I shouted in a spray of saliva.
Second-Rank Ekirrel broke the shocked silence with, “Where’s who, captain?”
I dragged him up by the straps of his jerkin and shook him against the wall. “The survivor!” For he was not a Lorebearer at all, but Drosh in disguise. The crafty bastard wanted to throw me off his scent with that letter. Only by posing as a monk could he operate the doors once we’d gone inside. He must’ve also murdered Akzo in the darkness. That way, the real monk couldn’t point out the fraud.
“The Lorebearer’s gone, sir,” Ekirrel sputtered. So’s most of the garrison. They took the *Roc of the Sea to Faral-Khazal so the monk could report damages to his chapterhouse.”
“And you believed him?”
Ekirrel tripped over his words until Longbowman Fazmuth spoke up, “The Lorebearer said he had your clearance. You were so overwrought about the Shadow escaping that we didn’t want to disobey orders.”
Damn, damn, damn!
By then the boarding party had caught up to me.
“Back to the flagship!” I roared at them. “They haven’t gone far!”
But they had. Far enough that we never ended up catching them. Somehow Drosh must’ve forced the men to redirect the *Roc at swordpoint. That, or he poisoned their minds against me, the lowlife. For the first time in my life I felt a compulsion that tugged at my heartstrings more than any musical ambition ever could. Karaxes the Stylite once claimed that anger is the most destructive emotion of them all. But me? I’m learning how to thrive on the stuff.
Tidelord’s Log
8 Month of the Celestial Moloch | Afternoon (?)
The cells below the Hundred Palaces aren’t exactly pleasant places to be. I wouldn’t recommend them unless you enjoy stifling heat, chamberpots reeking of week-old waste, and confines about five paces square. At least the Lawkeepers leave political prisoners with writing materials so we can scratch out confessions or last testaments.
My trial took place in the Porphyry Chamber, where the avenue of cliff-high columns made me feel tinier than an insect. Between the columns stood the Royal Lawkeepers in their hooded masks and liveried platemail. The pairs of black sockets stared accusingly as I was dragged along by two of their number. I must’ve looked a ragged mess to them, with my overgrown whiskers and blood-flecked kirtle. Not my blood of course, but that of the corsairs and monks I’d slain half a month ago. It felt like punishment enough that they wouldn’t give me a change of clothes. As if my failure must haunt me in body as well as mind.
Our steps echoed louder than the thunderstorm raging behind my breastbone. Womp-womp-womp, it went, in fear of the one enthroned fifty paces ahead.
A gauze baldaquin was draped around the semicircular balcony at the end of the hall, behind which a blinding light rendered the sheer black shape of a man. More than a man, really.
The Son of Stars, His Unity the Khazal.
Above his head floated the Crosswind Crown. It’s an open secret among the Tabulary that the headpiece is powered by lodestones, but that wasn’t what ran through my head as I folded to my knees per custom.
“Arise, Zuhkrum of Clan Rhaanush,” he boomed with that same dusty lisp I remembered from last year’s jubilee. “You were sent to Proctor’s Isle to slay looters and rescue the Lorebearers, and yet rumor soars that you’ve done the reverse. Explain yourself.”
Word by cursed word, I recounted every gory detail. And as the story poured from my lips, so too did the inferno of hatred reignite within my soul. A fire fanned by Drosh, yes, but first kindled by this ruler of men. If Drosh was a monster, it was only because of the same punishment that might befall my own family. It felt odd to see things from his side, all things considered, but such is the case when the boot swaps to the other foot.
“I have failed you, and for that I apologize a thousand times over. I only ask that you let me atone. What’s to be gained by executing me and exiling Clan Rhaanush? Your Unity, I beg you, give me another chance to hunt down this so-called Southsea Shadow. Let me prove to you that Clan Rhaanush does not forget its enemies.” And though I left the thought unsaid, my tone dripped with the slightest implication that such enemies would include him if he tried to do to us what he’d done to Drosh’s family. That we might just take a not from the Shadow’s book if our fortunes went south.
It was then that I realized why my musical pursuits had enraged my father so deeply all those years ago. While monsters like Drosh wreaked havoc on the seaboard, I whiled my time away strumming lutes to my heart’s content. Selfish of me to disrespect my duty in hindsight.
Into the silence the Khazal’s voice struck ice down my spine, “Clan Rhaanush will go unpunished. As for you….” The words tailed off as he considered my future. The whole while I kept my head bowed, hoping beyond hope for mercy. Khazals don’t last long on the throne, and I could only pray to my ancestors that this one had ruled for twenty years because of his common sense. Finally he said, “…you will remain under Lawkeeper custody as you hunt down this renegade. Only then, when you bring me his head, will you be declared free.”
Now, as my quill runs dry, I hear the Lawkeepers approaching down the cell block. First thing I’ll do once I’m free is stack all my instruments in a pile and set the damn thing ablaze. Call it blind rage, call it shortsightedness, for me it’s a sign of conviction everlasting.
©December 2019, David Samuels
When David Samuels is not at his day job moderating the chatrooms of webcam models, David Samuels spends his time journeying into worlds both real and imagined. Having won an Honorable Mention from Writers of the Future and a Finalist Placement from Baen Publishing’s Fantasy Adventure Award, he’s trying to carve a name for himself in the genre. This is his first appearance in Swords & Sorcery Magazine.