Tong Lashing Read online

  Eventually, however, matters took an unexpected turn.

  We made our way much farther north than even my peregrinations as the peacelord had taken me. As a consequence, we were able to enter with impunity a particularly sizable port city, Port Debras, renowned for having the largest single dock in the entire land, known as the Grand Jetty.

  Since it was a major port, few people there really paid attention to the faces that passed by in crowds. That suited us just fine. It also seemed wiser to keep Mordant out of sight, since there might be some who would associate the drabit with the once-formidable peacelord. We needn’t have worried, however. Mordant assured us that he wouldn’t be seen if he didn’t want to be, and he was absolutely true to his word. As we made our way through the many tents and similar ramshackle structures of Port Debras, I would occasionally spot Mordant flitting from one hiding place to another. But the only reason I saw him was because I knew he was there. Once in a great while I’d see someone do a double take, look again, and then shake their heads as if assuring themselves that they had merely imagined… something. Quite the camouflage artist was Mordant.

  It was our intention to try and get the hell out of Wuin while the getting was good. The land certainly had nothing more to offer me, and it was just a matter of time before our luck ran out and someone recognized me as the pillager and plunderer of helpless cities all up and down Wuin… to say nothing of my concerted campaign against the Thirty-Nine Steppes. Nor did Sharee have any particular interest in staying. As a weatherweaver, she tended to have more luck with her spells in a clime that wasn’t as relentlessly arid. And Mordant hadn’t stated any preference one way or the other.

  We wound up at a busy pub in the heart of Port Debras. We’d learned that it was an excellent place to find ships and ship captains with whom we could book passage. We were not exactly destitute. I had reluctantly left behind a small fortune in gems, but I’d had access to a significant number of dead bodies (which we’d dutifully torched) before setting out on our expedition, and I’d taken the liberty of relieving quite a few of them of whatever monies they had upon them. Sharee had stood there and scowled as I did so, but hadn’t commented beyond that, which I took to be a reluctant but mute admission that we might as well take their valuables since they weren’t going to be doing much of anything with them.

  Once at the pub, and after having tied the horse off at a hitching post, Sharee and I went in two different directions, asking around, seeing what we could find. Fortunately, I was, and am, a reasonably good judge of character. I was certain that at least two of the men I spoke to were actually of a most villainous nature, who would have been quite pleased to take us as passengers and, during the night, relieve us of our valuables and our lives before tossing us over the side to a watery grave.

  What I wound up doing was seeking out people who seemed as if they were having trouble walking. Sure enough, I found a small group of folks who looked a bit shaky on their feet for exactly the reason I expected they would be: They’d been at sea and had just recently come off a ship. Their general deportment, plus their decidedly non-nautical suitcases, told me they were travelers rather than crewmen. If one wanted to be sure that a ship would see you safely to your destination, my reasoning was to seek out recommendations from people who had already made it from whatever port of call they’d just been to, to here.

  Inquiring of the new arrivals, I learned that they’d been brought over on a ship commanded by one Captain Stout. A worthy and hardy-sounding name, I had to admit. As it so happened, I found the good captain tossing back some mead in a corner of the bar. Large, gruff, and affable, he struck me as a solid seaman, and his disposition certainly matched the glowing reports I’d received from his recent passengers.

  I had no place in particular I was planning to go, which as it turned out dovetailed with Captain Stout’s agenda. He had a cargo he was transporting to an island continent called Azure. Azure was, by all accounts, a decent enough place, albeit a bit colder than I was used to. But I believed I could get accustomed to it, and besides, it wasn’t as if we’d be staying there permanently. If we liked it, we could; but if not, we could always find somewhere else.

  It was at that moment that I abruptly realized I was thinking of Sharee and I as a “we.” I had to remind myself that Mordant was part of the mix, but on some level I was starting to regard Sharee and I as a pair. The thought was staggering to me, and yet as the first waves of shock subsided, I slowly realized that it was not an unpleasant notion. I began to wonder if she felt the same way, and decided that she very likely did. After all, I reasoned, I had to be getting the notion from somewhere. And where else could it reasonably have been from, if not from hints or subtle suggestions from Sharee herself. And they would have to have been subtle, because she was a magic user, and that’s simply how magic users tended to do things.

  A loud throat-clearing noise from Captain Stout jolted me back to reality and I realized that I’d drifted off into a daydream about Sharee and me. How truly embarrassed I felt. “What say ye, lad?” demanded Captain Stout. “Any interest in heading to the Azure Island? Quite lovely this time of year, I understand. And we’ll have a few other passengers aboard, so you’ll have some company other than just my crew.”

  “It sounds fine to me,” I said. “Let me check with my friend and I’ll be right back with you. She’s just around the other side of the pub.”

  “She. A lady friend.” Captain Stout didn’t seem especially thrilled. “Ladies on sailing vessels aren’t always a good mix, me lad. Sailing ships are crewed by rough, battle-hardened seamen. Do you know what you get when you put women together with seamen?”

  “Pregnancies?”

  “You get bad luck,” he continued as if I hadn’t spoken, which was probably a good thing. “Now, I’m an open-minded man, and I’ll bring your little lady along if I must. But just keep her away from my crew. And pray to the water gods for good weather…”

  “Oh, well, we can guarantee that,” I said, “since she’s a—”

  “…and, ideally, that no damned or accursed magic-using weavers come anywhere near my ship,” he concluded.

  My mouth opened and closed without words emerging for a moment. “Weavers… are a problem?” I asked.

  “You get magic users on your boat, and you’re guaranteed disaster,” Captain Stout told me forcefully. Then he squinted, apparently processing belatedly what I’d just said. “How can you guarantee good weather? She’s a… what?”

  “An amateur weather predictor,” I said immediately. “Charts storms and such. And she told me there’s going to be nothing but good weather and smooth sailing for the next three weeks.”

  “Good weather and smooth sailing where?”

  “Everywhere,” I told him without hesitation. “Everywhere. In the world. It’s the damnedest thing. Never seen anything like it.”

  His thick eyebrows knit. Then he laughed with such abruptness that it jolted me, and he said, “If that’s what your woman thinks, then the odds are that she’s going to remain an amateur for a very, very long time.” Then he clapped me on the shoulder as if we were old mates and told me to bring my young lady by so he could inspect the cut of her jib.

  Personally, I didn’t think Sharee was going to want the old salt inspecting any cuts of her at all, but I smiled affably and went off to find her.

  I headed around to the other side of the pub and then stopped. There was Sharee… but she was going out a side door, in the company of three rather large men.

  I gripped my walking staff tightly. The staff was an exceptionally formidable weapon that had been assisting me in and out of scrapes for over half my life. There was a carving of a lion wrestling a dragon on one end, and a sharp blade could be triggered to snap out of the dragon’s mouth for use in combat. In addition, with a twist the staff could be separated into two halves and each used as a devastating cudgel.

  Not that I was anxious to get into any sort of fight. I never was. Then again,
I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. If I followed Sharee outside and matters appeared dire, I could whistle for Mordant and he would emerge from hiding and rip the throats out of these likely felons in no time at all, while I would stand by and check over their corpses for valuables. It all seemed a very credible plan to me.

  I couldn’t tell if the three men were forcing Sharee to go out with them. All I knew was that they were gone and I was going to follow them. I moved quickly, stepping through the door into what turned out to be an alleyway alongside the pub.

  What I saw astounded me.

  Sharee had her arm extended and Mordant was sitting perched upon it. She had her cape coiled around her forearm to protect it from his rather formidable claws. The three men were making soft noises of admiration, and the largest of them—a broad-shouldered, mustached man wearing a large gray cloak and white tunic—was even scratching Mordant under the chin and being rewarded with gentle “cooing” sounds.

  “What the hell is all this?” I demanded, startling them. One of them reached to his side and I heard the unmistakable hiss of steel against leather as he prepared to draw a sword. This didn’t sit particularly well with me, as the prospect of fighting generally didn’t. But I was just annoyed enough not to back down. Furthermore the weight of the bastard sword I kept strapped to my back was of comfort.

  But Sharee put out a hand to the sword-puller and said firmly, “It’s all right. This is Apropos. Apropos, these are old friends of mine.”

  “Are they,” I said, in a tone that I wanted to sound chilly, but instead just came out as somewhat whiny. “Imagine running into them here.”

  “This,” she said, indicating the mustached one, “is Rex Reggis. He’s a weaver. We received training in the same guild hall, years ago.”

  “Little Sharee always had a crush on me,” said Reggis with the sort of ready smile that just makes you want to rip off the lips of the smiler.

  “You,” she corrected him in a very arch tone, “had a crush on me.”

  “I feel the need to disagree,” he said.

  “And I feel the need to impale myself,” I told them, “but sometimes we resist urges.”

  I didn’t like the way she was looking at Reggis. Nor did I like the way he was looking at her. There was something decidedly unsavory about the whole thing, and I couldn’t help but feel that the sooner we were quit of them, the better.

  “We were just admiring your drabit,” said Rex. “Quite an amazing creature. We can use him on our quest.”

  I had been about to launch on a truly sterling string of snide remarks and cutting insults that would have been among the most memorable ever put forward in the history of condescending discourse. But Rex’s comment tossed it right out of my head, leaving my initial response as a sort of inarticulate “Hnnch?” Fortunately I reacquired my ability to speak straightaway, and said, “Quest?”

  “They’re on a quest,” Sharee said eagerly. “Doesn’t that sound exciting?”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “It certainly does. And I have to emphasize here the concept of ‘sounds.’ As in, is best appreciated second- or third-hand in the telling of it, rather than the first-hand experiencing of it.”

  “Oh, come now!” Rex boomed. “A man of your obvious quality and sophistication would certainly thrive on a good quest!”

  I glanced over my shoulder to see just who he might be addressing, and then realized with dawning disbelief that he was talking to me. I forced a grin, which was more like gritted teeth, and said, “What’s obvious to you appears to have slipped right past me.”

  “Apropos, this is no time to be difficult. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Sharee told me.

  “Here’s the thing about once-in-a-lifetime opportunities,” I said. “They tend to shorten the actual lifetime in question.”

  “I think he’s a coward,” growled one of the other companions. “A foul character trait to have.”

  “I prefer to think of it as an alternative lifestyle,” I informed the growler.

  “Apropos, listen,” said Sharee. “What they seek… it’s the mystic tome of—”

  “I don’t care.”

  “It can transform anyth—”

  “I don’t care! Sharee, what’s…” I quickly put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her a few feet away from the others. Mordant, on her arm, was rudely jostled by the sudden movement but managed to hold on nevertheless. “…what’s going on here?” I demanded in a low voice. “We had plans…”

  She looked at me wide-eyed. “We did?”

  “Yes! We were going to…”

  I stopped.

  “Apropos,” she pointed out, “we hadn’t really planned where we were going. We just decided we were getting out of here. But plans aren’t about what you’re running from. They’re about what you’re running to.”

  “We’re going to Azure. It’s all arranged.”

  She blinked in surprise. “It is?”

  “Yes. Booked and everything. All set. Let’s go.”

  “And what’s on Azure?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does. Apropos, I thought you understood…”

  “Understood what?”

  Sharee sighed heavily. “Port Debras isn’t just a place of comings and goings. It’s a place of opportunities. To find possibilities to explore. Rex’s quest is an incredible possibility. He’s leading a group to one of the most challenging—”

  “Sharee, life doesn’t have to be about finding challenges. Life is challenge. And I…”

  She stared at me, and I felt her gaze boring through my mind. “You what?” she asked.

  And I want to meet those challenges with you. It’s taken me this long to realize that the reason you make me so crazy, so infuriated, is because I have incredibly strong feelings for you. Because lately you’ve been all I think about, which is incredibly amazing considering that for as far back as I can remember, I’ve been all I think about. And even a life of supposed boredom would be devoutly to be desired, because no life with you could ever be boring. You’re everything I need, everything I could want. I feel as if I’d suffocate without you, I…

  “Sharee!” It was Rex’s voice. He looked hopeful, but also slightly impatient. “The tide will be heading out soon, and we need to be upon it. Are you with us or no?”

  I saw the look in her eyes when she glanced in the direction of this fellow magic user who apparently was a great factor in her young life and had never truly been left behind in her growth or imaginings. And in that look I saw, just for a heartbeat, a spark. A gentle, ineffable spark that I instantly, selfishly, wanted for myself. And which I knew, without the slightest doubt, would never be given me.

  I realized what a fool I’d been. I was positive that, if I said anything of the absurdly impassioned spew that was rattling around in my head, I would not only sound like a complete idiot, but I would lose whatever shred of respect she might have had for me.

  What would have been the point of it? Really? She was still going to go off with Rex Reggis, I knew that with certainty.

  She wanted him. I could tell.

  And let’s face it: It wasn’t all that long ago she’d tried to kill me. And not much longer than that that she’d pretty much cursed my name whenever she’d heard it mentioned. There was no reason to think that, sooner or later, she wouldn’t want to kill me again. Why shouldn’t she, really? Everyone else in my life tried to, sooner or later. Really. Truly. No matter whom I encountered, eventually one or both of two things would happen. Either that person would die, or that person would try to kill me.

  What had I done to deserve this fate? Nothing. Be born. That was pretty much it.

  And what had Sharee done to deserve that fate as well?

  Nothing.

  I realized it at that moment with one of those flashes of clarity that one has from time to time. Sharee wasn’t going to remain with me. Her eyes were filled with Rex Reggis. He was a hero type, a sort I knew all too well, and they h
ad a disgustingly consistent impact on females. Which normally wouldn’t interest Sharee, but he was obviously an old love and a mage to boot, and that made him irresistible. But more to the point, if Sharee remained with me, there was every reason to assume that eventually she would join the teeming masses of people who had tried to kill me or wound up dead or both.

  Why wish that on her?

  Except…

  …I wanted her to say she wanted to remain with me.

  To this day, I’m not sure why it was so important to me at that moment. More important to me than anything. Perhaps it was because, since I was long departed from my native Isteria, Sharee represented the last tie I had to my homeland.

  Or maybe I just wanted to be loved. Maybe what I was experiencing was the beginnings of being frustrated with the way I was, but having no clue how to change, or even if I wanted to.

  She was still waiting for me to finish my earlier sentence. “You what—?” she prompted again.

  Why waste the time. It would all end badly, and besides… she didn’t love me. Didn’t want to be with me. Not really. Who would? What did I have to offer? Cynicism and lameness and a deep abiding conviction that I was the only sane man in an insane world, a belief which brought me comfort but oddly was seen as less than flattering by just about everyone else.

  Tell her you love her or at least like her, tell her you enjoy her company, tell her you want time, tell her that if she leaves you now you’ll likely never see her again and that’s unacceptable, tell her anything

  “Go to hell” were the words that came out of my mouth.

  Anything but that.

  I looked right through her to the drabit on her arm. “Mordant? Coming with me or staying with Sharee?”

  Mordant cocked his head slightly, and then wrapped his tail around her arm.

  That was my answer.

  I shrugged.

  “Fine,” I said, and something that I hadn’t even known was living within me until moments earlier was crushed and died. I turned and walked away without another word to her. Feeling sorry for myself, in an endeavor to look even more pathetic than I felt, I accentuated my limp as I headed back into the pub.