'The Worst of Curses'- Introduction and Chapter One

Introduction

            Greetings and salutations once again.  Tamalaria has certainly come into its own at this juncture, with the publication of so many of my previous stories now complete.  Some of my friends and family have asked me now why I do not include a map of Tamalaria somewhere in my manuscripts, and for the record, there are a couple of reasons.  Firstly, I am a small press author, which means that my editor and publisher, Mr. Robert Preece, has to think about budgetary concerns for the trade paperback production of my works.  Including artwork imagery of any sort can increase expenses on his end.

            Secondly, I would have to ask if having a map of the realms of Tamalaria would be a help or a hindrance to the reader.  I have a map of Tamalaria myself, yes.  It’s part of how I’m able to keep a general sense of the layout of the continent without breaking my mind, since I have so many other details to keep in mind when weaving new stories for the world I tell my readers about.  I may at some point provide a simplified version of this map, though I have once shown it on Youtube in a video blog segment.  I didn’t give a lengthy show of it, more just a general showing of ‘hey, there really is a map of this world. 

            Another question that has been posed to me now several times is, ‘Why did you start telling stories in the Fifth Age?  Why not the First Age, or any of the other Ages in between that you mention in previous books?’  Well, those stories will hopefully be forthcoming, God willing.  But before I get to them, I want to have an established set for the Fifth Age. 

            And lastly, another question I have been asked, mostly by my ex-wife and by acquaintances online is, ‘Why are so many of your characters recurring, especially Lee Toren?  He somehow manages to fall into almost every story at least once!’  This is something of interest to me, because it tells me that people are paying attention, for one, and aren’t complaining.  They’re curious, that’s all.  It also lets me gauge what I have come to think of as the ‘Interest Meter’, which is a character’s ability to remain interesting to the audience. 

            To actually answer the question, though, I will say this; in order to give a fantasy world solidity in the reader’s mind, especially for a series set in the same world repeatedly, it is important that there be some form of permanence and continuity.  It wouldn’t do to simply introduce a major character and then go nowhere with them, would it?  It adds to the suspension of disbelief if a character living in this world is shown still living in it, moving forward with their admittedly fictional life.  But it gives them experience, depth, and above all, growth potential.

            Characters build the story, after all.  You can’t have an event without somebody bearing witness to or causing it, or eventually becoming aware of said event and then reacting to it somehow.  Their lives are their stories, as our lives are our own.

            I hope you enjoy.

Chapter One

A Pleasant Trip, Perhaps

            Windswept rain spattered down on the dusty streets of the village of Homelswal on the eastern coast of the continent of Tamalaria, a small fishing and shipping village belonging to the city-state of Ja-Wen.  Puffy gray storm clouds roiled and pressed down from above, and the peoples of the town continued on with their business largely without interruption.  Rain was hardly a damper to a town full of men and women who made their living out on the open waters.

            In a small open market street near the docks, a Wayfarer family, a troupe of gathered like-minded tradesmen and craftsmen who lived and traveled together, picked and pecked about the various booths and mobile carts of merchants come to town for some temporary trade.  The Todaro clan they were called, their Patriarch holding polite small talk with a local jeweler as his clansmen went about their shopping.  A wizened, white-haired Gnome, he was tall for his people at a little over four feet in height, his frame more slender than the average city-dwelling Gnome. 

            “That’s a good one,” said the Patriarch to the vendor.  He extended his right arm toward the merchant, a thing of gleaming metal and wires and old bolts.  A cybernetic limb, the hand was scaled to his approximate racial size, but for the absence of a fifth digit.  Two slender tubes of jointed steel ran from the elbow, where the device terminated into normal flesh and blood, ran to the back of the hand, which thrummed quietly.  “Name’s Henden, Derrick Henden,” he offered.

            The merchant shook hands with him, a tall Lizardman in ashen gray robes.  “Silvas Cruriek,” he said, his scaled arm protruding from his robe sleeve.  The scales appeared to be rather large and somewhat softened.  Being a knowledgeable man, Henden knew this to be a physical sign of great age among the Lizardman peoples, and gave a brief bow of his head in respect to the elderly jeweler.  Rain pattered down on his curled white hair another minute before he put up his hood, casting about to ensure himself that none of his clansmen were doing anything illegal in the market, like trying to sneak off with someone’s coin pouches. 

            “Mr. Cruriek, please tell me, would you happen to know if any of the sailing ships in port right now are for hire,” he asked. 

            “Hmm, you know, there’s usually one or two such crews making small work while they wait for a commissioned sojourn,” said the Lizardman, scratching his chin.  He tapped a finger on the plastic display case fronting his booth.  “Ah, yes!  I’ve seen a certain Jaft in the Roaring Tide tavern in the evenings, after I close up for the day, he appears to be a captain of one of the ships in port.  He’s not a fisherman, of that I’m sure.”

            “How can you tell,” asked the Gnome.  He kept his eyes on the Lizardman, but with his left hand pulled a small ratchet tool from the left side of his belt, beneath his rain coat, and began tightening down one of the bolts on his artificial right forearm and hand.  Having had years of practice with this sort of task, he needn’t even look at what he was doing.  Many Gnomes in the realms of Tamalaria were so mechanically inclined. 

            “Oh, well, it’s the crew that comes in to join him most nights,” said the merchant.  “Oh, hold on a moment, sir, do you see anything you like, padre,” the merchant said to a fair-skinned Elven gentleman in the pale green ceremonial robes of a Bishop.  The Elf, his eyes a deep, contrasting shade of dark green, offered an almost angelic smile to the tradesman.  His robe, belted at the waist with a length of hank rope, billowed out around legs that, if the small leather shoes on his feet were any indication, were as narrow as kindling sticks for the fire. 

            “Oh, no, I’m actually with Patriarch Derrick,” said the Elven Bishop.  The Bishops, clerics with a distaste for the technological, were usually burly men of the cloth who were the faithful servants of Lenos, Great God of Wisdom and Stories.  They tended to tattoo either their necks or their hands with the curved ‘L’ that was a common insignia for worshippers of the lord Lenos.  But no such adornment rested on the young Elven man’s throat or hands, and the Lizardman merchant, sensing the intense aura of magical potential around the Elf, marveled that he would be a member of a Wayfarer troupe, especially one run by a Gnome with cybernetic enhancement.  “I am a member of the troupe Todaro.  Derrick,” the Elf said, turning his softened eyes upon the Gnome.  “Lisa has asked if we are going to remain here for the night if we cannot find a vessel.”

            “Inform her that such is the case, but I may be able to find us a crew before we require lodgings,” said the Gnome.  He finished his adjustments with the ratchet and slipped the tool unconsciously back into its slot, flexing the riveting joints in his fingers.  A small pneumatic hiss escaped from the palm, in the center of which the merchant spotted a smoothed out hole leading into a chute of some sort going deeper into the appendage.  “Also tell her to try and find me some small load she can fit into the clips, Kyle.”  The Elven Bishop gave the Patriarch a deep bow, and hustled off into the rain-filled streets, picking his way with ease through the passing crowds. 

            “That Bishop is a member of your troupe,” asked the merchant, incredulous. 

            “Yes, a good lad too, I might add,” said Henden.  “He’s been with my troupe for some six years now, helps support us with his healing spells and defensive magic.  He may not look very capable, Mr. Cruriek, but wivout him, I’m not sure all of my troupe members would still be with us to this day.  Now, you were mentioning this crew,” the Gnome said, leaning casually on the booth counter with his cybernetic arm. 

            “Ah, yes,” said the merchant, shaking his head briskly to clear it and return his thoughts to the prior conversation.  “They do not strike me as mere fishermen or traders.  They are almost all Jafts of some considerable size and apparent strength, and they all answer to this captain most faithfully, much as I am sure your troupe does for you.  Of all of them, there is but a single woman, and she is the captain’s wife.”

            “How do you know that,” asked Henden.  The merchant gave him a wry grin.

            “That’s how the captain introduced her to the barkeep the first night she came in with him.”

            “Ah.”

            “Pretty dead giveaway, yes?  Anyhow, I’m usually there for my evening meal and a few drinks before I head to my cottage on the outskirts of town for the night.  I find the rabble-rousing and energy there captivating,” he said, rubbing his hands together. 

            “Any fights break out,” asked Henden with some worry in his voice.

            “Oh no, not since this captain and his crew came into port,” said the merchant, waving his hands.  “There was one incident, their third night in town, but the captain’s wife and two of his men put a quick and violent stop to that.  They didn’t kill anyone, mind, but that’s perhaps the most frightening thing about them.  They are more than capable of hurting people without killing them.  If you are going to approach them about a commissioned sail, you should be tactful.”

            The Gnome offered up a toothy smile.  “I always am,” he said, patting the plastic display counter.  “Thank you for the tip, good merchant,” he said, laying down a heavy platinum coin on the countertop.  The merchant stared at the coin greedily, looking up to Henden for permission to take it, but the Gnome had already moved away from the booth and into the increasingly driving rain.  He slipped the coin into one of his pockets, pulled the metal shutter down fronting his store, and closed business for the day a little earlier than usual. 

            Henden padded through building puddles and gave a brief ‘quom mafa’ to the various Minotaurs who also lived in dense numbers along any coastal or mountainous region he passed.  They replied in their harsh, guttural tongue, usually in dialects of the language that Henden troubled over, but he gave them a smile and nod from beneath his hood in any event.  Ferocious though they were, Jafts and Minotaurs had the civility to be mannered toward their neighbors, especially those that made the effort to know them beyond the surface. 

            The market was quickly closing up due to the strengthening winds and the rage of the oncoming rainstorm, people small and large scurrying into the comfort of shops and eateries, and the small taverns that dotted every street in the village.  Henden peered up at the swinging wooden signs over each one until finally he located the Roaring Tide, ducking through the heavy oak door into the brightly lit interior, where oil lamps stood in place of the more commonly used electrical flambeaux. 

            The crowd inside, while many in head count, was largely subdued by the outside conditions, most of the customers enjoying their drinks in small clusters at the tables and bar, partaking of light conversation.  The entire arrangement of furniture appeared to be made of wood that had seen better years, and as he passed a looming Minotaur in the banded leathers of a typical mercenary playing a card game with two Humans, he heard the tortured creak of one of the chair legs plead for sweet release. 

            “Entropy,” he muttered to himself as he cast about for the Jaft captain the merchant described.  While he hadn’t gotten a good physical description of the man, Henden only saw one Jaft man, sitting in the far corner from the tavern’s front door, who had a female of his race seated at his side.  Six other brawny, scar-laced men in sleeveless service coats sat with him at his table and the nearest one, their chairs all turned toward the captain.  Henden maneuvered his way first to the bar, where the Dwarf dispensing drinks marveled at the platinum coin he received in exchange for a small stein of the local brew.  Said coin never made it into the register, but rather into the Dwarf’s private drop box under the floorboards.

            Getting closer to the captain, Henden saw that like most of the men of the Jaft race, he was tall and broad-shouldered, his flesh a middle shade of blue.  His ears, wide and curved slightly outward like a pachyderm, twitched ever so slightly as he said something in a low, rumbling tone that sent his wife and his men into a fit of muffled laughter.  His eyes, a muddy brown, shifted from man to man as he continued to speak to them, engaging each personally in the conversation.  A good leader of men, thought Henden.  I do the exact same thing on the road when I go from fire to fire in the troupe. 

            But the comparison between the two men, he knew well enough, ended there.  Where Henden was a Gnome slightly taller and less pudgy than his counterparts, this captain was muscular and defined far more powerfully than his crew.  His only close match was his wife, whose full head of hair easily identified her as the only female of the race in the crew.  But more than this, her face didn’t have the same roughened, bark-like wrinkling that occurred in Jaft men after adolescence, when their hormones finally righted themselves.  Her facial features, while wind-burned like any sailor, were smoother, less cragged.

            Another feature that set the captain apart from his men was his garb.  While his crew looked the part of the typical sailor, the captain wore a short-sleeved chain shirt under a olive drab service jacket, the sleeves ripped off.  His pants were a dark purple wool, and his boots appeared to be dragon hide, the light of the oil lamps giving the scales an oily cast.  Henden also spotted a stone warhammer, head on the floor, within arm’s reach of the captain.  He was the only man in the tavern, Henden noted, who’d come armed. 

            The man was always ready for a fight.

            Henden made his way finally to the outermost of the crew members, and tapped the fellow on the arm.  The Jaft, a rough black cloth patch over one eye, turned his attention to the Gnome while the captain continued speaking in the Jafts’ native tongue.  “Can I help you, little master,” asked the Jaft sailor in a low, gruff note.  Henden blinked rapidly at the sailor’s use of etiquette; it seemed largely out of place with both his profession and species. 

            “Um, yes, I’d like to discuss a commissioned voyage with your captain,” said Henden.  The sailor nodded, and addressed the captain in their native tongue once again.  He made one hand gesture toward Henden, and the captain’s muddy eyes fell upon him.  Scrutinized by all of them, Henden sucked in his gut a little and threw his shoulders back, to present the largest profile to them he could, out of respect.  He knew that the Jaft peoples found cringing or shying away when addressing a leader to be a sign of either cowardice or disrespect, both qualities that could get a man maimed. 

            After a minute, the captain nodded to the patch-eyed Jaft and barked a single word in his tongue to his men, who all rose as a group and made their way out into the bar at large to mingle.  All, that was, except for the captain and his wife.  The captain indicated the patch-eyed Jaft’s seat.  “Please, have a seat,” he said in the common tongue.  “Business is always a pleasure to discuss,” he said with a sardonic grin.  Henden gave a small chuckle at the clever use of words and hopped up onto the sailor’s seat across the table from the captain. 

            “Well, thanks for speaking with me.  My name is Derrick Henden, Patriarch of the Todaro Wayfarer clan,” he said, extending his artificial hand across the table. 

            “Gronen Mattock, captain of The Solid Fist,” said the captain, shaking with the Gnome.  “This is my wife, Thelma Mattock.  She is the ship’s cook,” he said, waiting for them to shake hands.  “Where is it you’d like to take your people, Patriarch Henden,” he asked, leaning back and putting an arm around his wife’s shoulders. 

            “Well, it’s actually a request made by my Faenwol,” said Henden.  When the Jafts looked to each other, shrugged their shoulders, he explained.  “The Faenwol is the person I have chosen to take my place as Patriarch, should anything happen to me.  The Patriarch must pronounce a Faenwol every four or five years, even if it’s just to repeat the same person, and my Faenwol has held his position for six years now.  He wishes to take our troupe to the island continent of Lenan, to the east across the Great Blue Divide,” he said.

            “That’s a trip of about two weeks, if winds are fair,” said Thelma, pulling a small black notebook from her shoulder bag on the floor next to her seat.  She opened it up to the back, where she had written down a host of calculations, all of them with a fair degree of accuracy, much to Henden’s surprise.  Jafts were good enough folks, but he never thought he’d meet one who could perform complex algebraic equations like this woman.  “If we can keep a wind speed of ten knots on average, twelve days from our coast to theirs.”

            “How many are in your troupe,” asked Gronen Mattock, taking a long pull on his ale. 

            “Eighteen in all, captain Mattock,” said Henden. He rooted around in his own rucksack and retrieved a green binder, handing it over to the captain.  “All of their travel and citizenship papers of record are there, so that you can perform an investigation if you’d like.  We don’t want anybody to mistrust us if they should agree to take the job.”  Mattock gave an expression, briefly, of being impressed, but quickly passed the binder to his wife, who immediately opened it and began reading through the papers.  “My Faenwol is Kyle Vreki, an Elven Bishop of the seventh power.  He’s a good lad, always has been.”

            “And why has he requested your troupe go so very far from the realms you know,” asked Mattock.  He produced a pack of cigarettes, offered on to Henden, who thanked him and lit it, and put it quickly away.  A bar maid, swift to catch details, brought a large bone ashtray to their table with a smile. 

            “Kyle wishes to open some trade negotiations with a rather elusive clan of Ursas who live on Lenan, a clan who specializes in the crafting of artifacts,” said Henden.  “He believes we can procure some rare or even unique items from them, and he has also heard that they know of some healing arts of which we know nothing in Tamalaria.  So, a bit of business, a bit of personal growth, I guess.  Will you take us?”  The captain looked to his wife, who peered up from the papers before her silently. 

            “Let us discuss compensation for our time and effort,” said the captain, coming straight to the heart of the matter.  “We will remove ourselves to a port village if there is one to dock at in Lenan, though the last village we docked at there has informed us in no uncertain terms they never wish to see us again,” he said.  “While we await for you to request your return to Tamalaria, we will make our own living as we can performing the labors of fishermen.  But for travel there and travel back, we will require payment.”

            “That’s very fair of you,” said Henden.  “Most commissions require we pay you for any and all time spent at our destination if it’s a two-way trip,” he remarked. 

            “We are not overly greedy,” said Mattock.  He finished his drink and signaled the bar maid for another.  When it sat before him, he thanked her, handed the human woman a pair of gold coins, and gave her a ‘shoo’ gesture.  “Patriarch Henden, we are also not so different, your people and mine.  While you roam the solid soils of the lands, we roam the open waters of the seas.  We are rovers, adventurers.  It is the journey, not the business, that brings the smile to our lips, the blood through our veins.  Am I wrong,” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

            “No, captain, that’s as fair a comparison as I think I’ve ever heard.  Cheers,” he said, lifting his stein to the captain and his wife.  She closed the binder and slid it back to Henden, who put it back in his bag.  “We will be bringing our own supplies, of course, but would request the service of meals, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

            “If you can spare two people to help from your group, I’ve no qualms,” said Thelma. 

            “Very good.  Then, shall we say twenty percent over the standard rate,” asked Henden.  “Seventy coin per day?”

            “That is acceptable to me,” said the captain.  He turned to his wife, who nodded.  “And you have the agreement of my wife as well, which is fortunate, since she actually handles the money.  We will take three days to prepare for the journey, and then set sail.  We will begin charging you on the morning of our departure,” said the captain. 

            “Thank you very much, captain,” said Henden, hopping down from the chair.  “Um, is Mrs. Mattock your first mate?”

            “No,” she said with a light chuckle.  “That would Sperio, whose seat you took for our meeting.  If you have any further questions before we depart, speak with him.  He’s hard to miss in a crowd when he’s preparing for the seas,” she said, to which both Jafts gave a hearty laugh.

            “Um, why’s that?”

            “Because that’s when he starts wearing his pet mouse on his shoulder,” said the captain, shaking his head.  He took a long pull on his ale.  “We laugh, but it wouldn’t be quite the same without that mouse on board.”  Henden thanked them once again, and headed out of the Roaring Tide for his troupe, who had gathered on the edge of town.  He informed them of his successful negotiation, and of the departure date.  Arrangements for lodging were made, and for two days, the troupe and crew mingled a little in the village, getting a feel for one another and what would be expected of everybody once out at sea. 

            Of them all, only Kyle Vreki and Gronen Mattock ever seemed to Henden to be planning for the worst.  Kyle spent his time in the fields just outside of the town, obsessively practicing his defensive spells and convincing one of the Jaft crewmen to help him learn some basics with his smooth headed mace.  Kyle had never taken an interest in the martial practices of the Bishop trade before, but he seemed determined to learn something before they left. 

            Henden would not have worried too much about it, except for the raw conviction that Kyle seemed to hold that something was going to go awry when they were on their way.  If not for this, he might have been better able to enjoy his time before their departure, but as it stood, he worried that perhaps Kyle Vreki knew something he and the others of the troupe didn’t. 

            Kyle stood, sweat running down into his eyes, checking the antiquated timepiece he wore on his left wrist.  It had been a gift from one of his few friends growing up, a boy by the name of Timothy Vandross.  He and the Void Mage still kept in contact through letters sent via messenger bird from time to time, and as he was tripped once again and sent sprawling to the ground by the sailor working with him in the late afternoon sun, he thought of something Timothy had once said to him.  ‘Falling down is easy enough.  It’s getting back up that makes you stronger’. 

            “Come on, young master,” said the ship’s first mate, Sperio, as Kyle sprawled to the soft green grass yet again.  “You’re telegraphing your swing before you’ve even got the weight balanced.  You’ve come only a little way since this morning,” he said, holding his grumbling stomach.  “And what’s more, me gut is tellin’ a tale of its own.  Let’s us take a reprieve and fetch some grub, what say ye?”  Kyle rolled over, took the hand the sailor offered, and pulled himself to his feet.  He pulled down the hood of his ceremonial robe and holstered his mace, pulling his long dirty blonde hair from his vestments. 

            “Perhaps you are correct,” he said, brushing himself off.  “But there is one last thing I wish to test before we partake, if you are willing.”

            “I see no reason why not,” said Sperio.  He folded his scarred arms over his bare chest, taking a deep breath.  “What is it you’d like me to do?”

            “Verias umpas,” Kyle breathed, waving his left hand in a ridged line vertically from his hips up to his head height.  “All right, try to strike me,” he said.  The Jaft shrugged his shoulders, and lunged forward, his balled fist twisting as he drove the knuckles squarely into Kyle’s nose.  Yet the Elven Bishop didn’t even budge or flinch; instead, the Jaft’s head flew back, and blood sprayed from his nostrils as he gave out a yelp of surprise.  He stumbled back, wiping his mouth and nose, and gave the Bishop an awkward scowl. 

            “Bloody magic,” he grumbled.  “I’d normally say curses to ye, but I’m afraid they might come back in a real form to me,” he remarked.  “Now come on, I’m keen on listening to my stomach when it speaks so loud.”  The Elven Bishop nodded his agreement and undid with a gesture the unseen rebounding force protecting his upper body.  Together with Sperio, Kyle made his way through the bustling streets of the village to a small diner where they took a table on an outside patio dining area in back of the restaurant.  A perky Human waitress, fair on the eye for both men, brought them cold drinks and menus and shuffled away inside after putting an ashtray on the table at the first mate’s request.

            “I’d like to thank you again for all of the help you’ve been trying to give me practicing,” said Kyle, picking up his menu and rolling up his sleeves to the elbows.  He arms, like any Elven man’s, were hairless and smooth, the skin unblemished and clean.  But Kyle’s had a small pair of scars in the shape of liquid splash marks, which Sperio eyeballed for a moment.  The young Bishop, in the Jaft’s opinion, seemed even frailer physically than most of the sylvan people, a thing he didn’t think was much doable in these late years of the Fifth Age.  “I know I’m not much good at any of it.”

            “Think nothing of it, lad,” said the gruff sailor.  He found himself a hearty-sounding entrée and set his menu aside, sipped his drink.  “There will be more chance to practice on deck when we are at sea tomorrow, and I mean no offense, padre, when I say that you need more of it.  It was always my impression that the Bishops took a cue from the Battle Priests of old.”

            “Most do,” Kyle admitted with a flush in his cheeks.  His nostrils flared momentarily, his cheeks dipping slightly.  “But I’m not most Bishops.  I’m even tolerant of a great deal of the ancient and rediscovered technologies of our realms’ past.”

            “I noticed that,” said Sperio.  “I also noticed those scars on your arms.  Where did you get those?”

            “Oh, these,” Kyle said, showing the scars up and down his arms by turning his hands over back and forth.  “I received these from a friend a long time ago, when I was but a second power Bishop.  He and I were practicing some of our magic, and, well, Timothy sort of pounced like a panther when he could have roared like a house cat and scared me sufficiently.”  Sperio gave a light chuckle.  “The last time I saw young Tim Vandross was about eight years ago, just bumped into him on the road,” Kyle said.  He was about to offer a contemplative smile to Sperio, but saw that the Jaft was staring at him, his one good eye flared wide in some form of shock.  His left hand trembled in a fist upon the tabletop.  “Is there something wrong, Sperio?”

            “Did you say Vandross,” asked the first mate quietly.

            “Yes.  Oh, that name,” Kyle stammered, looking about uncomfortably at the nearby patrons on the deck.  “Well, before you ask, yes, he is the son of Richard Vandross, one of a few from what I’ve heard.  But no, he’s nothing at all like his father.  Timothy is one of the finest Half-Elves I’ve ever had the pleasure of being friends with.”  Sperio let his shoulders loosen, his fist open up and slide back into his lap.  “He’s a Void Mage.  We still keep in touch via letter bird.  He’s living with a Ms. Hina Hinas now in the village of Stornwood in the Elven Kingdom.”

            “Hmph.  Not a bad country,” said Sperio, speaking neutrally.  “A little too penned in with all those trees and critters, I’d think.  Met one of their High Council members a couple of years back, very personable Tanner Cuyotai by the name of Tearfang.”  He drained the last of his drink, and the waitress reappeared, jotting down their orders and fetching them each a refill on their beverages.  The pair ate and engaged in further small talk, but the whole while, Sperio felt his mind reaching back to that hateful name; Vandross.

            The evening before he and his crew would depart for the island continent of Lenan, captain Gronen Mattock lay with one arm cocked up behind his head, the other curled around the bare shoulders of his wife Thelma as they snuggled closely in the warm afterglow of their lovemaking.  It was almost like a ritual for them that, the night before a departure from port, they alone would keep each other’s company in their ship’s quarters, wrapped in one another both in passion physical and emotional. 

            The dinner she prepared, another part of the overall ritual, sat upon the small round ash table on the other side of their chamber, the remnants, what little they left, already growing cold.  He ran his hand up and down her shoulder, and she purred into his shoulder like a comforted feline, to which he grinned broadly.  “You know, I suspect one of these days one of the men is going to come looking for us the night before we sail, and they’re going to either faint or run screaming,” he said softly. 

            “Either would be good for a laugh,” she replied, sitting up and reaching over to her night table for her pack of cigarettes.  “Do you have my flint box over there?”

            “Oh,” he said, grabbing it from his own side table.  He sat up and handed it to her, returning his hand to the simple task of scratching her back in long, slow strokes of his short fingernails.  “So, what do you think dear?  Is this going to be a worthwhile trip?”

            “I should think yes,” she said, blowing out a stream of smoke and handing him his own pack from the floor.  “They all seem like lovely folks, and as Wayfarers go, they aren’t nearly as strange as some we’ve come across.”

            “Yes, I suppose you’re right.  There was that one group last month, had that civilized Troke with them.  You remember, the fellow with all the bandaging around his head and arms?”  Thelma nodded, her mouth quirking downward. 

            “What was wrong with him, do you suppose?”

            “The bandages, you mean?  I think it was just an affectation, something to keep him identifiable to his troupe,” said Gronen. 

            “Makes sense.”

            “Indeed.  Sperio tells me he’s been training with the Faenwol, this Bishop Kyle Vreki,” said Gronen.  He shook his head slowly.  “Apparently the Elf’s only real talent lies in his magic and his encyclopedic knowledge of the history of his church of Lenos.  Still, he likes the man’s insistence in training.”

            “A good thing, too, if he really needs the help that badly,” said Thelma.  She drew the sheet aside, stepping gracefully in her natural way across the room to retrieve an ashtray from her dresser.  Even after some two-hundred years as husband and wife, Gronen still found himself ogling the curve of her buttocks whenever she was naked in his presence, the way she defied the typical blunt and serviceable movements of the Jaft people.  Returning to him, she let a coy smile curve her mouth, her heavily muscled form transformed by the faint elegance with which she strode back toward him, the swell of her bosom swaying ever slightly for his enjoyment.

            When she climbed back into bed next to him, he gave her a deep embrace and kiss.  When he pulled away, he sighed, his eyes glazed slightly.  “You know how lucky I feel when we have these moments together, don’t you?”

            “Yes, I do,” she replied.  “There is one unfortunate note, though, my sweet po-chanar havum,” she said in the gruff tongue of their people. 

            “That’s to be expected,” he said, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray.  “What troubles you, dear?”

            “It’s one of Henden’s people,” she said.  Thelma reached down to the floor and retrieved from the bedside a black folder.  As she leaned, she felt her goodly husband’s hand on her hindquarters and gave him a playful smack on the hand.  “Now, now,” she said, handing him the folder as she sat up again.  “Let’s deal with this before we consider another romp.”

            “Hey, I’m just glad to have it considered,” he replied, opening the folder and viewing the three dense pages of tightly curled words upon them.  He read the first two paragraphs, and let out a disappointed groan.  “Henden did tell us this man was fairly new to his troupe.  Oh, he’s not going to like this.”

            “We can’t have the man on board with us,” Thelma said, lighting another cigarette.  “And I cannot imagine the heartache that the Patriarch would go through discovering too late what the man is.  We have a duty to try and remove him from the manifest, husband.  We are bound by our words of service to Henden.”

            “Yes, this I know,” said Gronen, reading onward.  “I’m guessing from the handwriting that this is Sperio’s agent, that Ursas fellow from Ja-Wen?”

            “The very same,” said Thelma.  She looked to the ceiling for a moment, trying to remember something.  “I forget, is he the one we ferried over from the continent of Tallowmere?  The swamp-walker?”

            “Yes, he is,” said Gronen.  “You know, I think he just had a birthday or something,” he commented, continuing on through the tightly bound script.  “By all the gods that were and will be, this man is corruption given legs and breath,” he growled, rattling the pages.  “How does the priest Vreki not realize?”

            “Men of the cloth are often willing to see only the good in people,” Thelma observed, taking the folder back from her husband.  “Don’t worry.  I’ve already thought of a way to get him to leave their troupe without a struggle.”

            “Really?”

            “Yes, it came to me when you mentioned that our Ursas contact was from another continent,” she said, slipping back down under the sheets and dropping the folder carelessly to the floor.  She moved the ashtray to her bedside table and batted her eyes at Gronen.  “Now why don’t we work out all this newly found stress, hmm?” 

            “Madam, I find that notion,” he said, climbing atop his wife.  “Well, irresistible!”

            Though it was late and he should have been in his rented bed at the inn, Derrick Henden, Patriarch of the Todaro clan and Engineer for nearly all of his life since growing his first proud, white Gnome beard, could not rest peacefully.  He instead strolled the benighted streets, the air filled with only the lunar light and the nearby sounds of the tide coming and going, building and ebbing as the night rolled forward.  Peering down a slight slope toward the docks, he tucked his hands into his traveling coat pockets and headed toward his destined vessel come morning, the Solid Fist.

            Being light on his feet and shod in deerskin moccasins, he made no sound moving along the boardwalk of planking that stretched in multiple directions from the docks’ central square.  Heading toward the ship he’d be on for the next two weeks, he spotted a pair of the crew’s members seated at a small card table near the plank ramp up onto the ship, speaking quietly to one another in the Jafts’ native tongue as they played their game.  Henden approached, pulling his travel coat closed as a chill ocean breeze pushed through into the village. 

            When he was only a couple of feet away from the pair of blue-fleshed warriors, the one whose back was to him said clear as a bell, “Nobody boards the night before sail, sir, excepting of course the captain and his wife.  No exceptions,” the Jaft reported in a tone lighter than most of his companions.  Young, Henden thought, almost too young to even have any scars.  Yet a pair of lancing pulped lines of regenerated tissue lined the Jaft’s back.  If the pulped tissue was so exposed like that on a creature whose regenerative powers weren’t matched, even by the healing lycanthropes, then they must have been grievous indeed. 

            “Oh, sorry,” said Henden.  The two sailors turned their eyes upon him, and both seemed to quickly adjust themselves, trying to sit up straighter and give off an air of deeper respect than had been present when he approached. 

            “Forgive my ill manner,” said the young Jaft, inclining his head toward the Patriarch.  “I am Bolo Gravemaker,” he said.

            “And I am Kenak Foamrider,” said the older, stouter of the pair.  “Forgive us our insolence, sir.”

            “Um, okay, but I must say gents, I’m a bit confused,” admitted Henden, folding his arms over his chest.  “I’m just a client.  No need to stand on ceremony and whatnot,” he said amiably, clapping his hands together.  He noticed a spring in his artificial wrist come undone at this, and immediately ferreted through his tool belt for the appropriate response. 

            “But sir, you are a Wayfarer Patriarch,” said Bolo seriously, almost militantly.  “You carry the same rank among your people as our captain does for us.  On land, you are as his equal rank, and must be given equal respect,” he explained.  Henden applied a little torque to the tool in his left hand and watched the coil slip neatly back into place in the artificial wrist.  He’d lost the cover plate weeks ago, and still needed to scrounge up a new piece of material to work onto the attachment.  He put the tool away stealthily and gave the sailors a fresh smile.

            “Ah, that’s what this is about.  Well, I thank you gentlemen for your consideration and diligence in handling yourselves to the peak of your ceremony.  You honor me, and in proper return, I hope to honor you,” he said, calling upon his knowledge of ceremonial Jaft speech patterns and rituals.  The sailors’ faces, cast in the stone-like rigidness their peoples possessed, tightened as they bowed their heads to complete the routine for Henden. 

            “I’m only sorry we don’t know your ways as a Wayfarer or Gnome well enough to return your kindness and wisdom of our own in equal measure,” said Foamrider.  He rose from his chair and put his cards back in their plastic case, then into one of his tattered jean pockets.  “Perhaps there is some small service you require?”

            “Ah,” said Henden, looking at the open space on his artificial arm where the wrist access plate was missing.  “Well, perhaps there is something.  Either of you any good at working small bits of metal?”

            The morning dawned with the rise of a brilliant sun, unobstructed by any clouds in the skies over the village and the coast, and a clear salty wind blew in from the vast Blue Divide.  The Wayfarer troupe was assembling one by one on the docks, making their way up onto the Solid Fist as the crew of twelve working sailors, their captain and cook finishing up the charting of their course in the primary social cabin, helped the assorted men and women of Derrick Henden’s company set themselves up. 

            Kyle Vreki came to the docks dressed not in his ceremonial robes, but in a pair of black trousers, a button shirt crafted from the toughened hide of a stamprus, an impressive beast akin to a cross-breeding of giant lizard and horse, and a brand new pair of workman’s boots he’d acquired the day before.  But he wore over these working man’s clothes a deep green cape inscribed with several of his chosen deity’s holy sigils, to signify his status and allegiance.  On his right hip hung his smooth mace, and on his left, in a clipped black waterproofed case, was a Lenosian bible. 

            He approached the gangplank leading up onto the ship with his heavy travel duffel, and the moment his left foot touched the plank, one of the sailors took his bag almost forcefully from his arms.  “I beg pardon, but I could handle my own luggage,” he said to the Jaft, meaning no offense. 

            “Oh, I know padre, but we are men of the salt,” said the sailor.  “And we have been informed that you are a man of the cloth.  The captain has always had a very strict policy about priests, padre, and that is to afford them comfort and respect the equal of any prized client, including your Patriarch.”  The Jaft indicated that Kyle was to walk before him, and lugged his bag up behind by two fingers alone.  The raw physical strength of the Jaft people never ceased to amaze the Elven Bishop.

            “Is your captain a man of Lenos, my good man,” Kyle asked as they clomped up on deck.  The Jaft bellowed a hearty laugh at this suggestion, shaking his head.

            “Oh goodness no, padre, I don’t think any of us are,” said the crewman, arming sweat from his forehead.  Up close, Kyle finally detected the natural stench that was another trademark of the Jaft race.  Due to their bodies’ high rate of regeneration, their skin cells were constantly dying off and being replaced, creating a necrotic and foul odor.  The more potent the stench, usually, the more powerful their regenerative powers.  This Jaft apparently didn’t heal too quickly, because Kyle hadn’t smelled him before.  Then again, perhaps he had simply become accustomed to the odor, like many residents of the cities of Tamalaria.  “I mean no disrespect, padre, but most of us are worshippers of Poseidon, god of the seas.  First mate Sperio, though, he’s a very stern follower of Marakesh, Great God of War.  Follow me, padre.  I’m going to show you to your quarters.” 

            Kyle followed him down into the ship’s interior through an angled hatchway, which was left open behind them.  A few more of the Wayfarer troupe members climbed up aboard the Solid Fist, and when one of their number in particular gained the deck, captain Mattock and his wife came out of the topside social cabin swiftly, Thelma in the lead. 

            “I just don’t know about this,” she said aloud, making a fuss about something the Wayfarers couldn’t guess at.  Collectively, the four travelers, two Human men, an Illeck woman and a Lizardman newcomer to the troupe, stood with several sailors by the deck railing, watching this spectacle unfold.  “I mean, don’t you feel bad about it?”

            “There’s nothing that can be done about it now,” said Gronen plainly, bracing his wife’s arms with his large, powerful hands.  “Had I known the man was a wanted criminal, I’d have thrown him over the port side while we were still at sea, give him a chance at least to make his own way of things.”

            “But we should have known something was amiss when we saw how many city-state Inspectors were here when we docked,” Thelma replied, shaking her head.  She looked over at the Wayfarers.  “Oh, never mind us, folks.  Go ahead and get yourselves settled in below decks,” she said with a smile.  The Lizardman, eyes darting back and forth frantically, picked up one of his smaller bags and edged back toward the gangplank. 

            “You know,” he said, trying to avoid his fellow troupe members as he gained the plank.  “I think I left something in my room at the inn.  I’ll just go and fetch it,” he said nervously, turning and leaping back onto the docks midway down the gangplank.  Heads turned for only a scant moment as he streaked past, likely on his way for parts unknown.  On deck, Gronen and Thelma gave each other a wink and a brief kiss. 

            “Well, that was much more efficient than I would have suspected it would be,” he said, heading towards the pilot box near the prow of the ship. 

            “Sometimes it is the subtleties that work best,” said Thelma.  “The only thing I haven’t worked out is how we should handle Henden’s reaction to the folder we left in his quarters.  He’s bunking with the padre, his Faenwol, yes?”

            “Indeed, dear.”

            “Good.  Having a priest on hand might help him keep his temper.  We’ve never done well with Patriarchs whose people we’ve scared off.  How many times is that now?”

            “Since?”

            “Oh, since we got the new ship,” she remarked.  Gronen seemed to think this over, opening the door to the pilot box.  He turned to face her, and as Sperio ushered the last of the Wayfarers on board and set two crewmen to escorting them, he snapped his fingers.

            “Five,” he said confidently.  He gave her a quick peck on the cheek, and then stepped inside and set about manipulating the various pulleys and switches he would be using to aid the crew in their work at sea.  Thelma started to head toward hatch leading below, stopping only a moment to ask her question of Sperio. 

            “Well this would make five times and a total of twelve people we’ve scared off,” said the first mate, heading toward his captain in the pilot box. 

            In eight days at sea, Kyle Vreki managed to keep about a third of his meals in his stomach, the rest of the contents making their sloppy way out to sea as he opened a hatch in the floor of his and Henden’s cabin to be sick into.  On the ninth morning, after returning to his bedside after breakfast, he felt the familiar rumble, but managed to quell it with a brief mental effort.  The Gnome Engineer sat opposite him at the small table their cabin came with, watching Kyle struggle as he adjusted the wires in his artificial wrist. 

            “You know, I had no idea you’d never been on the water before, Kyle,” he said.  The tool in his left hand touched against a bare bit of wire, and a brief shock shook him in his seat.  “Damnation!  Kyle, remind me to ask Mr. Sperio if he’s got any spare wiring in the supply deck I can use sometime soon. These things are getting corroded as musvana,” he said, cursing in the Gnome tongue. 

            “I’ll try to remember,” Kyle said.  He pulled out his Lenosian bible from his bedside table drawer and read through a couple of brief passages, taking a few minutes to reflect on their meaning in his own personal experience.  Satisfied with the indication he arrived at, he got to his feet and headed for the door.  “And sometimes immediate action serves better than attempts to remind oneself.  I’ll seek him out now, Derrick.”

            “Thanks kiddo.  Oh, by the way,” Derrick said, flicking a switch on the inside of the thumb digit to turn the device off so that he could work on the wires safely.  “Did you finish that letter to your friend Timothy yet?”

            “No, I haven’t even started it yet,” Kyle said.  “Why?”

            “Well, I overheard one of the crew yesterday at lunch mention he was sending a letter to his mum back in Desanadron.  Apparently they keep a few enchanted birds on one of the lower decks for that sort of thing.  Don’t forget to ask Mr. Sperio about that when you’ve written Timothy.”

            “Of course, thank you Derrick,” Kyle said.  Walking through the narrow passageways of the ship, Kyle quickly became confused once again without a crew member to help him navigate his way.  His cape became snared on a protruding nail from one floorboard as he turned toward the steps leading up to the second deck, and he nearly choked himself as the cape pulled taught and held him back.  Adjusting himself quickly, he made his way toward the steps when one of the speaker tubes nearby carried the captain’s voice to the entire ship suddenly.

            “Attention to our passengers, please return to your quarters and remain there until further notice.  Our vessel is heading toward a rather dense fog, and we don’t want to lose anyone on deck or have a confusion below.  Please confine yourselves to your quarters or at least your own deck for the time being, until we pass through this fog.  All hands, in case this is a craft or spell meant to muddle us so that hostile forces can board, make battle preparations to defend the ship.  That is all.” 

            Kyle felt his heart begin to accelerate.  He’d been afraid something like this might happen, even before the group departed from the shores of Tamalaria.  In the days leading up to their setting sail, he worried that some as yet unforeseen tragedy would befall their company, and here it was, he thought, making its grand entrance!  He turned around and immediately returned to his cabin, where Henden appeared to be reactivating his mechanical hand. 

            “Kyle, go in my trunk and fetch me four clips,” he said.  The Gnome Engineer took his left hand and delicately pinched a slide latch, pulling it open down the length of the metal wrist.  Opened, it exposed a hollow chamber inside of the arm, on the right side of which appeared to be several rotatable striking pins.  On the left side of the space was a smoothed tube, which wended its way to the opening in the palm.  “Make sure they’re the piercing type.”

            Kyle scrabbled across the room toward the trunk, risking one look out through the cabin’s window.  Outside, he saw a fog bank approaching from the starboard side of the ship, rolling upon them with unnatural speed.  Choosing to brush it off with duty, he opened his Patriarch’s trunk and searched the neatly arranged stacks inside for the steel cased clips he’d been asked to retrieve.  When he found them, he pulled out four of them, each clip encasing ten slender, pointed rods of metal perhaps five inches from razor-sharp tip to blunt tail. 

            He brought them over to Henden, who immediately took on and fitted it into the slot on the underside of his forearm.  He checked a small black switch on the top of his forearm, near his organic elbow joint, and grunted, satisfied that the safety catch was still engaged.  He held his arm straight out and attempted to fire one of the bolts into the far wall, but a telltale ‘clink’ informed him that the contact plate was not in place yet. 

            Kyle always marveled at the deadly simplicity of the weapon’s design.  A set of five firing pins were housed at the back section of the attachment, each connected to a tendon in Henden’s arm that he’d dulled the nerves on via chemical experimentation.  He could flex these tendons, drawing them back, thus drawing back the firing pins one by one, depending on which one he could feel was in the firing position at the moment.  The pin, released forward, would make an impact on a contact plate, of which Henden kept nine or ten on hand.  These plates were ancient technologies, capable of collecting spent kinetic energy to a high degree.  When the plate was in place after disengaging the safety switch, it would propel the spikes with a speed and force that was akin to a Troll throwing a small rock. 

            At close range, Kyle had once seen one of those spikes pierce the flesh of a renderman with ease.  Even those metallic monstrosities of animal rage and violence couldn’t stand long against the Patriarch’s weapon.  “Kyle, if someone does board this vessel,” Henden said, putting the other clips into his overcoat pockets, “you stay down here with the others, understood?  You’re not to move, and that is a command I lay down as Patriarch.”

            “I understand, Derrick,” Kyle replied. 

            “Good,” said Henden, a bead of sweat rolling down his forehead.  “Now let’s just hope we don’t get boarded, eh?”

            In the pilot box, Gronen glared, brooding, at the encroaching fog bank.  His hands braced on the guiding wheel of the ship, he felt the tension emanating from his first mate in the doorway of the box.  “We haven’t seen a fog like this in a long time,” Gronen commented, staying his course. 

            “True, sir, very true,” said Sperio, keeping his good eye on the fog.  “Foamrider reports that the nearest known vessel when last we checked the relays was a pilgrimage vessel from Tallowmere heading for Lenan.  They were about a half day’s sail southeast of us then.”

            “Have Foamrider try to contact them on the relay,” Gronen said brusquely.  “Then go tell Thelma to get to our cabin immediately.”

            “Captain?”

            “There’s no enemy vessel approaching,” the Jaft captain said, peering into the fog.  It was only perhaps a mile away now, and gaining on them fast.  “If there were, my blood would be rising.  I feel only the salt of the sea, Mr. Sperio, and a deadness coming on from those clouds.  Now hop to it, first mate.”  Sperio saluted briefly and took to heel.  Gronen remained stoic before the wheel, listening to the soft whispering of the ocean breeze, the ripple of the waters through which he guided his vessel.  Poseidon, he thought, you have no hand in this, do you? 

            Sperio returned to his side some ten minutes later, and the fog now rolled toward them only one hundred yards away.  “Be ready for it, Mr. Sperio,” Gronen said, touching his left hand to the stone warhammer resting against the wall to his side. 

            “I am, captain.  I am always ready.”  And then the ship pressed into the fog.  Like any other time they entered such a cloud gathering, there was some minor initial disorientation, but this quickly subsided as they regained a limited range of vision.  “I’d say we have about twenty yards on all sides, captain.  Wind hasn’t gone out on us yet, though,” he added, looking back and up at the sails. 

            “That’s a small favor.  Go check on the crew, Mr. Sperio.  When you find Formsun, tell him to come up and relieve me at the wheel.”

            “Aye, sir,” said Sperio.  Gronen was once more left alone, and in that fog, all he could wonder about was whether or not that Elven Bishop might have felt this oncoming strangeness.  The fog licked on deck, into his pilot box, as it always did.  But this fog didn’t have the moist and somewhat unguided feel of most.  There was a stickiness to this fog, a sense of it tasting his bare arms and the exposed portion of his chest.  There were days, he thought, when being stuck on land really wouldn’t be so bad compared to this.  At least on land, if you got stranded, all you had to do was move your feet.

            A full day later, as everybody except for Formsun and Sperio gathered in the mess deck eating cabin at the long wooden tables, captain Gronen Mattock stood at the head of the chamber near the door.  He cleared his throat, and began his address to his crew and passengers.  “As you have probably noticed, we are somewhat lost in this fog surrounding us, and some of you may have guessed this,” he said, looking meaningfully at Vreki in his ceremonial robes, “but this is no ordinary fog.  If you have a compass, please take it out and set it on the table.”

            There were groans from the Wayfarers, who already had checked their own navigation tools.  About a dozen compasses thumped to the table, their needles all bent out of true.  “This does not bode well,” said one of the Wayfarers, a Kobold named Henry Tenth.  “I even tried to blow a hole in the fog with a set of spells.  I’m an Aeromancer, see,” he said nervously.  “But my wind dies the moment it leaves my hands!  It is choked by this fog.”

            “I have encountered much the same,” said one of the Human women in the troupe.  She wore the deep blue robes common to Aquamancers.  “These waters tell me nothing, and will not respond to the commands of my mana.  This is,” she began, but was soon cut off as the ship suddenly and violently crashed against something solid, and all could hear the shouts of Formsun and Sperio up on deck. 

            Gronen, holding onto a beam overhead to brace himself and his wife, who was wrapped around his upper body, gave out a wordless shout.  “All hands, topside, now,” he bellowed.  The chamber emptied of every blue-skinned sailor, and Kyle and Henden followed right after them.  Up on deck, the fog appeared to have pulled away on all sides, and in the clear air, Kyle could see some three or four miles distant from the beachhead they’d crashed upon, what appeared to be a city of towering buildings and streets. 

            “Are we in Lenan,” he asked in a whisper.  The captain, standing at the prow of his ship, which was tilted slightly into the air from their crash landing, shook his head, turned, and addressed the group once again as more of the Wayfarers came up on deck. 

            “No, we are not in Lenan,” said the captain, his wife dutifully putting his warhammer’s back holster on over his shoulders.  “This place is unknown to me.  We are in a strange place indeed,” he said, making a couple of vague hand gestures to his crewmen, all of whom scurried back below decks. 

            “Which means, ladies and gentlemen,” said the first mate from the back of the Wayfarer troupe, “that it is time to grab your essentials and prepare to disembark.  We will have to hope that there is help to be had in that city inland.  If you have weapons, bring them.  If you have armor, wear it.  And if your Patriarch has any orders to issue to you, you follow them not like a Wayfarer, but like a soldier, because we are officially not in a good situation, folks.”