“Unless you want to swim all the way to Sumara, I would not suggest it,” Azerick threatened.
The two young men walked into Peg’s shipping supply store a short time later.
“Peg, I need your help again,” Azerick said without preamble upon entering the shop.
“Why am I not surprised?” the old former sailor replied. “You sure be
callin
’ in a lot of favors you ain’t even earned yet.”
“Yeah, I seem to be spreading my credit around pretty thickly lately. Don’t worry though, this one does not cost you anything either. This is Bran. We need to find him a ship to work that is going south, preferably as far as Bakhtaran.”
Peg looked Bran up and down. “Might be I can put the word out and find him a boat that needs hands,” Peg said, rubbing his grizzled chin.
“I know he does not look like much but he is a decent sort when he is not punching me in the face, reasonably bright, and he is reliable.”
“I know a ship that does a fair bit of trading in Sumara and travels that far south though I don’t rightly understand why anyone would want to be looking for passage to that den of wickedness,” Peg said with a sour look.
Azerick answered. “You remember the girl I was asking you about yesterday? We found out she was taken to Bakhtaran and Bran is intent on finding her and bringing her home.”
“She must really mean a lot to risk going after her down there.”
“She does, at least to me,” Bran replied.”
Azerick was not sure if Bran intended his answer to be a slight against his decision not to go but it still stabbed like a knife twisting in his gut.
“All right,” Peg said. “Bran, you stay here with me and I’ll give you a crash course in knot tying and the basic rules of sailing so you are not a completely useless land lubber. I’ll go have a word with the captain of the ship I got in mind, later. Don’t worry, lad, he ain’t due to ship out till tomorrow, you won’t miss your ride,” Peg said when the fear etched itself plainly across his face.
“Do you need me get anything for you, Bran?” Azerick asked.
His friend shook his head. “Everything I have of any worth is either on me or waiting for me in Bakhtaran.”
“All right, I will leave you here with Peg for now. I have a few things you might be able to use. I’ll go get them and bring them back.”
Bran nodded and Azerick left to go retrieve a few things from his home. The sudden turn of events made Azerick forget the need for caution as he made his way back to the squatters’ district and dropped through the hidden trapdoor in the tanner’s shop. He returned to the surface a several minutes later with a canvas bag slung over his shoulder and the crossbow tucked under an arm.
Hidden eyes watched his hasty return and departure for the second time that day then returned to the burned out building the street rat had vanished into and reappeared from a few minutes later. The watcher decided that the tannery was more important right now than following the boy and went to take a closer look at the building as Azerick quickly passed out of sight.
Azerick returned to Peg’s with his burden and found Bran sitting on the floor amidst a pile of short ropes with various knots tied them, Peg sat on a stool nearby giving him instructions.
“That’s it, boy; you got most of the sailor’s hitches down. Reach over and grab that round timber over there and I’ll show you how to make a stopper hitch and a weaver’s hitch,” Peg was saying as Azerick entered the store.
Peg looked up at Azerick as he entered. “If I can trust you two lads to watch my store, I’ll go see about getting young Bran here a berthing. If anybody stops in, tell em I’ll be back in an hour.”
“Don’t worry, we got it,” Azerick assured him.
“I never thought there were so many types of knots,” Bran said, throwing down a length of rope with an intricately designed knot tied in the center of it.
“I brought you that crossbow I promised,” Azerick said as he slipped the bag from his shoulder and sat down next to Bran. “There are about a half-dozen quarrels in the quiver. I did not have much ammunition made for it since it was a trap. I also have a coat and a spare set of clothes that are too big for me anyway. I scrounged up what few coins I had. They are in a small pouch in the bag with the clothes.”
Bran looked at the weapon and bag sitting across from him. “Thanks, I’m glad you could at least spare that.”
Azerick felt the familiar stab of pain Bran’s snipe brought. “Look, Bran, I am sorry I cannot go with you. It is just that—something tells me that going with you to rescue Andrea is not what I am supposed to be doing. I wish I could explain it but I can’t. I feel like something is pulling me in another direction. Andrill said he felt that fate, destiny, or something had its hooks in me, I do not know. I just know that I am not supposed to go with you and if I deny the fates or whatever it is then my going may just make things worse.”
Bran looked up, his face flushed with either anger or shame. “I know. Anyone who has spent time around you can feel it. It’s weird. It’s just that you’re the one who always has a plan. No matter how crazy something is or how bad the odds are, you are the one that figures a way out of it, or something completely random happens that lets you figure out an answer. I’m afraid, Azerick. I’m afraid because I am not as smart or as lucky as you. You know all these things and whenever you are around things just sort of seem to happen, and no matter how screwed up it is, you always find a way out.
“I love her,
Az
, and I am afraid that I don’t have what it takes to save her. I don’t have the fates or the gods or whatever looking out for me like you do. I’m just a street rat; a useless street rat.”
“You are not useless and maybe the fates are watching you, guiding you to do this. How many people would even attempt to do what you are doing? Anyone who would risk their life and worse is special, special enough for the gods to take notice.”
“Thanks,
Az
, I hope you are right—for her sake.”
Peg came back in less than half an hour. “I got your ride, boy, but you better be prepared to work for it. Captain Zeb don’t put up with no slackers or boys that can’t follow orders.”
Bran jumped to his feet. “I’ll work hard and do what I’m told, Peg, I swear.”
“I know and that’s what I told him.
Zeb’s
an honest man. He’ll do right by you get you where you need to go. It ain’t a straight run mind you. This ain’t no passenger boat. The ship’s gotta hit North Haven before sailing down to Langdon’s Crossing, and only then is she sailing for Bakhtaran, but it will still be a far sight quicker than any land bound caravan.”
“Thank you, Peg. When do I leave?”
“Zeb says he’ll take you on right now. He can use some strong hands to finish loading up the stuff they’re runnin’ to North Haven.”
Bran turned to Azerick. “I guess I better be leaving then. I’m going to find her, Az.”
“I know you are. I can feel it. I will see you both when you get back.”
Bran picked up his things, turned, and walked out the door headed for his own destiny. Azerick was already walking after him but stopped with his hand on the door handle. His heart urged him to keep walking, to go with his friend to rescue Andrea, but something else, something that went deeper and lay hidden deep within the shadows of his soul stopped him.
“Go to hell!” Azerick growled.
Peg raised a bushy salt and pepper eyebrow as his vehemence.
“Not you, Peg,” Azerick said.
“Oh, I know who ya meant and I’ll warn ya to watch your tongue lest they decide to meet ya down there one day.”
“Thank you for everything, Peg. I will pay you back one day for everything you have done for me.”
The old sailor scowled at the dejected young man. “They say a good deed is its own reward and anyone who expects to be paid back for a good deed ain’t done any good. Maybe you’ll be in a position to help ole Peg out someday, and if ya are then you’ll do him a good turn for the sake of
doin
’ it, not for some sense of obligation.”
Azerick nodded at Peg’s sage advice and walked morosely out of the store and towards home. He did not have a copper to his name and nothing to eat but a handful of beans but he was not in the mood to go foraging today. Instead, he took a direct route back to his home and spent the next few hours wondering if he had done the right thing.
Was it really the pull of destiny that stopped him from going, or was he simply a coward?
Azerick was confident he was no coward, but if the gods had taken an interest in him, why did they fill his life filled with so much misery and pain? What kind of destiny required him lose everyone he got close to?
Azerick finally dropped off into restless slumber and dreamed a dreamless sleep. He woke the next morning to a rumbling stomach and dry mouth with nothing to satisfy either one. The beans were dry and would take hours to cook and the water jug had a crack that left only a long, narrow trail of wet stones to a larger crack in the floor where it the runnel had made its final escape.
Azerick pulled out the loose stone in the wall where he secreted whatever coins he managed to earn or steal, but upon gazing at the empty niche for a minute remembered he had given the last of them to Bran. His stomach ordered him to get moving with a growl of command that would brook no disobedience. He left through the warehouse entrance and headed for one of his more favorite market squares.
The square was at a large intersection where many of the city’s workers, both private and governmental, crossed through on their ways to work. Bakers and other food venders crowed into the square, often coming to blows for the best corner to put up their stalls, alternately shouting out the quality and low prices of their victuals and condemning the cost and inferiority of the morsels sold by their competitors.
Azerick tried to blend in with the crowd and get himself positioned next to one of the more crowded displays, but every time he insinuated himself into a cluster of people they would immediately gravitate away from him. He felt like a beekeeper moving towards a hive with a smoke pot constantly driving the bees away from him so he could collect the valuable honey. That was all well and good for a beekeeper, but Azerick needed the crowd to stick together for him to filch a bit of food to eat.
When his stomach rumbled powerfully once again he decided that he was going to just have to do a snatch and run, hoping the proprietor would not see him or care enough to raise too much of a fuss. His luck was off today, he could feel it. The way things were going, the crowd would resume their normal pressing mass the moment he struck and would allow a watchman or the baker to grab him and beat him.
Azerick’s stomach ordered him to stop whining and get down to business. He moved casually towards the stand where numerous fresh baked loaves of bread were stacked on the table and sticking up out of baskets, filling the air of the market with their mouth-watering aromas. His stomach ordered him to move with haste.
Azerick sidled up to the table, ready to grab a large round loaf of black bread when the baker looked right at him. “What are you doing here? Why did you have to pick my booth? Go on, take the bread and be gone with you. Nobody’s going to want to come to my stand now, defiler.”
The street rat looked at the baker in confusion then glanced over his shoulder as the crowd moved away watching him warily and muttering.
“Beware death’s shadow.”
“Do not let his shadow to be cast upon you or you will die”.
“All die who get near him, we may all die now.”
“What are you people talking about?” Azerick shouted.
“Cursed, he is cursed to lose everyone he befriends.”
“I am not cursed! What are you talking about?”
“His family is all dead, friends all dead. He is cursed, cursed by the hand of Sharrellan.”
“He is the hand of Sharrellan, delivering her touch of death to all who get too near.”