Rising Tide

XVII

12 Mirtul, the Year of the Gauntlet

"Live, that you may serve," Jherek said in frustration. "Madame litaar, I don't understand."

He sat at her table, finishing up the meal she'd prepared. As she'd promised, the venison stew was thick and hearty, filled with vegetables cut up fresh from the garden she and the household cook maintained.

Located in the front of the house, the dining room looked seaward. The ships in the harbor were visible from the height up Widow's Hill. Jherek knew which one was Butterfly even from this distance, and he caught himself looking wistfully at the ship more than he was comfortable with.

As with the rest of the house, the dining room kept mementos of its mistress's long and involved life. Jherek only knew a few of the stories behind the many objects that lined the shelves or occupied wall space. Madame litaar rarely talked about them, and he wasn't ill-mannered enough to ask. The table was round, hand-carved by her late husband from a great tree he'd felled. That same tree had also given him the lumber he'd needed to build the eight chairs for the table, her bed, and her bedroom suite. All of those, Jherek knew, had been wedding gifts he'd made for her before they married.

Madame litaar looked at him from where she sat at the head of the table. "Jherek, there's a reason for you being here."

"In your house?" the young sailor asked bitterly, thinking of his traveling kit packed outside. He felt good again, thanks to the healing potion and the hot meal. "That seems to have come to an end tonight."

She shook her head. "No. We've been through a lot together these past years. This will not break us. As long as I have a home, you'll have a home. That I swear to you on my husband's grave."

That, Jherek knew, was her firmest promise, and there was no arguing with it. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Live," she answered simply, "which is why I've arranged to send you on Breezerunner tonight. You must take it to Baldur's Gate. The vision I've had recently indicates that you'll find more of your destiny there. That ship is new to these waters, so no one aboard her will know you. Possibly they've heard of you while they've been in port, but they don't know you by sight."

"Running off in the middle of the night isn't being the kind of man I want to be," Jherek said stubbornly.

"You go so that you may see more clearly," the woman said. "That's something about you I've seen in my dreams of late. In order to grow, you must first leave Velen."

Her words struck a chord within the young sailor, and he remembered the dream of the mermaid in the clam. She had said something along the same lines, but with that memory came the image of the great shark, and that left him feeling cold.

"How many challengers do you think you'll find in Velen when the cock crows on the morrow?" Malorrie demanded.

As usual, the phantom leaned against the window overlooking the harbor, his arms crossed over his chest.

Jherek paused, knowing Malorrie was right. "I don't know." He used a knife to cut a hunk off the bread loaf on the wooden platter in the middle of the table, then used the bread to sop up the soup from his bowl. He guessed the incredible hunger he felt was one of the side-effects of the potion.

"Well, boy, there'll be plenty of them, I can assure you."

"I could fight."

"And be killed, perhaps," the phantom agreed. He looked at Jherek sternly. "I know that's unfair to say, but who's to say you'll only face one foe, or that they'll come at you where you can see them?" He shook his head. "Perhaps you'll kill one of those boys you've grown up with since you've been here. Would that be better?"

"No," he admitted, "but I don't want to be driven from home."

"I'm glad you feel that way," Madame litaar said with a small smile. "I guessed that was the way you felt, but you've never said so, not in so many words."

"This is your home," Jherek said, hastening because he felt like he'd overstepped his bounds, "but I've enjoyed the time I've spent here."

"Good, but you need to realize this isn't the only home you'll know," the woman said. "Your home was also Butterfly and the sea. That will always be your true home, Jherek. I've seen it in the castings I've done concerning you. In the future, you're never far from the oceans."

"Everything now seems destined to keep me from the sea," Jherek said. "I couldn't sail with-" His voice faltered. He couldn't bring himself to say the word 'father.' "-with the crew of Bunyip."

"The river always finds its way out to sea eventually," Madame litaar stated. "The ties that bind you to the sea are as strong as any of those in nature."

" 'Live, that you may serve.' But serve who?" he asked. "For what reason?"

She looked at him and shook her head. "I don't know, but I know I've had a part in this. In all the years I've lived here, my home has never been harmed by the weather. Some thought it was because of the location, and others thought I managed a weather control spell. The same year the wind ripped the shingles from my roof, I'd also learned about a young boy who worked for Shipwright Makim who was good with wood and his hands. As you know, I went to Shipwright Makim and made a bid for your time since all the other roofers in Velen were busy, too busy even for me. It wasn't long after that I found out you were renting space in a stable for a bed and asked you to move in here. That's not behavior I'm accustomed to."

"Then why did you do it?" Jherek demanded.

"After I saw you, I was given a dream that you would be the one to repair the roof on my house. As you know, I never ignore my dreams. They all come true."

Jherek put sweet butter on another piece of bread. He didn't really feel like eating, but his survival instinct made him eat. When he'd first come to Velen as a homeless boy, before he'd gotten the job with Shipwright Makim, there'd been several hungry nights. He'd learned to eat his fill whenever he could since he didn't know when the next opportunity would occur. Thinking of leaving Velen inspired the same kind of fear in him, especially when he remembered how the wages Finaren had given him had been taken.

"Whoever-whatever-I am to serve, is it good or evil?" he asked.

Madame litaar shook her head. "I can't say. As you know, those things don't touch me the same way they do others. I look at the person and how I relate to him or her. Even the best person is capable of an unkind word or thought, and even those who're considered evil by others are capable of gentleness and mercy. I judge them by their dealings with me and with what I see."

The answer didn't sit well with Jherek. It never had.

Growing up as he had in the wild and lawless abandon of pirates, unnourished by a mother's hand or gentle kiss, he'd known no security. When he'd arrived in Velen, fleeing for his life, he'd lived in absolute fear that had left him paralyzed for days before his meager store of stolen rations had given out and he'd had to find a way to eat. Even then, he knew he'd never steal. He'd made rules for himself, starting out with the things he knew he would never do. Working hard at the jobs he'd found, especially on Butterfly, he was just starting to figure out what he could do.

"You have a choice," Malorrie put in, turning to better face Jherek. "When the time comes, you'll have a choice whether or not you serve whatever has marked you."

"How do you know?"

"Because I know you," the phantom said. "I've trained you, boy, and so has the lady. We know what's in your heart. No one will lead you where you don't want to go."

"How can you be so sure I'll have a choice?"

"Because I did." Malorrie paused, reflecting. The window behind him showed through him. "I'd been dead a long time, boy, when I was asked to seek you out and train you."

Jherek was too stunned to speak.

Malorrie smiled in that wry way of his, drawing himself up to his full height. "You thought your meeting me was simply a chance encounter?"

"Velen is filled with ghosts."

"Not mine. I was summoned here from somewhere else."

That was news to Jherek, who'd always assumed the phantom had been a native. He knew Malorrie's body was buried on Widow's Hill. "Summoned by who?"

"A man I once knew and trusted. A man who'd died for me when the time came. When he asked me to look after you and train you in the ways of thinking and swordsmanship, I agreed."

"Did he know me?"

Malorrie shook his head. "This man died long before you were born, boy. He couldn't have known you. He was asked to contact me by someone else."

"Why you?"

"I don't know. There was a chance I wouldn't have been able to train you, I suppose. Phantoms and ghosts, even here in Velen, are usually not taken up with."

Jherek paused, trying to take it all in. "Why haven't you ever told me all this before?"

Malorrie shrugged. "I'd always assumed there'd be a right time to go into all of it, boy. Now, there's no more time. You're leaving and you'll be given your choice soon enough."

Jherek finished mopping up the last of the soup with the bit of bread he had left. "What if I'm not given a choice about whether I serve this-this thing?"

Malorrie gave him a dark glance and said, "Trust me, boy. With life, there's always a choice."

"Come, Jherek," Madame litaar said. "If you're going to be at that ship on time tonight, you have to be going."

"Thank you for the meal," he said as he always did when she cooked for him. He cleared the dishes from the table and took them into the kitchen.

After a few unbelievably fast moments, he stood again on the porch, ready to leave everything he'd ever truly known and ever trusted. The brine in the air from the harbor filled his nostrils.

"I've put aside a few silvers for your trip," Madame litaar said, folding a coin pouch into his hand. "Be careful Should you need anything, the captains along the Sword Coast trade routes will be able to get a message to me."

"Thank you, lady," Jherek said graciously, "for all that you have done for me these last years."

The old woman's eyes brimmed with tears and she reached for Jherek with strong arms, pulling him close and holding him tight for a moment. "It was my pleasure, Jherek, and it will be again. This I know to be truth." She pushed him back, holding him at arm's length to take a final look at his face. She touched his cheek lightly. "By Azuth, how you have grown and yet how young you yet remain in spite of everything. Come back home as soon as you can, son."

Tears streaked Jherek's cheeks as well, and for once, he didn't feel shamed by them. "I will," he promised.

Malorrie cleared his throat, and said, "I'll do my leave-taking here as well, boy. If I followed you to the dock and someone aboard Breezerunner spotted me, it might draw unwelcome attention to you." He extended a hand.

Jherek took the phantom's hand, feeling the strength in the grip. "Thank you, too," he said. "I would never have survived at sea without your training, nor would I have completed myself as much as I have without your guidance in reading."

"Just you remember," Malorrie said, "love is more powerful than any magics. It'll make a strong man weak and a weak man strong. Don't be afraid to give of yourself when you're asked and you believe in the cause."

"I won't."

"There's my boy," the phantom said, tousling Jherek's hair.

Jherek shouldered his travel kit and turned his steps toward the docks. His mind was numb with all the changes he'd been through, all the things he'd lost, but the smell of the brine in the air reminded him he still lived. He paused only once in his journey, stopping in the tree line to gaze back at the house that had offered him the only security he'd ever known.

Live, that you may serve.

The words nestled coldly in his thinking, like a serpent coiled in the early dawn. He went down the hill, losing sight of the house as he entered the lower reaches of the city.