The sea devil's eye

IV

5 Flamerule, the Year of the Gauntlet

"I was twelve," Jherek said. "My father spotted a merchant ship, heavily laden so she was sitting low in the water and dragging down the wind. That night he announced to the ship's crew that we would claim it as a prize the next morning."

Glawinn listened in silence.

"My father is a hard man," Jherek said. "You know the stories they tell along the Sword Coast of Bloody Falkane, and you know that nearly all of them are true. He's unforgiving and merciless, as able to cut down an unarmed man as he is to fight to the death. There is no right or wrong in his world, only what he is strong enough to take."

The rattling of the rigging on the lanyards sounded hollow, echoing the way Jherek felt. Glawinn waited silently.

As he spoke, Jherek felt the heat of unshed tears burning his eyes. Still, even though his voice was so tight it pained him to speak, he had to.

"I loved my father."

"As a child should," Glawinn said.

"I remember how he laughed. It was a huge, boisterous sound. Even though I didn't understand much of what made him laugh, I laughed with him. As I grew older, I stopped laughing and learned to fear him. Then, one day, he saw that in me. My father told me that I had to learn to be hard, that the world was cold and would eat the weak. I believed him, and I believed I was weak."

"That's not true."

Jherek didn't bother to argue. "He had me taken from the small room off his cabin where he'd kept me all that time and put in with the men. They weren't any more gentle than he'd been, though they were careful not to leave any marks that he could see."

In the distance, another longboat drew up to a cog and lanterns moved along its length as the passengers prepared to board.

"For the next eight years, I lived in the shadows of my father's rage. There was never a day I felt peace between us, nor anything even close to love."

"To be the son Bloody Falkane wanted," the paladin said, "you'd have to have been born heartless and with ice water in your veins. Where was your mother?" "I never knew her."

"Your father never spoke of her?"

"Not once," the young sailor replied. "Nor did the ship's crew."

He stared up at the dark sky and refused to let the tears come. How much of it came from what he remembered, and how much because he knew Frennick was down in the hold, he couldn't say.

"The night I chose to leave," Jherek continued, "my father visited me in the hold. He brought a cutlass and placed it in my hand and told me I would take a place in the boarding party in the morning."

"At twelve?"

"Aye. He told me I'd kill or be killed, and in the doing of that, I'd be dead or I'd take my first steps toward becoming his son."

"Lathander's mercy," the paladin whispered.

"I stayed up most of the night," Jherek continued. "I knew I couldn't be part of that boarding party."

"Because you knew it was the wrong thing to do."

His throat hurting too much to speak right away, Jherek shook his head. "No. I only knew I was afraid," he said hoarsely. "I was afraid I would be killed, but mostly I was afraid of what my father would do to me if I froze and could not move, could not make it onto that other ship. I was certain he would kill me himself. So I walked out onto the deck when no one was looking, threw the cutlass into the sea, and jumped in after it. Bunyip sailed on, leaving me in the ocean. I wanted to die, but I started to swim, not even knowing where I was heading. I don't know how long I swam, but I know it was well into the next day before I washed up on Velen's shores."

They were silent for a time and Jherek struggled to ease his thoughts back into the dark places of his mind where he kept them.

"Why are you telling me this?" Glawinn asked.

"Because you seem to see something good in me," Jherek said, "and I wanted you to know it was false. I ran from my father's ship that night."

"You didn't want to kill innocent people," Glawinn objected.

Anger stirred in the coldness that filled Jherek. "Am I any better now? I took a man prisoner tonight only so he could be tortured."

"It's not what you think."

"Isn't it?" Jherek demanded. "I am my father's son. When it came time to take Frennick, I took him and I brought him here."

"No, young warrior, you judge yourself too harshly. You did only what you had to do. You are meant for more than being a pirate's son, Jherek."

"How can you believe that?"

"That's the wrong question." A small, sad smile twisted Glawinn's lips. "After having heard everything I have from you, the question is how could I not believe that."

"I just want out," Jherek said tiredly. "I don't want any more false hope, no more dreams, and I'm sick of the fear that has filled me all my life."

"A way will be made," Glawinn whispered. "You must believe."

Jherek couldn't, and he knew it. He looked out over the black water, taking in all the emptiness that made up the Sea of Fallen Stars.

"It's done."

Almost asleep, Jherek blinked and looked up at Azla as she strode across the deck.

More than an hour had passed since Azla had gone below with Frennick. The young sailor pushed himself up from his seated position against the prow railing.

"And Frennick?" Jherek asked.

"Relax," Azla told him. "Frennick is alive and of one piece still."

Images of how the man must have been tortured ran rampant through Jherek's mind. The instruments the pirate captain had laid out with such familiarity looked vicious enough to come straight from Cyric's darkest hells.

"Nor have I harmed him," Azla went on, "so your precious honor and integrity yet remain whole."

Jherek shook his head. "I don't understand."

"Glawinn asked that no harm come to Frennick when we returned to the ship," Azla said.

"Glawinn didn't tell me he'd asked that," Jherek told her, confused.

"No, nor did he want you to know until it was over."

Jherek grew angry but pushed it away. That lack of knowledge was something he intended to deal with the paladin about. He should have been told instead of spending time worrying over it.

"Pirates are a superstitious lot," Azla commented. "Despite all his blustering and bravado, Frennick is not a brave man. My ship's mage bewitched him, making him think we'd immersed his hand in a pot of acid till the flesh melted from his bones. Actually, it was a pot of water."

Two of the ship's crew marched Frennick up from the hold. The pirate captain swore venomously, calling down the spiteful rage of Umberlee on Azla, her ship, and her crew. When the crewmen threw him over the side, both the splash and Frennick's curses echoed around the ship. Relief filled Jherek, but it didn't take away the anger he felt toward Glawinn.

"Where is the disk?" the young sailor asked.

"Vurgrom has it."

"Does Frennick know where Vurgrom is?"

Azla shook her head. But he did know that Vurgrom used a diviner to learn what he could of the disk."

Jherek's heart sped up. "What did he learn?"

"Frennick wasn't allowed in the room. Only the diviner and Vurgrom were there. However, Frennick gave us the location of the diviner. She lives off the northeastern harbor of the Dragonisle."

"If we are not sailing there," Jherek said, "I need to know so I can make other arrangements."

Azla looked at him, her dark eyes flashing, and asked, "You would, wouldn't you?"

"Aye, Captain. I've no choice."

"You won't have to walk," she replied. "We're going to weigh anchor in a short while."

"Enter, young warrior."

Jherek slipped the lock on the door and let himself into the room.

Glawinn sat on the lowest of the bunk beds, crouched over so his head wouldn't bang against the upper berth as the ship gently pitched at anchor. An oil lantern hung from the ceiling over the small desk in the corner. The paladin was cleaning his armor, a task he tended to every day.

"You lied to me."

"No." Glawinn's eyes narrowed and became hard. Steel filled his voice. "You never accuse another man of lying unless you know that for a fact. Especially not a man of honor."

Shame burned Jherek's cheeks and ears. "My apologies." He tried to maintain his level gaze but had to drop it to the floor. "You didn't tell me that they weren't torturing Frennick."

"No."

"You let me believe they were."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"You were comparing yourself to the wretches and scoundrels that populate that island like that was your destiny. Suddenly you were seeing yourself as no better than they are, doomed somehow to follow in your father's footsteps."

"They say the apple never falls far from the tree."

Then looking forward to a life as a pirate or a thief is something you deserve?"

"I never said that."

"Yes you did. You were pulling penance for Frennick. You looked out over Immurk's Hold and told me you couldn't see the difference between yourself and those men. Can you now?"

"Aye," Jherek said, his voice tight, "but I also see the difference between you and me."

"Do you believe that difference to be so great, young warrior?" Glawinn stood. Without his armor, he looked like only a man. Lantern light gleamed against the dark black of his hair and short-cropped beard.

"You're a paladin, chosen by a god to represent the covenants of his faith."

"Was I anything before I became a warrior for Lathander? Or was it Lathander who made me the man I am today?"

"I don't know."

"Tell me what is in your heart, young warrior," Glawinn said softly, his voice barely carrying across the small room. The waves slapping against the side of the ship outside the room underscored his words. "Tell me what you believe me to have been before I followed Lathander's teachings."

"You were a good man."

After a moment, Glawinn nodded. "My father was a knight before me, and my mother a good woman who learned the art of cheese making from her father. I am their get, and I wear Lathander's colors and fight the battles the Morninglord sets before me."

Jherek stared into the paladin's eyes, wondering for just a heartbeat if Glawinn was telling him this to make him feel worse.

"I was born one of twins," Glawinn said. "I have a sister. She was never a gentle child, and never easy on my parents. When she was seventeen, she left our home in Daggerdale and joined the Zhentarim."

Astonishment trailed cold fingers across Jherek's back. Even on the Sword Coast people knew the Zhentarim to be an organization of great evil.

"I was a boy when I fought at my father's side under Randall Morn against Malyk," Glawinn went on in a steady voice. "My sister, like many other Daggerdale citizens, felt that the Zhentarim would continue to hold the lands after the battles. Some thought only to hold onto their property, not caring who ruled them as long as they were allowed to follow their own lives. Cellayne-my sister-saw joining the Zhentarim as a chance to follow the dark nature that possessed her."

Footsteps passed beyond the door. Men's voices talked quietly. Eyes reddened with pain and glazed with memory, Glawinn turned to peer at the armor lying on the small bed.

"I've seen Cellayne twice in all these years," he said. "The last time she tried her best to kill me. Only by Lathander's grace was I spared. I lost two dear friends. Cellayne has immersed herself in the dark arts and become a necromancer. She's very powerful." The paladin tried to clear his thick voice but was unsuccessful. "As penance for daring to attack her in her stronghold near Darkhold, Cellayne… did something to my two fallen companions… set them on my trail. I destroyed the walking corpses of my friends. I know not what happened to their souls, though priests I've talked to since tell me that the good part of them knows peace."

"I'm sorry," Jherek whispered, knowing how feeble those words were.

"Lathander keeps me strong." Glawinn bowed his head for a moment, then turned to Jherek. "You need only believe, young warrior. Let your faith and your heart guide you, not your birth, not everything you've seen. Pursue that which you want, and a way of living that pleases and rewards you."

"There is nothing to believe in."

"So, for now at least, that is what you believe, young warrior, but to believe that there is nothing to believe in, is a belief itself." Glawinn smiled at his own circular logic. "Don't you see? If there was no belief in you, you would be like a piece of driftwood tossed out on the sea."

"Even driftwood finds a shore sooner or later," Jherek said.

A smile crossed Glawinn's face. "How much you know yet refuse to see. Truly, your stubbornness is as great as any I've ever witnessed." He crossed the room to stand in front of Jherek, then put his hands on the young sailor's shoulders and said, "When I look at you, I see a good man."

Unable to maintain eye contact, Jherek dropped his gaze to his boots.

"I only wish that you could see yourself through my eyes." Glawinn paused. "Or Sabyna's."

"I've got to go." Jherek couldn't stand there any more. It hurt too much.

The paladin pulled his hands away and said, "You won't be able to escape the doubts that fill you, young warrior. They only sound the emptiness that is within you. Belief is the only thing that will make you whole again."

Jherek held back hot tears. "If there was just something to hold to, I could," he said, "but there is nothing."

"Sabyna loves you, young warrior."

That single declaration scared Jherek more than anything else in his life.

"Even if that were true," he said hotly, "my father murdered her brother. She could never forgive me."

"For your father's sin?"

"A father's sins are visited on the son."

"Not everyone thinks so."

"I'd rather not talk about this."

"I told you I'd teach you to believe again, young warrior," Glawinn said, his voice carrying steel again, "and I will."

"You weren't able to rescue your sister."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Jherek regretted it. Pain flashed in Glawinn's eyes.

"Now is not the time to speak of this," Glawinn said. "I see that." He turned and walked back to his bunk, sitting and taking up his armor again. "Good night, young warrior."

Hesitating, Jherek tried desperately to find something to say, but couldn't. He had no head for it, and he didn't trust his tongue. His heart felt like bursting.

The sound of the scrubbing brush filled the room, drowning out the echo of the waves lapping at the ship's hull.

With a trembling hand, Jherek opened the door and left. There was nothing else to do.

V

6 Flamerule, the Year of the Gauntlet

Seated midway up Black Champion's rigging, Jherek stared hard out at the sunlight-kissed emerald green waters to the west. The Dragonisle maintained a steady distance to the southeast as the ship sailed north over slightly choppy waves, but the Earthspur towered over all. Below Jherek's position, the pirate crew worked steadily under Azla's watchful eye.

Reluctantly, he returned his attention to the wooden plate he held. Over half of the steamed fish and boiled potato chunks yet remained of his meal, long grown cold. He picked at the morsels with his fingers but found no interest. The worry and the headache that settled into the base of his skull and across his shoulders left him with no appetite.

Giving up on the meal, he gripped the edge of the plate and flung the contents into the wind, watching them fall the long distance down to the sea. An albatross wheeled and dived after them, managing to seize one of the chunks before it hit the water.

The rigging vibrated, drawing his attention. When he peered down, he saw Sabyna climbing up the rigging toward him.

"I didn't expect to find you up here," she said. "You're usually laboring about the ship."

"I wasn't feeling well."

Sabyna huddled expertly within the rigging, hooking her feet and leaning back so that her elbows held her as well. She gazed at him with concern and said, "Perhaps you should have stayed in bed."

Jherek shook his head.

"I'm worried about you." Sabyna regarded him sternly with those frank, reddish-brown eyes.

Sabyna loves you, young warrior. Glawinn's words spun through Jherek's mind as soft as silk and as unforgiving as steel.

"I worry about you. Perhaps it is time you make your way back to the Sword Coast."

"Do you think I'm some kind of ballast you can just heave overboard?" Sabyna's voice turned icy.

Jherek felt as though his thoughts were winding through mush.

"No, lady," he said. "I worry only about your safety. This is not your fight, and I fear that things are going to get even harder from this point on. Last night has proven that"

"I remember a time when you spoke pretty words to me, and enjoyed my companionship," she told him in a cold voice.

"Lady, I have no hand with pretty words. My skills are with the sea, and with raising the ships that sail on it."

"Then you're telling me I heard wrong?"

Jherek felt as though he was being mercilessly pummeled. "No," he said, "I wouldn't tell you that."

"Then tell me what you feel."

Jherek hung his head. "I can't." He hated the silence that followed.

"Perhaps," Sabyna said in a softer voice, "I did hear wrong. Maybe I was wanting to hear something that wasn't there, nor ever offered."

She reached into the bag of holding at her hip and brought out two books. "I spoke with Glawinn this morning. He asked me to give you these."

Heart still hurting, Jherek took to the books, meeting her eyes and never even glancing at the titles. Normally books were a fascination to him, a promise of adventure and other lives he could share.

"Has something happened between you two?"

"Please," Jherek said, "I don't wish to speak of it."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude. It's just hard watching the two of you have trouble when it's obvious you're so much alike."

"Alike?"

The comparison stunned the young sailor. He saw no way in which he and the paladin were alike.

"You're both proud, strong men. You're brave enough to face your fears, and you're a good friend."

"If I was such a good friend, Glawinn wouldn't be angry with me, and you wouldn't be so uncomfortable around me."

"I have no doubt that you and Glawinn will work things out," Sabyna told him. "That is the nature of men. And you're not responsible for my discomfort." Unshed tears glistened in her eyes. "That is caused by my own folly and foolishness. You have worries enough of your own. I only wish I could help you."

Without another word, the ship's mage turned lithely in the rigging and glided down the ropes, hard muscles playing in her arms, shoulders, and the small of her back.

Jherek almost went after her. It was only when he realized that he'd have to say something, but had no idea what, that he stopped. He watched her, though, as she dropped to the deck and strode to the stern to join Azla. They looked up at him together, then they turned and walked behind the stern castle.

The young sailor felt shamed to have been caught watching after them and quickly turned his head. He'd never felt so alone or unhappy in his life. He glanced at the two books he held, wondering what Glawinn would have thought to send him-and why.

Both books showed signs of stress, as if they had been read a number of times. The first was a thick volume called The Rider and the Lost Lady of Grave Hollow. Jherek carefully opened the front cover and read the frontispiece, discovering the work to be a romance about a Ridesman of Archendale. He flipped through the pages, smelling the scent of the parchment and the ink and remembering all the hours of pleasure he'd received from the books Malorrie had let him borrow.

The second tome was Way of War, Way of Peace by Sir Edard Valins. The book was much slimmer and promised to be a treatise on the art and thinking of combat.

Jherek closed the books, wondering why Glawinn would have sent them to him. He secured the book on the strategies of war in the rigging and opened the romance. A few hours of sailing yet remained before Black Champion reached her destination and he felt it would be best if he could stay away from other people in the meantime.

Standing at Black Champion's starboard rail, Jherek gazed out at the grotto of sea caves that made up the Dragonisle's northeastern harbor. The harbor sat back in the curvature of the rocky shoreline below and around the caves, creating a crescent of calm water scarcely able to shelter a dozen ships. Nesting pelicans and seagulls lined the craggy surface.

"These waters are filled with treacherous rocks and reefs," Azla said as she belted her scimitar around her slim hips. She tucked a fighting dagger down inside the rolled top of her left boot, then pulled on a cloak against the chill of the bitter wind. "I won't take my ship in there. We'd only be a target if two or three of the other ship's crews decided to take us as a prize. Out here, Champion can maneuver."

Glawinn gave a quick nod, accepting her judgment. He offered his hand to her at the ship's rail and said, "Lady, if I may."

The half-elf pirate captain seemed a little surprised at the offer, but she took his hand and said, "My thanks, but I am captain, not lady."

"Of course, Captain."

Azla made her way down the rope ladder hanging over the ship's side to the waiting longboat, and Glawinn followed.

Jherek hadn't noticed the change in temperature until they'd come closer to the harbor. The sun hung low on the horizon behind them, drawing long shadows over the emerald waters. He pulled his cloak more tightly around him.

Without a backward glance at him, Sabyna strode to the side and quickly descended the rope ladder. Jherek shifted hands with his wrapped bow and followed. He quietly made his way to one of the rowing stations and sat. No one seemed inclined to speak to him and that fact gladdened him at the same time it made him feel disappointed.

No one came to meet them when they reached the uneven shoreline, but there were plenty of eyes watching. Five ships sat at anchor inside the harbor proper. Pirates lined the railings and hung in hammocks beneath the yardarms. Others cooked fish over slow fires on the rocky beach. The beach butted up against the gray rock of the cliff face where the caves were.

They ran the longboat aground, then shipped oars. Jherek and three pirates leaped out onto the beach and grabbed the longboat's sides, pulling it easily onto the rocky sand. The wind ripped low howls from the caves as the breeze traveled across the mouths. Jherek looked up at the towering cliff face while the others stepped from the longboat. A few of the seagulls took wing curiously, swooping down within a few feet of him.

"Look at 'em," one pirate growled. "You'd think they was watchdogs close as they eyeball a body."

Azla assigned four of the ten men in the crew to guard the longboat. She took the lead with long strides, crossing the shoreline to the nearest group of men frying fish.

"I need some information," Azla told the strangers.

A hulking brute of a man standing nearby gave her an evil, gap-toothed grin. "Ain't nothing free here, wench. Mayhap you show me a little kindness-"

Before the man even knew what was going on, Azla ripped her scimitar free and touched the blade to his throat.

"How much," she asked coldly, "would you be willing to pay for your next breath?"

Color drained from the big man's features. "What was it you'd be wanting?" he asked.

Azla kept the scimitar at the big man's throat. "There's a diviner who lives here. Do you know her?"

"I know of her, Cap'n." The big man's Adam's apple slid across the blade's edge. "Name's Dehnee. She gives readings and such for them what want 'em."

"Where can I find her?"

The man pointed up the narrow ledge that wandered back and forth across the cliff face. Other branches led off to other caves, giving each a portion of privacy. The diviner's cave was halfway up and on the right.

"Take us there," Azla commanded.

"Cap'n, I'd rather not. The woman lives with a ghost."

"You'd rather not more than you'd rather try breathing through your neck?"

The man started walking, glancing in cold rebuke at his companions who sat without comment. Azla kept the scimitar's point at the back of the man's neck.

Jherek kept a ready hand on his cutlass hilt as he brought up the party's rear. They marched up the narrow, inclined path to the cave the big man indicated.

A handmade sign hung beside the cave mouth that simply proclaimed DIVINER. A thick carpet of sea lion hides stretched across the cave mouth, hung from a length of rope. The hides possessed the maned heads and forelegs of great lions, but the body and tail of a fish. The bottom of the carpet of stitched hides was rolled up and sewn around rocks that weighted it to the ground.

Azla dismissed the big man with a turn of her head. He went quickly, muttering beneath his breath.

"Dehnee," the half-elf captain called out. "I've got coin if you've a mind and skills enough to earn it."

The hides slid to the side, revealing the torchlit interior of the cave. A woman no older than her late twenties stood at the entrance. Her hair was mousy brown, long and pulled back in a ponytail. Gold eyes regarded the party and showed no fear, set deeply in a face that was chiseled and translucent as if she seldom saw the sun. She wore a gown of good material that showed age as well as care.

"I've always got a ready use for coin," she said, smiling, "but I'm not a desperate woman."

"I don't particularly care for the desperate," Azla said. "They have a tendency to tell you what you want to hear."

"It's the truth you're after then?"

"Aye, and we've come a far way to get it."

Jherek watched the woman, remembering the times he'd seen Madame Iitaar work at home in Velen over a man's hand or an object yanked up from the sea in a fisherman's net.

Diviners could tell of things yet to come upon occasion, as well as the past of objects that were brought to them. Those who lived on the sea, depending on the gracious bounty of the waters, learned to respect people like that.

Dehnee looked at them coolly and said, "My home is small, and I like my privacy."

"Only four of us." Azla pointed out Sabyna, Glawinn, and Jherek.

The diviner's eyes raked casually across the ship's mage and the paladin, but came to rest on the young sailor.

"Yes," she said softly. "I can see that the four of you are tied. Some in more ways than the one you came to see me about."

The announcement surprised Jherek, but he said nothing.

"Enter." Dehnee stepped back and held the folds of sea lion skins back.

Jherek entered last, his mind and eyes seeking danger everywhere. He hadn't forgotten the story about the diviner sharing her cave with a ghost.

The cave evidently divided into three or more rooms. Some of the division was natural but the young sailor could also detect scars and markings from tools and stone cutters.

More hides taken from sea creatures decorated the walls along with mounted fish on lacquered wooden plaques. Shells and bits of coral of different sizes and colors strung on sections of net in designs and patterns hung from the uneven ceiling. Red, blue, and green lichens clung to the walls in whirlpool patterns, evidently carefully directed in their growth.

Two clam shells more than a foot across hung upside down from more nets. They were filled with blubber and burning wicks to fill the cave with light.

Dehnee passed her hand over a small net with silver bells and shells that tinkled and rattled. The sensation of clawed feet crawled over Jherek, causing him to shift his shoulders.

"It's all right," Sabyna said in a soft voice. "The spell was intended as protection only."

"I have been hunted before," the diviner said. "I like to make sure that no one enters my home while bewitched by a charm, and that I have no unseen guests."

She sat cross-legged on a sea lion hide that had the creature's head still intact.

Jherek's hand tightened as he stared at the maned head. The itching sensation grew even stronger. Dehnee turned a hand palm up and offered seating on the piles of hides in the center of the cave.

"If you don't mind, lady," Glawinn said, "I'll stand. The armor becomes rather cumbersome."

"Of course, Sir Knight. I know merely being here must be troublesome to you. Some of the objects I use in my divinations would not be comfortable to you, but they are necessary in what I do."

"Thank you, lady."

Gazing at the paladin, Jherek saw that Glawinn was a little paler than normal and held his lips tightly as a man at rough sea might. The young sailor didn't feel well himself and was experiencing a throbbing behind his eyes.

Sabyna and Azla sat in front of the diviner.

Dehnee looked up at Jherek with dark, liquid eyes. "I can attempt this without you," she told him, "but my best chance of success will be with your assistance."

"I don't understand," Jherek said.

"You come here seeking an object," Dehnee told him. "Of all, you are the most closely tied to it."

Jherek hesitated only a moment, wishing there were some other way. "What do I need to do?"

"Sit."

Dehnee pointed to a place before her. The young sailor pulled his cutlass from the sash at his waist so that he could sit in comfort. As soon as the blade came free, the sea lion's eyes glinted with unholy light and tracked his movement. The massive jaws unhinged and loosed a coughing roar of warning. Skin prickling and heart hammering in fear, Jherek stepped back.

The sea lion's body rose from the carpet, magically transforming and coming fully to life.