Under fallen stars

XXVIII

2 Flamerule, the Year of the Gauntlet

"Are you sure you want to do that, young warrior?"

Glawinn's quiet words startled Jherek. He hadn't known the paladin was there. Immediately, he felt guilty about what he was doing. He'd thought he was going to be alone long enough to do what he planned.

"Aye," the young sailor replied, his voice thick with his own doubts and fears. "It's what I have to do." He peered at the long black sea stretching out to the east as Black Champion made her way west again.

Vurgrom and his pirates had lost sails during the volcanic eruption stemming from the Ship of the Gods, but they'd brought extra sails. After the turbulence had finally died down in the Alamber Sea, Vurgrom's pirates had simply rehung their rigging with the new sails and continued on with their journey. The pirate captain had paused to throw a few taunts Azla's way first. Azla had ignored him, but in stony fury. The half-elf obviously had a long-standing feud going with the pirate that wasn't going to end until one or the other was dead. Evidently Black Champion's captain and crew were too well respected for the pirates to think they could take them without loss.

In the hours since the eruption, Azla and her crew, with help from Jherek, Sabyna, and Glawinn, had worked to repair the sails, However, there was no replacing the lost mainmast, not at sea. Jherek had sewn and cut and spliced sailcloth until his hands ached, but he hadn't complained. Neither had he talked with Sabyna. He'd also avoided Glawinn's offer of lessons with the sword, working on the sails until it was well past dark.

"Why do you think you have to do this?" Glawinn asked in a soft voice.

Jherek listened to the man's words but found no challenge in them, nothing he could take offense at and use to leverage an argument that would end the unwanted conversation. "Because I'm tired."

"We're all tired."

"It's not the work," Jherek snapped, his voice almost breaking with the emotion that filled him. With all the rage inside him, he felt like demanding that someone understand what was going through his mind. "It's the hope, Glawinn. I'm tired of all the hope."

"A man can't live without hope."

"Well," the young sailor challenged, "I'm going to have to see about that."

Glawinn stepped closer, coming within Jherek's peripheral vision. The young sailor didn't turn to face him. "You have no thoughts of a future?"

"I have no future," Jherek declared.

"You're not dead."

Jherek clung to the cold rage that had filled him since the voice saved the ship. "I was born dead, and I've died a little more each day, till I owe Cyric at least three or four other lives." A chill touched him when he mentioned the god of death's name. In all his life, he never had.

"You really believe that?"

Turning, Jherek glared at the paladin. "You don't know anything about me."

Glawinn crossed his arms over his chest and drew himself up to his full height. "Such wisdom in one so young, to be knowing all these things that you do."

"You taunt me." Jherek's eyes blazed, but he restrained himself. Glawinn didn't deserve his wrath and he knew it, but that emotion was so ready to be released.

"The opposite," Glawinn disagreed. "I marvel at you."

"This is my decision."

"I've not tried to alter it."

"You asked me if I was sure about doing this."

Glawinn let out a slow breath. "I only thought that someone should. I've known something was bothering you. I waited, thinking you might come to me for help. Or talk to Sabyna about it."

Jherek's throat hurt when he tried to talk, and his eyes burned from the effort it took to keep his words from breaking. "I can't talk to her about it."

"Why?"

"Because it would hurt the friendship I have with her."

"Is it so bad, young warrior?"

Jherek looked past the paladin, making sure none of the sailors were close by. Troge, the first mate, was making his rounds, checking his night crew and the lanterns that hung from Black Champion's yardarms and masts to light her and to mark her for other ships in the water at night.

Closing his fist over the object in his hand, Jherek pulled up his left sleeve, baring the flaming skull tattoo masked in chains. "Do you know what this is?" he asked.

Glawinn only had to glance at it briefly. "It's the mark of Bloody Falkane the pirate, also called the Salt Wolf."

"Aye," Jlierek said bitterly, "and known widely abroad enough that even someone from the Dalelands has heard of him."

"You're not old enough to have been one of his crew."

"No," Jherek agreed. "My fate is worse than that. I'm his son."

Glawinn didn't let any surprise show. He said, "I never knew he had a son."

"It wasn't," Jherek replied, "something he seemed especially proud of." He rolled his sleeve back down. "And what do you think of me now, Sir Glawinn, when you think back on those nights you've spent training me with a sword? Did you ever think you might be training a pirate captain's son who might someday hold that sword and all that skill at your throat?"›

The paladin's eyes narrowed. "That's not something you'd ever do."

Jherek shook his head. "How can you be so sure about that?"

"I know you."

"You don't know me. The tattoo proves that."

"I know you," Glawinn said, "I admit the tattoo is something of a surprise. Tell me about it."

Standing there gripping the railing, his fist tight about all that he was about to abandon, Jherek did. He told the story of his life on Bunyip, and of what little he knew about his father. He spoke of the sea battles he'd seen, the deaths he'd watched, and the tortures he'd seen inflicted.

And he told of the time when he was twelve and his father had first placed a cutlass in his hand and told him he was going to be part of a boarding crew. He'd escaped in the night and somehow made the long swim in to Cape Velen fourteen miles away.

"When I got to Velen I was starving," Jherek said, "but I couldn't even steal food. Instead, I lived on berries and eggs I found down by the beach. I hired myself out first working the docks to move cargo, then any job I could get in Velen. Eventually I got a job with a shipwright. I love working wood, and I've got a talent for it. That's what got me the job of repairing Madame litaar's roof."

He told the paladin of Madame litaar, how she'd taken in an orphan boy who was sleeping in an extra room in the shipwright's building during the months it took to repair her roof.

"Months?" Glawinn asked. "For a roof?"

"It started out as the roof but it moved on to other things. A new fence. A new porch, front and back. New tables and chairs. Madame litaar has a list of projects she always wants done. I'm a good woodworker."

"You must be."

"I lived in her house for years, and she wouldn't have treated me any better if I'd been her own son." As he said that, Jherek was surprised to find that he still believed that.

"Why did you end up in Baldur's Gate?"

Jherek told him of Breezerunner and the Amnians, and how Madame litaar seemed certain that whatever destiny he had lay in Baldur's Gate. "Even Malorrie thought so."

"Malorrie's the man who taught you your skill with the blade?"

"Actually, Malorrie's a phantom," Jherek replied. So he told of how Malorrie had been the first to really find him living on the beaches. He'd broken his leg a short time after arriving in Velen and it had been the phantom that'd taken care of him. He told of the nights they'd spent in the shipwright's building learning all the combat skills the phantom knew.

"You don't know who this Malorrie was when he was living?" Glawinn asked.

"I never asked. It's like that between us. We just accept each other for the way we are. Without trying to change anything." Jherek's voice turned bitter. "You don't get that out of many people."

"I know. So why give up now?"

Jherek glanced at his fist, thinking of the object inside it, what it had meant then and what it had ceased meaning since. "I'm not giving up. I'm acknowledging my inability to control whatever destiny I may have."

"It sounds like quitting to me."

Jherek shook his head and laughed. "Call it what you will. I've had enough."

"Enough of what? Disappointment? Everybody faces disappointment."

"Not disappointment," Jherek answered. "I've been betrayed."

"By whom?"

"I don't know."

Glawinn let him have some time, then asked, "How have you been betrayed?"

"What does 'Live, that you may serve,' mean to you?" the young sailor asked.

"Nothing. Should it?"

"Probably not, but for years I've been wondering what it meant for me."

"Why?"

"Because I've been told that."

In a shaking voice, Jherek told of the voice, how it had said that the first time and he'd been saved by a dolphin. He also told him how the voice had spoken again earlier that day, just before the freak gust of wind had powered them out of capsizing.

"For all my life," he finished, "I've wondered what that's supposed to mean."

"Maybe it's not time," Glawinn replied.

"No," Jherek said in a loud voice. "I'm tired of waiting. Ill tell you what I think now. I think whoever that voice belongs to has been trying to destroy me, to destroy my hope. I've fought it. I lived when I wanted to die. I escaped my father, risking my life against the sea, rather than take up a blade against an innocent man. I starved because I wouldn't steal. I worked because I had to take care of myself and not throw myself on the mercy of others. I've lived, but I've had no life." His voice broke.

Glawinn, thankfully, kept his distance and let Jherek regroup on his own.

The young sailor spoke carefully when he could. "The closest I've ever come to a life was in Velen. In risking my life to save a rich, spoiled girl, I saw all that taken away from me. My reward. No, it should have been 'Live, that you may suffer.' " He shook his head. "I'm done with that, and I'm done with this."

The young sailor opened his hand and revealed the small pair of white clay hands bound at the wrists by a blood-red cord that lay on his palm.

"You follow Umater the Crying God's teachings," Glawinn said.

"Aye. I did."

"He teaches endurance and perseverance. Good qualities for someone who's had to learn to accept."

"I've accepted," Jherek said. "I had accepted-even the voice-but I'm not going to accept any more."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know."

Glawinn paused for a moment, then his eyes opened wider. "You're afraid that the voice belongs to something or someone evil, but that could never be, Malorrie. You aren't an evil person."

"I'm not?" Jherek laughed bitterly. "You just called me Malorrie. Don't you understand that was my teacher's name? I've never told you my real name. I lied, and I would never have done something like that until now. As it is, I'm not even able to live my own life. That's been stripped from me as well."

"Maybe you're only being shown to your new life." Glawinn shrugged. "I don't know how these things work, young warrior. I only trust the weave that I follow."

"I can't," Jherek said. "Not any more. I only fooled myself into believing that I could."

"Have you spoken with Sabyna?"

Jherek said nothing, the pain in his throat growing larger and harder to swallow. "No."

"Why not?"

"Why should I?"

"Because she seems to have a vested interest in you."

"She's under the mistaken impression that she owes me something."

"Ah, young warrior, there are so many things you still don't see in life."

Jherek's anger turned him hot even in spite of the cool night breeze blowing around him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Only that time will make you wiser, but I can see that the learning won't come easily to you in certain matters."

"I can't tell Sabyna."

"Even though you love her?"

Jherek shook his head. "You don't know that I love her. I don't know that I love her."

"You were willing to abandon your quest for the pearl disk because of her."

"It's foolish for her to die for my mistakes."

"She didn't let you walk away. She cares about you."

"I know," Jherek said thickly, "but I'm afraid to let that happen either. If I foolishly ever thought that it might. She deserves someone much better than me."

"Why haven't you told her about your past?"

"Because," Jherek said, "my father killed her brother, and I was on Bunyip, hanging in the rigging and watching when he did it."

Glawinn cleared his throat. "I see. That does present some difficulty."

"And there again," Jherek said, "is the ill luck that has been bequeathed to me in this life. I find a woman and feel something for her that I've never known, never allowed myself to feel except in the occasional fantasy of a story I was reading, and my father has murdered her brother. That's why I've made my decision."

He curled his fist around Ilmater's symbol, then threw it far out to sea. The white clay hands caught the light for a brief moment, then disappeared from sight. Jherek felt empty, but he filled it in with the newfound cold rage that had claimed him earlier that day. Live, that you may suffer. From here on, any suffering he experienced was going to be on his terms.

"Now what, young warrior? You have no hope and no god. What are you going to do with yourself?"

"Hope only got in my way," Jherek replied. "I'm going to be a realist. I have no god because I've never had one. I'm going to get that pearl disk from Vurgrom or die trying because I don't know what else to do."

"Is that it? Or is part of it because you still believe returning the disk to the temple of Lathander in Baldur's Gate is the right thing to do?"

"Azla pursues Vurgrom," Jherek said. "Ill ship with her and see that my part of it is done. When everything in my past life is dealt with, I can begin anew."

"Then where will you go?"

"I'm not even going to think about it," Jherek declared, trying to imagine such a time. "I'll eat when I'm hungry. Ill sleep when I'm tired. Ill work when I have to. Ill settle with that out of life until I'm dead."

"What a bleak, hard life you've set for yourself."

Jherek shook his head. "There'll be no false expectations."

"So you choose to believe in nothing?"

"Aye."

"We'll start with small beliefs, then," Glawinn said, drawing his sword. "Get your weapon out and I'll begin with trust with your eye and your sword arm, young warrior. Your eye and your sword arm-and well let your heart take care of itself." He waved his broadsword about in invitation.

"It's dark."

"Do you think every fight you're going to wage will be well lighted?"

"No." Jherek already knew that.

"Then draw your sword and show me your best. Or do you think you have anything better to do?"

Jherek stepped back and drew the cutlass from his sash. His left arm still hurt and was healing slowly. Dark shadows limned the paladin's face. In the next instant, the sound of steel ringing on steel filled the deck and echoed over the Alamber Sea.

Glawinn pressed him hard, driving him backward, coming closer than he ever had in practice to actually cutting him. "Come on, young warrior, show me what you have. Or has your disbelief exhausted your strength and skill as well?"

Growing angry but tempering it with the cold rage that filled him, Jherek beat back the attacks, stepping up his own retaliation.

"You'll believe in your eye and your arm," Glawinn promised again. "The heart will take care of itself. You'll see."

Jherek drove him back, circling closely to turn him to his weak side. He wished Glawinn would shut up.

They fought until Jherek's arm trembled and he was covered in sweat. The young sailor tried to beat back the paladin's offense, tried to chew through his defense, and tried to overpower him at every turn. Jherek fought until the rage filled him and slipped past his control. His blade moved faster. He no longer thought of any restraints.

"That's it, young warrior," Glawinn said softly. "Get it out. Let it all out."

"Shut up!" Jherek said.

"Get it all out. All the frustration and fear and anger. Give it to me. Once you get rid of it, you'll fill up again. You'll see."

Glawinn fought even more fiercely, his blade moved like a live thing hammered into the steel. Jherek couldn't even see the blades any more, only the red fog of anger that clouded his vision in the darkness. He was vaguely aware of the crowd of sailors that had been attracted to the duel.

"Give me your anger," Glawinn coaxed.

Jherek swung harder, faster, and sparks shot from the blades. His legs quivered from the strain of keeping up with his arm as they moved him across the deck. He concentrated all his hate on the paladin, just wanting the man to shut up.

Then, without the least indication of what he was going to do, Glawinn dropped his sword point to the deck, leaving himself totally defenseless. Jherek checked his swing with difficulty, missing a diagonal cross-body slash that would have cut Glawinn from right shoulder to left hip if it had landed.

"What are you doing?" he shouted. "I could have killed you!"

"Proving to you that you can trust your eye and your arm," Glawinn stated calmly.

"And what if I hadn't been able to stop myself?"

"Then I'd have been wrong."

Suddenly overcome with emotion, Jherek threw the cutlass down and turned to walk away.

Glawinn sheathed his own weapon and grabbed him by the shirtfront. "Where are you going?"

"Away," Jherek answered. "Away from you and this madness." He tried to push away, but the paladin held him too tightly.

"No. You must realize what you were able to do. What skills you have."

"I could have killed you," Jherek said hoarsely, not believing the man couldn't understand him.

"But you didn't. Don't you see that?"

"No," Jherek answered. "No, I don't. You took a fool's chance with your life."

"I trusted your skill so that you could trust it too. Your eye and your arm, Jherek. I'll teach you to believe, but we'll begin there."

"I could have killed you."

The image of the knight with his chest and belly split open filled Jherek's head and made him sick. Nausea boiled up inside him and Glawinn helped him over to the railing. Later, when he was finished and there was nothing else to give up, Glawinn pulled him back. Jherek's mouth was filled with the sour taste.

"And what if you had killed me, young warrior?" the knight asked in a ragged whisper. "Would it have mattered?"

"Aye"

"If you're so empty of caring, it shouldn't have. You may think your heart's empty, but it's not." Glawinn held him at arm's length, both of them breathing hard and covered with sweat. "It's not completely empty. Trust what's within your reach and the rest will come." Tears ran down the knight's face as he held the young sailor's face between his callused hands. "I give you my promise."

Jherek wished desperately that he could believe, but he couldn't. There'd been too many lies.