The Arkanist

The Grey Wind

The galley moaned as a wave rose under its belly, crowned in white as it seethed along the wood. “Let us hope the winds are in our favor,” said Eller, shaking hands with Illyr. The Lietheen’s tan skin was masked in the shadow of Eller as the blazing sun scorched upon his velvety back.

“Shaalad says the winds will be in our favor, thankfully,” said Illyr in his misty voice. “We shall need them.”

“And if they do not blow?” inquired Eller. “There are seamen to man the oars, I am told.”

“Truth has found your ears,” said Illyr. “But you won’t find much more in the coming months. You would do well to trust only yourself, if anyone. They say Gallows End bears some of the most treacherous waters known to this Endless Sea, both in tides and people. It is a dangerous place.”

 The quarterdeck was broad and wide, paneled with pale elm with a dark grain lacing like thin string. Thick, horsehair ropes hung loose from the mainmast in the heart of the galley, and more draped down like bars all down the sides in a maze. Seamen garbed in faded linen and rough sewn cloth manned the decks, brushing the deck clean with buckets of foaming water and began to tie the ropes and raise the sails.

 The grey mist had parted and only thin fingers brushed against the belly where the grey-blue sea crashed against the bobbing ship. The rungs of the heavy iron anchor plunged into the depths of the glistering water and clutched the rocky floor with tenacious talons. Eller shielded his eyes from the burning white sun as he turned to the port, rimmed with a fiery red ring. It was strong, and would be no such friend of his.

Eller gazed out at the prancing glimmers of light skipping across the churning ocean, a glint in his pale eyes. “Let us venture into the bowels of the ship, Eller,” Illyr said. “Shaalad is eager to meet you.”

 “They say he was once a pirate, Shaalad,” said Eller, warily. “Bred in the heart of Gallows End to the Gallowking himself. A prince he was, a pirate prince.”

 “A pirate he still is,” said Illyr. “The greatest to have ever taken up sails on this Endless Sea, some say.”

 “And what is it you say?” asked Eller. “It was you who contacted him, was it not.”

 “I say he is still the greatest, and still the pirate he once was all those years ago,” Illyr said. “We are taking a risk, Eller, with Shaalad, but risks rule this world. And those who are not willing to take that risk end up dead.”

 Shaalad’s quarters were large, for being on a ship. They were dark even in the day, and the stained glass windows looked as if tinted with blood, keeping the light out. Long tails of flame danced on the ends of red candles, drooping with wet tears of wax. The ruddy light splashed across the floor like water, and the wooden chairs, plush with padded leather and riveted with gold, creaked across the wood with the intense bobs of the sea.

 Shaalad sat coolly before the blood red windows, seated in an oaken chair much grander than those before it. It was coated with a fine sheeny finish and the back was beaded with gold that shone in the candlelight. The pirate leaned back on the gold with a gilded coin in his jaws, biting it as if he expected it would make it worth more. He threw the coin away into a great mound of gold coins—asstraci, the ancient coin of the pirates of Gallows End—where it hit with a ring and a trickle.

 He leaned forward as Illyr ushered Eller into a seat before the captain’s desk fashioned of mahogany, scattered with sheaves of parchment and mountains of asstraci, glinting beside a waxen candle. The pirate was garbed in heavy grey, gold, and blue cloth, frayed and distressed with billowy sleeves that tied at the waist with a dirty brown rope for a belt. His face was dark, like charcoal, with a wide bent nose and a necklace of thin silver string. His ears drooped with heavy medallions gleaming with gold and his fat lip was pierced with a thin gilded ring. A thick straggly black beard hugged his face and his short, matted brown hair was flat from being under his leather hat all the day before. He smells of salt, Eller reflected, wrinkling his nose.