Richard Byers - The Reaver

“Maybe somebody who heard me speak before.”

“Curse it, boy, do you want to die, or do you want to reach Sapra?”

“Sapra. You know that.”

“And do you believe it’s the will of your Morninglord that has you traveling with a scoundrel who’s survived for years with all the navies of the Inner Sea trying to hunt him down?”

“Yes.”

“Then mind me. When I tell you it’s safe to climb up on a stump and preach, do that. But when I say you need to keep your mouth shut, or tug your hood down, turn, and walk away, you do that, too. Agreed?”

Stedd hesitated, then said, “I can’t just turn my back if something truly bad, like what was happening to Aggie, is going on right in front of me.”

“The rise of the Church of the Bitch Queen notwithstanding, I doubt we’ll find ourselves constantly stumbling across attempts at human sacrifice. That would be bad luck to say the least. Will you follow my lead in less drastic circumstances? I swear on Lathander’s sword-”

“He has a mace: Dawnspeaker.”

“Fine. I swear on his mace Dawnspeaker that heeding me will increase the likelihood of your reaching Turmish alive.”

Stedd frowned, pondering, and then held out his hand. “I promise.”

Anton shook the boy’s hand and, yielding to a pang of curiosity, said, “What’s special about Sapra, anyway? Why is it important that you go there?”

Stedd sighed. “I don’t know yet. I wish Lathander would just tell me everything at once, but it doesn’t work like that. He lights up things-the things I can see-a little bit at a time.”

“Like a sunrise,” Anton said.

Stedd grinned. “Yes! At first, when I got out of the camp-”

“The camp?”

The boy waved his hand, seemingly to indicate that “the camp” was far enough behind him that it no longer mattered. “I only knew I had to come south. And even with a war blocking the way, I made it. Then, when I saw the Great Rain, I understood I had to tell people the rise of the sea didn’t mean they needed to bow down to Umberlee and follow her teachings. They could still be good and put their trust in Lathander. Then, last month, I realized I needed to go to Sapra.”

Anton smiled. “And do … something.”

“I guess. Anyway, I think that somehow, Sapra is where a thing that’s supposed to happen, will. Or won’t, if I can’t do what I’m supposed to. But I’m going to!”

Anton had to admit, Stedd made it sound interesting. For a moment, it almost seemed a pity that the boy was never going to get within a hundred miles of Sapra.

Stedd peered about with fascination at humans, half-elves, halflings no taller than himself, and even the occasional brown-skinned, fair-haired gnome pushing past one another in the cobbled streets and at vendor’s carts, shops, tenements, towers, and flags and banners that, though soaked with rain and hanging lifeless, still lent splashes of color to another gray day. Westgate was plainly larger than Teziir, and that made it the biggest city Stedd had ever visited. He’d been born on a farm, and though he’d passed sizable towns on his journey south and east, the Moonstars had kept him clear of them as a way of keeping clear of the war.

As usual, the thought of the benefactors who had, for reasons they’d said involved some sort of prophecy, spirited him away from the camp and protected him thereafter brought a pang of mingled grief and guilt, the latter because he’d made friends with the very man responsible for their deaths. But he still needed someone to help him, and it seemed clear that, despite his past crimes, Captain Marivaldi was Lathander’s choice for the task. Stedd could only hope that, as they looked down on him from the afterlife, Questele and the others understood.

Anton interrupted his sad reflections by stopping abruptly. “What is it?” Stedd asked.

“Look,” the pirate answered, gesturing toward the block they were about to enter.

Stedd did and saw that many of the doors ahead had trident shapes chalked on them. Frowning, he said, “Those people must all worship Umberlee.”

“Or feel a need to placate those who do,” Anton said. “Either way, it’s a warning to stay alert.”

“Or turn around and go somewhere else,” Stedd suggested. Actually, the sight of the Bitch Queen’s emblem drawn over and over again made him want to denounce her lies and proclaim Lathander’s truth in their place. But there was sense in his companion’s view that it would be stupid to do so where it was likely to bring about his death.

Anton shook his head. “We assumed the waveservants would have a strong presence in Westgate; they had a decent-sized temple here even before their church started its climb to power. But in this town, there are ways to avoid the attention of those who wish you ill, and I guarantee I can finally get us a suitable boat.”

“Aren’t we more likely to have trouble with the Iron Jest -or some other pirate ship-if we travel by sea?”

Anton took a breath in the way that indicated he was making an effort not to grow impatient. “I’ve explained to you, I can avoid that, too.”

“On horses, we could make good time traveling overland. Couldn’t we?”

“With rivers in flood and trails washed out? Don’t count on it. Just trust me. Haven’t I kept you safe so far?”

That was true enough. Since leaving Aggie’s village, Anton had successfully dealt with hungry wolves and a trio of would-be adolescent bandits lying in ambush for whoever happened along.

“Yes,” Stedd said, “and I do trust you. Just tell me what to do.”

To his surprise, for just an instant, Anton’s mouth appeared to tighten ever so slightly, like he was sorry Stedd had conceded the argument. But that made no sense, and the flicker of expression vanished in an instant if it had ever even been present in the first place.

“Just stay close,” the Turmishan said, “keep your eyes open, and for weeping Ilmater’s sake, resist the urge to preach.”

Stedd sighed. “Don’t worry about that.”

He himself couldn’t help fretting, though, as he and his guardian prowled onward and additional signs of the Umberlant church’s tightening hold on the city came into view. Bakers, masons, and hatters, folk whose trades had nothing to do with the sea, wore seashell pendants or garments patterned with scales or dyed blue-green. Someone had broken into a potter’s establishment, the only shop on its block without a trident on its door, and smashed the crockery. Mostly distressingly of all, perhaps, a shrine to Sune, with caryatids depicting Lady Firehair bracing its crimson door, did have a trident scratched on the panel; apparently, even the heartwarders within were conceding the primacy of the Queen of the Depths.

It was wrong and had to stop! Stedd steadied himself with the thought that it would-somehow-when he reached Sapra.

The wet streets took him and Anton gradually downhill until they started catching glimpses of the harbor. According to the pirate, Westgate had once been the third busiest port on the Sea of Fallen Stars with the facilities one would expect of such a hub of trade. The harbor was still busy, but it was also a beleaguered improvisation. The waves surged through the ground floors of partially submerged buildings while, farther out, warning buoys marked the locations of structures the sea had swallowed entirely. The docks had a rickety look because they were temporary, designed to be dismantled, moved, and reassembled when that became necessary to keep them above water.

Eventually, Anton led Stedd down a street so narrow that the two of them nearly blocked it walking side by side. Even to a boy who knew little of city life, the shops had a shabby look to them. A fat man took a wary look around, pulled down his hat, and turned up the collar of his cloak before hurrying away from an apothecary’s doorway with a little bottle clutched in his hand. The bent-backed scribe in a cramped box of a shop reflexively hid the document he was working on behind his hand and forearm when Stedd glanced in at him.