Richard Byers: The Reaver

He scrambled out of bed and started pulling on his clothes. He was only half finished when someone rapped on the door. “Come on!” Stedd called through the panel.

“Why?” Anton replied, just to be contrary, but he didn’t get an answer. He suspected Stedd had already scurried on down the hall to bang on Umara’s door, and sure enough, that was where he subsequently found him, fidgeting outside the Red Wizard’s room while she finished donning her robes.

When the three of them exited the house the city fathers of Sapra had loaned them, they found fresh threats, denunciations, and obscenities chalked on the facade. Because Anton had ended up fighting side by side with Turmishan sailors to defeat the Umberlant armada, a couple of his old comrades had recognized him, and now the whole town knew he’d returned.

Fortunately, Shinthala had insisted he’d atoned for past misdeeds, that he had, in fact, played a pivotal role in averting disaster, and men-at-arms from the fleet backed up her assertion. As a result, the city authorities had opted not to arrest him.

But it was a decision that infuriated some, and while Anton wished it were otherwise, he didn’t blame them for their continued animosity. Folk who’d remained ashore hadn’t seen him do any of the things that had allegedly benefited Turmish. They hadn’t even seen the enemy armada. They had seen demons slaughter their loved ones and devastate their city, and afterward, their hatred of the one responsible party to escape justice had had years to fester, while accounts of the outrages he committed as a pirate kept it fresh in their minds.

No one was glowering, spitting, making signs against the evil eye, or shouting “Traitor!” or “Demon worshiper!” at the moment, though, even though dozens of other people were rushing out of doors. Everybody was too busy gawking at the changes in the weather and the sky.

Water still dripped from eaves and branches. But those were the only droplets falling, and in the east, the massed clouds were breaking up, admitting light that dyed them salmon, rose, and yellow.

Stedd fairly danced with excitement. “Do you see? Do you see?”

Anton gave him a look of mock annoyance. “Isn’t this the time of day when you’re supposed to keep quiet and meditate?”

“Not today! Lathander doesn’t mind if we watch together!”

“Because now your task truly is over,” Umara said.

Your task truly is over … The words gave Anton an unexpected empty feeling. Trying to shake it off, he asked Stedd, “So, what will you do now?”

“Go back to the House of Silvanus for a little while,” the boy answered. “Shinthala says I can, and the elders have been Chosen for a long time. Even though they’re Chosen of a different god, they can teach me things.”

“Just don’t go around saying you think Lathander is as great a god as the Oakfather,” Anton told him. “They’ll stick you in a wicker man and burn you.”

Stedd rolled his eyes at an adult’s attempt to be funny. For all his precocity, it was the first time Anton had noticed him behaving less like a little boy and more like an adolescent. Well, if he’d grown up a notch, it was understandable, considering everything he’d been through.

Umara gave Anton a smile that seemed a little wistful, as though she too felt almost sorry their mad endeavors had reached an end. “What about you?” she asked. “What comes next for Anton Marivaldi?” And to his chagrin, he didn’t know.

He liked Stedd. Perhaps he’d even come to love the boy in somewhat the same way his older brother had loved him. But Stedd didn’t need a scoundrel watching over him anymore. A notorious character lurking about might even prove an embarrassment when it was time to found a temple or whatever it was he’d end up doing, and anyway, Anton couldn’t imagine devoting any more of his time to religious matters. This one interlude notwithstanding, it wasn’t in his nature.

Which didn’t mean he saw a better option. His past infamy likewise precluded making a respectable life for himself in Turmish or nearly anywhere around the Sea of Fallen Stars. Nor, even had he wished it, could he return to piracy. The corsairs who’d escaped the defeat of Evendur’s armada knew he’d fought against them, and they wouldn’t forget.

What was left, then? Umara recaptured his attention by frowning and narrowing her eyes as she awaited his answer, and then, at last, a possibility occurred to him.

He took a breath. “Wizard, we don’t do too badly working together. What would you think about taking a sea captain into your service? Somebody needs to teach you lubberly Thayans how to sail your new galleon home to Bezantur.”

Umara hesitated. “You understand, no matter how cleverly I claim to have done good work for my country, I can’t disguise the fact that I failed to accomplish what Szass Tam sent Kymas and me to do. Stedd’s god says I may escape punishment for that. But he doesn’t guarantee it, not for me nor anyone who helped me in my dereliction of duty.”

Anton grinned. “If I’m taking a stupid chance, how is that different than anything else we’ve done together?”

Umara slowly returned his smile. “When you put it that way, I don’t suppose it is.”

A few paces away, a little girl riding on her father’s shoulders squealed at some new bit of splendor revealing itself in the sunrise. Anton, Umara, and Stedd lifted their eyes to see what it was.