Jean Rabe - Redemption

Dhamon immediately thought of Riki and his child again. He decided there would be no more unsettling stops in this peculiar town. They would hop aboard a ship leaving with the evening tide, or even sooner if possible.

Dhamon watched as the half-elf created a different mixture to treat the acid scars on Fiona’s cheek, though he told her sadly they’d never completely disappear. Then he insisted on trimming her hair.

Dhamon cleared his throat to get the half-elf’s attention. “I suppose you don’t want to be paid.”

“Oh, I’ll gladly take your coins, sir.”

Finally, Dhamon thought. Someone in this town who acts normal. Dhamon quickly passed him two steel pieces, considerably more than his services were worth, then glanced out the shop window at an elderly couple strolling by arm in arm. He shook his head as two goblins scurried into view. A second later a human boy and girl and another goblin came gleefully chasing after them.

“What’s wrong with these people?” he whispered to Ragh. “Is there some madness infecting them?

Goblins playing with human children. Some of the merchants won’t accept money. Hobgoblins walk around freely here, apparently hold public office, and—”

“Dhamon.” Fiona stepped to his side. “You were partnered with a blue dragon when you were a Dark Knight. If I recall, you recently counted a kobold named Fetch as a trusted companion. Your best friend Maldred is a lying, scheming, blue-skinned ogre mage, and now you associate with a sivak.” She nodded to the draconian standing in the doorway “You’re looking through far too many windows,” she continued. “You should be looking in mirrors instead.”

“Perhaps you’re right.”

The healer gave Fiona a small clay jar and instructed her to rub more of the mixture on her wound in the morning. She thanked him and stepped out of the shop into the bright afternoon sunshine.

“Yes, thank you for your help,” Dhamon added. He searched the half-elf’s eyes for some answer to the riddle of the town.

The half-elf looked puzzled at Dhamon’s expression.

“Your name?” Dhamon asked innocently. “How long have you lived here?”

The half-elf drew his features together in consternation, his face looking painfully pinched. “Name? I don’t know. I guess I don’t have one. No. Come to think of it, I’ve never had a name. Do you have a name?”

Now that was definitely strange. Dhamon thought about the graveyard and decided to risk a question, although he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer. “Do the other people in town have names?”

The youth gave him a pensive look, as the silence between them grew thick. “Now that you mention it,” he said after a few moments, “no.”

Fiona and Ragh had moved on and were standing in the center of the street talking to the lord mayor’s assistant. Dhamon gestured to the draconian and started toward the docks. Come! Now! he mouthed.

The draconian grabbed Fiona’s wrist, and the two hurried to catch up.

The hobgoblin kept pace with the trio, arguing with them. “You cannot leave,” he insisted. “The lord mayor will convince you to stay. Give him a chance to talk you into it.”

“We’re in a hurry,” Dhamon said to the hobgoblin. “We’re leaving—now.” This last comment was directed as much to Ragh and Fiona.

The hobgoblin muttered a curse and trundled away in the opposite direction.

“I don’t see any ships.” Ragh was standing at the end of the largest dock, which groaned in protest under his weight. “I don’t even see a rowboat.”

But there were fishermen. Three sat at the end of a long, narrow pier, poles in the water and eyes on painted cork bobbers.

Dhamon paced along the bank, keeping Ragh in sight. Fiona lagged behind, gathering small shells and putting them in the pocket of her skirt. Her task was difficult, as she refused to set down her bundle of new clothes.

“Not a single ship,” Dhamon spat.

There wasn’t even the outline of a ship out in the crystal blue harbor. Dhamon supposed all the fishing boats might still be out for the day, too far away for him to see, not due in until sundown. Perhaps the town, being so small, didn’t attract sailing ships. But… He stomped off down the bank and up the narrow pier toward the three fishermen, who looked up in unison as he approached. He didn’t want to waste time searching for another coastal town on Nostar. That could take days. Perhaps these fishermen knew someone with a boat.

They were young, human, perhaps not yet twenty, clothes worn but clean, faces clean-shaven, hair tied back.

Perhaps all three were brothers. They had a similarity in their faces, their eyes all golden brown, their builds roughly the same.

“Excuse me,” Dhamon began. “My friends and I need to find passage on a ship. A fishing boat would do.” He jiggled the coin pouch so they could hear the steel clinking.

Two of the young men shrugged, but the one in the middle sat his pole down and rose to his feet. He brushed his hands on his breeches and looked to the shore. “All the ships are gone. Broken up and made into houses,” he explained.

Dhamon instantly remembered the buildings made out of ship hulls. “All of them?”

“’Bout soon as they come in, the townsfolk come out and break ’em up.”

“And the sailors just let them?”

The young man paused in thought. “The sailors don’t have no choice in the matter, I’d say. ’Course, the sailors don’t object for long. They stay in town. Got nowhere else to go, I’d say. Some of ’em even live in their old ships.”

Dhamon felt his face grow warm, anger, frustration and fear building and a dozen questions forming.

He didn’t know what to ask first, but the young man helped him out.

“See, folks who come to Bev’s Oar… they don’t ever leave.”

“Well, we’re leaving,” Dhamon told him. “Ragh and Fiona and I are leaving now.”

“I don’t think so, sir. Word is all over town about you three. You have names, and that makes you real important. Glad to have you join us. I understand you’re gonna teach all of us about the world.”

“We’re not joining you.” Dhamon swung around and raced toward the bank, feet slapping loudly on the planks. “Ragh!” he shouted. “Fiona!”

The draconian and female Knight looked up, then both turned in the other direction, facing the town, their attention was caught by the throng of people suddenly materializing, the lord mayor and his assistant in the lead.

“By the memory of the Dark Queen!” Dhamon cursed.

He vaulted from the dock and onto the sand just as the press of townsfolk swarmed around his two companions. The Knight was tall, towering over some of the townspeople, but in a few moments Dhamon couldn’t see her head. They’d managed to overwhelm her by their sheer numbers.

The draconian resisted, pulling away from people and roughly tossing them to the ground. Dhamon reached the crowd. He was loath to draw a knife, as he’d seen not a single weapon since he’d arrived.

“Damn me for bringing us here!” he swore, as he forced his way into the mass and found Fiona unconscious and in the arms of the lord mayor’s assistant. She’d obviously put up a fight, as the two nearest townsfolk were sporting broken lips and noses, but even she couldn’t stand up to their numbers.

They’d hurt her. Blood ran from a high cut on her arm, soaking the sleeve of her new shirt. The once-friendly townsfolk had become a mob, and he felt the hammering of their fists on his back.

“You must stay!” someone called to him. “You must teach us.”

He shrugged off the blows and grabbed Fiona from the hobgoblin, who started to claw at him in protest. Cradling her to his chest with one arm, he dropped his free hand and tugged loose his knife.