Margaret Weis - Amber and Ashes

“Here, Lady Knight,” he said, scowling as he held out the bag of steel coins. “Take back your money. I don’t want it. I won’t be a party to this folly of yours. I’d have your death on my conscience for the rest of my life.”

Mina picked up the waterskin and slung it over her shoulder. She walked past him to the boat, lowered the second skin down beside the first. Turning to go back for the food, she saw him still scowling, still holding out the money bag. He shook it at her, jingling the coins.

“Here! Take it!”

Mina put his hand gently aside. “You sold me a boat,” she said. “What I do with it is not your responsibility.”

“Aye, but she might not see it that way,” he said darkly, with an ominous nod of his head toward the blue-gray water.

“She? Who is this ‘she?’ ” asked Mina, climbing back down into the boat.

The fisherman cast a glance around, as if fearing they might be overheard, then leaning down, he said in a hissing, fearful whisper. “Zeboim!”

“The sea goddess.” Mina had wrapped strips of salted beef in oilskin to keep them dry, and these she packed away in a wooden crate along with a waterproof bag of biscuits. She did not take much food because—one way or another—her voyage would be a short one. She removed a map, also wrapped in oilskin, and stowed it carefully, the map being more precious than food. “Do not fear Zeboim’s wrath. I am on a holy quest. I intend to ask for her blessing.”

The fisherman remained unconvinced. “My livelihood depends on her favor, Lady Knight. Take back your money. If you’re truly going to try to sail across the Sirrion Sea to Storm’s Keep, as you claim, she won’t give you her blessing. She’ll sink you so fast your head will swim, then she’ll come looking for me.”

Mina shook her head with a smile. “If you are so concerned with what Zeboim might think, take the money to her shrine and give it to her as an offering. I should think that sum would purchase you a large amount of her good will.”

The fisherman considered this, and after a few moments of sucking his lower lip and contemplating the rolling water, he thrust the bag of money into his oilskin breeches.

“Perhaps you’re right, Lady Knight. Old Ned, he gave the Mistress six gold coins, each stamped with the head of some bloke who called himself the Priest King or something like that. Old Ned, he found these coins inside a fish he cut open, and he figured that they must have been the Mistress’s. Maybe she stowed them there for safe-keeping. He didn’t figure they were worth much, on account of he had never heard of this Priest King, but they must have been worth something for now he never goes out in his fishing boat but that he comes back with more cod than you can count.”

“Perhaps she will do the same for you,” Mina remarked.

The food stored, she left the boat and returned for one last object—her armor.

“I hope so,” said the fisherman. “I’ve got six hungry mouths at home to feed. The fishing ain’t been that good of late. One reason I’m forced to sell this here boat.” He rubbed a grizzled chin. “Maybe I’ll split the money with her. Half for her. Half for me. That seems fair, don’t it?”

“Perfectly fair,” said Mina. She unpacked the armor, spread it out on the dock. The fisherman eyed it, shook his head.

“You best keep it dry,” he said. “The salt water’ll rust it something fierce.”

Mina picked up the breastplate. “I have no squire. Will you help me put it on?”

The fisherman stared. “Put on armor? To go sailing?”

Mina smiled at him. The amber of her eyes flowed over him, congealed around him. He lowered his gaze.

“If you capsize, you’ll sink like a dwarf,” he warned her.

Mina fit the cuirass over her head and held up her arms, so that the fisherman could make secure the leather straps that held it together. Accustomed to tying the knots of his net, he went about his task quickly and deftly.

“You appear to be a good man,” Mina commented.

“I am, Lady,” said the fisherman simply, “or leastways I try to be.”

“Yet you worship Zeboim—a goddess reputed to be evil. Why is that?”

The fisherman looked uncomfortable and cast another nervous glance out to sea.

“It’s not that she’s evil so much as she is … well, temperamental. You want to keep on her good side. If she takes against you, there’s no telling what she might do. Blow you out to sea and then leave you with never a puff of air, becalmed, to drift on the water till you die of thirst. Or she might raise up a wave big enough to swallow a house, or whip up storm winds that will toss a man about as if he were naught but a stick. We are good people around here. Most of us worship Mishakal or Kiri-Jolith, but if you live by the sea, you always make it a point to pay your respects to Zeboim, maybe drop off a little gift for her. Just to keep her happy.”

“You mentioned the worship of other gods,’ said Mina. “Do any worship Chemosh?”

“Who?” the fisherman asked, busy with his task.

“Chemosh, Lord of Death.”

The fisherman paused in his work, thought a moment. “Oh, aye. There was some priest of Chemosh came around about a month ago trying to peddle that god to us. Moldy looking, he was. Dressed all in black and smelled like an open crypt. Talked about how the Mishakal cleric was lying to us when she said that our souls went on to the next stage of life’s journey. The fellow told us that the River of Souls had been tainted or some such thing, that our souls were trapped here and that only Chemosh could free us.

“And what became of this priest?”

“Word went about that he’d set up an altar in the graveyard, promising to raise the dead to show us the power of the god. A few of us went, thinkin‘ to see a good show, if nothing else. But then the sheriff came, along with the cleric of Mishakal, and told the priest to take his business elsewhere or he’d have him arrested for disturbing the dead. The priest didn’t want no trouble, I guess, cause he packed up and left.”

“But what if he is right about the souls?” Mina asked.

“Lady,” said the fisherman, exasperated. “Didn’t you hear me? I got six children at home and all of them growing as fast as tadpoles and wanting three square meals a day. It’s not my soul that goes to sea to catch the fish to sell at the market to buy food for the kids. Is it?”

“No, I guess it isn’t,” said Mina.

The fisherman gave an emphatic nod and the straps a final sharp tug. “If it was my soul went out and did the fishing, I’d worry about my soul. But my soul don’t fish, so I don’t worry.”

“I see,” said Mina thoughtfully.

“You say you’re on a holy quest,” said the fisherman. “What god do you follow then?”

“Queen Takhisis,” Mina answered.

”Ain’t she dead?” the fisherman asked.

Mina did not answer. Thanking the man for his help, she climbed down the ladder into the boat.

“Don’t make sense,” the fisherman said, as he started to cast off the lines that held the boat to the dock. “You’re wasting your time, your money, and most likely your life, going on a holy quest for a goddess that ain’t around anymore, or so the cleric of Mishakal tells us.”

Mina looked at him, her expression grave. “My holy quest is not so much for the goddess as for the man who founded the knighthood dedicated to her name. I have been told that the one who betrayed my lord to his death lives out his miserable life on Storm’s Keep. I go to challenge him to battle to avenge Lord Ariakan.”

“Ariakan?” The fisherman chuckled. “Lady, that lord of yours died nigh on forty years ago. How old are you? Eighteen? Nineteen? You never knew him!”