Mel Odom - Rising Tide

'To watch my manners around you," Jherek said honestly. "To keep in mind that you're a lady and to treat you as such."

"As if I would allow myself to be treated any other way." Her voice carried a strain of sarcasm and anger. "If he hadn't sailed with my father, I'd not put up with his interference. Overly long noses are never welcome."

"He cares about you," Jherek pointed out. "That's not necessarily a bad thing."

She regarded him in silence for a moment. "I can look out for myself."

"Aye. I understand. I think the captain just wanted to remind me that others were looking on as well." Jherek continued eating slowly, matching her pace and her movements. Thankfully, his hunger overpowered his feeling of ill ease and she proved to have as big an appetite as he did.

Her conversation drifted, and she skillfully probed his background. He replied to her questions and to the broad statements she made, but kept his answers brief without seeming to be secretive. For the most part, he told her the truth, just not all of it.

His concerns never went away, but he found himself enchanted with her company. Loquacious as she was and as taciturn as he remained, she told a number of stories. After dinner was finished and he'd helped her put the utensils away, she took a flask of spring water she said came from Icewind Dale and guided him back up to the main deck.

Jherek thought briefly of claiming to be tired, but he knew it would have been another lie to add to those he'd already told. He'd also found he enjoyed the ship's mage's company. The last three days of being alone in a group of strangers with his future so uncertain had been hard. When he was with her, he found he didn't worry about the future quite so much.

Sabyna, daughter of Siann Truesail, sat on the prow of Breezerunner only a little later, within easy speaking distance of the young sailor who'd so caught her attention. She watched him as he sat cross-legged and gazed out at the sea, surprised at how comfortable she felt with him.

Still, he remained an enigma, and her wizard's mind constantly pried at the why and how of things, not tolerating mysteries of any kind. Exactly what the young sailor who called himself Malorrie represented, she wasn't sure, but she knew he'd lied at least about his name.

She'd used a light spell to read his surface thoughts when she'd talked to him earlier in the day and had gleaned that. The spell wasn't something she was especially proud of, but as ship's mage, information meant profit and often survival for the ship and crew. However, there was no indication that he meant Breezerunner or her crew any harm.

He watched the star-spattered sky overhead, rocking easily with the ship's motion. The prow lifted and descended across the rolling waves, and the rigging creaked as it was pushed along by the prevailing winds.

"You love the sea, don't you?" she asked, knowing it was true even before her spell confirmed it.

"Aye," he answered without hesitation. "I can't imagine having a life without it."

From his tone and from what she was able to pick up from his thoughts with her magic, she got the impression he was feeling pressure to make some kind of decision. "How long have you been at sea?"

"All my life, lady. I was born at sea."

That was unusual in these days, Sabyna knew. A good midwife could tell when a babe had dropped into position to be born, and women didn't take to sea at that time unless the need was great.

As if realizing he'd told too much, the young sailor said, "I was born almost a month premature, on a long voyage in harsh seas. Luckily, I survived it."

"What about your mother?"

He shook his head, his eyes picking up pale fire from the gibbous moon. "I lost her."

"I'm sorry."

"Aye."

"I was raised on a ship myself. My father's a ship's mage."

"So the captain said."

That irked Sabyna. Her business was her own. As she thought that, she felt a twinge of guilt for trying to pursue the young sailor's secrets herself.

"Tynnel was being awfully generous with his information," she said. "That's not like him."

The young sailor shrugged. Sabyna noted the dark circles under his eyes and felt bad for keeping him up so late when he'd obviously been worn out by his previous journey. She knew that wasn't right. He looked healthy, not worn down, so whatever strain he was under was mental, not physical.

Still, she wasn't ready to part company with him yet. "My mother kept after my three brothers and me to study our lessons," she told him. "When we were young, we looked on ship's chores as great fun. It wasn't until we were older that we learned we were supposed to resent work like that."

He laughed and she decided she liked the sound of it. His laugh was low and gentle, like it was something he wasn't used to doing.

"In ports where we traded, some folk made comment that a ship was a small place for children to grow up- dangerous even-but we had the sea, wide and deep and beautiful, filled with wondrous things, and no reason to fear it or anything in it till my brother Dannin was killed in a pirate raid fourteen years ago."

He nodded, suddenly somber for no reason that she could explain.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he said.

Despite all the years that had passed, Dannin's death still hurt. Tears brimmed in her eyes, feeling hot against the cool breeze drifting in from the sea. She got angry at herself momentarily for the loss of control, but there was something about the young sailor that reminded her of her lost brother. Dannin had barely been sixteen, younger than either of them now. She remembered and missed her brother's smile most of all. Dannin was always the most easygoing of her siblings.

The look in Jherek's pale eyes suggested that he wanted to say more but he didn't.

Sabyna sensed that whatever stilled his tongue was wrapped up in one of the secrets he kept to himself. "Besides scraping barnacles," she asked him, "what else can you do?"

"I've worked for a shipwright and built ships from the ground up, from dry dock to harbor."

"I've got a list of repairs I'd like made over the next few days," she told him. If he accepted, she knew she'd be seeing more of him, and maybe she'd get a solution to the enigma he presented. At the very least, he made enjoyable company. "Most of them are only cosmetic, but I'd like them completed. We've only got a couple men who're decent carpenters. If you've got skill, maybe I can get Tynnel to pay some extra wages."

"I'd be happy to look at the repairs, and whatever you can pay would be fine."

He looked like he was about to say something else, but his eyes cut away from hers.

"It could be Tynnel's offered purse would be so small that I'll have to supplement your pay with meals." Part of Sabyna cringed when she was so bold as to say that. She knew her mother wouldn't have approved at all.

"I'd enjoy that."

She gazed out at the horizon, where the wine-dark sky descended and touched the flat surface of the Sea of Swords. "So what is it that draws you to the sea?"

"I don't know, lady," he answered politely, "but I do know that I've felt the pull of it every day of my life."

"Would you like me to foretell your future?" she asked.

He paused, as if weighing the risk, then said simply, "Aye."

"Give me your hand."

Hesitantly, he offered it.

She took his hand in hers and studied it in the pale moonlight. It felt rough and hard, a working man's hand. A few scars from fish knives, nets, and other sharp instruments crisscrossed the natural lines in his palm, making it confusing in the shadows.

"Wait here. I'll need more light."

"If this is going to be trouble for you, I'd rather not."

"It's no trouble," Sabyna said.

He gave her a short nod, but clearly didn't look happy about the extra effort.