Tina Daniell: Maquesta Kar-Thon

Climbing down as quickly as the gusting wind permitted, Maquesta jumped lightly to the deck. Her composure complete, she shot Averon a lethal look, then deliberately swept her glance over the faces of the surrounding sailors, daring any one of them to make a comment. Averon, for an instant, refused to meet her glance. Then, bending over in an exaggerated bow, he swept off an imaginary cap. "Well done, Maquesta Kar-Thon," he pronounced, raising his eyes, which were once again twinkling with mischief. "Well done indeed!"

Maq managed to resist Averon's charm for the space of at least three minutes. Just as she felt her lips start to twitch upward in the beginnings of a smile, Melas Kar-Thon emerged onto the main deck from his cabin at the stern. Seeing a dozen or so crewmembers standing idly, observing Averon and Maquesta mentally sparring, he strode toward the pair and bellowed.

"What's this? In case you've forgotten, we have a race to prepare for. Averon-You dog! What mischief have you got up to that's keeping the crew from doing their jobs? Now back to work everybody-especially you two," Melas shouted, frowning at Averon and Maquesta.

Notwithstanding the harsh words, all of this was said with a good-natured gruffness typical of the Perechon's amiable captain. Before all the words were out of his mouth, the sailors had jumped back to their tasks, an overall satisfaction with their captain and their duty indicated by the minimal grumbling.

"Now, you two. What am I going to do with you? You're supposed to be setting an example," Melas exclaimed with mock seriousness, attempting to throw his arms around Maq and Averon. Maq neatly eluded her father's grasp, but Averon was less agile. Melas got his arm around his friend's shoulder and quickly turned the embrace into a headlock. Not that it was too difficult.

The friends offered a study in contrasts: Melas stood more than six feet tall and had glistening black skin, darker even than Maquesta's. He was completely bald, making his large head, set on broad, powerful shoulders, even more striking. His muscular build had begun only in the last few years to reveal, with a thickening in the middle, his fondness for ale. Averon stood a good head shorter, and was slightly bowlegged. He had dirty blond hair that he wore long these days, hoping to cover the thinning spot at his crown. A thick handlebar mustache was his only neatly groomed aspect. His bronzed skin was weathered by the sun, sporting wrinkles here and there and making him look older than he actually was.

"What did you find out when you paid our entry fee, Maquesta? Anything that will help us tomorrow?" Melas asked, tightening his grip on Averon, then releasing him with a playful shove. The first mate stumbled for a couple steps, turned, and threw all his weight into a low tackle that sent the bigger man sprawling. In an instant the two were rolling around the deck, wrestling.

"Stop it!" Once again chagrined at how quickly her father and Averon could revert to boyhood behavior, Maquesta put her hands on her hips and shouted more loudly, "Stop it at once! You both have to be in good shape tomorrow, or we won't have any chance to win. Now get up!" Honestly, sometimes she felt like their mother.

Her reminder brought the two to their feet, slightly winded. The coming race was important to both men, indeed to everyone aboard the Perechon . Solinari and Lunitari had cycled through the skies several times since the Perechon had seen her last well-paying customer. As usual, most of the crew had stayed with the ship. Melas, always content to "make do" from paying assignment to paying assignment-as long as he could sail while doing it-was not the most reliable paymaster. Sailors for hire on the Blood Sea knew that, but those who truly loved to sail loved to sail with him.

This recent dry spell had lasted long enough, though, that Averon had recently disappeared on one of his periodic departures "to seek my fortune," as he always proclaimed rather grandly. These jaunts were usually preceded by a scolding for Melas, whom Averon chided for not being ambitious enough. However, some time later, or sooner, he would track down the Perechon , bringing with him a bellyful of outrageous stories about his adventures and little else-with often not even two coppers to rub together. Then it was Melas's turn to offer some constructive criticism. Despite the ribbing back and forth, no serious disagreement had ever disrupted Melas and Averon's friendship. It ran too deep. And Maq always welcomed Averon's return, both on behalf of her father and herself. He was part of the only family she had ever known.

This last time, Averon had returned with news of the race in connection with the minotaur circus-no doubt the event was being held with the idea of minotaur crews inflicting humiliating defeat on non-minotaur entrants, all the while displaying their skill as sailors. Sort of a preparation exercise for the deadly-in-earnest circus contest. The purse was good-sized, Averon said, and it would carry the Perechon and her crew nicely for quite some time.

Now safely out of Melas's firm grasp, Averon took himself off to attend to preparations, voicing a mock-disgruntled rant about being under-appreciated by the Perechon's captain-and his daughter.

"What was that all about? Between you and Averon?" Melas asked Maq when they were alone. "And what is that you're holding? You looked ready to skin Averon when I came on deck."

Maquesta crumpled the silken vest into a ball, hiding it behind her back in her fist, somehow embarrassed to show the undergarment to her father.

"Averon…" she began, then hesitated and only shook her head. "Nothing. It was nothing." She knew, however justified her complaint about Averon's behavior might be, Melas would shrug it off. He always did.

Melas placed his arm lovingly around his daughter's shoulders and drew her toward him, planting a kiss on her forehead.

"Everybody's tense before a race. Whatever he did, I'm sure it was meant to give everyone a little fun. You have to understand, Maq," Melas said, giving her shoulders a gentle squeeze, "there aren't many friends as true as Averon. I'm sure he didn't mean any harm."

Maquesta hugged her father in return. "I know. And I'm fine." She pulled away from him and grinned. "But I am hungry; I'm going to track down Lendle and see what he's cooking up for supper. I hope it's not another version of dried eel stew."

Maq watched her father stride off to join a group of sailors checking the rigging on the mizzenmast, the smaller of the ship's masts, then she turned and headed forward toward the galley. "Sure, Averon wanted to give everyone a little fun-except for me!" she muttered to herself as she walked away.

As soon as she approached the galley's threshold, Maq knew that tonight's menu would, indeed, consist of dried eel stew, though it was mixed this time with some spices she couldn't identify. The tall pot simmering securely between brackets on the wood-fired stove emitted the fishy, oily aroma that unmistakably signaled the stew. Lendle, however, was nowhere in sight. Maq ducked her head as she moved over to take a closer look at what was cooking in the pot. The gnome had rigged up the galley so that virtually all his cooking implements-large spoons, soup ladles, double-pronged cooking forks, pots and pans-hung from a maze of movable belts suspended below the ceiling, with various leather pulls trailing down within his reach. Lendle insisted he knew precisely which thong to pull to set the belts in motion, bringing whatever utensil he needed to the stove or trestle table, with another tug releasing it from its latched hook into his waiting hands. In Maq's experience, however, this rarely occurred. More often than not the implement tumbled clanking to the floor-across the room from where Lendle was standing-or fell directly into whatever was being cooked. On several occasions, one tug from Lendle had sent all the paraphernalia loudly crashing down and bringing everyone running to see what had happened. And in one or two instances, a sharp cooking fork had slightly wounded an unwary visitor to the galley-but Maq suspected Lendle had contrived those "accidents" for crewmembers who had offended him or insulted his cooking. A fork hadn't fallen for quite some time.