A Stone's Throw: Chapter One (Shadows on the Water)

[Eldil]

A Stone’s Throw
Chapter I: Shadows Over the Water

Well an elf his eyes are keen
and an elf his skin is pink
and an elf his ears are sharp
and an elf his arse don’t stink

So Copper Sons be wise
For the Phoenix fire blows
If ye’ want to hide from a elf’s keen eyes
Keep underneath his nose

—Copper Islands Drinking Song

Some runs were just screwed from the get, and a smuggler was lucky to make it out with a head on his shoulders and clothes on his back. Most runs were just long stretches of boredom broken up by a few moments of breathless panic or brutal violence that ended well for no one. But once in a while, a run came along that perfect as a southern sunrise, smooth as silk, and sweet as summer honey, right up to the end.

And that, Morgan had learned, was when a smuggler had to be on his guard. Because there never had been, or would be, anything perfect in this world, and if the skies had been clear for a spell, it was only because the gods were off brewing up a particularly nasty storm to drop on a man’s head.

Morgan contemplated this as the icy southbound wind filled the junk’s patchwork sail, pushing them quickly along Itharia’s frozen western coastline towards the unclaimed waters beyond the Arrow’s Point. That same wind carried the faint stink of ash and sulfur from the fuming northern peaks, which served as a keen reminder to Morgan that they still lay in the shadow of the Phoenix.

He pulled the coarse cotton blanket tighter around his body, and leaned into the rudder, guiding the junk a little farther from shore until the icy coast was just a white sliver on the horizon. It was dangerous—he was no deep sailor, nor would the rotting vessel last long if the dark clouds sweeping in from the east turned to storm. But the further they kept from shore, the less likely they would be noticed, and Morgan didn’t care to press their luck.

“Free and clear, aye?” Doyle shouted, stomping up from the hold. His old bones cracked and creaked almost as loud as the stairs. He stopped mid-way, and leaned against the deck with the stump of his right hand. He hoisted a bottle in his left. “Celebrations are in order. Let’s get warm.”

“We’re not free yet,” Morgan whispered, his words churning steam from his lips.

“You worry too much,” Doyle said. “It’ll take years off your life. We’re free and clear, by the gods.”

Morgan could have planted a boot square in the center of the Doyle’s wrinkled, pox-scarred face for that remark. It was dangerous enough for a smuggler to call down the gods. But to gloat, while they still had their feet in the fire…

The gods answered with a whistle, followed by a soft, sickening thud. Morgan glanced up, and felt his blood turn to ice.

A single arrow was planted in at the top of the ship’s small mast. It was fletched with amber feathers, streaked by beautiful orange hairs that gave it the appearance of a candle flame.

Doyle swallowed and looked backwards, squinting his eyes against the low sun’s reflection off the waves.

“Lower the sail,” Morgan said in a hollow voice.

“I don’t see them,” Doyle rasped, as if he hadn’t heard Morgan at all.

“It doesn’t matter. They can see us,” Morgan said. “Lower the sail.”

Doyle climbed the rest of the way onto the deck, and looked across the bow, to the spike of stony land that shot out from the coast into the sea in front of them.

“We’re almost to the point,” he said. “The wind’s at our back. We can make it—we’ll catch the current. They won’t dare follow us—”

“Doyle, drop the blasted sail!” Morgan shouted.

“We can make it!” Doyle shouted back. “We can—”

A second thud cut him off. A second arrow, mid-mast, with feathers the color of blood.

“Doyle,” Morgan said, and spoke in a grim whisper, “Drop the damned sail.”

Doyle contemplated the second arrow for a moment, and then quickly lowered the sail.

The ship reached them within minutes. She was a patrol ship, with two short masts decked by triangular sails, and the smooth, graceful body of all Elven ships. Her planks were grey pine, but stained a fiery red, and there was forged steel edge along her center line for breaking through ice flows. She cut through the water like a knife.

Morgan and Doyle did not speak. They were wiser than that. Morgan doubted that even Elven ears could hear them over the splash of the waves and the roar of the wind, but he had heard that many Elves learned to read lips, and their eyesight was legendary. Better to keep quiet—especially when there was nothing to say.

They sat on the deck, cross-legged, and stared at each other, Morgan with one hand on the rudder, Doyle holding the bottle. Doyle pulled the cork free with two of his remaining teeth and spat it onto the deck. He swigged, and then passed the bottle to Morgan. Morgan drank—the liquor burned his lips and throat on the way down, but it brewed courage in his belly. That was good. He was tempted to take another swig, but stopped himself, and passed it back to Doyle. There was such a thing as too much courage.

“Present yourselves!” came the shout, as the patrol ship drew close. “Prepare to be boarded!”

The voice that carried over the waves was swollen with dignity and pride. Morgan kept one hand on the rudder, but rose and lifted his other hand to the sky. Doyle did likewise, lifting his stump slightly higher than his good hand, which still held the bottle.

The Elven ship—twice as long as the junk—pulled alongside them. Ropes were cast down, but no signal was given for Morgan or Doyle to tie them off. Instead, two elven archers leaned over the rail, with arrows drawn on Morgan and Doyle.

Death, Morgan mused. It was just a twitch away.

Elven guards, dressed warmly in robes of red and yellow, leapt over the rail and descended to the junk’s deck without a sound. The tilt of the ship barely registered their landing. With effortless precision, they tied off the ropes, and then stood, their hands on the hilts of their undrawn swords, balancing on the deck as if the sway of the ship and their bodies were as one.

Out of the corner of his eye, Morgan watched Dolye move the bottle to his lips—slowly, as to not be threatening—and take a deep drink.

A plank extended from the Elven ship and crashed onto the deck of the junk, and Morgan knew, as the tall figure crossed it, that this was undoubtedly the captain. He had coal-black hair with a few flecks of grey about the temples, eyes that flashed with burning orange, and a proud, noble face that was marred by a long scar that traveled from the edge of his tight lips to his right temple.

Morgan found it strangely comforting, and also strangely disquieting, to know that something had been able to so grievously wound this godlike creature.

“I am El-Kaleen Ur Dumma, Master of the Elieen’s Torch,” the captain announced, staring not so much at Doyle as through him. He turned his burning gaze on Morgan. “Who are you, and why are you in the waters of the Phoenix?”

Morgan kept his eyes low, and avoided Keelan’s stare.

“We’re fishermen, sir,” Morgan said, speaking with a thick, simple voice, tinted with a slight tremble. “Our lord paid the Phoenix for fishing rights off the coast of Firepeak. We’ve got papers to prove it, sir. I can’t read ‘em, but we’ve got ‘em.”

Kaleen stiffened—no doubt his pride was bracing against the blow. That the Phoenix Elves were in such straights as to sell fishing rights to the pox-ridden men of the Copper Islands was a point of shame for their entire race. Morgan had hoped that shame alone would be enough to dissuade an investigation, but the Captain of the Eileen’s Torch was a more thorough creature than that.

[Eldil]

Kaleen assigned one of the guards to follow Morgan down into the hold, where he retrieved the papers. They were a stained and folded mess, nearly falling apart, but they bore the seal of so—called King Royce of the Kingdom of the Summer Sons of the Copper Islands. There actually was a King Royce of the Copper Islands—though kings and kingdoms were as common as carbuncles amongst the island folk—but he had been assassinated by his own sons last winter, which was how the forger had come into possession of the seal in the first place. Morgan only hoped that El-Kaleen Ur Dumma didn’t keep up on island politics.

Kaleen stared at the pages disdainfully. Morgan felt the sweat bead on his brow, and hoped it looked like peasant sweat, rather than smuggler sweat. Beside him, Doyle swallowed, and then belched softly.

“If you are fishermen,” Kaleen finally said, glancing down into the empty hold, “then where is your catch? Won’t King Royce of the Summer Sons of the Copper Islands—” his voice dripped with derision “—be disappointed to find his royal subjects returning empty-handed?”

“We dipped our nets three times, sir—” Doyle said, taking a sudden step forward, and then freezing as the guards’ keen, silver each blades slid six inches out of their sheaths. Kaleen waved a hand to hold them back, but Morgan could still hear the soft moan of the archers bowstrings drawing taut above them.

Just a twitch away, Morgan thought again.

“Begging your pardon, master-elf-sir,” Doyle sputtered, and Morgan wondered how much of the drunken slur was an act. “As I said, we dipped our nets three times. On the first time, not a thing, sir, not a minnow. On the second time, we catch a blackfish, just one blackfish, and that’s a bad omen, sir, it is among the Copper Islands folk, may the gods keep good King Royce!” Doyle roared this last bit, and put his stump over his heart, as his other hand was occupied by the bottle.

Despite everything, Morgan almost laughed. Doyle did love to improvise.

“Anyways, master-elf-sir, anyways, so I say we stop, because a blackfish is a bad omen, sir, but Morgan there—” Doyle gestured to Morgan with the bottle “—he says we should keep trying, he says he doesn’t think a blackfish is a bad omen, and why should the gods send us a bad omen anyways, and haven’t they got better things to do? So we try again, and this time the net is full sir, full to the gills—the gills, if you get me sir—and I almost think that Morgan is right about the whole thing, and then the net splits, and all the catch go swimming back into the sea, and we’re left with naught but a torn net, sir, poorer than when we began, gods have mercy, sir.”

Kaleen stared at Doyle as if he were skewering him with his gaze, but Doyle only belched again, and quietly begged forgiveness. Kaleen turned the skewer on Morgan.

“You tore your nets, fisherman?”

“We did, sir,” Morgan gulped. “You can look down in the hold if you like.”

He could. He would find the broken nets below. But even as Morgan thought about it, he wondered if Kaleen’s eyes were keen enough to notice that the net’s cords had been cut, or that they were dry as a bone.

Just a twitch away.

“If you’re just fisherman, then why were you sailing so far from shore?” Kaleen asked.

This wasn’t working. Kaleen was too clever to be fooled by Doyle’s theatrics. He was wise enough to know that just because there wasn’t anything wrong with their story, it didn’t follow that there was anything right about it.

It would take more than clever lies to fool Kaleen.

It would take the truth.

Morgan reached down inside himself, and drew up all the fear and sincerity and courage he had, and started directly into Kaleen’s blazing, fiery eyes. They gleamed like the eyes of an eagle, fixing on his quarry.

“Master El-Kaleen,” Morgan began. “The truth is, we were sailing so far from shore because we didn’t want to get stopped by a patrol.”

Morgan stared in Kaleen’s eyes, daring him to find some trace of deceit. Kaleen only arched a single eyebrow.

“It’s the storm,” Morgan continued, and looked out at the clouds thickening in the eastern sky. “We were afraid if a patrol stopped us—as you’ve done, sir—and took the time to search the whole ship, we might not make it to port in time. We might have to beach ourselves, or we might not even get the chance, so it would either be the orcs or the ocean, and neither is likely to leave us with our lives.”

He looked back at Kaleen. The Elf’s gaze intensified as he spoke.

“You’re telling me that you’re not smugglers,” Kaleen said, sounding each word precisely, as he was slashing with a blade. “And you’re not carrying any illicit cargo on this ship?”

Morgan did not back down. He stared directly into Kaleen’s eye and spoke in a slow, simple voice.

“I’m just the son of a fisherman, sir,” Morgan said. “And I’m not hiding anything on this ship.”

He felt as though Kaleen’s stare were melting him, down to test his purity, and it reached a point where he thought he would burst into flames simply from the heat of it.

Finally, Kaleen broke his gaze.

“Get this bucket out of Phoenix waters,” he said, and pushed the papers back into Morgan’s hands. “And tell your King Royce that his subjects should have the common sense to stick to the shore.”

The world, which had seemed frozen until that point, suddenly accelerated to a furious speed. With a gesture from Kaleen the archers lowered their bows and the guards untied the ropes. Morgan watched the Elves return to their ship, retract the plank, and sail away in the space of what seemed like seconds. It passed before him in a blur. His heart boomed with the slow, heavy beat of a kettle drum.

“By the gods,” Doyle whispered, only when the patrol ship was out of sight. “That was a close one, wasn’t it?”

“Keep your mouth shut about the gods,” Morgan said. His legs felt as though they would collapse, and he steadied himself against the gunwale.

“Can you believe Lightbringer would have us ally with those tight-arsed buggers?” Doyle said. He laughed and took another swig from his bottle.

“Lightbringer’s in love with his own halo,” Morgan said, and there was no humor in his voice. “Just get us past the Point before that damned storm drops on our heads.”

“Aye, aye, captain,” Doyle clucked, and took the rudder.

Morgan made his way aft. The sea wind was freezing and raw against his damp body, but it smelled clean and pure. He reached the bow, and located the small cord that inconspicuously trailed over the side. Hand over hand, he began to draw it up.

This was a danger, he knew. There was still the chance they might be stopped again. But Morgan needed to see it again. He needed to see the thing he had risked his life for.

It made a splash as it cleared the water. Morgan reached over the side of the boat and grabbed the burlap sack, bound and thickly knotted up in the cord, so as to make coming loose impossible. It was soaking wet from where it had ridden beneath the waves, but that would bring no harm to the contents.

I’m not hiding anything on this ship, Morgan had said. And it had been true. He had needed to be able to speak the truth, or the lie would never have worked.

With frozen fingers, he slowly worked the knots free and opened the sack. The object inside was no larger than a fist: a smooth, azure stone, with a surface that looked like light passing through water. There was some kind of rune carved in the surface of the stone, but the writing looked like no Elven script Morgan had ever seen, and no Dwarven, either. It felt warm to the touch, but perhaps that was just illusion created by the cold wind whipping off the sea.

What was this stone, that the dwarves were willing to pay so much for it?

It didn’t matter. This stone would make him richer than any of the so-called Kings of the Copper Islands. The price of this stone could make the lowly son of a fisherman as royal as any of the Lords of Men. Even Lightbringer would have to treat him with respect. And he could live out the rest of his life in comfort, and splendor, and never have to smell the rotten stink of fish ever again.

“I’ll outlaw fish,” Morgan muttered to himself, and chuckled. “My first royal decree. Not so much as a minnow, in all of my domain, on pain of death.”

He laughed out loud, and his laughter mixed with the splash of the waves and the roar of the wind. The stone felt warm in his hands, and filled him with courage—all he need do is will it, and this stone would bring him anything he wanted.

In the east, the dark clouds continued to gather.

<END CHAPTER ONE>

[infamous1]

sounds good so far, looking forward to the next chapter

[Truth]

This is very good work. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Grungebob]

I agree. Great writing Eldil.

[mrkurtb]

Good stuff Eldil.

[Lord_AndraK]

Nice
a good short read i shall enjoy reading chapter 2