A trading islet in the domain of Sazac Joa,

Aldabreshin Archipelago,

20th of For-Summer

I stepped out of the skiff on to the sand, hauling my baggage out without any hand raised to help me. “My thanks,” I said curtly, but no one responded and I walked away without a backward glance. It was hard to feel angry with the Aldabreshi though, despite their lack of courtesy. However they sent their messages with their flags and beacons, word of Kaeska’s fate had spread through the Archipelago like fire through dry brush and Shek Kul’s token, while securing me passage on whatever vessel I wanted, also clearly identified me as the mainlander who’d started the whole business. It was no real surprise that wherever I went I found myself about as welcome as someone who’s lost their nose and half their fingers to creeping scab. I walked slowly along the beach, looking at the signal pennants flying at each masthead, trying find the yellow and crimson pattern the last galley-master had grudgingly shown me, identifying the next domain I needed to cross on this painfully slow progress up the Archipelago. I sighed. The sun was sinking behind a rocky island to the west and I didn’t fancy another night sleeping fitfully in a hollow of sand, hoping no one would rob or knife me before I woke.

“You’re a long way from home, Tormalin man.” This unexpected greeting was sufficiently friendly that I didn’t reach instantly for my sword. In any case, given my recent experiences, I was starting to feel rather wary of using that blade for anything short of outright assault by a full detachment of Elietimm. I turned to see a short, coppery-skinned man in a shabby tunic grinning at me. He was beardless and bald as an egg, pate gleaming in the afternoon sun, but with the right clothes and some hair he could have stepped off any dock anywhere along the coast of the Gulf of Lescar. There was a distinctly Lescari touch to his mongrel Tormalin as well.

“I could say the same of you, couldn’t I?” I watched his dark eyes to judge the sincerity of his reply.

“Perhaps but I don’t really have a home these days, not beyond my ship, anyway. That’s her, the Amigal!” He waved a proud arm at one of the smaller vessels anchored in the narrow strait. Despite the Aldabreshin rigging and unfamiliar arrangement of mast and sail, it looked about the same size as the boats that ply the rivers and coasts on the Gulf coast of Tormalin, carrying a good weight of cargo but only needing a couple of men to manage it. That was interesting in itself, given the preponderance of massive galleys all around us, but more intriguing still was the array of white-bordered pennants strung down a long line from the top of the mast. This little ship and its unknown master had permission to trade their way through a double handful of domains.

I looked down impassively at the man, whose broad smile did not falter, and folded my arms. “What do you want with me?” I demanded with just enough challenge to deter casual conversation.

“I’d have thought you’d be looking to do some business with me,” he replied with an engaging grin. “I know who you are, Tormalin man. You’re the slave to young Laio Shek, that helped her put that bitch Kaeska out to sea in ashes.” He wiped a hand over his mouth in an unconscious gesture I’d seen all too often lately, as people around me realized who I was. “I’d say you’d pay handsomely for a quick passage home, instead of spending the next season hopping from galley to galley and hoping no one tips you overboard, just in case you’re really tainted with magic.”

I wondered how he made a living, if this was his idea of negotiation. Sadly, he was essentially correct. “Where could you take me?” I demanded, no smile to answer his as yet.

“Close enough to the mainland for you to get a passage with a Caladhrian port, to Attar or Claithe, choose how you will.”

I considered this. The most northerly Aldabreshi Warlord had pushed the Caladhrians out of the coastal islands nearly a generation previously and, from all I’d heard, reasonably peaceful trade had resumed a handful or so years ago. Attar or Claithe were entirely the wrong end of the Gulf of Lescar, as far as I was concerned, but did I really want to try and cross the width of the Archipelago in this haphazard fashion and then hunt around for one of the few ships that risked the perilous, if profitable crossing to Zyoutessela, beating against the winds and currents that coiled around the Cape? If I reached Caladhria it would be a long way home, especially now the fighting season in Lescar would be in full bloody flow. Still, I would at least be able to send a letter to Messire via the Despatch and there was always the chance of a direct passage across the Gulf from Relshaz to Toremal. I remembered the haul of gems I had found at the bottom of my kit bag, a parting gift from Laio. I could buy my own cursed galley if only I wanted to, if I could only get back to somewhere civilized.

I looked at the little man and wondered what his idea of me paying handsomely might be. “What’s your name?” I asked, relaxing my stance a little.

“Dev,” he held out his hand palm up, an unmistakably Lescari gesture, that being a country where proving you’ve not got a dagger up your sleeve is reckoned a courtesy.

I shook his hand. “Glad to meet you, Dev. I’m Ryshad.” I looked around the beach, thronged with people and goods as the little skiffs ferried cargo and passengers to and from the waiting galleys. The scent of cooking came from little fires and braziers set up at intervals along the tree line and my stomach rumbled.

“I’m also hungry, that bastard of a captain insisted on putting me ashore before the crew ate.” That had happened to me all too often on this uncomfortable trip, and, with no one in this benighted society understanding the notion of simply paying for a service, I had had no way of purchasing a meal, no matter how much food was being prepared around me, the wealth in my bag a taunting irrelevance.

“Come on then, you can eat with me.” Dev led the way to a shelter woven of tree fronds where a fat woman was deftly pouring batter on a sizzling skillet, folding the resulting pancakes around a spoonful of whatever mixture was requested from a row of pots bubbling on the rim of her broad brazier.

“Which is least spiced?” I asked Dev cautiously, watching as he asked for a helping of meat laced with what I now knew to be scorching red pods. Wherever he’d come from, he’d obviously been in and around the Archipelago long enough to have his tongue tanned like old leather.

“The fish, I’d say.” Dev laughed, not unkindly. He told the woman the name of his ship and she nodded with satisfaction as she noted the pennants at the masthead.

“So what’s an amigal?” I asked, biting cautiously into my meal and finding it reasonably edible to my relief, though I still couldn’t understand why the Aldabreshi couldn’t just eat fish plain.

“It’s a bird of the islands,” replied Dev, mouth full as he ate in rapid bites. “Spends half the year heading south and the rest of the time coming back again, daft creature.”

“Is that what you do?”

“Pretty much, though I don’t go much beyond the domain of Neku Riss.” Dev swallowed his last mouthful and signalled to the woman for another pancake. “So, how did you end up solving Shek Kul’s oldest problem for him then?”

That raised heads all around us, people recognizing the name and enough having sufficient Tormalin to get the gist of Dev’s enquiry. Leaves on the ground rustled as those closest edged away, a reaction I was also well used to by now. I started to give him a concise account of events, thinking it would be no bad thing to spread as much suspicion and fear of the Elietimm throughout the Archipelago as I could. As I mentioned Kaeska for the first time, Dev laid a hand on my wrist.