Longing Ring

24

He did not throw stones at his mother, though in the nightmare he does. In the nightmare the stones are sharp and rough against his hand, and he feels them rub his flesh raw.

Blood pours forth. He hurls the stones at his mother, and as the stones float for that singular, frozen, nightmare eternity arc of fall, each one drips his blood.

The stones are still in the air, yet forever moving toward his mother the strange paradox that only dreams can allow. The stretching of time makes J'role anxious in his sleep, as if he himself is falling forever, toward a pit bottom he cannot see. All he wants is for the stone to reach its destination; his life is stuck as the stone floats along its never-ending path.

"Move him!" Captain Patrochian shouted to Releana, leaping forward to engage the mutineers in swordplay. Her sword clacked sharply against Nikronallia’s, then she parried one of the mutineer's blows. Voponis engaged the other two mutineers, and the deck became a flurry of silver swishes of swordplay.

Releana ignored the captain's instructions, preferring to aid her instead. She waved her hands, then cupped them, palms facing forward. Frost formed on her hands, then a spear of ice appeared from out of her cupped hands and flew toward the mutineer who fought alongside Nikronallia. Sparkling in the sun, flakes of ice trailed the spear, then floated down to the deck. J'role, prone and helpless on the deck, looked up at the sight, thinking.

"How beautiful,” even though he knew the observation made no sense at the moment.

Releana's spear drove deep into the mutineer's chest. His clawed green hands flew wide as he screamed and fell back on the deck. The spear shattered, sending chunks of ice skittering around his corpse.

Seeing his companion fall, Nikronallia made a panicked stab at the captain.

She parried, smiling, her triangular teeth nearly ghoulish in her love of the fight. Off Nikronallia pulled back, then lunged once more, his breath forced from his lungs in an angry hiss.

The captain parried again, then added a riposte that Nikronallia parried just before the captain's blade would have sliced through his shoulder.

Meanwhile Voponis drove the other two mutineers across the deck. The swordplay was fast and sometimes the three rapiers seemed no more than a momentary sparkle of wind, somehow magically induced to reveal itself for one extraordinary moment.

With a sudden switch in tactics, Voponis laughed with tremendous bravado, brought his rapier up and under the sword of his opponents, swung his weapon in a wide arc and sent each of the other t'skrang's swords flying off the edge of the ship. The two sailors stood stunned for a moment, then Voponis slashed the air harshly with his blade. Both sailors gasped and jumped back, vanishing from sight over the edge of the ship, splashing into the water below.

Nikronallia saw all this and gave up his fight with Captain Patrochian. Running for a rope attached to a swinging mast, he jumped for it. With one hand on the rope and the other slashing his sword through the air, he swung over the ship shouting, "Now! A call to arms! Follow me! The time to strike is now!"

The captain almost followed, rushing toward another rope, but Voponis caught her arm and spoke quickly in the t'skrang tongue. She looked at J'role, taking in the whole truth of what he'd wanted to warn her about: it was not four sailors who had mutinied, but the entire ship. She would need a plan. She nodded, crossed to J'role, add helped him up.

"We've got to get to the engine room," she said. "If we can take it before the mutineers do, we'll still be in control. Come. We'll use the interior passages. Less obvious that way."

The four of them moved quickly down the steps, across the descending decks, through the winding corridors. Voponis and Releana helped J'role, and the captain went ahead.

Hearing shouts ringing through the ship, they came across two corpses. "They probably refused to join the mutiny" Voponis- said sadly.

Minutes later they came across a fight between five sailors; three against two. When sailors noticed the captain and the others, the group of three turned and ran, pursued momentarily by the other two sailors until the captain called the loyalists back. Their numbers thus strengthened, they continued toward the engine room.

They were almost there when Voponis said, "Despair. . Grim's father!”

J’role remembered Garlthik's desire to have Bevarden killed.

“We can't split up now," the captain said. "We've got to take the engine room. If we succeed at that, we'll decide what to do next."

Releana looked at J'role as if ready to comfort him, but he killed all his feelings, kept his face stony.

As they continued on, the only other individual they encountered was the ship's questor of Garlen, who also joined the group. "I saw three crew members killed in their sleep," he said. "I awoke just in time, saw the murders, and ran off. The ship is hosting a bloodbath." He glanced at J'role's chest as they walked. "I'll tend to that as soon as we're settled,” he said. "You'll be fine."

A terrible feeling came to J'role as they walked down the last corridor. If the engine room was so vital, shouldn't they have encountered trouble by now? But they had not. He suspected that the delayed trouble would be even worse. Though no one spoke of it, the others must have been feeling the same. Their bodies had become more tense, and their rapiers quivered in their hands.

Reaching the door to the engine room, everyone took up a combative stance after they set J'role a few feet back on the floor.

A hesitation. Thoughts evoking the passions of Thystonius and Floranuus. The thrum of the engine grinding the arms that pushed the paddle wheel.

Voponis stepped forward, opened the door.

Through the crowd of legs J'role spotted the engine room's magician. He turned from the engine, slowly, looking surprised. "What? What is it?" he asked.

Everyone relaxed, and in that moment the wizard raised his arms and a ball of fire erupted from his hands.

"Down!" Voponis cried, and even as they all fell back, the fireball rushed across the engine room and caught Voponis full in the chest. He screamed out, and a spray of flames cut down the corridor and splashed over J'role's head.

The captain shouted "NO!" The acrid smell of burnt flesh cu through J'role's senses.

Releana, screaming with wordless rage, leaped to her feet and faced the t'skrang magician. She dug her hand into a pouch on her belt and produced a pinch of dirt, which she threw into the air before her. She cast her spell and the dirt seemed momentarily suspended. The magician was in the midst of preparing another spell when he looked up, saw what Releana was doing, and gasped. Even as he was deciding which way to run, the dirt before Releana transformed into crystalline needles that shot through the air and slammed into the magician's face. The needles ripped through his green scales and pocked him with bright red wounds. He stood still for a moment eyes hidden beneath the blood then fell forward, dead.

Suddenly the doorway filled with mutinous sailors, their swords drawn. Behind them all stood Nikronallia, smiling. "A little late, Captain!" he shouted. Captain Patrochian replied tersely. "Really? I think your death will be most timely."

The loyalist sailors jumped up, and the two sides charged each other. Then began a fury of flashing metal and the sharp clanging of swords. Looking back J'role saw that the corridor behind them was empty. He tugged on Releana's leg. She looked where he pointed, then shouted, "Come!" She leaned down to help J'role up, and the two of them began moving away as quickly as possible from the fierce battle.

Four mutineers appeared before them swords Drawn, Battle fury on their reptilian faces.

Before J’role could even panic, Releana threw more crystalline darts forward in two waves, each wave cutting a mutineer. The other two t'skrang ran off.

J'role glanced back Nikronallia and his followers drove the captain and her loyal sailors down the corridor.

J'role and Releana made their way down several more corridors, the captain and her men following as they tried to keep the mutineers at bay. When J'role realized that they had entered the ship's supply holds he tugged on Releana's arm, pointing down a corridor to the right.

Releana did not know why J'role wanted to turn, but she followed willingly, as did the others.

J'role knew exactly where they were, however. Ahead, on the right, was the storeroom with the fire-coals. If they couldn't hold the engine room, J'role decided they would at least control the materials needed to make the engine work. He indicated the door, and Releana pushed it open.

Two mutineers, alerted by the sound of the door opening, stood facing the doorway, swords drawn. Both lunged forward as Releana dropped J'role to the ground. She fumbled trying to get more dirt out of her-pouch, and the bag fell to the ground. Both mutineers drove their rapiers into Releana's shoulder. She cried out in pain. J'role struggled to get up, though he could feel his chest still wet and sticky from the blood drawn by Nikronallia’s dagger. Then a rapier appeared over his head, and someone dragged Releana out of the way. Captain Patrochian had arrived, and she cut down the mutineers with four precise stabs. "Good. Good," she said. "Everyone in."

They got a huge wooden bar braced against the door just as the mutineers began to pound on the door to get in. From his corner spot, J'role took stock of the group: Captain Patrochian, Releana, the questor, and one other sailor. Everyone else had died or fallen in the retreat from the engine room. Including Voponis, most likely killed by the fireball back at the engine room.

"Captain-" the questor began.

Patrochian cut him off. "See to the boy. I need to think."

The pounding of the door continued, and J'role did not see how the captain could contemplate anything, given the racket and the knowledge that her ship had fallen to traitors. She leaned against a wall and closed her large blue eyes.

At least they were alive, he thought, not killed in their sleep. There was that. J role realized that sometimes sheer survival was the challenge, and success in that the victory.

The questor approached, probed his wound, then began to speak in the t'skrang tongue, with its many long S and T sounds. A sense of well-being drifted through his flesh, and he felt the same sheltering warmth he'd known as a little boy so many, many years ago.

Soon he was lulled into a light sleep

He woke when he heard the captain ask, "Why, though? Why did he do it?" The questor now stood near the, door, listening. Everyone else sat on a few scattered boxes.

J'role was instantly alert to the question and caught the attention of Releana He made the gesture they'd invented for Throal when the had left Blood Wood.

“Throal," Releana said to the captain.

The captain blinked. "The dwarfs. .? That idiot is still. ." She sighed, leaned against the wall. "Getting people to move forward … is so difficult."

"What is it?" asked Releana

"The dwarfs. I've been trying to set up contacts with Throal. I want to use the Breeton as one of their agents to reunite Barsaive under their control, instead of waiting for the Therans to return. If they return. But some of my kind fear the power of Throal. I had no idea most of my crew belonged to that camp."

A pounding began al the door. Everyone else stood up, alert and tense, but drowsiness had begun to overtake J'role. His consciousness wavered for a few minutes but finally the pain and loss of blood took its toll. Drifting, sleeping, dreaming; he left the crisis at hand and hid in the safety of his thoughts.

"J'role? J'role?"

He opened his eyes and saw Releana looking down at him. Something bothered him, something was wrong. How did she know his name?

"J'role!" came a cry from outside the door.

Garlthik.

"Is your name, your true name, J'role?" Releana asked.

He nodded, and slowly raised himself. He felt better. The questor sat next to him, touched J’role’s forehead, and nodded. J'role looked down at his chest and saw a thick purple scab, six inches long.

"Someone is calling for you," said the captain, "though I don't know who it is."

"J'role," Releana, said, taking his hand and shaking it. "It's a pleasure, to meet you."

Despite the desperateness of the situation, she smiled.=

J'role looked to the door. Three large crates had been set against it. From beyond the door Garlthik. said, "J'role, listen to me. I know you can't speak, lad. But I've got your father.

You've got to acknowledge that. I don't, want to harm him, understand. But I can't speak for these cutthroats. You've got to open the door, boy. That's what they told me to tell you. Now, you've got to answer me. There's no telling what they might do. J'role!"

J'role looked to the captain, who nodded.

J'role walked over to the door, climbed up on one of the crates and knocked twice. "Ah.

There's a lad." Garlthik lowered his voice, and J'role strained to hear. "I don't know if it's really you yet, so I'm going to have to test you. Knock once for the first answer, twice for the second. Did I initiate you in a building or a field?”

J'role remembered the night of the initiation at the inn. e knocked once.

"Ahhh. And did I initiate you with fire or water?"

J 'role remembered Garlthik grabbing his hand and moving his wrist over the open candle. The memory overwhelmed him. He grabbed his wrist with his other hand. It felt warm to the touch. But he also remembered the terrible pain with fondness, Garlthik's strong arms holding his wrist in place. He found himself suddenly missing Garlthik. He thought back to their time together on the road. J'role lowered his forehead against the door. He then knocked once.

Garlthik’s voice became something close to a whisper. "Now, once for no, and twice for yes. Do you know the ways now, lad? Do you enjoy being a thief?"

J'role hesitated. Yes. And no. The pause lingered. Finally he knocked once. And then twice.

“Well, then there it is," whispered Garlthik. "For only a thief knows how confusing his talents are. Boy, listen. They're going to bash this door down. They would have blown it open already, but for fear of the fire-coals within. But they will enter. Make things easier.

I've spoken for you and your friends. As a thief, I've got a certain influence with folks like these. They asked me to help them and in return, I'm getting to Throat. I want to take you along with me. I've stopped them from killing your, father. But I can't hold them off for much longer."

J’role’ was stunned by Garlthik's bold lies. For a moment he wondered if Garlthik had changed his mind. Maybe he would come through.

No. He wouldn't come through. He realized now he had pinned his hopes on Garlthik's when they'd left the village, just as he'd once had hopes for his mother. Don't hope, he told himself. People don't come through.

"Now," continued Garlthik, "I know you won't be able to persuade the others to surrender. And not just because you can't speak. They'll hold out until the end because they'll be hoping things will turn their way. This is no time for hope, J'role, except for hope in me. I can save you. I can save your friends. At some moment, soon, you'll have to open the door. There'll bet a flash of activity, but I'll get it settled quick. Will you do this?

Twice for yes."

J'role hesitated, not sure how to answer, not sure if Iying would do much good. But it seemed it would buy them time. He knocked twice.

"Good lad. Good. I'll be waiting."

J'role pulled away from the door, and found the others waiting expectantly. He pointed to himself, then mimed pulling the bar up from the door. They all nodded. "Who is that person?" asked the captain. J'role shrugged, uncertain how to answer, too upset to try.

"What about your father?" Releana asked.

What about his father? His chin began to tremble. He hated this! Why did he always have to look out for his father His mother had put the thing in him. Where had his father been?

Why couldn't his father just be dead and gone?

After a moment the captain gathered everyone to the far side of the room. When they had all formed a tight group, she whispered, "I estimate we'll reach the Chakara within a few hours. I imagine that they'll try to attack her and kill the dwarven envoys. Since the Chakara won't be expecting the attack, Nikronallia will be able to get close enough to board her, and take her. He can stop the dwarfs, cause enough trouble to slow trade with them, and he gains another ship in the bargain."

Her strong, determined tone pulled J'role up from his misery. She paused, and everyone waited expectantly.

"I can't let this happen. I can't let the Breeton be used for this purpose. I'd rather see her sink. And sink she will. We have the means to do it, right here," the captain said, gesturing at the golden boxes containing the fire-coals. "We can burn the ship down."

"Captain," said Releana. "I'm not sure this would help, but I have some elemental air with me." She tapped the small pouch with her magical supplies. "I could combine it with the elemental fire-the fire-coals-to produce an explosion …"

The captain smiled. "We can rip a hole in this room, right at the water level, and the ship will flood. There is a chance we can survive the explosion if we're crafty, but no guarantees." She looked at each of them. "I cannot make this decision for any of you. If you would rather surrender …" Her voice trailed off.

J'role knew that of anyone in the room, he was the only one who might survive if they surrendered. But he had no desire to surrender. These were the people who had stood by him. He would rather die with them than sacrifice them for his own survival. In his mother's own painful way, she had taught him that much at least.

Each one nodded in turn. They would sink the Breeton.