Beyond the Pool of Stars Page 4

  “I didn’t promise that your job would be simple,” Alderra reminded her.

  “Nothing good is ever simple.” Mirian tapped the table a last time, then thrust her hand across it. “Very well, Alderra. It seems I’ve little choice.”

  The noblewoman shook her hand formally. “You had other choices. They just weren’t good ones.”

  4

  Reunion

  Mirian

  By the time Mirian joined Rendak at the prow she could see the stone walls of Eleder rising along the darkening coast. The fog had rolled away with the evening breeze, leaving a clear view of the city from leagues away. It sprawled beyond its great walls. Distant lights twinkled a white-and-golden welcome, although Mirian knew most were lanterns hung in harbor taverns, gambling halls, and brothels in the deliberate buffer zone between the wharf and the proper city districts. The city had to be open to the Free Captains, but the governing elders preferred to trap them in a single district, where there would be plenty to distract them from advancing into more upscale neighborhoods.

  Mirian had already asked about Rendak’s arm, which he’d reported as sore but healing, and his family, which he reported as fair. And then she began to test the truth of what Alderra Galanor had told her. Right away Rendak took exception to the idea that the Chelish had anything to do with her father’s death.

  “Oh, no, lass.” Rendak’s gravelly voice fell to a low rumble. “That was sea devils. And they don’t work with nobody.”

  Sea devil was the name all the folk of Desperation Bay gave the sharklike humanoids that laired in the deep waters and sometimes prowled the wreck of the Chelish fleet, the ships that had been sunk during Sargava’s battle for independence. “Sea devils killed him?” She had a hard time believing it. “Why were you anywhere near them?”

  “Money’s been a little low.”

  “I’ve heard it’s worse than that.”

  Rendak scratched the back of his neck. “Your mother tell you?”

  “Lady Galanor filled me in. Are the coffers as empty as she said?”

  “Empty enough to make us dive the Chelish fleet wreck. We’d had our eye on a big old four-master for years but didn’t want to risk it. We figured we didn’t have a choice.”

  “You’re certain it was sea devils that killed him?”

  “It was sharks that killed him,” Rendak said, “but sea devils made them. We could see one of them floatin’ nearby. You know how they get on with sharks. A big one sneaked up on Leo.” He paused, as if to gather strength for the rest of the story, then remained silent. “Go on.” Strange. She thought she’d made peace with her father’s death, and now she felt a tightening in her chest.

  Rendak stared a moment, then blurted out, “He was going for the sea devil, just raising his wand at that figure floatin’ out there in the dark, when the shark came out of a hole in the hull and took most of his arm off. We managed to get him away, but he’d bled out by the time we got him to Tokello.”

  Mirian could picture the moment too well, a mad flurry of shapes in black waters, sharks driven to frenzy by the blood. Rendak and Gombe fighting desperately with their diving spears to drive off the great predators, Gombe pulling her paling father up as Rendak swam guard.

  Rendak’s jaw tightened and he lowered his head. He let out a long breath, looked at her as if he wished to say more but had forgotten the words.

  Mirian gripped his shoulder. “I know you did all you could, and more than you should have.”

  “I never thought it’d be him to go down,” Rendak said.

  Maybe her father’s death really had been an unconnected tragedy. It didn’t change that he was gone, or the state of affairs he’d left things in. “Lady Galanor said Father had lined up another salvage run that was potentially lucrative. Why didn’t you hold out for that instead of risking anything near sea devil territory?”

  Rendak’s eyes narrowed in thought, and he dropped his voice. “You mean with the lizardfolk?”

  “Aye.”

  “Leo said that one was likely to be dangerous, lass. More dangerous than going into the fleet wrecks. Leo was hoping we could maybe score big with a quick drop, and then we wouldn’t have to go through with it.”

  “Did he tell you where the lizardfolk drop was?”

  “No.”

  “What about the lizardfolk? Do you know where they went?”

  Rendak shook his head.

  “That’s too bad. Because I’m going to have to find them.”

  He looked at her sidelong. “Is that what you’ve been talking to Lady Galanor about?”

  “Yes.”

  A smile pulled up one corner of his beard. “You taking over?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you can count me in. Probably all of us.” His smile broadened. “Will you be leading from here on out?”

  “No. I’ll help with the debt, then I’m gone.”

  “Huh.” Rendak sounded disappointed

  “Don’t say a thing to anyone else. Lady Galanor thinks someone’s leaking word of our plans. They were sent to sink the Daughter on this salvage run.”

  “You think someone on board’s a traitor?” Rendak’s eyebrows rose in astonishment.

  She shook her head. “No, I think someone talked too much.” She studied her father’s trusted friend and hoped that she’d judged right by sharing the information with him.

  Mirian shook off that moment of doubt. If she couldn’t trust the loyalty of Filian Rendak, then she might as well give up on the human race. “How do you like being captain?”

  Rendak grunted. “I always figured you’d be captain, once Leo was done with it.”

  “What about Kellic?”

  Rendak scratched his neck, looked away, sighed. “He’s not a salvager. He’s known it for years. You were the one. That’s why Leo gave you the rings. And that’s why he knew you were coming back.”

  “Father actually said that?”

  “Aye.”

  Mirian was a little surprised her father mentioned her at all, especially after their final conversation. She’d assumed that Leovan Raas, champion grudge-holder, would keep a closed mouth about his second daughter, just like he did his first wife, his first daughter, and the old explorer’s club—anything that hadn’t worked out for him, really. “What did he say?”

  “That the sea was in your blood.” Rendak’s bold cadence briefly mimicked her father’s. “That you would’ve turned those rings over to your brother if you meant to leave the trade forever.”

  “It wasn’t the trade I hated, Rendak. It was Eleder.”

  “Oh, there are worse cities. It’s what you make of it.”

  She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice. “Eleder’s fine, so long as you know your place.”

  “Leo made his place,” Rendak said with pride.

  “That was his problem.”

  “No. That was what everyone else’s problem was. You want to know why Kellic doesn’t salvage?” He eyed her squarely. “He wants all the little colonial lords to approve of him.”

  Mirian winced. “That’ll never happen.” The little fool. “He should know that.”

  “Aye.”

  “There are countless places across the world where they’d accept him just as he is. Even Cheliax could give a toss about the color of his skin. It only matters here.”

  “Things are getting better,” Rendak said.

  “You’re just saying that because you want me to stay.”

  “No, really, they are. The new generation’s a little more accepting.”

  “Then why is Kellic having trouble?”

  “I didn’t say things were perfect.”

  She snorted. “That’s your sales pitch for keeping me here?”

  “Give me time. I’ll think of something better.”

  Rendak’s loyalty was touching. “How’s my mother?”

  “You can see how Leo’s death got to her, but only if you know her well. Poor thing hides behind that Bas’o pride. Sti
ff neck, show no emotion. You know. Sort of that look you were just giving me.”

  Mirian felt a grin pull weakly at her. She knew exactly what Rendak meant. Her mother had worn that same expression after any disappointment, most memorably that evening Mirian had talked a six-year-old Kellic into sneaking down to the docks with her to spy on pirates.

  “That’s Leo’s smile! The only time you look like him, gods be praised. But you’ve got his spirit. You were born for this, Mirian.”

  “That’s kind of you to say.”

  Rendak clapped her on the back. “Well, however long you’re staying, it’s sure good to see you.” He swaggered off.

  Mirian remained at the prow while the Daughter sailed on toward Eleder. It was too dark to pick out the color of the flags flown from the tall ships anchored along the long stone quays of the great harbor, but she knew that they came from all across the region, some probably from as far away as the Inner Sea.

  Gombe guided them for home, along the coastline south of the city. Walled mansions stood on the low ridge above smaller wharves, each owned by the descendants of wealthy Chelish colonists who’d built beyond the protection of the central settlement. Eleder had expanded over the intervening centuries so that the mansions had been transformed from an independent community into a suburb.

  Small pleasure yachts were anchored beside the dark quays of neighbors nearest the Raas dock. If things remained as they had been, the Raas’s were the only ridge family that worked for a living, one of any number of strikes against them. It was perfectly fine to own ships, but colonial aristocrats certainly didn’t captain them, and they didn’t marry native women and father half-native children and demand they be accepted into society.

  Not that there weren’t thousands of half-native citizens running about Sargava. But for an aristocrat to admit having a child with a native was simply a bridge too far. Such children were acknowledged with a quiet stipend so that they could learn a trade, if at all. Only an occasional madman like her father insisted someone of mixed race be fully accepted into Sargavan high society.

  Even with his straight hair and lighter skin, Mirian’s younger brother Kellic had a difficult time of it, though his challenges were nothing like Mirian’s. She had been treated like a servant by her peers at a series of young ladies’ academies. Her last aristocratic schooling had ended in one cataclysmic moment, when her father dropped by at lunch to find her sequestered with the help. The sharp words he’d exchanged with the woman in charge would have resulted in a duel if Madame Corlander’s husband had not been rightfully afraid of Leovan Raas.

  Leovan always had been much better at making enemies than friends. Back then, Mirian had been embarrassed by him. Once she’d been old enough to salvage, she’d grown to idolize him. In the end, she’d realized her father was a man of complexities. He might truly believe in a colorblind society, but he also burned with deep-seated anger. As Mirian matured, she’d sometimes wondered if her father had chosen to marry a Bas’o woman in part because he knew how badly it would piss off his neighbors.

  Two lanterns blazed high and bright on poles raised at the dock’s end. Rendak, at the wheel himself now, guided the Daughter in. The usual crowd of relatives emerged from the gabled dock house and took hold of ropes tossed from the prow as they called out to their loved ones.

  Some of them, she reflected grimly, would not be answering.

  The moment two sailors lifted the gangplank into place, a tall figure in dress pants and a waistcoat hurried across, carrying a cane. Mirian thought at first he was one of Lady Galanor’s contacts, for he moved immediately toward her and her son and offered a formal bow.

  Then she heard his voice. “Lady Galanor, I hope your voyage was a pleasant one?”

  Kellic. That was Kellic?

  Rendak, meanwhile, was overseeing the ship’s tying off even as some of the sailors were calling up to the huddle of waiting relatives about what had happened. The resultant gasps and lone wail drowned out Lady Galanor’s response.

  Mirian carefully walked around the laboring sailors, looking at her brother as she drew closer.

  Tall, slim, elegantly dressed. His straight hair was pushed back from his forehead and lightly powdered, as had been the fashion in Cheliax at some point. He’d grown into a handsome man, with high broad shoulders and a gently cleft chin he’d inherited from Father. His fine nose came from Mother, though it was hard to see much of her in him without close scrutiny, for his skin appeared even lighter than Mirian remembered. Was he wearing makeup?

  And resemblance to either parent ended completely with Kellic’s wardrobe, tailored from the most expensive cloth, with more conservative lines than Leovan Raas had ever worn, complete with a brown cravat, a silver-tipped ornamental cane, and a hand that glittered with rings.

  Next to him, Lady Galanor looked like a laborer.

  Her brother’s face fell as Lady Galanor spoke to him. Mirian drew up near Ivrian, waiting by his mother’s side.

  The younger Galanor offered a hopeful smile. Mirian still wasn’t sure what to make of him. Ivrian’s own clothing was flamboyant, and he carried himself with a sort of careless exuberance. Yet she knew he’d been a crucial player in driving back the pirates, so she nodded a bow.

  Ivrian brightened and returned the gesture.

  “Mirian?” Kellic had finally noticed her. “What are you— How—”

  “Your sister happened to be in the right place at the right time,” Lady Galanor said. “If she hadn’t dived off her passenger ship to help us, the pirates would probably be sailing the Daughter off to Smuggler’s Shiv right now. And I don’t care to think what they would have done with us.”

  “Mirian.” Kellic’s eyes brightened for a moment. He grimaced at her clothing, yet nevertheless opened his arms to her. The two embraced.

  They pulled apart. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Mother wrote me about father’s death. I returned as soon as I could.”

  “It seems like your arrival was timely.” His smile was polite. He turned back to Lady Galanor. “I’m very sorry to hear that you were placed in danger, Lady Galanor.” His eyes slipped over to where shrouded forms were being carried up the gangplank. “Gods.”

  “We lost some crew,” Mirian said.

  “That’s terrible,” he said. “Terrible news. I don’t suppose Rendak found anything to make all of this worthwhile?”

  Mirian thought Kellic should probably have dwelt on the former sentiment a little longer, then reminded herself that her family was in grave danger of losing both home and ship.

  “There was nothing there,” Lady Galanor said.

  “Oh.” Kellic’s disappointment was almost comic.

  “Fortunately, your sister has a new salvage site.”

  “Oh?” Kellic’s brows rose. To Mirian’s ears, he didn’t sound as pleased as he should have.

  “We’re keeping the details quiet, though.” Lady Galanor stepped close, and beckoned Kellic to lean forward. She spoke into his ear so that Mirian had to strain to hear. “We think we were deliberately targeted, so the location’s remaining secret until after we launch.”

  “My goodness.” He straightened and looked between Alderra and Mirian. “How soon will you leave?”

  “I have to look into some things,” Mirian answered. “It’ll be a few days.”

  Rendak came up beside Mirian and saluted Kellic.

  “So you didn’t find anything, then,” Kellic said. “Who did we lose?”

  “Vemik and Alia. We’re taking up a collection for their families.”

  Kellic nodded. “Quite right. Quite right.”

  With their wage-earners dead, both families would have a difficult time making ends meet. The proper thing for Kellic to do would be to hand over money immediately, but he only shook his head and fingered his cane. “I wish that we ourselves weren’t so severely stretched for resources. I hope the families understand.”

  “Here.” Mirian lifted Rendak’s hand,
pulled two of the three remaining emeralds from her pouch, and dropped them into his calloused palm. The moment, and Rendak’s reaction, was so similar to the one that had played out with Captain Akimba that she found herself wondering about the Red Leopard. The ship was probably at a wharf unloading its cargo. There might even be a carriage en route to her home with her sea chest.

  Rendak stared at the sparkling gems and whistled under his breath.

  “Allow me, as well,” Alderra Galanor said, and passed over her coin purse.

  “That’s very generous of you, m’lady,” Kellic said with a bow.

  But Lady Galanor’s attention was focused only on Rendak, who inclined his head politely. “You’re very kind, m’lady. Mirian, are you sure you can afford this?”

  “I’ll be fine,” she said.

  “I’ll pass these on immediately.” Once more Rendak bowed to Lady Galanor, then moved up the gangway after Gombe and Tokello.

  “Well then.” Lady Galanor indicated the wharf. “Shall we be off? It’s been a long day.”

  “Oh, of course.” Kellic indicated the exit with a sweeping bow and then followed on the heels of Lady Galanor and her son. Mirian trailed, trying not to look at the woman huddled weeping beside Alia or the two young men staring down at the other sail-wrapped body, wiping their eyes while Rendak talked seriously with them.

  Tokello stepped out of the shadows and fell in step with Mirian. “Someone of sense needs to run this business.” She flashed a smile. “It’s good to have you back, child.”

  She wished it felt good to be back. “It’s good to see you, Tokello.”

  “Wait until you see my niece. She’s practically as tall as you now. And running the stables! She loves those nags. She’d sleep out there in the hay with them if I let her!”

  Mirian peered past the lantern burning at the wharf’s end to the ridge road and the sloped walk up to their house. She could just make out the second-story tower that jutted above the manor wall. Not so long ago her mother had routinely watched each night from its roof for the Daughter’s return. Had she observed them as they dropped anchor this evening?

  Tokello could read her mood easily enough. “It must be a hard homecoming for you, Mirian. I’m so sorry about your father.”