The governor glared at him and then turned the look on Samir.
“You could do far worse, governor. Master Culin truly is a master, of many things. I think you would find him a serious asset in the admiralty. Certainly I’d rather have him working for me than against me…”
The governor’s glare refused to shift and Samir sighed and withdrew a folded and worn sheet of parchment from his tunic.
“And this particular item was not part of our agreement, but I will proffer it as an extra incentive to accept the change in terms.”
The governor reached out and accepted the parchment, his scowl remaining deep as he unfolded it and read the neat script on the inner surface.
“What is this? A list of names? Who are these people?”
Samir’s grin became darkly mischievous.
“Those are all the people I slipped aboard your ships over the last few years. You may want to honourably discharge them all, since they’ve done you no harm and served as well as any other sailor.”
Next to him, Ghassan blinked.
“You really did have men on board their ships? I assumed that was a lie to goad the council into action?” he asked, his voice hovering somewhere between astonishment and anger. “Not sure I’d have gone along with this if I’d known that.”
Samir laughed quietly.
“I like to have a cushion to fall back on, Ghassan. You know that. There was always the possibility that the governor would not accept my offer, and I had to be prepared.”
Ghassan stared at his brother helplessly as Samir turned back to the governor.
“Straight deal time, governor. You accept the five of us with amnesty into your service and I give you a guaranteed end to the pirate island.”
The governor turned and whispered something into the ear of Marshal Tythias. The two men, along with Commodore Jaral retreated a few paces and then fell into a brief whispered discussion while the Pelasian admiral watched them, an unreadable expression on his face. After a long minute, the three officers turned and strode back across to them.
“Very well. The deal is this: Samir, Ghassan, Saja and Faerus will be pardoned entirely and accepted into the Imperial navy at the rank of Captain, with their own commands, as per your original request. Our offer with respect to master Culin is on different terms, however. We offer an amnesty for all his crimes to date, but without Imperial naval enlistment and on the understanding that he ‘disappears’ as far as we are concerned.”
Samir shook his head.
“That’s…”
He was cut off mid-sentence as the Pelasian admiral gestured at Culin.
“In that case, I would like to offer a position to this man. The Pelasian navy is more than aware of Culin’s accomplishments. I think we can use you?”
Culin shrugged.
“How’s the weather in Pelasia.”
“Hot” the man replied with a tight smile. “Always hot.”
Samir looked back and forth between the two until Culin gave a small nod.
“Looks like you have a deal, governor, though I think you’ve let a major asset slip your fingers there. Be very wary of the Pelasian navy now.”
The governor nodded.
“Then only one thing remains.”
His eyes rose to the mist on the horizon and the black rock of Lassos’ peak rising from the centre. Samir nodded and turned to his brother.
“Ghassan?”
Fishing in his tunic, the taller brother retrieved the bronze disk with its grizzly needle and displayed it openly to the men before them.
“And I have your word this is what you said it was?”
Samir nodded.
“The dead man’s compass. Since the Hart’s Heart took the other one to the bottom of the sea a few hours ago, this is the last. Moreover, I have taken extra steps to cutting off any future hope of navigating the reefs. You need have no more fear of the pirate island, governor. This is an end of it.”
He turned and nodded at Ghassan and the tall captain strode across to the rail nearby. With a curious smile, he changed his grip on the bronze compass and, nestling it in an underarm position, cast it with all his might out into the sea, where it hit the surface, skimmed three times and then disappeared with a plop, sinking to a watery grave.
The governor nodded as Ghassan returned to the group.
“Then our business is complete, captain Samir. Welcome to the Imperial navy. I believe Commodore Jaral has had rather a large cask of some corrosive liquid stored below deck in order to celebrate… I have it on authority that there are rites of passage to endure that defy official terms. I presume you are in no rush to return to your ships?”
Samir glanced back and forth between his friends and noted their grins.
“I think we can spare some time to carouse with our fellow officers, Excellency.”
Epilogue
The sun was beginning to sink below the horizon as Ghassan and Samir rested on the side rail of the Imperial flagship and stared out across the glittering sea. Ghassan had been careful with the drink below, aware at all times of the gaze of Commodore Jaral, and not entirely sure of where he now stood with his former captain, Still, he was back in a position of command and, even if Jaral still held misgivings, Ghassan would soon put them to one side and make his name a noble one again.
Life was suddenly a sea of possibilities. He smiled at the smaller captain by his side. Samir also had partaken only of a couple of drinks, the thumping of the blood in his wounded skull making him light-headed and fuzzy after only a few mouthfuls.
“You did it, Samir. You redeemed both of us.”
Samir nodded, wincing.
“More than that, Ghassan, I think, but it wasn’t just me. I may have been the central peg that held things together, but this was the work of several of us, including the governor and Culin and Saja… but most of all, I agree, it was the sons of Nadia.”
Smiling, he raised his cup to the darkening sky.
“Mother and uncle Faraj wherever you may be. Your boys have made you proud at last.”
Ghassan raised his own cup and took a quick sip.
“It seems like a thousand years since mother died and I lost all hope. And it was you. It was always you, with your ‘things will be better’, that kept me going. Through everything. Everything we lost and so many times we met as enemies, but you never lost sight of that, did you? Everything ‘being better’ was always your goal.”
Samir smiled.
“After what we went through, I think we deserve a little of everything being better, don’t you?”
Ghassan laughed quietly.
“It’s to be hoped we never go to war against Pelasia again. I’d hate to come up against a navy with Culin behind it!”
Samir laughed a genuine laugh and the two fell silent, watching the light fade in the west, taking with it the old world and bringing the possibility of the new.
The desert nomads have a saying.
“When something is broken it should never be discarded. So long as the pieces remain, the whole can be remade.“
Karo was, and he’d be the first to admit it, not a nice man. He’d never been one and piracy had been a natural course for him. After years of fighting in the pits in Calphoris to harden himself, he’d turned to mugging folk as a way to make ends meet. He’d discovered how much he liked to kill that very way, when a mugging went wrong and he’d been forced to dispatch the target. It had been messy and gratuitous. And he’d enjoyed it so much that he’d repeated it the next time; and the next.
Only when the heat from the authorities had become just too much had he had to flee the streets and make for the port where he began the long journey that would lead to him, more than a decade later, being the commander of a boarding party aboard the pirate vessel Diamond Devil. He’d had an illustrious career serving under captain Corun and everything had been rosy until the last couple of days. Then that damned Samir and his treacherous friends had come back and brought disaster with them.