"Dear, sweet Jherek," she rebuked softly, "so much doubt."
He felt guilty at her tone. "Aye," he agreed, "but I've got reasons."
"You'll understand in time," she assured him. "You've been given the burdens you carry only so that you may become who you should be. Running water shapes stone but it doesn't do so overnight."
"I don't understand."
"You will. You must trust that."
The look she gave him drew the promise, "I'll try."
Her face took on a more somber look. "Know, too, that there are those who would stop you in your journey," she said. "They fear you, fear what you will become, and with good cause because your life will touch the lives of many. I came to you in this dream so that you may take heart in this time of despair. There is a darkness out there, greater than any darkness you've known. It has already moved against part of the world you know, and it will be your crucible. Should you live, understanding and more will be yours."
"And should I die, lady?"
She looked at him, gave him a small smile, and said simply, "Don't."
Jherek wanted to talk to her further, to explain things as he saw them and to tell her of the ill fortune that had been his birthright, but she looked away from him. Cold horror now shaped her features.
He looked up instinctively, his attention drawn to whatever she saw.
At first, it was only a dim shape lost in the horizonless vast of the sea, then it came closer with astonishing speed. He realized it was a shark when it was still a distance away, recognizing the dorsal fins. He'd dreamed of sahuagin and sharks a lot since the recent attack on Butterfly. Reaching down to where he normally carried his shin knife, he found only bare skin. He had no weapons.
He reached for the girl. "Come, lady," he said, "while there is yet time."
She resisted, pulling against him, and said, "No, Jherek. This is not a thing that can be fled from. This is something that you must face."
He grabbed her wrist, desperately wanting to pull her to the sea bed below. The great shark was bigger than he'd thought, swelling into sight. Fear took him then when he saw that it was thirty, forty, or more feet in length.
Its skin was a stained gray, like ivory that had been rubbed with charcoal, the black coloring worked into the veins and scratches. When it came closer, he saw that the veins and scratches were tattooed runes and old scars. One eye was liquid black, malignant, magnetic. The other was only a puckered hole, dark with the hollow and the scarring around it.
Without warning, the girl slipped through Jherek's fingers. The clam closed over her again, a fort protecting her from the approaching dreadnought.
Before Jherek could move, the shark was on him. It opened its fanged mouth and swallowed him whole. Trapped in the shark's teeth, he discovered whatever ability had let him breathe underwater was now gone.
Death came for him.
Jherek fingered the scabbed and itching cut along his throat, remembering the Amman sellsword's blade from three days ago. Nightmares had continued to plague him the previous nights, and he knew there'd be no relief tonight either. They'd put in at Athkatla two nights before, then made the journey on into Velen.
He sat at a back table in the Figureheadless Tavern and looked out the dirty window at the eastern dock walk over the waves lapping up onto the beaches of Velen. His stomach knotted and clenched repeatedly as he considered all his ill luck of the past few days.
It would have been better, he thought dismally, if Captain Finaren had let the sellsword slit his throat that day. Butterfly's captain had talked with the Amnian merchants, explaining that Jherek had never been a true part of Falkane's crew aboard Bunyip, only a captured youth pressed into service on the pirate vessel who'd managed to escape with his life.
Lelayn had reluctantly accepted the story. There was no proof to the reports that Captain Falkane was in league with the sahuagin, but the Amnian merchant had demanded that Jherek be held in the ship's brig. Though Finaren hadn't been happy about complying with the order, the brig was where the young sailor had found himself.
Jherek had lain on the hard bed with no light to read his books and no company. The ship's crew had been busy with repairs, and probably no one wanted to speak with him now anyway. With nothing to occupy his hands or mind, the darkness that always waited to consume his soul had riven him, tearing at him with the gale fury of a summer squall and as persistent as the seasonal rains. His grip on the world around him had come loose, freeing many of the old demons that he'd walled away with Madame litaar's and Malorrie's help and guidance. He hadn't forgotten the old fears that lived with him, but he had been surprised at how fierce they seemed now. Where the nightmares had come from was no mystery, but the one with the shark continued to gnaw at him.
Even Captain Finaren hadn't come to see him. The Amnian sellswords had rotated at guard duty over the brig as well on Lelayn's orders, insuring that Jherek hadn't been working with anyone else aboard Butterfly.
He hadn't seen Yeill again either, and he'd had mixed feelings about that, which surprised him. Both father and daughter had conveniently forgotten that he'd risked his life to save her's and he couldn't bring himself to remind them of it. That kind of chest-thumping behavior didn't sit well with him.
After the Amnian trading party had been unloaded in Athkatla, Finaren had released him from the ship's brig. The captain had apologized, saying he'd had no choice in the matter. Jherek had accepted the declaration stoically, with not a word said other than thanks for releasing him. Finaren had also ordered the crew not to be asking a lot of questions. He went on to tell them that all of them had stories and secrets they'd rather not have out in public without a couple drafts of mead to cushion the experience.
Finaren went on again to tell them that Jherek had never been a pirate, only someone captured by Falkane's vicious crew. That had been a bald-faced lie, though, and Jherek knew they both were aware of it.
Rather than face the crew, the young sailor had retreated to the crow's nest, pulling extra duty there, and spending the rest of his time mending nets and sleeping out on the deck in a hammock. No one talked to anyone mending nets. Finaren had a standing rule aboard Butterfly that men who could talk to someone mending nets could join in. A wagging tongue didn't stop fingers from working.
Jherek had wanted things to heal aboard Butterfly. He also knew that he'd have to take steps to make sure that happened, but he couldn't. That tattoo upon his arm marked him as different from those men in these waters. Falkane and his men had reputations as being the fiercest, blood-thirstiest pirates in the Sea of Swords, and they had some of the largest bounties offered for them. Rumor had it that even other pirates of the Nelanther feared Falkane and Bunyip's crew.
After Athkatla was behind them and the wind filled Butterfly's sails again, Jherek had hoped that things would return to normal aboard the cog. When they didn't, he was saddened but not surprised. Bad luck ran in his blood, showing in that flaming skull tattoo. Just before they'd docked at Velen, Finaren had told him not to help with the loading and with the rigging and to meet him at the Figureheadless Tavern later.
Finaren's choice of meeting places fit Jherek's mood. The tavern was a dive, queen among the cheap diversions that took the coppers and silvers from a working sailor's purse. He knew that Finaren had been aware of the tension among the crew. Even Hagagne had been quieter than normal, and he'd mentioned nothing more about having Jherek read to him.
The young sailor sat at a back table and nursed a mug of hot tea. He didn't really favor the tea, but he didn't drink mead or the liquors the tavern served. The barkeep kept watch on him. The Figureheadless was a place where pirates met, and where honest work on the sea was discussed at a table where a murder might have been plotted only moments ago.