The Corsairs of Aethalia: A Thalassia novel Read online

  Later, when Lin had finally fallen back to sleep, Jorse dressed and made his silent way out of the small inn where they had taken refuge after all the wild festivities. The streets were quiet, with only a few sullen workmen moving about. He touched the arm of a man all dressed in white, carrying loaves of hot bread.

  “Your pardon, sir.” The man turned, surprise written on his face at being addressed politely. “I am new here. Could you tell me if there is a temple of the Goddess Selene in the city?”

  The man looked even more surprised. “Them cold bitches is all up there.” He pointed to a tall white structure built on a low hill overlooking the harbor. “Yer welcome to em, is all I kin say.”

  Jorse put a clear rappen in the man’s hand and the baker’s jaw dropped open. “For your information, neighbor.” He smiled. “You had better close your mouth. You’ll draw flies.”

  Teeth clicked together. “Thank you... thank you, M’Lord.” He held out a loaf of bread. “Fresh baked, M’Lord.”

  Jorse took the bread, with a sigh, and bit into the steaming loaf. It was good, sweet and nutty. “Thank you, neighbor. Have a good day.” He felt the eyes of the baker on his back as he headed for the temple.

  It was a long dusty walk, and he was glad that he had been given the loaf of bread. He thought to himself, but he still didn’t know why he was going to the temple, he just knew that he had to. The word “obsessed” floated through his mind.

  The temple of the Goddess Selene in Zamora, although white and adorned with blue moons, was built like a fortress, and the young man couldn’t help but notice the crenellations and arrow slits as he walked up the long straight pathway to the massive ironwood studded front door. His knock echoed through empty halls on the other side. The door opened silently and a woman dressed all in white stepped out. She could have been the twin to the one he talked to in Boktor.

  Jorse leaned his staff against the wall and bowed politely. “Good morning, Priestess. My name is Jorse and I...”

  “We have been expecting you, Jorse of Vaigach. Please come in.”

  To say that he was stunned would have been putting it mildly. He picked up his staff and hurriedly followed the retreating back with the empty halls echoing his footsteps.

  He thought somewhat desperately.

  It wasn’t the answer he had been hoping for.

  He replied, acidly.

 

  The white back turned into an ornately arched doorway. Jorse ran his fingers over smooth and fluid carvings that gave him the impression they were poured, rather than shaped from stone. He entered the room, and five pairs of eyes swung to regard him; five pairs of eyes from five identical women. When he turned to run, he discovered, to his horror that he couldn’t move.

 

 

 

  The closest white robed woman spoke, and her voice was soft and melodious. “No, Jorse we don’t mean you any harm.” Her violet-eyed stare bored through him. “Either of you.”

  “Oh, damn.” The words just seemed to slip out of his mouth. “Sorry...”

  The woman smiled; actually, all the women smiled—perfect identical smiles. Jorse wanted to scream. “He seems a little jumpy.” The one on the right said simply.

  “If I remember right, Nel,” The first from the left murmured. “you were a bit jumpy too, the first time you met us. You cried for two days, I believe.” The first speaker muttered something Jorse couldn’t quite catch, but it sounded obscene.

  “He is a little less pure than we’d hoped.” The third from the left commented dryly. Jorse felt the blush spreading up his cheeks to his ears.

  “He’s a fourteen year old BOY, Marti.” The first one said, resignedly. “He is just fine.” Her eyes shifted back to the trapped youth. “I’ll tell you a few more things, ask you a few questions and you will be free to go, unharmed. Is that acceptable?”

  Jorse grinned crookedly, as his mind raced. “I thought, for a minute there, that you were going to have me for dinner—as the main course.”

  Anya’s mental voice sounded shocked.

  “I’ll answer your questions and stay for whatever you have to tell me. Just release me; fair enough?” The bonds were gone, and the boy sagged. Someone had silently, invisibly, brought a chair in and set it behind him, and now he all but collapsed into it. He set the staff on the floor. “I would like to ask one question first.” He looked at the woman on the far left, the one that seemed to be in charge. She nodded. “Who are you and why do you all look alike, and oh yeah, how did you know I was coming? I didn’t know I was coming till this morning, well, last night really.”

  The smile returned, genuine this time. Jorse could almost feel the warmth. “That was more than one question. We all serve the Goddess Selene, and that... changes a person. We become more and more like her every day. Serving the Goddess also gives us other,” she looked at him sharply, “special abilities. You know about special abilities, don’t you?” He nodded, not trusting his voice to reply. “All we require from you is that you deliver something for us to our Mother House in the port city of Lom on the island of Elandia.”

  “Elandia!” Jorse exclaimed loudly. “Elandia is on the other side of the known world. Eight thousand leagues. How can I ever get to Elandia?”

  The woman sat, nonplussed, collected. “I don’t know how you will get there, Jorse of Vaigach. But get there you will in the next few years. That will be time enough.”

  “Like the Raiders say,” Jorse leaned forward, “what’s in it for me?” The problem was that he didn’t know what he wanted.

  The third woman stared long and hard at him. “We will give you your heart’s desire; the word of our Goddess on that.”

  He thought for only a second. “Done!” For some reason the picture of Dala and her big dark blue eyes slipped into his mind, but it was the voice and wit of Anya that commanded his attention, and affection. “Give me your package and I’ll be on my way.”

  The last woman on the right looked at him with a compassion he couldn’t fathom. “You will carry the package within you, Jorse of Vaigach.” He turned to run but five hands touched his bare arms.

  He heard Anya scream. His own cry echoed hers.

  There was a smooth bare hip under his hand and it wasn’t his. He sat up, quickly.

  “Yer making a draft—agin!” The sleepy voice mumbled next to him, pulling the blanket back, and off of him in the process. He shivered; the room was still cold. There was a warm, musky scent in the air. It seemed... “Give us a kiss, Jorse, you’ve been gone so long.”

  “Gone?”

  “Are ye dim witted? Ye got up hours ago to go for a walk I guess, an came back a alf hour ago. Crawled back into bed with cold feet. No decency at all.” She ducked her head back under the blanket, making small mumbling noises.

  He sent the thoughts inward, in a kind of blind panic.

  It was a reply as faint as a breeze through the reeds on an autumn night.

 

 

 

 

 

  The world was turning inside out! Jorse thrashed on the bed, then he thrashed in the air three feet over the bed, then he thrashed on the ceiling. His world was tearing itself apart. Things were happening to him that he couldn’t understand. Somewhere in the confusion he remembered Lin fleeing the room, blanket wrapped around her firm supple body, eyes big and scared. Something sighed within him. He wa
s sure he wouldn’t see THAT body again.

  He almost landed on the bed. Almost. The floor was cold, dirty and very, very hard when he dropped from the ceiling with a crash. Jorse got slowly to his hands and knees, shaking his head cautiously from side to side to try and clear the ringing in his ears.

  The thought was directed inward.

 

  Jorse stumbled as he pulled his pants on, hopping around on one bare foot.

  With boots in one hand, his knife and pouch stuffed in the top, and his staff in the other, Jorse jerked open the window. Bright sunlight hit his eyes in piercing brilliance, and the biting cold took his breath away. Ice clung to the outside of the window sill and he could feel his fingertips stick, frozen to the icy surface. It was a long drop to the ground; maybe twenty five feet, he guessed.

  Anya’s firm voice told him.

 

 

  He jumped.

  He fell like a stone. Three feet from the ground his fall slowed, letting his bare feet kiss the surface as gently as a falling feather. Jorse stood, frozen, mouth hanging open in surprise. Jorse just grunted as he tugged at his boots. He’d lost his socks—somewhere.

  It was a long run, but he was young and fit, and he still had the strength to slide into the open cargo hold on his stomach and remain unseen. After that, it was a simple process to sneak back into his small room. Kibwe and Bataar, the recruits from the merchantman, were both on duty, so for the moment, he had things to himself. He stretched out on his bed, panting, then shut his eyes.

  The voice was silent for several moments, and when it began it was strangely repentant.

 

  Jorse sighed heavily, regretfully. She was right. It WAS ruined. His thoughts trailed off, confused, tangled. Was it love, or was it just lust??

  The warmth seemed to envelop him from the inside out, and he felt the love of the creature he called Anya. Anya hesitated.

  Jorse sat up in bed. He felt—he felt violated.

  There was a dry chuckle.

  The boy laughed out loud. There was dead silence within his mind. Anya might as well have been gone. Panic welled up in him. Maybe he really hadn’t saved her after all.

 

  He sighed, relieved.

 

  He thought back, confidently.

 

  Jorse thought the question rather strange. Anya knew very well where they were. The immensity of the distance from the homeworld of his ancestors swam before him. He put his hands to either side of his head.

  ... and she was there.

  He was curled up into a ball on his bunk, and he seemed to have been there for quite a while. The bed linen was soaked with his sweat and his hair was plastered to his head. Someone, somewhere was saying his name. What was it again? The name Captain Nels Schwendau, of the Terran Colony ship Oberon floated in from someplace. No, that wasn’t it. He grasped. Jorse; that was his name... Jorse Schwendau.

  The voice was comforting and concerned. It was the voice of Anya. A hand touched his shoulder, a soft hand, and he rolled over. Blue eyes stared down at him. Blue eyes the color and warmth of glacial ice.

  “Hello Lin. Sorry I had to run out on you. I went out for a walk this morning, and bought some spiced lamb from a vendor. I guess the lamb wasn’t good. I... I didn’t want to wake you, so I came back here. I must have been sick ten times on the way. I...,”

  Anya reminded him,

  “fell asleep.” He finished lamely.

  The blue eyes flashed cold fire. Over Lin’s shoulder Captain Jolenta studied the disheveled room. “Will you be able to stand your watch?” Was her only comment.

  “Yes, ma’am. What time is it?”

  “Quarter less the dog watch. Best be cleanin yerself up.” The captain turned. “Flying lovers, really...” He heard her mutter as she left.

  Lin slapped his socks down on the deck and glared at him. “I don’t know what happened back in town. I don’t care to know. Last night was fun, but it will never happen again, you hear me?” The door slammed as she stormed out of the small cabin.

  Anya mused.

 

  ~~~

  Jorse cursed as maps slid off the table again, in the small cubby of a room that they used for navigation. Actually, it was the fourth time in the last hour. He picked them up and then staggered as another wave hit the ship, lifting the sleek vessel then sending her down the backside of the wave in a sickening corkscrew motion. It was the third day of the storm, and although it showed some signs of weakening, so did the crew. He swallowed hard. Half the crew were crawling-on-hands-and-knees sick, while the other half struggled to keep the recalcitrant ship afloat. He set the map back down and clipped the four corners to the table with small strips of springfish hide. The ship shuddered. At least his new job as assistant navigator kept him inside and out of the weather - well, most of the time anyway. During this storm he had been helping the poor helmsman on the exposed quarterdeck. He pulled on his gloves. And his watch began now. He opened the door into icy wind that threatened to strip the very skin from his face.

  The watch was almost done, now, and the seas were simply rough, whitecaps tearing off into a thin spray in the wind. The gray water even had a tinge of green to it again. The same color, he thought grimly, as his face. He tugged at the wheel.

  “Set course west souwest, Jorse.” He jumped. He had never heard the captain’s soft steps coming up behind him.

  “Aye, Captain, west souwest.”

  “It’s said that there’s rich shipping between Rakiura and Dewar in the winter months. Hunters bring furs down from the mountains to the south and bring them to the city of Wels in the north, where they are cured. The finished product, fit for a king or queen I’m told, is sent to Dewar for distribution. A load of furs like that would be worth more than our last load, and that’s saying something.”

  Jorse turned the wheel, and then shifted to look at the tall blond woman next to him. “Won’t other Raiders be looking for the same plunder as us?”

  Captain Jolenta looked out over the pitching water for several long moments before she replied. “You’ve go
t to realize that Corsair Captains are basically fat lazy drunks, who would much rather be drinking and wenching than running down a skittish merchantman in rough unforgiving seas. If they don’t have to go out for plunder they won’t—especially not in cold foul weather. We will have the shipping lane all to ourselves.”

  “Don’t the crew get a little, uhh, sulky?” Jorse asked, somewhat hesitantly.

  The captain laughed. “Yes, they get sulky, Jorse, just like your little girlfriend, but they get rich.” She turned and looked at him directly. “By the way, just how is your sulky little girlfriend?” She was obviously fighting to keep her smile from showing.

  “How the hells should I know.” Jorse swore, then looked abashed. “Oh, ahhhh, sorry Captain. I didn’t mean to swear.”

  This time she laughed aloud. “I’ve heard it before, and I’ve used it before - on numerous occasions. So, the girlfriend?”

  “She hasn’t talked to me since that day in the cabin, other than official, of course.” He felt a lonely despair and at the same time he felt a faint sense of relief that it was all over.

  There was sympathy in the captain’s eyes. “We’ve all been there, lad. It will work out or it won’t. You’ll have other loves.”

  “I know that too, Captain, but it’s so hard right now.”

  The woman put a hand on his shoulder, warm and somehow comforting, and they stood like that for a minute. He could have sworn that he felt another hand on his other shoulder, just as warm, and just as comforting, except that no one was standing there.

  The captain left, going about her duties, and his watch continued.

 

 

  The boy felt himself blush at the thought of what he was going to ask.