017 – Cove

***

The Double Daggers sailed across the open waters of the gulf to the western edge of the Sandgrave Peninsula. She slowed down as she took on sea water. The cracked hull continued to leak. The water in the hold made her list from side to side as it sloshed back and forth.

Captain Slezeanor persistently followed us across the gulf. He would not give up. The appearance of a bloated sea god only set him back a few hours. The Fleuron now steadily gained on our damaged cutter. Its yellow and purple flag waved atop the mainmast.

“It’s bold of him to get this close to Sandgrave,” Malisent said. “Someone might sail out to collect the reward on a known pirate.”

We sighted sea birds circling above the shoreline and soon the coast came into view on the horizon. This was civilized land. Or at least, humans lived here. Fishermen in small boats cast their nets along the shore. Sparse signs of habitation dotted the coast, a few houses and smoke shacks for drying fish. While reassuring that we had left the wastes behind, those small places would not protect us from the pirates. We had to find a larger settlement with a dock and people willing to defend us from attack.

Running south down the coast, we drew close to a town. Houses became more common sights. A squat tower overlooked the sea from a barren hill. The Fleuron suddenly broke off the chase; the pirates didn’t want to follow us into the nearest port. We trimmed our sails and drifted forward at a calmer speed.

Rocky cliffs ran along this section of the coastline. At the town of Blandwick, a jagged gap broke through the cliffs and let into a sheltered cove. The seawater spilled into a steep, bowl-shaped depression. Large ships cast their anchors in the middle of the cove, but smaller ships and boats, such as our cutter, could moor at the town’s wooden docks.

With little wind in the cove, and a ship filling with water, we practically crawled into the pier. We threw out mooring lines to workers on the dock who attached them to large bollards. I lowered the gangplank.

We had officially escaped the pirates and left the wilderness behind. My long, unplanned camping trip was over.

Malisent and I disembarked. There was little to see in the cove proper, just wooden docks and a long road leading up. Most of Blandwick sat on the higher lands above. A ring of brick buildings at the edge of the cove looked down over the water.

A man strode toward the two of us. He dressed in metal clothing, similar to what Malisent had originally worn when I first met her—a steel lobster. The joints of his armor clinked and scraped as he walked down the wooden docks. His helmet rested under one arm. He had no inner fire, but did carry a sword at his waist.

“Ho there, strangers. Is this your ship?”

“Yes,” Malisant said.

“No,” I responded. She scowled at me.

“What? Well, which is it? Do you claim ownership of this vessel or not?”

“It’s not ours,” I said. “A group of pirates stole this ship from sailors in the gulf. We took her back and used her to escape the pirates. But we don’t own her.”

“I see. That’s dreadful news,” the knight said. “This ship you sailed on is the Double Daggers. She and her sister ship, the Dagger, have been missing for some time now. They both belong to Sir Hrofert, Baron of Deadhill, Lord of Blandwick. He will be pleased you’ve returned her to port, but far more grief-stricken to hear that his men have fallen into the hands of pirates.”

“You should let him know that his ship’s sprung a leak. He might want to see to repairs as soon as possible. Otherwise it may sink.”

“I shall do so. I am one of the baron’s knights who watches over the town. What are your names, strangers? By rights, anyone who salvages a ship or rescues it from pirates can claim half its value from the original owner. And the same goes for any cargo it might carry.”

At the mention of money, Malisent elbowed me aside. “I am called Malisent, and my servant’s name is of no consequence. How soon could the Baron pay us for our brave recovery of his property?”

“It’s hard to say. We must first send a message to him to at Deadhill Castle. Then the port master will examine the damage to the ship to assess its true value.”

“Hmm. Inconvenient. We have no money after escaping from the pirates, and no place to stay in Blandwick in the mean time.”

“The Baron is a gracious man. He would offer you hospitality at his castle. And I’m certain he would like to personally ask you what became of his men and listen to the tale of your escape. It must have been a harrowing experience for you…” The knight still seemed dubious as to our claims.

“We have no time for detours, sir knight, no matter how courteously offered. I hoped for something immediate.”

“The city can postpone your docking fees and gate toll, since those can be settled out of your reward for the salvage. But payments will have to wait. Can you speak with a guild or trade house? What business do you have in Blandwick?”

“I’m a mercenary who has heard there might be work in Sandgrave. My arrival at this particular port, and the manner of my conveyance, is sheer happenstance. Thus I have no contacts in Blandwick.”

The knight gave us a scornful look. “I see. In that case you can find accommodations at the ‘Rat Race’ with the rest of your ilk. It’s a public house where sell-swords congregate. The harbor master will review your claims. Return here in three days time for a judgment.”

He turned on his heel and walked off, somewhat rudely. His whole demeanor had changed when he heard Malisent describe herself as a mercenary. The local knights of Sandgrave felt a great deal of antipathy for foreign mercenaries.

“Disciple. I told you to keep your mouth closed. You’ve gone and blurted out unnecessary truths again. Now we’ve lost our ship to Dovestone.”

I shrugged. “This ship can’t sail another kilometer. And the knight knew the Daggers wasn’t ours. Claiming otherwise would have gotten us arrested.”

“You have to know how to deal with these minor officials. Start off strong, make outrageous demands, act offended, and then let them haggle you down to something reasonable. Due to your immediate cooperativeness, we’ve lost our edge in negotiations. It’ll take days to sort this out officially. We don’t have time to wait around.”

“We’ll have to find some other route then.”

“Come on. Let’s climb up to the town.”

***

At the top of the cove, we visited my first human town of this era. The differences between Blandwick and the metropolis shocked me, or even those between the town and an outpost such as Power Station Thirteen.

Small jumbles of buildings crowded around narrow streets. Most were brick or stone on the ground floor and framed with wooden timbers on the higher levels. Notably, the buildings used very little metal in their construction. Everything was wood and stone. In my era, metal signs, street lamps, fire hydrants, street car rails, manhole covers, chain fences, and grates were common sights. But now mining and smelting ores required too much labor to use metals as cheap building materials. The amount of steel used to make a single bridge or freight train would have weighed a thousand times more than all the metal in this whole town. Only a few small things, such as door hinges and weather-vanes, used iron.

Blandwick smelled worse than the troll’s feast hall. It had no sewer system. People ejected their waste into street gutters, and the rain carried it to the edge of the cove, where it dripped down the slopes into the seawater. The place was horrifically dirty. Besides human sewage, a number of beasts left their own droppings in the middle of the roads.

“Malisent. Why are there monsters in this town?”

“There aren’t. Are you blind?”

“Look. There’s a weird canine thing right there.” I pointed to a small monster about the size of coyote. It lifted one leg and marked the edge of a building. The monster’s tongue hung out of its open mouth, which displayed a set of flesh-rending teeth.

“That’s a dog, you fool. It’s an animal, not a monster.”

“Uh. And what’s that thing over there?”

“That’s a horse.”

“A horse? That’s twice the size of any horse I’ve ever seen. And why is that man sitting on top of it?” A man straddled the back of a hoofed beast, using a leather harness and some long strings tied to its head.

“He’s not sitting on it. He’s riding it.”

“Okay. But why is the horse letting him do that?”

“Because that’s what they’re for. It’s a domestic animal.”

“It lives in a house?”

“No. It lives in a stable. Horses are bred and trained to be ridden. Did the Ancients not have animals?”

“No. My neighbor had a bird feeder outside her window, but I don’t think that counts. Nothing like this. Where are the domestic snakes?”

“There are none. Orma’s special.”

“This whole setup is unsanitary. You shouldn’t come in close contact with wild animals, you know? They carry diseases that we don’t have immunities to.” I stopped in my tracks. My mental dictionaries had failed me. “Oh no. What’s this? Sanitary. Sanitation. Sewer. Immunity. Inoculation. Hygiene. Disease. Germ. Microbe. Virus. Hand washing. Soap. Sterilization… Evolution.”

“What are you doing, ghost? Praying?”

“I’m checking for vocabulary holes. This is not good. Animals and germs all over the place. Raw sewage in the streets. This town is a death trap.” I held my sleeve over my mouth.

It did not surprise me that mankind had lost many technologies and mechanical contrivances, but forgetting about the existence of germs shocked me. These people had no knowledge of basic biology. No wonder they walked around ankle deep in animal muck.

“Come on, weirdo. Enough lollygagging. Let’s get something to eat at the public house.”

“You think I’m eating food from this place? Not hardly.”

We had no metal coins. Therefor we could not get any food. I suppose the people of Blandwick would just let us starve to death in the street. Or more likely, die of some communicable disease. Malisent had lost her new jewelry in the duel with Slezeanor except for a few hair pins. She stopped in a small shop to sell them.

The man in the shop was a money changer. He accepted coins minted in foreign lands, and exchanged them for local coins that the merchants in this area were more familiar with. That way, people didn’t have to weigh their coins in a scale and do calculations to determine the exact value every time they wanted to buy something. In Sandgrave, the cities minted coins that were nineteen out of twenty parts silver. They made shekels with an image of a crown stamped onto the face; and they also made half, third, quarter, and fifth sized coins for smaller transactions, each type bearing a picture of some object. Copper shekels, called leptons, were worth very little.

The money changer also dealt with other chunks of metal and gemstones. Malisent sold off her jewelry for an unsatisfactory price. It turned out the captain’s gifts were made of second rate materials.

“Colored glass. Damn that cheap bastard. Who does he think he’s dealing with?” she hissed.

People valued real gemstones more than cut glass. Gems’ crystalline structures made them more useful than amorphous solids for aetherics, but I didn’t see how they made better shiny baubles for decorative purposes. People didn’t use gems as money. Maybe because the size, quality, and cuts varied too much for that purpose. Or maybe because they would only be useful for very large transactions.

Malisent obtained a few pieces of silver. We traveled to the public house recommended to us by the baron’s knight, the Rat Race. Mercenaries and adventurers gathered here to eat, drink, smoke, and gamble—mostly gamble. As we entered I heard the familiar noise of rolling randomization cubes. Men at tables played games and smoked pipes. In the center of the main room, a round pit sank about a meter into the ground. A raised ridge spiraled toward its center. It served no purpose that I could see.

The place was old and dingy. Stains marked the floor. Flies circled the ceiling. I shuddered to think what the pub’s kitchen looked like. Probably about the same as the troll’s kitchen in the power station. Malisent took a table and the proprietor came out to ask us what we wanted to buy.

“Hello. I would like your finest boiled vegetables. Preferably served in the pot of boiling water. Thank you.”

Malisent said, “We’ll take whatever’s cooking and a gallon of beer,” and she slapped down a silver coin on the table.

The man departed, and Malisent leaned back in her chair. She seemed at home among this crummy bar’s disreputable patrons.

“Are magi resistant to diseases by any chance?” I asked.

“Yes. For the most part. Only deadly plagues or weird ailments affect us.”

“That’s a relief.”

The man came back with our meal, which included animal flesh on the bone, bird eggs, grain porridge, beans, and steamed vegetables. He had followed my request; the vegetables came in a stack of bamboo dishes that used rising steam to cook the food. I knew they were fairly sanitary.

“There you go, vegetable man.”

“What’s this stuff?” I tasted a loaf of opaque gelatin. It had a rich and salty flavor.

“It’s cheese. It’s… I’ll explain later,” she said. “Traveling with you is like walking around with a three year old. It’s nonstop questions about everything.”

“That’s what you get for waking someone up from a twenty thousand year nap. You volunteered yourself to be my tour guide. What’s the next stop on our tour now that we don’t have boat?”

“Veylien and Gritha must already be at Dovestone by now. They beat us there, but we’re not too late. The meeting is scheduled for three days from now. If we make it there in time, I can report to the master without Veylien stabbing me in the back.”

“No one expects me to deliver a report, do they? Because I didn’t do my homework.”

“No. You’re just a minion.”

“Good. In that case, I don’t really need to be there. Why don’t you run ahead without me, and I’ll catch up later.”

“No chance. You’re a part of my report. Because we found you in the ruined citadel, the master may wish to examine you,” she said. That sounded bad. “We have a long way to ride to Dovestone. I’ll have to scrounge up some horses for us.”

“You expect me to sit on top of a horse monster? No way.”

“It’s easy. You’ll learn in no time.” Malisent got up from the table. “You can stay here while I’m out. Don’t try running away again. Next time, I won’t go so easy on you.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

I would have liked to run away, but this time I would be doing so on foot. A person sitting on a horse could definitely go faster than me. Malisent would catch me in no time. And I knew nothing about the country of Sandgrave or its people. My time was better spent observing and planning.

As it grew toward dusk, more people began to filter into the smoky pub. Some of them wore armor or carried weapons. A few wore monster pelts thrown over their shoulders. A crowd of men gathered around the center of the pub. The proprieter came out and hung a lantern above the shallow pit and then a rang a brass bell to get everyone’s attention.

“Friends! Patrons! Gamblers! Let the rat race begin!”