What did I think when I first saw Azrazôr? If I am honest, I am uncertain. He looks the part, he acts the part, and he feels the part. So why am I not elated?
Perhaps I am. It has been so long waiting for one to lead us back to glory, have I given up? By no means! I merely thought I would give him time. I would support him for now, and in a month or two, it may be that I will know him better. Not that he deigned to speak with me or any of the crew individually. He came aboard with Naraal, and after he took a quick look around, I heard him say, “How long?”
“It will take four weeks to get home,” Naraal replied, “if we have the right weather, and half of Mithlond is not out searching for us.” How my Captain was changed from the last time I saw him. He looked tired, a little thinner and drawn of feature, but his eyes were ablaze with hope. That carried a lot of weight with me and most of the crew. If he believed this was our King, we would give him a chance to prove himself.
It took five weeks of sailing to reach the rendezvous, and it had been almost a month since we had last seen Sirwal. He was not discovered to be missing until the dawn guard changed over the following day. The crew searched the ship in case he had hidden away and fallen asleep. Yet such a thing was not in his nature, and when they did not find him, we assumed he had fallen overboard. Mabas, who had been the second guard through the night, was horrified at this suggestion. “I saw him standing at the stern, looking towards the Isles. He was still there when the first rays of light touched the sky. He hailed me, and bid me tell the cook he was mighty hungry. Where has he gone?”
“Why don’t you find him and tell me,” I growled at him. Mabas had not seen him at all. He had seen me wearing three layers of clothing under my cloak, and that from a distance. I could imitate voices rather well, if I do say so myself, but caution led me to speak as few words as possible.
I made a point of joining the rest of the crew in the search for Sirwal. Nothing had been taken; the rowboats were still in their places, and there were no signs of boarding hooks on the rails (they would have heard that, the men said). “He either fell or was pushed overboard,” said one of the oar-men. “He wasn’t fool enough to swim home.”
“Pushed overboard? Pshaw!” said another. “He might not be the most popular of the crew, but we sailed with him for at least two years, and none of us had any trouble with him, I think.”
Good, they were acting as I had hoped. “What about a big ol’ Sea Serpent come glidin’ up and grabbed hisself a tasty morsel?” said Crazy Old Majid, the toothless deckhand. Most of the men roared with laughter, but I saw a few faces darken. Superstitious fools!
“You mean to say that half of us slept through that, while the rest carried on playing cards?” scoffed the boatswain.
I held up a hand for silence and swore at them, for good measure. “Enough! We were not boarded, nor was a Sea Serpent that close without anyone noticing: either Sirwal was clumsy, and slipped for some reason (though like you all, I find that unlikely), or one of you did have a grudge, and there is a murderer onboard.”
Of course, there was a lot of protest at this notion: no one on the Shakilgimil was a murderer, they insisted, down to the last man. Exactly! He must have slipped and fallen overboard.
Now that it was settled, I ordered them to go about their tasks. “First Watch, man the oars; the wind has died down to the smallest of breezes. All keep your eyes open. We don’t want anything like that happening again.” They soon stopped their muttering and went about their business. No, it would not happen again. Sirwal was the only one I was after. I had cleaned the few drops of blood from the deck during that night. I liked a tidy ship. So it was that the rest of our voyage was unremarkable - until today.
Naraal filled me in on some of the news later that day. We would wait overnight for the morning tide to set out for home. The Lady Zairaphel of Umbar Baharbêl was already travelling overland south with a small escort, including our First Mate, Balkumagan. Where they were traveling mattered not to me. I still had my small section of the tent cabin, while Naraal had Balkumagan’s, as the King occupied the Captain’s quarters. Once on board, he made a short but rousing speech, bidding all know that he had a fleet of ships at his command, and an army, hidden but well-equipped and ready. Soon he would declare himself to all our folk. Serve him well, and we would be richly rewarded, serve him not, and we would die a horrible death. It was a simple choice.
When Azrazôr retired to his allotted quarters, likely to speak further with our Captain, the Men did not return to their tasks at once, but huddled together in the prow to compare their first impressions. Just this once I allowed a moment of gossip so that I could listen.
“He is tall enough, eh?”
“Tall, built like a steel-clad galleon.”
“He walks and talks like a king should.”
“Pah! What do you know about kings?”
“I know what my eyes tell me, and my eyes don’t lie.”
“If his pockets are deep enough to catch the stars, that is good enough for me,” said another sailor.
“That Man's got more gold than a dragon’s hoard, enough to buy the moon and all the cheese on it!” said Crazy Old Majid.
“He’s the genuine article, sure enough!”
Later, over a bowl of salted mutton and porridge, I told them, “Captain Naraal trusts him, and I trust Captain Naraal. That’s about it for me, lads.”
Most murmured in agreement, but I heard one of the swabbies say, “The choice he offers is no choice at all. We must serve him, or die. There’s naught but one path to tread.”
I banged my spoon on the table. “So what? Many of us have walked that path at some point. With good service oft comes great rewards. You think your road is hard? Boo hoo! Think of poor First Mate Balkumagan. At this very moment he escorts the Lady Zairaphel back to the city.” A few of the sailors had heard of that infamous Sorceress, and they went quiet all of a sudden.
“I saw her once, by the Gate of Sorrows,” Crazy Old Majid said. “She passed me in her palanquin. The silk curtain blew aside…” he whistled. The other men sat up, more interested than usual in hearing the old deckhand’s babble. “Very straight, very small features, all covered up in tea-rose satin, but it was her eyes! Large, they were, more lustrous than pearls - and when she looked at me, I went all weak and warm inside. By the barnacles on the ship, she’s a treasure so fine, she must have been spun from the very threads of the sea, a beauty that could calm a tempest.”
“Well, that may be so, but let me tell you, I would rather be sailing with the King than riding with the Head of the Abysmal Order.”
For once, there was consensus among the crew.
