The Questing Game

Though it was certainly unusual, the birds themselves had demonstrated that they posed no threat, so they were only a curiosity to all but the most superstitious of the sailors, who saw them as a bad omen. It was the ship sitting on the horizon behind them that had the captain and many others worried. It was a Wikuni clipper, one of the fastest ships on the sea, and it was moving right towards them at full sail. The extreme distance made little detail clear, but the Star of Jerod's rather unusual cargo made any Wikuni ship's appearance cause enough for Captain Kern to fret. Anything that could make the legendary Abraham Kern fret was enough to send his junior officers and crew into a panic. But only the captain and the first and second mates knew who her little Wikuni Highness really was, so those were the men that showed the most concern. They knew what would happen if they were caught ferrying a fugitive royal princess. It would not be pretty.

Dola

One by one, his friends had tried to talk to him, to gently try to find out what had happened. Only Dola

Tarrin looked down into the water, where those fish were. One man had called them dolphins, and they commonly followed ships to either eat the scraps thrown overboard or simply ride in the ship's wake. They were very common in the southern reaches of the Sea of Storms. They were very sleek animals, fish that breathed air instead of water, and they moved in a sinuous, graceful harmony.

"You are very quiet today," Dola

"I don't have much to say, Dola

"That it could possibly catch up to us before we reach Roulet," she replied. "If they know who we carry, they may try."

"I doubt that," he said soberly, looking out to sea.

"Perhaps," she said. "It is almost time for the lesson. As always, you are welcome to join."

"No," he said, lowering his head. "It won't do me any good, Dola

"Yes, but there is never a reason good enough not to keep growing," she replied in a steady voice. "Even though you ca

"I already know what I need to know," he told her. "I'll wait until the teaching does me good before learning anything more."

"But it will do you good. Can you not see that?"

"No, I can't," he said, turning to stare at her with his penetrating green eyes. She didn't flinch away, though his gaze would have made almost anyone on the ship shrink back from him. She knew him too well to be afraid of him.

"Very well," she said after staring up into his eyes for a moment. "Remember, dear one, I will always be here when you need to talk. I will always be here for you." She said that with a light touch on his arm, then she reached up and grabbed him by the back of the neck, pulled his head down, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. That she would do that, knowing what he was and what danger he posed to humankind, impressed him.

Dola

The Wikuni ship stayed on their stern, just at the horizon, for most of the day, and was there again in the morning as they moved closer and closer to Roulet. Roulet was a small city, little more than a town, but it sported two large quays sturdy enough and with a deep enough draw in the harbor to accomodate ships the size of the Star of Jerod. Roulet was well known as a seedy place, a place where known pirates would dock for repairs, carousing, or to fence off the booty taken on the high seas. The city's rulers were notorious for being for sale, and the bribes from the pirate clans allowed them to sail in and out of the narrow harbor, defended by fiercely armed coastal fortresses on either side of the very narrow inlet that opened the tiny bay to the sea. Those fortresses had actual ca

"I wonder how something like that manages to stay alive," Dar was musing to Keritanima as they approached the narrow inlet and its twin fortresses.

"Simple logic, if you think about it, Dar," the Wikuni princess replied calmly. "By allowing the pirates to dock here, it keeps them out of more respectable cities."

"But why don't they just come over here and do something about it? Or why doesn't the king of Shace do something?"

"King Louis is a very weak king," Keritanima sniffed. "He rules in title only. In reality, it's the local Marquis that have control of Shace. It's a very fragmented kingdom. The Shacean custom of not spilling the blood of a countrymen keeps the kingdom from degenerating into something like the Free Duchies." She plucked at her plain cream-colored dress absently. "Louis doesn't do anything about it because he can't. Marquis Phillipe of Roulet makes a pretty pe

"Then why don't the Wikuni do something about it?"

She snorted. "Because no Se

"That's a pretty heartless way of looking at it, Kerri."

"There's no room for petty compassion in politics, Dar," she said in a ruthless tone. "You can't get rid of the pirates. For every pirate you sink, another will take its place. And let's not even talk about the commissioned freebooters."

"What's a freebooter?"

"A freebooter is a pirate that works for a certain kingdom," she replied. "His job is to attack the ships of rival kingdoms, and leave the ships of his own kingdom alone. It disrupts trade and supplies to rivals."