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"The thing that worries me," Sabyna said, "is that he doesn't seem to be himself."
"No," the paladin said, "our young warrior is torn."
"By what?" Sabyna asked.
She risked another glance at the Bare Bosom, watching a sailor stride drunkenly from the establishment in the company of a serving wench doing her best to prop him up. The girl's fingers found the man's coin purse.
"There are things I feel a man should be willing to discuss on his own without having others discuss them for him," Glawi
"He could get killed over there tonight," Azla warned coldly.
"True enough," Glawi
Azla snorted. "Faith isn't as certain as cold steel."
"It is for some." Glawi
"Faith has never done well by me," Azla went on. A trace of bitterness threaded through her words.
Sabyna knew the captain hadn't always been a pirate. Azla had grown up in the Dalelands, but events and her own guilt forced her down to the Sea of Fallen Stars and into a pirate's life. Glawi
"The problem could be that you're not supposed to expect faith to do well by you," the paladin said. "You're supposed to do well by your faith."
"I am a mage," Sabyna said. "My faith is strong enough, but I'm no cleric to be led around by looking at a chicken's entrails to figure out what my chosen god wants me to do. I believe in knowledge. Our gods choose what knowledge to put in our paths, but it's up to us to learn it and choose what to do with it."
"My faith is not that way," Glawi
"More men have died from conflicting beliefs than over gold and silver," Azla said. "Trusting a god is a very dangerous thing."
"On that issue, Captain," Glawi
Sabyna pulled her cloak more tightly around her against the night's chill. More than anything she wanted to be up and around, doing something but not knowing what. "He's changed so much since I first met him," she whispered.
"How so?" Glawi
Across the street, a handful of cargo handlers deep in conversation walked across the uneven boardwalk in front of the Bare Bosom. One of them carried a shielded candle hanging from a crooked stick that barely beat back the night.
"When he first came aboard Breezeru
"Afraid?" A faint smile twisted Glawi
"Then why should he be afraid?"
"So that he might live, of course." Glawi
The ship's mage wrapped her arms even tighter around herself, losing the battle against the night's chill creeping in against the banked coals filling the hostel's fireplace.
"Then where does that leave him?" she asked.
"He's dangerous," Azla commented. "He's dangerous to himself and to us."
"I don't think that's entirely true," Glawi
The pirate captain shook her head. "I don't mean to disparage your beliefs, Sir Glawi
"And to live a life with nothing to believe in?" The paladin looked directly at her and asked, "What kind of life is that?"
Azla broke the eye contact, put on a deprecating smile, and said, "A very profitable one. If you're a pirate."
"Gold and silver assuages a wounded heart?"
Azla's eyes turned cold and hard. "You step over lines here, paladin."
"Forgive me, lady," Glawi
Sabyna watched the exchange in silence. She didn't know how Glawi
"The thing that most concerns me is that your young friend didn't come here to take that pearl disk back from Vurgrom," Azla said.
"Then what?" Sabyna asked.
Azla kept her voice quiet and still. "I think it's very possible that your young friend came here to die as nobly as he can."
"I can't kill him," Jherek said. He stood in the alley, his body pressed up against the man, and silently damned all the events and the false pride that led to the point of holding a man's life at the edge of his knife.
"Then let me." Talif stepped forward and lifted the short sword.
The man in Jherek's grip tensed, on the verge of fleeing and taking his chances.
Jherek swung his empty hand, balling it into a fist and rolling his shoulder to get most of his weight behind the blow. His fist caught the pirate on the point of his chin and dropped him.
Talif knelt and grabbed the man by the hair. He swung his short sword toward the man's exposed throat.
Jherek kicked Talif in the chest, knocking him back across the hard-packed earth of the alley. Talif rolled instantly, coming up from the ground like a trained acrobat. His triangular face was a mask of rage. The short sword came around in a glittering arc.
The young sailor stepped in close and brought up his left arm. His open hand smacked into Talif's wrist and blocked the sword strike. Talif grunted in pain and anger. Before the mate could recover, Jherek slipped his free arm under the man's outstretched one and flipped him over his shoulder.
Carried by his own weight and momentum, pulled by Jherek's strength, Talif landed hard on the ground on his back. Murderous rage gleamed in his black eyes. "You're a fool," Talif snarled.
"That remains to be seen," Jherek said, "but I do know I am no murderer."
Talif struggled a moment to get free but couldn't.
"You knocked that man out, boy, but I've seen men knocked cold like that before. Sometimes they come around in just minutes, none the worse for it. He could still come into the tavern after us and let them all know we're among them."
"He doesn't know who we are," Jherek said quietly.
"By Leira's razor kiss, you fool, that man has seen me. He'll know I sail with Cap'n Azla."
"So you say." Jherek shook his head. "Maybe that's just your pride talking. We'll take our chances."
Talif cursed him soundly, using invective that would have shamed even most sailors.
Jherek maintained his grip even though Talif sought to shake out of it. "You think me a fool for letting this man live, but keep in mind that should a man attack me willingly with a sword in his fist, I'll not be so generous."
"A man doesn't always see the sword that cleaves him, boy," Talif threatened.
Jherek nodded. "But Glawi
"Umberlee take you both," Talif snarled. "The two of you think you're so high and mighty."
Jherek felt even more embarrassed. Glawi
"Standing among men such as yourself," Jherek said in a harsh voice, "Sir Glawi