The Messenger

“What have you done with Cutter?” he demanded. “If you’ve damaged her, so help me Zivilyn, I’ll …” His words trailed off as he saw they were all staring at him.

“Her?” Again Moreen gave him another look of wry amusement. “I didn’t know you and your ship were so attached. Is it usual for elves to treat ships as their wives?”

Kerrick glowered at Moreen. “Cutter is a sailboat, not a ship-though perhaps to you barbarians they’re the same thing!”

He was startled by the fury that suddenly darkened her features. The smile was gone, and somehow a knife had sprung into her hand. She trembled as she held the blade toward him, speaking in a low, brittle voice. “The last ship I saw was filled with killers, brutes. I have no reason to believe that your boat has brought anything different to our shores. Now, keep your mouth shut, if you want to keep your tongue.”

The elf said nothing. He sensed that his words had wounded Bruni and Tildey, too. All three humans were in a dark mood as they roughly pushed him along the forest trail. Not long afterward they entered a small clearing, brightened by glimpses of the gray sea through the trees. Scores of people huddled under the cedars, watching him with wide-eyed curiosity. There were frail, white-haired elders clutching babes and toddlers, and several tough- looking women holding spears. A number of children watched him with unabashed interest, and one-a tall youth with a shock of dark hair hanging over his forehead-fingered his spear, as if he would cast the weapon at the slightest provocation.

“Come this way,” Moreen said curtly, leading him through the band toward the shore.

Kerrick quickly realized that, except for some frail elders, there were no men among the group. He remembered Moreen’s words, about a ship filled with killers. How long had these people dwelled here in ignorance, pathetically surviving in this icy and forgotten corner of Krynn? They hadn’t even recognized him as an elf-at least, not until Moreen had had several days to think it over.

A few more steps brought them to the edge of the woods, where the chiefwoman halted beneath the cover of a dense cedar. He was relieved to see that Cutter bobbed at anchor where he had left her. For the first time in hours he thought of Coraltop Netfisher, wondering at the fact that there was still no sign of the kender.

“You are going to ferry my tribe across the strait,” Moreen said. “On your she-boat. It may take several journeys, but you must land each group on the far side and come back for more.”

Kerrick squinted across the water. He could make out the murky outline of a distant horizon, the shoreline obscured by fog. The wind was blowing from the north, and the surface of the open water had risen into steep, choppy swells. The mission would be challenging, especially since so much of it had to be done in the darkness, but it appealed to the seaman in him. At the same time, he realized that he had no choice.

“I refuse,” he said.

“What?” Moreen’s lips tightened in anger, her dark eyes flashing. “Do you want to be killed, right here, right now?”

“No, I don’t,” he replied. “But you don’t want to kill me, either … not unless one of you knows how to raise a sail, how to steer through an ocean swell.”

The chiefwoman’s face was white, and she was trembling with rage. He wondered if he had miscalculated. Moreen stomped away from him, then whirled back, her bone knife again in her hand. “Do you have a high tolerance for torture?” she demanded.

“No-but I have even less tolerance for slavery. I am Kerrick Fallabrine of House Mariner, and I am my own master.” He braced himself, ready to parry a thrust of that knife, to show these barbarians that elves knew how to fight!

He was utterly unprepared for her reaction. Her whole body slumped, as if her willpower had been drained. Her eyes, inflamed with rage a moment ago, now swam with despair. “Don’t you understand? We have to get across the strait!” she said.

He was surprised by how quickly his own tenseness faded. “And I could take you in my boat,” he said. “But not at the point of a spear! And those are not ogre weapons!” he added as an afterthought, looking at Tildey sharply.

Moreen scrutinized him. “You are a stranger, an enemy. It is only good sense for me to guard against treachery and betrayal.”

“Where I come from, it is not necessarily assumed that a stranger is an enemy,” Kerrick replied gently.

“Should I just let you go to your boat and trust you to come back for my tribe? Is that how your people treat strangers? I’m thinking you must come from a land of great fools!”

The elf sighed. Good manners, apparently, were not a cultural trait of these people. He shook his head, forging on. “Perhaps you could hire me, arrange a barter for the service of my boat. In my land, such arrangements are made all the time.”

“Indeed I offer you such a trade-your life, for the use of your ship.” Moreen’s chin was set, her eyes still hot.

“I tell you, that is slavery, and I am no slave!”

“What do your ship-people barter for?” This was Bruni, her broad brow furrowed.

Kerrick shrugged. “Lots of things. Food, furs, wine, cut stone. Steel is a common currency and gold the most precious of all.” As if these savages would know anything of gold!

“Gold!” Moreen’s eyes lit up, and she looked at Bruni. “Do you still have …”

“Of course,” said the big woman with a grin.

Her big pack was sitting on the ground, and Kerrick watched with interest as she untied the flap and reached inside. With some strain, she pulled out a small strongbox and set it on the ground. Moreen reached down, undid the clasp, and pushed open the lid.

“Here is gold. Will you accept it in trade for carrying my tribe across the strait?”

It was only with great effort that Kerrick kept his mouth from dropping open or held back from lunging at the mound of coins. There were more than a hundred of them there, thick and crudely stamped but undeniably pure gold. With a display of deliberation, he knelt and picked up one of the gold pieces. Just to be certain, he put it into his mouth and tasted it, biting down, feeling the malleable metal.

“Is that enough?” Moreen said worriedly. “We have some furs too, and I suppose we could spare some of our food, as well.”

Finally the elf trusted himself enough to speak. “Oh, that’s … enough.” He could spend a hundred years hauling passengers up and down the Than-Thalas and never come close to seeing this much gold.

“Yes,” he said firmly, standing and meeting Moreen’s eyes. “I will accept your offer and ferry your tribe in exchange for this gold.”

“Very good,” she said, with obvious satisfaction. “Now, how did you get from the boat to shore?”

“I swam,” Kerrick said.

“That won’t work. We’ll have to pull it up onto the beach.”

“That won’t work,” the elf replied. He explained about the keel. “She needs at least four feet of water to stay afloat.”

“What about this rock,” the woman said, gesturing to a flat boulder jutting into a little cove off the bay. “The water is deep next to it, and we can step from the rock onto the boat.”

“The stone might damage the hull. Can you have your people gathered many cedar boughs? Perhaps they can weave them into a bumper, to surround the edges of the rock. That just might work. I’ll swim out and bring in the boat, and we can try.”

Moreen snorted. “What if you just get aboard and sail away?”

The elf considered the fortune in gold that was sure to keep him here, but he didn’t want to let her know how much he valued her barter. Instead, he shrugged. “What do you want to do? Swim out there with me?”

She thought about that, as the icy wind bit through their cloaks and a spray of precipitation-snowflakes, now-whisked past. Finally, she nodded. “Yes. I will.”

“Huh? Suit yourself.” That surprised him, but he shucked his cloak, shirt, boots, and leggings. Moreen watched hesitantly as he walked out in the water, naked, to the flat rock she had chosen for a dock. He felt every snowflake strike his skin, each gust of chilly wind, but he suppressed his misgivings.

“Come along whenever you’re ready,” he shouted over his shoulder, and leaned forward to dive.

“Wait!” she cried, but he was already gone, plunging cleanly into the choppy water, gasping as the icy brine