Black Halo

few would not return, usually paying for debts they had racked up with either their service or their kidneys.

That was a problem for a captain, Argaol thought as he lay back and shut his eyes against the morning sun. He would be one of those again someday, a captain with problems of unruly men and hostile seas and obligations to greedy men. But today, he was a man whose long, dark legs hung bare over the docks, a fishing line tied to his big toe.

His titanic ship, the Riptide, lounged as lazily as her captain did, bobbing up and down in the water beside him. They would both be called away before too long. But for now, each was content to lose themselves in their shared insignificance between the vast city and the boundless ocean, each content in the knowledge they could ask for no better company.

‘It just goes on and on, doesn’t it?’

He never asked for worse company. It always just seemed to find him.

‘Vast … endless …’

Argaol stifled a groan, attempting to pretend he couldn’t hear her. He remembered many an awkward conversation that had begun with this particular cliched pseudo-insight.

‘I can’t even begin to fathom how enormous it is …’

Any moment now, this would turn to some horrible confession, probably one involving a pelvic rash or a request for help removing a fishing hook from a particularly tender area. He clenched his teeth, hoped quietly that she would give up before she said-

‘On and on and on and on and-’

‘Zamanthras’ loving bosoms, all right,’ he finally spat out. ‘What in the sweet hell that I so dearly prefer to listening to you is on your wretched little mind?’

Quillian looked down with disdain as he cracked one eye open from his lounging on the dock. Her face was hard, barely any more femininity revealed in it than was revealed in her bronze-swaddled body. She brushed a lock of black hair aside, exposing the red line of an indecipherable oath written beneath her eye.

‘What makes you think something’s on my mind?’

Argaol stared at her with disbelief that bordered on offended. ‘I suppose I’m just the sensitive type.’

Her befuddlement was short-lived, concern etching its way across her features as she turned her gaze back out past the docks and over the sea.

‘I heard what the Lord Emissary plans,’ she said, ‘before he met with the heathen.’

Argaol chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. ‘Is it wise to use the word “heathen” in reference to someone who can spit icicles into your face?’

‘Perhaps your faith extends only as far as your fears,’ she replied coldly. ‘The Knights-Serrant cannot afford such luxuries of sloth. Our sins do not allow it.’

Your sins apparently don’t allow anything less than a gods-damned theatre production whenever you say something, either, he thought with a roll of his eyes. To hear her speak would lead anyone else to believe she was more than human. He had seen the flesh underneath her bronze, however. He had seen the red ink that was etched into her side. He knew not the language of sin, but whatever hers had been, they had been many.

That fact made the Serrant’s temperament at least somewhat understandable, even if nothing else about her was.

‘You’re not concerned?’ she asked.

He glanced down at his naked foot, the fishing line tied to his big toe as the rest of his slight, dark build sprawled out across the dock. He shrugged, folding his hands behind his bald head as he did.

‘I suppose I don’t look it, do I?’

‘His plan is to head for Port Yonder.’

‘Yonder’s fine enough,’ Argaol replied. ‘A little light on entertainment, but a bit of sobriety is good for the soul.’ He snorted, spat over the edge of the dock. ‘One would think a Lord Emissary’s duties would demand his presence here in Destiny, though.’

‘They do,’ Quillian muttered.

That caused Argaol to turn a glare upon her.

‘Aye? The Lord Emissary’s not coming?’

‘Not unless something has changed since he went to speak with that heathen.’ Quillian shook her head. ‘He means for us to act as … as aides to the vile creature.’

‘Ah.’

‘Surely you can’t be well with that.’ The Serrant turned an incredulous glare upon the captain. ‘I was assigned by the Master-Serrants to protect the Lord Emissary, not some … some …’

‘I wouldn’t bother finishing that thought,’ Argaol interjected curtly. ‘For someone who likes spewing them as much as you do, your repertoire of insults is surprisingly short and boring. And’ — he held up an authoritative finger — ‘as I recall, you were assigned to obey Evenhands, which protection most certainly falls under. And I was hired to do the same. No one’s violating any sacred oaths of red ink here.’

Her glare turned violent, face contorting with the audible grinding of teeth as she levelled a bronze finger at him.

‘Don’t you dare speak of oaths like you know any beyond your own to coin, you chicken-legged, cowardly, purse-fornicating, wheel-raping, hairless eater of broken meats!’

‘Uh … all right.’ Argaol rose up, scratched the back of his head. ‘That one I haven’t heard before, I’ll grant you.’ Rather than anger, it was with a furrow-browed curiosity that he cast his gaze at the Serrant. ‘So … what’s really on your mind?’

The Serrant turned her bronze shoulder to him. ‘It’s complicated.’

‘To you, doorknobs are complicated.’

‘Why would you be interested?’

‘Perverse fascination is not interest.’

She stared at him for a moment, expression teetering between appalled and murderous. Like two panes of glass grinding against each other, her face cracked in short order and revealed a look that Argaol had not yet seen on her normally stolid, firm-browed face.

Fear.

‘I worry,’ she said, ‘about the adventurers.’

Argaol blinked. ‘Do they owe you money?’

Her face screwed up. ‘Ah, no.’

‘So …’

‘Well, just one of them, really.’

‘Which one?’

Quillian stared into the waters lapping at the dock. ‘I shouldn’t say.’

‘Asper, then.’

‘What?’ Her head snapped back up with a look of alarm on her face.

‘Don’t look so damned shocked,’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘You think you’re the first woman to worry after another woman? It was either her or the shict.’ He furrowed his brow. ‘It’s not the shict, is it?’

‘No.’

‘Didn’t think so,’ he replied. ‘That would have been far, far too interesting to hope for.’ He lay back down upon the dock, folding his arms behind his head. ‘Makes sense, though; the priestess is the only decent one amongst them.’

‘Then you share my concern.’

‘Not especially, no. Sebast is due to meet with them any day now. From then, he brings them back to us, they collect their pay and you get to be content that a woman who thinks you’re a fanatical lunatic is safe.’

‘But she’s …’ Quillian paused, looking a little more alarmed. ‘Wait, did she tell you she thinks I’m a fanatical lunatic?’

‘I’m assuming she thinks it. It’s sort of your thing.’