'What does 'tack' mean?'
'Shhh… they'll hear us.'
'We're gonna capsize!'
The three friends fumbled to steer the gig by meager moonlight. Reiver admitted he'd sloughed his sailing lessons, so their stolen boat zigged and zagged up the River Memnon. Mostly the incoming tide propelled them, for Reiver hadn't realized that inland the wind dies at dusk. Hakiim leaned over the prow to spot the channel and saw only black water. Trying to capture the fading breeze, Amber grabbed the sheet away from Reiver and tied it to a cleat on the port side. Unexpectedly, the sail snapped taut, and the boom swung to the other side. The boat tilted left and almost pitched over. Hakiim yelped and grabbed hold with his toes, slung partway overboard, and Reiver cursed when the boom nearly brained him.
All Amber could say was, 'Sorry, but hush!'
As the gig inched upstream, Amber squinted north. Atop a high ridge overlooking the river sat the squat block of Fort Tufenk, 'The Fortress of Fire,' once the sole barrier that restrained the ravaging armies of Tethyr. Deep trenches for defense still scarred the moonlit slopes beneath the stone walls. Though Tethyr and Calimshan shared an uneasy peace, relations had been prickly ever since the Eye Tyrant Wars, and both sides still laid claims to the ruins of Shoonach and the old Kingdom of Mir. In this fort alone, two hundred troops trained daily for war. They were the Pasha's Farisan, or standing army, and the elite Mameluks, descendants of slaves who'd won their freedom. Ears ringing, Amber peered and listened, but no torch flared, nor did a whistle or horn raise an alarm as their stolen navy gig crabbed past the keep. Steering under a luffing sail, she saw the fortress finally fall behind.
Amber slipped a loop over the tiller and flexed her cramped arms. 'Whew, we're past it.'
'We've got plenty of water,' said Hakiim. 'The monks say the mountains suffered the deepest snows ever seen, so the rivers will flood all through Ches.'
'Oh? I heard spring thaws are late, and we'll have drought in Tarsakh,' said Reiver. 'Who's got something to eat?'
'So much for predicting the weather,' sighed Amber. 'Hey, don't gobble. We need rations for six days.'
Wedged backward in the prow, Hakiim nudged a jute bag with his toe. 'I've got figs and prunes, and flat bread and dates, and some dried peas and goat cheese,' he said, 'and a cake of pounded almonds, and mint leaves for tea if we can build a fire. I would have grabbed more from the kitchen but my Uncle Harun was grousing again.'
'Grousing about what?' Having no family, Reiver often asked about his friends'. He munched bread slathered with hummas.
'Oh, the usual. 'When will you get serious about the rug trade?' Never, is my answer, but I don't dare say it.'
Amber heard a lamb bleat. Along the dark, sloping riverbank, white jots of sheep and goats grazed by night amidst thorn bushes and evergreen oak. Just over a brow winked a shepherd's campfire. Far to the east was the jagged line of the Marching Mountains.
Nibbling a pigeon pie wrapped in paper, Amber asked, 'Why don't your sisters take over the business, Hak? Then you could do what you want.'
'Oh,' Hakiim yr Hassan al Bajidh sighed as he rummaged in his haversack, 'Asfora's going to sea, and Shunnari's getting married. Since my brother got killed in the fire, I'm the only one left to carry on the family name, but I'd rather-I don't know-go adventuring…'
'I live with adventure every day, trying not to get killed or jailed,' drawled Reiver. 'It's hardly a lark.'
'Still,' lamented Hakiim, 'repairing rugs and rolling rugs and hauling rugs and haggling over rugs-better Ibrandul spirit me to the Underdark.'
'Shhh, you'll jinx us,' Amber said, putting her fingers to her ears to keep out evil notions. 'Especially out here. You want skulks to drag us off while we sleep?'
'Skulks only inhabit ruins.' Reiver winkled a cork from a bottle of Zazesspuran wine. 'Of course, the Under- dark underlies everywhere. In Calimport the Night Parade thrives on it.'
'Cease your ghost stories,' Amber said.
She cast about, but saw little except the high ridges that channeled the river to the Shining Sea. Amber lay back and tried to relax, but watching a million stars dance circles around the masthead made her dizzy and queasy. Soldiers called the River Agis-also called the River Memnon-the Troubled River because of the continual border clashes, and Amber couldn't shake the feeling that they were sailing into trouble. She wished the moon would rise so she could offer prayers to Selune.
Trying to distract herself, Amber joined the conversation. 'I know how Hakiim feels,' she said. 'All I ever hear about is money and the family business-as if slavers were brass casters or felt makers. It's funny, though. I grew up watching slaves come and go, lived with it all my life, but it's only lately it seems wrong.'
'The gods made them slaves,' Reiver said, repeating the conventional wisdom of Memnon. 'Slavers just shunt them from master to master.'
'No, Amber's right,' Hakiim added. 'Now that we're pondering our own futures and freedom, we're more aware of other peoples' lives-and plights.' He peeled a desert orange, chucked the thick rinds in the river, and continued, 'No one's really free. Everyone has a master, or customers to please. The only one who's truly free in Calimshan is Sultan Sujil, though I suppose in some ways he answers to ten thousand citizens.'
'Still, slaving makes my family no better than the likes of the Twisted Rune, or the beholders, or illithids. Sorry, Reive.' The thief made the fig sign, thumb between middle fingers, to ward off evil names. Amber trailed her fingertips in the river, keeping watch for crocodiles. 'I'm not sure my family's got a future in slavery anyway. Since the Reclamation, my cousins can't capture slaves from Tethyr, so now they hunt in Athkatla, which is risky. If I could, I'd let the slaves go free and find another occupation, preferably anything not obsessed with coin. I'd be happy.'
'You scorn money because you've never lacked for it,' returned Reiver. 'I pray to Waukeen and Lliira for any at all. A bag of gold would solve all my problems. Between the Night Arrow and the Syl-Pasha's brother fighting to control the Undercity, and El Amlakkar busting heads, there's no future for a thief except as gallows bait.'
'So,' Hakiim challenged, 'if you could do anything, what would you choose?'
Amber chewed her cheek a while, considering. 'To start, I'd read all the Founding Stories in the library.'
'That's a lot of stories,' said Reiver.
'Reading's a hobby,' Hakiim added. 'You can't make a living at it.'
'I know,' Amber said, then slapped at a mosquito with wet fingers, 'but I love the old stories the storytellers recite in the bazaar and the grove behind the library. Tales culled from dragons, can you imagine?'
' 'Never trust the story, but always trust the storyteller,' ' quipped Reiver. 'I can make up dragon tales- ulkl'
Reiver flipped backward against the mast, Amber jounced off her tiny perch in the stern to sprawl in the bilge, and Hakiim lost his kaffiyeh in the water. Struggling upright, Amber asked, 'What happened?'
'We ran aground on a sand bar,' Reiver said, peering over the gunwale and trying to rock the boat. 'I'd say we're stuck till the tide turns.'
'When's that?' Amber swiped water from the seat of her breeches.
'Uh, twelve hours? Doesn't the tide turn twice a day? Or does it take longer in the spring?'
Hakiim wrung out his headscarf and said, 'Might as well send an elephant to sea. You'd sail into a fog and beach in the Theater of Allfaiths.'
'A good place to pick pockets,' the thief observed, 'and nobody'll spill their morningfeast on you from seasickness.'
Amber studied the shoreline thirty feet away, then ran down the sail. 'Looks like our holiday begins with wet feet,' she said, 'unless you two can walk on water.'
'Let the sailor go first,' joked Hakiim, 'to test for crocodiles.'
'The stink from his dirty feet will drive them away,' laughed Amber.
'You insult the honest dust of your home city,' Reiver said.
'Drag the anchor ashore, Hak.' Amber buckled her horsehide sandals around her neck, shrugged on her rucksack, grabbed her capture noose, and added, 'I don't mind walking now, but I'd rather ride back to Memnon.'