'It wasn't,' Jherek replied, 'something he seemed especially proud of.' He rolled his sleeve back down. 'And what do you think of me now, Sir Glawinn, when you think back on those nights you've spent training me with a sword? Did you ever think you might be training a pirate captain's son who might someday hold that sword and all that skill at your throat?'›
The paladin's eyes narrowed. 'That's not something you'd ever do.'
Jherek shook his head. 'How can you be so sure about that?'
'I know you.'
'You don't know me. The tattoo proves that.'
'I know you,' Glawinn said, 'I admit the tattoo is something of a surprise. Tell me about it.'
Standing there gripping the railing, his fist tight about all that he was about to abandon, Jherek did. He told the story of his life on Bunyip, and of what little he knew about his father. He spoke of the sea battles he'd seen, the deaths he'd watched, and the tortures he'd seen inflicted.
And he told of the time when he was twelve and his father had first placed a cutlass in his hand and told him he was going to be part of a boarding crew. He'd escaped in the night and somehow made the long swim in to Cape Velen fourteen miles away.
'When I got to Velen I was starving,' Jherek said, 'but I couldn't even steal food. Instead, I lived on berries and eggs I found down by the beach. I hired myself out first working the docks to move cargo, then any job I could get in Velen. Eventually I got a job with a shipwright. I love working wood, and I've got a talent for it. That's what got me the job of repairing Madame litaar's roof.'
He told the paladin of Madame litaar, how she'd taken in an orphan boy who was sleeping in an extra room in the shipwright's building during the months it took to repair her roof.
'Months?' Glawinn asked. 'For a roof?'
'It started out as the roof but it moved on to other things. A new fence. A new porch, front and back. New tables and chairs. Madame litaar has a list of projects she always wants done. I'm a good woodworker.'
'You must be.'
'I lived in her house for years, and she wouldn't have treated me any better if I'd been her own son.' As he said that, Jherek was surprised to find that he still believed that.
'Why did you end up in Baldur's Gate?'
Jherek told him of Breezerunner and the Amnians, and how Madame litaar seemed certain that whatever destiny he had lay in Baldur's Gate. 'Even Malorrie thought so.'
'Malorrie's the man who taught you your skill with the blade?'
'Actually, Malorrie's a phantom,' Jherek replied. So he told of how Malorrie had been the first to really find him living on the beaches. He'd broken his leg a short time after arriving in Velen and it had been the phantom that'd taken care of him. He told of the nights they'd spent in the shipwright's building learning all the combat skills the phantom knew.
'You don't know who this Malorrie was when he was living?' Glawinn asked.
'I never asked. It's like that between us. We just accept each other for the way we are. Without trying to change anything.' Jherek's voice turned bitter. 'You don't get that out of many people.'
'I know. So why give up now?'
Jherek glanced at his fist, thinking of the object inside it, what it had meant then and what it had ceased meaning since. 'I'm not giving up. I'm acknowledging my inability to control whatever destiny I may have.'
'It sounds like quitting to me.'
Jherek shook his head and laughed. 'Call it what you will. I've had enough.'
'Enough of what? Disappointment? Everybody faces disappointment.'
'Not disappointment,' Jherek answered. 'I've been betrayed.'
'By whom?'
'I don't know.'
Glawinn let him have some time, then asked, 'How have you been betrayed?'
'What does 'Live, that you may serve,' mean to you?' the young sailor asked.
'Nothing. Should it?'
'Probably not, but for years I've been wondering what it meant for me.'
'Why?'
'Because I've been told that.'
In a shaking voice, Jherek told of the voice, how it had said that the first time and he'd been saved by a dolphin. He also told him how the voice had spoken again earlier that day, just before the freak gust of wind had powered them out of capsizing.
'For all my life,' he finished, 'I've wondered what that's supposed to mean.'
'Maybe it's not time,' Glawinn replied.
'No,' Jherek said in a loud voice. 'I'm tired of waiting. Ill tell you what I think now. I think whoever that voice belongs to has been trying to destroy me, to destroy my hope. I've fought it. I lived when I wanted to die. I escaped my father, risking my life against the sea, rather than take up a blade against an innocent man. I starved because I wouldn't steal. I worked because I had to take care of myself and not throw myself on the mercy of others. I've lived, but I've had no life.' His voice broke.
Glawinn, thankfully, kept his distance and let Jherek regroup on his own.
The young sailor spoke carefully when he could. 'The closest I've ever come to a life was in Velen. In risking my life to save a rich, spoiled girl, I saw all that taken away from me. My reward. No, it should have been 'Live, that you may suffer.' ' He shook his head. 'I'm done with that, and I'm done with this.'
The young sailor opened his hand and revealed the small pair of white clay hands bound at the wrists by a blood-red cord that lay on his palm.
'You follow Umater the Crying God's teachings,' Glawinn said.
'Aye. I did.'
'He teaches endurance and perseverance. Good qualities for someone who's had to learn to accept.'
'I've accepted,' Jherek said. 'I had accepted-even the voice-but I'm not going to accept any more.'
'What are you going to do?'
'I don't know.'
Glawinn paused for a moment, then his eyes opened wider. 'You're afraid that the voice belongs to something or someone evil, but that could never be, Malorrie. You aren't an evil person.'
'I'm not?' Jherek laughed bitterly. 'You just called me Malorrie. Don't you understand that was my teacher's name? I've never told you my real name. I lied, and I would never have done something like that until now. As it is, I'm not even able to live my own life. That's been stripped from me as well.'
'Maybe you're only being shown to your new life.' Glawinn shrugged. 'I don't know how these things work, young warrior. I only trust the weave that I follow.'
'I can't,' Jherek said. 'Not any more. I only fooled myself into believing that I could.'
'Have you spoken with Sabyna?'
Jherek said nothing, the pain in his throat growing larger and harder to swallow. 'No.'
'Why not?'
'Why should I?'
'Because she seems to have a vested interest in you.'
'She's under the mistaken impression that she owes me something.'
'Ah, young warrior, there are so many things you still don't see in life.'
Jherek's anger turned him hot even in spite of the cool night breeze blowing around him. 'What's that supposed to mean?'
'Only that time will make you wiser, but I can see that the learning won't come easily to you in certain matters.'
'I can't tell Sabyna.'
'Even though you love her?'
Jherek shook his head. 'You don't know that I love her. I don't know that I love her.'
'You were willing to abandon your quest for the pearl disk because of her.'
'It's foolish for her to die for my mistakes.'
