This tale continues the story that started with "Act of Faith."
-Nate
Tale:
“Darkness and Light”
As he
did every evening, Marwan the hermit emerged from his hut at dusk,
just before moonrise, and walked down to the shore where the Great
River flowed down into the Middle Sea for a bath. Then he wrapped
himself in a thick woolen robe and kindled a small fire for boiling
tea and baking a loaf of bread. Once everything was in order, he
settled in to wait for Luna's appearance.
Although
his attention was focused on the far horizon, from the corner of his
eye he noticed a dark mass of debris floating along the rippling
silver surface of the river. He was about to dismiss it as a cluster
of uprooted papyrus reeds or something similar when part of the mass
shifted and and gave up an all-too-human moan.
Rushing
to the shoreline, Marwan waded into the water up to his waist and,
using his gnarled walking stick, just managed to snag the drifting
mass. With an effort he dragged it to the shore. There, by the light
of the rising moon, he could see the source of the sound; it was a
male human, and one who'd clearly suffered terrible burns.
Carefully,
and with strength belied by his frail appearance, Marwan lifted the
unfortunate man and carried him into the hut, and then laid him
gently on his sleeping pallet. Next he retrieved a battered brazier,
scooped some coals from the fire into it, and grabbed some of the
brush that he'd gathered for fuel. Taking it back into the hut, he
seated himself beside the pallet, opened his healer's kit, and
started to work.
* * *
The next week was a grueling one, for both the cleric
and his charge. Marwan's vigil was ceaseless, consisting of changing
bandages, preparing and applying salves, feeding the man a thin
gruel, and praying for recovery. For his part, the man drifted back
and forth between feverish, delirious outbursts and occasional,
fitful sleep.
Then, on the seventh day, the man settled into peaceful
slumber.
* * *
Not wanting to leave his charge's side for his normal
evening ablution and meditation, Marwan decided instead to read aloud
from his small collection of religious texts. One of these was a
treatise that told of Homeworld's creation.
“Once,
when the Universe was new, Ptah looked out and decided to start
filling it with living beings. To do that, he set out to create two
beings, one male and one female. What Ptah did not expect is that
each creation actually produced two beings, twins. The male progeny
were Sol, who would inhabit the Sun, and the entity known as the
Void. The female offspring were Gaea, the Earth Mother, and Lamashtu,
Mother of Monsters. Whereas the prior manifested the Earth's
potential to provide for all of its children in abundance, the latter
embodied the wild nature of living things, survival of the fittest,
and thus an evil outlook on life.
“Recognizing
the danger that his two unintended offspring represented, Ptah made a
difficult decision. He created a star for Sol, so that this deity
could be a shining beacon of virtue in the Universe, and also made a
planet for Gaea to inhabit. Through the interaction of the two
deities, the Earth came to be populated with all manner of plants,
animals and other living things. Even so, the situation was not an
idyllic one. While the Void absconded to the farthest, darkest
reaches of Space, Lamashtu was jealous of her sister and thus took up
residence on Earth. There she began to spawn offspring of her own,
including many of the monsters that now exist, corrupted versions of
the ones that Gaea and Sol created.
“What
many humans forget is that the Creator had three female offspring,
not two. The third was Luna, who embodied qualities of both Sol and
Gaea. For that reason she was given dominion over the moon, a
dwelling that illuminates the night sky in the same way as the sun,
and that is a companion for the Earth in dark times. She provides
light for those who travel in the night, those who explore the Earth
but choose to do so without submitting themselves to the dominion of
the sun.”
“This,
then, is the origin of good and evil in the Universe, and thus the
source of all conflicts that have plagued Homeworld—along with the
rest of the galaxy—since time immemorial. And so,” Marwan
concluded, “all of us are given the opportunity to choose, between
benevolence and wickedness, between independence and obedience. It
only remains for each of us to decide just how we want to
live—following the laws of society, or doing as we please; working
to help others, or taking what we want without regard for them.”
Seeing
his charge lying motionless, but with slow and steady breathing,
Marwan closed his book and allowed himself, too, to nod off into
sleep.
* * *
Marwan
was still snoring when the man stirred and sat upright. Surveying the
inside of the hut, and seeing his rescuer asleep, the man pushed
himself unsteadily to his feet. Stooping, he retrieved the knife that
the cleric had used to chop herbs for poultices. Then, after
considering the older man for a moment, the burned man stooped and
cut his throat.
“I've
made my choice,” he declared. Then, after gathering what useful
items he could find, the man took Marwan's cloaked, used it to mop up
the cleric's spilled blood, and departed.
* * *
Along
an otherwise desolate stretch of Middle Sea coastline, east of where
the Great River flows into it, there is a small cavern whose entrance
is entirely concealed by the water at high tide. For that reason it
had been chosen by the band of pirates known as Martelli's as the
place in which they would lie low after a successful raid,
celebrating and waiting for the fervor of enemy pursuit to subside.
This
time the mood was anything but celebratory.
“How
did they find us so quickly?” asked Emilio, a grizzled old pirate
with a head shaved bald and a patch over his right eye.
“It
doesn't matter how,” grumbled Julius, a younger who wore his long
black hair clubbed. “What matters is, what in Hell are we going to
do about it now?”
After
being caught unawares while fleeing from their foiled attack on the
Skylark, the pirates had suffered heavy casualties defending
their own vessel, and then had been forced to abandon it when its
hull was holed. By that time had begun to fall, however, and so those
who could jumped overboard and made their way under the cover of
darkness back to the hideout. Now they sat in the sandy cave, with
the light of a single lantern turned down low.
The
older man surveyed the younger with a sneer. “Do you have a plan?”
Emilio asked.
“No,”
Julius conceded. “But—”
“I
do.”
That
voice came from the hideout's dark tunnel entrance. For a moment the
pirates froze, and then they lunged for their weapons. Emilio grabbed
the lantern and turned its beam on the cave mouth.
“Who goes
there?” he demanded.
The
sight that he saw there made even the veteran cutthroat's stomach
lurch. It was a human, but one with most of his hair burned away and
his skin marred by other burns that had left terrible scarring.
“What
in Hell?” Emilio asked.
“Don't
you recognize me, Emilio?”
“Bugger
me,” the veteran stammered. “Captain Martelli?”
“Aye.
Our enemy defeated us, but did not kill me.”
“Captain?”
Julius was astonished. “Captain, what would you have us do?”
Martelli
smiled. “Rather than cowering here like rabbits, waiting to be
caught by the foxes, you should go forth like dogs to the hunt.”
“But
Captain,” Emilio objected, “we have no ship, and we've lost most
of our men.”
The
burned man shook his head. “No.” He pointed back down the tunnel.
“There are a ship and crew, ready for the taking, if only we are
bold enough to go and claim them.”
“How?”
Emilio persisted.
“Julius,”
Martelli turned to the younger man. “Do you still have your
thieves' tools?”
“Aye.”
The pirate nodded and touched the kit that he kept wrapped in the
sash about his waist.
“Good.”
Martelli retrieved an item from his satchel. “All we need is that,
and this.”
“What
is it?” Emilio asked.
“This,”
Martelli replied, “is our covenant. Previously we served only
ourselves as corsairs. Now we will serve a higher purpose, a higher
power—Lamashtu. She is the mother of all who are bold enough
to take what they want in life instead of begging for it.”
“What
must we do?” Julius asked.
Martelli
drew a knife from a sheath on his belt. “First we must be bound
together. Then I will explain what we do next.”
* * *
The
sunrise found a Middle Sea galley—the Resplendent, pat of
the Nothern Imperial Navy—lying at anchor along the coastline. As
the sky began to brighten and the crew moved back into activity,
Captain Francesco Chiaro started issuing orders. “Search parties to
the longboats; let's scour this shore until we find those scallywags
and bring them to justice!”
His
men hastened to comply; soon the boats were lowered into the water
and crewed, and rowing toward the shore. At the same time, a figure
came swimming, underwater and unseen, between them, and made his way
to the anchor line that ran down from the galley's stern. Climbing
that, Martelli lunged for the galley's transom and then hauled
himself up and over it.
“Ahoy!”
he declared. “I am Captain Arturo Martelli, and I have come to
parley with you.”
Chiaro
stared at the newcomer, and then glanced about at the sailors and
soldiers who remained from his own compliment. “You have?” His
words dripped with scorn. “And what could you possibly offer, with
which to parley?”
“Freedom.”
“Freedom?”
“Yes.
The right to live as men should, unhindered by moral or ethical
limitations.”
As
Martelli continued his diatribe, Julius swam up to the surface
alongside the galley, next to the port from which one of its massive
oars protruded. As the rowers reacted to his sudden appearance, he
shushed them with a finger to his lips.
“If
any of you will join us,” he whispered, “then I will set you
free.”
He
received numerous nods in response.
“Does
any among you know how to use these?” From his sash he retrieved
his set of thieves' tools and opened it for them to see.
One
of the rowers raised his hand just a fraction. Julius closed the kit
and passed it along to him. Then he handed over a number of knives,
small but very sharp. “Be ready to attack on our signal,” he
instructed, and then swam away.
Captain
Martelli, meanwhile, was still extemporizing about his philosophy
regarding liberty, self-determination and other related subjects.
Just as he was building toward a rousing finish, one of the soldiers
shouted, “Hey, some of the rowers—”
“Now!”
Martelli bellowed. Drawing his concealed rapier, he rushed to engage
Captain Chiaro. At the same time, his crewmen—led by Emilio and
Julius—came clambering up over the galley's siderails. When the
soldiers moved to intercept these newcomers, they found that numerous
rowers were free of their chains, armed, and eager to vent their
anger. Even those who were still shackled did what they could to
grapple and pummel the soldiers. Seeing that, the attacking pirates
pulled out shortbows and began sniping targets as they could. The
galley's captain and crew fought valiantly, but the tide of battle
turned inevitably against them. In the end, Martelli distracted
Chiaro with a lunging feint, and Julius stabbed him in the back. When
they saw their captain slump, lifeless, to the ground, the other crew
members threw down their weapons and surrendered. Those crewmen who'd
set out in the longboats, recognizing that they stood no chance of
retaking the ship, headed for shore.
* * *
As
the pirates went about their business of chaining the surviving
soldiers and organizing the newly liberated crew, none paid much heed
to the parrot that perched on a spar of the galley's mainmast. After
observing them for a time, it took to wing and flew southward.
