The Journey Begins
 

The ship rocked violently.

I had fallen into a light sleep steering, or rather drifting, the sloop out of the river mouth into the Mirrorsea Bay. The current was strong and steady, and I knew that there would be no hazardous reefs if I stayed in the tidal flow. But maybe the sudden increase in the flow of the Marzeel had changed the main current, in any case I started up and looked around for my position. While the shores were farther apart than usual for this time of the tide, I still held my course. The outer undeeps should have gone past by now, this much I knew from the few times I had taken a boat journey out of the Karse harbour. No, there had to be something else, and then I could see it rise out of the sea.

Choralinthor's home wasn't called Mirrorsea for nothing. Even in the wildest rages of Orlanth and his kin the sea remained mostly unmoved, with only low waves. The few times we saw real wave action was when the tidal waves surged in three years ago and lapped hungrily at the shore, like three years ago. This was similar in that the waves came from a source different from Choralinthor, in this case they rose before the chest of a creature unlike any I had ever seen.

That is, unlike any creature I had seen in this size, which were not many in any case. Its head rose several yards above the waves.

...

"By what right do you dare to claim passage into my master's realms?" the beast demanded, in a deep, resonating voice that threw ripples onto the water all around. The sails of my sloop actually bulged backwards at its sound.

I had no idea whether the beast meant myself or my ship, but since I was the only available voice, I cried at the top of my lungs: "By the right of treaty, and of kinship." The treaty of course was the ancient pact the Islander people had with the Ludoch and their gods, and my claim of kinship ran through my mother's family.

The beast stopped in its advance, though still towering above my craft. "Kinship you claim, puny land-thing?" it bellowed. "No kin travels in landmade things, and all who do will be swept from the seas by the Great Command!"

"Still I claim kinship to the waves. My blood is that of the masters of dragons, descended from Neleom. I might live on the land, but my ancestors come from the sea."

"So you claim. Prove it!" the beast roared.

"I have no proof to offer but my blood," I cried, "so taste it!", and slashed my left arm with my righthand blade, dropping a trickle into the sea.
 

It had been the same blade, slashing the same part of the arm, when I swore to the swordsman's code in front of Berengar of Rhigos. Berengar was a Humakti Sword from Esrolia who had come to Karse only a couple of days before I met him for the first time. I was 14, and while I had been initiated to adulthood in the sea temple at Seapolis before my mother sent me into apprenticehood, and while I had been sworn to the city's spirits upon acceptance as a guilded apprentice, this was my real entry into the world of adults, or so I thought.

The day I met Berengar was one of my precious few days off. Brin had delivered an exquisite diadem to the baroness, and when payment and compliments had been delivered promptly, he sent me off with two silvers for myself and went for a decent drink to the Silver Cauldron.

I had been hanging out with a couple of aquaintances from the luxurious periphery of Margalas, including both high-bred sons breaking off their first horns, experienced ruffians always short of money, and more boisterous young hangers-on or even members of the Mockers. It had been a quiet evening, almost educational, with skilfully recited tales of dubious morality and more drinks than was good for any of us.

We were in kind of a carnival mood when we left Margala's backyard and went for the Bronze Mermaid. There were enough Old Racers among us to make sure that we'd be harrassed, even though the 'maid was not as firmly in the grip of the Fist back then as it is today. However, we had found it too expensive to get all of our booze at Margala's, and the shared bottles of wine had emptied way too soon, so we were looking for someplace to get a drink. Nowadays one would visit Shigga's, but back then the city had just begun to cralw out of the walls. In a group of seven, I felt fairly comfortable even here, with a dozen guards off-duty hanging around. Joro the Pimp (still working the streets, or inns) was there, and his three girls seemed to make good money, and to raise the soldiers' spirits.

Jarn Dorwellan, tonights leader in our celebration, had just ordered the second bottle to go round when the door swung open and admitted the blood-stained Jermon Creeg, a well-known bully of the port-side, a cargo handler for money and a brawler for the fun of it. Jermon was an expert in making the fishermens' return with their catch a hell, "accidentally" toppling baskets with their catch, elbowing them and then demanding that they excused for molesting him, and so forth, but this was just his way to get what he considered fun. When one of the fishermen - or other Old Folk people, he wasn't picky about that - swallowed the bait, he'd be upon him, hard and brutal. In the rare cases when he encountered strong resistance, he'd break off, and return with his gang.

Since Jermon's attitude was shared by several of the senior guardsmen, he was quite welcome as their drinking buddy. Thus his entry bleeding from several shallow cuts on arms, chest and face roused shouts of concern and protest from among the guards while Serlaine, the most soft-heartened of Joro's streetworkers ripped a strip of cloth of her blouse to dab at his wounds wile Jermon, encouraged witha huge tankard of ale, spewed forth his tale of misery.

"'Twas a tweaky if I ever saw one", he coughed out foam from the ale. "Dressed up like a pleasure boy, but carried two pig-stickers on his belt. Me and the boys, we teased him as he stepped off that boat. Carried a sea-bag, and little else. Wouldn't bite, I thought, so I had an elbow fair and square to his face - but barely brushed him. Had a knife on my chest instead, and this cut here" and pointed at one of several cuts through tunic and skin, "without me doin' anything real. 'So you want it the hard way', I said, and had my knife out, and the boys came with their hooks. Tell you what, that chum came up close and sliced me. Didn't see anything, but felt the cuts. Then the boys came up close, and he spun away. Kicked Tom, and backhanded Burly into the barrels... didn't even break a sweat, just walked around the shed, and through the gate. Me and the boys ran after him, but was gone..."
 

to reveal a figure of middle height, if it hadn't been for the elaborate hat. The man entered, looked around, and asked, in a measured, almost polite tone of voice, "Has any of you seen that trollkin excuse for a man, Jermon Creeg? Tell him that Berengar of Rhigos has come for him."
 
 
 
 

Luckily for the Rhigosite, neither Jermon nor his closest friends were here, but even so, one of the guards removed his face from the ample bosom of Fanny (another of Joro's girls) and called back: "So what, little pleasure-boy, old Jermon will take you apart. That is, if you get out of here alive..."
 

The stranger who called himself Berengar remained in the half-shadow of the door. He had spoken Heortlander with the lilting accent common for the Esrolian cities, and this as well as his costume confirmed his origin - a soft kilt, that hat, and gaudy jewelry all over the man.  And all over his weapons, too, two extremely fancy scabbards holding slender blades. A duelist, no doubt, and a cocky one at that.
 
 
 

Berengar always was something to look at. He came from Rhigos, after all, and deemed himself the personification of Rhigosite style and sophistication. Now Rhigos is a strange city, an overgrown mixture of a very variant Esrolite people with lots of Porthomekan and Islander influence, and the typical Kethaelan cityfolk in addition. The local Esrolites there are big on virginity, or something closely resembling it, as manifested in their ruler, the Demivierge. The clans in power aren't led by matriarchs, at least not directly, but instead by a virgin chosen for that office. Needless to say that this is no life position, but the clan rulers usually last ten to fifteen years after coming into theoretical womanhood.

This makes Rhigosite sex life and moral mores quite peculiar. I'd go for straight Vorians (those who have seen their fires) any time - they do have a natural playfulness and curiosity I can appreciate - but those Rhigosite ruling "virgins" subscribed to practices experienced Ulerians had to work at. Being barred from natural concourse, they often went for menage-a-trois, with another woman to consume the most burning desire of the male in the picture, or added even more males. And then there are the rules of hospitality in that city...

I don't know whether it has to do anything with this, but Rhigosite male fashion seems to cater for the tastes of these demivierges. They like their men soft but strong, and they like to see muscle, and to feel their way into their men. The well-shaven man - legs, chest and chin - usually wears high airy boots, a kilt of cotton and a shirt or vest showing at least a good portion of chest, and a ship-shaped hat ornated with various trinkets. Like all Theyalans the men wear various pieces of jewelry, with a current fad for piercing eyebrows, navels and nipples in addition to the ears. Depending on the status of their paramours the cloth and ornaments are embroidered or dyed in polychromous patterns. The overall effect of even an ordinary-clad Rhigosite can only be called gaudy.

Berengar was considered a peacock even by his Rhigosite peers, though, and his costume was a riot of colours. However, Berengar also was a Sword of Humakt, and for all his "style" he kept his clothing practical. He affected a leather vest studded with iron rings, and wore iron bracelets on his lower arms. A pair of studded fencing gloves hung from his belt, finest leather. Beneath the vest he wore a a dazzlingly died shirt embroidered with stylized swordsmen in various poses, a lecture in Rhigosite swordmanship if one could stand to look at the warring colours - a cream-coloured background with bright red-and-blue dye-patterns. His kilt, an almost sombre affair of light blue cotton, was bordered and embroidened with a Porthomekan-style ornamental rankwork, interspersed with the runes of death, truth, and luck, indicating his affiliation to the Godking's subcult of Humakt. As a fencer in Rhigosite style his ornate sword-belt held twin sabres in fancy scrollwork sheaths, hilts encrusted in jewels. There also were three daggers visible, two of them balanced for throwing, the third a nasty weapon in close quarters. His boots were a compromise between riding boots and airy Rhigosite fashion, smooth suede leather on the insides, interwoven strands on the outside, with soles definitely unsuited for long marches but allowing a good footing. The hat was a show in itself, multicoloured feathers flowing back, a silken veil ready to fend off the worst of sun or dust, with bright stripes of cloth on a dark leather base.

The overall impression was that of an Esrolite husband-boy let loose to the real world, an image carefully maintained by Berengar. While he moved with the grace of a dancer (or fencer), nobody would have thought of him as threatening, rather as a comical medium-sized fop. His bare legs were an indication towards his Humakti gifts and geasa, which allowed him to strike crippling blows against his opponents' legs while accepting his own vulnerability there.

Berengar was a duelist by trade, well versed in legal matters, and legal combat. Almost all of urban Kethaela had adopted the Orlanthi custom of trial by combat, and given the situation in Esrolia, the parties were allowed to field champions for their cause. Legal combats are fought to
varying degrees - first blood, first fall, or to the death. Legal champions had to be good if they wanted to remain in business, and Berengar did well. The day he landed in Karse, he brought two superior mounts from the ship which had ferried him over from Nochet. He had been invited by Sharinwa, the High Priestess of Ernalda, to present the temple in a dispute with Deputy Chamberlain Sarc Rowak.
 
 [to be continued]