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((30 Solace: 34 Dragon; The Anchorage; Gwaren docks))
“What do you have?” Celeste asked as the door closed behind her. She’d never been in Little Mary’s private quarters before, but the other woman had led her back here as soon as she had walked into the Anchorage. Something was definitely afoot.
“Maybe nothing,” Mary replied, her tone matching the shrug of small shoulders. “Maybe a wild goose chase.” She didn’t want it to be, but she was plainly not letting herself hope.
Celeste glanced around. The drawing room was simply furnished: two comfy looking armchairs and a couch in front of a small fireplace, end tables with oil lamps, rug on the floor. It was the details that could have kept her here for hours: a lifetime’s worth of trinkets and mementos. A glass barometer on the wall. Scrimshaw carvings ranging from crude to exquisite, on whale’s teeth, bone, narwhal tusks. Polished wood carvings decorated with bright beads from Rivain. A brass spyglass. A harpoon hanging next to a shark jaw large enough to give a landlubber nightmares for a month. A massive ship’s wheel, the wood polished smooth and dark by scores of hands, leaning against a wall. Everywhere she looked, there was something with a story behind it, but she had come to hear another story, evidently, so she dropped into one of the chairs, sinking into cushions that were padded to enable hours of listening.
“Tell me.”
Mary nodded, settling into the other chair. “About a year and a half ago, the dock workers brought me a stray,” she began. ‘Stray’ was the term for a sailor who had been dumped ashore by his ship when he became unable to work. It was a dirty trick that no reputable captain would pull, but there was no shortage of disreputable captains sailing the seas of Thedas, and Mary took in two or three a year. “He seemed hale enough, but his mind was …” She lifted her hand, waggled it. “He wasn’t violent. Just sort of shuffled wherever he was led and stayed where he was put. He’d feed himself and handle his own business in the privy, but he never really seemed aware of where he was. His eyes never really focused on the here and now. He’d talk to himself – nonsense, mostly, or hum a tune, and sometimes, he would just cry without a sound, tears sliding down his face for an hour or more.” Mary’s usually serene face grew troubled as she continued. “Sometimes, he’d just lay curled up in his bed, staring into space with a look of absolute terror on his face. We couldn’t reach him at all then: you could blow a bos’n’s whistle in his ear, and he wouldn’t even blink. He’d stay like that for a few hours, then fall asleep and wake up normal – well, normal for him,” she added with a shrug.
“You ever get a name for him?” Celeste wanted to know. It sounded a bit like what had happened to Spivey, but only a bit.
Mary shook her head. “Some of the crew took to calling him Sunny Jim as a joke, but they weren’t cruel about it. Never answered to that or anything else, though.”
“And the bastards who left him high and dry?” The hard edge in Celeste’s voice was rare for her. The crew of the Wicked Grace was her family; she didn’t love them all, and one or two she didn’t even particularly like, but she would no more have abandoned them on a dock than she would have cut off her arm.
“Well now, that’s where this tale gets truly strange,” Mary told her with an odd smile. “Nobody seems to know. One man swears it was a two masted schooner, another that it was a three masted barque, and there’s one fellow ready to swear on his life that it had no sails at all, just two rows of oars down each side.” She nodded her agreement to Celeste’s snort of disbelief at that one. “Every one of them remembers something different, and none of them can remember the name of the ship or anyone else sailing on her. I even had customs check their lists, but every ship they had on record in that time frame was one that I knew, and none of them would put off an invalid and rob him to boot. His sea bag held a single change of clothes … and this.”
A sailor's sea bag was more than a piece of luggage: it held his life. Clothes, gear, souvenirs and mementos of past ports of call. Celeste had yet to meet a sailor who didn't keep the canvas or leather bags stuffed to the brim; one that sparsely populated had been cleared out by thieves, and Celeste's eyes were flinty as she reached out to take the battered, leather-covered book that Little Mary held out to her.
“The Journal of Ephraim Sharpe,” she read from the letters inked on the front in black, then looked questioningly at Mary. “Not him?”
Mary shook her head. “I don't think so. The aging of the paper, the fade of the ink … I'd say it's a hundred years old, maybe more.”
Celeste opened it and carefully turned the brittle pages, frowning as she scanned the neat, closely spaced script. “No dates.” That was odd in a sailor's log, assuming that's what it was. “Any of the entries give any clues as to when they were written?”
“Not that I've found.”
Celeste turned to the end, her frown deepening at the torn edges. “Missing quite a few pages,”she murmured, glancing at the writing on the final page, the cutoff there confirming that not all of the pages torn out had been blank.
“Like I said, there's a good chance that this is nothing more than an old woman's imagination running wild,” Mary replied with a shrug. "Like as not, they've been torn out in one privy or another for ass-wiping."
Celeste looked at Mary sharply; she'd never heard her call herself 'old' before, and it was very nearly as disturbing as contemplating Brannigan's mortality … which meant that she wasn't going to do it. Instead, she turned back to the beginning and began to read.
The Journal of Ephraim Sharpe
If you are reading this, then I am dead, and good riddance. This body has long since become a prison that I cannot escape any other way, and I no longer care if the Maker is real and waiting to judge me. No punishment he could devise could match the hell that I’ve lived in these last years. The treasure that I sold my soul for lies untouched and perhaps untouchable; it’s for damn sure that I never laid hands on it, but maybe you’ll have better luck, whoever you are.
Don’t think I’m doing you any favors, friend. The odds are good that you’ll end up as I am now: burning with a fever that never breaks; plagued by a hunger that no amount of food can assuage; unable to die, yet unable to enjoy immortality. I’ve one last gambit left to try, so wish me luck. Or perhaps not. If you’re reading this, it worked, after all, and you’ll need all the luck you can get. Or maybe after reading my story, you’ll put this journal down and walk away. That would be the wise thing to do, and that’s fine, because sooner or later, some bastard as greedy as I was will come along, and a part of me wants somebody to get that treasure, even if I’ll never see a sovereign.
I’m not going to make it easy, though. Not like we had it. The key came to us whole and ready to use, and maybe that’s where we went wrong: going after the treasure too fast. You’ll get it a piece at a time, and maybe after you’ve found them all and put it together, you’ll be ready to face the Guardian. Or maybe not. Maybe no one can ever be ready, and maybe I’m just a bastard who wants somebody else to suffer as much as I have.
I’m not a total bastard, though, and to prove it, I’ll tell you the whole damn story from the beginning. Between that and putting the key together, you’ll know a damn sight more than I ever did.
Introductions first, like civilized men. My name is Ephraim Sharpe, and I was born the son of a farmer in Amaranthine, Ferelden. I hated the dirt. Hated the work. Hated my father, who beat the shit out of me for not working, or not working hard enough, or not doing the work correctly, or just because he felt like hitting something. When I was fourteen, I hit him back. Hard. And I kept hitting him until he was dead. Then I left. Went to Gwaren, signed on as a cabin boy on a cargo ship, and I’ve been a sailor ever since. Never did get any fonder of work, but at least there was no dirt, so I’d stay on a crew long enough to earn some coin, then walk away in whatever port struck my fancy and do as I pleased until the money ran out. My pleasures were simple ones: cheap ale, cheap food, cheap whores; I could make a little coin last a decent amount of time. The important thing was no work: no rising with the sun to do what somebody else wanted me to do. I’d try begging when the money started running out, but I was never any good at it; I’d get mad at the cheap bastards who refused me, and sooner or later I’d drag one into an alley, kill him and take his coin.
I might have been lazy, but I wasn’t a fool, so I never hung around long enough after for the guards to ask me any questions. I’d sign on with another ship that was heading out, and the cycle would begin again, and if nothing had changed, it’s likely that I would have continued the same way until I got caught or died an old man.
Things did change, obviously, and it began in Llomeryn, in my thirtieth year.
“What do you have?” Celeste asked as the door closed behind her. She’d never been in Little Mary’s private quarters before, but the other woman had led her back here as soon as she had walked into the Anchorage. Something was definitely afoot.
“Maybe nothing,” Mary replied, her tone matching the shrug of small shoulders. “Maybe a wild goose chase.” She didn’t want it to be, but she was plainly not letting herself hope.
Celeste glanced around. The drawing room was simply furnished: two comfy looking armchairs and a couch in front of a small fireplace, end tables with oil lamps, rug on the floor. It was the details that could have kept her here for hours: a lifetime’s worth of trinkets and mementos. A glass barometer on the wall. Scrimshaw carvings ranging from crude to exquisite, on whale’s teeth, bone, narwhal tusks. Polished wood carvings decorated with bright beads from Rivain. A brass spyglass. A harpoon hanging next to a shark jaw large enough to give a landlubber nightmares for a month. A massive ship’s wheel, the wood polished smooth and dark by scores of hands, leaning against a wall. Everywhere she looked, there was something with a story behind it, but she had come to hear another story, evidently, so she dropped into one of the chairs, sinking into cushions that were padded to enable hours of listening.
“Tell me.”
Mary nodded, settling into the other chair. “About a year and a half ago, the dock workers brought me a stray,” she began. ‘Stray’ was the term for a sailor who had been dumped ashore by his ship when he became unable to work. It was a dirty trick that no reputable captain would pull, but there was no shortage of disreputable captains sailing the seas of Thedas, and Mary took in two or three a year. “He seemed hale enough, but his mind was …” She lifted her hand, waggled it. “He wasn’t violent. Just sort of shuffled wherever he was led and stayed where he was put. He’d feed himself and handle his own business in the privy, but he never really seemed aware of where he was. His eyes never really focused on the here and now. He’d talk to himself – nonsense, mostly, or hum a tune, and sometimes, he would just cry without a sound, tears sliding down his face for an hour or more.” Mary’s usually serene face grew troubled as she continued. “Sometimes, he’d just lay curled up in his bed, staring into space with a look of absolute terror on his face. We couldn’t reach him at all then: you could blow a bos’n’s whistle in his ear, and he wouldn’t even blink. He’d stay like that for a few hours, then fall asleep and wake up normal – well, normal for him,” she added with a shrug.
“You ever get a name for him?” Celeste wanted to know. It sounded a bit like what had happened to Spivey, but only a bit.
Mary shook her head. “Some of the crew took to calling him Sunny Jim as a joke, but they weren’t cruel about it. Never answered to that or anything else, though.”
“And the bastards who left him high and dry?” The hard edge in Celeste’s voice was rare for her. The crew of the Wicked Grace was her family; she didn’t love them all, and one or two she didn’t even particularly like, but she would no more have abandoned them on a dock than she would have cut off her arm.
“Well now, that’s where this tale gets truly strange,” Mary told her with an odd smile. “Nobody seems to know. One man swears it was a two masted schooner, another that it was a three masted barque, and there’s one fellow ready to swear on his life that it had no sails at all, just two rows of oars down each side.” She nodded her agreement to Celeste’s snort of disbelief at that one. “Every one of them remembers something different, and none of them can remember the name of the ship or anyone else sailing on her. I even had customs check their lists, but every ship they had on record in that time frame was one that I knew, and none of them would put off an invalid and rob him to boot. His sea bag held a single change of clothes … and this.”
A sailor's sea bag was more than a piece of luggage: it held his life. Clothes, gear, souvenirs and mementos of past ports of call. Celeste had yet to meet a sailor who didn't keep the canvas or leather bags stuffed to the brim; one that sparsely populated had been cleared out by thieves, and Celeste's eyes were flinty as she reached out to take the battered, leather-covered book that Little Mary held out to her.
“The Journal of Ephraim Sharpe,” she read from the letters inked on the front in black, then looked questioningly at Mary. “Not him?”
Mary shook her head. “I don't think so. The aging of the paper, the fade of the ink … I'd say it's a hundred years old, maybe more.”
Celeste opened it and carefully turned the brittle pages, frowning as she scanned the neat, closely spaced script. “No dates.” That was odd in a sailor's log, assuming that's what it was. “Any of the entries give any clues as to when they were written?”
“Not that I've found.”
Celeste turned to the end, her frown deepening at the torn edges. “Missing quite a few pages,”she murmured, glancing at the writing on the final page, the cutoff there confirming that not all of the pages torn out had been blank.
“Like I said, there's a good chance that this is nothing more than an old woman's imagination running wild,” Mary replied with a shrug. "Like as not, they've been torn out in one privy or another for ass-wiping."
Celeste looked at Mary sharply; she'd never heard her call herself 'old' before, and it was very nearly as disturbing as contemplating Brannigan's mortality … which meant that she wasn't going to do it. Instead, she turned back to the beginning and began to read.
The Journal of Ephraim Sharpe
If you are reading this, then I am dead, and good riddance. This body has long since become a prison that I cannot escape any other way, and I no longer care if the Maker is real and waiting to judge me. No punishment he could devise could match the hell that I’ve lived in these last years. The treasure that I sold my soul for lies untouched and perhaps untouchable; it’s for damn sure that I never laid hands on it, but maybe you’ll have better luck, whoever you are.
Don’t think I’m doing you any favors, friend. The odds are good that you’ll end up as I am now: burning with a fever that never breaks; plagued by a hunger that no amount of food can assuage; unable to die, yet unable to enjoy immortality. I’ve one last gambit left to try, so wish me luck. Or perhaps not. If you’re reading this, it worked, after all, and you’ll need all the luck you can get. Or maybe after reading my story, you’ll put this journal down and walk away. That would be the wise thing to do, and that’s fine, because sooner or later, some bastard as greedy as I was will come along, and a part of me wants somebody to get that treasure, even if I’ll never see a sovereign.
I’m not going to make it easy, though. Not like we had it. The key came to us whole and ready to use, and maybe that’s where we went wrong: going after the treasure too fast. You’ll get it a piece at a time, and maybe after you’ve found them all and put it together, you’ll be ready to face the Guardian. Or maybe not. Maybe no one can ever be ready, and maybe I’m just a bastard who wants somebody else to suffer as much as I have.
I’m not a total bastard, though, and to prove it, I’ll tell you the whole damn story from the beginning. Between that and putting the key together, you’ll know a damn sight more than I ever did.
Introductions first, like civilized men. My name is Ephraim Sharpe, and I was born the son of a farmer in Amaranthine, Ferelden. I hated the dirt. Hated the work. Hated my father, who beat the shit out of me for not working, or not working hard enough, or not doing the work correctly, or just because he felt like hitting something. When I was fourteen, I hit him back. Hard. And I kept hitting him until he was dead. Then I left. Went to Gwaren, signed on as a cabin boy on a cargo ship, and I’ve been a sailor ever since. Never did get any fonder of work, but at least there was no dirt, so I’d stay on a crew long enough to earn some coin, then walk away in whatever port struck my fancy and do as I pleased until the money ran out. My pleasures were simple ones: cheap ale, cheap food, cheap whores; I could make a little coin last a decent amount of time. The important thing was no work: no rising with the sun to do what somebody else wanted me to do. I’d try begging when the money started running out, but I was never any good at it; I’d get mad at the cheap bastards who refused me, and sooner or later I’d drag one into an alley, kill him and take his coin.
I might have been lazy, but I wasn’t a fool, so I never hung around long enough after for the guards to ask me any questions. I’d sign on with another ship that was heading out, and the cycle would begin again, and if nothing had changed, it’s likely that I would have continued the same way until I got caught or died an old man.
Things did change, obviously, and it began in Llomeryn, in my thirtieth year.