Karadra's Shipwreck

The Island - Chapter 7

Arsik woke up from the deepest sleep. His body felt light and rested, his hand considerably better. Bandages were wrapped around his neck, shoulder and hand, and he had received quite the sufficient treatment from skillful hands. His temperature had dropped back to normal and, for the first time that day, his vision wasn’t swimming. His stomach was empty, his hunger as terrible as his thirst, but the first thing he saw near him was a tray of food, fruit and wine. He descended upon it, famished.

He was in a dungeon – it couldn’t be called anything else. A room that’d been dug under the earth, with a low, stone ceiling Arsik could almost touch when standing, a simple, filthy mattress and a thick, wooden door, locked and bolted. Whoever had tended to his wounds, had also made sure he would stay in there.

A wooden bucket lay next to the bed and he used it for his bodily needs. Then, he sat quietly and sipped his wine, contemplating the many events of the past two days.

He wondered who had found him and where they belonged but didn’t put much strain on his mind – after all, the possible answers were very few. Of course, these men didn’t belong to the royal guard; those never ventured that deep into the jungle. The medical treatment he’d received and the meal, indicated wealth and comfort, so if Arsik hadn’t been discovered by a group of traveling noble lords sightseeing in the jungle, then he’d been captured by a archpirate, without a doubt. The question was, which one?

It wouldn’t make much difference, but there were four great archpirates running the island’s affairs and he had unfinished business with only one of those. Consequently, it was a matter of luck. He could take advantage of his situation and win them to his side, selling them supposedly valuable information against Phaelo and Golderim Veyr – anything to make him seem important to the man who’d abducted him.

A noise came from the door. A number of metallic pieces were unlatched, and a lock opened. A young man appeared, as slender as Arsik, with a black tunic shirt, leather boots and a narrow, weasel-like face, sunken and tanned. He was chewing something – the sound of moving jaws irritated Arsik instantly.

“You. Boss wants to see you. Get up, let’s go.”

Arsik dusted his hands off and wiped the food from his chin. “Where are we going? Who is the boss?”

The young man smiled and kept chewing. “Who told you you can ask questions? Come on, move.”

Turning his back, he exited the cell, showing neither fear towards Arsik nor any concern about his reaction.

Without much choice, Arsik followed him.

They walked down a low-ceilinged tunnel. Old chests lay left and right, burning candles, abandoned weapons, loot and stolen goods, rugs and torches on the walls. The tunnel kept going and they shuffled like rodents deep beneath the ground. They passed a round room that looked like a cellar; barrels were lined up and stacked high against the walls and the pungent odor of mold and wine permeated everything.

Arsik spotted a kitchen knife stuck in a piece of wood. He eyed it eagerly and briefly looked at his warden’s bare neck, but quickly dismissed the idea and kept following him. The young man didn’t even spare him a glance.

When they reached their destination, he was led into a bigger chamber – a cave with a high, vaulted ceiling. The drafts of air inside the well-lit space hinted at openings near the surface. A luxurious divan accommodated the reclined body of a man in his fifties. Lithe and raven-haired, he wore a black jerkin over a red velvet loose shirt and an impressive leather belt.

He was smiling broadly, showing off a line of horse teeth, some of them gold, some silver and some white. Around him were arranged trays of fruit and food: various pieces of meat, watermelons and peaches, blocks of fine cheese and wine that smelled of sweet fruit, like the fragrant blend imported from Exotia, in the East.

The rum wasn’t absent from this banquet. Its tantalizing aroma tickled Arsik’s nostrils like a feather, the bait that reeled in an eager fish. Arsik ogled it, his eyes big and round like a child’s. Four more men stood around the room, a personal guard, dressed in leather armor and gloves. Light swords –curved or straight– were sheathed on them.

The man picked up a bunch of grapes and with his free hand beckoned Arsik closer, the smile still etched on his face. As he approached, Arsik’s heartbeat quickened. He took everything in all at once. Chests, barrels, coffers and jars overflowing with golden coins, diamonds, rubies, necklaces and bracelets – entire mountains of them, barrels filled to the brim, spilling treasures on the floor around them, like overstuffed bellies that couldn’t hold more food.

The gold, Arsik thought and, remembering the temple, the Medusa and the coins on the ground, he felt suddenly lightheaded.

Arsik and the man surveyed each other. The stranger’s smile didn’t reach his eyes – it only stretched his mouth. Those eyes attested to the life of a bandit, where smiles were limited and pretentious. People who smile with their eyes are good people, his mother had once told him, and for some reason it made sense.

The reclined man sat up and hastily swallowed his bite. “Hello, stranger. I am Golderim Veyr. Welcome!”

Arsik hung his head in despair. He didn’t even bother to hide it. Of course it would be Golderim. Arsik had had a twenty-five percent chance of extreme unluckiness and, naturally, that’s what he got. Why not, after all?

Golderim noticed his hopelessness. He saw Arsik’s eyes blinking, his eyelids fluttering as rapidly as an insect’s wings.

“I see,” Arsik said flatly. “Why did you heal me?”

As the question was phrased, a clearer understanding of his whereabouts bloomed inside him. He was inside one of the Snakeholes, the underground lairs at the edge of the city, carved between the settlement and the endless jungle.

The archpirate wrinkled his brow and licked his lips. “Not a simple healing, as you must have guessed. Magic, my friend. You are now right as rain thanks to us, except those two missing fingers you got there. The priest couldn’t do anything for that revolting little issue – it was beyond even his skills.”

Arsik looked at his mutilated hand. At least it didn’t hurt anymore.

“The priest? What priest?”

“A priest, stranger. I am acquainted with plenty of people, priests included. Many owe me favors around these places.”

Arsik gulped.

“You didn’t tell me, though, stranger, what is your name?” His hands opened in a flashy gesture. He was one of these people who appeared overly friendly and, suddenly, in the span of a moment, they could resolve to extreme violence, without being provoked. Arsik had met numerous such scumbags in his life.

“Arsik,” he answered in a similar tone, though the archpirate obviously knew very well who he was.

“Arsik? That is all? That is your full name?”

“Yes, that’s it. I’m not the progeny of a king or some great House, despite how magnificent I look.”

Golderim gifted him a half-smile, a curling of the left corner of his mouth.

Arsik did have a last name but saw no reason to offer it up. His lineage was insignificant. He had been born in the same dump he was living in now. His father had died at sea, from a fever, and his mother had moved to Ayaton many years ago, to work as a lady’s maid in the Salt Castle.

Arsik could also resort there, to Ayaton, the island of everlasting rain, to build himself a life, to save himself from Saraport’s jungle, both the actual one and the one that reigned inside the city. But he had chosen a sailor’s life instead and when he’d returned, he didn’t want to move again, not one damn bit. He refused to hop on a boat to save his life.

An insignificant last name carried no weight in the civilized world. It wasn’t tied to titles or influence, estates or livestock, squires and whatever else accompanied all those that Arsik had never seen, only heard of. In the uncivilized world, however, the world of bandits and pirates, even an insignificant last name held great value. You had to be one of them to know this little piece of hidden truth – and Arsik was.

Your last name revealed your identity and your affiliates. It also pointed the way to other people who shared the same name and were therefore connected to you. It provided the one who possessed that bit of information with access to your life; the opportunity to threat and blackmail, and to exert revenge or punishment by killing one of your kin. A huge advantage knowing a name was, indeed.

Names had power. That was a truth Arsik had learned the hard way, through pain and sorrows.

His mind conjured up Talos’ image. For a moment, he wasn’t the weak and spineless Talos – he was his friend, the person that’d stood by his side all these years, the one who Arsik shared rum with every day, and talked and laughed with and enjoyed the little charms of the island and of the suffocating darkness inside them all.

But Talos was dead; murdered by this archpirate’s men, because of Arsik. He had no other family, not even people he cared about, but he wouldn’t surrender his name to that bastard. That was one bit he would keep for himself – let Golderim make do with that.

“Well, Arsik? Who are you? Where did you come from?”

Everyone’s eyes were trained on him. Pairs of hyenas’ eyes inside a den, measuring him up as Arsik underwent a hearing from the king of their clan.

“Where did I come from? Well, isn’t that a long story. You see, I grew up on an iceberg. When I thawed, I started swimming, and before I even realized it, I had arrived on this island…”

Golderim interrupted him with an arching of his brow. A guard looked him in the eye and then glared at Arsik again. “He’s messing with you, boss. Should I teach him a lesson?”

Arsik returned the hostile look. He felt his forehead getting heavier.

Thoughtfully, Golderim stroked his temples. “No. Let him be. This man is under our care. Besides, he treated us so generously,” he showed the unimaginable treasure behind him, the one Arsik risked his life for by fighting a serpent woman who petrified people with her gaze. “When we found you, you were at death’s door. I have never seen a man dripping so much venom. So many holes on your neck, what a mess! How in the world can one man endure so much venom for that amount of time and yet survive, hm?”

Honest bewilderment rang in the archpirate’s question, Arsik could tell. He simply shrugged. “All these years of rum, I must have developed some sort of resistance.”

“Ha!” the archpirate’s laughter echoed in the cave. “It would seem so, Arsik Iceberg. Why aren’t you having a glass with me, then? It is the least I can do for you.”

“Alright,” Arsik said eagerly and helped himself. The rum flowed delightfully down his throat. c*****g his head to the side, he looked at Golderim, whose fingers were tapping a rhythm on the small wooden table in front of him.

“What shall I do with you, Arsik Iceberg?”

Arsik didn’t like the gleam in his eye. He barely considered his answer. “Let me go. You got the treasure; I got the treatment and the food. That sounds like a fair exchange to me.”

He took another swig and refilled his glass. Golderim leaned back, pursed his lips and nodded.

“You are right,” he said, unconvincingly. “Our roads part and we both find our peace, you on your iceberg and I, here, in my tunnel.”

Arsik waited.

Golderim’s expression changed to a grimace of false disappointment. “Alas, there are other matters to consider.”

Here we go, Arsik thought, feeling the curtain finally falling on this performance.

At precisely that moment, Phaelo strode into the cave.