Order

Yesterday's Fortune

"Now I'm really happy you paid your fare upfront."

A figure loomed on the rocking deck, visible only by the faint glint in his eyes and the flamboyant red curls atop his head.

The dawn was a molten forge, splashing the sky with hues that matched the bruise on Allistair's shrouded face. A throbbing pain still warmed his right temple.

“I hope you don’t mind me saying, but it looks like you’ve had a hard time of it.”

Allistair touched the fresh marks around his eyes, his addled mind failing to come up with a believable story that didn’t betray his bad behaviour.

"Oh, this?"

When you spend your life getting your ass handed to you, you start to lose track of the scars.
Thankfully, the figure rambled right past the subject.

"Maybe I have a tendency to ask too many questions. I just like to get to know my passengers a little. It’s a small perk of sitting in the captain's chair."

The tall man extended his hand, stepping into the lamplight.
“You can call me Rigg.” He wore a heavy black coat with a frilled doublet, his hard face exuding an umber glow in the dawn.

Allistair received the captain’s handshake.

"The name's…Gideon. Gideon Twig," he lied.

"Gideon…Twig.” He mulled the name over like he was testing it for poison.

“It’s a pleasure.” The captain lowered his vivid locs in a gesture that may have bordered on mockery if Allistair hadn’t been too tired to take it that way.

They stood on the deck of the Yesterday's Fortune, sailing on a river charter to Spoon Bay by way of The Jewel. The ship was hauling cargo with a small crew on a routine run through southern Midia's sea-like waterways.

"I'll be honest. I was surprised to hear you'd be leaving us at Morrowmuir. We don't see many charters heading that way."

This busybody Rigg seemed intent on spoiling Allistair’s rest. Allistair leaned on the ship’s rail, entertaining the conversation with the bare minimum of enthusiasm.

"I suppose you might know why that is."

My, those are some shiny gold buttons you’re wearing.

He’d heard enough of Morrowmuir from his time serving on The Sagecite. It seemed as good a place as any to start over. Lush open fields, cool mountain breezes. No stinking sewers, no dockyard roughnecks. What else was there to understand? Allistair couldn’t think of a better place to lay low for a while before drifting up to the colonies where he could disappear for good.

"Yeah, Morrowmuir's nice…” Rigg proclaimed into the wind. “If you’re looking to rattle around like the last coin in a gambler's purse. Do you travel there often?"
Allistair shook his head, "First time."

"Then let me tell ya—Morrowmuir is a whole lot of nothing, a sea of dull grassland bending to the stiff winds. There's mud, and rocks, and thistles as tall as I stand. Need I mention the sheep shit? Mountains of the stuff. What manner of business brings you to a place like that?"
Allistair looked over the rail, muted cliffs rising in the growing light like iron spires along the river. He’d have to leave the truth behind him if he wanted to survive—that’s what Ethi used to say. Yet the truth was so unbelievable that he couldn’t resist the irony. He shrugged flippantly, restraining a sly grin—if only to spare his bruised faced from the pain it would cause.

"Let’s say…retirement. I need a place to live out all my hopes and dreams."

Lies and greed, more like.

The captain chuckled under his breath, not so subtly that Allistair didn't hear it.

"Retirement! At your age? I could only be so lucky. Well, son, Morrowmuir is a wonderful place to end one’s life, if you catch my meaning. But I should warn you, Midia ain’t for everyone."
The rising light brought life to the deck of the ship. Men and women of every shape and colour hurried about their duties. A stout fellow, as wide as he was tall, with a chest like a beer cask, tugged on the sails, while a severe woman with fiery golden hair rang the ship’s bell— six crisp chimes that sang across the lapping waters.

"Ahh, that reminds me—" Rigg swung open his coat, retrieving a sealed bottle from within one of its gaping pockets.

"The map you purchased when you hired us. It should give you your bearings when you land."
Inside the bottle sat a tiny leaf of parchment, rolled up and held together by twine. He didn't remember requesting such an odd vessel for the map, but then again, he supposed he wasn't aware of each and every obscure naval custom. Ship people and their weird hang-ups. He recalled an unlucky crewman on The Sagecite who took a knife to the gut for whistling “Farewell to Tilted Towers” into an easterly wind. He could still see the poor bastard’s eyes bulging from his skull. Allistair wasn't about to make a fuss about a bottle.

"That brings me to an order of business I've been reluctant to broach," Rigg shifted uneasily.
Allistair felt a stillness descend around him, as if the attention of the crew had suddenly fastened to the back of his head. From the corner of his eye, he saw the stout man, as wide as he was tall, standing like a sentinel. The ship's bell rang no more.

Rigg straightened up. "I'm afraid we won't be stopping in Morrowmuir today."

What did he just say?

"Won't be stopping? But I paid—" In fact, he had fronted every last copper signet to his name for that charter, not including the one that was now in the river.

"That is not to say you won't reach your destination. But I'm afraid the crew was unanimous. Given the current goings-on in these parts, superstition has gotten the best of them. You know…ship people and their weird hang-ups."

Allistair was certain there was a mistake.

“What happened to boring old Morrowmuir? What happened to the gambler's rattling penny, and whatnot? What’s got them so spooked?" He spat it all out in one breath.

"I often forget how little of the world’s news actually makes it to Westreach. There’s the siege on Rivermark, to start,” Rigg started counting his long, bony fingers in dramatic fashion.
“Then there’s the usual bloody nonsense between the colonies and The Craglands that never seems to end. But it’s these rumours of a necromancer enslaving the countryside that has them more skittish than an over-fed bishop on a crowded life raft."

Allistair looked about the ship. The stout crewman resumed his duties, hoisting a crate his size onto one shoulder. Allistair had trouble believing this man felt skittish about anything, let alone a campfire wizard dreamed up by sheep farmers.

"I place little credence on the stories of this so-called Lord of Tombstones, but I'm not about to go up against my entire crew, even for a passenger that pays upfront like you. But we've devised an elegant compromise that I hope you'll find satisfactory."

"I'd like to hear this—"

"When we arrive at Morrowmuir, we'll steer the ship as close to landfall as we can without running aground, or spooking the crew."

Allistair waited for Rigg to continue, but he failed to do so—only until the silence, a sound the captain was evidently unaccustomed to, left him squirming in place.

"Then, well, you jump overboard."

He said it all so very plainly, but it was enough to wake Allistair up.

“You’re joking.”

A cold laugh escaped Allistair’s lips, sending hot pain shooting up the side of his head and in behind his eye, making it twitch.

"An ice bath can be very exhilarating this early. It will perk you right up for the rest of the day."
“You aren’t joking! You’re insane!”

“No, not insane. Practical. A mutiny serves nobody. I’m just trying to keep my particular boat afloat. When you land in Midia—which you will—you’d be wise to do the same.”

They didn’t even give Allistair a chance to change out of his clothes. He clung to the rail of the ship, perched like a cat avoiding a bath. The crew of Yesterday’s Fortune surrounded him, jeering, coaxing, goading for him to jump into the frigid black waters that lapped at the ship’s hull. He was afraid that when he hit the water, the clothes on his back and the pack over his shoulder would drag him to the bottom of the river.

He’d almost drowned once, and he’d never been much of a swimmer since.

But at least if I drowned, I’ll be reunited with my coin. There’s that!
The midday sun hung high above their heads. In the distance, oceans of earthy rye swelled in mesmerizing waves as Alistair looked out upon the land that was Morrowmuir. Lonely shale boulders marked a landscape of flowing grassland, sparsely interrupted by foliage along its rolling horizon.

Freedom was waiting for him, just one short swim away.

His bulging pack hung from his shoulders like an anchor.

"We can throw your pack to you once you've come to the surface," Rigg offered, reaching his grabby fingers for Allistair’s only possessions.

Allistair teetered on the rail, on the brink of an unwanted plunge.

"No, thank you!"

He wasn't about to be grifted any further by these glorified pirates.

"C'mon boys! Let's pry this barnacle from our hull and get away from these accursed shores!"
The stout, barrel-chested man held a rusty shucking knife in his hand. This was “Farewell to Tilted Towers” all over again.

"It’s nothing personal," Rigg said with an almost sorry look on his face.

And with one sharp, unexpected kick from his boot, Allistair was overboard.
When he resurfaced, he was met with the sound of laughter that followed him as he floundered his way toward shore.

"Happy retirement!" he heard, just as the weight of his clothes and gear dragged his head beneath a wave.

He coughed and flailed until his feet kicked the murky riverbed in the shallows.

Allistair dragged himself and his sack onto shore—his boots squelching, his clothes clinging to his skin, his jet-black hair covering his eyes. The weight of his collective drench tugged him into a tired pile on the grass. He collapsed into a soaking wet pile and began awkwardly emptying his boots, gazing haplessly at the cloudy sky as he caught his breath.

Everything was soaked through— his socks, his boots, his coat, his cowl, his undergarments, the wool lining of his leather gloves, and every article in his sack. Water sloshed between his fingers as he fished through the drenched contents before his hand struck something smooth. He pulled out the small glass bottle and held it up to the light, peering through the cloudy surface at the rolled-up parchment inside.

Scratch that. Not everything was soaked.

The map was dry.