Death's Master
Chapter One Draft (part one)
Warq looked down at the girl standing in front of his shack. He could do this not only because she was much shorter than him, but also because the shack was raised several feet off the ground by rickety stilts. Standing down there, up to her calves in the soupy riverbank mud, the girl was a pathetic figure indeed.
She looked like a refugee. An oilskin cloak was draped across her skinny body; from beneath the cloak’s oversized hood, Warq caught a glimpse of tangled dark brown hair. Her face was smeared with dirt, which only made her large, liquid dark eyes more prominent. All of her possessions seemed to be wrapped in a lumpy sackcloth bundle tucked under her arm.
Though she was tattered and ratty and small enough to crush under the heel of his boot, Warq thought she was fairly good looking. Good looking enough to fetch a small fortune on the slave market, at any rate.
“What’s your name?” he asked, keeping his voice soft and gentle. Throughout his twenty years in the business, Warq had learned that refugees fell for any small kindness as easily as imskats fell for fishermen’s honey melon lures.
The girl swallowed hard. “I…Indrani Fisher.”
“A fisherman’s daughter, you are? From Itasa?” Warq was taking care to be gentle, but he was certain the girl had lied. She’d blinked twice, very quickly, after stating the name.
The girl nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Another lie. He wondered just what she was hiding but decided it wasn’t important. Probably a girl impregnated by her lover and turned out of her house because of that. Pregnant girls didn’t fetch as much as virgins, but at least her face was intact.
“Miss Fisher, you wish to cross the river?”
The girl glanced at the slow brown expanse of the Meltora River behind her. A thick early morning fog clung to the river banks and to the trees across the river, obscuring half the forest in a whitish haze. At times, a fish would break free from the river surface with a sick sucking sound and leap for one of the hundreds of mosquitoes buzzing inches above the water surface. Though it was early in the morning, the air was intolerably warm and humid; even shirtless, Warq was sticky with sweat. He wondered why the girl was suicidal enough to wear a full cloak in such weather.
“I do, sir,” she said. “Just one trip across.”
“That’ll be six silvers,” Warq said. “Wanting to cross into Dourin, are you?”
The girl shook her head. Warq was surprised. Though most of the time he never took his customers where they wanted to go, he knew that crossing the Meltora River was one of the most popular paths that southern refugees took to reach the stable Kingdom of Dourin.
“Where you going, then?” he said, as she counted out the silvers from a pouch hidden within her cloak.
“I don’t know,” the girl said. “Just not Dourin.”
Interesting. This girl was the first refugee Warq had met who hadn’t viewed Dourin as a golden land of opportunity and riches. Oh well, it didn’t matter to him—since she would never reach her destination, Dourin or no.
~*~
Rallera Synhok eyed the raft with misgivings. It was less a raft than four by six barrels lashed together with rawhide. Even though the Meltora River was well-known for being tranquil, it was also one of the widest rivers on the continent of Mataros. Could that little barely-raft last such a long journey? It must, if this Warq made a living as a ferryman, but all the same, Rallera’s heart was pounding in dread as she mounted the raft.
She sat down; the wood, well-worn by traveling through the water, was surprisingly smooth. She tucked her legs under her and tried not to look over the edge of the raft. Warq had positioned her on the far end of the raft and he stood on the other end, a long bamboo stick in hand. Her stomach flipped back and forth as the raft bobbed in the current; the fact that the river wasn’t a raging torrent like the Syv River near her hometown was little solace.
Rallera found herself beginning to regret her decision to cross the river with the first ferryman she could find. She should’ve continued traveling along the river until she came upon one of the larger, better-known ferry houses. At least then she’d be assured of a safe crossing.
No. The risk wasn’t worth it. For the past three weeks, Rallera had avoided almost all human contact. It wasn’t hard, since most of the little country of Dasken was covered with jungle. In the jungle, there were plenty of places to hide if she stumbled upon fellow travelers. Crammed on a ship with dozens of other people was a dangerous situation—she would be unable to escape inquisitive eyes. Eyes that just might identify her…
She shivered.
“You cold?” said Warq. He was guiding the raft into the mist billowing over the river.
Rallera shook her head—if anything, she was sweltering inside the cloak, but it was necessary. Even Warq, an out-of-the-way ferryman, might’ve seen her picture.
“This is dangerous,” whispered a voice inside Rallera’s head.
Rallera froze. She was glad that Warq wasn’t looking in her direction because he’d definitely have noticed and then he’d have questions that she couldn’t answer. She tightened her grip on the barrels beneath her and thought, I didn’t tell you you could talk.
There was a long silence, and then the voice spoke again. It was a cold male voice, devoid of any emotion except for a tinge of disdain. “As I recall, Master, one of the rules you laid out in the contract was that I could speak to warn you out of a dangerous situation.”
And how is this dangerous? Rallera thought. What, is there a risk I’ll drown? Or get infected by a mosquito bite?
Mosquitoes were indeed swirling around her, a thick, buzzing cloud that blocked her visibility more than the mist. She drew her hood further over her face and pulled her knees to her chest, trying to present as small a target as possible. Warq was swearing as ugly red bumps appeared all over his torso.
“That risk is trivial compared to the one who is steering this raft.”
What do you mean? Rallera’s heartbeat picked up. Warq?
“He does not mean well. Once he gets you across the river, he plans on selling you to the Dasken slave market.”
And how do you know this? Rallera glared over her shoulder at Warq’s broad back. Sure, he wasn’t the nicest man she’d ever met, but he didn’t exude any dangerous intent. Then again, she of all people should know that the people who seemed the nicest were often masking a darker true nature.
When the voice spoke again, it was to issue a disapproving hiss. “Do you presume to question me, girl? Me? Once again you display your base idiocy, silly human—you know not what you have made a contract with—”
An unbearable pressure was growing in her skull. Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP! she shouted. She couldn’t allow things to progress to this point. I command you to, that’s an order—you shut up and do nothing until I say so, do you hear me, DO NOTHING!
Nothing but silence greeted her. It was all Rallera could do to keep from sighing in relief. Cold sweat dripped down her forehead and she distractedly wiped it away. A mosquito had bitten the delicate membrane between her thumb and forefinger and it swelled and reddened as she stared at it. Her heart pounded as if she’d finished running a marathon.
Why did it always turn out this way? Just when she’d thought that her control was unequivocal, he went ahead and proved that if she let her focus slip for even one second, he would overwhelm her. Some days she wondered why she didn’t let him win. Give it all up, her vigilance and the bindings that sapped her strength every day. It must be easier than this.
But she couldn’t. Like it or not, he was her responsibility now. If she let him go, he’d—he would—
No. She couldn’t allow her thoughts to turn that direction. Best focus on the present. Focus on looking ahead, on escaping. On just living.
She might have imagined it, but she thought she heard the echo of a mocking chuckle somewhere in the back of her mind.
~*~
I'm not sure about continuing this novel, because my flighty brain has hatched another idea that appeals to me more. I'm settling for working on both for now, but they have similar themes so it's really either/or. I'm hoping the response to this will help me make up my mind.
