Chương 51: A Friend of Sailors

Over the next few days, Arien spent most of his time in the captain's cabin with Sanrey. As soon as the boy was well enough to stay awake for more than a few minutes, the questions began. What did Life mana feel like? Could Arien regrow fingers? What about eyes? Could he heal diseases? Could he make someone stronger? Could he bring back the dead? The only reason Arien didn't throw him overboard was that he had spent the first few days of the voyage tormenting Sanrey with much the same enthusiasm.

Besides, treating Sanrey gave him a chance to test things he hadn't been able to before. Nothing dangerous, just different ways of sensing damaged tissue, controlling how much mana he released, and seeing how Sanrey's body responded. Sanrey was also recovering faster than Arien had expected, though whether that was because of his magic, Sanrey's Vitality, or simply the boy's natural resilience, he couldn't say. By the fifth day, Arien had dealt with every injury that might otherwise have caused permanent damage.

The bones still needed time to mend, and some of the deeper wounds would take weeks to disappear completely, but Sanrey's body could handle most of the remaining work on its own. They still had nearly a week before reaching Uthal. Arien intended to keep checking on him, using small amounts of Life mana when necessary. The remaining days would also give him more practice with the Aspect.

"If I'd snapped my neck, do you think you could've saved me?"

"If you don't shut up, I might arrange an experiment."

"Hey! You can't say that to a patient."

"I'm working. Do you want your bones to heal crooked?"

"You're lying. You make a different face when you're actually healing me." Arien stopped. Sanrey grinned triumphantly.

"Ha! I knew it."

"I was checking something."

"What?"

"Nothing important."

"What were you checking?" Arien sighed. He liked Sanrey, but confinement had apparently concentrated all of the boy's usual energy into his mouth. When would he walk again? What was the weather like? Where were they? Had they passed Cape Whatever-His-Father-Had-Mentioned? Could Arien speed up the healing? Which way was the wind blowing? Could he stand tomorrow? What about this afternoon?

"For obvious reasons, I haven't had many chances to use Life magic openly," Arien said.

"So I've been testing a few things." Sanrey narrowed his eyes.

"On me?"

"You're a wonderful friend for getting yourself this badly injured. My Life Aspect gained five levels thanks to you." Sanrey immediately assumed the expression of an offended nobleman.

"Then you should be paying me."

"I'm afraid I can't afford your rates." Arien stood.

"Still, thank you for your contribution to magical research. I'll tell Miley I'm finished. I think he prepared more of that ointment." Sanrey's expression collapsed.

"No. Wait." Arien took another step toward the door.

"Arien, I was joking!" Sanrey tried to catch his sleeve and immediately winced.

"Not the ointment. I thought I was going to vomit yesterday."

"Miley says it works miracles on wounds and infections."

"Miley is a liar." Arien hesitated theatrically.

"He is much more experienced than I am."

"He bought the recipe from some shady merchant after a storm injured half a crew! It doesn't heal anything. The smell just terrifies people into getting out of bed before they need another dose."

"Folk remedies often work better than people think." Arien resumed walking.

"I'll stop asking questions!" Arien paused with his hand on the door.

"Really?"

"Yes!" Sanrey blurted.

"And… wait. I know something you want." Arien glanced back. Sanrey smiled weakly.

"My Trait. You want to know what I got from the storm, don't you?" Arien had almost forgotten about that particular confession. Between keeping Sanrey alive and discovering what Healer could do, there had been more pressing concerns. But anything new about the System was too interesting to ignore, so he returned to the bedside.

"I'm interested in more than the Trait. I understand roughly how the System works, but there are still things I've only been able to guess at."

"Fine." Sanrey patted the floor beside his makeshift bed.

"Sit down." Arien sat beside him as Sanrey settled back against his pillow.

"So. What do you want to know?"

"Your Trait?"" Heroic," Sanrey said proudly.

"For the greater good, you're willing to risk your life. As long as your will to protect others remains, you gain: +0. 5 Strength, +0. 5 Endurance, + 0. 5 Vitality per Level." Arien blinked.

"Wow. That's a good Trait." Sanrey puffed out his chest as much as his injuries allowed.

"I know."

"And you earned it." Sanrey's satisfaction vanished.

"Oh no."

"What?"

"I shouldn't have recited the whole thing." Arien understood immediately. There was a widespread belief that knowing too much about the requirements made them harder to obtain. Deliberately trying to fulfill them supposedly defeated the purpose. Arien had never seen any proof of that. The System certainly offered none.

"Don't worry," he said.

"I probably wouldn't qualify anyway. I'm not exactly hero material." Sanrey gave him a doubtful look. Arien ignored it.

"Tell me about Profession advancement instead."

"That's simple. I started as a Deck Boy. To become a Mariner, I needed several Skills at the right levels." Sanrey scratched his cheek.

"You're probably a Novice Mage or something, right? No idea what you need to become a Mage."

"Neither do I. I suppose that's what the Academy is for." Arien hesitated.

"What about Skill evolution? Does it always change a Skill as much as mine did?" Sanrey stared at him.

"Don't tell me you've already evolved one." Arien said nothing.

"I was bragging about having a level-twenty-eight Skill when we met." Sanrey covered his face with one hand.

"Just throw me overboard now."

"If I hadn't evolved my Aspect, you'd probably be dead." Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Sanrey lowered his hand.

"Fine. I suppose I can forgive you for showing off."

"How generous."

"But yes. Evolutions are huge." Sanrey shifted carefully against his pillow.

"Getting a Skill to level twenty-four isn't enough. After that, you hit a wall. You have to do something new with it. Push it in a different direction."

"Different how?"

"Depends on the Skill. That's the point." Sanrey shrugged.

"I've evolved four already. Every one of them changed a lot." That led to another barrage of questions. Unfortunately, Sanrey's knowledge became much less impressive once Arien moved beyond sailing and his own progression. He knew what had worked for him, what his father had taught him, and what other sailors commonly did. Ask him why the System worked that way, however, and the answer was usually some variation of because it does.

Arien had realized long ago that most people treated the System much as they treated sunrise or gravity. It had always been there. It measured them, rewarded them, assigned Professions and Traits, and no one found that particularly strange. Arien did, and he hoped the Academy did too. There had to be people studying it properly: comparing Skill evolutions, recording Profession requirements, testing which combinations worked and which led nowhere. His experience with Healer had at least eased one of his worries.

He had spent years afraid that assigning the wrong Skill would permanently cripple his development, yet Mana Sense, Mana Manipulation, and his Aspect had worked together well enough to save Sanrey's leg. That didn't mean he could start assigning Skills carelessly, but maybe he had been too afraid of making the wrong choice. Arien smiled faintly. Wayhold suddenly felt much too far away. As they approached Uthal, the Golden Mussel entered the calmer waters of Wyndorian Bay.

Gentle waves rolled toward long stretches of yellow beach, and the forests along the coast were already beginning to turn green. It was noticeably warmer here than around Ribenne, and with Sanrey no longer requiring constant attention, Arien spent most of his days back on deck. The boy had recovered enough to join him near the bow, though standing was still out of the question. The crew seemed to take his recovery as a good omen. A few sailors still cast curious glances at Arien, but no one asked questions.

Fenrey was there too, leaning against the railing nearby.

"We'll reach Uthal tomorrow morning," Fenrey told him.

"I sent a messenger bird ahead yesterday. Someone should be waiting for you at the docks." Arien frowned.

"I thought we were sailing straight to Wayhold."

"Ah." Fenrey cleared his throat.

"Land rats." Sanrey snorted.

"Wayhold is about six leagues inland," Fenrey continued.

"Smaller vessels can follow the river all the way there if the wind favors them or if they have enough idiots willing to row. Ships our size stop at Uthal."

"So it's basically Wayhold's port?"

"More or less. Most of the capital's overseas trade passes through it. Every major Guild and trading company keeps warehouses there, so I can sell cargo for almost the same price without wasting days upriver." Fenrey scratched his beard.

"And the crew gets cheaper brothels." Sanrey grinned.

"Taverns," Fenrey corrected solemnly.

"I meant taverns." Arien decided not to comment.

"And my request?" Fenrey's amusement disappeared.

"No one leaves the ship in Uthal. We take on ice and supplies, then head straight for the Inner Sea." Sanrey's eyes lit up.

"Ice trade?"

"Exactly."

"Months at sea without stopping in ports." Sanrey sighed happily.

"Perfect." Arien laughed.

"I'd still like to see some of those foreign places you keep talking about. Sailing sounds much better than spending weeks in a wagon." Fenrey slapped him on the shoulder.

"We'll make a proper sailor out of you yet. There'll always be a place for you aboard the Golden Mussel."

"And on my ship," Sanrey added.

"A Healer with the Life Aspect won't want anything to do with your future pile of rotten planks."

"My ship will be twice as fast as yours."

"You can barely stand."

"Temporary problem." Their argument continued behind him, but Arien had already turned toward the horizon. For years, Wayhold had been the destination: the Academy, magic, answers. Yet the longer he travelled, the more he found himself thinking about everything beyond it. The frozen North, where ork tribes hunted seals and whales among drifting ice. The island cities of the Serii, their wooden buildings said to rise high above the sea.

The borderlands between the Old and New Empires, where generations of raids and skirmishes had turned hatred into tradition. And those were only the better-known places. There was still Kos, the Bari Desert, the Euros Barrows, the Seneth Vortices, and the swamps of Gath. Beyond them, the maps still held blank spaces. Arien smiled at the thought. Wayhold first. The rest of Erador could wait. The morning was overcast, with a cold northern wind.

Arien stood at the railing anyway, watching the dark shape of Uthal slowly grow on the horizon. The final stretch of his journey to the capital was about to begin. He should have been excited, but his stomach tightened instead. What if no one was waiting for him? What if the invitation meant less than he thought? What if, after everything it had taken to get this far, he simply wasn't good enough? Someone coughed behind him. Arien turned to find Fenrey standing a few steps away, looking strangely uncomfortable.

"Boy, I wanted to thank you again."

"You already did."

"I know." Fenrey glanced toward the deck.

"But Sanrey gets better every day. Without you…"

"He's my friend. I wasn't going to let him lose a leg if I could stop it."

"That's exactly the point." Fenrey rested both hands on the railing beside him.

"There are people like me: merchants, captains, craftsmen. We make a decent living, raise families, complain about taxes, and mostly leave each other alone."

"Sounds pleasant."

"It is." Fenrey gave him a sideways look.

"Then there are the people above us." He paused.

"I own this ship. I have good contacts, shares in a few ventures, enough coin put away that I could sell everything tomorrow and never work again." Arien waited. Fenrey waited too.

"Congratulations?"

"What? No." The captain frowned.

"Sul save me, boy, I'm trying to make a point."

"I gathered that." Fenrey exhaled through his nose.

"Fine. You talk like an adult, so I'll say it plainly. Among those people, everything I just described makes me a small fish. There are men and women who could ruin me without ever learning my name." Arien stopped smiling.

"You're clever," Fenrey continued.

"But clever won't always be enough. Learn what you can at that Academy. Make friends if you can. Just don't be too quick to show everyone what you can do." He glanced at Arien's hands.

"And remember there's nothing wrong with coming back to the ordinary world when you've had enough of theirs." Arien smiled faintly.

"That was more or less the plan."

"Good. You're considerably less stupid than my son."

"A low bar." Fenrey grunted, then reached into his coat.

"Here." A silver ring landed in Arien's palm. He turned it between his fingers. A small seashell had been carved into its face, and a faint trace of mana shimmered beneath the metal. An artifact? His first thought was storage. Perhaps—"Don't sell it." Arien looked up.

"I wasn't planning to."

"It isn't worth much as silver anyway. What matters is the mark." He tapped the shell.

"Most established captains around Wyndor and the Inner Sea will recognize it. The mark means you're considered a friend of sailors." Arien looked at the ring again, suddenly much more interested.

"What does that actually get me?"

"Fairer prices. Easier passage. Help when you're stranded somewhere inconvenient. People willing to listen before they throw you off their ship." So much for magical storage.

"That does sound useful."

"There's one more thing. A few of us captains have an arrangement. Mostly the better-established ones. We exchange information, help one another occasionally, keep track of things that don't make it into Guild reports." Arien's eyes narrowed with interest.

"A secret society?"

"No."

"An informal brotherhood?"

"No."

"A clandestine network of powerful sea captains?" Fenrey stared at him.

"It's a group of people who drink together and talk."

"Secretly."

"Sometimes privately."

"I see."

"You see nothing." Arien raised his hands in surrender. Fenrey pointed at the ring.

"If one of those captains recognizes it and offers you a favor, you can ask for quite a lot. Passage somewhere difficult to reach. Cargo carried without questions. Maybe even getting into or out of a place where you're not supposed to be." That sounded considerably more valuable than discounted transport.

"And afterward?"

"They take the ring." Arien nodded slowly. One serious favor, then it was gone. Good to know. Fenrey hesitated.

"Though if you ever meet Verica from the White Pegasus … don't give it to her."

"Why?"

"Because I'd rather not owe her anything." Fenrey looked away, fixing his attention on the horizon. Arien watched him for a moment, then decided not to pry. Ahead, the distant shape had resolved into piers, rooftops, masts, and warehouses crowded along the mouth of the river. Ships filled the water before them, from small fishing boats to broad-bellied merchant vessels waiting their turn at the docks. Beyond them, Uthal stretched along both banks.

After weeks of roads, wagons, barges, and open sea, he had finally reached the gateway to Wayhold.