I doubted that the bo'sun was speaking to me. As a carpenter's apprentice, I wasn't the lowest crewman on the Fox, but I certainly wasn't the sort of person the captain would call to his cabin to share his rum ration. We'd been tied up at Kulhran Harbor for a good three days taking on cargo and making repairs and this was the first chance I'd had to just sit in the sunshine. And it wouldn't last. Kulhran was well named -- port of rain. Already I could see thunderheads massing to the west. "Aeduin, lad, he wants to see you now." I scrambled to my feet. Geberich, a good-natured man whose face had wrinkles running in seams deeper than the mines of Bel, looked unusually dour. "What's it about?" I couldn't remember any infraction or error I'd made of late. It had been a rough sea, but I was finally settling into this life that had been thrust upon me. "Two mages in the captain's cabin." Geberich stomped off towards the rigging, but not before I saw the fear in his eyes. Mages. Five hundred miles and two years gone, and still I couldn't escape my past. With deliberation, as an act of faith that I would return to finish what I had started, I set aside my knife and the almost-finished plug, brushed the wood debris from my trousers and tried, best as I could without mirror or water, to tame my wiry hair, to wipe the smudges from my face.
