Chapter 3
Ryte of Passage

On the upper deck of The Caliburn everyone seemed to be waiting.  A loud roar
came up from the men as Samus walked up to them.
“Samus, me boy, how are ye feelin’ today?”  Doech asked him.  The dwarf gave
him a solid pat on the lower back (as that was all he could reach) and Samus nearly fell
over.
“I’m fine Doech, how are you doing today?”  Samus asked after getting back
some of the air that had been knocked out of him but the dwarf.
“I’m as good as a half-dog’s fur on a cold day in Harbreth!” the lively dwarf
exclaimed.
Samus wasn’t sure what a half-dog was or why it’s fur was good on a cold day in
Harbreth, where ever that was, but he didn’t care, he just nodded back and smiled.  The
rest of the men took their turns showing their gratefulness that Samus was awake, finally,
and that he could walk around.  After a hearty round of back-patting the men went back
to their duties on the ship.  Samus wanted to stop and see them all at work, but Jonesy
called him over to him.
“Hey Sammy, come over here.  I have something to give you.”  Jonesy waved his
hand signaling the direction Samus was to walk.
Samus walked quickly over the wooden deck to the entrance to one of the inner
rooms of the ship.  Through another squeaky door Samus found himself in the armory.
Surrounded by various weapons he had to be careful where he leaned.  This was Jonesy’s
sanctuary, he could tell by the hammers and such laying round everywhere.  There was
no forge, that would be unwise on a wooden boat, but Samus knew that Jonesy had
petitioned for one, he could tell just by his personality.  The entire room had an orangeish
tint to it, dust filled the air and filtered the sunlight that came through the cracks in the
planks above them and through the potholes on the side of the ship.
“These are some of my best works, gathered here before you.  Here, I’ll show you
who uses what,” Jonesy started to walk around the room.  He stopped at a large club with
a sharp thorn on it.  “This is Dmitry’s weapon, he calls it ‘Brute’.  The other smaller
clubs are the ones he uses in practice with Mathias.  Then over here,” he walked around
to the left of the clubs, “are the weapons of Doech.  You’ll notice that all, or most of
them, are hammers, axes, and maces.  He doesn’t like to use much else.  Says something
like ‘if Grenwalt don’t use em, I won’t neither’.  I assume Grenwalt was his father, but
I’ve never had the stomach to ask.”  Jonesy chuckled to himself and Samus gave a brief
laugh too.  “Next are mine.  Actually I can use all of these, but I prefer staves, they are
my babies.  Quick and thorough, just like me.”  He pointed to six or seven different
looking staves of varying length.  One that caught Samus’ eye was s bloodied one with
spikes covering its end, a very brutal weapon apparently.  “And finally Hart’s swords.
Mostly they are broad swords or bastards, but he does have some rapiers that he uses on
occasion.  He keeps the one he uses on him at all times, even when he bathes.  I keep
telling him that one day he’s gonna find himself without a way to have any little Hart’s to
run around up on the deck, but he just laughs and says that ‘you can’t trust anyone’.  A
crazy one, he is.”
“What about Mathias?  Where are his weapons?”  Samus wanted to see the sword
that cut him in the woods.
“Mathias doesn’t have any weapons.  He just uses that wooden staff of his.
Another weird one, he never lets any of us look at it.  I think he is hiding something.
Well, everyone is hiding something,” he said rather matter-of-factly, the he leaned in and
spoke softly for effect, “but I think he is hiding something important.”  
“What are you hiding?”  Samus said, in an equally low tone.  This comment
caught Jonesy off guard.  He just stood there for a moment and then a smirk crossed his
face.
“I like to sing.  Go ahead, laugh if you must, but I do.  When no one is watching I
sing songs that I wrote.  Please, just don’t tell the rest of the guys, I would never hear the
end of it.  So, just keep it shut.”  Jonesy laughed for quite a bit after he said that.  “It
really feels good to get that out.  Now it’s your turn.  What are you hiding Sammy-boy?”
“Umm, well, I’m not sure yet.”  Samus really wasn’t.
“That’s fine boy, you have plenty of years to figure it out.  But when you do, be
sure to tell me, so we can be even, hmm.”  There was a brief pause.  Samus thought he
should fill it with something, but right before he spoke Jonesy started back up again.
“Well, now, what I brought you here for.  I have a surprise for you.  I worked on it for
just about all of the time you were out, so I hope it works good for ya.”  Jonesy pulled
back a sheet that was covering a table.  Under it was a sword.  It was a good looking
sword with a beautiful blade.  It gleamed in the light that filtered through the cracks in
the deck above them.
Samus walked over to it and picked it up.  It wasn’t the first time he had picked
up a sword, but he definitely wasn’t comfortable with it yet.  He swung it around
awkwardly and Jonesy laughed.  Samus put the sword back down.  It clanged loudly,
Samus still had some control issues.
“Don’t worry.  You’ll have plenty of time to get used to it.  I don’t think we have
any raids until late next week.  I have the sheath for it over here,” Jonesy walked over to
a table covered in leather scraps, “you can take it now, but I still have a little work to do
on it.  So if you just leave it here for tonight I’ll have it ready by dinner.  Speaking of
which, I hope you like Thorean Cuisine, because this restaurant that we are going to
serves the best Black Clam you have ever had.  Well, that’s assuming that you have had
Black Clam before, you have haven’t you?”
“Well, not really.  I’ve never had regular clam, whatever color that it.”
“Ha, lucky for you, because tonight you can have the best around.  Well, anyway,
that is all I had to show you, so you can head back up on deck to talk with everyone else
now.”
“Ok, what are you going to do?”  Samus said as he walked back to the door.
“I don’t know, probably just hang around and polish some blades.  That’s what I
usually do.  I’ll see you at dinner.”  Jonesy’s comment sounded like a sad one, Samus
later thought, but he said it with the same emotions as everything else.  Samus went back
on deck.

***

Near a burnt tree two figures came into view.  One, Jarroh, kneeled down to feel
the earth at the base.
“There is a strong magical residue here.  You’re sure that Samus couldn’t use
magic?”  Jarroh asked in an accusing manner.
“I’m sure.  He must have had some help.”  The other figure, Janus, walked to
Jarroh’s side.
“Never the less, he would have never had the power to use a spell of this
magnitude.  There are few who could.  As a matter of fact, there are only two others,
besides myself, who could have.”  As he finished his last syllable another dark figure
made its way to the tree.
“You’ll never find him.  He is out of your reach now, Jarroh.”  The voice sent a
shiver down Jarroh’s spine.
“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Dreary.  It’s been a while El.”  Jarroh said very nonchalant,
but inside he was afraid.  Elentari was no one to be trifled with, and Jarroh knew it, but
he always pushed him, trying to throw him off guard and make him use his powers in
pure anger.
“It should have been much longer.”
“Don’t sound so disappointed, brother, we are all here for the same reason.  We
just have different goals.”
“Don’t you dare call me brother.  You are not one of us.” Rage was building
within Elentari, his voice reflected the power within his body, but he never let it get the
best of it.  He knew that if he did he would become just as corrupt as Jarroh.
“I EARNED IT, JUST LIKE YOU AND LUTHIEN!  LIVE WITH IT!”  Jarroh
had been pushed too far.  He let his anger get the best of him.  A charged ball of
electricity flew from his grasp as he laughed maniacally.  Elentari caught it and inhaled,
the ball shrunk in his hand and faded out of existence.
“The same as ever,” Elentari scoffed.  “That is why you can never be one of us,
you cannot control yourself.”  With that Elentari turned and stepped into nothingness,
leaving Jarroh and Janus to themselves.  There was silence for a moment.  Jarroh had
stopped laughing and regained control, trying to quell his anger.
“Who was that, Jarroh?”  Janus had been standing back watching the whole thing.
Fearing too much to attempt to interrupt.
Jarroh calmly wiped his hands free of dirt and stood up, “An old friend.”  

***

The sunlight took some getting used to, Samus was nearly blind for the first few
minutes.  He managed to stumble around a bit, partially because of the lack of sight, but
he also didn’t have what Hart called ‘sea legs’.  He walked over to Hart, originally just to
ask a question, but what he actually got was a crash course in sea life.
“You see, Sammy-boy, you have to get used to the sound of everything.  I know
right now you may just hear a jumbled mess of water, creaking boards and the wind, but
eventually it will all make what me and my mates call ‘the music of the sea’.”  Hart
looked around as if he was waiting for something, but whatever it was never came.  “Tell
me, have you ever seen a Ryte?  It’s a big fish that hangs around the boat when we get a
good wind.”
“No, I’ve never seen any ocean fish at all, I have really never even seen the ocean,
that is, until today.”
“Well, you’re in for a treat.  Let’s go to the side here.”  They walked over to the
side of this ship and Samus looked over the edge.  The water lapped against the side
brutally, but it didn’t seem to effect the ship as much as it should have.  He also noticed
that the ship was going much faster than it seemed.  Before he thought they were just
moving at a slow even pace, but now he saw that they were sailing faster than he could
run, and definitely faster than he could swim.  Hart nudged him and pointed to something
a little further out than Samus had been looking.
A huge fish leapt out of the water and then dove back underwater.  It made no
noise or splash, in fact, if Samus hadn’t been looking for it he probably never would have
seen it.  Then another jumped behind it, and a few moment later another.
“The first you saw, he was the father.  They always lead the pack to show
domination, and also because they are the fastest.  Then there was the mother, she
protects the babies that follow behind her.  The last one was a baby, I think it was a male,
but it is hard to tell.”  Hart smiled at Samus and then turned back to the deck.  “Hey,
Doech, did you see those?”
“Yes sir, I’m on it.”  That was all Doech said.  He ran to the side of the ship and
aimed a large spear.  He threw it with incredible force.  The Father jumped out of the
water.  Samus waited, several seconds past and then the next one jumped out of the
water, but it wasn’t the mother.  There was a trail of blood following the ship now.
Doech reeled the fish in from the line that was tied to the harpoon.  The small dwarf
seemed to struggle for a minute with the fish, but it gave up eventually.  It flapped against
the ship’s side, but Doech managed to haul it up.
“Good, you got the mother, great job, you’ve earned your keep for the week,
Doech.”  Hart and Doech laughed pretty hard, but Samus couldn’t bring himself to.
The great fish flopped a lot on the deck.
Samus swallowed hard, “Hart, why is the fish thrashing around like that?”
“It can’t breath.  It is suffocating, it’ll stop in a minute or two.”  The coldness
with which Hart said that shocked Samus.  Hart seemed like such a nice guy, but he
seemed so dark when he said that.  Sure enough, a minute passed and the Ryte ceased to
move.  The gills on the side closed for the last time and that was it, the fish died.  Samus
just stood there.  This was the first time he had witnessed death first hand, except for the
dream the he had with Elentari.  He couldn’t hold it in any long.  He leaned over the side
of the boat and puked.
“Hey, Sammy, you OK?”  Hart said, but Samus didn’t answer right away.
Looking over the edge of the boat again he saw the trail of blood going up the
side of the ship.  Then he saw further out was the baby Ryte, still swimming nearby.  It
smelled it’s mother on the ship and it was just following.  The father had long since left it
behind and went off to find another mate to produce more children.  The family was
broken.
“Why did you kill it?” Samus asked.
“Huh?  Why?  Really, they are worthless.  Their meat tastes horrible and their
skin is slimy, the only thing they are good for is to sell to the nobles in harbor.  They stuff
it and call it their own.”
“You just killed it for some gold?”  Samus was disgusted at turn of events.
“Yeah, how do you think we are going to pay for tonight’s dinner and lodging?
With our good looks?  We haven’t had a raid in a week now.”
Raid?  Jonesy said that, and now you.  What is a raid?”  Samus was getting more
disgusted by the moment.
“We find a royal ship and we board it.  We take their clothes, gold, and
sometimes their women.  It’s how we make our living.”  Once again Hart sounded cold
and uncaring.
“Oh¼”  That was all Samus could say.  He was devastated.  He never thought the
he had fallen in with common thieves.  He just turned silently back to the cabins.  He
closed the door behind him, and shut out the world he had just met with.  He closed his
eyes and left it all behind for a while.

***

“Hearoh?” Cerant questioned. “I have never heard of that name before.  How am I
supposed to lead you to a man I have never heard of?”
“That is up to you.  We are just tagging along.  Pretend that we aren’t even here.”
Karib said.
“What if there is trouble?  Am I fending for myself or will you take care of them?
I don’t want to be carrying around dead weight.  You might as well kill me now then.”
“Do not tempt us.  You are not important enough to make demands.  We will
however lend a hand, consider yourself lucky.”  Jarib spoke this time.  Cerant noticed
something about their voices, it was almost like they sung what the spoke.  Everything
flowed effortlessly and seemed to even rhyme, even though the words did not.
“When will we leave?” Cerant asked.
“As soon as you are ready, but no later than tomorrow morning.”
“I have nothing here, we can leave now if you wish.”
“That is fine, let us make haste, there is a long road ahead of us.”  Karib spoke
with authority and turned to exit the cave.  Jarib followed, and soon after so did Cerant,
after picking up his two small axes and a few bites of food.
At the foot of the mountain Cerant turned and spoke to the men, “What
direction?”
“We are followers, you have to choose, and don’t let us influence you at all.”
“Fine, east, we shall see what there is out there.”
“Good, then let us be on our way.”  And with that the three seekers embarked on
their journey, one that would be much longer than anticipated.

***

“So, Samus, you don’t like your new life, huh?”  A familiar dark voice echoed
around him.
“Who is it now?”  Samus was tired of the voices.
“I’m hurt.  You don’t recognize your own brother’s voice?”
Why does everyone talk in my head?  First Mathias, then that other guy, and now
Janus.  “You¼what do you w¼”  Samus was cut off by his brother.
“I am a god,” there was little or no emotion in this sentence, he just said it, like he
was saying that he liked to eat bacon.
“A god?  You know, you never were good at lying.  Why are you talking to me
right now?  I don’t really like you much now.”  Samus was happy he was able to keep his
calm.
“Why don’t you like me?”
“I am on the other side of the world.  I don’t know how I got here, or why I am
here.  The last thing I remember is YOU TRYING TO KILL ME!  Gee, I wonder why I
don’t like you?  Go ahead, ask me another stupid question.”
“Wow, you have gotten mean since I saw you last.  It’s amazing what a few days
away from home will do to a person.  Why don’t you get some sleep and then we’ll talk
more in a few hours.  See ya,” and with that Janus left Samus’ head.
“Man, why can’t anyone just leave me alone for a few minutes.”  Just as soon as
that thought left Samus’ lips a knock came on the door.
A huge figure stumbled into Samus’ room.  It was so large that it blocked the sun
that feebly entered the door behind it.  The light from the cracks in planks above caught
it.  It was Dmitry.
“You¼Samus?” Dmitry stuttered.
“Yes, I am Samus, and I take it you are Dmitry,” Samus was a little intimidated
by is size.  His upper body was massive and his legs matched.  He had to have been at
least eight feet tall.
Dmitry held out his hand to shake.  Samus took it and placed his hand inside of
Dmitry’s grasp.  His entire hand and part of his arm was engulfed.  Surprisingly Dmitry’s
handshake was very gentle and non-threatening.  
Dmitry took his hand back and squatted down to be eye level with Samus.  His
head wasn’t too much bigger than Samus.  His short brown hair was all combed forward
and his white eyes were set off by his dark tan.
“You know dark man¼Elentari?”
“Yes, I know Elentari.”
“Good, then tonight we will talk.  We are almost at the port.  Try to rest.  Mathias
and myself will take you away after dinner to talk.”  Dmitry gave him a wink.
Samus nearly fell over.  The sudden change of grammar and demeanor shook
him.  He couldn’t help but laugh.  “Sure, we’ll talk after dinner.”
“Great, don’t forget to grab your weapon before we leave the boat, there is evil
afoot.”
“Right.  Well, I need some sleep, so I’ll see you later,” Samus said, yawning.
“Yes, later,” Dmitry turned and left.
Soon Samus drifted off to sleep.  He wasn’t sure why he was tired, after being
asleep for so long before today, but it didn’t bother him.  I meant that he could finally be
alone for a moment.  But soon the moments passed and they arrived at the port.  Samus
awoke to the sounds of children laughing and adults talking.  He knew that he was in for
a good time already.